Warrior's Princess Bride (4 page)

‘Why would you want to do that?’ Ferchar rapped out. ‘Nay, you mistake me, girl. There’s something I’d like to ask you. A favour, if you will.’

Tavia nodded, wanting him to continue. Malcolm, his round face jovial, smiled encouragingly at her, although it was obvious that he had no more idea than she about what Lord Ferchar would say next.

‘As a maid, you could never be in the King’s army, you know that.’

Tavia shuffled uncomfortably.

‘But there is something you could do for us.’ Ferchar raked his arrogant gaze over the threadbare state of her clothes. ‘ And we would pay you handsomely, more than a humble bowman.’

‘Tell me,’ she whispered, a flicker of hope springing to her breast. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that she had been discovered after all.

‘First of all, who was that man who carried you off?’ Ferchar glanced down into the bailey, as if trying to catch sight of him. ‘Was he your husband?’

‘Aye,’ she lied easily. ‘He didn’t want me to go ahead with the contest.’

Ferchar laughed, the smile not quite reaching his eyes. ‘Quite right. A man should assert his marital rights. But if he hadn’t caused such a diversion I might not have noticed you.’

She clasped her hands together. ‘What would you have me do?’

‘Have you noticed your likeness to the King’s sister, Ada?’

‘In truth, I have never met her, my lord.’

‘Then follow me.’

Ferchar leaned over the front rail of the platform and ordered the soldiers to hold the proceedings, before striding off the platform in the direction of the main castle building. Hesitating slightly, before catching the more encouraging, friendly face of King Malcolm, she darted after the flowing cloak of the regent.

After the bright ness of the day outside, the great hall of the castle seemed wreathed in gloom. A fire smouldered listlessly in the huge fire place, sending out great gasps of smoke across the hall, which was deserted apart from one figure sitting at the top table. Tavia blinked her eyes, trying to accustom them to the dim interior.

Still walking forwards, Ferchar raised his hand, gesturing towards the girl who nibbled at a piece of bread. ‘Ada of Huntington,’ he intoned, by way of introduction. ‘The King’s older sister.’

They had reached the dais. ‘Come over here, my lady, if you please,’ Ferchar addressed Ada, as he climbed the steps, indicating that Tavia should follow him. ‘There’s someone I wish you to meet.’

With regal poise, Ada swivelled around in the carved oak chair be fore rising grace fully. She lifted one hand to adjust the veil of diaphanous silk, anchored with a heavy golden circlet, pulling it away from her face. Her
bliaut
, sewn with exquisite precision to flatter her slender figure, was of pale green silk, elaborately embroidered about the hem with an intricate design of flowers and leaves. Self-consciously, Tavia smoothed her grubby hands down the front of her tunic before tucking them behind her back.

‘Now, do you see what I see?’ Ferchar addressed her. ‘Just look at the princess!’

Tavia frowned. See what? ‘She’s very beautiful,’ Tavia admitted as Ada approached them, and smiled.

‘She looks just like you,’ Ferchar said, exasperated, ignoring her whispered admiration. ‘Once we clean you up and put some decent clothes on you, I doubt anyone could tell you apart.’

‘But why would you want to do that?’ Tavia replied, aghast, sceptical that anyone should compare her to this breath taking beauty.

Ferchar reached out to grasp Ada’s hand, his manner soothing as he patted her white fingers. ‘The Princess is in danger,’ he explained. ‘We’ve had information that the English plan to kidnap and hold her to ransom in exchange for Northumbria and Cumbria. We need to take her to a safe place and in order to do that we need to create a diversion. You, my dear, will be the diversion. You need to lure the English spies away from this castle long enough for us to smuggle Ada out of here.’

‘But…’ So that’s what le Vallieres was doing here! Was he planning to kidnap Ada right in front of their noses?

‘It’s obvious you can defend yourself—’ Ferchar’s tone held an ingratiating lilt ‘—and we would pay you handsomely.’

An image of her mother, lying frail and listless on a grubby mat tress, entered her mind. ‘I’ll do it,’ she agreed.

‘T
hank you for helping us like this,’ Ada’s lithe figure sprang lightly up the stone stairs that spiralled up inside one of the castle turrets. ‘Ferchar’s been afraid for my safety for some time, but, with all the English watching the castle, he couldn’t work out a way of carrying me to safety.’ Tavia caught the note of admiration in the princess’s voice when she talked about Ferchar and wondered at it—was there more to their relationship than at first appeared? She felt slightly ashamed; Ada made it sound as if Tavia were helping them out of the kindness of her heart, as a friendly favour, but the grim reality was that she needed the money, and she needed it fast.

‘I’m just pleased that I could be in the right place at the right time,’ she replied, cautiously, following the princess’s graceful ascent. Be side Ada’s delicate beauty, she felt every inch the peasant that she was, especially dressed in these shabby boy’s clothes. ‘But I’m not certain you will be able to make me look like you.’ Tavia eyed Ada’s elegant lines dubiously, the seductive sway of her gown, the glittering jewels at her slim throat.

Stopping on a wide, curving landing, Ada swung round, the fine twirling embroidery on her bodice catching the light from the flame of a single torch, slung into an iron bracket on the wall. The shadowed space high lighted the deep red of her hair, drawn into two braids that fell either side of her head. ‘You really have no idea, do you, Tavia?’ she questioned, laughing. ‘I will find a piece of silvered glass, and we will put our faces side by side, and then you will see how alike we are. Once you are bathed and dressed, I would challenge anyone to notice the difference.’ Placing one hand against the uneven planks of an oak-studded door, Ada pressed inwards. Light flooded out into the gloomy stair well, illuminating the shrouds of cobwebs draping from the angled ceiling. Following the princess into the bright ness, Tavia almost gasped in delight.

The southernmost tower of Dunswick Castle housed the women’s solar, where the ladies of the royal court, wives of the high-ranking soldiers who had sworn fealty to King Malcolm, spent their days. After the drab grey stone of the castle bailey and the stairs, the room swelled with rainbows of bright fabric and laughing chatter. Everywhere Tavia looked, the bright, jewel-like colours of the ladies’ gowns filled her senses.

In one corner, a lady sat at a loom, fingers busy as she pushed her wooden shuttle back and forth through the many-stranded warping threads, weaving a fine cloth resplendent with muted hues of purple and green. Other women held drop spindles, almost hidden in the voluminous folds of their skirts, drawing single threads from fluffy pieces of woollen fleece bunched in their hands.

As the ladies noticed Ada’s presence, they rose and curtsied one by one, each murmuring ‘my lady’ before resuming their work. If they noticed the similarity between the grubby boy in scruffy peasant garb and the luminous beauty of their princess, then they made no comment, displayed no change in their expressions.

‘My ladies,’ Ada introduced the group of women to Tavia with a wide sweep of her hand. Heads bowed respectfully towards Tavia, and she smiled back, somehow glad of their silent discretion. She had entered a world totally unknown to her, a world of luxury and riches, so completely at odds with the harsh minutiae of her own daily life, that the temptation to be completely absorbed by the fine details of this noble life style nudged strongly at her heart. She was here for the coin, she reminded herself sternly, coin that she would earn, and then escape, to run back to her cold, dry little life in the hills.

‘Beatrice will find you some suitable clothes.’ Ada indicated an older woman, who placed her embroidery in the willow basket at her feet, before looking Tavia up and down, assessing her size, her frame. ‘She needs to look like a princess…like me,’ Ada stated, as Beatrice sighed, rising to her feet, her bones creaking with the effort.

‘She’s shorter than you, my lady,’ Beatrice muttered in a guttural accent, before limping off through an open doorway. ‘But I’ll see what I can do.’

‘And a bath as well, please, Beatrice,’ Ada called after the woman, flashing a quick half-smile of apology at Tavia. ‘She grumbles, but she has a heart of gold,’ Ada excused Beatrice’s gruff behaviour. ‘She looked after me as a child.’

‘I must look dreadful,’ Tavia tried to excuse her own appearance. ‘I daubed mud on my face before the archery competition. To make myself look more like a boy,’ she added, catching Ada’s bemused expression.

‘You’re very brave,’ Ada whispered. ‘I don’t think I’d ever have the nerve to do something like that.’

Tavia shook her head, remembering the nauseous churning in her stomach that she had experienced before walking through the castle gates. ‘I don’t consider myself to be brave. Sometimes cir cum stances force you to do these things.’

‘But your husband…?’

‘I have no—’ Tavia stopped suddenly, remembering the lies she had told Ferchar, that the English soldier, Benois le Vallieres, was her husband. ‘Ah, yes,’ she muttered, lamely.

‘He didn’t look too happy when he led you away.’ Ada linked her arm through Tavia’s and led her towards the window embrasure, away from the knot of industrious ladies. ‘What did you say to him to change his mind?’

‘I beg your pardon, my lady?’ Confused, Tavia scrabbled to make some sense of the princess’s words. How in Heaven’s name did she know all this?

Ada laughed. ‘I watched everything from an upstairs window; he’s a handsome fellow, your husband.’

‘Aye, and very lenient, once you know how to handle him.’ Tavia smiled, hoping that she would never have to ‘handle’ that man again. Two encounters had been more than enough for her.

‘Then I hope I am as lucky as you seem to be in your marriage.’ A secretive coyness spread across Ada’s face. Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Which may be sooner than everyone thinks.’

‘Oh?’ Tavia replied, vaguely.

‘I feel like I can tell you this, Tavia,’ Ada spoke in a hurried under tone, excitement making her stumble over some of the words. ‘You’re a stranger, yet I know we will be friends, and I know I can count on your discretion…?’

The question hung on the princess’s lips, warranting some sort of answer. Tavia felt awkward, unwilling to be drawn so quickly into the princess’s confidence. Aye, at this first meeting, she liked the maid, but friends? It was too soon to make that judgement. A quiet desperation lurked around Ada’s eyes, her neediness like an empty bucket that Tavia doubted she could fill. Not knowing how to reply, Tavia smiled lightly.

‘Ferchar will be my husband. He loves me, dotes on me…and I love him.’

‘I’m happy for you.’ Ada’s words meant nothing to her.

‘He’s so strong, so decisive, a natural leader.’ Ada’s voice rose a notch, hissing slightly with un disguised elation. ‘Why, he even picked out this gown for me this morning!’ She smoothed her hand over the soft wool of her skirt.

‘He makes a good regent,’ Tavia agreed, startled by Ada’s curious dependence on Ferchar.

‘He’d make an even better king!’ Ada blurted out, then clapped a hand over her mouth, before clutching weakly at Tavia’s sleeve. ‘I’ve said too much. Forget my words, Tavia!’ She glanced hurriedly around the room, checking to see if they had been over heard.

So that explained Ferchar’s over-protectiveness of the Princess Ada, thought Tavia. He wanted the maid for himself, for a wife, and wanted to keep her safe. He had obviously already gained Ada’s undeniable loyalty; the girl appeared infatuated with him, despite him being at least twenty winters older than her.

‘Your words are for got ten, my lady,’ Tavia replied brightly. ‘Do not think on it again.’

Underneath the magnificent wooden arches of the great hall at Langley Castle, Benois stabbed his jewelled eating knife into a piece of cured ham and put it between his lips, chewing thought fully. Below him, in the main body of the hall, his soldiers ate along side the peas ants that worked in the castle fields, hungrily devouring the huge platters of food that seemed to emerge continually from the kitchens.

‘Ah, Benois, back already!’ Lord Langley, a well-known sup porter of King Henry, bounced up the stairs to the top table. ‘How are you enjoying our hospitality?’ He slapped his friend companionably on the back.

‘It’s much appreciated, Langley.’ Benois leant back in his chair. ‘After all those nights spent in cold tents with less than agreeable food, I thank the Lord that you are on our side.’

‘And fortunate that I own a castle on the English side of the border that’s not many miles from Dunswick.’ Langley grinned, lifting a slice of chicken on to his plate.

‘That, too.’ Benois laughed, the taut skin of his face stretching over his high cheek bones.

‘So, what did you find out? They obviously didn’t realise who you were.’

‘Hmm! I was lucky. Although one person did recognise me.’

‘Who on earth? No one knows you in Scotland!’

‘No one, it seems, apart from one completely annoying, interfering, god-forsaken maid!’ Benois replied. A pair of blue eyes shining from a luminous, pearl-like face swam into his memory. ‘She nearly wrecked the whole plan!’

‘But how in God’s name did she know you?’

Benois sighed, breaking off a chunk of bread from the round loaf on the table. ‘The maid was captured by my men in our earlier raid on Dunswick. I caught them just in time. She remembered me from then.’

‘Unlucky,’ Langley surmised. ‘But you still managed to avoid being caught.’

‘Aye, although the wench nearly stabbed me with one of my own arrows. The woman is a termagant!’

Langley tipped his head back and roared with laughter. ‘I like it. The magnificent Brabanter mercenary floored by a woman.’

‘Nearly,’ Benois corrected, smiling. He remembered the supple feel of the girl’s body against his own as he had wrenched the arrow from her hand, crushing her easily into him, stopping her struggles.

Langley observed him closely. ‘From your expression it seems the en counter was not entirely un pleas ant.’

‘It was certainly surprising.’ Benois grimaced. ‘It’s not every day you find a woman wanting to become a royal bowman.’ He tucked his eating knife back into his belt. ‘Or boasting of her expertise as if she were a skilled marksman.’ He wondered how she had fared in the contest.

‘She sounds perfectly intriguing,’ Langley replied. ‘I should like to meet her.’

‘Unlikely. Once they discover she’s a woman, she’ll be sent packing.’ Why did he even care? He pushed his plate away, annoyance creasing his brow. Why did the infuriating chit suffuse his thoughts so?

‘So what did you find out?’ Having loaded his plate while standing up, Langley flung his rather portly frame into the carved oak chair next to Benois, grabbing a hunk of bread to chew ravenously. ‘Lord! I’m starving.’ Crumbs of bread scattered over his chin and down the front of his tunic.

Benois traced one fingertip along the polished wood of the table. ‘The Scots intend to spirit Princess Ada away from Dunswick tomorrow morning, so that we have no chance of kid nap ping her.’

‘And your plan is…’

‘To be there before they leave.’ Benois’s lips curved up into a slight smile. ‘The King and his regent were discussing the plan right above me, as I was waiting to shoot.’ He shook his head, ‘You’d think they would be more careful.’

‘Do you think the plan will work?’

Benois angled his head on one side. ‘I’ll get the Princess, if that’s what you mean. But whether it will persuade Malcolm to hand over the lands…well, I’m not so sure.’

‘King Henry has ordered it…and the young Malcolm adores his older sister. I swear he would so anything for that maid.’ Langley picked up a pewter jug of honeyed mead.

‘That may be so…’ Benois watched the shiny liquid slide into Langley’s goblet, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘We’ll just have to wait and see. But I, for one, see no joy in looking after a weeping, pathetic princess for weeks on end.’

‘It won’t come to that.’ Langley hefted the jug in Benois’ direction. ‘Do you want some mead?’

‘Nay…thank you.’ Benois placed his extended palm over the top of his pewter goblet. ‘I have water to drink.’

Langley thrust a hand through his wayward blond hair. ‘You intrigue me, Benois. In all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you touch a drop of drink. Are you a monk, or something?’

Benois’s fingers stiffened imperceptibly around the stem of his en graved goblet. A muscle jumped in the tanned skin of his cheek. ‘It’s a long story,’ he replied at last, letting out his breath from his lungs slowly. He picked up the goblet and took a long, cool gulp. ‘There’s just one thing I need you to do for me, Langley.’

‘Name it.’

‘You need to come with me and my men to kidnap the princess. I have no idea what she looks like.’

Away to the east of Dunswick, the land rolled away as a mass of undulating hills topped with purple heather and smooth slopes, a much gentler contrast to the high, barren crags and winds wept moor land to the north of the city. Fast-flowing rivers, the water leaping and twisting around jagged rocks and stones, intersected the velvet green of the hills. Red deer roamed the country side, seeking shelter in the forests of oak and birch, before fleeing as a herd across pasture land at the slightest scent of danger.

The day was warm, holding the promise of summer within the cloud less blue sky. Above Tavia’s head, sunlight shafted through the pale green canopy of the trees, highlighting the dark sentinels of trunks below. Gritting her teeth, Tavia balanced precariously atop the docile roan mare, clutching in effectively at the bunch of reins at the horse’s neck, trying to concentrate on the soft, rhythmic plodding of the horses’ hooves in the spongy vegetation beneath. Her thigh muscles ached already, and they had only been travel ling for a short time.

Ferchar had insisted that she rode. Princess Ada was well known for her excellent horse man ship, and it would look strange if she rode in an ox-cart, or was carried in a covered litter. Luckily, her horse seemed happy just to follow the horse in front. It seemed as if once she had agreed to Ferchar’s proposal, he had insisted on a great deal of things. In the past day, he had schooled her in the ways of being a Scottish princess, reeling off strings of facts and family members that he obviously expected her to remember.