Le Morte D'Ardour: Chapter Three

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

CHAPTER THREE

The thorns were out in full force. There were days when the pain fell back and was manageable. Never truly gone, the hints of it stirring about her, but manageable.

 And there were days when it was like her insides were cut open and all her strength was left to bleed out. For days like those she had the cane.

For nights there was the tincture.

One sip and her thoughts would soften and the world blur and the pain would just go away.

That bottle stood in its place on the nightstand. She couldn’t help but eye it from her seat by the fireplace.

As much as it helped she couldn’t help but hate that bottle just a bit. She was herself, pain and all, and the tincture turned her into nothing but fraying cotton.

She tore her eyes away from it and looked at the book in her lap.

It was some fictionalized history of a hundred years’ dead king and all his conquests. She was nearing the climax of the account, where the king rallied his troops with an obviously embellished speech. Seriously, who would write something like:

“We lay our lives on the line today, we face off against impossible odds with sword in hand, and we must say to ourselves, we will not die easy, no, we will die-“

“Hard luck for ya!” crowed Luca as he brought his white bishop to corner the black king, “That’s checkmate.”

Marie cursed but paled when she caught Reserve’s amused look in her direction, “Excuse my crudeness, your highness! I, um, get quite invested and…”

Reserve could only sigh. Marie was always so nervous around making the wrong move. The princess couldn’t help but blame that on her family and the attention they paid to proper things and proper ways. She, being so improper, could wave it off, “You’re fine, you’re fine, I’d hate to lose to Luca.”

Luca chuckled and leaned back in his stool, taking a swig of his flask. Marie had only allowed him to take his drink into the room only if she let him braid back his shaggy mane. He’d argued mightily against that condition.

He adjusted the woven plait that fell over his shoulder and looked to Reserve, “Do ye now? Want to try and score a victory then? Might cheer ya up!” he asked, patting the edge of the chessboard.

She just shook her head, “My head’s not for tactics tonight, I don’t think. Apologies.”

Luca shrugged and turned to Marie, “Rematch, then?”

Marie began to agree but drew herself up short, “No, no, of course not, I have the princess to attend to.” And she stood up and went over to the fireplace, where she drew out the tub that sat over the fire. The water steamed slightly. Reserve sighed happily at the sight. It was always good to give her feet a long hot soak. She began to slip off her shoes when Marie raised a hand to stop her short, “One moment, your highness.” She looked to Luca and crooked a thumb towards the door, “Out.”

Luca snorted, “What, again, it’s just her feet, why-“

Reserve would have voiced her agreement, but Marie cut in, “It isn’t proper. Out. You have a good seat outside the door, which is where your post actually is.”

Luca got up, cracking out his spine, “Alright, alright. Have a good night, your Highness.”

“You as well, Luca.”

He grumbled a bit at that and stepped out the door, tugging at his braid as he left.

Marie shook her head and began to pull off Reserve’s shoes and socks, “I swear, that man drives me up the wall sometimes.”

“He could have stayed. He was right, it’s just feet,” she said as she brought her feet down into the blissful heat of the water. She exhaled and felt all the tension and pain being tamped down by the relief she felt in her legs.

Marie groaned, “Not you too. You’re twenty, your Highness, and some men will take any opportunity to stare.”

“Luca’s not like that, you know it. He’s practically my grandfather. And again, just feet. I don’t think men desire feet.”

Marie just gave a small sigh, “Men’ll desire anything on a woman.”

“Ladies will too.”

Marie managed not to be taken aback at that, squeaking only a little, “Well yes but-“

The door burst open.

Marie brought her head to yell at Luca and drew up short when she saw that he wasn’t alone. A young man with chestnut hair stood in front of him, red faced and out of breath.

“Your Highness, the nobles have been taken hostage.”

-

Murray, as he’d introduced himself hastily, had tried to say as much as he could with far too little air to say it.  Despite that Reserve got the basic gist. Prince looking to expand his lands, conspiracy of nobles, her family captured, guards taken out.

That last one was a point of more stress for her than she let show. Was she okay? Was she safe? She was careful, Reserve knew, and methodical but what if…

No, she couldn’t let herself think that. And besides, her family was in danger. That was a point of anxiety as well, most definitely. She knew how these situations went. She knew how much their deaths might benefit the usurper. How much her own would too. Never mind the regent who, as she understood it, had been working with the aim of not having his life endangered.

In Luca’s own words, well hard luck for him.

Murray was still talking, she had to listen, “…and the guard, uh, Sam, asked me to come here and get you to the back lot.” That drew Reserve up short. This was Sam’s doing?

Marie was rushing around the room, packing all of the necessities into a satchel and swearing at Luca as he tried, ineffectually, to help.

“No, not that, get the other cloak, the green one-“

Reserve had lifted her feet from the tub and was wiping them dry, so she took the moment to ask, “Sam? Dark and curling hair, tall?”

Murray had stopped rambling, “Oh, yes. Um-“ He seemed to want to say something more when Marie shoved the satchel towards him and ran over to kneel by Reserve, who had moved herself off into a corner to be less of an obstruction.

Clutched in the maid’s hand was a pair of soft cloth slippers, which she bodily shoved onto Reserve’s feet and drew her up roughly, “Greatest apologies, your Highness, but we must be hurrying. No doubt they’ll have sent people.”

Marie rushed into the closet, rifling through it for necessities and travelling clothes.

She was right. It was important they leave as soon as possible. Her life perhaps still had some value to the attackers. The value the lives of Luca, Marie and Murray had to them she feared was too small to risk them being caught.

She took her cane from where it leaned against the wall. It was solid, blue-lacquered wood, with a finecarven handle and a tapered point that didn’t slip or skip when struck into the floor. Hefty too, the handle wide and built to hold her weight if the pain got to be too much and she was at danger of falling to the ground.

Luca was hovering oddly around her, and she just stared him down, “I won’t need your help down the stairs.”

“But, ah, yer pain, Highness, uh,” he mumbled, unsure what to do with his hands as they hovered about him.

“I can manage a brisk descent, even if I’ll resent it tomorrow morning. I do not need to be carried, thank you very much.”

Marie had gotten two travelling cloaks and had thrown one onto Reserve’s shoulders. She then set to commanding Murray and Luca to gather up the satchels she’d packed.

Reserve, not wanting to slow them down, set towards the exit, “I’ll wait for you at the bottom of the stairs.”

She took the stairs two at a time, bracing herself with the cane where the steps got too narrow or whenever the pain flared up.

Upon reaching the bottom, she leaned back against the wall and waited for the others, keeping an ear out for approaching footsteps with murderous intent.

Murray scurried out of the stairwell, hefting a bag, and almost went over to stand by Reserve before he froze up.

She was about to ask him if she was really so intimidating before he reached into his pocket and pulled out a letter.

“For you, your highness,” he said, proffering it.

It was a cream envelope. It was oddly creased and flattened in places. She was going to ask him just what it was before Marie emerged, Luca following after her, both of them hefting large bags.

“Come on then, we can’t tarry!” Murray set into a half run and Reserve tucked away the letter and moved to follow, before Marie tapped her on the shoulder.

She turned and the woman was holding something out to her. The damned bottle.

The princess sighed and took it, “Thank you.”

And then she set off after Murray, quickly outpacing him, and Luca and Marie could only follow.

-

They ran through the twists and turns of the castle’s innards. Reserve was crossing an intersection, which had left her perhaps too open.

Voices came thundering down the hall.

“There she is, halt! Halt!”

Murray pulled up just short of knocking into Reserve. She just stood there, staring at the men. Then she turned back, “Run! Take the roundabout way, Murray, you’ll know, go!”

The old guard and her maid promptly turned and ran back the way they had come and Murray was making his way after them when he realized, before turning a corner, that he heard a distinct lack of steps behind him.

He looked back, Reserve was half-jogging in the other direction.

He did not call. He simply looked at her, dumbfounded

Reserve glanced back, shouted, “Go! Now!”

She kept on in the opposite direction.

The implication was clear. She’d be pursued. They wouldn’t be.

She went her way.

Murray could only go his.

-

She knew every turn she had to take. When she turned left she was already preparing to turn right, to cut a sharp corner and then sprint through that one hallway with all the armor that was more gild than steel.

She’d kicked off her slippers into a side corridor. The material slipped against the polished floors and they were not made to run in. She took the floor barefoot, thoughts of blisters and Marie’s thoughts on properness far, far away.

She came to the hall’s end and through the door and into a round chamber and would have gone through the door opposite when something in her lower half buckled and her legs gave out.

She lost her grip on the cane and it slipped out of her hand as she fell to the ground. The floor was tile, fucking tile, and the thorns sharpened with the flash of pain as she slammed into it.

The pain turned the world to white and red and silver and yellow. The yellow, she realized when she could open her eyes through the pain, was the harsh light of the candles burning in their sconces. Her cane had clattered across the floor until it came to a stop, still rolling  back and forth and back.

She felt chewed up and hammered and torn into pieces and the pain wasn’t going away.

She was still intact and with all the aches and pains that that entailed.

Reserve got her feet under her and half crawled, half hopped towards the wall.

She pushed herself up and set her back flush with the wall, the knobby balls of her spine aligning with the solid wall. She reached out a toe and dragged the cane to herself, setting it in her lap. Then she looked to the exit. They would have lost her but they had numbers and that meant they could split up. Enough small groups actively searching would eventually happen across her.

But the nobles being occupied with the search would mean that Marie and Luca and Murray would make it. They likely had already. She had to hope they had, that they hadn’t been caught or worse. Otherwise, what was this bold and utterly stupid move of hers worth?

Other than the pain it had incited, which thrashed in her ribcage.

That could be dealt with. She felt around in her pocket. There it was, the tincture in its horrible glass bottle, just sitting there. She could open it, gulp it down, let the nobles find her, be dragged to the ballroom and become a hostage. And the pain would be gone.

But no, she thought, her giving away her senses was giving away too much. She could surrender but she would do it with a clear head.

And the pain she could handle the usual way.

She stabbed the cane into the floor and levered herself up. Her bones creaked and the pain rose up like a tide or a retch. She swayed and let that motion become a step, then a second.

A third.

A fourth.

She was hurting but she was also moving and even if that did nothing for the hurt, it still helped.

She pushed the bottle back into the pocket and felt her hand brush paper. Oh of course. The letter Murray had handed her. She hadn’t even wondered at what it was. Was it from him? That would be odd, since the plan as it was would have had them in proximity for the foreseeable future and anything he wanted to say he could have said, but not out of the question.

She wasn’t entirely sure it would hold anything helpful but the fact of the matter was that it was something to do and she was waiting for what might be her executors and any task was better than mulling over that.

So, she unfolded the note and began to read:

Reserve,

This was already odd, the boy’s countenance hadn’t been the kind to ever omit the title from the name of a noble. And the handwriting was odd, so she stopped below one of the sconces and let the light shine down on the paper.

The words were written in blue ink and that led her to remember.

“Blue?”

“I know, such an odd color choice, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know, I like it.”

“Keep it then.”

“Wait, hold on, I shouldn’t-“

“I received far too many gifts of ink, they must think I take after Wisdom which is-“

“Not at all accurate?”

“Well now you didn’t need to agree with my point that quickly but yes-”

And things then made all the sense in the world and none at all and her breath caught and Reserve could only read.

I don’t think it’s likely you’ll ever actually read this. I’m writing this more to make sense of…well a lot of things that I’m feeling. So this letter’s for me foremost and for you second. This’ll be odd if you ever do get your hands on this, especially with what I have to say.

You matter to me. You are a dear friend and I care for you.

And I fear I care for you too much.

I care beyond my station, care beyond the limits of my heart. You burn with fervor and confidence. You act and I have no choice but to react. You’re quick and sharp and you leave me reeling and scrambling to keep up. Since we met, since you ran and I pursued, I feel I’ve been at your heels ever since.

You’re driven and you’re assured and you are so damn pretty. I feel I play at being your equal at times: I teach you to defend yourself and talk about the petty, unimportant crap with you and just act like you’re my friend and I’m yours. And every step of the way you treat me like all I am is worth as much everything you are.

I don’t know if I’m kidding myself, to think a princess would truly hold me close to her heart, but I do love being the fool. It makes me so happy to be your friend and your companion. You show me your strength. You are honest and I feel I just have to be honest back and this letter is me acting on that thought.

We met when I chased you yet and met more properly when I stopped, yet all the time we knew each other, I feel like I’ve been running the entire time.

There is so much I feel for you but at its core is how much I adore you and it all feels like too much and too little to share.

So if you’re reading this, then either I’m an idiot to risk a wonderful friendship or you found it among my personal effects and I am gone. But whatever the reason, I can say you matter to me.

For whatever reason you got to read this, you now have. And there is so much more to say that I can’t because the page is only so big and if I gave myself too much space to write I’d fill it all. That doesn’t make much sense, seeing it written down, but not much does, when it comes to you.

Yours,

Sameera

Oh. Oh this letter was…

This was her writing. This was…

Oh that damn woman.

She didn’t expect to survive.

She expected to die and she intended to begin and end the conversation about her, quite frankly surprising, feelings and this letter would be her final word on the matter?

No.

No doubt Sam was going to do something stupid and brave and heroic.

She would be the hero and by her actions she would either save all the nobles or just Reserve but she was still in such danger

And if the nobles took Reserve, she’d be helpless, guarded and held back and forced to watch as Sam spent everything of herself to save her. Her arriving in chains would only make Sam all the quicker to risk herself.

Never mind that the letter made the princess blush from the roots of her hair to tips of her toes. Never mind that each word had shocked and warmed and soothed her every aching and trembling nerve. Never mind that a door had been opened in her heart and she felt every ounce of feeling she possessed for Sam well up.

She paced the round room. She had run far and she could swear she heard the approaching steps even now. No, she thought, she was actually hearing that, and her troubles grew.

Reserve knew everything that was going to happen and the damned light still gave her a headache. She blew it out, taking her petty vengeance.

The room was a touch darker.

She carried on, still pacing the perimeter perfectly.

After all, she thought wonderingly, she knew it by heart.

It took four more breaths for darkness to claim the room.

-

What most people don’t tell you about the thrill of the hunt is that it fades when you realize you have better things to do than chase something to its inevitable capture. Lord Hartmoor found that after quite a bit of pursuit and failing to immediately catch the damn princess, he found himself missing the refreshment laden trays of the ballroom. And then Richard had had them split up and Hartmoor found himself alongside two other men, surveying corridor after corridor. He was glad he’d worn his good boots. They were of fine leather and soft on his feet with a steady heel.

 But then they heard it. A subtle tapping coming from the next room.

They raised their swords. They were told not to harm the princess nor commit any sort of indignities upon her person and they would keep to that command, as they remained gentlemen, but if she tried to run – keyword being on tried, one of his men said through his snickering – then surely just a touch of blood would have to be spilled.

Hartmoor took the lead, ducking through the half open door into a surprisingly dark space.

His companions followed and made similar remarks.

“Would’ve thought that they’d have kept their estate in better shape,” one said, feeling out for the wall.

“Just goes to show,” said the other, “There’s a good reason we’re doing this. A proper ruler keeps his house and servants in order.”

Hartmoor cleared his throat, “Come on out then, princess. We know you’re-“

And then something creaked and the dark deepened.

“Did one of you bastards close the door?” he asked, entirely unamused.

“You could say that.”

That was when something blunt and heavy hit him across the back of the head.

-

The cane connected nicely with the man’s skull, sending him swinging forward. He caught himself only just, rocking on the balls of his feet. Reserve drew her cane back, grabbed it with her other hand and slammed the point right between his shoulder blades.

With his balance thrown off and his senses still reeling from the first blow, that jab sent him stumbling forward.

With each step he tried to catch himself and each time he failed to do anything other than keep going.

He’d whipped his arms forward, conscious enough despite the blow to try and catch himself against some surface.

Unfortunately, said surface ended up being the noble in whose direction he’d been bodily shoved, judging from the clatter and swearing that came from that side of the room.

Reserve knew enough from her training with Sam to keep moving and tarry. She sidled against the wall, keeping an ear sharp.

She heard a rapid series of steps as the one noble still on his feet turned about, trying to figure out what was going on.

“What is going-are you lads alright, where-“

The rough silhouette of him, dark on dark, gave her enough of a target. She brought her knee up and slammed it into his stomach. She’d have aimed lower, but she’d heard from Sam that codpieces were all the rage these days. The jokes had been crude, yet informative.

Reserve brought her knee back down, wincing at the blossom of pain in her hip joint, and side stepped around the man’s side. Holding her cane in a two handed grip, she brought the broad end into the man’s temple, bringing him down.

Heels clicked on floor behind her. She could still hear the groaning of the man she’d first shoved from the other side of the room.

So this must have been the man back on his feet. She thrust the cane’s point through the darkness, aiming for where she judged his neck would be.

But then it stopped in mid-air with a jolt that ran through her arms and shoulders. The damned man had caught it. She felt a sharp tug and couldn’t let go in time before she was sent stumbling in his direction. She could see the shadow of his arm, bringing up the pommel of his sword.

A single strike to the temple and that’d be it for her.

She’d put up a fight for nothing. She should have just stayed on the floor. She should have surrendered.

She should have just taken the….huh, she thought.

She let go of the cane and let herself fall.

She came down on her hands and a single knee, the cracking impact lancing into her bones. It was agony.

She bore it, teeth gritted.

The noble, fortunately, had just as hard a time of it, as his pommel met empty air and he overextended, shifting his weight too far to one side.

And where the cane had once had a counterweight in the form of one princess, the noble was now pulling back on far less weight than he expected.

Combine the two and you had a man wildly swinging about, his balance thrown off entirely.

Reserve pulled herself upright and reached into her dress pocket.

The man turned just as a small something whipped through the air and cracked against his face, a flower of glass and stinging wetness blooming across it.

The sword and cane clattered to the ground. She kicked the first to the side and reached down to get the second.

The man was clawing at his face. Still low to the ground, Reserve swept the length of the cane at his ankles.

The man and the floor were already having some disagreements and this brought them to a clash. He slammed into the tiles and all the air left him.

Reserve stood up and poked him in the head to make sure he was down, “Now. Now you know what’s like.”

All he managed in protest was a grunt.

And she could finally breathe out the air she’d been holding in through the whole melee.

She listened closely. No one was stirring and she had a chance to get a read of the situation.

She reached out and opened the door.

The light of the hallway washed across the room and she could see the melee’s aftermath clear as day.

The first man had a nasty bruise across his face and by his eyes looked entirely out of it.

The second was slumped up against the wall he’d been shoved into face-first, his nose bleeding profusely.

The third was trying to get up but couldn’t quite manage the trick of moving his limbs.

That’s the lesson Reserve’s life had taught her. Impacts with solid surfaces suck.

The nobles had had a quick education and were visibly in quite a bit of pain from their lessons. As was Reserve, her muscles sore from the all the moving about and definitely not helped by the fall, however intentional it might have been.

 Unlike them, though, she was on her feet.

She walked the room, cane at the ready if one suddenly got second wind and made a move, and looked over their gera.

They’d brought rope and what they had on them was enough to bind their hands and feet in tight holds. All of Grace’s lessons in hair braiding and Marie’s in dress tying came in handy here.

While she was working on the bindings of the man she had taken out first, he had finally gained enough of his wits back to speak, if only, “Look atcha. You can, urgh, you can put up a fight.”

She was silent, focused on the knot. Did she have to bring over the bridge or under the bridge? What was the bridge even? Was it the first knot or a second loop?

He kept talking, “There’s a good two dozen of us, and the prince ain’t a slouch when it comes to fighting either. Not a chance in hell for you, a broken girl.”

She replied, “Twenty one.”

“Wha?”

“There’s twenty one now. Discounting you.”

He quieted at that.

She straightened up, looking at the men. That’d have to be enough for now. They were as tied up as she could manage.

She looked over what she had taken from them. Swords, which were a touch too heavy and besides, Sam – Sam, who’d always taught her with such fondness and respect and how could she not have realized, no now was not the time – Sam’d never taught her to fight with a sword. She shoved the swords into the hall, out of reach, and did the same with the knives. She kept a dagger though, just in case. A weapon was a weapon.

And one more thing, she thought.

-

She thought of her family as she walked the corridor that led out of that room. Thought of the nobility, trapped and endangered.

The guards.

One guard in particular who thought she could just have off a letter full of honesty and affection passed off and then go spend her life being a great damn hero and that would be the end of it.

No, they were going to talk about that letter.

But there were a lot of things in the way.

So:

Twenty two nobles who at best wanted her chained, at worst dead.

The guards were indisposed.

Her family held hostage, their lives up in the air as well.

Sam, someone…really difficult to classify right now, was probably going to do something stupid.

All that against a princess with a cane and a chest full of thorns and a mighty will.

Not great odds.

But she’d taken something else from one of the nobles. Not a singing sword or a magic suit of armor or, hah, a magic potion. But something she was glad for nevertheless.

The noble’s boots had fit perfectly.

She was already trapped in a castle with enemies on all sides.

Being barefoot through the ordeal to come?

It would have just been unfair.