‘Not as far behind as I do.’
Was her smile as wistful as he imagined? He supposed it would be a kind of death, to be left behind, trapped, while the rest of the court galloped off on a sunny summer day.
‘Come,’ he said, abruptly. He had seen slaughter enough in France. No need to witness the death of every deer. ‘I’ll ride beside you.’
Her needle shook, but her stitches did not pause. ‘Pity for the cripple?’
He grabbed her wrist, stopping her needle and forcing her to look at him. ‘No.’
She met his eyes, questioning, and he wondered what she saw there. In truth, he did not know why he had offered and more words would only make it worse.
Finally, she smiled, a slow, lovely thing. ‘I would like that.’
‘Tomorrow, then.’ He stood abruptly and with a curt bow escaped.
As quickly as that, he had committed himself to spend time with a woman who would do nothing but drag him down.
Chapter Five
The next morning, regretting his impulse of the previous day, Nicholas joined the rest as they gathered outside the lodge, in preparation for the hunt.
He hoped that a page would appear, telling him Anne had changed her mind, leaving him free to ride off his restlessness.
Yet there she was, already on horseback, waiting for him at the edge of the chaos surrounding the assembly. Dogs who would track the deer sniffed the air, wondering which scent they would follow. Dogs ready to chase the deer chased their tails instead, held back by their handlers until the quarry was sighted. In the suit of green he favoured for the hunt, the King conferred with his huntsman, considering their plan.
And Anne, seated atop a bay courser, looked out over the scene as if to memorise it.
If he asked her outright whether she could manage a day on horseback, would she back down? Without opening his mouth, he knew the answer. Still, he might give her the opportunity...
‘He uses the dogs,’ Nicholas said, glancing at the King while laying a comforting palm on the neck of Anne’s horse. Dogs meant a longer hunt. Gruelling and gruesome. He looked up at Anne, hoping for a reprieve.
She nodded. ‘They’ve located a hart of ten.’ A stag with ten points on his antlers. ‘He’ll be a worthy opponent.’
No wonder the King was smiling.
‘It will be a long day, then.’ They would be hunting par force, as the King preferred, chasing the beast into exhaustion. The work had begun the day before for the huntsman and continued with a discussion over a morning meal that Nicholas had decided to miss.
Now, they had to set the dogs along the path and have the scent hound find the beast again. When they did, the hounds would give chase. Finally, it might be hours later, when the beast was at bay, the King would get the honour of making the kill and unmaking the animal, cutting it carefully to pieces and giving the dogs their taste as a reward. All this could keep them on horseback until near dark.
‘So my lady hopes.’ She nodded toward the Prince and his intended, mounted and waiting side by side. Lady Joan raised a hand and waved to Anne. ‘Without war, the men grow restless.’ She looked down at him. ‘Don’t you?’
She said it as if she knew how eager he was to join the chase.
‘Yes.’ The word sounded churlish.
‘Then it is good that we hunt today.’ She spoke with a smile and without any indication that she was ready to get off her horse.
He sighed and mounted the hunting horse he had borrowed from the King’s stable. The day might be longer than even he expected.
King Edward gave the signal and they moved out, slowly at first, as the huntsman and the handlers went ahead to confirm the scent and put the chasers in position.
The New Forest was the King’s private deer park. Here, the animals could roam and breed unhindered by any but royalty. Dappled sunlight came and went through the lush green canopy of leaves, ruffled by a breeze perfect for bringing the scent of the deer to the eager dogs.
He glanced at the woman beside him. Slow on her feet, she was less awkward on the horse. The beast’s four legs carried her where her three could not. It was not so much the hunt she enjoyed, he decided. It was the freedom to run where her poor body could not take her.
‘If we do not keep up,’ he began, ‘will you mind missing the kill?’
‘I like being on the horse and in the fresh air. I do not like seeing...’ she faced him and there was truth in her eyes ‘...harm come to weaker creatures.’
Weaker creatures. As she was. A woman, even a man with her lameness might be savaged for such a flaw. He had seen it. Blind men armed with sticks told there was a pig for them to feast on if they could kill it. But there was no pig. There was only another man, as blind as the first, so the two ended up beating each other for the amusement of the sighted.
Suddenly, he was angry on her behalf for all the ignorant people who had, or would ever, hurt her. A strange and unwelcome thought.
He had lived as he wanted for so long, detached, thinking only of how to keep men and horses moving or how to get a pope to bless Prince Edward’s match. Suddenly, he had heard the woman beside him, recognised her pain, and cared. An unfamiliar and uncomfortable feeling.
Feeling led to disappointment. To mourning a mother who was gone and a new mother who did not care.
And this woman needed no sympathy from him. She was well taken care of now and, once her lady married the Prince, she’d have a life most would envy. Few cripples, even a dwarf who served as a jester, could hope for as much.
He glanced to his side to see how she fared on the horse. Pain and joy mixed uneasily on her face. Tight lips a testament to her struggle not to fall off the courser’s back, yet eyes that looked out on the day so eagerly that a smile broke the lock that pain held on her mouth.
Well for the moment, yet she could not ride the day long this way and it would be impossible for her to keep up once the chase began.
A horn sounded. The deer had been found. The men hurried their horses ahead, hooves trampling the grass, leaving the women to come as they pleased, arriving, perhaps, to celebrate the successful kill.
Nicholas’s horse started to trot, as eager as his rider to join the chase. He pulled the reins, holding back the animal, and himself. He could not race off and leave her here, struggling to keep her seat.
Where was Lady Joan? When she dropped back, he could leave Anne with her. But as the Prince dashed ahead, Joan urged her horse to follow.
He looked over at Anne. ‘She rides with him?’
She nodded. ‘They do not leave each other’s sight unless they must.’
The King’s daughter Isabella and a few of her ladies trotted ahead, far enough behind the men that they would not have
