Wednesday

Of all the things I’d imagined might stop us from reaching Rennart Castle by nightfall, goats had not even made the top fifty. Before setting out, my number-one source of nightmares had been that we’d encounter the King’s men. But four horsemen wearing King Bren’s gold-embroidered tunics had galloped past us a few miles back, flinging nothing more than mud and disdain in our direction as they’d carelessly forced us off the narrow road.

Once they’d rounded the bend towards the capital, I’d breathed a sigh of relief, thinking our passage clear. After all, if the loathed King’s disreputable followers had left us alone, then surely nothing would stop us?

And yet, here we are, minutes later, held hostage by six goats, a lame horse and an overturned cart. And the boy. Wearing the tunic emblazoned with the bright blue fox that marks him as property of Sir Garrick Sharp, Knight Protector of Rennart Castle, he is my lady’s worst nightmare come to life in black hose and tall black boots. I’d heard her utter a most unladylike word under her breath as we’d rounded the corner at full canter, nearly taking out a hairy white goat before skidding to a stop.
‘All hail,’ the boy had shouted, red-faced as he’d wrestled an unhappy brown goat towards a wooden crate lying on its side by the cart.

‘Sorry, good mistresses. Won’t be a jiffy. Just helping Master Seymour here with his goats. He, er, ran into some trouble.’

‘Trouble ran into me, more like,’ the old man had muttered. ‘That young wastrel’s lackeys, intent only on themselves, as usual.’

I did not look at Cassandra, and neither of us had replied. Whispers about King Bren and his friends and their pleasure-seeking, law-breaking ways waft across the kingdom of Cartreff on every breeze, but it would not do to discuss them here, on the road, with strangers. People have been hanged for less…

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