She felt like she could not breathe. It wasn’t the smell of sewage, the manure that littered the streets or even how cold the winds were. It was the people, the hundreds of strangers, that surrounded her. Maybe they were judging her, perhaps they knew who she was. One thing she could be certain of was that they were all so loud! Merchants were bellowing over each other, and commoners and nobles alike were pushing and shoving past her so often that she began to think it was some sort of intentional attack. She gripped her cloak tighter and pulled her grey hood further down to hide away as much as she could.
“Keep up, Cleo!” Dorian called back a little further ahead, seeming unperturbed by it all.
“Slow down!” she squeaked shrilly.
The Knight obeyed and turned to face her. A nobleman in a plumed beret and green stockings rode a grey palfrey towards them. Rosamund feared that they might be run over before he swerved to avoid them. Sir Dorian didn’t even seem to notice. “How are you finding the outside world?” he asked with genuine curiosity.
“I hate it!” she blurted out. “People keep touching me and it’s too loud.”
“But being up to your knees in mud and shit and walking for miles, those aspects don’t bother you so much?”
Rosamund didn’t have an answer. She scratched her elbow and continued to avoid Dorian’s inquisitive gaze. The Knight grinned. “You’re enjoying the freedom just as much as you hate it and don’t wish to admit it.”
“I hate it out here,” she said hesitantly. “…But it’s nice to be somewhere…else.”
“Just follow my lead. Think of it as an educational journey,” he said with jovialness. He stood tall and moved forward again with a puffed-out chest.
They walked through the streets of Dorfchester, keeping close to the markets as horse carriages roamed through the mud with unnerving speed. Peasants, merchants, noblemen, and noblewomen scattered out of the way as stampeding hooves trailed through the streets, followed by the carriages they pulled. Two City Watch carriages rode past with bells ringing and dirt spattering. Rosamund stopped and covered her ears until the ringing became faint and distant.
“Cleo!” Dorian called. She frowned at him but continued to follow. She looked up at the sprawling towers around her. They looked as though they nearly reached the sun, and it took her breath away. Most of them were apartments, each block a different colour. Forest-green, royal red, bright yellow, and the occasional grey. Some of the windows were open with freshly washed clothes hanging from them.
“Beware of the water!”
Rosamund did not know where the yell came from. She felt Dorian’s gloved hand yank her forward and heard a crashing splash behind her. She turned to see what did not appear to be water at all stained into the cobblestones. The liquid was brown and sludgy. She felt queasy as she looked up to see a peasant in a coif shaking a near-empty bucket three stories above. “You need to be aware of your surroundings,” Dorian said before trotting off ahead again.
That was what Rosamund struggled with. There was too much to keep track of, too many people and things to watch out for. Too many noises, scents, and the constant threat of being touched. She was so busy looking above and behind that she didn’t see the merchant ahead of her. A crate of fruit crashed into the mud and apples scattered out into the streets. People walked out of the way as the hooves of horses stampeded by, crushing the scattered fruit. The plump merchant in a stained apron and a rock-like bald head turned to her with fire in his eyes. “Bloody stupid peasant bitch!”
Rosamund panicked and started desperately picking up the surviving apples from the mud. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she kept hastily repeating, more to herself than to the Merchant. She glanced ahead, but Dorian had disappeared into the hordes of civilians. She was all alone in the city. She felt her stomach tighten. She cradled the muddy apples in her arms and tried lifting them towards the looming man, but all of them slipped through her grasp and crashed into the mud again. She was too scared to even consider looking into the man’s eyes.
“What good are they now?” he bellowed. He whacked the remaining apples out of her arms. Rosamund looked down into the mud, hoping he would just go away. She started breathing heavily. She was lost amidst a sea of strangers with no one there to help her.
“What’s wrong with you?” he kept shouting. “Look at me!” he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her like a rag doll. “You just lost me a lot of Denarii and you don’t even have the decency to look me in the eye?”
The grip of his granite hands felt violating. She flinched away and tripped, her boots getting stuck in the mud. She fell into the deep brown puddles. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she kept repeating to no one until she felt out of breath.
“Bloody spastic,” she heard the Merchant growl from above her before she heard a punching sound followed by a wave of gasping from onlookers.
The Merchant fell into the mud next to her. Dorian stood over him with a clenched fist. “That wasn’t very gallant, was it?” The Knight grimaced with contempt in his voice. The Merchant held his hand over the purple bump that was now throbbing on his left cheek.
Dorian looked back at Rosamund. He reached his hand down to her. “Sorry I went ahead, Cleo. That was a foolish decision of mine.” He pulled her back to her feet and held her hand as he pushed through the gathering crowds, who were all talking amongst each other in hushed voices. “Keep going, we don’t want to linger when the City Watch come and asks questions.”
“But I’m the Princess,” she objected.
“You’re not,” said Dorian in a stern whisper. “You’re Cleo, a simple peasant girl and my squire.”
Rosamund felt her lip quiver and tears gathering in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Dorian. I didn’t want to get you in trouble.”
Dorian stopped and knelt to face her. “You haven’t got me in trouble. The only thing I permanently damaged was his ego. I just don’t wish for everyone in Dorfchester to know that the Princess is here and not in a carriage surrounded by armed guards.” Dorian pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her. “It’s just around the corner. I have a surprise for you that will make this all worth it, Your Highness. I promise.”
When Dorian finally opened the door to salvation, Rosamund sprinted inside. She didn’t even know what it was a door to, but she ran in with great haste, regardless. What mattered was that there would be fewer people. She felt not just relieved then, but in awe when she realised where she was. The armoury was vaster than she could have imagined from a small blacksmith’s shop. Axes adorned the walls, rows of spears stood so tall they were nearly piercing the ceiling and there was even a small fire under a chimney, the warmth of the flames giving Rosamund a sudden unexpected sense of safety. “You’re getting a sword?” she asked Dorian excitedly as he closed the door behind him.
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“I’m getting you a weapon,” He answered dryly. “That much is accurate.” He walked with a stride to the bearded blacksmith’s desk. Iron shields hung on the wall behind him, yet the smith did not seem as excited by everything as Rosamund was. He looked up at Dorian in disinterest, maybe even mild annoyance. As he slipped the shrewd smith a handful of silver coins, something else caught Rosamund’s interest, becoming transfixed by a long steel great sword being held by an empty suit of bronze-plated armour. She glided over to the hulking steel and lightly traced her finger across the cold edges of the blade. She felt a sudden sting erupt from her forefinger and saw red water trickling from the top of it.
“Cleo, over here!” Dorian beckoned in his knightly voice.
She obeyed and went back to Dorian who was hiding something behind his back. He looked down at her hand and raised an auburn eyebrow. “That’s what happens when you start taking an interest in sharp objects.”
“How do I stop it?” she asked, surprised by her own indifference.
“Use the handkerchief I gave you and wrap it around your finger.”
She complied, but when she struggled to tie it in a knot, Dorian helped her tighten the hold with his thick-gloved hands.
“Did you get what you came for?” she asked innocently.
“Yes, but it’s not for me.”
Rosamund’s eyes went wide with glee. “You did get me a great sword?” she asked in excitement.
“Not quite, but it’s certainly close.” He revealed what he was holding behind his back. It was a short black stick.
Her disappointment was impossible to hide. “Oh…”
“It’s a blackjack,” Dorian said with enthusiasm. “The other night’s events have made it clear enough. You need to start learning how to defend yourself. Just like your father and fearsome late mother.”
“They used a stick in battle?”
Dorian frowned. “I know it’s not exactly a battle-axe, but it’s a start and good for self-defence.” He held the stick out to her with his gloved hands, and she reluctantly accepted it. “That and you can’t accidentally poke your eye out with it and get me in trouble with Lady Aubrey.”
“Will this defend me from an assassin?” she asked dubiously.
“If I were an assassin, and I saw you holding that I would most surely wet my breeches and flee. Now let’s return to the palace before your kingly father, or worse, Lady Aubrey, finds out you’re gone.”
They went down narrower alleyways this time. Dorian had told her that it was a shortcut to get to the carriage faster, but Rosamund was simply happy they didn’t have to face the large overbearing crowds of loud and angry people. The sun was shining, and she felt safer despite what her father and Ana had told her about going into the city’s ominous backstreets. Rosamund saw a blind woman in rags sitting cross-legged against the wall. “Some coin for a lowly blind lady?” she meekly begged with a scrawny tabby cat cradled in her lap. Rosamund reached into her pockets but instantly remembered she was still wearing her gold dress under her cloak and hood. Dorian dropped some Denarii into the wooden bowl beside the beggar. “Bless you, sir,” she murmured sadly as they walked past her. Rosamund gave her a longing look. Why does father allow this to happen to people?
The alleyway began to widen and, with it, crossing pathways began to emerge. Rosamund found the lack of other people reassuring until she heard a call from behind them. The Merchant from earlier was walking towards them, a purple bulge now on the side of his large bald head. He wasn’t approaching them alone. Three bulky men in stained tunics and leather coifs led a vanguard in front of him. “Aye, that’s the bastard,” the ugly Merchant called out to his hired help.
“Cleo,” Dorian said calmly, “kindly lend me your blackjack for a moment, would you?”
She complied, sensing the foreboding nature of the situation. She struggled to breathe again. The three men advanced closer towards Dorian, but he just stood there and smiled at them, secreting the blackjack behind his back. “Gentlemen,” he said with feigned etiquette, “there must be some sort of misunderstanding. You’re after the wrong man; you see, I don’t pick on little peasant girls.” He pointed behind them at the Merchant. This only further enraged the giant, purple-faced man.
“Break his arms!” the large man croaked, his face turning into a mixture of both purple and red.
The first hired hand swung, but Dorian dodged it with elegance, parrying the hit by countering the hired hand’s arm with the blackjack. His arm made a crunching sound, and the man screeched in pain and cradled his arm against the wall. The second of the Merchant’s men charged with a club but Dorian whacked it away, the club and the blackjack making a strangely satisfying clanking sound. Dorian grabbed the man by the shoulders and head-butted him. The man stood back, looking dazed and meandering in a circle, losing his balance. Dorian pushed him with both his arms and the hired hand toppled over. The third and final hand tried sneaking from behind with an empty bottle of mead, but Dorian had clearly anticipated this long before as he grabbed onto the bottle-wielder without turning his head back and pulled the arm towards him and over his shoulder. He twisted it and the bottle dropped and smashed into the brown puddle of mud below their feet. Dorian then head-butted his opponent with the back of his head. The man stood back; hand clasped over his nose. He moaned petulantly and hobbled away. Dorian tackled him to the ground and rained down repeated punches. At first, Rosamund was in awe of his skill, but the more he beat the man, the more nervous she began to feel. She saw that the big Merchant in the distance had already fled.
It was all interrupted when she heard an onslaught of running footsteps. She thought for a panicked moment that it was a horse carriage storming down the alleyways but instead; she saw that it was far worse. It was Ana and her Alchemist friend with the spectacles. Behind them was half a dozen of the Palace Guard, each of them in their full jade and black armour and carrying diamond-encrusted spears. The palace guards surrounded Dorian as he was still hunched over the henchmen, fist still raised in the air. He stopped, still as a statue. He looked up at Ana with a charming grin. “In my defence, they started it.”
The Palace Guards grabbed Dorian by the shoulders and pulled him up, restraining him forcefully. Ana hugged Rosamund, which she found strange. “I’m so glad you’re safe,” she said tentatively.
“It’s okay, I wanted to leave the Palace. Dorian bought me a blackjack.” Rosamund picked it up from the cobblestones and presented it to the Arch-Alchemist proudly.
Ana let go of her, appearing most unimpressed with Rosamund’s gift. The Arch-Alchemist then turned her attention to Dorian, who was still wedged between the two green guardsmen. “Oh, he did, did he?”
Dorian grinned half-heartedly and shrugged.
“Let go of him, for goodness’ sake,” she ordered tersely. The Palace Guards obeyed.
Anastasia stormed up to him and flicked her finger mere inches from his face. “You took the Princess out of the palace and endangered her. If I didn’t already know that you were an idiot, we might have had cause to view this as a treasonous crime.”
“Do accept my most humble forgiveness for allowing her to see the outside world for a change,” the Knight retorted.
Ana’s eyes widened, flames brewing within them, which Rosamund did not understand because Dorian was apologising. “She does go outside, but in safer places than some forsaken pigsty!”
The alchemist, Hideo, with the green gloves and spectacles emerged between the two of them. “Please Sir Dorian, My Lady, fighting in front of her is hardly helping.”
Dorian lightly pushed the Alchemist back and observed the timid-looking man. “Ah, you must be Anastasia’s new little helper. Rather bookish looking and with the posture of a broken chair. You definitely do not defy my expectations.”
Ana slapped Dorian. “You have a quarrel with me, not Hideo. Leave him out of it. We can discuss this when we return to the palace and be grateful you are not in irons. You can ride in a separate carriage for us. You’ve been a bad enough influence on the Princess today.”
Dorian kept his grin, but Rosamund didn’t like the look in his eyes. He raised his arm towards the alleyway’s exit. “My Lady,” he gestured coldly.
Rosamund stared out from the riding carriage window to give the city streets one last, long, lingering look. When she glanced up to admire the tall towers of Dorfchester, she saw someone standing atop one of the churches in the distance, observing her from beside a pillar. The figure wore a smiling demonic mask with razor-sharp teeth. He raised a finger to his iron lips. Rosamund looked at Ana, but she was sound asleep. She tried nudging her to no avail. When she looked back, the smiling demon was no longer there. The rest of the journey was long and cold.