“God’s wounds, I have never seen so many disgruntled faces,” Walter remarked as they rode slowly into the new camp about an hour after sunrise. “Did the light-skirts all run off yesterday, Eric?”
“With as much as they earn of a night with us?” Eric snorted. “Not likely.”
“Then what is wrong with Rothwell’s men?”
“You do not want to know.”
Walter frowned to see Eric shaking his head, yet grinning, but he was distracted and shouted to those near, “Hold tight! Lady Ella has seen her master.”
A brown blur came racing across the camp to leap onto Ranulf’s destrier. The huge horse did not even snort, used to this particular presence, though the other war-horses reared and snapped, and it took several moments to get them back under control. There were curses aplenty, but at last Ranulf was smiling, so no one cursed very loudly. And the creature who had caused the commotion was oblivious to it, settled now in her favored spot atop Ranulf’s wide shoulder, wrapped half around his neck.
“You were saying, Eric?” Ranulf said now from his position on Eric’s right.
“I was?”
“About Rothwell’s men?”
“Oh.” Eric was chagrined to have been caught ribbing Walter. Neither had known Ranulf had been listening to their exchange. “Mayhap you should talk to their master-at-arms. ’Tis doubtful you will believe it coming from me.”
“Do you tell me anyway.”
That tone was not one to argue with. “The way I understand it, had we been delayed just one day in taking the lady, we would have been fighting Rothwell’s men as well as hers.”
“How so?”
“Their one year of service with Rothwell ends today.”
“So?”
“So they do not mean to return to him. Had they been still at Clydon today, they would have offered their service to the lady.”
“And told her our plans?” Walter demanded, outraged.
“Aye. Apparently they hate Rothwell, but he had paid them in advance, so they could not leave his service. So until that service ended, they remained loyal to him.”
Walter whistled. “Incredible. A matter of a few hours made the difference in our success, because those louts clung to the very letter of their contract. That is carrying misplaced loyalty a bit far, especially when the lady would have been eternally grateful to them if they had joined her, and they must have known it.”
Eric nodded. “So there you have the reason for their sour faces this morn.”
“Did Master Scot tell you all this?” Ranulf asked.
“Aye.”
“Think you he will still approach the lady?”
Eric shook his head. “You have her now, so she is no longer in a position to hire anyone. They are only fourteen stronger than us, and our four knights even those odds. They might be stupid, but not that stupid.”
“Will they hire to us, then?” Walter asked.
“Aye, and gladly.”
“Then why were they willing to join the lady’s service?” Ranulf demanded.
Eric chuckled. “For revenge. They hate Rothwell enough that they do not want to see this good fortune come to him. But since that opportunity is lost, and well they know it, they will see to themselves now.”
Ranulf grunted, satisfied for now, but he would have to talk to the master-at-arms himself. “Farring Cross is not large enough to support them all, not with my own men, and I do not even have it yet. Mayhap I can use twenty…tell Master Scot I will work something out with him, to come to me after we make camp tonight. Right now, I needs unwrap the lady and listen to her screams and demands the while my patience lasts. We ride within the hour.”
“She will not remain ungagged for long,” Eric predicted as Ranulf turned about to head back toward the supply cart.
