With her peregrine gripping her shoulder and a black embroidered handkerchief gripped in her fist, Juniper dashed from the low door of the hermitage to the nearest tree. She slumped against the trunk, hearing light pious voices growing louder in their song. Her forehead beaded with troublesome sweat. She scowled and swatted it away with the cloth in her hand.
“What a nuisance this illness is,” she said softly to curious Craquelin. “That peasant Justjohn will pay for it dearly.” She smiled wickedly, picturing his face beneath her wellshod foot, and whipped her head around the tree. Seeing the distant cloister emptied as the nuns attended afternoon prayers, she sprinted halfway across the clearing, stopped to wheeze for a while, stomped her foot angrily, causing dust to fly in the air, which triggered a coughing fit and a resigned slow trudge the rest of the way to the stables.
Juniper crept inside, shutting the low wooden door quietly behind her. She walked the aisle, peering in at the horses, mostly dun fat docile creatures, totally unsuitable for a rider with spirit, even if tamped down by illness. Juniper crossed her arms in frustration. She was going to have to pick one, and fast, if she was to reach Emerald before nightfall. She put her hand to the gate of an old grey mare (presumably and lamentably not what she used to be), when she heard an angrily robust whinny sounding from the end of the barn.
Hiking up her skirts, partly to cool her fever-flushed legs, Juniper hastened to investigate. There, in the last stall of the stable, was one of the finest stallions she had ever laid exacting eyes on. Glossy black, his white eyes gleamed with energy. He raised his head high as he paced, tossing hay from his short path in the stable. The need to run flowed fast through his veins, and as he met Juniper’s eyes, he saw the same lifelong, insatiable desire pulsing through her, and he bowed his neck to her in homage and stilled his walk. Juniper put her hand to the gate.
A door opened with a loud squeak at the end of the stable. Juniper hastily snatched a horseshoe and whip from a hook on the wall and held them behind her back. Young Sister Lonegrine stepped down the aisle, smiling at her, incongruously.
“So you’ve found your horse, have you?” She laughed, in that annoyingly musical way nuns seemed to be prone to. “He’s a wild one, not easy to keep a hold on. Makes a lot of braying noise too!” She snorted. “Perfect match for you, I should say!”
Juniper quickly debated options. Should she take the horse and run? The nun certainly didn’t seem much offended by the impending theft and escape, so threatening force was probably not necessary, however, potentially amusing. Opting for the entertainment value, Juniper widened her stance and held her whip aloft, a steely glint in her eye. To her great shock, Sister Lonegrine responded with a pleasant nod.
“I see you’ve all your travelling gear,” she said, her small mouth smirking lightly. “I shouldn’t expect you’d be threatened on the road, dear. Especially not with a young man like yours looking after you!” Here she collapsed into titters behind her upraised fingers.
Juniper sighed and swung the gate open, making for the saddle hung on the stable wall. She swung back around when she realized what the insipid woman had said and leaned against the gateway weakly.
“What young man?!” Juniper asked sharply, her facial expression overcoming the feebleness of her stance. The nun blanched.
“Why…the one who brought you this horse and l-l-livery,” she stammered. “I thought you knew…”
“What did he look like?” Juniper pulled herself upright. Who was this mysterious benefactor? If she didn’t know, she couldn’t very well find him and punish him for his presumptuousness, could she?
“Tall?” The nun stared wideeyed at Juniper, who grabbed at the saddle and grunted in frustration. “Yes, tall! Dark haired…” She smiled. “Very handsome!”
Juniper lugged the pallet and saddle over the grateful stallion’s back.
“Did he look peasant or noble?” She focused on her buckles. Sister Lonegrine stammered softly again behind her. Juniper spun around, her face flushed. “PEASANT OR ROYAL?!?”
“Royal! Royal!” Now the nun looked feverish too. “Definitely royal.”
Royal, thought Juniper. That’s solves that, then. Henri had come to her aid after all. Perhaps some warm welcome would be in order, but certainly not until he was in full command of his faculties.
Juniper mounted the horse, smiled sweetly and bowed her head to the good Sister, then nearly trampled her as she galloped from the stable. As she thundered away into the woods, she looked back at the convent, growing smaller and smaller in the distance.
“Thank you, Sisters, for saving my life,” she said, sincerely, then spat back into the wind. She didn’t look back again until she reached Lanolin, just after dusk.
She tied the horse to a busy post outside the Rowdie Inn, so that her return would be less conspicuous. She patted his head respectfully.
“Don’t fret, my new friend,” she said. “I shall see you again soon.” He whinnied lightly, then turned his attention to snorting and kicking at the lesser caste beasts around him.
Juniper set off quickly for the main road, leading to Goldenseal Cottage. She kept her hands in a tight fist as she walked, willing herself not to think of what could have happened in her absence. She pictured Emerald, safe in her home, just fixing dinner, preferably venison stew with a red wine reduction. Juniper had been forced into vegetarianism for over a fortnight now, so her daydreams were rather specific.
Her daydreams were vivid also, which is why she reacted with such surprise when she passed a small roadside guest home belonging to the Duke, large windows brightly lit, into one of which Emerald LaVerte was now peering intently. It took Juniper a full two seconds to realize that Emerald seemed to be spying on someone within. She laughed to herself in delight. How very undemure it was!
Her laughter stopped in her throat as she saw a man approaching Emerald from the darkness of the forest. Before she could yell out to her, another man had crept from around the other side of the house and forced a bag over Emerald’s shocked face, dragging her away into the shadows. Suddenly, the light was extinguished in the house and the yard plunged into darkness.
Juniper ran as fast as she could into the black of the forest. She groped blindly for branches as she ran, calling out for Emerald but hearing no response. As a sob grew in her throat, and a flush in her face, she saw a light ahead of her like a light blue orb in midair. She reached for it and it became two, then five, then countless lights. She felt something large and blunt strike her back.
When she opened her eyes a few minutes later, she realized that it had been the ground. The clearing around her was now lit by a warm candleglow. She propped herself up with a moan and looked up at the man holding the candle. She felt frustrated rage pulsing in her veins so violently, it was almost audible.
John Justjohn transferred his candle to his left hand and pulled a dagger from his belt with his right.
“Don’t try anything, Juniper, and don’t slow me down,” he said quietly, “or so help me – this time, I will kill you.”
