The Warrior’s Princess Bride

by Meriel Fuller

  A sly look slipped over Ada’s face. ‘Just make sure you don’t,’ she replied, smiling, but her smile was tense and strained. Then she caught Tavia’s surprised glance, and rubbed one hand over her face, as if trying to clear her mind. ‘Sorry, I’m just a bit nervous. I’m worried that Ferchar might have noticed we’ve disappeared.’

  A low branch snatched at Tavia’s veil, and she winced slightly as she disengaged it from the silk. ‘I doubt it. He seemed to be completely immersed in the hunt.’

  ‘Ferchar asked me to keep an eye on you, make sure you didn’t run away. He trusts me, you see.’ Pride blossomed in Ada’s voice. She drew herself up in the saddle, elegant, poised, every inch of her a princess.

  ‘I doubt he’ll trust you after this,’ Tavia replied. ‘Will you be in trouble?’ In comparison to Ada, she felt unwieldy and cumbersome, still unused to the rolling gait of the horse.

  ‘Nay.’ Ada frowned at Tavia as if she were mad. ‘He will always trust me…he loves me, you see.’

  Something in Ada’s voice warned Tavia not to argue with her, although she certainly didn’t believe that Ferchar cared anything for Ada. A beatific smile lightened Ada’s features when she talked of Ferchar, almost as if she worshipped the regent, and would do anything for him. A thread of fear coiled slowly in Tavia’s heart. Had she made a foolish mistake, relying on Ada to help her flee a potential marriage with Ferchar?

  The narrowness of the track forced the horses into single file, Tavia trailing the dappled grey rump of Ada’s courser, glad that she had taken Ada’s advice and worn dull, sombre colours so she couldn’t be easily spotted through the trees. Her garments, borrowed from Ada, were comprised of a dark-blue under dress topped with a pale-green bliaut, edged with dark green embroidery. It would make her more difficult to discern beneath the gloom of the trees.

  The under growth became thicker and more impenetrable. Up ahead, Ada dismounted, waving at Tavia to do the same. She slid down haphazardly, bringing the reins high over the horse’s head. The courser snorted suddenly, warm air steaming against her hands from the horse’s nostrils. Tavia grabbed the bridle under the animal’s mouth, pulling the horse along beside her as the brambles snagged at her sweeping skirts.

  ‘Tavia, I’m completely stuck in these brambles,’ Ada called out from the other side of her horse. ‘Leave your horse with me, and go up ahead. See if Dougal is there waiting.’

  All Tavia could see was the top of Ada’s head bobbing up and down on the other side of her horse, no doubt wrestling pain fully with a bramble. ‘Can I not help you?’ she asked, pulling her horse level, before squeezing in front of both animals.

  ‘Nay!’ Ada’s voice took on a fervent urgency. ‘He’ll go if we’re not there soon! Keep on going that way!’ She pointed with one white finger towards what appeared to be a chaotic bundle of brambles, flanked by two large oaks. ‘Just push through,’ Ada hissed, as Tavia hesitated.

  Tavia took one step forwards…and fell. Beneath her un suspecting feet, the flimsy criss-crossing of branches that disguised the animal trap gave way easily beneath her slight weight, and she crashed through, the twigs snarling her clothes, catching at her neat braid. She shrieked with fright, a long drawn-out wail as her arms instinctively flew out, trying to halt her hurtling drop, clutching at the smooth earth sides. Her fingernails scraped the damp soil, filling with earth. She thumped down at the bottom of the hole, her head whipping forwards with force to hit one of the large stones that jutted out from the bottom. For a moment, Tavia lay there, winded and bruised, the air in her lungs brutally emptied out by the violence of the fall. Her body crumpled against the curving side of the pit, her mind barely conscious, as she half-lay, half-sat, hot, sticky blood washing down her face.

  She willed herself to shout, ‘Ada! Help me!’ Her voice sounded thin and weak, rippling with pain. With difficulty, she slanted her head up towards the source of light, a circle that seemed so far away, a circle mottled green by the trees surrounding it. She squinted as Ada’s face appeared, hanging over the edge of the hole; it was difficult to decipher her features, all she could make out was a dark blob against the light.

  ‘Nay, I’ll not help you, sister dear!’ Ada’s voice, when it came, seemed oddly distorted; Tavia thought she had misheard.

  ‘Ada, you must help me!’ she called again, her voice weakening. Her limbs held no strength, collapsed against the ground; it was as if the life-force flowed out from her.

  ‘And I said “nay”!’ A wildness entered Ada’s tone. ‘Think you to replace me as Ferchar’s wife, you cunning, crafty wench? Well, it’s not to be, do you hear me! It’s not to be!’

  Panic wrenched Tavia’s innards—had Ada truly gone mad? ‘I have no intention of marrying Ferchar,’ she called up faintly. ‘You know that. Just help me up, and I will disappear, Ada, please!’

  ‘But he has every intention of marrying you, doesn’t he!’ cackled Ada. ‘But he can’t marry you if he can’t find you!’ Her head lifted back from the hole above and disappeared. ‘And he’ll never find you, Tavia, never!’ Ada’s voice floated away, growing fainter.

  Tavia slumped back against the side of the hole, all fight drained from her. Her head ached from the impact with the stone; her whole body felt crushed and bruised from the fall. Who would find her here? Racked with pain and shock, she buried her head in her hands and cried.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jamming his heels down against the metal bar of the stirrup, Benois lifted himself up in the saddle, scanning the forest for a glimpse of Tavia. Avidly he sought for that wine-dark hair, that quick, bright smile and intelligent blue eyes. He found them not. He cursed. For a long time, he had supposed her to be bound up in the colourful mêlée of lords and ladies that made up the hunting party; indeed, on a few occasions he had picked out Ada, and assumed the two sisters were together.

  Since yestereve, since he had danced with Tavia in his arms with the prospect of riding south with King Henry hanging over him like a threat, a curious sense of loss had invaded his heart and a fierce sense of protectiveness had grown. He couldn’t abandon her, leaving her here to the spurious guardian ship of Lord Ferchar, to the possibility of marrying such a man. Surely he could take care of her in a platonic way, as a brother took care of a sister? But even as his inspection skimmed the jostling group of hunters, the chaotic jumbling of blood hounds, he knew he was lying to himself.

  Now, as he twisted his neck this way and that, searching for her familiar figure, he realised with an icy certainty that she was not among the milling crowd. With increasing apprehension, he looked for Ada, searching out her auburn hair, identical to Tavia’s. Henry rode up along side, his rotund face flushed and elated from the successful pursuit of the stag.

  ‘If I’d known how good the hunting was here, I would have asked Ferchar for Dunswick also!’ he joked, slapping Benois on the back. ‘What an excellent day!’ He darted another satisfied glance at the fine stag lying in the back of the ox-cart.

  ‘Aye,’ agreed Benois vaguely. ‘Have you seen Tavia anywhere?’

  Henry frowned. ‘Sweet Jesu, Benois! Is your mind on nothing else these days? How can you be bothered with the ladies on such a hunting day as this?’

  Benois quirked one eyebrow upwards. ‘I feel responsible for her.’

  Henry threw back his head and roared, the red hairs of his beard glinting golden in the sunlight. ‘That’s rich, Benois, coming from you. Since when have you felt responsible for anything…or anyone for that matter?’

  Benois’s grey eyes hardened to iron. ‘Since I met her.’

  ‘God’s teeth, Benois! Why not bed the wench, then you’ll forget her easily enough?’

  ‘It didn’t work,’ Benois replied blandly, his eyes still running over the crowd.

  Henry looked stunned for a moment. ‘For Christ’s sake, don’t tell Ferchar. He thinks she’s a virgin. Hah! What a jest when he marries her! Then she’ll be his responsibility and not yours!’

  But Benois fail
ed to hear his last words, having sighted Ada on the fringes of the clearing. He had already kicked his heels into his horse’s flanks, steering the animal through the crowd towards her. The rest of the hunting party was starting to turn their horses, to follow the laden ox-cart back to Dunswick, and the celebratory feast that awaited them.

  ‘Where’s Tavia?’ Benois rapped out as he approached the princess, his tone severe, demanding.

  Ada held herself rigidly on her horse, her expression one of con tempt as Benois nudged his horse along side. ‘And good day to you, too, sir,’ she mocked him slightly, indicating that he should address her properly, as a princess.

  ‘My lady…’ he bowed deeply, from the saddle ‘…forgive me, I for get my manners. I was wondering where Tavia was.’ Studying Ada, he was struck by the differences between the two sisters. Although their hair colour was identical, Tavia’s physique was leaner, more athletic, in comparison to Ada’s slender, curvier figure. Tavia’s face glowed, flushed with health and vitality, whereas Ada’s skin seemed pasty and uneven by comparison.

  ‘She went back to the castle,’ Ada explained, but her eyes wouldn’t meet Benois’s, instead sliding curiously away.

  She’s lying, Benois thought immediately. ‘Why?’ he rasped.

  ‘She had a bad headache; she thought it would be better if she lay down for a bit.’ Although Ada outwardly appeared calm and con trolled, she could not prevent her fingers from working nervously along the reins.

  Benois glared at her, his lips set in a stern line, his eyes flinty steel. ‘Don’t tell me she went alone?’

  ‘Nay.’ Ada leaned over and touched his arm as if to reassure him, then whipped them away quickly as he regarded her fingers with disdain. ‘I sent one of the grooms back with her.’

  A swelling feeling of unease settled across Benois’s chest. ‘I don’t believe you, my lady.’ He kept his voice low, not wanting Ferchar or Henry to overhear the conversation. He noted the way Ada’s eyes darted continually over to the crowd behind him. Was she thinking of calling for help…or did she not want them to hear either?

  Dropping her hold on her reins, Ada stroked the blond mane of her horse. ‘Why wouldn’t you believe me? It’s the truth, my lord.’ She smiled at him, her expression purposely simpering, docile.

  His eyes sparked dangerously. ‘Let me tell you why I don’t believe you! Because everything about this morning has been strange. Strange that Tavia would hunt, and you, when Ferchar tells me you’ve never shown the least bit of interest in it before. Strange that you were asked to look after Tavia, yet you failed to ride back to the castle with her, as any other com pan ion would.’ Anger rippled through his tone, harsh, threatening.

  ‘Leave me alone, stop bullying me!’ Her nostrils flared with panic as she at tempted to turn her horse, to squeeze past him, but he blocked her path with his bigger horse. ‘I’ll scream!’ She scowled pointedly at his hands on her reins.

  ‘Nay, you will not scream,’ he stated, deliberately taunting. ‘You don’t want to attract attention to yourself, especially Ferchar’s attention. And why not, I ask myself? Why not? Because Tavia is still in these forests some where, and you don’t want Ferchar to find her.’

  As her whole body recoiled back wards, her face a stretched mask of terror, Benois knew he had the truth. A savage rage welled inside him, and he rocked forward, his expression thunderous. ‘By the rood, Princess, I will strangle you with my bare hands if you don’t tell me where she is!’

  ‘You’ll never find her,’ Ada whispered up to him, her lips curving into a lopsided smile.

  Gripped by an unfathomable fury, Benois seized her birdlike shoulders, the light bones giving way slightly under his punishing fingers. ‘Where…is…she?’ he ground out.

  ‘She’s not going to marry him, you know,’ Ada chanted out, trying to wriggle her shoulders out from under his grip. ‘It’s me he wants, you see, me.’

  Ferchar and Henry rode up. ‘Everything all right here?’ Ferchar asked suspiciously.

  Benois dropped his hands. ‘Aye, the princess was explaining that Tavia has returned to the castle with a groom.’

  Ferchar rolled his eyes. ‘Then let’s hope the groom had the good sense to keep an eye on her.’ He glowered at Ada. ‘I told you to stay with her…at all times. Why didn’t you go with her?’

  ‘I wanted to stay here…with you,’ Ada tittered, her hand waggling coquettishly in front of her mouth.

  ‘God’s teeth,’ Ferchar cursed. ‘Well, you best come on, and pray, for your sake, that she’s there.’

  Benois watched the horses’ rumps disappear up the track, remaining in the clearing with the grooms who were fastening the leads back on to the hounds. He knew Tavia was still in the forest; he felt her presence there as if she stood at his side. He had to find her before Ferchar discovered she had not returned; he had to find her and take her away from this place, far away where no one could ever hurt her again. Studying the hounds, watching them still eagerly sniffing the ground for scent trails, he realised suddenly how he would find her.

  Scrunched woodenly against the damp earth of the pit wall, Tavia knew she must rise, attempt to climb out…somehow. Even lifting her head had become an effort, as she hoisted her eyes to the circle of light, judging it to be about the height of two men above the top of her head. Climbing the sheer walls of the pit would be an impossibility…or would it? She had to try.

  A raft of dizziness threatened to un balance her as she clambered to her feet, gasping as the pain shot through her head, clutching at the wall for support. With trembling fingers she began to gouge out the earth from the wall, intending to form some sort of foot-and hand-holds, so she could pull herself up. Tremors shook her slim frame; she still couldn’t believe that Ada—Ada, who had shown her the most kindness within this new life of hers—had left her here to die! How could she have not seen it?

  Nails raw and painful, Tavia tucked one toe into the first hole that she had made. Now all she needed to do was push herself up, and lean into the wall so she could create another hand-hold further up. Every muscle straining, she willed her body to force itself up the wall, trying to stretch her hand up, to heave herself up. But instead she slipped back down, knees and elbows banging against the hard earth, crumpling to the ground in a desolate, forlorn heap. She banged her fists against the earth, tears of frustration coursing down her cheeks. The hope less ness of the situation crushed down on her, pummelled at her slight strength, her sapping energy, to leave her beaten, defeated. Fear and panic surged in her chest—was she really going to die? She opened her mouth and screamed, screamed at the injustice, screamed with the bellowing sound echoing and bouncing off the sides of the pit until her throat was hoarse. At last, sobbing, she curled into a hopeless ball in the debris of twigs and leaves at the bottom of the animal trap, exhausted and utterly wretched.

  She wondered if she had been asleep when the small sound crept through her consciousness. In fact, was she dreaming? But, nay, there it was again: the sound of something snuffling excitedly at the mouth of the pit, then a yelp, an excited bark. Her heart jumped, and she hauled her upper body up from the floor, craning her neck and trying to focus on what was happening above her. A dog’s head appeared in the light, a hound, with its ears hanging forward as it whined, pawing the ground, looking almost as if it wanted to jump into the pit with her.

  And then…his voice. Benois. She nearly collapsed with relief. He had found her!

  ‘Help!’ she called out. ‘Benois, I’m down here, help me!’

  ‘Tavia, is that you?’ She almost smiled at the incredulity in his voice. He knelt down at the edge of the trap, searching for her in the gloom.

  ‘Here I am, I’m here!’ Tavia twisted around, stumbling on to her feet, reaching her hands above her, fingers splayed, wanting the comfort of his touch. He seemed too far away! ‘Benois, please, please get me out of here!’ Panic flecked her voice, an edge of teetering wildness.

  ‘Tavia, rest easy. I will get yo
u out.’ His voice, strong and vibrant, soothed her. He moved away from the hole, and she heard the deep resonance of his voice, talking to someone. She closed her eyes as another black swirl of dizziness caused her to sway violently, a boiling sickness clogging her stomach. It was as if she floated above the scene, as if she were part of it no longer; all she wanted to do was lie down and sleep, just sleep. She sagged against the wall, barely managing to hold herself up in the fog of pain and tiredness, and touched one finger annoyance to the cut on her head.

  ‘Tavia? Tavia? Can you hear me?’ Benois’s voice lacerated the mists that obscured her thinking. Something dropped before her line of vision: the frayed end of a dog’s lead. ‘Tie the rope around your waist, Tavia,’ Benois shouted down, ‘and we’ll pull you up.’

  All she had to do was lift her fingers, grab the dangling end and tie it. ‘Impossible,’ she whispered weakly, and had an in credible urge to laugh. She couldn’t help herself even when help jiggled in front of her nose.

  High above, Benois swore.

  She pitched back on unsteady feet, startled from her reverie, as he landed neatly on his feet, right in front of her.

  ‘Sweet Jesu!’ Benois took in her bloodied face, her stark white skin, her barely upright body, in one swift, penetrating glance. ‘Come on, we need to get you out of here!’ His eyes glittered in the half-light, fierce, protective.

  Mesmerised by the wonderful sight of this living, breathing ball of energy, she stood trans fixed. ‘Is it you?’ she whispered waveringly, stroking his face as if he were not real, but some sort of dream, or vision. The stubble on his chin rasped lightly against her fingers. He captured her hand, his own fingers warming her icy skin.