“What is a pederast?”
“It is a man who prefers other men, not women.”
“But that makes no sense at all.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“I don’t feel well,” she said then, and fell to her knees and vomited, shaking and heaving, wanting to die. She hurt all over.
He didn’t touch her, just stood over her, his arms crossed over his chest. When she was done heaving, he said, “He sliced off your braid, a good foot of it. You look more like a boy now than before. Oh, yes, his name is Alan Durwald. He is rather infamous for the ferocity of his raids.”
She felt too wretched to touch her hair, but she felt it dangling to her shoulders, no further. “It is just hair,” she managed to say at last. “It isn’t important.”
Thoms shouted, “He escaped us, Jerval. Damnation, but he knows every hiding place in the forest. That wouldn’t matter so much, but now it is dark and we haven’t a chance of tracking him.”
“I know,” Jerval called back. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Is Chandra all right?” Mark said as he swung off his horse’s back.
“She is herself,” Jerval said, his teeth clenched. He strode to his destrier and leapt into the saddle. “We will hope Ranulfe and his men find and secure the cattle. Now there is nothing more for us here. We will ride down the coast a bit until we find a sheltered inlet for the night. Tomorrow we return to Camberley.”
Bayon was leading the roan stallion to her. He nickered as she walked to him. She stood there a moment, staring up. She hurt everywhere, felt the chill evening air and the blood drying against her flesh through her torn
clothes. But it didn’t matter. Alan Durwald was gone. She was safe. She gritted her teeth and pulled herself up into the saddle.
Jerval watched her from the corner of his eye, but did not turn to face her. When she rode up next to him, he said, “Just how did you get out of my bedchamber?”
“I knotted sheets and climbed out the window.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Did it not occur to you that everyone would be frantic when they found you gone?”
“I was sorry for that. Truly I was, but don’t you see, I had to prove myself to you?”
“Aye, you did just that, didn’t you? And look at the outcome. Not so very skilled, are you? You didn’t stand a chance.”
“I would have if I had been one of your men, if I had fought at your side, if I had not been alone. No one could have managed by himself. Perhaps you would have, but it would have been very difficult, even for you.”
She was utterly serious. He said nothing for a very long time, then, “I have been wondering if I can haul you out to sea and drown you.”
She wondered if he meant it. Then she felt too numb to care.
CHAPTER 18
They stopped to make camp twenty minutes later. It was dark, with thick clouds rolling across the sky and a half moon giving enough light to collect wood for a fire. Chandra found herself alone, for the men as well as her husband ignored her and kept their distance. It was cold. She pulled her blanket around her shoulders and moved closer to the fire. She was jerking the burned rabbit meat away from the bone when Mark came around the fire to sit cross-legged beside her.
He saw that she was covered with cuts and bruises. He said, however, “You are eating, so you must feel all right.”
“Aye. My head hurts, that is all.”
“Jerval said you took quite a blow, but that your head is so hard, it wouldn’t hurt you very long.” He paused a moment, then said very clearly and slowly, “I was forced to tell him that I am very grateful to God that you are neither my wife nor my responsibility.”
His words struck her to the bone, adding to the pain that swamped her, but she said nothing for the moment, just sucked her fingers, for the meat was hot. Then, “It was not my choice to be any man’s wife or responsibility.”
Mark shook his head, and when he spoke again, his voice was as cold as the sea breeze chilling her flesh. “Jerval is my best friend. We were raised together. It is unfortunate what has happened to him. You say that you never wanted to be any man’s wife or responsibility. By God, I’ll wager that he now wishes he had known that.”
She chewed on a bite of rabbit, knowing what he said was true. She just wished the knowing didn’t hurt so much. But even that didn’t matter now. Nothing, at the moment, appeared to matter. She said, “I wonder why Alan Durwald chopped part of my braid.”
“A trophy. If he manages to survive this raid, and now I am certain that he will, I can see him wearing it about his arm for all the world to see. He took Jerval de Vernon’s woman, be it only for a few hours. He will tell the world about that, about the golden hair he wears. He might even boast that he took you, that he returned you to your husband mayhap with his babe in your belly.”