explained his strange tongue. He had raked her with his eyes and now she returned the favour. ‘You eat your meat uncooked?’
She had never seen someone from the north lands. Everyone knew the people from there were coarse, uncouth creatures and he looked the part, except for that moment his eyes had been gentle.
They looked gentle no more. ‘You’ve heard the stories, have you?’ He growled, leaning down to bare his teeth at her. ‘Aye, we do. We tear into the raw flesh like wolves.’
She stumbled backwards, as if blasted by the wind, and ended up sitting in the dirt.
When he laughed, she realised she’d been played with.
She waited for him to offer his hand to help her up, then remembered she was a lad and could rise on her own. ‘Well, that’s what they say,’ she answered, brushing the dirt from her seat as she stood.
He shook his head. ‘You’re a south lander, that’s certain. While you spent the summer growing pretty gardens and spouting poesy, we’ve been keeping the Scots from cutting across England like a scythe through wheat.’
Ah, yes. She would have to learn to relish talk of war. ‘And you’re a long way from having to face the French.’
‘You think so, do you? And are you so ignorant you’ve forgotten that the last time the French set foot on English soil it was a Scot who opened the door?’ His expression was grim. ‘While you stand here fluttering like a woman, the Scots have delved our borders and burned our crops.’
Like a woman. The Scots were a less immediate threat than discovery. She lifted her hands and spread her feet. ‘Come down from that horse and face my fists and we’ll decide who’s a better man.’
His grimace turned to laughter, a wonderful sound, and he leaned over the horse’s neck to clap her on the shoulder. ‘Well, Little John, I see you’ve much to learn, but I’ll spare you a brayin’ today.’
She tried not to look relieved.
‘Come.’ He held out his hand. ‘Share my horse. You’ll see Cambridge afore day’s end.’
Caked with the dirt of her days on the road, she slouched and shrugged as if it didn’t matter. Men, in her experience, were not good at welcoming help. ‘Well, if you insist. I can take care of myself, you know.’
Unlike a woman, dependent on a man for the food that filled her belly and the air that filled her lungs.
‘Oh, yes, and a fine job you’re doing, too,’ he said, raising his eyebrows at her bedraggled state. ‘Now accept a hand when it’s offered.’
He swung the gittern from his back to his chest and slipped his foot from the stirrup so she could have a leg up. Then he grabbed her arm, his grip firm and safe, and hauled her up behind him. She scrambled to keep her seat as the horse trotted sideways and the stringed instrument bounced against Duncan’s chest.
‘Hold on, Little John. Fall and you can walk the rest of the way.’
She patted the horse as the beast started down the road, then grabbed the man around the waist, reluctant to press too close. Her breasts were bound, but would he feel a softness against his back? Her legs, splayed wide and tucked against his hips, seemed to expose her most intimate secret. Would he notice what was missing there?
Talk. Talk would distract him. And her. ‘You had a skirmish with the Scots, you say?’
‘Skirmish? Aye, if you want to call it that. Three thousand swooped into the valley and were halfway to Appleby before I left.’
‘You left?’ Astonished, she could not stop the words. Men did not shirk battle.
‘I was sent to ask, nay, to plead for help from our illustrious King and Council.’ The sentence held a sneer.
‘You’ve seen the King?’ Her mother, the old King’s mistress, had fled the court at his death. Jane had been five then and remembered little, but Solay had returned to Court last year and her sister had listened to her every tale.
‘Seen him? I’ve spoken to him. He knows me name.’ The return of his accent hinted at his pride.
She was dumbstruck. The relationship was muddled in her mind, but the new King was some sort of half-nephew of hers, although he was older than she by a few years. Yet she had never even seen him.
It seemed that even a commoner from the north had more stature than a lowly woman. ‘So what did they say, the King and Council?’
‘Next year.’ His words were harsh. ‘They said next year.’
Invaders would not wait on the Council’s convenience. She wondered how far away Appleby was. ‘Why not now?’
‘Because they’ve no money, winter is a miserable season for a campaign, and a few more excuses I can’t remember.’
Neither her sister nor her sister’s husband held the current government in high regard, but they held their tongues. When one was the illegitimate daughter of a dead king, it was dangerous to demean a live one, even if he was devious and less than trustworthy.
‘Then why go to Cambridge?’ Wouldn’t a man return home to fight?’
‘Among other reasons, because Parliament is meeting there.’
His tone implied that she was an idiot who should have got all the information she needed from that simple statement.
‘Well, I can’t divine your thoughts.’ In her family’s experience, Parliament was worse than King and Council, but it wouldn’t be wise to say so. ‘You sit in the Commons, then?’ Minstrel? Representative? Who was this man?
‘Nay, but I must speak to those who do.’
‘And the King? He’ll be there, too?’
‘Within a fortnight,’ Duncan answered.
‘I hear he’s fair and well favoured.’
‘You must have heard that from the lasses. But he looks the part, all pomp and gilt. He makes certain you know who he is.’
She would know him if she saw him, she was certain of that. And if the King was coming to Cambridge, she would make sure she did.
As they rode in silence, there was nothing to distract her from the breadth and strength of his back. He blocked the wind, but the heat that filled her came from some place inside. She had never been so close to any man, certainly not to one from the border lands.
Questions itched her tongue. Northerners were half-beasts, or so she’d been told. Yet he looked little different from other men.
‘Tell me about it,’ she said, finally, ‘where you’re from.’ She would not have another chance to ask.
He did not speak at first.
‘Full a’ mountains,’ he said, finally. ‘I’d lay a wager you’ve never seen a mountain.’
She
