A Midsummer's Saga

Behem. Shit.

The castle rose over trees which covered a steep hill, overlooking the forests and the fields which fed it, and the town which it protected. It could be seen from many miles off, a high point in the flat valley of River Lene, topped with the royal standards of Harmen, announcing the sovereignty of the King over this land.

The province of the Lene Valley may not have been central to the kingdom, bordering the unruly Kontaria and some way off the major cities, but Behem was one of the securest places in the entire country. Though not very large, the castle was formidable, a mass of grey granite imported from far-off at great expense, with immense square towers and thick walls and a single gateway, narrow and hidden behind a wooden bridge over an artificial ravine, leading inside. The trees and the steep hill provided natural protection. There was no going in but through the gate, and breaking through the gate would require some serious siege engines. And who would know how to build those in this neck of the woods? The Kontarians?

And so Behem stood on its hill, assured and secure like a sleeping elephant, in the afternoon light.

There was a large outer courtyard and, in its back and beyond an internal gate, a second, inner courtyard. In the inner courtyard stood the Great Hall, a many-storeyed and impressive building of stone, with a spacious inside filled with great marble staircases, tall columns and arched ceilings, and dark wooden furniture standing against stark light walls.

And presently in the Great Hall, standing her ground alone on the chequered black and white stone floor, Gabrielle was facing a monster.

They were talking. The conversation was definitely not going as Gabrielle had planned.

"All I'm saying is," she reiterated, and was immediately angry with herself about the defensive tone that she took, "I always spent my time going out for rides in the capital, and I don't see why I shouldn't do the same here. It's a perfectly wholesome and harmless practice, I'm sure even you can't find anything wrong with it." The 'even' was not a good move. Backhanded insults could only provoke more trouble. Don't lose your temper, she thought to herself. Stick to the plan.

But she couldn't just let the monster boss over her like that. Gabrielle, after all, was a true Princess of Harmen, daughter of the King's very own third cousin, some fifty-eighth in line of succession to the throne if you wanted to think really hard about it. She had even talked to the King several times in her life at court functions and he definitely even knew who she was, though also for some reasons she'd rather he wouldn't.

The monster was only vaguely related to the royal family, through some cadet branch, not more than any common members of the high nobility. It was true that she was the King's old friend and confidant, but that didn't mean she got to order actual royalty around!

The monster's name was Lady Paula of Behem. She was two hundred and sixty years old, give or take two hundred. She wore her dull hair long, and it was parted on top of her head and fell down and outward like a veil towards her shoulders, and her sizeable arms extended down and outward along her bulk to her waist where her black dress extended down and outward to the floor, so that the sum of all these things looked like a malicious dark cone. Near the top of this cone, two small clear eyes glittered under weak eyebrows and a strong brow.

Gabrielle wore white and had blond hair. The contrast between the two felt ridiculous and a little unnerving.

Lady Paula was presently smiling her battle-smile. It was a smile that was somewhat worse than her scowl. It was a smile that traumatized little children.

"We are, not sure how aware are you of this, at war with an enemy whose border is very near to here." Paula's voice was honeyed and high-pitched, as if she was talking to a baby. "It is absolutely too dangerous to venture out without ample guard, and I cannot spare any to leave the castle. It looks like you'll have to learn to enjoy your time here."

This was not true, and Paula knew that Gabrielle knew that. The Lady Paula herself had no problem riding all around the place in her carriage, even in recent days. But there was nothing to be won by pointing this out. Gabrielle reminded herself that she had spent the past two weeks trying to act nice specifically with this conversation in view. No false moves now. Maybe some bargaining would do.

"I'm sure I'd be perfectly safe at least on the road to town, and in the town itself."

"Well, I'm saddened to find out that her ladyship finds Behem Castle inadequate to her entertainment. Perhaps if she liked cities so well, she should have conducted herself better in the capital."

Oh, she went there. Gabrielle flushed. "And you're enjoying punishing me, are you not? That's what it's all about!" Oh fucking fuck, so much for not losing temper. Lady Paula's smile disappeared, though her eyes were triumphant.

"This is about the rules, girl!" she shouted, shrill. "The King wishes that you are taught some manners and so can become useful to the family! You will spend your time here, away from temptations, until your character is improved!"

All Gabrielle could do was to glare. That was easy enough - she was an excellent glarer. In fact, her glare and her bloodline always made her good at intimidating people. Evidently enough, she wasn't intimidating at all to the mountain of evil that was Lady Paula.

The princess turned around without a word and stormed towards the door. Un-fucking-believable. Two weeks of effort and absolutely nothing won!

"Young lady!" Paula called out behind her. She stopped and glanced back. Paula was smiling again. This was terrible news.

"I don't want you to think of me as your punisher. In fact, I concede that I have my shortcomings as a host and I will make sure to provide you with better entertainment from now on. Tonight, a minstrel will entertain me with a repertoire of patriotic songs, after which I shall dine with Father Pelagius and some notables from the town. You will join me, and we'll spend a lovely evening together." Gabrielle opened her eyes wide, horrified. "You will join me," Paula reiterated, accenting all words evenly. "Now run along, child."

That decrepit fucking bat! That slab of spite! Gabrielle kept thinking up more insults as she furiously swerved and skipped on the polished tiles among frightened stewards. She left the Great Hall, almost barging into a servant woman in the doorway. If Paula thought that she could control and punish her like that, she was sorely fucking mistaken. Patriotic songs and a dinner, indeed! This had been their one tacit understanding, that Gabrielle was at least excused from Paula's get-togethers with the local officials, as the princess's presence was both awful to her and embarrassing to Paula. This will not fly.

Her legs took her further, out of the inner courtyard into the outer, and towards the monks' garden. That place, between the chapel and the corner of the outer walls, with its hedges, cypresses and yews, was isolated somewhat from the rest of the castle.

There she dropped on the ground beneath a poplar and thumped the back of her skull several times against the trunk. Muffled tones of a hymn were faintly reaching her from within the chapel. She stopped moving and just looked straight ahead, out to what of the outer courtyard visible from there.

There was the gatehouse, the only way in or out, small and constantly guarded by several foot soldiers. There was a cart coming through, loaded with supplies from the village, on its way to the larder. There were the stables by the opposing wall, and there was the kitchen house under a granite turret. On the ground, workers and servants were milling about. On the walls, soldiers. There were a couple dozen soldiers in the castle. They were all paid by Paula, maintained by Paula, and loyal to Paula. They were there to obey her every command as was due to their liege lord.

Of course Paula could do to her whatever she wanted. As long as no actual physical harm was caused to Gabrielle, she could have her locked up, in her chamber or in the chapel or in the dungeon for that bloody matter, she could have her fed only bread and water, she could punish her in a million different ways. There was no doubt in Gabrielle's mind that she would do all that with immense pleasure. And it was because of that, not in spite of that, that Gabrielle's family had sent her here.

The reason why Gabrielle ended up in Behem was never once mentioned in all her time in this place, by anyone. Sure. These people were too respectable to bring it up. But talked about or not, it gave them absolute power over herself and all of her royal blood. If she were to complain, nobody would take her side. This is all for her good, they would maintain. This is all for her good as a valuable commodity to be married off at a profit in wealth and influence. Behem was like a tar pit - you could struggle, but every move, every bit of resistance only made it worse, trapped you deeper. If Paula wanted Gabrielle to suffer for the whole evening, Gabrielle had to suffer.

She had been stupid to think otherwise. For the past few weeks she genuinely tried to be on her best behaviour - a task made more difficult by that clod Titulus staying over for days and subjecting her to his awful opinions on things in general - hoping that she'd warm Paula to her just a tiny bit, enough to win just one small concession - stupid short horse rides in her free time. No luck.

She gripped a root of the poplar and let out a groan that escalated to a low scream.

Mista peeked from behind the corner of the chapel and cautiously approached her.

"My lady, are you alright?"

Mista was the servant girl allotted to Gabrielle in Behem, and one of the few people there about her own age. Over the two months that Gabrielle's spent in the castle, Mista's been the only human being vaguely approaching the status of a companion. In endless evenings the princess would sometimes even sink so low as to have conversations with the common girl.

"She won't let me leave the castle. I'm to spend the entire evening with her."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that." She shuffled her feet. Gabrielle rolled her eyes at her.

"You wanted something?"

"Well, if you're spending the evening with Her Ladyship, I thought I could have it off and go to the village..."

"Yeah, sure, go." Gabrielle had a pretty decent idea what drew Mista to the village. The servant girl wasn't keeping secret stashes of silphium tea for taste. She had a lover somewhere, in the world beyond the walls.

Figuring that this debacle of a day should at least result in someone getting laid, she let her take her leave. Funny thing, to have that power while stuck.

As Mista was giving her gushing thanks, Gabrielle's attention was drawn to the gatehouse. The guards were shouting something and a soldier ran off towards the Great Hall.

"Mista, go see what's this about, will you."

The girl went about this instruction quick and came back with a report that some cavalrymen from Titulus's unit were approaching. Clement, Lady Paula's majordomo, soon bolted out of the inner courtyard, buttoning his sapphire vestments up as he went, and made for the gatehouse, where a small crowd of soldiers and workers was gathering. Gabrielle sighed, and got up to join them. There were no perspectives for a better entertainment than news from Kontaria that day, or perhaps that week, anyway.

Clement, always the killjoy, soon ordered everyone to disperse, which they did very half-heartedly. When the cavalrymen finally entered through the gate, it became apparent that he had a reason for this - they didn't look too well, one with his hand in a sling and the other with a bandaged thigh. Those guys would definitely need a rest before they'd be in shape to tell any news. Gabrielle, therefore, decided to return to her chamber - when she noted the third horse. Someone was slung across its back. A wounded soldier? No, he was wearing no soldier's garb. A captive!

The soldiers brought him down, and he stood on the ground unsteady, his wrists and ankles bound. He was very young, only about Gabrielle's own age. Clement went up to him and talked with the guards for a moment. As this was happening, the captive boy looked around him, at the walls, the courtyard, and the people. For a moment, his eyes stopped on Gabrielle. She wasn't sure that he actually saw her, though. He seemed too bewildered to notice anything, too scared to think.

A soldier cut the rope around the boy's ankles and with Clement and another soldier they escorted him towards the tower adjacent to the chapel garden, where the old dungeon was. The two cavalrymen, meanwhile, were ushered towards the Great Hall, where the castle's physician resided. Within minutes, the courtyard was cleared of all unusual activity. Only Gabrielle remained on her spot for a while, not really knowing why, before at last she too set out for her room.

*

For two and a half days they have been riding, slowed down with the soldiers' wounds. The first day they pushed on almost non-stop, and around noon the trees began to gradually clear and they reached open land, leaving Kontaria behind to the visible relief of the Harmenis. By a brook they paused for a meal and they gave Aerin some water but no food, which he wouldn't have touched anyway. He'd struggled and trashed against his binds until his wrists bled but it was all hopeless. As the day went on his terror gave way to a withdrawn incredulity like a waking nightmare, and in this state he remained for the rest of the journey, registering the changing landscapes without believing them: the sloping hills of the borderlands, the uplands where Harmen began, the farmlands beyond. On the third day in the afternoon he craned his head and saw Behem Castle above him, and a wave of panic seized him anew as this distant dreaded destination turned up real before his eyes.

The road entered a grove of thick ancient trees and then sharply inclined until at last it reached a deep and vertical-walled ravine across which a drawbridge led to the gate. They rode inside and found themselves in a broad grassy courtyard surrounded by rusty grey stone buildings, and someone dragged Aerin down from the horse and put him on the ground.

He looked around, across this alien landscape. All the buildings seemed five times larger and stockier than the Copper Hall in his home village, dwarfing him and everyone else within. The people were looking at him with curiosity, hostility, or both. There were soldiers in chain mail, bearing arms matching those of the standards flying from the ramparts. There were workers, servants and footmen who paused on their everyday business. There was a girl, dressed in all white, with a pretty face but a mocking expression. There was a man in expensive vestments trotting towards him. "Clement's coming," one soldier said to another, and they grabbed Aerin and propped him up. The man exchanged a few words with the two cavalrymen of Titulus, then came to look at the captive.

"Well," he said. "Isn't it nice when you have unexpected guests." He bared his grey teeth. The soldiers dutifully chuckled.

Clement was somewhere between youth and middle age, his hair sweeping over a high forehead and his beard neatly trimmed. His shoulders thrown back, his eyes joyful and his chin thrown up, his entire body betrayed delight at finding himself powerful in the face of the powerless.

"Shall we escort him to the city prison, sir?" asked the soldier to Aerin's left. Clement pulled his eyebrows together.

"No, no. Titulus himself sent him for us to keep, so we'll treat him with extra security precautions. Put him in the old dungeon."

The soldiers looked at each other. The same one spoke again.

"But, sir... most of our force is gone with Titulus. We're on a skeleton crew here until he returns. Who's going to guard the dungeon?"

"Right." The majordomo scratched his beard aggressively, but almost immediately his face brightened up. "I know just the man for the job. Dodo!"

The soldiers looked at each other again, for a bit longer this time. Now the other one spoke.

"Are you sure we should trust Dodo with this, sir?"

"Absolutely. Dodo is the most reliable man in this castle. He just... he just needs guidance sometimes. Call him at once!" he shouted to the nearest gate guard.

The three men then walked Aerin towards a massive squat tower away from all the buildings. The tower's form protruded inside from the castle walls, and it was a small tiered castle unto itself, with its two sides meeting at a right angle occupying the entire eastern corner of the courtyard - one side facing the open ground itself, the other facing the chapel garden and shaded with its trees. In the near side there were two reinforced doors. The right one was open and inside of it was a staircase leading to the upper floors. The left one, at present, was closed.

The man named Dodo must have been nearby, because he caught up with the men even before they reached the tower. He was roughly the size of a bear, and about as hairy. He saluted Clement awkwardly.

"Dodo, I've got work for you!" the majordomo said, producing from his pocket a ring with maybe twenty keys, and endeavouring to find the right one. "Drop your work in the kennels, you're going to watch over our prisoner now."

"Oh," replied Dodo, in a deep low voice. He glanced at the two men holding Aerin. "Which one is the prisoner?"

Clement stopped fidgeting with the keys, but only for a second. "The boy, Dodo. The one in the middle."

"Oh." He paused. "See, that's what I thought. What with him being a stranger, and what with him being tied." He beamed and nodded at Aerin. Aerin stared.

"Ah, you see, Dodo, what intellectual feats you are capable of when you apply yourself." Clement finally found the right key and unlocked the door. It opened with a tortured creak of a mechanism long unused.

It led into a room with some basic furniture - a dusty table, chairs and benches, heavy wooden chests - evidently meant for the guards. On one wall was a hook with another ring of keys larger than Clement's, and several torches. Across from the entrance a passage opened, long flat steps leading down.

This limestone tunnel was narrow, and its ceiling low, and Dodo had to bend almost in half to navigate it. At the bottom of the stairs the passage opened to a large cavernous vault. There was no need to light the torches - there was plenty of shadowy daylight reaching the dungeons from grated windows. On their right side was solid wall. On their left, a cell - a large space, separated from the corridor by a heavy iron grille with a door in it. The corridor followed on, into the darkness, where presumably more cells could be found; the party, however, stopped right there at the first one, which Clement opened with the key retrieved from the wall.

"Okay Dodo, listen," he started. "You are never to leave the tower while the prisoner is here, which we think will be about two weeks. I'll arrange food and drink to be brought here, for you and the prisoner." He looked around the cell. It was rather large, meant to accommodate maybe ten prisoners, but it was now completely empty - just the bare stone floor, two grated windows high up the wall, and several pairs of black iron manacles hanging from the high ceiling in the middle.

"Alright, Titulus wants the prisoner to survive, so we'll have to make some accommodations. We'll bring some straw for a bedding later today. Do not talk to him, do not let him talk to you. Punch him in the face if he tries. Always make sure he's manacled if you open the door, you hear?"

Dodo smiled and nodded.