A cry arose beneath him in the courtyard and he turned his head toward the noise. Below, people gathered in the inner ward just before the keep and a large group of soldiers mounted horses and rode toward the outer gatehouse.
Gabriel scowled. Must be something important. He could hear a woman sobbing and a man shouting orders. It must be something very important. Tingles of anxiety danced up his spine and he raced into the castle, through stone hallways lined with tapestries. He whirled around a corner to take a set of curved stairs two at a time. He wanted to see what was going on. What had happened.
The double doors of the keep were open, letting in cold air. A large group of ladies and older men stood near the doorway, staring out into the dark inner ward.
Gabriel made his way through them, brushing by a man in a fur lined cotehardie, skirting a woman in a green houppelande. He paused just outside the large double doors. The woman who had been sobbing was sitting on the stairs, being comforted by two other servant women.
He scanned the crowd looking for Henry Lewis, his good friend. Instead, he saw his older brother, Michael, standing just below the two steps that led from the keep into the inner ward. He hurried to him.
Michael stood a head taller than Gabriel, his hair a light blonde. He was only a year older than Gabriel. Gabriel came up beside Michael. “What happened?”
Michael continued to stare at the group of mounted men in the courtyard. He explained quickly, “Lord Chandos’s daughters are missing.”
“The little twin girls?”
Michael nodded. “Eve and Eden. They are getting groups together to search for them.”
“The girls left the castle?”
Michael shrugged. “They think so. A servant let them outside to search for an angel.” Michael looked up at the falling snow. “It doesn’t look good.”
Gabe’s gaze swept the crowd. Some of the guests and knights were already covered in a light blanket of snow. The girls wouldn’t survive. It was too cold.
“There should be footprints!” Lord Chandos was saying to the gathered men.
Footprints! That was what Gabriel had seen in the valley. “I saw foo–”
“Shhh,” Michael snapped, tilting his head to hear what the lord said.
“Michael!”
“Quiet, Gabe!” he hissed.
Angry, Gabriel pushed forward through the gathered knights and lords toward the mounted men and Lord Chandos. Surely, her father would listen to him. He saw footprints! Before Gabe could reach Lord Chandos, he spurred his stallion and with an explosive burst led the mounted men forward toward the outer gatehouse.
Gabriel silently cursed. He let an exasperated breath escape in a puff of white. Maybe they would find the footprints on their own, after all, they were trained knights. Maybe the tracks were nothing but animal prints, after all. He had wanted to at least alert them to the markings.
Then, he remembered the little girl trying to get her mother’s attention earlier at the party in the Great Hall. They didn’t listen to her, either.
Cursing, he turned and pushed his way through the remaining peasants and nobles, past a man who was dusting snow from his impeccable cotehardie, around a rather well-endowed woman who was shivering, to dash for the stables. He entered the open doorway and quickly found the stall his steed, Thunder, was in. He didn’t bother saddling him but pulled himself up onto his bare back, straddling the animal, before spurring him toward the door. Perhaps he could catch up to the soldiers. He charged out the inner ward, through the outer ward, and beneath the portcullis of the open outer gatehouse. The air was crisp and cold against his cheeks and bare hands. He blinked against the onslaught of falling snow.
Gabriel urged Thunder on, charging over the drawbridge. He brought his steed to a halt just over the drawbridge at the road that stretched beyond the moat. He looked for the line of soldiers and men down the main road, but they were gone. He tugged on Thunder’s mane and steered him down the road before the moat at a slower pace, surveying the pure snow for the tracks he had seen. As the road curved, he saw them. He cantered his steed to the footprints. Beneath the light of the snow and glowing sky, he saw that they were not animal tracks. They were two distinct sets of small impressions with distinguishing swirls around each from long skirts. Gabriel spurred his horse forward, following the line of footprints into the forest.
Once in the darkness of the woods, he was careful not to trample the footprints. But it wasn’t long before Thunder could move no further because of the closeness of the trees and twigs. Gabriel dismounted and walked into the forest, carefully following the line of footprints around trees and leafless bushes. The snow came up to the tops of his booted feet. His hands were freezing and he continued to open and close his fingers to keep them warm.
He hoped nothing happened to them. He hoped they were okay. There were wild animals in the forest, hungry animals. And the girls were so small. Easy prey.
“Eve!” he called.
His voice echoed through the quiet night.
He wished he had at least grabbed a dagger, so he could use it against wild animals, or perchance a blanket. But he never expected to be out looking for the girls. He swatted the branch of a tree aside and it snapped, breaking in the cold. He looked back toward the castle, but could not see it. He had come a long way. The girls had come a long way. Why had they come out here? He paused, surveying the icy landscape. It was silent and deadly beautiful, a frozen picture of the forest. He breathed warm breath on his cold fingers and rubbed his cheeks. He moved forward, following the tiny footprints.
And then, the forest opened to a magical, frozen pond. The water glimmered in icy splendor, the banks and trees covered in a blanket of thick white snow. Large drops of white floated from the sky. Gabriel followed the trail to the bank of the pond. Dread washed over him. Had one or both fallen into the frozen pond? He swept the water with his eyes, but the coating of ice over its darkness was undisturbed. He saw the tracks veered off toward the distant trees.
He moved quickly, trailing them. “Eve?” he called. “Eden!”
In the distance, beneath the branches covered in white, at the base of one thick trunk, he saw a small black lump. He raced toward it, his feet kicking up the wet heavy slushy snow. “Eve!” As he neared, he saw two small piles.
