Una blinked at the spot where he’d been. Strange. For though she knew he had simply disappeared among the foliage and trees, part of her thought he’d vanished into thin air – one moment present, the next moment not. Her brow wrinkled as she tried to recall their encounter. She knew they’d spoken of poetry. Was there something else? It was muddled in her memory, probably due to her fluster at speaking to him after so many weeks of silence. How awkward to meet him out here!
She huffed a short laugh. It could almost have been a romantic meeting if he had been anyone else. But it would appear she was doomed for the prosaic.
Una lingered in the forest, until she was quite certain Aethelbald was gone, before stepping back onto the Old Bridge to retrieve her shoes. Then, as the sun began to disappear behind the trees, she too made her way back to the tiered garden. Somehow she felt better than when she had fled from her room that afternoon. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but something had changed, something important.
She smiled as she stepped from the trees into the lowest tier of the garden and made her way up the path. The sun was sinking swiftly now, and Nurse would be irate with her for staying out so long. But this evening she could look over her new verse and know she had accomplished something all her own. Perhaps life made very little sense, but perhaps it wasn’t all that dreadful either.
She was up in the second tier, following the path close to the wall, when she heard a sound like rocks scrabbling against each other. Startled, Una glanced up and down the darkening path but saw nothing. She heard the sound again and looked up just in time to see a dark figure on top of the wall leap down on her.
10
Una screamed as both she and the dark figure tumbled into the garden path, the princess squashed beneath. Bells tinkled faintly, then a hand slipped over her mouth as an urgent voice hissed in her ear, “Oh, hush. I’m so sorry! I beg you, please, quiet!”
She screamed again, the sound stifled by the hand, and struggled. The body on top of her shifted so that she was not so heavily pinned, and she got an elbow free and tried to make use of it. Her attacker dodged, still keeping his hand clamped over her face, and whispered again, “I say! Really, I’m sorry. I had no idea you were down here. Terribly rude of me, I know, but I can’t help making an entrance it seems, no matter how I try.”
His voice sounded vaguely familiar, though she could not place it. It was not a threatening voice, so she relaxed a little in his grip. He let her sit up. “Are you quite calm?”
She nodded, though her breath came in short puffs against his fingers.
“All right, I’m going to let you go. Please – ”
She leapt up as soon as she was free and whirled on him, her feet skidding on the gravel path. In the sunset’s ruddy glow she saw a strange yellow costume crisscrossed with gaudy stripes. He jumped to his feet as she did, and she opened her mouth, taking in a deep breath, more than prepared to scream for all she was worth if he moved one step toward her.
But, to her great surprise, he took a look at her face and collapsed onto all fours at her feet. Una stepped back in alarm, but he spread his hands toward her, crying out in a choked voice, “Please! Can you forgive this lowly worm, O gentlest of maidens, for his unforgivable rudeness, dropping in on you, so to speak? Will you forgive him or strike him dead with a dart from your eyes? Oh, strike, maiden, strike, for I deserve to die – No! Stay!”
He rose onto his knees, covering his face with his hands as she stared. “I do not deserve such a death!” he cried. “Nay! It would be far too noble an end for so ignoble a creature as you see before you, to die from the glance of one so fair! No, name instead some other manner for my demise, and I shall run to do your bidding. Shall I cast myself from yon cliff?”
He leapt up, and she gasped and backed away, but he sprang to the pedestal on which stood the marble statue of her many-times-over great-grandfather, Abundiantus V, whose head was turned to look over a marble shoulder. He seemed to glare directly down at the strange young man who wrapped an arm around his stone waist in a familiar manner, balancing beside the old king.
“She says I must die,” the stranger told the statue, waving a hand toward Una. “Will you mourn for me?”
King Abundiantus looked severe.
The stranger turned away with a sob and looked out across the garden. “Farewell, sweet world! I pay the just price for my clumsiness, my vain shenanigans. My grandmother told me it would come to this. Oh, Granny, had I but listened to your sage counsel while I was yet in my cradle!”
He made as though to jump but froze with one leg in the air, arms outspread, and glanced at Una. “Farewell, sweet lady. Thus for thee I end a most illustrious career. The siege of Rudiobus was hardly a greater tragedy, but then, Lady Gleamdren was not such a one as thee!”
He gathered for another spring but stopped himself, catching hold of King Abundiantus’s white fist. “I don’t suppose my end could be put off until tomorrow, could it?”
“I – ” Una began.