Lenaara
Dreaming of honey cakes.
The weather was disgusting.
“And so then…” The merchant went on, his hand moving up from the reins of his horse and towards his collar. Her pinched the fur around his shoulders closer to his neck as if that could block out the cold wind that had been persistently hitting them in the face in short bursts for the past hour. “They had changed the price again! Can you believe it? The imbeciles! Who would pay so much for a half a kilo of mutton? My grandmother, who is half-delusional, that is who! Not a merchant from Anderfell, I tell you, no, we are much smarter than that. We know our wares!..”
And on and on.
He continued to talk and Irene was equally determined to ignore him. A few smiles were given, coupled by a sound of acknowledgement from time to time to indicate that she had been paying attention. The topic of prices of different meats may have been interesting, taking into account just how passionately the merchant expressed his feelings on the matter, but for the fact that he continued talking for over two hours. Two hours of mutton and beef prices.
Irene fought the wish to press the heels of her boots against her horse’s sides and force the mare into a gallop to get as far away from the merchant as possible.
This was nothing out of the ordinary. The merchants talked, the weather was bad, the mud under their horse’s hooves was wet and slippery and sloshed on the road as they continued down the route to their destination.
It was midday. The sun’s bleak disk was barely visible beyond the grey cover of the clouds. In the distance the clouds had grown darker, pregnant with the rain that will soon be pouring over the heads of the caravan of merchants if they did not quicken their pace to get to the nearby town for cover and warmth. But it would be hours until the next settlement was reached, and they all realized that the dark thunderous clouds would near them much faster than they would get to a warm tavern and its hearth.
Around them the world was white and black. The snow was melting ever so slowly. The main road had been clear of it, the pure white blanket of snow had long since turned into a muddy puddle beneath the feet of the travellers. Around them, below the cover of thin bare trees, the snow lay in patches here and there. Rain had long stripped the branches bare of snow, and now the trees were like skeletal guardians around the caravan. The myriad of thin branches hung over the heads of the travellers and swung from side to side with each cold gust of wind. The gusts made the droplets of water fall from the branches and hit the ones below on the ground, drenching the travellers completely.
Drenched and cold, the caravan continued down the road. It had been three days since they set out from Oslon, a town in Riverside just north from where they were now. The caravan wasn’t big, just a procession of two wagons loaded with different wares like the meat, that the plump red nosed merchant near Irene continued to rant about, furs, some crates of polished amber and silver jewellery. There was also a crate of spices, apparently, hidden deep within one of the wagons. Spices were rare this time of year, and the import was expensive. That was, perhaps, the most expensive item in the entire procession. Even the amber did not cost as much as that small wooden box.
Each member of the procession was seated on a horse. There was a horse up front, the guide, a young man, clad in a cloak of grey lined with fur. Behind him, seated on a black stallion, was his bodyguard. It was a mountain of a man clad in leathers and irons, chainmail hung from his back and abdomen and clanked against the metal hilts of his many daggers strapped to a belt on his hips. His bald head was gleaming menacingly beneath the sparkling layer of water, and his muscled broad shoulders were straight and tense. The stallion beneath him continued on, not caring for the might of his rider.
Then was the first wagon, pulled by a grey mare, the driver half asleep as he hummed some song or the other. Behind him was another horse with another mercenary, dressed as intimidatingly as the bald warrior up front. The long sword on his back had been angled to accommodate the horse, and his hands held a miniature crossbow that must half cost a fortune to make. The weapon could have been stolen. Crossbows, especially so small and compact, were rare in these parts of the land.
Irene had noticed that the man was holding the crossbow wrong, his hands at all the wrong positions, and the bolt was nocked awkwardly into the mechanism.
I wonder whose throat did he slice to get that weapon.
A moment later she decided that she did not want to know. It was best not to question such things, especially not openly. Held wrongly or not, there were only so many ways to stop a crossbow bolt from such a short distance.
Then, was Irene and the merchant. They were in the middle of the caravan; the safest spot to be. The two of them walked side by side, their horses following obediently a few feet behind the wagon at the front.
“Irene?” The woman blinked and looked at the merchant. He glared at her, his blue eyes watery, his lips curved into something between a wince and a snarl. He seemed to have been waiting for a reply, a reaction to something that he had said. Something that she wasn’t paying attention to.
“Yes?” The woman rose her eyebrows at the man. “I apologize. I must follow the road. Doing my job, is all. I meant no offence.”
“Ah. But of course, of course!” The merchant waved dismissively at the woman. “Your attention can only be limited to one purpose, of course. I was a fool to assume otherwise. I did hire you to protect my wares, after all, and my never stopping tongue.”
She wondered if the last phrase was an innuendo to something that he was proud of, as the man had given Irene a look, his eyes skirting over her chest. The insult, however, was noticed. Masked in his words, the merchant did little to hide the obvious comment regarding his hire’s attention span. But just as the gleeful look at her breasts, the insult was ignored. It was common. It was usual. The merchant was but another man, another client that thought that he could get away with more than just protection of his wares and his life at the end of the assignment for the amount of money that he had paid the woman.
“Lord Richmond, yer never stopping tongue can’t keep a woman entertained out the bed.” The voice behind Irene called out, followed by a bright laughter. The laugher caught on, so bright and contagious it was, and the rest of the procession snickered under their breaths. Lord Richmond, however, did not find the joke amusing. If anything, he had grown red in the face, his round nose had turned into a new hue of deep maroon.
“I have you know that we have discussed the dilution on the meat market—“ Richmond straightened in his saddle, his cloak wrapped tightly around his body, and the furs on the collar puffed up.
He looked devastatingly similar to a pigeon.
Beneath the cloak, Lord Richmond Brandon was dressed very finely. The silk vest clung to his round belly and sides, the leather boots shone from the pristinely polished tops. Over his chest, going from one shoulder across his chest and to another, was a wide chain of simple silver clips, in the middle of which red polished gems gleamed brightly. A belt was around his waist, half covered by the potbelly, and a small rapier hung loosely at his side, it’s jewelled pommel a useless but an expensive investment. The rapier was far too unbalanced, the iron far too thin and poorly crafted. The weapon was for show, the show of the miniscule wealth that the merchant loved to boast about.
The Lord’s head was covered by the hood of the cloak, but beneath the hood one could see the gleaming red bald patches in the grey oily cover of his thinning hair.
“…And ya bored the lass half to death!” The mercenary continued, his voice tinted with laughter. “Tell me, Dalaklis, does meat prices fascinate ya that much that ya’d rather keep ‘im companyand not ‘us, at the back?”
“Your conversations of your latest lays doesn’t interest me, Marcus.” Irene called out without looking over her shoulder. Even without looking she could almost imagine the man, Marcus, leaning back on his horse in a poor attempt to fake a shooting pain in his chest. He had gasped, and his armour shifted on him as he leaned back, his gloved hand hit the metal plating strapped to the leather padding on his chest. More chuckling followed, and even Irene’s lips curved into a barely visible smirk.
At her side, Richmond had muttered something under his breath. Irene had managed to hear only one word, “Savages.”
“Ya be entertaining then, lass.” The mud sloshed faster, the clothes rustled, and Marcus appeared in Irene’s peripheral vision. His cropped short auburn hair was wet and rustled, the stubble began to show on his chin. His gloved hand reached down towards the hem of Irene’s coat and he tugged on it. The golden thread glittered in the pale light, catching the dimmest of sun’s rays. “No shamanistic heresy. Me mum raised me fine, no symbols on me clothes. None of that.”
It was no wonder that Marcus viewed the broidery on the woman’s clothes as something odd. For one, Irene was the only one who preferred a much lighter variant of clothing to the heaviness of the iron that her companions wore. Without any sort of protective padding over the vital areas of her body, Irene did not cover herself with chainmail and bits of metal. The clothing was not close cut like that of the hired mercenaries of the caravan procession, it was not heavy and thick, lined with padding and chainmail to protect the wearer. No, her clothes were loose and made entirely of fabric.
She wore a coat of thick deep purple fabric that reached down towards her knees and was set at the waist by a wide leather belt lined with rabbit fur on the edges; the sleeves were wide and ended just below her elbow. From underneath the sleeves the leather bracers of soft brown leather peeked out and covered her forearms. The dark brown pants were straight and wide, tucked into her knee length boots that have seen better days. Two long thin lines went through the fabric of the pants, parallel to her leg, in front of the pant leg and behind it. Over her shoulders was wrapped a collar of light grey fur, tied close to her neck. Unlike the rest, she did not wear a heavy cloak.
Bronze and golden embroidery covered the woman’s clothes. It weaved through the bottom of the wide sleeves in various patterns; the high collar was decorated in a similar style and was pulled tightly around her neck and secured with a bronze clasp. Similar clasps were visible along the middle of the coat, all closed to keep the fabric of the coat in place. The hem of her coat depicted more geometric symbols that changed at the back as the embroidery blended with the symbols woven on the back. The leather bracers and the wide belt were decorated as well, but not as heavily as the coat. The golden thread gleamed with each movement that the woman made, the fabric folding here and there and reflected the bleak sunlight.
Everything about Irene screamed foreign. Deep purple, gold and bronze, these colours stood out among the grey mass of the procession and the empty road. Among the white, black and grey, Irene alone was the sole ray of brightness, of soft gold and deep purple, that shimmered with each step that the horse beneath her had taken, with each subtle movement that the woman herself had done.
The woman appeared to be about thirty, as fine lines had already creased the corners of her eyes. Olive skinned and tall, the woman was athletically built beneath her foreign clothing. Long ashy brown hair was bound into a braid that reached all the way down towards her hips. The braid swung absently behind her back as the horse continued on. She had high cheekbones and a refined jawline; almond shaped silver eyes that were slightly narrowed as they scanned the bright patches of snow in the distance. Her plump lips were drawn into a thin line, an unconscious response to the odd quiet that stuck to the woods around them. Her straight nose was tipped with pink from the cold.
Her features, the colour of her skin and hair, clothing and broidery, it all pointed to her country of origin – Izmar.
At her side, holding it in her right hand, Irene held a short spear. It was about six feet in length, tipped with a blade sheathed in a broidered simple leather hilt. The lacquer of the shaft was worn and scratched, covered in a myriad of dents that Irene’s thumb kept sliding over out of pure habit. The blunt end of the spear was tipped with a round metal weight, its surface polished and discoloured at the bottom from years of use. Over her back was a yew bow; the quiver was attached to her horse’s saddle just behind her left thigh.
“This isn’t some magic imbued cloth. Stop believing all the milkmaids say when you plow them on the hay.” Irene did not take her eyes off the road but she could see the man roll his russet eyes to the sky, a smirk tugging on his lips.
“’Ey don’t have the time to talk when I plow ‘em.”
“Probably busy praying for the five-minute wonder to end.” One of the men at the back called out and laughed. Marcus scoffed at Irene’s side and she shot him a glance, her lips curving into a smile.
“Told you I have no interest in discussing your latest lays.” She said.
“Fine. Fine. Lasses and their jealousy.” Marcus winked at her, and Richmond rolled his shoulders beneath his cloak, muttering something or other about the vulgarity of hired muscle. “You never finished that tale of…eh, the man with shining buttocks in the ruins?”
Ah. She never did, Irene realized.
Traveling with a caravan was the most common of the woman’s jobs. This sort of a task was easy and straightforward, and most of the time it never required her to get off her horse to defend the procession of merchants and their wares. It was safe, it was easy, and, most of all, it was fun.
There were always many people in a caravan. Merchants, their bodyguards, some hired muscle for the wagons just in case, the number varying depending on the time of the year and the route taken. Even some families dared to join the trips if the travel time was short and the roads were deemed safe.
During the evenings, when they all stopped to set up camp and rest for the night, the caravan would be bursting with life. Gathered around the fires, the mercenaries would share stories of their many jobs, the merchants would speak of far off lands and the exotic foods and wares, the women would sing, the men would play, the children would dance. All those not tired from the day of horseback riding would dance, the atmosphere contagious and bright. They would laugh or be utterly silent, as one person or the other would speak of some tale. The would dance or sit still, mesmerized by a song or a ballad in their own way.
It was enjoyable to travel this way, and Irene got paid for it.
A half an hour was all it took to change the formation of the caravan. The three mercenaries stationed at the back by the guide had increased the pace of their horses and joined Irene at her side. She was telling a story that was cut short the night before, and soon the infectious laughter echoed through the ever still woods. The laughter was deep, interrupted by occasional pauses of silence as the woman continued to speak, her voice captivating as she would joke about the man who had been her client years before. Even Lord Richmond Brandon, her personal charge, had begun to listen to the woman at his side with interest shining in those glazed eyes of his.
The guide had barked something from up front but the mercenaries ignored him. Irene had stopped the tale mid-sentence and shifted in her saddle to peek over the broad shoulders of the guide’s bodyguard. It was impossible to see the guide, and she could not shift her horse to move ahead as Marcus’s horse had pressed against her own far too closely on the road.
“Let ‘em talk.” Markus patted Irene on her thigh, a silent command to continue the story. “I ‘ear the talk that—“
“Shut up, you lot!” The guide’s voice roared through the procession, silencing Markus. “Got some trouble ahead.”
That phrase alone was enough to pique the mercenaries’ interest. Pulling up her spear closer to her waist was a matter of instinct, as was the hand falling on the longsword of the mercenary up front, and the nocking an arrow into the bow in Marcus’s hands. All stared right ahead, into the patch of colour a half a mile away. There, beside a small patch of birch trees, were several men. It was hard to see, hard to make out just the right number of men ahead.
The caravan halted to a stop, and then with one swift motion the guide got off his horse. His bodyguard did not move; his hands were put absently over the hilts of the two daggers strapped to his thighs.
“Something the matter?” Irene heard the guide call out towards the men up ahead.
@AnonymousRaine
“And so then…” The merchant went on, his hand moving up from the reins of his horse and towards his collar. Her pinched the fur around his shoulders closer to his neck as if that could block out the cold wind that had been persistently hitting them in the face in short bursts for the past hour. “They had changed the price again! Can you believe it? The imbeciles! Who would pay so much for a half a kilo of mutton? My grandmother, who is half-delusional, that is who! Not a merchant from Anderfell, I tell you, no, we are much smarter than that. We know our wares!..”
And on and on.
He continued to talk and Irene was equally determined to ignore him. A few smiles were given, coupled by a sound of acknowledgement from time to time to indicate that she had been paying attention. The topic of prices of different meats may have been interesting, taking into account just how passionately the merchant expressed his feelings on the matter, but for the fact that he continued talking for over two hours. Two hours of mutton and beef prices.
Irene fought the wish to press the heels of her boots against her horse’s sides and force the mare into a gallop to get as far away from the merchant as possible.
This was nothing out of the ordinary. The merchants talked, the weather was bad, the mud under their horse’s hooves was wet and slippery and sloshed on the road as they continued down the route to their destination.
It was midday. The sun’s bleak disk was barely visible beyond the grey cover of the clouds. In the distance the clouds had grown darker, pregnant with the rain that will soon be pouring over the heads of the caravan of merchants if they did not quicken their pace to get to the nearby town for cover and warmth. But it would be hours until the next settlement was reached, and they all realized that the dark thunderous clouds would near them much faster than they would get to a warm tavern and its hearth.
Around them the world was white and black. The snow was melting ever so slowly. The main road had been clear of it, the pure white blanket of snow had long since turned into a muddy puddle beneath the feet of the travellers. Around them, below the cover of thin bare trees, the snow lay in patches here and there. Rain had long stripped the branches bare of snow, and now the trees were like skeletal guardians around the caravan. The myriad of thin branches hung over the heads of the travellers and swung from side to side with each cold gust of wind. The gusts made the droplets of water fall from the branches and hit the ones below on the ground, drenching the travellers completely.
Drenched and cold, the caravan continued down the road. It had been three days since they set out from Oslon, a town in Riverside just north from where they were now. The caravan wasn’t big, just a procession of two wagons loaded with different wares like the meat, that the plump red nosed merchant near Irene continued to rant about, furs, some crates of polished amber and silver jewellery. There was also a crate of spices, apparently, hidden deep within one of the wagons. Spices were rare this time of year, and the import was expensive. That was, perhaps, the most expensive item in the entire procession. Even the amber did not cost as much as that small wooden box.
Each member of the procession was seated on a horse. There was a horse up front, the guide, a young man, clad in a cloak of grey lined with fur. Behind him, seated on a black stallion, was his bodyguard. It was a mountain of a man clad in leathers and irons, chainmail hung from his back and abdomen and clanked against the metal hilts of his many daggers strapped to a belt on his hips. His bald head was gleaming menacingly beneath the sparkling layer of water, and his muscled broad shoulders were straight and tense. The stallion beneath him continued on, not caring for the might of his rider.
Then was the first wagon, pulled by a grey mare, the driver half asleep as he hummed some song or the other. Behind him was another horse with another mercenary, dressed as intimidatingly as the bald warrior up front. The long sword on his back had been angled to accommodate the horse, and his hands held a miniature crossbow that must half cost a fortune to make. The weapon could have been stolen. Crossbows, especially so small and compact, were rare in these parts of the land.
Irene had noticed that the man was holding the crossbow wrong, his hands at all the wrong positions, and the bolt was nocked awkwardly into the mechanism.
I wonder whose throat did he slice to get that weapon.
A moment later she decided that she did not want to know. It was best not to question such things, especially not openly. Held wrongly or not, there were only so many ways to stop a crossbow bolt from such a short distance.
Then, was Irene and the merchant. They were in the middle of the caravan; the safest spot to be. The two of them walked side by side, their horses following obediently a few feet behind the wagon at the front.
“Irene?” The woman blinked and looked at the merchant. He glared at her, his blue eyes watery, his lips curved into something between a wince and a snarl. He seemed to have been waiting for a reply, a reaction to something that he had said. Something that she wasn’t paying attention to.
“Yes?” The woman rose her eyebrows at the man. “I apologize. I must follow the road. Doing my job, is all. I meant no offence.”
“Ah. But of course, of course!” The merchant waved dismissively at the woman. “Your attention can only be limited to one purpose, of course. I was a fool to assume otherwise. I did hire you to protect my wares, after all, and my never stopping tongue.”
She wondered if the last phrase was an innuendo to something that he was proud of, as the man had given Irene a look, his eyes skirting over her chest. The insult, however, was noticed. Masked in his words, the merchant did little to hide the obvious comment regarding his hire’s attention span. But just as the gleeful look at her breasts, the insult was ignored. It was common. It was usual. The merchant was but another man, another client that thought that he could get away with more than just protection of his wares and his life at the end of the assignment for the amount of money that he had paid the woman.
“Lord Richmond, yer never stopping tongue can’t keep a woman entertained out the bed.” The voice behind Irene called out, followed by a bright laughter. The laugher caught on, so bright and contagious it was, and the rest of the procession snickered under their breaths. Lord Richmond, however, did not find the joke amusing. If anything, he had grown red in the face, his round nose had turned into a new hue of deep maroon.
“I have you know that we have discussed the dilution on the meat market—“ Richmond straightened in his saddle, his cloak wrapped tightly around his body, and the furs on the collar puffed up.
He looked devastatingly similar to a pigeon.
Beneath the cloak, Lord Richmond Brandon was dressed very finely. The silk vest clung to his round belly and sides, the leather boots shone from the pristinely polished tops. Over his chest, going from one shoulder across his chest and to another, was a wide chain of simple silver clips, in the middle of which red polished gems gleamed brightly. A belt was around his waist, half covered by the potbelly, and a small rapier hung loosely at his side, it’s jewelled pommel a useless but an expensive investment. The rapier was far too unbalanced, the iron far too thin and poorly crafted. The weapon was for show, the show of the miniscule wealth that the merchant loved to boast about.
The Lord’s head was covered by the hood of the cloak, but beneath the hood one could see the gleaming red bald patches in the grey oily cover of his thinning hair.
“…And ya bored the lass half to death!” The mercenary continued, his voice tinted with laughter. “Tell me, Dalaklis, does meat prices fascinate ya that much that ya’d rather keep ‘im companyand not ‘us, at the back?”
“Your conversations of your latest lays doesn’t interest me, Marcus.” Irene called out without looking over her shoulder. Even without looking she could almost imagine the man, Marcus, leaning back on his horse in a poor attempt to fake a shooting pain in his chest. He had gasped, and his armour shifted on him as he leaned back, his gloved hand hit the metal plating strapped to the leather padding on his chest. More chuckling followed, and even Irene’s lips curved into a barely visible smirk.
At her side, Richmond had muttered something under his breath. Irene had managed to hear only one word, “Savages.”
“Ya be entertaining then, lass.” The mud sloshed faster, the clothes rustled, and Marcus appeared in Irene’s peripheral vision. His cropped short auburn hair was wet and rustled, the stubble began to show on his chin. His gloved hand reached down towards the hem of Irene’s coat and he tugged on it. The golden thread glittered in the pale light, catching the dimmest of sun’s rays. “No shamanistic heresy. Me mum raised me fine, no symbols on me clothes. None of that.”
It was no wonder that Marcus viewed the broidery on the woman’s clothes as something odd. For one, Irene was the only one who preferred a much lighter variant of clothing to the heaviness of the iron that her companions wore. Without any sort of protective padding over the vital areas of her body, Irene did not cover herself with chainmail and bits of metal. The clothing was not close cut like that of the hired mercenaries of the caravan procession, it was not heavy and thick, lined with padding and chainmail to protect the wearer. No, her clothes were loose and made entirely of fabric.
She wore a coat of thick deep purple fabric that reached down towards her knees and was set at the waist by a wide leather belt lined with rabbit fur on the edges; the sleeves were wide and ended just below her elbow. From underneath the sleeves the leather bracers of soft brown leather peeked out and covered her forearms. The dark brown pants were straight and wide, tucked into her knee length boots that have seen better days. Two long thin lines went through the fabric of the pants, parallel to her leg, in front of the pant leg and behind it. Over her shoulders was wrapped a collar of light grey fur, tied close to her neck. Unlike the rest, she did not wear a heavy cloak.
Bronze and golden embroidery covered the woman’s clothes. It weaved through the bottom of the wide sleeves in various patterns; the high collar was decorated in a similar style and was pulled tightly around her neck and secured with a bronze clasp. Similar clasps were visible along the middle of the coat, all closed to keep the fabric of the coat in place. The hem of her coat depicted more geometric symbols that changed at the back as the embroidery blended with the symbols woven on the back. The leather bracers and the wide belt were decorated as well, but not as heavily as the coat. The golden thread gleamed with each movement that the woman made, the fabric folding here and there and reflected the bleak sunlight.
Everything about Irene screamed foreign. Deep purple, gold and bronze, these colours stood out among the grey mass of the procession and the empty road. Among the white, black and grey, Irene alone was the sole ray of brightness, of soft gold and deep purple, that shimmered with each step that the horse beneath her had taken, with each subtle movement that the woman herself had done.
The woman appeared to be about thirty, as fine lines had already creased the corners of her eyes. Olive skinned and tall, the woman was athletically built beneath her foreign clothing. Long ashy brown hair was bound into a braid that reached all the way down towards her hips. The braid swung absently behind her back as the horse continued on. She had high cheekbones and a refined jawline; almond shaped silver eyes that were slightly narrowed as they scanned the bright patches of snow in the distance. Her plump lips were drawn into a thin line, an unconscious response to the odd quiet that stuck to the woods around them. Her straight nose was tipped with pink from the cold.
Her features, the colour of her skin and hair, clothing and broidery, it all pointed to her country of origin – Izmar.
At her side, holding it in her right hand, Irene held a short spear. It was about six feet in length, tipped with a blade sheathed in a broidered simple leather hilt. The lacquer of the shaft was worn and scratched, covered in a myriad of dents that Irene’s thumb kept sliding over out of pure habit. The blunt end of the spear was tipped with a round metal weight, its surface polished and discoloured at the bottom from years of use. Over her back was a yew bow; the quiver was attached to her horse’s saddle just behind her left thigh.
“This isn’t some magic imbued cloth. Stop believing all the milkmaids say when you plow them on the hay.” Irene did not take her eyes off the road but she could see the man roll his russet eyes to the sky, a smirk tugging on his lips.
“’Ey don’t have the time to talk when I plow ‘em.”
“Probably busy praying for the five-minute wonder to end.” One of the men at the back called out and laughed. Marcus scoffed at Irene’s side and she shot him a glance, her lips curving into a smile.
“Told you I have no interest in discussing your latest lays.” She said.
“Fine. Fine. Lasses and their jealousy.” Marcus winked at her, and Richmond rolled his shoulders beneath his cloak, muttering something or other about the vulgarity of hired muscle. “You never finished that tale of…eh, the man with shining buttocks in the ruins?”
Ah. She never did, Irene realized.
Traveling with a caravan was the most common of the woman’s jobs. This sort of a task was easy and straightforward, and most of the time it never required her to get off her horse to defend the procession of merchants and their wares. It was safe, it was easy, and, most of all, it was fun.
There were always many people in a caravan. Merchants, their bodyguards, some hired muscle for the wagons just in case, the number varying depending on the time of the year and the route taken. Even some families dared to join the trips if the travel time was short and the roads were deemed safe.
During the evenings, when they all stopped to set up camp and rest for the night, the caravan would be bursting with life. Gathered around the fires, the mercenaries would share stories of their many jobs, the merchants would speak of far off lands and the exotic foods and wares, the women would sing, the men would play, the children would dance. All those not tired from the day of horseback riding would dance, the atmosphere contagious and bright. They would laugh or be utterly silent, as one person or the other would speak of some tale. The would dance or sit still, mesmerized by a song or a ballad in their own way.
It was enjoyable to travel this way, and Irene got paid for it.
A half an hour was all it took to change the formation of the caravan. The three mercenaries stationed at the back by the guide had increased the pace of their horses and joined Irene at her side. She was telling a story that was cut short the night before, and soon the infectious laughter echoed through the ever still woods. The laughter was deep, interrupted by occasional pauses of silence as the woman continued to speak, her voice captivating as she would joke about the man who had been her client years before. Even Lord Richmond Brandon, her personal charge, had begun to listen to the woman at his side with interest shining in those glazed eyes of his.
The guide had barked something from up front but the mercenaries ignored him. Irene had stopped the tale mid-sentence and shifted in her saddle to peek over the broad shoulders of the guide’s bodyguard. It was impossible to see the guide, and she could not shift her horse to move ahead as Marcus’s horse had pressed against her own far too closely on the road.
“Let ‘em talk.” Markus patted Irene on her thigh, a silent command to continue the story. “I ‘ear the talk that—“
“Shut up, you lot!” The guide’s voice roared through the procession, silencing Markus. “Got some trouble ahead.”
That phrase alone was enough to pique the mercenaries’ interest. Pulling up her spear closer to her waist was a matter of instinct, as was the hand falling on the longsword of the mercenary up front, and the nocking an arrow into the bow in Marcus’s hands. All stared right ahead, into the patch of colour a half a mile away. There, beside a small patch of birch trees, were several men. It was hard to see, hard to make out just the right number of men ahead.
The caravan halted to a stop, and then with one swift motion the guide got off his horse. His bodyguard did not move; his hands were put absently over the hilts of the two daggers strapped to his thighs.
“Something the matter?” Irene heard the guide call out towards the men up ahead.
@AnonymousRaine
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