Free So Worthy My Love by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

to bury its point in a timber of the vaulted ceiling, there to quiver in fading throes. “Farewell, Squire,” he bade with a sweeping bow. “I leave a memento to remind you that I shall return. Gird your loins against that day, or flee and hope I cannot find you.”
    Edward lifted his eyes and seemed entranced by the glimmer of light sent abroad by the trembling blade. Slowly the movement died, and when heglanced about him, Edward realized his foe had departed.
    â€œAfter him!” he shouted, and glared about him when there was no immediate response to his command. “Would ye have the Queen think we’re all cowards ’cause o’ one man? She’ll have our heads if we make no attempt ta stop him.”
    The heavy table was laboriously cast aside, and the men, incongruously bedecked with varied sauces or coyly perched carcasses of roasted blackbird, struggled against each other to get to their feet. In priggish distaste they flung aside the sticky gobs and stumbled after Edward as he charged through the portal.
    When they stepped outside, a rattle of hooves drew their attention to the lane in front of the manse. Beneath a canopy of winter-bare limbs that swept upward from the trees growing alongside the road, they could see the dark figure of a man on the back of the black Friesian stallion.
    Edward cursed aloud as he watched the rapidly departing pair, then he turned to shout to those who stood around him, “Ta horse! Ta horse! We can’t let him escape!”

Chapter 3
    T HE SUFFOCATING CONFINEMENT of her cloth cocoon and the weight of the two men pressing the straw bundles down upon her created a hellish torment for Elise. The cord-bound drapery restricted her movements and held her arms pinned to her sides, but her mind ranged far afield, conjuring a multitude of evil deeds which might be done to her. The unknown dragged out her apprehensions until the low rumble of the wooden wheels rolling over the rutted lane seemed but a distant echo of her wildly thumping heart. Had she been the least bit prone to having fits of unbridled panic, she might have yielded to an upsurging compulsion to writhe and struggle against her bonds, but fear of what these brutish ruffians might do persuaded her to keep still and hold her peace, at least for the time being. It was little more than idiocy to provoke them while she was so vulnerable.
    Her ankle and her hip were pressed down hard against the boards beneath her where the mound of straw had thinned and offered little padding. With each jolt of the cart Elise suffered a twinge of pain in both areas. It was easy to surmise that even after a short journey she would be left bruised and aching.Persistently and by slow degrees she managed to wedge a hand beneath her to cushion her hip and discovered there an opening in the fold of the drape.
    Concentrating all her efforts, she wiggled her hand through and began to search the silken cord for the knot that held everything secure, then a distant drumming made her pause. She strained to listen until the sound grew more distinct, and her spirits soared as she recognized the pounding hoofbeats of a swiftly approaching steed. Someone was coming after them! Surely she would be rescued!
    Her heart took up a hopeful beat, and she hardly dared to breathe as she waited for the rider to overtake them, but alas, her expectations were cruelly dashed when a sharp jolt bespoke of the cart’s departure from the path. The rough conveyance jounced and lurched beneath her and, after several more heaving gyrations, finally came to a halt. The racing hooves clattered past, and a brief moment later another movement jiggled her crude bed as one of the men scrambled down, then everything grew still and quiet around them until the sounds of the night came stealing back. In the waiting hush a growing rumble arose in the distance. This time it became distinguishable as the thunderous advance of a dozen or more horses on the