A Tale of Crown and Country

Lea

Lea finished tying the knot. She pulled it tight and admired her handiwork. She'd tied two blankets together, something she'd learned in Decipher. All she had to do was tie one end to the chair and toss the other out the window. Foolproof escape plan. She congratulated herself on her forward thinking: requesting an extra blanket when one of the men had brought some bread and stew in for her. He'd given her a quizzical look, seeing as it wasn't cold out in the least, but he'd obliged. Now she had the makings of a rope. As long as she could climb down, she'd be fine; not that she'd ever tested this theory before, but it was the only chance she had.

    Lea pressed her ear to the door. Someone was pacing back and forth in the hallway outside, probably just bored. She'd waited as long as she could possibly stand before throwing the blankets out the window. If anyone arrived in the middle of her escape it would all be for naught.   The chatter downstairs had subsided and no one had come in to check on her for several hours.

    It was time.

    Lea picked the chair up and pushed it gently against the wall underneath the window sill. As fast as she could, Lea tied one end of the blanket rope securely to the chair. She tugged on it to make sure it could hold her weight–not that it was a particularly exact representation, but it would have to do.

    She stepped up onto the chair, took a deep breath, and tossed the rope out the window.

    "Ow!" a voice cried out from below.

    Confused and alarmed, Lea stuck her head out the window and looked down. The bad news was the blanket-rope was shorter than she'd expected: it dangled halfway down the outer wall. What else was down there surprised her to say the least, but it was a pleasant surprise.

    Grey eyes peeked out from behind a mop of dark hair. A bulging satchel lay discarded on the cobblestone next to a boy lying on his back and rubbing his head.

    "Arlan?!" Lea exclaimed, careful to keep her voice down but not repressing the excitement and surprise she felt at his presence.

    "Miss me?" he asked lightheartedly. He pushed himself to his feet.

    "What are you doing here?"

    Arlan was genuinely confused. "I'm here to rescue you," he said simply.

    "I'm not helpless, you know."

    "Really? Because it looks like you need a bit of help here," he gestured to the dangling end of the makeshift rope.

    "Well what was your grand plan?" she asked in a huff. Of course he was helping, but she wasn't going to have her big adventure if someone else kept coming to her rescue.

    "I was going to climb up and..." he faltered.

    Lea crossed her arms over her chest; he didn't have a plan after all. She knew she shouldn't have felt so smug, seeing as there was still the issue of her getting out of a third storey window, but she liked the fact that Arlan didn't have everything as together as she might have been led to believe.

    "You climb down as far as you can, and then jump."

    "Jump?" Lea covered her mouth at her sudden outburst. She hadn't meant for it to be so loud. "Jump?"she asked again, this time in a whisper. A quick glance at the door told her she hadn't been heard. Either that or her supposed warden had fallen asleep.

    "Yes," Arlan agreed. "Jump."

    "Are you sure?"

    "Positive."