“The storm I’m desperately hoping happened because this tree right here is troubling, otherwise.”

It was troubling regardless she would own to herself. She was torn between watching the road and woods and looking into the nature of the tree. Either end would give her answers of the who and how, but the tree would give her the answers with a little more time to work with. But then looking into the tree left her charge vulnerable. 

“I don’t know, that anything is wrong, Sir.” She said. “I’m weighing options.”

They could head back to one of the many paths that intersected this road and hope it re-connected with the king’s road, they typically did, but they weren’t well mapped if they were mapped at all and time was of the essence. Shit. 

“Be ready to run, Sir.” She said and pointed back the way they came. “If you start, don’t stop until you reach the gates of the city.” 

He didn’t get the chance to run though. Snaps and crunches sounded in the woods all around them, echoing through the silence between calls of animals and the sounds of swaying trees. They emerged, almost as if part of a play, step by step emerging from the gloom in a mottled flash of greens and browns. They had the air of players for all that they also came with some menace. Competence was proclaimed in the way they held their blades and bows for all that their cloaks, which should have been a hazard in the underbrush seemed to slither about them, unsnagged by errant branches. They were ringed, Katherine could feel the movements of the man who emerged from the woods behind her. She watched only the distance between her charge and the nearest threat she could do something about

Then from behind her she heard a painfully familar voice.

“Aww fuck it all Kat, it would have to be you, wouldn’t it?”

She turned and starred into the face of Martin, Florie’s lover. Her jaw dropped, just a little and she clacked it shut with annoyance at her own lack of poise. 

Still when she spoke her voice held all sorts of confusion and incredulity. “Martin?” 

His smile was wry, crooked and held just the sort of mixture of menace and naughty-boy that even Kat couldn’t say she was unmoved by. Stupid female nature. 

“What the hell Martin?” she asked, the quip rolling off her tongue like dust

“I didn’t know it was you, Kat, I swear though I suppose I shoulda guessed with you heading out this morn. When he hired me last night it seemed like an easy enough lark and me and the boys were getting restless.”

Well that would explain the theater, Kat thought to herself. Martin, of all things. 

“Who?” she demanded. “Who hired you and why?”

“I dunno,” he confessed, “he was wearing a hooded cloak, trite, easy to see through if interested but I never like to pop my employers bubble of anonymity so I weren’t interested.” 

“What did he want?” Kat asked through clenched teeth.

Martin jerked his thumb at Alexi “Somethin’ he has.” Martin said, pushing off his hood to reveal his bright hair. “Said to nab all his papers and bring em back for the coin.”