The vegetable cart lurched from side to side in a lulling movement. It had not taken long for Sansa to fall asleep. An elderly couple had seen the poor travel-worn woman walking alongside the road. Apostol and Mirela could not leave her behind and offered Sansa a ride to Wulfhaven. In the back of the wooden wagon, the young woman’s head bobbed from side to side along with the motion of the cart.
“She is an absolute doll,” Mirela exclaimed in a quiet tone as to not wake the sleeping woman. The white-haired lady smiled at her husband with that smile he knew all too well. Apostol’s face grew stern and defiant.
“We’ll not be keepin’ ‘er. Don’ even know where she be from, Mirela,” the elderly man said around the piece of wheat dangling from his withered lips. He turned his hazel eyes away from the woman at his side and shook his head again. Staring at his wife for too long got the woman what she wanted almost every single time. But this time, Apostol was not having it, the damned woman. He loved her far too much and for the last forty years, but this was going far too far.
“She is all alone and without anyone to care for her. The poor thing was half-starved when we picked her up. Can we not do anything for her at least,” Mirela pleaded with the man in the same whispered tone she used before.
“We already done what we can for ‘er. No more. She got bread an’ she got water now. More than she had ‘fore we came alon’,” Apostol stated, his face growing into a scowl. He wanted to move on from this topic. The whole way his wife had been commenting on the scenery, or that animal, or that traveller. Why couldn’t the woman just go back to talking about trivial topics instead of idiotic topics. It was dangerous enough to pick up someone on the side of the road without knowing who they were. Apostol was not about to go around fostering or adopting random maids walking on their own towards Wulfhaven.
Sansa’s eyes began to open as the voices of the elderly couple permeated her subconscious.
“But she’s just a chi—”
“Mirela. She be not a child. Tha’ woman in the back could be a noble or’a werewolf or’a gods know wha’ else, some kind of terror jus’ waitin’ for us to trus’ it. I no’ abou’ to go an’ risk the life o’my wife jus’ so we can feed one more mouth than we can ‘fford.”
“Apostol—”
“There be no more talk o’this, no more, woman.” Apostol spat at the ground, leaning over in his hard wooden seat with the reins held in his work-worn hands.
Sansa’s ears had finally opened to the world and she had caught the end of the couple’s conversation. It had hurt. The woman had been so nice to her and had given her food for the journey to Wulfhaven. Sansa placed a hand on the edge of the cart and timidly looked over her shoulder to look at Apostol and Mirela. The woman was hanging her head in a sorrowful manner, chastised by her own husband for her girlish dreams. The man was staring straight forward towards the open road trying his hardest to not feel bad for his words.
Gathering up her things, Sansa slung her satchel over her shoulder and waited for an opportune moment to hop from the moving cart.
They don’t want me here, the young woman thought to herself with dismay. Sansa almost felt tears well up in her brown eyes but the lack of water prevented them from falling down her fair cheeks.
The ground was hard when Sansa’s knees hit the earth after jumping from the cart. Her hands stung as well from the rocks littered along the road. But, she made not a single sound in case the old woman looked back and saw that Sansa was gone. They would turn around if Mirela did see her abandoning them, or maybe her husband would just keep driving off without her. He never did like the idea of taking Sansa along with them on their travels.
A nearby tree provided refuge from sight as the cart continued to lumber away in the distance. Sansa sat beneath its shade and had lost time while reading her only book. By then, the girl had read it cover to cover over and over again. All the words were memorized, even the ones she did not understand.
“Well, well, well,” a male voice said above her as the sun was blocked from her book’s pages by a shadow. “You know, I am not the smartest man in my family or my town but I am certain that a woman traveling alone is not the safest of choices, m’dear.”
Sansa’s eyes looked up to the man but not a single detail could be garnered. The sun made her squint and nothing more than the outline of him could be seen while the stranger sat atop his horse. Sansa opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted before sound came forth.
“I do not need an introduction,” the man stated while folding his hands over the horn of his saddle, reins in hand. A grin was splayed across his weather-beaten face but Sansa could not see it.
“I—” Sansa started out.
“Now, you have two choices to make here. You can either sit beneath this tree for whatever reason, reading your book like you are now, or you can come with me to Wulfhaven and come be my wife,” the man stated rather bluntly. Sansa was taken aback and awestruck for a moment. Never before had a man simply approached her and proposed a life-long marriage to himself.
“You looked shocked and a little appalled. I can honestly say that I am a little hurt by that expression ... my Cosmina.” The man’s grin only grew wider and more devilish; a grin that many women had fallen in love with before on sight. And yet, for some reason, the man had never taken them as lovers nor wives.
It took Sansa a moment to realize who was sitting in that saddle above her. When the memory hit her full on forced, she stood up and the book that had been placed in her lap slid to the ground with a soft
thump. Placing a hand over her eyes, Sansa was able to see the man for who he truly was and smiled a familiar smile at him.
“Petre.”
“Did you miss me?”
The rest of the trail to Wulfhaven was full of laughter and tales from both Petre and Sansa. The man had even been so bold as to trail warm kisses up the side of the woman’s neck which made the auburn beauty blush. Not a single day had passed that the man forgot about her or did not think about Sansa. Memories of their limited days spent together beneath the sun on the fields surrounding Torholden had been some of the most treasured.
“Tell me you will marry me,” Petre said brushing the woman’s long hair away from her neck. The sunlight shimmered off of it in such a way that it almost seemed like spun copper.
Sansa laughed and held the reins more gently in her hands before she said, “And why would I ever marry a blacksmith’s son? Cosmina would never marry someone so low born.” It was a tease and one that made Petre laugh his throaty laugh. Such a sound sent a shudder down the woman’s spine and Sansa’s breath caught in her throat before a smile spread across her fair face.
“Yes. I am just a blacksmith’s son,” the man mused, “but by night? By night I am a knight in shining black armor inlaid with gold and silver with glittering gem—” Petre’s words were cut off as they neared an unknown building. The woman sitting in the saddle in front of him was waiting for the rest of his sentence but had paused, too, in thought at the spectacle.
“What do you think is going on, Petre,” Sansa asked in a worried tone.
“I don’t know and I don’t think we should stick around to s—Sansa! Get back here,” Petre said while attempting to make a grab at the woman’s skirts. It seemed that her curiosity still got the better of her wit. Chuckling to himself, Petre followed after his betrothed on horse, forcing the crowd to part.
Sansa weaved through the crowd and stopped near a man. She turned to him and simply asked, “What is going on?” The unknown man noticed her accent and way of speech. He spat a black glob of mucus on the ground at her feet. Sansa lurched backward to avoid it and bump into someone. A yell came forth from the crowd and more bodies began to press around the woman.
“Petre!” Sansa called out before she was lost in a sea of bodies with the earth pressing against her face.