Free Grudging by Michelle Hauck Page A

The saints had turned the giant’s fortune in an instant. They could turn Ramiro’s just as fast. Or Salvador’s. Or anyone’s.
    They don’t talk about this in the tales.
    Alvito walked around the fire to whisper to Salvador, but Ramiro overheard. “He’s awful quiet, no? Shouldn’t this be a celebration?”
    Salvador gave Ramiro a glance. “Leave him be. The first time in close combat isn’t easy.”
    Ramiro pulled his shirt on over his head so he need hear no more. He strode to the edge of their camp and began grooming Sancha, determined to give her the thorough going-­over she’d earned. Despite the twinges from his raw wound, he rubbed and curried her with brushes until the work smoothed away all other thoughts, even lifting each hoof to scrape caked sand free with a pick. Sancha nudged him in appreciation, leaning her weight on him until he staggered and almost collapsed.
    A hummingbird, all green and red, zoomed closer to inspect them, and discovering they offered no nectar, it zipped away.
    Ramiro stroked Sancha’s chest, then he reached upward to encircle her muzzle in his arms. “Salvador thinks I’m feeling guilty for killing,” he whispered to her. Salvador was the perfect soldier. He couldn’t bear for Salvador to think less of him. “Perhaps that’s what I should feel, but I’m relieved. Glad it’s the Northerner and not us.”
    Sancha blinked her large eyes in perfect comprehension. To her he could say anything. It was no sin for a soldier to be scared, but he had reacted in panic and not with a clear head. He’d acted out of desperate self-­preservation. There hadn’t been time to recall Salvador’s endless lectures of, “use your brain and not just your muscles.” He’d barely had time to react, let alone form a plan. He just wanted to survive and protect his friends and his city even if it meant taking another’s life. “It’s war,” he said. “We have to do what we must.”
    If there was a next time, he wanted things to go differently. He would keep himself under control and use his brain. He’d do better than merely reacting. The wound across his back had settled into an ache that throbbed along with his heartbeat. He fingered the bandage. Yes, I will not lose my head next time.
    And I ’ll wear all my armor.
    Sancha nickered softly as if to say he’d dodged his friends long enough. Ramiro took the hint and headed back to the fire to grab a sausage before Gomez ate them all.
    J ulian stepped from the carriage and turned to wait for Beatriz as she fussed busily with the drape of her shawl, the frills and flounces of her dress, and finally with her little hairball dog. Instead of sighing, he smiled. More than twenty-­seven years of marriage had taught him patience. It had also trained him to be prepared for cold hands. Winter or high summer, the woman never got overheated though she’d often dragged him back from that state.
    Somehow, the familiar touch of those chilly hands brought sense and sanity to him. Almost as if by their sheer stubborn refusal to change no matter the weather, he could hold on to his convictions. That, and they certainly helped to soothe a headache when the air was too thick to breathe, and the sun baked all else. Plus, she worried enough for three men. With Beatriz by his side, his cares were often light as a feather.
    She arranged dog and attire to her taste and let him help her from the coach. Once she was out, grooms led it away to make room in the busy courtyard. Julian waved, and his bodyguards departed with it. Against the far wall, a blacksmith worked under a sheen of sweat, his hammer throwing sparks as he beat out an arrowhead. Smoke drifted from the forge and from cook fires inside the nearby barracks. Soldiers hurried on numerous errands: carrying dispatches, going to their duties, topping off lanterns with oil.
    We