The Dragons' Chosen (6 page)

I mounted the gray gelding. Markus helped Lucinda up on Dumpling’s wide back. There was no crowd to see me off. Mother refused to allow this to become a public spectacle, excluding everyone but my family.

My carefully prepared speech rattled through my skull as we headed out the gates.
This duty is mine. No one else can do it, and I go willingly, if sadly. I ask that each of you remember me, and remember the others who went before so that our land is safe and fruitful.

As we trotted through the castle gates, I wondered how many of the other princesses had prepared an equally worthless speech.

Chapter 7

Word travels fast in a small kingdom, and I was hard to miss. My hat with its buttercup rosettes and green ribbon kept the sun off my face, but didn’t prevent me from seeing people shy away at our approach or from hearing the whispered conversations. I missed my parasol. It could have afforded me a respite from all the furtive looks.

At midmorning, Captain Markus turned his roan gelding. “At the top of this rise, we will stop.” He seemed on the verge of saying more but the clip-clop of hoof beats from behind us arrested his attention.

“Waaaait!”

I knew that voice and could picture the piebald pony that bore it. We stopped. Not long after, my brother Harold caught up to us. He dismounted badly, entangled with some mismatch of chain mail, saddlebags and Father’s favorite sword. His pony stood head down, legs apart, his froth-covered sides heaving. Harold trotted up to us, the tip of the sword dragging behind, leaving a snakelike trail in the road. There would be trouble over that sword when Father found out.

“Harold!” I leapt down and gave him a quick hug before scanning the road for his steward. “Where are your guards? What are you doing out this far?”

He dislodged himself from my embrace, bowing until he almost toppled from the ill-fitting armor, which fell to his knees.

“No, remember? I’m Sir Harold now, slayer of dragons, protector of the Princess Genevieve.”

He looked up at me, confident of my approval. “Don’t worry, I’m here now. I’m your protector. I won’t let the dragons take you.”

I wouldn’t cry, I just wouldn’t. Nor could I laugh at such determination and love. I bent down, kissing his forehead.

“I am honored, Sir Harold, that you come to me in my time of need. Your valor is noted and your courage unparalleled. You are my hero, my knight. With your arrival you have vanquished my sorrows and given me a gift beyond price.” I put my hand beneath his chin and looked into his eyes. “But now you must do me yet another favor and return, telling Mother and Father that I am well and at peace with my choice. In a few years, you will become a king yourself. You will need practice dispensing wisdom and information.”

“Aren’t you coming back with me?”

“In spirit, yes, but I can’t leave quite yet. There is something I need to do, but I wish you to have this.” I pulled one of the yellow silk rosettes from my hat. “This is a token for you, Sir Harold, of my gratitude and admiration. I charge you with returning it safely to Mother’s hand with my love. Will you do this for me?”

He nodded and saluted me prettily—much better than could be expected from an eight-year-old.

I reached down, hugging him to me as I whispered, “And next time, your next adventure, leave a note, please, so as not to worry Mother.”

He nodded, his eyes serious.

After some short time, oh too short, three of the men escorted the heir back toward the castle. He waved goodbye to me from the saddle behind one of the men, leading a tired little pony.

The rest of the day, I rode in silence.

The men spread along the road in clusters of two and three. There wasn't much to do while riding; each mile looked much like the previous one. It was mid-Fall when we headed out, the fields covered with the stubble of harvested grains. That first day, everything I looked at reminded me of my fate. At one stop, I watched the death struggle between a praying mantis and a green and yellow beetle. The mantis ended the exchange by stuffing the unfortunate beetle into his mouth and biting down. I looked away.

I was losing my family, my life and my future. I lived inside my head arguing over this choice. I ignored the men. Lucinda was a silent drudge who shadowed my steps.

Occasionally I noticed our journey. Initially, the road was well traveled; merchants going to town, craftsmen and women driving carts laden with goods, peasants heading to market with eggs and vegetables. Farmers looked up from their reaping and stared.

I stood out. Ten rough men—no, eight only, with the rest accompanying Harold—a cart laden with my chair, one large chaperone on an even larger horse, a very unhappy pig, and me.

Lucinda’s silence was an unexpected break from the prattle of my ladies. She saw to my needs, provided a buffer from the men, and was generally helpful. I hoped that she wasn’t aware I hadn’t wanted her to come.

Winter proved to be a good choice as a mount. His trot was smooth and his manner willing. I watched him carefully, but he showed no sign of shying.

As we rode, I took to listing their names—the lost princesses—in the order of their disappearance: Teresa, Anisette, Ophelia, Isabelle, Nicolette, Chantal, Alexandra, Penelope, Sophia, Elsbeth, Rosalind, Willa, Lynette, Victoria, much like a children's rhyming game. There was some comfort in doing this, though I could not bring myself to add my name to the end.

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The first night we stopped at an inn, "The Horned Owl." The sparse room with a roughly woven woolen blanket laid across the narrow bed reinforced the end of all that I knew.

In the cramped room, Lucinda’s sleeping bulk blocked my door. No one spoke to me. None met my eyes. I could already be gone. It no longer mattered that my silk riding gown was the envy of six townships, that my skin had been compared to the color of fresh cream or my hair always remained perfectly coiffed after a long day’s ride. Nothing mattered. I was as good as dead.

The men who escorted me were a mixed lot. The Captain was old, almost fifty, his skin hardened from years of riding beneath the sun. There was a ribbed scar on his right hand that started at his knuckle and disappeared up his sleeve. His lips were drawn in a tight line. I never saw him smile.

Aside from Captain Markus, I recognized only three of the other royal guardsmen accompanying me. George had been a sentry for my father for years. He had a cheery nature, gray-brown hair that never stayed in place without a liberal application of hair oil, and rounded cheeks burnished brown from the sun. He whistled as he rode.

Samuel and Michael I also knew. Samuel sported a tidy ocher-colored beard of which he seemed particularly fond, stroking it absently as we rode. He was bald and lean, wiry really, all muscle and nothing extra; two black slashes of eyebrows ran across his face, and what little remained of his hair was in a thin braided queue at his neck. Michael had the shoulders of an ox and the bandy legs of a goat, but a kinder man I had never met. All three were old enough to be my father.

The others were unknown to me, younger men from among my father’s soldiers. Perhaps I had seen them from afar and passed them by without a glance. My mind had been focused elsewhere: on politics, on court relationships and on my place in them.

“May I take your horse, My Lady?”

I jumped. What a picture I must make staring off in the distance. So wrapped in my head, I hadn’t noticed one of the men standing at Winter’s side. I wondered how long he had been there waiting.

I forced myself to focus.

“Yes, thank you,” I said. It was George. He was the one who placed my chair out for me each evening, unloading it from the cart and placing it alongside the fire. An unacknowledged kindness. My chair, with its carved arms and scrolled back, the extra burden carried to pamper me, for my comfort.

I dismounted and handed him the reins. He started to lead Winter away.

“Wait.” It shocked me that I had become so lax. There was never an excuse for ignoring your retainers.

He turned to me, a question in his eyes. “George. Thank you,” I repeated, but this time I meant it. “Thank you for coming. It means much to me to see a familiar face on this journey.”

He stammered something about his duty and walked away with Winter.

A few feet over, Lucinda hovered, her arms crossed. Watching as if there could be some indiscretion between us, as if my purity mattered to anyone now.

It was silly. None of these men appealed to me. They were too old, too coarse or too uneducated. Nothing like Theo, the young prince of Gowen, with his tawny good looks, or the Duke of Armon, or even the bard Trill, whose eyes seemed to focus on me when he sang.

Not that any of my father’s men seemed particularly interested in me either. I was a task, an assignment to complete, none of their business. But, still, Lucinda watched.

There was no one to talk to, not really. Nothing to do except ride on the dusty road that led to the Fandrite Mountains.

But each night I fell asleep reciting the names of the chosen princesses like a prayer:

Teresa, Anisette, Ophelia, Isabelle,

Nicolette, Chantal, Alexandra, Penelope,

Sophia, Elsbeth,

Rosalind, Willa,

Lynette, Victoria.

And some nights, when the stars disappeared behind the clouds, I whispered my name too.

Chapter 8

A week dragged by, and after many less than stellar accommodations in local country inns, we arrived at Castle Ilmington at the edge of the wilderness; beyond stretched the Lorne Valley, where only a few isolated villages dotted the plain. After safely delivering Harold to my parents, who must have been frantic, my three men had returned.
We were again the happy party
, I thought, and rolled my eyes.

The evening we arrived, people lined the roads to view me, the doomed princess, portrait perfect— my spine straight, my head high. We—my escort, I and of course, the pig—were the talk of the town. No doubt, the royals across nine kingdoms were breathing a sigh of relief that their daughters were spared. I was certain my mother remained unmoved from where I last saw her in her tower room, staring at the door where I exited, willing me to stay.

Ilmington was not a pretty castle, rather too stiff and squat for elegance, but well fortified against wolves and marauders. It was set on the south shore of Lake Nessen, crouched like a large toad on the top of a promontory, dull gray stones forming the wall with rounded turrets adorning each corner like warts. Once we were near enough to be seen by the sentries, we heard horns trumpeting our arrival. We crossed the drawbridge, dismounted, and walked the horses through the low opening.

Here we were welcomed and given proper lodging. My men were promised a tankard of ale and taken to the soldiers’ barracks. They deserved it. I was put up in royal quarters, a well-appointed sleeping room with a thickly ticked mattress and cerise brocaded curtains hanging from the canopied bed. My clothes were unpacked, brushed and aired, my hair washed and rinsed with rosemary and lavender. The bath that night was glorious, deep enough to sink my shoulders into, and hot. Really, really hot. I slept soundly for once, awakening to the smell of hot chocolate and warm flaky pastries set on a tray near my bed. But for the trivial fact that there were dragons on my horizon, life felt almost normal. I did find myself missing George’s cheery whistle and Michael’s booming laugh, but these were fleeting thoughts.