Page 3 of Lord of the Forest

So, that was the crux of it. He thought she’d be an asset in helping him to better himself. But what if she didn’t want to be viewed as his tropaeum uxor—his trophy wife?

“You haven’t touched on what advantage I will get from that, sir.”

He rose to his feet, his face darkening. “Do not all women want to be the center of attention, to be courted, flattered, and fawned over?”

“Only those with no wit. I should like to go to court and wait upon the queen. That would be the best use of my talents, as far as I can see.” After Simeon’s death, it had been the only thing that had stopped her drowning in sorrow. She had to keep that dream alive.

De Glanville seized her wrist again, and she went rigid.

“You think much too highly of yourself, Mistress Clemence. You need a husband to tame that pride of yours. I see it—your father sees it, too. Make sure not to deny me for too long, or you may live to regret it.”

She shook—partly in anger, partly in fear. There was an expression in de Glanville’s hazel eyes she’d never seen before. His lips were pushed back from his teeth, making him look like a mad dog. She tensed with the urge to run. But no—they were in the rose arbor at Clairbourne Manor, her home, in full view of the house. What harm could he, would he do to her here? Yet she read that unspoken message in his eyes, daring her to test his wrath, to try his resolve.

Her temper rose to her rescue. With her free hand, she dealt him a sharp blow across his stubbly cheek, then yanked her captive wrist free. “Sir, you go too far. This unmannerly behavior is more likely to drive me from your side than attract me. Our discourse is at an end.”

Picking up her skirts, she swirled away from him and headed for the safety of the house as fast as she could.

“Lady—no one strikes me without a reckoning. Yours will come sooner than you expect.”

She heard no footsteps crunching on gravel to indicate he was coming after her, thank heavens. But his parting words shot a shard of ice into her soul. She’d just made an enemy of Walter de Glanville. And she knew from the tone of his voice that he had no intention of letting her get away unpunished.

Chapter Two

Lancelot let the holly bough swing back into place behind him. It caught his arm, widening a tear in his shirt. Cursing, he pulled the garment off—come winter, he’d regret not having taken more care to preserve it.

He’d have to kill something large and skin it so he could make himself a cloak. Maybe several somethings. He’d learned by spying on the villagers how to skin a deer and preserve its hide—though it would mean having to harvest enough stout branches to make a frame. He could use sinew from the deer’s legs to stretch the hide, but would one skin be big enough?

He was slimmer than when he’d first arrived in the forest, for his tattered hose were continually trying to slide down his hips. Nonetheless, when he took his measure against that of the peasants upon whom he spied—and from whom he stole—he knew he was a large man. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and well-muscled. He might need a cow’s hide. An ox hide, even?

Tugging at his beard, he settled down on the tree stump he used as a seat. The beard was getting long again, starting to catch in the leaves and branches of the holly trees within which he hid from the world. He must sharpen his knife and cut the beard, or tie it up with some nettle string, to keep it out of the way. His hair needed similar attention, but it wasn’t easy to see what one was doing with only a forest pool for a mirror. One slip with the knife would draw blood, and infection was the last thing a man needed when living like an outlaw away from his fellows.

A bat flitted overhead, chasing the dancing midges that spiraled around the oak trees overshadowing the grove. It would soon be dark enough for him to light a fire and cook the cony he’d caught.

Unsheathing his knife, he set about skinning and gutting the animal. He’d keep one of the feet for luck, as he always did, and offer another to the forest gods, who kept him safe and provided him with their bounty. He’d save the cony’s skin, too, to make new mittens for the winter. Life was hard without hearth, home, and human company—but he knew instinctively that if any man were to catch a glimpse of him, the consequences could prove fatal. If only he could remember why.

Kneeling, he washed his hands in the brook that ran through the grove. The river feeding this watercourse was the one which had delivered him to the forest in the very beginning—how long ago had it been now? He remembered the pain, the cold, the sickness that had taken him for many days, filling his body with alternate chills and fever, wearing him down until death offered a welcome release.

Yet somehow, he’d survived. Aye, it must have been at least three years—he could remember two winters before the last. One never forgot the winters. It had been well-nigh impossible to manage them. The villagers left nothing much out in the lowest season of the year, except their woodpiles, and the livestock were herded into byres. Thus, he’d learned to help himself to what he needed in high season—when there was so much plenty—and dry what meat he could to store for winter. In summer, the loss of a chicken or two, or a piglet, might be put down to misfortune rather than theft.

Standing, Lancelot flexed his muscles and yawned. Mayhap it was time to huddle down into the pile of furze he’d collected for bedding, and rest. Like the owls, he did most of his hunting and scavenging at twilight.

First, he emptied his bladder into the latrine pit, then threw soil into it with the ox shoulder blade he used as a shovel. Then, as he always did, he scaled the ancient oak at the center of the holly grove, to ensure no enemies were nigh.

Stopping below the crown, which was too slender to hold his weight, he’d just started scanning the treetops when he heard a noise at the western edge of the forest. Listening intently, he stared in that direction but could see naught. When the sound came again, it was swiftly cut off.

He scoured his memory—what little remained of it—and identified the noise as a woman’s scream. A woman frightened or distressed. What could be out there on this balmy summer’s evening to wrench forth such a cry?

His namesake, Sir Lancelot du Lac, would have hurtled through the trees on his charger, helm down and broadsword at the ready, keen to fight the foe and rescue the damsel. But not he. Slowly, he inched his way back down the tree, careful not to disturb the leaves as he made his way silently from branch to branch. The scream had come from the direction of the road, a place he avoided like the plague.

If a female was screaming on the road, it was no wild boar that had alarmed her, no huntsman’s trap into which she had fallen. The only danger that haunted the highway was human. He hadn’t come face-to-face with another person in all the time he’d been in the forest and was perfectly content to keep it that way.

He’d reached the safety of the clearing now, but his heart refused to ease its frantic beating. An irresistible force was pulling him toward the road to investigate that cry of anguish, but he fought it with all his strength. Involvement in other people’s affairs was the last thing he needed.

He failed. The urge to help was too strong. Before he knew what he was doing, he’d thrust himself between the holly bushes and was racing like a hunted deer toward the west. Pigeons clacked out of the canopy as he sped past, and small creatures, just coming out for the night, darted out of his way. He only slowed when he came nigh the highway, and he could feel the trampled mud of its margins beneath his bare feet.

Staring south, toward the hollow way leading to the village, he saw nothing. He gazed north, toward terra incognita, and spotted a shape swaying off into the distance. That must be from whence the scream had come. But it was too late to act now. Whatever had happened to the damsel in distress was done, and she was nowhere to be seen—mayhap she’d been taken off in the wheeled vehicle trundling away into the distance.

A cart. That’s what it was called. He’d been so separated from everyday life, he’d forgotten the names of many things, and their purpose. A wagon—or cart—was for the transportation of objects and people.