me wild with anticipation for what might be in store for me in the future.
The future. Those words felt strange in my head. I don’t think until then I’d really ever thought beyond the next harvest, or the next calving season. And I did want a future with him, so very much.
So I wracked my brain for a way to introduce him to my father, to present him as a genuine suitor, without revealing that I’d spent the last handful of days all by myself with him. I could hear the words already. You shameless little slut. And Randal would’ve been banned from the farm for good.
It didn’t feel right asking Randal to pretend not to know me in order to placate my father, either, but I didn’t see any other way. Though I hadn’t known Randal long, it seemed unlikely to me that he’d be a willing or happy liar. He was kind and genuine but he also put me in my place when he thought I was out of line.
Not in a cruel or overbearing manner, more as if he wanted the best for me and would not let anyone get in the way of that, including me.
Maybe he could tell almost the whole truth, that he’d been sent by the master of coin to do some maintenance on the barns, but just leave out the last few days…nothing but a sin of omission. And all, I hoped, for the very best cause.
I was just about to propose the plan when hoofbeats rumbled fast and hard up the road. My heart dropped. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. I’d seen old maps that identified the road that ran alongside our farm as The King’s Road, but these days it was little more than a track through the woodland, with thick roots ready to trip a horse and deep mud to halt the progress of a cart. We were far from the beaten path and there would be no good reason for a group of horses to be thundering our way. Unless maybe, finally, the crown had decided to take the farm back.
Randal had been leveling out the ground in the feed room, but he emerged with his rake in hand, looking towards the sound. The vibrations shivered right up from the soles of my boots. It sounded like a whole battalion was coming at us, full speed.
He glanced at me, narrowing his eyes slightly, and rested his enormous forearm on the rake handle. We looked out the door of the feed room and saw two, four, six mounted men approaching on all-white horses, each of them clad in the royal colors. What in the world?
They had one extra horse with them, tied to the reins of the sixth soldier. The rider-less horse was a hand taller than the rest; a fairytale horse if ever I had seen one.
I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what they were doing at Millstone Farm. Though I was not well-versed in sigils and armor, I knew at once they weren’t just any soldiers. They were the palace guards. A royal tenancy we may be, but we were hardly a destination for a royal visit.
The soldier in front dismounted with a clatter of his armor as Randal stepped out into the midst of them. There were no explanations, no introductions. Instead, the captain of the guards flipped up his armor visor, turned to Randal, and said, “You’re wanted.”
Astonished, I stared up at Randal.
None of this made sense, but what made even less sense was that Randal didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see them. Annoyed, but not afraid or shocked. His demeanor hardened instantly—gone was the soft, lovely man who had cared for me over the past few days. In his place was an angry, hulking mass of muscle.
“I’m fucking busy,” he snarled.
“You’re fucking wanted,” the guard snarled back.
For a few tense seconds, nothing was said, but I could feel the air vibrate with anger, like the skies before a thunderstorm. Finally, Randal took a deep breath and turned to me. When he looked at me, his eyes softened, his muscles seemed to untense. “I need to go.”
“What?” I said, stunned. “Go where? Who are they? When will you be back?”
Randal glanced at the guards and ground his teeth together, making the muscles of his temples pulse angrily. A lightning-bolt vein throbbed near the old scar that cut through his eyebrow.
“I don’t know. But I promise I’ll be back as