Chapter 1
Robin bit her lower lip, pressing down hard enough to hurt as she rolled it between her teeth. Then she pursed her lips together and pushed them away from her face, hoping they appeared cracked and swollen.
Shifting against the stone bench behind her, she tried to find a more comfortable way to slouch on the packed dirt beneath her.
It should not be long now.
Flies swirled around her head, attracted to the sticky fruit juice that had dried in her hair. Annoying as they were, she resisted the urge to swat them away.
There.
She heard them first, a large group of travelers down the road past the bend.
Allowing herself the luxury of a single smile, she inhaled. Then, she twisted her expression into a pinched stare.
The low rumble of a dozen trotting horses grew into a loud din as a large group of soldiers rounded the bend. They wore the deep purple livery of King Gareth of Chendas.
Robin sat up as they came into view, leaning piteously forward and holding out a wooden plate. “Can you spare some bread, my good captain?” she called out.
The oncoming riders did not even glance her way. Perhaps her voice had been drowned out by the sound of their horses’ hoofbeats, but Robin guessed that they would have ignored her anyway.
Expecting this, she pushed herself off the ground and stumbled into the middle of the road just as they drew near. “Or just a gold coin? The village ahead has no food to spare.” She kept her face angled downward as she held up the plate.
Some of the riders pulled to a hurried stop to avoid hitting her while some of them swerved around her.
“Move, fool, or you would deserve the trampling you could have gotten,” one of the halted riders shouted down as his horse regained its footing. Robin noted the metal breastplate he wore, which denoted him as the captain of this group.
Robin coughed into the sleeve of her ragged tunic. She drew out the sound, adding a long, wet wheeze. “Bread?” she asked again, lifting her face to stare at the speaker. “Coin?”
The captain recoiled, horror on his face. “Get back!” He pulled the reins of his horse, attempting to tug the animal away from Robin.
“Food, please,” Robin croaked, stepping toward him as she stared up at him. She wanted to grin at his reaction, but she kept her expression blank and her eyes wide.
Due to the crowd of soldiers backed up behind him, the captain was unable to move away. He leaned his body away from Robin, trying to put as much distance between himself and her as possible.
He looked over her head at the small village behind her and pointed toward it, urging his men to ride around Robin.
He need not have bothered, as his men were equally as eager to get away from her.
The horses started to move around her, but the sound of a loud bell up ahead stopped them.
Robin looked back at the village to see a tall man walking toward them, holding up a large bell that he shook vigorously as he approached.
“Stay back!” the man warned. He wore a well-made jerkin, but his face was half covered by a piece of cloth wrapped around his mouth. “This village has been beset upon by a pox and none are safe! State your business and be on your way.” He stopped several paces behind Robin.
The soldiers, holding back their horses once more, looked to their captain.
The captain, in turn, looked between Robin and the bell-clanging man. The captain’s eyes were narrowed in distrust. “State your business, man, before you make demands from a captain of King Gareth’s army.”
The tall man behind Robin dipped his head in the smallest gesture of respect. “I am Alrud, the Reeve of Berwell. You are welcome here, but at your own risk. This pox starts on the skin and takes hold in the lungs. We have lost both our young and our old.”
“My good reeve,” the captain responded. “We require lodging and food for the night, and your plight does not concern us.” He gestured to another soldier who rode near him.
The other soldier was already unrolling a long parchment, holding it up for all to see.
It was covered in the ink of fine, black lettering and stamped with a large wax seal in the Chendas purple.
“By decree of Gareth, King of Chendas and Head of the Council of Five Kingdoms, we are due lodging and food as men who are here to aid you in your time of need.”
Robin pushed closer to the paper as though she was having trouble reading it, but her actual intent was to show off the oozing bumps on her face to as many of the soldiers as possible.
She was quite proud of the mixture of flour and berry juice they had concocted to get the sores to look as disgusting as possible.
The soldier instantly pulled the decree away from her gaze and started to roll it back up.
Reeve Alrud dipped his head again. “As you wish, my captain.” He clasped his hands and stepped backward, as if to open the road for the soldiers to pass through.
“Some of the houses are recently empty, except for the corpses of the deceased, that is. You can make use of those. But I am afraid our main tavern and inn are currently bursting with the sick.”
The captain turned to his men, once again lifting his arm to point toward the village.
But the soldiers within hearing distance of the current conversation were backing away.
Robin could hear the concerned shouts of “pox” and “sickness” ripple back through the group.
The captain turned back to Reeve Alrud. “Provide us, then, with food,” he demanded.
The reeve bowed his head. “Yes, captain. You are welcome to what little we have to share. It is not much . . .”
The reeve turned to the town behind him, where humble wooden houses sat on empty streets. Shadowed faces peered back at them through cracked doors. The reeve waved toward the town, summoning another man from one of the nearer buildings.
This man wore a baker’s apron, and his mouth was also covered by a large strip of cloth. He stepped forward, lumbering toward the gathered soldiers with a slight limp. In his arms, he carried several round loaves of thick-crusted bread.
Walking past the reeve, he held out a loaf toward the captain.
The captain rejected the loaf but waved the man toward the soldiers behind him.
Robin stumbled after the baker, grabbing a loaf of bread from his arms. She dropped the wooden plate to the ground so she could use both hands to tear the loaf in half.
“Bread is not enough to sustain us,” the captain said behind her to the reeve. “Where is your meat? We will accept cured or livestock.”
Robin bit into half of the loaf, tearing it with her teeth as though she had not eaten in days. She turned back to watch as the reeve wrung his hands together nervously, the bell he still carried clanking softly with the motion.
“That is just the thing, captain,” the reeve explained. “This pox started with our pigs and then spread to the sheep and goats. It was only when we ate their meat that we also got sick. We have no remaining animals that are not infected.”
Robin held up the other half of her loaf to the nearest mounted soldier. The berry juice from her face and hands had stained parts of the bread a light pink.
The soldier leaned away from her offering. “Get back, hag.”
A shout of disgust sounded from the group of soldiers further down the road near the baker. “This bread is contaminated!”
“Get us away from this sickly town!” One of the soldiers from further back urged his horse into the thick undergrowth on the side of the road.
He rode past Robin, the captain, and the reeve, guiding his horse down the left fork of the road ahead.
The fork that clearly led around the village of Berwell.
Several other soldiers followed his lead.
“We keep moving!” the captain yelled to his already retreating men, as though he was attempting to take back control.
Robin continued to tear off large chunks of the hearty bread with her teeth as she and the reeve stepped to the side of the road, allowing the captain and his horse to pass by.
They stood and watched for several minutes as the rest of the mounted soldiers rode through, followed by another dozen men on foot.
As they disappeared down the left road, giving the village a wide berth, Robin waved a cheerful goodbye behind their backs.
When the last soldier was out of sight, Robin stood up straight. She lifted the ragged sleeve of her tunic and began to wipe at her face. “This paste is itching so badly I would not be surprised if it gave me an actual pox.”
The reeve exhaled a loud sigh of relief beside her. “Thank you, Lady Robin,” he said, turning to her. “I cannot believe that worked. Our food stores would not have survived feeding yet another group of Gareth’s men.”
Robin nodded in acknowledgment. “Hopefully, the story of the pox will spread and soldiers will avoid Berwell for a while.”
The baker, who had joined them, still carried several loaves of bread. Robin noted that they also had drops of berry juice staining them, seemingly from the baker’s pox-covered arms.
“Well planned, Robin,” he said.
“Well executed, Ulli,” she replied. “Shall we return this bread back to the village?”
“Please, take it yourselves,” the reeve said. “It is the least—or rather, the most—we can offer you.”
Robin smiled as she touched Alrud’s arm.
“We are well fed. Your people need it more than we do.” She moved past him to walk toward the village.
“Keep everyone inside for the rest of the day,” she advised.
“My band should be done informing the surrounding farms to spread the story and feign illness should they need to.”
“Thank you, Robin,” the reeve repeated. “I do not know how we can ever repay you.”
“Your payment is not necessary,” Robin reassured him.
As they neared the village, the cracked doors opened and the timid villagers stepped out to greet Robin and Alrud. All of them wore some kind of makeshift disguise, like Robin, to help sell the story of their pox.