The light had been slanting long and golden through the trees, when the ambush came.
Jane's party had spent most of the day hunting through the thick woods, but they had finally found what they'd been looking for; a camp that appeared quite fresh, as though it had been abandoned – and hastily, at that – only a very short time ago.
They'd been right.
In fact, what they hadn't realized, as they'd dismounted and entered the clearing on foot to investigate further, was that the outlaws were still quite present; they'd only melted a short way back into the trees. They were assessing the "intruders" who had entered their home, and quietly reaching a conclusion of their own.
How very, very differently things might have turned out for all concerned, had the brigands simply decided to stay concealed among the trees and avoid confrontation – but they chose differently. The raiding party looked singularly unimpressive to them; only six people, after all, and one of them a woman at that! For heaven's sake, a woman!? The king thought so little of the threat they posed that he was sending girls to chase them down? Plain insulting was what it was.
No, it was not to be endured. They had decided to press the attack.
It was not a choice that worked out well for them.
OOOOO
That evening, back in the same clearing where Jane's party had made camp the night before, the three captured bandits had huddled together at the edge of the trees; cold, bound, and hungry. The five victorious men, on the other hand, were grouped around the campfire and enjoying much backslapping, laughter and bravado. All equals for the moment in their sense of victory and just plain relief, they'd passed the flask freely about, enjoying one another's company, reveling in their sense of accomplishment at a job well done.
The one victorious woman had sat apart, at the very edge of the fire's illumination, more in shadow than in light, positioned closer to the prisoners than her own compatriots. She'd been overwhelmed by the size of the fire and the heat of the flames – her comrades, in a surfeit of good spirits, had built it up almost obscenely high. She'd been overwhelmed by their boisterousness, by the sheer volume of their merrymaking – in fact, at that point she'd been overwhelmed by just about everything.
So she'd sat apart, hunched and miserable, her head bowed forward, arms wrapped protectively about herself. She'd accepted the plate of food handed her by one of the men, but had placed it carefully down beside herself without touching it.
If Gunther had glanced her way a few times, if her demeanor had caused him any unease, he'd done his very best to brush it off; sulking, yes, he'd told himself, but safe. That was what mattered. Safe. He wanted to kick himself when he thought about his behavior the previous night – of all the cataclysmically stupid times to go muddying the water with his declarations of love! He'd anticipated an engagement with the outlaws and he'd been right – and dear God, what had he been thinking the night before, going and doing something like that, running the risk of her being distracted at a crucial moment by his ridiculous, unsolicited, adolescent confessions?
He'd lain awake the entire night after his watch, sick with himself. But he had reestablished some distance that morning and now it was over and they were all right – she was all right. No thanks to him, but she was all right. Thank God.
If he'd only known. If he'd had any idea what had really happened in the outlaws' camp that day…..