KNIGHTS AND SOLDIERS ON THE PATH

The further from home that Brownlea took me on his strong back, the more upset I became that they had taken my dear father way as if we were a slave. Probably they would make him into a slave, I thought. I just had to do something to stop them! ‘Please God, please help me…” It washed over me again, that perhaps I was being foolish. ‘I’m just a little girl’ – yes, and those men out there, the kidnappers, they were all like giants. More than just one goliath!

Oh, no, a company ahead. Two knights riding towards me with a large company following them.

I yelled at Brownlea to halt and pulled back on his reins. He skittered and I struggled to control him, wanting to keep him right there on the road. It didn’t occur to me at the time that they could be some, or all, of the kidnappers. I’m glad they weren’t.

The two knights rode close to me, one on either side.

I blurted, “Sir Tristan ... did he pass this way? And about twenty soldiers? ... They’ve stolen my father… Baron Chatelain ... he’s their prisoner!”

The men lifted the visors on their helmets and one said, “We met Sir Tristan but there wasn’t a prisoner with them… but…”

The men turned their horses and yelled at the whole company to turn around.

It was strange.

They all rode back the way they had come.

There was nothing to do, but to follow… 

Jobyna

Jobyna - "On my way to rescue my father..."

I ran from the woodshed, around to the stables, but all the horses were gone! Only my first horse, if you can all it a horse, was there... 'Rainbow' ... I had called the small mare by that name because she was a rainbow of colors. I should have run to the village, but somehow, in my racing mind, a horse would get me there faster...
Upon arriving at Reeve Gauzier's house, and waiting for a servant to fetch him, I blurted out the sorry story, only to hear him asking, "This is some kind of game you are playing, isn't it?"
"You must believe me," I pleaded, "I wouldn't lie about my father being taken away, or about Sir Felix asking me to tell you to send men with axes and battering rams. Please... it's true..."
The Reeve raved on about the past and the pranks we used to play...
I bowed my head in despair.
“I’ll have to call some men from their places of work to check it out. All the knights and soldiers who guard the village keep have gone to Frencberg. I won’t have the bell run, not until I prove such an action to be justified. You’ll be in big trouble if you ARE making up this story, Miss Jobyna! You forget. But I don't..."
"Thank you, Sir, thank you," I said, and I hurried around to Hedy's house. Hedy was kind of a friend... anyway, her father, whose name was Norman, was the carpenter in Chanoine. Father had commissioned him to make a number of the wooden screws for the invention.
I could see that he didn't believe me. . “They’ve taken the printing press too, Norman. I saw them putting it in saddle-bags... please, you have to help..."
I was getting desperate for my father's sake.
Norman called two of his workers to go with him. I was so pleased to see him taking an axe with him. Hopefully Mother and my brothers and sister, and everyone else, would soon be freed from the woodshed.
But what about my Father. There was nobody here to help him.
Hedy started asking all kinds of questions. 
I saw a little carving knife on the bench among some tools that had obviously been in use. I pushed it up my sleeve, between the layers. I was thinking of the leather ties that had been around my father's wrists which were behind his back. How could he ride like that?
I ignored Hedy and hurried to where I had left Rainbow and climbed on.
Rainbow could not go far, she was so old, so I dismounted and walked up the slope to where I had left Brownlea. 
All I could think of was my father and how far away he would be. Brownlea would have to gallop for as long as he could... they had gone south, I was sure of that.

Soon, I was riding south...