"How are you doing?" I have to take a breath (and count to five so as to not smack my well-meaning friend) before I answer.
"Sam, I haven't developed the plague in the past three minutes. Please stop asking."
"Sorry…" He swivels around in the saddle, his face sheepish, but accompanied by his damn puppy dog eyes. I sigh, not being able to help the soft grin that takes over my annoyed frown. He smirks and bounces back into place, knowing that he got away with it. Continuing his argument with Barn on the benefits of a broad sword as opposed to a rapier. I turn to the woman clad in blue by my side and we share a bemused eye roll. Our boys.
The outing had been postponed for a week, until the healer had officially released me to return to everyday activities without the aid of the crutch (not that I'd had been using it like I was supposed to anyway…). Jane had raised her eyebrows at my choosing to wear the Will get up, and Barn had found it prudent to relay his favorite Rose-analogy about my being similar to "a cat refusing a bath when it came to me and my dresses". He received a good smack upside the head and Jane had a good laugh.
Jane had fit seamlessly into the group, and we had really hit it off. Barn often complained that I was "stealing his girlfriend", but we all saw how pleased he was that we were getting along.
"How much further?" She, while the daughter of a duke, was not used to the saddle, and seemed to be feeling it.
"It's just beyond that bend in the road… I think." Navigation was never a strong point of mine. "It would be much more comfortable if you didn't insist on riding side saddle…" She captured her bottom lip in between her teeth in thought. We had had a version of this conversation many times. We had been raised very differently, and while she respected what I did, and kept my secret, she just couldn't seem to abandon property herself.
"No one's here to judge you, and you'll have fewer saddle sores…" That seemed to decide it for her. She squared her shoulders and slid her right led into its own stirrup. The blue fabric of her dress bunched up to reveal the petticoat beneath, and Jane frantically fidgeted, trying to cover it, but soon found it to be hopeless and gave up with a huff.
We neared the turn, and I began to laugh at the look on Jane's face as the wind blew the flap of her skirt up, when I smelled smoke. This was no ordinary camp fire, the stench of burning flesh and the sound of screams laced with the suffocating smell.
"Stop!" My scream was almost involuntary. I knew this stench, it had been drilled into my head when the village near my home was attacked. I knew what it meant. Bandits.
Sam and Barn yanked on their rains, and were by my side in a moment.
"What is it Rose?" Barn was already at Jane's side, grasping her arm to steady her after her mare had started at my shout.
"Don't you smell that?" They all lifted their noses into the breeze.
"No, I… Wait, smoke?" I nod and direct Black Jack off to the left, off the path and up the hill. Before cresting the top, I dismount and direct the others to do the same. We army crawl to the top and peek over the edge. The scene that laid itself out was one of terror and chaos, women and children were running around and trying to find one another, while men were gathering near a barn that was ablaze. It all looked like an anthill that had been kicked. Then set in fire.
"What's going on?" Jane came puffing up behind Barn, trying to crawl and be lady like at the same time. She gasped one hand covering her mouth, the other grabbing at Barn's shoulder. He clasped her hand in his. We all stared down in disbelief, watching with morbid fascination as a man got too close to the flames and lit up like a candle. He was rolling around, several companions patting him down, when a small group of five armed men came around the corner.
"Are those Nottingham colors?" Barn was squinting to see through the heated air flowing in front of his line of sight.
"I think so… The villagers don't seem too happy to see them." Sam frowned. "Shouldn't they be welcoming the help?" We watched a mountainous man approach the lead soldier in a captain's tunic, he was yelling something that was incomprehensible from where we hid, but we could tell by the staff in his fisted hand he was waving around, he wasn't asking them to tea.
The captain drew his sword and struck out at the man. Without warning. Without a call to stand down. Had the large villager not blocked the blow with his staff, he'd have been killed for sure. This was not the conduct Old Tom taught them. He always said that a villager's life was worth the same as a knight's. This soldier reminded me of Alban - full of the supposed power that holding a sword gave. No thought to anyone he deemed below himself. It made me want to strike him dead where he stood.
Before I had even thought of acting, I was up and striding toward Black Jack. I expected Barn, or at least Sam to call out for me to stop, to come back and think it through, but they were both soon at my side, walking alongside me, Jane just a step behind. For a sheltered Duke's daughter, she looked ready to fight.
Sam takes my hand for a moment, squeezing tightly before heading off to Sandy and buckling on the sword that had been hanging from her saddle. I do the same, patting Black Jack's neck before mounting up. We were off.