If his men believed she knew their secrets, there was no telling what they would do to her. The prospect turned her cold. They would never believe she knew nothing about the Red Fox after what she'd said at the tavern. They would want to know every detail of what she knew and where she'd heard it, and she had no answers to questions like that. She would probably be killed.
The big man deftly passed her into the hands of another while he mounted his horse, then reached down to catch under her armpits and swing her up in front of him. The other two men mounted and the three rode away from London, veering from the roads to ride through bramble and into the thick of trees.
The large man behind her kept one arm wrapped around her waist so her trussed wrists pressed against his hard-muscled belly. She knew he could feel her shaking helplessly, hear her breath rasping too quickly in her chest. His second hand crossed her chest to stroke up and down her arm in a gesture of comfort as it loosely held the reins.
“Shh,” he said in a deep, low voice spoken near her ear. “I meant what I said. No harm will come to you if you answer well.”
She twisted in her seat to look back at him. She couldn't tell whether he spoke the truth or not. He wore the blank expression she had seen at the tavern, with the same sharp eyes. His face was clean-shaven; she guessed it must be because no hair would grow on the side with the scars. She wondered briefly what had caused such scars on his face. They looked like burns.
They rode for more than an hour, and she had a feeling they were taking the precaution of riding in circles to be sure she couldn't track where they rode, though they needn't have worried—in the dark and the trees, she'd lost all sense of direction. She hadn't eaten since breakfast, so her belly was growling with hunger and her arms ached from being tied behind her. At last they arrived at what appeared to be a soldier's camp. She saw orderly rows of tents—mayhap thirty or forty—and scores of men sitting about, sharpening swords or talking in low voices. Every man stared at her with unmasked curiosity. She doubted they saw many women in camp. Or mayhap it was the most ordinary thing to drag a whore from London here to service the men. Her hands went clammy at the thought of a forced servitude to the troop.
Her captor handed her down to one of his cohorts and then dismounted. He untied her wrists and rubbed the chafed skin. She looked up at him, surprised at the kindness, and felt an electric jolt when their eyes met. His were a warm brown, with lashes that curled on his good eye. The eye on the side of his face that was ruined was smaller—scars narrowing the opening and preventing any lashes from growing. But it was not so much the eyes, as the man behind them that made her stare. A warm shiver ran through her.
“Come. You're hungry,” he said, holding the nape of her neck and leading her toward a fire. “Any food left?” he asked a page tending the fire.
“Aye, Sir Ferrum. How many bowls?”
“Four.”
The boy dished out four bowls of meat stew, and her captor handed her one. She drank down the broth quickly, then fished the meat and roots out with her fingers, since her captor—Sir Ferrum, as the page had called him—hadn't returned her eating knife.
“You were hungry,” he commented. “Do you require more?”
She shook her head. “No, but—” she hesitated. There was no dancing around it. “I have to pee,” she confessed. She was grateful he seemed completely unfazed by that. He led her to the wood's edge and leaned against a tree, watching her.
“I suppose it's too much to ask you to turn your back?”
“Aye.”
A flush of anger and embarrassment coursed through her, and she turned her back instead, before lifting her skirts to squat. She closed her eyes, trying to ignore the humiliation of it. She turned to face him when she finished, feeling her cheeks hot. His expression was unfathomable, but she thought she saw the smallest quirk of his lips. Straightening her skirts with an angry flounce, she marched forward to his side. He dropped a large hand on her shoulder and guided her to what appeared to be the main tent—it was bigger and centrally located. In it, a wiry knight with red-brown hair stood at a makeshift table, examining maps on parchment. He dropped them to study her when she entered. The way his eyes took her in gave her the lurching feeling he saw straight into her soul.