Page 104 of Untempered
~ Matri’sion lesson
The boy shifted from foot to foot as I pulled on my boots, my bones protesting the movements. “…and I think she’sbleeding,” he told me, yet again. “And she’s dressed likeus.”
My heart sank.
I arrived to find Audrey had already been moved into a tent. I heard rustling from within and the occasional low murmur from an older woman.
Chay lifted a hand. He wasn’t wearing a tabard, and his shield, at his feet, was studded with arrows.
“How’s the road back to the city?” he asked me. “Passable at night?”
I assumed he meant on horseback. “I don’t have enough riders. What happened?”
“Brigands,” he replied. “We were trying to be less conspicuous.” That was the story behind his lack of tabard? I saw the wide-eyed youngster lingering by the fire and didn’t question him further. “Isolde’s still out there. She’s sick.”
My heart ached for the lady. “Is she…” I cast my eyes toward the tent again.
“She bought us time to flee,” Chay said, his voice neutral. “Audrey wants to return immediately. Isolde will be on foot.”
My bones could attest to the dip in temperature but not to whether they’d find a live woman or a corpse. “You’re thinking to return to the city, get aid, and take them back to the site?”
He nodded. “Bliksem is fine for the journey, and I know where to go. Isolde’s horse will make it to the city, but much further and she’ll be harming her. But there are other horses.”
The lady had been on Isolde’s horse? Before I could get the details, she emerged from the tent, her expression eerily reminiscent of the Duke when he was a hair’s breadth from a full-blown rage. A bandage was neatly tied around her upper arm, and her skirts were a few fingers too short for the length of her legs.
I caught the look the cook sent me as she, too, emerged. Whatever had happened, we didn’t need rumors exaggerating the cost to the lady. If it was known she’d worn a different skirt home…
“Thanking you for waking me, lad,” I told the boy. “Could you get my horse ready, please?”
“I’ll get you some torches,” the cook said primly, and made herself scarce.
“Thomas, you don’t need to do this,” Audrey said, shaking her head. “We’ll be safe on the road back.”
“They’ll do without me for half a day,” I told her. And the thought of seeing Sandra made me glad. I didn’t like to think of her huddled in a dark corner, waiting for the terror to subside before it was safe to emerge.
By the time tomorrow night rolled around, I was going to be an exhausted shell of a man, but that wouldn’t change me overmuch.
It took me only a few moments to tap a few people on the shoulder so they’d run it without me whilst I was gone. By the time we got to the horses, they’d been fed, watered, and were ready for the short trip to the city.
I suspected Chay left the arrows in his shield as some sort of proof of their trials. It worked, too. No one looked too closely at Audrey’s skirt with the bandage on her arm and the arrows in his shield.
Audrey’s saddle had been switched to a man’s, but I didn’t comment. There must’ve been reason for her own to have been replaced.
“How are…people?” Audrey asked as we set off. “Everything.”
“Well,” I told her, because she wasn’t going to hear much information, and I didn’t want to share delicate details within earshot of half the camp.
She nodded, her eyes locked on the road before us. I let the two of them ride abreast and followed along behind, making the most of the light of their torches for my nervous horse.
The road between the city and the tourney grounds had been immaculate before the tourney and maintained during the festivities, but that was weeks ago now. Rain and use had seen holes develop in the road. Stones jutted up, and puddles had softened patches to mud. It wasn’t a ride through the orchard, but it wasn’t a well-lit, cobblestone street, either. The two of them obviously weren’t worried about the risks each of those holes provided, but I wasn’t the world’s greatest horseman, and I had no shame in that. My two feet had carried me further than those two had ridden, of that I had no doubt.
I was relieved when the city walls came into view. The roads were silent, and the gates were down, but they’d open for her. Theyshouldhave search parties out, too.
But when we made it to the heavy wood and steel gate, no one responded to my shout of “Hoy, friends!” or “Raise the gate!” and I wasn’t announcing the lady’s presence at the top of my lungs, just to have any listening ears squirrel away that information.
The three of us stood there in the quiet of the night.
“I didn’t see anyone along the wall,” Audrey said softly. “Did either of you?”
