Ruins of Camelot (21 page)

Sigrid's frown deepened as the weight of the Princess's request settled over her.  "You believe that those in the caravan will die," she breathed.  "The King and all who accompany him.  But… you cannot…"

"Please, Sigrid," Gabriella begged.  "There is no time.  You must leave tonight!"

"But this is madness!" Sigrid whispered, throwing off her covers and lowering her feet to the floor.  "What are you planning to do?  If I did not know better, I would fear that you were setting off on an errand of doomed vengeance!  You cannot possibly…"

Gabriella's face darkened.  She rose up to her full height and took a step back.

Sigrid's face paled, even in the darkness.  "This is insanity!" she rasped.  "Princess, I refuse to… I… I forbid this!"

Gabriella couldn't help it.  She smiled in spite of everything.  "Oh, dear Sigrid, I do so love you."

"Stop this," Sigrid said firmly, standing and approaching the Princess.  "Please, Gabriella!  Your baby needs you!"

"It is for his sake that I take my leave, Sigrid," Gabriella insisted gravely, meeting the older woman's eyes in the darkness.  "His and everyone else's.  But you
must
go tonight.  Take the Little Prince and Treynor. 
You will need to find a wet nurse as well, but you must hurry. 
Fly to Amaranth and hide.  I will find you there when I am through, if I can."

"And if you cannot?" Sigrid demanded hoarsely.  "What then?"

"Then you must raise him," Gabriella answered.  "
You
must be his mother, just as you were mine when all was said and done.  Keep his lineage a secret.  Let no one know that he is the last of the line of the royalty of Camelot.  For his own safety.  Promise me, Sigrid."

Sigrid chewed her own lips miserably.  She shook her head.  "I cannot, Princess," she replied miserably, reaching for her.  "It is too much.  It is not mine—"

"
Promise me!
" Gabriella hissed, grabbing the woman's hands.  "You are the only person I can trust!"

Sigrid shook her head, lowering her eyes.  Then, with an apparent force of will, she drew a deep breath.  Without raising her head, she nodded.  "I will do what I can, Princess.  For your sake and that of the Prince."

"Thank you," Gabriella breathed, letting go of Sigrid's hands.  "Thank you."

"Where are you going?" Sigrid asked in a low voice.  "Tell me that much."

Gabriella stopped as she turned towards the door.  "Before he left, my husband told me," she answered faintly, "that the people needed a hero."

The gravity of her words hung in the air like the toll of a bell.  Finally, she moved.  She approached the door.  Without looking back, she slipped out.

She made it halfway down the stairs, clanking faintly in her gold and steel armour, carrying only a thin rucksack of supplies and clothing, before she heard the door open above her.  She stopped, one hand on the banister, and looked up.

Sigrid peered down at her, her face set into a grim line of resolve.  Slowly, she drew a deep breath and opened her mouth.

"
Guaaarrds!
" she shouted, putting everything she could behind it, so that her voice cracked with the effort.  "Guards!  The Princess is in danger!  Come now! 
NOW!
"

Gabriella paused for barely a second.  In the next, she was bolting down the stairs, cursing urgently under her breath.  Sigrid continued to shout her alarm.  Behind her, echoing distantly, the Little Prince's wakened cries joined the fracas.

Gabriella darted beneath the stairs, through the vestibule, and down a narrow hall.  There were no guards in the kitchen, and the servants' doors were propped wide open, surrounded by trunks of food, prepared for the journey.  Cold air pushed in, filled with the whisper of night.

"Who goes there?" someone shouted suddenly, unseen, as Gabriella bolted out into the rear courtyard.  "Who is it, I say?  Guards!"

Behind her, lights began to glow in the castle windows.  Gabriella tried not to look back.  The stables loomed before her, smelling of hay and horse dung.  She ran in through the main door and stopped, panting.  No lanterns were lit inside.

"The Princess is missing!" someone shouted nearby, their voice echoing in the courtyard.

"Here!" another voice cried.  "I just saw someone run past, leaving the castle!  An intruder!"

"This way!"

"Search the stables but beware ambush!  It may be that the villains are already amongst us!"

Two soldiers ran towards the stable doors, taking up position on either side.  They drew their swords cautiously.

"On my mark," the one on the left growled, nodding towards the entrance.  "One… two…"

A horse exploded through the open door, already in full gallop.  Its rider crouched low on the mount, riding expertly if desperately, visible as nothing more than a dark shape and a snapping cloak.  In a matter of seconds, the horse and its rider sped towards the courtyard gates, left open in preparation for tomorrow's journey, and vanished into the dark streets.

"Follow!" the first guard commanded loudly.  "Search the city!  The Princess's very life may be at stake!"

But it was too late, and the remaining guards knew it.  By the time they mounted their own horses, the intruder—whoever it had been—would be long gone.

Careening through the silent mist of the city streets, Gabriella clung desperately to the reins.  Her armour clanked and lurched on her body as her horse galloped on, baring its teeth, its eyes rolling wildly at the moon.

G
abriella rode through the remainder of the night, turning west, away from the thoroughfare, and navigating by the great northern star.  After her initial, thunderous rush, she was soon reduced to a careful cantor along wandering paths, deer trails, and even through unmarked forest.  The night air was cold, drying her sweat and reducing her to shivers as she rode onwards, still unsure exactly where she was going or how she would get there.  She only knew for certain that she had to maintain a westerly course—the direction from which the Army remnant had returned.

Eventually, as the sky began to grow faint, rimmed with pearly pink light beyond the trees, Gabriella stopped.  She was exhausted, both from lack of sleep and her lengthy ride.  She slid from her mount, patting his flank wearily, and tossed the reins over a branch.  Her legs trembled beneath her, and her middle ached abominably from the abuse of the ride so soon after the rigours of childbirth.

After tending to her horse, she opened her light pack, unrolled a blanket onto the dewy ground, and fell upon it as dead.  After a minute, she rolled over onto her back and stared up at the pinking sky, seen through a lace of branches and dwindling leaves.

A little sleep,
she promised herself. 
Just a few hours.  That's all I can afford.  I have to hurry if I am to get there in time…

But even as she thought these things, despite the lumpy coldness of the ground and the dew that dripped all around, her eyes drifted shut.

The pink rim of the horizon brightened, spread, and then grew brilliant with the revelation of the rising sun.  The dew sparkled on the weeds and dripping dead leaves.  Soon, the air began to warm, and the dew turned to mist.  In the trees, the birds began to chorus, first as a twitter, and then a chattering cacophony.

A scuffling sound arose from the weeds near Gabriella.  A drift of dead leaves fell apart as a nose emerged, sleek and red, whiskers twitching, followed by the black eyes of a female fox.  The vixen spied the sleeping human some distance away and whined to herself.  After some secret inner struggle, she leapt nimbly out of the pile of leaves, her black-gloved feet making no noise on the grass, and circled cautiously closer, alternately growling and whining softly.  She raised her head, spied a tiny glitter of green, and became silent.  The glitter came from the shadows near the throat of the sleeping human.

More confidently now, the vixen approached.  She stopped near Gabriella's head, sniffed her hair and cheek.  Apparently satisfied, she perked up her ears and looked around, her bright eyes scanning the misty valley.  Finally, neatly, she lay down, curling herself around Gabriella's head and tucking her tail under the young woman's chin, where it met the fox's black nose.  The vixen drew a deep breath and snuffled as she let out it, relaxing in the climbing sun.

The day began.  Beneath it, helplessly and fitfully, accompanied by her strange companion, Gabriella slept.

When she awoke, the sun was a huge, golden ball, halfway between the horizon and the sapphire dome of the sky.

She was sore and stiff but instantly roused herself, forcing herself upright and rolling up her blanket.  Strange dreams still clouded her thoughts, weird visions of Darrick and the Little Prince, Sigrid screaming for the guards, herself being caught by them and dragged along to Herrengard, where death awaited them all.  Even stranger, she recalled dreams of being watched in her sleep, as if all sorts of creatures, from scuttling spiders to great forest beasts, had crept past her, dipping their own wild thoughts into her sleeping mind.  Impatiently, she shook herself, clearing her head and preparing for the day.

She was ravenously hungry, and she ached for a hot bath, and more than anything, she felt a deep, urgent fear that it was already too late, that her journey was already doomed.

"Stop it," she admonished herself under her breath, stuffing her blanket into her pack and digging out a hunk of bread.  "Just keep moving.  Nothing else matters."

Her pack was exceedingly light, filled only a small gather of stores from the castle kitchen, a flint, a flask, and a few coins.  She dug near the bottom, seeking a bit of leather strap for her hair, and saw a heavy lump, wrapped in cloth.  It touched her hand, and she withdrew the object, sighing.

This, of course, had not come from the castle kitchen.  It had come from the academy cathedral.  She had gone there to retrieve it the night before, after packing the rest of her meagre provisions but before donning her armour and going to wake Sigrid.  It was, of course, Darrick's candle, taken from his family's vault in the transept gallery.  She felt its small, dense weight, considered unwrapping it for just a moment, and then rejected the idea.  She was in a hurry after all.  It was good enough just to know that it was there, accompanying her, even if it really was just a symbol.  She replaced the wrapped candle in her pack and cinched the knot tight.

And yet that sense of creeping unease only grew.  Finally, as she stood and shouldered her pack, cocking her head to listen for the sound of the stream that she knew was nearby, she realised what it was.