Flora

by Kendal M Lyon

  Wagon Trail

  "Well, aren't we in a tizzy," said Dawson, as they bounced around the back of the cart.

  Flora said nothing as she savored the rise and fall of Thren's chest as he leaned against the side of the metal wagon. Flora checked every second to make sure he had not died, only able to see when their cart passed under a lamp post to reveal his moving chest coated in blood. In one of those flashes of light, Flora looked up to see Dawson, who appeared to be in the same condition as Thren. Though his eyes were open and there was slightly less blood matted to the side of his face. He looked pale as he stared at her.

  She pulled at her bindings behind her back. "I think I can maybe squeeze out of them."

  "Any help would be appreciated," Dawson said.

  Flora glared at him as he swallowed.

  "Okay my lips are tied," Dawson said. Shrugging his shoulders in defense since it was the only thing he could really move.

  Flora was silent as she fumbled with her bindings. Her fear growing by the second, as she watched it also build in Dawson's eyes. Even the pain of the bindings was nothing to distract her from the ghostly impression of the Lords whiskers pressed up against her cheek and his essence on the collar of her jacket.

  "There were a lot of men back there," Dawson said.

  Flora had seen how many guards were on the street when they had pressed her into that wagon, and sadly felt sure they would lose a straight out fight. Winning in this state and in cuffs sounded daunting. They were going to have to get very creative. Though any amount of guards was better than being trapped inside the jail cart.

  "We were set up," Flora said back.

  Dawson jolted at that. "But why would they care about us?"

  Flora shrugged her shoulders.

  Dawson, paused, stunned, before nodding his head "Do you have any knives still?"

  "Ya, sides, boots, hair, forearm," Flora said. "Bastards on my sides are pressing into my bruises hard. All the big ones got lifted."

  "Well, I would have laughed had those ones ended up in here with us," Dawson said.

  "Do you have a knife or anything?" Flora asked, checking Thren again.

  Dawson shook his head, his red hair glinting in the passing light.

  "Well, I need to get out of this wagon," Flora said. "Keep an eye on Thren so I can focus."

  Flora started tugging at her bonds harder. Her fingers could trace the intricate knots done in a waxed rope around her wrists, and she started pulling at them.

  It was taking too long. Flora skimmed along the wall, trying forcefully to get her arms around one of her knives. She looked over at Dawson's hands, they had been wrapped so thoroughly not even his fingers were showing. Her mouth felt chalky as she continued to bend. She went back to tugging at her own bindings as the cart tilted and they were carried up one of the terrace hills.

  The hollow rumbling of the wheels along what could only be the wooden slates of a bridge made Flora's eyes widen and she looked at Dawson as her jaw dropped. There was only one reason that this cart would be traveling over this bridge. Flora shook her head rapidly, looking around the wagon, wishing for another way to see outside. The city jail was on the other side of the city, with no waterways around it, therefore no reason to cross a bridge.

  "They are taking us to the castle," Dawson said quietly his eyes catching Flora's own still set wide in shock. "Hurry up." No one had ever escaped that prison after the gates shut behind them.

  Flora only knew they had passed through the castle gate by the hard stop that knocked Flora onto her knees in the wagon. The force of the wagon bashed her and she thought she had bit right through her tongue.

  It had hit so hard that her fingers had stumbled at her rope cuffs, and she had to find the threads again. Unable to press herself up, she popped out the knife in her boot and bent so severely she actually heard the pop of her shoulders as it left its socket. She quickly used the serrated edge of the one side to cut through her bindings, freeing her hands, as silent tears of pain fogged her vision. She grabbed one of her other knives from her side at cut at the ones at her feet.

  She had finally kicked the binding off her feet, pushing the blade hidden in her boots back in with the side of the wagon, when a commotion outside rose up and drifted through her jail door. She slid along the bottom of the wall, out of sight of the small window and crouched in the shadows of the wagon cell. She looked at Dawson, who stared back at her with silence, still bound up.

  The first guard who opened the door got a ringing in his ears as she kicked his head against the metal cart frame. The metal sent a twang through the air as his body fell. She pulled the knife out of his sheath and slid it into the meat of his arm, before yanking it back out. She threw the extra knife back at Dawson. It landed point first into the bottom of the wagon. Flora saw him reach around it to cut his own bindings before she leapt out the door.

  Right into the Lord's boot. She rolled along the ground, knife flying from her hand. She fought to get the wind back into her lungs but she had nothing. He kicked her to the side, moving to press her face into the foul tasting dirt that drifted into her desperate lungs, while retying her arms behind her back. Finishing the new bindings on her feet he left her in the dirt and stood over her with a large cheeky grin on his face. "Welcome home," he said, grabbing Flora's arms and dragging her along the ground. She fought to keep her face out of the dry soil puffing up around her as she slithered through it.

  "Someone deal with him," he said as he waved a casual arm at the guard passed out on the ground, blood gushing from his arm as he led her to one side of the courtyard. She only was able to look back briefly as she saw Dawson and Thren being dragged off in the opposite direction. Dawson once again tied up, his eyes now foggy with unconsciousness.

  Waiting Games

  The cage she was placed in had wide gaps along the bars. Flora gritted her teeth as the door shut, and the latch clicked, looking at the guard in front of her. He was young and barely bearded, and his crisp new uniform was much too large for him. It was rolled up in massive balls at both his ankles and wrists and yet it still hung too far past them. A page of some sort she thought, not someone who would normally be parading around the prisoners of the castle.

  He motioned her to the front of the cell, and she hesitantly followed. When she got close to the bars, the young man reached out with a knife and sliced off the bindings at her hands, leaving the rope to fall on the floor as Flora massaged feeling back into her wrists. The page said nothing more, keeping his eyes down, as he walked away and out of the room.

  Her jail was only in one corner of the wooden room. She could only see a little as many men walked past in the hallway outside. Low pine benches were the only thing that lined the timber walls.

  Flora walked the edges of her space, light straining through where the wooden logs met, sending the room into a soft glow. She bathed herself in as much sunlight as she could get. Soaking in its unrelenting passionate warmth as she leaned against one of the walls.

  She waited there for a while, smearing dirt out of the dried and wet blood along her cuts as she imagined the puss that had already taken residence inside her. She would have to take care of herself, and her fingers shook at the thought. She was along now. She could only hope that Dawson and Thren were still together and would look after each other.

  She had only closed her eyes for what felt like a moment, the adrenaline pouring from her body as she sat against the wall, when the sound of a bolt coming undone had her sitting up straight and wide-eyed. She had to stop her reflexes from going for another of her knives along her side, as the guard who held another prisoner barely looked at her. Tossing in a bearded man down on the floor. His blood already smearing the ground around him as he landed. The guard shut the door back up and walked from the room.

  Flora knelt over the man, helping him to turn over, her hands feeling the saturated clothing filled with what Flora suspected to be the man's own blood. His wound was already clotting back over,
and the man's eyes blinked above his pale cheeks as he moved himself to sit up against the bars. Pressing his own hand to the wounds.

  "What is a pretty face like you, doing in a place like this?" The man wheezed.

  "I could say the same thing about you," Flora said as she lifted the man's hand up off his leg to see if he was bleeding more. The man grinned at her through cracked teeth as Flora finished looking at his wounds. "Well, I think you will survive a while yet."

  "Ha," the man said. "I have had better news."

  She could hear the hitch in his breathing that told of a punctured lung.

  Flora crawled back along the floor and sat on the other side of the cage from him.

  They sat in silence for a while as guards continued to walk back and forth past their door.

  "Why did they do this to you?" Flora asked.

  "Why have our rulers done anything to anyone?" the man rasped. "And I don't mind, though I am sure they will," he said, lifting his hand to jerk a thumb towards the door.

  "Do you know why they would bring us... I mean me...here? To the castle?" Flora asked hesitantly.

  "I am in the castle prison, cause I used to be a resident," the man said with a laugh as Flora's jaw dropped. "You are here..." he drifted off, his eyes finally settling on Flora, taking her in. His throat bobbed as his eyes dropped back down. "You are here because you are the most unfortunate person in Merridan."

  Floras leaned back as she looked at the man again. There were no remnants of a pampered life written anywhere on his scared skin and matted hair.

  "How could they do this to a Noble?" Flora asked bringing her knees up into her chest.

  "I have often wondered who got treated worse, the Nobles or the peasants. Up in the castle, it is hard to remember all of the misfortune who falls upon the poor under our own petty squabbles."

  "But, you have money," Flora stated.

  "Who is to stop them when high treason gets you a room here," the man said again. "Free of charge might I add," he finished coughing up blood. "After they took everything that is."

  "Quiet in there," came a yell from outside the hallway.

  The man's head barely twitched at the voice as he continued talking, his own voice now a whisper. "This kingdom takes what it wants when it wants it. We are all just candy for the taking. But I tried, I did try...for my children..." the man said drifting off. He sat in a moment of silence before he started to laugh again. "Oh..." the man said again, leaning forward with his eyes crinkled as his hand pressed against his side that had started bleeding again.

  Flora wondered if he was mad as she came over to press against his wound. His own hand wrapped around her wrist, but he did nothing more, and once the bleeding stopped Flora was once again able to lean against the bars away from the man.

  "In time you will wish to not have done, whatever it is you have done, to not be brought in here," the man said.

  "I have no idea what I have done, so I don't think I can help it," Flora said.

  The man's eyes snapped up and focused on her, holding her steady as Flora watched his mind turn behind them. "Where are you from?" He asked quietly, tilting his head as his eyes bored into her.

  Flora picked at the dirt on her leathers, uneasiness creeping into her bones as she again questioned the man's sanity, slowly reaching her hand along to one of the hidden knives along her inner thigh.

  "Just the city," she said

  "And how long have you lived in the city," he said again, his head unwavering from the perch it sat on.

  "As long as I can remember," Flora said.

  "And how old are you?"

  "I'm not sure—still not twenty— maybe," Flora said, and thought she saw a light turn on behind the man's dull eyes.

  He crawled and pulled himself closer until she could hear nothing but his wrapping breaths. "Have you felt the earthquakes?" He asked.

  Flora nodded her head.

  The man seemed to think about that. "You don't look the type—"

  The page's keys dangled from the door as they swung it wide, the screech of metal on metal rang loud, and Flora watched as despair filled the man's eyes to the brink, blocking out any light that may have appeared, and tears started to overflow as he pulled away from her.

  "Leave him be," Flora said standing up firmly. She could see the man in the corner of the room wave her away with his one hand, the dropped with exhaustion to his side.

  "Back away," said the young man.

  Flora stood firm, wondering if she could take him, probably, but she had no idea how many guards were about and roaming the halls around her.

  "Back away now," said the page again pulling out his sword. It filled the room with its length as the young page snuck behind him into the room and picked up the man under his arm, the man's weight draped along the guard's body.

  "Walt, you have turned into quite the guard," the man said to the boy.

  "You know them," Flora asked, while the first guard looked at her with a scowl on his face.

  The guard had to grab her to steady himself as the earthquake shook under them, and Flora wished she had her knives on her to scratch up his fingers.

  The man smiled at her with broken teeth, tears still dripping down his face. "I taught them how to be guards for our king."

  Floras eyes were wide as she watched the man lean his head on the younger guards shoulder, and stumble with him out of the cell.

  As the bloody trail dripped after the man, Flora could hear a chuckle come from the hallway, and it wasn't long until the Lord was turning the corner into her room. He brought his arm over his head as he leaned against the door frame.

  "I am glad to see you are making Noble friends," the Lord said. "Even if it is with the likes of him."

  "Come closer and I will get friendlier. I don't even know your first name," Flora said, standing steadily on the balls of her feet, her arms loose beside her.

  "Call me Lord Reynald," Lord Reynald said before saying over his shoulders. "Tie her up and bring her to my office. I am ready for her."

  "What is going on?" Flora asked as Lord Reynald stepped back, and Flora backed up to the back of her cell as the guards turned the latch in the door.

  "Play along and things will go better for you and your grotesque face," he said.

  "Speak for yourself," Flora said as her fingers curled in and out.

  Lord Reynald's grin grew larger.

  "Turn around, hands behind your back," said one of the guards now standing in the open door, hesitantly watching her under furrowed brows, watching for any muscles that would give him warning if she pounced.

  Flora glanced at the big man, and with as the air left her lungs in a sigh, she turned around, wrapped her arms around her back, and pressed her cheek to the smooth metal bars behind her. She could count the heart beats until the coarse rope cut off the circulation to her fingers.

  Reasons

  "So, attempted murder, thieving, probably whoring. We could add a dead guard as well. One was found in an alley not too long ago where my guards told me they had picked up a young girl," said Lord Reynald across from her, separated by a simple desk, each word was spoken crisply as he read it off a freshly printed scroll. "Thought we could put murder on as a possibility."

  Flora gave him a wide toothed grin and a shake of her head. "I'm not the one who is supposed to do your job. Lord is it? But if you want my input, as of yet I've really failed at the murdering part. I'm still working on it."

  His eyes narrowed at that. "You will have to do your job though, and its a job for me," he said, rolling up the parchment he had been reading and setting it perpendicular to a row of quills set with an inch of space between each of them on his desk.

  "Oh, am I?" retorted Flora with her eyebrows raised sitting up as straight as she could with her bound hands while making a mental note to get her hands on that file.

  "You have no other options, and you are already on the payroll," he replied, spreading his hand out on the table in front of him
.

  "So, where is the gold?" Said Flora.

  "We are in need of someone with your assets," he continued, dragging his eyes along her frame. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck crawl and she swallowed a gag. Her eyes drifted away from him to the small knobby cactus on the desk. The only really ornamentation in the room and the thin spines glistened with gooey sap. Threatening the meticulously sterile room.

  "You help me, your friends, or brothers I should say, won't be harmed. Of course, they will never be released, but, they will never be harmed," he continued, his tongue flicking at each syllable.

  "Life in prison doesn't mean more than a few years," Flora said, staring at Lord Reynald again.

  "Well yes, no one ever walks out alive," Lord Reynald said his eyes crinkling up. "Not if I can help it."

  "So I have heard," said Flora.

  "Dawson, just Dawson, and Thren Gibson I believe you call them?" He asked, again carrying on. "And your last name is—?"

  "Just Flora," she said, as she bit down a sigh of relief realizing Perry, Roanan, Lorcel had escaped. Her heart was beating, her breath picked up, and she struggled to keep her hope from appearing on her face.

  Lord Reynald didn't seem to notice, his eyes boring into her but otherwise seemingly lost in thought. "You are going to get close to someone who has information I need. Hard to say how messy it will get, and I need a replaceable talent. I heard there was a woman scavenging my city and I thought it was perfect. You are a gift. Thank you," he said leaning back.

  Flora looked at him with her lips pressed tightly together.

  "Are you ready?" He asked as he stood, walking around the table to be by her side, running his callused hand down the side of her cheek.

  Flora wanted to reach out and bite the finger of this man that was touching her face, but she resisted and bared her teeth at him instead. "Get away from me," she said.