"It must be passed noon already," Richard shook her head and hiked up her trousers. Yes, her trousers. She rather liked them. Enough with the feminine dresses, the men had it right. Pants were much better: more leg room, better balance on a horse instead of riding side-saddle in a dress -the nightmare!- and one did not have to pick it up like a skirt in order to move quickly. Ah, the versatility and magnificence of one article of clothing, and Richard wasn't allowed to wear it because doing so would not be 'proper'. To hell with being proper! In order to succeed, one must be efficient, even if it meant casting aside whatever social convention dictated one do.
"You know I will not stop asking until you tell me," William folded her arms across her chest.
Richard groaned as she reached for another dress and rolled it up in haste, "I told you. I'm going away for a few months."
"Where?"
"Somewhere where people will not incessantly pester me with stupid questions."
"It is not a stupid question!" William objected, rising to her feet and grabbing a corner of Richard's sack of things, "Tell me, or I will wrench this out and everything will spill."
Her older sister sighed, calculating she would not be able to stop William in time if she lunged for her, "Alright. I'm going away with Sir Vincent to Wallachia. I'm going as a type of…envoy…to make sure that Lord Vincentislav II does father's biding."
William let go of the cloth, satisfied, but it led to more questions, "Why wouldn't Lord Vincentislav II do what father bid him? He was, after all, placed there by father as an ally."
"Right you are," Richard patronized, "But, you see, the problem is that Lord Vincentislav II was placed as Wallachia's ruler after Sir Vincent was chased out." She placed her hand mirror into another sack she had begun filling.
"Ah," William nodded, "So you are going as a babysitter to make sure they play nice and do not slaughter one another. Good thing, too, considering I also heard that Lord Vincentislav II murdered Sir Vincent's father."
"Indeed. And his elder brother."
William rubbed her chin thoughtfully and coiled a string of hair around her finger, "But if father has already agreed to send you with Sir Vincent as an…'envoy'…then how come you are rushing to leave as if it were a secret?"
Richard froze, her back stiffening and her face scrunching in anger, "Look…he…I…"
William giggled, "Yes, Miss No-One-Can-Challenge-Me-With-My-Vast-Intellect?"
"Alright, I was on my way to inform father now," Richard explained, though there was exasperation in her tone. Who was her sister to interrogate Richard like this -a part of the constabulary?
"You mean ask permission. I doubt father will let you. That is…unless you…well, never mind," William danced around Richard's arms as her older sister lunged for her.
"What? Go on," Richard gritted her teeth, "Let us see if you can match my vast intellect. Challenge me."
William shrugged nonchalantly, lowering herself onto her bed and raising her arms up to rest her chin, "The regent will ask you what has caused your compulsion to leave the castle. He will ask, since you will hypothetically be traveling with Sir Vincent, if perhaps you might have…feelings for him."
Richard seethed, trying to relax her fists as they furled the cloth of the neatly placed sacks, "Hypothetically, and in reality, I do not care for Sir Vincent, and he knows it."
"Who? Sir Vincent or father? Because he will ask you, and it might be in your best interests to lie and say you do."
Richard ripped a corner of the cloth of her sack off as she tried to tie it calmly, "To what end? So that I may marry a most disturbing and pompous man?"
William shook her head, "You are taking this too personally. I'm just saying that you will have a more solid foundation upon which to convince father if you told him you had feelings for Sir Vincent. If there is no solid foundation, then anything you try to build upon it will collapse -your argument."
Richard threw up her hands, glaring at her gloating younger sister, and walked in silent rage to the door. Closing it with pristine stealth, she groaned again, softly sagging against the wall. Lying to her father that she was in love and wished to marry Vincent in order to travel away with him wouldn't make the regent any happier to give her up than insisting Vincent needed a babysitter to make sure he didn't kill Lord Vincentislav II. If anything, her father might just send some bootlicking, brown-nosing, sycophant to watch over Vincent instead of his own daughter.
Groaning out her misfortune, she composed herself and stepped forward with surety down the hall when a rich baritone voice called out to her. Richard gasped in surprise at who it was.
His tall, rigid stance told Richard enough that he had overheard her and William's loud conversation. Troubled and vexed beyond compare at what she was wearing, his gaze finally fixed with the ground as a hand came up to massage his wrinkled forehead thoroughly.
"F-father," Richard curtsied, a formality she only deigned to recognize when she wished to get back into his good graces.
His throat worked up and back down at the calling of his name, but he held up his index finger and inhaled a deep breath, "You…you wish to travel with that…man."
It was a statement, not a question; as if Richard should even think about correcting it, anyway.
She nodded solemnly, "Yes, father. How much-"
"I overheard enough to wish to investigate this myself," the regent paced slowly passed her, trying to stifle a spiteful laugh, "All this time I was trying to save the innocence within, and you end up running to trouble anyway."
Richard laughed out a syllable, "Yes, but I am no longer a child. I am a grown woman."
"Yet you insist on wearing a man's clothing. Richard, my patience…" he shook his head and gripped her shoulders softly, diving into her eyes in a desperate search if this was some kind of prank or joke, "Richard, I know that you must be put off by what has happened with Lord Victor, but that does not mean you should cast your lot with Sir Vincent."
"I do not love him, father," Richard stated sharply, "Sir Vincent is my escape out of this place. My true motives are to travel and represent you."
The regent's brows crashed together as his hand worked around his mustache, "A representative? An envoy?"
Richard nodded vehemently, "Yes, father, an envoy. A diplomatic agent. Someone to-"
"Lord Vincentislav II is an ally," he said stiffly, "He does not need a woman envoy to know what my orders for him are."
"Yes," Richard agreed, already finding her balance in this civil discourse, "Yes, you are right. But sometimes allies, especially in times of war, need…they need reminders of whom they serve," she lifted his hands from her shoulders, "I have a proposition. You allow me to travel to Wallachia, and I will carry out your word as Law. I will make sure Sir Vincent does your bidding, and without killing Lord Vincentislaus II in the process."
Her father shook his head for a moment, his face turning peaked in a pale and sickly color at the thought, "Richard, I cannot allow this. I would sooner throw Lord Rodriguez into the fray before you, or myself for that matter. You would be heading straight into the front lines. No woman should face what carnage lies ahead."
"No, you need Lord Rodriguez here," she grabbed his shaking hands and kissed them, "Father, you know my place is not here. You know I will never settle down and become a wife, you know I will never submit to such a life as servitude. You are as sure of this as you are sure that the sky is blue. I cannot change, and neither can the sky."
"Richard," her father whispered as he raised his hands to caress her face, "It is too dangerous."
She wriggled out of his grasp, this time with more hostility than she intended, "Father, if you do not allow me to do this, then you will have forever sent me to eternal damnation."
"What?" his voice raised an octave in disbelief.
Richard paused for a moment to settle the tension, never taking her eyes away from his as she concentrated all of her sincerity, "…You know I am sure-footed. You know I am r
esourceful. You know I have a silver tongue -something I proudly tell others I inherited from you- and can talk circles around Sir Vincent. You know I will accurately spread your word and smite those who ignore it, and you knowthat Sir Vincent will need someone to calm him down as he takes orders from the man who murdered his father. The time is now, father."
It had come to his attention that Vincent may need someone to accompany him to Wallachia, but he had thought Lord Vincentislav II more than capable of protecting his own hide against Vincent. The ruler of Wallachia had guards aplenty to stick to his backside for the whole duration that Vincent was present. But, adeptly, Richard forced him to remember the fact that Vincent was overly resourceful. He had survived the regent's wrath when the leader chased him out before, so who was to say that Vincent wouldn't be able to cheat Death again?
"Lord Vincentislav II has guards who will be more than willing to lay down their lives for his to remain alive."
She shook her head, "There is a higher power at work, father, and I am not speaking of God. There is a traitor in our house, and we've yet to identify who it is," Richard continued before he started on about Victor, "And if it was Victor and Lord George and you are so certain, then why haven't their heads rolled? No, you realize that it probably could not have been their doing- that and the fact that Lord Victor's Seneschal, Marius, adamantly defended their joint innocence, before you dismissed him."
The regent fell silent, flinching as she continued to drive home another point he hadn't considered.
Richard cupped her father's cheeks, "You can trust no one else to carry out your orders better than me. You know this. And you need to reassert your power -now more than ever- along the borders where alliances are predictably stretched so thin."
"Why now?" he pulled her into a hug, knowing the act was the only thing he could do to stop her talking, "Why, my love? Why didn't you ask to go with Lord Ulrich of Eczying and Lord Ulrich of Celje to Austria, where it would have been safer? Why with Sir Vincent to the battlefront?"
To this, Richard had no definite answer. She paused to calmly gather her thoughts and search her soul. Any sane woman wishing to prove her intellect would have jumped at the opportunity to wag her silver tongue to save Prince Ladislaus, but she had gravitated toward Death instead. Why? And if 'proper women' stayed at home taking care of their husbands and children, provided comfort, and led normal lives, then what did that make her? Abnormal? Unnatural? As equal a renegade as Vincent? Furthermore, why was she not scared?
Perhaps she didn't want to go into the heartland of Europe because she was drawn to the outskirts that harbored conflict, as was Vincent. Perhaps they both had a fascination with death, combat, and struggle that bordered on obsession. Perhaps they were truly not as different as Richard initially had thought. That was the only truth left.
Lifting her face from his chest, she planted one long kiss onto his cheek, wiping his tear in the process. "I think you know why, father."
The regent exhaled a ragged breath and kissed her one last time, "You are resourceful. The most resourceful woman I have ever had the pleasure of knowing," he grinned sadly, "I suppose, in a way, I could not have tied you down forever."
She laughed, curtsying, "I love you."
"You will write me every week, free spirit. That's an executive order," he grabbed her, tossing aside formalities, "And don't think I'm sending you alone. Walter will accompany you, along with your ladies-in-waiting. If Lord Vincentislaus II or Sir Vincent get any ideas, your ladies will set them straight, if Walter doesn't outright kill them," he sighed, content with his order, "That is the least I can do, short of holding your hand as you leave."
They departed amicably, the regent watching her smiling face, expression almost giddy, as it disappeared quickly behind her chamber door. All there was left to do was pray, and hope that his wife did not notice her absence, though the probability of that flew out the window as fast as the oncoming wrath he was about the experience.
It felt as though innumerable days had passed. The caravan of people slowly inching east to Wallachia had seemed to have lost count long ago, the only indication of time passing and seasonal change being the buds on plants starting to grow once more.
It was impossible for Richard to believe it had been only two weeks, but she recounted the beginning of it all as she sat quietly in her saddle.
They traveled light on the insistence of her father. They brought only what they could carry either on their person or on a horse comfortably, and though the group seemed relatively nimble and quick, it felt like it took years to even gain a thumb's-length across Vincent's map.
Sometimes, after a freshly fallen snow, the caravan of people would lose the trail to Wallachia in the blinding white haze. Many times Richard's party would lose half the day due to a horse's sore legs, a footman's sickened state against the cold wind, or the whole group's failure to identify where the damn trail was and which fork in the road to take. It was delay, after delay, after delay, and the nights were even worse. In the beginning, Richard felt excitement, honor, dedication, and strength that could have moved mountains. By the end of the third night, she was content to stay bundled in her bedroll all day if it meant she could continue feeling her toes.
Just when Richard thought the weather could get no worse, the snow gave way to a deluge of rain—a true enhancement, to be sure. Nothing screams 'fantastic adventure' like trudging through the mud for hours with sopping clothes after a painful day receiving saddle sores on a lame horse that limped with each stride.
Sadly, most days went uneventful with only the occasional excitement of a servant or footman sighting some animal off in the distance that would then cause a fright in all the servant girls and Ladies.
Yet, if anything proved amusing in Richard's downtime, it was watching her gaggle of Ladies-in-waiting complain, fret, and squabble like the hens they were. They initially had silent disagreements through arched brows and puckered lips, or an upturned nose and a disdainfully jutted chin. It graduated from there to small arguments that never lasted more than a moment, but eventually the Ladies found ways to dispute all day of their disbelief in the regent for letting Richard go, or quarreling over whose turn it was to ride to avoid ruining her dress any further, or even something as basic as bickering over who was going to make a pot of stew for supper, even though it would clearly be done by one of the maids. By the end, the Ladies found any excuse to argue with one another.
Fortunately, the same could not have been said for Walter. He was steady as a rock. In fact, too steady—looming. He would watch Richard and Vincents' interactions like a hawk if he was preoccupied elsewhere, for example calming the clucking hens of the group. But he was always within eyesight, and it made Richard feel safe and secure, if not a tad exasperated at times. Often she would set up her bedroll and side tent next to his for comfort, and they would talk in hushed whispers of their plans long into the night. As each day passed, Richard realized how much she needed Walter's support. She privately thanked her father's foresight in ordering him with her along the trip.
As for Vincent, he hardly recognized Richard's presence throughout the entire voyage, which all but infuriated her nerves. It wasn't that she wanted to be the center of his attention, but she would rather him have at least known she existed. Instead, Vincent spent most of his time as their silent guide towing the line in the front as their leader, and in his downtime with Lady Jusztina. Richard did not know if this was to upset her or if their feelings toward one another were truly mutual. It was clear Jusztina felt something. Rumors certainly spread in close quarters. Much to Richard's joy, though, Walter would always pry the Ladies off of Richard as their gossip nearly consumed her.
Soon after Vincent's long walk with Jusztina one evening, it was obvious that she was smitten. To be fair, the girl did try to thwart his charm and flawless etiquette, but in the end, apparently no one was immune to his captivating presence. The ensuing afternoons riding next to Jusztina challenged every ounce
of Richard's will not to gouge her own eyes out. The Lady blabbered on and on of how romantic he was, how concerned he was for her to be content, how endearing his actions were, and how he clearly was leading her to believe there was a prize at the end of the road.
Richard nearly snickered. Prize, yes, but it differed to whom one spoke. To Jusztina, it was engagement; knowing Vincent, it was probably her virginity alone.
However, quite out of the blue, Vincent began speaking to Richard again. Of course, it was only in the context of Richard leaving the Ladies after an eye-rolling, one-sided conversation about how breathtaking Vincent was. Richard would peel off and trot forward and away from the women, making her ripe for venting. Lo and behold, Vincent would pull alongside her heroically and offer her a short word on how dull the hens could be when talking about him. Yet Vincent's narcissism would always bleed through, starting with the fact that the topic was always about him; whether it was about his intelligent and keen mind that was swollen with intellect, or his plans and strategies to defend and protect Wallachia. The latter gave Richard something to casually think of and converse about, and he did have many great ideas. The most tolerable days were when the two of them would discuss things to the point of forgetting where they were until Richard heard Walter's protective call.
Richard was privately thankful for those moments of intellectual freedom where she could speak candidly to Vincent about battle strategies, however brief those moments were. Cabin fever was slowly gnawing its way down her mind that Richard soon began to daydream about escaping the place and mad dreams of hog-tying Lady Ana and Lady Jusztina to a tree and continuing onward.
If only.
Fortunately, the day the caravan arrived at the recently relocated heartland of Wallachia, the situation was all but maddening.
Richard's back straightened in her saddle as her eyes focused back on the road ahead of her.
After what seemed like an era, the trail finally led to the stronghold and relatively new city of Târgoviște fast approaching in the distance. Vincent eagerly clucked his horse into a canter, forgetting to transport his herd the rest of the way. Richard quickly followed suit after him and Walter after her. The Ladies were left to their own devices and so were the servants, much to their collective consternation.
Trapped with a Way Out Page 31
