“If he finishes early he’s just going to have more given to him,” said Alberta, “but all right. I won’t keep him very much longer. Did you really tell Bella she didn’t have to go to lessons this afternoon?”
Her father frowned at the abrupt change in subject. “Yes. Margaret is studying some of our political treatises on her own right now, too, so I gave your tutor the afternoon off.”
“What if I wanted to go?” asked Alberta crossly.
“Why, so you can bully him? No, thank you, I won’t be sending you up to the tower on your own. Your afternoon is free. You should’ve gone with your sister, and I wouldn’t have had to come scold you.”
“What do you mean, should’ve gone?” asked Alberta in alarm. “Did Bella leave the castle?”
“She’s gone riding with Perceval and Briarly and a handful of courtiers,” said her father. “They went to look for this Sir Goldmayne—I would’ve gone with them myself, except that I was busy listening to the complaints of my head gardener,” he added severely.
Alberta stared at him in disbelief. “You let her leave with Briarly?”
“He was one of the company, yes,” said King Edwin. “By the time you add in all the maids and groomsmen, there were probably twenty of them in all. They had Cook putting together a lunch for them. If you hurry, you might still be able to catch up to them before they get very far, though I don’t know which direction they went.”
“Father!”
“It would do you some good to get out and away from your books, Alberta,” he told her flatly. “Take Scurvyhead along with you, if you feel you must. I’ll make the excuses to Gardener.”
“Maybe I will!” she cried. Her cheeks were flushed with anger.
“Good. You’d probably better hurry. If you catch Goldmayne, do be sure to escort him back here for me. And please don’t call him ‘Goldilocks’ to his face,” he added with a grimace. “He might take it badly.”
“I’ll call him whatever it pleases me to call him,” Alberta retorted.
Her father shrugged and left the library, deeming her to be a lost cause. In the wake of his departure, she slammed shut her nearest book and flung it across the room. “I swear he has not a bone of common sense in his body!” she cried furiously.
Duncan sat silent in his chair, awaiting whatever order she might give him. Before him, Alberta paced back and forth across the rug. She seemed lost in her thoughts, as though she had forgotten his presence entirely.
“Did you want to follow them?” he asked her at last, tentative in even voicing that query.
“Can I?” she replied with forced sarcasm. “Last I heard, Briarly wanted to bind and gag me and stuff me into a carriage headed for the border! To think that Bella was such an idiot as to ride out with him! She almost deserves to be abducted!”
“He wouldn’t really,” said Duncan. “Would he?”
“Why wouldn’t he? Does he seem like the sort of person who cares just how he gets what he wants? I wonder if his valet is still here, or if he was one of the entourage that went along. Come on—we’re going to go check.”
Duncan obediently followed. She headed not to the residential wing of the castle, though, but down a grand staircase and out the doors to the stable. She paused along the way to consult a standing guard, who confirmed that Briarly’s valet had indeed accompanied the party.
“They only left a couple minutes ago through the back gate, your Highness,” the guard added. “They were making preparations half the morning, Briarly and his valet.”
Alberta exchanged an alarmed glance with Duncan. Bellinda had said nothing of an outing when they had met her in the corridor less than an hour ago. If Briarly had orchestrated the whole thing beforehand, he surely was up to no good.
“Would you please tell Thomas to round up some soldiers to follow them,” said Alberta to the guard. “Go, immediately!”
He quickly obeyed.
“Who’s Thomas?” asked Duncan curiously.
“Captain of the Guard,” she replied. “You’ve seen him at least twice—he always rides out with Father. He knows about Briarly’s plotting, too—one of the servants confessed to him in hopes of escaping my wrath.”
“But your father doesn’t know,” Duncan surmised.
She slid a disgruntled glance in his direction. “No. It’s usually best to keep Father out of the loop. Much as I love him, he doesn’t always behave rationally. Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“To the stables. I don’t have any choice but to follow them.”
He thought this was an incorrect assumption and a bad idea combined, but he couldn’t very well say so. Instead, he asked, “Is there anything I can do? I mean, if they’re out searching for—”
“No,” Alberta bluntly interrupted. “The last thing they need to do is spot Sir Goldmayne out on their ride. You’ll have to come along as plain old Scurvyhead. Hurry, now.”
He followed her into the stable and watched in awe as she barked orders for the stable boys to saddle her horse. While they scurried about, Duncan slinked back to Wildfire’s stall. He told the horse where they were going as he quickly saddled him.
“This Briarly fellow surely wouldn’t try to abduct Bellinda under everyone’s noses, would he?” Wildfire asked incredulously.
“Alberta seems to think that he would. His visit was supposed to end tomorrow, so this might be his only opportunity.”
“But King Edwin would hunt him to the ends of the earth, as would ninety percent of the castle servants, and the greater part of the general population of Midd,” the horse argued. “The man would have to be a raving lunatic to attempt it!”
“Maybe we’re up in arms over nothing,” said Duncan. He led Wildfire from his stall up to the front of the stable, just in time to discover Alberta in a heated argument with a middle-aged soldier. Several of his underlings were busy helping the stable boys saddle their horses.
“I will not stay here, Thomas!” Alberta cried indignantly.
“You will if I have to lock you in the dungeons with ten of my men to watch over you, your Highness,” the soldier retorted. “I kept your father out of Briarly’s plans for you on your request alone! You will repay that favor by staying out of this! That’s final!”
Duncan had never seen anyone bully Alberta before. The very sight was astonishing. Even more astonishing was that Alberta, for all her foot-stamping and shouting, actually gave in to his demands. She stalked from the stable without a backward glance.
“I guess we’re not going after all,” Duncan whispered to Wildfire. He was about to take him back to his stall when one of the soldiers called out to him.
“You there, boy! Bring that horse here! We need him!”
Duncan looked to Wildfire in alarm.
“It’s all right,” the horse muttered. “You can’t go, but I will.”
In a daze, he stepped forward and handed the reins to the soldier, who immediately swung himself into Wildfire’s saddle. Duncan left the stable as calls to rally rang out among the soldiers. They thundered from the doors en masse and beat a path across the stable yard to the back castle gate and beyond. Duncan watched them go with misgivings, anxious at having entrusted Wildfire to their company.
A hand grasped his shirt and yanked him around the corner of the stable. “Go get your horse,” Alberta hissed urgently.
He stared. “I can’t. They took him.”
She stared back, her eyes wide with disbelief. “What do you mean, they took him? He’s not a castle horse!”
“They saw that he was already saddled and took him,” said Duncan. “There wasn’t really a lot I could do.”
“How am I supposed to follow them now?” she demanded.
“You alone?” he retorted. “I wouldn’t have let you take my horse alone! You’re in just as much danger from Briarly as your sister is! More, for I don’t think he intends to ship her off to oblivion!”
Alberta scoffed. “I would’ve been fine!”
/>
“The Captain of the Guard told you to stay here,” Duncan replied. “Just do as he says. The hunting party didn’t get much of a head start, so I’m sure they’ll be back soon enough. If you sneak off, I’m going to have to follow you,” he added when he saw a rebellious expression flash across her face.
“Ooh, I hate you,” said Alberta, and she shoved past him to return to the castle.
Duncan didn’t like the way her words stung. He also didn’t entirely trust her not to make another attempt to follow the two groups that had already left. He resumed his gardening duties, but he remained in a place where he could see both the stable and the back gate.
The morning progressed to noon and beyond with no signs of either group. Clouds formed in the sky and threatened rain. Midway through the afternoon, just as the first great drops fell to the earth, a group of riders returned through the back gate. Duncan instantly recognized Wildfire among the horses. To his relief, he also discovered Princess Bellinda among the crowd. She rode alongside Prince Perceval and smiled cheerfully to everyone around her. That sunny expression belied any danger she was supposed to have faced, so that Duncan wondered if perhaps they had all been mistaken. He noticed then that Lord Briarly and his valet were both conspicuously absent from the group.
As the rain increased, he left behind his gardening for the stable, determined to retrieve Wildfire.
Commotion rumbled throughout the building as people dismounted and shook the raindrops from their cloaks. Stable boys darted forward to receive the horses. Duncan pretended to be one of them as he caught hold of Wildfire’s reins and drew him toward the back stall.
“What happened?” he asked quietly.
“Briarly was arrested and taken to a prison in town, along with his valet,” said the horse.
Duncan’s breath caught in his throat. “Then he really did try to abduct her?”
Wildfire hemmed.
“Well?”
“I don’t really know,” said the horse. “He was already tied up when we arrived. They said he had drawn Bella away from the group and accosted her, but that Prince Perceval had saved her. Briarly and his valet both claimed his innocence, but of course no one listened to them.”
“You think they were innocent?” Duncan asked.
“The man got a face full of something potent,” said Wildfire. “He certainly was alone with Bella at some point, but whatever really happened only she knows. They hadn’t been gone long enough for him to execute any sort of abduction, though. We came upon them within half an hour of leaving here.”
“You’ve been gone for hours since then!” Duncan protested.
Wildfire snorted derisively. “They still had to hunt for Sir Goldmayne.”
“You’re kidding!”
“That’s what I mean,” said the horse. “If an attempted abduction had occurred, I would’ve expected the victim to want to return home as quickly as possible. Bella’s was the loudest voice clamoring for the hunt to continue after Briarly was carted off, though.”
Duncan muddle over this. “You don’t think…” he began uncertainly.
“That she used this as an opportunity to exact revenge for the plot against her sister?” Wildfire supplied. “Alberta’s conniving enough. Whatever would we do if Bellinda was the same?”
Belatedly Duncan recalled Bellinda’s remarks in the gardens back at the start of Briarly’s visit, about how she had punished the servants her sister had forgiven. “Oh dear,” he murmured.
“Yes, exactly,” said Wildfire.
He stowed the horse safely back in his stall and returned to the front of the stable. The rain fell in torrents now, but most of the soldiers and courtiers, Bellinda among them, darted across the yard to the castle. One notable exception remained: Prince Perceval stood just within the stable doors and morosely watched the rain fall.
He looked utterly dejected. He didn’t even seem to realize that he had been left behind. Duncan approached him, feeling awkward and uncertain whether it was even his place to ask the prince what was bothering him.
Perceval caught sight of him. “Oh, it’s you, Scurvyhead,” he said, and he mustered a weak smile.
“Are you all right, your Highness?” Duncan politely asked.
“Yes. No. I don’t know. I had no idea Briarly could be a villain. He was always very kind to me. I suppose I’m a pretty hopeless judge of character.”
That was true enough, Duncan thought, but it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. “Is it true that he tried to abduct Princess Bellinda, then?” he asked carefully.
Perceval’s mouth pulled to one side as he considered how best to answer this question. “It’s true that there was such a plot,” he said at last. “Briarly’s valet confessed to it, but… I’m not entirely sure… that is, from what he said, it was supposed to occur later in the afternoon. Perhaps Bella proved too enchanting a target for Lord Briarly to wait, though,” he added with a frown. “They separated from the group shortly after we set out. I heard her shrieking for help and followed the sound. He was hunched on the ground already—she had thrown something in his face because he accosted her, she said. It was some sort of powder. The man was in agony. She insists on telling people that I saved her, but I didn’t.”
“You chased after her when she called for help,” said Duncan. “Perhaps that gave her the opportunity to act.”
His gloomy face lightened a little. “You really think so?”
“Oh, certainly.”
“Well,” said Perceval reluctantly, “I did tie him up and cart him back to the rest of our group. At the time it certainly seemed like the right thing to do.”
“So you helped capture him,” said Duncan encouragingly. “Well done, your Highness.” He didn’t know why he felt like bolstering the prince’s confidence, except that Perceval had looked like such a pitiful figure only moments earlier.
“But the more I consider it,” the prince protested, “the more it seems like I’m missing something important. You know, Scurvyhead,” he added, “my parents sent me here to court Princess Margaret, but I think I’m head over heels in love with Bella instead. Every time I’m around her, my heart beats uncontrollably, and my palms sweat, and I don’t want to leave her company. That’s love, isn’t it?”
“It’s attraction at least,” said Duncan. He was somewhat familiar with the symptoms.
“Then what am I to do?”
He had no advice to give on this count. “If you figure it out, please tell me,” he said, and he clapped the prince on the shoulder in a friendly manner. He thought in the moment afterward that this was a very forward thing to do, but Prince Perceval didn’t seem to mind.
“You too?” he asked with arched brows.
“Yeah,” said Duncan wryly. “Not towards Princess Bellinda,” he added quickly, lest the young prince come to view him as a rival.
“I don’t see how anyone can resist her,” Perceval replied. “Although, I will tell you this: I will certainly refrain from any forward advances if I’m alone with her. Whatever she threw at Lord Briarly made his eyes burn and his nose run uncontrollably. I do not want a fistful of that in my face.”
Duncan thought this was probably a very astute conclusion for the otherwise clueless young prince of Austrina.
Chapter 23
The story of Lord Briarly’s dastardly attempt against Princess Bellinda circulated through the castle before nightfall. In light of Prince Perceval’s heroics, his visit was extended for another week. The servants spoke of this news quite animatedly that night at supper. The young prince, who had generally been regarded as a harmless fool, experienced an instant rise in popularity among that crowd.
Duncan felt oddly dissatisfied over the day’s events. Everything had turned out all right, but he had incurred Princess Alberta’s wrath again. Much as he told himself it didn’t matter whether she hated him or not, her parting words still rang in his ears. He retired to his little garden shed in a funk, determined to sleep it off and be a better man i
n the morning for it.
That determination died when a sharp knock rattled his door a half-hour later. Duncan’s eyes flew open. “Surely not two nights in a row,” he muttered in disbelief. Still, he threw off his covers and fixed his sheepskin wig atop his head. He opened the door.
“Took you long enough,” said Alberta.
“I thought you hated me,” he replied.
“Does that mean I can’t order you out of bed late at night?”
“Your lye won’t be ready for another two days,” he bluntly told her.
She arched her brows. “You’re getting very outspoken, you know. You are still a servant here.”
“What can I do for you, your Highness?” he asked, like a good servant should.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go get the horses.”
“Where are we going at this hour?”
“I told you that fairy-hunting was best done at night, didn’t I?”
He stared. “We’re going right now?”
“If you keep asking questions, no. I’m starting to get irritated.”
She walked away then. Duncan snatched up his coat and followed. Wordlessly they slipped into the stables, where he quickly saddled Wildfire and Alberta’s chestnut mare. Wildfire didn’t even get a chance to ask where they were going, thanks to Alberta’s presence.
They took the same route out of the castle walls, headed in the direction of the ruined abbey, but they rode past it and into the woods beyond.
“Fairies reside in deep forest,” said Alberta. “Keep your eyes open for any strange lights or movement.”
“What’re we supposed to do if we do find a fairy?” Duncan asked.
“Stay on your best behavior,” she answered dryly. “They’re supposed to be very fickle creatures.”
“How do we even know if we’re going the right direction?”
“We don’t, and we won’t know unless we actually find something.”
“I don’t much like the forest at night,” said Duncan.
“I don’t like it either. Talk about something else,” she commanded. “I saw you from my window this afternoon. You were in the stable talking to Prince Perceval while it rained. What about?”
Goldmayne: A Fairy Tale Page 28
