Her Portrait

The View From The Window

The door swung open and Sir Denver strode in.
Arianthe's face broke into a smile and stood up, he returned it and kissed her hand gently.
"Hello," Arianthe beamed "what brings you here, Sir?"
"I just wanted to ask if you were alright, I heard the king banned you from going to the stables and I wondered what you were doing with yourself." He replied.
Arianthe felt touched the knight had taken time out of his busy day to come and check on her.
"Thank you for thinking of me." She said.
He crossed the room to the window and stood looking out at the glorious view of the grassy meadows, blue cloudless sky and the purple headed mountains in the far distance. Those mountains showed the border of King Eustace's kingdoms and could only be seen on a clear day like this, Arianthe longed to climb them one day and perhaps visit the country of Jafedo beyond.
Arianthe joined him next to the window and pretended to be staring out but really she was looking at Sir Denver, but she couldn't explain why.
"What are you looking at?" She asked.
"The mountain." he replied.
"Oh," Arianthe pretended not to be disappointed. "what about the mountain?"
"Well when I was a boy living in the village my mother would tell me that one day we would go to those mountains. We would leave my father and we'd travel over the border into Jafedo and never be seen here again."
He sighed and turned away from the window.
"What happened?" questioned Arianthe.
"She died before we could go."
"I'm sorry."
"It's alright, I just wish I had done something to stop it."
"I'm sure there was nothing you could've done." Putting her hand on his shoulder the princess tried to console him.
"But I could have done everything," Sir Denver growled in a very uncharacteristic voice "I could've knocked the back of his head in but I didn't; I stood there like an idiot whilst I watched my father murder my mother."
He crossed the room and sunk onto the girl's bed.
Arianthe stared at him in shocked silence whilst Sir Denver's eyes filled with tears, she didn't know what to say.
"Oh, Sir Denver!" She cried sitting next to him.
Putting her arm around his shoulder she held him close, trying to ignore the stiffness of his chain-mail and the awkwardness of his sword sheath sticking into her leg.
There was a silence in which the knight sniffed and began to pretend to look like he didn't want to cry.
"It's alright, it's in the past now and there is nothing I can do about it." he said eventually.
"If there's anything I can do..." the Princess said, kindly looking into his face.
Sir Denver turned his face from the floor and gazed into Arianthe's eyes.
"Thank you, My Lady."
Arianthe couldn't seem to tear her eyes away from his deep brown eyes, if you looked carefully you could see fireflies dancing in the deep depths of the dark, they were so beautiful.
For one wondrous second she thought he was going to kiss her...
Suddenly the door banged open.
The knight leaped to his feet and backed away from the Princess.
Arianthe held her breath; if Sir Denver was seen in her bedroom he would be in so much trouble.
She prayed desperately that it wasn't her father.
She could not bear to sleep in the dungeons again...