“Pavel, please,” she tried saying into his palm, but the sound was muffled.
“Corporal!” a deep voice barked.
Pavel’s body jerked. His grip eased slightly, and Céline managed to look to the left. Jaromir stood there with moonlight washing over his face.
“Step away,” he ordered.
For only a second or two, Céline thought Pavel was going to refuse, which would mean he was more unhinged than even she’d realized. Jaromir’s men didn’t disobey his orders.
But with a sharp jerk, Pavel stepped backward, glaring at her as if she’d caused this.
“Céline, get up to camp,” Jaromir said.
This was embarrassing for all of them, but she didn’t need to be asked twice. Dashing past Jaromir, she ran up the slope, hearing his low voice behind her, followed by Pavel’s short, clipped replies.
Though she was glad Jaromir had come down to check on her, a part of her couldn’t help regretting what he’d seen. While she certainly didn’t blame herself for Pavel’s behavior, she also couldn’t help feeling that because of her, there was now a rift between two soldiers who needed to depend on each other.
Walking back into camp, she tried to appear calm—and apparently failed.
“What’s wrong?” Amelie asked.
“Nothing.”
She would say no more.
Though Amelie expected the following day to be less rife with tension . . . it wasn’t. Jaromir once again treated her in the same easygoing manner as before their misunderstanding—which made her both glad and mildly annoyed—but something else felt wrong, and now he and Pavel seemed to be avoiding each other.
No matter how much Céline denied it, something had happened the night before, and Amelie was hurt that Céline wouldn’t tell her. The sisters had never kept secrets from each other.
However, as the day progressed, Amelie’s sore backside took precedence over all other concerns, and she began to focus on just making it to dusk.
The forest around them continued to grow darker and denser. The path they traveled, which barely passed for a road, became so narrow that the entire party began riding single file, and Sergeant Bazin, who drove the wagon, was having difficulty as brush kept getting caught in the spokes of the wheels.
Somehow, they all pressed onward until Jaromir called a halt at dusk. Amelie slid off her horse, putting both hands to her back. Once again, the soldiers worked quickly to set up camp, but they seemed just as angst ridden as they’d been the night before, glancing into the dark trees.
When the campfire fire burned brightly and supper had been passed out, Céline stepped in again to try to distract the men. Tonight, she switched to storytelling.
“Have you heard the tale of the ungrateful prince?” she asked, holding up both palms.
Her first story was an adventure about a haughty young prince transformed into a wolfhound by a wizard to whom he’d been rude. The young noble then roamed the land, attempting to lift the curse using only his brains and his paws while learning more about the people of his province in the process.
Céline walked around the glowing campfire, using her arms and hands to help tell the story, and altering her voice to make the characters seem more real.
By the time she was halfway through, all the soldiers had stopped eating and were leaning forward, just listening.
Of course the young prince negated his curse in the end by undertaking one unselfish task, helping a village plagued by trolls.
Céline acted out the final battle with great flair.
The next tale was a comedy about three brothers vying for the love of an unworthy woman by playing foul tricks on one another. When Céline reached the point at which one brother tainted another’s bathwater with blue dye, the soldiers were laughing out loud.
Although Amelie had been enjoying the stories, too, she glanced back and noticed Jaromir watching Céline with the same gratitude as he had the night before.
At the sight of this, Amelie couldn’t help feeling useless again. She possessed skills and gifts, but entertaining other people was not among them. Though she longed to be useful, Céline’s gifts were simply much more . . . apparent.
Soon, everyone bedded down for the night, somewhat cheered both by the stories Céline had woven into the night air and with the hope of reaching their destination the following day.
But on that next day, Céline’s gifts only proved ever more visible and indispensable.
The morning started off well enough. Once they were packed and ready to leave, Jaromir mounted his horse and consulted his map. Amelie settled gingerly into the saddle of her black gelding and then rode up beside him.
“How far?” she asked, already gritting her teeth at the pain shooting up her spine.
“It depends,” he answered, holding the map down for her to see. “We’re going to have to cross the Vudrask River, so we have two possible routes from here.”
“Cross the river? Isn’t that the borderline between Droevinka and Stravina?”
“Generally, yes,” he answered. “But over the past hundred years or so, a few territories directly on either side have been traded. Ryazan is one of them.”
Drawing her attention back to the map, he pointed his finger at their current location and then began sliding it. “If we want an easier time of things, we turn off onto this wide northeast road, follow it all the way up to and around Enêmûsk, and then keep going until we reach this bridge.” He pointed to a symbol representing a bridge. “Once across, we can head west again, but that route will take us longer.” His finger moved back to their current location and then upward. “Or we can continue straight north on this current narrow path and ford the river here where the water is more shallow. Following that route, we should reached Ryazan by late afternoon.”
“Oh, the shorter one, please,” Amelie blurted out.
“Are you in a hurry to arrive there?”
“No, I am in a hurry to be off this horse. My backside will never be the same.”
Instantly, she regretted her words, expecting him to make some joke about her backside, but he simply nodded. “All right. Straight north it is.”
She rode behind him as he led the way, with Céline directly behind her. The single-file column did not leave much opportunity for conversation, but in a way this was better. She wanted to just focus on getting through one more day. If all went well, tomorrow she would not have to climb back onto this horse.
However, in the early afternoon, she heard the sound of rushing, gurgling water, and within a few more steps, the sound grew louder.
“What is that?”
“The river,” Jaromir answered.
The road broke through the trees, and he walked his horse down the bank to make room for those behind him. Following him, Amelie felt her first hint of doubt over her impulse to take the fastest route. When Jaromir had said “shallow,” she’d been envisioning slow water over a rocky streambed.
The sight before her looked nothing like the image in her mind. The river was wide and the current appeared swift. Through the water, she could see to the bottom and gauged that the depth would nearly cover the wagon’s wheels.
“You said it would be shallow.”
Jaromir glanced down at her. “This is shallow. This is the one place where barges can run into trouble.”
Céline pulled up beside them and went slightly pale. “We’re going to cross that?”
“Soldiers from the northern houses do it all the time,” he assured them. “We’ll be fine.”
After that, more horses came from the forest out onto the bank, and Jaromir started giving orders. “I’m going to take Amelie and Céline over first,” he called. “Pavel and Rurik, you help Bazin with the wagon, one of you on each side of the team.”