An elderly woman, well past the age of respectful retirement, hobbled in, leaning heavily on a wooden cane. “What can I do for you?”
“I need travel provisions. Hard cheese, barley, oats, bread if you’ve got it.”
The woman didn’t respond, but moved around the shop, slowly collecting the items he had mentioned. Out of the corner of his eye, Cal spotted the princess moving about, considering the different jars and sacks laying on the shelves.
“Looks as though your woman needs herself a new pair of shoes,” said the woman as she wrapped a wheel of cheese in a cloth and placed it in the sack.
Cal just grunted.
“I’ve got a pair of boots, ‘bout her size, in the back. Sell ‘em to you for a trice.”
“Let’s see’m then.”
The old lady shuffled back into her store room and returned with a pair of leather riding boots, well-oiled against the wet climate.
“Got’m off a boy, what died of the fever. But they’re good boots.”
“Ann, get your skinny arse over here.”
The princess scurried over to where he stood, her head bowed.
“Well, see iffen they fit.”
She glanced up, her eyes properly wide with surprise. She took one boot, sat down on the dirty floor and held the sole up against her muddy foot. They were much closer to fitting her than the stolen boots. The princess glanced up at him, hope clearly visible in her stormy gray eyes.
“Yah, okay. You can have ‘em, but never say I done nothin’ for ya,” grumbled Cal.
The princess tied the laces together and slung the boots over her shoulder. She would wait to put them on until she had cleaned her feet properly. Then, without any order on his part, the princess took up two of the sacks and headed for the door.
She’s playing her part well, he thought as he tossed the coins to the shopkeeper and followed her out, his own sack slung over his back. Tonight, at least, we will eat well.
Chapter Fourteen
Four days later, the sun finally shown down on them. Bethany looked up at the rays of sun gleaming through the thinning clouds. She was wet and cold, but nearly happy. Since the attack, she had gained a courage she never possessed before, and it was freeing. She and the knight didn’t speak much, but she didn’t mind. During the hours of silence she thought of her family, wondering what they were doing and if they were thinking of her.
She pulled her sodden cloak off, which they had acquired at an obliging farm. Besides the cloak, they had stolen a length of rope and a bag of dried carrots. Thinking of the carrots made her hungry. Then again, she was always hungry. With the extra provisions, the knight had been offering her more food, but all it did was make her more aware of her gnawing stomach. Still, Bethany thought she seemed to be gaining a little weight back.
Bethany now spent half her days walking alongside the donkey, her backside too sore to sit on its sharp back bone for long. Like her, the knight often walked, saving Éimhin whenever he could. The horse had grown thinner from their days in the mountains and the many hours it spent walking instead of grazing, but the lower lands of a Domhain had a little greenness to them, and they were finding more and more grassy places to camp.
She was just beginning to feel the weight of the long day when the knight stopped beside a slow stream.
“Let’s stop for the night, eh?”
Bethany glanced up. The sun was dipping toward the tree line, but was still high compared to when they usual stopped.
“It’s early,” she said, her hand still protecting her eyes as she gazed toward the north and her home.
Sir Caldry sighed. “I’m tired.”
“I guess I am too,” she agreed.
“Good.” The knight tossed the reins over a tree limb, pulled out the bow, strung it, and fired an arrow up into the topmost branches of a leafless tree. “Fetch me that arrow.”
“What?” demanded Bethany before she could clamp her teeth down on her tongue in a frightened grimace. She remembered Sir Caldry’s rule: Do whatever he asks, no matter how stupid it sounded.
Bethany tossed him the lead to the donkey, glared at him, and moved to the tree. She took hold of the lowest branch, which was at about the height of her head, and tried to pull herself up onto it, but her arms gave out. She grunted as her backside plopped into the mud. She climbed to her feet and looked at the lower portions of the tree. It was knotty around the base, where older branches had been broken off by the weather.
The princess took hold of the lowest branch, placed her left foot on the wide trunk of the tree, and began to walk herself up it, her arms shaking against the demands of the exercise. Once her feet had reached the base of the branch, she flung her legs around it, dangling from her arms and legs.
Carefully she pulled herself up onto the branch, where she sat, letting her screaming muscles rest.
Boy, I hope he has a reason for this, she thought as she rubbed her arms.
Bethany climbed to her feet, holding onto the tree trunk to keep from falling. The next branch was a little closer. Bethany used a large knot on the trunk as a foothold and pulled herself up to the next limb, the muscles along her shoulders and neck tightening with the effort. Bethany stopped to assess the situation. The branches were growing closer together, but she was also reaching the point where a fall could seriously hurt her. Also, the boughs were slippery from the recent rains.
Four more branches upward, she slipped, dangling from a thin branch that creaked and groaned under her weight. She found her footing on a branch and breathed a sigh of relief.
It took her another half hour of careful climbing and resting to reach the arrow and make her way down again. She dropped back into the mud and tossed the arrow at Sir Caldry’s feet. Her muscles felt as though they were bread seeped in stew overnight.
The knight smiled at her. “Good. The horses are waiting.”
Bethany let out an exhausted sigh. She wanted to disagree, but she would just lose the argument anyway. With another sigh, she turned and began tending to the animals. Finally, when she could barely lift her arms, she collapsed beside the knight, who sat next to a crackling fire.
“You forgot the stones.”
When Bethany returned with the last of the flat stones she could find, unheeded tears were streaming down her face. She fell to the ground, too tired to even ask for food. The knight pushed a chunk of cheese and the leather pouch of barley gruel under her nose.
“Eat.”
She grunted at him.
“Eat.”
With all the strength she had left, she pulled herself into a sitting position and began nibbling on the cheese. Bethany gagged down a few swallows of the lumpy gruel before handing the pouch back to him.
“I do hope there was a point to that.”
“Of course.” The knight paused, taking one last gulp of gruel. “Maybe I’ll find a taller tree tomorrow.”
Bethany glared at him as she lowered herself onto the ground and fell asleep.
Bethany woke a few hours later to the feeling of the knight shaking her shoulder. She gave a start and felt his hand suddenly grip her mouth. Bethany froze, feeling the sting of sore muscles, muscles she didn’t even know existed.
“Someone’s passing near us,” he whispered, his breath tickling her ear.
She nodded her understanding, nearly holding her breath as they listened to the thunk-splats of a many horses making their way through the muddy forest. Without realizing it, Bethany sidled up against the knight’s shoulder. It was warm and solid, comforting. Bethany noticed that the fire was already put out, steaming slightly from the piles of mud the knight had heaped on it.
It felt as though they waited for an hour for the group to travel passed them, leaning against each other under their one blanket.
“Is it an army?” she asked in the barest whisper.
“Sssshhh,” he breathed, shaking his head slightly.
Finally, when the sound died away, the knight climbed to his feet. “We mu
st move, quickly. Away from their direction of travel.”
“What was it?”
“Likely reinforcements heading toward the front. If we continue the way we were going, we’ll be in their wake the whole time. Not a safe place to be. C’mon.”
Bethany climbed to her feet, forcing the groan on her lips down into her stomach. “I think I hate you,” she whispered instead.
“Good,” said Sir Caldry as he grabbed her by the arm and hoisted her out of the mud. “Then I’m doing my job.”
They began their day early, the sun barely turning the night sky gray.
“What will we do when we reach the Bumi Inlet? Will we hire a boat?” asked Bethany.
“We’re going around.”
“Around? But that will take us too far west of Dothan. Shouldn’t we take a more direct route?”
“You mean like those soldiers? The direct route is also the route everyone else takes, meaning too many travelers to recognize us, and too many soldiers to capture us.”
Bethany ground her teeth together. She didn’t want to admit he had a point. She wanted to take the most direct route to her mother. The longer she spent in the wilds of the peninsula the more it felt impossible to get home. And even if she did make it home, what sort of person would she be when she got there?
That night she climbed another tree, ignoring the protest of her sore muscles, and went to sleep in even more pain than the night before. Sir Caldry had been right. She was dog tired.
Bethany spent the next week climbing trees each night no matter how far they had walked that day. Sometimes there was light to see by, other times she had to feel her way up the tree and find the arrow by the light of Sir Caldry’s meager fire. Most nights she fell asleep crying, only to be woken in the middle of the night for her own turn at watching the camp.
To her surprise, by the end of the week she was able to scale almost any tree he chose before he had finished building his fire and preparing their food. Her muscles no longer burned at the end of the exercise, and she was able to carry Éimhin’s heavy saddle rather than just dropping it to the ground. Bethany felt a pride in her new abilities that she had never felt before. Until now, she had never struggled to achieve something.
During her time as a slave she had been tired, bruised, and sore, like she was now, but it had been forced upon her. This she chose for herself. This was her fighting for her own improvement and, until this challenge, she had never had difficulty achieving the goal set before her.
Even in her studies as a child, languages, math, the arts, all of it had come as easy as learning the etiquette of her people. Now, though, she finally found something difficult. Growing strong, fighting through the pain of it all, was nearly more than she could handle. And this time she didn’t have a slave master with a whip to force her to keep moving. She just had her own desire and an angry man to keep her on her feet.
As they traveled, the land that had been mostly flat began to grow hilly again. Bethany suspected she knew roughly where they were, but she wasn’t sure. Finally, tired of wondering, she asked:
“Are we near the western end of the inlet?”
“Close.”
Very detailed, she thought. But Bethany knew better than to press him for more information. When Sir Caldry decided to talk she’d know the answer, and not a moment sooner. The knight was not one to be goaded or forced into revealing what he did not want to.
As the sun made its way toward its zenith, the hills turned rocky and eventually they were forced onto a defined trail that wound through the rocks and cliffs. A few hours later Sir Caldry stopped and glanced up a rather formidable-looking cliff.
“Up there is where we will camp tonight. Give me the lead to the donkey. I’ll meet you up there.”
She handed him the lead and stared up the cliff. A second later, the knight was mounted and trotting off up the narrow trail winding along the cliff face.
“What am I supposed to do?” she called after him.
“Climb.”
“I’m tired of climbing,” she grumbled to herself, aware that the knight couldn’t hear her.
Bethany studied the cliff for a few minutes, choosing her path carefully. She took hold of her chosen hand holds, thankful that the last week had built even tougher calluses on her hands. The climb was proving easier than she expected, until the rain returned.
“Damn this rain,” she grumbled to herself as she hung from one hand after slipping. She gave herself three seconds to calm her panic then returned to her climb.
By the time she made it to the top, her hardened muscles shook and she was wet all the way through. On the top of the cliff she found the ruins of a stone keep, the roof caved in and one corner smashed by enormous stones. On the second floor, Bethany noticed the dull, flickering light of a fire. Bethany trudged forward and began making her careful way over the giant boulders lining the decayed keep.
And here I thought I was done climbing, she thought bitterly as she scaled one particularly large rock.
On the other side, she carefully lowered herself onto the drier floor of the great hall. From where she stood in the dark, she spotted the horse and the donkey, munching happily on their meager allotment of oats, already unsaddled. She also saw a large exterior doorway not blocked by stones and the outline of a row of stone stairs leading up to a door. She climbed the stairs, her legs shaking. Through the door she found a narrow hallway, lit by the distant light of the knight’s fire.
Bethany peeked around the corner, making sure it was the knight. It was, and she nearly fell into the room, collapsing beside the crackling fire. She looked up to see the knight grinning at her, his scar pulling with the unusual expression.
“I think I’m gonna kill you,” she grumbled, pulling her gaze back to the fire.
The knight laughed out right. “You don’t know how yet.”
“All I know how to do is climb.”
“But you are stronger,” he said.
It wasn’t a question, but she answered it anyway. “Yes.”
“Before all this, you wouldn’t have lasted two minutes wielding a sword. Training with a weapon would have been pointless. But all the weight you’ve gained has been muscle. Soon we’ll start training with a weapon.”
“Uh huh,” she murmured, taking the little bowl of gruel and cheese he offered. She couldn’t even bring herself to care about weapons right now. When she finished eating she lowered herself onto the rotten wooden flooring, happy to not be sleeping in the mud. “Wake me when it’s my turn to watch.”
“No watch is needed here,” he said.
Bethany propped herself up on her elbow. “Why’s that?”
“These are the ruins of Deeploch. When Wolfric’s men took control of Domhain, the people started a rumor that these ruins were haunted. It became so prevalent that even the locals began to believe it. We won’t be bothered here.”
“How do you know this?”
“I was born in Domhain. My village used to lay just a few miles from here.”
“Used to,” she whispered. She wasn’t asking, just repeating out of shock.
“They burned it to the ground.”
“How’d you end up a knight in Wolfric’s castle?” she asked, her curiosity overpowering her exhaustion.
“Go to sleep, little princess,” the knight answered, not unkindly. “Tomorrow will be another long day.”
Bethany didn’t argue. Not because she no longer wanted to know, but because she knew it would be pointless. After a few moments of silence, Bethany returned to her elbow and looked at the quiet knight.
“Sir Caldry?”
“Call me Cal. Everyone does.”
She frowned at him. “You mean Wolfric did.”
“He’s part of everyone.”
“What’s your real name?”
The knight finally looked at her. “Erin.”
“Erin then. Will you stay in Dothan? Will you fight against him?”
“I don’t know what I’ll do.
”
Bethany nodded and flopped back onto the hard wooden floor. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, little… Bethany.”
The princess could hear the hesitation in Erin’s voice, and felt a smile pull at her lips. She went to sleep peacefully.
Chapter Fifteen
Lyolf slumped against the wall, a chuckle escaping his wet lips. He righted himself as best he could before continuing his way through the crowd of bodies. In some ways, the mob was helpful. His drunken body remained upright more due to the pressure of those around him than to any ability of his own. He finally made it up to the counter where a Bumi man was serving drinks.
“’nother,” he slurred, slamming his mug down on the wooden top.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” demanded the man behind the counter, clad in a loose white tunic and cut off trousers.
Here in the Bumi lands, the weather was warmer than usual for the peninsula. In fact, Lyolf had heard that the locals had never seen snow. Lyolf like the warmth. His first night in the Bumi city of Topaq, he had forgone his armor and joined the crowds of men dressed in loose clothing. If only I could just stay here.
“I’ll te’ you when I’ve ha’ ‘nough,” Lyolf barked, pushing the mug back toward the tavern worker.
The other man glowered at him as he dumped another tumble of liquid into the mug. Lyolf lifted it to his lips and drank half of it in one gulp. He liked the spiced liquor customary in these lands. It burned his throat and made his eyes water. He drank another large gulp.
“You lookin’ for a fun evening?” asked a woman, coming up behind him.
Lyolf turned to look at her, using the counter for support. The woman was dressed like a traditional Bumi woman, unlike many who had adopted the more conservative dress of the conquering nation. He preferred the sun-touched women to wear their traditional robes—they left less work for his imagination.
The Dothan Chronicles: The Complete Trilogy Page 41