Chapter Four A Positively Medieval Date
Stop laughing you’re...insulting the gods.”
Omar fell to his knees and smirked at me. “What does a dog have to do with magic?”
I also fell out of downward dog to the grass.
Omar was Jerrald’s cousin, but I was learning they were very different.
Jerrald was controlled and savvy. Omar was turning out to be a bit of a goofball, and that was exactly why I never considered becoming a teacher.
The only thing worse than a middle schooler who thought he was hilarious was a medieval middle schooler who thought he was hilarious.
It took me a moment to brush my long hair back which had fallen all over the place. “I told you, it’s called yoga. This pose strengthens your shoulders and stretches your calves.”
“Which will help with my magic how?” Omar challenged.
That was the crux of the issue. I certainly didn’t know how to teach magic—I’d tried convincing Jerrald of the fact, but the queen’s field commander was stubborn.
Besides, Jerrald was training Lord Draw in combat, something that could make the difference as Ironclaw’s betrayal approached.
Hence, I had to teach Omar something that could pass for magical tutoring.
I took a deep centering breath in demonstration. “It will help focus your mind, enhance your physical strength—”
“Can’t you teach me that fire trick you did at Sage Ravine?”
I held back a groan. I should have known the trick would build a false impression of my powers.
Real or not, there were some in the camp who didn’t seem entirely comfortable with me since—Lord Parable had scowled at me over last night’s hasty camp dinner as if he thought I might set the forest ablaze.
Ironclaw didn’t like my association with magic either, not that I had seen him since the performance at Sage Ravine.
It’s possible he didn’t come to my tent that night—I never checked.
Draw and I had talked late into the night under a tree, his cloak wrapped around us.
He told me more about the region we were coming to and his position as Queen’s Solicitor, and I shared the finer details of my job as an accountant.
He’d been thrilled to learn about spreadsheets.
While some responded with caution to my abilities, others, like Omar, took my magic show as a good omen. This morning, Tilly the laundress, who had never shown a lick of respect my way, nearly knocked me off Peanut Butter in a rush to polish my boots.
“Perhaps you’ll survive after all, Mistress Witch,” she had said loudly, causing Draw to snicker. (Though I had no qualms when he whispered “Mistress Witch” to my neck at the lunch break.)
As Tilly battered my riding boots with a brush, I managed to secure a promise from her to wash my tunic and pants and hang them to dry overnight. Which meant I had to bring them to her soon.
“Another time,” I told Omar.
There had to be a way for me to help him, even if I wasn’t magical myself. Arthur C. Clarke’s “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” kept coming back to me. How could I pass on the benefits of twenty-first century Earthling education disguised as magic?
As for Omar’s genuine abilities, hopefully they would naturally grow with him. Preferably when I was back home in Mayfair.
Draw appeared around the side of a tent, and I felt my smile light up. He had changed out of his usual dark robes into his tunic and wool pants. There was something about seeing him dressed less formal that I liked.
“My turn, Omar,” he said.
The way Omar glanced between the two of us, I could tell he sensed some kind of grownup thing but was not of the age to care.
Omar stood and lopped off. “Let’s do the fire trick in the morning,” he called behind him.
“Calm your mind before you sleep,” I shouted back.
Draw gave me a hand up. We took advantage of being shielded by tent walls to stare appreciatively at each other.
He wasn’t quite as tall as Ironclaw—the top of my head came to his collarbone.
His face was narrow like his body and, while I could see how others might think him severe, the drawnness about his face disappeared around me.
His cheekbones were sharp, his skin lovely and unblemished.
His hair was pulled back in a neat knot.
Draw brought his hand to my cheek and brushed his thumb on my lips. “It’s nice to see you.”
“I agree.” I smiled and tilted my chin up. It was a slow kiss. I pressed into him and introduced my tongue. His breath came hot against my face as he met me.
I tucked a hand under the back of his pants and felt hot, smooth skin.
He gasped and broke the kiss.
“Celestial cats, Dottie,” he cursed. “You’ll have me stripped of my clothes—” It was only a distraction. He brought both hands to my waist and slid them under my shirt.
I squealed.
Despite the fun, we mutually broke apart, conscious of how quickly the space could become public.
Draw grinned and unrolled a leather package he had set on the ground. “Sir Jerrald said to start with these.” He revealed two metal swords with blunt edges and no adornment. They were simple, but a step up from the wood practice swords.
I took the shorter of the two in my hand. “It’s heavy.”
Draw sighed. “It is, but I know what my woman wants and that’s the ability to cleave a man in half. What use is corresponding with foreign royal courts when I could have arms like a tree?”
“Indeed. It’s not always mind over body.”
He dropped his voice but was still making fun. “Maybe if I had picked one of these up sooner, I would have made the book covers.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, sometimes you made the summary on the back of the book.” It was a relief to reference Landsome Roads with someone. It was a strange place to be, straddling fiction and what felt so much like the real world.
I lifted the blunt-edged sword and fell to the latest drill we had learned. Very quickly I went back to the first and easiest over-the-shoulder maneuver. My arms burned and I had to stop several times to stretch my arms and back.
The air cooled as the sun sank, but I was burning up.
I drilled as long as I could until I had to drop my sword to my side.
Draw did the same and looked at me. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead.
He was breathing heavily. I was just the same.
There was something about his wordless expression that made me crack up.
“Oh, come here”—he dropped the sword to the ground completely—“I had imagined other, more pleasant activities to put you out of breath and instead here we are waving chunks of metal over our heads.” He pulled me against him, and I carefully pointed my sword away from us.
“Dottie, let’s ride together tomorrow.”
“We rode together today.” It was true and I was still coming down from the high of the day, the first time we spent a significant amount of time with each other. Even with the surrounding marchers and riders on the public road, the shared understanding of our mutual feelings made us isolated.
“I’d like it to be solely the two of us. There’s a place I know near here.”
“Are you asking me on a date?”
“Tomorrow’s date? The twelfth.”
“No, a date. Something you do alone with someone you like.”
Draw’s cheeks flushed, the pale pink standing starkly on his alabaster skin, and I pretended not to understand what he was thinking.
“Like go to dinner together or hang out,” I continued. “You spend time together just for the sake of being with the other person. You asking me to ride alone with you tomorrow is like asking me out on a date.”
He picked up his sword. “A date, then. Yes, that’s what I want.”
“Okay, I accept.”
“Dottie?” a woman called behind me, her voice slightly stuffy.
It was Meg. I saw immediately she had been crying. Her bronze skin was ruddy and her eyes were tinged red.
“I was just leaving, Lady Margaret,” Draw said, obviously aware Meg wanted privacy. He met my eye as he took my sword and wrapped both up.
I went to Meg. She was shorter than me and, at that moment, frail. “What’s going on?” I noticed she had her foraging basket still on her arm, as if she had just returned from the woods. It was full of clumps of green, pale orange flowers, and what looked like two oblong vegetables.
“I’m sorry to interrupt.” She glanced at Draw’s retreating figure. “I was hoping we could talk.”
“Of course.”
Meg was usually so placid, it concerned me that she was upset.
I’d gotten to know her a little bit in the Maidens’ Chamber and we had ridden together twice on the roads, talking mostly about local plants, her dismounting from time to time to harvest from the forest’s edge.
Once camp was set though, Meg was busy combing the surrounding forests with the other foragers.
I typically didn’t see her again until the next day.
“Maybe we could sit by the fire?”
Dinner had already been served, and the sun was slipping over the horizon. The air around us was graying rapidly. The sweat on my skin was not only cooling but going cold. A fire sounded perfect.
We found one of the many campfires nearby. Two men sat on the far side, talking, their voices obscured by the general noise of the host as people tidied post-dinner, tended the horses, and chattered about the day.
“What’s going on?” Though I was sorry she was upset, I was pleased to be sought out. This kind of thing never happened to me in real life. I wasn’t exactly the sort of person others looked to for advice. I only hoped Meg didn’t need a magical solution.
“You know my fella, Westly? Well”—her voice was grainy as she spoke and she cleared her throat—“his squad has been directed by the queen to scout ahead. They depart in the morning.”
“Don’t we have scouts ahead on the road already?”
“Yes, but we haven’t received word back.” Meg’s lips pressed together as she worked up the nerve to say her worry aloud. “What if whatever happened to them happens to Westly’s squad?”