Innocent's Champion. Meriel Fuller

shook his head. ‘Later.’ His arm jerked sharply down as the horse pulled against the reins, desperate to drink. A cluster of mosquitoes danced crazily above the water’s surface and he slapped at his neck, irritably.

      A hoarse scream rent the sticky air. Then another. The sound barged incongruously into the torpid languor of the afternoon.

      Gilan dropped his reins immediately, lean, tanned fingers seizing the jewelled hilt of his sword, drawing it with a long, steely hiss. ‘You, and you—’ he jabbed his finger at a couple of knights standing by the river, still fully clothed ‘—come with me, now.’

      Henry had already turned, was clambering back out of the water. ‘No, you stay here,’ Gilan growled at him. ‘I am dispensable. You are not.’

      * * *

      Despite the significant weight of his breastplate, Gilan ran surprisingly quickly for a large man, the sturdy length of his legs pacing along the track with the strength and agility of a cat, his step fast and sure. Moving swiftly away from the sunlit bank where they had stopped, he and the two other knights followed the river upstream to the point where it ran into woodland: large beech trees trailed delicate branches into the water like brilliant hair braids, tickling the mirrored surface. With no time to seize his helmet, his thick golden hair shone out from the shadowed gloom beneath the trees, where the air pressed in choking layers, ominous, vaguely threatening.

      Was it only a couple of months since he and Henry had forged their way through the frozen Lithuanian forests? Slashed back the impenetrable undergrowth where no horse could make progress, felled the brambles and the spent nettles, fixed in ice? Sometimes the snow had been so deep that their horses were forced to plough through man-made trenches, picking their way through towering walls of snow. He had relished that hardship, the impossible landscape that they had to work around, those icy, hostile conditions. They suited him, suited his current frame of mind after... He shook his head smartly, dispelling his thoughts. A wave of grief crested through him, but he clamped it down. Nay, he would not think of that now.

      Crouching into the bank, Gilan rammed a broad, muscled shoulder into a bunch of glossy ferns growing high and indicated with a quick, decisive handsignal that his knights should do the same. Up ahead, he could see a covered litter set upon the ground, patterned curtains fluttering outwards in the warm air, like spent butterfly wings. A soldier lay sprawled in the dirt, his face white-grey, his hand pressed against his shoulder; despite his motionless appearance, Gilan could see his eyes were beginning to open. And beyond this fallen knight, other men were fighting, scuffling, hands at each other’s throats, swords swinging, their grunting efforts rising hoarsely.

      Springing away from the bank, Gilan jumped towards them, raising the sparkling blade of his sword before him with a roar, and hurled himself into the writhing, spitting mass. Grabbing one man round the neck, he pulled him out of the fray, kicking him in the back of the shins so that he buckled easily.

      ‘Kneel. Hands on the back of your head where I can see them.’ He signalled to one of his knights to keep guard, his voice guttural, harsh, barking orders.

      ‘It was them, they attacked us!’ the man was babbling, as he fell to his knees in the soft dirt.

      An arrow whistled past Gilan, quiver feathers whispering against his ear. It stuck into the earth opposite him, the shaft bouncing violently with the force of the shot. Too close! He whirled angrily, searching for the archer. A shot like that could only have come from some distance, so someone was watching them from afar. His eyes swept along the river, through the sibilant trees and bulky trunks to a small stone bridge, a crumbling wall of loose stones blotched with orangey-yellow lichen.

      And the glint of an arrowhead, peeking out from a high spot on the ruined tower.

      His knights were bringing the fight to a close. Already three men were on the ground, hands bound behind their backs, heads bent, subdued. One more man to bring down and his situation appeared increasingly precarious. Gilan sank back into the shadows, using the substantial tree trunks as cover. His boots made no sound as he crept through the waist-high cow parsley, his legs brushing against the delicate, white-lace flowers. Crossing by the bridge was no good, being in full view of the tower. He would slink back along the path, cross the river at a lower point. The element of surprise had always served him well.

       Chapter Two

      Bracing her body against the thick stone, Matilda reached up to extract another arrow from the narrow bag on her back. Adrenaline rattled through her veins; her hands shook so much she was finding it difficult to shoot straight. Her trembling limbs skewed her aim. But every time she peered around the wall, there seemed to be more men down there! The gang’s reinforcements had obviously arrived, armed with swords and short daggers, big and fearsome looking, some even wearing armour that they no doubt had filched from somewhere. For one tiny moment, she considered the possibility of running, of running and hiding with her sister. But the thought of cowering behind a tree trunk, waiting for the thugs to finally catch up with them, seemed a far worse situation than the one she was in right now, tackling the problem head-on. Fine, she might lose, but at least she had tried.

      She had missed that last shot, but he wouldn’t be so lucky next time, that huge ruffian who’d appeared from nowhere, with his wild thatch of blond hair. Drawing air deep into her lungs, Matilda fought to control her breathing, the reckless thump in her chest. How many times had she practised, how many times had she drawn back the gut string and sighted an arrow on the target since her brother, Thomas, had given her this bow? But her days and days of endless practising had not prepared her for the real thing. How could she have known that her heart would beat in panic; that her knees would weaken and quiver with nerves at the sight of their household knights falling to the ground; that her fingers would shake uncontrollably as she fitted the arrow up to the bowstring? Her own cowardice conspired against her. Gritting her teeth, she prayed that Katherine had found a good hiding place.

      Lifting the bow, she set the arrow in a horizontal line from the edge of her ear, training the point down into the chaotic scene of fighting below, moving her shoulder fractionally to pinpoint an enemy target. The arrow shaft was warm against her cheek.

      ‘You there! Stop!’ The harsh command hit her like a blow, a deep guttural voice slicing through the air.

      In shock, she jolted forwards, the loosened arrow dropping, bouncing down across the tumble of stones to the deep water below. She whirled around, aghast, horrified. A man was running towards her, advancing swiftly. She staggered back in fright, her feet snagging in the bunched train of her gown, heels clipping the low edge of stone. Her bow clattered down on the rickety steps. In a vain attempt to balance herself, her slim arms flew out, like the wings of an angel, scrabbling futilely at the sides of the window to prevent herself falling.

      ‘No!’ Matilda wailed, a terrified, drawn-out howl, as her body tipped backwards, toes losing contact with the rubble-strewn step. She had the briefest impression of sunlit hair, diamond eyes, of a cloak billowing out from broad shoulders as the man sped up towards her.

      She fell.

      Gathered skirts rippled around her slender form as she flew gracefully through the air, her cloak spreading like a vast wing behind her, before she smacked the cold water below with a sharp, outraged cry. The bag of arrows loosened from her shoulder, drifted off in the current of water, downstream.

      ‘Hell’s teeth!’ Gilan cursed, turning and running back out of the tower. Momentarily blinded by the sun, all he had seen was the blurry outline of a figure poised to shoot, and the shining glint of the arrow. Shouting up, he had assumed the archer to be a man. But when the figure turned and screamed with high-pitched girlishness, he had realised his mistake. The archer was a woman.

      Guilt flooded through him; he squashed it down as he vaulted the collapsed boundary wall. Man or woman, it didn’t change the fact that the archer had been determined to stick an arrow between his shoulder blades. Determined to kill him. He charged through the swaying grass at the edge of the river and waded in, eyes focused on the concentric circles