The agreement

Chapter Seven

The stables were dark and deserted at this time of the night, the staple hands had sloped off to the warm castle kitchens, for tasty titbits and to flirt with laughing kitchen girls. Even with the chill of the falling night the building was pleasantly warm, the air full of the smell of hay and horseflesh. Only the gentle snorts of the animals could be heard over the muffled sounds of laughter coming from the great hall. No one had seen her slip away, Emma hoped. She had tried to be careful was sure that she had not spotted anyone following her.

She was nervous, her stomach tight with fear and worry. These meetings were the safest way of passing on the information she heard in the castle, some gleaned off Guy, but still she was bitterly afraid of getting caught. After all, helping a wolf's head, and enemy of the King, was no laughing matter and her rank wouldn't be that much protection.

Over the summer and autumn Emma had continued her traitorous agreement with Robin and his men. As she had expected, Percy had been only the first in an increasingly long line of potential suitors who had needed persuading that her fortune wasn't worth the cost of being gutted on the road to Nottingham.

If Vaisey was suspicious about her seemingly bad luck in attracting a husband, he hadn't said anything to her. If anything, she supposed, it was just confirming his attitude that she was far from an attractive catch - a half foreign oversized woman with a strange interest in personal hygiene and no useful family connections to speak of.

Whether he was suspicious or not, if she was found out it wasn't just her that she was concerned about. The young girl she had come to meet was in more danger. The daughter of one of the serfs from Wickham, Maude was small, not yet 10 years old, but she could slip in and out of the castle unseen and was as smart and cunning as any forest creature.

Pacing across the floor she heard Fury snicker and clamber ungracefully to his feet, almost as if he could sense her fear. Hearing a noise by the door, Emma ran fleet-footedly to the entrance.

"Maude, is that you?" she whispered, straining to see in the dark. Before she could cry out a gloved hand covered her mouth and she felt the cold sting of a blade against her throat. She was pressed up against the rough wooden wall of stables with nowhere to retreat.

The hand left her mouth; the blade enough of a deterrent to her trying to cry out and her assailant pushed her roughly into the deeper gloom of the stables. She gasped as she landed violently against the wall again, her back grazed by the roughly hewn timber. Her options were limited, should she try to make a run for it? No, who ever he was, he would probably have no problem with slitting her throat. He must have followed her out here. A desperate hope rose within her, maybe this had nothing to do with the meeting she was here for. That hope was short lived.

"How long have you been betraying me?" he hissed.

Guy. It was Guy. Emma let out an involuntary sob. The edge of the knife dug deeper into the soft flesh of her neck. She wished her could see his face, but in the gloom all she could make out was the shape of his head as he leaned into her and his familiar smell tang of leather.

"Answer me!" she heard whimpering like that of a lost child. With a shock she realised it had come from her.

"I..I never meant to betray you" she stammered hoarsely.

Guy let out a harsh laugh.

"Of course you didn't. You just accidentally told Robin and his friends where I would be, when I would be there, making a fool out of me to Nottingham. But, no....you never meant to betray me" he mocked, his breathe hot on her cheek. She could feel tears running down her face, scalding, burning into her reddened cheeks.