Olivia looked out over the battlements of her father’s castle, taking in the preparations below. She hoped they would be enough. Earl Undine’s lands were large, and more people were coming in to help every day, but would it be enough?
She looked out toward the tower that Royce had managed to cross to, remembering what it had been like when he’d fought his way across the slender stone bridge.
“I hope he returns soon,” she said to the wind, the way she’d said it every day since he’d left. She missed him the way she might have missed sunlight or breath. Then again, if the battle to come went badly, she might soon be missing both.
It seemed strange that she was willing to die for someone she’d met so soon before, or that she could love anyone so deeply after so short a time. Yet Olivia did. She had only to touch the ring she wore to remind herself of the depth of that love.
“He’ll be back,” her father said, coming up onto the roof. He’d obviously guessed what Olivia was thinking about. Her father wrapped her in his great arms; it had always been the one place where Olivia had felt truly safe.
“It’s not just Royce,” Olivia said. “It’s all of it. There’s so much to do.”
“You don’t have to be involved,” her father said. “There are earls’ daughters who would sit and do… what is it that they do when they aren’t attending councils of war?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Olivia said. “And I want to help.”
“I thought you’d say that,” her father said. “That’s why I came to get you. We need to plan.”
Her father led the way back down through the castle, the winding staircases and broad corridors as familiar as anywhere else in the world to Olivia. There was plenty that wasn’t familiar, though: there were more people there than there had been, from inhabitants of Altfor’s lands to Picti, while the corridors were lined with boxes and barrels, weapons and armor. There was barely enough room in some spots to make it past.
The room her father led Olivia to had once been an antechamber, but now it was a war room, dominated by a large, round table on which a map of the kingdom had been spread out, alongside plans of the castle and the earldom. The people who waited for them there included several lesser lords and knights, what appeared to be a Picti chief, and a village headman sent up by the groups of those who’d fled Sir Alistair’s burnings.
Her father took his place at the head of the table, while Olivia stood opposite him.
“We have a lot of preparations still to make,” he said. He moved wooden pieces on the map. “From the messages I’ve received, King Carris is heading north, and the only reason he’s moving so slowly is because he is gathering his armies as he goes.”
“We’re gathering people too,” one of the knights said. Olivia thought his name was Sir Dennis. “More come in every day.”
“Not all of them will be able to fight,” her father said. “And every new person is another person we have to feed if this turns into a siege.”
“You’re not saying that we should turn them away, Father?” Olivia asked.
Her father shook his head. “We will not do that to people,” he said, “but we need to gather more supplies if we are to last.”
“I will send out more foraging parties,” Sir Dennis promised.
“As will I,” the Picti clan chief said.
“Then we should turn to the question of the likely routes the enemy will take, and how best to stop them,” Earl Undine said.
Olivia shook her head. “Not stop them; slow them down. We just have to hold long enough for Royce and the others to get back.”
“True,” her father admitted, “but the more damage we’re able to do as they march, the better.”
They started to talk about the best places to harry the king’s forces along the way, and it seemed that both the knights and the Picti had strategies for it. Olivia wasn’t surprised, because the Picti had long been experts at hitting and melting away, while knights could raid and ride clear.
Even so, she found the details eluding her as her thoughts started to drift. She found her thoughts going back to the strange meeting she’d had with the girl who had come looking for Royce, and who had run off when Olivia had declared that they were to be married. She wanted to concentrate on the discussions about the best places to dig siege defenses and the right spots to set traps along the royal army’s route, but each time, Olivia found herself thinking of that face instead, and the horrified look on it.
“Olivia?” her father asked, and Olivia started.
“Yes, Father?” she asked. The others were looking at her, and she had the feeling that one of them had just asked her something, but she couldn’t remember what it was. She’d been thinking about the girl.
“Olivia, are you all right?” her father asked. “I was asking if you had heard anything from the boys who went to seek help?”
“There’s nothing yet,” Olivia replied.
“It’s just that there are some reports that Royce is raising an army of commoners. Shouldn’t that be Raymond?”
“It should,” Olivia said, and for a moment, hope vied with confusion within her. No though, if Royce had come back, he would have come to her first.
Again, she found herself thinking about the girl who had come to their door, and wondering.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” her father asked.
“Actually, I think I might be feeling a little unwell,” Olivia said. “Forgive me. I think I will retire to my rooms for a while.”
Normally, she would never leave in the middle of something like this; it was too important, and if she was to inherit her father’s lands someday, then she would need to know about it. Her father had even said many times how much he relied on her support and her insight into the way things were going. As it was though, Olivia knew she wouldn’t be able to provide either. She was too distracted to help; too distracted to even think properly.
Olivia just wished she knew why.
Somehow, she was sure that the girl who had come to the castle had known Royce, had even… meant something to him. At least, she thought she did. It was the only thing that could possibly explain the look on her face when Olivia had told her that she and Royce were engaged. That look had been so horrified, so shocked, that it seemed as though the world had been falling apart for her in that moment. If she hadn’t run, Olivia would have invited her in just to find out what that look meant.
Olivia went down through the castle and then out into the open air. Out here, she could hear their clash of blades as men practiced with swords and shields, spears and axes, striving to be ready for the fight to come. There were shouted orders too, as commanders tried to drill their warriors to hold formation and learn the skills of the siege. Some scurried up and down ladders, while others practiced shooting arrows from the walls. Olivia saw arrow after arrow overshooting, and could only hope that the villagers practicing with the bows would get better.
Olivia walked through it all, and a captain came running up to her, holding his hand over his heart in salute.
“My lady, are you here to inspect the troops?”
Olivia hadn’t thought that people would assume that, and that just showed how distracted she was. Of course everyone there would think that she was keeping track of what was going on.
“I’m here for something more personal,” she said. “Can you point me to Royce’s people?”
“Please, let me escort you, my lady,” the captain said. “It might not be safe for you out here alone. Already, we’ve had fights, and men who have clearly been sent as spies by the king.”
Olivia couldn’t think of a reason to say no, so she let the captain lead her through the camp, into a section mostly inhabited by villagers. Olivia could see the difference at once, because they were less well armored, and their work with their weapons seemed rougher and less cultivated.
“The commanders of the villagers and the rebels will be this way,” the captain told her.
Olivia shook her head. “I need someone who knows him.”
Finding that was harder, when Royce’s village lay in ashes, and his brothers were all away about their tasks. Even so, soon, Olivia found a group of young men who seemed to be from the same cluster of villages. Their names were Haam, Wells, and William.
“We’ve been with Royce from the start,” Haam said. “We were there for the first battles, before all of the others.”
“I’m interested in something other than battles,” Olivia said. “Was there ever a girl… a girl Royce… loved?”
“You mean Genevieve?” the young man said.
“Yes,” Olivia said, not sure if she did or not. “At least, maybe. Tell me about her.”
“She’s the one who went off with that Altfor,” Wells said.
“She didn’t ‘go off’ with him,” William shot back. “She was taken.”
“And then she stayed,” Wells said, making it into an accusation. “She stood there while Royce was in the pit.”
“None of us went to save him,” Haam said, in a matter-of-fact way.
“None of us turned him away on the eve of the battle with Altfor, either,” Wells said.
“I haven’t heard all of this,” Olivia said. “Tell me all of it.”
The boys there did their best to explain all of it, and most of it lined up with the parts that Royce had told her. That just made the parts that he hadn’t told her sound worse, and not just because of all the things that this “Genevieve” seemed to have done. It had more to do with how much Royce had obviously loved her. He’d even gone to her, before the battle… before giving himself to Olivia completely.
What would he have done if she hadn’t turned him away? Olivia didn’t have an answer for that, but she did know that there was one key thing she still needed to know…
“What does Genevieve look like?”
“Well…” Haam said, “she’s beautiful, of course. I saw her once, over in the village.”
“You did not,” Wells shot back.
“I did. She has blonde hair and green eyes. She’s slender, and graceful, and…”
It wasn’t much of a description to go on, because it sounded far too much like the way a young man like this might describe any beautiful girl. Even so, it fit the girl who had come to the door, and somehow, Olivia just knew that it was her. Who else would come to them, so desperate to see Royce?
“Thank you,” she said to the young men. She turned to her escort. “And thank you too, Captain. I think I want to wander the camp a little.”
“My lady—”
“Alone, please,” Olivia said. “I need to think.”
The captain didn’t look happy about it, but he let her go off alone. Olivia wandered into the camp, and as she wandered, she came to stop here and there, asking the same thing: “What have you heard about Genevieve?”
Plenty of people gave her blank looks, or were too busy with what they were doing to answer, but being the daughter of an earl helped with that. Slowly, carefully, Olivia started to gather snippets.
“She’s the girl who broke Royce’s heart.”
“She ran off with Altfor, helped plot everything.”
“She always looked so regal, like a bird trapped in a golden cage.”
Every so often, Olivia would stop, rubbing the ring she wore and thinking of Royce. Each time she touched it, she remembered her love for him, but she also found herself worrying more.
Olivia wasn’t sure if she believed the stories about Genevieve helping Altfor or not. From the fragments she got about how Genevieve had been before she’d been taken, she seemed far kinder and far gentler than that.
In some ways, that was worse than if she’d been everything the boys had described. If she’d been some kind of counterpart to Altfor and the old duke, then Olivia wouldn’t have worried. She knew that Royce would never think twice about someone like that. She would know that he would fight her as surely as her husband. Olivia would feel confident that she was the only person in his heart.
As it was, she couldn’t help feeling a rush of fear about what might happened if Genevieve came back into Royce’s life. What if he had been there when she came to see him? Olivia rubbed her ring again in worry, and that made it worse, because the ballooning of her love for him also made her worry more about the potential for Genevieve to be a rival.
“You don’t know that she was here for Royce,” Olivia said. “To get him back. Maybe she just wanted his help.”
Or maybe it was more than that. The problem was that Olivia simply didn’t know, and she wasn’t sure if she could bear knowing. She walked back into the castle, thinking about the problem all the way, and this time, she did go to her rooms. She sat there for a long while, before taking pen and ink, composing messages. Then she balled them up. Messages wouldn’t be enough. Every moment that messengers were out searching for this girl, Olivia would be sitting here unable to think of anything except what had happened between her and Royce.
She knew what she had to do, it was simply that it was… stupid. Olivia touched the ring she wore again, thinking of Genevieve, thinking of Royce. Just the thought of them was enough to push her to do it in spite of how foolish it was.
She changed quickly into riding clothes, belting a dagger to her side and gathering a small selection of coins and jewelry to deal with any contingencies. She set off through the castle, pausing to snatch up a hunting bow and a few arrows, as much because she wanted this to look as though she was contributing to the foraging as because she actually thought that she would use them. She went down to the stables, saddling her horse herself so that no one else could be blamed for it.
Olivia rode through the camp, heading back for the spot where Haam, Wells, and William sat.
“You all know what Genevieve looks like?” she said.
They nodded.
“Then I’ve got a job for you. Bring your gear and come with me.” She led them away from their tents, away from the camp as a whole.
“Where are we going, my lady?” William asked.
Olivia shrugged. “We’re going to find Genevieve.”
Although what she would do once she found her, Olivia simply didn’t know.