Panting heavily, Emmeline dragged an arm across her forehead and blew the hair from her face. Placing her hands on her knees, wary of the sword she held, she bent double to catch her breath. She wore a plain huntsman outfit: a sleeveless leather jerkin over dark breeches. Her coat lay on the ground to the side. It was early evening, and she had relented and given her father time in his beloved stables. For herself, true to her promise to ride only in the day, she had decided to come out behind the stables to practise her sword work. It was a choice her father seemed to appreciate too.
It had been a week since Septimus's late appearance in the stables and she had not seen him since. The king was still sick but no better or worse for it. Rumours continued but she had paid a careful ear to them for once: what she heard had both alarmed and intrigued her.
"He's a wrong 'un, Em, so he is," opined the matronly cook, Joane, when she'd asked. Since the death of Emmeline's mother from a fever fifteen years ago, Joane had offered a warm motherly influence to the young girl growing up. The straight-talking, hard-headed woman was often misconstrued as brusque, but to Emmeline she had been a loyal friend and confidante. What she lacked in propriety she more than made up for with her cooking skills; as outspoken as she was, the king had never seen fit to remove her from her position. In her kitchen, she held no punches on the royal household and what she thought of them.
"It's the king what's to blame, really. All out for themselves o'er this crown. And what good's that pretty golden hat done anyone?"
Emmeline had dutifully nodded, grabbing an apple from the large basket of fruit as the cook's assistant dragged them into the kitchens. After a quick rap on the Emmeline's knuckles with a wooden ladle, Joane's expression was serious again.
"No, Em, your father's right. I tell you, the less you see of them the better I'll feel. Especially that 'un."
The other gossip had been much the same. He was cold, aloof, bitter. Hard. Angry. From the serving girls, the maids and the kitchen help. There was something strange about the youngest prince, they said, something that had earned him his nickname of 'the dark prince'. But no one could tell her exactly what — there were stories, there was gossip, but no two were the same, and none were confirmed.
Emmeline pulled herself away from her thoughts and focused back on her sword. It was her father's, a heavy, sturdy weapon with a simply carved but well-worn pommel. The mercenaries on her travels had regarded her enthusiasm for swordplay as little more than an amusement, and had happily instructed her. After five years, as well as the basic childhood lessons from her father, she was definitely less than amusing with a sword. She moved quickly, carefully and dangerously — it was no secret in the caravans that she had often bested the few mercs that would still practice with her. Though she was rusty after a month occupied with the stables and her father, with every movement she felt the lessons coming back to her and she grew more and more graceful.
Taking the sword back in two hands, she steeled her grip and began a complex series of steps, slashing upwards in controlled arcs. Moving rapidly, she parried imaginary blows, ducking and diving as she did so. Sword poised above her shoulder, she spun round quickly and brought her sword against another with a resounding clang.
Septimus stood before her, his sword resting hard against hers. She jumped involuntarily back, but their blades still touched. The thin scratch on his cheek was almost healed now, the small line marring the paleness of his skin. His dark hair, dry tonight, had been pushed back from his forehead and lay in soft waves about his face. She glanced away to see his long leather coat had been tossed unceremoniously to the ground beside hers; he stood before her in high-collared black velvet emblazoned with the usual '7' insignia. How long had he been there?
He nodded at her curtly, and she removed her sword.
"You have good technique," he said thoughtfully, without preamble, as he sheathed his own fine sword at his side. "But your stance is wrong."
"Wrong?" she narrowed her eyes, sword jumping to hand, but then remembered herself, and continued in a more respectable tone. "How so, my lord?"
"You put too much weight on your front foot," he continued, smirking as he pointed. "It would unbalance you in a real fight."
She looked at him then as closely as she dared, and saw no threat in the man. His dark eyes were veiled as usual, although he seemed relaxed. Maybe even bored. With a heavy heart, she remembered her father's warning and attempted to steer him away.
"Are you looking for someone, my lord?" she asked carefully, sliding her own sword in its scabbard as she stepped a pace back from the prince.
He looked at her strangely, then, before a mirthless smile touched his face. "Ah. Of course. You will have been told not to speak to me." He chuckled darkly without humour before meeting her gaze again. "But you're Whyte's daughter, aren't you?"
Emmeline nodded silently as he regarded her with interested eyes.
"Customarily," he drawled, "this is where you can admit your first name."
Customarily, princes don't talk to stable girls. She bit back such a retort. "Emmeline," she said instead, wary of him.
Noticing movement, she glanced to the stable windows behind Septimus. Her father's anxious face peered from the window, and Emmeline's eyes widened.
"Emmeline Whyte," mused Septimus, his tone supercilious and mocking. "Groom, physician, sword lady extraodinare... Even if she'd be better putting the weight on her back leg." He noticed her distracted look and turned his head enough to notice Geord Whyte at the window.
"Apparently your father does not like me speaking to you," he observed in an even voice. Emmeline was silent. "Just nod if I'm right."
She nodded and he sighed, but touched his hand to his forehead in a sarcastic salute to her father. He moved to where his coat lay and shrugged into it, shaking his hair from where it had fallen into his eyes. As he turned to leave, he suddenly stopped and tilted his head as if thinking. He pointed to her, his eyes narrowed.
"You asked me if I was looking for someone. Would it surprise you, Emmeline Whyte, if I told you I was looking for you?" He did not wait for her answer. "Weight on the back leg, remember," he called as he left, the dark leather of his coat swishing behind him.
As soon as the prince was out of sight, her father hurried to her side.
"What did he want?" he asked anxiously. "What did he say? I saw him-"
"Father, he only wanted..." Emmeline tailed off. What had he wanted? He'd only offered her advice on her stance. Yet he said he'd been looking for her... She shook her head, trying to clear the mess there. "He didn't hurt me. I think he just wanted to talk."
"Talk?" Geord Whyte scratched at his grey-flecked hair distractedly. "Talk? That's not it, Em." He glanced up towards the castle where the prince had headed and bit his lip. "That's not it at all, not with him."
Though she understood that her father was worried for her, it irked her unbearably that he would not give her a straight answer, that he would judge a man so quickly. He had been the one that had taught her not to do that, after all. "What has he done to you?"
"Eh?" Geord looked in confusion at his daughter. She stood before him, colour rising in her cheeks. Her blue eyes, so like her mother's, were full of defiance.
Emmeline had surprised herself with the force of her question, but she persisted. "What has he done to you, personally, that you distrust him so?"
Geord spluttered indignantly. "Well, not to me pers'nally, but he's..." He shook his head, and coughed embarrassedly. "He's not a good man, Em."
She was an adult, yet he continued to treat her as a child: to soften his words and and decide who she would talk to. It was unfair. It was infuriating, after she'd given up her freedom to return for his sake. And what did he do with his returning strength? Scold her and coddle her.
"What right have you to judge him?" she demanded, her voice growing louder. Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of the stable boys peer round the stalls.
"More right than you, girl." Now he was angry too, his shoulders tensed and hands balled into fists. "I'm your father. You will not speak with him again." Then his shoulders fell and he just looked old, a tired old man. Emmeline felt guilt but her anger pushed it away. "Em, I've heard enough of the stories in my time," he continued, voice softer. "Prince Septimus... he's a monster."
Emmeline stood her ground, but she saw the smile of Septimus in her mind's eye and something made her challenge her father's words.
"Stories, Father? You used to tell me stories."
She snatched up her own coat from the ground and met his gaze levelly, her voice low.
"You always told me the monsters weren't real."
Geord Whyte stood in amazement as his daughter stalked away from him, leaving him alone in the dark outside the stables. Hurried footsteps altered him to the stable boy's arrival, but he remained in his place for a while, silently staring at the place where his daughter had been.
Septimus leaned against the mullioned windows of his sleeping quarters. The room was cold, as it always was, but he did not feel it any more. He heard a muffled girlish scream and his face twisted.
Secundus. His vain elder brother took no greater pleasure than roughing up the servant girls, and he'd been well into his wine cups at their supper — no doubt he was as drunkenly confident tonight to try again. It had always frightened his sister Una, who had often been friends with the girls her brother preyed upon. Primus, soft-hearted as ever, sometimes managed to dissuade Secundus from pursuing the frightened young girls, but his gentle pleading fell all too often on deaf ears. Septimus remembered how Una used to persuade him to confront Secundus, for when the man was in such a mood he could only be reasoned with through steel. And Septimus was good at steel. He reflected that he had not bothered his brother for his lecherous behaviour since Una had left, and he felt a small pang of guilt.
Septimus himself did not touch the servants. He was hard to them in voice, perhaps, or quick to anger when they delayed. But to touch them... Secundus was a man of such lusts; Septimus found it held no thrill for him. Those quiet, mousy girls, barely out of their childhoods... he had no interest in them. His brothers had recently expressed doubt that any women interested him, and Tertius had a bruised shoulder to testify just how well his bumbling teasing had been taken by his younger brother. Despite his coldness, his aloofness —those harsh barriers he surrounded himself with— he was not wholly unfeeling. That had been a promise to Una, before she had disappeared. The two of them, as the youngest of the Stormhold children, had forged a close bond to deal with their older brothers.
"Never unfeeling at heart, brother," she had pleaded. "Better to be ice than stone."
And he'd said he wouldn't, for her. That had meant something, at least. Stormhold princes were bred to fight as beasts, a fact Una had known well. A fact Septimus knew well. But to be king was to be a man, so he had simply distanced himself from his emotions, not severed all ties.
The Whyte girl, however. There was a challenge, there was an interest. She could handle a sword well, he mused. He would like to test that. And though she had none of the carefully-preened beauty of the court ladies, there was a pleasing honesty about her tousled hair and a striking mischief about her face that drew him to her. For a moment, his thoughts strayed and he idly wondered what would happen if Secundus attempted to take his lechery out on her. Though he knew that she should be more than able to protect herself —he had seen that much today— he found himself repulsed by the very idea of his brother near her, much less his dirty hands on her.
"Never unfeeling," he muttered to himself, loosening his hands though he could not remember clenching them.
He was a man of ice, not stone. Ice could melt. He remembered the fire in the Whyte girl's eyes and something human stirred in him. Yes, ice could melt.
A thin scream came again, and Septimus pulled himself away from the windows and his thoughts. New purpose in his step, he drew his sword and set off to find his oafish brother.
A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews, lovelies. I don't think there is a sufficient way to describe the tiny joy that surfaces in me when I realise that my FanFiction email folder has something unread in it.
Pronunciations are fairly self-explanatory today: Joane (joan), Reviews (yes please!).