Page 73 of Raven's Rise
“Goswin, you may have saved my life,” Angelet said. “You misdirected those men, who surely would have tried to kill Sir Rafe and hurt or kill me too. We didn’t know how we eluded them.”
Goswin stood up straighter. “I saved your life?”
“Quite likely. I am so grateful to both of you,” she said, pointedly to Rafe.
“Yes,” he agreed, with only a slight roll of his eyes. “Goswin seems to have helped…inadvertently.”
“I’m more help thanyou,” the boy said. “Look! There’s a crossroads ahead. I’m going to see.” He sprang up onto his pony’s back and rode ahead, to where his sharp eyes must have detected a crossing.
After Goswin charged off, Angelet smiled sweetly at Rafe. “Just think. If we hadn’t been detained for an extra day by the poor weather, the lad might have lost our trail entirely.”
“We should have ridden through the fog,” Rafe said. “What was I thinking?”
“I hope you were thinking that we’d have got lost if we rode in that mist,” she countered. “For myself, I am glad we stayed at the inn another day and night.” She emphasized the last word just a little, and saw Rafe’s lips quirk in a half-smile.
“Well, if it pleased you,” he said quietly, “then it was worth it.”
Rafe mounted up, and they quickened their pace to meet up with Goswin, who was waiting impatiently at the intersection of their road with another.
“Come on,” he said. “Which way do we go? East or west?”
Angelet saw what he meant. Though technically a crossroads, it was really a T, since the path to the south quickly petered out from a true road to a mere narrow footpath. A few miles ahead, due south, she saw a dark hill rising from the forest.
She turned to Rafe, expecting him to simply point left or right.
Instead, Rafe was staring at the hill with narrowed eyes. “God damn me.”
“Don’t swear in front of the boy,” Angelet said. “What’s the matter? Are we lost?”
“No. I know exactly where we are,” he said, exhaling heavily. “That’s the problem.”
“Why should that be a problem?”
“Because where we are is exactly where I don’t want to be.” Rafe’s voice grew louder as he spoke. He looked around the peaceful scene, as if expecting something terrible to be revealed.
“What’s around here?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he snapped. “No other roads, no towns, no easy way around those hills unless we go east and then we’ll spend days getting back to a proper road south. Damn.”
“What’s to the west?” Goswin asked. “The path looks well-traveled.”
“That’s a royal forest, then a few towns, and then Wales. We’re not going that way. How did we get here?” he added, to himself. “We came too far west.”
“Rafe?” Angelet asked, concerned.
“Just give me a moment,” he said in a distracted tone. “I need to think. There may be another road that leads away…”
He turned Philon around in a circle, scanning the forest. “Stay here.” Rafe rode for a few hundred yards along the path leading east.
Goswin edged closer to Angelet. “What’s he so angry about?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “He doesn’t like this part of the country.” She kept her gaze on Rafe, who’d turned about and was riding back to them, with a stormy expression.
Thus, she didn’t know why Goswin suddenly shouted in alarm, or why someone hit her hard in the chest, almost knocking her off her horse. She clutched at the reins to keep her place.
“What was that?” she gasped out.
No one answered.
