The Unwilling Adventurer (The Unwilling #1) by Heidi Willard Page B

have waited for nightfall and attacked us in our sleep." He nodded at the disturbed dirt where they'd buried what they found of the campsite's previous occupants. "That's probably what happened to them."
    Fred relaxed and put his head back down; Pat turned away. The boy sighed. "So how bad is it back there?" he asked his two companions.
    "Time will heal them, but until then you will be very uncomfortable," Ned replied.
    Fred shifted his weight and winced when his wounds protested. "Great..." he mumbled.
    Ned opened up his cloak and pulled out a few bags; Pat sniffed the air. "Herbs?" she guessed, and Ned nodded. "Did you have a specific medicine in mind?"
    "Just one to comfort him and keep the sickness from his wounds," Ned told her.
    Pat opened her mouth, shut it, and then opened it again. "Did you want me to do it?"
    Ned turned to her with a raised eyebrow. "Are you sure? He deserves a gentle hand."
    "I'm pretty sure I can handle that," she assured him.
    Fred heard their conversation and looked back at them. "What? What's going on?"
    Ned handed the bags to Pat and stood up; there was a mischievous smile on his face. "I leave you to your nurse, Fred."
    "Nurse?" Fred was alarmed and glanced over to Pat; she may have saved him, but he didn't trust her to gently touch his wounds. "Why can't you do it?"
    Pat scowled and crossed her arms. "What's wrong with me?" she countered.
    "Well, it's just, I don't know, you hate me," Fred pointed out.
    Pat rolled her eyes and set to work with the two bags of herbs. "That doesn't make me bad at medicine," she replied.
    Ned toddled off to tend to the fire, and left the pair to their bickering. Seeing he had no choice but to agree to her as his doctor, Fred turned away in a huff. Pat mixed the ingredients into a paste and dipped her finger into the medicine. She took a glop of the stuff and softly applied it to the wounds. Even with her careful hands Fred flinched away from the pain. "It's okay. This won't take long," she soothed.
    "I feel like I've been raked over by a rake..." Fred muttered.
    "Have you ever been hit by a rake like that?" she asked him.
    Fred shrugged; bad move. His body pulsed with pain and he ground his teeth together. "A couple of times, when some of the other men had too much alcohol."
    Pat frowned and paused with her finger in the bowl of paste. "That's horrible. Didn't you ever try to tell your lord?"
    "You saw my lord, he's not exactly a caring guy," Fred replied. "So I was told to solve my own problems."
    "And you never thought of leaving that place, even to escape such treatment?"
    Fred sighed; the paste calmed his wounds and he was finally able to relax his body. "You can't leave places like those. You're not allowed to leave without permission, and if they catch you they drag you back like he tried at the town," he told her. "Then you're given lashings and extra work. I've seen it. They whip you until your back is soaked with blood and your hanging there by your wrists, too weak to stand. The knights made big men weep like babies."
    Pat shuddered at such a picture; it must have made a stinging mark on Fred's memory. "So you've really never been from that estate? Not even with your lord's permission?" she wondered.
    "Never." Fred shifted and was glad when the gashes didn't freeze up his body with pain. He glanced over his shoulder. "But you've been to a lot of places, haven't you? At least, you seem to know your way around people, and dealing with that monster."
    Pat smiled and shook her head. "I've never been very far from my home, either. I just read a lot of books so I know what's out here."
    Fred blinked. "Really?"
    "Really," she replied.
    "Oh." He looked to Ned in the distance. "So how long have you been with him?"
    Pat put the remaining paste on his wounds and wiped her finger on her pants. "Only a few weeks. He's taking me to-well, to where I need to go."
    "So he's not your grandpa or anything?" Fred asked her.
    Pat cringed and furiously shook her head. "No