Chapter 8: Celia

The weather remained overcast with the breeze gusting from the east. Celia rode with Chandra most of the time while I tended to ride with Sister Emily. Emily taking her charge to task, quizzed Dina on what she had learned from Allard the previous day at every chance possible. Until the third day of travel, Celia braved the brief but potent showers at the first sign of truly dark clouds that rolled all too fast in our direction. She bolted into her carriage and I caught Chandra looking wistfully at ours sitting empty and dry. Her hood pulled tight around her head dreading the oncoming storm.

“You coddle her too much.” Emily saw my intention, but I couldn’t have one Postulant ride in the carriage and not the other.

“Maybe, but she is not a stranger to the weather and doesn’t shy away from it. Truth be told, I am the one that needs to get used to the lousy weather. Hell, even Dina seems to endure it better than I do.” At that statement, we both looked over to the cute girl riding along with Allard, again. I was right, those two meshed all too easily.

Sister Emily looked at me in accusation for subverting her apprentice, even though she had a hand in pairing the two. I could tell that the sister was about to snap at me, so I forestalled her. “This is her chance to see if she truly belongs as a Sister, I can’t think of a better test for her than Allard. She might be one of those that can be a Sister, wife and mother. Besides, she still needs to work on her aggressiveness unless I miss my guess.”

“You’re right, I just hate to see all that talent and effort go to him.”

“There is always their children,” I offered. “Still, I think that she can do both. Chandra wants both and you can use her as a template.” Emily looked uncertain. I couldn’t figure out why since she never showed that side of herself to me before. So, I expounded. “Using Chandra as a pattern might be the wisest course. Don’t you agree? Unless something unforeseen happens, Chandra will be with me for a very long time and she will be a full sister. There is no denying that. Dina is a natural follower and can be persuaded to follow my student’s lead.”

“Hrrumph.” It was obvious that she didn’t like my suggestion but was thinking about it.

“I could be wrong, I doubt it would be a first. I’m still learning about this world. Chandra is so much different than my last students.” She asked about the differences, I think mainly to change the subject while she decided on what to do with her student and the closeness of the noble with her charge. I explained about the dojo that we met in, the limited contact that I had with them and the limited time that I could take for each member of the class. I compared it to the smaller advanced classes that I had witnessed at the temple grounds.

There I taught the sword and the body and the mind, but mainly concentrated on what happened inside the class than outside. At home, I had almost no reach outside of the dojo whereas here, I influenced Chandra twenty four-seven.” With Emily’s interruption at that slang phrase I translated it for her and then returned back to my narrative. “Here, I teach Chandra to be honest, both with herself and with others. This I do by example. Unfortunately, I go overboard all too often as she so recently pointed out to me, that I need to address.

When I first met Chandra, my initial reaction was that of a spoiled prodigy, it wasn’t until later that I found out that she was a Princess and that she truly was better than all of the others in her age group by a wide margin. Being a Princess didn’t help the matters either. She made few friends with her attitude that weren’t daughters of nobility and the Sisters who she considered equals at best couldn’t treat her as anything but a Postulant.

This is where I came in with her. Her skills are exceptional but she quickly lost most of her spoiled attitude around me, once I demonstrated my superiority to her and the ease that I bested her in the circle, she fell in place at my side. By removing her from an environment which left her between the two groups, Chandra now has just me to contend with. Since she does not feel superior to me in any of the conventional ways, I believed that she could become a better person and a better student.

“Mother Browynn gave her to me to bring to heel. I took her from the temple and made her accompany me in my travels. In doing this, I give her the attention that she needs and the guidance and attention that she craves. Traveling with me has settled her down, I believe that. She knows that I need help sometimes and caring for me when I have been wounded has made her think outside of herself. In our short time together, we have learned to value each other. Regardless of any attachments that we develop she is a much better person now compared to when she first entered my care.

“I’ve been too aggressive with fools, and have met all too many of them of late. She is the one that is trying to get me to see that and make amends. The old Chandra wouldn’t have bothered with that. Now she feels responsible for me and I her. I am hoping that this responsibility will make her grow up.” After a few heartbeats, I clarified growing up with ‘maturing’. That, Emily understood.

“Chandra,” I called. After she came over, I instructed her to offer Allard and Dina our carriage. “Return to me after they are settled.” She replied in the affirmative and didn’t let her face betray her emotions, riding off to do my bidding.

The wind gusted stinging our faces with the water droplets, between that and his natural solicitousness Allard agreed, escorting Dina into the comforts of the carriage. Chandra returned resigned to weather out the storm with Emily and myself. “Go ask Celia if she wants some company and if she agrees, you may join her for today.” Surprised, my damp Postulate thanked me and rode off to Celia’s carriage tying off her mount to the rear of the carriage, before sliding in beside her friend avoiding the worst of the oncoming storm.

I’m not sure that I would want to suffer through a full day in one of those carriages, they didn’t even have any springs to soften the jarring ride, just thick cushions. I didn’t see why all the women rode, those things had to be brutal. Just a few leaf springs would make the ride tolerable. I would need to make a note to have the carriage makers make the changes. I didn’t know exactly how they worked but between a good carriage maker and myself we could work something out.

Emily and I followed Celia’s carriage, using the bulk to block some of the wind, that way we could avoid at least some of the worst of the driving rain. All in all, the next two days were miserable, from the gusting wind more so than the sporadic driving rain. We rode across plains shortly after harvest, this time we did not follow the mountains but cut straight through the duchy, the wind didn’t have any natural obstacles. We did manage to find the occasional orchard to camp nearby at night and water was not an issue since we followed a large river for the second half of our trip home

The second night after the initial rains let up, Emily decided that the apprentices needed to pay for their two days of luxury and I agreed with her. After finishing dinner, she led the four of us to a makeshift dueling ring and had the two pair up against us.

We, she, made sure that both of them were coated in mud and exhausted by the time we were through with them. I stripped down to just my pants and Emily removed her robes while we made them keep theirs on. The extra weight from the rain and the mud sapped their agility and their strength in the chill night air. The both of us having slipped in the mud more than once ourselves were also muddy, but nowhere near the extent that those two were. Their robes had to weigh twenty pounds each at the minimum. Maybe more.

After they collapsed barely having the energy to stand up with all the mud caked to them, I called it a night. I wanted to change into something dry and I didn’t want them to get sick.

“You did well for a start. You two can go to bed after you clean all the mud out of those clothes and then ours.” I heard a pair of echoed groans. Emily looked at me sharply since she tended to be the one that heaps the extra work on them where I prefer to make them expend their efforts in the practice yard. She smiled her approval and left for her tent to change. I waited for the pair of miserable looking girls to get to their feet before I left. My shirt and robe were still hanging over a pole that we planted in the ground to mark the barrier of the training field. They could attend to those too.

I stripped to my boxers before entering my tent to finish changing and dry off. I was bent over when a small hand smacked my ass startling me. I turned and fell to the ground, my boxers tripping me.

A musical laugh caught me further off guard when Celia ducked into my tent holding a tiny brass lantern. “Oooh, pretty. Just as I thought.”

I had enough. Kicking off my boxers in time for her to set down the lantern and approach. I waited for her to clear the lantern before I pounced. Grabbing the petite minx by the wrist, I pulled her to me twisting her face down over my knee while the other knee rested on the ground supporting us.

“What?” She squeeked an alarm when, I found the other arm and bound them both across her back, securing them both with my left hand. With my right, I flipped up her nightgown and smacked her bare ass.

She yelped at the contact and I growled a warning for her to keep quiet or the whole camp will know that she was being punished. I timed my next smack with her next protest; which came out as a strangled ‘n-alp’. “Count the strokes girl, I won’t stop until you do.” I smacked her ass again, not very hard but enough of them will make sitting uncomfortable for a while.

Smack. “You can’t do this to,” Smack. “ow. I am going to be Duchess.” Smack.

“Count them girl or you will be sorry.”

Smack. “Please ... no more.” Smack. “Five,” she gasped.

“One, count from one, they don’t count unless you count them. Now start over.” I paused and smacked her ass, I had been alternating cheeks each time. And not very hard. Mostly for effect.