The morning passed in relative comfort and pleasantness. Jonathan talked very little and Valerie found herself tiring quickly, though she did not want to show it. Jonathan made them stop for an extended lunch, then the afternoon passed in much the same way as the morning until Jonathan called a halt for the night.
About halfway through the afternoon, their path began sloping downwards, ever so slightly. Valerie was not sure if this made things more or less easy going, but Perry and Manon seemed less fatigued.
At least someone is faring better, she thought to herself.
The next few days were a blur of sameness and of peaceful boredom. Nothing attacked them, they sustained no more injuries and they were able to stay somewhat clean. Valerie was feeling better with each day that passed and, though Jonathan talked more with each day that passed, he also began to take on a paler complexion. Valerie continued to say nothing and pretend she had never seen his wound.
So it was that they came to a small village at the base of the mountain. The village was pleasant enough and looked well-tended. At first glance, there was no one around. But as Valerie looked closer, there were faces at windows and curtains rustling.
“What is this place?” Valerie hissed to Jonathan.
“I’m not sure. I don’t remember seeing it on any maps…” He looked around him.
As they walked down the street, they passed a large, lavishly decorated house. From inside, Valerie could hear yelling. She looked at Jonathan and he nodded.
Valerie swung down from Manon’s back. She watched to see how Jonathan dismounted. He seemed as nimble and elegant as usual. Valerie wished she knew how he hid his pain.
Outside the house, there was a trough and halter post so Valerie and Jonathan tied Perry’s and Manon’s reins to it before going up to the front door.
Jonathan knocked, though Valerie thought it was a rather pathetic excuse for a knock. When no one answered – as if they were going to hear it over the racket coming from the house – Jonathan pushed his way inside and Valerie followed.
The inside of the house was just as lovely outside. The walls were made from polished wood, there were red carpets adorning the floor, candelabras hung from the ceiling, and there were gilt picture frames along the hall. The shouting seemed to be coming from behind a door on the right. Valerie stuck close behind Jonathan as he opened it.
Warmth crashed over her – quite unnecessary for a summer’s day, Valerie thought – and the shouting grew louder. Inside the room were four men. Two were dressed sumptuously, though one better than the other. This one had a great medallion hanging at his chest from a thick band of material. The other two looked like farmers, or trappers. It seemed each pair were squaring off against the other.
“…just don’t understand,” the medallion man was saying. He was short and round, and sweated in the heat of the room.
“We understand all right!” one of the other men said. He had blond hair, dirtied.
“Yeah, we understand you want our gold for yourself, to decorate your useless home while we starve!” the other man, black-haired, said.
“Now, see here…” Medallion’s friend wore spectacles on his mouse-like face. “See here. You can’t just go talking to the Mayor like that, you can’t!” he squeaked.
“We’ll talk to him how we damn-well please.” The black-haired man shook his fist at the bespectacled man.
The Mayor cleared his throat. “Gentlemen…” He looked at Valerie and Jonathan, as though seeing them for the first time. “How dare you just walk into my house, happy as you please!” he said. He looked around to his friend as though for support.
“Who are you people? Waltzing in here without an invitation and not even wiping your boots!” mouse-face asked, adjusting his spectacles. Valerie suspected they did not help much.
“I am Jonathan Brennen.” Jonathan bowed low. “And this is my companion–”
“The Lady Jeanna Redford,” Valerie interrupted, curtseying. Her ribs protested, but she dipped low.
Jonathan was obviously on the ball. He continued for her, “Past Queen of Mor.”
The Mayor and his friend gasped and looked about all in a tizz. “My Lady, how lovely to have you here. I was most grieved to hear of the loss of your husband and son.”
Valerie waved her hand. “Thank you, sir. We wish for a bed for the night and a place for our horses,” she said, trying to sound as much like Jeanna as she could.
“I heard you had dark hair, my lady,” the blond man said.
“I heard she was blonde,” the black-haired man looked to his companion. They both shrugged and looked back to her.
“I have whatever colour suits me,” Valerie said, inwardly rolling her eyes at herself. I sound ridiculous!
“Fair enough, then,” the man said and Valerie was shocked it had been so simple to please them.
“Where are the rest of your men, my lady?” the Mayor asked.
“It is just us. We are travelling light. I am journeying to see my sister, it is of some urgency.” Valerie hoped they did not know Jeanna was an only child, and hailed from the north-east.
“You’re travelling alone? Just the two of you?” the spectacled man burst out.
“Yaxley!” the Mayor barked. “Excuse my assistant. We welcome all here in Atillburgh.” He smiled.
“And you are?” Jonathan asked.
“Mayor Reynold Atillburgh.”
“I see.” Jonathan looked to the other men quizzically.
“Francis Wymer,” the dark-haired man said.
“Thames Chase,” the blond man said.
“Local hunters,” the Mayor said, waving his hand as though they were not important.
“Excellent, so we will have meat for dinner?” Valerie asked.
“Only if his mayor-ness pays us our fee,” Francis said, scowling at the Mayor.
Valerie knew little of diplomacy, but she thought maybe she should start now.
“That does not seem very fair, Mayor. Is there a reason for this?”
The Mayor stuttered. “Well, you see, my lady, the meat is just not worth what these men want for it.”
Valerie thought she had heard his like before. “And how much do they want for it?”
“A copper a carcass, your ladyship. Two for the bigger ones,” Thames replied.
Valerie thought for a moment. How was she to know whether a piece of meat was worth a copper?
“And you men believe it is worth this much?”
“Yes, my lady. You see it’s not just the worth of the meat, but our time as well.”
“Now, look here…”
Valerie stood and watched as the men began yelling at each other again. She looked to Jonathan, whose eyes clearly told her that she had put herself in this mess and she could clean it up. She waited to see if the men would stop bickering. When they did not, she cleared her throat. Still nothing.
“Excuse me!” she called, rather loudly.
“He’s like this every time we come in from the hunt, my lady,” Francis said.
Valerie held up her hand for silence. “Where are these carcasses? I want to see them.”
The Mayor stuttered again.
“Out the back, your ladyship,” Francis said, and directed her to a chart loaded with rabbit, deer and bird carcasses.
“How long were you out there?” Valerie was impressed they had caught so much. The mountains around here must be much more abundant than it had seemed.
“Three days, my lady,” Thames answered.
“And you want a copper a piece?” she asked. Thames and Francis nodded. “Even the deer?”
“We would have argued the deer be worth a silver, my lady, but we knew he would not have it,” Thames said.
“Certainly not! They are barely worth two coppers each!” Yaxley snorted.
“I think they are worth a damn sight more than that, Mayor,” Valerie said, sounding a lot more like herself than Jeanna. Jona
than was standing behind the others and she saw him shake his head at her. She cleared her throat. “What I mean to say is, the pelts are still pristine, and the meat here looks plump.”
The men all stared at her, seeming to be waiting for a decision.
“There are eleven pieces here, including the deer. As a compromise, would you gentlemen be willing to accept two silver each in payment?”
“Now, wait a–” Valerie cut the Mayor off with a hand gesture.
Francis and Thames looked at each other, and eventually nodded. “Yes, we will.”
“Mayor, I believe you owe these men two silver each.”
The Mayor nodded sullenly and indicated to Yaxley, who took four silver from the pouch at his waist and passed them to the hunters. He made a note in a little book and put it back into the pouch.
“Thank you, my lady,” Thames said.
“That was a damn lot more than we expected or have ever gotten from him,” Francis agreed.
“And I hope you will in future pay them what their wares are worth, Mayor.” He nodded glumly. “That is not to say you men can charge what you like,” she said, turning to the hunters.
They shook their heads. “No, my lady. That wouldn’t be true and honest, it wouldn’t,” Francis said.
Valerie nodded. “Good. Now, off you go. I wish to have a word with your Mayor.”
They nodded and scurried off. Francis turned back. “We’ll pick up the cart in the morning,” he said before turning around and following his friend.
“Please come inside, my lady. Yaxley will get you some refreshment.”
“Thank you. Do you have a room we could wash up in first?” Valerie asked.
“Of course, of course. Right this way.” Yaxley bustled them inside and upstairs.
They managed to convince Yaxley that Jonathan was her servant and there was nothing…inappropriate going on, and he finally left them to get cleaned up. Once they were alone, Jonathan rounded on her.
“What on Earth were you thinking?” Jonathan hissed.
“What do you mean?”
“Telling them you’re Jeanna!”
“I wasn’t going to tell them who I really am! ‘Oh, hello, Crown Princess of Mor here. People may be trying to kill me’,” she hissed back.
“Telling them you’re Jeanna does not exactly get you off free from danger,” he said.
“Well, it’s a damn sight less likely someone will try to kill me as Jeanna than me. Besides, I felt like I could help those hunters and Jeanna could help me do it. The mayor was hardly likely to listen to trader’s daughter Vera!”
Jonathan sighed. “No, I suppose you’re right. And I do commend you on your efforts. For a first attempt at diplomacy, that went…all right.”
“Just all right?”
Jonathan smiled. “You’ve much to learn, but you did well, Val. And you’ll get better if you keep practising.”
“Did you see the look on the Mayor’s face! Being the princess was actually quite fun for a change,” she laughed.
“Rethinking your knighthood?” Jonathan asked, sounding much too nonchalant.
Valerie had to stop and wonder if she was. “If being a princess is anything like that, and nothing like being beaten to pulp by trolls, then I may just reconsider my livelihood, yes.”
“Won’t the Privy Council rejoice to hear that?” Jonathan laughed.
Valerie thumped him. “If you put it like that, I’ll stick to being a knight, thank you.”
“Valerie,” he chastised.
“I didn’t mean it like that. Just that maybe, if none of this works out or when I’m older, being a princess might not be as bad as I thought it would be.”
“So you still want to be a knight, then?”
“Of course. More than anything.”
They went downstairs again and had tea with Yaxley and the Mayor, who would not hear of the former Queen sleeping in an inn. He gave them the ‘best rooms’ in his house – though noticeably did not give up his own room – and spoke to them all night at length about how he saved the fair town of Atillburgh.
Valerie and Jonathan stayed up late into the night, unable to get away from the pompous Mayor. Finally, they managed to excuse themselves. Before they went to their separate rooms, they vowed to leave well before first light so as to miss the Mayor. That gave them only a few hours of sleep, but they thought that preferable to having to talk to the Mayor again.
A few hours later, they packed up their things and the horses and began to walk out of the town. Francis saw them and waved.
“You leaving so soon?” he said.
“We are. We must be away,” Valerie replied.
“Off to see you sister? Is she very ill?”
She hesitated. The wizard was supposed to live somewhere near here; it would make sense that the local folk might know more.
“We are and she is, but first we must find the wizard and beg of him a cure for her,” she said. She caught Jonathan’s look of surprise from the corner of her eye. Francis did not seem to notice.
“The wizard, hey?” he scratched his chin. “I don’t know where he might be hiding, but I’ve heard tell there’s a library in Dravon, little further south, which has a whole section devoted just to him. They say there’s a monastic sect just outside the town as well.”
Valerie smiled and thanked him, then they headed south once more.
“Do you think all of that’s true?” Valerie asked Jonathan when they were far enough out of earshot.
Jonathan shrugged. “I don’t know. But, it’s worth investigating, regardless. We’re no further from our destination by following this path.”
“Who said that?”
“What?”
“That quote.”
“I didn’t know anyone had said it. I just said it.” Jonathan looked confused, then pained. He grunted and fell forward, holding his stomach.
Both horses stopped. Valerie jumped from Manon and rushed to Jonathan’s side.
“What can I do? Is it your stomach wound?”
“What…do you know about that?”
“Stop being a damned fool and answer me. Is it your wound?”
“Yes.”
“What can I do?”
“Get us to Dravon.”
Valerie nodded. Before she could turn away, he grabbed her arm.
“Tie me to Perry, Val. I may not be able to stay conscious.” His face was whiter than a sheet and his voice was husky.
“Shall we turn back?”
Jonathan shook his head. “The monks at Dravon will know what to do.”
She quickly found some rope in her saddlebags and lashed him to Perry’s saddle as best she could.
Before she mounted Manon she took Perry by the halter and stared him in the eyes.
“You take care of him Perry. We have to move fast, but you don’t dare let him fall. You understand?” she said, holding back tears.
The horse shook his head gently and Valerie had the distinct impression Perry understood and just felt like she was now wasting time.
“Okay, you two. You get us there before he dies and then we can have a big rest. Deal?” they whinnied and she nodded.
She mounted Manon and took Perry’s reins in one hand. She nudged Manon’s sides and the filly burst into a gallop, Perry keeping pace perfectly. She did not know how long it would take them to get to Dravon, but she would ride until she got there, no matter what.
Jonathan had been there for her countless times, had saved her life countless times. Now it was her turn to save his.
Chapter Seventeen
The horses held up their end of the bargain, though they were shaking and sweating, their sides heaving, when they stopped at the gate to Dravon.
Valerie jumped off Manon and banged on the door. An eye hole slid open and two watery blue eyes peered out.
“Yeees?” a nasally voice asked.
“Healer,” Valerie pant
ed. Her ribs ached, but she had no time to think about that now.
“You are a healer or you are looking for a healer?” the voice drawled.
“Need,” Valerie said.
“Riiiight.” The voice said. “Go back the way you came for a bit and you’ll find a path to the left. Or, is it the right? Either way, there’s a path. Take the path and you’ll find the Dravon Monastic Sect. They have a very good healer. I think Brother Barry died last month, so now it’s–”
“Thank you. I’m sure I’ll find out when I get there.” Valerie turned and mounted Manon again.
“Well, no need to be rude,” the voice said and the eye hole slid closed again.
Valerie heard some ‘tutting’ behind it, but then she heard nothing over hoofbeats and the sound of her heart pounding in her ears.
She looked to Jonathan. He had passed out the night after they left Attilburgh and she had not been able to rouse him nor did she dare stop to check him. She knew very little about healing and Jonathan had seemed to think the monks would be able to fix him.
“There, Manon. Go right. Perry, keep up!” she urged.
They skidded onto the path and thundered along it. The path seemed to stretch forever and Valerie was just about to give up and turn around when she saw another high wall coming up out of the bushes. She yelled triumphantly and heard Manon and Perry give exhausted whinnies.
They galloped the last distance to the gate and skidded to a halt, Manon’s nose just missing the wood of the gate.
Valerie did not bother getting down, instead she manoeuvred Manon so her side was exposed to the gate and banged on it.
“Hello? Hello!” she called. “I need help. My friend is gravely injured.”
She waited a few moments to see if anyone would come. Eventually, she heard shuffling behind the gate. Whoever it was took their time and Valerie nearly knocked again, but the gate finally swung open. A small man stared up at her, somewhat short-sightedly and wearing a blue robe spattered with tiny stars.
Valiant Valerie (Ballad of Valerie of Mor #1) Page 17