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Chapter 5
Eolande pulled the bow back until the string was taught, and released. Without lowering the bow she watched as the arrow smacked into a tree with a satisfying thud.
“Richard Stone, that was your thigh.”
She strung another arrow and loosed again. The arrow planted itself about two feet higher than the first.
“Richard, that was your chest.”
With the third arrow she hit part of the tree where a small knot protruded just higher than the first arrow.
“Richard Stone, that was your balls and your tiny cock.”
She was about to place another arrow on her bow-string when she heard coming through the forest road the sound of horse hooves. She smiled to herself. Perhaps she could play at Robin Hood and waylay the traveller. It would be entertaining at least to hide behind a tree at the roadside and to pretend that she was an outlaw, so she picked up her arrows from where they were embedded in the ground and slung them in her leather quiver, and crouching, dashed to hide behind a mossy old oak tree.
She looked through the trees towards the road and could see a rider coming at a good canter towards her.
He would see Guin. She had left the white mare tethered in the open woodland on a long rope to let her graze whatever vegetation she could find worth eating under the broad branches of the oak forest. She seemed particularly fond of munching acorns even though they upset her stomach. But the horse was in plain line of sight if the rider cared to look to either side as he rode. And who wouldn’t look into the woods as they rode by? Eolande’s fantasy of outlaws was well based in truth. Gangs of robbers did indeed plague many woodlands and forests throughout the kingdom of England.
There was not time for her to run back and get the horse, so she watched through a bush next to the oak’s broad trunk as the rider came nearer. He appeared to look straight at her. He was bare-headed with close cropped but balding hair and wore an expensive looking burgundy-red riding cloak. And he was handsome in a dark, mysterious way. His skin was so brown that Eolande wondered whether he was a Moor, or at least Castilian. Perhaps one of the Duke of Lancaster’s Spanish retinue? And then she watched as his deep set eyes switched from side to side and almost immediately he was slowing his horse and then staring at Guin. Eolande looked over her shoulder. Her grey mare was in full sight of the rider, scratching her side luxuriously on a tree trunk.
“You teasing that man’s stallion, Guin?” she said to herself.
The man urged his own mount over the slight bank that bordered the lane and rode into the woodland. Letting it step lightly through the low undergrowth. He didn’t look towards Eolande’s hiding place. If he tried to steal Guin then he’d find an arrow through his side, thought Eolande.
The man dismounted and knotted his horse’s bridle around a tree branch. He then started walking slowly towards Guin. He is going to try to steal my horse, thought Eolande. She could feel her heart beat faster as she reached for her quiver. She fumbled to take out an arrow and then with a clatter dropped the quiver of arrows against the trunk of the oak and onto the ground. She didn’t think it made much of a sound, but by the time she looked up the man had apparently disappeared.
Her heart still beat hard underneath her leather jerkin and she could feel her lungs struggling to get enough air in. She gathered up her arrows and in a jerky, frantic motion had an arrow knocked onto the string. She stepped sideways out of her hiding place until she stood in full view and she began sweeping from side to side, her bow pulled almost to full extension as she did so, ready to loose at any moment.
