Hold Fast the Knight

by Lotus Oakes

  No answer. Edgar waited nearly a full minute, and just as he took the ax up again, he heard a voice, dry and whispery, like the rustling of old dry leaves.

  "Fool. You should have fled when you were given the chance."

  A sudden, sharp chill went down Edgar's spine and pooled in his gut. He turned a circle in place, but could find no one there.

  "I beg your pardon," he said at last. To his relief, his voice barely wavered. "That's a bit rude, isn't it?"

  "You are a fool," the voice said again. It came faster this time, a hiss and a crackle, like old dry leaves crunching underfoot. Edgar looked around more carefully. As he turned his head, something moved at the edge of his vision and he looked before taking another wide step back.

  Half-buried by the foot of one of the other white trees was a human skeleton.

  It had no clothes, and all the bones were picked clean. The grinning skull was tilted toward Edgar. Under that, the long naked curve of a ribcage was visible, as well as the thin, outstretched length of an arm bone. The rest of its body disappeared into the earth. As Edgar stared, the voice came again, louder than before, and there was no mistaking that it was coming from the skeleton. "You accepted the witch's bargain when you should have fled when the prince told you to run."

  "She's actually a princess," Edgar said automatically. She's a princess. Her name is Ariel. She has pretty eyes and a nice smile.

  The skeleton made a dry clacking noise, though none of its bones moved; it took Edgar a moment to pinpoint the sound as laughter. "He is a foolish and spoiled child, just as you are a foolish and ignorant man. He wished to run away from his troubles and came here. He is in league with the witch."

  Edgar frowned. He set the ax down to lean against a tree and crossed his arms. It was the same sort of pose that his father would adopt when he wanted to look more solid and intimidating, even against men larger than him. And maybe this was just a skeleton buried in the ground, but Edgar didn't have terribly many defenses against actual magic. "Who are you, then?"

  "Once I was like you," the skeleton whispered. "I came with grand intentions: to save the prince and to gain the approval of the king. I would have honor and glory as a knight of the realm."

  "But here you are," said Edgar.

  "Here I am. Dry bones. As I am, so you will be."

  "Someday, yes," Edgar said. He could still feel that lingering cold curl of fear in his gut, though that was slowly being subsumed by a quicker, warmer rise of irritation. "Not for a while, though, saints willing."

  The skeleton let out another rattling dry laugh. Edgar wondered what sort of magic sustained it. Was it Violette's power? Or was it something about the Silver Forest itself, and these bone-white trees? "The saints have forsaken you. You are a thousand times a fool, then, if you think you will get out of this alive."

  "You're very certain of that," Edgar said. "So what sort of advice would you give?"

  "Flee," the skeleton said. Its voice slipped in and out of a whisper range, but there was a note of command there. Maybe it was true, that these bones had once belonged to a knight. "Take the prince and run, and hope that luck will sustain you where grace cannot. If you escape the forest, she will not be able to follow you. If you do not, you would be even more of a fool than I first believed."

  "All right, but," Edgar said, now more annoyed than afraid, "that is a terrible plan. My horse couldn't make it through the woods with me on her back. We had a lot of trouble! I don't think we could flee before we were noticed."

  And that was even assuming Ariel wanted to be rescued―which, Edgar realized, she'd never actually said. Hm.

  The skeleton remained silent. Edgar waited a polite minute, then picked up his ax again and turned his irritation to the first of the white trees. It didn't take much to fell it, thin as it was, but as he circled around to drag the fallen tree out of the copse, the skeleton finally spoke again.

  "Convince him to flee with you. If he has any noble soul left in him, he will surely be moved. With his help, you could make it."

  "I don't think she wants to be responsible for me being hurt," Edgar said sharply. He set down the ax and grabbed the fallen thin tree, dragging it a little out of the copse. He'd probably get five logs out of this one. "I don't think a knight should be implying that sort of thing about his princess."

  The skeleton went silent again. Without eyelids, it was always staring, though Edgar got the impression that with more flesh, its expression would have been outright incredulous.

  Finally, it said, "They will kill you together. They will drink your blood and suck the marrow from your bones. They will tan your skin for leather and salt your flesh for later months."

  "Is that what happened to you?" Edgar asked, as he braced his legs and began to chop the fallen tree into smaller pieces. He couldn't actually imagine it. Not even Violette, with her grand gestures, seemed the sort. Maybe that was part of it, playing it innocent as she lured in unsuspecting travelers...No. That also seemed unlikely. He glanced at the skeleton occasionally as he worked, waiting for its reply.

  "No," the skeleton said at last.

  Relief struck him, harder than he expected. "So you can't be sure." He straightened and turned back to the skeleton, the ax settled firmly on his shoulder. Nothing in that bony expression had changed, of course, but for the first time, Edgar felt mildly guilty at the sight. The bones looked small and sad, and like this, half-buried in the middle of the Silver Forest. Did this nameless knight have a family somewhere? Did they know what had happened? "How did you end up here?"

  "I came as a knight, seeking glory―"

  "No, I mean." Edgar gestured in a small, awkward movement. "How did you end up... like this? You know, out here, all―" what was the phrase it had used? "Dry bones?"

  The skeleton was silent. It dragged on long enough that Edgar turned back to his task while waiting, just for something to do. He'd cut the sapling into three parts when the skeleton finally spoke again.

  "I fled."

  Edgar straightened and turned again. "Beg your pardon?"

  "I fled," said the skeleton. The words were clipped and sharp. "I threw the prince over my horse and fled. The branches caught at us and the earth itself shook to stop us, but it was the prince who betrayed me. When I saw the silver trees before us he cried out to the witch directly. And she came, and she cut my throat with a blade of magic. I saw them embrace as I died. And then I awoke here. I have been trapped here ever since."

  "I see," Edgar said.

  "Is that all you have to say?" The skeleton's voice was sharper now. It sounded angry.

  "Well." Edgar looked down at the ax in his hand. The blade was more solid than it was sharp; it would be easier to brain someone with it than to cut their head off. As far as a weapon went, it was practically worthless. His stomach felt oddly tight, but he forced himself to keep talking in spite of that. "If you ask me, that was kind of rude of you, just grabbing the princess and running. I mean, kidnapping her from her kidnapper? Really?"

  The skeleton said nothing. Edgar glanced at it again, but when it didn't answer, he went on. "You're telling me to do something that didn't work out well for you. It's very difficult to take you seriously in this case."

  Again, the skeleton said nothing.

  This time, Edgar waited for a full minute, then allowed himself to go back to splitting the sapling, and to laying the pieces into neat stacks for later. As he approached the second white tree, the skeleton finally said, "I do not wish to see you meet the same fate as I."

  "I won't," Edgar said. It surprised him a little how confident he sounded about that. "My da―my father, he always said the one thing I was good at was seeing things through. So I will, one way or another."

  The skeleton remained silent for the rest of the time it took for Edgar to chop up the second and third white saplings. Even when he felled the tree it was lying beside, it said nothing. Edgar organized the wood of his labors, then went back to the skeleton. It looked smaller than be
fore, as if it had withered, and again Edgar wondered what sort of family it had, when it had been a living person. Was there an empty grave, somewhere, waiting for a knight who would never come home?

  "That's how it happens, in that business," his father had said. His breath had smelled strongly of whiskey, and the air around him had almost prickled with it. He'd stood with his hip cocked, his bad leg twisted. His eyes had been focused on something far, far away. "A thousand go off, but only a hundred come marching home again."

  Edgar took off his coat. It was tattered but sturdy, frayed at the hemline and with overlapping patches on the elbows. When his father had been a young man, it had been his coat, and it had hung in his closet for years before he'd passed it on to Edgar. Even now, years later, it was warm.

  He knelt to arrange his coat over the skeleton's exposed ribcage. It might not last long, but it was something. Once he had it arranged to some semblance of dignity, he pressed his hands together, palm to palm, finger to finger, and touched the points of his forehead. He tried to remember the prayers that Honored Lise had recited at every funeral.

  "May the angels find you soon, and carry you home, and may your sleep be restful," he said at last, because that was the only phrase he could remember in its full. After a moment's pause, he added, "I'm sorry that you're here and not with your family. I hope you'll be reunited with them someday."

  He got up, dusted his knees off, and began carrying the wood to the house. As he juggled his first armful to reach for the latch, the door banged open. There was very little light to frame her, but Violette looked terribly dramatic nevertheless, one hip cocked out and her arms crossed under her breasts. Edgar was positive she was deliberately lifting them up, and he had to hastily avert his eyes after an embarrassed second of staring.

  "Oh, you are helping," she said. There was an odd note in her voice; she sounded genuinely surprised under her casual tone, and that surprised Edgar in turn. "I thought Ariel was just being nice in pretending."

  Edgar shrugged, still keeping his gaze focused to a point off to the side. He could see her from the corner of his eye, looming a little too close. "I didn't want to just loiter," he mumbled. "She's going to be cooking, and my ma, she always says that I'm more trouble in the kitchen than out. So..."

  "Oh, don't apologize," Violette said. Whatever had been bothering her before seemed to have passed. She stepped aside and waved at him, a wide, airy gesture, but as he shuffled past her, he caught her giving him a very strange look. He almost apologized for that, but held his tongue.

  As she closed the door behind them, Violette said, her voice now drawn out, drawling, so affectedly casual that it had to be a trap, "So tell me, Sir Would-Be Knight, did you see anything... odd, out there? Anything particularly out of place? Mysterious? Macabre, perhaps?"

  He nearly tripped over his own feet. The question both was and wasn't a surprise: magic of some sort had to animate that skeleton. He'd even wondered if Violette had been directly involved, but he'd been so annoyed at the skeleton's insinuations that the question hit like a physical blow. He tightened his grip on the wood and gave himself a few seconds before answering.

  "I don't want to be rude, Ms. Violette, ma'am," he said. "I don't really know what counts as odd here. Where I come from, silver trees at all are pretty odd, so―"

  Violette caught his shoulder, and when he turned, his words trailing off, she took his chin in hand instead. Her grip was tight but not painful, the long points of her nails resting almost gently against his skin, and her fingers were warm, gently callused. As he floundered, thrown by the contact, she leaned in close enough that he could see shards of blue and gray in her wine-colored eyes. She stared like she could stare straight through to the soul of him, and Edgar found himself hypnotized, unable to do anything but meet her gaze.

  She's very pretty, a part of his mind supplied, which he quickly shoved aside. Not now. Could she read minds? If she could, then without doubt, the last thing he wanted her to hear was his preoccupation with her looks when she was this close.

  Eventually, though, Violette released him. As he staggered, she stepped back as well, crossing her arms under her breasts again. He could still feel the phantom pressure of her fingers on his face, and he had to resist the urge to touch his chin in their absence.

  "You're an odd boy," she said. The faintest flicker of a smile touched her mouth. "Not a bad one, though. Go on; Ariel will have both our heads if I make you late when she's starting dinner."

  With that, she swept past him, her side brushing his as she moved. That touch was electric, and nearly enough to startle him into dropping his wood―or something perhaps more embarrassing―and he found himself watching her go. Only after she turned the corner and was gone from sight did he move, trotting to the kitchen.

  And if Ariel noticed his red face and shaking hands, she thankfully kept her silence.

  *~*~*

  Dinner started out as a strange affair, if only for how normal it felt.

  When Violette showed up for the meal, a few minutes after Ariel and Edgar sat, she had changed out of that dangerously open dress to something a little more conservative, if only barely so. The neck of her new dress was high enough to reach her chin, though it was still tight enough to leave very little to the imagination. Though the front was one solid piece, the back seemed to be held together only by thin spiderwebbed laces and prayers. Her hand brushed against Ariel's back as she moved to sit, which had Ariel sitting up straighter, looking after her with unreadable eyes.

  And for the first part of the meal, no one spoke. Violette ate slowly, switching from intensely staring at Ariel, to staring at Edgar, and back again, while Ariel appeared not to notice at all, working her way through her plate, meticulous and slow. Edgar himself was hungry enough that he wolfed down the first part of his meal before he could begin to worry much about Violette's attention. The food was simple, but good: a stew with fat chunks of carrot and potato, and torn pieces of brown bread to mop up the leftovers. It tasted like the sort of thing his mother would make for a big family gathering, savory and rich and comforting in his belly.

  It was when he reached for a second piece of bread that things abruptly shifted.

  "So, tell me," Violette said, loud and sudden enough that both Edgar and Ariel jumped. "Did you really not see anything odd at all out there?"

  Ariel's brows drew together before her eyes narrowed. "Violette, honestly―"

  "I'm curious," Violette said, loud and bright. "Why don't you tell us?"

  Edgar looked down at the chunk of bread, then put it aside. He pressed his hands to the edge of the table, gripping the edge.

  "There was one thing," he said at last.

  "Was there!" If anything, Violette's voice pitched even louder, almost manic in its glee. She set her chin on one hand and leaned across the table. Her eyes were heavy-lidded and her smile was sharp, toothy. "Come on now, tell us more. Was it so very terrible you can't even find the words?"

  Edgar swallowed hard under the weight of her stare, but something in her tone caught at him. When he glanced up at her, her shoulders were set and tense in spite of her otherwise relaxed posture, and both she and Ariel looked on the verge of something, united beyond captor and captive. If he had to guess at it, he would have said they were both seized by the same strange anxiety. He just couldn't begin to guess over what.

  He folded his hands on the table and kept his eyes focused on those as he spoke. "There was a skeleton out there," he said. At the corner of his field of vision, he saw Ariel make a sharp abortive movement toward him. Violette, however, remained still as stone. "Just lying there out in the open. It seemed more sad than strange, though."

  "Sad?" Violette's voice rose slightly at that. Now she moved, leaning farther into his view, and part of him wanted to cringe away and apologize for something. Everything, maybe. His throat felt tight, so it was difficult to swallow, but Violette pressed on in spite of his reticence. "How so?"

  Edgar shrugged. He
kept his gaze downcast. "It just seems unfortunate to be lying out somewhere until you're just bones," he said. "Meaning no disrespect for your forest or anything, but what's home to you isn't home for everyone. Even if he wasn't a very nice person, being left out somewhere far away from everything you knew seems a little... harsh."

  "Harsh." Violette bit the word off, crunched between her teeth.

  "Harsh," Edgar said again, a bit more firmly now. Arguing with a witch could only be foolish, especially in her home, eating her food, but if she invited his opinion, he wasn't going to simply take it back. "I'd even say unkind."

  Violette was silent for a few moments, tapping a finger against the table. She sat back in her chair, and when Edgar finally glanced up at her again, her expression was flat and her eyes dark. He froze again, just as he had been in the hallway, meeting her gaze with his own.

  "You'll recall," she said, "that I wanted to take your soul as forfeit if you failed, right?"

  "I do," Edgar said; it surprised him a little that he could manage even that much. He rubbed the back of his neck. He wanted to look away, but as long as Violette refused to even blink, it felt a little bit like being under some strange spell. Maybe he was. He didn't know all of what a witch was capable of. "If he agreed to it, I guess that's his problem. I still feel bad."

  Violette's lips pinched into a thin line. "I'm not interested in your bleeding heart," she said.

  "Sorry," Edgar said quickly. "I didn't―"

  "If you must know," she went on, as if Edgar hadn't spoken at all, "that man didn't even bother to try and negotiate. No agreement, no promises, nothing like that. He crept in like a thief in the night and grabbed Ariel when she came out to fetch water. Even when she screamed for him to let him go, he wouldn't stop. And the things he said to her―"

  "Violette," Ariel said softly. Though her voice was soft, it made Violette sit up abruptly, her back ramrod straight and her whole body trembling faintly. As she sat, still and staring, Ariel reached out and laid a hand on Violette's arm.