Weeks grew into one month, then another, and Britomart fell into a routine. In the morning, she breakfasted with Amoret. Then, she went down to the stables to visit Arthur while Amoret went about her business of tending to the Shadowed Wood. Britomart and Arthur trotted around the castle grounds, which felt much smaller at the horse’s gait. Eventually, Britomart hung a ring from the branch of one of the old oaks and, after asking the castle very nicely, found a lance tucked away in the back of the armory. She and Arthur took to practicing jousting. The combination of concentration and speed helped to ease the growing restlessness that pulled at them both.
Britomart began to practice her swordplay too, going through her forms with the sword that she had found in the armory. She had put it back after grabbing it to chase Blewog–an episode that still made her want to sink through the ground when she thought about it–but the sword had been waiting for her in her chamber the next day. She had put it back four more times, partly out of an obstinate refusal to acknowledge how much she wanted it and partly out of what Amoret had said about it being the sword of the Queen’s Champion. Britomart was a Galbrican princess, for Woden’s sake, not the defender of a queen with a false claim to the Northern throne. Yet the sword felt inexplicably right in her hands. When she finally gave in to the castle’s insistence that she take the sword, she assured herself that she did so merely as a matter of convenience. Returning it to the armory every day was getting annoying.
After lunch, Britomart would spend the afternoon wandering the grounds. She began to get to know the animals who roamed there as their wariness gave way to curiosity. The deer no longer bounded away when she approached, and the gangly fawns frisked up to her on increasingly confident legs. By the time the autumn had advanced enough for the castle to add a thick woolen cloak to Britomart’s wardrobe, even the lynxes would deign to twine around her legs. She began to wish that she could find a dictionary of the Old Tongue in the library so that she could try talking to the animals as Amoret did, although she was not sure it would work for her the way it did for Amoret.
Britomart continued to search the library, but it remained frustratingly elusive. She tried asking the castle to give her particular books, but either the castle could not read, or the library had a different magic all its own, a magic that did not respond to words as the castle’s did. The books that would appear the next day on her dressing table were never the right ones–or at least, they were never in the right language. All were in the Old Tongue. It did not help matters that Britomart dared not tell the castle too blatantly what she was searching for. She did not want to think about what would happen if the castle knew she was looking for a weakness in Amoret’s power: a weakness that would allow Britomart to force Amoret to wake Alfrick; a weakness that would allow Britomart to conquer Amoret if she ever needed to for Galbrica’s sake. Still, Britomart refused to give up hope. As long as she was searching for some vulnerability in the blood witch’s power, she could justify staying, even if Amoret seemed no closer to agreeing to wake Alfrick. Britomart just wished that she could shake that odd guilty feeling that had begun to creep in every time she visited the library to hunt for Amoret’s fatal flaw. Amoret was her captor, not her friend, she told herself. Amoret had been clear enough about that when Britomart had offered to befriend her.
But when Britomart thought of the pressure of Amoret’s hand in hers, she was not sure that Amoret had been clear at all. Amoret had not taken Britomart’s hand again, but sometimes when their eyes met, Britomart was sure that Amoret remembered it just as well as she did. In those moments, Britomart wanted more than anything to reach out and take Amoret’s hand once more, but there always seemed to be some invisible barrier that stopped her. The normal rules of distance did not seem to apply to Amoret. Britomart and Amoret could be sitting less than a foot apart, and reaching across that distance felt as impossible as reaching across a chasm. They could be standing across the room from each other, and Amoret felt close enough for Britomart to run her hand down her cheek. It was very hard to remember that Amoret was an enemy of Galbrica at times like that. The dinners did not help. It was hard to remember to regard someone as an enemy when you spent every evening eating beside them, drifting into comfortable conversation. It was hard to hate your only human companion when you were lonely.
Britomart reassured herself with the knowledge that once she was out of the castle and back around other human beings, she would cease to feel like this, whatever ‘this’ was.
Britomart knew she had been lucky, in a way. She was not confined to the dungeon, nor was she condemned to the demeaning drudgery that the Blood Witch had inflicted on Queen Boemia. True, Britomart occasionally helped Amoret tend to injured animals, but that was by choice, not by compulsion. And she mucked out Arthur’s stall, of course, but that was because it gave her something to do. She was fairly sure the castle would have cleaned the stall for her if she asked.
Still, captivity was captivity. There was a great difference between trotting around the castle grounds and galloping across open country, and both Britomart and Arthur felt it.
So it was that Amoret came back to the castle one day to find Britomart and Arthur staring longingly out of the archway that led out through the castle wall into the wood beyond. Both seemed unaware of the chill breeze that was stirring Arthur’s mane and nipping color into Britomart’s cheeks. The matching expressions of wistfulness on horse and master would have been comical if they had not been quite so heartfelt.
Amoret paused beside them and reached out a hand for Arthur to nuzzle. Her brow furrowed as she observed, “He looks sad.”
Britomart laid a gentle hand on the horse’s shoulder. “He misses the outside world.”
The furrow in Amoret’s brow remained. “But surely he’s used to being kept in stables. You live in a palace.”
“Yes, but the king’s pastures are nearby, and there’s land to gallop in not far from the city.” Britomart smiled wistfully, thinking of the rush of joy that came with galloping across the open countryside. “I used to take Arthur out for a gallop whenever I could. Neither of us was ever much good at being cooped up.” Britomart had not meant to mention her own longing for the outside world, and she glanced quickly at Amoret. She did not know what she expected–for Amoret to be hurt? Annoyed? But the other woman merely looked thoughtful.
“I never learned to ride,” Amoret said consideringly.
“I could teach you.”
Amoret’s thoughtful look lingered for a moment, then gave way to a smile. “You know, I think I would like that.”
“What about tomorrow morning? Or later,” Britomart added, thinking that she must have sounded far too eager.
“It had better be the afternoon. There’s a grove to the west that needs tending in the morning. The trees have grown so big that they’re fighting for the sunlight, and there will be broken branches soon if someone doesn’t step in.”
“Right. Tomorrow afternoon at the stables.” Britomart tried not to look too directly at Amoret’s rather close-fitting dress as she added, “And you may want to wear something less flattering. I mean fancy. Something less fancy. I ended up in the dirt more than once before I got the hang of staying in the saddle.”
“I’ll inform my wardrobe. Perhaps it will even cooperate,” Amoret replied, eyes dancing. “I’ll see you at dinner, princess,” she added, giving Arthur one last pat before heading off to the castle.
“See you at dinner,” Britomart called after her.
Amoret raised a hand in acknowledgement but did not turn back.
Britomart wondered if it was possible to blush so hard that you gave yourself a sunburn. Or maybe it was just the feeling of the wind on her cheeks. It was a very brisk wind, really.
Amoret’s riding lessons began the next day. Britomart did a double take when Amoret pushed open the stable door wearing a tunic and hose, soft leather riding boots encasing her calves.
“I see you convinced your wardrobe,” Britomart observed.
“I think you must be having a good influence. It only took three tries. Although I do think the red brocade is a little excessive,” Amoret added, grimacing as she looked down at her tunic.
“I suppose I should feel lucky that my wardrobe stopped putting me in servants’ livery.”
“It was only throwing a tantrum. It gives you quite nice tunics now.”
“Tantrums don’t last for weeks.”
“The castle’s do. It gave me cold baths for a month after I painted on the walls when I was a child.”
“You painted the walls?” Britomart struggled to picture the castle in any color but its characteristic grey.
“I painted on the walls. It’s not the same thing. Though the castle did not seem to appreciate the difference either. Shall we?”
“Paint the walls?” Britomart asked, perplexed.
“Ride. That is what we’re here for, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes. I think we’d better start in that grassy area beside the kitchen garden. The ground is soft there.”
“Is that good for riding?”
“It's good for falling.”
Much to Britomart’s annoyance, however, Amoret did not fall. Arthur seemed determined not to let her. He stood patiently as Britomart cupped her hands for Amoret's boot to help her scramble into the saddle. He adjusted his weight to steady Amoret when her balance was off. He began moving at a gentle pace when she asked him to walk, even though she squeezed her knees around his sides far too sharply in her nervousness. When she urged him into a trot, then panicked and pulled hard on the reins for him to stop, he halted smoothly rather than sending her tumbling off his behind the way that any self-respecting warhorse ought to do. As far as Britomart was concerned, it was downright unfair.
“It’s not normally this easy,” Britomart said crossly when Amoret and Arthur arrived back beside the vegetable garden.
Amoret had just ridden all the way around the castle, and she was positively glowing. “It’s wonderful! I wish I’d known earlier. I might have sent for a horse from one of the villages. I think I know how the stags feel now when they canter through the woods.”
“You’re not at a canter yet. You’re hardly at a trot,” Britomart retorted, then realized how petty she sounded and added, “We can practice cantering later this week. You really are learning incredible fast, you know. I feel a bit foolish for thinking you’d be covered in dirt by now.”
Amoret grinned. “Disappointed?”
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“Of course not! No true knight would be disappointed that a lady had not fallen in the dirt.”
“And yet,” Amoret said wryly, “I think you would make an exception for me.”
Amoret learned quickly after that, which turned out to be a good thing for Britomart. Once Amoret had truly learned to ride, she was no longer content just to canter around the castle grounds. She had developed the same restlessness that plagued Britomart and Arthur: the desire to ride beyond the castle’s walls and roam on horseback through the woods.
“It’s hard, isn’t it?” Amoret asked a few weeks later, dismounting at the foot of the castle steps where Britomart waited bundled up in her cloak. The last of the apples had fallen in the orchard, and the air had the undeniable feel of impending winter.
“Riding? I don’t know, you seem to have gotten the hang of it remarkably quickly.”
“Not riding. Being cooped up here. I see what you mean about Arthur missing the outside world. I can feel it now: the way that he can never quite stretch his legs.”
Britomart shrugged. “So take him out riding. It’s your own rules that bind him here.” She couldn’t entirely keep the bitterness from her voice, and she thought she saw Amoret flinch.
“I couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair, taking him and leaving you behind.”
“Fair?” It was as if a dam broke, and all the frustration that Britomart had been holding in flooded loose. “Since when do you care about fairness? Is it fair to keep me here, one day at a time, always holding out hope of something that you never grant?”
“Has it never occurred to you that I might have a very good reason for doing so?” Amoret asked.
“Rowena said that you were lonely, but–” Britomart caught herself, aghast. She hadn’t meant to tell Amoret that.
“Did she? And you thought that I was so desperate for companionship that I would do anything you asked, just for the pleasure of your company?”
“It wasn’t like that,” Britomart protested. “Or maybe it was, at first. But later… I thought you liked me.”
“I see,” Amoret said tightly. “I will have you know, princess, that I have kept you here because I could not very well let you go back to Galbrica in the same state that you came here. Or have you forgotten that you tried to lunge for your sword the instant that you remembered where you were when I first woke you? You came here as the princess of an enemy realm that once conquered mine, that did its best to eradicate those of us whose powers it feared–and nearly succeeded. Should have sent you straight back to Galbrica, where you would tell your father of my kingdom in the Shadowed Wood? Should I have forgotten my duty to my creatures so utterly as to risk bringing the wrath of Galbrica down on them? I had three choices, princess: kill you, put you back to sleep, or try to make you understand. I chose the third. I have kept you here in hopes that when you leave, you will do so no longer hating my kingdom, no longer so ready to call for our ending. It is a strategy that has been tried once before. It failed then. I am hoping that, this time, it will succeed. You are a better person by far than the last Galbrican on whom it was tried.”
It was too much to take in all at once, so Britomart latched onto the one thing that seemed most concrete. “You weren’t ever planning to wake Alfrick, were you? You were just using that to keep me here.”
The anger seemed to have gone out of Amoret, and she answered levelly, “I haven’t decided whether to wake Alfrick. I have not lied about that. The sleeping spell was once a form of justice, and perhaps you’re right that it has become unjust. But my kingdom will not be safe if the sleepers wake and carry news of it back to their homelands–not if they are believed. It is not an easy decision, and I will not make it lightly. I need more time.”
“How do I know you’re not just saying that to keep me here?”
“You don’t.”
“You’re asking me to trust you?” Britomart asked incredulously. “After you’ve kept me here for months trying to make me forget my duty to Galbrica?”
Amoret met Britomart’s furious gaze unflinchingly. “I am asking you whether it’s worth throwing away the one chance you have to wake the sleepers.” She sighed. “And yes, I suppose I’m asking you to trust me.”
“What if I told you that you’ll never make me believe that the Shadowed Wood isn’t evil? That you’ll never make me believe that you aren’t evil? What then? Will you try to put me back to sleep? Try to kill me?”
“Do you truly think that I would do that?”
“I–” Britomart had been about to say yes, but something stopped her. “I don’t know.”
“At first I didn’t know either,” Amoret admitted. “But now… No, gods help me. If you left, even hating us as you once did–as perhaps you still do–I would not kill you. Not even if I would put my kingdom in danger by letting you go.”
“Why?”
“Because it would not feel right, having spared you, to condemn you. And because you were right: I have come to like you.”
“Oh.”
The silence stretched, and Amoret seemed to realize that she was still holding Arthur’s reins as the horse shifted impatiently beside her. She gave the horse a perfunctory pat before looking back at Britomart. “I won’t ask if you are going to leave. But I hope, princess, that I will see you at dinner.”
Britomart gave no answer. Instead, she turned on her heel and strode back into the castle.
There was not much packing to do. The only things that Britomart had brought with her were her sword and armor, along with the worse-for-wear tunic and leggings that she had worn beneath her armor when she first arrived. She got halfway through buckling on her plate before she let a vambrace fall to the floor with a clang. She slowly unbuckled the rest of her armor and set it back against the wall. By the time that she had taken off the remainder of the plate, brushed her hair, and changed into the gown that the wardrobe had provided for the night, she was late for dinner.
She found Amoret staring into the fire, ignoring the platters of food growing cold on the table. Amoret’s eyes widened in surprise when she saw Britomart–surprise and, Britomart thought, something like joy.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” Amoret said, rising.
“I didn’t either.”
“About Arthur… we could ride out together. You and I. If you’d like.”
Two days later, Britomart and Amoret rode into the Shadowed Wood. It was to be a day trip only, not a true end to captivity, but to Britomart, it felt like a gulp of water after days of wandering parched through the desert. Part of her wondered if it was Amoret’s way of apologizing. A more cynical part of her wondered if it was simply another part of Amoret’s scheme to coax her into liking the Shadowed Wood so that she would not send her father’s forces to attack it. But her doubts did not stop her heart from soaring as they rode out through the arch in the castle walls, Amoret sandwiched in front of her in the saddle.
At first Britomart had tried to preserve a little space between herself and Amoret, but that required sitting as stiff and straight as a carved soldier, with her arms bent out awkwardly to avoid resting against Amoret’s sides while holding the reins. Eventually, the position simply became too uncomfortable, and Britomart relaxed. She felt the gentle press of Amoret’s back against her torso as the space between them vanished. After a while, Amoret asked to switch off on the reins–after all, this was her first excursion on horseback, and she wanted to give it a proper try–and Britomart found herself holding onto Amoret’s waist while Amoret held the reins. Britomart held on as lightly as she could, but she could not have been more aware of it if she had been hanging on for dear life.
The Shadowed Wood opened up around them, and Arthur frisked like a colt in celebration of new paths to roam. They rode through parts of the wood that Britomart had never seen before: a primordial grove of trees with trunks nearly as wide as Rowena’s cottage; a rushing stream that must have been a distant continuation of the one that flowed from the waterfall over the sleepers’ cave; a rock formation that reminded Britomart of an old-fashioned helm; and a wide meadow that Amoret assured her was full of wildflowers in the spring, although it was dull and flowerless now. Even Amoret had to admit that the meadow was a bit of a disappointment. They ducked back into the woods and were soon amidst majestic trees again, stopping for lunch on the roots of a gnarled old giant that towered even higher than the others.
The wood seemed to grow still and expectant around them as they ate. Britomart rubbed her hands together for warmth as she finished the hunk of bread and cheese that she had been holding. “It feels like the wood is waiting for something,” she commented, looking around for any sign of movement and finding none.
“It is,” Amoret said, wiping her own hands on her leggings.
“You?”
“No, not me. The wood is accustomed enough to me. It’s waiting for snow. Can’t you feel it?”
Britomart realized she could feel it: the crystalline snap to the air; the heavy stillness of the clouds massing above the canopy; the sharp, nearly metallic scent mingling with the earthly musk of trees and underbrush.
Something must have shown on her face, because Amoret smiled and said, “I thought you could, if you tried. All the same, it means we’d better be going. It would be unwise to get caught in a storm.”
By the time they made it back to the castle, the snow was falling in thick flakes. The grounds were covered in a thin sheet of white that Britomart did not think would stay thin for long. There was no sign of the usual inhabitants of the castle grounds, and Britomart imagined they must be curled up in their dens by now. The silence was broken only by the crunch of Arthur’s hooves and the jingle of his tack.
They dismounted by the stables, and Britomart reached up to help Amoret down after her. Amoret had been able to dismount on her own for some time now, but she was a lady, and there were certain things that knights were supposed to do. Helping ladies out of the saddle was one of them. The hood of Amoret’s cloak fell back as she dismounted, and snowflakes settled gently on her hair, white against the dark. There was something about the sight that made Britomart forget to step back once Amoret was on firm ground.
“You have snowflakes on your eyelashes,” Britomart said.
Amoret grinned and reached up to pull back the hood of Britomart’s cloak. “Then you shall face the same peril, Sir Knight.”
Britomart felt the cold touch of a snowflake on her cheek, then another. Amoret’s hands lingered on her cloak. More snowflakes were gathering on her hair. Then Arthur whickered, and the moment was broken. Britomart stepped away. “We should get Arthur out of the snow.”
The next morning, Britomart looked out of her window onto a world of dazzling white. The snow lay so thick on the ground that Britomart could hardly make out the bulges that had once been bushes. Only the roses seemed untouched, as if their blood-red blooms–immune from the changing of the seasons–had burned away the snow that dared to settle on them. Britomart had never seen so much snow in her life. Southern Galbrica got snow occasionally, but nothing like this. She wondered if the snowfall was part of the magic of the woods. Then she realized that it was probably just part of the North. She wondered what it would feel like to walk through a landscape like that, to be the only set of tracks on something so pristine. Would it feel like walking through water to tramp through so much snow? Or would you just need to lift your legs very, very high?
The thought brought her high spirits crashing down. No matter how trudging through so much snow worked, she wasn’t going to be wandering around the grounds much while it was there. Riding Arthur was definitely out. Britomart had come to rely on their daily jousting practice to give her some sort of outlet for her restlessness, some sense of movement amidst the stasis. Losing that was all the harder after her brief taste of freedom yesterday. She felt like the castle’s walls were closing in around her all over again. A stab of disappointment shot through her as she realized that the snow would also mean a temporary halt to her afternoon riding lessons with Amoret.
Britomart’s expression was so glum when she came down to breakfast that Amoret’s smile of greeting quickly changed to a look of concern. When Britomart answered the question of what was the matter by saying, “There’s too much snow,” however, Amoret let out a laugh. That did nothing to improve Britomart’s mood.
“It’s not so bad,” Amoret said in a conciliatory tone, clearly attempting to make up for laughing. “The snow won’t last forever. In the meantime, try to think of the castle as your den: somewhere safe and warm where you can curl up and weather the storm.”
Britomart did not point out the absurdity of thinking of a blood witch’s castle as ‘safe and warm’. Instead, she said, “I’ve seen the castle. All but the east tower, as you told me. Unless you want to show me that, there’s not much more for me to do.”
“And have you practiced with every weapon in the armory? Read every book in the library? Tried on all of the absurd outfits in your wardrobe?”
“I’m not a child. I don’t play dress-up.”
It did not escape Amoret that Britomart had ignored the first two points. “You haven’t figured out how to work the library, have you?”
“How was I supposed to?” Britomart asked defensively. “You never told me.”
“I thought you might like the challenge.”
“I prefer challenges that I can solve with a sword.”
“Well, princess, after breakfast, I shall show you the library. Now eat up. That is, if you can manage your porridge without your sword.”
Britomart glared at Amoret. Amoret smirked. They ate.
Outside, the snow lay thick and still.
Inside, the library lay vast and waiting, its silence soon to be broken by two voices, the scratching of a quill on old parchment, and the sound of a stifled exclamation as a row of books began to pulse with a soft golden light.