Sir Robert Tregoss was the one approaching.
Ransom’s hand dropped to his sword.
He didn’t realize his mistake until Alix grabbed his elbow. He felt a little sting. A needle.
He turned back to look at her in disbelief.
“It’s too late,” she said with a cunning smile. “I’ve already won.”
In moments, he felt his legs turn to jelly. A fog engulfed his mind. Sir Robert caught him beneath the arms. Lady Alix still had not released her grip.
“Take him to Kerjean,” she said to Sir Robert. “To the dungeon.” She squeezed his arm harder, driving the needle in deeper. “I’ll come after this is done.”
I cannot sleep tonight. The moon is bright with a tinge of pink. I should be happy. I’ve felt little else of late, but tonight my fears mix with the shadows. I’m worried about Ransom. His mission should be a simple one. Why should it distress me so? I know Benedict is an eejit, but he would do nothing more than reject an overture of peace. He wouldn’t imprison Ransom. Perhaps what leads me to grab my quill and write in the darkest part of the night is that while I’ve always worried about Ransom, now he is my Ransom. That makes his danger mine too. I know he would have asked for a writ of safe conduct to see Benedict. Yet still, this nagging feeling in my heart warns me that all is not well. What can I do from so far away?
—Claire de Murrow
Still of the night
(and a pleading heart)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Hostage Again
The poison wore off, bringing him back to his senses slowly. Ransom felt the swaying of a horse beneath him, the dizzying sensation of riding. His head lolled with the motion, and his body would have slid off if his legs hadn’t been bound. Darkness blinded him until he looked up and saw the teeming stars swirling overhead.
Panic thrummed inside his body. He tried to move his hands, but they were bound at the wrists, the rope so tight his fingers stung with pricks of pain. He was riding among other men. Although he could barely see them in the dark, he could hear their horses.
And then the moon rose on the horizon, dispelling the gloom and making the stars bow in reverence to its superior light. He twisted his neck, looking from left to right. There were about a dozen riders, all wearing armor and carrying lances. He was mounted on a dark rouncy, and the knight in front of him held the guide rope in one hand. A horse would always follow the promptings of the man who held his guide rope rather than the one on his back—a trick Ransom had learned during his tournament days. He thought about jumping off, but the knots securing him to the saddle would prevent it. He was a prisoner again.
Memories of those dark months he’d spent with DeVaux and his men came rushing back, filling him with doubt and dread. They were bringing him to Kerjean. He remembered Alix saying so before she’d rendered him helpless with her poison. He had no notion of how far they’d traveled, but they were not on a road. Grass whisked against the horses’ withers, and the muted thud of hooves on earth was different from the sound on a well-trodden road.
As the moon rose, he stared at it, feeling desperate to escape. Thoughts of Claire warred with worries about the king. What would Dawson and Marcus and the other knights waiting for him think when he didn’t come back? Would they assume, as he would, that he was being held prisoner in Beestone? If so, there was nothing they could do but ride back to Kingfountain and warn the Elder King.
Ransom tried to break the knots at his wrists, but the ropes groaned with his effort. They loosened slightly, but the pain in his hands only grew worse. He tried again and again, wrestling with the knots.
“He’s awake!” one of the knights shouted in Occitanian.
Ransom turned and saw one of his escorts staring at him. The moonlight showed a clean-shaven face. A knight of Occitania, although he wore no badge or symbol to declare himself as such.
“We’re not stopping until dawn,” called back one of the other riders. It was Sir Robert Tregoss’s voice, and Ransom’s hatred for that man made his heart rage.
Judging by the direction in which the moon had risen, Ransom knew they were riding north, or slightly to the northwest. They were heading toward the Vexin lands, and he knew that Bayree lay beyond them. It was a long journey, and the farther they went from Ceredigion, the less hope he had of being rescued or of freeing himself.
Sir Robert was as good as his word. They’d ridden into the dawn, changing course to due west as the sun came up behind them, casting long shadows of them and their horses. The smell of meadow grass began to mix with trees and brush. Ransom recognized the landscape, for they were close to Averanche, which lay directly north of them at the coast. He had trained there with Lord Kinghorn and his knights. It had been taken by Benedict already, so it wasn’t the safe haven it had once been.
Sir Robert led them to a wooded area in the rolling hills, and the men finally stopped to rest. Some knights relieved themselves in the woods, while others prepared to feed their horses. Hooves were examined. Ransom sat on his mount, waiting for someone to attend to him, furious at the situation.
Sir Robert uncorked a flask and gulped down something that looked like water. Then he walked up and handed it to Ransom. “Thirsty?”
Ransom took it, even though it was awkward with his bound hands, and tilted his head back to drink. The water tasted leathery and stale, but it soothed his aching throat. He wanted to kick Robert in the face, but his bonds prevented it.
After he’d drunk, he handed the flask back.
“Whatever you are being paid,” Ransom said, meeting his eyes, “I can pay you more.”
Sir Robert snorted, and a wicked smile stretched his lips. “I know you are rich, Barton. Simon always compared us to you and your skinflint ways. I don’t do this just for the money. There will be a change of power now, and I will rise, while you fall.”
“You’ve been promised much by your king? I’m speaking of Estian, of course, not Benedict.”
“I have. And what I’ve been promised suits me very well. You will rot in Kerjean. No one will even know you are there, wasting away in a poisoner’s dungeon.”
Ransom felt a surge of blackness in his heart. He wanted to rage at the man, to accuse him of all sorts of infamy, but he recognized that was what Robert wanted. He closed his eyes, thinking of Claire, worrying about her and what would happen if Devon fell. Promises made by dead men—or forgotten men—were useless.
When Ransom opened his eyes, he noticed a bracelet encircling Sir Robert’s wrist. It was the leather bracelet that Claire had given him. The urge to kill that man was overpowering. He tried to summon his Fountain magic, to break free of his bonds and exact retribution. But no feeling of trickling water came. The knots were steadfast.
Then Ransom also noticed that his sword and scabbard were gone. His elbow ached with pain from where Alix had pricked him. The wound had not healed because they’d taken away his source of healing.
“Where’s my sword?” Ransom demanded.
“I thought it best to keep it out of your reach,” Robert answered snidely. “I would have stripped away your armor as well, but we were in a hurry. I’m done talking to you. I want food.” Robert turned away with a smug look, but Ransom wasn’t finished with him yet.