First Lessons (A Medieval Tale #1)

Chapter 5

On her first day in the saddle, Lily managed to bruise everything below the belt. She finished the job on the second day, bruising everything she hadn't already landed on. Still, she was glad to have a horse that could carry her. The handsome draft horse went by the name Chestnut and was equally happy to see Lily and the piece of salted bread she brought him.

It took skill to ride a horse. Aliya had those skills, but Lilian didn't, and all of her body memories belonged to Lilian. Even wearing three pairs of pants—silk, wool, and leather—she suffered from a sore butt and ripped seams.

At least she wasn't trying to ride a side saddle. They had tried to convince her to use one, but Lily put her foot down. She would have a regular saddle and wear pants covered by a skirt with slits cut in it to cover her legs and allow her to sit more or less comfortably. The skirt wasn't hard to sew, and she had plenty of pink fabric to choose from.

What was it with Lilian and the color pink?

She didn't expect her skirt to stay fresh and pink for long. Horses sweat, and after a day's work, they don't smell like roses. She knew by the end of the day, she would smell about as bad as the horse, and there wouldn't be anywhere to take a bath. Lily was afraid to stop at any more inns along the way to the fair. The one time she had set foot in an inn, the odor hit her in the face so hard that she stood on the porch retching. Even the city morgue didn't smell that bad! Just dead bodies and formaldehyde. The inn had smelled of rotgut, rotten meat, and unwashed bodies, like a dumpster and a homeless camp all in one small space.

Lily ordered the servants to buy food in the villages. They would be camping out in the fresh air. She didn't care if her meat was tough from roasting over a fire. With a full set of molars, she had no complaints about Lilian's teeth.

That reminds me, I need to look for a toothbrush and tooth powder at the fair. What else do I need? Soap. It isn't hard to make soap, and I can use local ingredients. Something to scrub with. Do loofahs grow here? Would some other plant work? Maybe I can grow something.

They bought bread and soft, yellow cheese in the villages. Lily was nervous about eating the bread. She knew that if the grain hadn't been stored properly, rye bread could be contaminated with spores of a dangerous fungus that could cause hallucinations or even seizures. That was why she had told the peasants to grow wheat. She knew that poorly stored rye was a hazard, but she didn't know the right way to store it.

Lily wanted to bang her head against a wall; there was so much she didn't know. She realized that her education was sorely lacking. What are kids learning in school? They certainly aren't taught how to survive in the wild. People in our times don't know how to make shelter, start a fire without matches, tell edible mushrooms from poisonous ones, grow wheat, or work with a horse... They want to "put religion back in schools," but who the devil needs that? Basic survival skills would be a better use of kids' time. Lily figured she didn't need help dealing with God. She needed help making simple things like paper, ink, and salt...

There were no comforts in her new world. It was pure stubbornness and a will to survive that got her back in the saddle every day. She had to grit her teeth and keep moving forward. Nobody cared that she was tired. So, she held on. After a while, the peasants stopped looking at her with contempt and distrust. Now, they only distrusted her. She saddled her horse without help, climbed into the saddle every day, and rode without complaining.

There were just five men with her on the trip; the elders Art Virdas and Sherl Ferney came along to consult with her on what to buy, and Jean Corey, Rem Veras, and Tres Mattie provided security. Jean had once been captain of the castle guards, and he kept the other young men on their toes. Lilian sighed. In her previous life, she could have kept up with them all day, even with a heavy pack on her back. Now, she couldn't even do her exercises for fear the men would see her. She was afraid of being found out—very afraid.