A Princess of Sorts

by Wilma van Wyngaarden

  Scylla looked for the dying sunset. Should they keep the sunset to their left or their right? “I do not know – you choose,” she said. “Keep an eye on where the moon is.”

  “How will that help?”

  She shrugged and straightened up. She hobbled out onto the path to join him. It was wider than the one they had followed from the village. Neither direction was any more appealing than the other. “This path must go somewhere.”

  He gave her another one of his hopeless glances. “This way,” he chose. “It’s smoother walking than the forest floor anyways. I think the other way is the direction where the cat went.”

  But the Goddess deserted them like the cat and the trellet had. The sun dropped as they walked on and darkness began to settle around them. The white light of the moon cast pale shadows in the dark woods. Jay walked and the queen hobbled along behind him. The swordstick gave a faint tink each time the tip hit the ground. The rhythmic tink, scuff, scuff sounds brought back unpleasant memories. Jay was not talking and for Scylla the effort of walking on her injured ankle was all she could manage.

  Finally, she stopped. “Jay!” she gasped. “We have to rest. How long have we been walking?”

  He turned and came back to her. “Far, far too long. We cannot be anywhere near the village. Maybe we should turn back on this path.” They both looked back. In the darkness with the dappling of moon shadows, it was not inspiring. Neither was the path as it led the way forward.

  “Can you hear anything?” They both stopped breathing for a moment to listen with straining ears.

  “Nothing but forest sounds,” said Scylla. “I need to sit down for a few moments.”

  She sat down on a rock, cushioned with damp, cool moss. She felt the binding around her ankle. Her over-used ankle was starting to swell.

  “Curse it all,” she said heavily.

  “Dear Goddess,” Jay prayed in desperation. “Do not listen to the queen. Help us! I am too young to die.”

  Scylla rose from her stone perch. “Lead on, Jay.”

  He took a step, turned around and took a few steps the other way. Then his head snapped back and forth in horror. “Which way?”

  “The way we were going.”

  “Which way was that? I have lost direction!”

  Scylla pivoted on her good foot. All around them, the tree trunks loomed against the forest backdrop – all of it dark and foreign. There was nothing recognizable to show the direction from which they had come. Even the moon was hidden behind clouds.

  “Curses!” she snapped once again, resisting the ungenerous urge to blame the boy. Jay glared at her. She corrected herself. “Dearest Goddess! Show us the way!”

  After a couple of minutes, the clouds sailed on and the moon showed its glow once more. “We were heading that way!” said Jay in relief.

  “Lead on, then.” Overhead the wind sighed through the treetops. It was all too familiar – the darkness, rich forest scents, flickering moon shadows, and the wind rustling through the leaves overhead. Scylla felt like screaming. For Jay’s sake, she crushed down the urge to panic.

  They struggled on. Scylla did her best to keep her weight off the injured ankle. The moon rose higher and the trees thinned out. The moon lit their way along the path with its cold pale beams.

  At one point Scylla stopped and looked back, her eyes straining to see through the gloom. “We cannot be heading further into the forest, as the eastern mountains are that way,” she pointed. “Therefore we should come out onto one of the village roads soon. Or at least a better forest road than this path.”

  “Dear Goddess, help us,” moaned Jay again. Scylla was starting to become irritated by the oft-repeated phrase.

  “Well, we have two choices,” she said crisply. “We can sit down for a while in the shelter of those thickets, or we can walk on.”

  Jay kept walking. After a few more minutes, Scylla stopped and said firmly, “It is unavoidable. I need to rest for a while.” He looked back, then reluctantly retraced his steps.

  “We can sit under that evergreen. The boughs will shelter us.” She stepped off the trail towards the tree with its low sweeping boughs, Jay hesitating at first. Then he trailed after her.

  They crawled into the sheltered nook. Underneath there was a springy carpet of spruce needles over dry ground, and the branches overhead muffled the forest sounds and filtered the moonlight to a faint glow.

  “Queen,” whispered Jay. “Maybe we should sleep here. At least it feels safer than walking through the night.”

  She agreed, if only for the relief of being off her feet and out of the cool night wind. “I’m sure we’ll find our way out in the morning.”

  “Or Coltic and the soldiers will find us,” said Jay. He curled up and yawned. “I wish we had some food...”

  “Here is an apple,” she said. She pulled it out from her cloak and cut it in two with the sword, handing half to the boy.

  I should have brought some water, Scylla thought. Her mouth was as dry as old leather. She could not help but think how ironic it was to be lost in the forest yet again. Keet had saved her last time by pointing the way. Now, in returning the trellet to the forest, she was again lost. Not to mention hungry, thirsty, cold, and limping on her swollen, grinding ankle. She ate her half of the apple, while Jay crunched on his.

  “Dear Goddess,” she whispered, as much for her own sake as for the boy’s. “Thank you for the shelter.” I hope you can do better than this in the morning, she added silently to herself.

  She followed his example and lay back on the carpet of slightly prickly spruce needles. She took off her hat and rested her head on it, closing her eyes. But the braids in her hair were tight and uncomfortable after being under her hat most of the day. She sat up and freed her hair on both sides, combing out the silky strands with her fingers. She plaited the raven’s wing much more loosely and then lay back again with a sigh of relief. She was so exhausted that in moments she was asleep.

  ***

  She woke suddenly hours later. Jay was sitting up, rubbing his eyes and shivering with cold. There was a damp fog hanging among the trees, and the dawn light was in the sky.

  Scylla sat up and bumped her head on the branches above her. Needles stabbed her scalp.

  “Ow!”

  “What?!”

  Scylla rubbed her head. “Needles,” she clarified, picking a few out of her hair. She looked more closely at the branches. Droplets of dew sparkled in the dawn light.

  “Are you thirsty? Here’s a little water,” she pointed out to the boy, who looked bewildered.

  “There’s a little trickle of water by those rocks,” he said in return. “I wonder how clean it is.”

  Scylla knocked the dew into her hand and licked up the sparse droplets of water while Jay crawled over to the rivulet of water and inspected it. Then he got up on his knees and peered over the rocks.

  “There’s a spring here,” he reported. He reached over the wet rocks and brought to his mouth several handfuls of water. “Tastes fine.”

  “I think I’ll stick to dew.”

  “Come and see, Queen!”

  Scylla crawled out from under the spruce boughs, dragging the swordstick with her. “Curses,” she sighed. She stretched and then turned her uninterested glance to Jay’s discovery. “Pretty.”

  “Well, it’s more than pretty! It’s a spring!” Jay replied indignantly. “Look, someone has built up rocks to make a little pool.”

  “I suppose... a long time ago.” Green leaves and ferns overhung the pool, keeping it cool. Water trickled over the edge, and emerald moss grew in soft pillows on the surrounding rocks.

  “Look in! It’s like a dark mirror.” Jay was leaning over it. “There I am!”

  Scylla shuffled closer on her knees and leaned over to see. He looked like a little woodland creature peering back at her with bright eyes and tousled hair.

  “And there you are! You look like the Goddess herself.”

  “Behold the Princess
Troll,” she said sarcastically. “I am glad my ears are not larger than they are!”

  “Oh, no! See... the plants make it look like you’re wearing a green leafy gown, and trailing from your hair are those little pink flowers.”

  “What an excellent imagination you have!” Scylla leaned closer and brought a handful of water to her mouth. It was clear and cold. “Well, I wish I had found this spring last time I was lost in these woods.” She sucked up another handful.

  “Look – there is a carved stone at the back... fallen over.” Jay pointed. He leaned across the pool and righted the stone. “It’s the face of the Goddess,” he said in awe after a moment’s inspection.

  “Really?” Scylla peered at it in the gloom. “Is it? Well... maybe. But it’s cracked.”

  “Dearest Goddess,” Jay intoned fervently. “Thank you for the water – and the queen’s dew.”

  “Tell her we need some food.”

  Jay looked back at her, disgusted. He got up. The queen looked around for the swordstick and picked it up. She was cold and stiff. Her mouth was still dry, so she drank a little more of the clear, cold water from the Goddess’s neglected spring.

  The sky was lightening, the mist swirling and reflecting in the pool. Scylla used a sapling’s trunk and the swordstick to haul herself to her feet and steady herself while her head cleared.

  “Your hair is very long on one side, and shorter on the other,” Jay observed politely, after eyeing her for a moment.

  “So it is.” The loose plait had mostly come undone, and she combed the silky curtain of hair with her fingers.

  “Is that on purpose?”

  “Yes, it was Minda and Sorrell’s idea – my court ladies,” she explained. “In strong contrast to the late queen’s excess – all those tumbling curls she and her ladies were in the habit of displaying. I call this my raven’s wing. I hope I won’t regret unbraiding it all.”

  “Why not put it back up?”

  “Sorrell braids my hair. I do not know how to braid it.” She pushed the raven’s wing back from her temple and pulled the cloak more closely about her.

  “Perhaps you could pin it back,” Jay suggested.

  “I believe the pins are still under the tree,” Scylla said, after a moment of wondering what she had done with them.

  Jay crawled back under the tree and returned some minutes later. He handed her a hairpin. “I could only find one.”

  “Thank you.” She held back the hair behind her right ear and applied the pin. “I hope that stays! I will plait the rest of it for now.” She produced an uneven braid that hung crookedly in front of her shoulder. “Good Goddess! I find court life very irritating, but its comforts are more appealing than this.”

  The boy rolled his eyes. “Do tell, Queen,” he said sarcastically. “All those ladies waiting to pounce on your every wish! Do you ever lift a finger?”

  “Rarely,” she admitted. “But humor me, boy. Think of the stories you’ll have to tell to your grandchildren. Meeting strange creatures – sleeping under spruce boughs – even sharing an apple with Rellant’s queen, unfit though she may be for the rule...”

  He gave her an earnest glance. “It is your destiny, Queen Scylla! I would follow you anywhere!”

  “Oh, shut up.” She tipped her head back to look at the pale blue sky above, where she caught a glimpse of a single great white swan flying overhead. It was much too high for her to hear the hum of its wings, and seconds later it was gone from her sight. Oh, to be riding the back of the great white swan... to anywhere but where she now stood!

  She sighed. “What does such grand destiny serve by sending me – and you – wandering through the forest yet again, lost, cold and hungry? And without my handmaid!”

  But that, she thought later, had been a very naive question, because they were soon to find what destiny had in store.

  ***

  “Which way do we go?” asked Jay, once she had left the spring and hobbled onto the path where he waited.

  They looked in both directions. The sun’s early rays were slanting through the forest, lighting each tree with a golden glow. Dewdrops sparkled like diamonds when the sun’s rays found them.

  “As you see, the sun is rising there, behind the mountains.” Scylla pointed. “I have no idea where the village is or even the road we came in on. But that way is east – which would lead deeper into the forest. My guess is that continuing on this path will at least bring us somewhere closer.”

  “Closer to what?”

  She shrugged. “A village... a better road... your pony?”

  “How big is this forest?”

  Scylla shuddered. “It goes on for miles. I wandered for three nights last time.”

  Jay looked horrified. “I hope we do not have to wander for three days!” He hesitated, looking back at the spring. “We should leave a coin for the Goddess.”

  Scylla felt about her clothing fruitlessly. “I am sorry, Jay. I have none with me.”

  “Well, of course not!” he said, without explaining why he found that not surprising. He reached inside his tunic and fumbled around, drawing out a small coin. “It is only a half peasant, but I shall offer it to the Goddess.” He took a few steps back and tossed the offering into the pool with a tiny plop.

  He started down the path. Bits of forest debris clung to his clothing. Scylla trudged in his wake, leaning on the swordstick for support. Her ankle, she suspected, might never be the same after the misuse she was subjecting it to. “Do not overuse it for a few weeks,” the healer Caryn had told her. Not only was Scylla disregarding the advice, but she also had not thought to bring the arnica salve with her.

  In the morning light, the path was more inviting and they made faster progress. Not that it meant much, as they didn’t know where they were or how long it would take to arrive anywhere.

  “Aren’t you hungry?” Jay groaned after some time. The sun had risen above the trees and the mist in the forest was beginning to lift. Birds chirped and called noisily near and far.

  “Yes, but I never eat much in the morning.”

  “I’m starving!”

  “Well, I hope the Goddess will provide...”

  Jay looked back. “Why are you stopping?”

  “Do you smell smoke?”

  He sniffed the air. “Maybe...”

  Jay picked up the pace. Scylla was having a hard time keeping up.

  “Dear Goddess,” she could hear Jay muttering. “Dear Goddess...”

  “What’s that up ahead?”

  Scylla hobbled as fast as she could as Jay ran ahead. He stopped suddenly and looked back at her, his eyes wide. “It’s a house – a big one!”

  Scylla caught up to him, the tip of the swordstick clinking on bits of stone on the path.

  “Curses!” she exclaimed in astonishment and dismay. “It’s the king’s hunting lodge!”

  | Chapter 20 |

  The two-story stone and timber building lay in the center of its wide clearing like a crouching giant. Scylla and Jay stared at it from the path, a few paces back from the edge of the woods. Scylla marveled yet again at the evidence of the king’s many whims over the years. Her gaze found the recent blind turret, visible on the back upper corner with its flag hanging limply in the morning stillness. The resurfaced games field with its gallery stands along one side was still untouched – it had never been used.

  “Ohhhh... is this where...” Jay’s voice dropped to a whisper.

  She glanced quickly at him. “... It’s where my cousin Darwyn’s men slaughtered my father King Tobin and all the others.” Her heart was slamming inside her chest and she found it hard to breathe. She blinked rapidly.

  “There’s smoke coming from the chimney.”

  “I wonder who’s there? Perhaps a new caretaker...” She tried to recall if Mako or Minda had mentioned a new caretaker in residence at the late king’s forest retreat. The previous one had died in the attack.

  “Are we going to the door?” Jay sounded worried.


  Scylla wondered if he was worried that her answer would be yes, or that it would be no.

  “Let me think. Do you see anyone?” she asked quietly.

  He peered through the trees and then shook his head. Scylla was also inspecting the site with a glance sharpened by unease.

  “Over there is the road out of the forest,” she pointed. “But it is some distance to the nearest village – I do not recall exactly how far. Who is here, I wonder?”

  Jay gave a helpless shrug.

  “I know you’re hungry. I’m just not sure...”

  “It’s very quiet,” whispered Jay.

  Scylla listened. He was right. The birds had stopped their chattering and silence rang in her ears. Her skin began to crawl.

  “I cannot go there...” she started to say. Let us walk quietly around, through the trees, and take the road out...

  But suddenly behind them, there was a sound.

  Jay whirled around and gave a smothered yelp. Scylla turned too, her swordstick rising automatically.

  A man blocked the path, staring at them. His eyes dropped to the swordstick and widened. Then he gave a short, ugly laugh and drew his own sword, one that Scylla recognized. Her heart began to hammer in her chest.

  “Jay,” said Scylla quietly out of unmoving lips as she freed her blade from its sheath. “Run away and save yourself.”

  “No!” came his breathless answer.

  “I believe you have in hand the new queen’s fancy swordstick. Can this mean Queen Scylla herself stands before me?” the man said in a rasping voice.

  “I believe you have in hand a sword belonging to the late king,” she spoke up, surprised at how calm she sounded. “Who gave you the right to take it?”

  The face before her twisted angrily. “This is my sword now,” he snarled. He swung it through the air with an aggressive swish and the tip gouged into the path. Dirt sprayed. “Queen Scylla herself!” he repeated viciously.

  “You are one of the priests who feigned suicide,” Scylla said crisply. Her mind was clear and cold, even if it was offering no brilliant ideas for an escape from the threat before her.

  “You are mistaken!”