The Lord's Right (3 page)

The entire family poured out of their
home when she arrived in the yard followed by a Norman soldier,
who, once he realized she was home, did an immediate about face and
headed back into the woods. Her father had his head in his hands,
certain that she was a step away from the gallows, but Amber merely
kissed him and asked if dinner was ready. Her sisters poured over
her, asking her all sorts of questions about what had happened over
a dinner of the rabbit she had caught the previous night, which had
been stewing since dawn and was nice and tender.

“
I met some man, a big
soldier. He was huge and on a big black horse. He had long black
hair and was wearing chain mail armor, and, at the end, before he
sent me home with that man, Fitzwilliam, his men called him ‘my
lord’”

“
You met Cruel Piers, you
fool girl, and lived to tell of it!” her father said, clutching her
forearm and his chest at the same time.

“
Cruel Piers?”

“
The Count de Montforte.
He’s the one King
William has chosen to come build a castle here. He’ll probably stay
at the remains of Fordwick Castle down Westbury way until it’s
built, but the place is crawling with his soldiers. It was his
troops you toyed with last night, girl, and probably his wine we’re
drinking right now.” Her father loosed his crude wooden cup as if
the wine itself was poisoned.

Amber took it up herself and had a
large gulp, grunting, “You’d think, as rich as he’s supposed to be,
that he’d provide a better quality of wine for his men.”

“
Do I want to know any
more of what went on between you and the man who holds the fate of
this family and this entire territory in his hands, girl, or is it
best that I remain in darkness about it?”

She had the grace to blush, and Lawson
sputtered. “Has he had knowledge of you, lass, already? A Norman
was good enough for you when none of the men around here
were?”

Amber frowned. “Of course not, Da. But
he did …”

“
Did what, daughter?” He
was quite afraid to ask.

She played with her cup, quite
disinterested in her dinner. “Well, I crossed the road in front of
him while he was traveling on that great black beast of his. I
didn’t notice him at all. I was lost in my own thoughts, and I
almost unseated him. He wasn’t very happy with that, but I honestly
didn’t see him, Da. He came after me, into the woods, and–and
spanked me.”

Her sisters gasped and giggled, their
hands to their small, bright faces.

“
So you got it twice this
afternoon, did you?”

“
That’s about what he
said. He complimented you on your work, and asked why I’d been
punished.”

Lawson’s eyes bulged. “And what’d you
tell him?”

“
Well, I couldn’t tell him
the truth, now could I? I told him you’d given me a licking because
I’d been wandering out in the woods by myself, and he said he
guessed it didn’t take, and he set about rectifying the
situation.”

Her father was now about apoplectic.
“What happened then?” he wheezed out, barely, grabbing a gulp of
the wine he’d swore he wouldn’t touch.

“
Well, I was reaching for
my knife–”

The other three gasped yet again.
“Reaching for your knife?”

Amber nodded. “Yes, the one I pulled
on him when he came up on me on the woods all of a sudden.
Remember, I said I hadn’t noticed him, so I had no idea he was
behind me. He could have been anyone, and I always carry a
knife.”

“
Mother Mary and Joseph!”
her father exclaimed, crossing himself.

It was at that moment that the man
himself burst into the small room, filling it with his presence.
Three of the people that had been sitting with her at their table,
such as it was, dropped immediately to their knees in front of him,
but Amber simply rose and curtsied instead.

Piers took the two steps necessary to
grab a fistful of her hair and yank her head back, saying, “Hoyden,
what have you done with Fitzwilliam?”

“
Nothing, Sir. He left as
soon as we arrived here,” Amber answered truthfully, afraid for one
of the first times in her life, but trying desperately not to show
it.

“
He has not arrived back
at camp, and no one has seen him. Are you sure he came to no harm?”
In truth, Piers had come to the end of his rope. The woods were
thick with underbrush, tiny sheep trails, half broken down and
ancient rock walls, and paths, and he had half a mind that he knew
what had happened to the man had nothing to do with his bad sense
of direction, so he came right to who he thought might have been
the source of the problem, intending that she would be the one to
clean it up for him.

Her father piped up, his voice several
octaves higher than usual. “I beg you, my lord, no one here would
hurt your man. He was fine when he left us.”

“
I’m not sure that no one
here would wish him harm,” Piers responded, looking directly at
Amber. He shoved her ahead of him, out the door. “You’re going to
help us find him, and you’d better pray, for your sake, that he’s
alive.” He, for one, didn’t want to have to explain to the lad’s
father that he had died while under his care.

There had been very few times in
Amber’s life that she’d regretted anything she’d done, but this was
one of them. Perhaps taking Fitzwilliam straight to her home, since
this was obviously unfamiliar territory to him, might have been the
more judicious thing to do. But she squared her shoulders, laced on
a pair of knee length boots, grabbed a belt packed with useful
items that she laced about her waist, as well as a satchel full of
other medicinal items, just in case, and set out well ahead of the
man who had commandeered her and the small cadre of men who had
followed him there, leading the way into the woods from whence they
had come.

She tracked him easily, spotting the
times he’d turned around and back tracked on himself, fallen into
the stream, grasped a rash inducing plant, had an encounter with a
badger—which the badger had apparently won—and discovered him,
shivering, exhausted and bleeding, huddled in a hollow near a small
bog she often went to collect its soothing mud, which she
immediately used to help his itchy rash.

Amber ordered his men around like she
was the commander instead of him. They looked to him at first, and
after his initial nod, they obeyed her without question. She had
several of the larger ones set up a perimeter guard, just in case,
putting the smaller ones, with torches, close to her so that she
could treat the unfortunate Fitz, which she did with compassion and
alacrity, pronouncing him fit, if not the best of woods
scouts.

Piers had been amused to notice that
she’d kept him in the middle of it all, well guarded and close to
her. He’d wondered if that had been by accident, but he was
beginning to think that little this maid did was by
accident.

Piers clapped Fitz on the shoulder.
“Take him home, lads.” Home was relative—a small camp nearby, until
they moved into their temporary quarters while the castle was
built.

“
Wait!” She knelt by the
bog and filled a small skin with a generous amount of the muck,
handing it to him with what he thought was a small smile, but it
was so fleeting it might not have been. “Apply this as often as you
need to control the itching. But don’t wash it off until all of the
itching has gone.”

Fitz smiled shyly down at her, gawky,
awkward boy that he was. He’d taken a shine to her, Piers could
see, and she needn’t have any worries that he was going to wash
anything off himself, much less something that was there to help
him. That boy probably hadn’t seen a bath since he’d left his
mother’s apron strings to come to court when he was six.

They were off, and she was alone with
him. Again.

“
It’s a good thing you’re
a good tracker and you’ve an excellent hand with potions, Amber. It
wouldn’t have gone well if we hadn’t been able to find Mr.
Fitzwilliam.”

Amber shrugged. It was of little
consequence to her whether or not a Norman soldier was lost, and
she told him as much.

The look on his face, as well as his
tone, was sobering to the bone. “I realize that fact, my dear. But
what you don’t realize is who that man’s father is. Think of it
now, you’re obviously a smart wench. Fitzwilliam. Fitz. Son of.
William. He’s the king’s by-blow. You just found King William’s
bastard son.”

Amber sat down, right where she was,
not caring that her best tunic was getting filthy. She had
deliberately gotten the king’s son hopelessly lost in the
forest.

“
Tell me something,
Mademoiselle Cooper. What would you have done this afternoon, if I
had allowed you to reach your little knife this afternoon, while I
was spanking you?”

She tried not to let the surprise show
on her face, but knew she had lost that battle. “I would have done
something that I would have hoped would have stopped you from
beating me further.” She didn’t always do the right thing, but she
tried to tell the truth, as best she could.

Piers was impressed. If he had been in
her place, he would probably have made exactly the same move, not
that that was to be encouraged in a female. She certainly was an
unusual one. “My men told me that someone had raided their camp
last night and caused some general mischief, nothing too serious.
Stole some wine and let loose the horses, things like that.” As he
spoke, he wandered around her, like he was inspecting a slave at
the market. “Might you know anything about such things, Miss Amber
Cooper?”

“
Why ever might you think
something like that of me?” she asked, proud of the fact that her
nervousness wasn’t betrayed in her voice.

“
Because some of the
stirrups were cut with what was a small, short blade,” he answered,
easily wresting hers from where he remembered she kept it tucked in
her belt. “One just such as this.”

“
There are thousands like
this all over the British Isles, Sir. If you fancy mine, however,
you may keep it with my compliments.” She curtsied low to him,
again.

When she rose, he was smiling down at
her, in a way that set her teeth on edge, like a wolf, who had
spotted a particularly tasty dinner.

“
I like you, Amber. You’ve
a good head on your shoulders, for a woman, and an English one at
that.”

“
I like you, too, Sir,”
she answered, “for a man and a Norman.” Amber figured her words
were pretty much sealing her fate, as she said the word Norman in a
way that there was no doubt that she still considered him to be her
enemy, regardless of the outcome of the war, but that was all
right. She wasn’t at all sure she wanted to live in a world full of
Normans, anyway.

To her surprise, he merely threw back
that big, lion’s head of his and roared with laughter, then his
hand shot out and he grabbed her by her upper arm. “You’re coming
with me.”

They tramped through the woods for a
long time, much longer than she knew—although she could never admit
that she knew—it would take them to get to the place where his
soldiers had made camp.

“
Where are we
going?”

Piers didn’t deign to answer her, but
continued to walk. He was so much taller than she was, that one of
his strides equaled nearly three of hers. Amber was in superb
shape, but he was tiring her out without even trying. Eventually,
though, he saw how knackered she was becoming and relented, placing
two fingers to his lips and emitting an ear piercing whistle that
had his huge stallion racing to him through the trees.

Amber hadn’t had a chance to admire
the beast before, but she was thoroughly entranced now. He was a
fine piece of horseflesh, and she wished he was her own. She never
dreamed she’d have a chance to ride him, but soon found herself
atop the thing, if at a terribly awkward angle. He’d lifted her so
that she wasn’t astride or even side saddle in front of him or
behind. She was lying horizontal over the horse like he was going
to wallop her as they rode, with her bottom facing south and her
head facing north across the saddle!

Luckily, he kept his mount at a slow
pace, or she would have lost what little contents she’d had of her
evening meal, but that wasn’t the worst of it by far, because she
was naturally presenting him with a perfect target, which he was
not wont to resist in any way. So as the horse picked his way
delicately through the English countryside, she could hear the
echoes of her own punishment, for what she wasn’t quite sure,
ringing loud and true back to her own ears.

She only kicked her legs once. Piers
stopped the horse and took the very ends of the reins, hauled her
tunic up and flailed her bottom mercilessly with them. “Do not kick
this horse, Amber. The next time you do it, I’ll let my soldiers
each have a turn at spanking you themselves.”

Amber was stunned into instant
obedience at that threat.

She recognized the direction they were
going, but kept hoping they weren’t going to end up where she
thought they were going to. When he finally pulled the horse up
short, and a stable boy came out to cool him off and put him away,
they were where she’d feared: Fordwick Castle.