I covered my face with my hands. Jean rose, pulled on his breeches, and disappeared through the watery exit before I dared uncover them.

Ever dutiful, I stepped back into the silk dress that had spent the night crumpled in a corner. It was heavy and damp and miserable.

I may well be slipping my own noose about me neck, I thought as I worked the strings. I left the whale-bone corset on the mossy rocks that dotted the floor of our cave and stepped out from behind the veil of water.

Jean’s voice drifted along the water. “Yes, both these white horses. Yours when we touch French soil.”

I tiptoed across the slippery river rocks and dared a peek into the clearing. There, stood Jean and the French ferryman. The pair of white horses that had come as a blessing from Father Gabriel snorted and stomped. Something wasn’t right.

The ferryman wrung his gray cap in his hands. Before he could answer Jean’s offer, two guardsmen wearing the crest of Dover Castle appeared behind them. I sucked in a gasp and, careful to be silent, sneaked back into the confines of my watery hiding place.

One of the two spoke in a haughty, nasal tone. “Where are you headed so early?”

The King’s men have found us.

I retreated to the far back of the cave, their voices lost in my haste. A prayer graced my lips as I squatted behind a rock. For a brief moment, I wondered if I could swim the Strait of Dover, should the need arise.

“Gown like the sky, springtime shy. Eyes like the sea, green as emeralds they be.”

My eyes flew open. One of the Dover soldiers hovered at the mouth of my cave. “You’re Lady Bridget.” He closed the space between us in deliberate steps.

Terror shimmered in my eyes and threatened to spill onto my cheeks as I watched, helpless, as he advanced.

“Please sir, you have me mistaken—”

His gloved hand smacked over my mouth, squelching my already soft voice. “Quiet you—you—you traitorous blasphemer!”

The taste of coppery blood dotted my tongue.

“You ran out on the King, your lord. Harlot.” He spat. “It is a pleasure to return you to your fate.”

With his hand clamped across my mouth, he started to call out to his companion. I heard him suck in a deep breath, but the only thing that passed over his tongue and out his mouth was a thin squeak.

His hand fell from my face as he slowly sank to his knees.

Jean darkened the opening of our waterfall hideaway. As quick as he’d jabbed it, he pulled back the silver dagger, edged in the Englishman’s lifeblood.

“Bridget, are you alright?”

I nodded and touched the corner of my mouth. Blood dotted my fingertips.

Jean sheathed his boot knife. “Where there is one, there is a hundred. We must make haste, my love.”

I took my husband’s outstretched hand and let him pull me from our honeymoon chamber. I tried not to look at the Englishman’s face as I stepped over his lifeless body and back out into the thin gray dawn. The other guardsman lay in a crumpled heap at the water’s edge, his red tunic made redder still by the pool of scarlet which grew beneath him.

The ferryman stood on the wooden boat, waiting. Hounds bayed in the distance. Something inside me flicked and, in that instant, and I knew that I was forever changed.

They’re coming.

Grasping the tunic of the man near the water, I strained against his weight and tried to drag him to the ferry. “We can dump them in the deep waters of the channel.”

“Darling,” Jean’s hand was light on my shoulder. “Let me.” Jean grasped the dead guardsman and hefted him easily into our waterfall oasis. “We cannot link these men to our ferryman. Or they will kill him, too.”

I glanced over to the man who was ready to carry us to freedom. He was feverishly kicking dirt over the pool of scarlet left by the King’s man. When he was satisfied, he humphed a triumphant sound. Then, scurrying about like a rodent, he grasped the reins of the two white horses and led them onto the wooden boat. His voice trembled in dawn’s early light. “If I am to take you across the channel to Calais, you must board. Now.”

†††

The wooden boat creaked as the ferryman ran it onto French soil. “Thank you God,” he murmured. A sheen of sweat glistened across his forehead in the midday rays.

“I believe he is more relieved than the pair of us.” Jean’s voice was a whisper across my skin.

“The pair of horses had been most nervous, I would say.” Relief washed over me like the frothy sea over the rocks. The King of England’s men and their bloodthirsty dogs sat safely on the far side of the sea. Their snapping barks had haunted me for miles into the open water.

Thank God I didn’t have to swim.

Jean stood and pulled the ferryman to his wobbly feet. “Tell me sir, I heard tale there are peace talks in Calais with English envoys. Am I right?”

The ferryman nodded. He wrung his hat in his trembling hands at his middle.

“Splendid. Now you must take us to him.”

The ferryman’s mouth closed and opened, as though he was on the brink of a fit. “To, whom m’lord? You cannot mean to His Majesty—”

“Yes.” Jean interrupted his blubbering and produced the jingling pouch of crowns from Father Gabriel. “Do be so kind as to lend us your horses and your time. Take us to Francis, my good man. Take us to the King of France.”

It’s Time

Calais, France

T

he castle loomed before us, ancient architecture upon ancient soil built upon hope. My hope.

I smoothed at my wild locks, acutely aware that I was entirely unfit to go before a king, even a French king. “I’d say this is fortuitous, King Francis just happening to be in Calais when we seek his assistance, again in Calais.”

Nerves rattled my words, but still they kept coming. “Never until this moment have I set eyes on French soil. It looks rather, well, English.”

Jean turned to me and tucked a lock of unruly hair behind my ear. The sound of the white horses’ hooves galloping down the rocky road, away from us, gave me pause.

“But our horses—” I protested.

Jean’s hand found mine. His palm was not the least bit sweaty, in stark contrast to mine. “Darling,” he began in shushed tones. “They are our horses no longer. Our Ferryman earned them and more. From here, you and I must walk. For should we wander to the castle on such fine steeds such as those, Francis’s men will no doubt watch us with even a warier eye.”

I followed his pointed glance down at our pitiable clothing. Jean spoke the truth. While his own garments didn’t need mending, they could certainly use a good wash. The blue silk gown I’d worn at Henry’s palace and on my mad dash through the Royal Forest was a complete disgrace. Ripped here and there, I would be better to wear servant’s rags than this royal disaster.

“It will be difficult enough to gain an audience with Francis,” Jean continued, “without giving them more reason to think us suspicious, especially since neither of us carry letters of recommendation from King Henry. Should we be successful and gain an audience...”

His words trailed off to the tune of crashing waves.