The Vixen Trials

One Good Thing

Keilah

She was preparing for her final fitting when her uncle marched into her room and snapped out, "Stop that and start packing. We leave today."

A shiver slid down her. Her hands fumbled, caught in the layers of thick, smooth fabric. She was not ready at all for this. "But my dress," she protested.

"The dressmaker will come with us and finish it in time. We have been granted an audience with the Prince this evening, and we will be there."

Her uncle appeared to be trying to restrain a smile and the result was a sinister expression that made her blurt out. "Can the Hattavah come? I'd feel safer with him there to protect me."

Lord Rustavan nodded with a smirk that made her feel sick. "He'll come with us. You have half an hour."

And with that Keilah flurried around, flustering Alyssia with all her demands until her grandmother strode in with a team of handmaidens to prepare her. "That girl is useless," she pronounced. "I insist on you taking one of mine. Trina. She knows how to properly assist you. A village girl is just inadequate."

Keilah protested a little, before giving in to the truth of her words. She let the sour-faced Trina do her hair and select her garments, but she insisted that Alyssia come too and pack her favourite sword.

She glanced around her room before she left, her admiration for the sheer luxury of it unabated. Would she come back in triumph as Lady of the House, engaged to the Prince or would she be forced to flee and never see it again? She took up the yellow linen bag her mother made and tucked it into her luggage. Whatever happened, she wanted it with her. Inside it she placed the love-heart stone Dakkoul had given her when she was a child, and a necklace from her father, then she left and Alyssia closed the door behind her.

Outside, she mounted on a white mare, with a silvery mane and a halter decorated in the white mountain star flowers that signified she carried a Vixen for the Prince. She saw Dakkoul mounting that skinny mare again, and a whisp of a smile appeared on her face, although the solemnity of the occasion chased it away. The time of her destiny approached. Her fate lay in the hands of the Fox and she did not know, even herself what she would most prefer – to run with Dakkoul by her side, or to become the Wayvolkan Queen. She scolded herself. You silly, she said, the most likely thing is that you will bow out in the second round, as you intend and come back here and things will go on as they have. Grandmother is not ill. There is no need for uncle to hasten to kill me. The Prince likes me, so surely it will be an asset to have me around and Silsa is fond of me. It will all go on as before except there will be no Dakkoul. And she wondered if she could bear it.

She rode up to him, because she couldn't stay away, but when she came by him, she had no words to say, she just drank in the look of him, all in black except for the silver trims on the cuffs and the collar, the thick belt with no weapons visible, the darkness of his eyes that lit up as she approached, the fuzz on his hair that had grown thicker almost overnight so it seemed like normal short-cut hair.

"I wish you the best of luck," he said.

"You'll say goodbye?"

"Once I know you're safe, either way," he said, "I'll go. If you're not safe, I'll offer you to come with me. That's the best I can do."

"I understand." Her eyes were hungry for his gaze and he looked back at her with a sad desperation.

A movement of people in the courtyard diverted her and she saw a collection of familiar house slaves, Pipsqueak among them, all with hands tied and surrounded by the soldiers.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"They have been promised to the Prince for a fox-dance, entertainment for the masses, while the high Wayvolk watch the Vixen-Trials" Dakkoul said tersely. "They are part of the price of you being allowed to compete."

She fixed her eyes on Pipsqueak – she couldn't care about the others, some of whom were crying – it was the first time she'd seen him without a smile and she found he looked dull without it, nothing like the charming boy she'd met in her room, who'd comforted Alyssia.
She got off her horse and strode towards the group and put her hand on Pipsqueak's shoulder.

"I need a page boy," she said in the loudest and most annoying voice she could muster. "The other ladies have them. I want one too."

Her uncle, leaving the house, said, "He's just a kitchen hand."

"He can run errands, can't he?" she demanded. "I want him."

An ugly scowl marched across her uncle's face, "You insist do you? What right do you have to insist?" He leaned over her so that she felt the heat of his breath on her forehead but she did not shift back. 

Her grandmother came over. "Oh let her have the boy, if she wants," she said. "What's one slave, more or less?" and Keilah freed his hands, and winked at Pipsqueak until his smile reappeared.

The ride to the palace seemed far too short. Dakkoul kept to the back with the other slaves, while her uncle and grandmother rode in the carriage ahead and the soldiers boxed them all in. She rode alone in the middle, and people seeing her, would cheer and clap and called out best wishes until she felt like the queen. She couldn't help liking it.

Would you enjoy being cheered for like a queen?