"Good day, miss," he said, with a small bow.
"Oh!" Nan gasped, bright-eyed. Geoffrey smiled; a knight bowing to her thrilled the peasant lass. "Should you not be gathering up your mother's produce, pretty miss?"
She blushed at the compliment, but retorted, "Nay, sir, for the horse might eat the vegetables."
Geoffrey nodded judiciously, and forebore mentioning that the girl might tie the horse to a branch. He turned back to Maud. "Well, we must unload the wagon if we are to hoist it up enough to repair."
"Repair!" Her eyes went wide. "Oh! How good of you, sir! But you are a knight!"
"And am therefore sworn to aid those in distress." Geoffrey unbuttoned his doublet.
"Is not such work beneath you?"
Geoffrey smiled as he tossed his doublet over his saddle. "Well, if you see a cartwright passing by, I will gladly leave the task to him—but if you do not, I shall have to manage." He turned to Nan. "Tie that horse, if you would, lass, and seek out a stick of hard wood, an inch or two thick and a foot and a half long."
She was staring at him with very wide eyes, rooted to the spot.
"Nan," her mother called.
Nan shook herself and forced a smile. "Aye, sir, if you wish it." She turned away, leading the horse, but glanced back over her shoulder.
Geoffrey shook his head and sighed; was it so unheard—of for a knight to do manual labor, that she should stare so? He went around to the back of the cart and began to lift out the baskets.
"How shall we raise the cart to put the wheel back?" Maud asked.
"By lifting." Geoffrey looked up at Quicksilver, and found her staring, too. "I shall have to ask you to step down, lady, and put the wheel on."
She shook herself, coming out of her daze, and snapped, "I am not a lady!" But she dismounted.
"It is for you to say what you are, I suppose," Geoffrey sighed. He hefted a fifty-pound basket of turnips. "How am I to call you, then? 'Mistress?' 'Chieftain?' "
"I am sure you can think of a word," she said dryly then, as she saw the slow grin widen on his face, she snapped, "Though you had better not!"
Geoffrey set the last basket down and flexed his arms, rolling his shoulders to ease the ache—and to revel in the touch of the breeze as it flowed over his bare skin. "To the wagon, then." He turned to Quicksilver. "Will you take up the wheel?"
She was staring at him again, and swallowed thickly before she answered. "Aye." She turned away, but her eyes were the last to leave.
It burst on Geoffrey that her staring had something to do with the huge muscles rolling under the skin of his bare chest and shoulders. He grinned, savoring a moment's revenge, then bent to the fallen axle.
"Will this do?"
He looked up to see Nan holding out a long, thick stick—and staring at him as hard as Quicksilver had. He smiled, enjoying her regard, and took the stick, trying its heft, thumping it into his palm. "Aye, that will do nicely. Hold it till I ask for it, there's a good lass."
"Surely, sir," she said breathily as he handed it back to her.
"How shall you lift the cart?" Maud asked. "I have no rope, and there is no..."
Geoffrey shrugged. "It is best to bend the knees, not the back, mistress, and to keep the legs together." He crouched down and took hold of the axle, then stood up, keeping his back straight. "Now, then! The stick, if you will, lass!" Holding onto the axle with his left hand, he held out his right. Huge-eyed, Nan put one end of the stick in his palm. "My thanks," Geoffrey grunted, for the cart was beginning to weigh heavily on his arm. He hefted the stick of wood like a mallet and drove it against the small end of the huge peg that went through the hub of the wheel—luckily, it was the large end that had broken off, or knocking the old peg out would have been much more difficult. As it was, two blows loosened it, and a third knocked it out into the dust. He tossed the stick aside and took the hub in both hands, grunting, "Now, then, the wheel!"
Maud nudged Quicksilver. She gave herself a shake and lifted the wheel, fitting it over the axle. Geoffrey grasped the outside of the hub with his right hand and lowered the cart back down with a thankful sigh. "My thanks. I do not think I could have held it up much longer."
But all three women were staring, and Quicksilver swallowed before she said, "That cart must weigh half a ton."
"Oh, surely only a quarter!" Geoffrey rolled his shoulders and flexed his arms again; the ache was strong, this time. "And I only had to lift a half of that; the other wheel took its share of the weight."
"Did it really," Quicksilver said, with a great deal of breath.
"Now! For the peg." Geoffrey drew his sword, chopped into the end of the hammer-stick, then twisted, and the stick split. He turned it sideways, laying it in the roadway, and chopped again, cutting off a foot-long half cylinder. Then he sheathed his sword, slipped out his dagger, and began whittling.
"Should you not don your doublet?" Maud asked, all motherly concern. "You will catch a chill."
"I am loathe to put on cloth till the sweat has dried," Geoffrey explained. He fitted the peg into the hole in the axle, drew it out, shaved a little more, then fitted it back in. Satisfied, he lifted what was left of the hammer-stick and pounded. A dozen blows, and the peg was in and tight.
"Well!" Geoffrey tossed the stick aside, took down his doublet, and slipped it on. "'Tis not so fine a piece of work as a cartwright might do, mistress, but I think it will hold till you can come to a village, and have it mended by one who truly knows what he is doing."
"Oh, this is most excellent!" Maud said quickly. "I thank you, Sir Knight! How can I repay you?"
"By aiding another traveller in need of aid, when you come across one." Geoffrey turned back to Quicksilver, who was staring at him, transfixed. So was Nan, who stood right beside her; seeing them next to one another, Geoffrey could only remark on the resemblance, and decided that it boded well for Nan. "You will surely be a beauty," he told her.
That shocked her out of her trance; she blushed. "Oh! Thank you, sir! But why do you say so?"
"Because you looked so much like my lady now," he said, with a nod toward Quicksilver.
That brought her to her senses. "I have told you I am not a lady, and certainly not yours!"
"Then what am I to call you?" Geoffrey asked, turning to her. " 'Damsel?' 'Tis too modest for a leader of warriors. 'Captain?' Surely your rank should be higher! 'Chieftain,' perhaps?"
"Why not 'Quicksilver?' " she said tartly. "Quicksilver! Oh!" Maud clapped her hands. "Are you the bandit chieftain, then?"
"I am." Quicksilver frowned at her. "Or was. Why do you ask?"
"Because if you are, it is you whom I have come to seek!"
There was no movement or gesture you could pin it on, but somehow an invisible mantle of authority seemed to settle over Quicksilver's shoulders. The transformation was certainly there in her voice as she asked, "Wherefore?"
"The village of Aunriddy, mistress! They are beset by bandits!"
"What? Some of my men?" There was instant fury in Quicksilver's face. "If they have harmed a soul, I shall have their entrails out!"
"Nay, nay, not of your band," Maud soothed. "They are a motley crew, and a most ungracious one. They have held sway over the village like tyrants, beating the men and importuning the women, and eating everything in sight, then slipping back into the fastness of their hills until their appetites have grown again. They demand tribute in grain and women; they have already taken what little silver the villagers owned. They hold them in such close durance that it has been half a year before one dared escape to bring word."