‘The Shepherdess: Narbonne’ by JM Landels

An Informant

In this latest instalment of The Shepherdess by JM Landels, Toinette Berger receives some much needed information from an unprecedented source. Read the start of this section with an excerpt from Issue 44, Autumn 2024.

The Shepherdess: Narbonne

by JM Landels

Since I’d set foot inside castle Tectume, I had seldom ventured down the mountainside. All memory of riding had disappeared from my body, and sitting Marteau’s lumpy gait was punishing my bottom before we even reached the valley. The air felt dense and rich down here, and the skiff of snow that had frosted the roofs of the château this morning was nothing but a damp memory.

“Remind me again why we couldn’t take a carriage?” I asked the men on either side of me.

“Because the joy of mounting a horse is second only to that of a lover in your arms,” announced Michel.

“Speak for yourself,” grumbled Henri. “There are many things, I find, that rank in between those two. A glass of brandy, for instance, and a padded chair inside a sedan.”

“I agree with Henri for once,” I said, shifting my seat bones. “Surely we could have taken the carriage as far as Narbonne and sent it back with Gwyn?”

“Not as swiftly, nor as quietly, as we can thus,” said Madame, twisting in her saddle to look at us from three horse-lengths ahead. “And, speaking of speed, we need to put some on.” She put her heels to her horse, who picked up a brisk trot. I groaned, and asked the same of Marteau, envying Luc who trailed behind us. Babette’s cart was unsprung, but at least Luc, perched high upon bundles of clothing, could shift his seat at will.

Three days later in a tawdry inn on Narbonne’s rue Cabriol, the three men and I drank flat, watered beer beside a hearth more filled with smoke than fire. We had arrived nearly two hours before, and conversation had died off early. Henri leaned against the wall, his eyes closed, while Michel stood frequently, walked around our knot of chairs, and sat again. This disturbed my adopted hound, Jacques, who rose and circled my chair each time. And I calmed him each time with scratches behind his grizzled ears.

If the other patrons of the tavern were disturbed by this behaviour, they showed no sign. My own eyes began to droop, until Jacques snapped them open with a bark. I twisted to see a tall man standing behind me.

“Milady,” he said to me, though I was still dressed in men’s clothing. “Your mistress has need of you.”

Find out what happens next, in Issue 44, Autumn 2024!

JM Landels divides her professional time between writing, editing, drawing, and teaching people to swordfight from horseback. She has no hobbies, since they all tend to turn into professions.

Her fantasy trilogy Allaigna’s Song: Overture is available from Pulp Literature Press and most fine booksellers, and her novel-in-progress The Shepherdess is appearing in even-numbered issues of Pulp Literature.