Serin sighed, watching the smoke rising on the horizon, and listening to the threatening drumbeats.
The Saxons would be here soon.
Gathering her skirts and hoisting a basket onto her shoulder, she went back to work.
The sky threatened snow, and frost hung in the air, as the rest of the servants bustled about, preparing themselves and their families for the worst.
Their master Marius did not seem aware of their present peril, that or he did not care if they all died.
"They are here!" a boy's voice shattered the uneasy silence, "Arthur and his knights have come!"
An excited murmur swept through the throng of servants.
"Arthur?" Serin asked a nearby man.
He nodded vigorously, "He and his knights will lead us to safety, I'm told."
Serin set down her basket and ran to find her younger sister.
"Eva?" she yelled, "Eva they've come to help us! Eva?"
One of Marius's guards stepped in front of her, "What do you think you are doing, wench? Away from your work?" He shoved her back towards the others, "Back to your duties!"
"Wait!" she said desperately, "I have to tell Eva!"
"I said, back to your duties!" he kicked her hard in the shin.
She cried out in pain, "Please, sir," she half whispered, "my sister is ill, and I must tell her!"
"You may speak with her," the guard chuckled, "once you have finished your task!"
Serin turned to walk away, but whirled around and ducked past the unsuspecting guard.
"Stop!" he shouted grabbing a handful of her long red hair.
She winced, and tried to pull away.
"No you don't!" he chortled cruelly, "You disobeyed your orders, now you must face your punishment!" He kicked her hard in the back, sending her sprawling on the cold, hard ground.
She gasped, waiting for another blow, but then heard a new voice,
"See here, is that any way to treat a lady?"
"Lady?" the guard sneered, "if she's a lady, I'm a stuck pig!"
Serin chanced a look over her shoulder; a man on a white horse was reprimanding the guard. "And a lovely stuck pig you are." he agreed.
"No, my lord," Serin said meekly, "I brought it upon myself by not following my orders, I do not seek pardon."
"Silence, brat!" the guard snarled, kicking her in the side.
The man got down from his horse and shoved the guard aside, "Only a coward hits a woman," he scolded, helping Serin to her feet. "Are you alright?" he asked her.
She nodded, wincing as she stood.
"Good," he patted her shoulder and remounted his horse, trotting off to join the other knights to speak with Marius.
Serin wiped the dirt from her face, and crept away from the dumbfounded guard to look for Eva once more. She found her, sitting in the servants' quarters wrapped in a ragged blanket.
"A-a-are they here?" she stammered, shivering.
"Yes," Serin smiled at her starved looking sister, "they're going to lead us to safety."
"That's good," she said, with a hacking cough, "I've always wanted to meet a real knight."
"And you will," Serin said, smoothing her sister's dirty, blond hair, "now let's go." she continued, wrapping her cloak around Eva's small, frail form, and pulling her to her feet.
Eva coughed again, "Serin," she whined playfully, "I'm fifteen, I can look after myself."
"Well, even if you can," Serin replied, "I'm going to help anyway."
As they reached the place where the knights were, they saw them bringing prisoners out of Marius's dungeon, and some false priests ranting about being men of God.
"Who's that?" Serin asked her sister, as the knights brought a girl not much older than herself from the dungeon.
"G-g-guinevere," Eva coughed, "she's a woad, she was captured not long ago for information."
"And him?" Serin asked, looking at a small boy, held by one of the knights.
"I don't know." Eva answered, shivering under the blanket and Serin's cloak.
"He probably won't make it," she heard one of the servants whisper as they got closer.
Arthur and his knights were now helping people into wagons, "You, girl," called the knight who had rescued her from the guard, "there's room for two more over here." he motioned towards a nearby wagon.
Serin and Eva hurried to the wagon, "Thank you," Serin said breathlessly as she climbed in.
"Wait," he said, noticing she had no cloak, "take this." he handed her a blanket.
"You are too kind," she said, enchanted by his courtesy.
"Wait," he said again, "what's your name?"
"Serin," she answered, "and yours?"
He grinned, "Galahad," he told her, and made to help some other servants find a wagon.
"Galahad," Serin repeated softly, after he had gone, "Galahad."
The safest route, as the knights decided, would be through the mountains, and even if they were cold and desolate, the Saxon army would have a harder time of catching them there.
Serin rode facing out of the wagon, hoping for another glimpse of the knight who she so admired, and was rewarded, for not long into the journey, he was sent to ride near her wagon.
He smiled when he saw her, "Feeling alright?" he asked courteously.
She nodded, dangling her feet over the side of the wagon, in a very unladylike way, "I'm bruised a bit, but other than that I'm fine." she reached over to pat his horse, which whinnied softly.
He smiled, and they rode in silence for a few moments, before he asked, "Your red hair stands out among all these dark haired women, you are not from Rome, are you?"
Serin shook her head, "My family is originally from Ireland, but I was born in Rome."
Galahad nodded towards Eva, who was sleeping, next to Serin, "Is she your sister?" he asked her.
"Yes," said Serin quietly, "she's two years younger than me," she fidgeted with the edge of a fraying blanket, "she's been very sick for a long time, and no one thinks she'll survive long."
Eva coughed in her sleep and turned over.
Galahad said nothing, but smiled at the sleeping girl in sympathy.
Eager to change the subject, Serin inquired, "Is that girl, Guinevere, really a woad?"
Galahad nodded solemnly, "Marius imprisoned her, thinking wrongly that she had information."
"That's terrible," Serin shivered against the cold wind that blew through her thick blanket.
"It is terrible," he agreed, "terrible that someone could torture people into giving information that they didn't know in the first place."
Serin shivered again, she'd only had a taste of Marius's cruelty through his guards, but these people in his dungeon, they had been through hell because of him.
Galahad looked at her, shivering in the cold wind, "Get some rest," he told her kindly, "we still have a long way to go."
Serin smiled, and lay down next to Eva.
This isn't finished, I'll try to update soon.
