by K Alexander
"Where is Helena?"
Aggravated, she sat up and folded her arms. "I do… not… know. All right? Not a notion, not an idea. What does everybody want with Helena in the middle of the night at any rate?"
"Everybody?" His brown eyebrows drew together furiously above his nose. "Who else?"
"It is probably not my business, Philip…"
"WHO ELSE?"
At his booming tone she cringed (and found to her absolute bemusement that she was quite enthralled by the ferocity of it all). "Please, Philip! You're going to harm yourself - or worse, me."
Tossing his head arrogantly he glowered at her. "Oh, calm yourself. I'm not going to do anything to you."
"Nothing?" She raised her eyebrows hopefully.
"Not a thing. Now tell me!"
Gathering her blanket about her Harmony pursed her lips irritably. "I really can't say exactly how long ago, but not long before you, a man came in here and asked for Helena. When she was nowhere to be found he ran out."
"A man, you say." He let loose a crashing roar. "Crispin!" Twirling on his heels he stormed away from the tent, leaving a dishevelled Harmony with her blanket drawn up to her chin.
"Well." She tucked herself in petulantly and this time remembered to blow out the lantern's flame. From the darkness came a mutter. "And what, exactly, may I ask, is wrong with me?"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
DUE TO HELENA'S utter lack of directional skills Eric had tracked her down easily as she wandered firmly and directly back towards the campsite, and attempting to head her off in the dark had produced a flurry of imaginative threats before he could identify himself. Now the princess was firmly ensconced in front of Eric on his horse as they galloped away from the players' camp.
"Why in the world did you run off, Helena?" His breath was warm on her ear.
"You were there, Eric. Don't you remember that she said she wanted me to go?"
She could feel his head shaking behind her. "No, Helena, I remember her asking you why you hadn't gone. As badly as she handled it - and my goodness, she really managed to mess up that one - I don't think that she meant to tell you to leave."
"She didn't?"
"No." He shook his head again, this time to dislodge the blonde lock that kept falling into his eyes. "But what I actually meant earlier is: why did you run away from the players?"
"Oh, that." She shrugged nonchalantly. "I thought it was what I wanted, and it wasn't."
"Ah. So you leaving was your own choice."
"Of course. What else?" She thought about tossing her hair imperiously and then rejected it as a bad idea. In order for the prince not to drop her in alarm at the sudden appearance of blonde hair other than his own in his eyes, she would have to warn him in advance of the imminent head toss, and to do that would completely ruin the effect. Instead she settled for squaring her shoulders regally and hoped that as a noble he would instinctively understand her meaning. They rode for a good distance before something suddenly occurred to her.
"Eric?"
"Hmm?"
"Where is Crispin? Why isn't she here? Too noble to come and be suitably remorseful herself, is she?"
"Well." He cleared his throat. "Crispin is actually in a spot of trouble right now."
"What?" She snapped her head back and tried to look at him. "What's happened? Is she all right?"
"For the moment."
"Well, out with it!" Helena was losing her patience at an alarming rate. "You knightly types are all the same, aren't you? Unforthcoming to a fault. Don't force me to ask questions, Eric, just offer the information, for Thyrus the Bald's sake!"
"I knew him, you know. Though he truthfully didn't have hair on his head, it was marvelously prolific on the rest of his b… "
"Eric!" The high-pitched snarl was punctuated by a smart slap to the back of his hand.
"All right, all right." She could actually hear the pout (purely through experience). "She has been captured. No, not captured, really. Enslaved."
"By whom?" Helena could barely sit still. In her agitation she slapped Eric's hand again, causing him to let loose a shriek and cover one hand churlishly with the other.
"Will you stop doing that? Crispin's been enslaved by Sirens."
"Sirens?" Helena's nose wrinkled.
"Yes. Sirens. They are sea nymphs who tempt sailors to their dea…"
"I know what Sirens are. Sea nymphs. We're nowhere near a sea, Eric."
Eric shook his head helplessly. "Don't ask me how. I don't even understand it myself." He heaved a sigh that spoke of frustration, powerlessness and the energy senselessly wasted to keep an actively moving princess on the back of a horse. "Yesterday," casting an eye at the dark sky, "well, I would presume yesterday, Crispin and I left town to come looking for you…"
"Really? Was she bothered that I'd gone?"
"Yes and yes. At any rate, somewhere around sunset we were searching for a good spot to camp, and found a farmhouse that seemed … "
"But I didn't see any such place... Assuming that you took the main road, of course?"
"Yes, we took the main road, but no, then we wandered off." It was very likely from the sound of his voice that the blonde man was speaking through gritted teeth. "At any rate. The three sisters who live in the house offered us a place for the night, which we accepted."
"Why would Cri …"?
"Will you just let me tell the story?! I am trying my best to be forthcoming and you're thwarting me all over the place!" Clearing his throat in frustration the prince continued. "At any rate. We accepted their offer - and then they asked if we'd mind if they sang as they embroidered."
"It would have been silly to accept that, considering that they're Sirens…" It was very softly said in deference to Eric's recent outburst, but phrased with that exasperating condescending lilt at the end of the sentence. Pinching his lips together he opened his mouth to speak, then closed it and wrinkled his nose. Opening his mouth again to speak he paused, then closed it and bit his own tongue for a reasonably painful amount of time. It didn't help.
"We didn't KNOW they were Sirens! How could we have known?! As you yourself said, they were nowhere near the sea - and it's not as if they carry around a wooden name placard like Thisby the Almost Martyr!"
"All right, no need to have a seizure. Calm down." Patting one trembling hand comfortingly Helena wondered whether the Sirens had affected his mental state. That brought up an interesting question. "Eric, if Crispin's in no state to fetch help, then why are you?"
"Why am I what?"
Definitely affected. "Why are you in a state to fetch help?"
"Oh." He scratched his stubbly chin thoughtfully. "I'm not sure. Their singing was very agreeable and harmonious and all that, but while I was simply listening with enjoyment Crispin seemed positively … intoxicated. At the end of it she sat there with this vague smile on her face, and when the Sirens told her to go to their room, she went without saying a word to the contrary."
"Now that is very unlike her."
"Very. I called her, but she just smiled at me over her shoulder and left."
"Too much smiling. Also very unlike her." The princess pondered a world in which the knight smiled profusely, and discarded the thought with a shudder as extremely … well … wrong. "Eric, what's your plan?"
"It goes like this: We know that I am, for mysterious reasons, unreceptive to their singing. So - I distract them, and while I am doing that you sneak in and bring round Crispin."
"What if she doesn't want to be brought round?"
"Then smack her about a little! I don't know…" The prince sighed dejectedly. "I don't understand how this happened."
Rubbing his wrist gently Helena tried to comfort him. "Eric, it wasn't your fault."
"Yes it was. I knew who they were and I couldn't stop them."
"But you will now." The princess nodded decisively. "Yes. You distract them, and I'll find Crispin."
They dismounted a good distance away and tethered the horse to a nearby shrub (
the horse didn't mind; in fact, the only one who minded was the shrub), stealing up to the building with an approximation of stealth. The sun was on its way to rising and let rays of faint light through the trees. Even with the clearness of daylight the house seemed a little strange, as if its angles weren't meant for human consumption. Crouched behind an accommodating bush Helena peered over the leaves, trying to spot movement in the skew window frames. There was none. Leaning towards Eric, who was stooped next to her elegantly, she began to whisper urgently, making all sorts of interesting but quite pointless gestures as she did so.
"Do you see" pointing at her own eyes with two fingers, "the window to the side" left hand up, almost slapping Eric's face as it snapped into position vertically, "with the wooden trough under it?" Hands gesturing as if to tuck in sheets. With a fascinated frown and slightly narrowed eyes Eric studied her hands intently, missing the question mark un-indicated by any motions. One of the hands slapped him smartly on the thigh. "Eric!"
"Yes, yes, I'm sorry, please continue."
"You" pointing at his chest, "are going to go into the house and distract the sisters." At the word 'distract' she waved her hands over her ears in an incredibly strange motion. "I" pointing at her own bosom, "am going to… Eric, are you listening?"
Tearing his eyes away from her hands he glanced up at her in blank fascination. "Yes, yes, I am, but Helena… What exactly are you doing with your hands??"
He couldn't help but demonstrate with a silly little motion of his own, both hands clawing the air waggishly. Eyeing his gesture with chilly disapproval Helena tried to lower her hands unobtrusively, an action made more difficult by the fact that they were at that point doing something odd in the air all by themselves. "I though you knights had some type of non-verbal communication during times of … you know, silence and menace and … silence."
"Erm," the prince by now had also lowered his hands, "no. Did Crispin tell you that?"
"No. I must have read it in a book." The last bit was pure mumble. "Fine. Let's get on with it, shall we? You distract, I climb through the window and find Crispin, when all is done I hoot like an owl and you run like the wind."
"What type of owl?"
"What?"
"What type of owl? There are plenty of different owls."
Helena actually pondered the wisdom of it before she realised that she shouldn't have. "Any type of owl! If we go on like this we'll still be sitting here under this bush as the sun goes down!"
"All right." Eric shrugged. "Let me hear your owl sound."
The princess cleared her throat and formed her lips into a pout that the prince actually found rather adorable. "Hoo hoo?"
"Good enough. If it were a few decibels deeper it would be a barn owl…"
"Good enough." And with surprisingly strong arms Helena shoved him unceremoniously onto the lawn.
Climbing onto what seemed to be half a barrel (and cursing her capacious skirts all the way) Helena popped her head up rapidly to consider the possibility of danger, but even as she ducked back down she realised that there was nobody to be seen in the room. Raising her head cautiously she peered into the window again. A small bed stood in one corner against the wall, a beautiful old washbasin behind the door, and a large oval mirror in the other corner, but there was no human inhabitant (or otherwise) anywhere. When a sudden ruckus broke out in another part of the house Helena almost lost her footing and tumbled down, managing by sheer luck to wrap her arms over the sill and pull herself up again. It was Eric's voice, and a distraction he was most definitely providing. To Helena's ear it sounded much like a little song she learnt as a child and was subsequently forbidden ever to sing again (that time not so much for the vocabulary as for the incessant repeat of the inexcusably irritating chorus). Smiling to herself she gathered her skirts into a manageable bundle of sorts, and proceeded to climb through the window into the room with very little dignity.
"Oh, for Hermes' sake, stop!" a voice pleaded from somewhere outside, and Helena almost felt sorry for whoever was being subjected to that torture. It wasn't that Eric had an unpleasant voice - on the contrary, his singing voice was every bit as light and well-modulated as his speaking voice - but more that he had absolutely no respect for tones, keys, or anything of the sort.
The floorboards creaked ominously, as they always did in these kinds of places. Tiptoeing to the door Helena opened it a crack and peered out. There was nobody in the front room, and with a gentle nudge she opened the door and slipped out, heading for the door that she'd caught sight of to her right. A peek inside told her that it was the kitchen, and empty at that. Turning dejectedly on her heels she realised that there was one more door to the far left that she'd missed coming from the first room. Sneaking towards it -
"Please! I beg of you, do not start… again…" That's what you get for stealing Crispin. Heh.
- she grasped the brass door handle and turned it as softly as possible, pushing open the door with the flat of her hands slowly. The first thing one noticed about the room was that it was much bigger on the inside than the outside, though how that was possible was beyond Helena's grasp. A large window (its frames perfectly straight on this side) let in a beam of light, which fell, as fate would have it, on Crispin's prone form. She lay in the centre of a massive bed, her dark hair spread quite beatifically about her serene face.
"Crispin?"
It was a whisper that immediately got a result. The dark knight sat bolt upright, a pleasant (and totally out of place) smile stretched over her lips, and though she looked right at Helena her blue eyes were large and blank. "Souflay? Lahtay? Biday?"
"Eh?"
A light went out in the knight's eyes. "Oh. It's only you." Heaving a sigh she collapsed backwards onto the bed and studied the ceiling conscientiously. The princess glanced up quickly, but there was absolutely nothing to be seen. Frowning, she stepped closer to the bed and poked the knight's shoulder. Shooting a quick glance at her from the corner of disinterested eyes Crispin yawned and went back to studying the ceiling.
"What do you mean it's only me? I came a long way to get here, I'll have you know." Folding her arms imperiously came naturally, and this time it was actually appropriate too.
Crispin gave her another uninterested glance. "Shall I call the mistresses?"
"No, no." Helena waved her hands around vaguely. "It wasn't that long a way. Lie back, relax. What exactly do they have you doing here, Crispin?"
"Oh," the dark knight suddenly bounced up onto her haunches, animated, "I started a small tapestry. Would you like to see it?"
"No!" It was the reaction of someone who had just had something unspeakably repulsive suggested to them. "Most definitely not! Unless..." the princess paused, "… unless it's of blood and dragons and fighting. Please tell me that it is?"
"Well, hardly. It's of pretty flowers." Crispin smiled in a decidedly un-Crispin fashion.
Repressing a shudder Helena looked around the room, trying to figure out some kind of way to get the knight out of the house. A candelabrum stood in one corner, two of the three candles still burning, and a trail of congealing wax had dripped onto the beautiful little cabinet beneath it. Perhaps I can smack her with the candlesticks. "So, Crispin, I'm told that your mistresses sing delightfully?" It was more to keep the knight occupied while she searched for an exit, but it was the right topic. Abruptly Crispin rose to her feet on the unsteady mattress, standing perilously in front of the large open window. Stretching her arms out she made a snuffling sound that reminded Helena of Toby when he was eating an apple.
"Oh, yes! Their singing is extraordinarily beautiful!"
"Crispin, get down from there. You're going to hurt yourself." The blonde woman shot a scolding glance at the figure on the bed. "Besides, though I'm sure they have lovely voices and harmony and whatever else, I'll wager that they don't know the moustache song. So there."
"Where?" Crispin continued to stand on the bed, though her posture was a little more confused now. "I am not sure w
hether they sang about moustaches, but they do have this one song that's exquisite: it tells the tale of a young woman who loses her lover and walks into the ocean as penite…"
"Yeah, yeah." Interrupting quite rudely Helena waved her hands about. "Sirens and all that. Well, you know what? I am very musical myself, even though you've never even bothered to acknowledge it. You exasperate me even when you're not yourself, Crispin, you really do." And without a second thought she launched into her favourite song.
If she'd kept her eyes on Crispin she would have seen her facial expression change slowly: from pleasant vague beaming, to politely smiling, to rounded lips that formed a silent "o", and then the sound of air being driven from her lungs much too forcefully. Doubling over intensely the knight clutched her midriff and stumbled backwards, managing to fall neatly through the window behind her.
Helena was hefting the candelabra in one hand, gauging its usefulness as a weapon, when the explosion of air alerted her to impending disaster. Spinning around with the silver object held up in defence she was just in time to see Crispin's feet disappear from the window. Darting to the window Helena stuck out her blonde head. Crispin was lying full-length on the ground outside, her hands still cradling her stomach and her blue eyes blinking rapidly - but lucidly - at the sky over her.
"Ow."
"Crispin? Are you all right? Did you break anything?"
The knight lifted her head slightly, her eyes widening at the sight of the princess leaning from the window. "Helena?" One hand crept towards her temple. "Where've you been? We've been trying to… Oh, I have such a headache."
The princess disappeared from the window and then re-emerged with something clutched in one hand. Climbing through the window with a little more restraint than Crispin had, she landed lightly at the knight's feet and scurried over, wrapping a hand around the other woman's upper arm. "Can you walk?"
Pushing herself up into a sitting, and then standing, position, the knight rubbed her head again. "What happened?"
Apart from the headache she seemed relatively solid. Taking advantage of her slightly dazed state Helena reached up and pressed two soft wax pellets into Crispin's ears. She had peeled them off the candelabra before she'd left the room, and worked them into a supple state in her hand. It took a moment for Crispin to react.