Ifinish scouting and return to camp to find everyone settling in. The firewood we hid under a pine tree the last time we were here is still dry and the men have our low, close tents erected, water boiling in a kettle on the fire, and food prepared. The fire tosses an orange glow and black dancing shadows everywhere, as if it is trying to make up for our lack of merriness all on its own.
I check over Hessa, making sure her paws are in good order. She patiently allows it before demanding her due in affection. Together, we walk the picket line, checking the horses. Hessa watches the trees and the forest around us with the attention of a dog who is hoping for a meal of squirrel.
The horses are in good shape for the most part. Rhurc’s horse has a stiff foreleg. I run my hands down it but can’t find an injury. Hopefully, a night of rest helps. Horace’s has a small saddle sore. I’ll have to address that with him. The grey mare that Lady Fliad was riding – and then Iva after her – shies when I try to inspect her mouth. It’s hurt. I frown and think back to the journey, remembering how the lady stumbled along when we were afoot, holding onto her horse’s reins.
I’m pushing her too hard. Ladies aren’t meant to travel so, but every day that we delay is a day that more men die.
The thought of peace still makes my hands shake. It feels like a dream that cannot last past morning waking. If it could really exist, then it must be brought in time to save as many lives as it can. Even if it comes at a terrible price. I think of Iva’s big wide eyes and the cold golden king with the pointed ears, and I don’t realize that I have my forehead pressed against Hessa’s or that my breath is sawing in my lungs until a throat clears behind me and I turn to see Rhurc.
I release Hessa, drawing in an embarrassed breath and she whines, batting at me with a paw.
“I’ve set watches, as you ordered, and we’re checking over the weapons and supplies. Rangen tore his coat, but the Lady Iva is stitching it for him. She’s a dab hand with a needle. Doesn’t seem right to see ladies sleep in a tent.”
I give him a long look. Where would he have them sleep then? Out in the wind? They’d be much colder. I stand, and Hessa takes a place at my heel.
Rhurc clears his throat again. “The Lady Fliad has retired to the tent. We saved food for you.”
“Thank you,” I say, and I follow him. I’m not sure why he’s so jumpy.
I find out when I get to the fire.
Lady Iva is stitching – and not just Rangen’s coat, but a whole heap of things that have been laid beside her. As I fill a wooden bowl and begin to eat, I watch her.
“If you find me willow tomorrow, I can mend the basket, too,” she says to Rangen as she ties a knot and bites it off. “See if this will do.”
She helps Rangen into his coat and smooths it over his shoulders and I see him grin like I haven’t seen in months.
I glance around the fire and his expression is echoed all around. There are smiles and light in eyes that have been like empty hearths for a long time. I see evidence of other stitching and small repairs. She’s been busy.
A sudden pang runs through me, and I bring my palm to my heart to still it. It’s a memory of home – the home I once had. The smell of roasting meat. The sound of voices singing. The embrace of my mother. It makes my eyes and mouth water, and I have to fight hard to shake it, to force it back down into that place next to my spine where I keep all the things that might ruin me. This is no less dangerous than the fear I hide there. No less dangerous than the despair. It may be worse, because hope is infectious and brittle. You can catch it on the wind, only to see it shatter in your hands like a dry stick.
Hessa trots to Iva and lays a doggy head on her knee to claim caresses.
I can’t bear to watch more.
I won’t be required to guard until the third watch. I eat my food quickly and tromp through the cold to the tent I share with four others, roll into blankets thrown over the sailcloth that in turn sits on a bed of snow, and shiver myself into place. Maybe Rhurc is right. Maybe this is too hard on ladies to sleep in this frigid mess but the need to hurry is worse now, for my men have been infected. If I fail to give them peace now, if I don’t give them that taste of home, what will become of them?
I think of that, of each of them returning to the warm arms of living loved ones, to lives of honest work without monsters or slaughter, to warm hearths, and someone with big eyes stitching their clothing and laying tender hands on them. And I wonder if they’ll realize after it happens – if it happens – who we all sold to get it. I wonder if I’ll ever feel peace knowing I helped deliver her up as the price.
8
IVA FITZROY
“Ican’t get warm,” Lady Fliad says the next day, and I don’t blame her.
I can’t get warm either. I slept only fitfully between shivering and trying to get comfortable enough to sleep, finally succumbing for an hour or two when Hessa crept into our tent and spread out beside me. Lady Fliad was not willing to lie so close, not even for warmth’s sake.
“We’re made of stuff that shouldn’t mix or even get too close,” she’d said with a sniff when I’d laid my bedroll beside hers. As if we didn’t already share blood ties.
I want to take offense. I want to say I can’t help my illegitimate birth and I try to be useful, but if I’m honest, I don’t deny that she’s suffering right now for no benefit to herself. If, for some reason, I were to slip and foul the rules nobles have for themselves, her reputation might be ruined. Just riding to the front, even with me as companion, might be enough to do that. And then her hopes of marrying well will be gone forever and that’s what noble girls do. They marry well and are happy to do it, or they do not marry and are miserable. It’s not like she could take up work in the stables and kennels like I can.
So, I try not to take offense. She’s only protecting the one thing she has – possible marriage to someone like Sir Oakensen over there, not that he realizes that. He hasn’t so much as looked at her even when she’s arranged herself prettily on her horse with her skirt fanned out artistically, or when she sat next to him to eat the porridge the soldiers cooked for morning.
“Can we purchase warmer things in the next town?” she asked him. “It’s terribly cold at night. I need ten times the blankets.”
She’d simpered then, trying to catch his eye on her pretty blushing cheeks and burnished hair, but he seemed to be looking through her before finally saying in that tight way he has, “We must make haste. The horses will slow if their burden is too great.”
Judging by his vassals’ expressions, that was a long speech for him.
