Page 22

That evening, after the cooks and servants had had a sparse evening meal and once the knights, ladies, fighters, and prisoners had eaten, Bronwyn was preparing to lie down by the fire when Rupert appeared. Her heart skipped a beat at the sight of his shy yet sunny smile.

“Walk with me a moment?” he asked.

Bronwyn looked longingly at the campfire but said, “All right.”

They walked some distance away from other people. The night sky had fallen and the chill wind blew through the camp, but it did not have the bracing cold as before. It was chilly but not freezing, which was a relief. Bronwyn rubbed her hands together. “What did you want to talk about?”

“You know.” He paused. “What we were discussing before, before Lady Morwenna interrupted.”

The crown.

“Lady Alice was being assaulted over it. Tell me what you know,” he said.

Bronwyn relayed quietly what had transpired, from Lady Alice revealing its whereabouts to hiding it herself, when he interrupted.

“Wait a minute. You hid the crown?” His eyes were wide. “Yourself?”

“Yes.” She put a hand on her hip. “You didn’t think I could?”

“No, it’s not that. I’m shocked, really. Why on earth would you put yourself in such danger?” He closed the distance between them and stood close enough that she could smell his scent, mingled with the wood smoke from the campfires that hung in the air.

She breathed in ever so slightly. “She asked me to.”

“Your loyalty does you credit, but, Bronwyn… You could have let her deal with it on her own. It’s dangerous. Where is it now?”

“Somewhere safe.” She met his eyes.

He put a hand on her shoulder. “I…… don’t want anything to happen to you. That you would be so foolish……” He shook his head.

She moved her shoulder away.

“I understand now why Alice didn’t want to be alone in this. She needs someone she can trust, and I can’t be there for her all the time. I’m glad she has you as a friend. Especially as whoever is behind all of this trouble has clearly targeted her.” His mouth set in a frown.

Bronwyn frowned at him right back. She didn’t like being called foolish. She explained about the attack on Lady Alice and her naming Mabel as being involved.

Rupert exhaled. “Why didn’t Alice tell me this herself?”

Bronwyn shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she was afraid of what you might think. Or that you wouldn’t be able to help her.”

His expression darkened. “Just because we have different loyalties doesn’t mean I don’t care. Of course I would help her.” He ran a hand through his golden curls. “We need to warn Mabel immediately.”

“I already tried. She thought it was all a great joke.”

“She often likes to flirt with the men. I could have a word with her,” he said.

“I suppose. She’ll probably take it better from you than me.” She pouted. Had he no shame? For all that he declared he cared for Lady Alice and herself, that certainly didn’t stop him from flirting with Mabel to gain information.

“She doesn’t like you?”

Bronwyn shook her head. “She fancies herself to be of higher rank as she’s Lady Morwenna’s maid, and in her eyes, I serve Lady Alice.”

“But do you? Or are you just being kind? I don’t understand,” he said.

She scratched her head. “To be honest, I’m not sure.

When we were back in Lincoln and at the castle, she hired me for a time as her maid, but it was to help me.

It gave me a chance to talk to knights who wouldn’t have seen me in the kitchen, and it let me prove my father’s innocence when he was accused of murder. ”

“I remember. You wore a blue dress.”

“Oh.” She blushed, glad for the darkness. “Yes, I suppose.”

“And now?”

“When I joined this camp, I didn’t know anyone. I’d only met Lady Alice again a few days ago, and you at the battle when you saved me. I think we just fell into the same pattern without really thinking about it, of her as mistress and me as her maid.”

But the lines of their relationship had blurred, like stretches of color across a sky, and she didn’t know anymore if they were friends, equals, or employer and maidservant. Lady Alice certainly wasn’t paying her, and she did ask for her help but not demand it.

“I see. I shall leave it to you and Lady Alice to figure that out.” He paused. “What are we to do about the crown?”

Bronwyn smiled, taking heart from the fact he’d said ‘we.’ “I have an idea. We put it back.”

“What, the crown?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

She told him. “When the time is right, we act. I think you and Lady Alice create a diversion, and I’ll slip into the back of the empress’s tent and put the crown back.”

He crossed his arms. “I don’t like it. Too much could go wrong.”

“Have you got a better idea?”

He scratched his head and thought for a moment. “No. Fine. What about until then?”

“Keep looking after your master as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening.”

“None of this is ordinary, Bronwyn.”

She snorted. Her entire life for the past few months had been out of the ordinary.

That night, Bronwyn couldn’t sleep. She obsessed and envisioned herself, Lady Alice, and Rupert getting caught with the crown and killed. And surprisingly, Theobold filled her dreams as well. She got up, her eyes wide open and alert in the darkness.

The campfire’s embers had burned low and smoke hissed and whispered in the air, carrying the delicious smell of wood smoke that often pervaded the camp.

She sat up and winced, feeling aches in her neck and back.

Sleeping on the bare ground wasn’t romantic, and it certainly wasn’t comfortable.

What she wouldn’t give for her own straw pallet back in her family’s bakery, the warmth of being indoors, and a blanket of her own.

The hard ground made for a sorry bed, and it wasn’t the first morning she’d woken up with sore muscles from the outside elements.

She used the privy, snatched her new purple dress from Lady Susanna and walked down to the riverbank, taking some rosemary and lye soap she’d managed to steal.

She wanted to bathe, and even just a soak would be welcome after sweating in the cooking tents and shivering at night.

But the footing was treacherous, and in the early hours before dawn, it was light enough to see but still a bit dark.

She slipped off her dress, socks, and shoes and trundled down the bank, but her right foot slipped on some mud and she slid down, cascading into the water with a great splash.

Rocks and pebbles grazed her skin and soaked her instantly. She cursed and dropped the clothes she held, as well as the rosemary and lye soap, and fumbled, river water filling her nose and mouth. Bronwyn scrambled, her feet kicking at the riverbank floor.

It wasn’t too deep where she was, but she didn’t know how to swim.

She clawed madly at the water for purchase, striking at the surface and grasping at river weeds, but these seemed to tangle around her legs and bar her way.

Her plain shift felt heavy on her body and weighed her down, making every step and movement like ploughing through mud.

Then her foot slipped and she fell under the water for a brief, terrifying second.

River water filled her mouth and nose, and she clawed madly at the surface, her shoes feeling like weights in the river bottom as her head broke the surface.

She gasped for air, coughing and sputtering, reaching for something to grab on to, but her dresses sank and became filmy like silk as she scrambled for anything solid.

A pair of hands hooked under her arms. “Stop struggling,” a man’s voice said, and with a great tug, he pulled her backward, free of the river and its tangling weeds.

Bronwyn gasped in fresh, clean air, coughing and hacking in the early dawn.

She was dragged onto the bank and released.

She rolled over onto her stomach, holding on to the ground, her numb fingers grasping rocks, pebbles, and bare, slick earth on an incline with her left hand, and with her right, the sodden thigh of a man.

She looked up, coughing with bleary eyes. “Theobold?”

He smiled at her. “At your service. Are you all right?” His gaze traveled along the length of her body, taking in the sight of her bare feet and shift. “You’re safe now. The river won’t eat you.”

She nodded, coughing up bits of water, and snatched her hand off his thigh. She coughed again and lay back on the ground, breathing in great lungfuls of air.

When she got her breath back, he asked, “Mind telling me why you were trying to become a fish? Not that I mind the view.” His eyes darted to her chest.

She croaked, “I slipped and fell in.”

“You should be more careful. It’s treacherous footing, especially if you don’t know the river. There’re places it’s safe and places it’s not. What were you doing out here, anyway? You’re lucky I saw you walk down.”

“I wanted to bathe,” she said, and sat up. “My dresses are in there.”

They floated downriver.

“Hold on, I’ll get them.” He got a stick and carefully waded in, not too far, and pulled the dresses out. He handed them to her, but they looked like sodden, limp rags. “You sure you want these?”

Bronwyn took the dresses from him with a small sigh. “They’re the only ones I have.” She took the sodden bundle in her hands and gave a little sigh. “They’re dirtier now. And I lost the rosemary and soap I’d taken to make them smell nice.”

His eyes were kind. “There are worse things.”

“True.” The fact that he had probably saved her life made her blush. How to thank a man who did that and then fetched her dirty dresses for her? “Um, thank you.”

“Anytime.” He rose. “Say, it looks like you missed some. How many dresses were you planning to wash?” He peered out at the river.

“Just two. Why?”

“Look at that.” He pointed.

As the dawn’s early light brightened, they could see the floating shapes of a dress and more clothing to be laundered, gently wavering back and forth on the river’s surface. But not far away, stuck on some weeds, floated something else.

“What is that?” Bronwyn asked.

“I’ll see. Stay here.” He ventured out again with his stick, and the water quickly swirled around him, enveloping his body almost to his neck, as he pulled and tugged the thing free. It loosened from the weeds and he yelped and slipped back.

“Theobold!” Bronwyn called, hurrying down to the riverbank’s shore.

He sprang to the surface, spitting out a mouthful of water. “Stay back,” he warned. He tugged at something, towing a handful of wadded up clothes across the river. It was heavy and slow going, but as they grew closer, Bronwyn got a better view.

“Why, that’s…”

“Stay back, Bronwyn.” He dragged the thing up on the shore. “Do you recognize her?” He pulled back some of the clothes.

Bronwyn gasped.

The lifeless eyes of Mabel stared back at her.