Free Knight and the Witch 02 - A Summer Bewitchment by Lindsay Townsend Page B

signaled that Tancred, Lady Astrid and their people had also read the streamers and were hurrying to meet whoever was coming.
    “Unless I am mistaken, the colors attached to the arrow are those of the Percivals,” Magnus said quietly. “It is a small troop, so they dare not attack.”
    Squinting her eyes into the fierce sun, Elfrida nodded. “They wish to parley, or have a spoken message to deliver. One or ’t’other, though I am not sure which.”
    Gripping his sword hilt, Magnus did not greatly care. “Now we shall have answers, at least . ” I shall get them at sword’s point, if need be.
    Slim and straight beside him, Elfrida sighed. “I doubt that we shall like them.”

Chapter 10
    The herald was a Percival. A bastard Percival, but Master Oswin knew his due. Once he had stepped down from his horse, the Lady Astrid and then the Lord Tancred should have greeted him. Instead a rough, hideously mangled country knight strode forward and growled in English, “Keep your men back. What terms from Silvester?”
    “You have no courtesy, sir!” Oswin flared. He gasped as a steel blade knocked against his shoulder and the rough knight spoke again, his words dropping like stones.
    “Do not talk to me of fine manners. Splendor in Christendom, man, you could have hit anyone with that loosed arrow! Worse, you fired at my wife. Do not dare tell me I should be pleased.”
    Oswin stared down the long sword point into a dark devil’s face and felt his bowels turn to water. His party had stopped on the road, leaving him exposed. Above his own ragged breathing, Oswin heard the scarred knight.
    “Speak to me of manners when your kindred act as true lords and save the lasses who have been taken. Now, what terms?”
    “We know where your lands and manor—” Faster than an adder, the sword lay against Oswin’s neck. The rest of his proud speech suffocated in his throat.
    “Never make threats that you cannot make good. I am a crusader who fought at Azaz. I have waded through blood.”
    Standing beside this towering, bestial figure, a plain-clothed wren of a girl stared through Oswin’s skull as if she knew his thoughts.
    “He does not come from Silvester,” she remarked in English. “Though he knows him.”
    She smiled and Oswin recognized how beautiful she was, with her sweet face and her long red hair. Despite his sweating terror, he felt soothed.
    “At your service,” he mumbled, conscious of the beast-knight’s sword still nibbling his neck.
    “Come, Master Oswin, can we not help each other?” Inviting a response, the girl lifted her delicate hands. “You are from…?”
    How does she know my name? “I am the herald of Sir Richard de Coucy.”
    The wench widened a pair of sparkling golden-brown eyes and, to please her, Oswin found himself adding, “My lord is the elder brother of the young lord Tancred.”
    “No brother of mine!” Tancred flung himself closer. “He wants Rowena! She was betrothed to me first!”
    “Family quarrels are always the worst,” remarked the ugly knight. It was impossible to tell if he smiled or scowled, but he lifted his sword from Oswin’s naked throat and sheathed it. “Say on, Tancred. This is useful.”
    Tancred said nothing. The young woman, meanwhile, glanced at Lady Astrid, giving Oswin the strange idea that she even knew that lady’s plans. He rubbed at his grazed neck.
    “My Lord Richard offers his manor as a place of parley,” he said quickly, before Tancred raised another complaint or the comely redhead beguiled him into a further confession.
    “Let your noble lord come here to Warren Bruer,” the louring knight answered. “We shall meet in the church. Let the families of the missing girls be summoned. Have the priest stand as surety for all.”
    “Will Father Jerome wish to do this, Magnus?” asked the young woman.
    “If he wants peace with me, he will,” came back the brusque response. “The fellow lied to us.”
    “By silence only,” said Lady Astrid,