Gwenhwyfar_ The White Spirit - Mercedes Lackey [150]
She stared at him for a moment, then began to laugh. Because she could, all too easily, imagine Gildas doing just that, trusting in his god to keep him safe. And then she laughed even harder, because she knew now what had caused the commotion that allowed her escape. It had to have been Gildas pounding on the gate, demanding hospitality, which Medraut would not at all have been willing to give him—but which, he would have known, he had to.
Lancelin looked at her as if he was afraid she had gone mad until she explained why she was laughing. “He must have been the one that distracted everyone so I could get away.”
She sketched in something of what her captivity had been like, and her escape. She left out the part about being fairly sure Medraut had amused himself with her unconscious body until that palled on him. It would probably only make him angry, and in the long run . . .
In the long run, there isn’t much difference between how I feel about Arthur’s using me and how I feel about Medraut doing the same . . . Horrible . . . but true. Which was something Lancelin, who adored Arthur, did not need to know.
“It must have been Gildas, the brave fool.” He smiled a little. “I was a day or two behind him, he set off so suddenly, and I am ashamed to say, I stupidly assumed no one would attack someone as well armed and armored as I am.” He shook his head ruefully, and a lock of hair fell into his eyes. He brushed it away. “And then you came to the rescue . . . this is a rather inglorious end to the story.”
“I don’t think—” she began, then abandoned what she was going to say. “We should get away from here. There will be more of those men out looking, and some might come this way too.”
He nodded at her ruined gown. “Take what you need from them; I’ll get into my armor again.”
And there it was, exactly what she had wished for; her pick of trews, tunic, armor, sword, bow. Medraut was fastidious about his person and just as fastidious about the men that served him. The first man she’d downed had bled very little, for she hadn’t cut the major blood vessels. She took his armor and shirt, the trews from the first man Lancelin had killed, since he hadn’t voided himself when he died and they were unsoiled, and the boots from the last one, which were almost a fit. She made it all into a bundle rather than getting changed; when he looked at her askance, she raised an eyebrow. “I can ride in this, and it will take some time to cut myself out of it; I’d rather put more space between us and Medraut than stop to change.”
Without a pause, he nodded, mounted his horse, and offered her a hand. She used it to pull herself up behind him, settled herself over the bare rump of his horse, then put her arms around his waist tightly, so that he wouldn’t hesitate to get some speed from Idris. He nudged his horse into a canter, and they were off.
She became increasingly self-conscious as they rode—and conscious of him. The feel of his body under her hands, the smell of him—horse, and clean sweat, a little blood, and what smelled like rosemary in his hair. And she became aware that her body was responding to his in a way it had never responded to Arthur.
It’s the fighting, she scolded herself. I’ve heard the men talking about it. I’ve seen them afterwards, they can’t get to the camp whores quickly enough. It’s the fighting and the fear