10
Wanderers this morning came by
Where did they go
Graceful in the morning light
To banner fair
To follow you softly
In the cold mountain air
Slowly but surely, with the help of carts and horses, we covered the remaining five villages that lay between the castle and the Dark Forest. Each time I was automatically hassled to the centre of a square and expected to prove myself to these suspicious, shy souls, and each time I felt as though I had only just managed to convince them that I wasn't another Ravenna. They probably didn't care so long as they were fed.
My huntsman wasn't the only huntsman abiding in the castle, apparently. The amount of fresh game that was handed out surprised me; heavy, rich and satisfying compared to the rough loaves and vegetable broth.
At the close of each ceremonious distribution, I remembered to announce my future availability for the villagers' requests, though the thought was paralyzing.
"I have fed you." I found myself stammering time and time again, "Soon I will help you to feed yourselves. Soon you will be clean and clothed and warm. Once the basic needs of the kingdom are fulfilled, come to me, and I will heed you and protect you."
It was always answered with murmurs of mixed reaction. Some scoffed, some seemed impressed. Others remained patiently neutral. Whatever their thoughts, I was determined in each of these moments to prove myself to them. Not for my sake, but so that I could see those sallow faces filling out, and hear their tones rising to joy and relief, eventually.
Despite the less than respectful way they regarded me, my hands itched to comfort them. My eyes stung when I witnessed the evidence of their real, brutal poverty – the way they gobbled their food as though it would be torn from their fingers at any second, their eyelids closing over with the rush of pure satiation and relish. Even I had never known hunger like this. Ravenna had been much kinder to me, her enemy, than to her subjects.
The trek back to the castle in the gathering darkness was long and weary. I wanted to ride, but I could feel my bones becoming stone weights. One good night's sleep hadn't been enough to alleviate the sheer fatigue that the past two weeks had nurtured within me. I was practically falling out of the stirrups, trying not to slump over my horse's neck, trying not to fall asleep in front of everybody.
William was the first to rush to my aid. We had barely gotten half a mile from the last village when he halted the whole company, leapt off his ever-patient mare, and grabbed my waist before I could slip sideways.
"The princess needs rest."
I leaned heavily on his shoulder, still sitting sideways on my poor horse. Everything span – or rather, my head couldn't stop spinning, couldn't get a grip. My eyes kept swerving from left to right without my permission.
He supported me with his strongest side, trying to encourage me to swing my far leg over so he could help me down. His breathing was tight and controlled, as though he was finding my weight difficult.
"You alright, Snowdrop?" he chuckled quietly, "Have you forgotten how to dismount?"
I was ready to let my eyes fall shut and go to sleep on him right then, but the abrupt sound of two more feet hitting stony soil alerted me that the huntsman had joined William on the ground, not far off.
Just the thought of him striding towards me, the expectation of his hands on me, managed to spark a little life back into my body.
I made an effort, and moved my leg over the saddle so that I could slide gracelessly to the ground. William gripped me hard, lessening the impact of the floor for me, but my knees still buckled slightly as my heels crunched against the dirt.
Quite immediately, they were both there, the huntsman's hands grasping me under my arms to bear most of my pathetic dead weight, William's still firmly around my waist.
"She's fine." My childhood friend growled between his teeth, "She just needs rest."
"Yes, at the castle," was the huntsman's retort.
I straightened myself up, finding my feet, and gazed from side to side at the both of them blearily. I must have looked like a dozy imbecile, hardly the regal leader. And the entire group – Duke Hammond, soldiers, everyone – were watching me being propped up by these two men like a sulking child.
I was sinking, though. Even at this tense moment that I barely registered.
Giving in, I closed my eyes and let my head loll. It rested upon William's metal-clad shoulder.
"I can take her. She'll go before me on my horse," he stated.
"Is everything alright?" Hammond's call rang out from some distance off.
"I should carry her to my steed, she can't afford to fall." rumbled my lion in a voice that matched William's and then some.
I was referring to the huntsman as a lion. I really must be half asleep.
More than half.
"She won't fall." William hissed, real venom seething in his words, "Not if she's with me."
A low chortle vibrated against my body, quietly insulting him.
"It's better to be safe than sorry."
"What exactly are you saying?"
"I'm saying that my… stature is more convenient for her assistance."
A pause, in which I could hear angry breaths whooshing past my face and rustling my hair.
"Your stature is irrelevant. You are irrelevant. Stand aside and let me take care of her."
The huntsman bristled, and I began to wake up enough to feel afraid. Because if there was anything I should be afraid of, it was a showdown between the two men I was torn between, a fact that stood no matter how much I avoided or denied it every day.
"People are looking," the huntsman warned, "I suggest you stop fussing so I can help her."
"I am supposed to help her!"
"Does she say so?"
"She isn't saying anything, she's unconscious!"
"Well, then."
I was lifted bodily out of William's arms and cradled against my friend's broad, beating chest.
"What right have you to take her?" his opponent wasn't giving up, though his tone was still deadly quiet.
"I'm more capable. That's all it is."
"Not at all."
"Then put her down, and let her go with me. It's where she belongs."
I reached up a lead-heavy hand to poke the huntsman, to warn him against doing anything I might be upset about when I woke up later. The soft, warm blanket of his embrace clouded me and made it difficult to do anything but drift, and forget.
"There's been enough of a scene here." I heard his voice, far off now, and felt a sharp tug as William's hands were extricated from me. Then the rhythmic rise and bump of the huntsman's controlled steps under me.
"We're practically betrothed, huntsman."
My friend froze, his arms tightening a little around me. The single gesture made it clear to me how much he felt that one sentence, how much it really meant to him that I might belong to somebody else.
He was hurt.
And that wasn't allowed. It just wasn't.
"No." I murmured, loud enough only for the huntsman to catch the word. My hand, rested against his torso, vaguely pinched his clothes in a fatigued, brave and very dangerous attempt at affection.
"No?" he whispered back, conspiringly. As though he wasn't going to allow himself to believe my protest held the meaning he wanted.
"Go." I urged, or rather sighed, intending that he should just put me on his horse and take off before William could cause any more trouble.
"What?"
"Let's go." I managed.
Finally. Without turning back to glare at William, my huntsman resumed his leisurely pace, and I was lifted as easily as a child onto a new steed. He held me steady as he mounted too, and then his inescapable arms were holding the reins around me. Protecting and encasing me. Freeing me from the fight. From the jealous man who must by now be getting onto his own horse, seething.
"If you really are betrothed to him he'll have me to answer to, someday soon."
The lion's growl was no more than a passing, meaningless string of words travelling through my head.
Past that I couldn't think any more. Black emptiness took me by the hand and led me down into blissful ignorance, stealing me from the world.
Until tomorrow, where challenges more arduous and threatening than today's hovered on the crisp red line of the dawn horizon.
I could only hope that he would be there to guard me from the worst of it.