A/N: I'm sooooo sorry for completely disappearing for like two months! My computer crashed a few weeks before spring break so I was 3000 miles from home and computerless and then I had ot catch up on a lot of work from break and not having a computer and then there were midterms and finals and final papers and now I'm finally home on summer vacation. So I will be posting more stuff and my updates on I Believe should return to their usual sporadic, but existent, mess.
Anyway, I've been working on this off and on since like November or December. I took a few comments from Sam and turned them into an AU. So, enjoy my little fairytale.
This is one of those fairy tales, as I suppose it could be called, that begins with once upon a time or long ago, in a land far, far away (or not so far for some of you, perhaps). Then the storyteller may go on to describe to his rapt audience the beautiful green landscape of Ireland and the gorgeously built castles that dotted the countryside and the Pale. Some built a hundred or so years since and others more recently constructed, or ruined, by the Normans. Perhaps this is the best way to begin…
Once upon a time, long, long ago and far, far away, there lived a beautiful young woman in a beautiful land. The Irish countryside was the view from the window in her tower chamber. Her father ruled the once prominent Gaelic Irish kingdom of Glenanne that now battled the nearby Normans for dominance. Her uncle, the king's advisor and brother, helped him rule with open arms and a kind heart. The complete opposite of their Norman neighbors who ruled with an iron fist and grabby fingers. Just five years previously, those very same Normans had pillaged Glenanne and managed to snatch the princess, Fiona, while she was out in the market with her guardian. The Norman lord of that fiefdom realized immediately who she was and adopted her as his own, for he himself was childless and a widower. The then eleven year old princess held her tongue and bided her time, waiting for someone, a knight perhaps, from her home kingdom to come a save her.
Now, at the tender age of sixteen, she was one year past eligible for marriage and her adopted Norman guardian was waiting on a generous dowry for her hand, but none had been forthcoming. At least not with the stories commoners and slaves heard at the fringes of the fiefdom, those stories they told to the wealthy merchants and few noblemen who may have been interested in the beautiful young princess. These stories frightened the wealthy and pampered because of a certain young hero…
You see, there was a young man named Michael Westen, the grandson of the Irish king whose land was overtaken by the Normans some fifty years before our hero's birth. The homestead of his family had been raided for stone when the invaders built their castle, so he had been raised in a rural cottage in the forest just beyond the town surrounding the Glenanne castle. Michael was known in that town, as he had been a childhood friend of the princess and had promised her father mere days after her disappearance that he would save and return her to her family. When asked why such a young man, placed in poverty by foreigners, would willingly risk his life when it was clearly and simply the duty of a knight that fourteen year old boy replied simply, "Because I love her."
The stories of Michael Westen grew in their grandness and expanse and truth as more young men, also put out of their poor homes, joined him in the wood over the years of his growing up. He had yet to rescue the princess (how I suppose every fairy tale must go) but not for lack of trying. Not long after her kidnapping, he found her in the Norman castle and attempted his first, and most dangerous, rescue.
~Four and a half years ago~
Michael was crouched behind the trunk of a large tree on the edge of the Norman fief, separated from it by a large stone wall and the city gate which itself was further separated from him by the portcullis. Sighing, the barely fifteen year old stared up at the turret window where a light breeze was billowing the soft draperies of the kidnapped princess's window. He sank down to sit beside the tree and wait for twilight, his eyes never leaving that tower window. For a moment, as the air was beginning to chill, he saw her approach the window and gaze wistfully out toward her home. He stood up quickly, accidentally stepping on a twig. The sound echoed around the bit of the wood he was standing in and she turned her head toward the sound, looking right at him and the expression on her face was the most perfect and heartbreaking he had ever seen. It simultaneously told him that she was desperately glad to see him and that she was terrified for him.
As the sun was setting, she smiled softly in his direction and closed the heavier drapes, blocking out the chilly wind and shifting Michael's focus to the guards in front of the portcullis. Setting his mind on the wall nearest Fiona's tower, he sprinted quickly from the cover of the trees to a more open position where he could toss his grappling hook up to the top of the wall. It went up and hooked on with ease, allowing Michael to begin the climb toward the parapet quite nimbly. That is, until a guard walking along the stone walkway he was climbing to saw the hook and immediately cut the rope to which it was attached, sending the boy below plummeting to the ground. Though he wasn't severely injured by the ten foot fall, the guards on the grounds intended to change that. He put up a good fight, but in the end his quick feet saved him more readily than his fists.
Unfortunately, Fiona didn't see him flee and was reduced to crying in her chamber, thinking the guards had captured him and would put him to death. No hanging ever came, which only made her fear that he had already died fighting to rescue her. Sometimes at night or early in the morning, Michael would hide in the stand of trees nearest her tower and wish he could tell her it would be alright. But he was careful to keep hidden and she didn't see him again for those four and a half years that he nursed his wounds into scars and his determination into a band of do-gooders in the forest.
~Current Time~
Michael wandered around the town of Glenanne, picking up some things in the marketplace to eat before leaving for his forest camp where a group of equally disenchanted young men were waiting for their instructions. He was dressed in a simple, woolen tunic with a linen shirt underneath and a pair of wool hose. His shoes were standard of a boy of his status and well-worn from a young lifetime in the woods. Two loaves of bread rested in the rucksack on his shoulders as he left the town by its gate and wandered into the trees. About twenty minutes from the town wall there was a small camp of tents and boys gathered around a large fire pit.
"Hi boys," he greeted, taking the food from his bag and setting it on a stool beside a large pot of stew that had been left to simmer. He cooked for the camp as his mother hadn't been much of a cook and neither had his father, so he'd already taken over that household chore early in his life. "Hey Sam," he said to his best friend, an older boy named Sam who was the best tactical support a young man could ask for. "How are they today?"
Sam scratched at his slightly scruffy, short beard. "They think they're ready. You need to start teachin' 'em." Michael nodded as he scooped stew into Sam's bowl and broke off a piece of bread for him. The other young men, all with some beard scruff, though some longer and thicker than others, rushed over to form a line for food. After every boy was fed and sitting around the campfire Michael introduced the first part of his plan.
"Tomorrow I'm going to start your proper training and when I think you're ready, we will finally complete the task of rescuing Princess Fiona. Any questions?" Most of the boys shook their heads, knowing they would all understand in due time. The nineteen and a half year old nodded back at them and took his stew and bread away from the fire pit, eating it as he drew in the dirt with a stick, planning the attack over and over again in his mind. Once he was finished he took his bowl back to camp and set it with the rest of the dishes to be washed in the stream.
Barry, a pudgy, young boy who was good with numbers and managed the money for the group, rushed up to him with a tablet and a pencil in his hand. The money bag was tied tightly around his waist, beneath his tunic, and his tablet was covered in tally marks and numbers. "We won't have enough money for food next week if we can't find some quickly. None of us except you and I have any skills for jobs and no one will hire a kid like me and you need to be here to teach us how to help you."
The older boy nodded resignedly. "We'll steal some from one of the Normans. I think a nobleman or merchant is coming tomorrow. I saw the preparations being made for him." Barry nodded and watched as his friend walked off into the woods, probably to scout and plan their 'highway robbery' the next day.
Michael was indeed walking along the road that led to the Norman castle, deciding the best possible location to ambush the carriage. Once he'd found it, the tactics of it fell easily into place and he kept walking toward the castle tower. Once he could see the windows, he hid in the deep shadows of the trees and waited. There was yelling in the tower that night, something he had heard a few times before, and it made him cringe. The window was open and he could hear every word, as he was certain the guards on the parapet could as well. The Lord was angry that no man would come to marry her because of the stories. She didn't know what stories he meant, so he continued yelling that she was plenty beautiful enough for a large dowry from any Norman nobleman and there was one coming the next day to see her. He was from Desmond and therefore had never heard the stories that made her so untouchable to locals.
Sinking to the grass and sitting for a moment against the tree trunk, Michael couldn't quite catch his breath. They would have to ambush him and clear him out long before he could propose marriage and offer a dowry. Once the yelling stopped, he turned to look back at Fiona's tower. She was leaning on the window ledge, staring toward home like usual with the moonlight glittering off the tears in her eyes. He wished that he could scale the wall and hold her and tell her it would all be fine. But he couldn't do that. He couldn't even make it to her chamber without being caught and the last thing he needed was to be hurt when she needed him most.
Meanwhile, back at the camp, something potentially just as problematic was beginning to arise. Jesse, a boy a little younger than Michael who was new to the gang and whose maturity had yet to grow into his beard, stood up and rapped his fist loudly against his bowl. Most of the boys stopped their ruckus and looked at him, waiting for whatever it was he had to say. "Do any of you know where Michael goes at dusk each day and some days at dawn as well?" Most of the boys shrugged an answer that could have been yes or no or whatever. "The Norman Lord's castle. Every single night. He could be setting up the lot of us! Why do we blindly follow and believe everything he tells us?"
"Jesse," Sam began, "you don't know what you're talkin' about. Mike loves Princess Fiona."
"Look, I get that she's beautiful and all Sam, but is that a good enough reason to go rescue her? He's probably scamming King Glenanne and the Norman Lord. Think about it, he's clever enough," Jesse argued.
Sam sighed. "Yes, he is. But you don't understand. He's in love with her. They were friends when they were kids."
"Right," the younger boy scoffed, "because the King would certainly let his only daughter be friends with a commoner like Mike."
The other boys were starting to get interested in the fight, the overwhelming majority of which siding with Sam for the simple fact that he'd set them straight long ago when they'd had the same thoughts as Jesse. "You really don't understand. Mike is rightfully the prince of that land he's sitting on. His grandfather was a king before the Normans invaded. King Glenanne respects and trusts him more than any other man who might want to marry his daughter."
"Oh yeah," Jesse scoffed again, his eyes dark and set with determination. "If he's so princely, then explain to me how he got all those scars."
"Trying to rescue the girl I love long before I had the skill or reinforcements to succeed," Michael said as he stepped back into camp from the thick trees. "She doesn't need to see that from her window again." That conversation was officially over the moment he sat down and began drawing plans on the dirt in front of him.
The next morning, Michael spooned leftover stew into every boy's bowl before going off to the stream to bathe and shave for the day. It garnered quite a bit of teasing from the others that he didn't have a beard. Personally, he'd never liked the way it felt or how it looked on him anyway. So he shaved every couple of days and only kept the bit of scruff that grew in between. Of course, it kept him looking like a young boy who wasn't much of a threat to the Normans and that was very helpful for someone who lived off stolen goods. No one had yet believed that a boy without even a bit of beard had robbed a fully grown Norman blind. He realized there would be a slight problem with their usual method of attack today. Normally he would jump into the carriage and keep the lord befuddled while the boys robbed it. If his still only half configured and wholly secret plan to rescue Princess Fiona was to work, he would need to be unrecognizable to the lord, who would most certainly not leave until he had the chance to marry the princess.
Returning to camp, Michael selected one of the youngest boys whom he hoped could pull this off: his little brother, Nate. It had only been a year since he'd brought his brother to live at the camp with them instead of dealing with his fighting parents and then his father's death at home. Some days he regretted it, but most of the time he was glad he was no longer needed as a human shield from their father.
"Nate," Michael called, waving his brother over. The younger boy came trotting up to his brother with a questioning look on his face. "I have a job for you today." Nate nodded and followed his brother to the stream where he stood very still and let Michael trim his small amount of stubble and smudge his face with dirt, making him look like an even younger street urchin. "Today you are going to jump into the carriage when we stop it and talk to the lord about where he's going and how much money he has and why he's traveling through here. When he says he's going to marry Princess Fiona I want you to tell him the stories you've heard about this rogue young hero in the woods who has thwarted every suitor she's ever had. Keep him confused and not paying attention and scare him a little at the end. I'll give you the signal, three taps on the door, when we're done and you can go. But don't leave until he knows the story. You got it?"
"Yeah, bro. I got it," he replied, excited to be part of the raiding party for the first time. Only the elites got to rob Norman lords with his brother.
An hour later, the raiding party was ready to go with daggers and sacks, including Michael whose usual position was being filled by his brother. No one but Michael knew why, including Nate, but it didn't matter because the group trusted their leader so implicitly (well, generally speaking) they had no reason to question his judgment, so they didn't.
Michael led them to the ambush location, placing half the boys on one side of the road and half on the other. There was a strategy to the whole thing and it was about to be put into play because the lord's caravan, if a group of three carriages requires such a distinction, was only ten yards from the choke point. Just before the lead carriage pulled into position, one of the boys stepped out into the road, falling quite convincingly as the carriage pulled up to him. The footman climbed awkwardly from the carriage to check on the boy when he was suddenly taken from behind. A burlap sack was tied over his head and his hands and feet were bound. Michael looked around, pleased to see that the attendants of each carriage were being dispatched the same way quickly and efficiently. Nate, however, looked anxious about the whole mess.
"You're up. Go do your thing." He got ready to shove his brother to the door, when the younger boy surprised him. He straightened up, squared his shoulders and wrenched the door open, popping inside and the closing it behind him. Michael smirked and went about helping the other boys fill their bags with the various items of great wealth that filled the rest of the caravan. Jewels, gold, silver, silk, and even a fair amount of food.
Inside, Nate was playing his part to the best of his ability, which was more than Michael expected. "Good morning," he began, smiling impishly at the lord's uneasy expression.
"Hello. What's going on out there? Why are we stopped?"
"It's not important. So why are you riding through here? I mean, there's no way you're from around here. I would know you if you lived here."
The lord stuttered a bit, staring at the dirty boy sitting in his carriage. "I'm on my way to visit Lord Hasting. His daughter has come of age and she is to accept my hand within the week at a grand feast. Young Fiona is supposed to be an exquisite beauty, but she is still unmarried and I have yet to find an explanation. Either way, I intend to marry her and return to Desmond."
"Fiona, you say? As in Princess Fiona?"
"I suppose she could be," the lord replied, confused by the startled and slightly fearful look on the boy's face. Only a moment before he was calm and in control. Then three taps on the door, the signal for finished. Perfect, all he had to do was tell the story and then he could leave.
"There is a man, younger and stronger than you who has frightened off every suitor she may have ever had. Lord Hasting is becoming frustrated. He blames her, but she doesn't know him. The people in town talk about this rogue who wanders the forests, practicing sword fighting and archery on trees. Always alone, but he's always the best at everything and he has never failed to thwart a suitor."
"Have you ever met him?" the lord asked, a little fearful.
Nate shook his head. "I've seen him once. He's tall and strong. He could probably snap me like a twig. But for some reason he doesn't want her to marry. I would be careful if I were you. The lord's knights might not be able to protect you. They all say he's like smoke, sometimes you can see him and then he disappears with the breeze." Then Nate slid out of the carriage in one fluid movement, following the other boys into the forest. Only a few remained, facing the caravan attendants toward the opposite side of the forest. They scurried back into the trees, watching as the last boy cut the bindings of the first footman's hands and then sprinted back to safety. None of them were really seen and the robbery had gone magnificently. The lord climbed shakily from his carriage, yelling at his men who were scrambling to stand and be untied.
"He looks pretty shaken up. Good work Nate, I didn't think you had it in you," Michael complimented.
The younger boy gave a wobbly smile, excited to have made his brother proud. "He's planning to announce the betrothal within the week at some feast here. But with how much we stole, it will probably take him at least a week to have another dowry sent from Desmond."
"Yeah, so that means we have two weeks to train and be ready to rescue the princess," Michael replied. "Let's get out of here before he finishes yelling at his guards and sends them after us. After all we've got a lot of work to do."
Once the boys got back to camp, they divided up the stolen goods. Food stayed with them, as well as money, and anything that needed to be sold or traded was given to a select few boys who could easily peddle it all. The rest of the boys gathered around Michael to hear his plans. Of course, it would never be the entire plan, but it would be the parts they needed to know beforehand.
"The rescue will involve a lot of distraction, fighting and misdirection. I will take care of the tactics, but you are all going to need a lot of practice in archery, sword fighting and hand-to-hand combat. You don't need any more practice with stealth, but you need to be able to combine that with fighting. Now, are you ready?" Every boy yelled and stamped their feet.
They began that day with wooden swords that Michael had made a few nights previously when he couldn't sleep. Some of the boys were doing quite well and others were just alright. But there was need for diversity in their attack so it wasn't a huge problem. By the middle of the day, he had drawn away nearly a third of the boys to begin their archery training early.
The boys were a bit confused at first, until Michael left the sword training to Sam and went over to the group of boys sitting at the base of a tree. "Come with me," Michael said, gesturing for the boys to follow him to another part of the woods. He had gathered as many bows as he could make in the previous two weeks and ten quivers of arrows. Luckily, every boy had a bow to practice with. Michael lifted his bow and assumed his stance, drawing an arrow and firing quickly at a target painted on a tree trunk. With their archery underway and all of them doing so well, he assumed he would eventually choose a few of these boys to be his snipers. All of the boys would need to be trained in hand-to-hand combat, though, just in case they ran into trouble in close quarters.
Over the next ten days, the entire camp ate, drank and slept training. They were earning their aging faces and little scars. On the eleventh day, though, Michael was gone and Sam gave no explanation, only telling them to keep training whatever they felt they needed most practice with. He had left very early that morning to visit King Glenanne for some tactical support. They needed knights to back them up as they returned to his castle with the princess so there would be a defensible position waiting for them already set up and ready to defend. The king, anxious to have his daughter back after five years, agreed without hesitation and offered to provide arms for anyone who would be helping him in his rescue. Wishing not to impose on the kind king any more than was necessary, Michael replied that they had enough funds and skills to arm themselves. Then he bowed low and left, hurrying to return and see what the boys had accomplished that day.
As it turned out, they had accomplished quite a lot and Michael felt they were ready to use what he had bought in town whilst visiting the king: real swords and metal tipped arrows. For the night, the boys just ate and drank and rested up, but in the morning, only four days before the feast, they began with the real weapons. To Michael's surprise they worked with them wonderfully, with as much ease as the wooden stand-ins of the week and a half previous. By the end of their two week crash course in fighting they were more than ready, but they still didn't know the plan.
The morning before the feast Michael went down to the stream to bathe and shave as he usually did and then dressed and returned to camp to wake up the rest of the gang. Each boy sat up out of their straw bed and began pulling on clothes. It was late spring and not as cold as their frigid winter had been, so most of the boys had stopped wearing their shirts and occasionally breeches to bed. They all dressed quickly though, because it was the day of the final and most important test of their skills. Without saying a word, Michael beckoned for the boys to follow him as he walked toward the Norman castle. Once they arrived he began to reveal his plan.
"Jesse," Michael began, "you are going to position yourself in that tree." He pointed to a large oak that provided good cover at the corner of the parapet and near Fiona's tower. "Sam, you, Barry and Nate will be coming with me. As for the rest of you…" Then he went on to describe the locations each boy would take and their duties there. He took Sam, Barry, Nate and Jesse aside to explain their portion of the mission. "The four of us will disguise ourselves and get in through the city gate. From there, I will infiltrate the feast and cause a little bit of panic before I leave and wait for Fiona to return to the tower. You three will cause mayhem and panic inside the town. Spread rumors, steal things, let animals out of their pens, take down a couple of guards. Anything you can think of that might cause panic without getting caught. Then we wait and you will remain inconspicuous while I take care of the rest. Jesse, you will be my sniper. I need you to protect my advance on the tower. Put down a few guards, clear off our end of the parapet and carry two grappling hooks so we can all escape."
Jesse seemed like he wanted to ask questions, still unsure about what exactly he needed to do, but Sam, Nate and Barry didn't question their assignments and Sam was subtly shaking his head, letting Jesse know not to open his mouth. After their briefing, Sam led the boys back to the camp while Michael headed back to the cottage where he grew up.
"Hi Ma!" he called as he entered the house. She appeared in front of him with a pipe in her hand. "I need to borrow some of Dad's old clothes, something nice."
"Is that all you ever come home for Michael? To borrow things and find disguises? You never come to check in on your poor old mother?" she asked accusingly.
Trying not to roll his eyes, Michael replied, "How are you Ma? Is there anything I can do for you while I'm here?"
She shook her head before answering, "No, but next week I need someone to come by and tend to the garden. The clothes are in the trunk against that wall."
"Thanks Mom," he said as he hastened to dig through it for the perfect disguises. He also needed something nice to wear underneath his large woolen cloak so he wouldn't look too out of place at the feast. Calling thank you to her one more time as he left, Michael hurried back to camp with the disguises in his rucksack. When he returned to camp, Michael called out, "Alright everyone, this is it! I've waited five long years for this day, so let's get it right this time. To your places as quietly as you can. Don't get caught and just keep waiting. You'll know what to do." The boys gathered up their things, tied swords or bows and quivers to themselves before strapping a dagger onto their hip and heading out as silent as a panther.
Then, only Sam, Nate, Barry, Jesse and Michael remained. "You got disguises for us?" Michael nodded and tossed the clothes at each boy. Jesse's disguise was more camouflage than anything else, Nate's was a traveling peddler, Barry looked the part as the accountant's son he used to be and Sam was dressed as a simple traveler with wool hose and a wool cloak to match Michael's. They all changed quickly, Michael into something quite nice compared to his friends, with exquisite hose and doublet and nearly new shoes, all of which had come from his grandfather, seeing as his father never saw a penny of the old family money. He donned a long gray wool cloak that covered him from head to foot and showed none of the expensive and fashionable clothing beneath.
The sun was beginning to set when they reached the city gates and they hid behind a nearby wall seeing as the guests of the feast had yet to arrive. They did in fact begin to arrive only moments later as Michael, Sam, Nate and Barry watched from their hiding place. Soon the guests had dwindled and then it seemed no others would be coming. That was their chance. Barry strolled past the gates first, tipping his hat to the guards and continuing on without a second glance. Nate was up next. With two weeks of beard growth on his face and a heavy pack on his back, he looked the part of the peddler and he was let through the gates with only a quick survey by the guards to be sure he wasn't a threat to the feast. Sam and Michael approached the gates together, both dressed as travelers. The guards stopped them almost immediately.
"Not tonight. There is a feast for the Lord's daughter and he does not wish it to be ruined," the superior guard told them commandingly.
"Please, I just want a safe place for me and my little brother to sleep," Sam replied, slinging an arm around Michael's shoulders. Michael was already stooping a little so the wool cloak would be long enough to cover his shoes and he was clean shaven, so he fit the part. Surprised though he was, Michael let his expression back up Sam's story. The older boy was improvising and doing so quite well, so Michael just followed along.
Sighing and obviously kicking himself for it, the guard stepped aside and allowed the two boys into the town square. They moved about, looking for a hidden place for them to talk and for Michael to take off his cloak without suspicion. There was an empty horse stall in a stable to the left of the castle and they ducked in there to talk.
"Ok, you know what to do for the rest of the evening. Just make sure you get out of the town with Nate and Barry after the guards change at dawn and meet us in Glenanne," Michael said, relaying instructions he'd already told Sam more than once as he took off the cloak.
"Yeah, Mike, I know the plan. You just be careful. And get her back." The other boy nodded and ducked out of the stall, stepping casually into the torchlight streaming from the castle doors.
There was a herald standing at the entrance waiting to announce the guests as they arrived. He raised his eyebrows at Michael and asked him for his name and title. "Um, I'm just a squire. My master is in there. I was simply returning some items to the carriage. He would be very upset if you announced my tardiness." The herald nodded understandingly and let him pass without a word. So Michael just slipped in and took an empty seat near the wall of the great hall. The meal was half over by the time he sat down and had any food in front of him. Even then, he hid about half of his food in the old, but expensive hide rucksack he was carrying that night. After the final course, the lord from Desmond extended his hand to Fiona as the group of musicians struck up a waltz. Halfway through the song, other couples got up to dance. The daughter of one of the lower noblemen attending offered her hand to him, silently asking to dance. She had dark, curly hair and smiled easily as he accepted her offer and they glided around the dance floor.
"I'm Samantha," she said.
"Michael," he replied. They didn't talk anymore until the song ended and they thanked each other before she returned to her seat. Michael turned and found another girl sitting down. He asked her to dance as the next waltz began. "I'm Michael."
"I am Natalya," she replied with a heavy accent and he realized she was the daughter of the visiting lord from the Great North. They continued to dance as she watched him with an enigmatic scowl. He wasn't sure if she liked him and was trying to seem aloof or if she actually hated him and was trying to be polite. He thanked her as the song ended and she walked silently back to her seat.
Throughout the evening, Michael worked his way up the social ladder of dance partners. Thanking his last partner, he saw the princess sitting in the seat of honor watching the guests dance and applaud. Seeing this as his opportunity he weaved through the other dancers toward her table and bowed in front of her, extending his hand. "I would be honored to have this dance," he said as the strains of a tango began. She smiled and placed her small hand in his. Despite his height and obvious physicality, he held her hand gently as he guided her to the dance floor, averting his face all the while. Suddenly, and with surprising passion, he pulled her into a perfect tango stance and began leading her around the hall to the music.
"Michael," she gasped in quiet shock. He nodded subtly as they continued to dance. "How can you…? But I thought you were…?" His brow furrowed in confusion. "I thought the guards killed you when you came to save me."
He wanted nothing more than to pull her close and take away the pain in her eyes, but he couldn't. Not here. Not yet. "No, I escaped and I've been preparing for this ever since that day. All I could do was try to train boys to help me and keep lords from marrying you until I could get you back."
"You're the one that they tell the stories about," she said, everything falling into place for her.
Michael just smiled back. "I need your help. What's the best way to get up to your tower? It's so well guarded."
"From the inside. There is a nook with a suit of armor in front of it directly in front of the door to the passage to my tower, to the left of my table. You can hide there." He nodded just once as they continued to dance. "I can't believe you're here."
"I'll believe it when we're sitting in the castle in Glenanne," he replied with a mirthless chuckle. The song ended and they all applauded to musicians. Michael bowed low to kiss Fiona's hand and thank her for the dance, slipping a note into her palm as he did so. She curtsied politely and slid the note up her sleeve in the process. Then came the betrothal ceremony which Michael watched from his seat near the back, cringing all the while. As the rest of the hall formed a line to congratulate the lord and Fiona, Michael weaved his way toward the middle and joined the line there so there would be enough people around to camouflage his plan. He shook Lord Hasting's hand politely as well as the lord from Desmond and then he tenderly kissed Fiona's hand and gave her a sly wink as he slipped through the doorway to his left, her right, and snuck silently behind the suit of armor to wait for the darkest hour of the night.
For several hours Michael bided his time in that nook, whilst elsewhere there was significantly more action. Throughout the night, Sam, Nate and Barry were letting animals out of their pens, even as their owners put them back in. At any one time, at least a third of the animals in the town were running loose, loudly. They would also knock on doors and hide, causing many of the peasants to become panicked and look to the knights for help. This enabled the three boys within the town walls and many of the snipers in the trees to take out several of them and leave them unconscious in animal pens for the night. Jesse, as a sniper, did provide some cover fire for the boys while this was happening, but for the most part he just sat in his tree and kept watch over the guards and the tower. It wasn't until it was dark that he saw anything out of the ordinary. He heard the curtains being pulled back and then a candlelit face appeared in the window. Princess Fiona. She was beautiful and he strained to get a better look. A tiny branch of the tree snapped and he immediately stopped moving. But it was already too late. She turned to see him hiding there in the tree and she smiled enigmatically at him. In that moment, he could swear he was lovestruck.
After the party was over and all the well-wishers had left, Lord Hasting sent Fiona up to her chamber so he could talk with his future son-in-law. She whisked away, smiling slightly and dancing her fingers along the wall as she approached Michael's hiding place, then winking at him as she passed by. With a joy she didn't have to fake, Fiona took the stairs up to her tower chamber where she pulled back her curtains and took a candle to look out her window. For a while she just stared over the trees to the towers of her real home of Glenanne, then she heard the snap of a twig in the tree just past the edge of the parapets below her tower. Her head turned toward the sound instantaneously and after a second of observation she could see the boy camouflaged there. He was younger than Michael but was most certainly part of his team. She smiled at that thought. He'd spent nearly five years in the forest training a band of misfit boys like him to help save her. It was sweet and more than she could have asked for, especially since it was not his job to rescue her. Suddenly, the voice of her chambermaid stirred her from her thoughts and she stepped away from the window, pulling the curtains shut behind her.
"Miss, it is time for your bath for your wedding tomorrow." Fiona sighed and followed her into the adjacent room where there was a large basin of water on the floor. The princess accepted help with unfastening her dress and corset, but sent her chambermaid out so she could undress herself in peace. Carefully, Fiona pulled the tiny note from her sleeve.
It is always darkest before the dawn.
She quickly finished undressing and folded the note into her chemise, then stepped into the tub as gracefully as she could, her curled hair hanging over the side. With the various good smelling soap concoctions sitting on the table beside her bath, Fiona washed herself before calling her chambermaid back in to wash her hair. The young woman did so dutifully and then helped the princess into her robe and wrapped a cloth around her wet hair. Then the woman left Fiona's chemise in her chamber and took the rest of the clothes when she left. For a while after that, the young princess sat at her vanity brushing her hair and wrestling with the specific meaning of Michael's note.
Of course he meant that it was always the worst before it got better, meaning in this case that she had to be betrothed to a man she didn't know under a name that wasn't wholly hers given by a man she wasn't born to before he could save her and take her home. But the longer she thought about it, the more she thought it was also a time. Before the dawn. He would hit in that dark hour before dawn when the knights on guard were at the end of their shift and most tired. It was smart, but that was hours away, so she would need to be rested and ready for him when he arrived. Setting down her brush, Fiona made sure the door to her chamber was not locked and then went to lie on her bed and wait. She didn't both to cover up as it was plenty warm in her tower because it was the warmest place in the castle when the curtains were shut.
Sometime later, she was not certain how long because she had fallen asleep, the door opened and shut quickly, but the whoosh of air and the tap of wood on stone woke her from her light sleep. Michael was standing beside the door with his ear pressed to it, making sure there was no one coming up the stairs after him. Then he locked the door and looked over at her with a smile. Opening his mouth to say something, but not finding the words and closing it again, he just leaned in and kissed her cheek.
"Get dressed. Just what you need to go outside right now." She nodded and went back into the adjoining chamber and changed into her chemise and a green dress that made the green in her eyes sparkle with fire and mischief. Then she pulled on a short pair of boots and reappeared in her bedchamber fully dressed with her hair dried in loose waves. He thought she looked too perfect for a rescue, and that was fine with him. Pulling open the curtains, Michael made eye contact with Jesse and waited for his signal. When it came he pulled Fiona over to the window and climbed out, landing nimbly on the battlement below. Then he motioned for her to follow, which she did, landing squarely in his arms. Jesse tossed the extra grappling hook over to him, hooking it on the parapet and letting go of the rope so Michael could take it.
With practiced skill, Michael swung and tossed the grappling hook onto a strong upper branch of the tree past the wall and adjacent to the road and the forest. It hooked on perfectly and he turned to Fiona with the rope in one hand. "Do you trust me?" he asked. She nodded without hesitation. "Then hold on to me as tight you can and I'll get you home." Fiona wrapped her arms around her rescuer's neck, rested her back against the arm that held the rope and allowed him to support her legs and hold the end of the rope with his other arm under her bent knees. She was a small girl, and as Michael stood there ready to swing them to freedom, he noted absently that she felt light as a feather in his arms, not to mention how nice that feeling was on a more emotional level. Michael then looked to Jesse for the signal, which he gave after a moment of hesitation. Without a moment to lose, they swung from the top of the parapets to a sturdy branch of the tree across from them. Michael landed them safely and made sure Fiona was stable before letting go of her to unhook his grappling hook.
"Alright, here comes the tricky part. All hell is going to break loose as soon as we drop down out of this tree and make for the forest. There are boys in strategic locations to cover us, but we're going to need to run fast and I want you in front of me so I can shield you." Fiona rolled her eyes at him but he was not backing down. Sighing, she accepted his conditions and they began to climb toward the base of the tree. When they were very young, they had climbed the trees near their homes together and she was as scrappy a climber as he ever was, so the five feet from their landing spot to the lowest branch was nothing. Michael hooked his grappling hook to a branch and wrapped it around the bough twice to make sure it was extra secure. Then he slid to the ground with a soft thud. Fiona made the ten foot drop with the rope right after him and landed with only the quietest of taps as her shoes touched the grass.
That's when things started happening how Michael had wished they wouldn't, but knew they would. All hell broke loose. A knight saw them and started yelling at which point they started running toward the forest where Michael had stashed a sword, a bow and a quiver full of arrows for himself. He strapped these to his waist and got ready to fight. Suddenly, he pivoted back toward Fiona. "Please stay here," he said with stern, but pleading eyes. Then he kissed her, for the very first time, with all the pent up passion from years of loving her. And then he turned and walked out into the fray to help his men, as that was what they would be by night's end.
An arrow flew from Jesse's tree and hit one knight in the arm, burying itself in the chain mail with enough force to break a few links when the knight pulled the extra fine point from his usually puncture resistant armor. There was now a tiny spot of exposed tunic, which was all a skilled archer like Jesse needed to bury a standard metal tipped arrow in the fleshy upper arm of this knight. It was only when the man felt the wound and realized he was bleeding did any of the guards realize it was a real fight. Swords clashed and arrows flew through the air and a few of the young men would pull their opponent into a close quarters fight, something the knights were not as prepared for. These particularly lucky knights were quickly dispatched by a very hard blow from the heavy pommel of the young man's sword to their helmeted head, which only worsened the blow by bouncing the knight's head back and forth inside the metal shell, thus knocking them unconscious almost immediately. The unlucky knights were either beaten badly by their skilled adversaries or, in the cases of those close combat knights with weak points in their armor, stabbed with a dagger, quick and dirty. They needed to get out of there before dawn when reinforcements would be more readily available, so they did everything they could and more and more knights were dropping as more and more of Michael's band of young men pulled back into the forest where Fiona was waiting with an annoyed expression. In her mind, Michael was risking his life for her and he wasn't even letting her help.
All of a sudden, there was a loud thud as Jesse's body collided with the ground. He sat up as best he could with an arrow in his thigh as two of the other young men ran over to carry him to the safety of the forest. They propped him up against the tree next to Fiona and tied a tourniquet around his leg above the wound. The princess, though, was paying little attention to him, focused instead on Michael fending off three knights, the one he had been fighting plus the two that had been fighting Jesse's rescuers. His sword block and lunge with more skill than the two in front of him, but one knight was sneaking up behind him. Without a second thought, Fiona reached over and took the dagger from one of the young men to her right, a sniper who was out of arrows. Then, with perfect form through both wrist and arm, she threw the dagger and hit the sneaky third knight in the back of the neck, dropping him mid step. She did not stop to hear the praise of the young men around her, though, as she was too busy watching Michael to pay attention to them. When it seemed like her rescuer could really use some tactical assistance, Fiona collected gear from various men and, without their help, slung a quiver of arrows onto her back and tossed a bow around her as well and then tied a sword around her tiny waist.
"Wait," Jesse called from his spot at the base of the tree. "Michael told us only one thing was unchangeable. The rest of the plan could be improvised upon at any time it was needed, except this. Our first and most important priority would be to keep you safe. It's not your place to have to help him. It was ours. You're not supposed to put yourself in harm's way. He wants nothing but for you to be safe, even if that cost every life but yours. We knew that signing up for this and he's known it since the day you were taken."
Smiling softly at his loyalty and Michael's unfailing protectiveness, Fiona replied, "But it will always be my place. Right beside him is where I belong, whether that's in the throne room, in a rundown shack or in a fight of certain death. It's always where I was supposed to be. I would rather be out there fighting and dying with him than safe and free with anyone else. And it's not your fault I'm incapable of listening to his sweet, but overprotective instructions." With that she charged off into battle, an arrow whizzing along ahead of her like a herald announcing that Princess Fiona had arrived on the battlefield. It hit one of the knights Michael was fighting square in the forehead, distracting him long enough for Michael to take out his knee and drop him like a stone. Then she went in to help Michael with the last knight. It was two very skilled and in tune fighters against one less skilled and more angry one. The poor knight never stood half a chance.
Once he'd gone down and Michael and Fiona backed away toward the forest they heard the bell ring for guards to change shifts and saw Sam, Nate and Barry emerge from the town gate without a single guard in tow. "How did you do it?" Michael asked them as they drew closer.
"They have enough to worry about inside the walls without dealing with a few bandits outside," Sam replied with a laugh.
By then they'd reached the relative safety of the forest. "Fiona, you were supposed to stay here and stay safe."
"I'd rather be unsafe with you than safe with anyone else. But I'd really like for you to take me back home now." He nodded, trying to decipher her answer as he took her hand, picked up his rucksack and turned to check on Jesse.
"We've got him Mike," Sam said as he gestured for another young man to help him carry their friend. Michael nodded, knowing Sam would know exactly what to do. Then he surveyed the rest of his little group. They hadn't lost a single man in the fight, but there were several leaning on each other for balance a few who were bleeding and most of them were missing one or more pieces of their weaponry. Feeling triumphant, Michael led the group slowly toward the house he grew up in. They were to guard the cottage until King Glenanne's knights arrived to provide an armed escort into town.
It was well after dawn by the time they reached the secluded cottage and Michael could hear his mother in the kitchen when he opened the door for Fiona to step inside. They must have been a sight, he realized. Fiona had grown up since the last time she'd been there and she was still dressed in the comfortable and more common attire she normally wore out in the woods with Michael when they were little. It was like nothing had changed, except it was so obvious that so much was different. And Michael had dirt on his clothes a smear of blood from a cut on his forehead that had only just stopped bleeding. And they were standing in his mother's home, free, together, grown up, holding hands and in love. What a sight for sore eyes they must have been.
"Michael," Madeline began. "Fiona!" she exclaimed, reaching over to hug the young woman. "I always knew you'd make good on that promise, even if it killed you," she said to her son, who blushed a little at the comment.
"What promise?" Fiona asked, having spent five years completely unaware of any sort of information about the people she loved.
A smile graced the older woman's face. "Michael made a promise to your father three days after you were taken. He said that no matter what it took, he would bring you back because he loves you. How's that for romantic?" Then she stepped out of the room, knowing they would need a moment. For someone who liked to pretend she didn't know what was going on with her sons, Madeline was extremely perceptive.
"You really told my father that?"
"Every word," Michael replied, leaning down to place a gentle kiss on her lips. "What did you mean that you would rather be unsafe with me?" he asked after pulling away.
Now it was Fiona's turn to blush. "I would rather go out there and die with you than live safely with anyone else in the world. I'm supposed to be with you, not anywhere else." He smiled and wrapped his arms around her shoulders and she wrapped hers around his waist. For the first time in five years, they felt like they were exactly where they were supposed to be.
Of course, their romantic moment was interrupted by the trumpet call heralding the arrival of the King's knights at the little rural home. Michael chuckled happily, letting a real smile reach his bright blue eyes as he pressed his forehead to Fiona's and looked down into her eyes. "I'd say it's time we got you home, Princess," he said, taking her hand and leading her outside, throwing a smile at his mom over his shoulder as they left the cottage.
The head knight got off his horse and stood before them, looking Fiona over as if to be sure she wasn't hurt in any way. Once he was satisfied he looked over to misfit band of boys and then at his men. It was no secret that the knights of Glenanne had been severely diminished after they battled the Normans to keep them out of the kingdom and they could always use a few more good men. Who better than a group of young men who had already proven they could rescue a princess from a Norman castle?
"Let's give these men a ride back to the castle. And get a horse for Princess Fiona and Mr. Westen," Sir Galloway instructed the rest of the knights. Within twenty minutes, Michael's men had all been helped onto the backs of the knight's horses, some in worse conditions than others, and an extra horse had been brought around for Michael and Fiona. Upon seeing that there was only one horse for both of them, the princess made a face at her rescuer who only smiled and let her climb up first before seating himself behind the saddle.
A short ride later, they rode through the city gates and into the town square of Glenanne, the trumpet heralding the arrival of the rescuers and the princess to the townspeople and the King. Hearing the sound from within the castle, King Glenanne rushed out the doors to his castle and caught sight of his daughter riding a horse into the center of town with Michael smiling down from behind her. The older boy climbed off the horse and offered his princess a hand down. She ignored it and slid out of the saddle of her own accord. Before she began dashing to her father, the King noticed the laughter in the young man's eyes. He had always been exactly what Fiona needed: someone who would love and respect her for her and no one else. And then his daughter was in his arms again and his thoughts were elsewhere for the time being.
Over the course of the day, Michael and his men and the knights made the arrangements with King Glenanne to have the younger men trained and sworn in as knights of the King and the plans for a great feast were under way to celebrate the return of the princess. Fiona, though, spent most of the day upstairs with the royal dressmaker who was refitting her for the clothes she would need now that she was back home. After some time had passed, when there was a lull in the buzzing activity that accompanied Princess Fiona's return, Michael drew the King aside to ask him a very simple, but obvious question.
"Your Majesty, I have a question for you," he began. This was harder than he'd thought it would be. Taking a deep breath, he ploughed ahead. "I would like to marry your daughter."
The older man smiled an enigmatic smile. "And I would like nothing more and expect nothing less. You are good for her and I would not trust my daughter with any man more than you. However, you must ask her as it is, and always has been, her decision. She is fiercely independent, as I'm certain you are aware."
Mirth bubbled up in Michael's eyes once more before he nodded. "Yes sir."
The feast came later in the week once everyone was settled again. Princess Fiona looked exquisite and her father looked ecstatic, and finally at peace. Michael, though he did not look it, was nervous. This was the night he had decided and it was the first time since the rescue that he was going to dance with Fiona, which was strange for them. His mother had taught him to dance when he was much younger so when he and Fiona were younger he would "let" her practice dancing with him before balls and sometimes just because she said she wanted to practice. Neither of them needed practice to dance well, but the excuse was there nonetheless.
At the feast, Michael was seated next to Fiona, which meant that as soon as the meal was finished and the music began he was the first to ask her to dance. Many other suitors stole her away for a few minutes at a time after that, but she was in his arms again by the time the first tango came on and she didn't leave his arms again until she grew tired and asked him to take her back to her seat to rest a while. Sitting there with her hand resting impossibly softly on his arm, he tried to gather up the courage to ask her the question that had been at the forefront of his mind for a week. There was never a moment when he could open his mouth and just say it, though, so they eventually went back to dancing.
"I never did thank you for rescuing me, did I?" she asked softly as they twirled smoothly around the dance floor. Michael just smiled and shook his head no. "Well, thank you," she said, reaching up on her toes to kiss him. He kissed back lightly, balancing her weight against him with the hand that rested on her waist. Allowing her feet to softly tap back onto the floor, Michael pulled away from his princess.
"Fiona, Fi. There's something I want to ask you." Bright green eyes turned up to meet stunning blue. "Will you marry me, Fi?" It was surprisingly easy to utter those five words when she was looking at him like that – like he was the center of her world.
A soft, but incomparably giddy smile made its way onto her features. "Yes, of course. No one but you," she replied, reaching up to capture his lips again.
…Later that week they two were wed in a blissfully beautiful ceremony. And so they lived happily ever after, as the story goes. There were good times and bad times and Fiona was independent and Michael was stubborn, but they lived and grew in love together and led their small kingdom to a greatness the likes of which Ireland had not seen since before the Normans invaded. As for that Norman lord who kidnapped Fiona…well Michael made sure he got his comeuppance in the end. And things were right with the world and with our hero and his heroine…
A/N: For anyone wondering, Michael's character in this is based sort of on Robin Hood and on the Irish hero Cu Chulainn (with an accent mark on the u in Cu) who was a mythological hero of the Ulster cycle and was often described as young and beardless, which was odd for the time. Just a random tidbit of information. Anyway, thanks for reading and please review if you feel so inclined. I'd love to hear what you think!