now. His family home was empty, half-burned to the ground. His mother and father and sister were dead, dead from smoke inhalation, their prone bodies clasping, reaching out to each other to die on the floor of the locked solar. Where he had found them.
A sudden sweep of wind brought down a shower of leaves, beech leaves, spinning around his helmet like burnished feathers, adding to the undulating carpet of dark-green pine needles across the ground, jolting him back to the present, to the quiet stillness of the forest.
A sound—a single sound carried towards him on the breeze.
The jangle of a bridle. Amidst the startled shriek of a blackbird, the sough of the wind high in the tree canopy, and the slow whisper of leaves dropping to the ground, he heard it. And heard it again. He spurred his horse on, pushing the animal from a trot to a canter, hooves flying over the soft ground, in pursuit of that delicate sound. The sound of an angel? He smiled, but the smile failed to reach the steely turquoise depths of his eyes.
* * *
Fortunately for Katerina, only one clear track was discernible through the trees: the only path that could possibly have been taken by those brutish soldiers. She prayed Waleran wasn’t too frightened and would realise that she had every intention of rescuing him. As he had rescued her. The other members of the circus troupe joked about Waleran and her being joined at the hip, and maybe it was true. Her friend since childhood, he had taught her the tricks and turns which, at that time, she had never realised she would come to rely on. Waleran had offered her freedom and she had seized it as a drowning man grips on to a floating raft.
Following the path with an easy trot, she held her seat comfortably in the rigid, upright saddle, fingers slack around the bridle. Every now and again, the horse would shake his head violently, mane fanning out like a chicken’s-tail feathers, the bit between his teeth jangling. It was almost as if he were protesting at having a woman on his back! But all the head shaking and eye rolling didn’t worry her; she had grown up around horses and could handle them without fuss, however temperamental they wished to be.
Katerina could have moved faster; the track was wide enough, but she had no wish to barge straight into those thugs. Nay, she would have to be more cunning, for they would overpower her in a moment and the element of surprise would be lost. She intended to spring Waleran from their clutches by a far more subversive method. At this precise moment she had no idea what exactly that method was. Caught in her musing, she failed to hear the thump of galloping hooves until they were almost upon her.
‘You’ve got a bloody nerve!’ A low, powerful voice struck her in the back.
Panic shot through her, hot, visceral, sucking the strength from her limbs. Instinctively she crouched forwards, as if expecting a blow, at the same time digging her heels sharply into the horse’s sides to speed him away from any attack. Seizing the reins, she felt her hands shake with fear, adrenalin hurtling at breakneck speed around her body.
‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ From behind, two massive arms clamped viciously around her shoulders, wrenching her slight weight up and off the horse. The treacherous animal moved away from under her and she was left dangling in mid-air, her attacker, unseen, at her back. Almost immediately she began to struggle, to kick her legs this way and that, feet flailing, trying to make her attacker drop her, trying to twist her body out of that hateful grasp. Fear spurred her on, forcing her to fight, for her freedom, for her life. Would these strangers kill you, for stealing a horse? She had no wish to find out. Katerina thrashed out, heels catching back into the soft flank of his horse, as she used all the muscles in her body to throw it to and fro, trying to break the fearsome grip.
‘Let go of me!’ she shrieked, her voice rising with hysterical anger. She had to force him to drop her and then she could run. She was fast, she could outrun any man. Her captor’s arms were like iron bands around her upper body, squeezing the air from her lungs, but his bare hands, lean and sinewy, were inches from her chin, fingers linked. Bare. Skin. Inches from her mouth. Inches from her teeth. She bent her head down and sank her little white teeth into the fleshy part of his hand, between thumb and forefinger. Drew blood.
‘Why, you little...!’ For a tiny moment, the moment that she expected, his grip eased by a fraction. This slight loosening was enough, all she needed to wriggle violently from his grasp, to slip from those brawny arms, to hit the leaf-strewn forest floor and take off. And then she ran, ran with every last ounce of strength in her frame, away from the path, snaking through the densely packed trees with her light, dancing step. The horse would be unable to follow and the lumbering soldier, slowed by his cumbersome armour, would simply give up. He would never catch her now.
Lussac plunged from his horse, angry now. The little brat had bitten him! And now the bobbing hood and coarse-woven tunic disappearing through the trees mocked his sword and shield, his armour, the trappings of war. The varmint obviously thought he had the means to outwit him, Lussac. Just wait until he clamped his hands once more around his scrawny little neck! The wretch might think he was nippy on his feet, but Lussac was much, much faster. The advantage of greater muscle power and longer legs. He kept his eye focused on the dun-coloured tunic darting through the solid trunks, his long strides powering through the piled drifts of fallen leaves, scattering them. The silvery skin of his chainmail glittered in the faint sunlight. Yard by yard, he gained on the thief, steadily, inexorably, until he was a mere body’s length away.
As he launched himself full-length through the air, he could hear the boy’s breath, ragged, quick, before he crashed down against the narrow back, bringing him down, flat, hard, beneath him. A muffled squeak of shock escaped his quarry before his face was buried in the leaf litter of the forest floor. Let the scamp try to escape now!
For one horrible moment, Katerina lay stunned, groping in the threatening blackness, her mind struggling with the details of what had just happened to her. A tremendous weight pressed down on her back; her mouth, and nose and eyes were full of dead leaves, wet and musty against her skin. Hot tears of anger flooded from her eyes at the dreadful realisation: she had been caught, after all. Panic rose in her chest, an unstoppable surge; the force of the impact had pressed all the air from her lungs. Now she found it impossible to lift her head! Stretched out before her, her arms, her fingers, flailed against the earth, trying to find purchase, struggling to push her body away from the muffling, constricting ground, to find some air, to breathe.
Then suddenly, the weight lifted. She was flipped over, unceremoniously, on to her back.
Immediately she launched upwards into a sitting position, spitting bits of decaying leaf mould from her mouth. Her eyes blurred with tears; she was unable to focus clearly on her attacker, a huge shadowy outline against the trees. ‘How dare you!’ she spluttered, drawing her knees up close to her chest. ‘How dare you treat me so!’ In anger, in humiliation, she whacked both palms against the earth, as a child would.
Standing over the thief, legs astride, and ready to snag a sleeve or a bunch of tunic should the boy decide to run once more, Lussac stared in astonishment. The hood of the lad’s tunic had fallen back, revealing a mass of amber hair, a curious colour, bronze flecked with gold. The long locks had been plaited tightly, pinned up, but a few loose strands drifted down, shining threads lying across the rough tunic. Huge, silver-coloured eyes glared at him, hostile, mutinous. Outraged.
He had found the soldier’s angel.
Temporarily winded, her anger simmering, Katerina dashed the hot tears from her eyes to clear her vision, hands smarting from where she had whacked them on the ground. Her fingers touched the fallen hood and she yanked it viciously into place, hoping her attacker hadn’t noticed. The voluminous cloth settled comfortably around her head once more. Keeping her gaze down, she studied the piles of leaves beneath her feet, the torn hem of her braies, threads hanging, drawing the air back into her lungs, steadying her erratic breathing. One soldier, one measly soldier, had managed to catch her, to bring her down, she thought. How had she managed to let that happen?
She tilted her head upwards, carefully. And she had her answer.
A man, a knight, towered above her, his large frame encased in chainmail, silver-meshed, glittering. Although he stood very still, she sensed every muscle in his body was poised,