Trail of Fate

I pushed off the tree and darted toward the fire. Robard was being dragged away, and I raised my sword and shouted “Beauseant!” at the top of my lungs. Something hit me hard in the back and I went down. Try as I might, I couldn’t throw the weight off me. I tried to push myself up on my hands and knees, but was clubbed in the back of the head and down I went, losing my sword. The campfire was only a few inches away. I bucked up with all my might and felt my attacker fall to the side.

Grabbing a burning log from the campfire, I stood and swung where I thought the man should be, but he wasn’t. Confused, I turned around and had only a second with the light from the flaming log to see him standing in front of me. He held the hilt of his sword tight in his hand, and before it connected with the side of my head and everything faded to blackness, I recognized his uniform.

These were not Templars.

They were King’s Guards.

27

As I swam up toward consciousness, I sensed we were being carried up and down over rough ground. There were voices quietly murmuring around me. It sounded like Maryam and Robard, but I couldn’t be sure. Finally, I managed to open my eyes and looked up to see the sun peeking down at me through the bars of a cage.

A ripple of dizziness overtook me as I tried to sit up. “Easy, Tristan,” I heard Maryam say. Her hands probed the side of my head. The attack in the woods came flashing back to me, along with the last thing I remembered- turning to see the King’s Guard seconds before he punched me in the head.

“Where are we?” I mumbled.

“We don’t know,” Maryam said. “We’re locked inside a cage on the back of a wagon. We’ve been traveling for several hours now.”

My head was resting in Maryam’s lap. I finally opened my eyes and willed myself to stay focused. The dizziness passed, and I gingerly pulled myself into a sitting position. I touched the side of my face and winced.

“Careful,” Maryam said. “You’ve got a nasty knot there.”

When I could finally focus, I squinted up at the sun. We were still heading north.

“What happened?” I asked, still confused. I remembered someone grabbing me from behind as I stood next to the tree, and then everything else became a blur. Looking through the bars of our cage, I counted ten of Richard the Lionheart’s personal soldiers riding alongside us. Two sat on the wagon, driving the team, and the rest were on horseback, surrounding us as we moved along the bumpy road.

Something wasn’t right. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been a regimento of Templars or even the High Counsel’s men. Even though Sir Hugh had belittled and intimidated him, maybe he was able to separate himself from Sir Hugh and follow us. But King’s Guards? Could Sir Hugh have enlisted their aid? The last I’d known, King Richard was in Outremer, so why was there a detachment of King’s Guards here in France? Was Prince John or some other member of the royal family here? Did Sir Hugh’s connections reach all the way to the throne? Did this have something to do with my previous run-ins with them?

It was hard to believe. It had been more than a year ago when they’d stalked me through the marketplace in Dover. But as I studied their faces, I didn’t recognize any of these men. There was something else at work here.

“Maryam, Robard,” I stammered. “I’m sorry. I guess this is my fault. They were on me before I saw or heard them. They must have come upwind from Angel or else she would have smelled them and warned. . Where is Angel?” I noticed her absence for the first time.

“She ran off,” Maryam said.

“Ran off?” I couldn’t believe it. Angel, who had jumped into the harbor, survived a shipwreck, attacked a Frenchman, and was carried haphazardly down a mountainside, had simply disappeared?

Maryam nodded. “I know. One of those men knocked her aside during the scuffle and she scurried off into the woods.”

I shook my head and immediately wished I hadn’t, for the world began swirling again.

“Maryam?” I whispered.

“Yes?”

“What is wrong with Robard? Why hasn’t he said anything?” I asked, looking over at Robard, who squatted on the floor of the cage opposite us with his back to me. His body was coiled and he held on to the bars as if he might shake them apart if given the chance.

“I think he’s angry,” she said.

“Yes, he’s angry. But usually when he’s in a temper, he reminds me how he’ll kill me after we get through this.”

“Perhaps he is very angry,” she suggested.

“If you must know,” Robard interrupted, “I am studying our enemies.”

“To what end?” I asked him.

“I don’t know yet,” he said.

They had stripped us of our weapons and my satchel and piled them in the wagon behind the driver and his mate, far out of reach from the cage. A weapon would be useless in the small, enclosed space, and I couldn’t fathom what advantage Robard thought he might gain, locked away as we were.

With nothing else to do, I sat quietly as the wagon rolled along. It was rough riding, and as the sun moved toward the west, it became even more uncomfortable, bouncing along in the heat. A short while later, the Captain of the Guard gave halt, and the men dismounted, leading the horses to a small spring. One of the men on the wagon seat got down from his perch and pushed a water skin through the bars, offering it first to Maryam.

She lowered her head while reaching for it, then quickly rose up and reached through the bars, grabbing the man by the wrist and twisting it sharply to the side. He screamed in pain, dropping the water skin. As the man struggled to free himself from Maryam’s grip, she reached out with her other hand and twisted his thumb backward. We heard a sickening pop and the man screeched again, finally yanking his hand away from Maryam’s grasp.

“Swine!” she yelled, spitting at him.

The man howled, struggling to pull his sword with his good hand. The other guards watched and jeered now as the man thrust it through the bars at Maryam, who easily ducked out of the way.

He cursed at her, protesting his broken thumb. But he couldn’t move his sword quickly between the bars, and before I knew it, Robard had leapt forward and wrestled it from the man’s hand.

“Robard, no!” I shouted.

Moving like a cat, he reached through the bars, grabbing the man by his tunic first, pushing him backward, then slamming him headfirst into the side of the cage. The man groaned and slumped toward the ground, but Robard held him up, turning him and putting his left arm through the bars and around the man’s neck. He held the sword at the now unconscious man’s throat.

“Release us now, or he dies!” Robard commanded.

All of the guards drew their weapons, then stood still, not sure what to do.

The Captain of the Guard strode over to the wagon and stood a few feet away, his sword pointed down at the ground.

“Let him go,” the Captain said quietly. He removed his helmet and held it in his free hand. His beard was dark brown, and he was covered head to toe in dust and mud from the ride. His hands were gnarled and scarred, and it looked like his fingers had been cut or broken many times. He was definitely someone we shouldn’t trifle with.

“Not until you unlock the cage and return our weapons,” Robard said.

The Captain sighed. “You won’t kill him,” he said.

“What? I surely will!” Robard replied, more than a little put out.

“Were you a Crusader?” the Captain asked.

“I was. What of it? Quit trying to stall us! Open the cage and let us go or your man dies,” Robard insisted.

“You were a King’s Archer? Your bow is a fine weapon. Is it Welsh-made, by any chance? I’ve always heard