Interlude: Gunther

OOOOO

Gunther was having a rare, rare day.

Or at any rate, it had begun as a rare day. It had proceeded, by this time, to a rare night.

And most of it had to do with the fact Jane was nowhere. Nowhere.

Damnable infuriating woman, grown from a damnable infuriating girl. She had been the bane of his existence since they'd been children together… so why was his unease (borderline panic, if he was going to be completely honest with himself, which was a rarity but did happen every now and again) mounting with each passing moment he was unable to find her?

Something is wrong. Something is wrong, something is wrong, something is WRONG.

The thought was clanging in his head like an alarum bell.

It had taken a fair while for the unease to really set in. He had been relatively fine in the morning – likewise in the early afternoon. Somewhat disturbed (though not particularly surprised) by what Jane had disclosed in the courtyard regarding Edgar the Invader's intentions, but still, fine overall.

Well, alright, 'somewhat disturbed' was perhaps a less accurate description than 'boiling over with rage' and 'overall fine' was perhaps a less accurate description than 'need to kill something now.' Nevertheless, he'd been holding it together until he'd realized that several – not a couple, not a few, but several – hours had passed without so much as a sign of Jane.

Which wasn't like her. At all.

Jane was not the type to cloister herself in her room for hours at a time, ever, even when she was ill. She'd have to be practically on death's door to stay in bed for a whole day. Past instances when she hadn't been up to training exercises for one reason or another, she could still be found in the library or the garden or… well, somewhere, damn it. There were times when she'd been younger that she had literally been chased back to bed by her mother, and later, after her mother had left, by Pepper, for attempting to do chores or just be up and about when she was clearly under the weather and in need of rest.

So when she'd indicated that she'd wanted to rest through midday, he'd expected to see her around the castle again by late afternoon at the most… but late afternoon had lapsed into early evening, which had passed into late evening, and no one he'd asked had seen her, not Rake or Sir Theodore or Jester or even her father (who had been wearing an expression of distracted anxiety which, though Gunther did not know it, was practically the mirror-image of his own) and… and all this would be worrying enough all by itself.

Then there was the matter of their little… encounter that morning.

It was something he couldn't get out of his mind.

There had just been something so… so deeply, unsettlingly wrong about that whole conversation.

Jane had so obviously been troubled – no, more than troubled, almost… tortured.

He had never, ever seen her so deeply affected by anything before; she had grown, over the years, to be almost as adept, when she wanted to be, at keeping her emotions in check as he was. Not as adept, no – but almost.

This morning, though – this morning she'd looked like a hunted animal. Lost, and desperate, and hopeless, all at once.

And her words – two things stuck out in his mind. Why now, now when it is too late!? That question was disturbing enough. But at least it had been delivered with Jane's characteristic spitfire verve – so much so that he'd been quite literally driven backward by the force of it. It was the last thing she had said to him, and the tone in which she'd said it; a flat lifelessness that was like nothing he'd ever heard from her before – that was what had been repeating in his mind, endlessly, all day long.

Please do not think of me unkindly… later.

Those words – every time they cycled through his mind, and they had cycled through his mind probably a hundred times already today – turned him cold with a sick, creeping fear.

They had almost seemed the words of someone who had not expected to see him again. EVER.

And now, with the sun a blazing orange ball balancing on the horizon, he could not justify putting it off any longer. He approached Jane's bedroom with the intent of knocking on her door.

He had hoped, really hoped, to have found her somewhere else around the castle. If Jane really was abed, and had been all day, then she must truly be feeling terrible, and would probably resent his intrusion.

At least, that was what he had been telling himself on the surface. The truth of the matter – or a good deal closer to the truth, at any rate – was that once he knocked on that door it would be very difficult to maintain his façade of disinterest any longer.

If he came calling on her in her sickbed, it would be perfectly apparent, once and for all, that… well, that he cared.

And he did not want that.

It wasn't that he was still denying to himself that he cared deeply for Jane – he'd given up that particular battle for lost long ago. He cared. But to have Jane in the know about it – somehow that idea just galled him.

She had never said or done anything to indicate that his well-concealed feelings (well-concealed until last night, at any rate) might be even the least bit reciprocal.

He had been waiting for years.

Anything – a glance, a word, anything even the least bit suggestive that she might feel the same, and he would have fessed up long ago… but no such evidence had ever been forthcoming.

And he had not been willing to go out on a limb, uncertain of what kind of reception he might receive. He remembered concealing himself behind a low, sun-baked wall when he'd been seventeen years old, shortly after he'd moved into Kippernia Castle, in order to eavesdrop on the conversation in which Jane had told Jester, gently but with finality, that he was one of her best friends in all the world – that he always had been, and that he always would be. Friendship, deep and abiding friendship; that was what she felt for him, she'd said; and that was all she felt for him. No less, and no more.

For a short time after that he'd been hopeful that her decision regarding Jester's affections might have been influenced in some way by him – by his increased presence in her life since moving into the castle on a full-time basis. But things had gone on in much the same way as they ever had, and his hopes had faded.

What had not faded was the memory of the expressions Jane and Jester had worn that day in the garden. The devastation in Jester's eyes – and the pity in Jane's.

He would not be pitied like that. He would rather die.

At least, that was what he had told himself until… well, until right now.

Now everything was overshadowed by the anxiety that had been growing in him all day. It bothered him, it bothered the hell out of him that by calling on her he was going to be making himself vulnerable.

But that wasn't going to stop him from doing it.

Because as bad as that would be, it was no longer the worst thing he could imagine happening. No, he'd been imagining many worse scenarios recently, and especially after the disastrous banquet last night.

The way that piece of filth had looked at Jane, his Jane – it made his teeth clench all over again.

The truth was that Gunther's priorities were shifting at a profound level. The worst things he could imagine no longer had to do with his own potential rejection or humiliation. They had to do with Jane – with things happening to Jane, should he fail to protect her.

So he took a deep breath, raised his hand, and knocked.

OOOOO

There was, of course, no answer.

Gunther waited a moment, then knocked again. Still nothing.

Muttering darkly to himself, he closed his hand around the handle, and tried it. It turned and the door swung open.

The room inside was completely empty. And completely immaculate.

And that was when Gunther began to really be afraid.

It was something about the unnatural, almost sterile cleanliness of it all.

It was difficult to explain. It was not that Jane was a dirty person, or that she didn't take care of her things. To the contrary, her armor, equipment, and (on the rare occasions that she rode horses rather than Dragon) her steeds were cared for meticulously. It was just that… she didn't strike Gunther as the sort of person to spend a lot of time on keeping her bedroom in spotless order. The other times he'd been in here had confirmed that impression. Her room had not been filthy, but it had been lived in – the bedclothes rumpled, personal effects strewn randomly about. Jane simply had too many things to do outside this room, which she really only used for sleeping, to waste time tidying and straightening in here.

Granted, he'd only been in here a couple of times before, and that had been years ago. But there had been no radical changes in Jane's personality or demeanor since then, nothing that would suggest that she was anything other than the same person she had been (and he had loved) for so long… untidy bedroom and all.

"Jane," he said, into the still, somehow heavy air, not expecting an answer because it was obvious that the room was empty save for him. Empty and… forlorn, somehow.

Bereft.

The room – the way it was now – he couldn't help but think that it felt like a farewell.

Like she had fully expected it to be discovered by someone else.

Like she had never expected to see it again.

"Jane," he said again, and now he could taste his encroaching panic; it tasted suspiciously like bile, trying to rise in his throat. Her personal armor and weapons, he noticed distantly, were all in their accustomed places. Wherever she was - and he was becoming increasingly sure with each passing second that she had indeed left the safe confines of the castle - wherever she was, she was completely unprotected. "What have you done?"

Then he was out the door and running, flat-out running, for the forge.

OOOOO

"Smithy!" he half-shouted, half-gasped as he skidded to a stop in front of the fair-haired man, who was just leaving the forge, presumably on his way to dinner.

"Gunther?" Sudden alarm colored Smithy's voice. Just a glance at the young knight was enough to confirm that something was seriously amiss.

"Is anything missing?" Gunther demanded, impatient and out of breath. When Smithy looked blank, he elaborated, his words nearly tumbling over one another in his haste. "Weapons, armor, horses – is there anything unaccounted for?"

"No," Smithy said slowly. Gunther could see that he was running through a mental checklist as he spoke. "I've taken daily stock of the equipment lately, since – well you know, since there has been trouble afoot. Everything is accounted for." Then, just as Gunther began to relax somewhat, Smithy said, "Oh, except..."

And his heart dropped to his feet.

Gunther had never had anything against Smithy, but at the moment it was all he could do to keep from grabbing the man and shaking him.

"Except what?" he asked, trying very hard to keep his voice steady.

"Except, there was a horse gone for a while late this morning," Smithy said thoughtfully. "Someone must have taken him while I was off on an errand, for I never noticed he was missing until he returned on his own around midday. I thought it passing strange, but not enough to mention to anyone. After all, he was home and unharmed. A little spooked, perhaps, but –" he shrugged. "I rubbed him down and put him away."

When Gunther spoke next, it was through clenched teeth. "Show me the beast, please. And whatever equipment was on him when he returned. Are you certain no armor or weapons are gone?"

Smithy frowned at him. "None. Everything that should be here is here. And of course I will show you the horse and tack, Gunther, but can I at least ask what this is about?"

Gunther took a shaky breath. "Jane. Jane is –" he could hardly speak the words. He swallowed hard and choked them out.

"I think she is gone."

OOOOO

Smithy barely missed a beat, then he was leading Gunther briskly toward the stables, murmuring meaningless reassurances about how there had to be an explanation, and she couldn't have gone very far at any rate.

Gunther barely heard him. The volume of his own thoughts had ratcheted up to an anguished, headache-inducing pitch;

I let her go. I let her go! I knew something was off, something was not right, I knew it THEN, and I let her go anyway! I might as well have saddled the blasted horse FOR her! This is ALL my fault, my fault, my fault…

He wasn't a bit surprised when Smithy led him straight to Shadowdancer's stall; it merely confirmed what he'd already felt, already known. The horse was Jane's favorite by far. When Smithy indicated which of the riding gear had been on Shadowdancer when he'd returned, Gunther ran his fingers over it and came away holding a single strand of flame-colored hair that had gotten caught in the bridle.

He felt – vaguely, distantly – Smithy's arm clasp his shoulder, heard him say, "Steady on, Gunther, I am sure she just –"

The rest of the statement was swept away by the strange rushing sound in Gunther's ears.

He couldn't tear his eyes away from that single strand of hair. His had was fisted around it so tightly his knuckles were white; so tightly that it hurt. Without any conscious awareness of what he was doing, he raised his fist and pressed it to his forehead, which was pounding now. He could barely breathe.

"Jane," he croaked.

He could not imagine where she'd gone or why, but he knew – on a fundamental level he knew – that this was bad. Worse than bad. This was catastrophic.

He realized dimly that he was shaking. The strand of Jane's hair was hanging directly in front of his eyes now. The color didn't look so much like fire to him anymore.

It looked like blood

Slowly, very slowly, Smithy's words began to once more penetrate the fog that had encompassed his mind.

"– never leave on her own, Gunther, not with the castle in danger, you know that, don't you? Not Jane. She would not desert us this way. There has to be more to this, Gunther, there has to be. Jane –"

"Ordered," Gunther said then in a voice between a creak and a whisper, the wheels in his head beginning to turn again now, and turn fast.

"What?" Smithy asked.

"Ordered," Gunther said again. "She would not leave unless she was ordered, and there is only one person with the power to order her away."

He raised his eyes to Smithy, and what Smithy saw there caused him to take a quick step backward.

"Gunther," the blond man said cautiously, "I think you should –"

"I am going to find out where she went," Gunther said with terrible, deceptive calm. "I am going to disembowel anyone who has hurt her. And then I am going to kill her. I am going to kill her for leaving me in the dark like this."

He turned and made for the castle keep. It was where Cuthbert would be supping at this hour.