Meriel Fuller - The Warrior's Princess Bride

‘Now, do you see what I see?’ Ferchar addressed her. ‘Just look at the princess!’

Tavia frowned. See what? ‘She’s very beautiful,’ Tavia admitted as Ada approached them, and smiled.

‘She looks just like you,’ Ferchar said, exasperated, ignoring her whispered admiration. ‘Once we clean you up and put some decent clothes on you, I doubt anyone could tell you apart.’

‘But why would you want to do that?’ Tavia replied, aghast, sceptical that anyone should compare her to this breathtaking beauty.

Ferchar reached out to grasp Ada’s hand, his manner soothing as he patted her white fingers. ‘The Princess is in danger,’ he explained. ‘We’ve had information that the English plan to kidnap and hold her to ransom in exchange for Northumbria and Cumbria. We need to take her to a safe place and in order to do that we need to create a diversion. You, my dear, will be the diversion. You need to lure the English spies away from this castle long enough for us to smuggle Ada out of here.’

‘But…’ So that’s what le Vallieres was doing here! Was he planning to kidnap Ada right in front of their noses?

‘It’s obvious you can defend yourself—’ Ferchar’s tone held an ingratiating lilt ‘—and we would pay you handsomely.’

An image of her mother, lying frail and listless on a grubby mattress, entered her mind. ‘I’ll do it,’ she agreed.

Chapter Four

‘Thank you for helping us like this,’ Ada’s lithe figure sprang lightly up the stone stairs that spiralled up inside one of the castle turrets. ‘Ferchar’s been afraid for my safety for some time, but, with all the English watching the castle, he couldn’t work out a way of carrying me to safety.’ Tavia caught the note of admiration in the princess’s voice when she talked about Ferchar and wondered at it—was there more to their relationship than at first appeared? She felt slightly ashamed; Ada made it sound as if Tavia were helping them out of the kindness of her heart, as a friendly favour, but the grim reality was that she needed the money, and she needed it fast.

‘I’m just pleased that I could be in the right place at the right time,’ she replied, cautiously, following the princess’s graceful ascent. Beside Ada’s delicate beauty, she felt every inch the peasant that she was, especially dressed in these shabby boy’s clothes. ‘But I’m not certain you will be able to make me look like you.’ Tavia eyed Ada’s elegant lines dubiously, the seductive sway of her gown, the glittering jewels at her slim throat.

Stopping on a wide, curving landing, Ada swung round, the fine twirling embroidery on her bodice catching the light from the flame of a single torch, slung into an iron bracket on the wall. The shadowed space highlighted the deep red of her hair, drawn into two braids that fell either side of her head. ‘You really have no idea, do you, Tavia?’ she questioned, laughing. ‘I will find a piece of silvered glass, and we will put our faces side by side, and then you will see how alike we are. Once you are bathed and dressed, I would challenge anyone to notice the difference.’ Placing one hand against the uneven planks of an oak-studded door, Ada pressed inwards. Light flooded out into the gloomy stairwell, illuminating the shrouds of cobwebs draping from the angled ceiling. Following the princess into the brightness, Tavia almost gasped in delight.

The southernmost tower of Dunswick Castle housed the women’s solar, where the ladies of the royal court, wives of the high-ranking soldiers who had sworn fealty to King Malcolm, spent their days. After the drab grey stone of the castle bailey and the stairs, the room swelled with rainbows of bright fabric and laughing chatter. Everywhere Tavia looked, the bright, jewel-like colours of the ladies’ gowns filled her senses.

In one corner, a lady sat at a loom, fingers busy as she pushed her wooden shuttle back and forth through the many-stranded warping threads, weaving a fine cloth resplendent with muted hues of purple and green. Other women held drop spindles, almost hidden in the voluminous folds of their skirts, drawing single threads from fluffy pieces of woollen fleece bunched in their hands.

As the ladies noticed Ada’s presence, they rose and curtsied one by one, each murmuring ‘my lady’ before resuming their work. If they noticed the similarity between the grubby boy in scruffy peasant garb and the luminous beauty of their princess, then they made no comment, displayed no change in their expressions.

‘My ladies,’ Ada introduced the group of women to Tavia with a wide sweep of her hand. Heads bowed respectfully towards Tavia, and she smiled back, somehow glad of their silent discretion. She had entered a world totally unknown to her, a world of luxury and riches, so completely at odds with the harsh minutiae of her own daily life, that the temptation to be completely absorbed by the fine details of this noble lifestyle nudged strongly at her heart. She was here for the coin, she reminded herself sternly, coin that she would earn, and then escape, to run back to her cold, dry little life in the hills.

‘Beatrice will find you some suitable clothes.’ Ada indicated an older woman, who placed her embroidery in the willow basket at her feet, before looking Tavia up and down, assessing her size, her frame. ‘She needs to look like a princess…like me,’ Ada stated, as Beatrice sighed, rising to her feet, her bones creaking with the effort.

‘She’s shorter than you, my lady,’ Beatrice muttered in a guttural accent, before limping off through an open doorway. ‘But I’ll see what I can do.’

‘And a bath as well, please, Beatrice,’ Ada called after the woman, flashing a quick half-smile of apology at Tavia. ‘She grumbles, but she has a heart of gold,’ Ada excused Beatrice’s gruff behaviour. ‘She looked after me as a child.’

‘I must look dreadful,’ Tavia tried to excuse her own appearance. ‘I daubed mud on my face before the archery competition. To make myself look more like a boy,’ she added, catching Ada’s bemused expression.

‘You’re very brave,’ Ada whispered. ‘I don’t think I’d ever have the nerve to do something like that.’

Tavia shook her head, remembering the nauseous churning in her stomach that she had experienced before walking through the castle gates. ‘I don’t consider myself to be brave. Sometimes circumstances force you to do these things.’

‘But your husband…?’

‘I have no—’ Tavia stopped suddenly, remembering the lies she had told Ferchar, that the English soldier, Benois le Vallieres, was her husband. ‘Ah, yes,’ she muttered, lamely.

‘He didn’t look too happy when he led you away.’ Ada linked her arm through Tavia’s and led her towards the window embrasure, away from the knot of industrious ladies. ‘What did you say to him to change his mind?’

‘I beg your pardon, my lady?’ Confused, Tavia scrabbled to make some sense of the princess’s words. How in Heaven’s name did she know all this?

Ada laughed. ‘I watched everything from an upstairs window; he’s a handsome fellow, your husband.’

‘Aye, and very lenient, once you know how to handle him.’ Tavia smiled, hoping that she would never have to ‘handle’ that man again. Two encounters had been more than enough for her.

‘Then I hope I am as lucky as you seem to be in your marriage.’ A secretive coyness spread across Ada’s face. Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Which may be sooner than everyone thinks.’

‘Oh?’ Tavia replied, vaguely.

‘I feel like I can tell you this, Tavia,’ Ada spoke in a hurried undertone, excitement making her stumble over some of the words. ‘You’re a stranger, yet I know we will be friends, and I know I can count on your discretion…?’