As they were making ready to leave, a court herald galloped into the square and blowing his horn, shouted: “Hear ye, hear ye all! I come with tidings from the King! The Queen is with child and the King does mark the midsummer day and the sevenday thereafter as days of rejoicing! One silver penny per head will be distributed to this and every village and each will receive his gift from the King in his joy. Those of you who have multiplied as you should will surely be rich! Hear ye, hear ye all!” At once, he dismounted and, taking a large hammer and some nails from his saddle pouch, nailed a parchment proclamation to the door of the village hall. Turning, he shouted: “Rejoice! There is joy once more in the Halls of the King!”
The Princess collapsed onto a bench, confused, dazed, dumbfounded. “The Queen is dead,” she thought. “The dead bear no children. How can this be so?” She looked at Natalia, tears welling in the corners of her eyes, those same eyes glazed over as though she had been coshed and left by the roadside. “Come, child,” Natalia said. “We must hurry. This is ill news! I do not wish to be longer on the road than needs be. Mulled wine aplenty I fear we shall need upon our return. Speak not now, we must hurry! Come!” They each grabbed a handle and slowly, as though every step was a step to bear the last burden they would ever bear, they made their way from the square.
It was more than an hour later when they finally arrived, exhausted and silent, before the cot door. “Come, we will unload here. ‘Tis but a short walk to the scullery,” Natalia said. And so began the long, slow, ponderous task of moving the contents of the cart to the scullery and thence to the larder. Another hour had passed before Natalia was satisfied that all had been stored in accordance with her wishes and they sat, by the worktable, glasses of mulled wine pressed firmly between their fingertips.
“I must go to him,” she said quietly. “He cannot dishonour my mother so. To so treat her memory thus…………No, he must, he will, pay for this!”
“Be careful, child,” Natalia said. “And be warned! It is an ill path that you start. To reach the end you will have anguish, pain, sorrow and, perhaps, hate! So much hate! And hate does consume all before it, like the Juggernaut. Be wary of hate, child, be wary of sullying your beauty with it. Hate is apt to cast a strange shadow across the face and mar the features. I have before seen such anger turn, beware!”
“I hear you,” the Princess replied. “I will take heed of your words. I think it is hard to hate and I have had little practice. No, I think it will always be too hard to hate.” The Princess raised her glass and drained the dregs. Slowly she rose and nodding politely to Natalia she climbed the stairs to bed, to sleep.
She rose earlier than usual the following morning and, after a brief silent wash, she donned sensible trou’s and a stout shirt. Gently pressing her lips against the still sleeping Natalia’s forehead, she whispered: “Farewell, my dear Natalia, pray for me in the long days to come and hope for me also. Hope I have little enough of, yours must do service for us both.” She trod lightly to the door and, gently unlatching it, she turned her head once more towards the sleeping seamstress. “Farewell,” she mouthed and closed the door behind her as she stepped onto the small landing.
Figo, the young ostler at the inn, was surprised to find the Princess at the stable door when he arrived at dawn to start his labour for the day. Initially very reluctant to part with his white-maned, grey gelding, he finally relented when the Princess eventually agreed that she would make him a weskit of soft moleskin. “Provided that you supply the skins!” She laughed.
Figo hauled the saddle from the beam and laid it across the deep crimson cloth on the horse’s back. Kneeing the horse in the ribs, he tightened the girth strap. The Princess cuffed him on the back of the head. “You should not needlessly hurt other creatures, it is cruel” she cried. “I should kick you in the chest and see how well you might like it!” The ostler smiled. “For thine own good, m’lady. How else will I get him to breathe out? Ask? Politely? Never secure a saddle on a horse that might have a lungful of air. He breathes out and your saddle will be under him not above and thou, m’lady, will be on the ground!” In a blur he attached the bridle and bit and laid the reins across the saddle horn. “Come, I will help thee mount” Cupping his hands, he bade her put her bended knee in them and with a sweep of his arms lifted her high and onto the horse. “Thank you, Figo,” she said. “My promise I will not forget. Have the skins ready for my return.”
She arrived at one of her father’s outposts just before noon and there she persuaded the Captain to provide her with an escort to the castle. Two armed soldiers. “They are my best men,” he had told her. “And, as my best men, they deserve a reward that I cannot provide here. So they will remain with you as long as you are at court and will return with you when you return. If you have no need of them hanging at your heels while you are in the castle, release them, I beg, for a little drinking, a little carousing, a little wenching; they will thank you and, more importantly, me for it. Come, I will introduce you and give them the good news at the same time.”
To be continued.......
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