Greenwood Knight

Chapter 5

With a sigh, Gwyndolyn shook her head, trying to reset her thinking. Before she could begin to sort out how it all made her feel, she needed to just remember what actually happened. It felt like an eternity that they were caught in that surreal dance of life and death...but she knew in truth it could not have been so very long at all. Only as long as it took the knights to break the door...

The one she stabbed fell and she heard him groaning as he dragged himself back to lean against the wall. She kept him in her peripheral, but turned so that she could better watch the other two as they shifted their stances. She saw them pull daggers and knew they meant to kill her.

She prayed only that Father and Robin would stay far away from the barn. She would probably be sick over it later, but she would stab the three of them if she must. However,  she could not endure if they were to hurt Father or little Robin in front of her...

Except that she did not get sick afterward. She did not feel anything at all, not right away. Only that she held that fork as though her life depended upon it, which in reality it had until the knights crashed through the door. She heard their shouts and wanted to answer, but knew that if she left her attention off from those two monsters for even a second of time...

As the knights' shouts and the pounding grew louder, her two attackers grew bolder. They lunged in turns trying to get the fork away from her. She grazed the ribs of one, tearing his tunic. At the time, she remembered thinking it was a miracle that he twisted away instead of grabbing the fork and wrenching it from her grasp.

She pulled it away from his reach and held it close to her as she quickly turned toward the other. The third man skidded to a stop and skipped back as she lunged at him menacingly. They called her horrible names, and told her what they were going to do to her in vivid detail...

Their lecherous voices scraped at her consciousness and sent a shiver down her spine. So vivid were the memories that she cried out and pressed herself hard against the well, curling even further into herself at the sound of the brush rustling nearby. She let out a scream as a man seemed to materialize from the darkness and stepped toward her.

"Milady, it is only I...er... Sir Gil." He said softly as he stopped and raised his hands up, palms out and away from his weapons.

"You gave me a dreadful fright." She gasped as she tried to scramble to her feet. Instead her feet got all tangled in her skirts and she tumbled hard to the ground.

Great. Now she could add mortification to that list of emotions she needed to sort out. Not that she could do much thinking with her heart thumping and her stomach churning.

"I am sorry." He said as he stepped forward and offered a hand, which she gladly accepted. "I have been watching. You seemed distressed, but I did not want to intrude. Just now, when the wind rustled and you cried out, I could not in good conscience stay away any longer."

"I am distressed." She admitted as he easily tugged her to her feet, "As you can well imagine, after the...the...well, in the barn..."

"Lord Erec and Sir Drew said only that three men accosted you, that one of them was badly injured by a fork, and that you were the one holding the fork..."

"I was...that is to say I..." At the mention of the stabbing, her stomach rolled again as she remembered the sound, the smell, the feeling of the fork as it jerked in her hand when it hit the bone in his... "Oh!"

Her hand clapped over her mouth as she ran for the nearby trees. After two steps she doubled over as a violent shudder racked her body and her stomach lurched. Her arms curled around her middle as her stomach lurched again...and again.