Damsel Knight

by Sam Austin

  Something uneasy crawls under her skin. They look entirely too friendly for comfort. She digs in the woollen blankets before she finds her father’s sword, still securely in its scabbard and harness. The charred shield leans against the bed. She feels better once both are in her rightful places on her back and shoulder. Then a horrible thought occurs to her, leaving her twice as wary as before. What good can a sword do against magic?

  “Come over here dear. Next to the fire,” Claudia says, that one eye fixing on her. “I’ve prepared breakfast. A simple fare given freely by the forest. Egg, roast bird, some greens. Sit, eat. You’ve had quite the journey from what your friend has been telling me.”

  Bonnie turns sharply to Neven, trying to keep her emotions off her face.

  “Yes,” Neven says quickly. He twiddles his fingers on the carved table, but manages not to blush. “It was silly of us. We just wanted to see the dragon island with our friend Jack, but we got distracted playing and when we got back the boat was gone. We knew another boat wouldn't come for weeks, so we had no choice except to try and cross the forest."

  "You might have been better off waiting. This forest is not one to enter lightly, and it's certainly no place for children." Claudia smiles a toothless smile at Bonnie, and pats the empty place next to her.

  Bonnie has no choice but to sit. She does so carefully, adjusting her sword and dropping her shield by the legs of her chair. Her father wouldn't have approved of that. Wearing weapons at the breakfast table isn't what you'd call polite, and as good as he'd been with a sword, his ability to charm was just as polished. Though some took offence to his tendency to talk directly to women instead of through their husbands, she'd rarely seen one of his conversations last longer than two minutes without a smile or laugh from the other party.

  It's situations like now that a part of her wishes she had learnt that way of charming people along with sword fighting. The witch is hiding something, and it has to do with Alice.

  She tries to hold out, but the smells of meat and egg get the better of her, just like the honey cake had the night before. Pulling the wooden bowl toward her, she starts shovelling it in her mouth. It's good. The meat is well cooked and glazed with something sweet, and the eggs are rich and creamy. At home they ate well after a harvest, but at other times got by mostly on watered oats. Almost four years living with the Moores taught her tongue to appreciate flavoursome foods when she gets them.

  "I was just telling Neven that I've found no sign of your poor friend." Claudia's mouth droops like she's genuinely sad. "But don't you worry. We're not giving up. Why, me and Neven are going through my old book right now to see if we can find a spell that might work." Her wrinkled hand reaches over to pat Bonnie's arm. A knife, Bonnie decides. That's what she needs. A sword is too cumbersome in such close quarters, and over her back it takes too long to draw. She decides then and there that she won't even take breakfast without a knife hanging from her belt, as well as the sword on her back.

  "We've found a dozen locating spells so far," Neven says, his eyes brightening. "Some of them look simple. Claudia says I can be the one to cast it. Me Bon-Boone. Real magic."

  He looks like a child come harvest feast. She should be happy for him. Casting magic is something few get the honour to do, but her mind fills with images from Jack's stories. Men waking up after a spell with the wished for pile of gold, and all their limbs gone, and family dead. "Is that safe?"

  "These spells are the result of many generations of experimentation, finding the lowest cost techniques for performing spells." The witch looks fondly at the thick leather-bound book. "His lack of focus will heighten the cost, but locater spells are inherently simple things. It will not ask for much."

  Bonnie presses her lips together. She still doesn't trust her, and not all of that is down to her being a witch. The dark forest is evil, and only evil things can survive within its trees. If the woman has been here as long as the carved house and all its carved furniture suggest, that can only mean bad things. "Why are you helping us? What's in it for you?"

  Claudia flinches back from her like she'd been scalded. "Oh child. What kind of life have you led to make you ask such a thing? You're two children in need of my help, and I can help. What more should there be?"

  "Gold usually," Bonnie says between mouthfuls of meat. She forgoes the wooden fork to bite pieces off with her teeth. Most of her life she's had someone nearby to rap her fingers for unladylike behaviour such as this, but she knows from feasts that Ness gets away with it. It's a relief not to have to think so carefully about how she's acting. She needs those wits for other things. "Everyone wants something. We're the sons of a farmer, not lords or knights, we don't have anything to give. So why are you offering to teach Neven magic?"

  "There are more valuable things in life than gold or glory." The witch shakes her head to herself, gathering up their empty bowls. "It may surprise you in seeing me all the way out here, but once I lived happy in a town teeming with people. My son and I sold herbs to cure ailments and heal wounds. Not magic you understand, just the right plants with the right preparation. Ours was a busy market town, but everyone loved me and my son. We wouldn't charge those who were too poor to pay. Our products were popular at market, so why would we need to? Often we were called to help someone hurt, and we did so happily. I was bred to serve. And freed I discovered doing so by choice was nothing less than euphoric. I take no pleasure in causing suffering, but causing joy begets more joy. I think it's the same with most people who have true freedom to choose what they do with their time."

  A witch who's a saint. Bonnie doesn't believe that for a second. Neven seems to though, from the way he shoots Bonnie a dark look, like she's the enemy here.

  Why are you lying then, she might've said to the witch. What about Alice are you not telling us? "When will you cast the spell," she asks instead.

  "First I need to gather some things from the forest," Claudia says, plucking a woven basket from among a group of carved animals sat along the cupboards that held the food. "Most of those spells need some ingredients I don't have, and I remember all too well how much growing boys eat. I imagine you'll be here a few days yet until we can find a safe way to get you home."

  She moves swiftly for her age. Picking up the small staff leaning against the wall next to the door, she turns to give them one last hard look with that eye of hers. "Get some fresh air if you wish, but keep your eyes on the house. The lost ones hide from the light, but the trees play tricks even in the day. Neven, read all you want, but don't try any of the spells without me there. Boone, please try to smile more dear. There's honey cake in the cupboard."

  It's an effort to keep herself fixed to the chair once the door closes. There are more important things than cake she tells herself firmly. "Do you think you could do one of those locating spells without her?"

  Neven frowns. "I guess so. Some of them look pretty simple, and Claudia told me about visualisations and things. But we should wait for her to come back. Magic is dangerous if something goes wrong, and she told us to wait."

  "And I'm telling you I don't trust her. She knows something about Alice.”

  “She’s a druid,” Neven says, turning back to the book. “Druids know things. She has magic. It doesn’t mean she knows where she is.”

  It could be true. She doesn’t claim to know the ins and outs of how magic works. She’s seen druids before, wandering through court when she’d lived near the City. They’d been tall dignified men with an air of power cloaking them at all times. They spoke little, but when they did everyone fell silent to hear their words, even the King. The ways of their magic is a secret thing, talked about only behind the thick walls of the academy, on an island far on the east side of the circle, where young boys become young druids.

  “What if this is all a trick?” Bonnie asks. “She said herself, she’s not of highborn blood. She can call herself a druid, but no druid would accept her as such. That makes her a witch, and you know what witches are.�
�

  “Like I know what women are?” Neven hunches over the yellowed pages of the book, his shoulders tense. “If a woman can be a knight, then can’t a low born be a druid? You can’t break everything that’s normal in the pursuit of this fool quest of yours, then mistrust someone who has more claim to their title than you do. She trained as a druid. She was a druid. Times changing doesn’t change that. I’ll bet she has more skill than all the druids in the circle put together. She was trained by a king.”

  A king that invaded countless countries and turned their people into slaves. A king that killed men, women, even children by the thousands to fuel his power. Everyone knows the tales of Goron the bloody king. “If she was so good, then why is she hiding in the dark forest. Did she tell you what she did to deserve that? She’s lying to you.”

  “And you aren’t?” This is a side of Neven she’s never seen before. Neven who turns meek when confronted, and is always the first to back down from a fight. True, he’d spoke his mind more to her than most, but there’s a fierceness that twists his expression into one she doesn’t recognise. “I know you Bonnie. I know you’re not stupid enough to try to kill a dragon, not even for a knighthood. There’s something you’re not telling me. If you want me to trust you, then you have to be honest with me.”

  He’s right. It stings, but she knows he’s right. He’s stuck by her when others hadn’t. He gave her food and shelter, and a place to call home when she had none. He even saved her from the dragon, and she doesn’t underestimate how much courage that must have cost him. She owes him the truth. “Gelert. He’s not just any dragon. And the King didn’t capture him from beyond the circle like everyone says he did. His men captured him from my house after he - it - killed my parents. That’s why I have to kill it, to avenge my parents. It’s what any good son would do.”

  Neven stares at her, his brown eyes gone big and round. His mouth hangs open. Whatever he’d expected her to say, it clearly wasn’t this. He reaches across the table and clasps her hand in his. That’s when she realises she’s shaking. “I don’t - why didn’t you kill the dragon when you had the chance?”

  It’s a hard question to answer, one that makes her think of doors and boxes. She doesn’t want to think of that wooden box covered in dried blood, or those doors shaking under the blows. She doesn’t want to remember what she did. “My father killed dragons. None of them ever made it easy for him. If he could do it, then so can I.”

  Neven gives her a long look, like he’s trying to see if he believes her. Finally he turns back to the book, flipping through the pages. “I saw a spell that looked simple enough. I’ve already checked, and we have the ingredients for it.”

  Chapter 11

  Bonnie watches Neven prepare to cast his first magic with her hand firmly on the hilt of a knife. She knows that if it goes wrong, all the swords and the knives in the world won’t stop what happens next, but it gives her some comfort. Someone once told her that magic is like standing before Gods and asking them for a favour. You’d best know exactly what you’re doing, or they’re just as likely to tear you into pieces as grant your request.

  He reads through the yellowed page of the book for the tenth time, and then smoothes out the map for the eleventh. The map barely deserves that name at all. Bonnie drew it, as she has more experience with penmanship than Neven, and is the only one of them who has actually seen a map. Still, writing had never been her favourite subject, and her mother hadn’t considered it an important subject either. Reading is a fine thing for a highborn woman to learn, to keep themselves quiet and occupied, but writing is for men who can put the letters to good use. So the lines are heavy and scrawled, and in many places the ink is blotched. The parchment is rougher than she’s used to which only serves to spread out the ink more.

  A small lopsided circle sits in the middle of the page. Above it are the words ‘Claudia’s house’ in messy uneven letters. She’s taken care to add in the small shed outside where the witch keeps most of her stores, the wood pile at the back of the house, the small vegetable patch beside it, and the carved rocking chair that sits in the largest patch of sun. She even circled the house carefully, trying to place bushes and trees on her map as they are in life. Everything beyond that is a blank of yellowed parchment. They’d considered adding trees, but didn’t want to confuse things by adding trees where there should be a clearing, and clearings where there should be trees. The spell says the more accurate the map, the more accurate the location given, but this should serve to give them an approximate direction.

  He holds his hand out to Bonnie, and grudgingly she presses the hilt of the knife into his palm. She feels weaker without it, despite the weight of the sword on her back and the charred shield on her shoulder.

  Neven shifts as if the bag on his back weighs a lot heavier than when they were running through the forest. Nether of them speak of it, but both are kitted with everything they had before the old woman found them, and everything they need to leave her. Bonnie knows Neven would rather stay. For whatever reason, he trusts the witch, and magic lets him dream a life beyond taking over his father’s farm and scraping by on what small portion of his hard earned money the King doesn’t take as tax.

  She understands the lure of dreams. Farming is good honest work, and she doesn't doubt many a man can live a happy life with a spade in one hand, and seeds in the other, but she also doesn't doubt that Neven is not such a man. He's too curious, always wondering how things work, what he can do to transform metal and wood into creations up until then only alive in his imagination.

  The druids might not take him at his age, but watching him, she resolves to use the gold earned from avenging her parents to persuade them to try.

  Neven squeezes his eyes shut and draws the knife quickly over the ball of his thumb. The knife clatters on the table, and he stares at the blood welling up with a grey face. He swallows like he might throw up. "You can get this sickness from being cut by old metal. A poisoning of the blood. It draws up all your muscles tight, and your jaw locks shut. In the end you starve to death."

  "The knife is clean," Bonnie says, picking it up and wiping it off on her shirt before slipping it onto her belt. "You're not poisoned."

  Neven gives a slow nod, still staring at his thumb. Eventually he shakes off whatever thoughts haunt him, and turns back to the book. Holding his thumb over the map he begins to chant. The words are gibberish to Bonnie. Some long dead language that sounds sweet even on Neven's halting tongue.

  Bonnie shifts on the other side of the table, hand on the hilt of her knife, and one eye on the door. Unease makes her twitchy. If anyone outside of this forest were to see what Neven is doing, it would mean a burning for him, as well as her for aiding him.

  Fire consumes all. The ancestors may live forever in the worlds through the water, but those who die by fire do not. Some say they go to somewhere else - a hellish place sometimes glimpsed in the flames if you strain your eyes enough. Others believe fire has the power to consume everything; mind, body and soul. All gone like it never existed. It’s part of why dragons are so hated. They can give the forever death as easily as breathing.

  Bonnie doesn't know which she prefers. Neither sounds a good way for things to end.

  Neven sways a little as he squeezes the blood from his thumb onto the childish map, but he doesn't faint. Bonnie's legs twitch, wanting to walk around the table and help him, but she knows she can't. Neven had explained it to her. Magic is all about what you give up, and his magic will be stronger if he pays the cost freely with no help. Since he's new to this, and only paying with a few drops of blood, he needs all the added strength he can get.

  The voices of the birds outside seem deafening. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up, feeling like someone is watching them closely. She looks around the room, but nothing looks back at her apart from the many wooden carvings. She shoves the feeling aside. Now is not the time for fear.

  The blood drops quiver on the parchment. Seven drops, the s
pell had said. Of course, the spell is from the witch, and witches lie. It would be a simple trick to say that a spell needs less magic than it does. Magic doesn't care about honest mistakes, all it cares about is getting paid. It would take from Neven, drawn to the things he loves most. The hands he uses to make his creations, his wits, his mother, her.

  That's part of the reason why Bonnie wants to do this without Claudia watching. She can't sabotage what she doesn't know about. Unless she does know about it...

  All at once the blood drops move, gliding across the parchment like raindrops sliding down polished metal. Bonnie lets out a sigh she didn't know she was holding. Some of the tension drains out of her. It's working, which means it's accepted the price.

  By all rights the blood should drain into the page like the ink it passes over. Instead it skates over the material, leaving no marks, or smudges in the fresh ink. The seven drops march one after the other in a circle, chasing each other until one speeds up and is swallowed by the drop before it. That drop races to catch the next drop in the line, and so on until only one fat drop of blood circles on the map.

  It veers outward, its circle widening until it circles the edge of the map. Then it spirals inward. The circle slowly getting smaller and smaller, winding around the trees, around the witch's roundhouse, until it stops all at once over the shed she uses to store her food. A heartbeat later the drop of blood drains into the paper, leaving no mark or stain to say it ever existed.

  Neven looks at Bonnie, his face twisted in pain. He doesn't know this lesson, she realises with a lurch. He's never trusted someone, then had that trust betrayed like it meant nothing. He doesn't know how to take the feelings and shove them down until only dull anger remains.

  Bonnie takes her fingers from the knife to pull her father's sword out of its scabbard. "Come on," she says, the weight reassuring in her hand. "Let's go rescue our princess."