Once Upon a Romance 03 - With True Love's Kiss

by Jessica Woodard

  Robin stared down at his Grandmother’s face. Her eyes reflected a mirror of the resolve that he knew was in his own, but they also held a great weight of care and worry. He kissed his fingertips and gently touched them to the surface of the pool, creating only the tiniest of ripples.

  “Do not worry, Grandmother. I shall see to it.” With his last words he drew his fingers through the water, and then sprang to his feet, darting away through the forest.

  He had no idea what they were going to do.

  In no time his feet carried him back to the horses. He barely noticed Bianca’s face as she watched, wide eyed, while he threw the saddles back on their mounts and cinched them tight. She had to call his name several times before he even noticed.

  “Master Goodfellow!”

  He turned, and only then did he truly take in the scene before him.

  Isabelle was hunched forward, leaning against her knees. Bianca knelt behind her, face white from fear, and an empty pot of salve in her hands. Robin approached cautiously, trying not to panic either of them.

  “We need to go. Finish your ministrations and help Isabelle back into her jacket. The king’s men are…” He trailed off, because Bianca was shaking her head.

  “Look.”

  He walked to where he could see Isabelle’s back. One of the lacerations was puffy, and streaked with red. The evil signs of infection spread upwards, towards her heart, looking like livid marks against the strained white flesh of her back.

  “She must be treated.” Bianca was looking up at him, eyes full of worry.

  “We cannot wait.” Robin dropped to his knees beside the wide-eyed girl. He understood her concern, but… “There is no time. We must ride, now, and we must travel fast, or the guard will find us and you will both lose your lives. Isabelle must risk it.”

  “You don’t understand.” Bianca had tears in her eyes. “She can’t. She can’t ride, it’s taking everything she has to sit like this so I can treat her. And we were already traveling as fast as we could, this morning. I can’t keep us both in the saddle, if we go any faster.”

  “Then I will carry her.” Robin picked up the scraps of cloth and thrust them at Bianca. “But we must go now.”

  Bianca locked eyes full of hopelessness on him. They stared at one another, until Isabelle slowly lifted her head, drawing their attention.

  “Robin is right. You must go, now, and you must ride faster than is possible, if you carry me.”

  “Isabelle—”

  “No, Bianca.” Isabelle wouldn’t let the girl protest. “You will never make it if you are burdened by me. The only thing we can do together is die.” She turned slightly, wincing as her back pulled, but moving enough so that she could see Bianca and cup the girl’s face in her hand. “You can still make it. You can carry my love to Vivienne and Regal. You can, and you must.”

  Robin looked at the queen, as she struggled against her tears. This was the kind of bravery sung of by the great bards. To willingly embrace your death, so that another might live, was honorable and right. It was what he had been taught, and always believed.

  Why, then, did it feel so wrong?

  He spoke words of comfort, while he struggled with his thoughts. “You are brave, Isabelle.”

  She smiled up at him. “Hardly. I think you will find, Robin, that love is a substitute for many emotions. I’m not brave. But I will help Bianca to safety, whatever it takes.”

  Bianca choked back a sob, and something in the sound brought an idea forth in Robin’s head.

  “No.”

  “What?” Both women spoke as one, looking at him with startled eyes.

  “We are not leaving you here. Bianca, get on your horse. Isabelle,” he grabbed her blankets and wrapped them around her, before swinging her into his arms, “with your permission.”

  Bianca grabbed her satchel, and then scrambled up on her mount, while Robin gently lifted Isabelle onto his own horse and vaulted up behind her. He turned them back the way they had come, until they found the small stream at the foot of the hill. Then he urged their horses into the water, and they splashed along upstream, sending cold water flying into the air in a fine spray. Bianca was keeping up, so he picked up the pace, taking a chance among the slippery river rocks, letting the horses gallop along on the uncertain footing. The cave was near. He could feel it. And while Merriweather had said they couldn’t go into the mists, she’d never said a thing about the cave.

  The entrances to the world of the Fae were odd things. Some folk they seemed to draw in, but the vast majority of humans would simply overlook them, repeatedly, no matter how close they came. It was a risk, to be sure, but there was a chance that hiding at the very entrance to the mists would shield them from discovery.

  At any rate, Robin didn’t have a better idea.

  Abruptly the trees opened up before them, as the stream they were riding in led to another, much larger pool. On the far side of the water was a rock face, with a small waterfall tumbling down it. Robin never hesitated, but steered his horse into the deepest part of the pool, directly at the waterfall. Bianca gave a small squeak as the horses all lurched forward and began swimming, but didn’t protest. At the far side of the pool Robin set his heels to his mount’s side, and led the beast onto a narrow ledge that ran behind the waterfall. He sheltered Isabelle from the spray as they rode past the curtain of water, and there, at last, was the cave. It was too low to enter while mounted, so he slid down and cradled Isabelle in his arms. The entrance was damp, but a few feet farther in the cave was snug and dry, and he helped Isabelle to settle herself on the floor. Behind him he heard a sneeze.

  Bianca had made it into the cave, but, having not known exactly where they were going, had gotten drenched by the waterfall in the process. Her hair was plastered to her face, and that fire was back in her eyes, chasing back some of the fear.

  “What are we doing here?” She planted her fists on her hips, and glared at him.

  “You are hiding.” He couldn’t help but smile at the picture she made. She was like a waterlogged rat. Tiny, bedraggled—but fierce. “I am leaving.”

  “Leaving?”

  “Do not worry, Bianca.” He grabbed the horses’ reins and prepared to lead them back out through the waterfall. “I will return. Just stay hidden.”

  She caught at his arm. “What if they find you?”

  Robin looked down. She was worried. Worried for Isabelle, certainly, but also, perhaps, just a bit worried for him. So he smiled at her, in the way she seemed to find so irritating, and crooked one finger under her chin.

  “Not to worry, little dove. Remember? It was only you who put me in danger.”

  He waited to see the sparkle, the fire, reappear in her eye. Then he ducked back through the wall of water, laughing as he went.

  Chapter 9

  The cave was enormous, with dark shadows shrouding its far recesses. Practically anything could be lurking there, and Bianca found herself wondering what it would be like to come face to face with an angry bear. She couldn’t believe that Robin had just left them here. Bianca stared, caught between confusion and frustration, at the water that cascaded over the mouth of the cave. She might have stood there indefinitely, had a small noise from behind her not drawn her attention back to Isabelle.

  “Let me look at your back again.”

  Bianca took more care, this time. First she arranged both their sleeping rolls so that Isabelle could lie, flat on her stomach, on the floor of the cave. Then she helped Isabelle remove all her clothing, an arduous process. Finally she used one of the blankets as a pillow, and the other to keep the queen’s bare skin from becoming chilled, while she looked over her back.

  It was bad. There was no denying it. The edges of the lash mark were puffy and white for half a handspan on either side of the cut. Outside the white, turgid flesh, the skin was solidly red for a finger length, and angry red streaks shot out from there, showing how far the infection was spreading. Bianca was in despair. Her supplies were
all but gone, and what she had wasn’t intended to treat infections of this magnitude. She tried to think what to do, and decided the first step was to wash the cut thoroughly. Thankfully they had water aplenty, but the process was bound to hurt Isabelle badly. She couldn’t even heat the water, as Robin had left them with no means to start a fire. Once she had added lavender to a little pot of water, she nestled down beside her friend and set out to distract her as best she could, while she cleaned the gash.

  “What do you think he’s doing out there, Isabelle?”

  “I imagine he has our three horsesss…” The word ended in a hiss as Bianca hit the raw edge of the wound. Isabelle took one long, shuddering breath and then kept speaking. “Has them running carelessly across the softest ground he can find.”

  “Do you think it will work? I mean, to lead the men following away from us?”

  “I don’t know. But if Robin believes it will work I trust him. I certainly think it’s our best chance.”

  “Maybe it is, but I don’t know why you trust him so implicitly.”

  “I know his grandmother.” Isabelle tensed against the pain in her back, then went on. “For that matter, so do you. At least, you’ve met her.”

  “I have?”

  “Indeed. She helped Vivienne escape Inisle.”

  “Dame Merriweather is his grandmother?”

  “You sound shocked. Did you think he had sprung from an egg?”

  Bianca rolled her eyes and then leaned down to inspect her work. “Hmmm…” It was as clean as she could make it. She reached for her unguent. “He’s odd, isn’t he? The way he acts, I thought he would leave you without hesitation, but then…” She left the pot sitting in her lap. It wouldn’t hurt for the wound to dry, and she didn’t want to touch Isabelle when she was so distracted by a thought. “Why is he like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know… driven? Uncompromising?”

  Isabelle turned her face, so she could see Bianca. “You have to understand, Robin’s people aren’t like us. They take a very different view of the world; like it’s a history they’re reading, rather than the present they’re participating in.”

  “Is that why he’s so cold?”

  “I’m not sure he is cold. But he’s been trained to see kings as pawns on a chessboard, and the common folk as merely the landscape they move across. He doesn’t understand our tendency to make decisions based on fear, or hope, or love. When it comes to our emotions, Bianca, he’s at sea, on a completely foreign ocean.”

  Bianca couldn’t think of anything to say in response. After a moment Isabelle turned her face back down, and mumbled into the blanket.

  “You don’t have any more of that numbing cream, do you?”

  “I used it all earlier, before we rode here.”

  “Ah well. Go ahead and smear that awful stuff on my back. I’ll try to think happy thoughts.”

  Bianca applied the unguent as delicately as she could manage, but she knew she was hurting Isabelle. When Bianca was finally done, Isabelle unfolded her lips, and gave a tiny, wan smile to her friend.

  “Thank you, Bianca.”

  “Oh, don’t thank me, after I’ve just hurt you so.” Bianca leaned down and pressed her forehead gently against the queen’s. “Just rest. It will help you more than anything else, now.”

  Bianca covered Isabelle’s back with a clean linen and drew the blankets up. Then she set to washing the old bandages. She very much feared they were going to need them.

  ***

  The moon was in the sky by the time Robin made his way back to the cave. He and the horses had run a merry chase, covering ground as swiftly as a deer in flight. They made for the mountains, and Robin had thought to climb high into the range before doubling back, but by luck they had stumbled upon a scree slope. Standing at the foot of the rise of loose rocks and pebbles, Robin had judged it as good a place as any to turn back. He led the horses up the slope at a sharp angle, and then down again, coming off the scree and directly into the woods. Then he rode a large circle back to the pool and waterfall, and swam the horses out to the cave.

  He found the women huddled in the far recesses of the cave. Isabelle was asleep on a makeshift bed, her cheeks flushed bright with fever, and her breathing shallow. Bianca sat beside her, one hand holding Isabelle’s, the other clutching her own ankles, drawing her legs up into a tight ball. Anxiety was etched in every line of her body, and her tear-filled eyes stared into the dark crevice of the cave, as though it held some comfort for her misery.

  “What do you see in the gloom, Bianca?”

  Her shoulders twitched in surprise, but she didn’t turn to face him. After a moment, she answered in an even tone. “I see the past.”

  “And is it the past you cry over?” He sank into a crouch beside her. “Or something else?”

  She turned her head sideways, laying her cheek against her knees, so she could look at him, although she could not have seen much in the dark. “Both, I suppose. I’m worried about Isabelle. Her back is bad. I don’t know if her body can fight off the infection.”

  “Are there herbs that might help her?”

  “Any number of them. But I don’t have them in my pack. May I go looking for them?” She asked the question, but he could tell she already knew his answer by the frustration in her voice.

  “You know you cannot. My ruse will only work if the king’s men find no other sign of you. You must stay hidden.”

  “Of course.” Robin was shocked by how bitter Bianca sounded. “Because Isabelle may die for me, but I may not risk my life for her. I have to stay safe, and alive, so that I may be used as a pawn.”

  “Who is using you as a pawn?” He was genuinely curious.

  “Who isn’t?” She lifted her head and glared at him. “My whole life I’ve been moved about, like a piece in the games that great men were playing, while others suffered because of who I am, and how I am used. Maneuvered by my grandfather, my father, and now your Dame Merriweather, who sends you to fetch me safe, but never tells me why!”

  “And do you not want your life to be saved?”

  “I want a choice!” she cried, letting her anger loose. “I want to choose where I spend my life, and who I spend it with, and if it’s worth sacrificing for someone else!”

  She clamped her jaw shut on the words pouring forth, and whipped her head back to glare off into the dark. Robin sat silent, thinking of what she had said. Neither spoke, and they listened to the water rushing by the mouth of the cave, a thundering roar in the silence. Finally, Bianca’s shoulders began to relax, and Robin decided to speak.

  “I, too, am a pawn,” he said quietly. “But I was given the choice of who to follow. Who to trust with my loyalty.”

  “Whereas I am given no choice, nor even told what my purpose is.”

  “If I knew why I was sent to protect you, I would tell you, Bianca.”

  “Why?”

  “Choice is important to my people. You might say that we hold it sacred. You cannot make a choice without knowledge, and I would not keep that knowledge from you, were it mine to give.”

  “But what if I chose not to go with you?”

  “Then I would have to choose to tie you on the back of your horse.” He smiled at her. “But we would each be making our own choices, in the full knowledge of what we did.”

  She looked at him wide-eyed, and then finally a smile of her own spread across her face. “You have very odd principles, Master Goodfellow.”

  “But they are mine, and I am comfortable with them.”

  Isabelle gave a wordless moan, and Bianca turned swiftly to check her patient. She shook the queen, and called her name, but was unable to rouse her. When she drew back the covers they could see that Isabelle’s back looked much worse than in the morning. Bianca hissed in frustration.

  “I don’t know how to help her. All I have is water and some rags!”

  “What would you use, if you had your still room?”

  “Now
? In the spring?” Bianca spoke distractedly, while she fetched a small pot of cool water from the cascade. “Bay, arnica, wild garlic or onion, even certain types of spider web. The world is full of things that heal. They just don’t grow in caves. Come help me.”

  Together they wet the bandages and placed them on Isabelle’s neck, back, and head. She mumbled in protest, but never woke up as the cool cloths swathed her body. Bianca kept it up for over an hour, changing the cloths as Isabelle’s feverish skin warmed them, but the queen didn’t cool. Finally Robin took the pot from Bianca’s nerveless fingers.

  “Sleep.”

  “I can’t, I need to—”

  “I will change her bandages for a while. You need sleep. You cannot help her if you drop from exhaustion.”

  Bianca tried to put up a protest, but she was too tired to fight him long. Once she’d curled up on the blankets beside Isabelle, it wasn’t long before she’d fallen into a sound sleep.

  Robin soaked Isabelle’s back with cold water once more, and then turned and slipped from the cave, careful not to wake the sleeping women.

  ***

  In the morning, when Bianca opened her eyes, she saw three things.

  The first was that Isabelle’s back was worse. Her stomach turned at the awful infection wreaking havoc on her friend.

  The second was that there was a fire, and Robin was curled up on the far side. He’d left a mound of firewood at hand, and the current small blaze helped warm the air greatly.

  The third was her medicine bag. It lay open, next to the fire, and it overflowed with bay leaves, arnica roots, and the bulbs of wild onion and garlic.

  Chapter 10

  It was difficult to peel and cut all the roots and bulbs with her small belt knife, but Bianca was feeling lighthearted as she worked. She almost would have sung, if she hadn’t been afraid to wake the two sleepers. Isabelle needed her rest, and Robin, well, who knew how long he had been out the night before, gathering the things she’d mentioned?

  Once she had everything prepared she threw it all in a pot, along with just enough water to cover it. Then she placed the pot among the coals of the fire and settled down to wait. It would take a while for the hard roots to cook down into a mash that could be placed on Isabelle’s back, and Bianca needed to keep an eye on it, to make sure it didn’t boil.