Chapter Seven #3
The four men turned their attention to the end of the table to see Cadelyn and Susanna looking at them.
Cadelyn appeared somewhat amused, but Susanna did not.
She was stiff and serious, and quite protective over the woman she had been guarding for the past several years, up to and including the conversation that went on around her.
“Do remember the company you keep,” Susanna said, a hint of threat in her tone. “It is unseemly for Lady Cadelyn to listen to talk of retching. Watch your manners.”
She was sitting next to Achilles yet again and Kress suddenly wondered if he was going to have to separate the two again because of the dirty look Achilles was giving her.
Somehow, Achilles and Susanna seemed to always end up next to each other, which wasn’t optimal.
Unfortunately, Achilles wasn’t one to back down, especially from a confrontation.
Especially from a woman.
“Why is it you feel the need to speak to us as if we are degenerates?” he asked Susanna. “We do not need a lesson in propriety from a woman who behaves like a man. Get your own house in order before you dare to lecture us, Amazon.”
He was coming at her fast and hard, meaning to shake her up.
That was Achilles’ style. He was not a man of tact.
He was, however, an educated man. Not only was he pious and had an intimate knowledge of the bible, but he had also been schooled in the classics, hence the reference to the warrior women in Greek mythology known as the “slayers of men”, women who were born fighters in the land of Scythia.
They were women of blood and brutality, and he’d meant the term as an insult.
But Susanna didn’t rise to his offense, at least not right away. As before when they’d shared harsh words between them, she simply gazed at him steadily, as if waiting for him to get all of his insults out at her before responding. Once he was finished, she went straight for the throat.
“Better to be an Amazon than to be named after a man with an inherent weakness,” she said in a surprising show of education for herself. “What is your weakness, Achilles? Your heel or your pea-sized brain?”
Bric was already up, putting himself between Susanna and Achilles before they could kill each other.
But he didn’t move fast enough; Achilles reached out to grab Susanna by the neck, but she was already reaching for the wine pitcher when she saw him move.
By the time his hand went to her throat, the earthenware wine pitcher in her hand was already swinging straight for his head.
It crashed against his skull and shattered, with wine spraying everywhere.
The two of them went down onto the ground as Kress reached out to scoop Cadelyn right off of the bench and away from the table.
The battle was on.
In Kress’ grip, Cadelyn shrieked. “Stop him!” she cried. “He will kill her!”
Kress could see the pair rolling around on the ground.
At that point, they were trying to throw punches but they were literally on top of each other, so there wasn’t much movement other than rolling around in the splattered wine.
But he didn’t make a move to stop them, nor did Bric or Alexander.
They simply stood and watched, poised to separate them the moment Achilles got the upper hand.
“He will not kill her,” Kress said calmly, watching as Susanna suddenly flipped herself around and ended up on Achilles’ back. “But mayhap we had better let them fight it out, considering they do not seem to like each other much. Better now than later.”
But Cadelyn wasn’t so sure. She was horrified that the big, bald knight should try to hurt Susanna, who wasn’t going to make an easy victim.
Once she got on Achilles’ back, she grabbed his ears and pulled hard, causing the man to howl.
Bric took a step forward to pull the woman off Achilles’ back, but Alexander threw out a hand.
“Nay,” he said quietly, eyeing the tussling pair. “Let them work through this. Otherwise, we may not have any peace for the entire ride north.”
Bric frowned, unhappy because he was unable to help his friend with a woman who was pulling terribly on his ears. But that pain was short-lived when Achilles used his strength to toss Susanna off. As she landed on her back, he pounced, grabbing a handful of her copper curls and yanking on them.
“See how that feels?” he said as she grunted in pain. “You do not like that, do you, Amazon?”
Throwing a hand up, she poked him right in the eye and he groaned as he lost his balance, blinded by her poking fingers.
Once he staggered, she threw a fist into his throat.
Achilles keeled over and she leapt onto him again.
They rolled around, pulling hair and ears, bumping into the feasting table as the food spilled all over the top of it.
Shaking his head at the spectacle, Kress turned to Alexander.
“Make sure they do not kill one another,” he said. “I will settle the lady in to her chamber for the night.”
Alexander merely nodded, wincing when Susanna managed to ram a knee into Achilles’ privates.
As the knight cursed in pain, Kress grasped Cadelyn by the arm and pulled her from the battle, heading towards the entry to the inn.
But Cadelyn was dragging her feet, her attention still on the fight as Susanna and Achilles rolled around on the ground.
“We cannot simply leave like this,” she told him. “He will hurt her!”
Kress was still pulling her towards the door. “He will not hurt her any more than she is hurting him,” he said calmly. “We will have to let them settle their own differences for now.”
“But where are we going?”
“You are going to collect whatever you need for the night. I intend to take you to your chamber and leave you there until morning.”
He nearly had her to the door and Cadelyn was still straining to catch a glimpse of what was happening on the far side of the room.
All she could see were legs kicking and rolling around on the ground, and as she watched, the feasting table was kicked so hard that whatever food was left on it went flying.
But her view was cut short when Kress pulled her out of the door.
The night was cold and misty, and the carriage was parked alongside the road where the three-storied wing of the inn was. There were soldiers milling about, protecting the carriage and the contents, and Kress told the sergeant in charge to go into the inn and procure food for the men.
As the soldier disappeared inside, Cadelyn made her way to the rear of the fortified carriage where the door was. She knocked, twice, as Kress came up behind her, and the door was finally opened from the inside.
Yerik’s pale face was in the opening.
“My lady,” he greeted excitedly. “I want you to see what…”
It was then that he caught sight of Kress, standing a few feet behind Cadelyn in the darkness. Startled, Yerik stumbled over his words.
“That is to say, I have painted something for you,” he said. “It was difficult while the carriage moved, but now that it has been still, I have been able to… paint.”
Kress wasn’t stupid. He knew what the cleric was referring to but he had no time for lewd poems or nervous clerics.
“The lady is just coming to gather her possessions for the night,” he said.
“You will sleep in the carriage and the lady will sleep in the inn. If you want food, you had better go inside and get it now. Once you are back in this carriage, I do not want you to come out again, for any reason. There are soldiers guarding the carriage this night, so you will remain inside. Is that clear?”
Yerik nodded quickly, fearfully. “Aye, my lord.”
With that, he moved around Cadelyn and slipped out of the carriage, his hands and sleeves marked with color and ink. Even the tips of his fingers were black. He rushed into the tavern as Kress watched.
“You frighten him.”
Kress turned to see Cadelyn standing in the doorway of the carriage, a leather satchel in her hands as she looked at him. He grunted.
“I have that effect on people.”
She climbed out of the carriage as he politely helped her. “Not me,” she said. “Not Susanna, either, I don’t think.”
He smiled thinly. “I am fairly certain that not much frightens her.”
Cadelyn grinned, those big dimples flashing in the darkness. “That is very true,” she said. Then, her smile faded. “Must I really go to my chamber now? This is my first night in an inn and I have hardly spent any time in it.”
He took her elbow and turned back for the inn.
“I told you that you are not missing anything,” he said.
“I have spent my fair share of time in taverns and inns, and there is truly nothing spectacular about any of them. Well, most of them. There have been a few that I’ve visited that were well worth the visit. ”
She was listening curiously. “What made them so?”
Kress realized, after making that statement, that what had made most of them special had been the women. Soft, supple, clever in bed. But he didn’t want to tell her that. Therefore, he lied.
“The food,” he said the first thing that came to mind. “That is what makes a place special to me.”
She believed him, having no reason not to. “And did you enjoy the food here tonight?”
“What I had of it before Achilles and the Amazon started kicking the table.”
In spite of herself, Cadelyn grinned. “Please do not say that about Susanna.”
“If I offended you, I apologize.”
Cadelyn looked up at him. “She is really not combative or aggressive,” she said. “But she will not back down from a challenge. I have seen it from her, many times.”