The Woman Knight

1 - Paths and Pastries

There was an old, cobblestone path, covered with moss, and cracks, and old things. Lords and peasants walked the path alike, for it was morning in the village, and the one thing these disparate groups shared was the beginning of the work day. So they both walked. The lords, to the stone castle, which was ancient as the path itself; the peasants, to the shipyards, or the furnaces of smelting iron where they choked on the fumes of the goods of their betters. The lords despised the peasants: they despised their smokey skin, their dirty clothes, their grimey hair, and their strange tongue. Most of all, they hated that they had to share the same cobblestone path with the peasants. Perhaps they wouldn't despise them quite as strongly if they knew the hard life they lived.

The shopkeepers had already started up and about, running the marketplace like a buzzing hive of bees, shouting and showing off their wares. From the rich, their antics were mostly met with cold hatred; from the poor, hungry, bitter resentment, for they neither had the money to buy their goods, nor the fortune to be in their good position.

And here we find Lola Bakers, a peasant girl, a farmer's daughter, trying to sell to the rich folk on the cobblestone road.

"Two silver for a meat pie!" She called. "Freshly made, right from the oven!"

A wealthy fat man stared at her in disgust. Such was the response from most of the rich. They saw the tradespeople as vermin trying to step out of their place, rats running out of their cage. And their goods were not fine enough for the lords' fine taste, who only accepted wares from wealthy and far away merchants. They especially looked down upon the working women, who they saw as little better than prostitutes. Lola wasn't particularly hurt or off-put by this reaction, though; if anything, she had seen it so many times that she was a little bored, from going out every morning, seeing the same people, doing the same thing, getting the same negative reaction. She was a little worried about what would happen if something didn't change, and her father didn't see her as useful anymore. But that was another question, for another day. For now, she focused on ringing the bell, standing in the sweltering summer sun, trying her best to attract some sympathetic patron, or a hungry working man with a little cash to spare.

She didn't get either of those things.

But she did get a kind woman.

Someone was walking by hurriedly in an expensive black cloak. They seemed to be going towards the castle.

"Hello, sir," Lola said, looking at the cloaked figure. "Might I interest you in some pastries?"

The figure stopped in their tracks. They turned and stared at Lola. Beneath their large hood lay two wide eyes, momentarily stunned. But they quickly regained their composure.

"Please call me Celeste," they said, pulling back their hood slightly to reveal a head of long blonde hair and the face of a woman.

Lola was surprised. "Oh! Sorry, m'lady, I thought you were-"

"Don't worry," Celeste chuckled. "I do not wear this cloak for no reason. Indeed, the people of the castle would surely hate me if they knew what I was. But you are very kind, and you are - I hope you do not mind me saying this - very beautiful. What's your name?"

"Lola. Lola Bakers," she said, blushing a little at the last comment. "I'm sure that's not true."

"Don't be so humble about yourself," the woman replied. "I'm sure all the boys in town must be vying for your attention. I hope you choose a good one. Though, I must say, the thought does sadden me a little."

Lola blushed again, looking down at her feet. No one had ever called her pretty before, not in the twenty years of her life. It wasn't that she was ugly. In another time, she might have been regarded as beautiful. But here, she wasn't seen as anyone worth respecting, or even really anyone at all. She was stepped on by everyone she knew, save maybe a few female friends - her father, the lords and ladies, the nearby shopkeepers, and, when she was younger, most of the other kids in the village, all saw her as dirt. People put in such a position, who are perceived so heavily as inferior, are usually not seen as beautiful. The baseline level of dirt on her skin, and the abnormal shortness due to malnutrition, didn't help, either. And she was already twenty - twenty, without a husband - and the years were quickly piling up. So her father resented her for her simple existence, fearing that he would never be able to marry her off, and he would never feel the burden of her life lifted off his shoulders.

"Lola, would you be so kind as to accompany me to the tavern?" The woman asked. "I have some business there I must attend to, but I do not want to say goodbye to you just yet."

Her eyes lit up. "Yes, m'lady, I would love to."

"Good," Celeste smiled.

They walked into the bar, Celeste with the confidence and swagger that, unfortunately, only such a tall, deep-voiced woman could have had in this era, and Lola, with timidity, almost hiding behind Celeste, wincing at every noise in the building.

"What would you like?" Celeste asked, her hood pulled back up to safely hide her face in shadow.

"Uh," Lola said, scanning the menu. "Roast turkey, I think."

"Sounds good to me," she replied. "Waiter, we'd like two cuts of roast turkey breast."

The man behind the bar nodded, and then stopped, staring at Celeste.

"Sam? Is that your voice I hear?"

"In the flesh," she grinned.

"Sam!" He hollered. "You hadn't come here in years. We thought you'd died, or something. Tell you what, there's a big guy over there who said he wants to talk to you. I said you're not around. Looks like I had it wrong."

"Yeah, that's actually why I came," she said.

"Sam?" Lola asked, amused.

"Celeste is a bit of an odd name for a man, don't you think?" Celeste whispered, winking.

"Well, I better go talk to him," 'Sam' said, pulling herself up. "I'll be right back."

Lola watched as Celeste went over to the table of some weird, solemn-looking dudes. They said something to each other she couldn't hear over all the pub's chattering and mug clinking that was apparently funny enough to laugh about. Then something exchanged between their hands. Celeste walked back to Lola's table.

"Apologies for my absence," she said, sitting down. "I have not been here since those men gave me a quest. I have only recently completed it."

"You go on quests?" Lola asked. "What exactly are you?"

Celeste looked at her for a moment and almost opened her mouth to say something. In the end, she just shrugged, and turned down to her plate of food.

"So you can't tell me what you are," Lola observed. "Can you at least tell me what you do? I've never been more than a couple miles out of this town. I deserve to know at least a little about what's out there."

Celeste looked back up at her. She said:

"What if I told you there were wizards and witches and dragons? What if I told you there were enough worlds in the universe to make your head spin, and enough universes to churn your head into butter?"

Lola laughed. "Then you'd be lying. I know for a fact that those things only exist in fairy tales."

"Yeah, you're right," Celeste said seriously. "Wizards are purely made-up. I just threw them in to look cool."

Lola giggled. "You speak strangely sometimes. I've never heard cool used that way."

"Do I? Sorry," Celeste said. "I come from a region far north. We have a dialect that sounds strange to some."

"Alright," she smiled. "I should go back to the pie stand. Father will already be angry as it is."

"Of course. Sorry for keeping you." Celeste said hurriedly. "Please, read this note when you get the chance," she said, handing her a crumpled piece of paper. "And take this eighty silver."

"What? M'lady, I can't possibly-"

"No, I insist," she said. "It's the least I can do for your troubles. I had enough money lying around in my pockets, anyway. Could do with a cleaning."

They waved, and walked their separate ways, Lola to the pie stand with a little extra spring in her step. As she did so, she attempted to uncrumple the mess of paper. She squinted. It read, "Meet me at:" and then a street address she didn't recognize. It must've been out of town.