Rhiannon gulped. “Lady . . . cousin? You said nothing about
her,
either.”
Maddy laughed gaily. “Some of their lady cousins have arrived today from Francia for the party. Let's along then, as the boys await!” Maddy jumped to her feet. She leaned and quickly whispered into Rhia's ear, “This other's older than us, and quite beautiful.”
If she'd had time, Rhia might have wept from despair. How
could
their plan proceed with all these girls come from Francia? Yet there was no going back now. It was set.
Maddy ran on, and moments later Rhia heard splashing that showed her to be crossing the river. Rhia and the other quickly stood and followed then, never wishing to be lost out here with it so dark and Maddy gone too far ahead to see.
The other girl outpaced Rhia, being longer legged. But at the water, she waited and the two of them made the dark crossing together hand-in-hand, as it's courteous to do when night makes even the shallow crossing of a river ford difficult. Neither spoke.
Then, following a flicker in the darkness that was Maddy's bright hair far ahead, they ran up the steep rise beyond the ford, and presently arrived atop Gallux Hump.
The black oak that crowned that execution spot spread wide arms against the night sky, as though it would snatch all comers and hold them to its woody breast forever.
Rhia wanted to hurry on past it, but the other girl suddenly halted beneath those dark branches and put her hand out to clutch Rhia's arm, hard, stopping her as well.
The moon had finally appeared a little above the tree line, and the girl stepped solemnly into its silver light, faced Rhia, and removed her mask.
“We stand upon the wretched hill where my father will soon hang,” said Beornia Gatt.
Rhiannon gasped and covered her mouth with her hands, but Beornia seemed not to care that she'd given such a shock. Indeed, she seemed not to notice.
“The obnoxious son of your friend Hilda Mopp is the
true
murderer,” Beornia leaned close to declare, quite heatedly. “And yet they will hang my father for it!”
“Come on, you two!” Maddy called from a distance.
Startled, Rhia jerked her gaze toward Maddy's voice and saw a spiral of murky light circling in the night sky. The brambly walls of Wythicopse Ring were completely invisible in the darkness, but servants from the manor must have been sent ahead to light the place, and the smoke and fireglow from torches set inside the stone walls formed a ghostly outline that hovered above the place. “We come!” Rhiannon called to Maddy.
Turning back to Beornia, she whispered urgently, “Just so you know, Hilda Mopp's
not
my friend. Mistress Mopp throws her gossip like a net over anyone nearby. I was stupidly entangled in her talk when you saw us at market the other day, though I'd have chewed my foot off to escape, had I been a hare or a red deer.”
At this, Beornia snorted a quick laugh, then smiled. “I believe you,” she said simply, then started to traipse forward again.
“Wait!” Rhiannon pleaded. “You've not told me why you're here!”
Beornia's eyes flashed. “The silly girls that work as maids for Lord Claredemont have spoke all week of this party. Oh, they whisper and giggle of how they've got such a great secret, but anyone who sidles up when they're at the water well can't help but get an earful. I sought invitation from the maid-of-all-poultry so that tonight I could appeal to the young squires attendant at the manor. They
must
hear my evidence and agree that the real murderer
is
Arnold Mopp, never my father! Then they will surely tell Lord Claredemont of it with all haste, and Father will go free.” She narrowed her eyes, then added, “It would be a most welcome thing to be paired with the earl's own son tonight, as he's bound to have the most direct influence. I can put my evidence right into his hands to pass along to his godsire, Lord Claredemont!”
“Evidence?” Rhia cleared her throat and struggled to get a good breath, for indeed, this was staggering information.
Arnold
the killer, and never the gang of reckless lords?
“Look!” Beornia pointed to where the darkness boiled as a party of riders rounded the manor walls at a full gallop. The young squires shouted to each other with high spirits and much laughter, reaching the confines of Wythicopse Ring, then riding around it at an unheard of speed. Rhia tried to count the torches they carried and thereby determine their number, but there were too many, and too much movement.
A small scream followed immediately by a louder shriek of high laughter told that Maddy had been snatched up as she got near the brambly walls to ride with that gang. And then they swerved and were barreling toward Beornia and Rhiannon, who only had time to exchange a wide-eyed look of panic before they, too, felt strong gloved hands beneath their arms and were painfully swung up to sit pillion behind their kidnappers.
“Stop!” Rhia screamed, for they still went at a gallop and had barely slowed to fetch her and Beornia. “I can't hold on!” Already she'd slid dangerously to one side, and would soon fall completely and be trampled by the beasts that followed close behind!
“Grab round my waist!” her horseman yelled impatiently back to her.
She had no choice, and once she'd done it she felt stable, though distressed at holding this stranger so. The pack took a fast circle around Gallux Hump, then headed straight back toward Wythicopse Ring again. Surely they'd slow, but nay, her horseman spurred them faster as they drew near!
There was one small breech where tumbled rock had shortened the height of the tall circular wall, and when they'd reached that spot, “Heigh ho, up and over!” the lead rider called, and all the steeds took to the air, nose to tail. Once those sailing steeds had landed one after the other inside Wythicopse Ring, they fell into a circle of the torchlit walls, gradually slowing.
Her horse had come down with a jolt like Rhia'd never felt in her life, and as all her insides settled back into some order or other, she wondered if she'd permanently scrambled them up. What would be the outcome if her heart had settled itself where, say, her gullet had dwelt? She looked for Beornia, and by the torchlight presently spotted her slumped behind her own kidnapper, holding his horse fast with her knees. She was wild-eyed, and Rhia knew from that how wild-eyed she herself must be.
“Some fun!” Maddy called out, but her laughter seemed hysterical. Presently, she slid from the horse she rode and signaled for the other girls to do the same, though none of the young squires had brought those steeds to a complete standstill.
Rhia watched Beornia slide from her moving horse. She stumbled a bit, but then regained her footing and stood whipping dust from her skirt. Well, Beornia had ridden before, no doubt, but Rhia had certainly not! To jump from such a distance to the ground seemed impossible, and twice impossible with the movement of the steed!
“Will . . . will you not please stop your horse?” she found nerve to lean forward and ask the squire she rode behind. “I'm . . . new at this.”
Without a word he brought the horse up short. “Dismount,” he told her abruptly.
Though Rhia wondered why he would not do her the small courtesy of dismounting himself and helping her to the ground, she felt all eyes upon her and wished the ordeal over at any cost, even that of a broken bone. She took a deep breath and dropped clumsily from the high steed, then staggered and fell to her knees before standing.
Meanwhile, the squire she'd rode behind had clucked to his horse, and it walked again in a circle with the others. From their exalted position above, all the horsemen were now doing a ride-around to openly scrutinize the three girls that had moved to the center of the ring and stood huddled there, back to back to back. Rhia counted and found there were seven riders upon seven horses. Where were the other ladies, the cousins come from Francia for this party?
“This is humiliating,” Beornia grumbled from behind her mask. “I like not being gawked at as though we be hens.”
“Don't take it serious,” Maddy hissed back. “It's just part of the game.” To the rider she'd sat behind, Maddy then called, quite gaily, “Frederique, are your lady friends from Francia to join us here presently, then?”
There was laughter from some of the squires, then one of them called down a rude quip of an answer. “Why would such as they come to
these
rough fields? We will divert ourselves here, then heigh home to greet those ladies after they've rested from their journey here and had supper.”
“
Divert
themselves?” Beornia murmured, tearing off her mask and staring at Maddy as though she'd like to melt her with the gaze. “And are we three, then, to be this . . .
diversion
?”
Maddy looked some shamefaced, but only whispered, “Pray, hold your voice down. I said I'd try to bring a date for each, but the other girls I spoke with were all too afeared to come to this place. And so I believe the younger four of these boys will ride home presently, though disappointed.”
“By the way, my cousin Blanche awaits you, Frederique,” one of the squires suddenly called across. “She tells me she nigh swooned with love when she got your letter.”
The tall and slouch-shouldered squire with the sharp black mustache that Maddy had rode behind was indeed her Frederique, then. Rhia noted the downward turn of his large, moony eyes, and the snide way he produced a slow smile from one side of his mouth at this tease from his mate. She noted as well that he did not bother to cast an apologetic eye toward Maddy, who had certainly heard this reference to another lady.
The squires on each side of Frederique snickered.
Then the one across the circle that Rhia'd rode behind threw back his glossy curls and laughed, drawing all eyes his way. “Back to the here and now, boys,” he called out, stroking his yellow beard to a point just beneath his sharp chin. “Let's choose. I'll gladly have the drunken one. Though young, she'll yield her kisses easily in such a state.”
Rhia was mortified, for it was clear that his eyes were fastened upon
her
!
“I assure you, sir, I am not drunken, nor have I ever been!” she called to him, made bold by her chagrin. “I stumbled in my dismount because I'd never attempted it before. I dislike the idea of kissing, as well, having never before attempted
that
in my life, either.”
All seven of the squires laughed robustly at that, even the four so young they had no beard upon their faces.
“Never fear your clumsiness in that arena, pretty wench,” this brazen squire called right back, “as I stand ready and able to teach you kisses and
more
!”
Rhia was near tears and wished with all her heart she'd never consented to this come-along. Misery was her name, twice misery. Once because of her shame, and again because of her dread. This was not going at all like she'd imagined it, and could only end in disaster with no good done on Jim's behalf. Even Maddy was distressed at the rude turn of things. You could see it in her harrowed eyes and in her shrill laugh. For all her bluffing ways, Maddy was certainly in over her head and near as frightened as Rhia.
And still those riders circled, circled with firelight glinting in their eyes, grinning as though they were indeed hunters and Maddy, Beornia, and Rhia were quarried foxes with all hope gone of mercy or escape.
Chapter 26
Suddenly, Beornia muttered, “Well, I guess I've heard plenty.” Before Rhia could so much as turn her direction, Beornia had run to stand right in the path of the circling horses, waving her arms!
“Sirs, desist!” she called up to the boys, who looked down at her with expressions of some amusement. They left their reins slack, letting their horses decide whether to take the trouble of swerving round her. “Sirs, I say!” she called again. “
Listen
to me!”
As they showed no signs of doing that, Beornia then pulled back the hood that had contained her bright hair and obscured her face. She crossed her fair arms and stood straight-backed and firm upon her two long legs, glaring at the lot of them.
Probably more from surprise at her exceeding good looks than concern lest she'd be trampled, the riders halted their horses and looked down at her with lidded eyes and smirks upon their faces.
“Are you daft?”
The sullen and nasal inquiry had come from a squire with greasy hair and pocky skin whose wide girth set him apart from his well-formed mates. The others laughed as though that small, dry question had been some great witticism.
“Methinks she merely grows impatient for your touch, Roderick,” one drawled.
Roderick the Paunchy Whiner, Frederique the Handsome, Leonard the Rough and Tumble.
Rhia now knew them apart, though that little knowledge was small comfort.
Beornia's hair blew wild in the breeze. “I'm a widow, no young girl,” she called up to them. “And I inform you that these games are childish, and unworthy! Now, I believe Lord Claredemont will welcome some information on the recent murder in these parts, and I've come here for the one reason of giving it to you so's that you may give it to him with all haste! Listen closely, if you please, so that Rhiannon and I may get this done with and be on our way home.”
Maddy dropped her head to her hands, but no one else moved a twitch, though some of the squires now sat slack-mouthed, squinting with confusion at this development.
“Here it is, then,” Beornia continued heartily. “The man found knifed to death at the foot of Clodaghcombe Forest last week was killed by a local boy named Arnold Mopp! I carry the purse that Arnold took from the body. He bragged to me of the coin he had!” Beornia threw open her cloak and pulled forth a leather purse she'd folded into her waistband. “Arnold spent the coin, but I took this empty purse direct from the pig shed, where Arnold had hid it amongst some acorns kept for feed. Now you may take it to Lord Claredemont and tell him what I've told you. He'll doubtless be grateful to you for putting the
true
murderer in reach of the capable hands of his gaoler, Guy Dryer.”