The Master's Rose

Into TheWilds

Loading the carriage was easy work. I was no stranger to pulling my weight. The headmaster at Academy made it perfectly clear that everything I was given at that school would be earned, including my private room on the third floor to which I’d been forced to make several trips back and forth carrying my own things.

Stepping into the carriage myself was a more difficult task. I admit to spending more than twenty minutes pretending that I was sure I’d forgotten something and my father patiently and knowingly humoring me. Finally, he sighed and put his hands on my shoulders, forcing me to look him in the eye.

“You can’t pack me into your bags and take me with you, Willhamina.”

I slumped into him and held on tightly.

“There’s no telling when I’ll see you again.” I sniffled into his jacket.

“He’s an alchemist, and we are a well-to-do family. If you can’t come to me, I’ll make a request that brings me to you. He can’t very well turn me away at the door.”

“That’s if he doesn’t turn Will away at the door first!” Daryll joked from inside the carriage.

“Enough, you!” Gladys scolded from the bottom of the stairs.

I demanded a final round of hugs from father and Gladys before finally boarding the carriage. Two men, a guide and a knight, sat in the driver’s seat while the second knight and the sick maid sat across from us. It was going to be a very uncomfortable journey.

It was easy enough to pass the time on the first day. Daryll was excellent at providing intelligent conversation. He never took to the social construct that women weren’t to be educated and genuinely delighted in my wit and banter. A fact which seemed to thoroughly disgust the sick-maid. She was a young woman, likely raised in tradition and taught to be wary of change or an outspoken woman. Out of principle, and because of the dirty looks she sent me every time I opened my mouth, I refused to even ask her name. Being taught to fear an outspoken woman does not excuse being intolerable of one.

The knight sitting in the carriage with us seemed amused though. I wish more women would realize that women are far more valuable with at least a modicum of intelligence.

Night came quickly.

We stopped at an inn on the edge of the Wild Lands. It was the last bit of civilization before we’d cross. There were guards at the inn, so both knights were able to rest well. Presenting the seal to the innkeeper was a bit of a to-do. Everyone knows the master’s reputation and I suspect the innkeeper was under the suspicion that I’d stolen the seal, which forced the thought. If I knew that the master wouldn’t have given me a second look knowing I’m a woman, is that not theft?

“Perhaps you should carry this for the remainder of the journey.” I muttered to my brother afterward.

“No, no, Will. You’ve earned this, you need to own it. How do you ever expect the opinion of woman-kind to change if you allow it to make you feel small?”

I rolled my eyes, though I was grateful for that perspective. Did I really think this was going to be easy? My apprenticeship, if I managed to stay in it, was bound to be a thousand times more difficult. I would have to develop tougher skin. Besides, it’s not like a single day at Academy was a picnic either.

The second day started out much the same as the first, but Daryll and I quickly ran out of things to talk about as the rest of the travel party became tangibly uneasy as we crossed well into the Wild Lands. We were all on edge, listening for every sound, watching for any movement. The sick-maid, determined to be useful, handed out ginger candies to keep us calm. It wouldn’t do to force the carriage to stop in this environment so that one of us could empty our stomachs onto the road.

The knight in the carriage with us slept most of the day. The reason being that we would not stop to make camp that night. It wasn’t safe. The sleeping knight would simply trade places with the driving knight. The logic was sound enough until early morning, before the sun rose, when we experienced first hand why you don’t simply wander through the Wild Lands.

I’d expected beasts or monsters. Unfortunately for my wild imagination, the threat was in fact bandits.

We were a man down due to one knight’s self-inflicted sleep deprivation, and there were five bandits on the road preventing the carriage from moving forward. Because of the darkness, we had to assume there were more in the dense forests on either side of the path. All we could do was fight the enemies we could see and hope to move on quick enough that others couldn’t follow. We’d have to make quick work of them.

The guide had a pepper box pistol which was entirely wasted, until a bandit rushed him and was shot in the chest. Thankfully, the bandit’s weapons were far more crude. The guide managed to survive the scuffle with a gash to the shoulder. The sick-maid, more used to illness than injury, had to be locked in the carriage with the injured guide as my brother, the one awake knight, and myself stood between the carriage and the bandits.

“Letting women fight your battles now?” One of them sneered.

“I’d bet my life savings on her.” Daryll laughed. “You’re not even worth the paperwork to keep you alive.” He was enjoying this.

So was I.

I sported a wicked smile as I stood ready, sword in one hand and a revolver at my hip. I felt like a pirate queen. One of the many privileges earned at Academy was the ability to learn how to fight. I was damn good at it; a fact I often had to hide, but when the opportunity came to draw on a deserving opponent, I reveled in the fight.

It’s odd…

Taking on a handful of criminals was fun for me, easy even. It wasn’t something I felt needed strength or effort to achieve. Yet a day ago, I wavered under social pressure. My brother was right. I would absolutely have to overcome that, and quickly, if I was going to demand a place at the Master’s estate.

In the end, three of the bandits ran off with the odds no longer in their favor. One of their men was dragged off the road to be swallowed up by the forest, and another sat heaving against the wheel of our carriage with a gash spilling blood and bile from his stomach.

“He’s not going to survive anyway,” I said. “Shall I just shoot him?”

“It would probably be kinder,” Daryll said, standing beside me as we deliberated the man’s fate.

The sick maid managed to open the carriage window and vomited into the road. I may have gone a little overboard in the fight.

“Maybe we’ll just let the knights handle it?” Daryl offered. “We are paying them after all.”

“Fair enough, but I’m not going back in the carriage until she,” I pointed my finger at the sick-maid. “Is finished.”

Thankfully, it didn’t take much to get the carriage moving again. For once, we were grateful for the boring quiet of the final leg of the journey.

It wasn’t until the forest thinned out and the placement of plant life began looking intentional that anxiety returned to me in full force. My brother patted my arm and held onto it.

“It’s going to be great, Will. You’ll see.”