Lytelman meets a little lady

Lytelman had only just returned to his stool when the door blew open again. He tossed down the dice in annoyance.

“That wasn’t my cast,” he blurted when he saw how badly he had done, “I was just… oh…”

It had not been the wind at all, but a woman walking in with all the self-​​assurance of a man. Her stride was long and snappy, and she balanced herself by swinging her arms in grand arcs, as a gaited mare bobbed her head. Lytelman stopped short to watch her, as he would have stopped to watch any beautiful animal move, but Seigine seemed to notice only that she was female.

“Well now!” he crooned. “Come on in out of the cold, little lady. Let me get you a chair!”

Without looking around he reached back to drag a stool out for her, and the “little lady” stopped abruptly just below the torch. She was less daunting standing still, and Lytelman saw then that she was in fact scarcely more than a girl.

“You can get me a horse!” she growled. “At once!”

Seigine laughed. “Knows what she wants, don’t she?” he asked admiringly of Lytelman. “And a good evening to you too, lass!” he bowed.

“Was you the one what was screaming out there?” Lytelman asked her.

“A horse, I said!” She held her arms stiffly at her sides and lifted her chin like one man daring another to punch it. She reminded Lytelman of a hissing kitten, puffing out its tail.

“Who says?” Lytelman asked warily. “Are you staying here?”

“That’s the famous Kraaia,” Seigine chuckled. “And she says, and that’s good enough for her!”

“How do you know who I am?” she muttered.

“‘Cause one time I asked Who’s that beautiful girl over there? and someone told me That’s the famous Kraaia!”

His boot came down heavily in the straw as he attempted to swagger his way towards her. Kraaia shied away and darted around them both like a skittish mare circling a field.

“And I’m the famous Seigine, and this here’s my unknown friend Lytelman – ”

“Saddle me a horse!” she shrieked.

The horses were waking and bumping nervously about in their stalls, and Lytelman’s amusement at the spectacle was tempered by his deep-​​rooted concern for the animals. Seigine, however, for all he slept in their midst, did not seem so burdened.

He nudged Lytelman in the ribs and asked her contritely, “Sidesaddle or astride?”

For a moment, Lytelman imagined it: a girl’s legs wrapped around the broad body of a horse, her hips rising and falling rhythmically at a trot, or her thighs tightly squeezing the saddle, trying to stay seated as the horse shook her at a canter…

Then he looked at her.

In the better light, he noticed that her eyes were pink and puffy, her cheeks red, her nose running. She was only a little girl who had been crying as his own little girls sometimes cried, with a nose that needed wiped like his own little girls’ noses. He felt oddly sick for having managed to imagine her naked thighs, as though he had coughed up some gruesome, gluey thing he had not known he was carrying inside.

“Astride,” she said gruffly.

Seigine swayed like a snake and chuckled soundlessly through his nose. Seigine had no children, so far as Lytelman knew.

“You like that, do you?” Seigine murmured. “Who was teaching you to ride that way, little lady? Sure you don’t need a lesson?”

He ambled towards her, herding her back towards his bed with the breadth of his body. Kraaia squeezed past him while she still could and put the table at her back.

She glared pointedly at Lytelman and demanded, “Did you hear me?”

“I was asking you a question, lass,” Seigine purred.

“And I wasn’t talking to you!” Kraaia barked. “Filthy Scot! Now get me a – ”

Seigine lunged at her and caught her sleeve. “What did you say?” he hissed.

Kraaia shook herself free and snarled, “Filthy Scot! Gaelic goat-​​fondler! I hate you all! I curse your race! You think you’re so fine with your kilts and your accents and your big knives and your wah – !”

Her voice cracked, her eyes squinted up, and her pretty mouth twisted into a grimace Lytelman recognized from deep-​​rooted experience as the face of a child trying not to cry.

To Seigine it must have meant nothing, for he reached savagely towards her with both hands. Lytelman slammed his elbow back into Seigine’s chest to stop him.

Kraaia scurried around the table to put it between herself and the men, but she leaned over it to sob, “Now get me a horse!”

“Who are you ordering around?” Seigine shouted.

“What do you need a horse for, honey?” Lytelman asked, hoping Seigine could be ignored into silence.

“It’s an emergency! And I already told Colin but if he comes out here to get his horse and finds you two standing around making up your mind and my horse not even saddled yet – ”

“An emergency, aye!” Seigine said, interrupting her with the breathtaking lewdness of his sneer. “I guess you’re having a few minutes, little lady. If you want us to do a favor for you, I guess you can do a favor or two for us first…”

“Oh, cut it out, Shay,” Lytelman grumbled. “We ain’t going to give her a horse. What are you going to tell the lady – you gave her horse and saddle away for a hand job?”

“I’d do the same for her!” Seigine said with a savage grin. Suddenly he grabbed a fistful of Lytelman’s shirt and shoved him aside, pushing himself off from Lytelman’s bulk to rush at Kraaia. “We’ll see how well she can order people around with a filthy Scottish cock halfway down her throat!”

Kraaia skittered out of his path and around the table, and Lytelman tackled him blindly into a stall door, terrifying the horse inside into kicking out with both heels against the wood.

“What’s the matter with you?” Lytelman howled. “Can’t you see she’s just a kid? We been drinking!” he said pleadingly to Kraaia. “Now, get out of here before something happens to you!”

Kraaia sidled back around the table, her face pink with fury. “Are you even listening to me? Groom! I need a horse!”

“I can’t give you a horse, girl!”

“It’s an emergency! Are you listening to me? There’s a fire and there’s been a terrible accident and your lady’s in danger – ”

Seigine stopped glowering to laugh. “A fire! Aye! And she’s knowing all about it since she set it!”

Kraaia gasped in outrage.

“An accident,” Seigine sneered, “just like that accident where you pushed the Duke’s daughter down and busted her pretty face just so you could run upstairs to hump the King’s squire! Hussy!”

Kraaia shrieked wordlessly through her teeth like a toddler. Such blind rage on such a big girl was weirdly terrifying.

Lytelman grabbed a handful of Seigine’s tunic in case he lunged again. “Just get out of here!” he begged the girl.

“Your just-a-kid’s the the lying-​​est, sluttiest just-​​a-​​kid in Creation!” Seigine growled, struggling haphazardly against Lytelman’s grip on his shirt. “And a horse-​​thief too!”

“I am not a liar!” Kraaia cried shrilly. “Would I start a fire and then come up here and tell Colin about it?”

“You never even saw Colin! How stupid do you think we are? The guard never even let you in the door!”

“I did so see him! And he’s drunk!” she added, breaking briefly into a sob.

“Quit it, Shay!” Lytelman pleaded. “You’re acting like a brat kid!”

“Let me at her and I’ll act like a man! I’ll show her a filthy Scot!”

Seigine’s struggles suddenly weakened, and when Lytelman let go of his arm and tunic, he did not move. For a moment none of them did.

Outside, the first high, clear notes of Garalt’s horn were ringing from the height of the tower, and men for miles around were stopping where they stood to listen, or stepping into their doorways to stare out into the night.

“It ain’t Tuesday, is it?” Lytelman whispered fearfully.

“That ain’t a drill,” Seigine replied.

“I told you I saw Colin,” Kraaia said.

The sound of the horn seemed a divine trumpet sanctifying her words, and the force of truth shone out like a halo around her head. Kraaia seemed to know it. Lytelman saw no trace of the sniffling, shrieking little girl she had been a moment before. She was a little lady indeed, in spite of her pink and puffy eyes.

“And I told you to saddle me a horse,” she growled.

“Listen, Shay,” Lytelman said, “maybe you can run on up to the house and see what’s going on, and I’ll get Apples started for her – ”

“You get the bridle and you get the saddle,” Kraaia said coldly. “And if I am not away by the time Colin belts his cloak and girds his sword, you may both run on down to Hell.”