The tears came now despite her resistance. They rolled silently down her cheeks even as the Little Prince suckled, oblivious of his own loss. Gabriella felt as if her sorrow was an ocean, frozen over, and she was walking on it. She knew the ice would crack soon, and she would fall into it. It would overwhelm her. She was afraid of it, afraid that once her grief swallowed her up, it would never let her go no matter how long she lived.
Her chest hitched, disturbing the baby, but he was intent. He continued hungrily.
Tears hung from her chin and dropped onto her lap, onto the Little Prince's arm, where he snuggled against her.
He will never know his father, she thought, and her grief began to harden, to develop an edge. He will barely even know what he has lost, except for the emptiness, the void where his father should have been.
The tears still came, but her face grew still. Anyone who saw her would have seen a woman of eerie, almost preternatural calm. Her chin was raised to the window so that its light fell fully across her cheeks, the line of her nose, and lit the dark glimmer of her eyes. For several minutes, she did not move.
Finally, the Little Prince finished. He stirred, stretched languidly, and yawned, making a soft O with his perfect, little lips. Gabriella looked down at him and smiled despite the tears that were still drying on her cheeks. He blinked up at her. He had Darrick's eyes, she saw.
"Sweet Little Prince," she soothed, still smiling. "Mama's sweet Little Prince."
Outside, wafting up from the courtyard, Gabriella could hear the rising clamour of voices. The edict had already been posted. Confusion and alarm were spreading out into the city like tentacles. Merodach was coming. Even without his name on the edict, no one doubted the truth of that fact.
"Don't you worry," Gabriella said, her smile fading only slightly. "Don't you worry, my Little Prince. Mama will keep you safe. Somehow…"
Chapter 5
The next day, Gabriella began to pack. The sky was stormy, low and sullen, and the wet wind brought a hard chill with it. Sigrid closed the windows and stoked the fire.
"Have the servants pack only a few gowns, Princess," the older woman instructed busily. "There will be no luxury for months' worth of clothing. We shall have to suffice with wearing the same things week to week."
Gabriella nodded silently, sombrely.
The rest of the castle was a hive of nervous energy. Meals were hushed, filled with low voices as plans were refined, routes considered, revised, rejected. Gabriella stayed out of it. The only time she smiled was when she held the Little Prince, fed him, soothed him to sleep. His cries, shrill as they sometimes were, were like music to her. Sigrid watched her with the baby, always prepared to help, but never intervening. Sigrid loved the Little Prince nearly as much as she, his mother, did. Gabriella recognised it in the way the older woman looked at the boy, held him, cooed to him even as she worked.
By the end of the second day of preparation, the city already seemed half-empty. Gabriella stood on her balcony in the blowing chill, hugging herself. There was less light in the streets below despite the windy darkness. Many chimneys issued no smoke. Most of those that were left in the city, she knew, were preparing to leave their homes the next morning, to join the escort to Herrengard. She couldn't help feeling, despite her father's confident words, that this sight, and the journey that was to follow, signaled the creeping end of Camelot.
"The city needed you," she whispered, speaking to the memory of her husband. "They needed a hero, just as you said. You were right. Perhaps Camelot did need you even more than I did. But you promised me…" She shook her head slowly. "You promised me. And I believed."
Somewhere out there, the beast that had forced Darrick to break his promise was alive and well. And he was coming, coming to do to the rest of them what he had already done to her husband. If he found them, he would spare no one. Not even her child.
"We are packed, Princess," Sigrid announced, opening the balcony door just enough to speak through it. "The Little Prince sleeps. You should as well. The morning will come quickly."
Gabriella did not move for a long moment. Finally, she turned back to the light of her quarters.
"Thank you, Sigrid. Goodnight."
The older woman frowned slightly and blinked, as if sensing something on the Princess's face. She remained hunched in the doorway, studying her.
Gabriella spoke again, calmly. "Goodnight, Sigrid."
Sigrid straightened herself. Still frowning, she nodded. A moment later, the balcony door closed, and she left.
Gabriella waited a few minutes longer. When she went back inside, she closed and locked the balcony doors behind her. The Little Prince snored softly from his crib. Gabriella checked on him, brushing her hair away from her cheek as she leant to gaze in at him. Then she turned and looked thoughtfully at the trunks stacked near the door. She frowned slowly.
As quietly as she could, she let herself out of the main bedroom, leaving the door partly open, and crossed into the common hall at the top of the stairs. The fire in the huge stone hearth was stoked for the night, providing the room's only illumination. Across from it, glinting mellowly on its display stand, was her battle armour. She moved to it, still frowning, and laid her hand on the breastplate. The metal was cold to the touch. There was hardly a scratch on the gold and steel. After all, such extravagant pieces were meant for display more than actual battle. Everyone knew that.
Behind her, footsteps sounded lightly on the stairs and then stopped.
"Your Highness," a man's voice said softly, carefully. She recognised her visitor even without turning. It was Darrick's page, Brice.
"Yes," she replied, still touching the metal of her armour.
"I'm sorry, Princess," Brice apologised, apparently struggling with himself. "I know you did not wish to hear all of my tale. I understand completely. But…"
She turned now, looking over her shoulder at the man. He was only a year or two older than she. She remembered him from the academy. "What is it, Brice?" she prodded cautiously.
He pressed his lips together, still standing on the top riser of the staircase, and then sighed quickly, resolutely. "I thought you should know, Your Highness," he went on, raising his eyes to meet hers, "your husband, Sir Darrick, he… he died well. He was brave. He never faltered or begged, even after Sir Ulric was killed right in front of him."
Gabriella had known this of course, but hearing the fact of it from the man who had witnessed it struck her unexpectedly. A deep pang sank into her heart.
"Thank you, Brice," she said, trying to keep her voice even. She began to turn away again.
"There's something else, Your Highness," Brice said in a different voice.
Gabriella stopped but did not turn back. She waited.
"When Merodach killed him…," Brice went on, struggling with the words, "when… when Darrick was dead, the brute saw something on him. He took it."
Gabriella felt a wave of sudden coldness descend over her, filling her and hardening in her eyes. "Tell me," she said calmly.
"It was… a pendant," Brice replied in a quiet voice. "A sigil of some kind. Dark but with a green stone embedded in it. Merodach seemed extremely curious about it, almost as if he knew what it was, or that it was… important somehow."
Gabriella still did not turn back to the page. Her face was a mask of cold anger. Softly, she said, "Thank you, Brice. Goodnight."
Brice watched her for a moment. She sensed it. Then his footsteps sounded again, receding back the way he had come.
She reached up, covered the sigil at her own throat. As always, it was warm, its metal rough and heavy.
She let go of the sigil and began to collect her armour.
"Sigrid," Gabriella whispered urgently, shaking the woman in her bed. The room was adjacent to her own quarters, with only the light of the open doorway laying a golden band across the floor. "Sigrid, please wake. I need you to do something."
Sigrid muttered sleepily and then startled, coming fully awa
ke in a matter of seconds. She sat up in her bed, eyes wide. "What is it? Are they here?"
Gabriella shook her head. "No. But you must leave. This night."
Sigrid blinked quickly, shaking her head in confusion. "But the journey to Herrengard does not set out until morning. I do not—"
"You cannot go to Herrengard," Gabriella interrupted, clutching Sigrid's shoulder firmly. "It is a trap. Merodach's men will already be there, or if not, they will fall upon the caravan even as it travels."
Sigrid frowned in consternation. "But the King…"
"My father refuses to listen. He has been warned, but he will not change his plan."
"I don't understand… who warned him? Why—"
"I warned him, Sigrid," Gabriella hissed urgently. "Darrick died trying to save us all, and my father refuses to trust that. His council is as stubborn and arrogant as was the idiot Ulric!"
"Do not speak thus of the dead!" Sigrid admonished quickly, growing alarmed. "Gabriella, you are scaring me. What is… are you…" Her eyes widened. "Are you wearing your…!"
Gabriella drew her cloak tighter around her shoulders. Her breastplate glinted in the dim light. "I am sorry, Sigrid," she said, shaking her head sadly. "I do not have time to explain further. You must go this night. Take Treynor with you and tell him it is by my order. Flee to Amaranth. You will be safe there. And Sigrid…" She stopped, swallowed hard, and went on in a lower voice. "You must take the baby with you."
Sigrid's frown deepened as the weight of the Princess's request settled over her. "You believe that those in the caravan will die," she breathed. "The King and all who accompany him. But… you cannot…"
"Please, Sigrid," Gabriella begged. "There is no time. You must leave tonight!"
"But this is madness!" Sigrid whispered, throwing off her covers and lowering her feet to the floor. "What are you planning to do? If I did not know better, I would fear that you were setting off on an errand of doomed vengeance! You cannot possibly…"
Gabriella's face darkened. She rose up to her full height and took a step back.
Sigrid's face paled, even in the darkness. "This is insanity!" she rasped. "Princess, I refuse to… I… I forbid this!"
Gabriella couldn't help it. She smiled in spite of everything. "Oh, dear Sigrid, I do so love you."
"Stop this," Sigrid said firmly, standing and approaching the Princess. "Please, Gabriella! Your baby needs you!"
"It is for his sake that I take my leave, Sigrid," Gabriella insisted gravely, meeting the older woman's eyes in the darkness. "His and everyone else's. But you must go tonight. Take the Little Prince and Treynor. You will need to find a wet nurse as well, but you must hurry. Fly to Amaranth and hide. I will find you there when I am through, if I can."
"And if you cannot?" Sigrid demanded hoarsely. "What then?"
"Then you must raise him," Gabriella answered. "You must be his mother, just as you were mine when all was said and done. Keep his lineage a secret. Let no one know that he is the last of the line of the royalty of Camelot. For his own safety. Promise me, Sigrid."
Sigrid chewed her own lips miserably. She shook her head. "I cannot, Princess," she replied miserably, reaching for her. "It is too much. It is not mine—"
"Promise me!" Gabriella hissed, grabbing the woman's hands. "You are the only person I can trust!"
Sigrid shook her head, lowering her eyes. Then, with an apparent force of will, she drew a deep breath. Without raising her head, she nodded. "I will do what I can, Princess. For your sake and that of the Prince."
"Thank you," Gabriella breathed, letting go of Sigrid's hands. "Thank you."
"Where are you going?" Sigrid asked in a low voice. "Tell me that much."
Gabriella stopped as she turned towards the door. "Before he left, my husband told me," she answered faintly, "that the people needed a hero."
The gravity of her words hung in the air like the toll of a bell. Finally, she moved. She approached the door. Without looking back, she slipped out.
She made it halfway down the stairs, clanking faintly in her gold and steel armour, carrying only a thin rucksack of supplies and clothing, before she heard the door open above her. She stopped, one hand on the banister, and looked up.
Sigrid peered down at her, her face set into a grim line of resolve. Slowly, she drew a deep breath and opened her mouth.
"Guaaarrds!" she shouted, putting everything she could behind it, so that her voice cracked with the effort. "Guards! The Princess is in danger! Come now! NOW!"
Gabriella paused for barely a second. In the next, she was bolting down the stairs, cursing urgently under her breath. Sigrid continued to shout her alarm. Behind her, echoing distantly, the Little Prince's wakened cries joined the fracas.
Gabriella darted beneath the stairs, through the vestibule, and down a narrow hall. There were no guards in the kitchen, and the servants' doors were propped wide open, surrounded by trunks of food, prepared for the journey. Cold air pushed in, filled with the whisper of night.
"Who goes there?" someone shouted suddenly, unseen, as Gabriella bolted out into the rear courtyard. "Who is it, I say? Guards!"
Behind her, lights began to glow in the castle windows. Gabriella tried not to look back. The stables loomed before her, smelling of hay and horse dung. She ran in through the main door and stopped, panting. No lanterns were lit inside.
"The Princess is missing!" someone shouted nearby, their voice echoing in the courtyard.
"Here!" another voice cried. "I just saw someone run past, leaving the castle! An intruder!"
"This way!"
"Search the stables but beware ambush! It may be that the villains are already amongst us!"
Two soldiers ran towards the stable doors, taking up position on either side. They drew their swords cautiously.
"On my mark," the one on the left growled, nodding towards the entrance. "One… two…"
A horse exploded through the open door, already in full gallop. Its rider crouched low on the mount, riding expertly if desperately, visible as nothing more than a dark shape and a snapping cloak. In a matter of seconds, the horse and its rider sped towards the courtyard gates, left open in preparation for tomorrow's journey, and vanished into the dark streets.
"Follow!" the first guard commanded loudly. "Search the city! The Princess's very life may be at stake!"
But it was too late, and the remaining guards knew it. By the time they mounted their own horses, the intruder—whoever it had been—would be long gone.
Careening through the silent mist of the city streets, Gabriella clung desperately to the reins. Her armour clanked and lurched on her body as her horse galloped on, baring its teeth, its eyes rolling wildly at the moon.
Within less than a minute, she was out of the city, onto the thoroughfare, and descending into the dark chill of the night, not looking back.
Chapter 6
Gabriella rode through the remainder of the night, turning west, away from the thoroughfare, and navigating by the great northern star. After her initial, thunderous rush, she was soon reduced to a careful cantor along wandering paths, deer trails, and even through unmarked forest. The night air was cold, drying her sweat and reducing her to shivers as she rode onwards, still unsure exactly where she was going or how she would get there. She only knew for certain that she had to maintain a westerly course—the direction from which the Army remnant had returned.
Eventually, as the sky began to grow faint, rimmed with pearly pink light beyond the trees, Gabriella stopped. She was exhausted, both from lack of sleep and her lengthy ride. She slid from her mount, patting his flank wearily, and tossed the reins over a branch. Her legs trembled beneath her, and her middle ached abominably from the abuse of the ride so soon after the rigours of childbirth.
After tending to her horse, she opened her light pack, unrolled a blanket onto the dewy ground, and fell upon it as dead. After a minute, she rolled over onto her back and stared up at the pinking sky, seen through a lace of
branches and dwindling leaves.
A little sleep, she promised herself. Just a few hours. That's all I can afford. I have to hurry if I am to get there in time…
But even as she thought these things, despite the lumpy coldness of the ground and the dew that dripped all around, her eyes drifted shut.
The pink rim of the horizon brightened, spread, and then grew brilliant with the revelation of the rising sun. The dew sparkled on the weeds and dripping dead leaves. Soon, the air began to warm, and the dew turned to mist. In the trees, the birds began to chorus, first as a twitter, and then a chattering cacophony.
A scuffling sound arose from the weeds near Gabriella. A drift of dead leaves fell apart as a nose emerged, sleek and red, whiskers twitching, followed by the black eyes of a female fox. The vixen spied the sleeping human some distance away and whined to herself. After some secret inner struggle, she leapt nimbly out of the pile of leaves, her black-gloved feet making no noise on the grass, and circled cautiously closer, alternately growling and whining softly. She raised her head, spied a tiny glitter of green, and became silent. The glitter came from the shadows near the throat of the sleeping human.
More confidently now, the vixen approached. She stopped near Gabriella's head, sniffed her hair and cheek. Apparently satisfied, she perked up her ears and looked around, her bright eyes scanning the misty valley. Finally, neatly, she lay down, curling herself around Gabriella's head and tucking her tail under the young woman's chin, where it met the fox's black nose. The vixen drew a deep breath and snuffled as she let out it, relaxing in the climbing sun.
The day began. Beneath it, helplessly and fitfully, accompanied by her strange companion, Gabriella slept.
When she awoke, the sun was a huge, golden ball, halfway between the horizon and the sapphire dome of the sky.
She was sore and stiff but instantly roused herself, forcing herself upright and rolling up her blanket. Strange dreams still clouded her thoughts, weird visions of Darrick and the Little Prince, Sigrid screaming for the guards, herself being caught by them and dragged along to Herrengard, where death awaited them all. Even stranger, she recalled dreams of being watched in her sleep, as if all sorts of creatures, from scuttling spiders to great forest beasts, had crept past her, dipping their own wild thoughts into her sleeping mind. Impatiently, she shook herself, clearing her head and preparing for the day.
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