“Don’t do it,” one of them said. “Nothing is worth it. Nothing.”
“I’m afraid I have little choice.”
One of the men looked at him fully, taking in his immaculate clothes, slim frame, unblemished skin, and judging him eminently unsuitable. “No prize is worth it,” he said. “Go home, boy.”
Leo did not like calling a living human being a prize no matter how much of a stranger she was, but pointing that out was unlikely to gain him any favours. “I do not seek the princess,” he said. “I seek to save the kingdom. Perhaps two. We are short on time–”
“No horrors the fairy could bring are equal to the ones that lie inside.”
“You should have taken a guide,” said another man at another table. “Tried it myself a few years ago. Didn’t get far, but stayed safe… mostly.” He held up a hand, revealing two missing fingers.
“The guide,” said another, not far away. “You should have taken her.”
“Talia,” said a third. He was as wrinkled as a prune in a pint glass, not an inch of him free from the look of well-beaten leather. “She’s as wise as she is old!” he said with a cackle. “What she doesn’t know about the forest isn’t worth knowing. Why didn’t you take her?”
One of the recent adventurers shrugged. “Didn’t want to waste our supplies on another person, or our energies protecting her.”
The old man snorted. “Talia can look after herself.”
“Where… where do we find her?” Leo asked.
“Ring the bells,” said one of the travellers. “By the edge of the forest. Ring the bells, and wait for her. She will come.”
He looked back at his own men, a few of whom were listening in. He thanked the gentlemen for their time, and went back to join them. He tried to partake in their revelry and enthusiasm, but his stomach had no appetite, and he wasn’t interested in drinking. He wanted his wits about him for the journey tomorrow. His knights had no such reserves, although George looked a little apprehensive.
“How are you, George?”
The knight shrugged. He was one of Wilheim’s finest and had been in his service for as long as Leo could remember. He’d never seen him nervous before.
“I’d hear your worries.”
“Not worries,” the knight assured him. “Only… only just before I left, Clara told me… well, it looks like she’s finally expecting.”
Leo beamed, clapping his friend on the back. “Well, that’s wonderful news! You must be thrilled!”
“Thank you, Your Highness.”
George did not look thrilled, even though he and Clara had been married for several years and a child had long been expected. Of course, thought Leo, with all this talk of dangers, he’s worried he won’t ever meet it.
“You should have said something, George. There are other knights–”
“There are, but I’m one of the best, and Wilheim was insistent–”
“You didn’t tell him, I take it?”
He shook his head.
“If... if you wanted to back out now…”
“I couldn’t, Your Highness. Please don’t ask me to. One more request and I’ll consider it.”
Leo smiled grimly. It was tempting. “Another round, I think.” He got up, but George forced him back down and said he’d get it. He’d barely been gone a second before a tankard sloshed in front of Leo.
“Drink up, lad,” said the ancient man, slumping into George’s seat. “You’ll need the energy for your journey.” He grabbed Leo’s arm, squeezing tightly. “You’ve some muscle on you, at least.” His face came uncomfortably close. “Good looking, too.”
“Why… why would that help me?”
“Never underestimate the charms of a pretty face!” he hooted.
Leo sighed, running a hand through his thick chestnut hair, feeling more and more self-conscious by the minute. At least the growing rowdiness of the tavern meant he stuck out less.
“You’re a prince then, I take it?” the old man asked, pointing to the crest on his tunic. Leo had tried to dress down, but his mother was insistent that no son of hers should go gallivanting off into the forests without looking a little regal. She didn’t mean to sound vain. Her insistence was born out of the desire to control something, anything about the situation.
They hadn’t spoken a great deal before he left. They had so much and nothing at all to say.
“I’d go in your place, if I thought it would do any good,” she said, her jaw tightly clenched. She forced a hard kiss on him, and then swept from the room. He heard her weeping in the corridor. She would have said something else, the next morning, if he’d given her the opportunity. But he couldn’t. She might beg him to say, kingdom be damned and dash the consequences, and few things were harder to say no to than a weeping mother.
“Second prince,” he said in answer to the old man’s question.
“Not in it for the glory, then? The prize?”
“I hardly think a person can be described as a prize,” he snapped. “Forgive me, that was rude.”
“Was it?” The old man’s golden eyes twinkled. “You may be right, lad. But if you’re not interested in the princess, why risk it?”
“For my kingdom,” he said. “And hers. Small as it may be, I do not want the weight of their deaths if I do nothing at all.”
“A noble endeavour,” he said.
“Or a cowardly one. I’m only doing it so I don’t feel the guilt of not doing it later.”
The man smiled. “Drink up. Get some rest. Remember the bit about the guide.” He got up and hobbled back to the bar, leaving Leo alone while the rest of his men drank themselves into a stupor.
He excused himself early from the revelries, craving silence over distraction, and made his way upstairs to the chambers he had procured for their usage. Halfway there, one of the doors at the end of the corridor opened. He could hear moaning within, and a healer hurried out. She closed the door behind her and nodded to him.
“Another victim of the forest,” she said. “I hope his moaning doesn’t disturb you.”
“What’s… what’s wrong with him?”
“Went in with a whole mind, came back with half of one. There’s more than monsters in those there woods.”
Leo prickled. “Can you heal him?”
She gave a non-committal gesture. “I do not know. Sometimes time heals them, sometimes… nothing does.”
“We’re… we’re supposed to be setting off into the woods tomorrow.”
The healer’s face paled. “I would advise against it, but if you are set on your path, take–”
“The guide, yes. We’ve been told.”
She nodded. “Good luck, sir. Take care.”
She hurried off down the stairs.
The moaning intensified as Leo passed the door, but he dared not look inside. The sound seemed to penetrate the walls, groaning into the wood as Leo lay on his bed. He imagined dark, empty eyes, a hollowness where a soul used to sit.
His men trickled in as the night wore on. Would that be them, in a few days’ time?