By Queen's Grace. Shari Anton

lord you follow, he has a plan to overtake the kingdom without any of the peasants suffering?” Corwin asked.

      “Aye. We must first be rid of King Henry. Then the barons will give way in due course.”

      Duncan, clearly, knew nothing of the ways of war and less of Norman barons. Even with the king vanquished, the Normans wouldn’t give way. Each would defend his strongest castle and challenge the Saxons for possession. A battle for the entire kingdom would be fought castle by castle, with the peasants suffering the most.

      “Father!” Oswuld cried out as he ran into the cave. “She is gone! Lady Judith-I cannot find her!”

      A cold fist gripped Corwin’s innards.

      “You were supposed to be guarding her!” Thurkill shouted.

      “I allowed her privacy to take relief and she slipped away.”

      Cursing himself roundly for not anticipating this attempt at escape, knowing which way he would go if in Judith’s situation, Corwin bolted out of the cave, hoping to get there ahead of her.

       Chapter Five

      She couldn’t find the path.

      With hands on her hips, Judith slowly turned in a full circle, looking carefully for any sign of her escape route. Four horses had ridden through this area not long ago, trampled down the grass and pushed aside brush. Thepath had to be here somewhere, and she must find it quickly before Oswuld noticed she’d fled.

      Her plan was a simple one. Find the road and head north toward whatever town lay ahead. Send someone to take word of the rebellion to Scotland. Enlist a trustworthy person to act as her guide to London. Surely her kidnappers expected her to flee south, back toward the safety of the abbey. But she could trick her kidnappers, if only. she could find the path.

      Judith wiped away the moisture gathering in her eyesfrom weariness. She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t afraid. She didn’t have time for either.

      She spun at the sound of rustling in the brush behind her. A small animal, gray-brown and furry, scurried into the heavier brush beyond. A squirrel, perhaps. Or a rabbit. Not a man.

      She blew out a long breath and struggled to regain her concentration. Nothing looked familiar, until she spotted a tree with two wind-snapped lower branches. Had she seen it before, during the ride to the cave? Aye, there, just beyond the tree the grass lay flat.

      She hiked up her robe to run down the path to freedom.

      “Judith!”

       Corwin.

      She stared at the path.Run! A useless effort. Corwin was too close. He would catch her in a trice. She unclenched her hands, letting the fabric fall. At the edge of her vision, she saw the glint of a sunbeam flash off his chain mail.

      Close. So very close to freedom.

      Once again, ‘twas Corwin who thwarted her. He would take her back to her captors, and they would watch her so closely now she might never get away.

      Corwin closed the distance between them, until he was so near she could reach out and touch him if she chose.

      “I beg of you, Corwin. Let me go,” she said. To her own ears she sounded desperate. Perhaps she was. She looked up into the azure eyes she’d once so admired, still considered beautiful. The eyes of a traitor. “Join the rebels if you wish, but I want no part of their scheme. Let them find another woman for their queen, one who believes in their cause. I have no heart for it.”

      He smiled, almost tenderly. “‘Tis not your heart they desire, Judith, but your name and womb. However, if someone asked me to choose a more perfect woman to make their queen, I could not come up with another’s name.”

      His flattery fell far short of whatever mark he hoped to hit.

      “Then you betray me again, force me to stay with the rebels.”

      “I cannot let you go, Judith.” He sighed. “I will try to explain—”

      Judith crossed her arms. “I heard your traitorous reasoning last eve, and have no wish to hear it again.”

      Corwin took a long, intense look around them. “I am no rebel, never will be.”

      Astonished and hopeful, Judith stammered. “But-but last eve you said. are you saying you have changed your mind?”

      “My mind is set on joining the rebels, but not for the reasons I gave Thurkill. We have not much time before we are found, Judith. Come, this way. ‘Twillgive us a measure of privacy a moment or two longer.”

      He grabbed hold of her hand and tugged her toward the path. His hand was warm, large and encompassing. The strength of it didn’t surprise her, but the tingling sensation that snaked up her arm at his touch set her mind to spinning and her knees to shaking. An unwelcome and unwise reaction to a man she needed to guard against.

      “I go nowhere with you,” she declared, and jerked her hand from his grasp. “I care not why you wish to join the rebels. I swear to you, Corwin, if you join them, I will ensure you are punished in suitable fashion.”

      The man had the gall to smile. “Chopped to bits and then hanged, or was it the other way around?”

      She forced away a vision of Corwin hanging from a rope, not wanting to imagine the rest. How could she save him from that dreadful fate when he wouldn’t listen?

      “‘Tis a gruesome punishment you risk, no matter the way of it.”

      Judith flinched when he put his hands on her shoulders.

      He frowned and released her. “To my mind, the best way to thwart this rebellion is to join it. I need to learn everything I can-in particular the camp location, their numbers and the leader’s name-before going to King Henry. I could use your help, Judith. The more quickly done, the more quickly over.”

      Corwin pretended to join the rebellion? Judith wanted so badly to believe him her heart ached. Except last night he’d made very convincing arguments to the contrary. She could have sworn he truly intended to join the rebels. Did he lie to her now?

      “Help in what way?”

      “I ask you to do no more than make this journey easier by not trying to escape. I cannot do what needs be done if I must chase after you each time you take it into your head to flee.”

      She’d been seized by strange men, bounced around on the back of a horse until her backside bore bruises, been forced to sleep on the ground-known fear and anger such as she’d never known before. Corwin now asked her to allow further indignities willingly. Of course, if the villains need not worry over her, the journey would go faster. But to what end?

      “You want me to assist these knaves?”

      “Only until I obtain the information I need.”

      “And how long might that take?”

      “Depends upon how soon I can get them to trust me.”

      Judith voiced her greatest fear. “What if that never happens? What if you learn nothing of import until we ride into the rebel’s stronghold?”

      Corwin took a deeper than normal breath. “I am hoping that will not happen. I have no more wish to ride into their stronghold than you do.”

      “You only hope. There is no certainty,” she said. “Last eve, Thurkill vowed to tell me no more of his lord or the rebels’ plans until after we arrived at wherever we are going. I doubt he. will reveal more to you, either. Then what, Corwin? After we are in the rebels’ camp, we may both be trapped.”

      Corwin shook his head. “I will not let that happen.”

      Judith scoffed. “So you