The Knight's Scarred Maiden. Nicole Locke

second night he’d come in, which wasn’t the only reason she’d noticed him.

      ‘Hurry up, girl, customers are thirsty.’

      Helissent didn’t glance at Rudd. She never glanced at the innkeeper’s son, now owner. She tried not to notice him at all, but it didn’t help. His eyes grew more calculating every day as if she was in a trap and he was merely fattening her up.

      ‘If you stand there much longer,’ he said, snapping a towel in the air, ‘I’ll add another flagon to that tray and make you carry it over your head.’

      If he put one more flagon on the tray, she’d make sure to dump it on his head.

      Then where would she be? Out in the streets.

      Pasting a smile that only deepened her scars’ appearance, she gave him her most guileless look. ‘I’m simply ensuring that everything is in its place, so the customers have what they need.’

      Rudd didn’t have any reaction to her scarred and distorted smile. And that fact frightened her most of all. The fact she couldn’t frighten him. Her deep scars that spanned the entire right side of her body from her temple to her feet made everyone frightened. It’s how she kept the travelling customers away.

      ‘If you give me any more grief I’ll ensure you give them what they truly need...’ he answered, twisting the towel around his fist.

      She lifted the tray and suppressed the anger and fear she couldn’t afford to expose. Her village didn’t have many streets to live on and there were certainly no others who would take her into their homes.

      The only reason her tiny village survived was that it was on the road between London and York. People mostly travelled through and never stayed. If only she didn’t have to stay. But she had nowhere else to go.

      Here, at least, they knew why she was disfigured. Any place else, people could think she was cursed. Or worse, they would pity her.

      Here, she was just ignored. Except for Rudd, the prodigal son, who had returned a month after his parents’ death. He didn’t ignore her at all.

      It was up to her to avoid him and focus on the inn’s patrons. Some travelers, mostly regulars...and now him, who she could feel watching the altercation between Rudd and her.

      Sidestepping the narrow counter, she dodged a stumbling patron on her way to the patrons by the large window and set the tray in the center of the table. For a brief moment, she closed her eyes to soak up the bit of warming sun slanting down. Often it was the only sunlight she felt during the daytime.

      Then she gave a genuine greeting to the patrons at the table. Regular customers, who met her eyes and exchanged pleasantries. Patrons, who knew her family and the former innkeepers, John and Anne, who’d taken her in after the fire destroyed her home and killed her family.

      She’d take any kindness thrown her way. It was probably why she kept skirting her eyes to him. He, who sat at the shadowed table in the rear. Sat in shadows, though he never lowered his cloak’s hood.

      He watched her, which usually made her angry, made her tilt her chin so that those gawking could see every grueling angle of her physical and personal pain. She liked it better when they winced or flushed and turned away.

      She liked it not because it hurt them, but because it reminded her of her shame, her cowardice, and all the hurt she deserved.

      But she didn’t tilt her head with the man in the shadows because he’d told Rudd her honey cakes were exceptional. It was why he’d returned today. He’d ordered more and paid in advance. He was here to collect them.

      Unaccountably nervous, she passed him to get to the kitchens out the back. His head was partially bowed and she still did not see his eyes, but she nodded her head in greeting. She woke up early this morning to make twenty-five cakes. She often received compliments on her baking, but was never requested to make this many cakes before. She’d never known a man with such a sweet tooth and she’d dared to ask Rudd about him.

      Rudd didn’t know the man’s name, but he did know his business. He’d come in a couple of days ago and was staying in the lodgings at the edge of town, him and almost twenty other men. Travellers, but two had spurs. This man with his hood, and another man, who was immensely tall and ducked his head to avoid the ceiling rafters.

      The first day, he and the other men sat at the different tables. There was much talking, sometimes in languages she didn’t know. All of them addressed the man in the hood. She never saw his face nor heard his voice, though the men did.

      Whatever he said made them laugh, made them nod in agreement. They deferred to him. Fascinated, she watched when she could. She wondered who these men were, where they were going next. Not for her to know, but it was a small bit of entertainment she made for herself.

      On the second day, it was only him and the giant. On that day, she swore he watched her.

      She didn’t see spurs when her shadow man came in, but she thought he must have been a knight. His travel clothing wasn’t particularly fine, but it was his bearing that he couldn’t hide beneath his cloak. Tall, with a lean grace not many people possessed, and certainly none in this mostly farming community.

      He couldn’t hide the sword he carried, like it was a part of him, either. Natural, predatory...lethal.

      He returned alone on the third day. On this day to retrieve his order. Carefully placing the cakes in the travelling sacks, she turned again to the inn. She wondered if this time, he would raise his head so she could see him.

      * * *

      Rhain peered at the customers in the ramshackle inn. Nothing made this one any different than the hundreds he had occupied over the last five years. For a mercenary like himself and his men, only location and information mattered.

      This inn had neither. What it did have was sheep...lots of sheep. Even with a stiff breeze, there was no mistaking the smell or din.

      A few days’ ride north of here lay the comfortable Tickhill Castle, a strategic motte and bailey now held by the King himself. He and his men would be welcomed at such a castle, and when he started this journey, it was his intention to oblige himself of their company, sumptuous bedding and fair.

      Castles had location...they also had information, but he could no longer indulge himself of such. Not any more.

      Instead, now, he opted for obscurity. An obscurity that had nothing to do with his occupation as a mercenary. Hence he’d stopped at this wreck of village meant to accommodate the local farming community and the occasional poor traveler.

      The lodgings down the street were adequate protection from the rains, but this inn—

      Rhain lowered his head as the woman passed by his table. Even so, he noticed her greeting. It was difficult not to notice her. When he first came to the inn two days ago, he almost lost his protective hood.

      She’d been standing at the counter, arranging cups. He’d opened the door and the sunlight had hit her. He only had a profile of her, but it was enough to stun him and his men had slammed into him before they’d stumbled around him. She was absolutely exquisite. The pale perfection of her skin, the thick eyelashes. The room’s light wasn’t bright enough to see the exact color of her hair, but it was close to chestnut and waved luxuriously down her back. Then she lifted the tray and he could see the curves of her body, the graceful way she moved. In this hovel of a tavern was someone who belonged in a king’s bed.

      And he should know, having grown with wealth and privilege, knowing the King himself, he knew the quality of the woman. But that wasn’t all that surprised him.

      It was the wide berth of patrons around her. The inn was crowded at that time of day and a beautiful woman should have been pressed against, or been fighting, some of the more inebriated customers. If nothing else, if she was some wife, or sister, there would have been some camaraderie, some familiarity with her. Instead, she was ignored...

      No, in a crowded inn, she was ostracized, the berth continued