He meant the privy. I nodded, hoping my cheeks were not scarlet.
I found a secluded spot and thanked the gods I was possessed of a small hedgewitch charm to keep me hidden while I attended to nature. Then I found the brook they had fetched water from yesterday. Fog pressed close, threading between the trees, etching every leaf with crystalline droplets. The brook murmured to itself, birds stirring in the distance. It was not like the songs, where a noble girl wakes in the forest and is brought berries by the grace of one of the Blessed — usually Kimyan, for the Huntress is particularly concerned with children and maidens. Once a girl is married or experienced, it is gentle Jiserah she turns to; my mother had been a devotee of the Bright Wife.
I washed my face and scrubbed at my hands. They held no trace of blood, for which I was grateful — but I still laved them more than twas perhaps necessary, wishing again for a hot bath, and some buttered scones, and morning chocolat. Oh — and a book, and a lazy divan to lie upon and read while Lisele played the harp.
As I am still dreaming, I might as well wish for a ride in the Moon’s chariot. I shook myself. I was still alive, even if I was stiff, bruised, and aching from too much time spent in the saddle, and heartsick. Not to mention clammy under my borrowed clothes, and oddly light-headed.
I washed my hands, and washed them again. Rubbed between my fingers, dug under my fingernails to remove all trace of garden dirt and…anything else. Examined my water-wrinkled fingers, then scrubbed at my palms again. I never thought I would yearn for the Court, for well-known faces and voices, for a familiar day of complete boredom.
I was cupping water in my palm to drink when I heard movement on the other side of the brook.
I stood in a rush and would have fled back into the quiet fog-hung trees, having no woodscraft but still hoping to hide, but they were too quick, melting out of the brush on the other side of the water’s thin chuckling. Two men, one with a brace of coneys dangling from a work-roughened fist, the other with two woodfowl.
Tis illegal to hunt in the King’s forests. My eyes were round as platters; I stared as if they were sprites or demieri di sorce, those spirits of night and mischief.
They stared back, perhaps thinking the same. Ruddy-cheeked and dressed in rough homespun, they were obviously peasants or smallholders. One had a thatch of dark-blond hair, and the other was dark, with a winking milky eye under a scar. They both had seamed faces from time spent in the weather, and hard hands from hard work.
We regarded each other over the brook for a ridiculously long time, I having nothing to say, my heart hammering so hard it precluded rational thought, and they obviously suffering the same dilemma.
Finally, the blond elbowed the dark man, who coughed. That broke the spell, and I backed up a step. Two. A stick snapped under my garden-boot, very loud in the foggy quiet.
“Now, do not be going, d’mselle.” The dark one stretched out his free hand, as if I were a stray dog he wished to coax. “We are honest folk, and we want no trouble.” His hair was indifferently trimmed, and his accent almost too thick to be understood. Peasant, then, not smallholder. A small, dark-dripping bag slung by his side, full of something that looked heavy. More small animals?
I swallowed dryly. “Then we are alike, sieurs.” I searched for good manners. Nothing in my Court training had prepared me for this. “For I wish no trouble either.”
“Tha’s good, then.” The blond dropped the woodfowl with a thump that brought bile to my throat. They landed in a sodden, graceless heap, their slim necks terribly twisted. His hands were suddenly full of a bow, half drawn back. “Now, just you step lightly over the brook, d’mselle, and we’ll have a fine morn of it.”
I did not — quite — understand what he meant, but the snigger of his companion made it clear. I froze, indecisive. Should I run and risk an arrow in the back, or do as they said, and risk more?
“No.” I had not come through the impossible events of the last two days to be accosted by a pair of peasants, by the Blessed. “Return to the woods, sieurs, and take your game with you. Forget you ever saw me.”
Their eyes grew large. I doubt they had ever heard a woman speak so.
“Well, we would, noble d’mselle, but you see, we have the bow. And you’re here, dressed like a lad. You must like a bit of rough—” The dark one was warming to his theme when there was a slight sound behind me.
I did not turn.
“Drop your weapon, peasant,” Tristan d’Arcenne said. I was beginning to associate that calm, reasonable tone of his with danger. Something in it was a warning more effective than a shout.
The crude bow promptly dropped to the forest floor. The arrow bounced into the stream, floating and bobbing away on the water’s chuckling surface. My sharp, surprised exhalation sounded almost like a word.
Four of the Guard advanced on the peasants, one with a bow, two with drawn rapiers, and one with leather thongs. In a matter of moments, both men had their hands tied behind their back. “We meant no—,” the dark one started, and Pillipe di Garfour cuffed him so sharply blood flew from the man’s mouth.
“Speak when you’re spoken to.” Di Garfour’s pleasantness had turned to a dismissive snarl.
Wait. I found my voice. “And it please you, offer them no violence, chivalier.”
He shot me one amazed glance, but at least he did not strike again. The two were thrust to their knees, and I started to protest again, but a hand on my shoulder halted me.
“D’mselle?” Tristan’s face was set and white under the fading bruises. I wondered why he did not use my name, then answered my own question.
He could not risk having me known to them.
“They simply startled me,” I said quickly. “Tis all. They meant no—”
“And the bow?” His blue eyes had turned cold. D’Arcenne, most probably, could guess at what two men would do to an unattended Court girl on a foggy morning far from the Citté.
My tongue ran away with me. “Would you not have a bow drawn, if you were he? Leave them be, Cap — ah, chivalier. I beg of you, leave it be.” For I had an ugly intimation of where this situation could lead.
“They will speak of this.” Tristan’s chill expression did not alter.
I doubt it. “And admit to poaching in the King’s forest, with all the penalties that implies? No. Let them go on their way. They simply startled me.”
The blond peasant stared at me, perplexed. The dark one, his mouth half open, looked as if he had been struck with a sudden thought, and his gaze dropped to the stream.
“Your soft heart, d’mselle.” Tristan’s hand tightened on my shoulder. “Kill them.”
He started to turn, to lead me away, but I found my voice again. “No!” I slipped from under his hand. “No,” I repeated firmly. “I will have no more death on my account.” The brook chuckled merrily, laughing at me. Vianne, you idiot. Idiot Vianne.
His shrug was a marvel of disdain. “Tis not on your account, d’mselle. It is on mine. Now come.”
“Do not presume to order me about, chivalier.” I drew myself up, though my height was no match for his. “You were quick enough to promise me obedience when it served you. Now you must abide by it. I will have no more death on my account.” The words rang against fog and a rising chorus of birdsong. There was no more silence. The wood was alive once more.