Princess Ben by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Author:Catherine Gilbert Murdock [Murdock, Catherine Gilbert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2011-10-04T21:08:26+00:00

TWELVE

Not a day earlier, I aspired to flee my onerous burdens of nobility for a position of anonymous and humble service in another land. Now, to my enormous heartbreak, I had attained my exact wish. Rest assured that the irony of this situation, bitter though I found it, did not escape me.

The patrol that had discovered and accidentally shot me now dragged me back to their camp. That is to say that they cuffed, kicked, and pushed me along, keeping me always to the forefront to prevent my escape, assuming as they did that I knew the route back to Montagne. After some time, the leader—Captain, his men called him—threw one end of my cloak over my shoulder, ordering me to hold the edge with my good hand as a sling for my throbbing arm. His goal was expedience, not compassion, for my moaning pace delayed them. From the snatches of banter I could make out, they had no interest in experiencing the mountain in darkness.

At last, dusk settling around us, we arrived at a double row of huts built of fresh-hewn logs. Returning scouts greeted my captors boisterously as we approached, paying me no more than a second's notice.

The captain ordered me brought to the mess hall, for the camp's cook was also its surgeon. One look at the man's hands and I wanted no taste of either of his professions, but no other option was presented, and in a moment's time I found myself laid out on a table, the cook's grimy fingers prodding my wound. Without warning he jerked the arrow's remains from my arm, and again I fainted. When I came to, the broken bone was already set, and my arm splinted.

Glad as I was that the rags securing this splint were at least clean, I wished he had taken the time to soak them in aqua vitae, for my mother always swore of the healing powers of strong spirits. I knew better than to request this, however, for already I sensed the man had no interest in instruction, least of all from a whimpering young prisoner.

Without a word, the cook plunked an earthen bowl of stew at my side and returned to his stove. How good the stew tasted in reality I cannot say, but at that moment, drunk with hunger and pain, I considered that hodgepodge of beans and old meat the nectar of the gods, and I polished it off promptly.

"Huh, grunted the cook as I brought my empty bowl to him—ostensibly returning it, but in truth hoping for a second serving—"you eat well enough. But you cry like a girl.

I started. Of course I did! But, no, they could not learn that. Whatever fate might befall a female prisoner, I did not want to discover it. Instead I nodded in what I hoped was a masculine fashion.

"Start scrubbing those," he directed, jerking his head at a mountain of soiled pots and bowls.

"But—This in the deepest voice I could manage.

"Don't 'but' me," he snarled.

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