One Good Knight

by Mercedes Lackey

  “These are yours,” she said, gesturing. “I put the Champion’s things in the right, and the Princess’s in the left.” She turned and went back down the corridor, disappearing into her own open door.

  Gina and Andie exchanged a glance, and Gina shrugged.

  “It seems we’ve found a home for a while,” Gina said. “And it’s certainly more weather-tight than a tent in the woods. Considering how things could have turned out, this is a good situation.”

  A good situation…though one where she had One Good Knight

  275

  learned some things she really wished she had not.

  But Gina was right. Things could have been much worse. The Wyrding Folk could have been protecting the dragons.

  —well, actually they are.

  The dragons could have been evil, or in the thrall of an evil Magician.

  —actually, that’s true, too.

  Still…

  Andie found herself surprised by a yawn. “Well,”

  she said finally. “Good night.”

  There didn’t seem much else to say.

  My mother’s Chief Adviser wants the throne and plotted to kill me. My mother is either a party to this or under his spell. I’m out in the howling wilderness unable to leave the company of the dragons that were going to eat me. Let’s see. Have I left anything out?

  But Gina actually cracked a smile. “We’ve come out of this very well so far,” she pointed out. “Think about it. We didn’t actually need to fight the dragons. We’ve come a long way to understanding just what mischief is going on here in your Kingdom.

  Now that we know, we can see what we can do about it. That’s plenty for one night, I think.”

  And with that, she turned and went into her little room. It seemed that although doors had long since rotted and fallen away, someone had taken the trouble to fix a fall of canvas as a curtain on the inside, for shortly after Gina entered, a thick piece of cloth fell across the doorway, giving her privacy of a sort.

  276

  Mercedes Lackey

  Andie turned in to her own room. As she pulled canvas across her own door and turned to see what awaited her, the candle revealed more than she would have thought. She hadn’t expected a real bed or furniture, so she wasn’t disappointed. But she was pleased, even delighted, to see a fat mattress, presumably stuffed with some kind of plant material, on the floor, her bedroll waiting atop it. There was also a pile of flat cushions next to the bed, and beside them, a stack of simple tunics and dresses like those the others wore.

  There was a stone shelf built into the wall; she dripped a little candle wax on it and stuck her taper into it in lieu of a sconce. The more she looked at that bed, the more she wanted to be in it, sleeping.

  Anything else could wait.

  Including, or perhaps especially, troubling thoughts about the Queen.

  With the pallet unrolled on the bed, and one of the flat cushions to serve as a pillow, she blew out the candle, got into the bed by feel, and despite all the questions she was trying not to think about, fell deeply and soundly asleep.

  Morning brought no real light into the rooms.

  Andie only woke because she heard voices and the sound of footsteps in the corridor. When she started to get up, however, her arms hurt so much that she lay back down with a groan.

  Which immediately brought a response. Someone One Good Knight

  277

  shoved the curtain aside and poked her head in the room. “Are you ill?” asked someone that she could not immediately identify.

  “My arms hurt,” she said, feeling as if she ought to be apologizing. “All that water-carrying yesterday…”

  “Ah.” The head vanished, then returned. “Stay in bed and sleep a bit longer. We forgot you wouldn’t be used to that sort of work. We’ll sort out something for you to do that doesn’t involve hauling heavy things about. At least until you get accustomed to doing things that involve a lot of labor.”

  “I—” she began, but the head was gone again. She had been going to say that she wanted to do her share of the work, but evidently that was a given here.

  Well, that wasn’t so bad…she’d been taking care of herself all through the journey so far. This was just an extension of the chores she had already been undertaking for herself.

  Then again, she had never exactly been the sort of Princess that the Queen would have preferred, what with climbing trees and taking meals to Guards and all. Enough that your mother doesn’t think of you as her daughter? Enough that your mother would be glad to be rid of such an embarrassment?

  She pushed the horrid thoughts away and concentrated on seeking the position in which her arms hurt the least.

  Once she got her sore arms arranged in a configu-ration where they actually didn’t hurt she found herself drifting back off to sleep. And it was good not to 278

  Mercedes Lackey

  be waking up before the sun even crested the horizon in order to get on the road as quickly as possible.

  Some unknown time later, more footsteps awoke her and she bit back another groan as someone else poked her head into the room.

  “Can you wash dishes?” It was Cleo’s voice.

  Can I wash dishes? Does she mean, “Do you know how?” or “Are you able to?” Well, in both cases she could. “Yes,” she replied, grateful to be able to say yes to something. It was galling to know that she must appear to be a total burden, and incompetent to these other girls.

  Granted, there were others who had also had servants and had never needed to do work themselves.

  But they had been here a while, and by now probably were as good or better at ordinary tasks as the girls who’d been taking care of themselves and their families all their lives.

  “I mean now—are your arms too sore to wash dishes today?” Cleo persisted. “I do need to know this right now.”

  “No,” she answered honestly. “This is nothing more than strain, and strain gets better if you warm your limbs up. If I just get up and get moving this will ease off—”

  “Yes, but it’s hardly fair to ask you to do work you aren’t physically ready to do,” Cleo said, with a reasonableness that she actually hadn’t expected from the girl. “So we all decided there won’t be any wood-cutting or water-carrying for you for a while. But if One Good Knight

  279

  you’re up to washing dishes as your regular chore—then that will be fine. It will be better than fine with me—it’s mine, and I hate it. If you’ll take that, I can take weeding the garden, which is not my favorite but it’s better than washing dishes.”

  Her mother would have a fainting spell if she could hear her daughter planning to wash dishes like a servant.

  Her mother…

  She shoved the thought away.

  “You need to get up now, though,” Cleo was saying. “Or you won’t get any breakfast.”

  “Then I’ll gladly take your place,” Andie replied. “I do know how to wash dishes and I can do that after breakfast. And I’m getting up now, right this minute.”

  She rolled out of the bed with some little difficulty, caused at least in part by trying to save her arms as much as possible. She didn’t ever remember anything ever hurting this much. But she did remember what it was like when she’d first started taking dance lessons and using muscles that had never gotten that kind of exercise before. And she remembered very well what she’d had to do then.

  Move them.

  Once she got out of bed she slowly worked and stretched her arms until the stiffness was gone and they didn’t actually scream at her when she moved them. She changed into a loose sleeveless gown with a sleeved tunic over it, and went out to join the rest of the world.

  280

  Mercedes Lackey

  The rest of the world was finishing a simple breakfast of flatbread, honey and yogurt. Gina greeted her by finishing the last bite of her own food, grabbing her wrist and slathering both Andie’s arms with liniment from a stoppered jar she’
d had at her side. It smelled of sharp herbs, but wasn’t unpleasant, and Andie felt it start to go to work almost immediately, warming and loosening the muscles further, easing the aches.

  “What’s good for the outside of a horse is usually good for the outside of a man,” Gina said with a grin.

  “Or a woman. I’d been saving this stuff because Godmother Elena makes it and puts magic into it, but I figured you’d earned a dose this morning.”

  “Thanks,” Andie said gratefully. She decided at that moment that she wanted Gina for a friend…if Gina wasn’t already a friend.

  She rather hoped that the Champion was. The more she thought about it, the more she hoped.

  Really, Gina had been very nice to someone that she’d had no real reason to like. After all, if it wasn’t for Andie, where would she be now?

  On some other uncomfortable Quest?

  Well, maybe. Or maybe still at the Chapter-House.

  And Andie was the one who had thrust herself on a reluctant Gina. The Champion had no reason to be happy about that.

  But she said herself that having me along made getting around the countryside easier.

  Still, when it came right down to it, Andie had One Good Knight

  281

  been an inconvenience. Yet Gina had never made things uncomfortable for Andie. And once she’d been revealed as being another girl—

  I’d really like her for a friend. She looked around at the other young women clustered about the makeshift table, which looked as if someone had taken a slab of the fallen stone of the fortress walls and set it on four stumpy columns.

  Actually, someone probably had—that someone being one of the dragons.

  I’d like to have all of them for friends, she found herself deciding in surprise. Uncommon trial and hardship, danger and uncertainty had brought them together, but they were making the most of it, and even seemed to be finding ways to enjoy themselves.

  They’d come to some sort of understanding, it seemed, because she honestly couldn’t tell any differences of rank among them by the way they behaved toward one another.

  Even as she thought that, she took a place on a stone bench and the one nearest her passed her the plate of flatbread with no deference or other acknowledgment of rank. Just simple politeness. “Sorry we don’t have any fruit,” Amaranth said apologetically.

  “Everything is either green or gone.”

  Andie spread yogurt over the flatbread and drizzled on honey. “This is good!” she said around a mouthful. “This is fine.” And in fact, it was. It was—

  It was the first time in her entire life that she had sat down at a table with girls her own age that 282

  Mercedes Lackey

  weren’t her mother’s handmaidens and ladies. The first time she had sat down with girls who weren’t either ignoring her as the unimportant Princess or giving her false deference.

  The first time she had sat down with girls who spoke to her as if they were speaking to another human being.

  It was amazing. It was more than amazing. It was eye-opening.

  It was wonderful.

  She listened to them banter and tease each other, wonder what on earth Peri and Adam were going to do today—evidently the word was in the wind that they were “up to something” this morning—trade off on chores and other things, and then turn and ask her or Gina a question or two. Gina fascinated them—small wonder, most of them had never seen a female Warrior before, while Andie’d had them around her all her life. They wanted to know about the Chapter, the Chapter-House and, most of all, about Godmother Elena.

  Finally the last bite was gone and the girls dis-persed to their various chores. Gina went out hunting again; evidently none of the other girls had ever taken up the bow, and meat tended to be rather scarce except when the dragons brought it in. That left Cleo and Andie alone with the table and the dirty dishes.

  There weren’t a lot of dishes; the cups from which they had drunk their herbal tisane, the plates that had held the flatbread, the bowl that contained the One Good Knight

  283

  yogurt and two horn spoons. When the last of the girls was gone, taking the leftovers back to the kitchen with her, Cleo gathered up the lot in a big, flat basket. “I’ll show you where to go,” she said, and led the way down into the valley.

  They went farther downstream from the place where Andie had fetched the water yesterday, which only made sense, since you wouldn’t want to drink water in which you’d just washed things. Cleo stopped at a spot where there was a shallow ledge running off into the stream. “Here,” she said, putting the basket down and pointing at a patch of coarse reeds growing in the mud where the stone shelf ended. “Grab a handful of horsetail there and scrub everything out twice.”

  She sauntered back up the trail. Andie tentatively grasped about half a handful of horsetail and tugged.

  She recognized it from her botany lessons and from the fact that some of it grew in and around the ornamental ponds at the Palace. But she’d never actually had any of it in her hands before.

  She couldn’t imagine why Cleo found this chore so onerous. It was pleasant down here in the valley, with birds singing in the trees overhead, the gurgling of the stream around her, and her spot nicely shaded from the hot sun. Oh, her knees started to ache after a while, kneeling on the hard stone, but it wasn’t that bad, and anyway, she could take a break by sitting cross-legged, or sprawling on the stone, and listening to the forest for a while.

  284

  Mercedes Lackey

  The task didn’t take long. And though the walk back was somewhat difficult up a fairly steep path as it was, and though the dishes were both heavy and awkward, she found she didn’t mind in the least. She had actually washed a full set of meal dishes! That was something altogether novel in her life—some-thing other people did. And perhaps today she would also learn how to wash clothing, as well.

  Perhaps for anyone else, the day would have been one of drudgery and boredom, but this was all new to her. People in her position never learned how to wash dishes, or to cook, or to do any of the myriad of things she was learning to do.

  She helped with lunch preparations, slicing up mushrooms after cleaning them, stacking finished flatbreads with a dusting of flour between them so that they didn’t stick. She had never seen anyone make flatbreads before. It was fascinating. She longed to try it herself, but didn’t want to ask, because she knew very well she would ruin her first attempts and she had the feeling that there simply wasn’t food to “waste.”

  Luncheon was like breakfast had been, except that more of the girls talked to her this time. They seemed relieved when she would say, of this or that task, “I don’t know how, but if you could show me, I’ll try.”

  Another of the girls, Helena, was perfectly happy to teach her how to wash clothing, and they spent the afternoon down by another set of rocks, pounding and scrubbing at their garments until they got One Good Knight

  285

  almost all of stains and dirt out, then spreading them on the bushes to dry.

  “Generally,” Helena said, as she scrubbed vigorously at a stain, “each of us washes her own clothing unless someone asks us to do hers. That’s only smart, really—the things we do will put stains in clothing and you feel bad if you can’t get them out of someone else’s, but worse if they give you a look because you didn’t.”

  Andie had to laugh at that. Out of a sense of gratitude, Andie had taken Gina’s clothing down with her. The only real problem was that the padded tunic and trews that went under the armor were unbelievably heavy when she hauled them up out of the stream, and though she tried hard to squeeze the water out of them, it was clear they were going to take forever to dry.

  “Don’t put those in the direct sun,” Helena said.

  “If you do, they’ll dry stiff. She’ll never be able to get them back on. They’ll be like slabs of wood.”

  “I don’t know how I’m to get them to dry at all, otherwise,” Andie replied
.

  Helena pondered the problem.

  “Let’s try pressing some of the water out with rocks.” The svelte, dark-haired beauty’s idea sounded feasible.

  They spread the garments flat on an expanse of rock shelf, then the two of them piled clean rocks on top of the garments, and before they had heaped up too much, there was already water running from 286

  Mercedes Lackey

  under the pile. Encouraged, they continued to pile up stones until there was no more sign of squeezed-out water. Tumbling the rocks aside, Andie picked up the tunic. It was much lighter, and barely damp.

  With that problem solved, they left the clothes drying—who was here to steal them, after all?—and trudged up to the fortress.

  Only to discover Gina waiting for them at the top of the trail. “The dragons want another conference,”

  she said. “We’re meeting in the courtyard. I think—” She hesitated. “I think they want us all to do something about the situation in Acadia.”

  Andie looked at her, round-eyed. “Do you think we actually can?” she asked doubtfully. “You’re the only Warrior. Where would we get an army?”

  Gina shrugged. “Let’s hear what they have to say first.”

  Once again, Andie found herself in the ruined courtyard with the two dragons reclining in the middle and all their former “victims” arrayed along the edges. And now the thoughts that she had been trying to keep out of her mind all day came charging to the fore again.

  And with them the distress that she had tried to hide. Because perhaps it wasn’t as bad as it had appeared last night. Perhaps the dragons, after talking more with the fox, had decided that Cassiopeia was not to blame, that she had been under some sort of spell. That she still was. That it was all Solon’s fault.

  Andie could readily believe it was all Solon’s fault.

  One Good Knight

  287

  “My brother and I have been having a discussion,” said Peri, when Helena and Andie had taken seats on a couple of fallen columns, and Gina had taken up a position, leaning with crossed arms against what was left of a wall. “This situation in your land, Princess, is intolerable.”