dismay.
“I can and will get you to Espar,” he told her solemnly, “but-”
“Villain! Sneaking, lying whoreson of an outlaw! Dung-faced peasant! Disloyal, impudent dog of a thieving, maiden-ravishing dolt! How dare- ”
“But it will take a few days,” Florin continued, raising his voice effortlessly to override hers without shouting in the slightest, “because we’re way out in the wilderness, out where the big beasts roam.”
Another great lie… but the Lady Narantha was staring at him in fresh despair, aghast.
“A few days? ” she echoed, disbelievingly-and then found her feet in a hobbling rush and started to hit him, slapping and pummeling his unyielding chest wildly with her small, pale fists. “Incompetent! Ignoramus! Wretched, slug-ignorant stonehead of a lazy, useless fool of a servant! Whoring, cheating, horsefaced (gasp) good-for- nothing-”
Ignoring her rain of blows, Florin shrugged and calmly turned away to lace up his pack, paying no heed when she belabored his backside, nor even when she kicked him hard up between the legs from behind, jarring her toes on what had to be a hard metal codpiece.
Straightening and swinging the pack onto his shoulder with a hummed tune, for all the world as if she weren’t there at all, the tall forester strode away along the bank of the stream, his legs long and his gait eerily quiet.
“Where d’you think you’re going? Come back here! Come back, I say, you worthless-”
The silent lout strode on, and with a snarl of outraged exasperation Narantha started after him in a wobble- booted rush, launching herself into a stumbling, splay-footed trot that carried her over one dead tree, caught and scraped her damp-gowned leg painfully on another, and hurled her through a thorny and thankfully dead and crackling-dry bush into a hard nose-first meeting with the ground.
The very muddy, reeking ground, all roots and hurriedly slithering leaf-worms and “Come back!” she cried, suddenly terrified of being left alone in this vast forest, lost and… and hunted…
“Please!” she sobbed. “You-man! Forester!” Frantically she fought to recall his name, and in tears shrieked, “Florin, I beg of you! A rescue! Succor! Aid! ”
Weeping openly as she struggled up to her knees, blinded by tears and truly miserable in her helplessness, the Lady Narantha Crownsilver did not hear her departing rescuer half-smile and murmur very quietly, “What? All of those? Do I look like an army? Lazy, good-for-nothing peasant whoreson that I am?”
“ Please come back,” she pleaded, choking on her tears. “Good Florin, please! ”
Good Florin grinned, took another long step as he carefully wiped away his mirth and assumed a stern look instead-and whirled around and stalked back the way he’d come.
Gods, he hoped he’d be able to keep this act up until he got her back to Delbossan. This was an adventure, all right, but…
His face was calm and his expression gravely unreadable as he walked right past her, back to the sandbar. “By the Queen of the Forest, where are my wits? I was so appalled at your lowborn rudeness that I almost forgot morningfeast.”
Wallowing on her knees with fresh rage rising inside her, Narantha Crownsilver stared at the forester, dumbfounded. My… lowborn rudeness?
Lowborn?
Rudeness?
“All praise Mielikki, they’ve not yet started to burn,” Florin said, plucking the sizzling fish away from the fire.
Narantha went on staring at him, open-mouthed. How dare he Was that really how she seemed to him?
Florin turned. “Lady,” he said pleasantly, holding out a great green leaf with a slab of brownfin steaming on it, “morningfeast is served.”
Narantha found her mouth suddenly flooded and aching. So hungry was she, really smelling the fish now, that she came crawling mutely back to him, almost clawing aside branches in her haste.
“Don’t eat the leaf,” Florin told her, “but use it as a platter, to keep the hot juices from scalding you or staining your gown. Hold its edge up-so-and nothing will run out. ’Tis safe to lap and lick at the leaf, to get all the juice. Eat merrily; there’re no fishbones left.”
Fearing being burnt, Narantha nipped tentatively at one end of the fillet. Ye gods, ’twas good! Overly hot, yes, and she found herself gobbling to keep her lips from searing, but… ahh, wonderful.
Long, strong fingers took her well-licked leaf away from her, and replaced it with another, this one cupped around a small handful of the green buds. Narantha peered at them curiously then looked up questioningly.
“Cavanter buds,” Florin told her, pointing at a nearby bush, “from yonder shrub. Only pleasant to eat this time of year, when they’re green and swelling. Truly mouth-watering if you’ve butter to pan-fry them in.”
Narantha’s mouth was still watering. She watched Florin bite into a bud as if it was an olive or radish, and did the same. Chewy… unfamiliar… a bit like carrot in texture, but fried bread in taste. Nothing so spectacular as the brownfin, but… pleasant.
The forester had made his fish and buds vanish in a trice, and was at work on the rabbit, pulling it apart on another leaf. Thankfully, his knife had already made the head disappear, and it seemed to have cooked so thoroughly that it came apart like custard as he pulled on the legs. In moments another leaf was held out to her. “Bones in this,” Florin warned her. “Not to be eaten. Spit them onto this leaf; nowhere else.”
Narantha had eaten rabbit many times before, usually covered in the choicest simmered sauces prepared in the kitchens of many high houses and even the palace, but this-sauceless and too hot, stinging her fingers as she bit and gobbled-this overmatched all. The best food she’d ever eaten.
It was gone while she still ached for more, and she never noticed that the forester had slipped his portion onto her leaf as she gnawed-nor that she’d been moaning softly, in sheer pleasure.
Licking her fingers hungrily, Narantha sat back and stared at the greasy leaves. In all the feasts she’d eaten, as far back as she could remember, she’d never tasted anything so fine.
Florin was washing his hands-and his chin too, it seemed-in the stream. “Come,” he said gently. “We’ve a long way to travel before nightfall, to escape the beasts. Wash.”
Narantha blinked at him, her moment of bliss gone.
“Are you suggesting,” she asked icily, “I should go on my knees and lap up water like a dog?”
“Only a little. Drinking too much at once isn’t good. Use the sand to scour your mouth and hands.”
She made no move, but stared at him, eyes smoldering.
The forester calmly tossed handfuls of water onto the fire, dousing it amid puffs of smoke and loud hissings, until he could rake it apart and wet it down thoroughly. The largest twigs went into the water, thrust down into the submerged flank of the sandbar and buried there. The leaves they’d eaten from were served the same way.
Then Florin scooped up dry sand and cast it across the scattered ashes of the fire, rinsing his hands in the Dathyl once more. “Wash,” he told her firmly, sounding for all the world like one of her childhood nurses.
“And just who are you, man,” she told him back just as firmly, “to give orders to me?”
Florin gave her the same sort of “old wisdom looking at her with grave disappointment” look that her long- dead uncles had favored her with. “The scent of the fish and meat on you will come off on every branch or leaf you touch, leaving a clear trail even a half-witted wolf or owlbear-and there are no half-witted hunting beasts-can follow. You’ll lead them right to your own throat. To say nothing of the stinging flies and worse that’ll find it much sooner than that, and buzz around your eyes day and night through. Wash.”
Defeated, the fair flower of the Crownsilvers gave him a wordless snarl and went to the water, turning her back on him.
“Relieve yourself over there,” he added, pointing off into the trees. “No thorns or stinging leaves. Yes, yon bushes are thicker, but you’ll be burning or itching for days if you head that way.”
Narantha’s back stiffened, but she made no reply.
“If you wait to go later,” Florin added calmly, “remember this: what you leave behind is like shouting your whereabouts to the hunting beasts.”
Wordlessly Narantha went where he’d directed. “Use the big pale leaves, no others,” he added-and suspected, by the manner in which the tangled vines she’d vanished behind immediately danced and rustled, that she’d made an immediate and very rude gesture by way of reply.
He looked all around for signs of their stay, scraping the sands with the side of his boot to do away with the prints of boots, knees, and hands.
