Chapter Sixteen
She was very much accustomed to people looking at her like they didn’t understand what was happening and wanted it all to stop
The movement of Achilles’s haunches was hypnotic, if you watched it long enough. Isobelle had been gazing at the back of Gwen’s horse—and, if she was honest, the back of Gwen—for hours. Achilles wasn’t the sort of horse you saw down in the village, but Gwen rode him as if she’d been born to it, swaying slightly to match his movements, her touch light. Isobelle herself was mounted on a friendly silver mare with whom she was getting along passably. She’d tied one of her green ribbons around her bridle to give them a little cohesion in their look.
They rode along the top of a ridgeline. To their left, the land dropped away to open farmland, fields neatly laid out and combed into rows. With summer nearing its end, the wheat and barley fields were a bright, coppery gold, and they swayed in the breeze, whispering secrets.
To their right lay the real secrets—there, the open grass gave way to the tangled dark of the great forest, which in turn gave way to the craggy base of the mountains that housed Whimsitt’s mine.
There hadnotbeen a nice place to stop for morning tea, and Isobelle was now certain there would not be a nice spot to stop fora bite of lunch, either. There had been a hurried snack under a tree during their one break, which Isobelle suspected they only took so they could water the horses.
There had also not been a single moment alone with Gwen.
Up ahead, Madame Dupont was still talking about jousting.
“The qualifiers have cut the number of challengers down to sixteen,” she was saying, “but though the path to victory is shorter now, the greatest difficulties still lie ahead.” None of them were willing to name those difficulties—the old hands who’d done this for years, the veterans Gwen would have to make her way through before she ran up against the favorites, like Sir Ralph.
“You will need to win four more times,” Madame continued. “And a loss in any match will mean the end of your tournament.”
“And the rules are the same?” Gwen asked.
“Oui. Zero points if you do not connect with your opponent. One point if you hit his shield. Three points if you unhorse him. An instant win if your opponent is... ah... unable to continue. If you are both still upright and equal in points at the end of three rounds—possible, if you each score once, or you each unhorse the other, or you miss every time—then we move on to the sword. Now, let me explain a few of the jousting styles you will encounter...”
Isobelle’s attention drifted. The only time she remembered watching a tournament was more than a decade earlier—a patchwork quilt of memories, a piece snipped from each and all sewn together. The bright, fluttering flags. Her fingers sticky from the iced currant bun her father had bought her. The thunder of the horses’ hooves. The warmth of her parents sitting on either side of her to protect her from the breeze blowing through the grandstands. She could barely remember the knights themselves at all.
She returned to the present as Dupont guided them off the main road and up toward a farmhouse on a hill. It was a small, humble home, flanked by a pair of larger outbuildings, but it had a commanding lookout over the approach. Fruit trees lined the path as they grew closer, and a flock of geese came waddling up, honking a loud commentary on the newcomers. Isobelle suspected it was not complimentary. She saw Gwen turn her head as if to exchange a glance with her, and then check the movement.
Curses.
As they drew closer, more details emerged. There were wide beds planted with neat rows of vegetables, and pens holding pigs and chickens. A pair of soft-eyed cows chewed moodily at them from behind a fence.
“One could live entirely off this farm,” Isobelle marveled as they reached the yard in front of the stone building to find lines strung with bunches of drying herbs.
“That’s the point,” growled a voice from behind them, and the trio wheeled their horses around to find a short, wiry old man stomping out to meet them. He had a grizzled gray beard that reached halfway down his chest and wore an eyepatch to great effect. His skin was the same light brown as the thatched roof behind him, and almost as covered in ridges and wrinkles.
“When you’ve seen what I’ve seen,” he continued, looking them over, “you’re always prepared. Might be the day comes, you can only rely on yourself. Now, who are you?”
“I’m Lady Isobelle of Avington.” Isobelle slid down from her saddle, biting her lip against a yelp as her thighs and... upper thighs screamed a protest after the long ride. “These are my companions, Madame Dupont and Lady Céline. May I say, sir, yourfarm is a delight—very well prepared for the fall of civilization.”
The man squinted at her, but Isobelle was on solid ground and waited with a bright smile. She was very much accustomed to people looking at her like they didn’t understand what was happening and wanted it all to stop.
“What is it you wanted?” he asked eventually.
“We were told you might be able to assist us in the creation of some documents,” Isobelle said, with her best dimples yet.
His expression cleared. “Me? No. I can’t even read, much less write. Who told you that nonsense?”
Isobelle dug in the purse at her belt, pulling out the small metal token Olivia had given her. “My maid, Olivia,” she said.
The man took it from her, inspecting its owl engraving and turning it over in his callused fingers. He barked a laugh. “So she’s calling herself Olivia now?” he asked, glancing up.
“Indeed,” Isobelle agreed, intrigued by the news that Olivia hadn’t always been Olivia.
“All right then,” he said, handing back the coin. “You’d better come in.”
The inside of the house was crammed tighter than Isobelle’s wardrobe. Bales of cloth were tied with string, crates were stacked to the rafters, barrels jammed into corners. A series of large cupboards ran down one side of the room, their doors ajar, probably because they couldn’t be closed. Oddities and canvases and jars and boxes and scrolls covered every surface, including the floor. A couple were marked with stamps or seals bearing the mark of the owl that had been on Olivia’s token. Madame Dupont took one look and announced that she’d go tend to the horses, and made a hasty retreat from the chaos.
The man, who introduced himself as Archer, peppered Gwen with questions, taking notes in some kind of shorthand that didn’t resemble any language Isobelle knew. Gwen scrambled to keep up, explaining the need for patents of nobility for her “brother,” showing him the pennant on the Sir Gawain figurine, and then—so easily and quickly that Isobelle could only stare—rattling off an entire imagined lineage for Archer to note down on the patents.
