She thrust her free hand between them, closed it around his dagger’s hilt, and dragged the blade up out of its scabbard. She had no experience with weapons, and it seemed almost a miracle he wrenched backward. Otherwise, she might have opened his throat.
An instant later, he captured her dagger-wielding wrist, and she had only a moment to note the anger sharpening his face and a whistling across the wood before he fell upon her.
“Almighty!” he erupted as he carried her down toward roots that might snap a back or neck if one landed wrong. If not that he released her, she would have borne the brunt of the fall, but she had just enough time to twist to the side and thrust her arms before her to break her fall.
Blessedly, her hands landed on moss-covered ground, but her hip was not as fortunate. With a loud crack, it struck a root, but though it hurt, she was surprised the pain was not ten-fold greater considering how loud the sound of bone on wood. It might even be broken.
Was this shock? If so, De Morville would have no difficulty subduing her, especially as she was no longer in possession of his dagger. Where had it flown?
She thrust onto her side, and as she searched for silver amid the fogged roots was further astonished the movement did not more greatly pain her. And before her was the reason, though it took a moment to understand.
The knight lay face down on roots that formed the near rim of the cradle which held the bundles that had presented as babes. The crack had not been her hip but his head striking a root. But what sense to be made of the shaft protruding from his upper back? How had that come to be? And was he dead?
Dear Lord, she silently despaired, what evil is afoot?
The rustle and squelch of fallen leaves on moist earth brought her chin up, and she followed the sound to a figure who approached from far to the left of where De Morville’s squire had earlier concealed himself.
He carried a bow, and as he advanced, hooked it over his head and an arm and let it fall across his torso like the sling Honore had brought to carry the foundlings to the abbey.
Recalling the whistle heard before the knight fell upon her, this she also understood. De Morville had not attacked her. The force of Finwyn’s arrow burying itself in the knight had driven him against her. And in saving herself, he was the one victimized by the roots—were he not already dead by way of the arrow.