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Mordred stopped, placing his vambrace down on the bench, his heart sinking. For a moment he concentrates completely on his armour, how could he answer such a question? Telling her would mean her life and the lives of those whom called Camelot home. An impossible predicament.
The young knight turns to face her, his fingers brushing lightly against the metal of his armour. “I’m not hiding anything” he tells her simply.
Summer doesn’t struggle against the pressure of unconsciousness. When they come to cut her down, she’s still unconscious, limp and unresistant, though even then the pain of her limbs being moved brings a whimper from her. Ragnar brushes the tangle of hair from her face and frowns.
“A woman? What good is this?”
One of the others rubs the torn fabric of her skirts in his fingers. “Noblewoman, belike. This’s fine stuff. Might get a ransom for ‘er.”
“Like this?”
“Camp could use a woman, I reckon,” someone else points out, and Ragnar smiles slowly.
When Mordred returned he held two rabbits in his right hand, tied together by the ears, the man gripping them tightly. A frown found his features as Ragnor and his friend, the name of the man he had not yet learned, leaning over something.
Mordred walked forward, stopping a few feet from them, whatever they were observing hidden from his view. “What’s that?” Mordred questions and Ragnor turns to him, “take a look.”
They’ve left her in a jumbled heap of limbs on the ground, rope still about her ankle. Her face is smudged with dirt and tears, and where she was slender before, she’s nearer skin and bones now. Her breathing is slow and shallow, eyes flickering under the lids as she nears consciousness.