My Lady Faye by Sarah Hegger

close my eyes.”
    “Suit yourself.” He bent and raked the undergrowth into a long shape. “I am tired and I shall sleep. Out here.”
    He lowered himself to his makeshift bed and turned his back.
    Faye’s foot itched to give his mulish head a prod. She stomped over to the cart and crawled beneath. She would never sleep with all this night around her. At least, inside, she’d not had to worry about being something’s dinner. She glared at the dim, oblong shape of Gregory. A wolf could sneak under the cart and rip her throat out and he wouldn’t know. Nay. Would not even care. He would be sleeping with his back to her.
    There were spiders in forests. She examined the sacking for a stray lurking insect. Her nape prickled and she drew her knees beneath her chin. Great, hairy spiders that would crawl all over. She shuddered. Something brushed her arm and she shrieked.
    Gregory shot up and spun around.
    Faye scrambled out from under the cart. “There are spiders in there. And rats.”
    “My lady.” He drew a careful breath. “There are no rats and no spiders.”
    “There are.” Her skin crawled and she rubbed her arms briskly. “One touched me.”
    “A spider or a rat?” His voice quivered.
    She glared up at him, not quite able to make out his face. Was the great lout laughing at her? “I do not know. I did not stop to ask.”
    “Fine.” Over to the cart he strode and crawled beneath. He banged his fist against the sacking and rose. “If there were any spiders or rats, they are gone now.”
    “They could be hiding.”
    “Hiding?”
    “Aye.” Spiders crawled into the tiniest holes. She’d seen them. Rats were worse, sneaky and devious with their little red stares and big yellow teeth.
    He bent and went through his banging again, a bit longer this time. “No more spiders.”
    She inched closer to the cart and crouched. “Are you sure?”
    “Aye.” He rested his forearms on his thighs. “Now, go to sleep. We have a long day on the morrow.”
    Scrutinizing the pools of shadows on the sacking, she crawled back beneath the cart.
    He rose to go.
    “You could tell me a story.” That would work. “Like you tell the boys until they fall asleep.”
    He sighed and dropped on his seat.
    At least he was a lot closer and Faye lay down on her side. She rested her head against her arm.
    Raising his face to the sky, Gregory leant back on his hands.
    “One story and I promise I shall sleep.” It had always worked for Simon.
    “One story.” He sighed, lay down and propped his head on his hand.
    If she stretched her toe out, she could brush against his chest. She settled herself for sleep. “No dragons.”
    He pursed his lips. “Indeed, I shall tell you a story I am transcribing at the Abbey.”
    “You transcribe?” To be a man of learning was rare enough, but doubly so in one who had, up until recently, made his living by the sword. “So, you can read and write?”
    “Aye, my mother taught me.” He gave her a wry smile. “It was her fondest wish that I joined the priesthood.”
    “But you did not? You earned your knighthood, instead.” This was the most she’d ever heard him speak of himself. Faye hoarded up the tiny bubble of intimacy jealously. He knew almost every personal and humiliating detail of her life. Yet, she had only glimpses into his life.
    “I am the only son of eleven children. My father is Calder’s vassal. When one of my sisters did not catch his fancy, my father gave him a son instead.”
    Good Lord, ten sisters. It was no wonder the man had endless patience. She had an image of rather large, hearty girls. “Do your sisters resemble you?”
    He laughed, his teeth white in the dark. “Nay, they are all small and dainty. A few of them are considered to be beautiful. I was a sickly babe and my father believed I would be small like my sisters. He allowed my mother to dream I would enter the priesthood.”
    “What happened?”
    “I grew and kept growing.”
    “And now you are large