The next day, Ben Gibson went away to see Mrs. Blair about getting clothes that were big enough to fit Gilead. He would be gone all day, he said. But he left Gilead some tasks to be done, if the knight wanted to feel useful.

  The first of them was chopping firewood. This was something Gilead knew well, and with his powerful frame it was something he could be quite effective at. Gilead set to work as soon as Ben Gibson was gone. He would have started earlier, but there was still the problem of his nakedness; he couldn’t chop firewood wrapped up in a blanket, and he didn’t dare go unclothed as long as anybody was around. By the time afternoon came around—and with it the threat of Ben Gibson’s return—Gilead had used Ben’s hatchet to build up enough split logs for three weeks of cooking, as well as having patched several holes in the cottage roof, and sharpened the hatchet and weeded the garden in the meantime.

  “Hmph. Showing off, are you? Now I almost feel like this outfit is more a payment than a gift!”

  It was a fine outfit, though not of any cut or kind which Gilead knew. The whole ensemble was incredibly dull, white for the drawers and shirt, black for the trousers, with the only color at all being a few strips of forest green on the otherwise-solid black of the jacket. Gilead didn’t put them on yet, though. There was a problem.

  “Do you have anywhere to wash?” he asked. “I list not to ruin these fine wools with red ochre and sweat.”

  “Hmph. Couldn’t have expected anything better from a knight,” Ben Gibson said. “Aye, there’s a river nearby here that’s clean enough. Take that trail over there, and bring the ‘atchet with you, I haven’t cleared the brush in ages.”

  So Gilead took the hatchet in one hand, a bar of soap in the other, and the bundle of clothes stuffed under his arm, with a spare rag to keep the dust off of his one and only outfit. It was a pleasantly brief walk through rolling and well-kept woodlands to the pond; the hatchet proved entirely unnecessary. The river itself was a slow, broad, shallow, lazy thing, and the water was quite brisk and cold. Leaving the clothes and the hatchet by the bank, Gilead waded in up to the waist and set to work.

  Seeing as it had been fourteen centuries since last he had bathed, there was quite a bit of work to be done, but Gilead didn’t even manage to finish cleaning himself without being interrupted. He had just started cleaning his back when there came a rustling at the far bank. Gilead instinctively covered his chest, just in time for a young woman to emerge from the shrubbery.

  To Gilead, she was dressed extremely strangely, her outfit even more unfamiliar to his eyes than Ben Gibson’s had been. She wore a long-sleeved red shirt, rugged cargo pants, and an olive bulletproof vest, none of them fitting very well. A hiking backpack clung to her shoulders, and festooned across her chest were various strips of dull-colored nylon webbing, each one supporting its own collection of pouches. Her hair, curly and shiny and pitch-black, was mostly kept contained underneath a baseball cap, the team logo long since faded into invisibility.

  Gilead thought she was a man, mostly because of the pants.

  “Avert your eyes, if you would?” he said, growing increasingly embarrassed.

  The woman raised one bushy eyebrow. She was not the sort to care much at all for cosmetic appearances; her face was grimy, her lips horribly chapped, and her heart-shaped cheeks were pockmarked with the effects of wind-bite and previous illness.

  “I didn’t know they made river nymphs so muscular,” she joked.

  “I am no fey spirit, Saracen. Merely a knight who found that he had want of a thorough scrubbing.”

  “Saracen?”

  “You have the look of a Saracen,” Gilead apologized. “Forgive me, sir.”

  “Sara. My name is Sara.”

  “Sara? Are you… are you a woman?”

  It was several seconds before Sara could overcome her shock well enough to reply. “What gave it away, the breasts or the fact that I can’t reach the top shelf?”

  “You wear trousers!”

  “Ugh. Leedsrealmers.”

  “Fair lady, I nist whom you speak of, but I assure you that I am a man of great forgiveness. Even for the sin of travesty. Also, you are still looking at me.”

  Sara rolled her eyes, but turned her head to gaze at a spot on the river four or so meters downstream of Gilead’s bathing spot. “You’re the first human being I’ve seen in three days, so I suppose I don’t have much choice. What’s your name, anyway?”

  “I am called Sir Gilead du Ceincture.”

  He had left the belt in question with his clothes, not wishing it to be ruined by the water. The fact that it was away from him had not made him feel vulnerable until that very instant.

  Sara snickered. “What, from Camelot?”

  Gilead raised an eyebrow. “No, I’m from Carbennic, though I’ve visited Camelot a few times.”

  “Are you from around here, then? Could you give us directions?”

  Gilead hesitated to answer; he was indeed born not far from here, but the world had changed so much. Would he still know the paths? Before he could speak, they were interrupted by a series of excited shouts.

  “Sara? Are you talking to someone? Do we get to stop walking through the woods now?”

  A little girl dashed through the brush to Sara’s side, eyes soaking in every degree of her surroundings as though searching for a present. Instead, she saw Gilead.

  “Naked man, sorry, sorry!” She promptly turned around, covering her face with her hands for good measure.

  “Zahra,” Sara said. “I told you to stay behind and stay quiet when we meet new people.”

  By the patience and understanding in Sara’s voice, Gilead immediately understood that the two of them were family. Mother and daughter, perhaps. Their faces looked nearly identical, though Zahra’s was skinnier somehow, sallow and sunken. Where they differed–aside from the matter of height–was in the clothing: Zahra’s backpack was smaller even relative to her size, and obnoxiously pink, and instead of a long-sleeved shirt she was wearing a loose black hoodie.

  “I’m sorry. I’m bored, we’ve been doing nothing but walking for so long…”

  “Would you rather we be fighting an enemy Pretender?” Sara asked.

  “No.”

  “Then stay hidden until I tell you otherwise.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Zahra shuffled off into the woods while Sara waited, almost as though she were counting Zahra’s steps before speaking. “Now then. You were about to tell us the direction to Carlisle?”

  Gilead crouched down into the water to avoid Zahra’s gaze. “There’s a man down the road a bit, thataways. His name is Ben Gibson. He’ll have better ken of this land than I.”

  “Thank you,” said Sara, before turning and making her way once more into the thick woods. A minute later, Gilead heard what sounded like Sara’s voice, calling for Zahra.

  Gilead continued to think about the strange travesty and her young ward for the remainder of his bath. He resolved to ask Ben Gibson what he made of her, assuming they were already done talking by the time he was back. It was rude to ask a lady, even a travesty, where she acquired her clothes and what she was doing in Britain; but Ben Gibson seemed knowledgeable on such things, so perhaps he might be able to make a guess.

  Of course, before he could do any of that, Gilead had to dry off and dress himself. Drying off was easy enough; Gilead’s hairless body, a divine gift from back when he both prayed and had prayers answered, shed water easily. Dressing himself proved to be something more of a challenge. The problem was that while Ben Gibson had apparently succeeded at conveying to Mrs. Blair the height of the man for whom she was making the clothes, she hadn’t understood the breadth and depth of him. Everything was the right length—the sleeves, the hem of the shirt and jacket, the legs of the trousers—but none of it fit.

  That was particularly a problem for the trousers, which made it about three quarters of the way up Gilead’s thighs before resolutely refusing to go any further. With the shirt and jacket, he could make compromises, leaving the jacket entirely open and the shirt’s top two buttons undone. He hated to show so much cleavage, but at least his nipples were covered. Doing the same with the trousers was absolutely unacceptable.

  There was a lot of hopping around involved. Gilead prayed that whatever fabric this was would stretch upon being worn, because if it did not, he had absolutely no idea how he was going to get undressed later on. But, after much prancing, leaping, twisting around as though battling a great serpent, and other acts of contortion, the trousers were finally well-seated around Gilead’s midsection, and he was finally ready to return to Ben’s cabin.

  That was when the gunshot rang out. Grabbing the hatchet, Gilead took the return journey at a sprint. This, if nothing else, was familiar. The rush of combat, the need to defend an ally, his hand gripping tightly around the haft of a weapon.

  He returned to Ben Gibson’s hut to find an unpleasant scene. The old man was by the pantry, just outside the front door of his shack, bent over and weeping as he pulled out bread, vegetables, fish and butter and piled them into a strange pack at his feet, all while a small black object was pointed against his head. Gilead didn’t recognize the object at all: a nine millimeter handgun was so far removed from a colt revolver that his mind didn’t parse them as being the same type of object.

  “Is that a gun?” Gilead said, stopping not far away from the two of them, thief and victim.

  “Aye, lad, that’s a gun.”

  “And I’ll use it if you get any closer,” Sara said, briefly aiming her pistol at Gilead.

  “Thief!”

  “We’re sorry,” said Zahra. “But, we’re so hungry…” The girl was standing about as far away from Sara as Ben was, a stuffed toy clutched to her chest. Her distress was obvious, but she wasn’t going to stop Sara.

  “Couldn’t exactly restock on supplies when we were getting chased all the way from The Forest by that fucking psycho cowboy,” Sara muttered. Then she remembered that this was a hostage situation, and she was supposed to be commanding. “So pack it up quickly and nobody has to get hurt.”

  Gilead had a plan. Considering how fast guns fired—Ben had let him fire the revolver once—he didn’t think he could cross the space between him and Sara in a straight sprint. But considering that the presence of the gun had long since nullified the need for chivalry, there were other ways. He slowly raised the arm carrying the hatchet, one degree at a time.

  “What’s a cow-boy?”

  “Where are you fucking from,” Sara groaned.

  “495 AD, as it happens,” Ben said.

  “Oh, of course. What do they call Lazarii here? ‘Backarounders’?”

  “Backarounders, yes,” said Gilead. “Why was this… cow-boy chasing you? Was he avenging another theft, just like this one?”

  “That’s none of your business!” shouted Zahra, with all the offense a child could muster.

  “What she said,” Sara repeated.

  Gilead frowned. He needed to keep her talking by any means necessary. His trick was almost ready, but not quite. Perhaps it was time to go out on a limb.

  “You mentioned Pretenders earlier, and this sort of banditry sounds exactly like the sort of mischief that Pretenders are said to engage in. Are you a Pretender? Is that why this cow-boy had ado with you?”

  He had meant it as an insult, preying upon Sara’s conscience. What Gilead had failed to account for was that he might have guessed right without meaning to.

  Sara aimed the gun at Gilead. He tensed, letting the hatchet go limp in his grasp. “So, you’re not as innocent as you make yourself look. Another Pretender, then? Not one of the bulletproof ones if I had to guess. So how’s about you stay out of the way, and we won’t have to find out how each others’ Pretensions work?”

  Gilead didn’t say much of anything. He just needed her distracted for a second longer.

  Ben Gibson, intentionally or not, provided that distraction. Overwhelmed with shock and horror at being so close to a Pretender, his hands shook, leading him to drop a can of beans on the ground. Sara flinched at the clattering sound, spinning around so that she could point the gun directly at his head.

  “Don’t slow down, old man. Every minute you take is another chance for me to change my mind about keeping you alive.”

  Gilead threw the hatchet at her face.

  As a knight of honor and skill, Gilead had no experience whatsoever with any weapon of a longer range than the lance. He had only ever seen axe-throwing secondhand being used by foresters and Saxon warriors as a form of competition. Thus, even though he threw the hatchet with the proper overhand technique and an immense amount of strength, the spinning blade was destined to miss Sara by some forty centimeters.

  Sara, however, saw a silvery piece of metal flying at high speed towards her head. She spun in place, yelping with surprise and firing off a stray shot from her pistol. Gilead didn’t give her any further time to react. No sooner had the hatchet left his hand than he was making a headlong charge at her. Gilead and Sara slammed together before she could really figure out what was happening, and the fight went to the floor.

  Gilead, as a rule, didn’t like to take fights to the floor. In battle, going to the floor meant that any opponent other than the one who was on the floor with you could kick you in the back to their heart’s content and there wasn’t much you could do about it. In this case, though, the only other combatant was eight years old, so the mistake could be excused. Sara tried to bring the gun to bear against his head, but Gilead was fast and cunning enough to get a hand around the wrist holding the weapon, and thrice her strength to boot. Her kicks and punches could find little purchase and did little damage against his bulk, even while his free hand pinned her to the floor. In short, Sara simply wasn’t a wrestler. Gilead was.

  “Take the gun, Ben!” shouted Gilead.

  The old man advanced, but he was afraid, hesitant. Zahra, the little girl who had not factored into anyone’s calculations, wasn’t afraid. At least not for herself.

  “Sara!”

  “Zahra, no, don’t! First Pretense: Watch—”

  Zahra screamed, throwing up her hands with fingers spread towards the two men. Then the world went white. A tremendous searing heat and unstoppable force slammed into both Gilead and Ben, knocking them both to the floor and leaving them blind and in agony.

  When the light faded, all that was left behind was a little girl struggling to remain on her feet. Fortunately, Sara was there, taking her hand and holding her upright while she raced to grab the half-full bag of stolen food before the two bandits beat a hasty retreat. The last that Gilead heard of them was Sara berating Zahra in Arabic.

  Gilead had no sword, no shield, no armor, no horse, and both Sara and Zahra were possessed of supernatural power. Zahra had made use of hers, but when Sara had spoken the words of her Pretense, he had felt something beyond mere speech, a quintessential importance greater than any ordinary witchcraft. Pursuing them, his usual response to thieves, was entirely out of the question.

  Once Gilead had the strength to stand, he went first to check on Ben Gibson. Thankfully, the old man had been further from Zahra than Gilead had, and was only slightly bruised. All in all, nobody had taken any lasting injuries, and all that was lost could be replaced even if Ben Gibson’s government employers didn’t cover the cost.

  The two of them discussed their plans for the remainder of that evening. Now that Gilead was clothed and fully recovered from his poisoning, the next step was for Ben to replace his lost supplies, and Gilead to start looking for a new purpose in life, whether that meant finding a job or stocking up on all he would need to live as a drifter. Both objectives meant going to the same place. As soon as they were well and rested in the morning, Ben and Gilead were going to the fortress-city of Carlisle.