Everything hurt.
Okay, her hair and the middle toe on her right foot were fine. Otherwise her body felt like one massive, oozing bruise. Pain stretched clear up her back, Hayley fumbling behind with her hand to see if there was a bone sticking out. In doing so, her arm screamed at her for being so foolish. She had to have spent the whole damn day hacking and slashing at a tree trunk dressed for battle.
Her Knight had paced around her, sometimes giving tips, but just as often stepping back and letting her have a go at it. When Hayley had no idea what she was supposed to do, she'd start banging into the dummy with the pommel of the sword. She learned it was called the pommel when Gavin shouted at her to stop doing that before she broke it.
An hour after that, he finally declared their training day over. Bruised and battered, Hayley slunk close to the stream and collapsed in the cool mud. She slurped the water near, trying to encourage some into her mouth, but there was no way she could rise. Above her wandered Gavin, wondering if she had any intentions to drown.
"We should return to the estate before sundown."
"Sundown?" that was enough to cause Hayley to sit up, causing her entire body to crumple in pain. She stared up at the horizon, the light hanging somewhere in the middle of the distant treetops. "That's not for a few hours."
"I know," her knight said, easily sliding up into the saddle. He'd broken apart the training dummy, already loading up Gringolet for the trip back. "Shall you ride with this time?"
That damn hand hung there above her. She ached everywhere, her muscles begging for her to get on the damn horse and take her weight off her legs for once. Then the creature spun its weird, elongated face towards her and Hayley balked. Stumbling back a moment, she shook her head and stared at the ground.
Sighing, the knight clicked his tongue and pulled the horse into a walk, "As you wish, but it is the same trek back as it was getting here."
"I know," Hayley sneered. Gavin dug his heels into the horse, breaking out of the brook clearance into the forest surrounding them. With her hands, Hayley funneled more of the cool water onto her forehead and armpits. She was a filthy, disgusting mess incapable of moving.
And she was also about to be left behind.
Summoning a hidden reserve of strength, she staggered to her feet and shouted, "Hey, wait up!"
She had no idea how she made it back, her legs barely shifting in the end. It was a struggle to heft her heavy feet off the ground, so she tried sliding instead. The blister on her toe went and had its own baby blisters — triplets by the feel of it. Hayley expected Gavin to pull far ahead and leave her in the dust, but whenever she'd lift her heavy head she'd find the horse's ass at the same distance as before.
Once the estate was in sight, Gavin tugged the horse onward. The pair began to vanish into the dust so that when Hayley finally made it through the gates, he was walking out of the stable with the pile of weaponry and Louse dummy in hand. "Oh thank god," Hayley gasped. She made it as far as the well in the middle of the courtyard (not giving a shit what the area was called). Her hands lifted, prepared to catch, but they couldn't rise fast enough and her body crumpled to the ground hard.
"Hayley," Gavin shouted, sounding concerned.
Prostrated on the ground, her nose and mouth mashed into trampled down grass, Hayley lifted a hand and mumbled, "I'm good."
"Are you certain?" he laughed above her so she lifted up her thumb for emphasis.
"I shall put these in the house and come find you," he continued, his voice clearly wanting to laugh at her. She didn't care, she didn't care about anything except for the fact she didn't have to move anymore. The ground was cool and almost soft. Just pile up some mud to make a pillow and she'd have a nice bed beside the well.
Perhaps she fell asleep, perhaps Gavin was quicker than she expected, but when a hand landed upon her back Hayley jerked in surprise. Her knight shifted away as she tried to stagger up. The man who'd had her stabbing and riposting all day steadied her waning form. For a moment he looked into her face, trying to catch her eyes or perhaps see how many swears she had saved up back there. It was a lot.
"Please tell me rest is next," Hayley mumbled. Her body swayed towards the well, but she lashed a hand out to keep herself from pitching down it.
"Yes, though...I think food is called for."
At the mention, her stomach snarled for anything to fill it. While sweating buckets and whipping her body into an overheated frenzy she hadn't felt it. But once they stopped and the march back resumed, her gut kept sloshing back and forth in hunger. It wasn't the hungriest she'd ever been, but it felt like the most earned.
Locking a helping hand around Hayley's shoulders it wasn't to their little house Gavin led them but the main one. For a moment Hayley glanced down at her mess of clothing. Over half of it was mud, the boots in particular slathered in it from her jaunts into the stream to cool off. She was about to say something, when her knight turned her towards a little side door. While the entrance at the top of the stairs was ornate with ivy carved into the frame, this looked like someone found a scrap of wood and nailed it up.
He didn't bother knocking, just yanked on the handle and walked them inside. A small table holding handfuls of bowls rested close, Hayley knuckling her way over to land on a stool. Her knight glanced over once to make certain she wasn't about to pitch to the floor before he vanished.
Pawing at her chest, she sighed as another mud clump splattered onto the floor. She'd have to wash that, wash everything on her body. It'd probably take hours just to get through the mess of her livery. "I would really like to lay down and not get up for thirty days."
"You have returned!" a voice pinged through the small stone room and Hayley turned to find Ania walking quickly towards her. The girl stopped right across from Hayley, her big eyes watching as the bruised and battered squire smacked into the mud on her chest. "You are filthy."
"Yep," Hayley nodded her head hard, unable to deny it.
Ania swung her legs around the opposite stool, her clothed knees nearly brushing against Hayley's. She felt bad and tried to shift, doing her best to keep her mass of mud from touching the girl's clean skirts. Placing her chin in her hand, Ania stared hard as she asked in her flat voice, "Did he take you to the stream?"
Hayley bobbed her head, uncertain how to respond. It was a stream, but there could be a lot of stream in the area. Maybe there was another, fancier stream where the dashing Knight took girls he liked.
Smiling, Ania reached up to undo her kerchief revealing black hair bobbed to her ears. "He goes there often to train, says the ground is softer."
Wincing, Hayley reached back to the bruises along her spine from all her falls. If that was softer... Wait. "How do you know that?" Seemed like one of those secret knight things, at least it sure felt out of the way of everywhere.
A blush rose on Ania's cheeks and she shrugged, "I'll bring food, sometimes. Check to make certain he doesn't require anything."
Tension snapped through the room, Hayley tasting its bitterness in the back of her throat but for the life of her she had no idea why. Ania was fiddling with the hair curled around her ear, for once her burning eyes going anywhere else. She opened her mouth a few times as if testing the air while all Hayley could do was stare in confusion.
Finally, the girl shook off her blush and asked, "What did he start you on?"
"Stabbing...?" Hayley said uncertainly before shaking her head and mumbling, "sword."
Ania's big brown eyes burned into Hayley's as if she hadn't understood a lick of that. Feeling a flush of embarrassment start on her own cheeks, Hayley stabbed at the air, "The big knife."
"Oh," the girl said loudly, her lips stretching wide in a smile, "yes, sword. Makes sense. Which one?"
"A pointy one?" Hayley threw out. There were other types of swords?
"Well, I doubt it would have been the broadsword, but if you did not favor the long perhaps a bastard would be more called for."
Hayley narrowed her eyes, confusion bristling her brows, "Wait, what does a sword's parents have to do with...?"
The girl giggled as if Hayley said something absolutely hysterical, her laugh so powerful the mark on the side of her face began to flush pink. Ania was about to explain, when the floor creaked loudly and Hayley whipped her head over to watch Gavin stumble in — bowls in hand.
"Here, I found some old stew and..." he ceased mumbling to the food in his arms and looked up, "Oh, hello Ania." The amber eyes focused right into hers as if the girl needed to be constantly watched. She smiled at the attention, her head bobbing while Gavin placed the food right in front of Hayley.
She barely waited for a spoon to drop into her hand before she started shoveling the barley soup into her gullet. It was lukewarm and watery, but it tasted divine — her tastebuds singing in harmony as each morsel of fuel slid down to her gut. Hayley nearly slobbered through a fourth of her bowl before Gavin sat down.
Placing his arms astride his meal, he folded the palms together and began to pray. Ah shit, was she supposed to do that too? Hayley swiped the back of her hand against her chin, her eyes darting from the silently praying knight back to Ania who was chirpily watching him.
Once he finished, he lifted his head and smiled at the two girls sharing a meal with him. Gavin got a few bites in before he turned to Ania to ask her, "Did you make this?"
"No, no, I collected the barley is all."
"Every small bit matters," he smiled, diving back in to his meal with gusto. Ania lit up brighter in return and Hayley was reminded of how much the other girls all tittered back at the squire challenge the first time Gavin walked out. God, that felt like a month ago but it was only a couple days. She was liable to age ten years before she got out of here.
Ania suddenly stood up, her hands flapping through the air. "There is bread yet, I shall get it for you."
Gavin spun out as if to try and stop her, but it was too late. She'd already vanished out the door. His hand hung in the air, jaw ajar before he shrugged. "You should eat up," he said, seeming to notice that Hayley hadn't completely slurped up her food in a minute.
Scraping the wooden spoon against the bottom of the bowl, Hayley got a good dozen more slurps down into her stomach before she asked, "What's next?"
Gavin smirked, "That does always seem to be your most pressing concern."
She shrugged, "Just curious, or should I not know? Do squires get told things?"
Pausing in his delicate eating, Gavin lifted his head and stared at Hayley, "Depends upon the knight."
"Fine," Hayley rolled her eyes, "do I get told things?"
He took a slow, delicate taste of his soup. No slurping for the elegant knight — the table manners seeming to have been bred into him. After savoring his meager meal like a feast he sighed, "Depends upon you." At that she glared harder. "I expect you to prosper, for your skill to increase. It may require weapon's training three or four times a week, though I cannot always be at hand to observe."
God's holes, four times a week? Her legs were rubber, her arms burned in agony if she lifted the spoon higher than a few inches off the table. Who knew what a mass of bruises her spine was now! How in the hell could she expect to survive four days of this?
"But tomorrow shall be a light day," he said, seeming to wipe the concern off of Hayley's brow. Maybe she wasn't saddled with a monstrous slave driver after all. She pursed her lips so tight at the thought her jaw ached. Absently, Hayley's hand drew against her upper thigh when she felt the amber eyes staring into her. "You shall need it."
"Fine," she threw out, trying to distract from...she didn't even know.
The creaky door rattled awake, depositing a grinning Ania with a loaf of fresh bread and a handful of small bowls in her arms. She lay the spread out quickly, her fingers jabbing towards a trio of different colored goops. "I brought some spreads if you'd like. This is a currant jam," she directed to the blood red one, "a compote of jellied peppers," that went to the green one. "And this is..."
"Squash goo?" Hayley interrupted while eyeing up the yellow mush.
Ania smiled, "No, butter."
That one she recognized. Darting forward, Hayley dug her fingers into the heel of the bread and yanked it free. Peaks of bread prodded from the top, unhappy with their release from the mother loaf. Hayley plucked the scraps off with her fingers, greedily swallowing the rarest of rare for her — un-moldy, piping fresh bread. She stuck another crumb in when Ania waved the butter closer.
Nodding her thanks, Hayley moved to dip her finger in to pick up a slab, when Ania yanked it away. At the crunched up look Hayley gave her, the girl laughed, "Try using this instead." From out of her hands appeared a silver knife, short as a pointer finger, with some kind of fancy design on the handle. Hayley's eyes burned into it as Ania dropped the precious treasure into her fingers.
It was heavy, way heavier than it looked, which meant this thing was real. Real silver entrusted to a thief. Her neck beaded up in sweat, reminding her that she was far from alone. Digging into the butter, Hayley slathered her heel of bread in as much as she could before laying the silver knife back on the bowl's lip. She felt a sigh of relief echo through the room, no doubt both Knight and servant watching her intently — as if she'd be that careless.
Though... Hayley chewed on her bread, barely tasting this impossible feast as she bunched a hand to her chin. Something that shiny, that size...it'd get her a couple groats, maybe even a gold noble. She might be able to get herself some place out of the sewers with that kind of backing to the other gangs running through the streets.
"Elbows off the table," Gavin suddenly said, snapping Hayley awake. She sat up fast, causing both her apparently offensive elbows to slide into her lap.
"Wha...? How come?" Jamming the last of the bread into her mouth, she twisted the filthy elbow around and pointed at it. Crumbs sprayed out of her lips as she said around a bolus of bread, "Wha's wron' wif 'em?"
Her knight groaned deeply while he delicately ripped off his own hunk of bread. Despite being built like an ox everything he did was delicate. Hayley half expected him to wear nothing but silk under his clothing. For a moment the image of his muscle swamped body bound in tight white silk flashed through her brain and her cheeks lit up bright red.
Unaware of her thoughts, Gavin sighed, "Because it is not proper to eat with ones elbows on the table."
Proper this. Proper that. Hayley dug her fingers up under her hat, trying to scratch away at her scalp when she felt more glares. "Let me guess, it ain't proper to itch neither. Can one do anything at a proper table but sit like a dead fish and hope no one stabs you as the dinner?"
A giggle erupted not from Gavin, it'd shock her stone dead if he could giggle, but out of Ania. She blanched a moment when the Knight trying to teach proper eating turned his pinprick glare on the girl who didn't deserve it.
"Squire," the poor, put upon man sighed, "you will be expected to dine at the table with gentry. Lords and Ladies who have spent their entire lives around such rules. I do not tell you this to put an undue burden upon your head."
Hayley sneered, gave another itch to her scalp, then bundled both her hands in her lap. "Is that why you're so testy all the time?" she muttered to herself, causing Gavin to look over at her hoping for elaboration. "Cause you ain't a Lord?"
His eyes widened, though she couldn't tell if it was in surprise or due to him wanting to smack her upside the head. She knew enough to know people without titles didn't like being reminded of it. Gavin paused in his chewing, careful to swallow every offending crumb before speaking.
It was a softer, breathy voice that said, "Yes. The waters are often choppy for those of us not born into it." There was a lot in there, Hayley could feel it. She suddenly wanted to ask a hundred questions, but when his fiery amber stare shifted over to her, Hayley sunk deeper and shut her mouth.
"I give you a warning," Gavin said, blotting off some stew that clung to the whiskers along his jaw, "so you can prepare yourself for anything you might face."
What did it matter if she ate with her elbows on a table? In a week's time, she'd be out of here eating where there were no tables, and no one to get their knickers knotted up for her using her hands. The side of Hayley's eye swung over to the silver knife, still slathered in butter.
Clattering his hands to the table before him, Gavin said, "I have finished my meal, and it seems you have as well. I suggest you get yourself cleaned up and then to bed. Tomorrow will...be rough for your body."
"You said it was an easy day," Hayley complained, not wanting to rise away from the shiny.
"It isn't the work tomorrow that will burn through you," he said so cryptically she wanted to whack him with the bread. Standing at attention, Gavin moved towards Hayley as if he'd scoop her up and carry her out like the fighting dummy.
"Uh," she reached for his bowl and hers, slapping them together, "I'll clean up."
"That isn't necessary," Gavin began before he stared over from Hayley's arms stuffed with all the bowls to Ania watching. The girl's eyes were narrowed but she didn't say a word. "Very well," he relented. "Do you know how to clean bowls?"
"I..." Hayley wafted on her feet, her arms trying to expand to fit the mass of bowls clutched inside like a family of chicks. "I'll figure it out."
"Ania," he spoke over her head to the girl, "Could you be kind enough to show her?"
She bobbed her head and rose from the table. "Of course," frilling out her skirts Ania curtsied then reached for Hayley's mass.
"Uh," Hayley shifted away, "Not smart. I think...whoa! That one's about to! Nope, no, got it. We're all good!" She smiled wide, proud to have locked the bowls back in place.
"This way," Ania said, directing the girl trying to juggle so much through a couple of doorways. There wasn't any hearth big enough to hold a cooking pot around, but a smaller fire rested at the end of the room. To that Ania walked, rolling up the sleeves of her dress as she plucked up a bucket full of black water.
"Here..." This time Hayley let the experienced girl pick up the bowls one by one. "By the way," Ania continued, "next time it's easier to stack them all inside. See how they fit..."
Hayley nodded her head as if it was the wisest advice she'd been given today. One by one, each of the empty bowls vanished into its cold watery grave. Ania scooped the unused compotes into some larger bowl, then covered that all up safely with a towel. "If they are not eaten soon, I fear it'll be destined for the pigs. No one seems to ever want to try the pepper jelly."
The girl sounded defeated, as if every person at the estate was trying to scorn her. Sliding in quick beside, Hayley dipped her finger into the unnaturally green mass. Before she let common sense stop her dead, she jammed the goo into her mouth and swallowed. A gentle sweetness struck her first, a bit like the pickled veg sometimes found at the back of people's cabinets. Nodding her head, Hayley was about to compliment it when a fire broke out on her tongue.
Sweat burst from her bright red forehead, the flush traveling clean down her face and body. Gasping for relief, Hayley fanned at her face when Ania dunked a ladle into the water bucket. Even drinking all of that, and another two gos couldn't tamp down the fire. "That's..."
Ania laughed at Hayley's tongue burned to a cinder from the pepper's heat. Damn it! "You," Hayley sputtered, "you did that on purpose!"
Lifting her shoulder, Ania took an even greater finger dip than Hayley and swallowed it down quick. "No," she said, her lips fanned out in a great smile before a rosy burn traveled across her face to butt up right against the white mark. In a shared pain, both girls laughed at the other.
It felt nice. Hayley could remember her cynical laughs, her laughs of misfortune, her chuckles at herself or authority, but this was... It didn't matter.
Ania plunged both her hands deep into the bucket, cleaning off the bowls. Hayley stepped closer, watching. "How about I do that part?" For a beat, the girl's glowing eyes turned cautious, when Hayley jabbed to the side, "You can dry?"
That seemed to be the right answer, causing Ania to nod and smile. Just before she went to yank up a towel drying on the hearthstones, Hayley said, "Oh yeah!" Deliberately she fished into her pocket to yank out the silver knife. "Wouldn't want to forget this." Opening up her hands, she dropped the treasure into the watery grave — well aware how the girl watched it.
Hayley managed to get the bowls all scrubbed, laying each out for Ania, while she whistled to herself. It wasn't until they were nearly done that Ania interrupted the jaunty song to ask, "From where do you hail?"
"Where do I...?" she placed the silver knife safely in Ania's rubbing hands. "Oh, where do I come from. Duh. I...he picked me up at Ostmount." Hayley said it all with a breeze, turning to lean her back against the spread of drying bowls. "What about you?"
"I have not been to the city in many years," Ania didn't answer the question, at least not the one Hayley asked. She finished buffing up the silver knife and draped the towel over the hearthstones.
"So you're from Ostmount?" she tried to pick up the line of conversation.
"No," Ania for the first time showed a mass of discomfort, including her eating an entire palmful of pepper goo. Shifting in place, she bit on her lip. "I am from elsewhere."
"Oh, I know elsewhere," Hayley nodded, "It's next to the city of somewhere."
"What?"
"Round about nowhere but, you know, everyone always talks about anywhere instead."
Ania giggled at the foolishness, "You are an odd one."
"Don't I know it," Hayley shrugged. She reached out to shake Ania's hand, but in doing so accidentally flicked some of the mud from her shirt onto the pool girl's face. "Oh no!"
Yanking off the drying towels, Hayley tried to scrub off the mud splattered over her white mark, Ania batting at her hands as she shifted in place. "Wait, wait, there I got it!" Leaning back proud, Hayley moved to lay the towels down over the table, when she eyed up the mud now speckled over the filthy drying towels.
"For all the saints in..." Hayley groaned, "I am so terrible at this." To try and hide her mistake, she bundled the towel up tight in her fist.
"It's no matter, you are to bathe. Perhaps you can wash it along with yourself," Ania said, clearly looking flustered by the sudden flurry of activity.
"Oh," Hayley extended her palm, once again revealing the mud splattered cloth inside, "that's a great idea!"
"Here," Ania stepped quickly towards the door, "I will show you to the baths for your wash-up."
When the girl's back turned to her, Hayley slipped her hand into her pocket. She shifted the sleeve a bit until the silver knife dropped safely into her possession.