How strange. She is surrounded by armed guards, on her way to an interrogation, probable incarceration, and yet the storm inside is at rest
“Ride on!”
Leonora presses the horse’s side and her black stallion starts to walk, then trot. She is flanked by Ottoman officers on both sides, sheathed swords knocking as they ride. Ines rides behind her.
One of the officers looks at the sky and urges them onward.
The trot becomes a canter.
Overhead, the sky is dotted with clouds; white but turning gray in the distance. Leonora pushes her traveling cloak off her arms and shoulders, she is growing warm from the ride.
The guards allowed Leonora to ride her own black stallion, and she has strapped a leather traveling bag to the creature’s back, filled with a blanket, and spare clothing. She is wearing her strong winter boots. Not because she needs them, although the sky is beginning to threaten rain and the seasons are changing. But more because she has worn these boots through hard journeys, and with them, she had always come home.
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