Minion gasped as he tried to answer and jog at the same time. “N-no, Master. The Irishman, Gawain, is still missing.”
This agitated the Viscount, who mused through gritted teeth, “I’d prefer all the knights be inside. Still, he shouldn’t pose much of a threat.” So he hoped. He wasn’t entirely sure what a man who cast two shadows was capable of. Now was not the time for unknowns.
They were forced to stand outside the stables while Loki’s black carriage was readied for travel. After a short delay, the stable hands finally relented to Loki’s suggestion that they allow Minion to bridle the fierce black horses. During that interlude, Katherina broke through the crowd, demanding to know what was happening.
“Lady Katherina,” Mark said gruffly, “an announcement will be made soon enough. Suffice to say that the Viscount is no longer welcome. So, please step away from him.”
This only caused Katherina to grab Loki’s hands and look into his face. “What treachery is this? Surely it is mistake.”
“No mistake, my dear, they have finally decided that my oil does not mix so well with their wholesome water. It is no great loss—I was hoping to leave soon anyway. My only regret is...” He leaned closer to her and made sharp eye contact. “It is that we never had the opportunity to meet one last time at the chapel by the brook.”
Understanding dawned in her eyes even as Sir Waylan gently escorted her away from Loki. She shook off the bearded knight’s touch and stalked back into the crowd. Sir Waylan retracted his hand and made a face like he was handling a hissing kitten.
When the carriage was ready and the luggage loaded, Minion was lifted unceremoniously into the driver’s seat by Sir Bisch, and Sir Corbin opened the door to the cabin in mock courtesy for Loki. Stiff-lipped, the Viscount entered and Corbin slammed the door, grinning.
“Don’t forget to write.”
The carriage pulled forward in a quick jerk and headed for the Main Gate. The crowd followed en masse and many people climbed the walls to watch the carriage ramble across the drawbridge and down the road. An almost carnivalesque atmosphere lingered in the courtyard as Guests and staff alike pressed around Mark and the Avangarde with questions. All save Katherina, who slowly backed away from the commotion and ducked into the stables. In short order, she opened a stall, entered, and led out a white steed.
#
When the storm of people had first broken into the stable, Aimeé hid herself. Stablehands dragged the Viscount’s carriage out into the courtyard, then returned to wrestle with Loki’s willful horses. The other horses in the stable, Siegfried included, snorted and paced nervously in their stalls. Aimeé quieted Siegfried from the shadows of his stall, and listened to the spectacle play out in the courtyard. She thought about stepping out and asking someone what was going on, but decided to save herself the trouble when she overheard just as much confusion in the stablehands’ curses and chatter, especially following the Lady Katherina’s exchange with the Viscount.
When the crowd moved off towards the gate, she thought about stepping out again. But before she could lift the latch on the stall, she saw the Lady Katherina entering, looking over her shoulder in a surreptitious manner. Aimeé moved deeper into the shadows of Siegfried’s stall. It was from there that she watched in surprise as the princess expertly led a horse into the aisle between stalls.
What does she think she’s doing?
Aimeé thought. She watched the Lady Katherina climb the railing of the nearest stall like a commoner and slide sidesaddle onto the animal’s bare back. Grabbing the horse’s mane like a pair of reins, Katherina urged it out the rear entrance of the stables with a determined look in her eyes.
Aimeé extracted herself from her hiding place, watching Katherina’s disappear in the direction of the keep’s rear gate, the Back Door, disbelieving the princess would go to such lengths. After a moment’s thought, however, she decided she shouldn’t be so surprised. Is that not what people did for one another when they felt strongly for them?
Aimeé asked herself what she was willing to do for friendship’s sake, and sighed. “Well, she does have the right idea about one thing,” she said, first looking to the crowd in the courtyard, then to Siegfried, “now is the time act. What do you say, boy? Can you find him for me?”
#
It wasn’t long before Aimeé herself was slipping out the Back Door with Siegfried in tow. She didn’t know how to ride a horse like the Lady Katherina, but with her stout build she did manage to get the saddle, tack and harness loosely in place. She even found some other knight’s saddlebags stuffed with clothing and gear, which she threw on Siegfried’s back. She was certain Patrick would thank her for them.
Outside the keep, she let Siegfried root around in the apple orchard, then in the forest once she realized he was leading her in that direction, and pulling at his bridle. In the forest, Siegfried tossed his head, flicked his ears, and pulled even harder against Aimeé’s grasp.
“Are you on to something?” she asked, stumbling along quickly behind him.
Siegfried jerked his head and pawed at the ground as if in response, and despite her own excitement, Aimeé lost her hold on his bridle. She cried out as the big horse trotted forward and snorted around the path.
“Hey there, mister, you come back...hey, wait!”
Siegfried took off at a gallop down the path. She ran after him as fast as she could. It wasn’t long, however, before the horse was out of sight. She cursed her luck and castigated herself for not holding on tighter and for not having anticipated that this might happen in the first place. How was she going to explain this? And it was just a matter of time before her absence would be noticed at the keep.
She continued to run in the direction she last saw Siegfried, hoping that he would at least slow down to get his bearings. After what seemed like an eternity of walk-jogging, holding a cramp in her side, and getting sweaty, she still saw no sign of the animal. “Oh, dear Mary, what have I done?” she moaned in between breaths. In addition to all the reprimands she had coming to her now, she imagined Patrick’s reaction if she actually did find him. Did he want to be found? And by her?
Just as she was hanging her head, thoughts running wild, she heard hoofbeats pounding on the earth. She snapped her head in that direction and started out at a run once again.
To hell with what Patrick wants, she thought with conviction, he needs help and I’m going to make sure he gets it
.
She topped a rise in the forest and caught the glimpse of a horse moving through the trees. It wasn’t Siegfried’s dark flanks she saw, but the snowy white horse Katherina had taken from the stables. Aimeé also thought she heard voices hailing each other from a distance. Currently not knowing where else to go, she moved towards the voices and where she last saw the horse. If Patrick was in the vicinity, as Siegfried seemed to think, then perhaps he had caught on to the fact that Katherina was near, and was moving towards her at this moment as well.
Struggling through the brambles, she finally made her way to the edge of the wood and saw across a gurgling brook the Lady Katherina pull her horse up to the Viscount’s waiting carriage. Loki was standing by a picnic blanket spread out underneath a tree near an abandoned chapel, greeting her warmly with a glass of wine. There was no sign of Patrick.
Before Aimeé had time to feel indignant at the sight of the rule-breaking princess and evicted Guest, a blast of warm air from behind almost knocked her off her feet. She turned in the direction of the wind and got a face full of dust and twigs. Her hair whipped about her head along with tree branches and bushes. Squinting, she saw the sky turn dark as roiling black and purple clouds engulfed the sun like a curtain being lowered over a lantern. The initial force of the wind dissipated and she steadied herself, but grabbed her elbows and held her arms close to her body—the gale was turning icy cold. She stared for a long time in the direction from which the wind was coming.
When no explanation readily came to mind, she turned back to Loki and Katherina, and gasped.
#
Just as she had expected, Katherina found the Lord Loki’s carriage at the abandoned chapel. Since her first visit there with Patrick, the chapel had become her favorite place to escape Greensprings’s stifling rules and gossip. It wasn’t easy to find from the Back Door, however, and she had lost time wandering around the orchard and forest before she recognized the little creek she knew would lead her to the chapel. Here she found Loki sitting at a picnic spread, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Katherina,” he called to her, standing with a glass of wine in his hand, white teeth flashing in a smile.
“Do you think you can help me down?” she asked.
Loki set the glass down on the edge of the carriage and raised his hands. “My pleasure. I had no idea you could ride. You are full of surprises.”
“It seem today full of surprise,” she responded, a hint of consternation lingering in her voice. She leaned forward and let her waist slip into his waiting hands. “What has happened?”
Loki set her on the ground. “As I said, my personal charms were starting to grate on my hosts. I guess I made one too many complaints about being treated like a child.”
Katherina frowned. “That does not seem like reason to make you leave.”
Loki shrugged. “They are not very nice people, now are they?”
“No, they not. They very annoying,” she responded, then looked around. “Where is Minion?”
“Oh, I sent him back to the keep to retrieve something.” Loki waved off the absence. “Won’t you help me celebrate my emancipation from that dreadful place with a toast?” Loki handed her the glass of wine and led her by the other hand back to the picnic blanket. There he picked up another glass and raised it. “Cheers,” he said.
She clinked glasses with him and took a sip. “What am I to do now that you are leaving? You were only one there who let me be myself.”
Loki smiled mischievously over the rim of his glass. “Why don’t you come with me?”
Katherina blinked. “You can’t be serious?”
“I am, very. Come away with me. You don’t belong there anymore than I.”
Katherina touched her chest and swallowed hard, making an awkward smile. “My Lord Loki, that very flattering, but my mother went through much trouble to make possible for me to be here, safe. I cannot take offer. Thank you.”
Loki’s smile wavered and a little color left his face. “What?”
Katherina took another sip and casually turned away. “That would be wrong of me to go against mother’s wishes.”
Loki’s smile reasserted itself. “Why, that surprises me Kat, I always thought you were your own person. You did what you wanted, when you wanted.”
“Precisely, and I choose to stay at Greensprings.”
“But you
don’t
like it there.”
“Haven’t you ever have mother, Lord Loki? Haven’t you ever want to make her happy?”
Loki’s smile was now strained and his knuckles turned a lighter shade around the stem of the wine glass. He bent down to a box on the picnic blanket and opened it to reveal many types of bottles neatly in a row. He retrieved an open bottle of wine and held it forth, his smile once again relaxed.
“At least allow me the chance to change—” Before he could finish his sentence, the shock wave of warm air blew the picnic blanket askew.
#
Minion huffed his way up the hill, beads of perspiration on his forehead. Running errands for his master was nothing new, but running
this
far, and over fallen trees and uphill was a different matter.
Struggling over a log, he stumbled. He slid down on its far side and caught himself just before hitting the ground.
When he resumed breathing, his breath came out in a shaky rattle. Carefully he removed the little backpack he was wearing and set it on the log, and just as gingerly, removed the wooden box that held the glass globe. He slowly opened the box to reveal the glass container, and noted with a deep sigh that the floating white flakes were not all that disturbed. Loki’s voice was still fresh in his mind, ardently warning him not to shake the contents, or else there would be dire consequences. Minion had only to remember the dead rats to believe it.
His nerves calmed, Minion shut the lid of the box, replaced it in the bag and donned the pack. He set out at a more cautious pace for the keep, which loomed just over the trees, and soon found a path through a thicket that would make his journey easier. Looking over his shoulder, up and down the path, and assuring himself that he was alone, he turned to finish his journey to the keep. And that was when he passed a dirty and stark-naked Sir Gawain walking in the opposite direction.
“Oh, good afternoon,” Minion said pleasantly, then froze in his tracks, eyes wide.
Gulping and his heart racing, he turned back to the shambling form. The man didn’t even seem to note the greeting.
“Sir Gawain?” Minion blurted out, then mentally kicked himself.
Patrick stopped. Dirt and nakedness aside, he looked a mess. His hair was in all directions and matted with twigs; several days’ worth of stubble was on his chin, and there was a profoundly dazed look in his eyes.
He frowned at the little man. “You can see me?”
“Er, yes.”
“Hmph,” Patrick grunted, and turned to continue his wanderings.
Minion sighed and rolled his eyes. He just
knew
that someone was going to find Gawain, and Gawain would wonder out loud why that fellow Minion was sneaking into Greensprings.
“Sir Gawain,” Minion said, eyes darting in all directions. “Where have you been? The Avangarde have looked everywhere for you.”
Patrick stopped, turned, and shrugged. “It’s a long story.”
Minion shifted uneasily. “I...was looking for you too, actually.”
Patrick managed a cynical grunt. “Does the Avangarde have better things to do? So they sent you out?”
Minion rubbed his hands nervously. “No, no. It was the Lady Katherina.”
Patrick lifted his head.
“Yes. She is worried about you,” Minion said. “She sent me in search of you. I am to bring you back to her, immediately.”