The Lady at the River's Edge

32 - Spring Winds

The knight was gone when she woke.

Panic seized her. The pack, all their things–only her gown, hose and shoes remained where she had left them before sleeping. These she pulled on before rushing outside into a blinding morning.

The settlement was already bustling, women washing and scouring in the stream, some children put to braiding reeds while others ran and played underfoot. A party was setting out on bare horseback up the valley, a man was berating a woman over breakfast. None of it stuck in her mind, lost as quickly as the eye could move. She seized upon the first familiar face: Hitvand stood stirring a pot over a fire, perhaps twenty paces away, which Erzsebet crossed in the span of a breath.

"Janos, my man–where is he?" she asked. The woman jerked back at her accosting, eyes widening. She gave no answer, only shaking her head. "You haven't seen him at all this morning?" Erzsebet pressed. Hitvand only kept cowering back, shaking her head, until Erzsebet finally threw up her hands and moved on in her search.

She was met with similarly unhelpful responses from everyone she asked, few daring to speak even a word in answer, as if she were a loon babbling in an inhuman tongue. Her mind was a flurry of self-accusations: she had driven him off, she had tempted him with a taste and then shut the lid of the honey jar–she was a temptress, a slattern, all the cruel words heaped upon women who were anything less than saintly. As much as the guilt wrung her heart, anger roared through her too, damning Janos as a pig, a false knight who cared nothing for her save what lay between her legs. She was well rid of the cur, though thinking as much did nothing to slow her search.

Little was hidden in the pagan hamlet, so wide were the tents spread, so small their stature. It took only some minutes for her to have looked upon all of the people there and be sure that Janos was not among them. He must have snuck out in the dead of night, else he would have been stopped. But no, why would anyone stop him? This was no royal city, with gates guarded and every passerby questioned.

Oh, her mind was tangled, her chest tightening with every breath. Such was the height of her panic that, when she glimpsed a well-known figure stepping out from one of the tents, she did not even recognize him until he caught sight of her and waved.

There was Janos, calm as ever, striding towards her with his pack over his shoulder. "Good morning, my lady," he said brightly, but his brows soon furrowed. "Is something wrong?"

"Wrong?" she replied. "Wrong? Where were you? Why did you disappear, taking all our things with you? No warning–what were you doing in there?" She peered at the tent from which he had come, where now one of the local men was now exiting, looking eminently satisfied–wearing a hood of ringmail atop his head.

Janos looked back, following her gaze, and gave a quiet chuckle at the sight. "Apologies, my lady. I was trading. You were sleeping so deeply, I didn't want to rouse you."

"You traded your armor?" she asked, incredulity distracting from her outrage. "Are we out of silver already?"

"He didn't want silver," Janos replied, shrugging. "No use for it here, I suppose. I didn't trade all my armor though, my lady, just the coif. And look: days worth of cured meat! I daresay I came out alright in the bargain, despite the circumstances." He held the pack open to her, revealing slices upon slices of smoked meat, cuts of odd size and differing colors, all wrapped in sweetgrass. Pleased as he was, he tempered his pride enough to recall her earlier worry. "But I am sorry to have troubled you, my lady. Had I parchment I would have left a note, but..."

"Just wake me next time, Janos," she grumbled, relief and irritation both vying for expression. "Sleep is not so important to me."

"Understood, my lady," he said, bowing. "Now, would you take breakfast?"