“I think Insol will have more weighty matters on his mind than an escaped serf,” Dirk told him.
Gar nodded. “And even when he does have time to listen, no one will tell him, because the men who saw you will think they thought they saw something that wasn’t there.”
“But they recognized me! I saw it in their eyes!”
“Men see a lot of things in battle,” Dirk assured him, “and not all of them are real.”
Coll calmed, beginning to feel reassured. “Do you really think so?”
“Oh yes,” Gar said with absolute certainty. “Be sure of it, Coll. Anybody who saw you will think they imagined it. Be sure.”
Shouting and clanging sounded behind them, and the two knights turned to meet it, Dirk shouting, “Go!” Coll didn’t stay to ask why, only turned to flee into the forest with his mother and sister.
An hour later, Mama stumbled over a tree root. Coll caught her arm; she looked up at him, and he saw her utter weariness. “We’ve gone far enough,” he told her, and took the sack from her cramped fingers. “Let’s find shelter.”
They found it in a huge tree that had fallen against a smaller, lodging between a branch and the trunk; the younger tree held the older at an angle. Dead branches swept down to the ground, and Coll, forcing his way between them, found he was able to break off the ones inside, until he had a very serviceable lean-to. He brought the broken boughs out and Mama and Dicea in. Mama promptly lay down on the thick bed of fallen leaves and closed her eyes. Dicea brought out her coal box, then glanced at the trunk overhead and the dry boughs around them. “We can’t light a fire in here, can we?”
“No, we’ll have to go outside—but I think we’d better not light a fire at all,” Coll answered. “Gar and Dirk seem to know the ways of war as well as anybody, and if they say fleeing soldiers may be coming through the wood, I wouldn’t doubt them. They’ll be hungry, looking for food and shelter, and I don’t doubt they’ll band together to take it.”
Dicea shuddered at the thought. “We can make a cold meal.”
Suddenly, Coll realized he was hungry, raving hungry. “Yes, Dicea, if you would! Even bread alone would be good! ”
She reached into a bag, brought out a round loaf, passed it to Coll, then hefted a skin, unstoppered the foot, and held it out. Coll swallowed a mouthful of bread and squeezed a stream of liquid into his mouth. “Ale! Bless you, Dicea! ”
“Some breath of caution told me to bring it,” she said, smiling. “Now I see why—we may have to search for water.” Coll nodded, carefully holding the foot of the aleskin upward. “Only a few mouthfuls each, then—enough to make the bread go down, and no more.”
“Even so,” Dicea agreed. She took the loaf back, broke off a third of it, and gave it back to Coll, then turned to Mama, saying softly, “Mama, are you awake?”
“I only wish I weren’t,” Mama groaned. She forced herself up and took her third of the loaf. “Still, you’re right, child. I had better take nourishment while I can.”
They ate, finishing all of the loaf but only a quarter of the ale. Then Coll told them, “Sleep while you can.”
“You must have rest too, though, son!” his mother protested.
Coll nodded. “I’ll watch for four hours, then wake Dicea; she can watch and wake me if there’s need. But I’ll take the first watch, for I might not be able to stay awake for the second.”
“What sort of need are you expecting?” Dicea asked, eyes wide.
“Those fleeing soldiers that Gar and Dirk spoke of,” Coll told her. “Odds are that, without a fire, we only need to sit still and let them pass us by—but I’d like to be awake when they come.”
However, it wasn’t runaway soldiers who found them as dusk closed in. Heavy hands suddenly wrenched the leaves of their lean-to aside, and a scarred, bearded face glared down at Coll, commanding, “Come out!”
Coll glared back at the man, taking in the leather jerkin, the grimy skin, and the dozen men behind him, all holding bows or quarterstaves, all wearing leather jerkins and leg gins, all shaggy-haired and shaggy-bearded. With a sinking heart, he knew them for outlaws. “Come in and get me!” he snarled.
“As you’ll have it, then.” The outlaw glanced up and to the side, nodding, then turned a steady gaze on Coll.
Dry branches and leaves crashed; men shouted behind Coll in a sudden onslaught. Dicea and Mama screamed, and Coll whirled. The blow caught him on the back of the head, and he saw only a brief burst of stars before darkness took him.
Dicea’s angry scream yanked him out of that darkness, and he scrambled to his feet—or tried to; something pulled hard on his arms behind his back, wrenching his shoulders with pain, and he fell back, sitting against something hard, curved, and rough. Pain throbbed through his head, and the light seemed far too bright, even though it couldn’t have been all that much later. Fuzzy shapes became clear. He saw they were no longer in the lean-to, and he made out a couple of outlaws holding his mother, who strained against them, scolding. Two more were holding Dicea, and having a much tougher job restraining her arms—in fact, they were dancing back from her kicking feet, but another outlaw came up from behind to reach around and caress. “Scum!” Dicea shouted, and tried to turn to kick at the man, but he leaped back with a laugh.
“Scum and offal!” Coll shouted, and tried again to leap to Dicea’s defense—but a hard pull yanked him back again, down hard, and he realized his wrists had been tied to a tree trunk, behind his back. Moreover, he realized that he was looking up at the outlaws; they had tied him sitting down. He gathered his legs under him and began to stand, turning from side to side in an awkward dance as he scraped the rope up the trunk.
But the biggest outlaw, the one who had commanded him to come out of the lean-to, put out a big hand and pushed him back. “I know it gripes you, lad, but we have need of women in the greenwood, and we’re not about to let one pass by—especially one so pretty as this. She may have been your lady love, but…”
“She is my sister! And that woman’s our mother!”
“Sister! And her mother watching?” The outlaw looked up at the women, dismayed, and Coll realized that he wasn’t really a bad man, just a rather desperate one. Sure enough, his face hardened again, and he turned back to Coll. “Sister or not, we need her nonetheless. You’ve no choice, lad, for a runaway soldier has no place but the greenwood, and no people but…”
Coll surged at him with a roar of anger. To his amazement, his hands came up, fists balled. The outlaw froze in surprise, and Coll struck him down with a single blow. He caught up the man’s spear and lunged at the outlaws holding Dicea. One of them dropped her hand with a shout and scrambled back, yanking his dagger free; Dicea whirled and slapped the other outlaw so hard the crack echoed through the trees. The man stepped back, dazed, and Dicea dove for the only cover available—the lean-to.
Coll whirled, striking with the spear butt at one of the men holding his mother. The man released her, but was too slow, and the wood cracked into his head. The other dropped Mama’s hand and reached for his own dagger—and Coll grabbed Mama’s wrist, pulling her, too, back into the lean-to.
“But what can we do here?” she cried.
“They have to come in to get us,” Coll snarled, turning to guard the door hole.
Behind him, Dicea said, “This time, we’ll be ready! Find a rock, Mama!”
Coll glanced at the ropes hanging from his wrists, unable to believe he had really broken them—and sure enough, the ends were clean, not frayed! But who could have cut them?
The outlaws were shouting outside, and he heard the clash of steel. Would they really kill him to get Dicea?
Yes. In an instant. He knew how badly the woman hunger had eaten at him, alone in the wilderness, and a girl as pretty as Dicea would make such a hunger much sharper. Coll knew these men would do anything to satisfy such lust. He leveled his spear.