When the girl disappeared inside the house, Colm let out the breath he had unconsciously been holding. The girl certainly didn't look dangerous or unusual. Just an ordinary girl.
Why are we coming to collect her to take her to the king if she's just an ordinary girl? The question niggled at the back of his mind. And why does Sir Ardál seem so nervous?
The knight was renowned for his bravery in the Fae Battles, and Colm had always known him to be a silent, stern man of little emotion. And yet now, standing outside a thatched-roof cottage by an apple orchard, Sir Ardál was shifting his weight from foot to foot and rubbing his hands together like a nervous schoolboy about to be chastised by the teacher.
That was enough to unnerve Colm immensely. His mouth dried, his palms started to sweat, and he found himself wishing that he was back working for the horse trader who called himself an adoptive father but acted as a taskmaster. When Sir Ardál had taken him on as a squire, Colm had promised himself that he would always, always be brave. And now on his first real quest, he was a sweaty, panicking disaster.
His panic was interrupted by the soft sound of the wooden door swinging open, which instinctively made him take a step back. Sir Ardál's shoulders were tensed, and Colm prepared to launch himself away from whatever attack was to come...
And out of the doorway stepped a woman, dressed in a simple brown linen tunic and soft leather shoes. She looked nothing like the noblewomen Colm had always admired from afar at feasts; she had no adornments, no powder on her face or bangles and bracelets at her wrists.
Her curly chestnut hair was pulled back from her face with a green ribbon, but soft ringlets had escaped and were tossed about in the spring breeze. She was tall for a woman, as tall as Colm even in her bare feet, and her loose dress gave little hint as to the figure underneath. And though he was a young man on the cusp of adulthood and had lusted after women before, Colm felt nothing of the sort for this woman in front of him. He simply stood in awe of her, his worries form a few moments ago forgotten.
His reverie was broken by Sir Ardál's voice. "Where's the boy?"
The woman frowned, and spread her hands out wide. "Do you see a boy here? He's been gone for years." Her forehead creased with lines when she replied, and Colm realized that she was older than he had first imagined. "Surely you knew that already, Aron."
Wait, "the boy" is gone? Is he the one we were supposed to come and collect?
Colm glanced quickly at the knight to see his response, but caught his breath at the sight of Sir Ardál's eyes brimming with tears. "Aye. I didn't know, but I suspected." He nodded solemnly. "Don't know where he's gone to, do you?"
The woman shook her head. "It's better not knowing."
Ardál nodded again, and was silent.
Colm stood holding the reins of the horses, transfixed by the scene in front of him. The knight and the woman stood a few steps apart; Sir Ardál, so large and strong, the man Colm had admired for the last six years, looked utterly defeated and powerless. This unknown, beautiful woman stood with her arms across her chest, her expression unreadable but her words filled with... Anger? No, not anger. Something else.
"And now you've come for the girl?" Ardál's silence was only a confirmation, and the woman buried her face in her hands. Colm thought she must be crying, yet when she uncovered her face, there were no tears, only the same, unreadable expression.
The chestnut mare whickered and pulled towards the woman. Her eyes widened when they fell on Colm and the horses. She hadn't even realized I was here, he thought.
Mouth twisted into a humorless smile, she turned back to Ardál. "You couldn't come to face me on your own? Had to bring your backup?" Her volume rose, and the knight seemed to shrink even further, his eyes downcast. "Fine, then, come in and take her."
She turned and walked back into the cottage, leaving the door swinging open behind her.
Ardál cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. Colm was struck with the sudden realization that the knight was genuinely afraid. The fearless Sir Ardál was struck mute and unmoving by this chestnut-haired woman, armorless and weaponless.
The squire stood rooted to the ground where he stood, unable to lift a foot or say a word. It wasn't witchcraft that bound him to the spot. For the whole sixteen years of his life, he had belonged to someone; to a farmer, to a horse trader, to a knight. They had always told him what to do, and he had always trusted that their commands would be there. Now, when no commands came, he could do nothing.
The chestnut mare whinnied softly and pulled Colm towards the house. In a daze, Colm stumbled, his leather boots crushing blades of young meadow grass underfoot.
The sound of the horses was enough to break Ardál from his trance. He turned to look at Colm, his eyes still watering with tears. Colm looked away. It was always better, he had found, to say and do nothing when uncertain.
"You heard her, boy. Tie up the horses so we can go inside."
She was right. He doesn't want to go by himself. Colm said nothing, he merely nodded and wound the horse's reins around a the trunk of a small, spindly tree that stood near the home. In his daze, he failed to notice the thorns that covered the trunk and flinched away as one pricked his thumb. A bright droplet of blood welled up before he brushed it on the leg of his trousers.
The horses happily continued cropping the meadow grass with their teeth, oblivious to the tension in the air. Colm followed Sir Ardál to the doorway. They stood in the sunlight for a few moments, saying nothing. And then, with a deep sigh, Ardál stepped forward into the cottage, Colm following a step behind.
The interior of the cottage was not as dark as Colm had thought. Sunlight still streamed in through the open doorway and windows onto the packed-earth floor. There was a fireplace in the corner with a chimney that rose up through the thatched roof, the walls around it blackened with soot and smoke. A few braids of shriveled onions and garlic hung from the timbers of the ceiling, the very last remains of last year's harvest. Bunches of dried lavender, mint, and other herbs Colm couldn't name hung in swaths along the walls, perfuming the air with a sweet, herbal smell.
There was a small, roughly-hewn wooden table on the wall opposite the fireplace, one stool on either side. One was occupied by the girl, the other by the woman. No visitors stopping over for tea on the regular, then, Colm thought.
The girl stood as soon as they entered and moved to sit in the patch of sunlight that came through one of the windows. "Willow," the woman said. "Won't you get our guests something from the garden? Some of the strawberries have ripened."
Colm blinked, for it was still much too early for strawberries. The girl—Willow—obediently traipsed back through the doorway.
"Come now, Aron. You can have a seat, at least."
Why does she keep calling him that? They obviously know each other. Colm stood by the door, trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. If they forgot he was there, after all, they wouldn't ask him to leave. This might not be a witch-hunt, but his curiosity was proving to get the best of him.
"You're confusing my squire." Sir Ardál sat gingerly on the stool, his back turned towards Colm.
The woman laughed humorlessly. "Pardon me, Sir Ardál, hero of the Fae Battles. Whatever brings you to our humble cottage, other than to steal my daughter away from me?"
It was the girl, then? Not this beautiful woman that had rendered the greatest knight in the kingdom speechless, but the girl who was common enough to have been plucked out of any kingdom street?
"You've not made great efforts to hide her, after all." Colm couldn't see Ardál's expression, but his voice was firmer than it had been just a few minutes ago. "Maybe if you hadn't been sending your apples to the kingdom markets when the rest of the country was suffering from the worst case of blight in a century, no one would have known and I wouldn't have been forced to come for her."
The woman laughed again. "Forced? Forced, were you? By who, the great and mighty King Odhran?" She leaned forward towards Ardál, who shrunk again in his chair. "There was a time when you didn't care what he asked you to do."
"Things change. You know that."
The woman sighed, resting her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. "Of course it would be... The damn apples. It wasn't on purpose, you know. I didn't realize the blight in the rest of the country was so bad until it was too late. I should've burnt the damn things and let us eat bark and grass for the winter, had I known."
She leaned forward, placing her hands over Ardál's. "Could you tell him we were gone? That we'd gone, that the cottage was long empty and we'd fled into the Shrouds?" Her voice, so strong and harsh moments ago, lowered to a plaintive murmur. "You could even come with us, Aron. Your squire too, if he wanted."
There was silence in the home but for sound of the wind and birds chirping outside. Colm could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. It pounded in his thumb where the thorn had pricked him, but he dared not move to wipe the blood on his trousers for fear that the noise would interrupt the moment. He felt a deep sense of guilt wash over him. The woman was mad, talking about them going into the Shrouds, but he knew this meeting between Ardál and the mysterious woman should have been a private one. Colm was an intruder, eavesdropping on a conversation that should never have been heard.
"Colm. Go check on the horses." It was as though Sir Ardál had read his mind.
Colm did not hesitate. Desperate for the permission to escape, he ducked back through the door and into the full sunlight.
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