Page 23 of Blood of the Thistle

Nearly half an hour later, she caught up with Bram when he stopped among a stand of towering birch and ash. It was not quite a dense woodland, but rather a long, irregular ribbon of trees, open enough that shafts of sunlight streamed between the trunks and warmed patches of the forest floor. At first, Anna thought he had paused because of the stone wall running through the trees, though she could not imagine why it would trouble him when it rose no higher than his knee.

As she approached, she studied it with growing curiosity. The wall looked ancient, the stones weathered and flaking, their uneven surfaces softened by moss. Dead leaves had gathered in the gaps, while vines trailed over the top and down the sides, making it seem less like something built by human hands than a part of the landscape that had pushed its way slowly from the earth.

Bram turned as she reached him and showed her his hand. In the center of his broad palm lay a small cluster of dark blueberries, several still clinging to a thin sprig.

Anna gasped with genuine delight and peered around him in search of the bush. “Oh, thank God.”

There was more growing low beyond the wall, tucked among the grass and bracken. She stepped over the stones and began plucking them eagerly, dropping several into her mouth before gathering a handful and sitting on the wall itself, facing north, her best guess.

She pulled the bottle from her bag and frowned when she saw how little water remained. She took only a few careful swallows, no more than a quarter of what was left, then handed it to him. Bram accepted it without comment. To her surprise, he lowered himself onto the wall beside her rather than remaining on his feet and drank no more than she had before returning the bottle.

For a little while, they ate in silence. The berries were not especially sweet and were too dry to be refreshing, but she was too hungry to care. She ate each one slowly, trying to make them last, though the small handful did little more than take the sharpest edge from her hunger. Beside her, Bram did the same, his gaze fixed on the trees ahead even while he ate, as though resting didn’t allow him to relax his vigilance.

She dared to ask, “So... do you still think someone is chasing you?”

Bram’s eyes settled on hers, his expression flattening. For a long moment he simply looked at her, and Anna had the uncomfortable feeling she’d said exactly the wrong thing. He seemed neither confused nor uncertain, but there was definitely a faint tightening around his eyes that suggested either that he’d expected more sense from her or that he didn’t appreciate having his phobias called into question.

“Either the guards from the transport are still hunting me, or we are mayhap only hours ahead of that English force we spied last eve,” he said, “and in either case, we must keep moving.”

She had no idea how long these episodes might last, or how to help someone so trapped by trauma. She wished she knew more about PTSD, anything that might explain how he could be so certain of a threat she couldn’t see or hear. For a fleeting moment, she wondered if she should try to talk him down, to gently wake him from whatever memory held him captive.

She was just about to ask him about ‘guards from the transport’ when he stiffened at her side and moved off the rock wall, into a crouch as he gazed into the trees, in the direction from which they’d come. Anna stood and turned, hoping irrationally that a car or something approached—irrational since they’d yet to encounter even the narrowest country road, let alone a highway.

Abruptly, Bram seized her hand and dragged her down to the ground with him, so that they were mostly hidden by the stone wall.

“What—?”

“Stay low.” He raised one finger for silence.

She frowned, straining to hear whatever had captured his attention.

At first, she heard nothing beyond the ordinary sounds of the morning. Birds called to one another high in the canopy, leaves whispered softly in the breeze, and somewhere deeper in the trees a squirrel rustled through the undergrowth. She looked back at Bram, wondering if perhaps he’d imagined something. Every muscle in his body had gone still. His head remained slightly tilted, his eyes fixed on the thin woods through which they’d just walked, as though he were listening to something only he could hear.

For a long moment, she watched him, utterly still and focused. She wanted to tell him there was nothing there, that he was safe. But the absolute certainty in his posture gave her pause, a prickle of unease that silenced the words in her throat.

And then she thought she did hear something. It was so faint she almost mistook it for the wind, a dull, rhythmic vibration that seemed to come and go before resolving itself into a steady cadence. Whatever made and brought the noise was still a considerable distance away, yet fairly quickly she thought she understood what she was hearing—horses. Soon enough she was sure of the sound and could distinguish more than one horse.

Bram shifted lower behind the wall, never taking his eyes from the trees. Without looking at her, he pressed lightly against her arm, urging her to lower herself as well. Anna eased down until only the top of her head rose above the weathered stones, her pulse quickening as the sounds continued to grow.

A hopeful idea occurred to her. It had to be a guided trail ride, tourists exploring the countryside on horseback. She’d seen advertisements for things like that. Relief washed over her, so potent it was dizzying. They would have phones. They could explain where she was. They could call for help.

She stole a glance at Bram. He remained motionless beside her, his attention fixed entirely on the trees, and she decided against calling out—she had no desire to frighten him by suddenly revealing their hiding place. She would wait until they came close, and he could see that they were not a militia chasing him. Surely they would understand that the man with her needed medical attention—perhaps psychiatric help as well—and they would know what to do.

Her pulse quickened with cautious optimism as the sounds grew steadily louder. At last, movement flickered between the trunks. She leaned forward ever so slightly, eager for the first glimpse of another person.

A horse stepped into view, and Anna frowned, squinting, not quite sure what she was seeing except that the rider wasn’t dressed for a casual morning trail ride.

Sunlight flashed on steel—not a buckle, but thousands of tiny rings covering him from shoulder to knee. A filthy, sleeveless shirt hung over the armor. He wore a pointed steel helmet with a metal strip guarding his nose, and a massive shield banged against his leg as he rode. He carried a spear in one hand while a sword swung at his hip.

Another rider followed, and then more.

Anna was frozen with bewilderment.

No two men were dressed exactly alike. One wore a faded russet sleeveless outer garment over what clearly now looked like chain mail, another a dark wool cloak thrown back across his shoulders. Several wore no helmets, but all seemed to have weapons, whether carried in hand or attached to their person. Taken as a whole, they presented an unmistakable picture, one Anna had seen only in museum displays, in theaters, or as grainy black and white etchings from college textbooks.

Every one of them looked as though they’d ridden straight out of the pages of a history book of the Middle Ages.

“I don’t und—”