Damsel Knight

by Sam Austin

  “My King. The cost.” The words are spoken low, to not be overheard by the gathered crowds of men, women, and children.

  Boone hears it only because she’s close. Too close really to be polite, but being a knight in training she should get away with it. She’s not standing close to protect the King. She’s standing close to find out why every last living body is gathered in the courtyard.

  Is he going to admit what Alice did, and burn her in front of them?

  The few hours since Claudia burned have done nothing to erase the horrible stench left behind. Claudia stayed quiet to the end, but she can’t imagine Alice doing the same. Alice would scream. She’s not sure what she’d do if Alice screamed.

  “Will be worth it,” the King squeezes the head druid’s withered shoulder. “I’m afraid I can’t follow your judgement this time my friend.”

  The head druid bows his head. His one remaining boy helps him sit himself down into the chair set beside the King’s own.

  The King stays standing, facing the crowd. “My people! We have had a traitor among us. A witch disguised as a friend. That witch has been burned, but I fear she might not be the only one. To protect the circle, and all our people in it, we will make sure we are not deceived again. Every man, woman, and child with five or more years will present themselves to our head druid for examination. Together we will protect the circle.”

  “Together we protect the circle.” The crowd chants out. Practised words Boone finds herself whispering along with. She remembers many a time, clinging to her mother’s hand while they spoke those words. She’d asked her mother once how she could be expected to protect when she wasn’t allowed a sword. Her mother had told her not every battle is a fight. That a woman has different weapons to protect the circle, like raising strong sons, or tending to a husband’s needs.

  Boone hadn’t liked her mother’s answer then. She still doesn’t now, but she’s right about one thing. Not every battle is a fight. She’s starting to believe that. A sword here in the middle of the large circle of the crowd would do nothing. She wouldn’t even reach that far. The soldiers stand almost as close as her, Julius, Angus, and Alice. They’d stop her.

  More accurately, they’d stop Neven. If the head druid examines him, he’ll see the use of magic. They’ll burn him.

  Boone glances to her right, where Neven lines up with the other soldiers. He doesn’t look at her. He stands, posture stiff and sun-browned skin pale. Ness, at his right elbow looks pained.

  “Woman and children first so they can go back down into the safety of below.” The King nods his head. “Then our knights and soldiers.”

  The sun is high in the sky when the first mother and child step forward. By the time the last kneels before the druid, the heat of the day has softened to mid-afternoon.

  Boone shifts uncomfortably. None of her inner party has moved from their places, so she can’t move either. If she could grab Neven, get him to hide somewhere until all this is over. She doubts anyone would realise. There are so many soldiers.

  But how to move without anyone noticing?

  A cry breaks her thoughts. Angus and Julius drag away the woman from the head druid. She’s sobbing.

  “It was just a locating spell. It didn’t even work!” She pulls at the hands holding her arms, trying to get back down to her knees. To beg for her life. “Please. Oh please. Nothing but a locating spell to find my poor lost child. My little girl.”

  She’s lifted almost gently by the two knights. They lead her to the line of soldiers, where two break ranks to take her and lead her away.

  Now. It has to be now.

  A tug at her sleeve as she starts to rise from the bench. Alice sits to her right, having scooted closer when Julius moved. She’s bent toward Boone, body cringing like she’s scared. But her expression shows a desperate focus. She shakes her head minutely.

  Boone sits back down.

  She wants to ask questions. Does Alice know what’s about to happen? Does she have a plan? Does she care? Getting up right now isn’t the best plan, but it is a plan. A day ago she would shake off Alice’s grip and go to get Neven, but now…she’s not so sure. Alice may be on the side of the enemy, but the fact that she’s choosing sides means there’s more to her than the weak girl she’d thought she was. And the way she’d walked on those raw feet without a single complaint. That’s not something anyone weak would do.

  Boone takes a breath, trying to bury her panic. It doesn’t go quietly, digging deep holes in her insides.

  Angus and Julius go next, kneeling and back to their feet in seconds without comment from the druid. Then Boone is kneeling before the druid, that familiar searching warmth floating through her. She keeps her eyes fixed on the druid’s chest. There are several of the little red crystals hanging from his neck. Some are drained clear. Others are dark red.

  She stares at them, trying to calculate how many of the wounded they could heal instead of this searching. How many of the loyal dead the King could have brought back. How many can he still bring back with those hundred red crystals on his crown?

  She rises without a word, and Alice takes her place. There’s something stiff in the princess’s posture that makes Boone hesitate instead of going back to her place. The plants maybe? Does owning magical plants leave traces?

  Alice gets to her feet, brushing down her dress. Her face is downcast, but her eyes flick up quickly toward the soldiers. Then she resumes looking at the floor.

  Neven separates from the rest of the soldiers, hurrying to be the first one. He kneels in front of the druid, closes his eyes. He’s shaking.

  Ness halts beside her, the next in the neat queue of soldiers. Pressure on her dead arm tells her he’s squeezing it tight through the fabric. Her fingers of her good arm fight amongst each-other not to reach over and squeeze his hand back. At least if it comes down to a fight for Neven’s life it’ll be two facing many, not one.

  Alice steps forward to stand at Neven’s side.

  Boone feels the atmosphere in the courtyard change. Conversations stop. The air burns from so many people looking in their direction. Their gazes aren’t warm and respectable as with the King. They’re curious, tense. Princess or not, they’re making up their minds whether this woman is doing something not of her place.

  Alice raises her eyes, levels them at the head druid’s own. It’s not a friendly look. Seeing it on a woman directed at a man is strange.

  A split second and the tension in the courtyard shoots up almost to boiling. Angus, seated back on his bench is watching. He opens his mouth as if to yell.

  Then Alice drops her eyes, drops herself to the floor beside Neven. She crouches with her arms around her legs in the manner of a child badly scared. She leans a little toward Neven as if hoping for protection. Her voice murmurs words Boone can’t make out.

  “I fear this is all too much for the princess,” Neven says, turning his head toward the King with the druid’s withered hand still on top of it. “Perhaps I and Boone could escort her to her chambers.”

  “Well?” The King asks, sitting bolt upright in the chair next to the druid’s. His green eyes are sharp, fixed on the pair on the ground. “Can he?”

  Boone’s stomach twists. Her fingers itch to grip the hilt of her sword. She’s close enough. She could kill the King before he noticed. But that would leave the druid still able to cast magic, and if she were to strike the druid, the King would cast her down. Not to mention Angus and Julius. Julius could kill her before she finished drawing her sword.

  Mattis jerks his hand away from Neven’s head. His sharp brown eyes glance between Alice and Neven nervously.

  King Robin clears his throat. “Mattis my old friend you’re drifting again. Is the boy clean or not.”

  The druid clumsily nods his head. “Yes. He’s clean. The boy is clean.”

  Ness lets out a breath beside her. The pressure on her arm disappears.

  Boone walks along the cobbled stones. Even huddled on the ground as she is,
Alice looks taller than she had before. Stronger. She offers the girl a hand. “My princess.”

  Alice takes the hand with all the timidity required of her gender. She keeps her green eyes on the ground, her body a polite distance away from Boone’s, her voice low and obedient. Yet her grip is firm. “My Knight.”

  ***

  They burn six that night.

  The mother looking for her child. A boy soldier who claimed he’d been playing. A man looking for his son. And three other men who accepted the punishment with a curt nod, and refused to plead for their defence.

  Boone watches from a balcony attached to the feasting hall. She’d considered spending the evening in her room, but knows it would do no good. Real or imagined, she’d hear the screams anywhere in the circle. There’s no point trying to escape them.

  “You aren’t with your friends.” The voice makes her jump. Julius drops down beside her, seeming to appear from nowhere.

  Boone wraps her arms around the smooth marble rails of the balcony, watches her smart leather boots dangle in mid-air. “They don’t want to be friends with me. We had a falling out.”

  Julius nods, looking as if he knows exactly what she’s feeling. He shuffles forward on the marble balcony, letting his longer legs dangle next to hers. “I consider Angus one of my friends. We constantly have fallings out. Things soon return to normal - whatever that entails.”

  “No - this is.” She stops, realising what she’s doing. Talking about childish problems such as friends in a time like this. Sighing, she gestures down to the figures being strapped to their fires. The woman has already begun weeping. “It hardly matters against all this.”

  He looks at her, dark olive eyes wide in astonishment. “This is exactly why it matters. Friendship. That’s life. One of the best parts. If there is ever a time when life matters more, it’s in the face of death.”

  It makes a weird kind of sense. “I keep doing things wrong, even when I think I’m doing them right. I don’t understand them. Sometimes I think the closest thing I have left to a friend is a bloodthirsty dragon, and him I’ve ignored all day.” She can see a glimpse of Gelert from here. Red scales pacing back and forth over the wall. She thinks of him burning those scouts and shivers.

  Julius swings his legs slowly. “Sometimes I think the worst thing we do is put people in categories. Stick labels on things. Witches are evil. Women are weak. Those with clear slave blood are worth less than those without. Men should show no fear or mercy. Don’t get me wrong. I thought the same thing when I was a pompous squire. Then a dragon showed more loyalty than I ever could, and a girl more bravery.”

  Boone sucks in a breath. “What do you mean?”

  He leans back on his arms, looking at her. “You’re probably wondering how I knew Alice was the princess. How I knew a lot of things.”

  “You lied to the King about me. You said I knew about dragons because you’d told me tales. You hadn’t.” Thinking back, a lot of the things he’d done didn’t make sense. Right from why he’d saved their lives when they’d first met. Why he’d recruited her as his squire, a small boy with one working arm and poor ancestry. Somehow she keeps her voice steady. “How long have you known who I am?”

  “I guessed when I saw your sword. It was confirmed seeing you fight. Cadeyrn trained me for many years. I’d know another pupil of his anywhere. Hard to believe, since he’d only had a daughter. He spoke of you often, but he never mentioned training you.”

  “That wouldn’t have gone well. It was kept between us. I think my mother knew, but that’s all.” Her hands tense into fists. Sitting on the floor forces the sword to dig into her shoulder at an awkward angle. Watching how he stretches out like a giant lazy cat, she’s aware of every inch of the scabbard against her back. “Am I going to end up down there with them?”

  “If there’s one of us who deserves to be down there, it’s me.” He looks up at the darkening sky. “I didn’t recognise Alice. I recognised your dragon. I’d seen him before once when he was small. He’d changed a lot, but with those dark eyes and red scales. Well, there’s only supposed to be one dragon in the circle. And since I knew what he’d looked like, it was hardly going to be a different dragon. I think he recognises me too.”

  Boone thinks back to the day she doesn’t like to think about. Opening that door. Gelert getting out. Running after and being greeted by all that blood. A man leaning over Gelert, tying his legs together as the dragon watched through half lidded eyes.

  “You were there.”

  “I was. That’s what I need to talk to you about.” His olive eyes flicker to her, then back to the sky. He seems nervous suddenly. He takes a deep breath, fixes his eyes on her again. “Boone. Gelert didn’t kill your father. I did.”

  Chapter 31

  “And that’s a good thing really. You see, I don’t think there is a spell making Gelert docile. I don’t think there ever has been. I think it’s you. I think he remembers his friendship with you, and it’s shaping how he interacts with the world.”

  Boone’s head finally stops spinning. “Wait. Wait. What did you say?”

  Julius pulls his legs back from the edge, sits facing her with his legs crossed like a child. The scabbard at his hip lies awkwardly across the ground. It’s empty. “Someone informed the King he was hiding a dragon on his property. Some egg from a dragon he killed they think. Though how he got it past the barrier is anyone’s guess. The King ordered him to hand it over. He refused, and his cloak bled. A bleeding cloak means death.

  “I was a squire at the time. It wasn’t like today. There were many knights, and not enough time for a King to pay much attention to a squire. Then he came to me. The King knew Cadeyrn had broken his oath. He wanted to give him a chance to admit his mistakes, and take his death like a man. Cadeyrn was the best dragon knight he’d had. The King was fond of him. If he asked the King for forgiveness and spilled his own life blood, then his life would go to protect the circle, and his name would not be dishonoured.”

  Boone blinks down at the living funeral pyres and doesn’t see them. “If he killed himself you mean.”

  “Yes.” Something like a wince ruins his usually calm expression. “I was flattered the King would come to me. My loyalty was to him first, and I was convinced the offer would save Cadeyrn’s soul. I thought I was doing him a favour. Then he said no. I’m not calling your father a coward. He was the bravest man I’d met. But he didn’t want to die. Who will teach my daughter there’s a whole world out there if not me, Julius? That’s what he asked me. I was irate of course. I’d been told what to do if I couldn’t bring him in alive, and I didn’t want to do that. So we fought. He was a better swordsman than me, but I had more men. I wounded him, but not badly enough that he wouldn’t live to see the King.

  Then your dragon came in. He was no more than the size of a large dog, but when he saw what I’d done that seemed more than large enough. He was so angry. I remember being surprised because it seemed impossible to me that a dragon could care for a person enough to feel such anger. He killed my men with a fury I’ve never seen before or since. Then he tried to kill me.”

  He seems to curl in on himself, looking pained. “And your father stopped him. He flung himself between me and your dragon, and tried to stop the beast with his bare hands. And the dragon stopped. But not before slashing the wound on your father’s chest so deep he couldn’t survive.”

  The picture the words bring up jars with the one in her head. The Gelert in her head had been angry when he’d killed her father, yes, but it had been a mindless bloodthirsty anger borne from the need to kill. Not the need to take revenge. Relief floods through her, but also pain. Gelert may not have meant to kill her father, but he’d still done so. And Julius, her friend and mentor, had been part of it.

  “As soon as he realised what he’d done, the anger was gone. He licked Cadeyrn’s face and nudged him, as if trying to wake him. When that didn’t work, he curled up next to your father’s body like a cat. He didn’t eve
n move when I tied him up and dragged him away, except to look back at you one last time.” Julius shakes his head, the long dark braids of hair swaying. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

  Boone opens her mouth. To do what? To scream before she draws her sword? Her fingers move automatically to the hilt, then stop. She closes her mouth.

  His sword belt is empty. So is the space on his belt where he’d kept a number of knives. He’s expecting her to fight back. He’s hoping for it. To get her fill of revenge? Does he want her to kill him?

  Scrambling to her feet, she runs back into the empty feasting hall, and out of the room.

  She’s in her chambers before she notices she’s made the decision to run instead of fight. Alone in her room with her breath heaving, she draws her sword. She screams, bringing down the dragon steel to bite through the cabinet. Splinters go flying.

  Julius betrayed her father. His own squire. Her mentor. Her friend.

  The sword claws through the thick wood of the cabinet again and again. A shelf disconnects from the rest of it, and clatters to the floor. A door to the bottom half swings open, hanging sideways off a hinge. It’s thick tough wood, but within a few minutes it’s firewood.

  Dropping the sword to the marble floor, she leans forward, drained. Her breath comes in rapid pants, and her head feels thick and heavy.

  Gelert didn’t kill her father. Not in the way she’d thought. If there’s anything positive in this whole situation, it’s that. Only, she’d spent so many years hating him. Assuming she must hate him as a good daughter. To avenge her parents. Had Julius’s men killed her mother before they’d found her father? Did he leave that out? Or had she been caught up in the fight, and she hadn’t noticed.

  She frowns to herself, her breath evening out. It’s curious he didn’t mention her. Maybe because she was a woman? Woman are rarely more than afterthoughts.

  As the fog over her head lifts, she registers something different about the room. A dollhouse. The dollhouse from Alice’s room sitting in the middle of her bed.