The Art of Stealing Time

TWELVE

I muttered to myself as I hurried along the aisle to my tent, where I found Marigold waiting with my shiny new armor.

“Stupid, conceited man. Oh, hi, Marigold.”

“Lady Gwen. Who is stupid and conceited?”

“Doug. Er . . . whatever the name is of the guy who’s in charge.”

She looked startled for a moment, but evidently decided it was better to stick to business. She held up the lovely metal skirt. “Master says that if it doesn’t fit, she will have to add another row of teardrops.”

“Oh, that’s truly beautiful.” I examined the additional bit that Antoinette had to put on to fit my girth. The addition was woven seamlessly into the existing skirt. “She does lovely work.”

Ten minutes later I was clad in what amounted to quilted long johns to prevent injury, a mail shirt, and the lovely floral teardrop skirt, a metal breastplate, and matching arm and shin protection.

“This is almost too pretty to wear,” I told Marigold as I left my tent. “I’d hate to get it scratched or dented.”

“You bear the Nightingale of Dawn,” she said, handing me the now-cleaned sword. “Surely you would not wield such a sword as that if you were unable to keep others from striking you.”

“Yeah,” I drawled slowly, deciding it was better that I not go into the whole thing about me not being an actual warrior. “Here’s hoping my tongue is faster than my sword.”

She looked confused, but I just thanked her for her help and marched off to the battleground. There were no large men lurking around the edges of the camp, so I assumed that the guards had either captured them or driven them off. I encountered no one as I made my way to the slight hill that sat smack-dab under the roiling red center of the sky. A lone figure was there waiting for me.

“Hello,” I called out conversationally as I approached. “My name is Gwen.”

“Oooh,” was the reply. I couldn’t see the person’s face, since a helmet obscured the sight of it, but the voice was definitely female. “You aren’t supposed to tell me your name, are you?”

“I’m a substitute warrior,” I said, stopping at the top of the hill to consider my opponent. She sounded reasonable enough. “So everyone knows my name. What’s yours?”

“Peaseblossom.” She lifted a mailed hand. “Um. I’m new, so you’ll have to tell me how we start. Do I just begin hacking away, or do you get first swing since you are the senior warrior?”

I would have slumped in relief, but the gorgeous armor gave me very good posture. I did, however, relax mentally. “Oh, mercy, no. How about we chat for a bit, so we can get to know one another, and then we’ll get around to the actual fighting. Peaseblossom is an interesting name. Was your mother a fan of Midsummer Night’s Dream?”

“I don’t think so,” she said, pulling off her helm. Her face was red and sweaty from being confined in the helmet. “You have very pretty armor.”

“Isn’t it nice?” I modeled it, turning around so she could admire the intricate mail skirt. “Antoinette said it was made for the queen but she never showed up to claim it, so I get to wear it for a bit. It’s a lot lighter than you’d think it would be.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re wearing the queen’s armor? My leaves and twigs! You must be a very great warrior indeed. I am honored with the opportunity to meet you in battle, although I fear that my inexperience will shame me.”

“Bah,” I said, swaggering just a little as I strolled around the top of the mound. I waggled my sword in what I hoped was a casual manner. “I’m the same as anyone else. So, whereabouts are you from?”

“Is that the Nightingale?” She pointed a shaky finger to my sword. I thought for a moment she might hyperventilate. “You wear the queen’s armor and bear Lady Dawn’s sword? I am doomed! Doomed!”

“Not if we don’t actually fight,” I said in a low voice.

“We must fight! It is what we have sworn to do.”

“Actually, I didn’t swear to fight . . .”

“But you are a warrior of Aaron. It is your duty to protect the name of your lord.”

“About that . . . look, I’ll level with you—the truth is that I don’t want to get this armor damaged. It’s just too pretty, and Antoinette had to do a rush job on the skirt and all. So why don’t we just sit and chat away our shift? That way no one will get her armor scratched, and no one will be doomed.”

“We are warriors,” she said stubbornly, but with less vigor. “We are meant to fight. It would be wrong to disregard our duty.”

“I think so long as we’re up here for the full length of our time no one is going to care. Or notice. See? Everyone in your camp is over at the picnic tables having dinner.” She turned to look where I was pointing. “No one is so much as glancing our way.”

She bit her lower lip, considering this. “I cannot hold up my head knowing that my sword did not even touch yours—”

“Easily enough done,” I said, hefting the Nightingale. “We can bash the swords together a few times, and then you can say, in all honesty, that we did our warriorly thing.”

After a minute’s silence, she blurted out, “I will agree, but only on one condition.”

“Oh?” I was wary of what that might be. “And that is?”

“I would dearly love to fight like someone who is as great as you. Would you teach me a few things?”

It would take a better person than me not to be flattered by her admiration. The knowledge that I had less skill than she did was not, however, something I was going to admit. “Sure thing. Go ahead and hit my sword—carefully, because it’s pretty, too—a couple of times, and I’ll teach you a few things, and then we can have a nice chat.”

Her sword, a great big beast of a weapon, had been placed in a wooden stand meant for holding spare weapons while combatants beat the crap out of each other. She struggled to lift it up and out of the stand, finally getting it free. The tip immediately dropped to the ground with a scraping sound that had me wincing on behalf of the finely honed blade edge. “It’s . . . it’s a bit heavy,” she said, panting as she tried to heave the sword up.

I watched her for a few minutes, grunting and sweating, before I took pity. “That sword is way too big for you.”

“I know, but it was all that Sir Colorado had. He said he would have a smaller one made for me, but that I could use this one today.” She rubbed at her palm, making a pained face. “Now I have a blister.”

“That’s a sign that we should just call this good and get down to the chatting part of the battle.”

“I would never be able to hold my head up if we didn’t clash swords,” she said in a pathetic voice.

“Yes, but you can’t even lift your sword.”

She stared at me in mute appeal.

I sighed.

“If anyone had ever told me that one day I’d find myself on the top of a minute battlefield in the afterlife, having to fight with swords, I’d have declared them to be certifiable.” I held out the Nightingale with one hand, grunting as I heaved up her sword in the other hand, and banged their blades together a few times.

“There.” I put her sword back on the rack and put mine into the sheath that was strapped to my back. “Now we chat.”

“All right, but you have to show me some of your moves later,” she said, sitting cross-legged on the red dirt.

“Done. Have you seen my mothers in Ethan’s camp?”

“Would that be Lady Magdalena and Lady Alice?”

“That’s them. I take it they’re OK?”

“Oh, yes. They are housed in Mistress Eve’s tent, which is right next to Lord Ethan’s, since Mistress Eve used to be his . . . er . . .” Peaseblossom blushed and leaned forward to say in a whisper, “His leman.”

“His . . . oh. His girlfriend? Before Holly, I assume.”

“Yes. Your mothers have been making plentiful spells, and Lord Ethan is very happy because he has witches and Lord Aaron does not.”

“What kind of spells?” I asked suspiciously.

“All sorts,” she answered, waving a hand. “Spells to turn baked goods into other baked goods—”

“Ah, the infamous plain doughnut to frosted chocolate doughnut spell. I know it well.” I was relieved. If my moms were doing only minor magic, then they couldn’t get themselves into trouble.

“Yes, those are most popular. And spells to sweeten the smell of the latrine.”

“Fresh-air spells are always useful.”

“Especially on days when the cooks make chili,” she agreed. “And then there’s the spell to increase the prowess of the manly arts.”

“Just between you and me, that one owes any success to the belief in the man using it rather than any actual magic,” I told her. “Even my moms are the first ones to admit that there’s no way they can beef up a man’s . . . er . . . bits with magic. But the silly men think they can, and that makes them feel better about themselves, and everyone’s happy.”

“Is the old woman who is with your mothers also a relation?”

“Mrs. Vanilla? Not really. I assume she’s staying with my moms?”

“Yes. She is knitting a coat for Lord Ethan’s horse.”

“A horse blanket, you mean?”

“No,” she said blithely. “A coat. It has lapels and pockets.”

I let that go, feeling that the less comment about Mrs. Vanilla, the better. We chatted for a few more minutes, but Peaseblossom had nothing to say that gave me cause for concern. So it was that I spent the next hour and forty minutes teaching the pleasant Peaseblossom everything I’d learned a few hours before.

Master Hamo would have been proud.

“It was a pleasure meeting you,” I told her, shaking her hand once our time was officially over.

“Likewise. I will see you tomorrow night. Perhaps there will be more you can teach me?” The last was said so wistfully that I knew I’d have no problem talking her out of fighting again.

“I’m sure I can. See you then.”

I made my way back to the center of the camp, where Aaron’s men had arranged a bunch of wooden tables around a huge bonfire. The light from the latter danced along the front of Doug’s big tent, casting long shadows as my fellow warriors and all the support members of the camp ate, drank, laughed, and sang in the way that people do when they’re out camping.

“Lady Gwen. I am pleased to say that we’ve found you a squire. Seith, come forward and meet your lady and take her sword.” Doug strolled out of his tent to greet me, waving toward the bonfire and the accompanying crowd. One small, dark form scurried out.

A boy of about eleven or twelve considered me with large pale gray eyes that were startling against his swarthy skin and the shock of black hair that hung down over his forehead in spikes. He reminded me of an anime character come to life.

“Seith?” I repeated. It meant “seven” in Welsh. “Are you a seventh son?”

“Of a sixth son,” he said with a nod.

“Missed being special by just one son,” Doug commented in an aside to me. “Seith is actually my child. Stop staring at the lady and take her sword, lad, lest she lose her temper with you.”

“Whoa now,” I said when the kid hurried forward to take the Nightingale from me. “I do not lose my temper with children. And even if I did, I’m not going to hit him or anything. I don’t believe in violence.”

“You are a warrior of Aaron,” Doug pointed out, making a gesture that had his son hurrying off with my sword.

“Aside from that, I’m just here for a week. You have six other sons?”

“Ten sons, fourteen daughters,” Doug answered, taking me by the elbow and escorting me to the fire.

“You must have an amazing wife.” I put a little extra emphasis on that last word to remind him that he should be ashamed of hitting on me when he had a family already.

“Wives plural. I’ve had eight of them. The last one divorced me two years ago. I am currently sans spouse.” He looked steadily at me.

“Wow. That’s a hell of a record to have going against you. Ooh, is that salmon?”

It was salmon, and I managed to get a plate of it and accompanying rice and veggies without Doug making any more overt references to something that just wasn’t going to happen. I settled down at a table to enjoy my dinner.

“Ah, here comes the entertainment,” Doug said from behind me.

I turned, my mouth full of delicious planked salmon, and almost choked when a troupe of about ten women in a pornographer’s idea of harem outfits flitted into the camp, nipples flashing, silken scarves flying, and catcalls from my fellow warriors filling the night air.

“Holy sh— That’s the entertainment?” I had to grab my plate to save it when one of the nearly naked women leaped onto the table and began to undulate her way down it, much to the pleasure of the men around me.

Doug reached out and caressed the woman’s (mostly bare) breast. “Yes, indeed.” He stopped fondling her to glance down at me with a leer. “You prefer male company instead?”

“For the last time, I am not interested in you—”

“We have dancing boys, as well as girls,” Doug interrupted, waving a hand to my left, his attention elsewhere as one of the women began a move that I can only describe as using his leg as a stripper pole.

I looked away. “Wow. So you do. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an actual dancing boy before. They really can dance, can’t they?”

“I’m told their buttocks are divine,” Doug said, smiling down at the woman who was twining her slightly clad self around him. “I have no interest in male buttocks, so I couldn’t judge, but I trust you will come to a decision on that matter.”

I considered the well-oiled specimens of male dancers’ behinds, clearly visible since they wore basically G-strings and not a lot else, and decided that interesting though the subject was, I had probably better take myself off before things got too rowdy.

“Would madam care for a prostitute?” A soft voice next to me asked as I picked up my cup and plate. A small, balding man held a notebook, with pen poised over the paper. “Male or female? The rates are the same for both sexes, if that makes a difference.”

“It doesn’t, and, no, thank you.”

“Perhaps madam would like a complimentary ten-minute preview? We allow those for very important persons. You may use your ten minutes as you like, either in flogging your prostitute, having him (or her, if madam swings that way) engage in acts of an oral nature, or even trying out a sample of the prostitute’s sexual methodology—”

I escaped before the man could go any further. I felt oily just by association, and hurried back to my tent with my plate, where I found Seith sitting outside.

“Hungry?” I asked him.

He nodded. I gave him my plate.

“Doesn’t your dad feed you?”

“Aye, but I’m always hungry. Dad says I’d eat his horse if he let me.” The boy shrugged, then scarfed down the salmon and veggies.

“Well, enjoy. You wouldn’t happen to know where I can take a bath, would you?” I rubbed my arms. Even through the mail, my skin felt dirty.

“Ladies have baths in their tents. The men use the stream.” He got to his feet, cheeks stuffed, chipmunk-style, with food. Little bits of rice flew out as he said indistinctly, “I’ll fetch it for you.”

“That would be lovely, thank you.” I entered the tent and began to unhook all the armor and mail strapped to my body, wondering where Gregory was and whether he would manage to find me before the night was over.

I certainly hoped so. I had many things to tell him . . . and more things to do to him.