“Well.”Lara gulped andran both hands through her shorn hair, marveling at how light itfelt between her fingers.
“Well.”Sophie tied theloose end of the braid with twine and handed it to Lara.
Refusing to cry oversomething as unimportant as hair, Lara gulped back tears andclimbed the ladder to their bedchamber.She opened the chest thatheld her personal treasures and laid the braid beside a crown ofdried flowers, a keepsake from her and Sophie’s journey toNeustria, given to her by the young god who’d won the ridingtourney on a blood bay stallion.A god who’d never removed hishelmet and who’d ridden under the name ofVagus.Wanderer.
Touching the crown, Lara sent out asilent prayer that the journey she was about to embark on would goas well as that journey had, then shut the chest, squared hershoulders, and stripped out of her gown and shift.She pulled on abreechcloth and a pair of worn linen breeches she’d bought offWillem and cinched in her waist belt to keep them from falling off.At least they were long enough to cover her ankles, and she wasable to wear her own boots.After grabbing the threadbare undertunic and faded brown woolen jerkin she’d also bought from Willem,she descended the ladder and stood bare-chested before Sophie.Taking a deep breath in, she held her arms out.
“I don’t envy you this.”Sophie bound Lara’s bosom and pulled the knot tight under herbreasts.“Especially since it’ll be rare you’ll be free of it.Won’t it?”
“Only when I sleep, Ipromise.”
“Your kerchief too.”Sophie tied it loosely around Lara’s neck.“You must sleep with iton, else some keen-eyed soldier realizes you don’t have an Adam’sapple.”
“It will never leave myneck.I swear.”
Lara slid the threadbare under tunicon and the jerkin over it as Sophie opened a tub of olive oil mixedwith brown acorn dye.Lara poured a small amount into her palm andrubbed it in her hair and over her face and neck and arms,repeating the process until her exposed skin was a nutbrown.
“Is my hair dark enough?”she asked Sophie, who nodded and then pursed her lips.
“Well now.I never sawthis.”
They both burst outlaughing.
“I’m going to miss you.”Lara gave Sophie a heartfelt hug, then kissed Wolf on the nose.“You too, boy.”Slinging her pack over her shoulder, she gave Wolfthe hand signal to stay before she opened the door.“See you two ina month.”
***
Talon
Talon grabbed his empty bowl andheaded for the cook’s wagon.Seven days into the march, and he wasalready bored, saddle sore, and hungry.At least the food on thismarch was a cut or three above the usual camp food, which alsomeant there was always a line of men as worn out and hungry as heat the wagon.
“Chicken stew tonight.”Tree raised his steaming bowl up as he walked by Talon.
“Chicken stew,” Talonechoed, close enough now to smell the savory aroma.His bellygrowling, he leaned in to inhale more of the teasing scent andcaught sight of the cook’s helper, the widow’s son Lara hadrecommended, a scrawny, gangly lad with dirty brown hair peekingout from under his cap whose direct gaze Talon had yet to meet.Though Hamm was his name, he seemed to answer most to “hey, boy.”He was an odd lad who kept to himself and the cook, Plutarch, buthe knew his way around a cooking fire.Lara had been right aboutthat.
Hamm would jump off the moving cook’swagon daily to gather wild greens and herbs from the roadside thatwould show up in the stew that night, giving it a completelydifferent taste from the previous night’s stew even if the meat wasthe same old chicken, rabbit, or squirrel.A rare treat forsoldiers on the march, used to stuffing tasteless gruel down theirthroats just to fill their empty bellies with something warm.NowHamm ladled two servings of stew into each man’s bowl, his headdown, his gaze never wavering from his task.
“A man could starve inthis bloody line,” Talon grumbled loud enough for one of thecount’s men, who was trying to badger the lad into serving him athird ladle full, to hear.“Let the rest of us have our firstsbefore you start demanding seconds,” he said much louder andclearer.
His little speech got nods all aroundand a few “hear, hears,” then the brute demanding more stew turnedaround with a snarl on his hirsute face.
“Ah, bloodyhell.”
It was Lothair, Ranulf’s second, whowas snarling at Talon one moment and yelling and flinging hot stewaround the next.
“My hand,” he screamed atthe hapless Hamm, who stood holding an empty ladle.“You burned myhand.”
“I-I’m sorry, sir.Youturned as I poured.”Eyes cast down and gripping the empty ladle inhis left fist, the lad backstepped until his backside hit thewagon.
Talon set his bowl down on the plankof wood used as a serving table.One thing you never did was backaway from a bully.It was akin to turning yourself into a bloodylump of raw meat in front of a starving cur.
“Sorry, you say?”Lothairwaved his hand around.“You scald my flesh and you’resorry?”
“I can put a salve on it,”the boy offered, never looking up.
“Here.”The old cookoffered Lothair another bowl of stew.“Sit and eat your stew andI’ll be right over to fix your hand up.”
“It’s your boy’s gonnaneed fixing up.”Lothair shoved the cook aside and lunged for Hamm,who sidestepped his charge so quickly, Lothair plunged headfirstinto the side of the wagon and knocked himself out right beforeRanulf and three others pushed their way into the snickeringcrowd.
