Page 11 of Bridget & Gabe Are Not Okay

Neil didn’t say anything, but he made sure to be as visibly harried as possible, wiping his brow with his handkerchief to dispatch imaginary sweat, tutting up a storm whenever Bridget insisted they mount up with haste after stopping to relieve themselves and the horses.

He didn’t ask what the rush was, because he knew just as well as Bridget did that there wasn’t any. They had spent four days feasting among friends and watching the tourney at Dunstable—Bridget’s hands twitching for the reins each time a knight moved left when she would have shifted right—before saying their farewells. The Camelot contingent had departed, the tourney had drawn to a close, Lady Joan Baker a very respectable twenty-sixth in the rankings. The festivities at Harlestone would not truly begin for another week.

Bridget and Neil rode into the courtyard of the White Hart at Holtropp very late, the stables already near full and the torches threatening to sputter out in the fine mist of rain.

“I’ll order some dinner,” Bridget said, while Neil stretched out his arm, wincing, apparently dying of horse elbow.

Inside, it was hot and loud, the air thick with smoke and the smell of grease. As Bridget stood dripping in the doorway, the nearest man put down his pint and nudged his companion, jerking his head toward her. An uneasy quiet spread across the room like the creep of spilled blood, and Bridget breathed in and out through her nose and then approached the bar.

“Dinner and lodgings for two,” she said to the barman. He just stared back at her through wild beard and bloodshot eyes; eventually she dropped a calfskin purse full of coins on the scarred wood between them, and it seemed to thrill him back to life.

“Oi,” said a whiskered, older gentleman to her left.

No good ever came of a man saying “oi.”

“You’re… you know. You’re that girl.”

Bridget didn’t bother to meet his eye. He’d take the invitation regardless; it would only be a waste of eye contact.

The innkeeper returned Bridget’s purse, and pushed two tankards her way. She nodded and went to sit down.

“Oi,” said the man again. He looked around fifty, his skin leathered, his clothes painstakingly mended. “Come back. We were having a chat.”

Uppercut to the chin, he’d be out easy. Or sweep his legs. Elbow to the shoulder if he tried to swing back, and the arm would dislocate with a satisfying crunch. One strike to the throat. Maybe another, for pudding. She didn’t need her sword. Shewasa sword.

The feeling crested inside her and then was gone. Her mother would have been proud. She’d always been a peace-first sort of woman.

“You don’t mind, do you?” the man said, unbelievably coming to sit at her table. “You’re here fighting in the tourney, I suppose. Couldn’t pay me to do it, no, waste of my time—and it’s no place for a lady. Though you’re not like any lady I’ve ever seen.”

Bridget took a sip of her drink. It was too sour for her liking. She hoped it was pie for dinner. Usually it was miscellaneous stew. It always tasted like the color beige, criminally underspiced compared to her mother’s cooking, but at least with pie you might get gravy.

“They’ve got some pretty strange ideas about people up at the castle,” the man said, his tone harder. “No wonder folks are getting all confused. You must have been there, eh? You met the king? What do you reckon—off his rocker? Must be, with all thisfreedom-to-lovestuff. It’s not right.”

Fish pie was hit or miss, but they were miles from the coast, so it would hopefully be chicken or lamb.

He was still going. “Maybe some of those cultists don’t mind, but good, God-fearing folk won’t stand for it. It’s unnatural.”

There was a small commotion at the door, which was just how Neil liked to enter a room, and then he was sighing and pulling up a chair next to Bridget.

“Your horse pissed on my boots,” he said, taking up one of the tankards. “Also, it smells weird in here.”

“Probably the horse piss,” said Bridget.

Neil nodded at the man. “Who’s your friend?”

He seemed affronted. “Who am I? Who’re you?”

“Okaaay,” Neil said, his voice flat.

Bridget’s grip tightened slightly around her drink.Here we go.

“Piss off then, princess—I was just talking to your pal here.” At “pal,” the stranger slung an arm around Bridget’s shoulders. Neil’s eyebrows catapulted skyward. “She’s a good girl, she’ll tell you.”

“Remove your arm,” Bridget said calmly, putting down her drink.

He gave her a squeeze instead. “Don’t be shy. I bet it’s been a while since you—”

His arm popped loose like its only goal in life was to dislocate. By the time he started bellowing, Bridget and Neil were on their feet.