The Conquest (Peregrine 2)

Zared was the first to hear the rider approaching. She knew what she had to do. She gave a low, piercing whistle to Severn as she ran for a nearby tree. Grabbing the lowest branch, she swung herself upward.

Sometimes it annoyed her that her brothers made her hide at the least sign of danger, but after her recent encounter with the Howards she was not about to be disobedient.

Zared was high off the ground by the time the rider came by, and she gave a look of disgust to see some fool of a lady tearing below her. She'd lost the reins to the horse and was hanging on for all she was worth. Zared would have climbed down, but she didn't dare until Severn had called that it was safe.

She looked through the branches at Severn and the men, swords drawn, ready to fight.

Severn was muddy from head to foot, but Zared could see the way he looked at the approaching woman. That idiotic look he wore could only mean that the woman was pretty. She rolled her eyes, thinking she'd probably be up in the tree all afternoon while Severn wooed the woman.

Zared watched without much interest as Severn ran straight at the horse. The horse reared, but Severn ducked the hooves to catch the reins.

"He'll be killed!"

Zared was so startled at the sudden voice from beneath her that she almost fell from her perch in the tree. Below her were three ladies and two men, all dressed in velvets and furs. She had been watching Severn so intently that she hadn't heard them approach, and she cursed her lack of wariness.

"What does it matter?" one of the men said. "He's only some farmer."

The other man turned. "His death will matter very much if…" He paused. "If my lady's gown is splattered with blood." They all laughed.

Before she thought, Zared slipped the knife from her boot and prepared to jump. Some tiny bit of common sense stayed her. She sat rigidly and glared down at the people, trying to see their faces and memorize them.

"Oh, look," one of the women said, "he has caught the reins. He's braver than any farmer I have seen. Do you think Lady Anne will reward him?"

Zared looked through the leaves to the woman on the horse, but her back was to her. Severn's face looked even stupider than it had a moment before, so she guessed this Lady Anne was quite something to look at. She wished her brother's face didn't have quite so much mud on it because, from the way Lady Anne was leaning away from him, she didn't seem to find Severn exactly appealing.

"Thank you," Zared heard Lady Anne say.

"It was a pleasure to save such a beautiful neck."

"Why, the insolent dog!" the man below said. "I'll teach him—"

"He doesn't look as though he'd take kindly to a whipping, and have you not noticed those four buffoons lurking in the trees?" the other man said.

Buffoons! Zared thought. She very much hoped the soft-spined men would face Severn on the tourney field the next day. They would find out he was no farmer!

"Come to me on the morrow at the tournament, and I will reward you," Lady Anne said.

"I shall

be there, and I shall collect my reward," Severn answered, eyes twinkling.

She reined her horse away, and Severn went back to his men. Lady Anne rode back to the people under the trees.

"Fine lot of help you are!" Anne snapped. "You left me unprotected with that… that…"

"He seemed much taken with you, my lady."

"I do believe he would have touched me if I had given him any encouragement." She shuddered. "As it is, I shall have to boil the reins to rid them of his touch."

"He did save you, my lady," one of the women said softly.

"I am aware of that!" Anne snapped. "And now I must reward him. What shall I give him?"

"A bath?" one of the men said, laughing.

Lady Anne did not laugh. "Perhaps, John, I should let you bathe him. You seem more fit for women's duties than for men's when you cannot help a lady in danger of falling to her death." She kicked her horse forward.

Zared stayed in the tree and stared after the people for a long while. So that was the Lady Anne, the woman who was to become her sister-in-law. She didn't seem very promising as a woman who would make the Peregrine lives easier, as Liana had done. In fact, the woman seemed like a real shrew, a mean, ill-tempered shrew.