Will rode Tug through the woods, sighing happily. The two and a half weeks he'd been on the fief had been pleasant, and there hadn't been much in the way of trouble. He rode off in three days for the Ranger meeting, to be there by the time the month ended. He rode through the back trails around the edges of the town just outside the castle, and came to where the trees thinned and opened up into the rolling pastures and hills of the farmhouses. He noted a tavern half a kilometre out, and decided a drink and warm supper wouldn't hurt. He rode through a path of matted grass going behind the farmhouses, going for the tavern.
He paused as he heard yelling coming from the nearest one. A man's voice. He rode up to the window and peered inside out of curiosity. A large man, strengthened and tanned from years of hard labor, was yelling at a girl he recognised to be Alis.
"You incompetent wrench!" he screamed. Will arched an eyebrow, amused that the farmer was trying to use 'big words'. "Have you never cooked before in your life? What is this you call BREAD? This is repulsive!" He shook a blackened loaf in her face. She watched him expressionless. "All you ever do is draw! Get it together girl!" he struck her across the face. She took it without a sound, her head snapping sharply to the right. She turned back, and Will saw blood welling from where the man's nails had struck her.
"I have it in mind, you should be kinder in your words," she said softly. Even though the words were soft, there was an unmistakable threat in her tone.
"You don't tell me what to do you worthless child!" he struck her again, her head whipping to the left this time. She straightened, and took a light step back. She saw Will then, although she didn't let it show to the farmer. She turned around slowly so she was facing the window, and winked at Will. He noticed the blood was dripping down her left cheek now, and there were new cuts on her right. She then spun around back to the farmer very quickly, and brought her foot up into his groin. The man gasped and tumbled to the side, and Will even winced.
"I warned you," she said softly, then grabbed a crimson cloak from across the back of a chair and threw it around her. She then walked out the door, looked at Will for a long, silent moment, then let out a long whistle.
A grey shape streaked from the woods, and Will recognised the wolf.
"It's nice to see a familiar face, Ranger," she said quietly. "Keep well." Without another word, she walked to the woods, the wolf at her heels. The wolf - Max, he seemed to remember the wolf's name was- looked back at the Ranger, tilted his head, and then turned and bounded after her. Will paused, then continued on his way to the tavern.
The farmer unsettled him. The girl was so small, and was so cruel. He was still frowning when he got to the tavern.
Alis sat by the creek with Max by her side, studying her reflection and washing away the blood from her face. Joshua- the farmer- really ought to cut his nails, she thought with some disgust, as she scrubbed the dirt out of her cuts.
He was getting worse. On the first day he had been perfectly charming. By the second, he started glaring. By the third, he was criticising. By the forth, he was yelling. And by the fifth, he was hitting. Now, he was striking her and drawing blood. She couldn't bear the thought of what may come at the passing of another week. She had to get away.
She knew a girl wouldn't go unchallenged on the road. She looked at her reflection in the creek with some distaste, as she realized she'd have to cut her nearly waste length black hair. She also looked at her body; she'd have to find some way to deal with that. Curves simply would not work when passing for a boy. She thought for a long moment. She had overheard the Baron talking with the battlemaster about the ranger meeting, and knew the Ranger- what was his name? She couldn't recall- would be leaving for it very soon. Perhaps she could tag along.
Then she'd have to do something about the color, and perhaps her face. There was nothing she could do about the eyes, she thought irritably. She just hoped he wouldn't recognise her. But he would at least accompany her plenty far from the fief where she had been condemned. Perhaps she could be a jongleur. She wondered briefly if she was good enough, then discarded the thought and focused on her hair.
She would have to lighten it several shades, she decided. She knew there was some bleach up at the castle that she could use. She nodded. That's what she would do. She stood, and walked back to the farmhouse. She could hear Joshua yelling at his wife, and pointedly avoided any windows. She went to the small pathetic barn, where there were a couple of cows and a grey gelding. She threw the saddle blanket and saddle over the horse's back and tightened the girth, then swung up into the saddle. She spurred the horse out of the barn with the soft heels of her boots.
The horse trotted past the house and she heard the faint yells of the farmer behind her, and she spurred the horse into a gallop. The ground flew by under the gelding's hooves. The castle battlements neared as pink streaked the sky from the west. She danced her horse to the left and into the woods and unmounted, waiting for darkness to come.
An hour after sunset, she spurred remounted the horse and spurred him to the edge of the trees and out onto the planes behind the garrison, and then slid off an tethered him to the tree. She untied her red cloak and tucked it into the saddle, so the crimson wasn't so obvious that She slunk along through the grass to the front gate, watching as the guards paced back and forth and timing them mentally. Every three guards there was a gap of almost a minute where she could get in unseen.
She slid through in just one of these times, and shimmied around to the servants entrance. Inside, close, there were the cleaning supplies- and the bleach. She pushed open the door, shadows slipping around her. She expected to be called out any moment, but she wasn't. She slipped inside and stole one of the smallest bottles. She slid it into the pocket of her tunic and slipped back out of the door. On her way around the building, her luck faded.
A guard noticed her and opened his mouth to yell, but not before she called out her name. The guard paused, squinting to identify her. He recognized her after a long moment as one of the Wards, and told her it was past curfew. Obviously, he didn't know she had graduated.
"I just needed to run an errand," she said. "For the man I work for now," she added pointedly. The guard looked mildly startled, but then waved her off. She vanished through the gate, and out into the fields east of the castle to where she had tethered her horse. There were some lights from the south where the town was that flickered shadows across the fields, but she measured her movements in time, and glided unnoticed to her horse.
Alis led the gelding into the trees, and pulled out her cloak. Several meters back, Max trotted up to her. She spread the cloak on the ground, and the wolf curled up on it. She laid back on the cloak using Max as a pillow, his warm fur against her face a welcome change from the autumn air. She flicked the excess ends of the cloak around her, rolled into it with the wolf.
It only took a few breaths to fall asleep.
