The Devil in the Details

10. Villains and Thieves

"Are you sure Reverend Ainsley is okay where we left him?" Isabel asked her friend. That had been one of her worries when they'd last seen the cleric. But now that the raiders had struck another hamlet, the danger seemed more pressing.

"He'll be fine," said Deirdre. The lass, who was reclined in the grass beside her, didn't even open her eyes. "He's a scrappy one, the reverend. Besides, not even the worst scoundrel living would harm a traveling clergyman."

That didn't seem right to Isabel. The clergy didn't appear to have much in the way of additional protection in this land. But she wouldn't second guess Deirdre. The young woman seemed attached the Moorcroft Ainsley. If there was a true sense that he was in danger, Deirdre wouldn't take that lightly.

She asked instead, "Did you ever discover why Driss was looking for Sir Alexis?"

"His boss wants paid," Deirdre mumbled.

"That's all?"

The young woman sat up with a sigh. "Sir Alexis is a week late, and the hostler's employer is getting madder with every day. He wants his money, and only Sir Alexis can tender payment."

"It's always about money." Some things never changed, whichever world you were in.

The fighting at the hamlet, an otherwise delightful assembly of houses called East Finding, had been over for more than an hour. A number of the raiders had been killed, and a small number had been taken prisoner. After some pointed questions form Sir Constantine, the local noble, the men had admitted being fighting men for an eastern knight named Villiers.

Sir Constantine had listened carefully to all the men had to say, including their pleas for mercy, and then had promptly hanged the lot of them.

The old knight had been quite sweet about the whole thing, promising the men they would get a decent burial and word of their demise would make it back to their families. When one of the bound men demanded as he was being hoisted into a saddle that as a soldier he deserved beheading, the knight responded in a rueful tone that "soldiers deserve the blade. Villains and thieves get the rope."

He promised not to share the sorted particulars of the men's end when he notified their families.

The hanging itself was dreadful, but it said much of how Isabel slowly was growing accustomed to Albion. It was dreadful, but she didn't find it shocking or surprising. Soldiers or no, these men had raided a defenseless village. Such was the punishment in these lands.

Alas, the bandits still infested the nearby hills and woodlands, and Sir Constantine would need to muster his every available fighting man to drive them off. In the meantime, the road southward to Westport had been cut. For the time, their progress would be delayed.

Isabel felt not the least concern. Perils there may be, but Sir Alexis was with them again. And the valiant young soldier, Driss, had attached himself to them for the time.

My, the things that had gone through Isabel's mind of late. Her heady imaginings should have frightened her, especially given the ordeals she so far had endured. But they did not.

Upon emerging from the spring that she'd found with Reverend Ainsley, she had flown to the aid of the youngsters that Driss was protecting with his sword and without hesitation had gone to shelter them, with her own body if necessary. Not a whisp of fear had afflicted her then.

Not even when she'd seen, for the briefest of moments, the image of a brave knight in coal black armor fighting a gold and red dragon. It seemed ridiculous now, but that brief vision had been as real to her as anything she'd ever seen. It was as real as the visions she'd dreamt upon their path to Proxima Thule many weeks before.