His voice was heavy when he spoke. “You have always been loyal to me, Rosie. More than a servant, as you well know. How can I refuse anything you ask?”
With her head still low, she said, “I ask only that you give me a cart and a goat to pull it. And I ask that you would command this good baron, your servant, to let me return to the Eldest’s House.”
Lionheart blinked, and the baron, standing near, after taking a moment to decipher what he thought he had heard, swore under his breath. “Rose Red,” Lionheart said, “you should not return to the House.”
“But if my master’s family is indeed still held inside, they must be told of your plan. They must have something to hope for, or they’ll . . . they’ll die.”
Lionheart thought of the dragon fumes to which he had nearly succumbed, the awful, heavy despair as he had watched the dearest-held dreams of his life slain before his eyes again and again. And he thought of his parents and Foxbrush and the others imprisoned with them, surrounded night and day by that poison. Could they have survived even this long?
He went down on one knee and took hold of Rose Red’s hands. She tried to pull back, but he held them even so. “Such a favor is too great,” he said, speaking in a whisper so that the others nearby might not hear. “I would never ask it of you. No one should be burdened with such a task.”
“But you ain’t askin’ me, Leo,” she said. Through the slit in her veil, her eyes sought his. He thought he glimpsed them shining, though it was difficult to see through the folds of fabric. “You ain’t askin’ me. I’m askin’ you.”
He shook his head, squeezing her hands between his. Then suddenly he lifted her gloved hands and kissed them. And the baron and his daughter and the attendants standing nearby gasped and didn’t know which way to look. Lionheart did not notice their whispers, or if he noticed, he did not care.
“Rose Red,” he said, “was there ever a better person than you? Bless you a thousand times! Yes, I will give the order. You shall have your cart and your goat and, if the Lights Above are kind, you will go to my family. Somehow, I think that if anyone could get past that monster, you could. Here.” He took a ring from his finger, a gold ring carved with his seal, a seated panther. “Use this so that everyone will know you act as my servant. But tell me, while we’re at this boon-granting business, is there nothing you wish for yourself?”
Her voice was so low and soft by nature that Lionheart could not discern that it struggled to speak through tears. “My only other wish, my good master,” she said, “is that you would be safe, that you would return to us whole, and soon. Also that”—and here she could hardly believe her own daring, but once begun, she had to finish— “perhaps now and then you would remember your servant.”
“Dearest girl,” he said, “I will remember you, and I will take comfort in knowing my parents have you yet.”
With those words, he kissed her hands again, then got to his feet, leaving her where she knelt, and went to his horse. He mounted stiffly, breathing hard, for he was not yet fully recovered. But his face was determined. Let all Southlands know that, scalawag though he may be, once Prince Lionheart had set his mind on something, neither time nor tides could turn him back.
He rode from Middlecrescent Manor flanked by the baron and his daughter. When they came to the northernmost bridge of the baron’s land, arching across the trench-like valley below to the far tableland, they were all three surprised to see that it was not burning as they had been told, though the smell of smoke lingered in the air.
“Nothing for it, then,” Lionheart said. “Good-bye, baron, Daylily. Wish me luck. I will return, if all goes well, before the year is out.”
He urged his horse forward and would have ridden across the bridge without another word. But before he had gotten far, Daylily caught up with him. “Lionheart,” she said, “wait.”
He pulled up, and she rode up beside him. Then, to his great surprise, she leaned forward in her saddle, caught him behind the head, and kissed him, awkwardly but soundly, on the mouth.
“There,” she said when she pulled back. “Remember me too, Leo. And come back to me.”
He gaped. His head for a moment cleared of dragon fire and whirled with another fiery but much more pleasant sensation. Then, his face breaking into a grin, Lionheart spurred his horse onto the bridge and, without another look back, rode from Middlecrescent.
5
ROSE RED SAT ON THE STEPS of the baron’s house and waited, her hands folded around the prince’s ring. All who looked upon her through the windows were frightened, though they couldn’t say why. In those dark times, with dragon smoke spreading ever more thickly across the sky, the sight of that veiled figure, still as a statue upon the doorstep, was like something from a nightmare.
“Didn’t they say the prince was bewitched by a sorceress in the mountains?” someone whispered.