Chapter VIII

Jane wasn't entirely sure what was happening. Only that her mother had obviously lost her mind. Throughout the whole Ball her mother had been pushing her towards either girls of her own 'class' – each as stuck up and too-good-for-her as the last - or boys! Even more horribly still, her mother was pushing her towards the boys who had made her life a misery only a few weeks ago!

Why? Jane cried inwardly, why was her mother doing this to her?

Every time Jane tried to join her friends, who were watching the Ball from a corner of the Great Hall, out of the way and out of sight, her mother was suddenly by her side and dragging her to meet another stuck-up courtier girl to befriend – in her mother's dreams - or a courtier boy (or a squire) and she wasn't even sure what she was supposed to do with them since being friends with them was something she had no wish to do.

"What is my mother doing?" She muttered under her breath as she finally managed to convince her mother to let her sit down, telling her that her arm was hurting her. Which was the truth, her arm was hurting her, so it wasn't a complete lie, only a partial one, a means to escape her mother and snobby courtiers.

"Do you want the truth or would you rather a lie?" Jane jumped at Gunther's unexpected voice as he sat down on the bench next to her. She hadn't seen him for a couple of days now and was taken aback by how dashing he actually looked in his fine formal squire clothes. If only she had been allowed to wear them too, then she wouldn't feel quite so awkward.

"There is both a truth and a lie to go with what my mother is doing?" Jane asked him and he smirked, one of his 'I-know-more-than-you-do-making-me-more-surpior-than-silly-little-you' smirks that makes her blood boil.

"Yes."

"Well?" She demanded, wondering if she was simply wasting her time talking to him and finding that she can help but miss the time when things had been almost companionable between them. Granted that had been when all the other squires and knights were looking down their noses at them, but still, she did miss their easy-going friendship they had shared.

He kept on smirking at her for a little longer, running her patience short to the point where she was on her feet and ready to leave, only stopping when his hand came to read upon her wrist.

"Sit down, I'll tell you. I was simply messing with you, honestly." He pulled her back down upon the bench beside him, more gently then one would expect from him to show her.

"Well?" she said again and he sighed.

"She, your mother, is trying to get you away from your friends."

Jane laughed.

"What are you talking about? Why on earth would she do that?" Jane giggled at the insanity of that thought.

He raised an eyebrow at her before shaking his head.

"You really are that blind, aren't you?" But before Jane could answer or retort to his rude comment, he continued, "Your mother is trying to get you away from your commoner friends and more involved with the people of your own birth status."

"But why? Why now? Is it because I'm a squire?" Jane demanded.

Gunther shook his head.

"I think your mother has come around to accepting the fact that you are determined to be Knight, that no amount of words will change this, but…"

"But?"

"But I think she is trying to have you gain some distance between your friends and you?"

"But why? It never bothered her before."

"Because, just maybe, she doesn't want you to be associated with the castle servants anymore. Courtiers do talk about you being so close with those lot," he nodded his head the direction of 'those lot', "and I guess she's sick of you, and by proxy herself, being laughed at."

"So she finally accepts my desire to become a Knight only to now want me to stop being friends with the only true friends I will ever have in this whole place!" Jane cried furiously, hurt beyond imagining by what her mother was trying to do.

Gunther waved his hands, trying to get her to lower the volume of her voice for many heads were turned in their direction and over Jane's fuming, red head Gunther could see a pair of dark grey eyes glaring at him from across the room from where he was juggling for the entertainment of the very small children of court.

"Jane," He said trying to be patient and calm but he had never been either, least of all when dealing with Jane, "I think in your mother's mind, she thinks she's helping you."

"By making me miserable? More miserable than ever before?"

"By making you appear that you aren't some noble oddity. That you rank every other noble in this room – beside the royal family, of course – and that you are just like them."

"But I'm not. I'm not like them! I don't want to be like them! I just want to be free, to be a knight, to go out on adventures with Dragon. To be able to lo…" her voice trailed off and her cheeks flamed and she heard Gunther snort.

"Ye-ah… and then there's that. Your mother has some big problems with that."

"What exactly is 'that'?" Jane hissed at him, still warm in the face.

Gunther raised an eyebrow at her again.

"Do you seriously not know or are you just denying it?"

"Denying what?"

"You remember last year when the whole Castle thought that we were…" Jane nodded her head vigorously, her cheeks once more flaming terribly, hoping he would just stop right there.

"Well," He continued on anyway, even though she saw his cheeks were slightly pink too, "your mother heard about it too and came and talked to me about it."

"Oh, no. What did she do? What did she say? She didn't yell at you or anything did she?"

"Nothing of the sort." He sincerely wished that she had though, because the alternative had been… "She was happy in fact, said she was very pleased and that she was glad that it was me that you were showing an interest in and not…" he looked down at her hoping she would catch on. But of course she wasn't, this was Jane after all.

"She thought… She was happy…" Gunther shook his head at the younger squire's horrified muttering.

"Yes, yes, but you're not seeing the real picture here Jane. The big picture."

"Which is?"

"Jane," Gunther rolled his eyes to the heavens. He had been so hoping that he wouldn't have to spell this out for the girl – weren't girls meant to be good at this type of thing? – but then Jane was no ordinary girl was she? "How old are you? Thirteen? Girls start to be courted at fourteen-fifteen don't they?"

"Do you…"

"NO! Jane, just be quiet for more than a moment and just listen, would you? Your mother is getting you ready to be courted. She accepted that you are going to stick with your desire to be a Knight, but that doesn't mean she's going to stop trying to set up you with someone… someone of your own class." Someone who isn't Jester by any stretch of the imagination, he thought but of course didn't add because he knew that Jane had finally, finally clicked on to what he was saying.

"But-but I don't… I mean, I don't-I don't want to get married. Or anything along those lines!" Gunther snorted as he took a goblet of wine from a passing servant's tray.

No, he thought as he took a sip of the rich wine, you just don't want to marry anyone who isn't Jester.

"I'm too young!"

Gunther rolled his eyes.

"She's not marrying you off tomorrow. Probably after you've been knighted or some time like that. Like I said, she's just getting you ready to be courted."

"By someone of my own class." She snapped in disgust and he nodded, wincing a little at her hurt tone.

"Yes."

"I don't…" he looked down at her and saw how upset she was.

"Look, she'll probably ease up over time. You know how your mother is, she tries for a while and before long she gradually starts to accept what you want."

"Yes, but… Ow." Jane yelped as she grabbed her injured arm, wincing at how painful it had suddenly become. In fact the pain almost rivalled the hurt that she had felt when the injury had first been inflicted.

She leant forward on the bench, gasping and hugging her injured arm close to her chest as tears started pouring down her face.

"Jane?" Gunther said. He was now crouching by her side looking up at her face in concern.

"My arm…" she whimpered. For the moment, she didn't care if she was perceived as a wimp or a cry baby; she just wanted something, anything to stop the horrible, awful ache in her arm.

"What's going on? Jane?"

Jester? Jester? Thank gods, Jester!

"Jester." She sobbed and reached out for him with her good arm. He was by her side in moments, comforting her and somehow helping the pain in her arm.

"We need to get her to the Court Physician." She could hear Gunther saying over her head to Jester, "she says her arm…"

The world was spinning when both Gunther and Jester helped her to her feet and she could see black spots clouding her vision.

"Jane? Jane, listen to me," Jester was speaking to her urgently; "You need to calm your breathing down. Do you hear me? You need to calm down?"

But she couldn't breathe! She need more air and yet it hurt to breath.

Her legs gave out on her but before she could fall she was being swung up into a pair of strong, wirey arms and being carried… somewhere, she didn't care, just as long as she stayed in those arms, safe and sound from the rest of the world. Nothing could or would hurt her while she was in those arms.

Dully she could hear Dragon roaring. Not with laughter or due to burping but for some other reason.

"Dragon?" she mumbled through thick lips. She had to get to Dragon, he was upset about something and she had to go and comfort him. "Dragon."

"Hush, it's alright, Jane. We're taking you to the court physician."

"Jester. Dragon." Why weren't words coming to her, why would no sentences form?

Her arm, she screwed up her face in pain and her ragged breathing grew worse.

She heard a door open and a Jester calling for someone.

"Too much to drink huh?" she heard voice laugh only to be angrily shot down by Jester.

"Easy boy, I was jesting which I might add is your job to recognise. Lay her on the bed here and I'll check that arm of hers."

She felt herself be carefully placed upon a soft bed and that the safety and warmth that she loved so much was leaving her. She grabbed out blindly, desperately and sure enough the safety and warmth was back. In fact, both were nearby.

"Can someone shut him up? It's hard to work with all the noise he's making." Dragon let out a loud angry snort which quickly turned into a nasty snarl when she let out a cry of pain when she felt someone manhandling her arm.

"Easy, girl. Boy, hold her still while I check on this arm." She bit down hard on her bottom lip as she felt her arm being unwrapped, feeling more tears escape her eyelids from the pain.

She felt cool air touch her arm and had to bite back a scream. Around her she could hear curses and yelps of disgust and surprise.

"Aren't you the one who changes these?" she could hear Jester snarl angrily at someone. The Court Physician?

"Yes, every day. And this morning this arm looked nothing like that. Boy, and I don't care which one of you, though I think it's going to be you, go and grab the girl's parents. And see if you can't shut up that great beast while you're at it!" She heard running feet but the hand that was still holding hers was still there.

"What is it?" She heard Jester whisper next to her.

"I don't know, never have I seen anything like this."

"But you do have some idea…"

"What are you getting at Boy?"

Jane wasn't sure what Jester did or what look he gave but the next thing she heard a heavy sigh from the Court Physician.

"Sorcery maybe? But when and where has this child been in association to sorcery? Sorcery of this level of evil?"

"The Wizard?" She heard Jester say but he sounded doubtful.

"Doubtful. Though he might have some idea how to cure this because this is far beyond my knowledge."

"If I went and grabbed him…" she heard Jester start to say before the Court Physician laughed

"If she lets go of your hand, that is." He chuckled and Jane knew that if she had been in her right frame of mind, she'd have gone red in the face and immediately let go of Jester's hand. But since she wasn't in her right frame of mind, she did nothing except stop herself from screaming out in pain.

"JANE?"

Oh, no.

Jane mentally groaned at the sound of her mother's frantic cries.

"What is wrong with her?" She heard her sensible father question the Court Physician while she felt her mother's soft hand gently caress her face.

"She's burning." She heard her mother say.

"I know," Court Physician replied. "I don't know what is wrong with her, but I think it is the work of sorcery."

"Sorcery?" Her mother gasped out in horror from somewhere above her.

"Yes, see her arm." Again her mother gasped, "I've seen nothing like it in all my years…"

"But you can cure it."

"I'm not…"

She felt the hand that was still in hers starting to slip away.

"No…" she whispered.

"I'll be right back. I promise, Jane, I'll be right back." She tried to open her eyes, to make herself plead with him not to leave her but no words formed and her fingers no longer held the strength they once did to keep him with her.

Somewhere nearby she heard Dragon rumple deep in his throat. It was the last thing she was aware of when the blankness finally swallowed her.

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