Her face darkened, and Geoffrey knew only that he had to lighten it. Plague, he would not feel guilty about capturing her—it was she who had chosen to be a bandit war lord, and he who had chosen to be a royal knight! "Still," he said, "if Sir Hempen let your insult pass without punishment, he would have lost all power over his peasants. Did he not come again?"
"No, the King's shire-reeve came next, with a much larger force of men—in truth, half again as many as my band. My outlaws quailed at the news of their number, and would have faded into the forest leaves, had I not harangued them and shamed them and reminded them that this was their wood, and no man of the open lands could stand against them in it. They liked the sound of that, and took their stations where I bade them—though with my brothers keeping watch upon them, you may be sure. The shire-reeve rode in among the leaves, and walked out without his horse, as did all his men. Some chose to stay with us, under guise of having been captured and held hostage..."
"Holding peasant guardsmen hostage?" Geoffrey smiled at that. "Surely the shire-reeve saw that for the fiction it was!"
"No, I think he thought me so innocent as to actually expect him to offer a ransom for his men. When he did not, of course, I was able to keep them without his suspecting their treachery. So he left me a dozen of his men, and the rest of his band left us their armor and weapons, and five of their number dead. We buried them, though nowhere near the one of my men who died in the fight. My mother and sister led my officers in binding up the wounds of my men, then of theirs—I was enraged when I saw that the shire-reeve made no move toward tending his own wounded, and gave him a wound of his own for his pains, then forebade anyone to bind it for him. I relented at the last, when he had to set out walking, and knew he would have to come again, to recapture his arms, and his pride."
"You wanted to have them attack you!"
"Aye." She gave him a brittle smile. "To come against me here on my home ground, where I had the advantage of the terrain, and a great deal of cover. Finally young Count Laeg found he could not countenance this challenge to his power without losing respect and obedience among his own knights and squires, and surely among his peasants—so he led all his army against me, or almost all."
"With the shire-reeves and Sir Hempen among them."
"Oh, they led parties of knights themselves," she said softly. "That was a bloody battle indeed—ten of my band died, and twenty of his, with three times that number wounded. But when the fighting was done, it was Count Laeg who was chained and his men who were bound, and we who went back to his castle."
"This time," Geoffrey said softly, "you were prepared." Quicksilver nodded, gazing off into space, seeing the battle all over again. "We were ready, and his castellan was not—his mother, I should say; but he had left her only a dozen guards to hold the walls, never thinking that we might come upon her. Come we did though, and my brothers raised a howl of battle all about the walls and the gatehouse, firing flaming arrows and hurling rocks from small catapults, but never coming close enough for the guards to pour oil on them, or have a decent chance of striking them with the crossbows that were their only weapons."
"While you forced the postern," Geoffrey inferred. "Aye. We had brought a light skiff with us, and rowed across the moat to the little gate, a dozen of us, six men I trusted and six of my bodyguard ... five of whom still live—"
Geoffrey saw the tear in her eye, and pushed her past the remorse. "No battle can be won without risk," he said softly, "and to spare others from the grief and pain of a tyrannical lord is worth the gamble of a life."
"Aye." She lifted her head, giving it a shake. "'Twas nobly done! And while I ruled, the price bought good worth."
"There was no guard upon the gate?" Geoffrey pressed. "Aye, but he stood back and waited till we had chopped through it. Then he shot his arbalest, and one of my women died." Her face hardened. "'Twas wrong of me, I know, for he did no more than his duty—but I was afire with rage. He drew a battle-axe, but I feinted once; he swung, and I lunged, stabbing home. We kicked his dead body out of the way and ran in, lightfoot, staying against the walls, running silently in the darkness. The guards were too busy howling insults at my brothers and firing their crossbows at shadows to look down and see us. We came to the gatehouse undetected, but found the windlass guarded by a poor old lubber of a porter. He gibbered with fright when my sword touched his throat, and my women let the windlass go. The drawbridge fell down as my men cranked the portcullis up. Too late, the guards realized they had been invaded, and made the further mistake of charging against us, leaving my brothers free to lead all my men over the drawbridge and into the courtyard. There they fell upon the guardsmen from the rear, where they strove to wrest us out of the gatehouse—and we who had been the quarry suddenly became the hunters, falling upon them with steel and arrow. They were caught between two forces, and threw down their weapons with cries for mercy."
"Did you give it them?"
"Aye, for that time—though I held trials of the Count's men all that next day, finding who had beaten and despoiled the peasants and who had not. Two of those guards were hanged, along with five of the Count's army."
"Few enough, for the men of a tyrannical lord."
"Few indeed. The rest had friends among the villagers, and would not see them wronged—so they refrained from wronging others. Then I gave those who remained the choice of enlisting with me, or of exile. Most chose to stay; a score chose to go. I sent them with the Countess, and her son the new Count, to go where they wished. Then I entrenched myself in the castle and sent my brothers out and about the county, to put government to rights and see justice done. I cut the taxes in half and discharged corrupt magistrates—I knew them all by name, after all—and declared that no woman should be abused, most especially not by her husband, and that the workman was worthy of his hire."
"Your words have the sound of victory won, and enjoying its fruits," Geoffrey said, "but your tone is one of vigilance."
Quicksilver shrugged, her hands on her thighs, eyes downcast. "I have held myself, and my men, ready to fight any lord who may come against us—for I know that those born to rule will not abide an upstart squire's daughter to live without challenge. And, too, I had no knowledge of where the Countess had gone with her son."
"She went to Runnymede," Geoffrey said, "to Queen Catharine and King Tuan—and therefore no lord has come against you with his army, but only one knight, alone."
"One knight—who, Rumor says, is worth a whole army by himself," Quicksilver said bitterly. "If I had not been so chary of my outlaws' lives, and so wary of your magic, I would have tried the truth of that rumor."
"But it might have been true."
"It might," she said, though it pained her. "It might, and my band of rogues and stalwarts dead. No, better to gamble my own freedom than their lives. But it is still better to chance my own death than your attentions!" Her hand reached automatically for the sword that wasn't there, then clenched in frustration.
"Rest easy," Geoffrey told her. "I am not one who takes pleasure from a woman's pain, no more than you delight in the torments of those who have not hurt you."