Squire Hayseed

by S E Zbasnik

  A courtyard separated the two groups. Across it marched a man in pristine livery that bore a striking resemblance to the blue one in the order. There were a few differences of note, however, like the fact he’d spilled their blood across that very grass. In his hands was a rope upon which every kidnapped knight was tied to. They stumbled down the stairs, their hands clasped together as if in prayer thanks to the knots bound around their wrists.

  Cursing, the old man hauled up the stash and began to walk towards the rest of the enemy waiting inside the castle. Hayley tried to stand up taller, hoping to get a glimpse of Frederick and see if he survived, but in doing so she caught sight of the mechanism to open the gate. Her traitorous eyes darted directly across the grounds to a puddle in the torn dirt. It could be from an early morning rain, or someone taking a piss, but she knew in her soul it was blood — his blood. Innocent blood cursed so it’d never soak into the ground.

  Damn it. Hayley tried to look away fast, catching her tears before anyone saw, but in doing so her elbow bumped into Gavin. He reacted badly, trying to give her room by sliding further into view. It was the first time she’d even gotten closer than a foot since…her stupid folly. Gavin’s movement caught the eye of the man marching their bought soldiers back to them.

  “Well,” the man in blue paused, a smile curling up his cheek. “Look where we are now, Gavin.”

  Her knight’s face fell hard, the voice stone. “Laurence.”

  “Tell me, does it burn knowing that what you stole out from under me is once again safely in my hands?”

  Gavin blinked slowly, his head lifting. “Nowhere near as horrible as someone who’d turn their back on their own Order, Betrayer.”

  Laurence chuckled at that. “Seems from where I’m standing, I’m the better for it.” With his snide remark out of the way, Laurence tugged up the rope and began to undo each of the knots. The first knight dashed free, his gangly legs carrying him further down the hill and away from the sight of the massacre. The second Hayley remembered spotting around the battlefield before she knew what fighting was, her face just as impenetrable now as it had been when she was bathing inside the mead cask.

  As the rope upon the knight’s wrists slithered to the ground she rubbed the obvious red mark and glared at Laurence as if he did it wrong. Head held high, the woman marched slowly towards the rest of the group. Hopefully, somewhere in the back was her squire.

  “It’s a shame, you know,” Laurence spoke again, unwinding the next in what seemed to be a never-ending line. The man paused in both his duty and words, clearly hoping for Gavin to rise for the bait, but her knight knew better. “If we’d caught you last night, you’d have fetched such a price, the Knight-Commander himself would have had to pay it. How is ol’ Sigward? Each day must drain upon the senile fool.”

  Hayley flinched. They were all under orders to not carry weapons, but she knew her knight. He could leap forward and snap that man’s neck before he even had time to lift his hands. What would happen if Gavin did? Would the exchange be called off? Would the attack resume? Would they all be in mortal danger?

  Sense prevailed, and despite growling deep in his throat, Gavin didn’t move an inch. His eyes swept over the knights he helped pay to free, until a familiar voice coughed and muttered, “Watch it, will ya?”

  Not caring about the taunting from Laurence, or anyone else watching, when the last coils of rope slithered off of Frederick’s wrists, Gavin stepped forward and caught the man’s forearm. A tepid smile rose at the grip before Gavin tugged the man to him in a half hug.

  The pair patted each other on the back, Frederick whispering, “Bit of a mix up with this one, huh?”

  “Something of that nature.”

  “So,” Frederick raised back. His skin was pallid as vellum, bags drawn deep under his eyes, and a spray of dried blood speckled to his cheeks, but he was smiling. Those exhausted but resilient eyes turned right to Gavin, “how much did I cost you?”

  “It…it doesn’t matter. You’re free now.” He wouldn’t speak of the lockbox, the one Gavin sent for special that was passed over fast in the Council. Hayley didn’t have the heart to ask how little was left over.

  “Ah, you say that now, but I bet I’m gonna owe you a foot rub after this,” Frederick laughed. He moved to stagger up from Gavin’s hug when the man’s body swayed. “Whoa,” he mumbled, a hand plowing to his forehead to catch his bearings.

  “Ser!” a voice shouted from the end of the line. Streaking up the middle, past the other freed knights stumbling for succor, came a flash of red. Not caring about protocol, or where she was supposed to wait, Larissa launched herself straight at Frederick and wrapped her arms tight around his waist. Tears bubbled in her eyes as she buried her face into his chest.

  “I was so lost without you,” she cried, her smaller body easily rocking his.

  Frederick’s weak hand lifted and cupped the back of Larissa’s head. “Shh, it’s okay. I always make it back,” he whispered almost intimately at her. For a flash, Hayley’s guts boiled and she whipped her eyes away. If she dared to do that to Gavin, he’d likely toss her aside and run for it.

  As if sensing the curious look from Gavin, Frederick raised his head high and let his hands go slack. “Why isn’t this the same greeting I get from you? Ten years we’ve known each other and it’s only a puny handshake?”

  Whatever concern was knotted in Gavin’s lips cracked to a great smile. He thumped his hand to Frederick’s back and began to help his friend down the hill. “Come on. We should get some food in you before you crumble to dust.” Larissa let go, her hands falling to her side as she staggered away from her lost knight found.

  While Gavin and Frederick talked about anything but the entrapment and what it cost, Hayley stood silently beside Larissa. The girl had her arms wrapped tight around her chest as if she had to hug herself. Her shoulders slumped further down and she seemed stuck in place, almost as if she didn’t want to trail after her knight. What in the world for? He just got out. She was free to be a squire in full standing again.

  Green eyes whipped over at Hayley. Swiping a hand along her nose, Larissa spat, “What, Hayseed?” Before letting anyone answer, Larissa took off running after the pair. Why in god’s name did she even let herself wonder if something was wrong? The knights were freed. No one had to die. Soon they’d return home. It was a good day, even if Larissa’s sudden downturn stuck deep into the back of Hayley’s brain.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Pillars of flour erupted from the clapped hands, the powder blanketing Hayley’s sight. She turned away to cough out the gunk while Ania flashed a massive grin. Slapping her hands twice more, though the dramatic effect was lessened considerably, Ania dove into kneading a slop of dough with her knuckles. It suckered up through her fingers as if trying to wrap around Ania’s hand and hold it, but she pounded it all back down onto the board.

  Hayley sat in the kitchen, one knee tucked up high on the stool while her other foot barely swiped near the floor. Funny, after all those weeks away she felt both six-feet-tall and no bigger than a mouse at the same time. Ania blew a stray hair up and the black tendril to fell right back into her eyes. Sneering, she did it again, causing the same result.

  Without a thought, Hayley leaned closer and hooked the hair up with her pinkie. She stuffed it back safe under the blue kerchief while Ania got back to work. “Thanks,” the girl said, both fists now working the dough over good. Her head tipped up to watch Hayley who was having trouble meeting anyone’s eye.

  “Nothing,” she shrugged, tipping back on the stool. “You should get a cap. They…they’re good at keeping hair away.”

  Ania grinned. “Not with hair as thick as mine. I swear, no matter the plait, or knot, or bun I put it in, it always twists and turns of its own accord until it lands in my eye.”

  “Maybe it hates you,” Hayley said with a smile. “Maybe a witch cursed it.”

  “Must have been a rather bored witch,” Ania chuckled back. S
he gave one last good smack to the dough before rolling it into a ball, dumping it in a bowl, placing it near the window, and giving it a towel cover for a nap. With her hands mostly free, Ania swiped against her sweaty forehead.

  Hayley snorted once from the streak of dough clinging to her right eyebrow. The noise or dumb look on her face must have been enough as Ania paused and glanced over at her. “Nothing,” she said again, her lips pursing together before she resumed bouncing back and forth on her stool.

  “Sure, nothing. You’ve been saying almost nothing but nothing since getting back.” Ania pawed at the floury mess on the counter before yanking up a bucket of eggs. The hens must have been keeping busy while Hayley was gone. Some of the eggs looked to be nearly the size of her fist. Ouch.

  “Not much to say,” Hayley muttered.

  “That ain’t the way Ser Gavin tells it,” Ania said cryptically, drawing Hayley right to her.

  “Why? What’d he say?” she gulped. That his screw-up of a squire nearly got him killed? That she did get innocent people killed? That she tried to stupidly kiss him for reasons Hayley still couldn’t figure out and never ever wanted to talk about?

  Ania shrugged causing the waning straps on her dress to slip further off her shoulder. “Heard him, well, you know,” she grinned as if it was a big joke, “saw him talking to Lady Bernadine ‘bout you, the trip in general.”

  That was right to where Gavin ran the moment they returned to Estate Assburn. While Hayley crawled up into her little pantry bed, he was off to Bernadine’s side like a crack of lightning. She didn’t care. She was sore everywhere and wanted sleep — which he let her have deep into the morning. Not even a spray of cold water to rouse her from empty dreams. Out of ideas of what to do, Hayley wandered the grounds. She didn’t even have to feed the geese as Ania had finished the task without thought. When the grey skies began to open to a damp spring drizzle, Hayley hightailed it for the kitchen and had yet to find a good reason to leave.

  “Well…” Hayley held out her hand, wanting Ania to get on with it.

  “He said you proved yourself,” Ania whispered so quietly even Hayley almost missed it. Her cheeks turned red, head drifting down at the thought.

  Snorting to herself, Hayley swiped her hands over her chest and signed as well as growled, “He’s full of it.” Though with her fingers, the ‘it’ became ‘shit.’ She knew that one better than the hand signal for it.

  “Hayley,” Ania signed in obvious consternation.

  She should be annoyed at getting called out for her coarse language, or for making fun of Brave Ser Gavin, but Hayley liked the sign Ania came up with for her. It was a closed fist that then opened wide, like releasing seeds into the wind.

  “I didn’t do anything out there. Anything beyond what you do here, more or less.”

  “You expect me to believe that?” Ania seemed to be upset that she missed out on a long, boring trip punctuated by a lot of blood.

  Standing up on the stool’s lower frame, Hayley reached far for a jar of something pickled. She popped two of the black ovals into her mouth and chewed down fast. “It’s true, I swear. Just cleaning, and fetching things, and standing quietly while all the knights yelled at each other and got into a drunken stupor.”

  Ania laughed at the thought before sighing. “I have troubles imagining Ser Gavin drunk.”

  “Not him.” Hayley waved it away before loading her mouth up with the chewy black goodies. “He’s too stiff. Bet if anyone took the rod out of his ass he’d just…” She flared her fingers out like water and splatted both palms on the table.

  “Hayley,” Ania signed again but she was also laughing the whole time. Used to taking a few hits, Hayley slunk back to the stool, but Ania was more smiles now. After she finished cracking enough eggs to batter a cow, her eyes drifted up to Hayley slipping a twelfth pickled whatever it was into her mouth. “I can’t believe you like olives.”

  “Is that what these are?” she asked, chomping down on the last one before closing the jar.

  “Yes, and they are disgusting.”

  “Nu-uh, you don’t know disgusting. Disgusting is ten-day-old gruel with maggots growing on the bottom of the bowl.”

  Ania’s entire body shuddered, her head dropping down fast as she gasped in air. “Ew, ew, ew! Why do you tell me these things?!” Her hands flew so fast Hayley didn’t have a prayer to keep up. “Why do you invent these horrors?”

  Invent. Right. All pretend. Totally never happened before.

  Missing the sudden downturn on Hayley’s face, Ania turned to the roaring fire, but she said over her shoulder, “You’re worse than Finn.”

  A new pain claimed Hayley’s heart. It was easy for her to forget about him, about that big problem while she was way down south and facing near death. But back here, sitting in a kitchen with nothing to do, it…it was a lot harder. At least he didn’t seem to have blabbed while she was gone. Unless he wanted to wait to make certain the hunters could catch her.

  “Have you two talked yet?” Ania turned to her, those mirror-eyes quickly sizing her up.

  “Uh.” She whipped her face away, unable to take the stare before flinching and turning back. “No. I haven’t had time. Doubt he’d care anyway. It’s Finn. He doesn’t care about anything. Anything that doesn’t have four hooves and a saddle, anyway.”

  “Mmm.” Ania was doing her dissecting thing where she stared through you. It unnerved Hayley to no end. She leapt off the stool, thinking about heading anywhere that wasn’t the kitchens. Maybe find Gavin and see if he had orders for her. It was a good plan right up until she turned to the door and nearly ran smack dab into a giant forehead.

  “Hey Ania, I was out with…” Finn’s voice dropped like a rock, his eyes darting over the unexpected girl spinning in place to act as if she had no intentions to leave. Hayley dug her hands to the countertop, suddenly finding Ania’s dinner preparations fascinating as hell.

  “Well,” Finn popped his lips, his voice soft in surprise before it rallied back to the bugger she knew, “look what the cat dragged in. You been back long?”

  Hayley shrugged. “Day, more or less.”

  “A day…?” he stuttered. “Oh, is that all? I can’t believe Gravy’s already let you off the lead.”

  “Do you want something, Finn?” Hayley spun back to him, her eyes narrowing to a pinprick.

  “Me? Since when do you care what I want?” he volleyed back and she snorted.

  “Like you’re one to talk.” Hayley rounded tighter to him, almost within smacking distance should she need to. Finn’s eyes stormed grayer than the clouds amassing outside.

  Go ahead, try something. Hayley wasn’t about to break now.

  “Did I miss something?” Ania’s innocent voice pipped up from behind the counter. Both Hayley and Finn whipped back to the girl holding the legs of a plucked chicken in her hands.

  “No.”

  “Course not.”

  “Nothing at all.”

  They shot it out so fast, it was hard to say who began and ended it. Only Ania took in their denial slowly and bobbed her head. “As you say, I guess.”

  Finn wrinkled his nose. “I should get out of here.”

  “Yeah.” Hayley rose up higher on her toes, not that it gave her much of an advantage over him. He snorted, shaking his head as if she was delusional. Maybe that was it, Finn wanted to convince her she imagined him trying to yank her top off. Imagine all of it — even the kisses. Well…he could sit on a badger!

  Twisting her head back with certainty, Hayley spun away from the pointless boy and watched as Ania laid the chicken carcass out on the counter. She fished up a cleaver and, with precision, chopped through the wing joint.

  White. Bone white prodded up through meat. Blood choking out the air, oozing in her nose, dripping down the back of her throat. Hayley stumbled backwards, her spine striking the wall as she watched Marco fall to his knees. The sword struck the ground and she covered her ears tight with her hands, her head shaking to
get away from the smell, the sound, the bleating fear in her heart. To escape it all.

  No. No. Not again!

  “Hayseed, Hayseed!” A hand held her, a hand had her trapped. She whipped her head up, her fist drawing back to strike whatever was keeping her ensnared in this nightmare when she fell into Finn’s eyes. They looked terrified, more scared than even Marco was when he…

  “I have to get out of here,” she cried. Both hands still clasped to her ears, Hayley ran out of the kitchen door, down the creaking stairs, and straight into the rain. Her momentum carried her through the courtyard, but when her toe sunk into the mud she failed to adjust and crumbled to a knee.

  “Damn it!” Hayley screamed to the world. Darkness seeped into her vision bringing with it the scent of burning flesh. That didn’t make any sense.

  There were no bodies put to the brand that night. No corpses hurled to the flames. Just her skin burned by a wretched man’s iron years back, her teeth biting apart an old rag as she tried to limp away. Why wouldn’t it leave her alone? Why was it always there?

  “Hayseed?” a voice shattered the sickly darkness. She tried to paw through the blood pounding from the sky, but Hayley couldn’t see anything past the shadows.

  “Go away!” she shrieked, attempting to rise to her feet and run. Hayley made it one step before her ankle twisted and she fell again. “Piece of shithole crap…damn it.” Her tirade faded to a whimper as she curled up in the mud.

  “What’s the matter?” Finn kept on bugging her. Wouldn’t let her be. No one would let her be.

  “Nothing,” she spat out, the bloody rain washing away her tears. At least he couldn’t see them mixed in with the water from heaven.

  Sighing, Finn jogged down the stairs towards the girl stuck in the mud. He reached for her shoulders, but Hayley whipped her hand out to stop him. “I said leave me alone!”

  “You’re gonna sit out here in this storm in the mud?” He had to shout to be heard over the pelt of rain striking building, ground, and flesh rotting in the mud.