“I am here.”
That rocked him on his heels. The voice came from behind him now, the same voice, as if it were stalking him. He spun around, hands out, at hearing a light skipping step from the direction of the parapet. Closer, came the high piping tone of a child.
“I said, Are you a knight?”
Leon stared a moment, heart thumping. Shadows shifted and took substance. A glimmer. It was a girl, a highborn little girl in a white night rail, but lace dragged about one ankle and her lips and hands were muddied. She tilted her head to one side, studying him.
“No,” he said, to humor her while he tried to think. The girl had a pixie face, and the dark, shining hair that bounced about her shoulders was black as only an elf’s can be. But she looked real, a babe scarce weaned. There was no magic. There was nothing to fear. Her gaze remained steady. He felt heat flare in his ears, so he added, “When I am a man I will be.”
A frown touched her brow, as if he had said something curious. “Is that not the way of things?” she said, edging closer, as though they already shared one secret, and might share another, in time.
Leon blinked. How could a little girl speak with such knowledge? Except for the druids, adults were jealous of their secrets and did not share them with children. Was she a druid’s daughter?
Had he been enchanted? He clenched his hand to drive the thought away and touched the rough stonework. It felt real enough, down to the grit of old mortar.
I won’t let her see she has me uneasy, he told himself firmly. I won’t let her trick me. He took the chance. It took real effort, but he kept his voice steady.
“Are you a witch?”
“Do I look like one?”
“I’ve only seen one, face-to-face. At least I think it was a witch. You don’t look like her. But how should I know?”
“Well, now that I see you close up, you don’t look like a knight, either. You’re tall, but you look like a boy.”
The small doubt held him still, but that was only his good sense that said girls were not safe wandering at cockcrow alone. There were all manner of unwholesome things that haunted the night. And this one feared no harm from them—that seemed evident, whatever her reason.
He thrust his sword in its scabbard. “You’re distracting me from my duty. What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to watch.”
“To watch what?”
Her shoulders jerked slightly. “I wanted to see Father—they told me he’s going away with the prince,” she said fiercely, a dimpled dragon flashing fire and smoke. Her little jaw set. Her eyes were alive with thoughts. “I had to get up early and run away from Nurse, ’n’ here I am.”
He started to walk. She pranced along beside him.
“The battlements are out of bounds. How did you get here?” he asked, with deep notes of iron grating on one another in his voice. “And more to the point, why?”
“I couldn’t go downstairs because of the guards, and I didn’t want to climb out a garderobe shaft ’cause they smell so awful, ’n’ I came up here instead.” She moved closer, scowling. “I tried to get up there.” She pointed into space out a crenel. “But I’m not big enough. But you’re here, so you can—”
Leon flinched, and said, between closed teeth, “Forget it.”
He paused at a buttressed arch and turned to look into the vast hollow before them. From this angle, no lights shone, not even faint ones. It was black as a cave. Only the immensity of air, palpable as a beast, betrayed the cavernous gulf beyond.
Fear clenched his heart with an icy grip. How had he gotten into this? He grasped the merlon with one hand, to keep from shaking, and felt sandstone crumble under his fingers. He pulled back by instinct.
“Flamed rotted-out pile of—” He caught back a swear-word.
She turned her head and looked at him. Then slowly she began to smile, her eyes anxious, but her grin growing wider. She was contemplating mischief, he was sure of it.
“Are you afraid?”
“Of course not! I have an arm of steel and a heart of iron!”
“Oo-oh, how wonderful. Are heroes always so strong?”
“Of course.”
Leon sweated. Heroes are always strong, and they never run away, he told himself. And that was a worry. He was scared and breathless.
“You’re bigger than me.” A sudden pale glance, starlit. She smiled. “Can you see over the top?”
He nodded foolishly, and again she laughed. He thought that perhaps he had never heard a lovelier sound. “Of course.”
“Well?”
He was more than a little unnerved. Breath came short, in shameful panic. At the same time, his heart leaped into his throat and stayed there. Does she know? He cast her a sideways glance. A dimple winked in her cheek, but she stood there, dark eyes wide, full of faith and innocence; real, and not an illusion. It was surely the weakness that was the illusion—
Leon snapped into focus with a shudder. “Disabuse yourself of such notions. ’Tis not yet dawn.” He was arguing with himself more than with her. He turned to face her, feeling his face flush. “There will be naught to see,” he said, surprising himself with his vehemence.
“Oh,” she said wistfully, as if dashed in her expectations. However, she was not demolished, for she stared at him with bright blackberry eyes, and went on. “I was rather looking forward to—well, this grand occasion…the wonder and excitement…it’s dull in the nursery…I have to make up my own adventures—” she talked rapidly as if to ward off his saying anything “—being a boy, of course, you don’t have to make up little pictures in your head of what it’ll be like when you’re all grow’d up.”
“I never said I didn’t dream, but the future is clouded, and there’s no way to foretell or change it.”
“Nonsense! Close your eyes. Tight. Imagine for yourself what it’ll be like when you’re a knight.”
Leon shrugged, stunned by this abrupt assault and uneasy about its possible consequences, but did as he was bid, his hand resting lightly, prudently, on the sword hilt.
A searing flash burned his eyes. The sharp crack of lightning—or deadly magic—barked beyond the castle walls, then bugles blared and he felt the pounding of heavy hooves through the ground.
It was a trap! Nay, it was sorcery, and everyone knew sorcery was an evil used by heathens of old. For all he knew, it was a trick to distract him from his watch. It wouldn’t have been the first time a child was used as bait in a trap. What can I do? he asked himself. His brain recoiled from the prospect of being the agent of assault, or worse, by failing his duty…
“No!” he protested with more determination than he felt. But the enchantment held him fast. There was no choice but to go with it.
Combat surrounded him, fire and smoke and the clamor of battle in all directions as far as he could see and hear. His helmet was gone and he could feel the gashes in his steel chain mail. His skin was torn in many places and blood covered his body. Flames spouted from the siege wagons, and some tents had caught fire. Rain kept the wagons from becoming an inferno, but the unburned canvas kept the rain from extinguishing the fire.
Then he saw the banner, the rampant lions outlined in gold against the bright red field, now trampled in the earth, torn by sword and dyed almost black in the blood of the young soldiers who followed it. He couldn’t tell whether it was rain or