“Give me my doll, or I’ll burn you up.”
“You wouldn’t dare….”
“Right now! If you don’t, I’ll set you on fire, and your skin will burn up.”
Princess Violet pushed the doll at her. “Here. Please, Rachel, don’t burn me. I’m afraid of fire.”
Rachel took the doll with her left hand, hugging it to her, still holding the fire stick against the Princess. Rachel was starting to feel sorry for her. Then she thought about how much her face hurt. More than it had ever hurt before.
“Let’s just forget all about this, Rachel. You may keep the doll, all right?” Her voice was getting real nice now, not mean like before.
Rachel knew it was a trick. As soon as there were guards around, she knew the Princess would say to chop her head off. Then Princess Violet would really laugh at her, and burn Sara up too.
“Get in the box,” Rachel said. “Then you can see how you like it.”
“What!”
Rachel pushed the fire stick a little harder. “Right now, or I’ll burn you up.”
Princess Violet walked across the floor slow, with the fire stick at her back. “Rachel, think about what you’re doing, are you really…”
“Be quiet and get inside. Unless you want me to burn you.”
The Princess got down on her knees and crawled inside. Rachel looked in at her.
“Go to the back.”
She did as she was told. Rachel shut the door with a clang and went to the drawer and got the key. She locked the iron door on the iron box, then put the key in her pocket. She got down on her knees and looked inside through the little window. She could hardly see the Princess’s eyes looking back in the dark.
“Good night, Violet. Go to sleep. I’m going to sleep in your bed tonight. I’m sick of your voice. If you make any noise at all, I’ll come over and light your skin on fire. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” came back the weak voice from the dark hole in the door.
Rachel set Sara down while she pulled the fur rug close and turned it over on the box, covering it all up. She went and bounced on the bed to make it squeak, to make Princess Violet think she was going to sleep in it.
Rachel smiled and tiptoed all the way to the door as she hugged Sara.
After she had gone all the way back the way she had come, through the servants’ passageways and to the door at the end, she looked carefully into the hall, and went down to the big door with the guards. Rachel didn’t say anything. She couldn’t think of anything to say; she just stood and waited for them to open the door.
“So that’s it, a doll you forgot,” the guard said.
She just nodded.
She heard the door clang shut behind as she went into the dark, to the garden. There were more guards than she was used to seeing. The regular guards had new ones with them, dressed different. The new ones looked at her more than the old ones did, and she could hear the regular ones telling them who she was. She tried not to let them see her looking back as she walked with her doll, holding it tight against her, trying to keep her feet from running.
The bundle with the bread with the box in it was where she had left it, under the flowers. Rachel pulled it out, holding it in one hand by the knot, while she held Sara to her chest with her other. As she walked through the garden, she wondered if Princess Violet still thought she was sleeping in the big bed, or if she knew it was a trick and was yelling for help. If she yelled for help, and the guards had come and found her in the box, they might already be looking for her. She had had to go the long way; it had taken a lot of time for her legs to take her under the whole castle and back up again. Rachel listened carefully for shouts, to see if they were looking for her yet.
She could hardly breathe, hoping she could get out of the castle before they chased after her. She remembered Mr. Sanders saying they were going to search the castle. She knew what they were looking for. They wanted the box. She had promised Giller she would get it away, so they couldn’t have it and hurt all those people.
A lot of men were on the walk at the top of the wall. When she got almost to the door through the wall, she slowed down. Before, there were always two of the Queen’s guard there. Now there were three men. Two she recognized—they wore the red tunics with the black wolf’s head, the Queen’s guard—but the other was dressed different, in dark leather, and he was a lot bigger. He was one of the new men. Rachel didn’t know if she should keep going or run away. But run away where? She had to get through the wall before she could really run away.
Before she could decide what to do, they saw her, so she kept going. One of the regular guards turned to lift the bolt. The new man put his arm up to stop him.
“It’s just the Princess’s playmate. The Princess puts her out sometimes.”
“No one goes out,” the new man said to him.
The regular guards stopped opening the door. “Sorry, little one, but you heard him, no one goes out.”
Rachel stood there with her mouth stuck shut. Her eyes stared at the new man while he looked down at her. She swallowed. Giller was depending on her to get the box out. There was no other way out. She tried to think what Giller would do.
“Well, all right,” she said at last, “it’s cold tonight, I’d rather stay in anyway.”
“Well, there you go then. You get to stay in tonight,” the regular guard said.
“What’s your name?” Rachel asked.
He looked a little surprised. “Queen’s lancer Reid.”
With her doll in her hand, Rachel pointed at the other regular guard. “What’s yours?”
“Queen’s lancer Walcott.”
“Queen’s lancer Reid and Queen’s lancer Walcott,” she repeated to herself. “All right, I think I can remember.” She pointed at the new man, the doll swinging back and forth by its arm when she did. “And what’s your name?”
He hooked his thumbs in his belt. “What do you want to know for?”
She hugged Sara back to her chest. “Well, the Princess yelled at me, to tell me to be put out tonight. If I don’t go out, she’ll be spitting mad, and want to chop my head off for not doing as she said, so I want to tell her who wouldn’t let me be put out. I want your names so she won’t think I’m making it up, so she can come and ask you herself. She scares me. She’s been starting to say to have people’s heads chopped off.”
All three of them stood back up a little and looked at each other. “That’s true enough,” Queen’s lancer Reid said to the new man. “The Princess is turning into her mother’s daughter. A little handful, what with the Queen letting her cut her teeth on the axe now.”
“No one goes out, those are our orders,” the new man repeated.
“Well, the two of us are for doing as the Princess orders.” Queen’s lancer Reid turned a little and spat. “Now, if you want her kept in, that’s fine by us, so long as it’s clear whose neck’s on the block. If it comes down to it, we told you to let her out, just like the Princess said. We’re not going to the block with you.” The other guard, Walcott, nodded that he agreed. “Not for the threat from a little girl, no taller than that.” He held his hand out, level with the top of her head. “I’ll not tell them we three big strong soldiers all agreed we thought she was dangerous. It’s your call, but it’ll be your head, not ours, if you go against the Princess. You’ll answer to the Queen’s axeman, not us.”
The new man looked down at her; he seemed a little mad. He looked back at the other two a minute, then down at her again. “Well, it’s obvious she’s no threat. The orders were meant to protect from threat, so I guess…”
Queen’s lancer Walcott started lifting up the heavy bolt on the door.
“But I want to know what she’s got there,” the new man said.
“Just my supper and my doll,” Rachel said, trying to make it sound unimportant.
“Let’s have a look.”
Rachel laid the bundle down on the ground and untied the knots, laying the corners back. She ha
nded Sara up to him.
He took Sara in his big hand, turning her around, looking. He turned her upside down and lifted her dress with his big finger. Rachel kicked him in the leg, hard as she could.
“Don’t you do that! Don’t you have no respect?” she yelled.
The other two guards laughed. “You find anything dangerous under there?” Queen’s lancer Reid asked.
The new man looked over at the other two, handing Sara back down to her. “What else have you got there?”
“I told you. My supper.”
He started to bend over. “Well, a little thing like you has no need for a whole loaf of bread.”
“That’s mine!” she yelled. “Leave it be!”
“Leave it alone,” Queen’s lancer Walcott told the new man. “She gets little enough. It look to you like the Princess overfeeds her?”
The new man straightened up. “I guess not.” He let out a deep breath. “Go on. Get out of here.”
Rachel tied the cloth back over the bread and other food as fast as she could. She held Sara tight to her with one hand, and held the bundle just as tight with the other as she went between the men’s legs and out the door.
When she heard it clang shut, she started running. She ran fast as she could, not looking back, too afraid to know for sure if anyone was chasing her. After a time, she had to know, and finally stopped to check. No one. Out of breath, she sat down to rest on a fat root in the path.
She could see the outline of the castle against the starry sky, the notched top edge of the wall, the towers with lights in them. She was never going back there again, never. Her and Giller were going to run away to where people were nice and they were never going to come back. While she was panting, she heard a voice.
“Rachel?” It was Sara, she realized.
She laid Sara in her lap, on top of the bundle. “We’re safe now, Sara. We got away.”
Sara smiled. “I’m so glad, Rachel.”
“We’re never going back to that mean place again.”
“Rachel, Giller wants you to know something.”
She had to lean close; she could hardly hear Sara’s voice. “What?”
“That he can’t come with you. You must go on without him.”
Rachel started to get tears. “But I want him to come with me.”
“He would like to, more than anything, child, but he must stay and keep them from finding you, so you can get away. It’s the only way to keep you safe.”
“But I’ll be afraid by myself.”
“You won’t be by yourself, Rachel, you will have me with you. Always.”
“But what am I to do? Where am I to go?”
“You must run away. Giller says not to go to your old wayward pine, they will find you there.” Rachel’s eyes got big when she heard this. “Go to a different wayward pine, then the next day, another, just keep running away and hiding until the winter comes. Then find some nice people who will take good care of you.”
“All right, if Giller says so, that’s what I’ll do.”
“Rachel, Giller wants you to know he loves you.”
“I love Giller too,” Rachel said, “more than anything.”
The doll smiled.
All at once, the woods lit up with blue and yellow light. She looked up. Then came a sudden loud bang that made her jump. Her mouth dropped open; her eyes were wide as they would go.
A giant ball of fire came up from the castle, from behind the walls.
The ball of fire lifted into the air. Sparks dropped from it, and black smoke rolled away. The fire turned to black smoke as it went higher, until it was all dark again.
“Did you see that?” she asked Sara.
Sara didn’t say anything.
“I hope Giller is all right.”
She looked down at the doll, but she didn’t say anything, or even smile back.
Rachel hugged Sara to her and picked up the bundle.
“We better get going, like Giller said.”
When she went past the lake, she threw the key to her sleeping box as far as she could, out into the water, and smiled when she heard it splash.
Sara didn’t say anything as they rushed away from the castle, down the path. Rachel remembered what Giller said, that she shouldn’t go to the same wayward pine. She turned and went down a deer trail, through the bramble, in a new direction.
West.
34
There was a sound. Small, soft, spitting.
In the fog of half sleep, half wake, it made no sense, no matter how hard he tried to understand it. Slowly at first, then with accelerating urgency, he came awake, aware of the aroma of cooking meat. Immediately, he regretted the experience of being conscious, the memories of what had happened, his longing for Kahlan. His knees were pulled up to his chest with his head resting against them. The bark of the tree at his back dug painfully into his flesh, and his muscles were cramped to near paralysis from sleeping in the same position all night. With his head against his knees he couldn’t see anything, except that it was only just beginning to lighten with dawn.
There was someone, or something, near him.
Continuing to feign sleep, he took assessment of where his hands were in relation to his weapons. The sword was a goodly reach, and then a long pull to draw it. The knife wasn’t. His fingertips were touching the hickory handle. Flexing his fingers slowly, carefully, he worked the handle into his palm, tightening his grip around it. Whatever it was was near to his left side. A spring and a thrust with the knife, he thought.
He took a careful peek. With a shock, he saw that it was Kahlan. She was sitting, leaning against the log, watching him. A rabbit was cooking on the fire. He sat up straight.
“What are you doing here?” he asked cautiously.
“Is it all right if we talk?”
Richard slid the knife back into its sheath, stretched his legs, rubbing the cramps from them. “I thought we did all our talking last night.” He immediately winced at his own words. She gave him an unreadable look. “I’m sorry,” he said, softening his tone. “Of course we can talk. What do you want to talk about?”
She shrugged in the dim light. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.” She had a length of birch branch that he had cut the night before for the fire, and was stripping off pieces of white bark. “Last night, after I left, well, I knew you had a headache…”
“How did you know that?”
She shrugged again. “I can always tell, by the look in your eyes, when you have a headache.” Her voice was soft, gentle. “I knew you hadn’t been getting much sleep lately, and that it was my fault, so I decided that before I… before I left, I would stand watch for you while you slept. So I went over there,” she pointed with the branch, “in those trees, where I could keep my eye on you.” She looked down at the branch as she peeled off strips of bark. “I wanted to make sure you got some sleep.”
“You were there the whole night?” Richard was afraid to hope at what this meant.
She nodded, but didn’t look up. “While I was watching, I decided to make a snare, like you taught me, to see if I could catch you some breakfast. While I was sitting there, I did a lot of thinking. Mostly, I cried for a long time. I couldn’t stand it that you thought those things about me. It hurt that you thought of me like that. It made me angry too.”
Richard decided it was best not to say anything while she struggled to find the words. He didn’t know what to say, and was afraid if he said anything it might make her leave again. Kahlan pulled off a curl of birch bark and tossed it in the fire, where it sizzled and flared to flame.
“Then I thought about what you said, and I decided there were some things I needed to tell you, about how to conduct yourself when you are with the Queen. And then I remembered some things I needed to tell you about which roads to avoid, and about where you might go. I just keep thinking about things I needed to tell you, things you need to know. Before I knew it, I realized you were right. About everything.”
&
nbsp; Richard thought she looked like she was near tears, but she didn’t cry. Instead, she picked at the branch with her fingernail, and avoided his eyes. Still he kept quiet. Then she asked him a question he wasn’t expecting.
“Do you think Shota is pretty?”
He smiled. “Yes. But not as pretty as you.”
Kahlan smiled and pushed some hair back over her shoulder. “Not many would dare to say that to a…” She caught herself again. Her secret stood between them like a third person. She started again. “There is an old women’s proverb, maybe you have heard it before. ‘Never let a beautiful woman pick your path for you when there is a man in her line of sight.’”
Richard laughed a little and stood to stretch his legs. “No, I’ve not heard that before.” He half leaned, half sat against the log, as he folded his arms. He didn’t think Kahlan needed to worry about Shota stealing his heart; Shota had said she would kill him if she ever saw him again. Even without Shota’s vow, Kahlan had no cause for worry.
She tossed the branch aside and stood next to him, leaning her hip against the log. She looked into his eyes at last, her eyebrows wrinkled together. “Richard”—her voice was low, almost a whisper—“last night I figured out I was being very stupid. I had been afraid the witch woman would kill me, and all of a sudden, I realized, she was about to succeed. Only I was doing it for her; letting her pick my path for me.
“You were right about it all. I should have known better than to disregard the things a Seeker says.” She looked back down at the ground before her green eyes came back up to his. “If… if it is not too late, I would like my job back, as your guide.”
Richard couldn’t believe it was over. He had never been this happy, this relieved, in his life. Instead of answering, he reached out and pulled her into his arms, hugged her tight to him. Her arms slipped around him as she laid her head against his chest for a moment. Then she pushed away.