Daiyu
Bernard and I made good time yesterday, and we were on track to hit twenty miles today too. I’d found an ash stick and birch branch that were half my height and suitable for arrows on the roadside, but I was too fatigued last night to whittle them. I carried them in my quiver with my pine arrows from home. Maybe I’d get lucky and find some goose feathers for fletching.
“I’m so sick of this road,” Bernard mumbled.
“I didn’t come with you to hear you complain,” I said impatiently.
“You walk up and down six hundred miles three times in one year and tell me you’re fine with it. Besides, we had to stop how many times for you yesterday?”
My cheeks heated. “It was five times.”
I couldn’t help it. When my guts grumbled, I either found a pot within minutes or I’d soil myself. And the medicinal salts I ate to help with my moods made everything watery. Sometimes I chose madness just to give my bum a break.
A newsrunner ran past us. The leather pouch tied around his waist indicated he carried a private message.
“No news announcements yet today,” I said, changing the topic to something less embarrassing.
“Good. I’m sick of bad news anyway.”
“Why are you so grumpy? At least your family is alive,” I snapped.
His face pinched, but he took a deep breath before responding. “You aren’t the only one grieving, lass, even if yours hurts the most. Remember that. Most aren’t as patient as me.”
He didn’t raise his voice. Sometimes I wished he’d fight with me, but it was probably better that he was level headed.
“I miss him, too,” he added.
My gaze flicked up to Bernard’s emerald green eyes. “Tell me about my brother as a soldier in the north. Tell me he was happy.”
A smile cracked over his lined features. “He had too much fun up north. And even with the massive deployment, he was known as the best archer in the entire army.”
I glowed with pride and reached back to touch one of the last arrows he’d made for me. The soft goose feather fletching somehow calmed my aching heart.
“More,” I whispered.
Bernard obliged, and kept going even when tears overran my face. I soaked up his ridiculous exploits with the tavern girls, the archery competitions between units that he always won, and how he’d try to find proper girlfriends for his best friend, Gisele.
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