The wind whistled through the rushes as we rode. It was a cold, clear winter evening, and brisk gusts buffeted us through the layers of our clothes. I had shed the gown from earlier for a riding dress of sensible wool, dyed indigo at the hems with the skirt split up the back to enable the comfortable straddling of a horse. My mantle was also wool, but of a thicker weave and trimmed with mink-fur. A pair of sheepskin boots completed the ensemble, the thick hides insulating my feet from the stinging winter air.
I sat astride a bay palfrey, Marion accompanying me to my left on his black mare. He had donned a cuirass of boiled leather over his linen tunic, and a wool-and-velvet cloak of midnight-blue shrouded him against the chill. He whistled irritatingly as we cantered along, the tuneless notes faint beneath the gale.
"Will you cut that out?" I snapped. "I'm trying to concentrate."
"Oh? Were you casting a spell of some sort?"
"No, I'm watching for signs. We're trying to track a dangerous monster, you may recall."
"Ah, yes, your cockatrice."
"Your cockatrice."
"You're the one who insisted it was out here." That much was true. We had returned to the scene of the beast's last attack and found the carnage of a wagon train, bodies of horses and men strewn across a dirt road. Some had tried to run, making it as far as the nearby brook, where the monster had evidently caught up to them. Their bodies were flung against a boulder breaking the flow, and the blood had washed away so that the only evidence of their death was a grey pallor to the skin. Yet, I had seen no tracks. Marion had dithered, suggesting we return to a nearby village and inquire of the locals, so I had taken matters into my own hands, insisting we follow the brook until we came across some trace of the animal.
We rode on for a while longer, the darkening sky casting shades of blue across the water. Marion sighed. "Thistle?"
"What?"
"I'm bored."
"Are you serious?"
"Yes! We could be at an inn right now, eating meat pies in front of a roaring fire."
"You are surely the weakest, most abject Merylian ever to walk this earth."
"Well. I do have my redeeming features."
"Like what?"
"I've been told I have impressive body heat."
I raised an eyebrow. "Body heat?"
"Yes. You may find out later, when we huddle together for warmth in the night."
"You're looking for an excuse to grope me."
"Do I need an excuse for that?" Grinning, he kicked his mare closer to me and reached a hand across the bodice of my gown.
"Stop."
"And what if I don't?"
"No, stop!" I halted my palfrey. Something had caught my attention in the dirt. I dismounted, swinging my legs over the bridle, and slid off to the cold, packed earth. There were scuff marks in the ground here, great gouges where it seemed as if the soil had been torn up by some sort of large, clawed animal.
Marion whistled. "Good find, Thistle."
I smiled, narrowing my eyes at him. "Where would you be without me, dear Marion? The tracking skills of Merylians are clearly greatly overblown."
"Clearly," he agreed. "What's that, by the way?"
My eyes followed his pointing finger. There, some ten yards behind us, was another set of gouges in the earth. Then, a bit further, another set. They stretched behind us for a while, deep indents clearly demarcating where the beast had walked through.
I scowled. "We've been following its tracks this whole time."
"Have we?"
"And you didn't see fit to tell me."
"Didn't I?"
"Let's camp here for the night," I said, sourly. I led my palfrey over to a bit of sparse grass and let it graze, hobbling it with a length of hempen rope.
"The first sensible thing you've said all day," he agreed, doing the same with his mare. I watched as he unslung a pack from his shoulder, taking out a rolled-up square of canvas and spreading it out on the ground. He then folded it once over and tucked in the edges, making a man-sized piece of bedding on the frozen dirt.
"Where's mine?"
"You didn't bring one?" he chuckled. "I guess there's nothing to do but share, then."
"Very funny. I'll take the bedroll. You can sleep on the grass, Master Survivalist."
"As the lady commands." He was infuriatingly unperturbed. "I'll go gather wood." He strolled off, leaving me alone with the bedroll. I sat down on it.
I looked on in sullen silence as he came traipsing back with large armfuls of firewood. He laid them in a pile near where I sat, separating the kindling from the timber methodically before striking a piece of flint against his dagger. I watched him struggle a while, nascent sparks jumping against the steel, then reached a hand into my gown, fingers brushing the mother-of-pearl pendant pressed against my chest, and muttered a few words. A spark, then flames began to dance across the kindling.
He grinned. "Neat trick."
"Less useless than you imagined, am I?"
"Why, yes."
"Fuck you."
"Sweet Thistle," he sighed. "They say the most fragrant roses have the sharpest thorns."
"Thistles are practically made of thorns."
"I've noticed. Do you have anything to eat?"
"No."
