was no easy task and was full dark by the time she managed to make the feeble excuse of visiting the privy, and then change her course for the knights’ encampment. The cool evening air and the darkness threw a cloak over the field that in daylight she had few qualms about traversing. Now she trod warily, leaving behind her the comforting domestic noise of clattering spoons and gossiping serfs, to encounter the coarse laughter and strident music of the revelling knights. This was a foreign world, and Ellie feared her father’s wrath should he find out where she had been. She picked up her pace and jogged her way between the striped pavilions, but in the dark and the dancing shadows thrown by the flames of open fires she felt disorientated and struggled to locate Rupert’s tent.
A hot sense of panic began to prickle over Ellie, as leery glances from several groups were cast her way, and she pulled up the hood of her dark blue fustian cloak. It must be here! she thought, gazing about in bewilderment. As she paused to look around her, seeking the red-and-yellow stripes of Rupert’s tent and the banner of the house of Raven, three knights seated on tripod stools about their campfire called out to her.
‘How much?’ they shouted, waggling a purse of coins.
She stared at them, bemused, and then turned and hastened onwards, deciding to call out to locate her brother.
‘Rupert!’ Her voice sounded thin and reedy, and was swallowed up by the noise all around her. ‘Rupert!’
‘Ho, little lady!’
Two fellows lurched around the guy ropes and pegs of the nearest tent, bumping into her as they stumbled with drunken awkwardness. Her hood fell back and Ellie gave a small cry of alarm as an arm snaked around her waist.
‘Mind your step, my beauty!’
Rough fingers jerked her chin up and she cringed against such violation, for no man, except her relatives, had ever touched her. The stink of wine fumes wafted from their mouths and Ellie pushed at the arm holding her.
‘Well, now, you’re a pretty little wench if ever I did see one! How much? For both of us.’
There was that question again, and Ellie gasped, as now it dawned upon her their meaning—they thought she was a harlot! With an angry exclamation she shoved again at the man nearest, and was surprised to find that he did not yield. An entirely new experience, to have her command thwarted.
‘Let me go! My brother will kill you—’
This was met with uproarious laughter and suddenly the two men exchanged a glance, nodded in agreement and dragged her off into the dark shadows of an alley way behind a row of tents. Her scream was cut off by a sweaty hand clamped to her mouth and the wind was knocked from her ribs as she was flung down upon her back, hitting the hard ground with a thump. Quickly she recovered and fumbled at her waist for the dirk she had concealed there, whipping it out and pointing its gleaming silver tip at the man who had straddled her.
‘Let me go! Now!’
To her dismay her demand was met with only more laughter. Cruel fingers crushed her wrist, so that she yelped and was forced to drop the dirk.
‘Shut up!’ hissed the man, all merriness gone as he now panted with excitement and struggled to unlace his breeches, ‘This won’t take long and we will reward you well enough.’ He turned to his companion, ‘Hold her hands, Will, while I get this poxy knot—’
His friend seemed uneasy, ‘She don’t speak much like a whore, maybe she is a lady—’
‘A lady!’ snorted the other. ‘What would a lady be doing down here? Nay, it’s just a game, isn’t it, lovely?’ With a grunt of triumph he wrenched open his breeches and reached for the hem of Ellie’s gown.
She gave another scream and struggled wildly as she felt his knee jerk her legs apart and his fingers sought the linen loincloth that she wore. Her silky white hose dislodged in the process, sliding down in undignified folds about her ankles, and her heart hammered at the dreadful prospect of what was about to be done to her. She felt dizzy and with sick despair she turned her head away and closed her eyes, raging with impotent fury at her fate.
Then suddenly a black shape hurtled through the darkness and the man crouched on top of her went flying backwards. She glimpsed the blur of a fist as it smashed once, twice, three times into her abuser’s face, with swift and brutal efficiency. Blood spurted from his nose and he spat broken teeth upon a gurgle of shock and pain, before he was grabbed by the scruff of his tunic and thrown a goodly distance away from Ellie. Her rescuer then turned to deal with the other man, but he had already seen who it was meting out justice and fled with all speed into the darkness.
Panting slightly at his exertions, the knight knelt at her side. Ellie stared at him, too shocked to utter a word of thanks. She felt nauseous and the world spun in a whirling circle before her glazed eyes. She shuddered as again she felt male hands move beneath her skirts—but his were impersonal, quickly investigating hands that touched her loincloth briefly and then pulled up her hose and refastened her garters. He murmured soothingly, reassuring her in a deep male voice that he meant her no harm.
‘You are still intact.’ He breathed a sigh of relief. Then she felt his fingers cup her face and turn it to the distant glimmer of firelight, ‘What are you doing here, a little maid with no escort?’
She sat up and stared at him, niggled by a faint sense of recognition, but it was too dark and she could not see his face in the shifting firelight and the faint moonglow. She felt so alone and lost and very foolish. Suddenly, without warning, she burst into tears.
‘Shh,’ the male voice commanded, ‘you are safe. I will protect you from all harm.’
His arms went around her slender back and she leaned against him, sobbing upon his hard, warm chest. He let her cry for a few moments, and then wiped her tears with his thumb and persuaded her to rise.
‘Come, let me escort you to your family.’
With angry impatience at her own female weakness, she dashed away the tears from her eyes and muttered, ‘Thank you, sir, for your help, but I will find my own way.’
He gave a short laugh. ‘I doubt that! And you have not answered my question. Why are you here amongst these rough knights? ’Tis no place for a maiden.’
‘I am looking for my brother. Rupert Raven.’
‘Ah, I see. So you are indeed Ellie.’ He led her between the pavilions and the light from a nearby fire illuminated them. ‘You have grown since I last saw you, little knight.’
Troye de Valois! Ellie gasped. She felt the hot tide of a blush sear her neck and cheeks, at once both elated and mortified. How perfect, how fine indeed that Troye should be the one to rescue her, and yet how terrible to meet again in such shameful circumstances! Ellie could not think of a word to say to him and they walked in silence as he led her between the tents. She realised that she had been completely off course, until at last he lifted the striped yellow-and-red flap of Rupert’s tent and they entered the golden glow within.
The tent was not solely occupied by Rupert, who sat lounging on a cushion with a young woman sprawled upon his lap, her frothy petticoats hitched well above her ankles and her bodice immodestly low cut. Eleanor stared, taking in her brother’s two companions as they reclined in various postures of debilitated drunkenness, a stench of wine fumes emanating from the empty bottles cast upon the ground.
Rupert looked up from a ribald
