Achan shrugged, happy to please Gren. He trudged toward the cockeyed sapling and pressed the tip of the wooden sword against the flaky trunk. “Halt, you foul excuse for a tree! In the name of Dendron, god of nature, surrender! Or I shall cut you into tinder for my fire.”
Gren’s merry giggle floated on the wind.
Though Achan felt incredibly silly, he warmed to her smile, so he played along. He sucked in a sharp breath. “You dare speak that way in the presence of this fine lady? I shall run you through!” He whacked the blade against the tree again and again, more like chopping wood than Sir Gavin’s swordplay. The pitiful sapling hunched lower, the trunk sinking into the yellow grass, the upper branches into the river.
The ground beneath Achan’s feet shifted. A deep cracking sent him scuttling back from the river bank. The tree, dragging a clump of roots and soil, ripped from the turf and sagged into the river. The current swelled briefly, sending a surge of icy water up the bank and over Achan’s ankles. He gasped as the freezing liquid seeped into his shoes and sent a violent shiver through his body. He turned to Gren, his mouth gaping, and uttered a small cry.
She giggled and jumped to her feet, clapping. “You’ve done it, my good knight. Look! Mine enemy retreats.”
Achan turned back to the river to see the sapling floating downstream. One branch remained above water, flapping in the wind like a sad flag. He laughed and turned to Gren. She stood beaming, her hair blowing about her face.
He marched toward her, knelt, and offered her his wooden sword on the palms of his hands. “For you, my lady.”
She hugged the waster to her heart, but her smile faded. Her eyes focused just over Achan’s head and went wide with fright. “Riga, no!”
Achan reached for his sword, but someone pulled him away by the back of his tunic. The weary threads cracked under the pressure. He realized that it wasn’t Riga pulling him — because his assailant dragged him past the potbellied peasant. Riga glared down over chubby cheeks. With his thick, sneering lips and squinty eyes, he looked to be suffering severe indigestion.
Achan’s captor yanked him to his feet and twisted him around.
It was Harnu. The scar on his cheek had mottled and darkened in the cold air. His jaw clenched as if something in his mouth tasted bad.
Achan smirked. These two should take more care over what they ate if it affected their appearance so.
Harnu gripped both of Achan’s wrists with one strong hand, squeezed his shoulder with the other, and pushed him back until his body leaned dangerously over the edge of the riverbank. Achan tried to get a decent foothold, but his frozen toes ignored his commands.
Riga spoke from the allown tree beside Gren. “Is this stray bothering you, my dear?” He draped a pudgy arm around Gren’s shoulders.
Her expression steeled, but she didn’t move away.
“Leave her be!” Achan yelled. “She’s done nothing to you.”
“It’s her honor I seek to protect, dog!” Riga said. “No maiden should consort with a stray at all, much less…alone.”
Achan fought against Harnu’s grip, pedaling his wet feet on the muddy bank, hoping to get some anchorage. “What Gren does is not your business.”
“On the contrary. She is my business, or hasn’t she told you?” Riga leered at Gren. “But of course, my dear. Why would you waste your sweet breath sharing such intimacies with a stray?”
Achan didn’t like Riga’s tone or the flush in Gren’s cheeks. “What are you on about?”
Riga straightened and sucked in a deep breath that brought his stomach in and his chest out. “Gren and I are betrothed.”
Achan’s gaze flickered to Gren. The fact that she wouldn’t meet his eyes told him that Riga spoke truth. “Gren?”
Harnu squeezed Achan’s wrists tighter, preventing his wiggling hands from escaping. Achan’s mind clouded.
Gren suddenly looked up. Tears streaked down her chin. “My father has made arrangements with Vaasa Hoff.”
Achan’s face tingled as the blood drained away. Gods no. It couldn’t be true.
Riga snatched the sword from Gren and held it up. “Pilfering a squire’s practice sword is a wicked thing to do, even for a stray. Whose is this?”
Achan lifted his chin. “Mine.”
Harnu leaned as close to Achan as possible without giving up his dominant position. “You’ll never be a knight, goat boy. Or a squire or a page. And you’ll never—”
“Marry a pretty girl,” Riga said from Gren’s side.
Harnu’s breath smelled like soured milk. “The closest you’ll ever get to the high table is to clean the scraps from the floor when everyone’s gone.” With that, Harnu shoved Achan backward.
Gren’s scream silenced in Achan’s ears when his body plunged beneath the icy surface.
Muted bubbling…a gulp of frigid water…a foot on something solid. Achan pushed off and kicked wildly toward the light. It had been Gren who had taught him to swim at age seven when none of the peasants would play with him.
His head burst through the surface. He gasped and twisted around. Gren, Riga, and Harnu stood on the bank, shrinking from sight. The forceful current swept him along. No matter how hard he tried, his efforts to swim for the shore seemed useless.
Like his life.
Gren and Riga? Why? Didn’t Master Fenny know Riga was a selfish, lazy pig who couldn’t deserve Gren in a million—
Achan saw a chance to escape the river. The poplar he had bested had gotten wedged into the entry channel of the moat that surrounded Sitna Manor. Achan reached for it and snagged the tip of a branch between his second and third fingers.
The branch held, and his body paused in the swift current. Water parted around his buoyed form. Hand over hand he pulled himself toward the side channel. Stiff brown branches snapped and scratched his face and hands. Finally he safely entered the murky current of the moat.
He let himself float along beneath the towering walls of the fortress. HeHHe shivered in the stinking water. The moat’s current was weak and didn’t flush the sewage from the manor’s privies and kitchen as well as it was designed to. The brownstone walls of the manor loomed above. Two guards on the wall laughed and pointed down. Word spread on the sentry walk. By the time Achan sailed around the northwest corner, at least ten guards had congregated at the gatehouse.
Achan swam to the edge and hoisted himself up. Dirt from the bank muddied the front of his waterlogged tunic. His limbs shook with cold, and he stumbled under the portcullis, ignoring the jeers from above.
A figure stepped in his path. Sir Gavin.
Achan stood, soaked and stinking, trembling in the breeze. “I’ve l-lost my w-w-waster.” And, he realized, his shoes. He was thankful Gren was still repairing Noam’s hand-me-down boots. He would’ve hated to have lost those.
“In the moat?”
“R-Riga an ’ar-nu.”
Sir Gavin nodded. “You’ll have to make another.”
Great. Now he had to learn carpentry or woodsmithing or whatever craft it took to make a wooden sword. At that point he didn’t care. He had to get warm. He slouched past Sir Gavin toward the kitchens.
He squished down the stone steps to the cellar. He stripped off his wet clothes and crawled onto his pallet under the ale casks to warm himself. The image of Gren’s tearful face was branded on his mind. Betrothed to Riga Hoff?
Pig snout!
“What about your sword?” Achan asked Sir Gavin as he filed the edge of his new wooden blade. White oak shavings peppered his feet with each stroke. “I’ve only seen you with your waster. You have a real one, don’t you?”