by Mind Guest
Were I you, I would retract that insult."
"And yet you are not I, wench," Ralnor answered through his teeth,
tightening his grip again to the point where I winced against the pain.
"No wench, neither peasant nor princess, may speak to me as you do.
Such insolence demands a reckoning, and I shall. . ."
"Do naught," Fallan interrupted, wrapping his hand around Ralnor's
wrist and pulling his fingers away from my arm. "Do you forget the oath
we have sworn, Ralnor? Do you forget the cautions we were given? You
declared yourself able to withstand even the haughtiest of princesses.
Were you mistaken in the judgment of your strength?"
"Perhaps . . . merely in my capacity for patience, Captain," the other
man grudged, backing down as gracefully as his still-present anger
would allow. "I had not meant to approach the wench after the earlier
words exchanged between us, and did not; it was I who was approached,
and in an unexpected manner. I will now take myself elsewhere, where I
will not place our company in jeopardy."
He gave me a last glare then turned and walked off, heading toward a
group of men tending their vair. I rubbed at my arm where his grip had
probably left fingerprints, wondering exactly why I'd gotten into an
argument with the man, and Fallan turned from watching Ralnor's
receding back to look down at me with less than friendliness.
"Such a thing will not occur again, Missy," he growled, with a look in
his eyes that made Ralnor's glare a smile by comparison. "That my men
and I are pledged to your safety does not mean you may address us as
you please. Had Ralnor less control of his own temper, that overbearing
temper you display would surely have been properly trimmed. Let me see
your arm."
I'd thought I'd been doing my rubbing surreptitiously, but eagle-eye
Fallan had spotted it anyway. He pushed my other hand away and took my
arm with such unexpected gentleness that for once I was more surprised
than Bellna. Just below the short sleeve of my new blouse angry red
fingermarks could be seen, a couple of which were bound to turn into
bruises. Fallan inspected the arm and marks with no expression on his
face, then raised his gaze to mine again.
"I regret that skin so fair and soft must know the results of a man's
anger," he said, looking much too deeply into my eyes. "The fault is
mine, for I should not have let you move from my side. Where did you
think to go other than to the coach?"
"I w-wished to avail my-myself of the bushes hereabout," I stuttered,
sounding and feeling like a little girl whose arm was still being held
by the man she was beginning to be terribly in love with. Bellna's
throbbing was racing all through me, showing she didn't have to be in
control to make me act like an idiot. I could feel Fallan's warmth
through my arm where his big hand touched me, could see how he looked
at my body through the thin cloth covering it, could taste how badly my
arousal wanted satisfaction from him. With all that against me I found
it impossible not to tremble, and a faint grin lightened the near-
ugliness of his face.
"You should have spoken to me of the need," he said, taking my hand
instead of my arm. "It would have been my pleasure to escort you to the
privacy which is yours by right. As I shall do now. Follow me, wench."
Bellna fluttered again, thrilled with the way he called me "wench," and
I discovered that the story I'd come up with on the spur of the moment
wasn't just a story any longer. I really did need some bushes, and
maybe then I'd be able to reclaim the rest of my bodily functions. I
let Fallan guide me to a ring of greenery to one side of the clearing,
discovered there was no way of sneaking out again without someone
noticing, did what I had to, then let him take me back to the coach
again. The bushes offer was made to the four girls and accepted by
them, giving me the faint hope that I'd be left alone by the coach, but
no such luck. Fallan stayed with me while the girls guided themselves,
and when they came back he helped the "princess" in first.
"And now the rest of you may enter," he said, giving the others a hand
before he turned to me. "When the next inn is reached, Missy, you and
the other wenches will take yourselves to the kitchens, as was
previously done. The princess will be served by the inn girls, allowing
her servants a time of rest. I trust there will be no confusion as to
which place is yours."
"I am well aware of which place is mine," I answered with a pout,
trying hard to shove Bellna's reactions away from me. "Equally am I
aware that that place has been taken from me. Which of the others will
serve me in the kitchens?"
"None will serve you in the kitchens," Fallan answered with something
of a sigh as he leaned one hand against the coach above my head. "You
will be required to serve yourself, and my men and I as well. You are
to be a peasant wench, and convincingly, else shall I be forced to
punish you soundly. Far better a strapping at my hands, than a sword in
the throat from those who seek your life. Your safety will be assuredat
whatever cost."
His eye said he'd just given me his word, but that was all he was
giving me; rather than letting me have the time to argue, he hustled me
up the steps into the coach, and slammed the door on me. I was able to
climb over all the legs and get to my seat on the far side before the
coach moved off again, but the lurching start shifted me over toward
the redhead. She looked at me distantly and gathered her skirts closer
to her, making sure the peasant didn't dirty them by being too near
them, and the other three girls giggled in appreciation. The redhead
had picked up the necessary attitudes of Tildorani nobility, and was
practicing them on me in the same way I'd done with her. Bellna was
huffing inside my head, ready to be insulted, but I had other things to
think about. I moved all the way over to my side of the seat, ignored
the giggling, whispering girls, and brooded at the forest flowing past.
Right at that moment, I couldn't decide whether Bellna or Fallan was my
biggest problem. Fallan was alternating between threats and sweettalking,
a tactic designed to put a young girl off balance and keep her
that way. Bellna was reacting just the way Fallan wanted her to, and
her unbridled reactions were throwing me off balance. As I sat and
stared at the forest the road wound through, my unwelcome guest was
sighing and thinking about the way Fallan had treated her. Treated me.
Hell, treated both of us. He hadn't liked the way I'd argued with
Ralnor, but the marks on my arm had seemed to really bother him.
Bellna's reactions to his small kindnesses were making me begin to like
Fallan the mercenary, and I couldn't afford to like him. I was on an
assignment that would undoubtedly produce a whole lot of dead bodies all around me, and I couldn't afford to find myself in the position of
having liked one of them. The sort of emotions evoked at a time like
that are not conducive to survival
.
I sighed and shifted my bare feet on the floorboards of the coach,
feeling the repugnance Bellna felt at the sensation. She had never been
made to go barefoot before in her entire life, and her over-awareness
of the state was enough to divert part of her attention from thoughts
of Fallan. It annoyed her that that indignity had been forced on her by
Fallan himself, but she was ready to forgive him grudgingly-if he
continued to act as though she might be important to him in some way. I
wondered about that, about why he was concerning himself so directly
with the young girl in his charge, but could only guess when it came to
drawing conclusions. It wasn't likely that he was seriously interested
in her, not when she was a princess already promised in marriage to the
crown prince of Narella. Attachments like that were formed only in
fiction; real-life, practical men knew better, and if nothing else,
Fallan seemed practical. He was probably only trying to make life
easier on himself by having Bellna too starry-eyed to give him a hard
time. Or too wide-eyed by his threats, the latest of which had done
exactly that to her. He had said he would beat me if I didn't act like
the peasant I was supposed to be, but somehow I still didn't believe
him. It wasn't the sort of thing a mercenary could get away with, even
in the name of protection. Fallan was probably hoping that if he said
it calmly and seriously enough, Bellna the child would believe it.
Unfortunately for him he wasn't dealing with Bellna, and I didn't like
the arrangements he'd made with the redhead. I leaned back on the coach
seat and closed my eyes on the decision that I'd have to push the good
captain a little more, and sabotage his plans if at all possible. I was
the one getting paid to take the risks; the idea of overprotecting a
decoy was absurd.
The distance to the next inn wasn't far enough to let me do more than
grab a catnap. When the captain of Bellna's mercenaries came to hand
her out of the coach, all of us, including the new princess, were given
a surprise. The man wearing the captain's neck scaff was Ralnor, and he
was the picture of courtesy to the redhead. Fallan, now a lieutenant,
gathered the rest of us "girls" together, and herded us along after his
captain and our princess. The rest of the mercenaries took up their
places around and behind us, and we repeated our parade to the inn.
After Ralnor and Fallan checked out the interior we went inside, were
immediately noticed by the tall, slightly pot-bellied man who was the
innkeeper, then went through the same revelation scene we had at the
previous inn. I'd decided to wait for the 'grand announcement before
making my move, so' when the innkeeper was gasping in shocked delight I
began to step forward-and discovered that Fallan hadn't counted on my
being intimidated by his threats. Three of his men were inches away
from me at left, right and back, and the disguised captain himself was
right in front of me. I took no more than that one short step before
finding myself in a box of hefty male bodies, and seconds later our
party had separated, the redhead and Ralnor being led to a table,
Fallan and six of his men, the three girls and I all moving toward a
door in the far wall. With all eyes in the place on the "princess," no
one noticed that one of the peasant girls wasn't moving entirely on her
own. I noticed it, of course, but there wasn't much I could do and
still stay in character. Shouting over wide shoulders or past thick
arms wouldn't be very effective, but that was the only option Fallan
had left open to me.
The door in the far wall let us into a big, stuffy room filled with the odor of cooking food. Four women in peasant dress hurried from pot to
pan to preparation table to fire, sweat on their faces and boredom in
their eyes. Five girls hurried around filling wine jugs and collecting
goblets, three male slaves in chains lugged heavy sacks or carried
armioads of wood, and two men wearing yellow and white neck scarves and
very obvious swords stood and watched the hurry all around them without
sharing in it. The two armed men were house guards, and when they saw
Fallan and his huskies they straightened and came away from the wall
they'd been leaning on
"Calmly," Fallan called, holding one hand up, palm outward, toward the
two men. "Our Company rides in the service of the Princess Bellna, who
now pauses for refreshment in your house. We, ourselves, are here to
assist you in guarding the pots - as well as help to ourselves to a bit
of the best of them. Are there any about it would be wise to look upon
with suspicion?"
"None save yourselves," answered one of the men, a dark-haired, darkeyed,
almost-match to Fallan. He was grinning faintly to show he might
be joking, but he and the other man kept their backs to the wall and
their hands not far from their hilts.
"Well spoken," Fallan nodded, clearly in approval. "To accept my word
would be foolishness on your part. It would undoubtedly be best if you
were to..."
"Why do you all stand about gawping?" a sudden voice demanded, and we
turned to see the innkeeper in the doorway. "The Princess Bellna honors
my house with her presence, and those in my service take their ease
while my wine sours and my food burns! To your work, all of you, and
that as quickly as you value your freedom - or skins!"
The women and girls, who had obviously been watching the exchange
between Fallan and the house guards, paled at the snap in the
innkeeper's voice and immediately turned back to what they'd been
doing. The three slaves, dressed in filthy rags tied around their
middles, short, heavy chains, and a good selection of whip marks, also
worked at looking busy, two of them shuffling out of the room on some
errand or other. The only ones not upset by the innkeeper's threat were
the house guards, who finally relaxed from the stiffened, ready
position they'd been in, and sauntered over closer to be heard over the
unending fl6w of commands coming out of their employer.
"Were you about to suggest that we await the arrival of the innkeeper,
the suggestion was sound," the dark-haired guard told Fallan with a
grin. "It is now clear that you are honored guests, and may be offered
a cup or two when the hubbub has finally quieted."
"A cup or two would be well received," Fallan said with an amiable nod,
turning his head to watch the frantically hurrying girls and women, who
were being commanded to even greater speed by the innkeeper. "A pity
this hubbub will be awhile in quieting."
The guard raised his brows in doubt before also looking at the goingson,
but Fallan turned out to be right. The hurrying back and forth took
forever to be over, and once it was, half the contents of the kitchen
was gone. I remembered all the courses I'd been offered at the last
inn, and hoped the redhead was hungry. If it had still been me in her
place, I couldn't have eaten a thing.
"You wenches may now serve us and take your own fare," Fallan announced
in the sudden peace and quiet, stretching where he stood near the house
guards. "I will have a bowl of that root soup and a cut of light bread,
but first of all a cup of wine."
"Bring wine for all, including us," the dark-haired house guard
amended, looking over at the three girls near me and then, last of all, me. Bellna gasped and backed trembling into her corner at that look,
and the guard showed a faint grin. "With your permission, Lieutenant, I
would have that red-haired one serve me," he said to Fallan without
looking at him. "Is she yours or your captain's?"
"Neither," Fallan answered, putting his hand on the man's shoulder
while joining his stare. "Her service belongs to the Princess, a fact
she is well aware of. By cause of that fact, her actions when out of
sight of the Princess are much like those of the Princess herself. Her
service to us is clumsy, reluctant and far from pleasing, for she
believes the Princess will protect her from our wrath. For the sake of
your temper, you would be wise to choose another."
"For the sake of my eyesight, however, there is no other choice," the
man laughed in answer, still watching me. "Have her fetch our wine."
"As you please," Fallan agreed with a shrug in his voice, but his eyes
were a lot less unconcerned. "Fetch two cups of wine, wench, and see
that you do so in an acceptable manner. Should you be beaten the
Princess may well be furious, yet will you still have received the
beating."
I tossed my head and turned away from them, annoyed as all hell that
Fallan had boxed me up so neatly. If I refused to serve them, Fallan
would have to beat me, or the house guards would surely get suspicious.
The role I was committed to would let me do not a single thing to stop
him, which meant that if I didn't want to be beaten, I'd have to avoid
it rather than stop it. I stalked over to the three peasant girls
already working on getting wine and food together for Fallan and his
men, ignored their smirks, and appropriated two goblets of wine. Since
the goblets had been poured for and by someone else that took care of
the smirks, but I didn't care if the girls were displeased with me. If
they didn't like what I was doing, they could complain to the princess.
I carried the two goblets of wine over to Fallan and his new friend,
not paying any attention to how much was spilling onto the floor as I