by Peter David
“I am Sir Nestor, dispatched by King Runcible to retrieve his daughter, the Princess Entipy.” His horse moved around slightly, apparently still a bit spooked by the smoke wafting into the air. He steadied his mount and continued, “Obviously, you have had a great disaster here.”
The Faith Woman nodded. Her face remained impassive.
“Do not think me insensitive to your plight, or uncaring of the fate of all of your order, but my mandate requires me to be a bit single-minded,” Nestor continued. “My first, my only, priority is the princess. So let me get to the heart of the matter: Is the princess all right? Was she injured? Is she—” He obviously didn’t want to say the word “alive.” None of us were looking forward to the prospect of returning to the king carrying a large vase and informing His Highness that his only child was in residence within.
The Faith Woman did not answer immediately. She seemed to be searching for words. Then, apparently opting for a mute reply, she stepped aside and gestured toward her associates.
A hooded figure stepped forward. She was smaller than the rest, the face fully obscured by the hood. She took a few steps, stopped, then squared her shoulders, arched her back, and withdrew the hood.
She looked rather small, almost swimming in the outfit she wore. Her face was carefully neutral. Her long hair was unkempt, although that was probably understandable given the circumstances. I saw nothing of autumn and raging seas in her, as Morningstar had described her. She seemed rather sullen, actually, fairly unremarkable in appearance, although there was a sort of vague prettiness about her. She did have a regal bearing, I’d certainly credit her that. She was no longer a child, but instead clearly a young woman.
“Princess … are you all right?” asked Nestor with concern that was mixed with obvious relief.
She nodded. That was all. Just nodded. So far none of the females had spoken a word.
“We’re here to bring you home. Your father and mother very much look forward to seeing you once more.”
Another nod.
Nestor turned his attention back to the women. “Now … my dear Faith Women … this is clearly a great tragedy. Would you care to tell me how this came about? Was it by accident, or did some swine attack you? If the latter, we can make sure that justice is done. If the former, we have means of offering compensation, for the king and queen are most grateful for the fine tutelage you have given their daughter … and their gratitude will be vastly increased upon learning that you have clearly managed to save her from any jeopardy this unfortunate conflagration might have presented. In short, I am asking: How may we be of service to you?”
The Faith Woman looked at her compatriots in stony silence. Their expressions were as granite-etched as her own. She looked back to us, and then one of her hands emerged from within the folds of her sleeves. It was long and a bit bony, and she pointed it, trembling somewhat, at the princess.
And the Faith Woman, speaking each word in a careful, measured tone, said, “Get … her … the fuck … out of here.”
There was no reaction of horror or shame at the profanity spoken by their leader. Instead all the heads of the Faith Women bobbed up and down in silent agreement.
That was when Entipy smiled. Really smiled.
I had never seen a smile quite like it. She looked at us—looked at me—with that smile, and the smiled seemed to say, Hello. You’re going to your grave, and it’s going to be my doing.
And Umbrage leaned over in his saddle and murmured to me, “Well, this certainly doesn’t bode well.”
Master of understatement, Sir Umbrage was.
Nestor angled his horse toward me as we prepared for our ride back to Isteria and he said in a low tone, “Good luck.” He didn’t seem sarcastic in that respect; I think he genuinely felt bad for me. I couldn’t blame him. I felt bad for me, too.
Demon spawn.
That’s what I saw when I looked into those eyes. Demon spawn. A quiet look of cold contempt, as if we were bugs to her. Not for a moment did I doubt why this … this individual … had been sent to the Faith Women for tutelage. Her parents simply did not want to have to deal with her. It was a no-lose proposition for them. The longer she was away, the calmer their own lives were. And if the Faith Women managed to bring her under control, well, so much the better.
Apparently, considering the smoldering ruins of their home, the Faith Women had had a less-than-stellar success rate with her.
Sir Nestor offered to leave a couple of knights behind to aid with the organizing of a rebuilding, but the Faith Women seemed to want nothing more than for the lot of us to be on our way. Naturally we obliged them. I think, however, given the circumstances, we would have felt a little more sanguine about the entire affair if we hadn’t caught sight of the Faith Women dancing a gambol of celebration upon Entipy’s departure. Entipy, for her part, sat perfectly erect in the saddle, straight and tall. She looked as if she had been born in a saddle, that much I had to admit. She looked neither right nor left. Truth to tell, I wasn’t certain if she knew or even cared that any of us were there.
This did not stop Sir Nestor from taking the time to guide me to her personally and say, “Highness … Apropos is squire to Sir Umbrage. He will be your personal escort and retainer for the duration of our trip home. If you have any needs or desires, request them of Apropos and he will shatter every bone in his body rather than disappoint you.”
I glanced worriedly at Nestor, less than ecstatic about the characterization of my willingness to carry out my duties. He winked at me. That hardly mollified me. But rather than dwell on it, I simply bobbed my head in acknowledgment of her and said, “Highness.”
She glanced at me, one flicker of her eyes seeming to take in not only my presence, but my very soul. The young woman chilled me. Then again, she was royalty, and what point is there to being royalty if you can’t discomfort those below you.
The princess and I were situated in the middle of our escort, in order to provide maximum security. My initial thought was to say absolutely nothing to her as we began our ride. In retrospect, perhaps I should have maintained that strategy. I couldn’t help but feel, though, that I should say something to the silly girl. It was several days’ journey, after all, and riding the entire way in silence seemed unnatural somehow.
“We have good weather for the ride, Princess,” I ventured after a time.
To my surprise, she laughed. It was neither a guffaw nor a titter, but simply a small chuckle. “Have I amused you somehow, Highness?” I asked.
She looked at me in an almost pitying manner. “Nearly an hour we ride, and you’ve had all that time to come up with a conversational gambit … and that was the best you could do?” She shook her head in pitying contempt.
“No,” I replied sharply. “But I thought starting off with ‘So, burned down many Holy Retreats, have you?’ might be considered a bit off-putting.”
There was a loud clearing of throat from Sir Umbrage, who apparently was riding just within earshot.
Entipy simply smiled at that. “Is that what you think I did?”
“I wouldn’t presume to judge, Highness.”
She looked me up and down appraisingly. “Don’t lie to me,” she said. “I’ve no stomach for it.”
“Lie, Highness?”
She said nothing in reply to that, but merely focused her attention on the road ahead of us. I moved my mount a bit closer to hers and said in a pleasant tone, “I don’t appreciate being called a liar, Highness … even by royalty.”
“Then try not lying and you’ll find it will happen less.” She afforded me a glance. “I know people, squire. Know them at a glance. I know you. You judge. You look around at the world and judge it constantly. And that judgment is the same no matter what you are perceiving: Disdain. Me, these knights, everyone … you hold all in disdain.”
“Why would that be the case, Highness?” I asked, fascinated.
“Because,” she replied easily, “you reserve your greatest disdain for your
self, and everything else simply radiates from that.”
Her words stung. That came as a surprise to me, because I had thought that there was nothing that could be said, and no one who could say it, that could possibly lance through the shell I had built around myself. Yet she had struck through with relative facility. I was not about to let that be evident in my response, of course. “My, my. How comforting it must be to be a princess and know everything.”
“Not as comforting as it must be to be a squire and know nothing,” replied the Princess Entipy.
My conversational endeavors having been summarily brushed aside, I lapsed into silence for a time, allowing the ride to pass in relative peace. Then Sir Umbrage caught my eye and he made a prompting gesture, clearly indicating that he wanted me to take another whack at social discourse. At that point the only whack I was interested in taking was at her head with a stout branch, but I did not think that would please the king and queen overmuch, nor aid in my standing or in that of Sir Umbrage.
“You ride quite well,” I said finally.
She looked at me askance, with cool detachment. “You mean, ‘for a girl.’ “
“I tend to say what I mean. You ride well, male or female. None of this sidesaddle nonsense. Good posture, good frame … gods, girl, it was a compliment. Ascribe nothing more than its intent.”
“I need no compliments from you.”
“Fine.”
At which point I resolved that I wasn’t going to say a damned thing for the rest of the four-day ride, even if someone tried to pry my mouth open with a dagger.
The sun continued to crawl across the sky, and it was late in the afternoon when she abruptly said, “Thank you.”
By that point we were not riding. Sir Nestor had brought us over to a nearby lake where the horses were being allowed to drink, and we were all stretching our legs. I was leaning against a tree, skipping stones across the lake and picturing Entipy’s head squarely in the middle of the lake as my target, when I heard her “thank you” almost at my shoulder.
I turned to regard her. She was staring at me with that same impassive face, that same chilling look that reminded you there were probably demons gleefully playing tag somewhere in this creature’s brain. “You’re welcome.” Then, almost as an afterthought, I added, “What for?”
“For the riding.” She paused and then added, “I had a good teacher.”
“Really. Set him on fire too, did you?” I tossed another rock.
“No. He’s going to come and take me away. We’re never going to reach the castle.”
That was certainly sufficient pronouncement to prompt me to hold up throwing the next stone. “Is that a fact?”
She nodded. “Yes. That’s correct. He’s likely trailing us through the forest right now. And once the moment presents itself, he’s going to take me away and we’re going to reside in the forest and make love like wild beasts, freshly fallen leaves serving as our bed as our naked bodies writhe in—”
I held up a hand and said, “I get the picture. Well, well, Princess … I had no idea you had such plans. And you are telling me this … why?”
“Because I find you annoying.”
“I see.”
When she spoke, it was in a curious little up-and-down voice, almost singsong like a small child. “And I want you to know what’s going to happen ahead of time. So you can know it’s going to happen, and still be unable to stop it, and know that my father will be ever so angry with you for letting it happen and you’re still helpless to prevent it. He’ll probably lop off your head.”
“If it means not having to listen to your drivel any longer, I’d lop it off myself.”
“Drivel? Is that how you speak to a princess?”
I had completely had it. I do not suffer fools gladly, even to this day, and back then my patience was not remotely approaching levels of maturity. “No, that’s how I speak to a deluded, fire-starting loon. Where did you meet this savior, this hero of yours?”
“He came upon me while I was doing chores outside for the Faith Women. Chores.” She repeated the word as if it were the name of a vile disease that had claimed all her loved ones and a bevy of cuddly animals besides. “I … a princess … chores. Can you imagine?”
“Happily,” I said.
She ignored my response. Instead she draped her hands behind her back, clearly taken with the doubtlessly false memory. “He had no idea who I was. He fell in love with what he thought was a peasant girl. It was only recently that he learned who I truly was … and vowed to me that he would take me away with him and we would live happily ever after.”
“Four words that have no business in each other’s company,” I snorted. “One doesn’t live ever after. One dies. And there’s very little happily about it.”
She shook her head. “You could not be more unlike him. He’s been through such hardships, but still believes in love triumphant and heroism being rewarded.”
“Then he’s as deluded as you, which would be consistent since my suspicion is you’re imagining him from whole cloth.” I tossed another rock, watched it skip and sink. “Tell me then, Princess … why did he not simply take you away from the Faith Women? Why wait until you were surrounded by a squadron of armed men? Wouldn’t that make it more difficult for him?”
“He doesn’t care,” and she snapped her fingers, “for however many armed men may surround me. But he did care that the Faith Women had promised my parents that they would teach and protect me. He did not wish to undercut their vows, despite my wishes to the contrary. That is his way.”
“How very convenient for him. Princess … even if he exists … which I doubt … you’ve seen the last of him. He had his fun with you while you were around, and now you’re gone, and he’ll move on to some other crazy young girl.”
“You think I’m crazy?” When she spoke, her eyes flashed ever so slightly.
“What could have given you that impression?” I asked with ill-concealed impatience. “Perhaps the fact that I keep referring to you as such. Could that be it?” I cocked my arm to throw another stone.
And then she ricocheted a rock off my head.
“Hey!” I fairly shouted, an overloud exclamation which naturally attracted the attention of the other knights, who looked in our direction. She was sitting there with that same damnable smile, the one that spoke volumes of her quiet arrogance and contempt for life in general and me in specific. I could see it, all there in her face.
This was not what a princess was supposed to be. A princess was supposed to have an elegance about her, a sense of the regal. She was supposed to be a marvelous creature, an incarnation of hope and purity. She was supposed to be an abundance of things, in short, which were lacking in the Princess Entipy.
And then, with only a few words, she transformed herself from a mere loon to an exceptionally dangerous loon.
“You will see,” she said. “You will all see … when Tacit One-Eye comes for me.”
She turned and walked away, which was fortunate because that way she didn’t see me with my arm frozen in place and the blood draining from my features.
Tacit.
She had been cooped up in the Holy Retreat for years. The Faith Women were notorious for keeping news of the outside world away from the retreat, and word of Tacit and the revolt in Pell—which was the first time his name truly began to be spoken—could not possibly have reached her.
Which meant that Tacit had.
Which meant that everything she had told me was true.
Which meant that we had a serious problem.
If the princess’s intention had been as she had said—to place a fear within me and a feeling of dread over the impending calamity of a simple mission gone completely wrong—then she had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.
I thought of how I had been regarding the woods around us with suspicion during our ride, but had not had any clear idea as to what was causing that suspicion. Now I knew. Tacit had been there, following us like
the forest-spawned ghost he was. Yes, it would be just like Tacit to honor the vow of the Faith Women to watch over the princess. Furthermore, if we were in his element, the deep forest, Tacit would be utterly confident in his ability to make off with the princess at any time … particularly since this was not a kidnapping. She was going to go willingly.
I already felt as if I had enough concerns with keeping an eye on Entipy as it was, since I considered her eminently capable of slipping a dagger between my ribs any time the fancy took her to do so. For that matter, she was just deranged enough—once we had set up camp for the night somewhere—to set fire to the entire encampment. The prospect of waking up with a dagger protruding from my chest and flames closing in from all sides was not a pleasant one.
I knew I wasn’t going to be sleeping well on the trip back as it was. But all that was as nothing compared to my concern that Tacit, phantom-like, would abscond with her at any time and we would return to the palace empty-handed.
My hand reflexively went for my throat as I pictured the king nodding to a royal executioner to get on with it.
I immediately went to Sir Umbrage, who was chatting amiably with Sir Nestor, and drew them both aside. I told them of my rather disconcerting conversation with the princess, and they both cast apprehensive glances in her direction. At that point, she seemed perfectly content to stare out at the lake in a somewhat dreamy fashion. I could only imagine that she was trying to figure out if there was some way to set the lake on fire.
“I am not concerned,” Nestor said at last, words that directly belied the initial reaction I had seen. “I have heard of this Tacit One-Eye, the same as you gentlemen. But he is, after all, just one man. We are many. Even if the princess desires to go with him, that does not mean she will automatically be heading off. Thank you, Apropos, for apprising us of the situation.”
“So what will we do?” I asked.
“We will do as we have been doing. The fact that we have a name for our enemy does not change in the least our procedures, for we have been allowing for the possibility of an enemy all along. We will sleep in shifts, we will keep an eye on the princess. There will be knights on watch at all times. In short, do not worry yourself, young squire,” he said, patting me on the shoulder. “The princess will not be going anywhere; not while we attend her.”
