Dream of Me/Believe in Me

bleeding hands and the aroma of a day's worth of hard labor clinging to them. They did not tumbleinto water and come up laughing, or confess to never having ridden a horse before, or kiss back.
    That was probably where she'd gone wrong, right there in the stable when Hawk had kissed her and instead of protesting as a proper lady no doubt would, or merely passively assenting, she had actually kissed him, too. Her wantonness had shocked him, he'd made that clear, but she'd been foolish enough to think it was because he believed her a servant disloyal to her mistress. Now, looking back, she saw her folly and with it every misstep she had taken.
    Mortification gripped her. She had told him—no, shouted at him—that she did not want him in the beds of other women. She had tried to chase off the redhead. She danced with the children and went grubbing about on the beach when she should probably have been—
    What was it ladies did?
    Daria seemed to do nothing but order people about and complain that they did nothing right. Likely, she was not the best example to consider. But Krysta knew no others, knew nothing at all about being a lady save the few bits and pieces she had managed to glean about the fabled Lady Cymbra, sister of the Hawk, wife of the Wolf, gifted healer, possessor of strange powers, and utterly devoted to the cause of peace. Surely no one could hope to live up to the standards of such a paragon.
    The problem ate at her as she rejoined Aelfgyth and the others. She had no good model of ladylike behavior, no method for proceeding. Never had she felt so lost and uncertain. Were she not already sweating so much, she would have suspected the tang of salt striking her lips was from tears. But she knew better. She was not crying.
She was not.
    Gather and tie … gather and tie … over and over while the pain of her weary body dissolved into theanguish of her heart. Until at long last, as she bent over to scoop up yet another bundle of oats, Aelfgyth laid a hand on her arm.
    “Lady, we are done.”
    She straightened up as much as her back would let her and glanced around. The fields were bare. As far as her eyes could see, not a single stalk was still standing. Which was all to the good, for as she turned around and looked to the south, Krysta gasped. Dark thunderheads were moving toward them. Already the sky was a sickly yellow, and the wind groaned in the trees.
    “Come,” Aelfgyth said, “we must go.”
    They and everyone else still in the fields went in a rush, pressing their exhausted bodies to the limit as they made haste to reach Hawkforte. The children had already been sent on ahead, only the garrison force lingered, making sure everyone was safely on the way. Last within the manor walls was the Hawk himself, who came switching the backsides of the oxen pulling the final wagon filled to brimming with golden sheaves.
    With her last bit of strength, Krysta drew two buck-etfuls of water from the deep well inside the stronghold. Aelfgyth offered to help, then looked tearfully relieved when Krysta sent her on her way. She was just beginning to drag the buckets up the stairs to her tower when Daria stepped out of the shadows near the bottom of the stairs.
    “Oh, my,” Daria said, “what have we here?” She lifted the hem of her wide sleeve and placed it delicately before her nose. “Have you been rolling about with the pigs, Krysta? You certainly smell as though you have been.” Small, dark eyes gleamed. “You would be funny, really, if you weren't so pathetic. You haven't done a single thing right since you got here. Poor Hawk! He must be frantic, trying to figure out how to break the betrothal he never wanted.”
    Krysta's head throbbed. She was wearier than she hadever been in her life and Daria was the last person she wanted to see just then.
    It wasn't so much the reminder that she was less than a lady but the malicious smile of satisfaction that accompanied it that undid Krysta. She could have simply gone on her way but pride would not allow it. Grimly, she said, “I smell the way almost everyone else here smells because the only people who have not been working desperately hard since yesterday morning are you and your pet priest. Apparently, you two think yourself too good to labor saving the crops, but I warrant you'll be happy enough to be eating them come winter.”
    “How dare you—!”
    “I dare nothing but the truth. As for the rest—” She looked Daria up and down coldly. “You