Zdenka had paid for the luxury of three private rooms. Silvernose retired to one, Beata and Zdenka
to another. This let Ludmilla sleep on undisturbed
in her own room.
“Her snores next door are shaking dust from our wall!” said
Beata when they had settled in for the night.
“Shhh! I’m trying hard
to ignore that,” said Zdenka, cupping palms over her ears, and turned over.
The next morning Silvernose pounded on the women’s doors
until they opened. An enormous smile stretched
above his impeccably pointed beard. His blue eyes sparkled.
“I won us a wagon!”
He had awakened early and begun talking and dicing with some
of the other guests at the inn. A group
of merchants were lamenting having to schlepp a nearly-empty wagon for which
the horses had died on the next leg of their journey. Silvernose diced for it, won it, and made
sure to lose silver the next few rounds so that the merchants were compensated
and doubly unbothered by their wagon-loss.
The harness he had won with wagon accommodated four horses with ease.
Zdenka was worried about how the wagon might fare in the
hilly, almost trackless wilderness close to their destination, but for now she
was glad that the jolting vehicle would be much less painful in the current
circumstances than a horse for Silvernose.
Sister Ludmilla, who didn’t seem very comfortable mounted, would
probably appreciate the wagon, too, Zdenka reasoned.
The wagon did make for easy progress on the road, at least
at the beginning. Farms and palisaded villages
became few and far between, but the road remained a well-beaten path. Ludmilla seemed to enjoy being away from the
noisy, crowded inn.
They had beautiful weather.
Sunshine gleamed over the low, rolling grassy hills and bits of oak
woodland.
|
“In the old Krajan calendar,” Zdenka said as she sat atop
the wagon with reins in her hands and a grass stem in her mouth, “The month
the Schwab oppressor – present company excluded – boringly calls ‘September’ is
known as Září – which means ‘Shining.’”
Beata was sitting next to her on the broad wooden seat, enjoying
the scenery and the sunshine, but with her special repeating crossbow nearby.
“I thank you kindly for not lumping me in with the
oppressive majority of my countrymen,” said Beata. “Last month’s Krajan name seems very
appropriate for autumn here. What do
you call this moon, the month of Oktober?”
“We call it Říjen – the season when
deer rut- ‘The Rutting Moon,’” answered Zdenka, who laughed with Beata.
“The Rutting Moon- It’s almost full! Rutting might ensue any moment, eh?” chuckled
Beata. “Hmm… ‘The Rise of the Rutting
Moon!’ It sounds like the title of a
salacious book passed around surreptitiously at the convent. Your language leads me into prurient and
purple prose…”
“Stop! Stop now!” shouted Sister Ludmilla from the roofed
back of the wagon, where she had been seated next to Silvernose, reclining
his ample body on bags of supplies and clothing in order to mitigate the
jolts the wagon was inflicting on him.
Beata frowned. She
had forgotten Ludmilla was there and might be listening. Perhaps the hermitess would be offended
enough to revert to her querulous tendencies.
“Stop the wagon! He
and I need to get out right now!”
+++
Our story so far...Terror of the Trdlo, Serialized: Part I - The Adventure Begins (But Not Really the Terror, Yet) Part II - Zdenka vs. The Green-Eyed Monster (Jealousy - That Is) Part III - Nun: The Wiser Part IV - The Hermitess Part V - Silvernose Arrives Minus His Weird Girlfriend Part VI - She's Gone Feral Part VII - A Little Traveling Music Part VIII - Horror at the Hermitage |
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