Chivalry ♛ King Arthur

fívє

THE boy that ran past and knocked her to the cobbled street was moving in a blur. "Hey!" Frida shouted, dropping her basket of sweets to chase after him. The boy had lost his footing and stumbled to the ground too. "Watch where you're going!" She snapped, hands resting on straight hips.

He hopped to his feet and puffed out his chest in defiance. "You gone make me?"

She shook her head. "No," Frida started, looking back over her shoulder to the group of older looking boys that were searching the crowded market for someone in particular. If her judgment was right, they were hunting for the boy who had knocked her down. "But they might."

His eye was already black and blue, his lip busted, and then true fear flashed across his face when he saw them in the crowd. Ida scooped up her basket and grabbed the boy's sleeve. "C'mon." He followed her without question through narrow streets into the alleyway behind the bakery.

"Who're you?" The boy asked, rubbing at the scrape on his elbow. Blood was staining his light blue tunic. Lucy wouldn't be happy about that. It was a new tunic. "I'm Frida," the girl responded, holding out her hand.

"Arthur," he supplemented, shaking her hand. She smiled and dug around in her small basket, pulling out a wrapped sticky bun that was meant to be her snack for running errands. Arthur looked like he needed it more though, especially given the fresh bruises. The boy took a large bite out of it and said his thanks with a full mouth.

Frida was about to ask if he wanted another, but the group from the market passed by the alley with a pair of blackleg guards. Arthur stashed the remaining half of the sweet in his pocket. "I gotta go!" He told her before running back down the alley and into the street, in the opposite direction the other group had gone.

♛ ♛ ♛

She had been dipping rolls into a sweet icing when she heard Edwyn at the counter scolding someone. Frida poked her head out and saw that it was the boy she'd met in the market a few weeks back. He was pointing at a sticky bun, but the baker didn't believe it when he claimed to have coin. "I can pay, sir, promise."

Frida stepped onto the short stool behind the display. Arthur glanced up with a snaggletooth smile and stopped digging around in his small coin purse. "Ida!"

Edwyn looked between her and the boy, confused. "You know this boy?" She nodded and hopped off the stool, making her a foot shorter.

The baker looked down at his adopted child and felt a sudden pang of guilt that he had put her to helping him instead of letting her roam the streets and have proper lessons. He picked her small cloak off a hook and handed it to her. "Don't stay out after sundown, Ida."

"I won't!" She promised. Then he gave each of them a pastry and sent them out the shop's door.

♛ ♛ ♛

She had lost track of how old they were then, all she knew was that it had earned her Arthur's friendship and his nettlesome pack of friends.

The rocking of the boat stirred her from the memories. They had captured her in the raid of the brothel. Had bound her hands with rope and spat at her feet, calling her a whore. Had pushed her and pulled her hair like an animal. At the moment, she'd trade everything to return to those simpler times.

Lucy managed her way across the boat and took Ida's manacled hands on the riverboat, trying her best to console her. Someone as caring and selfless as Frida didn't deserve to be caught up in this mess. She had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The night sky gave way to dawn as the castle came into view. The boat stopped at the docks, where they were unloaded and escorted to the front of the castle with knives in their backs and blacklegs at their sides. It seemed out of place that they were allowed to walk the immaculate halls with great paintings and tapestries. They were prisoners of the crown, not guests.