Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
The party had been moving at a steady pace through a shaded area and into the late morning sun.
Their next destination, a small town in a stretch of flatlands, was still a half day away, and Alex was passing the time by daydreaming about a good meal and a comfortable bed.
The mood of the party had changed from adventuresome to dreary.
The men were disheartened by the lack of progress and the grisly scenes they had discovered, not to mention the aggressive pace of their leader.
It seemed that the initial comforts of their travel party were already wearing thin, and everyone’s hopes for a quick and easy payday had been dashed.
The men needed to drink. And they needed women.
Staying in town that night would be a welcome rest for them all, including Alex.
She’d come to expect a room all to herself when they were at an inn, and she was eager to eat something hot in the tavern.
Then she thought that tonight might be the night Philippe would take a woman, and it soured her fantasizing.
She knew it was coming, but still, after several nights in different taverns, he always went to bed alone.
He’d hang around just until she went to her room each night.
She hadn’t figured out his intentions, but sooner or later, the tolls of the mission would push him into bed with someone.
Despite her resolve not to be affected by it, she knew it was going to upset her when it happened.
At the moment, the group was stretched out over a long road.
She did not see Philippe at the front, but he often left the procession to scout.
The warm sun made her feel lazy, and she let her body sway to the steps of her horse.
Suddenly, the thump-thump-thump of horse gallop brought her around.
Philippe was cutting across the valley, coming right at her.
She adjusted her posture, waiting to be addressed.
“Alex,” he called, his face set in thought. He pulled the reins of his horse and slowed to her pace. “Do you know the Sable Noir Forest through here?”
“Yes,” she replied, unsure of why he was asking, but she could see he was intent on some new suspicion.
“I’d like you to take me through it.”
“What do you aim to find?”
“I visited that farmhouse a mile back and the proprietor said there was smoke from a campfire at the center of it not two days ago. I should like to see if there is anything left.”
“The forest is impossibly thick. We can’t go in altogether like this. In fact, it is much easier on foot.”
“I only intend that you and I go. I just want to find that campsite. You’re the guide. Guide me.”
“Indeed,” she replied, focusing on the mission and calling upon the knowledge she had of the area. “It is cut by a narrow river. If they had a camp, it’s probably along the banks.”
They made quick preparations. It was barely noon, but they would have to hurry if they were to follow this tangent and still make it to town before nightfall.
The forest was small but very dense with uneven terrain.
It was roughly a mile into the heart of it, but it would not be easy going.
The rest of the group continued on schedule to the town with Laurent at the lead while Alex and Philippe departed.
Philippe led her back through the valley and to the edge of the forest, where trees suddenly knitted themselves together like a blanket. There, they tied their horses off by a creek with plenty of young grass to occupy the steeds and took what they needed in their rucksacks.
“Are you ready, Monsieur?” Alex asked, gesturing to the dense forest before them. “This will not be so clean as we have traveled thusly.”
“Are you saying I don’t know how to get dirty, Mademoiselle?”
She teased. “I am saying you are a lord, My Lord.”
Philippe waved her off with a chuckle and entered the wrap of trees.
They walked in silence, adjusting to the thickness of the woods.
There had been a great wildfire in this region twenty years before.
It wiped out much of the verdure, but the fertile land sprang forth five trees where there had been only one before.
It created a netting of saplings and young pliable branches amongst the massive dead trunks, whose black flesh fed a myriad of new plants; themselves becoming pillars of green life that supported a vast canopy above them.
The scrub on the ground was just as thick and tangled.
Their boots crunched as they climbed over fallen stumps and flowering shrubs.
Alex stayed at the lead, pausing occasionally to adjust their path.
If she brought them true West, they should reach the water quickly.
Then they could follow the river until they found the camp.
“I feel very conflicted at the moment,” said Philippe as they stepped over a steep rock formation.
“Why is that?” she asked over her shoulder.
“I am watching you carry that heavy pack. If you were a normal woman, I would ask to carry it for you. But I think you will perhaps hit me again if I suggest you aren’t capable.”
Alex gave a quick laugh. “So do you dare ask me to take my pack or not?”
“Aye, unfortunately my training as a gentleman supersedes my desire not to have you split my lip again.” He put on his most debonair voice. “May I carry that pack for you, Mademoiselle?”
Alex slung the bundle off her shoulder and tossed it at him. “I won’t turn down the offer. Not from a gentleman,” she said, amused by his display. She unsheathed her blade to cut a wider path to make the going a little easier on them. “You’re funny, Philippe,” she observed after a moment.
“I’m actually quite charming,” he said. “Not that you really ever got to see that side of me.”
“Oh, I have seen it,” she said with a smirk. She glanced back at him over her shoulder, enjoying the conversation.
“I believe,” he continued. “If you were a man, we would have been great friends.”
“We used to be friends. When I first arrived in Chevalerie,” she pointed out. “I wasn’t a man then.”
“No.” He laughed. “You weren’t.” He paused, then his words softened. “What do you say, Alex? Have I earned your forgiveness?”
She wedged her boot between two rocks in order to get up a ledge and looked back at him.
He was smiling at her, but then his face changed, and she caught a glimpse of how badly he wanted to be forgiven.
Seeing for a second that he wanted something she could give him, she was seized with a desperate desire to give him anything he could ask for.
But she also knew how easy it was for him to divert his attention away from her, and it stung more than a little that what she had to offer would never be enough.
Still, there was no reason not to grant him her forgiveness at this point.
He’d treated her well on this journey. And every day she spent near him, she grew to like and respect him more.
“Alright, I forgive you,” she said. She hoisted herself over the rocky ledge and glanced back at him.
She saw him smile as he looked down to navigate the rocks.
She continued forward. She could have dropped it. Part of her wished to pretend that she had no fault. But she didn’t deserve to take his apology and tuck it away without bearing her own burden. “Philippe?”
“Yeah?” he replied, coming up over the rocks. He rubbed his hands together and stood before her, waiting for her to continue.
Why was it still so hard to look at him? “I’m sorry,” she said once she could meet his eyes. “For challenging you like I did. I shouldn’t have put everything on display like that. In front of everyone.” She whacked at a branch with her sword. “It wasn’t fair.”
He watched her for a long moment. She couldn’t read his expression. Alex began to worry that he was going to unleash all the bad things he ever must have thought about her, after she humiliated him and his family. But when he finally responded, all he said was, “Thanks, Alex.”
She nodded and turned back onto the path. She cut at a low-hanging shrub and attempted to be playful once more. “So if you like,” she said over her shoulder. “You may call me friend again.”
“Okay. Friends,” she heard him repeat, with a laugh, once she had turned away.
They continued in silence from that point.
Alex cut the path and Philippe followed close behind her.
They communicated effectively with just their bodies, and she began anticipating the easiest paths for him to follow.
As they came upon the river, the knots of trees slackened, relieving the need for such choreographed movement.
“There,” she said, pointing to a pocket of brush that had been squashed into the water.
“They traveled along here.” She bent down to the stream to dip her hands in.
She brought cool water to her face. “How long ago did you say the farmer saw the fire?”
“Early yesterday morning.”
“Should be easy to find from here.”
She led them across the river and up a tributary that fed into the main pour.
Alex focused on the story told by the terrain.
They’d crossed the water here. They stopped and shared a drink there.
They were big. And clumsy. Not the svelte fighters of the south.
They didn’t think anyone would look for them this deep in the woods.