“Three squires and two knights dead this day,” grumbled one man. “There will be a price to pay for that, mark my words.”
“Do not forget the maid. She was a fetching one,” a man said with regret.
“Aye, you always fancy the ones you cannot have,” said the other.
One pair of footsteps drew closer.
“Why would she come to this place? It is primitive and cold.”
“But no one would hear her cry in pleasure.”
“She will cry on this night, you may be certain. He will beat her black and blue.”
“He might give her to us.”
“Nay, not his legal wife.” The man’s voice brightened. “But maybe her other maid, as a lesson.”
“If so, Gaultier will take her first, and what he leaves will not be worth the sharing.”
Anna shuddered at the truth of that.
“I suppose I will have to go with the taxes now,” said one man without real pleasure. The other man murmured something and though Anna strained her ears, she could not discern his words. She lifted the lid of the granary with the top of her head, just slightly, so she could hear better.
One man laughed. “Aye, you are right. Whether it is Winchester or London, there will be more whores there than here.”
“What if we have to take it to Anjou?”
“You should be so lucky as to have a French whore for one night in your life.”
“Maybe I should seduce Lady Marie.”
“This is a gamble not worth the taking.” Their voices grew louder and Anna ducked lower, easing the lid down.
“What is this?” the man asked in closer proximity. “Someone climbed these stairs this day. Look at the dust!”
“Small footsteps,” agreed the other man. “Not the knight.”
“Maybe the lady thought to have him there.”
“Maybe she sought a fine bed.”
They laughed as one, even as Anna sat like a woman struck to stone. She scarce dared to breathe. She closed one hand around the cold pommel of Bartholomew’s sword, and prayed with all her heart that they not find her.
“What is up there, anyway?”
There was the creak of a boot on the stair, then the clatter of hoof beats. Anna heard the groan of a wagon’s wheels, then the sound of a body being cast into it.
“Well?” shouted a man outside the mill. “Is there another in here?”
“Aye, there is,” agreed one of the men in the mill and the pair of them departed. Anna closed her eyes in relief. When she heard the party ride away, she bent and kissed the pommel in gratitude.
Though she did not leave her hiding place until she heard Duncan’s voice an eternity later. “Lass?” he demanded in a hoarse whisper. “We can be away now, if you move with haste.”
Anna did not need a second invitation.
*
Marie was seething.
