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MAKE YOUR OPPONENT think you are weak; then use their confidence against them.
—Master Gabaldi, swordsman
* * *
THE FIRST DAY OF THEIR trip to Sutherhold explained why Gwen had awakened with a sense of foreboding. Master Gabaldi quickly proved he hadn’t changed his attitude toward his trainees, particularly Rolf. No more than two hours into the journey, the soldier dropped back to the wagon and halted the caravan.
“I thought I told you to redistribute the weight on the port side, boy!” His sharp glare searched through the horses and their riders until it found one of the boys who had helped load the wagon.
“We did, sir!” the boy fired back. “Right there, sir,” he said after he rode up to the wagon and pointed at a stack of crates and bags.
“You are an idiot. That’s the starboard side. Port is the left side. Do it again!”
The boy’s mouth hung agape. “Yes, sir.” He slid off his horse, defeat in his limp movement, and climbed into the wagon. “I’m sorry but you’ll have to get down while I do this.”
Gwen nodded and moved to the back of the wagon to jump down. Rolf met her there and offered a hand. “C’mon up here with me for a while.”
“You. Rosenkranz. Since you’re so keen to help, you get up there and help this idiot straighten out the mess he made. Be quick about it.”
Rolf’s gaze stayed fixed on Gwen, who was looking at him and pleading silently for him not to put up a fight. “I’ll hold your horse’s reins while you do it,” she said to him quietly.
Without a word, Rolf dismounted and helped Gwen onto stable ground before climbing up and assisting the boy in rearranging the cargo. His movements weren’t gentle or slow, and Gwen could see him setting his jaw the whole time he was working.
“How’s this?” he called out as he straightened his back and looked around at the stacks he and the other boy had made.
Gabaldi walked his horse around the wagon, each step almost a prance because the soldier would spur the horse then give enough quarter on the reins for only one step at a time before he yanked them up and halted the poor animal again. It was painful to watch, and Gwen was sure even more painful for the horse. If she’d needed another reason to hate Gabaldi, he’d just given it to her.
“Fine,” he finally said and spurred the horse so hard that it reared up before galloping to the front of the caravan again. “Forward!” he yelled.
Thomlin hesitated shaking the reins just long enough for Rolf and the other boy to jump down before the wagon started moving again. Rolf climbed onto the saddle before leaning down and offering Gwen a hand. She put her foot into the stirrup that Rolf’s boot had vacated, which gave her some leverage to help him pull her up, though he seemed to do so effortlessly. She concluded as she landed on the saddle blanket that the hunter’s son was a lot stronger than his thin frame suggested.
Once they were again moving down the road, Gwen discovered the elevated height from being on horseback did little to dissuade the caravan’s dust from choking them. That fact surprised her completely because she hadn’t seen or heard Rolf cough at all. She decided he was being stoic to spite Gabaldi, and she also decided it was time to protect them both from the dust. She repositioned the shawl and loosely wrapped one end of it around her neck and mouth. “Here. Wear this. Don’t you dare fuss either. You’re not going to make it through this trip if you keep breathing in dirt. You’ll get the consumption,” she said as she wrapped the other end around Rolf’s neck and mouth, tucking the fringed end of it into the wrap so it wouldn’t fall down and letting the middle of the shawl droop down between them.
At first, she thought Rolf might protest but he didn’t. Over the course of a few minutes, he slowly let the horse drop farther behind the wagon. When they were well out of hearing distance of the others, he spoke over his shoulder to her in a shawl-muffled voice, “So how come a soldier knows about which side of a ship is called the port side?”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s why that boy James didn’t know which side to rearrange. He didn’t know what ‘port’ meant. He told me so when we were restacking the cargo.”
Gwen thought about what Rolf said. “How do you know what it means?”
“My uncle was a sailor. He told me all about ships and sailing.”
“Well, maybe Master Gabaldi had an uncle who was a sailor too.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Rolf, you’re looking for trouble where trouble need not necessarily exist.”
“Is that what you think? Really, Gwen?”
She didn’t know what to say to that. In a way, it was true though she could certainly understand why Rolf would dislike and distrust Gabaldi. She felt the same way about him. “No. Not really, but I don’t think you can condemn him for knowing something about ships.”
“It’s not that he knows. It’s that he used the word without even thinking about it, like somebody who uses it all the time.”
“All right. What if he does have some knowledge of ships that’s more extensive than we’re aware of? What of it?”
“He told us he was a swordsman, not a sailor. It just makes me wonder what else he hasn’t told us and why.”
“I’m sure there are lots of things he hasn’t told us. But what can we do about it? We’re here and he’s in charge, and that’s not going to change.”
“Yeah. Well, I’m just sayin’ I don’t trust him. Be watchful. Trust nobody.”
“Not even Thomlin?” she said, hoping to inject some humor to lighten the mood. “I’ve heard he’s a dangerous sort who can eat a bag of dried meat in one sitting.”
“Yeah, especially Thomlin,” said Rolf, who then let out a guffaw and spurred the horse to pick up the pace.
Gwen spent the first half day of the journey behind Rolf on Thomlin’s horse. By the time the caravan halted at midday, a fine layer of dust covered the lightweight cotton shift she’d worn, her hair stank of dirt and sweat, and her eyes itched and burned. Rolf looked even worse, but she suspected his behind wasn’t as tender as hers had become from sliding around on the saddle blanket. When she dismounted the horse, her legs wobbled and she felt unsteady. It took a few minutes to regain her balance, and during that time, she surveyed the trainees. Most of them looked ragged and worn out too. “However will we survive this journey?” she whispered under her breath.
They’d stopped near a slow-moving stream, and Gwen wasted no time in getting to it. Cupping her hands, she dipped them into the cool water and let it dribble between her fingers and back into the stream. After smelling her palms, she decided the water was fresh enough to drink. Again and again she pulled up as much as her hands would hold, gulping down what didn’t seep through the miniscule spaces between her curled fingers.
“Slow down. You’re gonna make yourself sick,” said Thomlin, who crouched beside her and dipped his hands in the water too.
“It’s horrible back there,” she said quietly to him when she’d finished drinking her fill.
“I know. You should ride in the wagon facing backward. It won’t be as bad that way.”
Gwen cast a glance back toward Rolf, who was leading Thomlin’s horse toward the stream. “I can’t. I’d feel guilty. Rolf is going to be stuck back there the whole time. You know it’s true. Gabaldi’s going to make him suffer as much as he can.”
“Yeah,” said Thomlin. “Rolf’s tough. He can take it. You can’t, Gwen.”
His words surprised her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you’re not cut out for this. Neither am I. Rolf. He’s different,” he said, his voice getting quieter and quieter as Rolf came closer.
“So what’s all the whispering about?” the hunter’s son asked as he stopped at the stream and let loose of the reins of Thomlin’s horse. The parched animal immediately lowered his mouth to the edge of the stream and began to drink while Rolf stroked his neck.
Gwen didn’t want to tell him what they’d been talking about, partly because she was a little miffed about Thomlin thinking her weak. She was relieved when he spoke up. “We were just talking about how long this trip is gonna be for those of us in the back of the caravan.”
Rolf let out a roaring laugh. Gwen and Thomlin stared at each other in confusion, and Gwen wondered if Gabaldi had already managed to drive Rolf to insanity. “What’s so funny,” she asked him.
Rolf shook his head. “It doesn’t matter where he puts us. He’s going to make this trip as long and miserable as he can for me, for you, for all of us. That’s how it’s gonna be.”
“But it’s worse behind all the horses and the wagon,” Gwen protested.
Rolf shrugged. “Better than being up front with Gabaldi. I told you. I don’t trust him. Somethin’s not right.”
“I wish my pa had thought that,” said Thomlin. “I’ll take Buttercup and let him graze a while. You go ahead and get a drink and get cleaned up.”
“Buttercup? You named your gelding Buttercup?” Rolf let out a giggle so contagious Gwen couldn’t stop herself from giggling too.
Thomlin’s cheeks flushed. “I was just a little kid. I didn’t know he was a he.”
At that, both Rolf and Gwen doubled over with laughter. Thomlin grabbed the reins and started toward a grassy spot nearby. “C’mon, Buttercup. Shame on them for makin’ fun of you.”
His one-sided conversation with the horse sent Gwen to the ground in fits of giggles and laughter, leaving her side aching and her dusty face tear streaked. After she regained her composure, she splashed the stream’s refreshing water on her face and neck and nibbled on some dried plums, which she shared with Rolf and Thomlin when he returned. She offered it to him, and he took it with such false reluctance it made Gwen giggle to see him trying to pretend to still be put off by his friends’ teasing. She could see why Gilly thought him so good natured.
Before long, the caravan resumed its trek along the road to Sutherhold with Gwen in the back of the wagon and Thomlin driving it. Rolf, wearing Mignon’s stream-dampened shawl draped around his neck and mouth, followed behind on Buttercup, and Gwen watched him with guilt and thankfulness for a lumpy bean sack. She hadn’t seen it when riding behind him, but his gaze darted constantly from side to side and up and down as he rode. Several times, he turned in his saddle, as if looking over his shoulder. He’d done the same thing when she’d sat behind him, but she’d assumed it was to hear her or so she could hear him above the rattle and clanks of the wagon and the clomping hooves. Now she knew differently. He was looking for something . . . or someone.
About an hour before the sun set, the caravan stopped to set up camp for the night. Madame Gabaldi directed some of the trainees to start a large campfire.
“Is there something I can do to help?” asked Gwen.
“Yes. Go to the stream and fill this with water,” Madame Gabaldi said as she rummaged through a trunk near the back of the wagon and lifted out a thin pot. “Some of these boys don’t have much food. We’ll boil some of those dried beans you’ve been sitting on this afternoon.”
Gwen took the pot. “Yes, ma’am.” As she carried it toward the stream, all she could think of was how unappetizing it sounded to eat something her tired, sore rump had been sitting on. She would nibble some of the dried meat and fruit tonight, she thought as she knelt on a rock and dipped the pot into the water.
A twig snapped behind her, and her heart responded with a thud. “I know it’s you, Rolf. You might as well give up. You’re not going to—”
A rustle in the grass followed by the whir of an arrow, a shrieking growl, and a heavy thud on the ground brought Gwen to her feet. In the dim dusk light, she saw Rolf walking toward her, his bow in one hand. Thomlin was rushing past the hunter’s son, his arms waving wildly, “Oh dear heavens! It almost got you!” He reached her out of breath and gasping for air.
Before he recovered, Rolf arrived. “Woodcat. He must’ve smelled the food and waited for one of the flock to wander off.” He nodded to her left, where the body of a cat the size of a lamb lay with an arrow through its neck, blood coating its throat.
That was all it took for Gwen. Dizziness jolted her and her knees buckled.
She awoke to the smell of horse and burning wood and something wet Thomlin was dabbing on her forehead with a cloth. Madame Gabaldi’s voice came from the right. “You’re perfectly fine, Gwendolin. It was just a fright. It didn’t harm you. And Thomlin caught you when you swooned. It was my fault for sending you to get water. It won’t happen again, dear. I promise.”
As the feeling of displacement started to fade, she could make out the schoolmistress sitting on the bean sack next to her. Under Gwen’s neck was something soft, and when she moved her fingers up to it, she recognized the slickness. Buckskin. Rolf’s coat.
“You didn’t even hear him, did you?”
Gwen looked up at Thomlin, still disoriented. “I don’t understand.”
“He was fast, I tell ya.”
“The woodcat?”
“No,” said Thomlin, who resumed dabbing at Gwen’s forehead.
He had spoken over his shoulder, which meant others were standing around her too. Most likely everyone, she thought, which multiplied how silly and embarrassed she already felt. She wondered if her cheeks flushed as crimson as Thomlin’s.
“Well, yeah. It was fast, but Rolf was faster, I tell ya. I’ve never seen anything like that. I looked around and saw you. And then I saw the woodcat rare back to spring. Before I could yell, Rolf saw me lookin’ at it, I guess, ’cause he turned around, drew his bow, and got off an arrow before that woodcat got all four paws off the ground.”
Gwen braced herself with her hands and scooted up into a sitting position, her fingertips resting on what she now knew was emitting the scent of horse: several piled-up saddle blankets spread on a grassy spot near the campfire. One was lying atop her, and she folded it back.
“You should rest, dear. I’ll have the boys make you a comfortable spot near me after we eat.” Madame Gabaldi stood up.
From her ground-level view, Gwen thought she looked even more intimidating than the extremely tall woman normally looked. “I’m fine, ma’am. Just a little shaken. I’ll have some food and stretch my muscles a bit so I don’t get stiff. I really am fine.”
“Very well. You do that, then, but stay with Thomlin and within the light of the campfire. My husband has stationed guards around the perimeter. We’ll be safe near the fire. I’ll still have a spot made for you to sleep next to me after everyone has eaten.” She looked around at the boys, and from the way their chins met their chests or their gazes shot off into the distance, it was obvious the trainees got the message in her firm tone and in the look Gwen couldn’t see but was sure the schoolmistress was giving them—the girl would be chaperoned at all times by Madame Gabaldi.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Gwen.
Her agreement seemed to quell any concerns the schoolmistress might have had because she went about the business of finishing the meal she or someone she’d directed had already started over the campfire. The other boys dispersed in and claimed boulders for spots to lean on in the little clearing where they’d camped. The last few drifted off to sharpen swords and fletch arrows only after Thomlin promised to tell the story again at the campfire.
“Where is Rolf?”
He sighed. “Perimeter. He was the first to be chosen.”