“Bravo,” said Lord Richard, who had seated himself on a nearby tree stump to watch. “Now what?”

I shot him a glance of intense dislike. The wound was bleeding; not badly, but it was a long way home. I used my knife to slash the hem of my shift, tearing a strip right around, and then I bound up the wound as neatly as I could. Alys did not try to bite me now. She sat shivering, watching me with trusting eyes. Lord Richard had said his man had a poor aim. What mark was this arrow meant for, I wondered?

He sat there watching me, his bright blue eyes following my every move as I dressed her wound, and untied the rope, and did up my bundle again. I lifted it onto my back, and bent to pick the trembling Alys up in my arms.

“Mm,” he said. “Very self-contained, aren’t we? I’d offer to help, but I expect I’d get bitten. By one of you, at least.”

I could not gesture. I tried to let him know, with a jerk of my head and a scowl, that I wished he would leave me to make my way home alone.

“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” he said softly, and I did not like the look in his eyes at all. “I don’t think my nephew would like that. Leave his little protégée all alone in the woods, with so much to carry? Oh no, that won’t do. I shall at least escort you safely home. It will be well worth it, to see the look on Hugh’s face.” He put two fingers in his mouth and gave a shrill whistle. Within a minute, silent men bearing bows appeared from four different directions. Their clothing was gray and green and brown, the color of the woodlands.

“I’ll go on foot with the young—lady,” said Lord Richard, and again the pause between the last two words was exquisitely timed. “Make your way to Harrowfield. Take the horses and go openly by road. Inform Lord Hugh, if you should happen to run into him, that there’s been a slight accident to one of his household. Nothing to worry about. I will speak to the man who loosed this arrow later.”

They vanished to carry out his bidding, and I was left with no choice but to head for home in his company. He made no offer to take my bundle, though he eyed it with interest.

It’s odd, how some things stay clear in the memory and others fade. I can still remember everything Richard said to me that day, on the long walk home. I can still hear every carefully chosen word, every nuance of his soft voice, every subtle change in the insinuating tone. I can feel the weight of the little dog in my arms, and the blood on my hands, and the spiky bundle of starwort on my back. I shiver to recall the touch of Lord Richard’s creeping hands on my arms, or my shoulders, or around my waist as he made pretense of helping me over the rough ground. I loathed him. I despised him. But he was Red’s uncle, and Lady Anne’s brother. I might wish to spit in his slyly smiling face. But I tightened my mouth and looked straight ahead, and set my feet for home.