𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐎𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐓𝐎𝐑 || 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑾𝑯𝑰𝑻𝑬 𝑸𝑼𝑬𝑬𝑵

𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝐿𝐼

~The Blood of Barnet~

Catherine's ears pounded with the boom and crash of cannon, each shot, each heavy land of lead grinding the earth beneath it into a muddied mess, stained with the warm blood of men. It sent a tremor through her body. She had been on battlefields before but they had been battlefields of her mind, made bloody by memories as sharp as daggers, driven deep into her soul.

This battlefield was different. The screams filling the air were not her own and the conflict was not one of thoughts, but of blades. Bloodied, menacing blades flashing with a crimson glow in the sunlight; the bringers of death.

When the first cries of battle arose and the first screams of the dying pierced her mind with dread, it had been all she could do to refrain from rushing onto the field to find her husband. Only her sense of duty to her own revenge kept her in the confines of their tent but even then she was not still.

Pulling the ribbons from her hair, she let it loose, brushing out the flaxen curls until she could fashion them into a braid she pinned firmly to her head. A dagger was found and sheathed, a helmet too, tossed to one side as she turned to her husband's belongings.

Her hands rummaged through Richard's coffers, searching in earnest for a pair of breeches that would successfully accompany the rumpled shirt of linen and iron mail lying on the bed behind. Her gown and kirtle were beside it, the material long since cooled of the warmth of her body for it had been stripped from her as soon as she knew Richard was away!

Now, she shivered in her shift and stockings as the cannons called out in their deadly boom again, pulling a pair of black, leather breeches from the coffer and shaking them out for inspection. The legs were certainly too long, the waist too wide, but she had little choice. If she were to make it across a battlefield she could not very well do it in a skirt and headdress! She wouldn't get five paces from her tent, let alone onto the field.

'Stay here' Richard had told her and she was sure if he caught sight of her he'd be drag her back to their tent by her legs! That would put them both in danger and she wished for nothing but to keep his life secure!

No, if she was to achieve her own ends and escape the notice of the fighting Yorks she would have to appear something she was not: a man.

Only she had never wielded a blade.
She had never set foot on a battlefield.
And she most certainly was not built like the grim-faced warriors fighting a mere two hundred yards away! 

Clothes and the hope everyone would be too busy trying to preserve their own lives were all she had! With a sigh, she shook out the breeches and slowly tugged them on, wiggling her legs through the dark leather until her feet appeared at the bottom. Pulling them up with a small tug, her eyes widened at the heavy creases of material left loose by her small frame.