Blanche stepped forward. “It must be someone small, someone light enough to slip about so easy.” Her eyes darted to Alyx.
The mob turned their malevolent glances toward the boy next to Raine.
“It would have to be someone fearless,” Blanche continued. “Someone who thought he was protected.”
Involuntarily, Alyx took a step backward, closer to Raine.
“Blanche,” Raine said quietly, “do you have someone you suspect? Get it out in the open.”
“No one for sure,” she said, loving the way everyone listened to her. “But I have me ideas.”
Alyx, regaining her courage, started to step forward, but Raine stopped her.
“We’ll catch the thief,” one of the men said, “and when we do, is he gonna be punished?”
Alyx was so stunned by the look of hate in the man’s eye that she didn’t really hear Raine’s answer. Somehow he was able to promise them enough that, grumbling, they finally dispersed.
“They hate me,” Alyx whispered as Raine pushed her into the tent. “Why would they hate me?”
“You hate them, Alyx,” Raine said. “They feel it even if you never say so. They think you put yourself above them.”
She thought she was used to Raine’s blunt way of speaking, but she was not prepared for this. “I don’thatethem.”
“They are people the same as you and me. We had the advantage of a family. Do you know the woman without a right hand? Maude? Her father cut off her hand when she was three so she’d get more money when she begged. She was a prostitute by the time she was ten. They are thieves and murderers, but it’s only what they’ve known.”
Alyx sat down heavily on a stool. “In these last months you’ve never mentioned this. Why?”
“It is your opinion. Each of us must do what we must.”
“Oh, Raine,” she cried, throwing her arms about his neck. “You are so good and kind, so noble. You seem to love everyone while I love no one.”
“A saint is what I am,” he agreed solemnly. “And my first act of sainthood is to declare my armor filthy and to deputize one scrawny angel to clean it.”
“Again? Raine, in the next letter could I ask your brother for arealsquire?”
“Up, you lazy child,” he commanded, grabbing the pieces of steel, but as she stood at the door, loaded down, he gave her a fervent kiss. “To remember me by,” he whispered before pushing her outside.
At the stream, Jocelin met her, five rabbits on a string across his shoulder. They spoke only briefly before Joss went back to the camp. He was spending more and more time with Rosamund.
Alyx tried her best to put the incident of the robberies out of her mind. Surely the people would not believe Blanche’s insinuations.
Two seemingly uneventful days went by and then there was another robbery and again people looked at Alyx suspiciously. Blanche, Alyx thought. The woman had certainly been busy in the last few days.
Once, when she ladled herself a bowl of stew, someone jostled her and the hot broth burned her hand. It seemed to be an accident but she wasn’t sure. Another time she heard two men loudly discussing people who thought they were better than others.
On the fourth day, as she was walking on the training field, a sword accidently cut her arm. At Raine’s questioning, no one seemed to have had his hand on the sword, and when he made them all train an extra hour, they glowered at Alyx.
In the tent, Raine was quiet as he bound her wound.
“Say something!” she demanded.
“I don’t like this. I don’t like to see you hurt. Stay closer to me. Don’t leave my sight.”
She only nodded at him. Perhaps she had been too hostile to these people. Perhaps they did deserve some of her time. She didn’t know much about people really, only music. In Moreton she’d been popular because she gave people her music, but here they seemed to want something else. She knew Blanche was turning the people against her, but if she’d been kind over the last months Blanche wouldn’t have had such an easy job.
That evening she borrowed Raine’s lute and sat by the campfire and began to play. One by one, the people got up and left. For some reason this frightened her more than anything else.
For two days Alyx stayed close to Raine. The camp people now had someone to turn their hatred on, and they showed their feelings at every opportunity.
