Maud felt the light breeze carry the cool air through the trees of the forest around her. She was crouched down, feeling the tension of the bow in her left hand making her arm start to ache. She held the arrow straight, the way Draka had showed her. Her thumb was on her cheek bone. The feathers of the arrow tickled her nose as she looked down its shaft to the arrowhead at the deer munching on the leaf of the bush just beyond the thicket ahead of them.

  Draka lifted her elbow and pressed his palm on her back. That was his signal for her to let loose the arrow with her two fingers holding it. The arrow flew. It hit the tree behind the deer and it galloped away unharmed.

  “Plowing rivers,” Maud stood, shaking her head. “I had it!”

  Draka chuckled. Like her, he was wearing his hide trousers and thick long sleeve coat. It was getting cold as the autumn months were drawing to an end and winter was nearing. He didn’t seem as phased by it as she was, so wasn’t wearing the furs she had covered herself with. The way he braided her hair the night before, with the braids going around her cheeks and joining to one big braid down her back, was far more convenient than she had ever had before and, when Karl saw it that morning—well, she wanted him to look at her that way more often than the way he looked at her in the princess dresses. It was more…wanting.

  She liked the way Karl looked in all his hide clothes, all rugged and unshaven, without all the steel and tabards, without the flowery smells. Out here, he smelled like a man. For some reason, she liked that more, too.

  “I normally don’t miss, you know that,” Maud bit the side of her lip, holding up her bow as if she were aiming again. To herself, “How did I miss that?”

  Draka put his finger in his mouth and then held it in the air. Maud rolled her eyes at herself and let the bow drop to her side with a head to the sky in defeat. He pointed for her to retrieve her arrow.

  Then, quick as a flash, his head shot upward and he let an arrow fly skyward. Maud nearly fell into the bush the deer was munching on to dodge the falcon that dropped at her feet.

  “How did you—?” Maud gaped.

  Draka tapped his ear as he gingerly grabbed it. He tugged his arrow from it before snapping its neck with a slip of his fingers. The bird was nearly as big as she was without counting the wings. He pointed again for her to fetch her arrow.

  Maud huffed again. “Not fair.”

  When they got back to the camp, the others of their hunting party were setting strings between trees to hang their kills—mostly rabbits and foxes—and were stacking wood for the fires. Karl was among them, fifteen in all. Some of them were native of the village. Men she had babysat as boys, and until not so long ago she had regarded as enemies, but they had grown on her.

  Samma, with his bushy blonde hair and brown eyes that shown deep in the sun and sometimes with a hint of gold like Draka’s, was the bravest. He had a tendency to run right up to whatever he was hunting before he threw his spear. He wants to be a Paladin more than anything, trains with them every chance he gets and, as far as Maud sees it, he might as well be one, with the way he acts. Only, God hasn’t chosen him, which sometimes makes her sad for him. Though, there are times when she still remembers seeing him help carry that pillar to crucify Draka that night and any questions as to why the Almighty hasn’t fades away.

  The same goes for her cousin Hugo, though he has done his best to make up for it in every way he can since.

  “That one yours, Princess Windleaf?” He asked with an excited smile from feeding the four horses that were kept separate from Vigora and hers.

  “Not this time, I missed mine,” Maud shook her head at him. “Did you feed Vigora and Rosemary?”

  Hugo winked, “They ate their fill.” Quieter, with a tap to his nose, “Two pears each.”

  “Good man,” Maud smiled.

  Draka harumphed at that. Blast him and his hearing. Maud caught his glance over his shoulder and shrugged a smile back.

  Draka shot a playful glare at Hugo, who lowered his head. Draka set the enormous bird at their area which, unlike the others, had no tents. Just a small bit of wood and cleared places for them to sleep.

  There were wagons with oxen resting nearby and the other boys—men—of the village with their pitched tents and small campfires. Chase Greshon, Senna’s cousin, was sitting on the rail of the wagon with one leg hanging loose while the other was braced on a wheel, sharpening the end of a long branch into a spear with a knife. Behind him, inside the wagon were Raphael, Balthazar’s son, laughing and tossing bits at Bruce, Freider the Barkeeper’s son. They were saying something about Senna. Maud heard something about Hugo’s sister, Anita, too. Hugo gave Maud a look when his ears perked before he pushed Chase to one side and slapped Raphael.

  “Boys!” One of Karl’s companions, a Cleric named Xavier, called from their area, climbing to his feet.

  Vigora, Draka’s white dish-faced blue-eyed Arabian horse meandered to where Draka began plucking the feathers. Rosemary, Maud’s horse, followed her. Rosemary was another gift from Queen Isabella of The Holy Lands, or Queen Isabella of Anatolia.

  The Queen said in the letter that they would meet soon, but the horse acted as if they had been born together. Like Vigora, she follows Maud everywhere. She’s not an Arabian breed, but something called a Knabstrupper, which the Queen said is very rare and, as she put it, must be bred carefully because they are nearly extinct. She liked her spotted white coat and eyes black as her hair. Thankfully, Vigora seemed to like her, too. They were like best friends almost the instant they met.

  “The harvest festival is next week, you know,” Maud said to Draka as she helped Rosemary to the ground in the cleared area. She rubbed the bridge of her horse’s nose and kissed its cheek. Rosemary curled her lips into a grin.

  Draka nodded as he plucked, sitting cross-legged.

  Maud went to where their packs had been guarded by their horses while they hunted and brought out the firestarter stick. It was a long stick with one end that was carved to a point with a short rod rammed through it a little ways up. A rope was tied on both ends of the rod and wrapped loosely going upward with excess at the top. She set it to the side and grabbed the rod with a hole in the center that the firestarter stick goes through.

  “You know what that means, right?”

  Draka shrugged. He plucked more feathers.

  Maud rolled her eyes. He has no idea.

  She began placing the logs for a campfire between them. “The Ribbon Dance?”

  Again, a shrug and plucking.

  Maud nodded, “Alright.”

  She placed the bits of the tinder over the bottom log, nestled the tip of the firestarter stick into it so that it was standing upright through the rod hole. Normally, Draka would hold the rod for her. She didn’t wait this time. With the rod balanced on her shoulder, she tugged the rope ends, spinning the stick. Flames ignited and she tossed the rod and starter stick with its ropes to the side.

  “It means that I’m going to dance with a ribbon and pick my HUSBAND!”

  Draka stopped plucking. He narrowed his eyes at her.

  Maud crossed her arms, meeting his gaze with the mirror of those narrowed eyes. The flames started to wane. She growled and cupped her hair back to lean over and blow at it. Draka returned to plucking.

  Once the fire was going and Draka had finished plucking, he rigged the spit and she poured the oil while he turned the meat. She sprinkled the mix of powders and herbs.

  Tomorrow was the big day. Judging by how cold it was getting and the dampness of the air, something her father had taught her but Draka had made her sharply more aware of, the fog would be over the nearby field in the morning. That was what they were all there for. The fog.

  That wasn’t what she really wanted to talk about. She wanted to talk about the Ribbon Dance. Well, not the Ribbon Dance per se—as Pierre would put it—but the fact that she and Draka both agreed on the fact that they both didn’t want her to dance it. Just, more than likely not for the same reason. And she knew it. How to say it? She can’t be the one to ask, but she could be the one to put it in his head, couldn’t she? Ugh, if only she had gone through this with her father before now, before he died.

  “What if,” Maud sat down, clapping the last bit of the herbal dust from her hands, and let the warmth cover her crossed legs. “What if, say, someone were to ask me to marry them before the Ribbon Dance?”

  Draka laughed. Silently, of course, because of his stupid Vow of Silence that still had a few months to go. He shook his head and began turning the spit the other way. She rolled her eyes.

  “You laugh, but it could happen. I’m a wanted woman now, being a princess and all. And I’m pretty sure that I look quite good in hides and furs,” She turned her head sideways and struck a pose with her dirt and herb crusted hand under her dirty chin. “I’m quite the fetching barbarian, aren’t I? I might have all the barbarians sending their sons before you know it.”

  Draka had a twinkle in his eyes over a grin that reflected how right she was. A part of her imagined how ruthlessly he might have fought off a horde to be her husband if things had been different and she were twenty years older. He flicked his eyebrows with a nod.

  “I have to dance the Ribbon Dance if I don’t have a husband-to-be, it’s tradition,” Maud looked at him more seriously this time. “And there’s no guarantee that I will win who’s tied to it. It’s not like I’m at home practicing the dance right now, is it?”

  Draka took in a breath. You don’t need to, his shrug told her.

  “But I’m not spoken for. I must be spoken for or it is an insult and the whole thing starts all over again. Maybe you could, I don’t know, think of someone who might be a good match?” She looked over the meat, it was beginning to lighten, about done. “I think it’s ready.”

  Draka withdrew the meat as Maud gave him a warm grin.

  “Maybe there’s someone who you know that might make me a very happy wife,” her grin widened.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Draka nodded, returning the warmth in his own grin as he drew a knife…and stabbed it into the bird’s ribs.

  Not generally how one gets their meat from a spit.

  Maud pursed her brows.

  She wasn’t entirely certain if that was for the bird or who would make her happy as a wife. She decided not to press further.

  That night, while the others lay in their tents, she and Draka lay across from each other with the campfire between them, curled against their horses. Both of them had their horses heads over their shoulders, cheeks resting on their heads as if they were the horses’ foals. Draka fell asleep first, while she watched.

  What was with him? She knew he had many proposals of his own he was sifting through, and often wondered how many he went through for her—he never said and Ma never told her, either—but she wanted Karl. Karl, who was smart enough to stay in his tent, although she wanted to go to it herself. She, too, knew better than to even try.

  Kissing was becoming less and less. They couldn’t hold each other long enough, tight enough. She wanted more. She wanted him in ways she had never experienced, never felt, never tasted. But every part of her wanted to curl around him every time she touched him and it was becoming torture not to. And Draka seemed careless about it, as if it meant nothing to him to torture her this way. She had been careful to not let him see them kissing—she had been careful that no one saw them kissing with all the foreigners coming and going from other kingdoms in the hopes of marrying one of them off. Plus, she didn’t know how Draka might react to it. She knew he wouldn’t kill Karl. But Draka had a temper. A bad one. And she was his darling daughter. Even if not by blood, he considered her as close to it as she could be.

  Would Karl be good enough in his eyes? He was more than good enough in hers.

  That night, she dreamt of Karl coming to her and wrapping his arms around her. She wrapped her legs around him and kissed his scruffy face. She felt his chest against her and breathed in his smell…

  She woke to Draka tapping Rosemary’s rear to get up from her. It was still dark, but she could see a mist had gathered through the camp. He was beaming. She was sweating even though it was cold. It was definitely a much better dream, if only she could remember the rest of it. She tried to tighten her braids while Draka tossed her the packs to her saddle.

  Remember to mount your leg belts, his glance told her before he tossed them in a bundle.

  “I know. Three, right?” She held them in one hand and guided Rosemary with the other to stay still in front her.

  Draka shook his head and pointed to the wide one on top of the bundle for her thighs.

  “Sorry, four. One on top, three going down. Got it.” She barely caught her saddle when he put it in her arms.

  Hugo was on the other side, already putting the pelt over Rosemary’s back for her. She had nearly forgotten it. She was still getting used to having her own horse. He rubbed Rosemary, who nudged his head as thanks. Maud nodded her own thanks and he winked back before moving on to help with the others at the wagon. With a heave, Maud put the saddle over Rosemary’s back. Karl and his group were already rolling their tents and winding their cloths. Their horses were saddled. They, too, had the belts on the sides of their saddles.

  “We’ll be circling wide, hopefully keep them from getting spooked before we reach the other side,” Karl said to Draka with a shakiness in his voice. “The fog is exactly as you predicted, thick and about up to the saddle.”

  Maud gave him a look. Have more confidence, you doof!

  He only winced back.

  Draka nodded as he belted his saddle to Vigora. Draka did hand signals that directed how Karl and the others were to set up at the other end of the field. Karl nodded and turned from him to go back to his group. He locked eyes with Maud, who checked that Draka had his back to them.

  ‘I love you,’ she mouthed to him with a wanton smile, heat in her cheeks.

  ‘I love you, too,’ he mouthed back with a sheepish grin.

  She mounted Rosemary at the same time that Draka mounted Vigora. He gave her the nod and Maud beamed, grabbing her bow.

  Then Draka handed her the quiver of arrows.

  She counted them, as he always reminded her to do and she pulled one. It was tipped by a dripping bag of yellow paint. She gave him a single raised eyebrow.

  “Really?”

  It’s your first time, Draka nodded, blinking. He did a hand motion that said, pay attention and do your best. Next time, you get regular arrows.

  “Afraid I’d shoot you, aren’t you?” Maud frowned at him.

  Draka laughed as he nodded. He trotted Vigora toward the field.

  “Yesterday was a fluke,” Maud growled as she followed. “Some father you are!”

  As they got closer to the edge of the forest, Draka signaled for them to slow and for her to follow his path exactly. Xavier and another, a Knight named Olaf, who was from somewhere called Ural, were waiting on their horses.

  She came to beside Draka. He put a finger to his mouth for her to be silent as they looked across the field.

  It was a sea of pillowy white broken by a tree here or there for nearly as far as she could see. Only a shadow in the distance hinted that the field came to an end. There were shapes in it, scattered like the spots on Rosemary’s coat. Some moved. Maud eyed them. If they took aim, they could probably fell at least a few of them. Elk, a whole herd of them, scattered across the field. At least twenty or thirty. She tried to focus her eyes.

  “Wind is about to shift,” Olaf’s accent was like listening to a hammer being struck over each syllable. “The horses will see their feet.”

  Draka nodded. Reins were notched to saddles, bows taken in hands, quivers adjusted to sides. Maud followed what she saw. First, she followed Draka, but realized he was doing things the opposite way she should, so she decided to follow how Olaf did it.

  Draka turned to her and nodded at her legs. Maud’s eyes were already wide. Her heart was beating a war drum in her chest. Her breaths were puffs of white filling puffs of white. She looked down. The belts were holding her legs to the saddle. They were tight enough that she didn’t have any give, but not tight enough that she felt numbness. She nodded. He gave her a look of disbelief.

  “Fine,” she whispered through a puff and shifted her bow from hand to hand as she checked the buckles on each side. “There, they’re good.” She actually had to tighten three of them, but she’ll never let him know that. She waited until he looked back out into the field before she tightened those.

  Just as Olaf said, the fog drifted sideways, thinning. Draka lifted his bow. They all charged forward, hands drawing arrows into their bows as their horses carried them in a backwards ‘V’ to encircle the herd of elk. The elk tried to scatter.

  Maud drew her arrow the way Draka taught her because she wasn’t strong enough to do it the way he does—which is by just putting the arrow on the string and merely pulling back. Instead, she put the arrow on the string. Then, with the bow aimed over her head, she brought the bow down and drew the arrow back in the same motion. She took aim and let the arrow fly at an elk. The arrow disappeared somewhere in the misty ground. She crinkled her nose.

  The horses and their riders were members of the herd now, charging across the field. Draka was at the front on the left side, being left handed. He turned Vigora, turning the herd to keep them in the field. He loosed an arrow and felled an elk to be trampled by the herd. Xavier was in front of Maud on the right. He did another elk the same.

  Olaf, somewhere mixed between and among the herd, was loosing arrow after arrow into them. His bow was different from theirs, with the ends curved outward and, for some reason he had two strings on his, but he seemed to draw his faster than them. Maud wanted to be that skilled. She also wanted that bow.

  Maud went for one that was smaller but had an antler with a handful of points. She plastered yellow paint on its neck. “Yes! I got one!” She cheered with a wave of her bow.

  Draka turned the herd again. They were sprinting past where they had begun.

  Olaf felled another and another. Xavier got himself one of the elder elks. Draka felled the one that Maud shot and then had to take two shots to fell another that was nearly as big as a warhorse. Maud took another shot. It splashed yellow paint across the back of its neck.

  She spat and drew another arrow. The bounce of the saddle. The rush of her heartbeat. The air rushing through the braids of her hair. The quickness of her breath. It was like running, with the excitement, the rush of everything around her. The freedom.

  She tried not to cheer as she notched another arrow. She eyed the herd.

  Rosemary understood to pace them but kept enough distance from them that when an elk decided to whip its antlers at her, she was able to jump out of the way. Maud drew the arrow just as Rosemary took one of those leaps and watched the arrow fly skyward with a wince.

  Yellow paint splashed across Draka’s unamused face.

  Olaf gave her a thumbs up and Xavier nearly fell off his horse laughing. Maud tucked her head in embarrassment.

  She didn’t want to see how angry he was. Rosemary kept galloping, kept following the herd, and she kept her bow across her lap, fighting the tears, wishing she didn’t have those stupid braids keeping her hair out of her stupid face.

  A tap on her shoulder made her look up. Draka flicked paint from his fingers into her face, laughing. Then he waved his bow, stopping Vigora so that she kicked her forelegs up into the air. They let the rest of the elk herd flee into the woods. Maud wiped at the paint on her face, and the tears, feeling a smile return.

  That’s why it was paint, Draka lifted her chin with a wink. Maud nodded, leaning her head into his chest.

  “Haven’t hunted like that since my days in the Motherland,” Olaf’s hammering of words rattled.

  “I counted nineteen, left plenty of stags and females for the winter,” Xavier nodded when he caught up to them. “Not bad, Princess. For your first time, I’d say you would have at least three.” He winked at Draka.

  Draka gave her a proud squeeze of her shoulders into him. He turned toward the edge of the field, where Karl and the others were. Karl and Hugo were riding towards them. They stopped with wide smiles.

  “We got nine stags,” Hugo spoke before Karl could do more than move his mouth. “Big ones.”

  Maud turned sideways. If she didn’t have her head planted against Draka’s shoulder she would be shaking it at him.

  “No females, I hope,” Xavier set his bow into the sheath on his saddle.

  “And no young either. If they didn’t have a rack worth carving tools, we didn’t touch them,” now Karl says something. At least he makes himself sound like something other than a noble knight for once. He followed Maud’s advice on that. And Draka’s chest hardened against her ear because of it. Is that a good thing or bad thing?

  “Good. Call the wagons. Looks like Raphael’s got his first contract,” Xavier turned his horse. “Your Majesty, it has been a pleasure. Princess, I look forward to joining you on future hunts.”

  “As do I,” Maud answered, finally straightening in her saddle from laying against Draka’s side.

  Olaf gave her a wide smile. She always imagined that was what the smile of a bearded barbarian would look like. “If only I were a Prince.”

  She didn’t see Draka’s face, but judging by how Olaf’s smile instantly faded along with all the color in his face, she was pretty sure she knew that it was more than a barbarian's smile.

  Maud only turned back around to Draka with a glare, “See! I told you. The prettiest barbarian princess in the world. Wait until word gets out. You’ll be wishing you found someone who had made me a happy wife before they showed up.”

  Draka raised a brow and turned his eyes upward in thought for a split second. Then shook his head dismissively before riding off to help with loading their catch into the wagons.

  Maud gaped. Really? Just like that? Just…No?

  Karl was still there when she looked back. He pointed at the splatters of yellow on her face, hair, and hides, one at a time. Maud only rolled her eyes with a growl at him and made Rosemary gallop away from him. She wasn’t happy with him, either.