Thy Secrets Should Be Sung

Chapter Eleven: The Smithies Three

 He'd kept watch for the past three days, but there had been no sign of the Prince or his woeful sister. The forest of the world was empty once again. Had they abandoned their quest?

The Knight was surprised to find that he was actually looking forward to their next encounter.

Secure in his solitude, he stripped himself of his armor and let the cool air sooth his neglected, detested skin. Today the morning air was misty, and dense, and he felt the first chill of the coming autumn.

He walked through the forest, running his calloused fingers over the craggy bark of the oaks and the cedar. The leaves were still deep and green, but he could feel the tension in the trees, the signs of the changing season. The forest, and all the lands beyond, now held their breath. The pace of life had slowed.

He considered his lonely cabin. "Winter is hard on Errant-Knights," he thought. "He who relies on the kindness of strangers; she without a home."

He sat and watched the sun rise through the glimmer of the forest. He sat, and tried to deaden himself to the pain in his lungs, to his aching throat, to his cracked, peeling skin. The sun rose and warmed the woods and burned away the morning fog.

It was time to visit the Princess.

He started from the bottom up. First he secured his bindings, wrapping them tight until they bound and suffocated him. Next, his old gambeson, worn thin. Then sabatons. The legs: greave, cuisse and poleyn. Fauld and tasset, and above them, his black cuirass, over bindings and breast.

Next, he fixed his forearms, and his vambrace. Then the upper cannon, and the couter. Spaulders over shoulders. Gorget to protect the neck. Finally, his gauntlets and his helmet.

It was a ritual, step by step.

"Ah, I am myself once more!" he declared, although he did not feel it.

He set off through the woods, clanking and creaking. The animals of the forest ran from him. The little squirrels hid in their trees, and made neither chit nor chat. A raven stretched its wings and preened its feathers. A forest mouse, timid and brown, briefly considered begging the Knight for a scrap of grain, but thought better of it, and scurried back home again.

The Knight did not notice the mouse, or the squirrels or any other creature. His head was filled only with thoughts of the Princess: her flowing dress, her flowing hair; her smile, both cruel and coy.

"Perhaps today," he thought, "I will produce in her more than a modest glance. Perhaps I will see her face anxious and red. Embarrassed, or flustered or angry, any reaction would satisfy me."

Twice he made his way around the perimeter of the garden, inspecting the fence for signs of intrusion or of tampering, but there was nothing to be found. The lock, too, remained untouched. The Prince, it seemed, had not returned.

Satisfied, he threw open the gate and welcomed the endless bloom of spring. Once again, the lilacs and cherries and rhododendrons had burst in their eternal rite, of pink and white and pale gold; a hundred thousand petals falling like an endless rain.

He followed the stone path through this ecstasy up to the head of the meadow.

This is where he found the Princess, on a bed of flowers, asleep under the shade of a cherry tree, a book clutched to her breast, her chest rising and falling with her every breath.

He stepped closer. The cherry trees had sprinkled her with blossoms; they fell without measure. He bent low, plucked a petal from her hair, flicked it aside, then reached for another. His hands shook. One, two, three—for each petal he plucked, two more fell to take its place.