She waited, knee still to his chest, to see if he would slump in a faint or recover quickly. Even as she thought it, his eyes opened again and the grimace of pain evaporated from his face. He was plainly relieved, as well he should be – more often men had bones broken by comrades and healers alike.

“The old man taught you well.”

She blinked, surprised. “Aye. Master Edmund is a fine physician.”

“Was he that taught you swordplay?”

Something in the way he looked at her as he said it caused her for the first time in her life to be truly embarrassed of it. His disdainful tone implied that her teacher should be ashamed, and that she should be yet more ashamed. And there was something else in the eyes that mocked her. It was as though he saw exactly what she was, and found nothing there to admire. Ranulf Ombrier, the infamous lord of Morency and champion of a hundred tourneys. He who had been bested by her thought her a sham.

She pulled away, agitated and out of sorts, feeling ungainly and awkward of a sudden. It was easy to forget, among her men who accepted what she was, that it was unnatural. That outside her small company, it was only sin and shame. A woman like her. Not like a woman at all, yet not a man.

“Your arm,” she said, feeling again the throb of her own untended wound. “Test your reach.” If no muscle was torn, she would not waste the scanty store of herbs to ease his pain further. If it was sound, he could leave and her work be done.

“The king and all his court will burst with laughter to hear of you.” There was no mistaking the cruel delight in his words now. “What fine and virtuous maidens Ruardean nurtures. The clerics will love it best, I think, a woman who commands and carries a sword.”