“Are ye okay, Fal?” Ernest asked as she leaned more heavily than usual on her shoulder.
“I can make it another couple hundred feet,” Falon said through gritted teeth, and if her hand on his shoulder squeezed tighter with every step, she took he didn’t say anything about it. Her right eye really hurt, and once again she wondered why the Healing Wench hadn’t fixed her up when she had seen her earlier on in the day. Then she decided that the Wench had probably intended to make Nyia fix it, unless she thought Falon was as foolish as some of the stupider boys, who would have probably considered it a badge of honor. Badge of stupidity was more like it, but as of right now Falon was only guessing.
“Yer pride is going to get you killed one day; mark my words, Fal,” Ernest grunted. “We should have put you up in one of the wagons as soon as it got dark and let the Healers fix it.”
“I can walk!” she insisted, even though in her heart of hearts she knew she wouldn’t have been able to keep gimping along without his help.
“The Wenches could have healed yer feet as soon as the moon came out,” Ernest protested, “there be no need to keep on like this. All ye’re doin’ is crippling yerself up more.”
“It’s only one foot,” she retorted mulishly, “and besides, after they’ve healed something you’re not supposed to use it again right away. How was I supposed to finish walking the rest of the way like that? I’d just re-damage whatever it is that’s wrong.”
“It’s just a blister gone bad, Falon,” Ernest sighed.
“You don’t know that for certain,” she replied angrily.
“I do know that, even if ye refuse to let me look at it for some reason,” Ernest retorted, rolling his eyes. “Besides Fal, would it really kill you to have to ride the rest of the way in the back of the wagon?”
“I see,” she said hotly, “so you’d put me into a position where I have to listen to Duncan go on and on about how I’m not a ‘real man’ because ‘real men’ don’t ride wagons?”
Ernest looked at his boots for a moment, and because she was watching him out of the corner of her eye and not the ground underneath her feet, Falon’s injured foot twisted on a rut in the road.
Seeing her wince of pain, Ernest glared at her. “Even if that happened,” he said shortly, “which I don’t think it would, after he got a look at whatever it is under there that’s bothering you so much, I’m sure he’d shut his trap up real fast.”
“And then I’d also have to share a seat with Nyia,” Falon continued, ignoring his somewhat reasonable point. She wasn’t feeling at all reasonable right now, “Perhaps you want me to pretend to make nice with that hussy? So that after letting her do me the favor of fixing my foot I have to be nice to her, thus putting me in her debt?” Falon demanded, “Is that what you’d have me do?”
“Why is all this so suddenly about what I be wanting?” Ernest asked, sounding bewildered. “Besides, would it hurt so much if I just said ‘yes’?” Ernest finished, treading where only fools would dare to go.
“Yes! Yes it would,” she retorted angrily. At least being angry helped keep the pain of her reopened blisters temporarily away.
“Look, Duncan’s just been a greater ass than usual. I get that. Still, it’s all probably blown over by now,” Ernest sighed and the shrug that accompanied it almost caused her hand to slip off his shoulder, “besides, would it really be that bad to share a seat with Nyia? At least ye’d save yer foot.”
“You have no idea,” Falon shuddered. The reasons she had given Ernest were true enough, but they were not the real reason…or at least, not all of them. She had actually gone to the Healing Wench earlier to ask for her foot fixed, but after a half done patch the older woman had just smiled and told her to go have Nyia fix it. Apparently the apprentice needed the practice. The truth was that after seeing how Nyia seemed to go off with a different boy each evening, Falon feared that the hussy might suddenly latch onto the ‘Squireson’ that everyone ‘knew’ was rich, as her next target.
After seeing Nyia practically drag Glaisne out into the field their second day out, it was clear she was very forward when it came to boys. The way the Healing Apprentice had licked her lips when Nyia saw her was the final nail on the ‘let’s just let the Apprentice heal my foot’ coffin.
Falon figured she could survive a couple hours on her crippled foot better than she could being kissed—or otherwise molested—by another girl. The last thing she needed was Nyia setting her sights on her. If that happened, Falon was afraid she might shrivel up and die from the shame of it all, to say nothing about the possibility of being discovered as not a real boy.
The silence that followed seemed tense and angry, so Falon gave Ernest’s shoulder a squeeze. She wished Hermiony hadn’t looked more and more like death warmed over as the day had progressed, or else she would have simply ridden her and avoided all this mess in the first place.
“Look, I promise to get my foot looked at as soon as we stop moving, cross my heart,” she finally admitted.
“I’m going to hold you to it,” he said as he deliberately turned his head away from her.
Feeling sad and rejected, Falon stared at him but for his part Ernest refused to look at her again, despite several searching looks on her part. Shrugging and feeling tired, unhappy and just plain miserable, Falon decided she should just be grateful he was helping her hobble the rest of the way into the Muster Field outside of Lamont Keep.
Secretly, she could admit that what she had just told him sounded slightly ridiculous. Which, in its own way, was why she was so very, silently, glad that he was being such a good sport about all of this right now. Unlike the mercurial Duncan, his younger brother Ernest was steady and reliable; he was a good friend.
Then as she was silently tallying up all the effort Ernest had put into helping her hobble into camp under her own power, when he could so easily have forced her into the wagon with Nyia by refusing to help, she started to feel uneasy.
Turnabouts are fair play, after all, she reluctantly concluded. Then, feeling mildly uneasy, she just hoped that when Ernest cashed in his marker and asked for her ‘help’ that it was going to be something she was actually to be able to do.
Head down and shoulders drooping, Falon almost overbalanced and fell on her face when they came to an abrupt stop.
“Wha—?” she asked, picking up her head and looking around blearily.
“We’re here, Fal,” Ernest muttered in her ear, and she quickly blinked her eyes.
“So we are,” she agreed, surprised to see the pair of wagons, the cart and the animals picketed around the group. There were three large piles of wood, and for a moment she stared at them blankly.
The sounds of flint and steel being struck together were music to her ears, and they spurred her into motion. With Ernest’s help she staggered over to the side of the lead wagon—their wagon, the one her and Ernest and Duncan slept underneath. Uncaring of the wet grass under her feet, or her suddenly wet bottom when she collapsed into a sitting position on the muddy ground, Falon was just grateful to be able to take the weight off her feet.
“By the Lady, that feels good,” she groaned tugging off the boot on her left foot and wiggling the toes around in the air.
“Yer just going to take them boots off, right here and now?” Ernest said in patent disbelief.
“Why? We’re in camp now,” she said, looking up at him blurrily, before starting to tug on her left boot. But even with the laces all the way loose and the first couple loops pulled completely out, she just didn’t have the strength to remove all that wet leather.
“Help please,” she said, extending her throbbing left foot. She winced when the throbbing turned to outright agony when she leaned back and the boot reached up above her heart.
“Unbelievable,” Ernest grumbled, reaching over and grabbing her boot with both hands. At first he gave a gentle tug, as if she were too stupid or uncoordinated enough for that simple solution not to have worked. Then he shrugged and reefed
on it with all his might.
“Hey!” she yelped as the force of his pull not only failed to remove her boot, but skittered her backside all over the wet grass and loose earth underneath her.
“Just a moment,” Ernest growled, ignoring her protests.
“That’s never going to work!” she protested, trying to jerk her foot back but the pain when he twisted the boot to adjust for a better grip had her seeing flashes of red and black all across her field of vision.
“I’ve got it this time,” he assured her, this time placing a boot on the inner thigh of her already bootless leg for better leverage.
“Let go of me,” Falon shouted, trying to twist away—afraid of where his boot might go if he slipped.
With a mighty grunt Ernest exerted a crippling amount of force on her boot and leg. Other than hurting her so bad she couldn’t even exclaim from the pain of it all, it seemed like he was doomed to failure, when all of a sudden the boy went flying backward.
Curling up into a ball did nothing to baby her affected foot, so she quickly switched into a modified, cross-legged-on-her-side position with her hands clasped around her injured foot.
It wasn’t until Ernest clambered back to his feet waving her right boot in air like it was a trophy that she realized that the dreaded boot was actually gone. Then of course she felt like a complete and utter fool, because clutched in her protective hands was the already bootless foot. Laying there gasping for the better part of a minute, it was only when Ernest thrust the stinky boot in her face that she decided she was able to once again face the world.
“Get that out of my face,” she snapped, slapping away the offending boot.
Ernest’s smile started to fade. “Hey, at least I got yer boot off,” he said defensively.
“That really hurt, you clod head,” she shouted at him, still cradling her toe.
“That was mean,” he glared at her.
In response she just waved a hand at him derisively and scooted around until her back was partly to him, her hazy fatigue of earlier having completely disappeared. Having already removed one hand from her foot, she decided she was now brave enough to take a look at the damage.
Using her free hand, she got a finger under the edge of the stinky sock and slowly pulled it down. Using both hands she removed the wet stinky sock as carefully as possible.
Looking down at her foot, she winced. She now had three wet, bleeding sores, each of them larger than the original one she had asked the Wench to help her with originally.
“That don’t look good, Fal,” Ernest finally said, this time sounding slightly worried.
“No, it doesn’t,” Falon agreed, feeling more than slightly sick when she looked from her damaged foot over to the red stain on the side of her sock.
“I think we’d really better get ye over to the Wench,” he said eventually.
Falon jerked at the thought. “Only the Wench; I can’t stand that Nyia!” she objected.
“Now yer just being a silver-spoon-fed dunderhead, Fal,” Ernest replied sternly, “Nyia’s just a person like as any other and if ye don’t want to lose that foot to the green rot, ye’ll do as yer told for once!”
“Oh, so you think you know better, do you?!” she flared stubbornly, not wanting to admit that her foot really did need someone to take a look at it.
“Get up off yer high horse,” he said stubbornly. When he leaned down to reach up under her shoulders to help her to her feet, her eyes flew open in surprise and she quickly jerked out of his grasp.
“I can manage getting to my own feet, thank you very much,” she glared at him.
“I’m not taking no for an answer; we’re getting ye to the Wench,” Ernest snapped, once again reaching under her armpits from behind and starting to lift. This time when she tried to slap his hands and jerk away, he just tightened his grip until she was once again on her feet.
“Let go of me,” she demanded, finally managing to jerk away as soon as her feet were under her and she was standing once again. The pain in her right foot soon caused her to shift her stance so that most of the weight was on her bare left foot. The sensation of wet mud oozing up between her toes was both oddly comforting and absolutely repulsive at the same time.
Seeing the determined look in his eye and knowing she couldn’t properly resist as long as her one foot was lame, she stuck out her chin. Glaring at him when he moved forward as if offering to help, she took the first step all on her own.
She was doing all right, placing all the weight on her left foot and hop-hobble stepping forward with her right, careful to place as little weight on it for as short a time as possible. Everything was going okay until Ernst told her she was going the wrong way.
Just as suddenly as that, she looked up and her foot shot out from underneath her. Flailing in the air wildly, she would have fallen right on her face, had Ernest not arrived just in time to catch her.
With a steadying grip on her arm, he held on until she caught her balance.
“Don’t touch me,” she huffed just as soon as she had control of her body once again.
Giving a martyred sigh, Ernest just grabbed her shoulder and slung it up over his arm once again. “She’s over this way,” he gestured before once again dragging her through the mud.
“Ouch,” she protested when he went a little faster than she had been expecting and had to take an extra quick hobble step to catch up.
“Quit being such a baby, Falon,” Ernest growled at her.
Stung, Falon stiffened and her mouth tightened angrily. However, she refused to give him the satisfaction of a response, so instead she concentrated on getting wherever they were going as quickly as possible.
With the small flame of the now-lit fire looming on the front edge of her field of vision, she was staring down at the wet grass and earth when a pair of men walked over to them.
“It’s Vance and Aodhan,” Ernest muttered in her ears. And though she pretended to ignore him because of how rude he had been, she took note of what he said. Although, who this Aodhan was she, had not a clue…
Until she saw that the man with Blacksmith Vance was none other than the elected Headman of the West Wick Militia. With a shake of her head, she suppressed a long-suffering sigh. Instead, she stared up at them tightly and wondered what the pair of village militia leaders wanted.
“Thou art moving a mite hobbled up, Falon Squiresheir,” said the man she now knew as Aodhan.
“Aye, what have ye done to yerself?” demanded Vance looking irritated.
Falon opened her mouth, but that annoying twit Ernest beat her to the punch. “He’s crippled up his foot, Goodmen,” Ernest said quickly, yet politely.
“That’s no good,” Aodhan said looking worried. He exchanged a glance with the Blacksmith, who for his part shook his head shortly.
“We’ll just have to get him over to the Wench before he heads off,” the Blacksmith said with an irritated sigh as he turned to speak with Aodhan, as if she, the very person they were speaking about, was not even really there.
“Go?” Falon all but yelped in her surprise. And while there had been nothing but surprise in her voice when she spoke, surprise soon turned to outrage. They actually expected her to go something in her condition and after a full day of slogging through the muddy trail leading to the Muster Fields!
Vance turned back to her with a frown.
“Yes, go,” he said shortly.
Falon’s mouth fell open.
“Why would he have to go anywhere?” Ernest protested, and Falon felt a surge of warmth that at least one person present cared enough to look out for her wellbeing. Even if it was that infernally insufferable-right-at-that-moment Ernest, “surely it can wait until the morn.”
“Mind thy mouth, spud,” Aodhan said sternly as he stared Ernest down.
Eyes dropping from the weight of the Headman’s regard, Falon could tell that Ernest was still silently protesting this latest turn of events.
Vance shot Aodhan a hard look an
d the other man exchanged a significant look with the Blacksmith before turning back with narrowed his eyes to Ernest. Aodhan then shrugged and took a step back as if to say Vance could deal with the entire matter.
“Where am I to head off to?” Falon asked, trying for a stubbornly determined tone, but ending up with a lower lip quivering pout instead. Recognizing the pout, she quickly put the traitorous lip between her teeth and gave it a light bite so that it would know its place in the future.
“The leader of each band is to present himself to the Keep with a tally of the men under his command as soon as he arrives,” Vance said his face stern mask in the flickering firelight, “so said the road sentry.”
“So?” Falon asked, feeling both dumb and stupid to have to ask why she needed to go with them, when in retrospect the answer seemed fairly obvious. She figured that it was because she was the supposed Squireson, and thus it was her job to go with them to report in at the Keep.
Vance just shook his head at her and when he failed to say anything else, she felt even stupider than before.
“As the leader of this Militia, it’s yer job to report to the Lord,” Aodhan explained when it looked like Vance wasn’t going to say anything any time soon.
“Me?!” she exclaimed in complete and total surprise.
After shooting Aodhan an irritated look, Vance turned her way, “As I was about to say; since ye’ve taken yer Father’s place at the head of the Militia, it’s yer job to go report to the Keep.”
Falon opened her mouth and then slowly closed it while she stared at the two of them. When both men raised their eyebrows and stared right back at her, she realized she had been glaring. Silently furious with everyone and everything about her current predicament, she lowered her gaze back to the ground.
“I’m to go alone,” she said tightly.
“O’ course,” said Aodhan looking surprised.
“It’s yer job as the Militia leader, see,” Vance agreed with his counterpart more mildly.
Falon could see; oh, but how could she! It seemed that she was their theoretical leader, and as such the real leaders—these two men—got to make all the decisions and tell everyone what to do. As such, she was the one who got sent off to Lamont Keep in the middle of the night — probably because no one else wanted the job!
The Blooding Page 10