Page 44 of The Maiden

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The stone of the big manor house was silhouetted in the moonlight and the only sounds to be heard were the soft nickers of horses and the clank of a steel sword as a Vatell guard passed.

Rowan and Jura flattened themselves against the wall and waited, and when the guard passed, Jura motioned Rowan to follow her through a small wooden side door into the larder. Here hung ducks and geese and haunches of venison and freshly cooked chickens and meat pies awaiting tomorrow’s dinner.

Jura cautiously opened the door and slipped through into a narrow hallway, at one end of which there was light and the sound of people’s voices. She started toward the light but Rowan grabbed her tunic back. He pointed to a steep, dark, stone circular staircase a few feet away. Holding his sword before him, Rowan started up the stairs.

It was easy to find the master and mistress’s bedchamber as it was the only walled-off room on the second floor. They hid in the shadows once as a maid hurried past, then slipped into the room and went immediately to a large chest against the wall.

The Vatells dressed much like the Irials, with cross-gartered boots, their knees exposed below a heavy tunic. Rowan pulled a blue tunic of lightweight wool from the chest.

“No,” Jura whispered. “That will make your eyes too blue. They show too much as they are.”

“Oh,” Rowan asked with interest, turning to look at her, their noses almost touching. “I had no idea you noticed my eyes.”

“I have a few times,” she murmured.

He seemed to be ready to kiss her when the door latch was raised. As quick as lightning, Jura made a leap inside the big chest and Rowan followed her and closed the lid over their heads. They were pressed together tightly, warm body to warm body and, unfortunately, weapon to weapon. Something was pressing hard into Jura’s ribs and she was sure it was Rowan’s broadax. She did not dare shift for fear of being discovered.

She lay still and listened as the footsteps, one pair, walked all around the room. A maid, she thought, then held her breath as the footsteps came closer. She tensed her muscles to spring.

When the maid lifted the lid of the big oak clothes chest, out sprang two fierce-looking people, both of them going for her throat.

Quite calmly, the woman fainted.

Rowan and Jura, prepared for a fight, looked at the crumpled little woman at their feet and began to laugh. It was the first time they had shared laughter.

Smiling, Jura began to grab garments from the chest. “Here, we take these and we better tie her up and put her in here and give ourselves time to get away.”

They wrapped the maid in one of her mistress’s gowns, stuffed a stocking in her mouth, and Rowan gently laid her in the chest. Her eyes opened and she looked up, frightened, at Rowan.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he said, “there’s plenty of air and someone will find you in no time. Someone as pretty as you will be missed. Just rest; you’ll be safe.” He bent and kissed her forehead—and just missed Jura’s slamming the lid on his head. He barely got his fingers out of the way.

“Sorry,” she said. “It slipped. Are you ready to go or do you plan to stay and become a manservant?”

“Ready,” he said, smiling at her. “I’m sure you want to lead.”

“The most able should lead,” she said with a sniff, and went to the door.

They were able to get to the larder without incident and Rowan took two pies on the way out. He was feeling very good after Jura’s womanly little fit upstairs. He had almost given up hope that she would ever show any interest in him.

They made it past the guards and ran, crouching, into the forest, jumped on their horses, and whipped them into a gallop. After an hour, Rowan turned off the road and into the forest, reining his horse into the dense growth. They hid there, their hands on the horses’ noses, and waited silently. It wasn’t long before they heard the noise of many horses and many men riding past them.

When they were gone, Rowan motioned to Jura to follow him and they made their way up the steep embankment to the crest of the hill.

“We can sleep here,” he said, and removed the blankets from his horse.

Before they bedded down, they changed into the Vatell clothes, for the riders would be looking for an Ulten and a beggar.

“You’ll have to wash tomorrow,” Rowan said, looking up at the stars, “or they’ll smell you as an Ulten.”

“Perhaps you should have taken the maid with you and left me behind. She was pretty and sweet smelling.”

Rowan smiled broadly in the darkness. “Jura, no woman alive is prettier than you, and even smelling as you do, you are sweeter than a hundred princesses together.”

Jura’s eyes widened. She didn’t know why she had felt so angry at Rowan’s compliments to the frightened maid or why she had sniped at him like a simpering girl, but it was amazing how pleasant his words were to her. Daire praised her when twelve arrows in a row hit their mark, and Geralt and Thal never complimented her at all. Of course men had said she was pretty but not in this lavish, gentle way. If they had, she would have held her knife to their throats, but tonight she rather liked this man’s words. In fact she wished he would say more.

“You…you handled yourself well tonight,” she said tentatively. “And you got yourself into Vatell territory without being recognized. It was good that you darkened your hair.”