Evil Kings and Princesses In Towers
“You running from something, lass?” the grizzled captain asks as he considers the silver in his hand. “I don’t abscond with other men’s wives.”
“I’m not married,” she grits out, “not that it’s any business of yours anyway. Will you take me as a passenger or not?”
“No can do, sweetheart.” To his credit, he returns every coin she offered to him. “You won’t be finding a captain here who will take the risk. The king’s navy has been cracking down. You need papers.”
He speaks sense, and he’s polite, so she just grumbles out her thanks and leaves.
The next captain she tries to haggle with has no room on his ship. She spends a precious coin for lunch, fried fish and tomatoes, and then, wiping sweat from her forehead, goes to the next boat on the pier.
--
“What are you running from?”
“Who says I’m running from anything?”
“Fair enough.”
Riley thinks of the coins safely nestled at the bottom of her pack which will let her start a new life, coins this captain had refused when she could have demanded them all and Riley would have paid. She thinks about every ship’s captain who denied her passage because of her lack of papers. So she tries out trust. “My family.”
“What’d they do? Try to marry you off to some ugly ginger-headed scab?”
She laughs so suddenly, after weeks of grim-faced determination, that it surprises her. “No, not that,” she says. “Marrying the ugly ginger-headed scab was my first escape idea. No. They…” She looks away to the horizon line. “It will sound so ridiculous.”
“I make a living out of ridiculous. Have you seen my hats?”
“I…” She readies herself with a breath and decides to go with the easier truth. “My brother beat me. Had ever since we were children. I got tired of it.”
Grace presses gentle fingers to her arm, and Riley looks back at her.
“Good on you, lass,” she says. “Not many have the courage. Especially so young. You did a good thing.”
“Grace O’Malley?”
“Yes, sweet thing?”
“Take me to the horizon.”
“As the lady orders.”
--
The musician, a pale, frail-looking lad of no more than nineteen years, strummed a finely-made lute in the corner. An upturned hat sat next to him. Riley peered into it when he was sufficiently distracted by other patrons of the tavern. Mostly bronze coins, which could be expected, but there were a few silvers, too. She felt around in her pocket, keeping an eye on the bedraggled man who had been following her for the past three miles.
She pointedly dropped a polished gold sovereign into his hat when he looked up at her with surprised eyes. She dropped a second one.
“Do you take requests?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
He looked at her, but he wasn’t thinking about it. He was studying her face, and for a long moment, he was silent. Then he said, “Sometimes.”
“Would you be offended if I asked for a song as a distraction?”
“What kind of distraction?”
“The kind that lets me pull someone outside without drawing attention.”
“Who?”
“The man over my left shoulder. Blonde hair, middle height, blue coat with a black cloak over the chair next to him.”
“What’s he done?”
“Maybe nothing.”
The young man turned the thought over in his mind, uncertainty shadowing his expression. If he smiled, he might be truly lovely, she thought as she waited for his pronouncement.
“Will you kill him?”
“Not likely, but I will if he tries to kill me first.”
He plucked at a few lute strings and then faintly smiled. “An hour’ll see all these louts further in their cups. I’ll start a rousing chorus of a drinking song. Whatever you do after that point is hardly my business.”
“Much appreciated, good sir.” She toasted him with her cup and wandered back to her seat, smiling at the barmaid as she walked by.
--
“A princess in a tower,” Riley deadpanned.
“A tower-bound child of a queen, yes.”
“Tell me there isn’t a dragon.”
“Of course there’s a fucking dragon, I’m not about to lie to you.”
Riley buried her face in her hands. “I appreciate your commitment to honesty in our friendship, but I really wish you would lie.” She sighed deeply. “So there’s a dragon.”
“There’s a dragon.”
“Any chance it’s under some spell and that if we break or interrupt the spell, it won’t fry us to a crisp and then consume us as a very disappointing snack for a creature of its size?”
“If it’s under some sort of enchantment, it would take more intricate spellwork than I’m capable of to break it.”
“Good. Great. That’s exactly what I want to hear. A dragon guarding the only living heir to the evil king who's probably working with a power-crazed magician.”
“Cheer up, my lady!” Amelia punched her upper arm. “We probably won’t die.”
--
Riley kicks her heels up onto the worn tabletop, balancing on the back legs of her chair, trying to hide a grin. “Well, well, Captain,” she raises her voice to greet the red-clad woman, “the fear you inspire and the lush curves of your body are a delight, as always.” She mimes tipping a hat she isn’t wearing. “How is the pirate life?”
Captain Grace O’Malley sweeps her feather-plumed hat from her head and makes an extravagant bow. “Riley McDaniels, it has been too long. Blessed as I am, life is profitable as always.” She returns her hat to its jaunty angle on her head, brushing her dreadlocks over her shoulder. “Will you ever accept my offer to spend a few months on the waves with me?”
“If ever I was to run away with a dashing pirate to a life on the high seas, it would be with you, my dear.” Riley knocks back the rest of her drink. “You got my letter?”
“I got your letter. Treat me to a drink, and we’ll discuss our terms.”
Riley grins, broad and unashamed. “Aye, aye, Captain,” she says with a salute, settling herself back onto the floor. “Gather our supplies,” she tells her friends as she stands. “Get your gear repaired. My coin purse is… somewhere.”
“How do you know her?” Garrett whispers.
Riley grins again and leans down to tap the tip of Garrett’s nose with her finger. “It’s a long story.”
--
“Those friends are new,” Grace comments when Riley sets a glass of wine in front of her. “Well, not Amelia. I know her. The others, though.”
Riley sheds her weather-beaten coat and drapes it over the back of her chair and then drops down into her seat. “The bard, he joined up a month ago. I ran into him at this tavern up north. The mage is less of a mage and more of a sorcerer’s apprentice. Saved my sorry hide when I got into it with a mythical creature.”
Grace laughs. “Just what have you been up to, hm?”
“The mythical creature was a griffon guarding an orb of power in the foothills. I may have made it angry. Near clawed my eyes out, but thankfully, it was less than successful. As for the mage, I met her when I broke into the sorcerer’s castle. I’d heard that he was hoarding some gems that were poisoning the countryside. Turns out the farmers just hadn't rotated their crops for a few too many seasons."
“You’ve been busy,” Grace says with warm and fond approval in her eyes. “Now, what’s this about needing to go east?”
Riley shifts, mouth twisting as she tries to think of a way to fully explain the situation at hand. “You know the king?”
Grace smirks. “I take great pleasure in plundering his merchants’ boats.”
“If only you would plunder my boats.”
“I will plunder anything of yours that you desire, sweet thing.”
Riley giggles until it turns into a snort. She tries to be a bit more sober as she continues. “He’s conspiring with – somebody. A mage who’s been making people disappear. At least we think it's a mage. People disappear, others die, children are getting snatched off the streets, resources mismanaged -- a bad winter will set the country to starvation, you know. It needs to stop, so we're going to stop it. Amelia thinks she can trace the mage, and I know a pistol will do a king in just as well as any bandit. So we need to go east."
Grace considers her words, leaning back in her chair but still carefully studying Riley’s face. “That’s ambitious,” is what she decides on.
“Our original plan was to travel overland, which would have been quicker. But.” She looks down, her earlier mirth evaporating as she struggles to explain. “It’s, you know I left home and never looked back when I was seventeen. And travel’s – you need a pass so you don’t get stopped by the patrols. Applying to get passes for everyone would take too long. But local nobility can write them for anyone on the spot. I went to Marian for that, and she was going to make introductions for me, but somehow, I don’t even know how, though it's not really a surprise, my family’s been raised to minor nobility. Their representative in court was…”
Grace’s face softens, and Riley traces a knot in the wood of the table with a fingertip.
“Their representative was my brother.”
Grace takes Riley’s hand and lifts it to press a single kiss to her knuckles.
“My ship is yours, my friend. For as long as you need, to whatever destination you require. I’ll be ready to set sail in two days.”
Words get stuck in Riley’s throat, and she can’t do anything by shyly meet Grace’s gaze with wet eyes. “You,” she finally manages to say, “have always been too good to me.”
--
“My only wife is the sea,” Grace says with eyes that glimmer a little too earnestly in the low light. “There are far, far worse fates than never-ending freedom.” She takes a last long drink of her ale and sets the tankard down.
“But I live to see that girl’s smile. I would kill the monsters who haunt her steps, if only she would give me a target.”
“Does she know?” Garrett asks softly. “That you love her?”
“She does.” Grace looks to the stairs where Riley had gone hours ago. “The songs tell me this should hurt, but it doesn’t, so long as she is well. It’s no hardship to love her.”
--
“Pirates!”
“Sweet thing, I’m a pirate.”
“… Other pirates!”
--
“What do you expect me to do? Sit this one out? Wait for someone else to connect the dots and take action?”
“Yes!” Grace exclaims, slamming her palms down onto the table between them. “Yes! That is exactly what I expect! Because I don’t want you to die.”
“I’m not going to die,” Riley scoffs. “Give me some credit.”
“You’re going to fight a dragon!”
“I’m not going to die!”
Grace clenches her jaw, but all at once, the fight drains out of her, and she leans on the table, slumping. “Riley. Please.”
“Grace.”
She closes her eyes and shakes her head, like she can’t even bear to speak another word to her. Riley moves closer and cups her face in her hands. Her eyes are still closed.
“Grace,” she whispers as she brushes her thumbs across her cheekbones. “I’ve never known you to be so afraid.”
“I’m not usually afraid.” She opens her eyes, and suddenly, it’s Riley who wants to close her eyes because the intimacy is overwhelming. “But this is you choosing to walk into danger, unnatural danger. I am afraid, Riley, I feel as though I haven’t slept a full night since you first told me about this ridiculous plan.”
Riley smiles, gently and so sadly. “You know I have to do this. We’re the only ones who can.”
“I know.” Grace rests her warm hands on Riley’s waist, not grabbing – never grabbing. “And I meant what I said. I’ll take you anywhere you like. And anywhere you don’t like but have gotten it in your head to go.”
“When I come back,” Riley says, “because I will come back. When I come back, I’ll take you up on your offer to make a decent pirate out of me. And we can sail to Silvercliff. There are forests full of flowers that only bloom in the presence of true love. I’ll braid them into your hair. We’ll fall asleep as the sun sets.”
Grace laughs and pulls Riley into an embrace. “You are so full of shit,” she laughs.
“That’s the goal."
The mirth fades in the quiet moment.
“I’m going to come back.”
“I know.”