Bryony
"You must understand, Princess, that I do not demand a lot. I merely ask for your co-operation."
Bryony's welcome at her former home had been far from warm, considering she had rescued her spineless cousin from a fate he really deserved. Instead of congratulations or a speedy getaway, she found herself roughly hauled to her aunt's audience chamber, an imposing woman who interrogated her suspiciously, despite having effectively stolen Bryony's crown for her own son. She had never met her aunt or uncle before, let alone Edwin, her cousin, and his siblings, although they ruled the neighbouring kingdom. She could now see why her mother had always kept her family at arm's length.
Bryony thrust her chin out defiantly. "Suppose I don't comply to whatever you want?"
"Then I will regrettably have to ensure that you will never leave this palace." Lady Isobel's gaze was chilly and unflinching, and Bryony had no doubt that this seemingly trumped up bimbo would be true to her word.
"Don't be ridiculous, Mummy, we can't kill her! Bloodstains are an absolute nightmare to get of silk," piped up King Edwin who was lurking in the corner, swathed in bandages but unfortunately still very much alive.
"Do shut up, Edwin. Let Mummy do the talking." Lady Isobel barely glanced at her son. "As I am sure you have been made aware, niece, whilst in imprisonment your parents and brothers were subject to plague. Due to your abdication, the next in line to the throne is my son here. Of course Edwin was content with ruling our own kingdom, but because of his selflessness -" Bryony snorted; Isobel ignored her "- Edwin has made the noble decision to take your kingdom into hand as well, although of course ruling two lands is an onerous burden. But there have been whispers," Isobel said, her mouth tightening with displeasure, "from the less loyal of our new subjects, that it is you who are the rightful heir. Of course you can imagine my displeasure at such falsehood. But I am merciful, and I am prepared to compromise for the good of our people. So I propose a marriage – a contract if you like – to join you and my son in holy matrimony, and equal power, as King and Queen. Doesn't every princess dream of marrying the handsome prince and living happily ever after? You will get back your throne, and no one will dispute Edwin's claim -"
Bryony interrupted the King's mother with a hoot of laughter. "You can't seriously expect me to marry that?" She snorted, gesturing towards the coiffured, bandaged figure in the corner.
"Well I don't want to marry you either! Good God, if you think want to join myself with some vulgar lout with far too much testosterone you are sorely mistaken!" Edwin snapped back.
"Don't interrupt Mummy, Edwin. Princess, propaganda is very easy to spin. I have many wordsmiths at my disposal. It takes only rumours to repair your reputation – you were wrongly accused of thievery, lies spread by a gang of thugs who abducted you against your will, a band of villains who were gallantly vanquished by King Edwin here, to whom you gave your hand in marriage in gratitude. You see, I will take care of it all. All you have to do... is co-operate."
Bryony, with barely perceptible movement, began to edge towards the door. "And what does your bloke think of this sneaky little ploy?" she challenged, stalling for time.
"My husband will be at his very moment seducing some parlour maid in his chambers. And Edwin can hardly be expected to make a coherent decision for himself. It is I who holds the throne's real power." Bryony shuffled further backwards. "So Princess, what do you say?" Isobel demanded.
"Screw you!" snarled Bryony, and hurling her weight against the door, pelted down the corridor.
She heard Isobel and Edwin calling for guards, and she ran blindly down the corridors. She rounded a corner and collided with a girl walking her way. Clamping a hand around her mouth, she pulled herself and the girl into the nearest cupboard, and listened to the guards running past.
"Don't scream, sweetheart, or you'll slit your throat." She bluffed in a whisper, peeling her hand off the young woman's mouth. Knifing her without a knife would be a pretty difficult task. She momentarily wondered who this woman was, and what the likelihood of her ratting on this crazy stranger who had shut her in a broom cupboard was. Her hair was dark blonde, and her eyes a hazy grey, and she had a snubbed nose. She dressed simply but in expensive material; perhaps Lady Isobel's favourite lady-in-waiting, or Lord Dorian's mistress?
"With what?" replied the woman scornfully.
Bryony decided a rapid change of tactics, and switched on the charm offensive. "Look, I'll give you a present if you direct me to the dungeons. It doesn't do justice to a face as beautiful as yours, but perhaps it'll do?" She deftly whipped a ring Elsinore had once given her as a token of affection off her finger, and produced it with a seemingly magical flip of her hand, a cheap conjuring trick she had learnt at a market. It was made of pure silver, and Elsinore had enchanted it to grow a tiny, silvery rose. It had never really suited her. "A rose for a rose," Bryony said with a flirtatious grin, handing it over with a flourish. The dungeons would be her safest bet, no one would look for her there, and the place would be dark, a perfect hiding place.
The woman broke into a smile, and against Bryony's will she felt her heart melt. The woman slipped the ring on her finger, "Your chat up lines are terrible."
"Well at least as credit for trying, will you tell me where to go?"
The girl gave her detailed directions. "Who are you running from?"
"I'll tell you when we meet again, which I'm sure we will." Bryony grinned at her. "I'd rather you didn't tell anyone about our meeting. I'm not our King's most favourite guest." She leaned forward and kissed the girl on the cheek. "For your silence."
Then she darted out and headed down to the dungeons.
Saoirse
Saoirse slumped against the far wall of her prison cell, scratching patterns in the stone with her fingernail. Not the way she imagined her last day in the land of the living. Footsteps jolted her out her reverie. She crawled over to the bars of the front wall as a young woman with jaw-length red hair, grubby clothes, and tattooed arms stumbled into view. She froze when she Saoirse staring at her.
Saoirse could always recognise a desperate soul, and she always could exploit a weakness. "You're Princess Bryony, aren't you?" she asked slyly. "I've heard so much about you. Congratulations on your wedding."
Bryony ignored her. "I need to get out. No one will think to look down here. You have to tell me, is there a passage from the dungeons leading outside?"
Saoirse leaned forward and pressed herself against the bars, smelling escape. "You won't get out that way. Don't you think they're wise to that? I have a better idea. It seems you're not so eager to get to your wedding, so why not just remove the brunt of the problem, your groom? Problem solved." She produced the vial of poison, and beckoning the other woman forward, pressed it into her hand. "I was saving this for myself – for the things I've done, execution is slow and painful, and this would be a mercy. But your need is greater than mine."
"How do I know it'll work?" Bryony asked suspiciously.
"Trust me," Saoirse gave her a wide smile, "I'm a witch." She glanced at the sword at Bryony's side thoughtfully. "In return, after you've got rid of your little problem, I want you to come back. Release me. Then, after we make our escape, I want you to stay with me. I need to pay a special someone a visit, and I need your sword and your fighting skills."
"Fine." Bryony glanced warily down the corridor. "But I need your protection." She reached up and touched something round her neck. "Someone powerful is after me, and let's just say she's not happy. I need your witchy powers to fob her off."
"It's a done deal." Saoirse whispered gleefully. She had no guarantee that Bryony would come back for her, and she might have just given up her only chance of a quick death, but it was her best bet.
5 hours later
Bryony
Edwin's face had fallen a mile when she had given herself in, and Lady Isobel had gloated. Lord Dorian had only emerged at the city cathedral trailed by several beautiful younger women, where Bryony and Edwin glared at each other as they recited their vows.
Now they sat side by side in the Main Hall, picking at their wedding banquet, surrounded by a group of very rowdy and very drunk nobles. Bryony eyed her new husband's goblet of wine, and touched the vial of poison in her sleeve. Just as she picked it up, the woman who had directed Bryony to the dungeons approached. Bryony's heart gave an involuntary flutter when she smiled at her. She was so beautiful, and so unlike Elsinore, the only woman Bryony had once vowed to give her heart to. "Congratulations, brother!" She turned to Bryony, "I am Princess Ninette." Bryony's eyes widened in surprise. She leant forward and kissed Bryony on the cheek, and murmured, "I thought we'd meet again. I'm glad you decided to stay."
For the first time that evening, Bryony felt a pang of guilt at what she was about to do. She was loath to do anything that would even indirectly hurt this girl. But then she looked at the wedding ring on her finger, the symbol of her entrapment, and hardened her heart.
She took Edwin's goblet, and pretending to re-fill it, and with a flick of her hand, tipped the contents of the poison flask in. "Here let me," offered Ninette, taking the glasses from them, and filling theirs and her own, "You shouldn't be doing servant's work now that you're our Queen."
"I propose a toast!" yelled Lord Dorian over the din. Edwin looked daggers at his father. Bryony flinched: all eyes would be on Edwin, and his imminent death would be obvious to everyone.
"To my darling husband," Bryony said sarcastically, raising her glass.
"To my dearest wife," Edwin said through gritted teeth, raising his.
"To the newlyweds," the whole crowd of tipsy aristocrats roared, and everyone drank up.
Almost immediately, there was horrible choking sound. Ninette doubled over, retching. Foam bubbled over her lips, and the colour drained from her face. Bryony gaped in horror. Somehow, when Ninette was re-filling their cups she had managed to take her brother's accidently. The hall erupted in chaos and screams.
Edwin rounded on Bryony, his face the colour of puce. "You did this, didn't you?" his voice rose to a terrifying crescendo, and for the first time, Bryony was scared of him. "You bitch!" he screamed, seizing her round the throat, and slammed her against the wall. Her head cracked sickeningly against the stone, and she saw stars burst in her vision. She choked at the strength of his grip and felt hot blood trickle down the back of her neck.
Realisation dawned on his face and he smashed her head into the wall again. "It was that little witch in the dungeon! She set you up to it, didn't she? DIDN'T SHE?" He shrieked, his eyes mad, his nose inches away from hers. His chokehold tightened, and Bryony buckled, gasping for air and whimpering in pain. He wrenched his sword from his scabbard – and Bryony managed to detach her arm for a moment and punched him in the face.
With a yelp he dropped his sword and loosened his hold on her neck. She shoved him off her, gasping for air. She felt sick, and her head was bleeding and agonisingly painful, her throat was blossoming with bruises. She snatched up his sword and ran for it.
She raced out of the hall, with half the wedding guests with drawn swords, a crowd of guards, and no doubt Edwin, in hot pursuit. She risked a glance behind her as she ran out of the door – Ninette was dead.
She plunged down to the dungeons, her breath sawing in her throat. "OI!" Yelled the gaoler, trying to bar her way. With a frustrated snarl, Bryony ran her sword straight through his stomach, the bloody tip sticking grotesquely out of his back. She ripped the set of keys from his belt and wrenched her sword free. She could hear her pursuers close behind, and she slammed the prison door, bolting it, to save her a few seconds before they smashed it down.
The albino girl ran to the door of her cell and clung to the bars as she unlocked the door. The prisoners set up a clamour as Bryony yanked the witch out of the door. "Plan didn't work out so well. Got the sister instead," she shouted into Saoirse's ear over the noise.
"I don't care, just get me out of here!" the girl yelled back.
Bryony could hear the prison entrance door splintering, and the guards yelling. On an impulse she darted to the nearest cell and unlocked it, and by the time the guards had smashed down the door she had unlocked several more. She chucked the keys to one of the prisoners, and ran. She gave a grim smile as she heard the screams of the guards as a horde of furious, filthy prisoners threw themselves on their gaolers and enemies with the single savage intent of tearing them apart.
They pounded down the passage, and hit a dead end. "I told you there's no way out from the dungeons!" the girl whose name Bryony still didn't know, panted. They looked around frantically. The girl ran further up the corridor, and crouched down, seeming to spot something. A large drain hole. "They use it to sluice the blood down here. It should take us into the moat."
"After you." Bryony lingered; she hated small spaces. The girl gave her a measuring look, then squeezed herself into the hole and vanished. The first guard rounded the corner, his chain mail and sword bloody, and she needed no further persuasion. Shoving herself through the hole she slid into slimy blackness, with the man's cry of frustration ringing in her ears.
She slid for several terrifying heartbeats at what felt like breakneck speed, before she was propelled into black, stinking water. At first she panicked, disorientated, and kicked up manically. At last she broke the surface, lungs bursting. The girl was spluttering beside her as they splashed their way to the side.
"Run!" coughed the girl as they pulled themselves onto the bank, "If they catch us we might as well be dead." Bryony knew though, with a sinking feeling, that she had a far more dangerous enemy to be afraid of than the law. They headed towards the forest, leaving the castle behind them.