The Scarecrow King: A Romantic Retelling of the King Thrushbeard Fairy Tale (13 page)

"Rinda," Alek said, turning back to me with a patient look. "This is the only way. The soldiers are crawling all over the roads. We won’t be safe anywhere we go. So we can go through the forest and spend the next three weeks in danger, or we can spend the next three days in danger. It’s your choice.”

Oh drat. Drat drat drat. I
really
did not want to go into that cave. I stared into the gaping hole and shuddered, hugging my arms tight against my body. “You really think this will be safer than staying out here in the open?”

A hint of a smile tugged at his mouth. “I can safely say that we are the only two that are dumb enough to take this route back to Lioncourt.”

“That does
not
make me feel better.”

He extended his hand toward me. “I’ll hold your hand the entire time. I won’t leave your side. I promise.”

I stared at his hand extended out to me. And slowly, reluctantly, I put my hand in his. “Three days, you said?”

“That’s what the song says,” he agreed.

Chapter Eleven

With a few scraps given to us from Joanne’s rag pile and some cut branches, Alek made a torch and lit it. It flickered and sputtered in the sunlight, and did not seem like nearly enough light to enter the cave.

“Are you ready?” He asked me, his smiling face serious and grave.

I swallowed hard. “I’m ready.”

He handed me the torch, then unsheathed his sword and handed it to me as well.

I took it with a frown, my hands full of torch and sword. He gestured that I should hand the torch back to him. I did so, and then ran my thumb along the edge of the sword until it bled, and then pressed a thumbprint at the base of the torch, just above where he held it.

Alek gave me a funny look. “Did you just prick your finger and rub it on the sword?”

“It’s for luck,” I said, and then flushed. I didn’t want to have to explain my sorry magic to him. Better to discuss something else, so I lifted the sword he’d handed me. “What’s this for? I still have your knife.”

“I can’t hold both the torch and hold your hand,” Alek said and extended his hand out to me. “You’re going to have to be our defender, unless you’d rather hold the torch and be in the lead.”

I certainly didn’t want to be in the lead. Grasping the sword in my sweaty palm, I placed my other hand in his. “Are you sure you want to hold hands in the cave?”

“It’ll make me feel better,” he said, his face quite serious.

I gave him a skeptical look. “Are you just saying that for my benefit?”

“Perhaps.” A faint flush crossed his cheeks and he gestured to the cave. “Come. We should get going before the soldiers think to head this way.”

I swallowed, nodded. Put my hand in his and we entered the mouth of the Ghost Roads.

Stepping in was like being enveloped in darkness. My hand tightened in Aleksandr's as we moved forward into the cavern. The blinding sunlight was left behind with a few steps, and it felt like descending into darkness. Through the fabric, my worn slippers felt the smoothness of the path underneath my feet. The cave was wide enough for four people to walk through, side by side, the walls perfectly smooth except for where they were striated with age cracks. The ceiling overhead was high and arching, and I had no doubt that it was just as smooth as the other walls. I reached the sword up to try and touch it, and encountered nothing but sticky webbing that fell upon us as we walked.

“Careful,” Alek said, lifting the torch a little higher. Flickers of flame spread and striated out from above us as he burned off the spider webbing and it curled back.

I shivered at the thin veil of spider web that hung down, far below the top of the tunnel. Everything was calm. Quiet. Almost eerily so. I glanced behind us reluctantly, and watched as the entrance disappeared off into the distance. The path sloped gently beneath our feet, as if we were descending, but the walking remained smooth and even.

Other than the dust and the spider webs, this wasn’t so bad, not with Alek to hold my hand tightly in his. I peeked over at him from the corner of my eye, his face lit by the torch, and was struck by how handsome he was. The shadows made his face and hair seem darker in the torchlight, and for a moment, a memory stirred. Alek reminded me of someone – but who?

He glanced over at me. “You’re staring at me.”

I blushed to be caught so easily. “I am not. It’s a trick of the shadows.”

His hand squeezed my own and he gave me a slight nudge with his shoulder. “You can say what you like, but we both know the truth.”

I ignored him and walked in silence. The light of the torch flickered as we walked, illuminating the small area around us, and leaving far too many shadows within arm’s reach. Still, the road was completely even, and if we weren’t in total darkness, might have been pleasant. “Why do you suppose the Ghost Roads are no longer used?”

Alek didn’t answer, just glanced over at me.

“Do you know something you’re not sharing?” Worry thrummed in my breast, and I lifted the sword and resisted the urge to poke him with it. Instead, I just shook it in his direction. “What is it you know?”

“How familiar are you with the song?”

I sniffed. “Not very.” I started to say that I did not care for minstrels, but something stopped me. Instead, I finished lamely, “I like happy songs.”

He chuckled. “The song tells the story of the wizards of Lioncourt. Back in the day, people were born with magic, and it was frowned upon by the old kings of Lioncourt. At one point, they decided to outlaw magic, and the court wizard named Balinore gathered up his people and led them to safety in secrecy. The song says that he carved a path through the mountains, and came out on the other side here and made a kingdom – Balinore, after the wizard – and settled here on the harsh side of the mountain that no one else could inhabit. But their magic made it hospitable.”

I faked a yawn. “Is there a point to this story? Of course I know how my kingdom came about. Every child does.”

“There was another verse,” Alek said, his tone a little more uneasy. “I didn’t sing it because most children find it disturbing. But it’s about….spiders.”

“Spiders?” I echoed.

“Spiders,” he agreed. “One of the mages had the power to control spiders, according to the song. The mages were pursued by Lioncourt soldiers, only to be devoured by spiders. Quite a grim ending for men just doing their job.”

I glanced overhead, at the thick cobwebs that burned away as we walked. “But that story happened a thousand years ago. There’s no one around that can control spiders. And if they can, they’re not sitting here in the cave, waiting for us to stop by and chat.”

“Yes, but didn’t you hear the stories?”

If I had, I hadn’t paid attention, as they didn’t concern me. So I gave a small shrug of my shoulders. “What stories?”

“The roads stayed open for travel for a time after Balinore was established. It was a trade route for a long time, and a quicker run through the mountains than the long journey over them. But eventually, the roads shut down.”

“Due to…” I began.

“Spiders,” he said with a sigh. “Too many spiders.”

I clutched the sword against my side, harder. “And this seemed like a good idea to you?” My voice rose to a hysterical note and my hand clenched his, as I felt the odd desire to squeeze his fingers until they hurt, and somehow pass some of the panic out of my body and into his too-calm one.

“No, it didn’t seem like a good idea to me,” Alek said in a soft voice. “But it was a better option than what we had available to us.”

I shuddered and moved in closer.

~~ * ~~

We walked for hours in the darkness, without a sense of time or direction. Sometimes the path sloped downward, sometimes it went up, or tilted to the side, as if when the passage had been carved, it had to go around something. The spider webs thinned out the further in we got, and to my relief, we had yet to see one spider. The rock passage grew colder, and damp. It was utterly silent, unnervingly so. The air was clean – if stale – but there was a numbing chill to it that never seemed to grow warmer, no matter how long we walked. The torch sputtered and when it got low, Aleksandr took another branch from his pack (he’d cut several down to size for the torches), wrapped the pitch-soaked cloth around it, and used the old torch to light it.

The longer we walked, the more unnerved I felt. The darkness was oppressive, and with every heavy flicker of the torch, my breath sucked into my lungs. What if we heard something? What if the torch went out? What if we were left here in the darkness, with no light to see by? Each time Alek switched torches, I’d prick my finger on the sword and then insist he hand the torch to me. Each time he did so, with a slightly puzzled expression. I didn’t feel like explaining my magic to him, so I simply clenched it in my hand, making sure the blood touched the wood, and then handed it back to him as if I approved of it.

We’d stopped holding hands as we walked hours ago, though I stuck close by to his side. Nor did we talk to make the darkness less oppressive. We just walked. I was ready to weep with exhaustion, and the sword tip dragged on the rock behind me, making a screeching, scraping noise every time I let my arm fall too low.

And when it began to drag too often, Aleksandr stopped me, reaching for the sword. “Rinda, are you all right? Do you want to stop for the evening?”

“Is it evening?” I snapped back at him, hating the whine in my voice. “I can’t tell. It’s dark and I see nothing but spider webs and darkness.”

“Rinda,” he began, his voice endlessly patient.

It just irritated me more. I threw the sword down, feeling a sense of satisfaction as it skittered across stone and landed a few feet away. The sound reverberated in the too-silent tunnel, and it made me realize just how far below the earth we were, setting my fears off all over again. “This was a mistake. I don’t want to be here. It’s too quiet!”

“We can’t go back–”

“I don’t care,” I yelled at him, my voice ringing in the tunnel. Panic was flooding through my body, and it was becoming hard for me to breathe. My chest moved up and down rapidly, and I gasped for breath. “I don’t want to be here! Do you understand me? I can’t stay here! Not in the dark!”

“Hey, shhh,” Alek said, coming over to me and setting the torch down on the floor a few feet away. “It’ll be okay.”

The shadows deepened as the torch flickered and the light grew dimmer, and that only made me angrier, even as he sat down next to me and pulled me against him, stroking my hair.

“Rinda, I’m here with you,” he murmured against my hair, his hand rubbing my shoulders and stroking down my arm to try and comfort me. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise. We’ll make it through this and be out on the other side in a few days, and then this will all be over. I promise you.”

His body was warm against mine and I wrapped my arms around him and burrowed close, letting him comfort me. I’d tried to be so strong through all of this – through my father’s horrible actions, my hasty marriage, the loss of everything I’d ever owned, even being cast out of my own family. Through it all, I’d struggled to be strong and firm and not let anything get the best of me….and yet there was something about this oppressive, endless darkness that made me want to run away screaming.

Alek let me shudder against him, pressing his mouth against my forehead in a light, comforting kiss and stroking my hair as I clenched my hands in his clothes, half frightened and half furious and totally panicked. After a time, my fingers unclenched and my breathing became normal again, and he rubbed my arm. “Better?”

“Yes,” I said in a shuddery breath, my tone dull. I should have argued with him – sniped at him. But I was so tired of all of it. And if I drove Alek away, I’d have nothing, no one on my side at all. For some reason, that thought frightened me and I clutched at his jerkin harder than ever. I was horrible to him, always. I never had a nice word for him, only nasty ones. And he was smiling and patient and kind despite my vile words.

But what if one day, he got tired of it…and me? And just left me here? In the next moment, I knew that was a silly fear. Alek was nothing if not a good man, and he would never leave me alone in the darkness. Not like that. He wouldn’t do that to anyone.

“I have a present for you,” Aleksandr said, his words ruffling against my dusty hair. His cheek was still pressed against my hair, his breath – smelling of the apples we’d had earlier in the journey – warm and comforting. “I thought I’d save it for a bit longer, until we were sure it was evening, but this is close enough. We’ll stop here for the evening.”

“And where is ‘here?’”

“Who knows?” He said in a cheerful voice. “But I have a few peat bricks that Joanne gave me in return for chopping wood. They’re small but they should burn for several hours without having to tend them, so we won’t go without fire.” He squeezed my shoulders, hugging me. “I promise.”

I nodded, feeling a little vulnerable and fragile. “Is that your present?”

“Well, no.” There was a pause, and even though I couldn’t tell the shade of his cheeks in the flickering torchlight, I suspected he was blushing all the same. “I brought this for you. I’ve been carrying it inside my jerkin, waiting for the right moment.”

And he produced a flower. Slightly crumpled and drooping from its journey, the petals curling. In the darkness, it looked to be a deep reddish color.

The sight of it made me a little sad. What kind of girl was I that I couldn’t accept his flowers? Alek was a good man, but he wasn’t a good husband for a princess. For one, he was far too poor. I needed the things that money and influence could buy. I needed fine dresses and perfumed baths and expensive jewelry. I needed a house with a nice roof over my head and servants to see to my needs. In short, I needed to marry the dirty Lioncourt king.

And taking Alek's flower wouldn’t be the right thing to do. “You know I can’t take it,” I began.

“I know,” he said. “But tradition says I should offer it anyhow.”

I looked at the flower, and looked at our small, brightly burning torch. “Can we just burn it, instead?”