Free Hunting of the Last Dragon by Sherryl Jordan

the eye.
    Limping back, she came and sat at my feet, close, her arms about her knees, her gaze still on the moors. “Do you think Tybalt will find us?” she asked.
    â€œHe’ll not find us now,” I said. “The rain has washed away our tracks, and his dogs will never get the smell of us.”
    â€œIf Richard dies, what then? Will they look again for us, and hang me on a gallows?”
    â€œNay. Richard won’t die. ’Twill take more than a chip of wood to kill him off—’twill take a falling oak.”
    She laughed a little. “What will we do, Jude?”
    â€œFind a village and beg some food and a place by a fire tonight. On the morrow we’ll seek a place for you to stay. A nunnery, mayhap, where you’ll be looked after.”
    Frowning, she asked, “What will you do?”
    â€œFind a farmer to hire me for work. The lords pay people well to have their land tilled these days, since the Black Death killed off so many of their workers. I heard that some of the larger estates are going to ruin, fromwant of men to work them.”
    â€œI could work on a farm.”
    â€œI think not, Lizzie. Maids either marry or they become nuns. Unless they’re highborn, and then they might live in lord’s houses, and serve the ladies there.”
    â€œI’m highborn.”
    â€œThat’s different.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œOur highborn maids are not made lame.”
    â€œThen there’s no place for me.”
    â€œI didn’t say that. I think a nunnery would be best. It doesn’t mean you have to be a nun; the nuns would look after you until you found something else to do. It would not be an unpleasant life.”
    â€œHow do you know? Have you lived in a nunnery?”
    â€œNo. But it would be better than a cage, I’ll warrant.”
    â€œIt would be a different kind of cage. I don’t want to live in a nunnery.”
    â€œBy God’s soul, Lizzie, give me peace! I don’t want to discuss this now! I’ve walked all night and half today, and I’m bone weary. I’m tired of fretting about my own fate, let alone yours. Let me sleep for now, and we’ll talk on this later.”
    I lay down in the shade. Lizzie didn’t move, but she made a little sound as if she wept, and I was sorry Ihad spoken sharp with her. Remorseful, too tired to make amends, I put my arm across my eyes and tried to sleep. But although it was pleasant there by the stream, and I was weary to the bones, I found I could not rest. My nerves were jangled, and a worm gnawed at my conscience, over Richard, and because I had stole a maid well paid for by her owner. Also, as the full import of what I’d done began to dawn on me, there were other worries.
    I’d had little to do with a maid before, apart from my sisters and the taunting Prue. How would it be between Lizzie and me, now that we were fugitives and wayfarers together? What would people think of us, her plainly not my kin, nor I her husband? How would we sleep together in the fields? Close for safety, or decently separate? And what of all the ordinary things I would normally do in private—like picking my teeth or my nose, or scratching myself, or farting, or moving my bowels? ’Tis all very well for you to laugh, Brother Benedict, but all these things were mortal worrying to me, at the time. I even felt discomforted trying to sleep that afternoon, knowing Lizzie sat nearby, mayhap watching me. It is one thing to feed and tend for a maid in a prison, another to live with her in liberty.
    I slept at last. When I awoke, the sun was on itsdownward journey, and Lizzie was gone, the red dress with her. Alarmed, I leaped to my feet, thinking Tybalt had come and snatched her off. But then I spied her stumbling and limping further on, still following the stream.
    Cursing, I ran after her. I got to her at last, and grabbed her arm. Her face was wet with tears and sweat, and she must