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been at odds. Besides, he’s the king’s man, and Belleme and his family are a thorn in King Henry’s side. I judge FitzRoger rich and strong and brave enough to stand against Warbrick, do he choose to, maybe even take vengeance for what was done this day.”
    Vengeance.
    As soon as the word was spoken Imogen knew she wanted it, hungered for it. Her home had been despoiled in the most vile manner. Her people had been abused and slaughtered. She wanted her castle back, but more than that, she wanted Warbrick dead in the dirt for what he had done.
    To achieve that, she’d pay any price.
    She sat up straight. “Then I had best go to FitzRoger and enlist his aid,” she said. “Now let us think how I can make my way there safely.”
    Chapter 2
    The next day, as the sun began to set, an elderly couple hobbled along the edge of the dusty road leading to Castle Cleeve. The edge of the road was the wise place to walk, for the wide track was busy and each horse and cart sent up clouds of dust. The traffic coming and going to the stern castle on the crag was largely military.
    The man was gray-haired, dirty, and stooped beneath an enormous pack. The woman’s hair color could not be told, for she had a grubby white headrail over it, but she looked as if it should be gray too. For all that, she couldn’t be as old as her man, for she was clearly well-advanced in pregnancy. Despite this she too stooped beneath a load nearly as large as his and hobbled like a crone.
    Imogen looked up as the castle came into view and felt nothing but relief. It no longer mattered to her if the devil himself waited at the end of the journey; she could hardly go another step. If it wasn’t for the sturdy staff Siward had cut for her, she would have given up hours ago. Her feet were merely balls of agony on the ends of numb-weary legs, and her back screamed with the desire to be straight again.
    Their disguise had been wise, however, for they had encountered Warbrick’s men along the way, checking among all travelers for Imogen of Carrisford. When they had faced such scrutiny Imogen had been grateful Siward had insisted that every detail be exact. For the rest of the journey she had simply been miserable.
    Her hair beneath the filthy cloth was caked with grease and dirt, just in case anyone decided to look for the famous honey-and-gold hair of the Treasure of Carrisford. Her fine leather shoes had been discarded in favor of peasant sandals tied on with coarse linen strips. Her feet had started out looking like bandaged sores; now they felt like them. Her clothes from the skin up were of the poorest sort and unclean. Her own smell revolted her, the pack straps galled her, and she was itching from bites.
    Worst of all was the paunch Siward had constructed and which she had bound to her body with the wide winding cloths commonly used by pregnant women. The effect was of a woman well gone with child, and the deceit would not be detected unless the cloths were removed.
    The pregnancy had been her own idea. It would further mislead the hunters, she had thought, and surely give some protection from rape and cruelty. More important, if she could maintain the deceit it could prove even more useful. Should FitzRoger turn out to be more predator than paladin, he would hesitate to wed a woman who carried another man’s brat. That would be to risk having to acknowledge it as his own.
    If there seemed any danger of a forced wedding, she would claim the child to be fathered by Gerald of Huntwich. As she had been legally betrothed to him, that should muddy the inheritance situation enough to make any man hesitate. She’d considered herself very clever to have thought up such a plan, but now she cursed it.
    The bag filled with bracken and sand had not felt heavy at first, but now it dragged on her bent body. She was convinced even a real babe would not be so hard to carry.
    There was one good thing to all this: she no longer needed to act to appear to be a