Tabitha’s cheeks had lost their angry colour, but now they flushed again, the tiniest bit. ‘So I see. Are you sure it’s no trouble?’ She glanced past Gwen, towards where Isobelle and Jane were trying to round up Buttercup. The lovely horse kept prancing away a few paces and then stopping to wait for them, clearly enjoying the game. Jane was yelling for Sylvie to come help them. Sylvie, standing at the road’s edge, crossed her arms and stood her ground. She was immaculate – dark-haired, dark-eyed, the warm bronze of her skin not diminished one degree by the black of her mourning gown.
Sylvie was one of the only people who shared Gwen’s opinion of Isobelle’s horse.
Gwen shrugged. ‘No trouble at all.’
‘Why did those arseholes run away?’ Tabitha asked, slinging her pack over one shoulder and looking curiously at Gwen.
Gwen hesitated. The word of her battle against the dragon was known throughout Darkhaven, but it had spread somewhat more unpredictably beyond its borders. Some knew the story well, and gazed at her with open admiration – others had heard nothing and simply eyed the girl wearing a sword with sceptical confusion.
‘There are a lot of stories about me,’ she said finally, feeling rather awkward. ‘Isobelle tells them better than I do.’
‘Huh.’ Tabitha shrugged. ‘People tell a lot of stories about witches, too. Fear is a powerful thing.’
Gwen let her breath out in relief that the girl wasn’t going to make her talk about her own fame. ‘I don’t doubt it. Come, meet Achilles. He looks fearsome, but he’s quite friendly, I assure you. He can carry us both.’
By the time she’d finished introducing Tabitha to Achilles, Isobelle had managed to catch Princess Buttercup, and after some discussion the caravan set off once more towards the coast. Tabitha was no skilled rider, but she learned quickly, and after some initial stiffness, settled in behind Gwen with her arms about her waist.
Their positioning did not encourage conversation, but Gwen did ask, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the hoofbeats, ‘Why are you headed to Galanty?’
There was a brief silence, and then Tabitha’s voice came in her ear, much more softly. ‘I was born there. My mother died there, when I was too young to remember hermuch. I suppose … I suppose I simply wish to know what happened to her.’
Gwen’s throat tightened, thinking of her own mother. She briefly covered Tabitha’s hand, where it rested against Gwen’s chainmail. She did not say anything back, for it really was too uncomfortable to try to converse; but she felt, strangely, a little lighter.
Lord Whimsitt may have sent them to Galanty-Uponne-the-Sea to pose for portrait artists and smile for the local nobility, but here was someone who had come for a reason, a worthy reason.
A damsel in distress, Isobelle had said.
Escorting a girl to safety was not exactly on the level of slaying a dragon – but it was something, and Gwen decided that she would do what she could to help her.
6
Trying to make a game of fetch happen
There was a boy by the side of the road up ahead, perched in a tree. He was entertaining himself by throwing and catching an acorn, the nut sailing up, then dropping back into his palm once more.
When he caught sight of the girls, he startled, juggled his acorn, and nearly dropped it. Isobelle opened her mouth to caution him, but before she could do so, he nearly fell out of the tree, at the last moment converting the movement into an almost-deliberate jump. Dusting himself off, he looked them up and down as they approached. Slowly, his eyes widened.
‘You’re her!’ he announced. ‘The lady knight. It’s really you.’
‘Sir Gwen, dragonslayer!’ Isobelle agreed brightly. She heard a weary sigh behind her, but wasn’t sure whether it came from Gwen or Achilles.
The boy held up one hand. ‘Go slow, don’t come into town too quick. I got to let them know you’re here. His lordship wants you to have the full arrival experience.’
‘The what?’ asked Gwen warily.
Behind them, Jane’s head popped out of the carriage window. ‘Why have we stopped?’ she called.
Isobelle, never one to turn down any kind of full experience, nodded benevolently at the boy. ‘We’ll go slow,’ she promised.
And so their little procession made its way, in leisurely fashion, towards the town of Galanty-Uponne-the-Sea. Isobelle found herself studying Gwen’s profile as the other girl gazed ahead, lost in her own thoughts. The letter from Isobelle’s parents was tucked safely away, buried among the bunches of admiring letters Gwen had received from her Lady Dragonslayer fanatics as her fame grew. Isobelle had taken charge of keeping them and responding to as many as she could. She could keep the letter from her parents there until she found the right time to break the news to her champion. Gwen would have walked into the Darkhaven moat, crocodiles and all, before she read her own fan mail.
And yet, even knowing it was well hidden in their luggage, Isobelle could feel the letter like some corrupted beacon, shining not light and truth, but darkness and heavy uncertainty.
No, said the letter in her pocket.No, no, no. No dowry for you. No future for you. You’re not the daughter we wanted, and you’ll get nothing but ‘no’ from us until you are.
How could she tell Gwen, who’d only ever heard from her father a world ofyes?
I just need a moment to catch my breath, she told herself, dragging her eyes from her champion.A moment to figure out what our next move should be. I’ll tell her when I have something we can do about it.
