Once Upon a Romance 03 - With True Love's Kiss (5 page)

“No, Bianca.”
Isabelle wouldn’t let the girl protest. “You will never make it if you are
burdened by me. The only thing we can do together is die.” She turned slightly,
wincing as her back pulled, but moving enough so that she could see Bianca and
cup the girl’s face in her hand. “You can still make it. You can carry my love
to Vivienne and Regal. You can, and you must.”

Robin looked
at the queen, as she struggled against her tears. This was the kind of bravery
sung of by the great bards. To willingly embrace your death, so that another
might live, was honorable and right. It was what he had been taught, and always
believed.

Why, then,
did it feel so wrong?

He spoke
words of comfort, while he struggled with his thoughts. “You are brave,
Isabelle.”

She smiled
up at him. “Hardly. I think you will find, Robin, that love is a substitute for
many emotions. I’m not brave. But I will help Bianca to safety, whatever it
takes.”

Bianca
choked back a sob, and something in the sound brought an idea forth in Robin’s
head.

“No.”

“What?” Both
women spoke as one, looking at him with startled eyes.

“We are not
leaving you here. Bianca, get on your horse. Isabelle,” he grabbed her blankets
and wrapped them around her, before swinging her into his arms, “with your
permission.”

Bianca
grabbed her satchel, and then scrambled up on her mount, while Robin gently
lifted Isabelle onto his own horse and vaulted up behind her. He turned them
back the way they had come, until they found the small stream at the foot of
the hill. Then he urged their horses into the water, and they splashed along
upstream, sending cold water flying into the air in a fine spray. Bianca was
keeping up, so he picked up the pace, taking a chance among the slippery river
rocks, letting the horses gallop along on the uncertain footing. The cave was
near. He could feel it. And while Merriweather had said they couldn’t go into
the mists, she’d never said a thing about the cave.

The
entrances to the world of the Fae were odd things. Some folk they seemed to
draw in, but the vast majority of humans would simply overlook them,
repeatedly, no matter how close they came. It was a risk, to be sure, but there
was a chance that hiding at the very entrance to the mists would shield them
from discovery.

At any rate,
Robin didn’t have a better idea.

Abruptly the
trees opened up before them, as the stream they were riding in led to another,
much larger pool. On the far side of the water was a rock face, with a small
waterfall tumbling down it. Robin never hesitated, but steered his horse into
the deepest part of the pool, directly at the waterfall. Bianca gave a small
squeak as the horses all lurched forward and began swimming, but didn’t
protest. At the far side of the pool Robin set his heels to his mount’s side,
and led the beast onto a narrow ledge that ran behind the waterfall. He
sheltered Isabelle from the spray as they rode past the curtain of water, and
there, at last, was the cave. It was too low to enter while mounted, so he slid
down and cradled Isabelle in his arms. The entrance was damp, but a few feet
farther in the cave was snug and dry, and he helped Isabelle to settle herself
on the floor. Behind him he heard a sneeze.

Bianca had
made it into the cave, but, having not known exactly where they were going, had
gotten drenched by the waterfall in the process. Her hair was plastered to her
face, and that fire was back in her eyes, chasing back some of the fear.

“What are we
doing here?” She planted her fists on her hips, and glared at him.

“You are
hiding.” He couldn’t help but smile at the picture she made. She was like a
waterlogged rat. Tiny, bedraggled—but fierce. “I am leaving.”

“Leaving?”

“Do not
worry, Bianca.” He grabbed the horses’ reins and prepared to lead them back out
through the waterfall. “I will return. Just stay hidden.”

She caught
at his arm. “What if they find you?”

Robin looked
down. She was worried. Worried for Isabelle, certainly, but also, perhaps, just
a bit worried for him. So he smiled at her, in the way she seemed to find so
irritating, and crooked one finger under her chin.

“Not to
worry, little dove. Remember? It was only you who put me in danger.”

He waited to
see the sparkle, the fire, reappear in her eye. Then he ducked back through the
wall of water, laughing as he went.

The cave was
enormous, with dark shadows shrouding its far recesses. Practically anything
could be lurking there, and Bianca found herself wondering what it would be
like to come face to face with an angry bear. She couldn’t believe that Robin
had just left them here. Bianca stared, caught between confusion and
frustration, at the water that cascaded over the mouth of the cave. She might
have stood there indefinitely, had a small noise from behind her not drawn her
attention back to Isabelle.

“Let me look
at your back again.”

Bianca took
more care, this time. First she arranged both their sleeping rolls so that
Isabelle could lie, flat on her stomach, on the floor of the cave. Then she
helped Isabelle remove all her clothing, an arduous process. Finally she used
one of the blankets as a pillow, and the other to keep the queen’s bare skin
from becoming chilled, while she looked over her back.

It was bad.
There was no denying it. The edges of the lash mark were puffy and white for
half a handspan on either side of the cut. Outside the white, turgid flesh, the
skin was solidly red for a finger length, and angry red streaks shot out from
there, showing how far the infection was spreading. Bianca was in despair. Her
supplies were all but gone, and what she had wasn’t intended to treat
infections of this magnitude. She tried to think what to do, and decided the
first step was to wash the cut thoroughly. Thankfully they had water aplenty,
but the process was bound to hurt Isabelle badly. She couldn’t even heat the
water, as Robin had left them with no means to start a fire. Once she had added
lavender to a little pot of water, she nestled down beside her friend and set
out to distract her as best she could, while she cleaned the gash.

“What do you
think he’s doing out there, Isabelle?”

“I imagine
he has our three horsesss…” The word ended in a hiss as Bianca hit the raw
edge of the wound. Isabelle took one long, shuddering breath and then kept
speaking. “Has them running carelessly across the softest ground he can find.”

“Do you
think it will work? I mean, to lead the men following away from us?”

“I don’t
know. But if Robin believes it will work I trust him. I certainly think it’s
our best chance.”

“Maybe it
is, but I don’t know why you trust him so implicitly.”

“I know his
grandmother.” Isabelle tensed against the pain in her back, then went on. “For
that matter, so do you. At least, you’ve met her.”

“I have?”

“Indeed. She
helped Vivienne escape Inisle.”

“Dame
Merriweather is his grandmother?”

“You sound
shocked. Did you think he had sprung from an egg?”

Bianca
rolled her eyes and then leaned down to inspect her work. “Hmmm…” It was as
clean as she could make it. She reached for her unguent. “He’s odd, isn’t he?
The way he acts, I thought he would leave you without hesitation, but then…”
She left the pot sitting in her lap. It wouldn’t hurt for the wound to dry, and
she didn’t want to touch Isabelle when she was so distracted by a thought. “Why
is he like that?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t
know… driven? Uncompromising?”

Isabelle
turned her face, so she could see Bianca. “You have to understand, Robin’s
people aren’t like us. They take a very different view of the world; like it’s
a history they’re reading, rather than the present they’re participating in.”

“Is that why
he’s so cold?”

“I’m not
sure he is cold. But he’s been trained to see kings as pawns on a chessboard,
and the common folk as merely the landscape they move across. He doesn’t
understand our tendency to make decisions based on fear, or hope, or love. When
it comes to our emotions, Bianca, he’s at sea, on a completely foreign ocean.”

Bianca
couldn’t think of anything to say in response. After a moment Isabelle turned
her face back down, and mumbled into the blanket.

“You don’t
have any more of that numbing cream, do you?”

“I used it
all earlier, before we rode here.”

“Ah well. Go
ahead and smear that awful stuff on my back. I’ll try to think happy thoughts.”

Bianca
applied the unguent as delicately as she could manage, but she knew she was
hurting Isabelle. When Bianca was finally done, Isabelle unfolded her lips, and
gave a tiny, wan smile to her friend.

“Thank you,
Bianca.”

“Oh, don’t
thank me, after I’ve just hurt you so.” Bianca leaned down and pressed her
forehead gently against the queen’s. “Just rest. It will help you more than
anything else, now.”

Bianca
covered Isabelle’s back with a clean linen and drew the blankets up. Then she
set to washing the old bandages. She very much feared they were going to need
them.

***

The moon was
in the sky by the time Robin made his way back to the cave. He and the horses
had run a merry chase, covering ground as swiftly as a deer in flight. They
made for the mountains, and Robin had thought to climb high into the range
before doubling back, but by luck they had stumbled upon a scree slope.
Standing at the foot of the rise of loose rocks and pebbles, Robin had judged
it as good a place as any to turn back. He led the horses up the slope at a
sharp angle, and then down again, coming off the scree and directly into the
woods. Then he rode a large circle back to the pool and waterfall, and swam the
horses out to the cave.

He found the
women huddled in the far recesses of the cave. Isabelle was asleep on a
makeshift bed, her cheeks flushed bright with fever, and her breathing shallow.
Bianca sat beside her, one hand holding Isabelle’s, the other clutching her own
ankles, drawing her legs up into a tight ball. Anxiety was etched in every line
of her body, and her tear-filled eyes stared into the dark crevice of the cave,
as though it held some comfort for her misery.

“What do you
see in the gloom, Bianca?”

Her
shoulders twitched in surprise, but she didn’t turn to face him. After a
moment, she answered in an even tone. “I see the past.”

“And is it
the past you cry over?” He sank into a crouch beside her. “Or something else?”

She turned
her head sideways, laying her cheek against her knees, so she could look at
him, although she could not have seen much in the dark. “Both, I suppose. I’m
worried about Isabelle. Her back is bad. I don’t know if her body can fight off
the infection.”

“Are there
herbs that might help her?”

“Any number
of them. But I don’t have them in my pack. May I go looking for them?” She
asked the question, but he could tell she already knew his answer by the
frustration in her voice.

“You know
you cannot. My ruse will only work if the king’s men find no other sign of you.
You must stay hidden.”

“Of course.”
Robin was shocked by how bitter Bianca sounded. “Because Isabelle may die for
me, but I may not risk my life for her. I have to stay safe, and alive, so that
I may be used as a pawn.”

“Who is
using you as a pawn?” He was genuinely curious.

“Who isn’t?”
She lifted her head and glared at him. “My whole life I’ve been moved about,
like a piece in the games that great men were playing, while others suffered
because of who I am, and how I am used. Maneuvered by my grandfather, my
father, and now your Dame Merriweather, who sends you to fetch me safe, but
never tells me why!”

“And do you
not want your life to be saved?”

“I want a
choice!” she cried, letting her anger loose. “I want to choose where I spend my
life, and who I spend it with, and if it’s worth sacrificing for someone else!”

She clamped
her jaw shut on the words pouring forth, and whipped her head back to glare off
into the dark. Robin sat silent, thinking of what she had said. Neither spoke,
and they listened to the water rushing by the mouth of the cave, a thundering
roar in the silence. Finally, Bianca’s shoulders began to relax, and Robin
decided to speak.

“I, too, am
a pawn,” he said quietly. “But I was given the choice of who to follow. Who to
trust with my loyalty.”

“Whereas I
am given no choice, nor even told what my purpose is.”

“If I knew
why I was sent to protect you, I would tell you, Bianca.”

“Why?”

“Choice is
important to my people. You might say that we hold it sacred. You cannot make a
choice without knowledge, and I would not keep that knowledge from you, were it
mine to give.”

“But what if
I chose not to go with you?”

“Then I
would have to choose to tie you on the back of your horse.” He smiled at her. “But
we would each be making our own choices, in the full knowledge of what we did.”

She looked
at him wide-eyed, and then finally a smile of her own spread across her face. “You
have very odd principles, Master Goodfellow.”

“But they
are mine, and I am comfortable with them.”

Isabelle
gave a wordless moan, and Bianca turned swiftly to check her patient. She shook
the queen, and called her name, but was unable to rouse her. When she drew back
the covers they could see that Isabelle’s back looked much worse than in the
morning. Bianca hissed in frustration.

“I don’t
know how to help her. All I have is water and some rags!”

“What would
you use, if you had your still room?”

“Now? In the
spring?” Bianca spoke distractedly, while she fetched a small pot of cool water
from the cascade. “Bay, arnica, wild garlic or onion, even certain types of
spider web. The world is full of things that heal. They just don’t grow in
caves. Come help me.”

Together
they wet the bandages and placed them on Isabelle’s neck, back, and head. She
mumbled in protest, but never woke up as the cool cloths swathed her body.
Bianca kept it up for over an hour, changing the cloths as Isabelle’s feverish
skin warmed them, but the queen didn’t cool. Finally Robin took the pot from
Bianca’s nerveless fingers.

“Sleep.”

“I can’t, I
need to—”

“I will
change her bandages for a while. You need sleep. You cannot help her if you
drop from exhaustion.”

Bianca tried
to put up a protest, but she was too tired to fight him long. Once she’d curled
up on the blankets beside Isabelle, it wasn’t long before she’d fallen into a
sound sleep.

Robin soaked
Isabelle’s back with cold water once more, and then turned and slipped from the
cave, careful not to wake the sleeping women.

***

In the
morning, when Bianca opened her eyes, she saw three things.

The first
was that Isabelle’s back was worse. Her stomach turned at the awful infection
wreaking havoc on her friend.

The second
was that there was a fire, and Robin was curled up on the far side. He’d left a
mound of firewood at hand, and the current small blaze helped warm the air
greatly.

The third
was her medicine bag. It lay open, next to the fire, and it overflowed with bay
leaves, arnica roots, and the bulbs of wild onion and garlic.