Chapter Five
Piers grumbled to himself as he lay the fire, making use of the shrinking, gray December daylight. He was still cold, he was still tired, he was still hungry, and now the first two fingers on his left hand hurt like a pair of devils.
He moved stealthily—and muttered only under his breath—to avoid waking Alys Foxe and put off her impossible presence for as long as he could.
‘Twas because of her that Piers had leaned against a hard log all of the day, his head jerking up painfully whenever he would nod off.
As exhausted—both mentally and physically—as he was, he could not allow himself to relax while in the open daylight.
Let the girl get her sleep, for when she woke she would have no excuse now not to leave Piers to his lethal mission.
Once he was rid of her, he would be able to rest. Hell, even keeping up his torturous pace would seem peaceful without her inane chatter following him.
Gray smoke curled up from the tinder, birthed by the orange sparks beneath the twigs, and Piers lay the side of his face to the ground to blow up the flames. A satisfying crackle promised that at least soon he would be warm. He sat up on his knees once more and brushed his hands together.
“Are you going hunting?”
Piers looked over his shoulder at the girl, just now crawling from beneath the natural lean-to.
She looked all of eight years old then, her cheeks creamy around the soft pink blooms of sleep.
Her eyes were brown like a young calf’s, her hair now adorned with twigs and bits of dry leaves in place of the fine headpiece and veil she’d worn that morning.
She could have been a child of the manor emerging triumphant in a game of hide and seek.
Piers guessed that was likely an apt description for the game she played with her sister now, and the idea of it made him resentful and cross.
“No,” he sneered. “Are you?”
She laughed as she gained her feet, her absurd pet taking up post on her shoulder while Alys shook out her outrageously costly blue skirts.
Simply looking at the monkey seemed to make Piers’s fingers throb all the worse.
And now that she was standing, and Piers could see the swell of her small bust, he no longer thought of her as eight years old.
His mood went from sour to black, and what little patience he had vanished.
“We would be in dire straits indeed were the food gathering left up to me. I’m fast, and I can be quite stealthy, but alas, I have no weapon save Layla.
” She reached up to scratch the beast’s hairy head and the monkey leaned toward her adoringly.
“Perhaps you could be my hound, eh, girl? Could you scare up a deer for us? You’ve already cornered a boar.
” She looked at Piers with a mischievous grin.
He turned his back to her to add some slender sticks to the fire. To Piers’s dismay, she came to stand beside him.
“If you’re not going hunting, what shall we eat? I’m famished.”
“I’m certain there is no want for food at Fallstowe,” Piers said. “It shall motivate you to walk faster.”
“Back to that again, are we?”
Did nothing faze this silly child?
“We are. If you leave now, you will have some daylight for the whole of your journey.”
“You want me to leave now?” she asked, as if doubting she had understood him properly.
“Yes.”
“Right now? Immediately?”
“Start walking.”
Alys Foxe sat down near the fire. “Piers, I’ve been thinking …”
Piers closed his eyes and sighed. “No, don’t think. And don’t sit! Sitting moves you no closer to Fallstowe and no farther from me!”
“Do you truly find me so annoying?”
“Yes!”
“Well, I’m quite sorry to hear that. But, as I was saying, I’ve been thinking, and—”
He gained his feet and strode into the trees.
“Wait!” He heard her scramble to her feet. “Where are you going? Why did you walk away from me?”
“In part to look for more wood for the fire,” he said, his eyes scanning the forest floor. He leaned down and snatched limbs from the ground as he walked. “And also to keep from strangling you.”
“That’s rude,” she said, from not very far behind him.
“I’m certainly not forcing you to put up with me.”
“True,” she conceded. “Any matter, I know you wish for me to leave you alone with your miserable and quite secretive plans, but there is a problem.”
Piers came to an abrupt halt, so quickly that Alys ran into his back. The monkey chattered and bounded to the leaves underfoot.
He did not turn. “What problem?”
“I … I don’t know the way back to Fallstowe.”
Piers whipped around to face her, darkly pleased when she took a step back. “What do you mean, you don’t know the way back? You’ve lived there the whole of your life, have you not?”
“Indeed, I have.” She nodded agreeably.
“And yet you cannot find your way home little more than an hour from your own keep?”
She flushed, pursed her lips to the side and her eyes flicked nervously to the trees surrounding them. “No, I don’t think so. I’m afraid not. Sorry.”
Piers’s own eyes narrowed. “Bullshit.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Bullshit!” he said more loudly and began walking back toward their primitive camp. “I may be mostly of common blood, but—”
“Mostly?” Alys asked, intrigue high in her voice as she skipped along behind him, and Piers winced inwardly.
“—I do know how gentle-born ladies behave: riding their ridiculous show mares, going visiting to their neighbors, skipping to market, insisting on accompanying hunts. You will not convince me that a female as sporting as yourself, who would adventure to an old ruin in the middle of the night alone, can not manage a short walk back to her home.”
“You think I’m sporting?”
Piers rolled his eyes. “Just go, Alys. No more stalling, I beg of you. Apologize to your sister and take your punishment like a big girl. I don’t want you here.” He threw the small bundle of sticks to the ground near the fire and then looked up at her, prepared to see her properly chastised.
She was looking back at him boldly, swinging Layla around her body, hand over hand. They both seemed to be enjoying their little game.
“You have to take me back, Piers.”
He blinked at her. “What?”
“I’m sorry, but that’s the only thing for it. I already told you that Sybilla has promised me to Clement Cobb!”
“So?” Piers ground out expectantly.
“Well, when Sybilla and I had our row, I told her that I would rather take my chances at the Foxe Ring than marry him, which is where I was fortunate enough to meet you, dear husband.”
“Alys …” Piers growled.
“Sybilla told me that if I happened to meet a man at the ring, she would pay Blodshire my dowry and I would be free to do as I chose.”
He approached her then, causing her eyes to widen and Layla to scamper off to the safety of the lean-to.
He grasped her upper arms. “Alys, this is most important, and so I want you to listen carefully: we are not married. I will not tell your sister that we are only so you don’t have to be related to Etheldred Cobb. ”
“I know you think we’re not married, Piers,” Alys said quietly.
“But I do. My parents met at the Foxe Ring, and I believe in the legend’s purpose with my whole heart.
You don’t have to tell Sybilla that you accept that we are married, necessarily, but Sybilla always, always keeps her word.
If you only corroborate my story of how and where we met, I shall be free.
Please. Please, take me back to Fallstowe, Piers. ”
“And if I refuse?”
Her pink lips thinned as she set her mouth. “I shall continue to follow you, for as long as I can keep pace.”
“And when you can no longer keep pace?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know what, then.”
He realized he was still holding on to her slight biceps and he let her go suddenly. He didn’t know how it was possible, but the girl actually seemed to smell of nobility. Sweet and clean. It offended Piers, used as he was to manure and sweat and nothing.
“Please,” she followed him as he walked away from her again. “This is my life, Piers. I need your help. I believe there is a reason you came to the ring last night, even if you do not.”
“Your life is imposing on mine, Alys Foxe, and I am in a terrible hurry.”
She hesitated. “I shall give you forty pounds if you will agree. And … and my own horse. I swear it. They should aid you on your journey quite nicely.”
Then it was Piers’s turn to pause. Forty pounds was a veritable fortune, not to mention the outrageous luxury of a mount. He could be to London in days, even with traveling through the forests. Perhaps returning Alys Foxe to her home was worth the risk.
In days, he could have his revenge on Bevan and Judith Angwedd.
He could claim his rightful place as lord of Gillwick.
Not a fortnight. Days.
He turned to face her. “Your sister—would she not seek to detain me?”
Alys appeared perplexed. “Likely she will wish you away from Fallstowe as soon as possible, if only to prevent me from legally marrying you. I hope you’re not offended, but I do doubt Sybilla would consider you a catch.”
Piers stared at the girl for a moment. He could feel the weight of her foolish hope from where he stood.
“Get your monkey and your bag.”
Alys had never been so nervous and excited in the whole of her life as she skipped-ran to keep up with Piers, Layla unwillingly riding in Alys’s drawstring sack. They were retracing the way back to Fallstowe, together.
Now all Alys had to do was to figure out a way to convince Piers that they were truly meant to be together, forever, as the stones had very obviously decreed.
Difficult, as he had refused to respond to her attempts at conversation for the past hour.
She didn’t have much time left, but she was confident that something would intervene.
After all, it was the Foxe Ring at work. One might even venture to call it fate.
“Where are you going once you leave Fallstowe?” she tried yet again.
He merely shrugged.