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laughed over the sheer joy she felt at that very moment. The burdens pressing down on her began to drift away.
    As usual, Stephen took the lead. Christien and Lucien flanked her sides, and Faust, the youngest, rode last, protecting her back. The four soldiers could have been brothers, so alike in appearance were they with their white-blond hair, blue eyes, and deeply tanned, weathered skin. They dressed alike as well, in a soldier’s uniform, all in black, but with a small, barely noticeable emblem of the royal house of St. Biel just above their hearts.
    Their personalities were quite different, though. Perhaps because he was the oldest and the commander over the other three guards, Stephen was the most serious and rarely smiled. Christien spoke his mind more often and was the easiest to rile; Lucien had a wonderful sense of humor, and Faust was the quiet one.
    All spoke in their native tongue. Like Gabrielle, they could understand and speak Gaelic, though they preferred not to.
    Gabrielle knew how fortunate she was to have the loyalty of these four men. They had been her protectors most of her life. They had shielded her when her adventurous nature took her into precarious situations, and had kept her secrets—even from her father when she didn’t want him to find out about some of her escapades. Her safety was always their primary objective, but she valued their confidence as well. On numerous occasions they had saved her from peril, even at the risk of their own lives.
    Just last month Faust came to her defense at the village market. She was making her way among the stalls when two drunken men began to follow her, their smirks divulging their lascivious intentions. The minute they moved in her direction, Faust stepped in front of her and laid the men on the ground before they knew what happened.
    She also recalled an incident that occurred last year. She was heading toward her father’s stables to see the new foal that had been born. Just as she was rounding the corner of the stable, the hitch on the grain wagon at the top of the hill broke, sending the cart careening down at her with ferocious speed. She had barely turned to see it coming before Christien grabbed her shoulders and threw her out of its path, taking the impact of the wheel on his leg. His ankle was so bruised and swollen, he couldn’t walk on it for weeks.
    She cringed at the thought of the trouble she had caused these steadfast men, but then she smiled thinking about some of the other times they had been there to look after her. There were the nights when she was a little girl that Stephen kept watch so that she could sneak out of her chamber and listen to the musicians in the courtyard. She also remembered the afternoon that, despite her father’s warnings, she and her friend Elizabeth climbed a willow tree by the river and fell into the muddy waters. Lucien had rushed the little girls to the cook to be washed and given clean clothes before Baron Geoffrey was ever the wiser. And she could never forget when she was nine years old and the band of ragged wanderers made camp in the meadow next to her father’s castle. She had been cautioned to stay away from them, but she indignantly felt that all visitors were guests and should be treated as such. The cook had been baking berry tarts for the evening meal, and so Gabrielle waited until they were placed in the open window to cool and then gathered them in her skirts. She was happy to see the guests gobble down the treats with great relish, and she would have lingered to visit, and might even have accepted their invitation to ride with them for a while, had she not turned to see Christien and Lucien standing ten feet behind her with their arms crossed and scowls on their faces. When her maidservant questioned the unusual stains on Gabriel’s skirt that night, the guards did not mention her disobedience, but later when they were alone with the little girl, they warned her about the harsh ways of the