“Fine,” Rennio huffed, and then stepped forward and grabbed her arm far too hard and without apology. “Come with me, princess.”
Gerhard bowed his head when she looked at him in the hopes that he would explain why she was being taken away by the drunkest man in attendance, and merely said, “I will see you later this eve, Your Highness.”
She had no time to respond with anything as sarcastic as she’d have liked, or anything at all for that matter. Rennio, once he started moving through the sea of men, was surprisingly steady for a drunkard and very, very fast. He had the feet of a mountain goat as he stepped down the hill over stones and objects, guiding her seamlessly out of the way, nearly so quickly that she couldn’t keep up with him. She realized that she hadn’t moved as quickly as she was now since she was a child, and she wondered why he’d decided that this sort of speed was necessary.
She had expected, because of the gruff surliness of the men she’d encountered so far and the yells and insults of random soldiers around her, that she was going to be put into a stockade where men could throw rotting food or dung at her. She was very surprised, and happily so, when Rennio slowed down outside of a tall, red-canvas pavilion that was one of the largest in the entire camp. She imagined it might have suited a king just fine, and the fact that it was apparently going to be her jail cell was more than surprising. She imagined this was like her family’s liberal tradition of giving the soon-to-be-executed an extra blanket and a nice meal before they were hanged.
He pulled open the flap of an entrance wide enough for her to enter and finally let go of her arm. “After you, Your Highness,” he said, although there was a cheeky lift in his voice. She ducked her head under the heavy curtain and walked inside.
The pavilion was covered floor to ceiling in thick tapestries and heavily lighted with several hanging lanterns. It almost seemed cozy, with open trunks filled with books and what seemed to be personal belongings. She eyed a large pallet of goose down as a place to curl up into the fetal position and wish for this to all be a bad dream.
Just as her eyes were adjusting to the light within the pavilion, she heard a rough man’s voice say from behind them, “Do you plan on protecting her, bishop?”
Slowly, Rennio turned and stepped back out. She tiptoed toward the door as he answered smoothly, “Why would I have to protect her? You heard the orders—she’s not to be harmed until we get her to Vienna.”
“She’s ours. We fought for the right to the women in that castle!” a new voice hissed on the other side of the curtain.
“You want the women like a whore wants a husband. Just because that was your hope doesn’t mean it was what you were paid for,” Rennio replied in an unconcerned manner, like a man talking about the weather. “You have full rights to go and claim any of the beautiful ladies within the castle walls for wives, as the commander said.”
“That ain’t fair!” another man growled.
“Rape isn’t fair, either. Plenty of people will get fucked today, and this is just your turn. Stop stomping your feet like surly children. And if you even look at this tent again I will pluck out your eyes, I promise to God!” Rennio’svoice suddenly got extremely fierce. “And I will not perform your last rights, either.”
She blinked at the cloth in front of her eyes, then stepped toward the entrance with curiosity, wondering if she should try to leave the pavilion and race back up the hill and toward Gerhard, since it seemed impossible that Rennio could stop three men from taking anything they wanted.
The language outside soon became so foul that she wondered if they were really speaking the same language any longer, and she lost track of the argument. Her attention was grabbed again when she heard the clang of steel against steel. Then the tent flap fell aside a little and she saw a black boot step inside only to be pulled back out a moment later.
There was swearing outside now like she had never heard before in her whole life. Every word was absolutely vulgar. “Dip your wick somewhere else, or I’ll make sure it doesn’t dip into anything else again!” Rennio was now threatening, sounding like he was gritting his teeth. Again, he wasn’t sounding very… well, churchy…
She stepped forward and pulled the flap of the tent open to watch as the sword fight went on not eight feet from her. She had never seen real swordplay anywhere near this close up before, and she watched, fascinated. Despite the fact that she was almost certainly going to be sent to her death one day soon anyway, Rennio was braving three men at once on her behalf.
Rennio held the sword with such ease, and with such skill. She knew less than nothing about swordplay, but she could tell that he was vastly more skilled than any of the three men he was fighting. The men tried to hold him back several times to gang up on him, but Rennio’s quick feet paced away from them. Then he lunged dangerously and quickly toward them, parrying and slashing as if the sword were an extension of his own arm.
One of his lunges took one of the men off guard, and the man fell back onto the ground, trying desperately to scramble away to safety. But there was no escape from Rennio’s sword and the man was soon pinned to the ground by the tip of the blade. “I promised you, didn’t I?” Rennio gritted with a cruel smile at the man.
Her heart flying into her chest, she pushed herself out of the tent. “Rennio, no—don’t hurt him.”
The other men—who had paused in shock to see their friend about to be gored—jumped back in response to her scream. They stood, puzzled. Rennio, however, didn’t even flinch. “Princess, it is vital for your health that you turn about and walk back into the tent,” he said, not drawing his eyes off of the pinned man.
“Please, Your Excellency… There’s been enough blood spilt. They’re angry, and they’ve had too much to drink.” This she was merely guessing—their body odor was so strong that she couldn’t smell the scent of ale or mead over it, but they looked unsteady on their feet as she glanced at them. “Spare him, I pray you.”
Rennio finally glanced at her and then heaved a loud, heavy sigh that she supposed was to signify how much not killing the man had put him out of sorts. “Fine. Be on your way. Lady or no, the commander would not be as forgiving as I,” he told the man in low, firm tones, and then pulled the tip of his sword away.
The man and his friends scurried quickly away before Rennio could turn his body toward her. “Do you have a death wish?” he said, the corners of his eyes scrunching with skepticism and his mouth taking an unpleasant twist. He put his sword back in his sheath and then walked toward her. “I ought to take a birch to you!” he chastised, and for a moment she feared he would actually do it. His expression was that of an angry parent whose child had stepped in the way of an excited horse. He gave her arm a violent jerk. “What were you thinking? Never step out of the tent. This is the only time I will tell you. If those men had a brain between them, they would have taken you then as I had the other man pinned. I cannot fight and protect at the same time.” He grabbed her upper arm and again forced her toward the pavilion.
She hadn’t thought of that, and she couldn’t now. Her knees felt shaky, and as he entered the tent with her, the only thing she could think of was how dearly she wanted to sit down and collect herself. That brief episode had moved too quickly, and though she hadn’t exerted herself much, she still felt short of breath.
As if he had read her mind, he brought her toward the down pad she had eyed earlier and let her collapse upon it. “You’re already showing yourself to be more trouble than you’re worth. You’ll be the death of us yet, mark my words.”
He marched over to where she noticed a whole cask of mead was standing. She frowned as she watched him take a mug and place it under the lever before yanking on the wooden tog, quickly filling up his mug. He stepped toward her and crouched down, passing the mug into her hand. “Drink some of this,” he ordered, then added with a grunt, “I made it myself.”
She looked into the liquid and then sniffed it. In the end she was unimpressed and put it down. She wasn’t thirsty, nor was she hungry. She was cold, and lost, and already lonely despite her company. Out of habit, she looked around for her ladies in waiting to exchange an expression and maybe a whisper or two, but then realized that of course there were none here.
She no longer had a court. She had no ladies, she had no servants, she had no castle, and she had no lands. She was an exile who would journey to Vienna, where she would die. Susanna felt as though her heart had dropped and was now beating in the pit of her stomach.
“You’re not going to cry, are you?” Rennio asked, sounding like if she cried then he would surely judge her for it.
If only she could cry. She felt like tears had been either trained or bred out of her; the last time she remembered shedding a tear was when she was ten years old. “No,” she replied, keeping her voice steady and her bottom lip stiff.
