The Lady and the Prince
Chapter 24

They rode south as quickly as they could, changing off horses until one animal started to limp, and Nick found it had thrown a shoe. But they had yet to find an intact village much less a functioning smithy, so they turned the horse loose where it could graze and left it behind. After that Nick rode the largest sturdiest animal while the two people in armor traded off horses, but they were limited by how long they could push Nick’s horse without injuring it.

They saw nothing but destruction for two days until they rounded a curve in the road and ran into a skirmish. With both Anglian and Frankish fighters engaged, the three of them tried to withdraw from sight to go around the battle, but they were attacked by Francks. Nick was restricted in what he could do in public and with the fighters mixed together. He strung his bow and nocked arrows, firing at Francks when he had a clear shot.

He used his trip line to take down the horse of a Franckish knight charging Elizabeth who was already fighting a man with a pike. It took her a moment to work her way past the long weapon, but once inside she quickly killed the wielder. The knight’s horse scrambled to its feet, but the knight in heavy plate armor rose more slowly. Nick’s arrows wouldn’t penetrate, but Ralph cut into a lightly protected area between the shoulder and neck, killing the Franck.

Ralph was immediately engaged by another knight, the two of them circling each other and trading blows. The Franck was slowly overpowering the valet when Nick moved in closer and used magical force to knock aside the knight’s shield, exposing him long enough for a thrust from Ralph to finish the duel.

Nick almost missed the Franck on foot coming at him from behind until Elizabeth called to him from her own fight with two ground troops armed with swords. He turned, but the man was too close for the prince to have time to nock an arrow, and he had a sword raised to strike. Nick turned his horse and sidled it away and made the lunging attacker trip and stagger. While he was off balance, Nick kicked his horse forward into him. The man fell, and the prince put an arrow into him at point blank range.

There was a horn blast, and the Francks withdrew, leaving the field to the Anglians. Nick, Elizabeth, and Ralph recovered their extra horses from where they had wandered during the melee and crossed the field back to the road. Nick tried to grab the reins of one of the Franckish warhorses loose in the field, but it shied away from him. A second was less well-trained and allowed him to capture it and lead it away.

The three of them continued south until they were far enough away to be out of the battle zone. Ralph led them off the road to the remains of a deserted farm. The house had been burned, but a small barn still stood with its door torn off. Inside there were no animals or feed, but it was temporary shelter.

“We shouldn’t stay here long,” Ralph said. “It’s likely to attract others, but Elizabeth and I are both bleeding, so let’s take a moment.”

They dismounted and went into the barn, bringing the horses in too so they wouldn’t be seen. The barn had four stalls and a loft, but just earth for a floor.

Ralph had a cut across his cheek and a more serious injury where the knight had stabbed him in the side. His chain mail had been damaged, and the point of the blade had penetrated slightly. Elizabeth had a cut across her thigh just below her chain mail.

Nick found hard bread, a flask of brandy, and a fine linen shirt in the saddlebags of the horse he had captured; he tore the big white shirt up for bandages. He also found a kit with needles and thread, a fire starter, fish hooks and line, a small pair of scissors, and a very sharp little knife.

They started a small fire and cleaned and bandaged the wounds to the best of their ability. Elizabeth helped Ralph dig embedded chain mail links out of his wound and used some of the brandy to clean it. She also sanitized a needle in the fire and some thread with the alcohol and stitched up the injury, and Ralph did the same for her.

While Ralph was stitching her cut, Elizabeth said to Nick around clenched teeth, “It’s too bad magic can’t be used for healing.”

“I don’t know that it can’t, but I just don’t know how other than maybe using fire to cauterize to stop bleeding.”

They rested and ate. Both Ralph and Elizabeth were somewhat pale and looked tired. In the midst of the battle, they had ignored their injuries, but now they were in some pain both from their wounds and the procedures to prevent infection and help healing.

After he ate, Nick felt fine so he went out and explored the area. He came back with handfuls of small carrots and potatoes and a dented iron pot that he carried with part of his cloak wrapped around his hand. “Look, it’s going to rain, let’s just risk it and stay here tonight. I dug these out of a garden that was trampled, and the pot was just knocked into the fireplace ashes and left.”

“With our dried meat, we could have a nice stew,” Elizabeth commented. “Is there a well where we could get water?”

“The bucket’s gone, and the well is fouled, but there’s a little creek. I’ll take the horses down and water them. You start the stew with the water we have, and I’ll refill our water skins.”

After watering them, Nick crowded the horses into the available stalls where they snuffled around, finding a little spilled grain and a few wisps of hay. The stew turned to be decent. Fresh meat would have made it better, but it had been days since they’d had a hot meal, and they enjoyed it anyway.

The rain started before they finished. Nick scraped out the last bits of stew and ate them and then put the pot outside to rinse in the rain, humming as he did.

When he came back, Elizabeth looked at him curiously and said, “You seem to be in a very good mood, considering your fiancée and your valet were injured in battle.”

Nick leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek. “And I bet it hurt too, but neither of your wounds looked all that serious to me. Right, Ralph?”

“Yes, actually, I would agree as long as there’s no infection. Elias is right though, you do seem to be unusually pleased with yourself, Nick.”

Nick sat back down on the ground and said, “That’s because I think I can win against the Franckish sorcerers. Strelliere may have been trained and had more practice, but I just had more power. And the fact that that Franckish warship thought it was out of my range makes me believe none of the Francks have the level of power I do. They may know some tricks I don’t, but I’ve got a good chance against them.”

Ralph smiled and said, “Very good, my boy, you may be right. If you can best Frais, you can turn your attentions to their army, and once the Francks are gone you can surely take care of Ulle and Alice Montexter.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to think I can. We may be getting married after all, Elizabeth.” Nick held up his hand as Ralph started to correct him. “I’m not calling her Elias when I’m talking about marrying her.”

“Fair enough,” the valet conceded. “We’d best set watches. Nick, why don’t you take first since you’re uninjured, and you can wake me in a few hours.”

Nick sat up listening to the rain on the roof. He let the fire die down, although it was likely still visible from outside since the barn wasn’t entirely solid. But it was nearly morning when he woke Ralph, although it was still quite dark out as the rain continued to pour down heavily.

By midmorning they were all awake gnawing on hard rolls and listening to the rain. Eventually, they decided they needed to move on in spite of the downpour. Ralph rode the Franckish warhorse since with armor he was probably the heaviest and least likely to be recognized as the big horse did draw attention to itself among their five less showy animals.

They sloshed through mud on the road. When they reached a creek with a wooden bridge over it, they found the water level rising and floating logs and debris bumping against the supports. They hurried across, quite sure the bridge wasn’t going to last long behind them.

At midafternoon the rain finally stopped, but they still splashed through puddles the rest of the day. The rich fields of Landsford were starting to give way to rockier ground, so they knew they had to be getting close to Sothalia. Finding a dry place to camp seemed impossible, so they risked taking a side road back toward the ocean in search of a village.

They found the remains of one. It was completely empty, and most of the cottages had been burned. There were no ships in sight. Near the beach, they came on a large burned area. After a moment, they recognized it as a pyre by charred bones and partial skulls protruding from the ashes.

There was nothing they could do for anyone who had lived there. They found a cottage that was only a shell; everything within had been taken or used as fuel. But the fireplace and chimney stood, and the roof seemed solid. They turned the horses out to find whatever they could in damaged gardens that had once backed a row of cottages.

Elizabeth and Nick searched the gardens but found very little, just two turnips, three tiny carrots, and a mound that had been tromped down. The plant was broken off, but it still contained small potatoes. The horses were busy demolishing the remaining plants that had been stripped of their produce.

Ralph found a usable well and filled their pot, and they made fish stew with the last of the dried strips of fish they had. Their hard rolls were nearly gone as well; Elizabeth split her last three with Nick, who had run out at breakfast.

The stew wasn’t great, but it was filling, and they cleaned the pot.

“Tomorrow we should reach Sothalia by afternoon,” said Ralph. “Hopefully there will be an Anglian army nearby, and then we can obtain food. There will be fewer people there who could recognize us.” He pointed at his healing cheek. “With this, no one is going to see me as a prince’s valet and Elias is well disguised in his armor. Nick, you’ll just have to keep your hood up and not say very much where others can hear.”

“Right,” Nick growled in a voice deeper than his own.

“Good boy,” Ralph said, smiling. “And change your stride if you can. By this time most of the Francks will be together and we’ll need the army to get at Frais.”

They piled some gear in back of the cottage door as an alarm and slept soundly through the night. In the morning they rounded up the horses, which hadn’t gone far, and set out for Sothalia.

The road had dried out overnight, and the ride would have been pleasant if they hadn’t been in a hurry. But even as quickly as they had come, when Sothalia finally came in sight all three halted and stared.

The thick outer wall stood, but the gates were standing open, one partly unhinged. Part of the town had been burned, and much of the castle had been pulled down into a jumble of broken stones. Nothing moved except the large black birds that fluttered and pecked all over the fields outside the walls.

“We’re too late,” Nick said, stating what they were all thinking.

Ralph said, “Perhaps you two should stay here while I explore.”

“No,” said Elizabeth firmly. “This is our war too, and we should see it no matter how horrible.”

They rode more slowly, looking as much as they could bear at what they passed. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of dead, and the stench filled the air. The birds protested loudly when the riders came too close and scared them off of their meals, but only for a moment until the scavengers settled on other rotting bodies.

Inside the walls it was better. The corpses had been removed; the Francks had likely camped there before moving on. There was rubble and broken glass in what had been the street. In places it was blocked or partially blocked, and they had to move carefully, sometimes retracing their path before they got to the castle.

The narrow stone stairs to the main entrance stood undisturbed, but the door itself was wide open. The entry was scarred and the main hall beyond as well. The standing portions of the castle had been stripped of anything useful or valuable.

“I don’t think we should stay here tonight,” said Nick.

Ralph looked at him quizzically. “The Francks are long gone, and the remains of the castle seem solid and secure. Some of the buildings in town might be usable—”

“No, I think we should get out of here completely and go camp as far away as we can get.”

Elizabeth came up to Nick and asked, “Why? Is there something wrong?”

“You remember what I told you about my mother visiting me? I can sense something here. Most of it isn’t individually as powerful as her, but there’s a lot of little…I don’t know. I think there’s something else, something very old and powerful, but maybe not quite aware of us yet. I really think we should go.”

Ralph said, “I don’t believe you’ve told me about your mother.”

“She was a ghost. She came and visited me for years. I wasn’t afraid of her because I could feel she loved me, but whatever is here isn’t feeling in the least like that. It’s angry, vengeful, maybe evil, I’m not sure. Let’s just leave, please.”

They left the castle but didn’t go directly to the gate. They searched some of the more intact buildings looking for food, but found nothing except a few bold rats looking for food as well. Nick seemed more and more anxious until late afternoon when they finally cleared the outer wall. They headed west back toward Londinum, but swung miles south of the road; they didn’t want to run into the tail of the Franckish army if that was where the Francks had gone.

“We’ll have to camp early,” Ralph said. “Maybe Nick could use his bow and shoot some dinner for us, or we could use the hooks and line to catch some fish.”

“If we find a shallow stream, I’m pretty sure I can get us some fish,” Nick replied.

Before dark they did find a good-sized creek to camp near. The horses were as hungry as they were, and after watering them, Ralph hobbled them out in a good pasture. It appeared no armies had come through this area at all.

Nick and Elizabeth waded out into a shallow area where the water didn’t run very fast, and Nick brushed fire over the water upstream. In a few moments fish floated down to them, either struggling weakly or just floating, and they gathered more than a dozen.

They all gutted and scaled the fish and strung them on sticks to broil over the campfire. Soon they had eaten their fill. While the fish were delicious, an entire meal of one dish was a little boring, especially since they knew breakfast was going to be the leftovers.

Afterward Nick sat on the bank and stared into the moving water. Elizabeth had taken off her armor before she went wading and now sat down next to him with a blanket wrapped around her to protect her from the chilly evening air. She shared the blanket with Nick, and they cuddled under it together.

Elizabeth said, “I hope Duke Hubert and his family escaped.”

“I doubt the duke would have abandoned his ancestral home, but he may have had time to get his children out before the castle was invested.”

“So many died back there.”

“And we don’t even know who. Arthur could have been lying back there, or Edward.”

Elizabeth just hugged him closer. “It’s too bad your magic can’t find the people you love and tell you they’re safe, or find the Franckish army so we can get this over with.”

“I think that type of thing might be possible, but my book doesn’t say how. If we get through this and I manage to not get executed, maybe I’ll spend some time figuring out how to use magic for good things like healing or communicating at a distance.”

“Do you think the Franckish sorcerers can do that sort of thing?”

“Not likely. King Louis uses them as part of his army, so I bet they’re focused on destruction just like I am. The Ibarrans might be able to do some other things though. Since their magic is weak and widespread, they have time to experiment, and the average people would be more interested in bringing down a fever or making sure Uncle Joe is safe in the big city.”

“Perhaps when this is over we can travel there. Would you be safe in Ibarra?”

“I don’t know, maybe if I hid the strength of my magic or asked for diplomatic immunity as the son of King William. Of course, they might just ship me back to him too.”

“Just keep telling yourself it will all work out, Nick. One day at a time.”

From the campfire, Ralph called, “One night at a time too. We all need to get some sleep.”

Nick said, “It’s so rare I get to see Elizabeth with that Elias guy hanging around. How about…?”

They gave each other several long kisses and then went to their respective blankets.

Just after dawn they awoke to a distant noise. All three sat up and listened to the unusual sound, and then Ralph said, “Battle. I think we’ve found the Franckish army.”

They hurried through their morning routine. Ralph refused to allow them to skip breakfast or fail to double-check their equipment. Once ready, they left three of the horses behind in the field and galloped toward the noise.

The battle was farther than they had expected, and louder. This was no skirmish. They came over a rise and saw it in the valley below them. Spotting the Franckish sorcerer was easy. He was on the hill opposite tossing fire and some sort of nearly invisible wave of force down into the rear ranks of the Anglian forces. Behind him stood a small group of expensively outfitted men either standing or sitting on horses calmly watching the battle and sending runners here and there. In front of Frais were forty or fifty Franckish ground troops ready to protect him and the Franckish generals in case any Anglians broke through their ranks.

“This way,” Nick said and led them along the ridge to the left. “I need to be closer.”

He dismounted above a rocky outcropping, and so did Elizabeth. Ralph took their horses a short way down the far side of the hill and then joined them.

Nick flicked up his hood and strode out onto the rock. Elizabeth and Ralph hung back a bit. Directly in front of the prince was a twelve-foot straight drop, so no Francks were going to approach from that direction. But they could climb the hill to either side, so Elizabeth watched right and Ralph watched left.

They could all see Arthur in the battle below with the Anglian standard beside him. He was center front riding a huge charger and dressed in white and red with the device on his shield. He was fighting furiously, seeming to hold the Anglian line single-handedly when it wavered.

Nick let an immense amount of power wash through him and then filled his reservoirs and channels. He let loose a blanket of fire, not at Frais but at the men behind him. The sorcerer was taken completely by surprise and his late attempt to block it only cut off the tail. The fire washed over the command group burning most of the men and horses indiscriminately, resulting in screams and chaos.

Frais replied with a lightning bolt aimed at Nick, who just swatted it down and returned one; the Franckish sorcerer did the same. Frais issued orders to some of the men in front of him, and ten of them split off and started working their way around the hill above the battle toward Nick.

The prince shot fire at the knot of men, but the Franck knocked it down. Nick muttered, “Damn, he’s got range,” and tried for the men in front of his opponent with the same result. Frais gestured, and a jumble of arrows, swords, and bits of metal lifted from the battlefield and flew at Nick, Elizabeth, and Ralph. Nick extended his matter shield and blocked it all, but the blow knocked his outer shield hard against his inner one, and he staggered back.

The prince stepped forward, and Frais repeated the trick, except this time lobbing similar material up in the air to rain down on them. Once in the air, the Franck threw fire directly at Nick, so both attacks struck almost simultaneously.

Nick tried to put his matter shield up high, slanted to slide the debris off in front of him while catching and grounding the fire. He wasn’t completely successful; some of the farthest debris fell unchecked, and a harmless wave of heat from the fire washed over him. “Stay in close!” he called to Ralph and Elizabeth, but they were already moving. An arrow had bounced sideways off of Ralph’s helmet, and a sword had embedded itself in the ground five feet in front of Elizabeth. Looking up at the falling debris had allowed Nick’s hood to slide back off of his head, and he didn’t bother to replace it. But no one except the enemy was looking at him anyway. sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ FindNʘᴠᴇl.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

The prince shot a lightning bolt at the fighters getting closer; Frais was apparently too far away to ground it, but he knocked it sideways into the hill. Dirt and rock fragments splattered the approaching men, knocking down four, but two got up again.

Nick used his trip line to try to reach behind Frais to the bodies and their equipment, but the Franck blocked him. Nick swept it forward away from Frais, catching the fighters in front of the sorcerer from behind and knocking them down and into each other, dragging half of them at least partway down the hill.

Frais responded with a series of lightning bolts aimed below the prince at the rock he stood on. Nick could knock down those near the top, but the ones nearer the base of the rock thudded home, shaking all three of them and splintering the rock.

“Back up!” called Ralph. “He’s destabilizing it.”

Nick stumbled backed in time to avoid the face of the rock cracking, and then the front five feet crumbled and slid off. He slashed a long line of fire at the eight Francks still approaching, and Frais wasn’t able to react quickly enough to completely stop it. Three of the Francks dropped, and a fourth sat down, clutching his arm and face. The remaining four started running toward them, and Ralph and Elizabeth both moved between them and their prince.

The prince turned back to the battle, entrusting his companions to protect him. Below the Franckish forces were slowly pushing forward on either side of Arthur. Nick could see that soon the Warleader and a small group of fighters would be encircled if it continued. The forward edge of battle mixed Anglians and Francks, but behind was a solid mass of Francks pushing forward and replacing fighters as they fell.

Prince Nick spread his hands and shot fire over the Anglians at the massed Francks. Frais grounded some of it, but he couldn’t reach the whole spread, and the energy he grounded went into his own fighters as well. The Franck’s forward push hesitated, and Nick let loose again, sweeping sideways across the valley.

The Franckish sorcerer attacked Nick with something he had never seen before. A wave of energy broke into something green and smoky that rushed toward him. Nick tried to meet it with his own power and ground it, but nothing happened; it kept coming. He moved closer to where Elizabeth and Ralph had engaged the last four Francks and put up his matter shield. To his horror, the green smoke penetrated. He had to stop it somehow.

He built another matter shield very strong and tight and pushed it against the air. As the air moved out toward the smoke, the smoke retreated, but Nick couldn’t create a very large shield like that. He pushed out one area, dropped that shield, created another, and then pushed out another area, frantically repeating that as quickly as he could. Most of the smoke moved away and began to dissipate, but tendrils seeped through that he didn’t have time to stop.

“Get back!” Nick called, trying to move away himself, but he was exhausted, his feet not wanting to move and just stumbling a step or two. He glanced over and saw Ralph and Elizabeth turn and run from the green wisps and their three remaining attackers who started after them. But the separation gave Nick an opportunity, and he blasted the Francks at close range just as he smelled the sickening scent of the green smoke.

He suddenly felt dizzy and dropped to his knees, tossing his cloak over his head to try to protect himself from breathing any more of the stuff, but it was too late. He never felt himself hit the ground.

Elizabeth and Ralph could only watch from a safe distance as the green smoke hovered for a moment over Nick and then thinned and dissipated. Below, the Francks were sounding their horns and their army was retreating. The rear ranks had broken under Nick’s fire, and the remaining Franckish commanders were trying to create an orderly withdrawal rather than a rout. Arthur hesitated but then called for the Anglians to not pursue. The Anglian army had no reserves left; everyone was in one long scattered line across the valley.

Ralph held Elizabeth back from rushing to Nick. They approached cautiously, sniffing the air. It smelled a little musty, but it had no ill effect on them. They reached Nick’s still form and gently turned him over.

Ralph checked Nick’s breathing. “He’s alive. We need to get him out of here. Help me lift him.”

Elizabeth assisted Ralph in getting Nick across his shoulders, and the valet staggered a little under the weight but then trudged slowly up the hill. Elizabeth went ahead and got the horses. Once out of sight of the valley below, they were able to get Nick in his saddle and tie him to the horse. They mounted and rode slowly, Elizabeth riding next to Nick with a hand on him to keep him balanced and Ralph leading his horse down the easiest path he could find.

It took nearly an hour to get back to their campsite. They got Nick down from the horse next to the creek and stripped off his leather armor and boots. Once Ralph and Elizabeth had taken off their own armor, they maneuvered the unconscious prince into the shallow area, Ralph going in with him.

“It’s cool enough the water might wake him and whatever that green stuff was, some of it might still be clinging to him. A thorough wash is in order for all of us,” Ralph said. He rinsed Nick, while Elizabeth fetched dry clothes and blankets.

Then she went a little way around a bend and washed herself and her own clothes, taking her time. When she was redressed, she went back and found Ralph and Nick on the bank on one blanket, both partially clothed. Ralph put his own shirt on while Elizabeth worked a shirt on to Nick’s inert form. She kept watching Nick’s chest to be sure he was breathing and enjoyed the view as well, although his ribs seemed a little too prominent. She just wished he would wake up; dressing him would be a great deal more fun if she wasn’t so worried about him.

Ralph carried Nick back to camp and put him in his blankets, laid out again where they had been the night before. Ralph sat down and complained, “I am getting too old for this, I really am, and the boy is too big for me to haul around. I’m definitely going to feel this in my back tomorrow.”

Elizabeth made sure Ralph’s and Nick’s clothing scattered around the bank were washed clean. She told herself she was doing the laundry not because she was a woman, but because it needed to be done and that he could see Ralph was exhausted from the battle and then carrying Nick. She was tired too, but she finished shortly and spread the wet clothes over bushes and then returned to the men. Ralph had unloaded the horses and turned them out into the pasture with the other three and set up camp.

“Any change?” she asked as she sat down next to Nick; Ralph was sitting on the other side.

“No, I’ve never seen or even heard of anything like that green fog, have you?”

“No. I wonder if there’s anything in Nick’s magic book about it. I don’t remember reading about that, but I didn’t understand much of it when I read it, so I could have missed something.”

Ralph went and got the book from Nick’s saddlebag. “Let’s see.” He spent some time thumbing through the book with no success and handed it to Elizabeth, but she couldn’t find anything on it either.

By midafternoon they were both very hungry, having had nothing since the cold fish that morning. Ralph said, “I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have something other than fish for dinner. I’m going to go see if I can find a farmhouse or village and restock us. If…when Nick wakes up, keep him quiet and lying down.”

“I know,” replied Elizabeth. “Good luck, Ralph.”

Elizabeth sat by Nick for hours. It was peaceful, and she could hear birds chirping and the rush of the water in the creek nearby. She checked the clothes occasionally, bringing them into camp when they were dry and rolling them up and putting them into the appropriate baggage.

She had begun to think something had happened to Nick’s valet when she heard a horse approaching. She held her sword in her hand in case it was anyone else, but it was Ralph. He had two sacks strapped to his horse and a large basket that smelled wonderful.

Ralph set his prizes down while he turned out his horse. Elizabeth sneaked a peek in the basket and found two whole roasted chickens, fresh bread, a pot of jam, a napkin full of roasted potatoes and carrots, a small covered pot of butter, and a little jug of cool milk.

As Ralph knelt down to start helping her unload the basket, she felt Nick’s breathing pick up under her hand. His eyes fluttered open.

“Nick, can you hear me? Are you all right?” Elizabeth asked anxiously.

“Uh-huh. I smell food. Am I dreaming?”

Ralph chuckled and said, “No, you’re not dreaming. I should have known roast chicken would wake you up if nothing else could.”

They helped Nick sit up, putting a couple of saddles behind him to lean against. “Where did it come from?” he asked.

“There’s a large farmhouse only a couple of miles from here. The farmwife was pleased to offer food for Anglians who are defending her eight children, and even more pleased when I gave her a handful of silver. I have hard rolls, cheese, strips of a dried meat and fruit mixture, a dozen hard boiled eggs, and a dozen fresh ones for morning as well as bacon and ham. We’re not going to have to worry about provisions for quite some time.”

They dug into the meal, filling themselves with the good food. Nick ate a whole chicken, a third of the vegetables, all the milk, and half the bread and jam himself. Ralph and Elizabeth still had plenty to eat, but they could only watch in amazement as Nick packed away food.

Elizabeth asked, “How can you eat that much and stay so thin?”

“Using magic takes a lot of effort. I have to use energy to control the energy I pull in,” Nick explained as he finished the last of the jam.

Elizabeth turned to Ralph. “Do you have to take the basket back?”

“No, the good woman knows where we are camped and will send her oldest son to pick it up as well as the butter pot and jug and whatever else we leave in the morning. I’ll leave a coin in the basket as well for the service.”

When they had finally finished, Nick said, “I suppose we’ll have to go chase the Francks in the morning.”

“I suppose so,” Ralph replied. “Do you know what that green fog was?”

“Not a clue. There’s nothing about fogs of any color in my book. Whatever it was it knocked me out and I still feel kind of weak. I need to come up with a defense for it, whatever it was. If Frais had used it earlier in the fight, it wouldn’t have gone well for us. Next time, he probably will.”

Elizabeth asked, “Do you think there will be another battle tomorrow?”

Ralph shook his head. “Not likely. The Francks need to regroup, and Nick knocked out a big part of their command structure so they will be licking their wounds and doing reassignments and promotions for a day or two. It wouldn’t hurt to find their camp though, just in case Frais does something stupid like making himself an easy ambush target.”

They slept soundly and in the morning had a hearty meal of eggs and bacon. Nick felt like his usual self and experimented with pushing air around, while packed up the camp and Ralph rounded up the horses. They dressed ready for battle and left the farmwife her basket, and then rode off in search of the Franckish army.

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