WAKING UP
The sky pulsed in and out, a dizzying, shattered image. Conn blinked to clear his vision. His head ached. He could barely see. He tried to move, to wriggle his toes, but he was numb. He couldn't feel his body.
“What..?” he croaked. “Where am I?”
His legs were cramped and aching, his hands numb. He sat up, wincing as the feeling returned to his limbs. His feet had long ago lost their feeling. He could hear birds calling and smell loam and dew.
“I'm outside.”
With the smell and sounds came memory. He was in the woodlands just off the estate. He had fought with the Comte's man, trying to save Leona.
Leona.
Sudden panic laced through him. Conn staggered to his feet, spitting and coughing as his stomach roiled in nausea. He stumbled toward the trees, the ground still churned with hoof-tracks in the mud. He followed them a little way, knowing it was futile.
“They will have been gone for hours now!”
He swore under his breath. Leona and her captors were long gone. He had to get to Cleremont. He had to save Leona.
“But how?”
He shook his head, feeling absolutely helpless. Here he was, in the forest in Annecy in France, about a mile's walk from the village. He had no money, no supplies, nothing. No idea of where Cleremont was. And he spoke no French.
“It has to be done,” he said, sighing. Leona needed him, and that was all he knew. Everything else would resolve itself. It had to.
Wincing as his head spun, hissing in pain as his feet touched the path, Conn limped onward. As he walked toward the road, he made his plans.
I ought to go back to Annecy. Ask Leona's uncle for help.
As he thought about that possibility, it came to him that it was a bad idea.
Why would he do anything to help us?
If Leona's uncle had not supported the Comte, she could not have been abducted from his home. Her uncle favored the Comte He would not intercede on her behalf. Especially not because Conn asked him. The thought was repellant, but he had to believe it. Her uncle knew full well what had happened. There was no help to be found back there in Annecy.
All I can do is go forward.
His feet joined the cobbled road, and he headed back the way he had come; walking to the village of Annecy. The morning was still frosty, despite the approach of summer and the sunny heavens above. He crossed his arms, tucking his hands into his armpits for warmth, and headed down the hill.
After half an hour or walking along the roadside, he found his feet heading down a slope. Below him in the slight valley, he could see thatched roofs and, a little distant, a church spire that climbed up skyward. The woodlands opened into fields as he reached the valley bottom, and he could hear people, carts, and somewhere a dog, barking.
I'm in Annecy.
Conn felt his cold face lift in a smile. He couldn't quite believe he had managed to find it again.
It felt as if he was making progress on his quest for Leona. Here he was, in the village. All he had to do now was find information.
Knowing he couldn't actually ask questions, knowing that suspicion and mistrust would probably be all he received for his pains, he walked on. Something would happen. He had faith.
He found an inn. At least, he guessed it to be an inn: An iron sign swung outside the thatched, whitewashed house, the symbol of a haystack and a flower wrought in the iron. The words below it said “La Fleur de Annecy.”
He shrugged. It was all meaningless to him. He rolled up his sleeve, knocked on the stout wooden door.
A woman answered it. She smiled at Conn, and Conn blushed, feeling embarrassed.
“Hello...” he said.
Her smile changed to a frown and she withdrew a little. “Pardon?”
Conn raised his shoulders in a shrug, smiled helplessly. “Is this an inn?”
“Je ne comprende,” she said, slowly drawing the door shut.
“No! Please!” Conn said urgently. He ran forward, stuck his foot in the door.
“Bertrand!” the woman shouted urgently. He heard a man's footsteps coming down the stairs, found himself confronted by a tall, heavily built man with a scowl on his suntanned face.
“Que faites-vous?”
“Please,” Conn said, smiling a little desperately. “I didn't want to hurt anyone.” An idea came to his head and he raised his hands, stepping back in what he hoped was a gesture of surrender.
“Je....va...a Cleremont,” he managed to say. I go to Cleremont.
The man and the woman looked at each other, and then looked at him. The man shrugged.
“Que faites-vous la?”
Conn shrugged again. Repeated his statement. “Je va a Cleremont.”
The man threw a glance at his wife, a wide-eyed look that seemed to convey Conn was lacking in the wits. Then he gave a sigh. “Quel est votre travail?”
“I beg your pardon?”
The man threw up his hands in exasperation. “Travail! Travail...” He bent over, mimed raking hay, beating with a hammer, digging. “Travail.” He repeated it again, looking hopefully at Conn.
“Oh! Work!” Conn beamed, the idea suddenly settling into his mind. “I fight.”
He patted his sword, mimed waving it around. The man looked startled, then grinned.
“Il est un Chevalier,” he announced to his wife. “Bienvenue.”
Conn blinked, startled, as the man held out his hand and stepped back, waving him ahead into the doorway beyond. Conn inclined his head. “Thank you, sir. Thank you ever so much.”
He felt his heart soar. He had overcome the first obstacle: finding an inn. He had also, after a long hard fight to do it, understood something someone asked of him. And he had learned a word. Travail. Work. He wondered what they had understood his profession to be.
He dismissed the question when the innkeeper's wife appeared, bearing a basket of loaves. He smiled at her. “My lady,” he said softly. “I would like to tell you that you are an angel.”
She smiled, clearly understanding nothing he said, apart from his tone. She blushed and giggled, then placed a loaf on a table and waved Conn to it. “Etre assis.”
Conn assumed she meant him to sit down, and he did so. She beamed happily. Conn smiled back wordlessly. “Thank you,” he said again.
When she appeared again with a jug of ale and a dish of soup, he started to feel anxious. He had nothing with which to pay them for their hospitality.
Mayhap I can work for it.
Deciding that the payment would take care of itself, he broke the small, crusty loaf and dipped it in the soup, then ate heartily. He was starving.
When the meal was almost finished, he heard people start to come into the dining room. A slow procession of farmers, carters and blacksmiths entered, taking places at the tables, chattering excitedly among themselves. One or two of them glanced his way, brows raised. The innkeeper's wife gave these a stern glare, said something which Conn took to mean to leave him in peace, and then chattered away to the next customers.
As Conn finished his meal and stood, dreading the fast approaching time when he would have to explain to these good people he had no money, he saw another customer enter. This man was tall, with a tonsured head and a long beard, the brown robe of a priest draping his tall, thin form.
I wonder if he knows any Gaelic?
It was an extremely dubious possibility: while priests and monks were learned, the chance of him being equipped with something as obscure as knowledge of Gaelic was infinitesimally small.
If you don't try, you can't know, he thought wryly.
Conn cleared his throat. Went over to where the priest stood. “Greetings, Father.”
The priest stared at him. Blinked. Stared again. Just as Conn gave up hope, he said: “You are Scottish?”
Conn wanted to cry with relief. The man could speak his language! He spoke Lowland Scots, not Gaelic, but it was enough.
“Yes!” he said, almost weeping. He smiled at the man, nodded his head emphatically. “Yes.” Hearing a common language, however halted the speech was, felt as if he found water in a desert.
“I don't speak much Scottish,” the priest said carefully. “What are you...doing...here...son?”
Conn smiled at him. He didn't care if he spoke slowly or made mistakes. He could speak to him! “I'm here looking for my cousin,” he explained. “She was taken from her home. I have reason to believe she is in Cleremont.”
“Oh?” the man frowned. “Your cousin. She did...what?”
Conn sighed. He saw people staring at them and inclined his head toward where he had been sitting, indicating they should take a seat. The priest nodded.
“Now,” he said when they reached the table. “Say...again, please?”
Conn smiled at him, still feeling stupid with relief. “I am looking for my cousin. A brigand stole her from her village. I believe they are now in Cleremont. I need to go there. To rescue her.”
“Oh.” The priest's reply sounded grave.
Conn cleared his throat, about to explain further, but the innkeeper's wife appeared and spoke rapidly to him, indicating Conn and frowning, then smiling expectantly at the priest.
“She asks if you are going to the tournament at Calais.”
“Oh.” Conn frowned. She thought he was a knight? “No,” he replied. He couldn't help a small smile playing about his lips. He looked like a knight? Truly? He felt proud.
The woman said something to the priest again and then disappeared back to the kitchen. He turned back to Conn. “My son, I am sorry to...hear of...your...um...troubles,” the priest said. “I am...on my way to Aix. If you wish...you could travel with me a way. I welcome...safety,” he said, raising a shoulder in a shrug and indicating the sword he wore.
“Oh.” Conn stared at him, almost unable to believe what he'd just said. “I can? Truly?”
The priest laughed. “Don't look...surprised.”
Conn laughed and grinned at him, caught somewhere between weeping and celebrating. “I can't thank you enough!”
The priest smiled and waved a hand, indicating that it was nothing. “We help each other, my son.” He looked up as the innkeeper's wife returned with fresh loaves and some eggs. “I had prayed for safety on the road, and the Good Lord has sent me my own knight. You see? All prayers are answered. Have you dined?”
“Yes, Father,” Conn said quickly.
“Well, you can have an egg. And while you eat, perhaps you can...explain more?”
Conn thanked the priest again, feeling his heart soar with happiness. Here he was, his transport to Cleremont at least partway provided. And he even had a second breakfast.
Putting the difficulty out of his mind as to how he was going to pay for his breakfast, he sat and talked to the priest, explaining his story.
When he was through, the man shook his head. “The world can be wicked, my son,” he said gently. “But we must persevere. Bless you.”
Conn bowed his head. “Thank you, Father.”
They talked a little longer and then the priest said he should go to his rest. They would depart in the afternoon. Conn nodded and stood, then went to go and try to explain his predicament to the innkeeper.
After much gesturing and miming, it was agreed he would muck out the stables in return for his breakfast.
Conn set to the work with a will, pitching muck out by the armload, strewing clean hay in place of the old, filthy straw he forked out of the door. As he worked, his worry returned. What was happening to Leona? He had to reach her.
Thank Heavens for the priest. Without him, he would never get to Cleremont. With his help, he could make it there, perhaps by nightfall.
All he could do was pray that was soon enough.