Book of Water

Chapter 3

3

“I’m telling you what I saw!” Rinaldo said. “Bradamante saw it, too.”

In her dream Jara heard Orlando shout something back, but she couldn’t make out the words. She drifted back to sleep.

Some time later she heard shouting again. This time she groggily came awake. There were voices outside her tent. Men’s voices. Her body instinctively clenched. She pulled the blanket higher, wanting to bury herself away.

But then she caught the impulse and forced herself to stop.

A warrior was not afraid. A warrior listened. A warrior watched. A warrior surveyed the situation, made bold, brave decisions, then acted without hesitation.

Jara was no warrior. Not yet, anyway.

She listened harder to the sounds: feet squelching through the mud. Orders relayed. The pounding of hooves in the distance.

Jara threw off her blanket and shoved her feet into her boots and tumbled out of the tent.

The rain had tapered off to a drizzle, and the sky was beginning to lighten. Dawn was near the brink. Jara took in what her eyes could tell her.

All of the activity seemed confined to one side of the camp: Rinaldo’s side. Over in Orlando’s area, very few men seemed to be stirring.

She called to a soldier she knew hurrying past.

“Hilyard, what’s happening?”

“Commander says we’re under attack.”

“Why isn’t everyone going?”

Hilyard jerked his head toward Orlando’s side of camp. “That one says he don’t believe it. Sending his own scouts first. Won’t take Commander’s word for nothing.”

Never a man to waste words, Hilyard spared one more coarse one for what he thought of Orlando. Then he set off again toward the horses.

Jara hesitated, looking around for direction. She wished Bradamante were here.

But the decision was hers alone. She crawled back inside her tent, grasped the sword Rinaldo had outfitted her with, and then raced with the others to the corral.

Her sturdy tan mare with the black mane looked agitated from all the commotion. Jara slipped a rope around Filla’s neck and led her away from the crowd, speaking kindly and softly all the while.

“Shh, Filla, settle.” She stroked the mare’s damp side and waited for the animal to calm. Then she saddled and bridled her and mounted from a nearby stump.

She was only halfway up the trail to the pass when she saw Orlando’s two scouts riding their horses hard down the hill, back toward camp. Jara quickly slid from Filla’s saddle and pulled the horse off the trail.

The men said nothing as they thundered past. They didn’t even seem to notice her. Jara liked it that way.

She hesitated again, wondering whether she should continue up to the pass. Obviously something serious was going on, or Orlando’s men wouldn’t be in such a hurry to report.

If their forces were under attack, what could she do? She had been training with Bradamante as much as possible over the past many months, but her skills still felt very primitive. With all of her other duties, Bradamante could usually spare only about an hour each day to teach Jara some new technique with the sword or a knife, or how to fight on horseback, or how to defend herself without any weapons at all.

Jara had duties, too, washing and mending the men’s clothes. It was the only way Rinaldo could justify bringing her along. But it meant she had precious little time to learn what she wanted to learn. As generous as Bradamante was, teaching her every day, it never felt like enough.

Jara hungered for so much more. She wanted to be braver, stronger, better. She thought all the time about that night in Gibeah when Bradamante and Manat had killed all those terrible men and saved Jara’s life.

Could she ever be that fearless? Would she be any use at all to Bradamante or Rinaldo or anyone else when faced with an actual battle?

Filla tugged at her reins as she lowered her head to graze. The rain had finally stopped, and dawn crept under the clouds.

I’ll never get better if I keep running. If Jara could help her friends in any way, she would.

She climbed back onto the saddle and urged Filla up the hill.

For the rest of the ride Jara rehearsed in her mind how she would slice and cut with her sword. How she would attack, defend, what tactics she would use, how hard she would fight alongside her friends.

But when at last she stood upon the top of the ridge and gazed down at the c*****e below, Jara realized that all of her plans were nothing more than fantasy.

This was real, and it was bloody and violent, and she could offer absolutely no help at all.