Page 24 of The Herald's Heart
CHAPTER FIVE
More than a week later, Larkin stepped out into the sunshine from the stable where she’d placed Cat and her kittens in the loft. Talon stood in the bailey, his back to her, facing a large group of men. She walked nearer to discover what was going on.
“Search in pairs. Begin at the keep walls. Separate yourselves by twenty paces. Broaden that distance as you search further from the keep, but always maintain contact with the man next to you, by sight or by calling out. I want the entire area from the keep to three leagues distant searched before today’s end. Is that understood?”
The men nodded and murmured.
“Good. If you find the earl or a sign of him, send a man back for me immediately.”
“Aye, sir.” Cleve bowed, then set about assigning the men in pairs to sections of the wall.
As Talon watched the men carry out his orders, Aedwin, the head laundress’s four-year-old son approached the knight. The boy reached up and gripped Talon’s large hand in his small one.
Talon stiffened and looked down.
Larkin held her breath.
He knelt and spoke to the child.
The boy nodded.
Talon lifted the lad up on his shoulders, holding the boy securely.
Aedwin laughed and bent to whisper in Talon’s ear.
The knight shook his head and smiled. His deep voice lifted in a silly song about cats and mice in London town. He loped toward the laundry at a jog trot.
Larkin stared. Impossible. No nobleman would take the time to talk to a youngling peasant, let alone play or sing with one. Most would have cuffed the child for presuming so personal a touch. What a strange man Sir Talon Quereste was. Perhaps there was more to him than lechery and bossy disbelief.
She shook her head. She had much to do this day. Still, as she returned to the stable and harnessed the pony to the cart, she wondered how she might discover more about Talon. ’Twas always wise to know an opponent well.
Hours later, she wished she had Sir Talon’s strength. She’d made a number of deliveries and was taking her usual route through the woods to the abbey. After delivering supplies to the anchoress, Larkin would stop to visit the abbess and have her injured wrist examined. She was plotting how to learn more about a certain knight in order to rid herself of him, when the cart tilted to one side and came to a halt.
“What in blazes?” She leapt from the seat to the ground and walked around to where one front corner of the cart sat at a low angle in a morass of thick mud, stuck to the axle. She scratched behind her ear. Where had the mud come from? The days since Talon Quereste had imprisoned her had been dry. Even on the wettest days, this path remained mostly solid. ’Twas the reason she traveled this route to and from the abbey. She could ill afford the damage to her cart or time lost to this kind of accident.
She sighed. She would get nowhere by staring at the problem. Her best bet was to find a sturdy enough stick to pry the wheel loose, and locate appropriate enough flat pieces of wood to place between the wheel and the mud so the pony would be able to pull the cart onto solid ground once more.
Finding the right pieces to do the job took far too much time. The sun had begun to lower, and if she could not get the cart moving soon, full dark would fall before she reached the abbey. She lined up the flatter wood between the cart’s two axles, then wedged the long branch into the mud beneath the wheel. With a shout to start the pony pulling, she put all her strength into prying the wheel upward and onto the makeshift wooden road.
She’d almost succeeded when an arrow struck the side of the cart nearest her shoulder. She released the branch and dropped to the muddy ground just as the pony gave a great heave. She watched her best hope of escape from attack spring free and rattle away down the dry part of the path. Heaven save me.
Once it realized no one held the reins, the pony would stop to graze. Ordinarily, Larkin would simply stand and walk until she caught up with the cart. However, someone was shooting at her, and standing was a sure way to give the bowman a large target. At least the mud where she lay between calf-high scrub bushes provided some small protection. Her attacker would have to get much closer if he truly wished to kill her now.
Slowly she crawled into the brush on the side of the track opposite from the direction of the attack. She carried a small knife at her waist, but that would be little help against arrows.
Her best hope was to creep into the trees, do her best to hide there until full dark would cloak her movements, and then make her way to the abbey. Predators might threaten or kill the pony. While she would regret that, she could do nothing to rescue the steed before morning. First she must survive long enough get help. Once she was safe at the abbey, she could worry about who might want to kill her and why, then plan how to retrieve the pony and cart.
• • •
“You did what? She awaits the earl’s judgment as a trespasser and a possible thief. How could you let her leave the keep?” Talon grabbed his hair and pulled it rather than throttle Cleve. Pulling hair, throttling, or, better yet, hitting something was vastly better than giving any importance to the irrational anger he felt at learning that Larkin had left the keep alone.
“But, Sir Talon, most of the men are still out searching for the earl. Was I to stop her by myself, I’d have had to lay hands on her, and ye said none should offer her insult whilst she stayed under yer protection.”
The man was a dolt. Larkin had been traveling the area alone for at least a year, so he ground his teeth on the hard words that frustration urged him to utter. He needed the guardsman’s aid, not his resentment. “Did it not occur to you that once she leaves the keep, she is no longer under my protection?”
Cleve swallowed nervously. “Nay, sir. I thought only of the villagers who have needed her services as carter these many days that you have kept her here.”
Talon thought his brain might split. “Mean you that she left here in the cart?”
