“Keep watch,” Rafe said.
Angelet dutifully stood looking at the way they’d come. The landscape remained silent and empty.
Once Rafe and the horses cleared the trunk, she slid down to the ground on her own.
“We should go back,” she declared, knowing it was a lost cause.
Rafe shook his head once. He looked tired, dirty, and sweaty. “No. They’re either waiting there, or on the path between here and there. There were still twelve or fifteen of them when we rode away. That’s too many. I couldn’t fight fifteen men on my own.”
“Especially since a few of them had crossbows.” She shuddered. “One shot at me!”
Rafe frowned. “I saw that. Are you sure? I mean, are you sure you just weren’t in the line of someone else?”
“No. Remember, I was by the door of my carriage, trying to keep well out of the way,” Angelet reminded him. “The bolt hit the side of the carriage wall about a half a foot away from my head. I was the target. Not you or that big man. I got splinters from the impact.”
His frowned deepened. “Why would they be so reckless? You’re worth nothing to them dead.”
Rafe took her by the hand and led her to the white horse. “Come, mount up. We need to keep moving. You can ride bareback?” The white horse hadn’t been saddled.
She nodded. Rafe lifted her up so she could scramble onto the white horse’s back.
Then Rafe remounted and started down the path. “Let’s go. Just because we haven’t seen them yet doesn’t mean they’re not still on our trail.”
“What about the others?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Either way, we can do nothing. By this point, they’re either alive or dead. I’m not trying to be cruel, Angelet. But no skirmish lasts long—and this one is over, one way or another. Simon and the others would understand why we fled. Hell, Simon was yelling at me to take you out of there.”
“I hope he’s all right. All of them. I hope Bethany got to safety.”
“She was hardly a devoted maid.”
“But to be a woman alone in the wilderness, or to be captured among a band of thieves…I wouldn’t wish that on any woman.”
Rafe looked at her. “Ever the noble.” Then he flicked the reins of his horse. “Come. We need to ride.”
“Rafe?” she asked. “Where are we going?”
He looked over his shoulder, then directly at her. “I’ve got no idea. But we can’t go back there.”
Chapter 14
Angelet was very willing tolet Rafe make all the decisions as to where to go and what speed to take and when to rest. She was numb from the events of the morning. Several times she almost convinced herself that it was a dream, and that she wasn’t alone in the woods with only a single knight for company. She’d wake up to find the whole group alive and well.
But then she’d feel the twinges of pain in her body from the splinters that struck her after the crossbow bolt hit the carriage. She grew conscious of the growing ache in her muscles from riding the white horse. She wasn’t used to riding for hours.
Rafe was used to it, of course, but he seemed distant, rarely speaking, and frequently circling back to look behind them. He did that again, apparently saw nothing, but didn’t seem relieved in the slightest. “Damn,” he muttered.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“You look as if you want to kill.”
“I’ve been thinking.” He sighed. “Back there…I was careless. I should have been paying attention to the road, and I wasn’t.”
“A man can’t be on alert all the time,” she said.
“I can,” said Rafe, his tone much angrier than usual. “I’m not some boy who’s never been out in the world before. I’m a soldier. My task was to get the whole cortège safely from Dryton to Basingwerke, but I was too distracted to keep my mind on my work. And now people are dead because of it.”
