Page 101 of Bridget & Gabe Are Not Okay

The crowd was scattering, panicked, as it became clear just how many knights of the realm were in their midst; some ofthem drew their swords and knives, ready to fight, but these weren’t trained soldiers. They were ordinary men, angry and scared, and while they would have held up very well in a brawl at a bar, the reality of the sudden appearance of the order of the round table was a different thing entirely.

Bridget was sure that any one of them would have professed his ability to beat Adah in a fight—so why, then, was she watching them back away from her, the only ones foolish enough to get within sword range finding themselves disarmed or wounded in short order?

The preacher jumped down from the crate, holding his arm, which was bleeding heavily. He looked terrified and slightly baffled, as if he hadn’t expected to face any actual violence aimed in his direction.

The real difference between them, Bridget thought, was that the most these men were willing to do for their cause was to kill for it. A knight of the round table would die for theirs.

Bridget could see Sir Bowen locked in combat with a man who had at least six inches on him in stature; Sir Leonard, showboating as always, was fighting two men at once with a blade in each hand.

She needed to be down there, fighting with them. She tried to turn the knife in her hand at an angle to get some purchase against the rope, feeling a jolt of fear when the handle slipped, and then it was too late; one of the men on the ground had spotted her struggling and decided to take his shot at glory.

He pushed through the remaining crowd with purpose, lifting his knife as he took one step up onto the stage, Bridget backing away from him and wondering if she’d need to take the coward’s way out and run. But then someone in a cloak was jumping up onto the stage beside her, and when the hood fell back, she realized it wasGwen: Gwen in plate armor, herbright fiery hair pulled back from her face in twin, sensible braids, her stance good, her sword raised in Bridget’s defense.

The man’s knife struck the flat of Gwen’s blade, and then she pushed him, hard, catching him off guard so that he went stumbling backward, losing his grip on his weapon in the process. It went flying off into the mud, and he glanced after it, wild-eyed, before giving up and fleeing.

Gwen waited until it became clear that no further assailants were forthcoming, and then straightened up and turned to her with a grim smile.

“Hello,” she said. “I’ve come to rescue you.”

“I…” Bridget took her in, magnificent beyond words, and felt almost speechless. “I can see that.”

Gwen cut her bindings, and Bridget shook out her wrists and then dropped down from the stage to retrieve someone else’s fallen shortsword. She steeled herself, ready to let her mind slip away into the numb, radiant buzz of violence, knowing she’d suffer for it later, raising the blade—before she felt the flat of a sword hit her chest, stopping her in her tracks.

“No,” Gwen said. “Bridget, come on. Let’s go.”

Bridget looked at her, trying to shake off that rising heat of battle, her body unaware that there was any other way for this to go.

“Let’sgo,” Gwen repeated. Bridget took a breath, and all of a sudden she was empty. Wrecked. She nodded—because she was so very tired. Maybe it was okay, this once, to walk away.

Gwen glanced up behind them, and said, “Oh, shit.”

Gabriel was mounting the stage. Bridget was always surprised to see him holding a sword; it wasn’t a natural state of existence for him, despite the many years of training that had given him a textbook fighting stance.

Someone shouted “It’s him,” and then Bridget heard theword “king” ripple through the square like a snake through a riverbed.

“If you think you can frighten us,” Gabriel called out, his voice shaky but resolute, “if you think we’ll be forced into silence, you’re wrong. Rage all you want, as is your right, but if you expect us—me—to be meek and bow to hate, you’ll find yourselves sorely mistaken. As my sister has just demonstrated, if you want a fight, we’ll give you one.”

A tiny cavalry of pages and squires was racing down the hill, and the remaining fighters saw sense, and ran, limped, or staggered away. Of the few men down, only one of them had stopped breathing; Bridget was gratified, at first, to see that it was the man who’d cut her hair, but then she saw the blood on his fingers where he’d clutched at his wound, and suddenly she was gripped by horror. He was the assassin in the hall, scarlet pooling on the flagstones; Lord Willard on the battlefield, lying prone where she’d felled him.

She lurched forward, her legs too weak to hold her, and felt Gwen half catch her—and then there were more arms, Sidney’s, and Neil was somewhere nearby, almost hysterical, telling someone in shrill tones that they should have killed them all and burned the village to the ground.

The fight was over. The square was empty; the village as silent as the grave.

“Should we go after them, sire?” Sir Hurst said to Gabriel, already launching himself up onto a horse.

“No,” Gabriel said, shaking his head. “No, I think…” He looked at Bridget, who couldn’t advise him either way. In fact, she could no longer feel her limbs at all. “I think it’s done. I think it’s time for us to go home.”

Forty-Two

Darkness, then light. Someone splashing her face with cold water. She wanted to tell them that she was fine, she was getting up any minute now, but she couldn’t.

Bridget went under again—was it twice more?—before she was able to open her eyes.

“Whoa,” said the Wizard, who had ridden down the hill with the squires. “Don’t get up yet. Take some water with honey.”

She did, feeling strangely meek, then fought nausea as she was helped to a horse and put up behind Sir Bowen.

She closed her eyes and held on tight to him as they began to move, her teeth grinding in time with the hoofs pounding beneath her; they rode for a long while, long after full dark, so long that Bridget started to feel deathly hollow and shaky. By the time she was helped down from the saddle, she was shivering violently, embarrassed to be putting on such a display in front of the others.