“My brother tells me we owe our lives to you.”
Britomart turned at the sound of the unknown voice and found herself looking at the lady whom she had once tried to waken with a kiss. On one side of the lady stood a man who must have been the brother the lady had mentioned, for he had the same fine-boned features and hazel eyes. His mail shone in the late afternoon sun, and Britomart thought how odd it was that his mail had no rust on it when the design of his helm proclaimed it to be centuries old. On the lady’s other side stood the owlish young man who reminded Britomart more of a librarian than a knight. She half expected to see ink stains on his hands.
Britomart shrugged self-consciously. “Not really. Your lives weren’t in any danger. You probably would have lived longer if you stayed asleep, come to think of it.”
“We owe you our consciousness, then,” said the lady, “and I would much rather have that than an eternity of slumber.” She exchanged a look with her brother, then added tentatively, “My brother Garren has been talking to Sir Alfrick. Sir Alfrick told us the date. It has been over three hundred years since I first entered this wood.”
Britomart winced. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. The centuries have given me what I sought: escape. And I have my brother with me, and Eral, who was always as good as a brother, though I don’t think he has ever loved me quite so well as his scrolls–” The owlish young man tried to protest, but the lady merely smiled and continued, “and old Horrick, who is as tough as leather and as true as steel. Although I can’t say where he’s gotten to.” Her brows drew together as she turned around to look at the line of sleepers making their way down the rock ledge from the cavern to the banks of the stream where Britomart and the three companions stood.
Britomart spotted two figures lingering where the ledge curved out from behind the waterfall, half-obscured by the spray. Their chainmail marked them as the two remaining Galbricans who had lain on the slabs by the lady and her brother. Britomart had just registered the strange fact that the lady had only mentioned one additional companion, not two, when one of the figures tried to hurl the other into the deep undertow where the waterfall plummeted into the stream below. There was a muffled shout and moment of struggle as the second man grappled with his attacker, and then both men crashed into the water and disappeared beneath its roiling surface, their armor dragging them down.
Britomart stared in shock for a moment and then began fumbling at the buckles of her breastplate. It took her only another moment to realize that attempting to get her armor off in time was useless. She turned to call for a rope, looking desperately for Arthur, whose saddlebags were once more loaded with her supplies, rope and all. A flash of steel caught her eye, and the sweep of a red dress, and she saw Amoret striding towards the stream with her knife in hand, preparing to work who-knew-what magic to save the men. How much strength did it take to control a stream? Britomart was willing to bet it was more than Amoret had to spare. The blood witch still look wan from her faint.
“Smudge, find Arthur,” Britomart commanded as the small boy appeared at her side. “Bring me the rope from his saddlebags.” Then she took off after Amoret. Rowena got there first, laying a gentle hand across the flat of Amoret’s knife to push it aside. Turning to the stream, Rowena murmured a flowing series of words that reminded Britomart simultaneously of the strength of granite and the rush of water. With a muted grinding noise, something shifted beneath the waterfall. The flow of the water changed, parting to make way for a wide column of rock that slowly rose from the streambed, pushing its way up just beyond the waterfall to jut out above the water. On it were two half-drowned men. The stockier of the two was partially collapsed on the other, holding him down with a forearm over his throat, clearly determined to kill him even if he himself drowned doing so. He did not even seem to realize for a moment that he was above the water. When he did, he coughed and gasped but did not ease the pressure on the other man’s throat.
“Horrick!” the lady cried out.
“Aye, milady?” The stocky man asked roughly, not looking up.
“You are killing that man!”
“Aye, milady.”
“Stop!” commanded Amoret, striding the last few steps to the stream. “You are in my kingdom now, and I do not allow killing.” Her knife flashed before either Rowena or Britomart could stop her, and three drops of blood fell from her palm into the water. The stream came alive as every reed within its depths reached upwards, twining together into thick, slimy tendrils that wrapped around Horrick and pulled him away from the other man, forcing Horrick onto his back on the rock before subsiding into thin bands that bound him there hand and foot. As the other man lay gasping, similar tendrils wrapped around his wrists and ankles, binding him too in place. “I said I do not allow killing,” Amoret added dispassionately as Horrick struggled against his bonds. “I should have added, except under very special circumstances. Do not make yourself one of those circumstances.”
“You can’t!” the Galbrican lady cried. Her brother reached out to take her shoulder, but she shrugged him off. She took a step towards Amoret, and her demeanor changed from distress to authority as if she had slipped into some invisible royal robe. There was a dignified fierceness about her that should have seemed ridiculous on her petite frame but somehow did not. “Horrick has served me faithfully, as he did my father before him. If you harm him, you harm a guard of the royal house of Galbrica.”
“I owe no loyalty to Galbrica,” Amoret replied coolly. “As I said, you are in my kingdom now.”
“This kingdom is Galbrica.” A look of uncertainty crossed the lady’s face. “Isn’t it?”
“As much as it was when you fled here to escape Galbrica three hundred years ago.”
The lady’s eyes went wide. “You know about that?”
“I know stories only, but stories enough to guess who you are. Stories of a hunted princess who fled her land for our woods and encountered what all who stray here encounter.”
Britomart felt a thump beside her foot as Smudge dropped the rope he had finally found in her saddlebags and crossed his arms. “Are they going to talk like this all afternoon, or can I rope something?”
Britomart attempted to shush him, but it was too late.
Amoret shot Smudge an amused glance before turning back to the lady. “The boy has a point. We cannot stay here all afternoon. Those who wish to leave will want to be on their way while the light holds, and those who wish to lodge in the castle tonight must depart if we are to reach it on foot before dinner. I need hardly say that I will require your guard to remain in the castle until I am able to judge his case.”
“You mean you will keep him prisoner,” the lady said fiercely.
“Him and the other man too. They will receive fair judgment, I assure you. Will you ask him to come willingly, or shall he make the journey asleep?”
The lady paled. The prospect of one of her companions descending into bespelled slumber once more was clearly not a pleasant one. “He will come willingly.”
Amoret turned to Rowena and nodded, and the column of rock slid to the side of the stream. The slimy manacles that bound the men detached themselves from the rock and then re-formed to bind their hands and feet as the rock tilted and rolled the men unceremoniously onto the muddy bank.
Amoret lingered by Britomart as the Galbrican lady went over to speak to her bound and muddy companion. The eyes of the assembled sleepers, which had been fastened on Amoret and the lady throughout their conversation, now turned to follow the lady, and Britomart felt Amoret sag as soon as the sleepers were no longer watching her.
“I wish I could sit down,” Amoret murmured to her. “Right here, mud and all.”
“There’s a horse blanket in Arthur’s saddlebags, I can–”
Amoret gave Britomart a tired smile, and Britomart was relieved to see that the familiar sardonic edge was still there despite her exhaustion. “The problem is not the mud, princess. It’s the people. I will be queen over those who choose to stay. They have seen me faint already. It wouldn’t do for them to see me sitting in the mud. Not until they know me better, anyways.”
“I’ve seen you sitting in the mud,” Britomart pointed out.
“You know me better.”
“The lady, who is she?”
Amoret sighed. “If I am not mistaken, she is the Princess Saskia. At least, that is what the stories call her. I had thought the story of the hunted princess was a legend only: a foolhardy thing to think in the Shadowed Wood. Blood witches themselves are no more than legends to most people. But perhaps you should let her tell you who she is herself. We will both need to hear her story tonight, I fear.”
“I don’t know if I can.” Britomart’s throat felt tight. “Alfrick may want to leave as soon as possible, and I have to go with him. It’s not a proper rescue otherwise.”
“This is not a matter of a trivial delay, princess. If I am right, you have woken a Galbrican royal. I think Alfrick will understand. And princess?”
“Yes?”
“I cannot say that I would be sorry to have you stay longer.”
“I cannot say I would dislike that either.”
Amoret’s gaze lingered on Britomart. She smiled, and it was a soft smile. For once, there was no sardonic edge to it. Then Amoret seemed to gather herself, and she said in a businesslike tone, “Now get me to that horse of yours. If I don’t sit down, I’m going to fall down, and at least if I sit on him, I can still look regal.”
That night, the castle threw a feast. It would not have been a feast by King Gundred’s standards–there was no sucking pig, nor roasted peacock with its plumage reattached–but such standards had faded in Britomart’s mind, replaced by the habit of simple dishes eaten side by side with Amoret at the end of vast oaken table. Now, the full length of the table was heaped with steaming meat pies and roasted turnips, crusty bread and thick vegetable stews, rich puddings and dried fruits from the castle’s winter stores. The strangest thing of all was that every seat around the table was full.
To Britomart’s surprise, all of the sleepers had chosen to return to the castle for the night, although many had shrunk warily away from the roses while passing beneath the archway through the castle walls. Amoret had performed some complicated magic on the roses the day before to lull them into quiescence, but not even Britomart could stop her steps from speeding slightly as she walked past them. Many of the sleepers had slumbered so long that they would have no homes to return to, but Britomart wondered what had brought the more recent sleepers to the castle when they could have left as soon as they were awakened. Perhaps they had simply not wanted to depart so late in the day.
She looked down the table at the two disguised Osterlanders who were claiming to be Galbrican vintners. She wished that they, at least, had not stayed. Her suspicion of having seen them in Prince Ludovic of Osterlond’s retinue had turned to a certainty once they woke up and resumed their customary expressions. The first one reminded her of a rat. There was something unctuous about his weak chin and fleshy mouth. Even without his rings and velvet, he had the soft, toadying look of a courtier who had climbed to favor through flattery and secrets. The second man was as tall and thin as if he had been racked, with sharp cheekbones above sunken cheeks and a thin, black goatee. If the first Osterlonder was a rat, this one was a spider.
Britomart did not like the way the half-speculative, half-acquisitive way the two Osterlonders looked at Amoret, nor the way they seemed to linger at the fringes of the Galbricans’ conversations, always careful to avoid Britomart but always close enough to catch what was being said. Osterlond was Galbrica’s ally, and the marriage of Britomart’s eldest sister Goneril to Prince Ludovic ensured that their child, if they had one, would one day rule both kingdoms. Yet there was something about Prince Ludovic that Britomart neither liked nor trusted.
Britomart’s unease was briefly replaced by amusement as her gaze traveled down the Northerners sitting on the opposite side of the table, landing on a very disgruntled Smudge. The boy was wedged between Rowena and the two siblings who had been sleeping side by side on a shared slab. Rowena had decided that it would be good for Smudge to be around children his own age. Smudge seemed to regard that as a grievous insult.
Britomart herself sat at Amoret’s left hand; Princess Saskia–for that was who the ancient Galbrican lady had confirmed herself to be–was in Britomart’s customary seat on Amoret’s right. It was the seat of honor, and Saskia had taken it instinctively. Britomart had felt a surge of jealousy before Amoret, with a knowing smile, had beckoned for Britomart to take the chair at her other side. Britomart had not been sure whether she was more annoyed by somebody taking her place next to Amoret or by somebody taking her place as the guest of honor. She was a princess, dash it.
The problem, of course, was that Saskia was a princess too–or at least had been three centuries ago–and did one ever really cease to be a princess, even after that long? Britomart found herself wondering what the proper order of precedence was for a three-hundred-year-old princess and a present-day one. She fought down a laugh as she thought of posing the quandary to the scrupulously correct Dowager Duchess of Drakelmire. The duchess would probably have an apoplexy.
Britomart found herself studying Saskia. She wondered what exactly the ancient princess had been trying to escape by fleeing into the Shadowed Wood, and whether it was ever possible to fully escape being a princess.
Saskia paused halfway through a bite of meat pie when she looked up to find Britomart staring at her. She resumed chewing and then smiled self-consciously as she finished. “I’m doing something wrong, aren’t I? Table manners must have changed much in three hundred years.”
“No, it’s not that,” Britomart said hastily. “It’s that I know so little about you. You come from three centuries ago, you’re almost certainly my ancestor, and all I know is your name. Not to mention that your guard is currently in the dungeon for trying to murder a man, and I still don’t really understand why.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“I, too, would find such information useful,” remarked Amoret. “Your guard will face my judgment tomorrow, as will his adversary, but I would prefer not to wait until then to learn more of the matter. That, I think, involves learning more of you.”
Saskia looked to her brother, seated on her other side. “What say you, Garren? It is your story too.”
Garren shrugged. “She will find out soon enough when she examines Horrick. Besides, you are not in hiding anymore. All who sought you are either here or dead.”
“You speak truly, brother.” Saskia turned back to Amoret and Britomart. “I shall do as you ask, then. Princess Britomart, you say that you know only my name. Does that name mean nothing to you?”
Britomart shook her head apologetically.
“I would have thought…but no matter. You say, too, that I am likely your ancestor. Perhaps you are right. What is your line?”
Britomart frowned. “The royal line of Galbrica. I thought you knew.”
“There has only ever been one royal line?”
“Of course there has. It goes all the way to Queen Boemia.”
“There has never been any break in it? Any…unusual transfer of power?”
“Kings died in battle occasionally early on, but only one or two, and their heirs simply took over. You would know that better than I do. It’s closer to your time than mine.”
Saskia hesitated, then asked, “There has never been a usurpation?”
“Absolutely not,” Britomart replied indignantly. “The throne has never passed out of the family.”
Amoret shifted. “Not all usurpations occur outside of the family, Britomart. A son can usurp a father’s throne, a nephew an uncle’s, a brother a brother’s.” Her eyes fixed on Saskia. “Which was it?”
It was Garren who answered, his voice hard. “A brother a brother’s.”
“You mean to say you have another brother,” Britomart asked, aghast, “and he–”
Saskia shook her head firmly. “No. Our older brother has been dead many years–many centuries, I suppose–and Garren and I have no other siblings. It is our uncle that Garren speaks of: our father’s brother, not our own. You did not recognize my name; perhaps you recognize my father’s. My father was King Siegfried, third of his name. Siegfried the Gentle, they called him.”
Britomart racked her memory. Finally, she answered, “I’m sorry, but there’s never been a Siegfried the Gentle. There was Siegfried the Mace, who beat back the Hjalderlonder raiders, and Siegfried Steelthews, who could throw an anvil halfway down the great hall and kept breaking all the benches, and Siegfried Crookneck, whose neck was turned all the way backward when he was…” Her voice drifted off amidst the dawning realization.
“When he was assassinated?” Saskia finished.
Britomart nodded silently.
“Siegfried Crookneck,” Saskia repeated. “I see they renamed him. Poor father, he would not have liked that at all. Well, go on.”
Britomart swallowed and continued, “Well, from what I remember, Siegfried and his children were killed by Corsirian assassins working for the Viscount Osmont. Osmont was trying to take over the throne, but his plot failed because Siegfried’s brother Aethelred survived the assassination. Aethelred became King Aethelred the Unyielding, and when he captured Osmont, his vengeance was so terrible that no one has ever tried to overthrow a ruler of Galbrica again.” Britomart thought back to Saskia’s earlier question and added, “So I suppose there was a usurpation attempt, but it didn’t work. Siegfried and his children were killed, but Osmont didn’t get the throne. Aethelred did. And he was the one who was supposed to inherit it after Siegfried’s children.”
“Except,” Saskia said bitterly, “that Siegfried’s children were not dead. Not Garren and I, at least. Aethelred must have had his heralds add that part after Garren and I disappeared. He would have had to account for our disappearance in some way, and what way better than our deaths, which would make it so much easier for him to take the throne? Aethelred was always good at convincing people of his own tales. It was part of what made him so dangerous, although we did not realize it until it was too late.” Saskia sighed at Britomart’s blank look. “I see I will have to tell you the whole story.”
“I think that would be for the best,” said Amoret. “We would not ask it if it were not necessary, but there are two men in the dungeons whose fates cannot be separated from it.”
Saskia took a deep breath, then began, “You are right, Princess Britomart, that our father was killed by assassins. Whether the assassins were Corsirian or not I cannot say; the assassination took place while my father was out riding. What I can say is that they were working for our uncle Aethelred, not for Viscount Osmont. Aethelred came to me as soon as the assassination happened. I was in my chamber reviewing the plans for the summer progress. My father was a good king, but he had little interest in the administrative details. After my mother died, he left them to me. I did not mind. It was interesting work.
“Aethelred told me that my father had broken his neck in a riding accident and that there was unrest among the nobles at the prospect of being ruled by a queen. I am older than Garren by two years, and by all rights, I should have been queen after my father. Yet it had been nearly a century since a woman ruled Galbrica, and not all of my father’s nobles were pleased with that prospect. At least, that is what Aethelred told me, and as I have said, he could be very convincing.
“Aethelred said that he would support my claim to the throne, but for my own safety, I would need to be confined to my chambers until he’d had a chance to root out those who would oppose me. When I objected, he told me it was for my own good, and I would see the sense of it soon. I told him to leave. He did. I waited long enough for him to have made his way back into the rest of the castle; then, I tried to open my chamber door to go down to the great hall and impose order on whatever chaos awaited there after my father’s death. I found the door barred against me from the outside. When I called out to be released, I was met only with refusals from unfamiliar guards.
“Aethelred left me there for days, hidden away from the court. He must have suborned a good deal of the castle staff before he had my father assassinated, for no one responded to my cries. I do not know what he told the court–perhaps that I was mad with grief.” She looked to Garren, who nodded in confirmation.
Saskia smiled bitterly. “I thought as much. It did not take me long to realize what must have happened, although it is not the sort of thing anyone wishes to believe of an uncle. I became certain of it when my uncle’s visits began. He was deaf to my demands to be released, still insisting that I was only being confined for my own safety. He told me that he was doing his best to persuade the rest of the court to accept my rule as queen, but some of the nobles were obstinate. They would agree to my rulership only if I were to rule alongside a king. I told my uncle I had no wish to marry, but I would do so if it were necessary for the good of the kingdom. Let me be crowned, and I would promise to wed a suitable husband within one year.
“My uncle began to talk of times past when, for the sake of a kingdom, cousins had married cousins; nieces, uncles. I had wondered why he did not just kill me if his plan was to seize power. Now I understood. If he could persuade me to marry him, he could become king without further bloodshed, without more suspicious deaths. He did not care how unnatural such a marriage would be, he who had been unnatural enough to murder his brother. I do not doubt that Aethelred would have killed me–and Garren too–if I did not agree to marry him. If he could not get the throne one way, he would another.
“So I put Aethelred off, pleading grief and maidenly shyness, telling him I needed time to decide. I put him off, even as his suggestions that I marry him lost all subtlety and his proposal became an unrelenting demand.
“And then one night, I heard the bar heaved away from my chamber door, and when the door opened, it was gruff old Osmont was there. It appeared I had tried my uncle’s patience for too long, for Osmont had overheard Aethelred giving the order for my death. Osmont told me there was a horse waiting for me in the stables, and he would hold back my uncle’s men if they tried to pursue. I ran. From what you have said, I fear that Osmont paid dearly for his loyalty. It is an injustice as great as my father’s murder that Osmont should be remembered as a traitor.
“I rode north, then further north still, heading to the one place I knew no one would dare to follow: the Shadowed Wood. Not long after I came to the wood, I found myself in a clearing. At the heart of the clearing was a castle, and its walls were covered in the most beautiful roses. I hardly need tell you what happened from there.
“As for the rest, Garren can tell you better than I can. He told me much after we woke, but it is more his tale than mine.”
Garren grimaced. “There’s not much to tell, except that I was a gods-forsaken idiot. When Aethelred announced to the court that father had died in a riding accident, I swallowed the tale along with the rest of the court. Worst of all, I believed Aethelred when he said that Saskia had taken to her chamber with grief. I should have known she was far too practical for such a thing. I did my best to go and see her, but one of the palace healers convinced me that I would only be doing Saskia harm if I troubled her. What my sister needed was absolute rest, lest her wits desert her completely. I can see now that the healer must have been in Aethelred’s pay.
“I didn’t realize what was happening until the evening that I woke to the sound of fighting. By the time I reached the castle courtyard, Aethelred’s men had already cut down Osmont, who had been trying to stop them from leaving through the gates. The poor man was horribly wounded and unconscious from blood loss, although he lived for some days longer, the worse for him.
“The next morning, Aethelred announced to the court that he had uncovered a conspiracy that threatened the very roots of the kingdom. My father’s riding accident had been no accident at all. It had been the work of trained killers in Viscount Osmont’s pay, part of Osmont’s plot to take the throne. Then uncle told the court the greatest tragedy of all: Osmont had struck again last night, killing the grief-stricken princess in her chamber.
“That was when I began to doubt Aethelred. I knew it couldn't be true, not of Osmont. I couldn’t let myself believe that it was true about Saskia either. I went to the stables and found Saskia’s mare gone, and I came to my own conclusions from there. I told the two people I trusted most in the world: Horrick, who had been the captain of the guard since before I was born, and Eral, who was the best friend a man could have, even if he wasn’t much of a fighter. We slipped out of the castle as soon as we could, taking advantage of the tumult caused by Aethelred’s news. I don’t think I would have lived long if I’d stayed.
“We rode to find Saskia. I was sure that she was alive, and I was also sure that Aethelred would send men after her if he had not already. He had declared her dead; he couldn’t risk her turning up alive to reclaim her throne. I knew Saskia well enough to guess where she would go. She had loved the stories of the Shadowed Wood when we were younger. Horrick and Eral and I must have come to the wood only hours after her, days at most. But it was already too late. We did not find her, not until we awoke yesterday. Instead, we found the roses. I can only be thankful that my uncle’s men had no more luck than we did. Only one of them came to the right place, and he, too, fell under the roses’ spell.”
“The other man in the dungeon,” Britomart said, eyes wide. “The one Horrick tried to kill.”
Saskia nodded. “Horrick recognized him as one of my uncle’s men. When Horrick confronted the man on the way out of the cavern, the man tried to throw him under the waterfall. Horrick grabbed him, and they both went in.”
“You are certain that Horrick is correct about who the man is?” Amoret asked.
Garren snorted. “With that mustache? I don’t know how he could be mistaken.”
The corner of Amoret’s mouth quirked upwards. The man’s luxuriant red mustache had looked significantly less well groomed after his dousing. “It is certainly distinctive.”
Saskia seemed less amused. “I would think the man’s attempt to murder Horrick would be proof enough,” she said, an edge in her voice.
“A reasonable surmise,” Amoret conceded, “though it was Horrick who was attempting to murder the other man when the two emerged from the stream. In any case, we will know the truth of it tomorrow.”
“What exactly do you plan to do?” Britomart asked. The unease that had gone through her when she explored the castle’s dungeon crept back. With a touch of bitterness, she added, “I don’t see how you can find the truth when even the histories lie–and they’re written down.”
“I plan to hear the men’s stories and judge them as blood witches always have: with a spell that will reveal truth and lies. It is an old magic and a sure one. But it is, much as I regret it, one that I am too tired to perform tonight.”
“And the man that turns out to be guilty?” Britomart pressed.
“I will not awaken a man merely to sentence him to death, if that is what you fear, princess. If one of them proves guilty of attempted murder, I will put him back to sleep, no more, no less. This time, he will not be awakened.” Amoret turned to Saskia, and there was iron in her voice as she continued, “You understand that you must accept my judgment? You were rightful queen of Galbrica once, for all that you were never crowned, but that time has passed.”
Saskia sat perfectly still for a moment, and Britomart had the odd feeling that she stood at a tipping point between peace and battle. Then the woman gave a small nod, and the tension eased. “As you say,” Saksia replied, “that time has passed. This is your domain, and Galbrica is ruled by a new king now. It has been ruled by many new kings since my uncle took the throne.” She turned to Britomart. “Aethelred married and had a child, I suppose?”
“A son,” Britomart supplied. “Aethelred Short-tunic. Aethelred the Second, that is.”
“So be it,” said Saskia.
“So be it,” echoed Amoret. She picked up her goblet and drank.
“What was that about?” Britomart murmured to Amoret as they left the great hall. Ahead of them was the chaotic bustle of the sleepers navigating unfamiliar hallways as they went to find the rooms they had chosen for themselves when they arrived.
“What?” Amoret asked.
“All of that about Saskia’s time having passed. She knows she’s lost three centuries. You didn’t have to rub it in.”
Amoret looked at Britomart pityingly. “It hasn’t occurred to you, has it? Think, princess. Who was the legitimate monarch: Saskia or Aethelred?”
“Saskia.”
“And who are you descended from?”
“Aethelred.”
“And now that Saskia is awake, who has the strongest claim on the throne: Saskia or your family?”
“Saskia,” Britomart said in dawning horror. “But my father would never believe her. I don’t think anybody would. He wouldn’t give up the throne.”
“What if people did believe her–not all Galbricans, just enough to build up an army?”
“It would mean civil war.”
“So you see what it was all about. Saskia has acknowledged my authority over the Shadowed Wood, and she has agreed not to challenge your family’s claim to the Galbrican throne.”
“I should have been the one to handle that,” Britomart said in consternation. “You don’t even think my father is the rightful king of the North. Why would you get Saskia to agree not to challenge him?”
“Perhaps, princess, for you. And perhaps because I do not need your father to officially give up his claim to the Shadowed Wood when that claim is, for all practical purposes, meaningless here. As long as your father does not bother me, it would not be worth the cost that it would take for me to officially reclaim my territory from him.”
“And if someday he does bother you?”
“Then the situation will have changed, and I may reconsider my attitude towards Saskia’s claim. I believe she and her brother mean to stay in the Shadowed Wood for now.”
Britomart went still. “Is that a threat?”
Amoret stopped and turned to Britomart. They were the last ones in the great hall now. The fear and anger froze in Britomart’s chest as Amoret reached out to cup her cheek. “I would have thought you would have realized by now, princess: I would do a great deal to protect the things I love. My kingdom is one of those things.”
“And the others? What are those?” Britomart whispered.
“The first stroke of paint on a fresh canvas, the smell of the forest after the rain, the way the sunlight dapples the ground beneath the apple trees. And, perhaps, one more thing: y–”
“Are you going to be in there forever?” came Smudge’s voice.
Britomart jerked away from Amoret and saw Smudge standing in the archway into the great hall. “Whoops,” he said.
“Out, minion,” commanded Amoret.
“We should go,” Britomart said self-consciously as Smudge ducked out of sight. “He’ll be listening in the hall.”
“I don’t doubt it. May I make a suggestion, princess?”
“Anything.”
“Next time, adopt a nice, well-mannered child.”
The next morning, the castle’s inhabitants awoke to find only one of the dungeon’s cells occupied. The man with the red mustache was gone. So too were the disguised Osterlonders, and a furious Horrick soon confirmed that the disappearances were not unrelated. Horrick had watched helplessly from within his own cell as the spider-like Osterlonder picked the lock to the other prisoner’s cell door. The mustachioed man had apparently been as surprised as Horrick himself at the Osterlonders’ assistance, but that had not stopped him from accepting it.
“They just picked the lock?” Britomart asked Amoret as she examined the cell door. “There was nothing, you know, magical, to stop them?”
Amoret shot her a pained look. “Usually there would be a spell to keep them in, but I was too drained to do it. I thought that a lock would be enough for a single night. Foolish, I see now.”
“Well, there can’t be too much to worry about,” Britomart said with forced cheerfulness. “How much trouble can two Osterlonders and a three-hundred-year-old sleeper cause?”