A Lady Under Siege(18)
“Are we ladies sated?” he asked.
“Oh yes Sir, I never tasted a bird so fine,” Mabel chirped eagerly. She dropped her smile when she noticed Sylvanne glaring at her.
“Good then,” said Kent. “We’ll set out immediately. It’s two days steady walk to the castle of my Lord and Master Thomas. Given your condition, and the suffering you’ve endured, we’ll mount you aboard careful, steady horses. M’Lady, you’ll have mine, and I’ll walk beside.”
“But I’m not leaving,” Sylvanne said defiantly. “I came out to negotiate, not be carried away like plunder. Why should I go to your Master? He should come to me.”
“I’m afraid grave domestic concerns keep him home, m’Lady. And if I may say, negotiation takes place between equals. I have an army of two hundred behind me, and you have a maid with chicken grease on her chin. I have orders to deliver you alive and healthy, and you have no say in the matter.”
Sylvanne rose to her feet and attempted to brush past him out of the tent. Kent stepped aside and allowed her to go. Once outside, the sunshine hit her eyes like a blast of fire. She staggered dizzily, disoriented. A sea of peasant faces closed in around her, mostly ugly unshaven men, with a few curious boys among them. An older man called her deary, another asked gruffly, “Where do yer think yer goin?” She heard Kent’s voice behind her.
“M’Lady! You’re weakened from the siege. You need more rest and nourishment. Please accept your circumstances.”
The circle of faces tightened around her, and she felt hands take hold of her arms. She pulled free, then collapsed unconscious onto the trampled grass.
WHEN SHE CAME TO her senses she was curled up, joggled and jolted, amid sacks full of oats in the back of a rough two-wheeled cart pulled by a dray horse. She was still dressed in her finery, although the green of her gown was now dulled by a coat of dust. Ahead she saw Kent and a dozen mounted horsemen, to her rear came the two hundred soldiers afoot, with Mabel perched unsteadily upon a single horse. The rein was held by a fat oafish fellow walking alongside gingerly, as if there were stones in his shoes. He was sweating severely. Seeing Sylvanne awake he yelled out, “Master Kent, Sir! She arises from her slumber. That calls for a wee stoppage for a morsel, don’t you think?”
Kent circled back on his mount, and tipped his cap to Sylvanne. “Are you feeling better, Ma’am?”
Sylvanne made no answer. She’d awoken thinking of her husband, and only after a moment had she remembered he was dead. She looked about her, thinking, I don’t even know these men, this country.
“If we keep a brisk pace we reach home before dark tomorrow,” Kent was saying to the fat man, who went by the name Gwynn. “Wouldn’t you rather we reunite with wife and children under the sun’s light, and not arrive to a cold hearth and a dark night?”
“You forget I have no wife, Sir,” answered Gwynn.
“No, it’s you forget I do.”
“The lady looks in need of a cup of comfort, Sir.”
“Let her express her own opinion,” said Kent. He turned his horse alongside Sylvanne’s cart. “Are you in need of anything, m’Lady? A sip of water, perhaps? A stop for relief?”
“How dare you dump me in a cart like a pig carried to market,” Sylvanne said indignantly. “I want a horse.”
“I told you earlier you could have mine, m’Lady,” said Kent.
“If I may say something,” interjected fat Gwynn, “I fear my feet are not meant for such gruelling hikes as these. At this pace they’ll be bloody stumps by nightfall. Could I take her place in the cart, Sir?”
“Here’s a man who feels no shame at being carried like a pig to market,” Kent laughed. “It’s true the feet of a horseman can grow tender when he’s forced afoot, and I worry about mine, in fact. Here’s a plan: you will have your cart ride, Gwynn, and maid Mabel will join you there. I’ll take the horse she rides, and the Lady can have mine.”
And so it was. Sylvanne mounted his fine stallion and slowed it to a walk, falling in behind the cart where Gwynn and Mabel sat, for it was understood that Mabel had a role to play as chaperone; to keep things seemly she was expected to keep her Mistress in her sight at all times. Kent also kept watch, riding discreetly at the Lady’s shoulder.
They passed through golden fields where peasants gathering the harvest stopped to gape openly at them. Gwynn kept up a running commentary, remarking how the fields were lush and productive, and the soil of these lands must be very fine. “They belong to the Earl of Apthwaite, and he’s been very gracious to let us pass through unhindered,” he informed Mabel. “Of course it’s not entirely from the kindness of his heart, for young Gerald was deeply indebted to him, and now that he’s deceased, the Earl will be quick to gobble up his lands and properties as payment.”