A longer chapter for you! Next one on Monday.

R&R!

Anastasia had to wrap her arms around her captor to keep from being jolted down the horse's rump, her body pressed against his for support as they moved across uneven ground. She considered throwing herself from the horse, but she was bound to the man, and she would only risk breaking her own arms. Her cheekbone throbbed where he had struck her—if she had only been able to stab him in the unprotected face, she might even now be free!

Free to fight more of the Earl of Greyholm's men. To hide behind her castle walls and hope to wait him out, while he ravaged her fields and killed her people….

Was there no way out?

She was far too aware the knives in his belt, mere inches from her bound hands, but she had no chance of overpowering him to use them. Could she choke him, and then run away? Not with her arms so securely under his, and not with the escort that surrounded him.

Finally, Anastasia surrendered the exhaustion that terror had been keeping at bay. With no strength left to resist, she let her head fall forward to rest against the man's broad back as they moved jerkily though the forest, aware only of the sway of the horse beneath her and fitz Grey's strong movements that spoke of contained danger. How much longer did she have to live? A few hours, a few days? She prayed that the end would come swiftly; Greyholm's son would be capable of anything.

Anastasia did not know how long they rode, but the sky was beginning to darken when they reached the highway. Soon, forest gave way to fields, and they started to encounter other people on the road-soldiers bearing Greyholm's colors and a few frightened peasants who scurried into the hedges when they rode into sight. By the time the village appeared around a bend in the road, she was dizzy with fatigue.

The village was Woodmere, she realized as they approached. She had visited many times on the rounds of Astlingsmead's manors. It squatted in the midst of its three great fields, familiar yet strange.

Though the cottages still clustered around the green in a state of suspended collapse, as they always had, now Greyholm's scarlet-clad men patrolled a rough line of wooden spikes across the edge of the village facing the road, and Anastasia could see no signs of the villagers. The road guard bowed and called out a greeting at their approach, but she did not have any attention to spare for that exchange or for the series of orders fitz Grey issued to his men before turning his mount away.

Instead, her mind buzzed with questions that made the sickness in her belly turn to sharp nausea. Where were her people? What had fitz Grey's men done with them?

What was he planning to do with her?

As they approached the manor house, a chill went through her. She remembered the structure as a friendly, welcoming landmark, but now the gray stone hall was cold and forbidding, crouched on the hill above the village like a lion among the rocks.

As soon as fitz Grey pulled to a stop, two pages scurried from the shadowed hall door to take his reins. He lifted her bound arms over his head, unhooking them from around him, and then he swung off his horse with easy strength, without need for the page who respectfully held his stirrup.

A thrill of hope shot through Anastasia's fogged mind. Her hands were still bound, but she was alone of the horse now. If she could just get the reins somehow—

But it was too late. Already, fitz Grey's broad hands were encircling her waist. For the space of a breath, she hung suspended between horseback and ground. Her eyes met his, and she read something in those starling gray depths that she couldn't name but that sent shivers to her core. Not the simple contempt or lust she had expected, but something muddled, mixed, that was almost more frightening.

Then his eyes shuttered over, and he eased her the last foot to the hard-packed turf, turning away in the same movement and striding towards the black entrance of the manor hall.

Her wrist caught in his grip, Anastasia stumbled after, the seized-up muscles of her legs hardly managing to fling themselves under her as she was pulled along. In the smoky interior of the great hall, she caught an impression of many armed men settling down in the timbered aisles on either side of the wide nave. Many men with many pairs of eyes, all of which followed her progress in their lord's wake. Her heart raced as she felt a cold sweat prickle the back of her neck, and the gorge rose in her throat.

"My lord!" one of them called. "Sir Bartholomew wishes to know what's to be done with the prisoners."

"Later," fitz Grey replied curtly. "After I've bathed and had a decent meal in my belly."

"Yes, lord."

Then they were at the stairs at the far end of the hall, and fitz Grey continued up them without slowing. His long legs easily took the steps two at a time, but Anastasia's were shorter, her muscles numb and clumsy. She tripped on the fourth step and went down heavily with a jangle of mail, gasping as she struck her hip against the edge of a tread.

Still holding her wrist in his grasp, fitz Grey turned around. His gray eyes were dark and glowering, and suddenly her courage gave way all at once, and she didn't know whether she wanted to weep or vomit. She curled her legs up under her, closed her eyes against the pricking tears, and swallowed hard, bracing herself for what would come next—what she had known was coming since the moment fitz Grey had sent her sprawling on the forest floor.

But no fists came flying at her body; no hands ripped at her clothes. Instead, the pressure on her arm abruptly ceased. She was scooped up like a child, her face pressed momentarily against the warm, earth-smelling wool of his sleeve.

Her eyes flew open, but fitz Grey's gaze was fixed beyond her, at the top of the stairs he that carried her up so gently, almost tenderly. His handsomeness struck her again, his features firm without being harsh, his solid chin balanced by a wide forehead and an aristocratic nose. She could feel the warmth of his flesh through the layers of armor and cloth that separated them, it occurred to her for the first time that fitz Grey, whatever else he might be, was truly a man of flesh and blood.

Perhaps he wasn't a devil in human form. Perhaps he was just a man, however comely. And if he turned away from right, it would be a man's evil and a man's malice she faced, no more, and however powerful that corruption might be, there was a chance that it was not untainted by purer motives.

But just as a faint hope was beginning to return, fitz Grey reached the top of the stairs and kicked open the door there, revealing the bailiff's bedchamber inside. Under any other circumstances, the room would have seemed airy, even cheerful, but now the hulking massiveness of the bed seemed to fill the space, crowding out light and breath.

No! Panic surged up her throat, choking her. She thrashed against her captor's arms, her bound wrists catching him in the nose as she twisted in his arms. But the arms that held her only tightened like metal bands.

"Easy, now!" he murmured as if he were calming a skittish horse.

It was useless. Anastasia's heart wrenched. Ceasing her efforts all at once, she went limp in his arms. Fitz Grey crossed to the bed and set her gently upon it, looking assessingly at her with his cold eyes.

Anastasia jerked away the second he released her. Scrambling backwards across the bed, she wedged herself in the corner between the high headboard and the wall, hugging her legs to her chest with her still-bound wrists. Strong, she told herself as she fought back hysteria. I am a le Steele, and I will be strong.

When fitz Grey drew his knife, she could not stifle her gasp. But he merely reached out and took her shaking wrists with his free hand, neatly slicing the strips of linen that tied them together. Anastasia hissed involuntarily as blood rushed back into her hands and looked up into his clear gaze.

Free! The thought was a saving breath of air. But free for what? Anastasia let her gaze slide sideways, and for the first time, she took in the rest of the room. A small table with two stools, a steaming half-cask of water beside it. Wall hangings, embroidered with stiff agricultural figures, a tiny reliquary, and four rushlights on shelves around the perimeter of the room. The door they had entered, still open but the manor entrance guarded by half of fitz Grey's knights. And a window, shutters open to the evening breeze.

The window. She pictured the drop, a good three spear-lengths onto packed dirt. Death or crippling were almost assured. But she had already tried a clean death once to avoid a worse fate; she could do it again. Whispers of stories from the last Crusades echoed in her mind, of women on both sides raped until they died, their broken bodies bleeding out inside their own skins. Anything but that.

She drew her legs underneath her as fitz Grey turned away to shut the door, exhausted muscles protesting the coiled tension she placed them under. He moved one step from the bed, then two, three—

She lunged off the bed as his hand touched the door and flung herself at the window. Her hip fetched up against the sill, arresting her motion. Putting her hands against the rough limestone of the outer wall, she braced to push herself through.

But a rough hand grabbed the back of her gunna and hauled against her efforts. She clawed at the window frame, her breath sobbing in her throat, but to no avail. With a yank, fitz Grey wrenched her free, and she tumbled back into the room.

"'Sblood, woman! You are mad!" the man spat, pulling her up and pinning her against the wall with his broad body.

Panting with exertion, she summoned the shreds of her courage and glared back. She had lost her cap, and now her braids tumbled free down the front of her gunna. But she ignored them.

"Not mad," she returned. "Only far too able to foresee my fate."

An indecipherable expression on his hard-planed face, fitz Grey shook his head and stepped back. With space between them again, she was aware of how painfully her hands still tingled. She chafed them surreptitiously under the cover of her wide sleeves.

"A veritable sibyl, that you can foresee what I have yet to determine." He pulled off his iron skullcap and shoved back the mail coif beneath, which slithered jingling to lie against his back, revealing more of his broad jaw. "That is a decision for another time, though. Now, I wish to get clean before I speak with my knights, and this foolishness is giving the water time to cool." He treated her with a quelling look. "Do not go near the window unless you wish to be tied up again."

Mutely, Anastasia backed farther into the corner, away from both him and the window. With a nod of satisfaction, fitz Grey went over to face her across the steaming half-cask of water. He stripped off his glove—he was only wearing one, she realized—and unbuckled his sword belt, laying it down carefully before he shrugged out of his surcoat in one fluid movement.

Then he paused. For one long moment, he just stared at Anastasia, his face unreadable, before sighing and tossing his clothes onto a stool.

"Clean yourself first, my lady," he said gruffly. "I'll not leave you alone, so you will have to do it with me or a guard here, and I trust myself more than my men." Before she had a chance to analyze that, he added, "Get started now, as I'd like the water to still be hot when it is my turn."

"Thank you," she said a bit numbly.

He grabbed the other stool and stepped away from the half cask, his mail hauberk jangling without the muffling weight of the surcoat over it, and Anastasia warily circled around him to the tub. Taking his sword belt and both their daggers with him, he set the stool under the window and sat on it, leaning against the sill.

Anastasia gripped the neckline of her gunna in both hands, her blood thrumming through her veins.

"Well?" the man asked impatiently.

"Turn your back," she managed. "Please. Sir knight."

"As you wish. Lady Cynewise." Fitz Grey scooted the stool away from the wall and swiveled around so that he was looking out of the window she had so nearly thrown herself from.

Anastasia suppressed a small tremor of fear. Perhaps it was not so wise to pretend to be one of her own ladies, for without her rank, she would have little claim to respect or protection. But if he decided to believe her, she would also have little value as a tool, and that was the greatest danger. Wasn't it?

"Thank you," she said. She waited for a moment to see if he was planning to catch her unawares, but he showed no signs of stirring.

What would he do if I refuse to cooperate?she wondered. She considered his form, only the slightest outline of his strong face visible as he kept his gaze politely fixed out the window. Probably strip me and bathe me himself, she decided, taking care not to examine the rush of emotions that came with that thought.

She pulled off the bandolier that still held the shattered remains of her quiver and stripped off her heavy necklace and the brooch that kept her mantle in place. She tugged off her gloves and the heavy rings beneath and unfastened her belt, dropping everything in a pile at her feet.

Keeping her eyes fixed on fitz Grey's broad back, she pulled off her gunna, then eased the long hauberk over her head, stifling curses as the links caught at her hair. Finally, she was free of it, and the padded wool gambeson followed quickly.

After that, it took only moments before kirtle and chemise, shoes and stockings followed the rest. They were all filthy, damp with mud and sweat and even traces of blood from the dozens of scratches from briers that had gone through her stocking during her flight or caught her unprotected neck and face.

"So how exactly did you come to be chosen to masquerade for the baroness, Lady Cynewise?" fitz Grey asked without preamble. His voice was soft, almost gentle, but Anastasia's nerves thrummed with it.

"My lady asked for one of us to volunteer. And I did." Anastasia tried to pour all her sincerity into those words, but she could not tell what effect they had.

"It seems cowardly to me that your lady would send you into danger while keeping herself safe," he mused.

Anastasia frowned and began to scrub her arms and chest with the cake of soap that lay waiting on the table. It burned in the scratches on her neck, but the sweat was quickly washes away. "If you are an honorable man, I am in no danger. My lady feared that there might be just such an attempt upon her that occurred, and so she thought that discretion was wise."

"And your father allowed this? And your brothers? They must love Lady Steele greatly, to risk their own daughter and sister."

Those words stung more than the soap in her scratches, old, festering wounds unwrapped and prodded, and for a moment, she forgot her fear in a wash of anger. "I have no family. Your father murdered all that I had left after my mother died. I had hoped to be revenged on the house of fitz Grey this day, but the arrow meant for your throat found another's."

Fitz Grey's head snapped around at those words, and Anastasia's hands were scant protection from his burning gaze.

"My squire," fitz Grey said slowly. "You killed young Giles."

"And the knight of the blue lion and two of your horse sergeants," Anastasia said recklessly. "Astlingmead has never done you any harm, yet you invade our lands, trample our crops, slaughter our people. They deserved no mercy, none of them. Shall you now kill me for defending my land? Strike me down here, a woman unarmed?"

Fitz Grey stood up, closing the distance between them in three slow steps. Anastasia's heart skittered out of control, her arms tightening convulsively around her body. She was defenseless, utterly defenseless. In her moment of fury, she had hoped to provoke him into killing her on the spot, saving her from a worse fate, but now she feared that she had made a terribly miscalculation.

The man took her chin in his hard fingers, tilting it up so that she looked at him squarely, and she tried not to flinch.

His words were cruel. "No. You have shown too much willingness. Therefore, my sentence is life. If I were a hard man, I would give you to the common soldiers. I have told you that I am a true knight. They make no such claims."

His body was close, too close to her naked one, his face mere inches from her own. It took all her strength to keep from allowing a betraying tremor of fear to come over her limbs.

Abruptly, his hand dropped, and he stepped away, throwing upon the great chest against the wall and flinging a clean chemise from it at her. She clutched it awkwardly against her breasts.

"Dress yourself," he said harshly. "I will bathe. Turn aside or not, as you choose, but do not go near the window or the door, or it will go poorly for you."

Anastasia took the garment the corner of the room farthest from the bed and dressed quickly, facing the wall. She hoped that Christian was not watching, but she imagined that she could feel his gaze crawling across her skin.

Not that he has not seen most of me already, she thought. He had not taken then, as he could have. As he could now, if he had a mind to it.

She stood, barefoot and wearing nothing but the thin linen chemise, wishing she had sturdier clothes, more layers to place between herself and the earl's son. But to delve into the chest for more clothes would require that she turn away from the wall, and the splashes from the tub told her that she would see far more than she was ready for if she turned around.

The sounds of washing ceased, and there was a faint rustling of cloth. "Perhaps you can be forgiven for the squire Giles, though he was a good man and true. It is war, after all."

"An unprovoked war, my lord!" she returned, against her best judgment. "My lord the Earl of Rothbourne might be a doddering old fool, but has done nothing to cause your animosity, nor have the le Steeles insulted you, and yet your father campaigns again Rothbourne and send you onto the field against me."

Fitz Grey's reply was cold. "My father believes that a greater might creates the right. I am his son and his vassal, and may not contradict him."

Anastasia did not bother to hide her outrage. "You serve a man who thumbs his nose at God and king, at laws both mortal and sacred!"

"I am faithful to my liege. This is my greatest duty. Do not doubt my loyalties, Lady Cynewise. You hardly can speak of honor-you who claim another woman's name. Your speech and manner proclaim you to be a lady of very high birth, and yet you mock me with your lies." She heard him stride across the floor. His hands seized her shoulders roughly as he spun her away from the wall to face him.

He wore only trewes and a shirt, and Anastasia could see the muscles of his arms moving under the thin linen as he loomed over her, pressing her into the corner. She felt suddenly dwarfed by his strength and anger.

"Until you confess to your true identity, you have no place to speak of honor," he grated. "And no position from which to insult mine."

"I am Lady Cynewise," she insisted, tilting her chin back in defiance.

Christian just snorted with contempt and turned away with a dismissive, shrugging motion of his shoulders.

There was a scratch on the door. Catching Anastasia's arm in his hard grip, Christian went to open it.

Anastasia started at the young woman who stood there—Catherine, the bailiff's youngest daughter. The young woman looked no less surprised.

"My lady!" the damsel burst out, her eyes going wide.

"Attend to your baroness," Christian said curtly.

"Yes, my lord," Catherine said, bobbing a curtsy even as Anastasia frantically shook her head.

Anastasia's heart felt like it had just been hollowed out. That was it. Her flimsy deception was over.

Christian just smiled down at her in her despair. She was too numb to even manage to stir up anger against him.

"Lady Steele is in danger of losing her eternal soul through self-harm, and so on pain of your death, she not to be let near the window, and her food shall be cut outside the room-in fact, give me your knife before you enter," he directed.

"Yes, my lord," the bailiff's daughter said, handing over her eating knife as she stepped through the door.

Fitz Grey shut the door again and released Anastasia, turning away to complete his dressing. Catherine went to the clothes press against the wall, opening the lid and digging through it until she came up with a long blue kirtle.

"Here, my lady," she said, offering it to Anastasia. "My mother's summer kirtle. We can lace it tightly."

Anastasia swallowed an outburst against the girl. She couldn't have known what she had done. Instead, she simply said, "Thank you, Lady Catherine," and allowed herself to be dressed like a doll, then say obediently on the stool to allow the damsel to loosen her long brown braids to brush and rearrange her hair.

Fitz Grey pulled on a clean surcoat and soft shoes, pausing at the door with his cap in his hand. Anastasia steadfastly refused to look at him.

"Have heart, Lady Steele," he said softly. "You will not come to harm in my power."

Lady Catherine paused in her brushing, looking from one to the other, but Anastasia did not raise her eyes from the floor or acknowledge his words in any way. After several moments of silence, he left.

A heavy blanket of exhaustion fell over Anastasia despite her gnawing fear. How long had it been since she had slept undisturbed through the night? The day that she had heard that Greyholm was marching against Rothbourne, her world had been turned into chaos. Anastasia rubbed her temples wearily as Lady Catherine braided her hair.

"I am sorry to see that you were taken, my lady," Catherine said quietly.

"So am I," Anastasia said. "Your family and the rest of the villagers—where are they?"

"My father and brothers are still with your men, as far as I know, my lady," Catherine said. "I was taken with my sister as we tried to ride for the castle with the miller's daughter. Many of the peasants who were not called to join the army are in the barn, but others are still hiding in the fields and forest."

"How have the Greyholm men dealt with you?" Anastasia asked. "Have you had sufficient food? Water? Have you suffered insults at their hands?"

"Thus far, we have largely been treated with dignity and Christian charity," Catherine said. "However, it has been made clear to us that our condition is valued as it reflects our worth as hostages, and that our future treatment will be tied to that position." She looked at Anastasia earnestly. "I am your loyal vassal, my lady, but please do not demand anything of me that would further threaten the welfare of my family."

The threats of reprisal should Anastasia succeed in killing herself took on a new, dark meaning. Even that avenue of escape had become but another trap—if not for her, than for her people.

As Catherine tied off the ends of Anastasia's braids, the guard on the other side of the door let in a servant entered with supper. The roast was already cut into small portions upon the trencher, served with a loaf of fine white bread and a flagon of good red wine. Anastasia took the wine but refused her portion of the food.

Lady Catherine looked at her with naked concern on her face. "My lady, you must eat if you are to keep up your strength."

"I have no need for strength anymore," Anastasia said. "What will the Greyholm creature do if I refuse? Force food down my throat? If he does, I shall gag myself, and throw it all up again."

But the doubt in Lady Catherine's face was echoed in Anastasia's heart.

Was there any resistance that she could offer her conqueror? She was not sure, but she must try.