“I understood that,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
He rolled onto his back, and suddenly Willa was very aware how close they were to each other, but she was too relieved to move and afraid to insult him.
“Can you tell me your name? I’ve begun to call you Lord Knightly in my thoughts. But that's absurd, unless by happenstance, you are Lord Knightly, but it's clear that you’re …” She didn't want to say one of the bandits or imply that he didn't look lordly. She bit her bottom lip.
“Who are you?” he asked slowly, as if every word cost him. His voice was muffled and deep with a lisp.
“That's what I just asked you.” What would she tell him? Her true name?
“My name is Willa,” she said. She didn't want to have to explain who she was or where she came from. It didn't much matter right now.
“What's your name?” she asked.
He slowly shook his head. “I… I don't know.” He raised a hand to the helmet as if to touch his forehead in confusion.
“You don't know? How could that be?”
He held his hand above his face as if looking at it for the first time.
“I don't remember anything, who you are, who I am. What we’re doing here.” He tried to sit up, but then fell back. “Why can't I move? Why am I looking at a thatched roof?”
Willa sat in stunned silence.He didn't know who he was?
“What's the last thing you remember?” she asked.
“You,” he said.
Why that single word caused a flurry of heat to wash over her skin, she had no idea.
“I remember looking up at you…and the sky.”
“That was yesterday,” Willa said. “You don't remember anything before that?”
“No,” he said calmly. “And I'd be more distraught about that. If it wasn't so taxing just to be awake. Do you know what happened to me?”
Willa nodded. “I'll tell you what I do know. You saved me yesterday from highwaymen. They held up my coach and took me back to their lair. It looked like a forge, but I wasn't there for very long when there was a great commotion. Gunshots,” she said, suddenly remembering that part. “Then I was able to break free from my bindings, and when I came out of the back room, there you were, wearing that ridiculous helmet.” She touched the side. It had a gold wreath wrapped around the head. On the opposite side was the massive dent where he must have been hit with something very hard. It was even cracked.
Willa leaned over him to take a closer look. It bent directly into his head over his temple, all the way down the side.
“You were wielding a broadsword,” she said, “and you must've been hit here.” She touched the metal with her hand ever so gently as if he might feel it. “This might be why you can't remember anything. I ran. I didn't see what happened. I'd made it to the meadow when you called out to me, but then you fell. You were clearly…not well.”
He exhaled, his breath wheezing through the vent of the mouthpiece. She lightly touched the hinges that would have allowed it to move up and down, but they were rusted. She imagined the helmet might have been quite spectacular with the silver and gold polished to a shine. Now the thing was hideously discolored, and she had no idea what the man looked like underneath it, but he was her hero, and she wanted him to live.
“You should've kept running,” he said, his voice heavy with exhaustion.
“Perhaps, but I didn't. I'm not the sort of person who could. You saved me. Now I'm saving you.”
He was silent after that statement. She took a deep breath, her stomach fluttering nervously.
“I don't know how we'll manage it, but I think you should drink some water. I have fresh water and berries if your stomach is up to the task.”
“Everything is spinning,” he said.
“No it's not,” Willa replied. “Those bandits did a number on you.”
“But they would have done worse to you.”
Willa pressed her lips together. She knew that too, but she just didn't want to think about it. She took another deep breath, trying to settle her emotions. He didn't know who he was. What a frightful notion. He’d forgotten everything before that moment yesterday in the field.
