Chapter Ten #2
Anna explored the saddlebags taken from the English scouts while Bram said he would ‘hobble the horses’, which she assumed meant securing them for the night so they wouldn’t run off.
Despite the pitiful state of the provisions, she found herself absurdly pleased with their discoveries.
There was a hard chunk of bread that looked several days old and was tough enough to threaten her teeth, a bit of soiled linen holding dry oats, several strips of cured meat so salty they made her mouth pucker, and a leather flask of something that smelled remarkably like stale beer and somehow tasted so much worse.
The air turned bitter after sunset, and with darkness settling heavily through the trees, they hunkered down, each sitting against a tree trunk only a few feet apart.
She slept better than she expected beneath the coarse wool blanket that had been rolled beneath one of the saddles. It scratched every bit of exposed skin, smelled faintly of horse and woodsmoke, and was several years overdue for washing, but it was wonderfully warm.
She managed several uninterrupted hours of sleep before waking shortly before dawn to find Bram already awake. They finished the last of the oats cold, shared the remaining bread between them, and were mounted again before the mist had lifted from the forest floor.
The morning dawned without color. A low ceiling of cloud stretched from one horizon to the other, pressing so heavily upon the land that it seemed almost possible to reach up and touch it.
The sun remained hidden somewhere beyond the thick blanket of gray, its only contribution a dull brightness that separated earth from sky.
The air smelled different as well, carrying that unmistakable dampness that seemed to settle in one’s lungs before the first drop had even fallen.
It rained hard for all of two minutes, which wasn’t awful, even as they received a thorough drenching, but worse, the downpour eased but never stopped, settling into a steady drizzle that lasted all morning.
Soaked through to her skin, Anna had ducked her head for the last few minutes, now cold and wet and miserable.
If she’d been alone, she’d have found shelter, even if it were only under a tree, and would have waited out the rain no matter how long it took.
She didn’t dare suggest this to Bram, who seemed the type to be untroubled by a little water, however cold or persistent.
The path gradually broadened, the dense woodland giving way to scattered groves of oak and ash.
With every open stretch of meadow, Anna felt a fresh spike of exposure.
She kept her hands tucked inside her jacket and leaned unabashedly against Bram, the solid warmth of him the only positive in her life right now.
Behind them, the second horse followed on its lead, carrying the saddlebags that held the pitifully few items they’d taken from dead men.
Then the land changed once more. The ground rose beneath them until they reached the crest of a broad ridge, where the trail abruptly began dropping away into a long, steep valley below.
The descent stretched for what looked nearly half a mile, winding back and forth across the hillside through slick grass, scattered rocks, and patches of exposed earth already softened by the damp.
Even as she hoped they might turn east or west and find some gentler place to descend, Bram swung down from the horse and reached up to help her from the saddle.
“I dinna ken the ground will be any more favorable that way or the other,” he said, nodding toward the escarpment stretching away into the mist in both directions, “but I ken on foot would be wiser.”
“Okay.”
Anna peered down the rain-darkened slope, then at her ruined espadrilles.
The woven heels, slick with mud, offered no traction, and one of the straps was already half separated from the bottom.
One bad step in these and she’d twist an ankle or worse.
As she took a test step, the sole of one shoe peeled away from the heel with a wet squelch.
With a sigh of resignation, she decided barefoot was the better option.
While Bram tightened items to the horse they’d ridden, Anna reached for the back of his tunic to steady herself. Rainwater had soaked the linen through hours ago, and beneath her fingers she could feel both the coarse weave of the cloth and the warmth of the broad back beneath it.
Bram glanced sharply over his shoulder at the unexpected touch, instinctively alert, before realizing what she was doing, balancing on one foot to pull off the first espadrille, and then the second. He held himself still until she’d finished.
“Sorry,” she murmured, releasing his shirt. Then, a little sheepishly, “Thanks.” She buckled the straps to each other and flung them over her shoulder, one hanging down over her chest and the other draped over her back.
Bram turned and handed one set of reins toward her.
“Ye will lead the mare,” he said. “I will escort the gelding.”
“Oh. Okay. Sure.”
The wet leather felt slick in her fingers as she accepted the reins.
“Keep her aside and nae directly behind,” Bram instructed.
Anna nodded, immediately understanding the wisdom of it. If the mare slipped, or simply lost her footing on the muddy hillside, she certainly didn’t want eight hundred pounds of frightened horse tumbling straight over her.
Rain continued to fall with stubborn persistence, neither heavy enough to be called a downpour nor light enough to ignore.
It dripped steadily from the ends of her hair, trickled down her neck beneath the collar of her jacket, and pattered softly against the broad leaves of the thistles crowding the hillside.
The earth beneath her bare feet was cool and slick, already softening into mud wherever the water lingered.
Bram went first, taking a careful step, planting his foot just below the ridge, testing the ground.
He did that for the first few steps, until he was apparently satisfied it was both solid and not overly slippery due to the rain, before he walked more confidently, coaxing the horse they’d ridden along after him.
He kept the gelding close, the reins drawn short and slightly out to his left, refusing to allow the horse to crowd him or hurry the descent.
The gelding seemed eager to descend more swiftly, but Bram checked it gently whenever it tried to move ahead, insisting instead that it match his careful pace.
Watching him, Anna tightened her own grip on the mare’s reins, leaving only a couple of feet of slack between them, just as he had done.
She stepped onto the slope several yards to his left, reasoning that if anything went terribly wrong, she preferred not to send either herself or the mare crashing directly into Bram.
The first few steps proved easier than expected. The wet grass was slippery, but the rock beneath allowed her to get good footholds. But it was uneven enough that she believed removing her shoes had been exactly the right decision.
They moved slowly, almost painfully so—knowing she wouldn’t be able to relax until they reached the distant bottom—zigzagging down the hillside where the narrow path had long ago been worn into the slope by perhaps hundreds or thousands of people taking the same route as they did now.
Rainwater streamed along the deeper ruts, while patches of exposed stone forced the horses to pick their footing with care.
Every few yards Bram seemed to pause briefly, and she guessed he was searching for the safest course downward. The gelding followed obediently beside him, lowering its head from time to time to inspect the ground before placing each hoof.
The mare Anna guided proved rather less patient. Twice she tried to crowd past Anna, only for Anna to check her with a firm, rather desperate tug upon the reins.
“Wait,” Anna insisted, gripping the reins tighter as the horse shifted beneath her, one wrong step away from sending them both sliding down the wet hillside.
Rain dripped steadily from the end of her nose, and she regularly brushed it away with the back of her hand.
The trek did not get easier; in fact, Anna became convinced that the hillside grew steeper.
The grass gave way to scattered rock and clusters of thistle, the purple flowers long since battered flat by the rain.
Here and there low shrubs clung stubbornly to the slope, their branches snagging at her damp skirt as she passed.
She had just decided she might be halfway down already when something sharp drove deep into the ball of her foot.
Her eyes widened and her mouth yawned in pain, and instinctively she jerked her foot upward, hopping awkwardly on the other. The movement pulled hard against the reins in her hands.
Startled, the mare threw up her head with a frightened snort.
Anna’s arms windmilled for a moment, trying to prevent a fall, but her good foot landed on slick mud and shot out beneath her, sending her sprawling backward with all the grace of someone slipping on ice.
She hit the ground hard, the corner of a buried rock catching her squarely beneath one hip while her elbow slammed into the earth as well, and the reins fled her grasp.
She cried out anew with the fresh pain. Only then did she realize the mare, frightened by her fall and shriek, was already taking off across the hillside.
At first she bounded sharply sideways, then, finding open ground beneath her, she plunged downhill, gathering speed with every stride, well beyond Bram’s reach so that he never even attempted to seize the trailing reins.
Wincing still, Anna watched in mounting dismay as the mare raced effortlessly toward the valley floor. Once she reached the gentler ground below, she never so much as hesitated, but stretched into a full gallop across the meadow beyond.
“Oh... crap,” Anna groaned.
Only then did she wrench her gaze from the fleeing horse to Bram.