“I mean that—although I’d managed some semblance of a normal life at school—I was never fully at peace. Instead, I was constantly, maliciously,hunted. Sought by spies, and revolutionaries, and soldiers, and mercenaries. From the day I fled France, some party or faction havewanted me—a male grandson of the former king; nephew to the most recent king—captured, extradited, or dead; all three if it could be managed. They’ve wanted me so urgently, they dispatched agents to track me. I can only assume theywould’ve tracked me to the ends of the earth. The headmaster and his wife were shocked that these spies and mercenaries found me so very deep within the English countryside—but they did. And eventually theyburned a schoolto flush me out.”
“But are you certain?” she asked, sounding appalled. “This is terrible, Gabriel. I’m horrified for you—for all of you.”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m certain. My life reads like a very bad, very improbable novel, but I assure you, it’s all happened. Before the fire, there were repeated harassments from men hired to hunt me down and capture me. There’d been failed break-ins to the school. Mercenaries turned up in our high street and waded into groups of classmates, scattering boys as they searched for a missing prince. They threatened local shopkeepers for information about a French orphan. The headmaster’s wife was frequently followed to the market. The carriage of my best friend was attacked after his parents collected him for holiday. The school and the boys were constantly surveilled, frequently harassed. The headmaster and his wife were, God love them, determined that I should have a normal life. They brought in dogs; they begged shopkeepers not to answer questions from strangers; they even hired a boxing instructor and taught all of us boys to fight.
“I survived only out of luck,” he said. “And also because the spies never knew exactly where to look or which boy I might be. And my classmates were very loyal. For more than a year, I hid in plain sight. And then, they set fire to the school.”
He hadn’t meant to say more than that. The edgeof the forest was around the next bend. Still, once the story began to pour from him, he couldn’t seem to stop.
“They blocked the dormitory entrances after bedtime,” he told her. “Can you believe it?”
“No,” she said quietly. “I cannot believe it.”
“They blocked the entrances and set the building on fire. Only one door remained unlocked, and their plan had been to force us out that door so they might search the face of every boy. It was a shite plan—all of the mercenaries who came for me were sloppy—but this represented a new level of danger. But I knew, even as a boy, that I could ignore it no longer. The fire itself was fast-moving and voracious. Within minutes, it had become an inferno; a petrifying, hot, blinding monster. If you’ve never seen a building catch fire, it truly looks like hell come to earth. The outline of the structure is visible, but its shape is made of fire. Flames shoot upward to the sky. Meanwhile, the inside of the building becomes translucent, so you can see through the walls. It’s this skeletal framework that rapidly dissolves into a living furnace. All the while, chaos reigns. People were frantic, trying to save the surrounding buildings; trying to account for the missing; trying to reckon with the loss of their every possession.
“I remember looking around at my classmates, standing barefoot in the snow. I heard the cries of the livestock, stampeding in terror. For a terrible quarter hour, the schoolmaster’s baby daughter was lost in the confusion, and his wife was inconsolable, sobbing in the middle of the street. The child was later found, but she could have easily been killed.”
He took a deep breath. “And you’ll have to remember, this was not my first trip around the sun. I knew the escalating nature of bloodlust. The week leading up to my father’s beheading was...” He shook his head.Thishe would not discuss.
He finished, “I knew that the only safe thing was to remove myself from the school, from Marlborough, from society. And so I did. The forest was not far from the school—close enough that my classmates and I had trooped through the trails and swum in the streams. The great expanse of it was not known to me, but I was familiar with the first mile or so.”
“And so they simply let you go? The headmaster? Your teachers? A boy of eleven was allowed to make his life in the forest?”
“I ran away,” he said. “That same night, I ran. The schoolmaster was busy looking after his family and finding temporary lodging for the boys. I scribbled out a note and shoved it at a teacher. Then I walked to the forest, sought out the darkest, windiest, most formidable path, and threw myself down it, running as fast as I could. I had no destination in mind, no plan for survival; I wanted only to remove myself from the men who hunted me so that my classmates and host family would be left in peace.”
“But how did you survive?” she asked.
“Samuel Rein,” he said. This part of the story was easier to tell. His chest loosened. He could breathe again. “Samuel Rein discovered me—or actually, it was his dogs. I’d passed out beneath the upturned roots of a felled tree. I was hungry and cold and rather belligerent, but he coaxed me to his camp; he clothed me, fed me, gave me time and solitude. And then, hesuggested I stay on, just for a while. He was a widower with twin sons. The boys had only rudimentary schooling, and he wanted them to learn to read and write. I told him that I was a danger to him and his children, that I was hunted, that no one was safe in my company—he laughed. He actually laughed. I was offended, of course, but then he showed me how very hidden they were—how far from Pewsey; farther still to Marlborough. No roads, not even a trail. Also he was a giant bear of a man. Formidable looking. It would take a very large ransom for any mercenary to take on a man like Samuel Rein.”
“And you considered it. You said yes,” she guessed.
“Do you know what convinced me? At least in those early days? The animals. I’d always had a deep love of horses, and I could not resist the promise of riding every day, of learning how he healed wounded animals. He saw my indecision and offered a trade. If I would teach his boys to read and write, he would teach me to break horses. It was meant to be temporary; but a fortnight turned into a month, a month turned into the spring. And then I found myself living among them in the camp like a member of his family. It was...” he breathed in and out “...a saving grace for me. I would be dead if not for him, I’m certain of it.”
“And your fear about bringing danger to his doorstep? You were able to release this?”
“Well, I do feel safe in the forest, obviously. I also felt safe with Samuel, as I’ve said. His boys were vulnerable but he was teaching them to be woodsmen and horsemen and fighters—he was teaching all of us to be resourceful. And there were no women in camp. The image of the schoolmaster’s wife, sobbing in theroad during the fire? The thought of her baby burned alive? I was so very haunted by these. With just the four of us living rudimentary lives, our existence felt inconsequential. No, that’s not true. It felt profound and of no consequence at the same time. But what mattered was, I felt far less afraid.”
“And that is when you wrote me for the last time. The letter that led me to you here.”
“Yes.” He sighed. “My final princely act. I hadn’t written from the school because it did not feel safe. The forest felt more secure, I suppose. I wanted you to know that I was ‘out there’ somewhere. I wanted to tell you goodbye. It was foolish, I—”
“It was a very great relief to me,” she cut in. “That letter. I read it a hundred times. I prayed for you. When Maurice came, it was my first thought. I hope you don’t regret sending it to me.”
Gabriel thought of this. “No,” he finally said. “I don’t regret it.”
After a silence, Ryan said, “You mentioned that Samuel Rein was a widower?”
“Yes. His wife died of a fever,” he said. “Sadly. It was why he moved to the forest. Grief. Also too much interference from relatives about how to raise his boys. Samuel had grown up in Savernake Forest. When he lost his wife, he returned to it.”
“Did he ever leave the shelter of the wood, or did he seclude himself like you?”
“It was his strong preference to never leave, but he was compelled to attend market days in surrounding towns to meet with clients. Once or twice a year, he traveled to Newmarket. But these were very quick, very detached forays into society. He made camp in whateverwood was nearby—he never lodged in an inn. Outside craftsmen were hired only as necessary for essentials that couldn’t be made by his own hand.”
“So resourceful,” she marveled.
“Yes. He would consider my current lists of store-bought ‘necessities’ to be very extravagant, indeed. ‘Indulgences,’ he would call them.”
She chuckled. “Like what?”
