A/N: Just so you guys are aware, I'm leaving just after I post this chapter for a month-long vacation. I'll have my laptop, so I'll try to keep writing and posting, but I can't guarantee it'll be often or consistent. Have a great Independence Day! :) -Sushi
Chapter Twenty-One
It rained steadily throughout the night, a faint, misting drizzle that soaked the ground but was almost soundless as it fell. By morning, the horses were thoroughly wet to the skin, so the companions lost a good part of an hour rubbing them all down before they could saddle up and move out. Even then, it was slow going; the northeastern road was soggy and slippery, and the swollen creek had flooded its banks. At last, the sun came out, but the companions' relief was short-lived—though the mud dried up, the air grew hot and heavy with moisture.
When they stopped for lunch around midday, Aravis spoke up. "Perhaps we could halt for the day," she said to no one in particular. "We've gone quite a ways now, and it's so hot. We haven't had a chance to do washing since we left Anvard, either, and I've sweated through my last shift this morning."
Hana nodded in agreement. "I've noticed some of the tents and tack need mending, too," she said shyly. "We could stitch them."
The men were starting to agree, and even Gyneth gave a tight-lipped nod. Cor watched them all, swirling the tea around in his mug. "Romith has that strong green soap," he mused. "And the creek will be clean, rushing down from the mountains as it does…All right, yes, let's all do that. Romith and Dor, you might start cleaning the tack, and Corin and I will repair it. Darrin, Nim, Borran, and Rhys, bring our things down to the creek and wash them there. Gyneth, Hana, and Aravis…you know what to do."
Dar stood up as everyone went about his or her business. "And what would you have us do, Your Highness?"
The teasing tone Dar took with Cor made the prince smile a little, and he said, "If you really want to help, you could scrub out our cooking pans with sand and soap. I daresay all our meals are starting to taste the same."
Together, Aravis and Hana gathered all the various articles of clothing they'd soiled over the last few weeks of their journey and went down to the creek, where they took off their boots, trousers, stockings, and kirtles and waded into the chilly water in their frocks. The tiny pebbles scraped Aravis's hot, sore feet, and she shivered with delight as she took a hunk of pale green soap from Nim and rubbed it between her hands in the rushing water.
"I've never washed my clothes in a creek before," Hana said avidly, rubbing her soap all over a pair of wet trousers. "What would my mother say?"
"Or mine?" Aravis answered, and they giggled, imagining their dead mothers come back from the grave only to see their fine daughters splashing about in a stream and getting strong soap all over their arms.
"I imagine they'd be quite peeved," Gyneth said acidly from where she was pounding a kirtle with a heavy rock.
Hana looked hurt, and Darrin quickly jumped in with a rollicking song Aravis recognized from the festival at Dormotte. She could tell he was trying to catch her eye, as he had been for the last few days, but she looked intently at the rushing water as she rinsed the suds from her water-stained winter cloak. It was not as if she was trying to avoid him, not at all. Only…wasn't she?
The other men picked up the tune, and soon Hana was trilling along in a clear and pretty voice that really ought not to have surprised Aravis. "For the Latheron lads have gone abroad; whatever shall we do? They're leaving many's a pretty fair maid to cry 'What shall I do?'"
As Aravis pounded, scrubbed, dipped, and scrubbed some more, seeing the layers of filth lift off her clothing in the babbling water, she thought back to the box she had found in Gyneth's bag. Sleeping on the questions that had popped up in her mind had afforded her no epiphanies when she woke that morning, and she pounded a stain with more vigor than was necessary.
Hearing the sharp cracking sound, Gyneth gave her a dark look that lingered, and Aravis felt the stinging of the acrid soap as it found a small wound in her skin.
"'For the soldiers, they are ramblin' boys and have but little pay; can they maintain a wife and child on just one gild a day?'"
The strange box—the unfamiliar crest in the kitchen of the farmhouse—the messages she regularly sent home to her father—the anger when someone dared to pry—the startling speed with which Cor had become enamored of her. All these facts swirled in Aravis's agitated mind; she knew they signified something (did they?), but what? Good or bad, she couldn't make heads nor tails of it.
"Come, Aravis," said Darrin loudly, "you certainly know this song! Sing along!"
Aravis smiled briefly and began to chant vaguely along with the Archenlandian children's tune they had begun to sing next; she was starting to dislike how Darrin always got her attention by saying "Come, Aravis!" like she was some sort of lapdog.
I know what you're keeping from His Highness, and I know that you're not as virtuous as you claim to be.
Aravis had considered Gyneth's accusation ludicrous just the other day, but now she realized, with a sick twist of her stomach, that she had certainly not behaved in a way that would prove Gyneth wrong. No real lady would allow a man who was not her husband to lead her around a public place, kissing her openly and on the mouth, no less. Gyneth had attempted to tarnish her character before and failed, but now she had real proof. Thankfully, Cor's cool attitude towards her hadn't changed, meaning that Gyneth had either spoken to him and was not believed, or hadn't said anything at all.
At the same time, Gyneth's reticence frightened her. The girl had been unnervingly quiet and reserved since Cor had her tied to her horse the day before, and Aravis had trouble believing that the silence was a result of her repentance. No, Aravis thought with a convulsive gulp, Gyneth was just biding her time.
One by one, the men finished their laundry and waded out of the creek to spread their tunics and trousers on bushes and low-hanging branches near the fine fire Dor had built. The delicate scent of drying wool and cotton rose above the thick odor of smoke and rainwater, and Aravis inhaled it deeply. The next time she would smell cleanliness, she calculated, would be Roscommon Castle in the late July rainy season.
So far away, she thought despondently as Hana wrung out her last pair of stockings and went to hang them up.
Then, it was only Aravis and Gyneth left scrubbing in the water. Gyneth had no qualms about aggressively beating a stain from a dress with a large rock, all the while looking threateningly at Aravis—the campsite was close enough to be heard, but a large stand of trees and brush separated them from the others.
Aravis took a deep breath. "I'm not out to sabotage you, you know."
"As if I consider you a threat!" Gyneth shot back with a sardonic snort.
"Of course I'm not a threat. I have no desire to be queen of Archenland—and certainly not to marry Prince Cor. You're welcome to him."
Gyneth threw the rock back onto the shore with startling savagery. "Oh," she bit out, "I see. So you are so high-minded you consider yourself better even than the high prince! What a pretty sentiment from a palace rat like you."
Aravis gritted her teeth and replied with a calmness that belied her inner turmoil of emotion, "That is not what I meant at all, and you know it."
"I know what? All I know is, since the day you set foot on my father's lands, you have been nothing but trouble for me." Gyneth waded closer, brandishing a pair of stockings to emphasize her words. "Trying to get His Majesty to—"
"His Highness," Aravis corrected.
"—to send me home. Making fun of me behind my back. Trying to get me killed in the mountains! Plying me with alcohol to make me foolish."
Aravis couldn't help but laugh at this. "Oh, no, dear Gyneth. That was all you."
"I am waiting for the perfect moment to tell His Majesty—"
"His Highness—"
"—about the torture you've put me through," Gyneth plowed on, hissing her words through clenched teeth. "I've heard him talk about how tiresome you are, how he wished you had never come along. Well—I shall give him an excuse to send you home!"
Gyneth looked triumphant, and Aravis tried very hard not to believe what she had said about Cor. She didn't answer, only worked at a set-in stain.
"And when he sees that I—I—am his only true love," Gyneth continued, "he will send you and that simpering little mouse Hana home and make me his queen. And then I shall rule Archenland!"
"Cor will rule Archenland," Aravis couldn't help but say. "I daresay the council, even if they find you competent to be the king's bride—which I highly doubt, based on your history of undiplomatic and, quite frankly, foolish behavior—they will never, and I repeat, never, find you capable of ruling at his side. That honor belongs to highborn women only."
Like me, she thought randomly.
"Not if I have anything to say about it," Gyneth forced out. "His Majesty the prince—"
"His Highness, Gyneth! For the Lion's sake, if you're going to marry the man, at least get his title right!"
Aravis ducked a heavy rock just in time. All the same, she felt the wind it made as it sailed over her head and crashed into the water behind her with a splash that dampened the back of her dress. "You go too far," she snarled.
Gyneth met her fierce gaze with an equally furious one. "All my life," she hissed. "All my life, I have been working for this, and then you come—you come with your sniping little comments and your burning glances and your suspicions and your lands and your title and your breeding and you tear it all down!"
Aravis rolled her eyes. "As if I planned this," she said bitingly. "As if I knew Cor was going to meet a wench with funny eyes and think her suitable enough to be queen. You know, sometimes, I think he deserves you!"
Gyneth threw another stone, and this time, it struck Aravis on the shoulder. She shrieked despite herself, and in a red haze of pain, she cried out quite suddenly and without thinking, "You had best watch your step, wench, because I know what you are!"
A ringing silence followed her proclamation, and Gyneth stared at her with wide eyes. Aravis was just as surprised. She really had no idea what Gyneth was—but the girl's reaction was intriguing.
"Oh, yes," Aravis went on blindly, watching Gyneth's face as she massaged her throbbing shoulder. "I know. I know about the secret messages you've been sending—they're not to your father, are they? And the crest in your kitchen—and the box in the bottom of your bag! I know what you're doing, Gyneth, and why you're here!"
Gyneth had turned white as a sheet. Her purple eyes, strange enough in her flushed face, looked even wilder against the ashen background. "How—how did you—" she sputtered.
Aravis's heart was pounding wildly. "You think I'm so foolish," she responded quietly. "But I wonder why His Majesty—the real 'majesty,' the king himself—wished me to accompany his royal son. Don't you? It's my duty to look for people like you."
The paleness of Gyneth's face had now turned to a grey-green tinge, and she stood in the water like a broken tree, completely still.
Aravis sighed. Something was up—but she still didn't understand, and the feeling of mental frustration bothered her immensely. She bent over and went back to scrubbing her stockings.
Out of the corner of her eye, Aravis saw a shadow move across the rippling surface of the water, but before she had a chance to react, her vision exploded in a scarlet haze of pain and she felt herself falling down, down. The icy water crashed over her head, buffeting her face and rushing into her mouth and eyes and up her nose, but the pain at the back of her head was all-encompassing; it made her muscles scream with agony, and they would not move as the water rushed above and below her.
There was more pain, and she went down further, the murky depths clawing at her face and neck. The agony at the back of her head turned to blinding weight. Her lungs started to ache for want of air.
I'm going to drown, Aravis thought in a burst of lucidity. She struggled against the painful weight at her back, but it was merciless, and the pebbles at the bottom of the creek swarmed around her face until the water started to turn pink with soft tendrils of blood. Her vision flashed and flickered.
I should have written to Father.
His dusty turban swam before her eyes, and it frightened her, but she couldn't banish it.
I should have said a better goodbye to Lune.
The king's copper beard was the only thing she could remember of him.
I should have made it up with Cor.
It was Shasta who blinked up at her from the sandy waters around her; she knew the sunburned but beardless cheeks and those sad blue eyes like the back of her hand. He needed to know about Gyneth…he needed to know Aravis was sorry, that she didn't really think him stupid. He would make a fine king someday.
Then, suddenly, her lungs gave a great heave, and they filled with dirty creek water, and all faded to nothing.