Chapter 5 #3
By the time they all got moving again, Gwen’s heart felt a ton or two lighter.
True, the girls had begun as Isobelle’s friends, not hers, but despite a somewhat rocky start with Sylvie, where she and Gwen each thought the other was trying to betray Isobelle, they had come to be as dear to her as sisters.
Like Isobelle, she hadn’t realised how much she’d missed them since they’d gone to ‘winter over’ at Sylvie’s estate.
Isobelle had elected to stay riding Princess Buttercup, tactfully saying she wanted the fresh air – the truth was, none of the other girls would have been able to command the spoiled little creature.
Gwen had eyed the carriage with some longing, for she’d spent far too much time on horseback over the past few weeks, but ultimately decided the jostling of the carriage would be even worse against the parts of her anatomy already sore from the saddle.
The carriage trundled along behind them, and Gwen heard snatches of sound on the breeze – the girls were singing, chanting really, some repetitive song that kept counting down cups of tea.
At her side, Buttercup turned at a right angle to their path and got several steps off into a field before Isobelle persuaded the mare that the road was the safer option.
Isobelle had to croon lovingly and stroke Buttercup’s ears for a time before she turned with perfect responsiveness – and, after a backward glance at Gwen that dripped with equine smugness, she tossed her pretty mane and broke into a canter again.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever hated a horse before,’ Gwen commented to Achilles, as he fell into step behind the mare. He snorted his agreement, which at least made her feel somewhat seen.
It was turning out to be an absolutely glorious day.
The air was brisk and chill, but the sun was bright, and it warmed her dark cloak.
The sleety rain that had plagued them earlier had fled.
Buttercup had been as subdued as Isobelle in all that damp and cold, but now she pranced as merrily as anyone could ask.
Achilles was muttering to himself around the bit of his bridle, discontented at having to follow in the fickle mare’s wake. Gwen let him seethe. She drew in a long, slow breath of the crisp, wintry air and caught the faint tang of salt on the breeze.
They were almost there.
‘Gwen?’ Isobelle’s voice brought her instantly on alert. Cautious, curious – tense.
Gwen pulled Achilles up beside her. Around the bend in the road ahead, a group of people had come into view. There were half a dozen of them, clad like any of the other travellers they’d encountered on their rounds, only they were clustered around some object concealed by their bodies.
Achilles snorted and pawed at the earth, impatient for the action he sensed was approaching; Gwen could not help but agree. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any point in me telling you to stay here,’ she muttered, as her eyes scanned the group, their weapons, her own focus narrowing.
Isobelle sniffed. ‘Don’t be any more foolish than you can help.’
‘Come on.’
The object the men were clustered around was a woman.
Gwen could hear her protests as she rode up, telling the brigands – for that was certainly what they were, rifling through her pack and offering up jeering threats – to leave her be.
The men fell back at the sound of approaching hoofbeats, bracing themselves as Gwen swung herself out of the saddle and drew her sword with a scrape of steel.
‘Off with you,’ she growled in the voice she’d learned over the last few months – her knight’s voice, as she thought of it, decisive and cutting. ‘Return the lady’s property, and be on your way.’
The nominal leader of the group, a tallish, beefy sort with a mud-brown beard and small, pouchy eyes, eyed Gwen and then sneered.
Gwen preferred to travel in dresses – Olivia had made her a few divided riding habits that let her ride astride, and the looseness of the skirts were much more comfortable than restrictive trousers.
Her armour was packed away in the carriage with the girls, half a league behind them – she wore only a chainmail vest over her dress.
‘What a brave little lady,’ the man said, the words prompting a light ripple of laughter among the other men. ‘Got your daddy’s sword, eh?’
Gwen cocked her head, her sword held low, ready. ‘The sword is my own, gentlemen. Now, will you do as I’ve asked and be on your way? Or shall we have a little exercise first?’
She knew she was showing off – Isobelle was right on her heels, sliding down from Buttercup (who promptly bolted some distance off across a field, to stand watching them all nervously).
Six against one was hardly a sure thing, even if none of these men were trained in the use of the weapons that hung at their belts. And if any of them were skilled …
‘Trust me,’ called Isobelle breathlessly, ‘you really ought to take her up on her offer – and go now.’
Gwen flicked her braid back over her shoulder and blew a strand of hair from her eyes. ‘Perhaps a trial by one-on-one combat?’ she proposed cheerfully, hoping desperately her voice sounded light and airy. She’d rather not have all six men come at her at once.
‘Or we just take that pretty sword of yours, and your pretty horse, and maybe those pretty dresses, too.’ The bandit leader grinned unpleasantly.
One of the other men was frowning thoughtfully at Gwen, his expression a notable exception among the sea of grins and leers. He was younger than the others, his beard merely a wispy patch of chestnut. ‘Um … Matto, we might …’
The bandit leader drew his sword, and most of the others followed suit.
Gwen fought the urge to take a step back, until she saw one of them knock down the girl they’d been accosting.
She landed with a thump and a harsh breath in the dirt, and Gwen felt that all-too-familiar heat of fury rising in her blood.
She took a step forward. ‘Exercise it is, then.’
The bandit leader gave a snarl, and was about to rush at Gwen when the young one plucked at his sleeve. ‘Matto, look at ’er.’
The bandit leader shrugged his arm off and shot him a dark look. ‘Fancy ’er, do you?’
The young one gulped. ‘No, but … don’t she look familiar? She ain’t got all the armour on, but …’
Matto looked blank. ‘Eh?’
‘That crier tellin’ stories back a ways. Don’t she look like …’ His voice dropped. ‘Don’t she look like the Lady Dragonslayer?’
Matto rolled his eyes and turned back towards Gwen. But then he paused, the sneering expression changing to one altogether different. As though Gwen were the dragon, all of a sudden, and he an entirely too flammable bit of debris in her path.
For a long moment, no one moved.
Exasperated, Gwen gave a lunging, feinting step forward.
As one, all six men jumped, scrambled and fled.
Gwen stared after them, left with a somewhat disconcerting mix of emotions as they hightailed it towards the forest up on the ridge. Chief among her turbulent feelings was an odd, sullen flicker of disappointment.
‘Well,’ she said, as Isobelle came up beside her, stifling a laugh as one of the bandits tripped and fell and scrambled several paces on all fours before he managed to get his feet under him again. ‘That was anticlimactic.’
They hurried over to the girl the brigands had been accosting, who had got to her feet and was hurling rocks after the bandits, along with a few oaths that made even Gwen blush.
‘Are you all right?’ Isobelle asked, half reaching towards the girl.
‘I’m fine,’ the girl snapped, turning a flashing hazel glare on Isobelle.
She was strikingly pretty, with a tawny-brown complexion and thick dark-red hair, a combination of features Gwen had never seen before.
Her high cheekbones were currently stained with bright, furious colour. ‘I can take care of myself.’
Isobelle took a step back. Gwen could almost hear the gears shifting in Isobelle’s head as she changed her tactics. Gwen sheathed her sword and stayed quiet. This was what Isobelle did best, and Gwen had merely to stand back and watch her work.
‘I have no doubt of that,’ said Isobelle with a smile. ‘My name’s Isobelle, and this is Gwen. Our friends are coming in a carriage not too far behind. Where are you headed?’
The girl glanced between them, and her hazel eyes lingered on Gwen’s face a touch longer than was comfortable. ‘I’m Tabitha,’ she said finally, grudgingly. ‘I’m bound for Galanty-Uponne-the-Sea.’
Isobelle let out a squeak of delight. ‘Why, that is where we are bound, too! Perhaps you’ll journey with us? I do so love to meet other travellers. The carriage is full, but Achilles can carry two the rest of the way, can’t he, Gwen?’
The girl had turned, gathering up her belongings and beginning to tuck them back into her pack.
Gwen lowered her voice. ‘Are you sure?’ she whispered to Isobelle. ‘She doesn’t seem like she wants company.’
Isobelle flashed her a stern look. ‘She was scared. You do the same thing, you know – go all prickly when something’s bothering you. Come on,’ she added with one of her most winsome smiles. ‘She’s a damsel in distress. That’s what you do – save damsels.’
Gwen was helpless before that smile, and both she and Isobelle knew it. Isobelle’s expression took on a touch of smugness as she saw she had won her battle before it had begun.
‘Please,’ Gwen called, as Tabitha glanced their way. ‘Let us make sure you get safely where you’re going.’
‘She’s a travelling hero, you know,’ added Isobelle, eyes shining.
Tabitha hesitated, chewing at her lip. She was putting her last few scattered belongings into her pack, her hand grasping a twisted length of wood.
Isobelle let out a gasp and said, ‘Oh, I recognise that from the hedge witches at the market – that’s a wand, isn’t it? Are you a witch?’
Gwen’s gaze snapped back to the girl. Isobelle had been low-key obsessed with witches ever since she and Gwen had hidden in a thicket to watch a particularly beautiful ritual, the night of the dragon bonfire in Darkhaven.
Tabitha tucked the bit of gnarled wood carefully into her satchel and buckled it closed. ‘I told you, I can handle myself.’
‘Oh, but now you must travel with us!’ Isobelle cried. ‘I want to hear all about you.’
Isobelle turned to flag down the approaching carriage, and was soon busy explaining what had happened to the girls. Hilde’s head, crowned by her buckwheat-blonde braids, poked out of the carriage window and Gwen heard her cry, ‘Ach, how exciting!’
She glanced back at the red-haired girl, who was standing clutching her pack and looking a little bit stunned.
Gwen had seen that look so many times now – and had worn it herself – that she found herself smiling. Poor Tabitha, battered into submission by a storm named Isobelle.
‘It’s really best to just go along with her,’ she murmured, flashing Tabitha a sidelong grin. ‘Someone once told me I’d only hurt myself if I tried to fight it, and she was right.’
Tabitha’s cheeks had lost their angry colour, but now they flushed again, the tiniest bit.
‘So I see. Are you sure it’s no trouble?
’ She glanced past Gwen, towards where Isobelle and Jane were trying to round up Buttercup.
The lovely horse kept prancing away a few paces and then stopping to wait for them, clearly enjoying the game.
Jane was yelling for Sylvie to come help them.
Sylvie, standing at the road’s edge, crossed her arms and stood her ground.
She was immaculate – dark-haired, dark-eyed, the warm bronze of her skin not diminished one degree by the black of her mourning gown.
Sylvie was one of the only people who shared Gwen’s opinion of Isobelle’s horse.
Gwen shrugged. ‘No trouble at all.’
‘Why did those arseholes run away?’ Tabitha asked, slinging her pack over one shoulder and looking curiously at Gwen.
Gwen hesitated. The word of her battle against the dragon was known throughout Darkhaven, but it had spread somewhat more unpredictably beyond its borders.
Some knew the story well, and gazed at her with open admiration – others had heard nothing and simply eyed the girl wearing a sword with sceptical confusion.
‘There are a lot of stories about me,’ she said finally, feeling rather awkward. ‘Isobelle tells them better than I do.’
‘Huh.’ Tabitha shrugged. ‘People tell a lot of stories about witches, too. Fear is a powerful thing.’
Gwen let her breath out in relief that the girl wasn’t going to make her talk about her own fame. ‘I don’t doubt it. Come, meet Achilles. He looks fearsome, but he’s quite friendly, I assure you. He can carry us both.’
By the time she’d finished introducing Tabitha to Achilles, Isobelle had managed to catch Princess Buttercup, and after some discussion the caravan set off once more towards the coast. Tabitha was no skilled rider, but she learned quickly, and after some initial stiffness, settled in behind Gwen with her arms about her waist.
Their positioning did not encourage conversation, but Gwen did ask, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the hoofbeats, ‘Why are you headed to Galanty?’
There was a brief silence, and then Tabitha’s voice came in her ear, much more softly. ‘I was born there. My mother died there, when I was too young to remember her much. I suppose … I suppose I simply wish to know what happened to her.’
Gwen’s throat tightened, thinking of her own mother. She briefly covered Tabitha’s hand, where it rested against Gwen’s chainmail. She did not say anything back, for it really was too uncomfortable to try to converse; but she felt, strangely, a little lighter.
Lord Whimsitt may have sent them to Galanty-Uponne-the-Sea to pose for portrait artists and smile for the local nobility, but here was someone who had come for a reason, a worthy reason.
A damsel in distress, Isobelle had said.
Escorting a girl to safety was not exactly on the level of slaying a dragon – but it was something, and Gwen decided that she would do what she could to help her.