Chasing Dragons 3.2

Astrid sat down on a step, two steps from the bottom. She remained very still. Then she began to talk with no sign of stopping, recounting the events of the day. Nathaniel watched her as she spoke, but she stared ahead into the woods. For the most part her face was smooth, but every so often her forehead would wrinkle and her mouth would open to let out a small sigh, and he could see the worry eating away at her.

“And then we went upstairs and started getting ready for bed and that’s when I saw you out the window.” Astrid turned to meet his eye.

Nathaniel nodded and then looked around. George and Gen had disappeared. Nathaniel hadn’t even noticed. Charlie was standing rather awkwardly several feet away.

“Um, Nat, I tried to keep Gen here but…” He shrugged, looking into the empty bowl of his helmet, held between both hands.

“Don’t worry, he won’t try anything in the grounds.” Nathaniel looked at the horses stamping impatiently. Monty was wandering off for a graze, maybe a nap. “Charlie maybe you should take the horses to the stable.”

“Are we staying?”

Nathaniel looked up at the star-strewn sky. It was a clear night, and only getting colder as the sun’s warmth left. “Do you really want to continue on tonight?”

Charlie shook his head and began gathering up the horses, coaxing Monty to him. Nathaniel and Astrid were left alone on the steps, watching him.

“He’s already got the reins tangled,” Astrid noted, her voice completely flat.

“There’s a reason he’s failed the Masters’ assessment twice, you know.”

The first time Charlie failed, while humiliating, it was to be expected, and he repeated the final year at the Masters’ House of Squires. The second time he failed, it was nothing short of ludicrous. Famously, the Headmaster had said, “We have to make a knight of you somehow, Charlie.”

“Sir,” Charlie had replied, “I think you and I both know I’m not knight material.”

But something had to be done, and when Charlie wrote to Nathaniel, Nathaniel decided it was only right to help his friend in whatever way he could. He had charged all the way from Brushbridge to convince the Masters that an unorthodox approach was needed.

“It’s not the theory that Charlie has trouble with, just the practice,” he had pleaded. “I can teach him all of that, if you let him act as my squire for the year.”

It was unheard of, Nathaniel was largely untested as a knight, only receiving his knighthood two years before. But he had been a star pupil, and he made sure to point out to the Masters that he would probably be king one day, and they had released his best friend into his care.

Nathaniel sometimes wondered if he had made a terrible mistake. Watching Charlie struggle with the three horses was one of those times.

“He’ll get there,” Astrid said softly, pulling Nathaniel out of his own head. He got stuck up there far too much these days.

“Why did Alicia go to get a thimble anyway? Couldn’t one of you have lent her one?”

“It was special… the one you got for her.”

Nathaniel was shocked. That cheap little porcelain thimble he had bought in the docks one day as a souvenir when he was off with Sir Kelvin? “She still has that?”

“Of course. She treasures it. It was the first gift you ever gave her.” Astrid’s voice was wistful. Nathaniel could see her and Alicia, fifteen years old and giggling over a thimble, hiding in Alicia’s big princess bed together, blonde heads just touching as they turned it over in their hands. He wondered if Astrid remembered more details of his relationship with Alicia than he did.

“Did she get it?”

“What?”

“The thimble. Did she get it?”

“I… I don’t know. I never checked.” Astrid frowned. “Why? Do you think it could be important?”

“I don’t know. Possibly.”

Astrid nudged him. “What a pair we are, neither of us knowing anything.”

“Yeah.” Nathaniel found his eyes locked onto hers once more and this time unable to look away. This time the eye contact was solid and would not budge. “What a pair we are,” he murmured.

There was a cough, a soft sound. Astrid looked away first, and Nathaniel, with regret, did so too. Charlie was standing at the bottom of the steps again. “I put the horses in the stables,” he said, scuffing a boot on the ground.

“Good job.” Nathaniel jumped up off the step. “Alright. Well, I suppose we can start searching-“

“Nat, it’s the middle of the night!” Astrid cried.

“No time like the present, they might have gotten a headstart on us-“

“We’ve already searched the whole grounds. There’s nothing.”

“I’m sure you’ve missed something.”

“I don’t think we have.” Astrid walked towards him again. “I really don’t know where she is.”

Nathaniel felt his heart falling. “But then what am I supposed to do?”

He didn’t mean just that evening, of course not. But what was he to do without Alicia? Without her laugh, without the smell of spring off her hair, without her hand in his, without her letters sealed with her father’s sign?

Astrid, of course, understood him. “I don’t know. It can wait until morning.”

“It certainly can!”

Out of the ajar door, Madame Avery herself had appeared. Nathaniel wanted to cower behind something. Her hair was in curl rags and she was dressed in a very flamboyantly painted silk dressing gown, but neither of these things made her less formidable. The woman was built like a fortress, Nathaniel always thought, and when she was angry she was terrifying. Like right now.

“Why, pray, do I have a Ribbon and a Bolt on my doorstep disturbing my wards in the middle of the night? And where is Genevieve?”

“Madame, do forgive us, we came as soon as we heard of the news of Princess Alicia.”

“Young men and their notions.” Madame Avery rolled her eyes. “So you rode all the way out here from the city? How did you hear about it?”

Nathaniel gulped. “Sir George Sigrid told us.”

Madame Avery’s eyes widened a fraction. “Ribbon, go and fetch your cousin.” Charlie took his first chance to run away. “And Astrid, dear,”- why was it her voice softened whenever she talked to the girls anyway? “I know you’ve had a long day, but you should go inside and try to sleep it off.”

“Madame, we do not wish to intrude on your hospitality.” Nathaniel bowed to her.

“And you won’t. You can sleep in my stables this night, and in the morning you will ride back to wherever you came from.” Madame Avery gave a single, curt nod. Nathaniel returned it. Then she appraised Astrid.

“A minute to say our goodnights, Madame?” Astrid tried, and the older woman, after a moment’s hesitation, obliged, and went back inside.

“You and Genevieve are to be in bed in five minutes!”

Her bare feet slapped against the tiles inside, echoing towards them. Astrid smiled a little guiltily. She reached up to whisper in Nathaniel’s ear. Her breath was hot against his face.

“We’re riding to the Capital tomorrow as well, to watch Parliament Proceedings,” she whispered. “Come with us. We can take the canal route, to see if Alicia may have passed that way.” She dropped down off her tiptoes, leaving a head of difference between them.

Genevieve came running from around the corner, looking a little dishevelled, and linked arms with Astrid. “Goodnight!” they called in unison and ran inside, giggling.

The atmosphere between George and Charlie was not so amiable. George clapped Nathaniel on the shoulder and wandered on, hands shoved into his pockets, whistling.

Charlie hung back and he and Nathaniel started several paces later.

“Charlie, they’re only messing around. Nothing bad happened.”

“Only because he didn’t get the opportunity. If he… defiles… Gen, then no one’s going to take her. What’ll become of her?”

Though they were best friends, Nathaniel had never told Charlie the rumour that George had ‘defiled’ Gen long ago. Nathaniel wasn’t protecting Gen. He was more afraid that the news would break Charlie in two.

“She’ll be fine, Charlie.”

“Speaking of, you’re swimming in dangerous waters.” Charlie’s voice retained that serious edge as he turned to face Nathaniel. He suddenly seemed taller than usual, as if he were looking Nathaniel straight in the eye.

“What’s that meant to mean?”

Charlie jerked his head towards the house. “Astrid Race? Have you forgotten your fiancée so quickly?”

“She’s not my fiancée,” Nathaniel insisted. “But I still have no idea what you’re talking about. Astrid and I are just friends.”

“Just like George and Gen are only messing around. I can’t wait until I get a girl. Then I can lie to everyone.” Charlie wandered on, leaving Nathaniel standing alone on the drive in the cool night.

He watched the tower. He used to stand here and watch until Alicia’s candle was blown out, making the third window across from this angle go dark. Tonight that window was dark already.

The wind was picking up, shaking the trees and blowing Nathaniel’s curls out and spreading his hair over his eyes. It tickled and itched and he shoved it away with a hand. He needed a haircut. He stared at the tower, wishing that this was all a bad dream, and Alicia was there after all.

The light in the second window went out, and the tower was shrouded in darkness. Nathaniel gave a sigh (though for what he couldn’t say), and followed the others to the stables.