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except for that bloodied sack he had attached to the saddle and which now swung beside the horse, banging occasionally into her foot. It had begun to smell and attract flies. It was also of a curiously squishy texture when it hit her toes. She had seen it yesterday and wondered what it contained. Today she found the courage to ask.
    "The head of someone who disagreed with me," came the reply.
    Instantly she moved her foot, disgusted. Well, that explained the stink and the dark blood seeping through the bottom of it. "Who?" she gasped.
    "Just a man."
    Grim now, she kept her face on the road ahead. Best not think about that then. "How far to that place...Canterbury?"
    "Another day or so." When he spoke his breath blew against her hair. Although she'd braided it again when she woke that morning she had not replaced her woolen scarf. Her new master said he liked to look at the color, but if they came upon a town she would have to cover it again for she could not risk being found by the Comte's men. She did not know if they still searched for her, but it seemed likely. The Comte was not a man who gave up his property easily. After all, he had chased her down twice before.
    " I fed and clothed you for five years , whore, " he'd hissed at her when she was dragged back to him the last time. " I invested time and training in you, whore. No one runs from me. No one."
    She liked Princesa better than "whore", she thought with a slight smile. Especially when Raul d'Anzeray growled it, like a wolf teasing her.
    "What is that mark on your body?" she asked. "By your cock? It looks like a lion."
    "It is the brand of d'Anzeray," he replied. "My brothers and I all have it. We decided when we were young that it would be our crest, the mark of our unity. Even if we are stripped of all that we have and left naked, we will be identified by it."
    She sighed wistfully. "I have no family to which I can belong."
    He said nothing.
    They came to a fast flowing river that, due to recent rains, had broken a wooden bridge and almost flooded its banks. Here he dismounted to lead the horse across. She began climbing down too, but he urged her to stay dry.
    "It will be safer for you on the horse," he said.
    As they crossed the treacherous water, he kept one hand on the horse's reins, another on her thigh to be sure she did not slip. Barefoot he trod through the dark, churning water and must have cut his soles on rocks below, but he never complained.
    Again that day he caught their food and cooked it. He didn't have to hunt this time, for several chickens crossed their path and he took advantage of the bounty. Without a word he cut her wrists free to let her eat, and when it grew colder that afternoon he shared his fleece-lined mantle with her, even before she shivered.
    The girl he called Princesa could not recall such generosity in a man before. Even "Grandpapa" had not been like this, but then he was ancient and suffered pains in his joints, especially in bad weather, so his patience was thin, his temper by no means mellow.
    She'd heard the d'Anzeray were fierce warriors in battle, so perhaps he saved all his energies for that.
    "Have you killed many men?" she asked when they'd been silent for a while.
    "What is many?" He shrugged.
    "More than ten?"
    His lips quirked. "You don't even know what ten is."
    She sulked.
    The warrior glanced at her face and then laughed. "Ten is as many as your fingers."
    "I know," she snapped.
    He grabbed her hand and counted out her fingertips. She was too consumed by his firm touch to pay much heed, but she liked him showing her. She liked how solemn his face became as he taught her the numbers—not only in her own tongue but in his too. It seemed he had more than one language.
    "My mother was Spanish," he told her, when he caught her curious expression, "and my father Norman. Neither bothered to learn the other's tongue so we had to manage with both."
    "You and your brothers?"
    "Yes, all seven of us."
    She digested this for a