My Envied Lady: Chapter 3

Chapter 3
It was Peewit, without Biquette and looking like he'd been through a battle himself, shouting something about a wounded girl in the woods. Behind him, a pair of serfs struggled to lead a very distressed-looking ox pulling a cart behind them.

"What trouble have you gotten yourself into now?" Johan sighed as he ran to the gatehouse.

"Merchant girl…hurt…in the field...shot…have to help her…"

"Take a breath, Peewit! What are you talking about?" Johan said, getting a flask of water for Peewit to drink. After Peewit downed the whole thing, he told the story of finding the caravan destroyed, and the strange young woman on the deer trail nearby, and Biquette running off.

Hearing that a girl had been shot so near the scene of their battle filled Johan with unease. They had not seen or heard anyone all last night, and they had checked the area thoroughly. Nobody traveled on the roads anymore, especially not a young woman alone; that was part of the reason for last night's ruse. Had they accidentally shot an innocent traveler in the heat of battle? Or were there more highwaymen in the woods still? Why did they have a girl, was she a prisoner?

That thought weighed on Johan's mind as made his way past the guards and looked in the back of the cart. He had Peewit alert the King and the court healer that another casualty was on its way.

The girl lay on a cloak and was just as injured as Peewit had described. Johan noticed with a sinking feeling that the arrows in her side looked exactly like the ones that came out of the royal armory; she  had  been caught in the crossfire last night. Why was she there? How had she evaded the wolves? Could she be their mysterious handler? No – this girl was too petite, and she appeared to be about the same age as Sabina. She was also unarmed. The guards lifted her gently out of the cart using her cloak as a stretcher. Johan thanked the peasants, and they carried her to the healer's chambers.

Overwhelmed with so many mysteries at once, the King decided it would be worthwhile to summon smurfs for insight into what was going on, and for medicines. They were tiny, secretive, human-like creatures who lived in a remote land of forested mountains called the Cursed Country. It took weeks of difficult travel for humans to reach this country (if they were able to find it at all,) but smurfs could make the trip in hours when they wanted to, as they were also the keepers long-forgotten magic.

Gilbert the healer was able to remove the arrows from the girl and suture the stab wound, but he could not say if she would live, and for now the she slept in his chamber, guarded and drugged with poppy juice. The mauled guard did not recover.

Johan had been ordered to get some rest, and after the day he'd had, he did not argue. Count Tremaine went with a party to look for the black wolf and inspect the remains of the caravan. Until the girl woke up or the smurfs arrived to investigate, there was nothing he could do anyway. Peewit had gone to get "a bite" to eat and then to retrieve Biquette and the lute he dropped, so Johan went to read under a grape trellis in one of the gardens. Best to stay out of sight when Peewit returned to debut the new epic ballad he kept talking about.

Princess Sabina could not concentrate on the tapestry. There was too much excitement, too much anxiety in the air. She was supposed to be laying out a gentle pastoral scene, but her mind kept straying to archery, to wolves, and to Johan. He was back from a disastrous fight in the forest, but he had been injured. She fidgeted and her eyes landed on the prayerbooks sitting on her table.

"Oh! I forgot to return those books to my uncle's library! May I take them back, please?" she asked her governess, an elderly noblewoman named Dame Barbara, who was busy laying out a section of the same tapestry.

"You've barely completed anything since you started. We'll never finish this before the banquet at the pace you're going...Still, it isgood to see you finally taking care of your uncle's things. You may go, but please hurry straight back!"

Most families in Hauvon would consider themselves lucky to own a single book, much less a whole library of them, providing they could read at all. Despite this, Sabina showed little regard for the books her uncle owned, often dropping them on tables as if they were bundles of firewood and leaning her elbows on the delicate pages, which Barbara had scolded her for more than once. The princess thanked her governess, grabbed the books, and hurried out of her suite, towards her uncle's rooms where the books were. He was at his desk, writing something.

"Uncle, may I borrow these books a little longer? I have Dame Barbara's permission..."

"You did lose the Song of Roland last time I let you keep books too long."

"I promise it won't happen again! Please?"

"Oh, I suppose. It's good that you take an interest in your religous studies," her uncle said, not taking his eyes off the letter he was writing. Sabina turned around and faced the shelf behind her. Between the heavy leatherbound tomes with their heavy brass latches sat a slim, worn volume about the size of the palm of a man's hand. Excitement welled up in her as she stealthily slipped the book off the shelf and between the prayerbooks, where it was mostly hidden from view.

"Thank you, Uncle!"

Johan was just drifting off when he heard a rustling sound, and a soft, familiar voice whisper his name. It was Sabina. She peeked her face around the trellis and sat down in the dirt next to him, ignoring the fact that her pale pink dress would probably get stained. She held an armful of books. Johan watched her settle into a comfortable position. She was a beautiful girl, ivory skinned and shapely, with red hair that took on a golden cast in the midday sunlight.

"I saw you were hurt when you came back with the wolves, but they wouldn't let me near, and Dame Barbara made me go back to my room…" She said, taking a look at the sling. Johan looked pale and tired. "Are you going to be all right? Look, I got the fencing manual from my uncle's library again," She said, pulling the slim book from between the thicker ones.

"I'll be fine, Sabina. I just need to rest my arm. But I'm afraid I won't be able to do much fencing or archery for a while."

"You're safe now, and your arm will heal, that's what's important," she said, and glanced around. "I'm supposed to be weaving right now but with all the excitement no one can keep their mind on anything. I've been dying to hear what happened. I heard Peewit found a girl in the woods?"

Johan told her about the attack, about his theories on why wolves were attacking merchants for no good reason, and how Peewit had ended up the hero by bringing back a mysterious young girl. She listened with undivided attention, her elbows propped on the books in her lap. Sabina hated ladylike pursuits, but unfortunately as the King's niece, and also his heir apparent, those were the skills she would need to polish for when she became Queen. That didn't stop Johan from teaching her to do manly things whenever she could slip away from her tutors and overbearing governess.

And Johan always made time to teach her whenever he could. When he'd met her years before, she was a frightened child who had just lost both her parents. He had just recently lost his mother, and his father had sent him to Pepin's court to be fostered. The two became close friends, and as Sabina grew into a lovely young woman, his feelings of friendship grew into something more. Not that he could admit this to anyone or act on it, though he suspected she felt the same way. Rumor had it she would soon be betrothed to a prince, and he was still only a squire, the son of a knight errant and a minor noblewoman. He was nowhere close to her station. It didn't stop him from thinking about her more often than he should.

"You won't be able to show me what to do, but you can still instruct me, Johan," she said after he had finished. "And considering that my Uncle has said he isn't going to let you run off on any adventures for a while, you'll have plenty of time. Besides, the Spring Joust is coming, and we need to prepare for that."

"You know they're going to tell you can't enter any of the contests this year, just like last year," Johan chided her. It was true, but her vivaciousness was one of the things he adored about her.

She crossed her arms. "We'll see. Do you think you'll be recovered enough to compete?"

"I think so. I…"

"Hey, there you guys are!" rang Peewit's voice, accompanied by the sound of Biquette crashing through the garden. She nibbled on some flower bushes and Peewit ran over to the trellis. Johan looked annoyed.

"Bad news. My lute got smashed accidentally by one of Count Tremaine's men. I can't sing my new ballad tonight." It was true, it almost looked as if it'd been stomped on.

"Oh, that's too bad," Said Sabina, trying to hide a smile. "Say, we were discussing the Spring Joust and Fair and wondered…"

"Don't worry, Princess, I have another song I just learned, from a Hermit I met on my last journey. Want to hear? It can be sung just by itself and it's very catchy!"

Johan and Sabina looked at each other, each at a loss and too polite to stop him. Peewit took that as a cue to continue, and belted out a song about a man named Henry who married a widow who had been married to seven other men, all named Henry.

"If the second verse is the same as the first, you don't really need to continue…"

"Peewit, did you really learn such a thing from a Holy Man?" Johan asked after it became apparent this song could go on forever. Thankfully, a Page rescued them by announcing that the King wanted to see them in private. Apparently the smurfs had arrived.