Goldmayne: A Fairy Tale

by Kate Stradling

  He was dreaming, he decided. Absently he reached forward one hand to touch her hair. If it really was only a dream, there was no reason to walk on eggshells, as it were. He twisted a curl around his index finger and tweaked it.

  Alberta gasped and sat up. One hand instinctively flew to the corner of her mouth to check for drool. For a full breath, she stared apprehensively at Duncan and he stared languidly back. Then, she regained her wits.

  “What was that for?” she asked coldly.

  “I thought maybe I was… what’s the word for when you see things that aren’t really there?”

  “Hallucinating?” she suggested.

  He nodded.

  “Are you an idiot?” she asked.

  “I’ve never seen you sleep, especially not in the middle of the day.”

  “I should think not,” said Alberta stiffly, and she fought a rising blush. “You can hardly blame me, though. I’ve been running myself ragged to clean up a mess left by a certain scurvy-headed servant who went and got himself nearly killed.”

  Duncan said nothing to this, which seemed to be the correct response. Her face softened. “I’m sorry my father stabbed you with his spear,” she mumbled guiltily.

  “Wasn’t your fault,” said Duncan. “Besides, you saved my life.”

  “Ansel and your horse did more than I did,” she replied with unusual solemnity.

  As he wasn’t entirely clear on the events of the previous evening, he could not contradict this. Instead, he asked, “What’s happened to Wildfire?”

  “He’s in the stables, in his usual stall, waiting for word of your condition.”

  He surmised that the white horse had deigned to break his silence with the girl. “Oh, has he been talking to you?” he inquired lightly.

  “Right,” said Alberta to the wall. “Get it over with. ‘I told you he could talk, but you wouldn’t believe me, your Highness.’ Go on. Get it out of your system.”

  “I wouldn’t have believed he could talk if he hadn’t spoken to me,” Duncan replied. “It’s ridiculous, a talking horse.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. He shifted his gaze back to the window, wary of looking at her for too long, lest he betray some emotion he would much rather keep hidden.

  “Well,” she said after a long breath, “you should know that I told Gardener you fell on a rake in the garden yesterday.”

  His eyes snapped back to her face. “What?”

  “There’s no need to look at me like that,” said Alberta in a disgruntled voice. “I told him I’d found you—Scurvyhead, that is—nursing a bleeding leg, that you’d clumsily tripped on a rake yesterday afternoon and that I’d ordered you to a surgeon to have the wound looked at.”

  “Why did you do that?” he asked.

  “Obviously to throw off any suspicion between your absence and my father’s injury of Sir Goldmayne. That business has been aired across the entire country by now. As we speak, the castle grounds are being trampled by packs of fools trying to claim that they’re you.”

  Horror descended upon him. “Why?”

  “Oh, only because Father’s promised that whoever can produce the missing tip to his spear can choose whichever of his daughters he likes to marry,” said Alberta with a hard set to her jaw. His eyes followed hers to the little table where sat the offending spear tip on its white napkin.

  He flopped his head back on its pillow.

  “You look less than enthusiastic,” said Alberta. “Don’t you realize what an honor you’re being given? You can marry Mae and inherit the kingdom, or you can marry Bella and be the envy of every man in Meridiana.”

  She left herself out of the options, he noticed. He thought it only proper to do the same. “I don’t want to marry either of your sisters,” he told her plainly. Before she could respond, he added, “Even if I did, I wouldn’t as long as Dame Groach is after my head.”

  “So what are you going to do?” she asked. “All of the claimants are trampling the gardens to pieces. It’ll only create more work for you until the real Goldmayne appears.”

  “I don’t understand where all these people are coming from,” said Duncan. “The spear tip is right here. What are they taking to your father in its stead?”

  She scoffed. “Every little scrap of metal imaginable. Half the soldiers in the barracks broke the tips from their own spears in hopes of making a passable match. Many have come with knife or pike points, and several more have turned up with broken arrowheads. The farmers are even bringing the tines off of their rakes.”

  Duncan thought his head was going to implode. “What is wrong with all these people?”

  “They’re trying their luck. And they’ll keep trying it until either Goldmayne appears or Father rescinds this ridiculous reward.”

  “Isn’t there some magic goose you can shoot to put things right?” he asked her wryly.

  She whacked his shoulder with the back of her hand. “This is no joking matter, Duncan!”

  “What am I supposed to do?” he retorted.

  “I don’t know!”

  With that remark he realized at last that beneath her aloof exterior she was actually very upset. “What’s got you so worried?” he asked in wonder.

  Alberta shook her head and looked up at the ceiling. He thought she would not answer, but she was only choosing her words carefully. “Whether you realize it or not,” she said quietly, “you hold the ability to destroy everything I’ve worked for over the past five years, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. This situation is out of my control.”

  He stared at her, pointedly so, until she finally looked him in the eye. “Then take it back,” he told her. “It’s not like you to be out of control. It’s not natural for you to be out of control, either,” he added in a grumble.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Alberta asked sharply.

  Duncan carefully folded the white napkin around the spear point. This little bundle he proffered directly to the princess. “Take your control back,” he said.

  “What am I supposed to do with that?”

  “Claim your father’s reward, I guess. It’ll put an end to all the people trampling across the castle grounds, at the very least. Honestly, I’m not sure why you didn’t just steal it while I slept.”

  The idea quite obviously had never occurred to her. She covered her surprise with a haughty expression. “Do I look like a common thief to you?”

  Of course she didn’t. “You don’t look like a villain either,” said Duncan, “but you keep telling me you are one. Here. Take it.”

  Obediently she took the napkin. She unfolded it to peer down upon its treasured contents. “Are you sure you won’t regret giving this to me?”

  “I’m sure I probably will,” he replied, “but, as I said, I’m in no position to use it. The last thing you want is a gold-headed peasant marrying into the royal family, right?”

  Her eyes flitted up to his face, and her expression turned resentful. “Why do you have to be so honorable?” she asked.

  He thought this was the epitome of injustice. “That’s supposed to be a good trait.”

  She laughed then, bitterly, and folded the napkin around the spear tip again. She tucked the little packet away in her pocket. “Ansel says you’re to rest for another day. I’ve brought you your wig from the abbey and a spare set of clothes from the castle, but you’re not to leave that bed until he tells you it’s all right. Do you understand?”

  Duncan nodded. It didn’t matter, he told himself. He could rest two or three days with Ansel, pay the man for his trouble, and then retrieve Wildfire and be gone from this place as soon as he was released. If Alberta suspected any such plan, she did not betray it. Instead, she simply gathered up her things and left. He stared at the closed door for several moments after she was gone.

  “I’m such a fool,” he mumbled at last, and he felt the truth of those words most keenly.

  Chapter 27

  It took only seconds to fit one piece of metal
against the king’s spear, but the sheer volume of hopeful claimants had turned King Edwin’s hunt for Goldmayne into an exercise in boredom. The line stretched down the king’s court and out across the courtyard, all the way to the castle gates, and it was comprised of people from all walks of life. Noble, common, short, tall, fat, thin, old, young—they all waited together to try their luck against the broken spear.

  “We’re never going to get through this crowd,” Bellinda whispered to Margaret under her breath. “What’s Father going to do, send them home and have them come back tomorrow?”

  Margaret shook her head. “I don’t know,” she replied in the same hushed tones. Then, she turned to the king on her other side. “Father, it’s nearly sundown. How much longer are we going to continue this?”

  The steward holding the broken spear overheard this question and glanced back hopefully. After hours of fitting and assessing, he had just turned away another claimant and desperately wanted to be done for the night.

  “He might be any of these men in front of us,” said King Edwin, though. “We can’t stop yet.”

  With a sigh, the steward motioned the next man in line to come forward.

  Bellinda leaned over her sister to protest. “But none of these men has golden hair, Father!”

  “That part of the story could be an embellishment,” King Edwin replied. “Sir Goldmayne certainly has a tassel of gold atop his helmet, but I do doubt that the hair beneath is of solid gold.”

  “No,” said the steward to the claimant, whose broken arrowhead was an obvious mismatch.

  “I’m tired,” Bellinda complained. “Why does Bertie get to abandon court when the rest of us are stuck here?”

  “She’s ensured with her antics that no one will want to marry her,” Margaret replied dryly. “Obviously she doesn’t care what becomes of you or me.”

  “But when she was here people thought twice about coming forward with their little bits of scrap metal,” said Bellinda. “The line’s grown twice as long since she slipped out the side door.”

  “Where is Alberta, anyway?” asked their father with a sudden frown. In front of him, the steward turned away another claimant. “Her rightful place is here beside her family, regardless of whether she wants to be here or not.”

  Margaret and Bellinda exchanged an uncertain glance. Alberta wasn’t the sort to sit in place simply because family allegiance necessitated it. Besides, it was probably better for the royal image that she was gone. She’d openly excoriated most of the morning’s claimants before disappearing at lunchtime.

  “She’s probably holed up in her room reading,” said Margaret logically.

  Bellinda sulked. “It’s not fair.”

  “No,” said the steward as yet another piece of metal did not fit.

  A side door suddenly swung open and banged against the wall. Everyone jumped, and hundreds of eyes jerked to that corner to see Princess Alberta stride purposefully into court. She walked directly to her father’s spear, pausing only to shove the next claimant from her path.

  “Out of the way, fool,” she said caustically.

  “Alberta!” her father protested. “You can’t just come in here and interrupt! What is the meaning of this?”

  In one hand she brandished a metal point. “Some clown in a suit of armor just threw this over the back garden wall,” she said. “I’ve come to try my luck with it.”

  Beneath her father’s frowning observation, she matched the point to the end of his spear.

  “It fits,” said the steward in wonder. “It’s a perfect match!”

  Claimants and spectators alike gaped in astonishment.

  “Now,” said Alberta in a voice loud enough to drown out the rising murmurs from the crowd, “if anyone in the line behind me would like to explain why they were trying to perpetrate a fraud against the king of Meridiana and his family, they may do so in five… four… three… two…” She turned around when she should have spoken “one,” only to watch the drove of claimants scramble from the great hall, back out across the garden to the gates.

  “Idiots,” she muttered.

  “He threw it over the garden fence?” cried her father in outrage. “How dare he!”

  Alberta pinned the man with sharp eyes. “Father, if this Goldmayne character wanted to present himself to you, he would’ve done so long before now. Obviously he doesn’t want to be found. And I can’t very well blame him for not wanting to come meet the man who stabbed him in the leg.”

  Her father huffed indignantly. “Take it away, Gerard,” he said to his steward, and he gestured for the spear to disappear from his sight.

  “Wait,” said Alberta in a tight voice. “I still have to claim my reward.”

  The remaining crowd stared. “What reward?” asked King Edwin in confusion.

  “You promised to give one of your daughters’ hand in marriage to whomever presented that spear point to you,” said Alberta. “I’m claiming that reward.”

  “You are not Sir Goldmayne!” he protested.

  “You never specified that the claimant had to be Sir Goldmayne.”

  His expression turned to one of horror. “You can’t marry one of your sisters!”

  “I’m claiming my own hand!” cried Alberta.

  “You can’t marry yourself!” her father exclaimed.

  “No, but I can choose who to marry,” she retorted. “From this day onward you are to leave me out of these idiotic matrimonial schemes of yours! I will marry whomever I want at the time of my choosing, and you do not get to refuse or protest. Are we agreed?”

  Her father blinked. “Darling, I only want what’s best for my children,” he said in a small voice.

  “Then stop trying to wed us off to mysterious knights you’ve never even spoken with,” said Alberta. “Just because a man can prance around the countryside in a suit of armor doesn’t mean he’ll be a suitable husband—or a suitable king! For all you know, he’s already married, with a whole pack of children!”

  He pursed his lips and looked away, disappointed.

  “Father, I’m sorry,” said Alberta. “It’s not fair to Margaret, Bellinda, or me to force us into a marriage with someone we don’t even know. I can’t claim my sisters’ rights to be excused from such arrangements, but I will claim my own.”

  A tense atmosphere stretched between them. No one in the room dared breathe, let alone speak.

  “Very well,” he said at last, grudgingly.

  Alberta sighed in relief. “Thank you,” she told him. Then, she marched back out the side door through which she had entered.

  Bellinda scampered after her and caught up in the narrow corridor beyond. She latched onto her sister’s hand. “Where did you really get that spear tip?” she demanded.

  “I told you, someone tossed it over the garden wall.”

  “And you just happened to be there to pick it up?”

  “I saw it from my window,” Alberta said scornfully. “Lucky for you one of the under-gardeners didn’t get to it first.” She pulled free of Bellinda’s grip and continued up the hallway.

  “I wouldn’t mind a couple of the under-gardeners,” Bellinda called after her impertinently. “One of them in particular has a handsome enough face regardless of his silly wig.”

  Alberta ignored the provocation. She swept around the corner and up the next corridor. When she was certain that Bellinda had not followed her any further, though, she collapsed against the wall and let loose the tangle of nervous anxiety that she had battled with for the last half-hour.

  “I made a complete spectacle of myself because of him,” she huffed bitterly. “He had better appreciate it!” But then, she was back in control of the situation, and that had been the whole point.

  Ansel cleared Duncan to leave his bed the next morning. He handed him a packet of medicines and rehearsed how and when to take them. “Don’t do anything strenuous,” he commanded him in addition. “Your fluids should be replenishing themselves nicely, but it’ll be four to six w
eeks, maybe longer, before you’ve regained your full strength.”

  When he had secured Duncan’s promise on this count, he let him out the door to the narrow street beyond his house, with cursory directions on how to return to the castle from there. Duncan made his way slowly. His stamina was weak and the last thing he wanted was to topple over in the streets of Midd. When he arrived at last at the castle, he slipped into the stable to retrieve Wildfire.

  The white horse looked up in surprise to see him. “Are you all right?” he asked in concern. “Should you be up and about?”

  “Ansel’s let me go,” said Duncan. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Wildfire did not question this statement. Instead he allowed Duncan to saddle him and even accommodated him by going down on his knees when it was time to mount. Together they rode away from the castle to the old abbey. Duncan had no intention of ever returning to Midd.

  The area surrounding the abbey was deserted as always. He slid to the ground and knelt to retrieve his armor from the hollow beneath the great tree. He received a nasty surprise instead.

  “It’s not here,” he said stupidly.

  “What?” Wildfire stepped forward for a closer look. “What do you mean, it’s not there?”

  “It’s not here,” Duncan repeated. “What else can that mean but that it’s not here? There’s nothing here! Someone’s come along and taken everything—the armor, the goldwater, everything!”

  “Impossible!” cried the horse. “No one knows about that little hollow but you and me, and—” His words stuttered to a halt.

  Duncan’s heart leapt into his throat. “You told Alberta,” he accused. He should have known—the wig atop his head was proof enough that she knew of the hiding place.

  “Your armor was strewn all over,” Wildfire said defensively. “I couldn’t very well put it away! So yes, I told her how to bundle it and where to put it! But you don’t think she would—”