Chapter 10 - Alarums and Excursions (Revision 1)
Waiting would always be the hardest part, Snow White considered, and drove the blade of her digging knife harder into the knot of weeds in front of her. Waiting, unknowing and unable to know. Not what she might hope for, which hopes must be lost, or how long she must wait - and in the meanwhile, for the peace of everyone around her, needing to appear as serene as possible.
She dragged the clump of earth towards her and rolled the heel of her hand into it. Shook it, thumped it hard into the worked ground beside her, and tossed its tangled remains into the basket Alys had brought.
She had begun the day standing on the battlements above the gatehouse, watching the line of carts and wagons, some drawn by horses and others oxen, and the scattering of laden pack horses and mules among them, drawing away along the road towards the west. Some she knew were bound for Hammond's castle, bearing home those injured who were fit for travel. Most were of the Archbishop's party, returning to the abbey at Llyswennod Cross. And among them, three would be the carts bearing Anna and the women from the fens village. They were returning home with their menfolk, and with them now, Eric. She had thought for a moment she had seen him walking, tall and brown in his long hooded leather coat, beside a man in a green felt hat who might have been Jeff.
She would tell herself she had seen him, and that it was good. He was with friends, and wouldn't be alone.
She would tell herself the same was true for her.
He was right, she must now let others have their chance to be her friends as well. Just harder when so few of those she was beginning to feel might be - well. Either they weren't there, or would have little time for her, for the time being.
"I am sending riders to each of Carmarthen and Carreg Mawr, in search of William," Duke Hammond had told her on Saturday, when they had met after early Mass. "In the face of what we know now, I would have him begin our plans to strike at High Ridge and north into the hills as soon as we may."
She had nodded and said only, "I hope they will find him soon."
Mark and Michael had already ridden out at dawn that day. When the patrol from along the road west had returned late on Friday with Ravenna's courier returned from High Ridge a captive, Mark had offered within the hour that he should mount in the guise of another such man, and return to bear false tidings to that fortress. First that all was now well, then that for two more days all should hold where they were, while the Queen swept her lands with the magic she deemed fit to cleanse them of a rebel remnant.
"That should frighten them fittingly," he had said, and grinned. "I shall enjoy the sport."
"Not too much," she had replied, and faced his smile in silence. "Do not risk yourself by it, Sir Mark."
When the men sent north returned later, with the body of a second courier slung over his horse's back, Michael had offered similar service for the Castle of the Wyrm.
She shook the earth from another fluffed clump of roots. By then, she could hardly have pleaded any preference they stay for her. Not when her own duty for the next month now lay solidly within the castle walls.
That had come clear on Friday, once she had at last been able to ask Duke Hammond again, what she might do next.
When he had for a moment only stared at her, she had continued, "I will not be told there is nothing! but in the face of all this, I have no sense of what I may best do now."
He had gazed aside at the cluttered surface of his worktable, then swung back to her. "The first thing we need is your portrait."
"My portrait?" She had followed as he beckoned to Master Ambrose, still working from his ladder on the map that hung above them.
"Master Ambrose!" He waited for the artist to climb down and join them. "I would have an image made of Her Majesty. Something we may print as a woodcut, small enough to conceal in a pouch or pocket or between the pages of a book of hours. I would have one for each of the men we shall now send to raise resistance in her name." He considered her, and went on, "Seated, crowned—in your armour, if you would—holding your sword before you." He looked at Ambrose. "Might you do it by this evening?"
"Yes, my lord" said Master Ambrose. He smiled at Snow White. "If I might have Your Majesty sit a quarter hour, I can make a sketch which will serve. It will take some hours to carve the block, but if I may have until morning, I expect we may have pressed as many copies as you would like."
"How much longer would it take, for a better portrait?" asked Lady Helen, who had followed them close. "Not in armour, and coloured."
"An hour, which need not be all at once,"Ambrose replied. "Or indeed Your Majesty beyond the first quarter hour, if we may find a maid to wear your dress, and sit in the same manner for the rest of it."
Helen cast the Duke a wary glance. "Might we then have that copied, by you or any other, a dozen or so times?"
Master Ambrose nodded. "Certainly."
"But why? And why so many?" Snow White asked.
"Lady Helen is planning in advance of our need," said Hammond. He met Helen's look and shook his head. "Not before Midsummer, my lady. Not before Lammas, if I can prevent it. Until then, we have better uses for our Queen's attention."
"I do not think we have so long," said Helen.
"As you have said before now."
Snow White had looked from the one to the other. "There seems to be a discussion here in which I have an interest, of which I know nothing. Would either of you care to make it clear to me?"
Hammond drew himself up and breathed a sigh. "As mistress of your household, Lady Helen would know how soon it must face the scrutiny of those courts which will be interested in your at last having come to power." He gave Helen a quelling frown. "For now, I prefer we concentrate on matters which will give that power it greater substance."
"We must not be judged slow to proclaim her accessession abroad, through fear of any seeming weakness." Helen folded her arms. "Your Majesty, we are scarce a week past May Day, and I will be surprised if word of everything done here does not reach London by Whitsun, and every court from there to Lisbon by Midsummer."
She eyed Hammond sideways, and rushed on. "By then, Your Majesty, I would see letters prepared to every court in Christendom that matters, and emissaries chosen to take them—under your seal, and each bearing a suitable portrait—and have them ready to leave as soon as we may think rumour is on its way!" Her gaze fixed square on Snow White. "I would at least have it open to question, if our word of you comes behindhand to rumour, whether it is any matter of our having lacked confidence in our ability to hold your throne secure."
She had set her hands to the edge of the table then, and thought, then nodded.
"That seems reasonable," she had said, "so I would have letters and portrait and as much set in readiness as we may do. Then we will give you, my Lord Duke, as many weeks as we may feel safe in doing, and so,"—tilting her head to eye him sidelong—"I return to my question. What 'better uses' may I serve from now to then?"
"Those of making up for lost time," he had said. "We must prepare you, Your Majesty, to be known as Queen. We must make you seem as near complete in all the learning which should have been yours, if nothing of the past twelve years' misery had ever happened. As poised and polished in your graces, able in receiving all who come before you, and clear in understanding both the powers and limits of your birthright. What it must bear, and who and what will oppose you."
"And this all by Whitsun? Or at best by Midsummer?" On reflection now, she could not be sure either had grasped the humour in her tone, past the surprise in her face. Or the horror, though she thought she had held herself still enough, for that to be uncertain.
But she would hardly have had them think her unwilling, and so she had then said quietly, "Where shall I begin?"
"History!" Count Cerdic rumbled, from his place by the end of the worktable. "Start with our neighbours these past fifty years. All you can understand of their interests as they have weighed against ours, and shall weigh against yours to come."
"As much as you can learn of reading and writing—at the least, to sign your name with grace." The Duke sighed. "Then enough of Latin and French spoken, that you may not be confused by what you will encounter of both, once your court begins to receive foreign emissaries."
She had nodded and collected herself, considering him. "Have you anyone to tutor me in these?"
He had nodded then, too. "We have clerks who can aid you."
"Brother Robin," said Helen. "The archivist from Llyswennod Cross, my lord Duke, has been here below us in the library since this morning, and I can think of no better to advise Her Majesty." She had smiled at Snow White then, brightly. "Especially in the matters of history. I swear he knows every scrap of court gossip from here to Muscovy for the past hundred years, and he has an unerring sense for where the bodies are buried."
"So much at the least," murmured Hammond. "For the history, I would suggest we also include those of your women who will be nearest you the most, that they may be the better able to protect you."
"Protect me? From who?" She had stared at him again in puzzlement, and he had frozen for a breath.
"From any who may seek to take advantage of your...inexperience." He had turned away a little, his expression growing troubled. "Your Majesty, might we speak a little more privately?"
"Yes," she had said, and gestured him to the stone bench below the nearest windows.
"I wish I could call it too early to speak this," he had said when they were seated, "but I will not do you the disservice of pretending you need not be aware of it."
"Of what?"
He met her eyes, grave. "Have you given any thought to what may happen if we fail, in any of what we have planned?"
She had shaken her head. "My lord Duke, I have scarce given thought to having won what we have!"
"By summer," he said, "I will hope to bring enough of your lands secure under your rule, to make it clear the rest must follow. That way our neighbours will not come seeking to seize this land by force, though they may still attempt it through legalism...and will undoubtedly seek it through you.
"I will not be surprised if every noble house from here to Italy, if they have a prince to offer, will not send first their ambassadors, and then their sons, to offer you alliance."
"I have no thought of marrying!"
He had nodded again, and his eyes fell to his clasped hands.
"It would not be my will that you do other than choose for yourself," he said, "but if we cannot muster sufficient force to take back your realm before summer is done, you may need to consider what prince can offer you the strength to do it.
"We may need you to lay your hand in the balance, to save your people as only a Queen may do."
"My hand - in marriage."
He had looked round at her again. "I cannot promise today that it will not be needful to invite the most dangerous of those arrayed against you to woo you in peace, and accept being won." A sigh, and again his gaze slipped. "It could be the only way to preserve your birthright for your children."
"By compromising my own rights as queen regnant?" He had only nodded, and in dismay she had pushed up. Turned away, all but fast enough to tangle herself in her skirts. "I am not ready to consider such a thing!
"I was born to be Queen of this land, granting no man more than my consort – Your Grace, I will have to think on this!" He had risen to follow her, and at his step she had faced him again. "Having lost so much of my life to now, I cannot imagine how I should even begin to prepare for that!"
"I wish it were not so." He had spread his hands. "Your Majesty, I do not think there is any way to prepare for that, beyond what you must do anyway."
She had eyed him, wary. "So in a month, you are telling me – "
He shook his head minutely. "A month before we must lay all before the world. Between one and three, before we face its response." He had touched her arm then, his expression not unkind. "Understand, Your Majesty, we shall do all to keep such a choice from being laid before you! but if it must be, I expect it by Lammas."
"Then I think," she had said in a stifled voice, "it is time to introduce me to Brother Robin."
She paused now, palms flat on the stone border framing the bed.
She could not, in fact, regret Brother Robin. She must have had someone like him, in any case. A tall, sleek, stout monk with a brisk and unexpectedly cheerful manner, he had had a workplace made for her in the library within the hour of Helen's introducing them, and at once begun to question her about everything she knew. By dinner-time he had set her exercises both in reading from the store of maps available, and practicing both her letters and a signature, and had tested everything she remembered - enough, it seemed, to impress him - of every story she had ever been told of her own ancestors, or of the kings of England, Scotland, or Dál Riada, or any of the Welsh or Irish princes. Some he had dismissed as more legends than fact, but most of the wilder stories he had not only confirmed, but elaborated with specific and breezy mischief.
This afternoon though, when she had begun to stumble over the short texts he had set her to read aloud from an herbal, he had regarded her with new severity and told her to stop. If she were any of his novices, he had said, he would by now have ordered her to go and plant turnips or some such thing, to refresh her attention.
"What you are engaged in here is principally an exercise of your mind, to which you are not used," he had said, "and not faulting your efforts, Your Majesty, in my view as your tutor it is time for you to balance it with a measure of exercise for the body, out of doors and in daylight."
"Um. Well..." She had looked down at the page then, collecting herself in thought. "Some of the women are making over my mother's private garden, today," she said. "Clearing its remains - we need a better herb garden for the stillroom."
"A most commendable project!" He had positively beamed. "Then I will recommend you to it for the rest of this afternoon. While you are supporting that effort, I shall have some time to further your curriculum."
-o0o-
"Y'r Majesty, you getting at all tired?"
"Tired?" She looked around as Rose came to take the basket of weeds, then up to where Alys now stood with a large rake, beside her. "No. Just wool-gathering a little."
"Because we could call this done now, far as you're concerned," the young woman said. "This bed only wants raking smooth now, and we don't need you sore in the morning, from all this pounding litter from the soil."
"I'm fine." She pushed straighter. "Do we not still have seedlings to plant?"
"Aye," said Alys, "an' I can have 'em all set an' watered by the time Rose bears yon basket to the dungheap." She tapped the rake handle. "Best thing for it, right here, Majesty. I'll just lay 'em in quickly and tidy behind me as I go."
"I'll trust you know best." Snow White looked around at a murmur of voices from the direction of her chambers. "I suspect I hear my own duties approaching."
She climbed to her feet as Marjorie and Greta came down the shallow steps from the sheltered walkway around the garden, and dusted the loose earth from her gloves.
"Your Majesty," Marjorie said, leading the way to her, "it will be supper-time shortly, and Lady Helen says you are to meet later with His Grace the Duke and the Archbishop."
"I am," said Snow White. "Planning the tax census."
"Would it please you to dress more as Queen, for the occasion?" Marjorie held out her hand for the gloves. "We've finished remaking that green dress for you, if you'd wish it." She hesitated when Snow White gave a sigh. "I know it must feel a trial, my lady, but you know it will lift everyone's spirits to see you at dinner looking the part."
"More so than a raggedy boy in hose?"
Marjorie lifted an eyebrow. "No boy, with that hair! More a woodsprite, and not an undraggled one!"
"Make me a new costume not ripped short with an ax, and we may instead change the fashion," Snow White said. "For the moment, I'll give you the green for dinner."
She swept up her wide-brimmed straw hat from the side of the path and passed it to Greta, as her handmaid had now collected her gloves from Marjorie. "Thank you. Alys. It would seem I am done, and - " she looked up, tensing, as the air rang with something between the fading chime of a bell, and the plucking of a harp-string. "What in the world is that?"
The sound came again, a deeper note more felt than heard, that seemed to swirl almost tangible, invisible, like a wide loop of fabric sheeting up, around and above them, and she gasped as both sound and light dimmed and deadened. Marjorie's questioning murmur cut off, and Rose's squeak of alarm deepened so that she spun to look. Saw as she moved, Alys recoil and freeze in mid-turn, lips parted, hands still clasped round the handle of her rake.
"Alys?—Marjorie? " She slipped a step back fast, out of the circle they had made around her, staring as each woman's motion slowed to stillness. Alys' turning, Marjorie's gasp, and behind her, Greta had leaned forward a little, to stare with wide eyes towards the garden's entrance.
-o0o-
In the royal library, Brother Robin started at the slow, resonant sound of something heavy, ringing against brass. Beside him, his friends Father Mick and lay brother Matthew looked up from the volume they were examining.
"What's that, then?" Mick asked. "You got a gong in here somewhere, Brother?"
"Not that I know!" Still holding down the page, Robin turned as the sound came again. Not quite a gong, though. He could all but feel the vibration in his teeth, at the third strike. "The only thing like that - " He checked, facing the aisle leading into the deeper stacks. "The Queen's mirror?"
-o0o-
In the shadows of the garden's arched gate, something was moving. A shifting, a twist in air that seemed briefly to mist, and sparkle, and Snow White ducked to pull the knife from her boot. Came up on guard as shadow became the form of a tall man walking towards them.
Tall, slender, broad-shouldered, and no one she knew. Not armed that she could see, but would she see? She gripped the knife tighter and stepped into the path facing him. Reached to touch Marjorie's arm as she passed. "Marjorie, Greta—indoors! if you can, and Alys and Rose, go with them!"
"They cannot hear you," said the intruder in a mild voice. He walked into the faded light around them, and it brightened, and she shifted into a careful guard, at which he smiled. "Neither can your guards, for this moment."
"Can they not?" She held her position. "Am I to think you're a friend, if that's true?"
"Only careful," he said. "I am not moved to quarrel with any of your guardians, over my claim to so slight a visit."
She studied him. "Who are you, and what do you want?"
-o0o-
In the alley past the last rank of bookshelves, the mirror still stood sidelong beneath its drape, but when he laid his hand upon it, Robin could feel a vibration like an echo of its pulse. They could not now doubt it the source of the sound, though at his first, uncertain step into the alley, it had ceased to ring. It only stood now, vibrating in the soft aftermath of it. Almost seeming to quiet as he gripped its edge through the heavy canvas, and that decided him.
"We must have it out!" He dragged at it, rolling it into the narrow aisle, and Father Mick came to help.
-o0o-
Two steps away, she could call him handsome: fine, almost delicate features, light silver-grey eyes, in a face near as pale as her own. Unlike her, though, fair. Lashes and brows dark gold, and his shoulder-length mane of curls mostly lighter, nearer Marjorie's coin-bright colouring, bound back with a fine gold circlet. Young, too - a brow clear and unlined - but then something older shaded his expression, in the breath before he smiled. His dress was unusual, too: a close-fitting coat and trews in shimmering cream, high boots in pale leather, a long, snowy shirt heavy with gold embroidery, and not a speck of dust on any of it.
His smile drew wider at her inspection.
"I wanted to see you." A firm, precise voice, smooth as heavy satin. "The new Queen, who has freed me from the old one."
"From Ravenna?" Snow White frowned. "What, by killing her? How were you bound, that that should free you?" He made no move beyond watching her, and she shifted nearer, holding her guard. "Who are you?"
-o0o-
In the main aisle there was room to drag off its covering and stand it against the wall, and then all fall back, shivering with it, at the play of lights and colour within its reflecting surface. A surface, Robin saw, no longer reflecting anything. It was glowing with its own light in which shapes moved, and the whole seemed to sweep round and swoop, and dive, in a way that all but undid his stomach.
"Strewth!" said Mick. He caught Robin's sleeve and pulled him so that they did not stand directly before it. "Matt, an' Henry, you keep back!" He reached for the cross that hung from his belt. "That an' pray we'll have nothing coming out of that—
"Though as it's a mirror," he added, a moment later, "it should be more likely to just show us something."
-o0o-
"So many questions," he said, and Snow White felt an edge cut beneath his lazy tone. "You may call me Tiarna na cinn Ársa, and as for how I was bound, it was through Ravenna's geasa." Something hardened in his expression. "Only her death could serve to break them."
"So you knew she was dead," she said.
He nodded. "When I first woke, after the thing was done."
And so who else now knows? "I know a duke who won't be happy to hear that." He tilted his head in brief question, and she shifted a step nearer. "So what does that make us? Are you now bound to me?"
He did smile, sweet and brilliant, at that. "No. Only curious."
She relaxed her guard only a little. "So now that you see me, is your curiosity satisfied?"
"No, I will say not." He now shifted a step as though to walk round her, and it was her turn to follow, to keep them facing. "You are fair and sweet, oh Queen, and belike will soon be sweeter, but you must be more, to have proven Ravenna's match." He stopped. "I would ask you a question, and trade you three answers for one."
-o0o-
"It's a garden," said Robin. "Within these walls, by the stonework." He went to look closer, as the image - certainly an image, now, and an effort to show them something, though as it seemed, through an obscuring mist - grew clearer in the mirror's surface. "There's someone there…"
"Something's not right," said Father Mick, following him. "D'ye see it? Those women aren't moving right."
"They're not moving at all!" said Matthew. "Only the two men, Father." He and Henry came closer, too, and he pointed, and Robin drew a sharp breath and stared round at him, as it seemed the view shifted with his words.
"An' I see no fire, but does that not look like smoke, about them?" Henry put in.
"Whatever 'tis, it's trying to get closer," said Mick. "Y'think it heard ye, Matt?"
"Couldn't say, Father."
Robin looked back to find the mirror's view was indeed pulling closer, and clearer even through the clouding – smoke, if that was what it was – and said, "Oh, no!" He caught Mick's arm. "Oh God, my God, Father, that's the Queen!"
"The smaller one? With that knife she's got out?" Mick peered at the image and he let go, feeling himself begin to shake.
"It's her garden, the one where she is right now," he said. He stared round, urgent, at the library doors. "And I've never seen that man before, and she's got her knife out – stay and keep watch, I must get the guards!"
-o0o-
"A trade of true answers, like one of the Fair Folk might offer?" He blinked, and she kept moving. "Is that what you are?"
"That would leave you two questions, if you accept the bargain."
"I don't!" She stopped, waited. "You've cast some spell here, Lord Tiarna. Release it, and I may consider it."
"Release it, that your arcane guardian may fall upon me?" He drew another step closer, his expression appraising, and she stepped aside again, still keeping herself between him and her women.
"That would be your one question, if I accepted the bargain."
"I deny it," he said. "You are not bound to answer anything, until I say I ask. He took another circling step around her, a faint frown touching his expression when she again moved with him. "It is not you who darkens my sight within these walls, and I shall not seek to cross such a power until I understand it. Are you not curious, to know what you are?"
"I know who I am," she said. "I am my father's daughter and rightful Queen of this land - and if my defeat of Ravenna has released you from bondage, I think you owe me better than this game."
He turned aside, then looked back at her. "What I would ask, is what Ravenna did to you."
"Past murdering my father? She locked me in a cell at the top the highest tower on the outer wall, and left me there for eleven years alone, the most part in darkness."
"Hung between earth and sky, in a chamber of stone." His gaze was measuring. "And you did not die there."
"Until she decided to kill me. Until her brother came and said she would have my beating heart - to eat, as I gathered later."
"Ahhh," he said, and drew back, and regarded her now with eyes shining in mischief. "That tells me much of what your powers could be."
"What, that I do not know?"
His smile at that was bright enough to make her insides tighten. "Then you accept the bargain." He raised a hand, forefinger extended, and she drew a breath, and nodded. "I can tell you or I can show you, in a way that will tell us both more."
She gave him her own measuring look. "What will it cost me?"
"Your second question," he said. "I give you my word, no more than one comfortably deep breath."
"Show me, then." And pray I don't regret this impulse...
He reached into a fold of his coat, drew out a gold disk the size of his palm, and snapped it with a gesture into a shallow, gleaming bowl. He held it out to her. "Take this, and a handful of earth, and take any shred of root-stuff you like, from your servant's basket."
She shifted closer to take it from him, then edged back, careful. Amusement tugged at his lips, but he made no move as she dipped the bowl – cup, she saw now, formed from a seamless spiral of metal – quickly into the soft earth of the bed, and pulled it up. She balanced it in the hand still holding her knife, long enough to pull a tuft of rootlets from Rose's basket, and held it out to him.
"Will this do?"
He considered it, nodded. "Yes. That is woodlily, it will serve."
"Fold it into the soil," he went on, "then take up that watering pot I see soaking in its bucket. Draw that one deep breath named as your price, and as you pour the water upon it...blow out the breath upon both soil and water, and wish all blessèd be."
"Blessèd as in the witch's blessing?"
"Or a fairy's, one might say. Nothing to render your soul darker, in either case." He held out his hand towards the water, and shrugged at her silent look.
Decided, she thrust the knot of pale roots into the cup, folded the earth over it, and went to get the pot. A thumb pressed over its opening held the water in as she drew it up, and drew in her breath with it. She turned, not to lose sight of Tiarna as she did so, and released the water with the breath.
"Blessèd be water, soil, and lily root," she said, and he dipped his head in approval. "Now what?"
"Breathe again, and watch."
She set down the pot in its bucket, bore the cup back into her free hand, and gasped again, as something shifted beneath the damp earth. Watched, as with a shivering and a soft warming in the bright metal, a cluster of bright green points broke the soil. Thick needles of green pushed higher, a hands'-breadth and then two, unfurling as they came, into broad leaves. From the base of each a stalk thrust upwards, loaded with small, pale green buds, which swelled and broke, and each retreated to reveal a delicate blood-red bell.
"Lord Tiarna," she said, and gazed up into Tiarna's intent face, and deliberately did not startle. "Are woodlily bells not white?"
"Red as the fires of passion, this day." He drew a sigh, and she felt his breath, warm, brush her cheek. How, even in wonder, had she had missed his drawing so near? "Splendid, oh Queen, beyond my expectations..." Again that sweet smile lit his face. "Oh, foolish Ravenna! To have denied the Lady all in her domain, except a maid as Her avatar."
"Her what?" she asked. "I don't know that word."
"Avatar." Shouts came, muffled, from beyond the wall, and he lifted his head. "Ask your priests, they will know the word." Silvered grey eyes met hers again. "Now I think we are discovered, and I owe you still an answered."
"I can't think what to ask!" She stared at the flowers, then again at him. "What were you, Lord Tiarna, to Ravenna? Or else what was she to you?—and where does any of it leave you and I, now?" She held up her hand before he could speak. "No! Wait! I think my question must be, shall I call you my enemy, now?"
"Yours at present, no." His hand brushed hers, beneath the rim of the cup. "I shall come to you again at the new moon, that we may speak of what shall be. For now, let us say only that if you would call me by my rank, it is not 'Lord', but 'Prince'." He swept her knife hand aside, and smiling, laid a fingertip against her brow. "My blood is royal as your own."
"Wh?!" She would have sprung back at the touch, but he was gone. "What?!"
She whirled as the air brightened, and the others' voices rose behind her. "Your Majesty! - my lady - " Marjorie in tones of panic, "Where is she?!" and Greta still wide-eyed, turning her one-handed, "There, Lady Marjorie!" before pulling her sleeve to her eyes. Between them Rose stood staring still, and Alys, her face startled, completed her turn.
"How'd you get there?" Alys demanded, then remembered herself, and bobbed something approaching a curtsey. "Y'r Majesty!"
"You didn't see him!" Snow White said, and spun again, knife upraised, as two guardsmen pounded through the archway, others crowding behind them. "And you didn't see him either, did you?!"
"See - who, Your Majesty?" said the first. His sword raised in guard, he circled swiftly around them. "Spread out, men - search the passage walk!" He came to face her. "We've seen no one, not as we came."
"Brother Robin, in the library, told us someone was here," gasped another, "He said there was a stranger, an' you'd your knife drawn, the mirror had shown it!"
"Seen it - " Snow White sheathed her knife, and straightened. "In the mirror. Right." Past a sudden urge to shake, she blew out a breath and turned back to her women. "Next stop's the library. Marjorie and Greta with me - and you, sirs, surely! - and one each of your men with Alys, and Rose, run to the Duke's quarters and the great hall, and ask in my name that he come, and any of the dwarves who may be found."
Chapter 11 – Still 'enter the Mirror'. 'Nuff said.
Glossary
This round, we're getting into the calendar.
Whitsun - In our world, the festival of Pentecost, which takes place 7 weeks after Easter. Approximately May 27th this year, in this AU.
Lammas - First of the harvest festivals, in this AU, roughly synchronized with the festival of Lughnasadh in the first week of August.
And a clerk, in this era, is a scholar, often monastic, by any other name.
A final word about the title change...
It's been bugging me for a while that my original title for this story, "The Long Road Home", turns out to be not only the title of more than one legitimately published novel out there, but of more than one fanfiction as well - the only mercy being, that at least none of those other fanfics have turned up in 'my' particular archive! Any road, I finally got bugged enough to change it. "High Roads and Low" may or may not spoil a little of where I plan to have some of my characters travelling, but in the end I think it'll fit as well.
Still writing!