Page 45 of Arrows and Gems
“Even for me?” Cap asked, an amused tilt to his grin.
Jean-haut shook his head. “Fail to account for a giant’s height one time...”
“Only a giant compared to you,” Cap calmly replied. “My brother is taller.”
“That bean pole is taller than everyone,” Jean-haut snorted. “Doesn’t mean that you’re short.”
“I never said I was. The problem is that you—” Cap cut himself off, reining in his horse.
“What is it?”
He shushed his friend, straining his ears. Had he only imagined it? Or was that—
A grin spread across his face as the faint bleat reached him again. “We might not need that campsite, Jean-haut. I think we found her.”
~
Despite their eagerness to return, Cap and Jean-haut decided to make camp for the night and approach their target in the morning. They had confirmed she was there, but an older man had joined her for a meager supper.
Cap hoped she would be alone during the day. Also, if something went wrong, it would be easier to flee in the daylightthan after dark.
“Shh, my friend,” Cap whispered. He patted Farrell’s nose and finished tying the reins around a branch.
Jean-haut crouched nearby with his bow ready, peering through the underbrush. “Her friend just disappeared over the hill,” he said in a hushed voice. “She’s heading this way.”
Cap gave his horse one final pat, then pulled his strung bow from its place on his back. He nocked an arrow and moved slowly through the dry shrubs to join his friend.
They watched as the young blonde woman meandered toward them. She had a staff in her hand, but she held it loosely, letting it drag behind her. Occasionally, she made a careless swipe at one of her sheep. “Get along, you fool things. You’re supposed to be grazing the far side of the meadow this morning.”
Cap shook his head. What was Raoul thinking, sending her out here with no one closer than a man on the other side of the meadow? She and her sheep would be helpless if a wild animal showed up.
Or a couple of bandits.
“Halt!”
Drawing his bow and raising it in one smooth motion, Cap jumped out of the trees in front of her. She jerked back with a short scream, bringing the staff up in a pathetically weak position. How had this woman managed to best Daphne?
Jean-haut stepped out beside him, his bow trained on the traitor as well. “No sudden moves, please. And no loud noises if you value your life. You would be dead and the two of us gone before help arrived.”
“Who—who are you?” she stammered, eyes wide with fear. “I don’t have any money.”
“All we want is information,” Cap rasped in the lowered voice he used as Le Capuchon. “As long as you give us that, wewon’t hurt you.”
“Information?” she parroted. She gave a self-deprecating smile, but her lips trembled. “What information could I have? I’m just a shepherdess. I don’t know the secrets of the manor; they don’t even let me come in out of the cold.”
She was no worse off than Cap and his band, but he didn’t see the point in debating that. “The Lancée family doesn’t interest me. Princess Daphne does.”
A smirk twitched across her face. “Informed bandits, are you? Sorry, I doubt you can reuse my methods. She and her annoyingly observant nobleman will be extra careful from now on.”
Cap adjusted his position, pointing the arrow more clearly at her chest. He pulled the string a little farther back. “I don’t want to know how. I want to know why.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Why? So I could take her place, obviously.”
“You were working with someone,” Jean-haut barked. Her eyes widened as they jumped to him. For all his lack of height, he could be rather intimidating with his deep voice. “Who was it? And what did they want?”
“You’re an unusual pair of bandits, aren’t you?” she replied. Her forehead crinkled as she looked between them. “Why do you care?”
Cap took a step forward, looming over her with his greater height. He needed to keep her scared. “Answer the question.”
