(A/N: Thank you for the reviews, everyone! And thank you for the tip, Kyra4-I never would have thought of that, but it sounds much more right without the contractions. I've gone back and fixed the previous chapters as well.)
Chapter Three: Whisk You Away
Perhaps, however, she would put the plan to the side for a while.
Her skin was mottled with patches of purple and blue and all sorts of indescribable ugly shades, and it hurt to sit. And stand. And lie. And do…well…just about anything, really. Riding Dragon brought out even more aches, and though she insisted to him that she was perfectly fine, he forcibly dropped her back off at the castle after she failed to stifle the third pained groan. After making him promise to tell her exactly how it went, she let him fly the morning patrol on his own and limped down to the kitchens for breakfast.
Gunther was nowhere to be seen, which was odd—he practically lived at the castle these days. It was so odd, in fact, that she looked for him very, very thoroughly. Not that she wanted to see him, or anything, but squires should look after each other.
That, and she needed someone to spar with.
Gunther absent, however, she practiced archery for several hours before succumbing to her various aches and getting some bruise balm from Pepper. She spent the afternoon in bed reading, smelling like an herb garden, and was feeling somewhat better by dinner. Pepper cooed over her, asking after her injuries and was it not wonderful that Rake had been growing comfrey and St. John's wort so she did not need to get her poultices from the apothecary in town? Jane nodded distractedly, staring into her stew as though it held the answers to the world. She might have to defeat a man larger than her without a weapon someday, someday when it was not just training. There must be a way for her to win; she just needed to figure it out.
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Gunther was missing the next day, as well. Sir Ivon said that he was helping his father, but had no idea when he would be back. (Had he not asked? When would they know to start looking for him? She had no doubt that the merchant would sell his own son if he thought it would make him a profit in the long run—err, not that she was worried, or anything.)
By the fourth day with no sign of him, she asked Sir Ivon directly if he was quite sure that Gunther was all right, and that he had not been attacked by bandits or sold into slavery by his maggot of a father. He chuckled and patted her head and told her he was sure Gunther was fine, lass, and did Sir Theodore not have anything for her to do, because he could certainly use some help with his latest project, if so. After deciding that no, she wanted nothing to do with the Whirlyspear, she gave him some feeble excuse and spent the rest of the day patrolling with Dragon, asking him to keep a particular eye out for crumpled Gunther-shaped things along the road.
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Her bruises were yellow and fading by the time he did return, one evening during dinner, acting as if he had just been off to the privy rather than missing for a week.
"Gunther?" Jester asked. "You have not been here in days!"
"Seven of them," Jane said accusingly.
Jester frowned, apparently having been less concerned than she about Gunther's strange absence. "Was it that long? Time flies when one is having fun, I suppose!"
Gunther rolled his eyes. "So sorry to break up the party, then."
"Gunther, where were you?" Jane prodded. "It is not like you to miss training for so long."
"I was working, if you must know."
"Working? Did...did you decide that you wish to take over your father's business after all?" she asked with a faint sense of dread.
"No, I was…procuring something."
"And it took you an entire week?" she snapped. "What, did you get lost on the way back to the castle? You could have told someone how long you were going to be gone!"
"I had no way to know how long it would be!" he snarled. "And I was trying to do you a favor, you could at least act grateful!" He broke off, staring awkwardly at his plate. "So, um…meet me in the courtyard after dinner."
He got up and left before she could ask what he meant, leaving her with half a scolding still on her tongue, and some very curious friends.
(Random References: Comfrey and St. John's Wort were both used to treat bruises, burns, and other minor injuries during the Middle Ages.)
