Alyx thought it was better to keep her mouth shut because she knew Raine was going to win.
Now, holding onto him, she tried not to think of the future, of the time when they would no longer be equals.
A shout outside the tent made them start apart.
“What is it this time?” Raine growled. “Another robbery or another beating?”
There was a mob of people approaching the tent, all of them angry.
“We demand you find the robber,” said the leader. “No matter where we hide our things, they are taken.”
Rage swept through Alyx. “And what right do you have to make demands, you stupid oaf?” she yelled. “Since when is Lord Raine your protector? You should have gone to the gallows long ago.”
“Alyx,” Raine warned, clamping his hand onto her shoulder so hard she nearly fell. “Have you kept watch?” he asked the leader of the mob. “Have you hidden your goods?”
“Well!” he said, glancing hostilely toward Alyx. “Some of us have buried them. John here had his knife under his pillow and in the mornin’ it was gone.”
“Yet no one has seen this thief?” Raine asked.
Blanche stepped forward. “It must be someone small, someone light enough to slip about so easy.” Her eyes darted to Alyx.
The mob turned their malevolent glances toward the boy next to Raine.
“It would have to be someone fearless,” Blanche continued. “Someone who thought he was protected.”
Involuntarily, Alyx took a step backward, closer to Raine.
“Blanche,” Raine said quietly, “do you have someone you suspect? Get it out in the open.”
“No one for sure,” she said, loving the way everyone listened to her. “But I have me ideas.”
Alyx, regaining her courage, started to step forward, but Raine stopped her.
“We’ll catch the thief,” one of the men said, “and when we do, is he gonna be punished?”
Alyx was so stunned by the look of hate in the man’s eye that she didn’t really hear Raine’s answer. Somehow he was able to promise them enough that, grumbling, they finally dispersed.
“They hate me,” Alyx whispered as Raine pushed her into the tent. “Why would they hate me?”
“You hate them, Alyx,” Raine said. “They feel it even if you never say so. They think you put yourself above them.”
She thought she was used to Raine’s blunt way of speaking, but she was not prepared for this. “I don’t hate them.”
“They are people the same as you and me. We had the advantage of a family. Do you know the woman without a right hand? Maude? Her father cut off her hand when she was three so she’d get more money when she begged. She was a prostitute by the time she was ten. They are thieves and murderers, but it’s only what they’ve known.”
Alyx sat down heavily on a stool. “In these last months you’ve never mentioned this. Why?”
“It is your opinion. Each of us must do what we must.”
“Oh, Raine,” she cried, throwing her arms about his neck. “You are so good and kind, so noble. You seem to love everyone while I love no one.”
“A saint is what I am,” he agreed solemnly. “And my first act of sainthood is to declare my armor filthy and to deputize one scrawny angel to clean it.”
“Again? Raine, in the next letter could I ask your brother for a real squire?”
“Up, you lazy child,” he commanded, grabbing the pieces of steel, but as she stood at the door, loaded down, he gave her a fervent kiss. “To remember me by,” he whispered before pushing her outside.
At the stream, Jocelin met her, five rabbits on a string across his shoulder. They spoke only briefly before Joss went back to the camp. He was spending more and more time with Rosamund.