The lady knight knew exactly where to find the Lady of the Haven. She made her way to the library, pausing a moment in a doorway of arched branches to gaze upon the first of several huge chambers that comprised the heart of the Haven.
The library was enormous beyond mortal understanding. The lady knight, although many long years had passed since she’d considered herself mortal, felt her heart catch with wonder and even a little fear at the sight of it, for she had forgotten how overwhelming it could be. White trees towered over her head, and up and down their mighty trunks spiraled shelf upon shelf of volumes—vellum and parchment, leather and slate. Some written in ink. Some written in blood. Some carved into stone. Some illuminated in the clearest detail so that the images themselves were more lifelike than life itself.
In the center of this first vaulted chamber stood a humble desk of blooming cherrywood, which may or may not have been a living tree; and the dame perched at it upon a high stool, her slippered feet not quite touching the ground, her black hair tied back in a scarf. She held a quill pen in one hand, her thumb and index finger stained with blue ink. She did not look up from her labors but held up her left hand and called back over her shoulder, saying, “One moment! I’m almost through!”
The lady knight knew better than to interrupt the dame at her labors. She stood in the doorway, a little timid to enter the library just yet, brushing at invisibles and waiting quietly. The quill pen scritched at parchment, the sound blending into the chittering voices of the invisibles which swamped the dame, plucking at her scarf.
See! See! See who has come! they whispered eagerly.
“Yes, I know,” said she, swiping at them with a dismissive hand. “Patience, please!”
The invisibles did not cease their poking and whispering, however, until at last the dame cast down her quill and turned round on her little stool. Then they all, in a cloud of tiny voices, rose up into the arching branches of the ceiling overhead, there to perch and watch that which took place below.
Dame Imraldera, seeing the lady knight standing in her doorway, smiled. Her teeth were bright and white in her dark brown face. “Dame Bettina,” she said, beckoning. “I have not seen you since . . . indeed, I cannot recall when last we met!”
The lady knight approached, smiling in answer, though shyly. Shyness was not a natural state of being for her, but the dame was so ancient and yet so full of youthful beauty that one could not help but feel a little humble and nervous in her presence. Indeed, Imraldera looked no older than a girl of sixteen, though her eyes were full of more years and more stories than the lady knight would ever know. Seated as she was on her tall stool, her black eyes were almost level with the tall lady knight’s gaze.
As the lady knight drew nearer, Dame Imraldera’s brow fell into a stern line. “What have you seen?” she asked. “You met something in the Wood. Something terrible. What was it?”
“A unicorn,” the lady knight responded. “I met a unicorn on the borders of the Near World.”
“What?” Imraldera’s dark skin paled suddenly. “Are . . . are you quite certain?”
The lady knight nodded. She proceeded then to tell of her recent adventures. At first the dame listened in silence. But when the lady knight mentioned the goblin girl, she gave a little gasping “Oh!”
The lady knight frowned, studying Imraldera’s face closely. “Do you know this child?” she asked.
“Know her?” Imraldera repeated. “No. Know of her, yes. And I know her mother. Or I knew her once, long, long ago. Before you were born.”
“Her mother, you say?” The lady knight folded her arms. “There was no mother that I saw. Only an old mortal man whom the girl seemed to believe was her father.”
“I do not know this man,” the Lady of the Haven replied. “But I can tell you this, Dame Bettina—the child you met, if she is who I believe she must be, is the daughter of Queen Anahid.”
At the sound of that name, the lady knight’s stomach plunged. She wished suddenly for a chair to sit on, for something to lean against. But she braced herself, drawing several deep breaths before finally daring to speak.
“Anahid,” she said. “And . . . and is her father then Vahe, King of Arpiar?”
Dame Imraldera nodded. “That little girl is Crown Princess of all goblins.”
The lady knight shook her head, trying to shake some sense back into the world. “How can this be?” she demanded. “Arpiar has been lost for so long . . . How can the princess have escaped? How can she have made her way to the mortal world and . . . and how did that man find her? And . . . and he seemed to love her! Like his own daughter!”
Dame Imraldera slid from her stool. “Have a seat here, my friend,” she said, and the lady knight sat on the stool without a word, shaking her head and staring at the toes of own boots as though in them she might find the answers she sought. The dame reached up to pat her shoulder. “I do not know the story well,” she said, “for I have heard only pieces and rumors. But here.” With that, she moved to one of the nearby trees and selected a slim blue volume from one of the lower shelves. Returning to her desk, she placed the volume in the lady knight’s hands. “Here,” she said, “is everything I know.”
The lady knight, her head spinning with more questions than ever, opened the volume to the first page. There her eyes encountered the strange characters of Faerie writing, characters that rearranged themselves before her eyes to make themselves understood. She read of Queen Anahid’s escape from the Lost Demesne, carrying her newborn child in her arms; how she fled from the unicorn, her husband’s slave, led by the voice of a humble wood thrush into the realm of mortals. There the unicorn could not follow her, and she left her baby beneath a rose bush before returning once more to her own realm and the fury of King Vahe.
King Vahe . . . Oeric’s brother.
The lady knight blinked hard as though to suppress tears, though her eyes were dry. She never let herself think of Oeric. It was too painful after all these long centuries of separation. Until the Lost Demesne was found, until Oeric had fulfilled his vow, he and she would never meet again.
And yet, had she truly just encountered Oeric’s own niece in the Wood Between?
“Powerful protections have been put in place to prevent Vahe from finding his daughter,” Dame Imraldera said, realizing that the lady knight was no longer reading but simply stared emptily at the page before her. “I do not know for certain what purpose he has in mind for her, but it must be dire indeed for Anahid to risk so much for her protection.”
“Risk so much . . . and leave her in the mortal world!” The lady knight closed the volume, shaking her head. Then she looked up, meeting the dame’s gaze. “She’s not safe there.”
“Our Lord himself guided Anahid to that world,” Imraldera replied. “She must be safe.”
“She’s not,” the lady knight repeated. “She found a gate into the Between, and if I had not happened to be nearby . . . The unicorn hunted her down. It might have killed her.”
“You are wrong,” said Imraldera.
“I’m not wrong!” The lady knight’s hand formed a fist, and she pounded the cover of the book in her lap. “I was there! The unicorn would have—”
“No,” said Imraldera, reaching out and wrapping her fingers over the knight’s fist. “You are wrong. You did not happen to be nearby at all.”
The lady knight opened her mouth then closed it again. The angry words died on her tongue. She recalled the song of the wood thrush, which had seemed so clear and bright at the time. How could she have forgotten it? Were it not for that song, for that little guiding bird . . .
“You were meant to be there, Dame Bettina,” Imraldera replied. “You saved that child because you were meant to save her. Nothing happens by chance.”
The lady knight looked away, studying the edges of the book she still held. “She’ll slip away again,” she said in a low voice. “The old man . . . He cannot see the gates to the Between. He cannot follow the paths. He’s onl
y mortal, and she is Faerie-kind. He will lose her.”
“Maybe,” said Imraldera, “she needs a guardian who can keep up with her. Maybe she needs someone who can watch over her properly and shield her from the unicorn.” The dame smiled gently. “The Knights of Farthestshore have served as Faerie guardians to mortals many times in the past. Sir Eanrin himself has acted as one, you know.”
The lady knight shrugged. “Our Lord has not commanded me to go.”
“Has he not?” Imraldera patted the lady knight’s fist until her white knuckles relaxed and her fingers uncurled. “Perhaps he has not appeared to you in person. Perhaps he has not spoken to you directly. But sometimes, brave knight, our Lord simply allows us to be in the right place at the right time. It is up to us to recognize his will and to act according to what we believe.”
“And you believe I am meant to abandon my march, my duties in the Wood? To serve as guardian to the little goblin princess? To Oeric’s . . .” The lady knight closed her eyes.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” said the Lady of the Haven. “What do you believe, Bettina?”
So saying, she moved away from the lady knight, leaving her sitting on the stool. She crossed the chamber to an armoire of black wood. This she opened and took something from a shelf. Returning to her desk, she took the lady knight’s hand and placed something in it.
The lady knight looked down at a small vial of bright blue liquid. Frowning, she gave the dame a curious glance.
“It’s a disguise,” Imraldera said. “As a once-mortal, you have not the Faerie gift of changing your form naturally, so you’ll need a little help. Take that draught, and you’ll find yourself able to assume a disguise that not even the cleverest of mortals will be able to uncover.”
“What sort of disguise?” the lady knight asked.
The dame shrugged. “I don’t know for certain. You’ll have to discover it for yourself.”
BEANA
THE FIRE HAD DIED down to nothing more than a few smoldering embers. Smoke rose from the little fire pit through a hole in the thatch of the cottage where the old man and his daughter lived, high and hidden in the mountains. The old man himself slept deeply, for he was worn out from hunting down that fool of a nanny goat. But his daughter, curled up in a ball against his stomach, lay with her eyes open, watching the swirling smoke and the small gleaming lights of the dying fire.
She thought of the ghostly flowers and tried to see their shapes in the smoke. But the smoke would not cooperate, and soon enough she would forget even the memory of those pretty blossoms. Even as she already forgot her terror of the unicorn.
But something did not sit right with her. Being much too young to understand her own discomfort, she thought perhaps she was hungry. There was little enough to eat in the cottage. Maybe she would find something in the goat shed? If nothing else she could visit with Lilybean, who was a bad goat and probably needed to be reminded of as much.
With these thoughts vaguely half-formed in her mind, Rosie slid away from her father’s warm body and, getting to her feet bottom first, toddled to the cottage door. She did not wear her veil. Dad never made her wear it at night when they were home and safe. She had no idea what a horror she looked as she stepped through the cottage doorway and into the shadows of the yard. Moonlight shone down into her eyes, which reflected it back like two gleaming, ghostly stars.
Dame Bettina, standing in the shadows of the forest, looked into the cottage clearing and saw the child, the weird, ugly infant. And where was the old man, her father? Asleep, no doubt, and unaware of his daughter’s nighttime excursions. The girl could easily wander off into the forest and find herself yet another gate into the Between. Without proper care, it was only a matter of time before the unicorn caught her.
Bettina’s hand slipped into the pouch on her belt and touched the vial inside. She pulled it out, studying the swirl of liquid through the glass. She did not like to mess with Faerie magic and potions such as this. But she couldn’t possibly guard this child while wearing her own form. As a tall, stately lady knight, she was much too noticeable. The last thing she wanted to do was call attention to herself and therefore to her charge.
“Who’s there?”
The lisping voice spoke between tusk-like teeth, a weird contrast. Bettina looked up from her contemplation of the vial and found the goblin girl standing right in front of her, gazing up at her with those huge, huge eyes.
The goblin smiled. It was not a pretty sight. “You!” she said, delighted.
“Yes,” said the lady knight, kneeling to bring her head level with the girl’s. “Do you remember me? Dame Bettina?”
“Da-be-beana,” said the goblin, still grinning.
“No, Bettina,” the lady knight said.
“Be-Beana,” the girl replied. Then, much to the knight’s surprise, she flung out her scrawny arms and wrapped them around her neck. At first Bettina wondered if she were being attacked. A moment later she realized that it was an embrace. She was being hugged by a goblin. A tiny, hideous, infant goblin.
Tears pricked in the lady knight’s eyes. She pulled back gently and looked into that ugly face so close to her own. Only, suddenly it wasn’t ugly to her anymore. The features were just as stony and craggy, the teeth just as jutting and broken, the eyes as weird and white. But she saw as well the little person behind this exterior. A sweet, smiling, delightful little person.
Oeric’s niece. The Princess of Arpiar.
“Would you like me to stay with you and your father for awhile?” Bettina asked.
Rosie nodded, her grin impossibly widening. “Stay! Yes, stay!” she said, and hugged the knight again.
Though a moment ago she hadn’t quite decided what she would do, Bettina knew now that she would indeed remain with this girl for . . . for as long as necessary. Until she knew for certain that the unicorn would not catch her. Until she knew for certain that she was safe from Vahe and whatever evil plans he had in mind for her. She would protect this child. For Oeric’s sake. And for Rosie’s.
With one arm still around the girl, Bettina withdrew the vial once more. A disguise? Well, hopefully it wouldn’t be anything too terrible.
“All right, Rosie,” she said, and on impulse planted a quick kiss on the goblin child’s rocklike forehead. “I’ll stay.”
With that, she drank the potion.
A NOTE TO THE READER
The story you have just read is only the beginning. If you would like to know what becomes of Dame Bettina, little Rose Red, and the unicorn, be certain to pick up my full-length novels, Veiled Rose and Moonblood.
There is always more adventure to be had in the many worlds of Goldstone Wood!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ANNE ELISABETH STENGL makes her home in Drakenheath with her handsome husband, beautiful baby daughter, and an ever-growing collection of rescue dogs and cats. Her novel Starflower was awarded the 2013 Clive Staples Award, and her novels Heartless, Veiled Rose, and Dragonwitch have each been honored with a Christy Award.
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