‘Once upon a time, there was a girl who dreamed of becoming a knight.
‘Her mother was a noblewoman from another land, who had run away with her blacksmith beau, leaving behind her life of luxury for one of true love. The two settled down in a small village, where the blacksmith trained their daughter as he would have a son, and her mother filled the girl’s heart with the traditions of her noble family. The girl, who would one day become the great and noble Sir Gwen, grew up hearing tales of epic ballads and honour, while learning to forge the very tools she’d need to pursue such honour herself. She was touched by destiny, kissed by fate.’
‘Oh god,’ muttered a voice at her side.
‘Shush,’ Isobelle hissed, too low for the wedding guests to hear. She then cleared her throat and continued brightly, ‘Now, where was I? Oh yes … that was whenIcame into the story. That, of course, is when things getreallyinteresting.’
The wedding party had been stirring restlessly, a crowd about to bolt like weeds, until Isobelle had started talking. Gwen wore her annoyance and nerves like a cloak of thorns, scowling like a thundercloud.
Isobelle found it unbearably attractive. Gwen brooded like a hero from a ballad – her dark hair stirred by the breeze, caressing her brow above shadowed green eyes. If only there were a suitably romantic backdrop for her just now; an echoing moor, painted heather-purple, for instance.
But there was only the wedding arch, the guests arrayed in thronging masses, and the broad blue vault of the winter sky above it, gloriously clear and bright, as if blessing the union about to take place.
And, just a few paces away, stood the bride and groom, listening to Isobelle with fascinated interest.
‘You see, there was also a princess in this story – a princess locked in a tower. All the knights in the land came to vie for her hand, for she was to be given to whoever was victorious in battle among them.’ She lowered her voice, allowing a hint of a shudder to run through her for effect. ‘Be he ever so old, ever so mean or grasping, she would be bound to marry the man who defeated all comers.
‘But though she did not yet know it, her salvation was already in motion. The girl-knight heard about this contest, and came to test her steel, keeping her face inshadow. The princess, forced to watch as her suitors fought for her hand, recognised the girl beneath her armour. The princess asked the girl for help, and without hesitating, the girl took up her sword and pledged to save the princess.’
Gwen was making choking noises – outrage or laughter, it was hard to say.
‘The girl who dreamed of being a knight defeated every single one of her rivals, but when she turned to help the princess down from the tower, the princess’s guardian appeared: a massive, fire-breathing dragon.’
The crowd gasped with delight. This was the bit of the story they’d been waiting for.
Isobelle could describe the battle in her sleep. In the weeks following that night, she’d told the story to anyone who would listen – she knew how palace politics worked, and understood the importance of cementing Gwen’s place as the knight of the people, whatever Lord Whimsitt thought.Especiallygiven what Lord Whimsitt thought.
As Isobelle painted that moonlit scene enshrined in her heart, with Gwen’s armour glittering like stars as she galloped across the field to challenge the massive beast, her eyes slid back to the girl she was talking about.
Gwen never looked at her when she was telling this story. Gwen’s gaze always slid off to the side, staring into the middle distance – there was that glorious brooding again – but Isobelle couldn’t tell whether she was reliving that night, or doing her best to forget it.
In the weeks following the battle against the dragon, Gwen would sometimes wake in the middle of the night, sweating and crying out, eyes unseeing, until Isobelle distracted her from her terror. The nightmares had ceased eventually, but Isobelle knew there was something about that night, about the moment in which Gwen had stared down that massive, fire-breathing monster with the paralytic eyes, that Gwen still wasn’t telling her.
Here and now, though, Isobelle’s story had defused the tension. The end of the tale had to be vague, by necessity – no one here wanted to hear about how the girl-knight couldn’t actually marry her lady, on account of not being a boy-knight. Nor that the two were bound in an interminable stalemate with the lady’s actual guardian, who was disappointingly lacking in dragonish features, so the girl-knight couldn’t slay him.
When Isobelle finished, the crowd cheered, the couple thanked her, the wedding proceeded, and the partying began. She had learned from experience she must ensure the whole horde of attendees didn’t latch back onto Gwen at this stage, which they were otherwise wont to do. Though Gwen would tolerate a great deal, being expected to help start the dance floor was a step too far.
Escaping a wedding was new, but Isobelle had only to think for a moment before an idea came to her. She murmured in the bride’s ear.
‘Throw it away?’ the bride said dubiously. She was a young, fresh-faced little thing, all big brown eyes and chestnut complexion, glancing over towards where Gwen was doing her best to smile and chat pleasantly to a group of village girls.
‘Not away,’ Isobelle corrected her brightly. ‘To. The lucky maid to catch it will be the next to wed. It’s all the rage on the continent.’
The girls of the village jostled for the bouquet like knights at a tourney, and while everyone was diverted, Isobelle took Gwen’s hand and they melted into the background.
They’d come here chasing a report of a dragon in their woods. Thus far, the reports that had sent them all over the county of Darkhaven and beyond had come from folks who were genuinely afraid. Now that everyone had learned dragons still existed, people saw them everywhere.
But in more than three months of patrolling Darkhaven’s neighbouring counties, the most dangerous ‘dragon’ they’d uncovered had actually been a large, friendly dog, escaped from a nearby farm, living his best life rolling around in river mud that had dried and cracked into a scaly mask.
This latest stop, however, had been the final straw for Gwen. These villagers hadn’t bothered to act like they were afraid – there were a few vague mentions of seeing shadows at night, before they asked Gwen to be a guest at the wedding of the headman’s daughter.
‘You are a celebrated figure now,’ Isobelle pointed out, as the dancers receded behind them. ‘They’ll get to tell their kids the famous Lady Dragonslayer spoke at their wedding.’
Gwen’s lips thinned slightly, and she cast a glance at Isobelle out of the corner of her eye. ‘I hate that name,’ she muttered with a sigh. ‘Exactly how many dragonslayers do we have wandering around that we need to specify? As if what makes me remarkable is not that I killed a dragon, but that I managed to do it while under the terrible impediment of being female.’ Gwen scowled, then caught Isobelle’s eye, and the scowl softened. ‘Besides, you were the one who spoke. Thank you, by the way.’
Isobelle laughed and slipped her arm through Gwen’s. ‘The last time you told the story of the dragon, it was three sentences. “There was a dragon. I fought it. It died.” Somehow, I don’t think they’d have been content with that.’ She congratulated herself on how light her tone was, as if the reasons for Gwen’s brevity hadn’t occurred to her.
Gwen grimaced and looked away.
