the girl, and that in the meantime she would be watched over from a distance, so that if any harm came to her, Coedas’ family would pay for it dearly.
The family had kept the girl safe, teaching her the skills of a goatherd, and saying when people asked that she was their cousin from the south of Ethain, come to stay with them for a while. Visions flashed strongly into Coedas’ head as he spoke of it: Arum bewildered by the goatherds’ plain cottage and basic life, her wonder as she helped him to help a she-goat give birth, her joy over a new kid skipping through the pastures, her pleasure in the mountain flowers, her laughter over her own incompetence as Coedas’ mother patiently taught her how to make cheese from the goats’ milk. He gulped back tears.
Then he told them how his father, Shalaan, had brought back from the village stories of someone asking after a twelve-year-old girl with long brown hair and dark eyes. How Shalaan, knowing that it would be only a matter of time before someone pointed to the goatherds’ cottage on the hillside, had sent Coedas and Arum into the mountains above, to hide for a few days until the questioner had moved on. How Coedas and Arum had climbed and hiked into those mountains, the mountains that bordered Ethain and Morranius, for two days. During that time, Arum had trusted Coedas enough to confess to him exactly who she was. Laellinon of the Lily, the daughter of King Pontas and Queen Veete, the crown princess of Morranius.
On the third day, Coedas and Arum had come upon the cavern. They went inside, exploring, hoping to camp there for a day or two before journeying back down the mountain, and came upon the black door standing eerily alone. They had read the writing on the stone that lay several paces before the door, which said that the door led out of the world of Tabasen and that return could be made only by the traveller’s ‘choosing’ to return. Coedas told how he felt dread upon looking at the door, and had wanted to stay away from it; but, looking up from the writing on the stone, he saw Arum walking towards it.
And then Coedas could no longer hold back his tears as he told the king and the queen and their knights how Arum had stepped through the door and left them and their world behind.
“I hurried through the Laktu Pass to tell you,” Coedas finished.
“I couldn’t stop her. I’m so sorry.”
The queen wept, and the king sighed bitterly, and the knights hung their heads. For a short while, no one spoke.
Sir Trit-Cohn cleared his throat and put his hands behind his back. “I am Laellinon’s godfather,” he told Coedas huskily. “When Laellinon’s cousin Ratarkus – may he never know peace – attacked this castle of Tarafel, I hid her and brought her through the mountains to you and your family to hide her from him, for if Ratarkus could have killed her, he would have removed the heir to the throne and made his own way to power easier.”
The goatherd nodded. “Arum told me. She didn’t tell me your name though.”
Trit-Cohn nodded proudly. “Good girl.” He swallowed, and fell silent.
Even though Their Graces were present, Lathel took the liberty of finishing the story for Coedas. “Ratarkus has been overpowered and exiled into the East, into Naashkah, where dragons roam, as punishment.” Lathel hesitated. “… My lord Trit-Cohn was about to visit your family and bring back the princess.”
Oh. Coedas slumped in his chair and closed his eyes. He thought he heard Sir Hove give a sigh.
After a moment, Lathel continued.
“I am a knight of Ethain. Twelve years ago, His Grace King Toridan sent me here to aid the royal family of Morranius, as a gesture of goodwill. I am – was – a friend of Laellinon’s. I have known her all her life. Sir Hove” – he gestured to the much younger, black-haired man on his right – “was like a brother to her.” Sir Hove remained silent, his shoulders sunk, his head bowed. He seemed to be only a few years older than Coedas. “He was sent here with me, all those years ago, to act as my page.”
Lathel looked at Coedas, and seemed to want to say more, but the king spoke first, his voice thick with grief. “Coedas, you are dismissed. We thank you for your story. We will speak with you again later.”
Coedas bowed his head, and left the king’s private audience chambers. After a moment, Sir Lathel followed him. “Come,” he said simply. This time it was not a command, but a request.
The goatherd followed him to the ramparts of the castle. They leaned on an embrasure. Lathel spoke.
“No doubt Their Graces will thank you for safeguarding their daughter … but, for myself, I thank you. Wherever she is now, she might have been dead if you had not taken care of her.”
There was silence between them for a moment. The ordinary sounds of the castle floated around them in the early afternoon air. Workers were repairing a part of the wall that had been damaged by Ratarkus’ war machines. Birds twittered, and inside the courtyard a horse whinnied and snorted. Coedas’ stomach growled in hunger.
“I just wish I could have stopped her,” Coedas blurted, and to his disgust and dismay he burst into tears again. Then, to his surprise, he found Lathel’s arms wrapping around him.
“She made her own decision,” said the knight. “She chose to go through that door.” He felt his throat constrict. “She could be so accursedly headstrong!”
Coedas gave a feeble laugh. “I know!”
Lathel almost smiled, his vision blurring. “And she would try just about anything to get her own way.”
Coedas nodded, his head rubbing against Lathel’s tunic. “She could be so convincing, when she argued.”
The man let go his embrace, and looked again at the view for a moment, composing himself. “Are you hungry?” he asked Coedas, who shook his head. “The baying of your stomach makes you a liar, Coedas. Come with me. I have a sort of tea that is very refreshing. …”
Later, that evening, Sir Lathel invited the boy goatherd to share his evening meal. They sat by the fire in Sir Lathel’s chambers, and the food was the simple sort that Coedas was used to, for Lathel did not feel like eating delicacies that night.
“I had a dream about Laellinon once,” Lathel told the boy. “I dreamed that I saw her turn away from me and step onto a grand ship full of people, and I lost her in the crowd. I called her name, but the ship sailed away, and in the dream I never saw her again. I didn’t think much about it, but sometimes, when I was watching her, it would come back to me.”
Lathel swirled the fragrant, mulled wine in his cup, then set it down on the hearth, leaned forward in his chair, and stared into the flames.
“It seems as though I knew her for only a few years. Maybe only months.”
Coedas was silent. The fire cracked, and a few sparks flew up, vanishing within the flames or up the chimney; shining brightly and then disappearing, like someone they both knew. After a while, Lathel found himself softly singing the old lullaby. For a moment, clear as the stars on a frosty night, he saw the little face with its dark eyes gazing up at him from his arms, and the realisation that those small ears would never again hear his lullaby hurt him like a knife-blow.
King Pontas and Queen Veete stood on the marble-topped platform in the central square of the capital city of Morash, wearing impressive but sombre royal garb, and informing their subjects that the crown princess Laellinon, their daughter, was gone, and might never return. They did not mention Coedas nor his family, saying only that the princess had chosen of her own will to leave this world for another, whilst in hiding during the siege laid by the now-banished Ratarkus. Coedas listened and watched with his family – mother, father and brother – from amongst Their Graces’ entourage. Beside him stood Sir Lathel, and near him Sir Hove. On the platform with Their Graces was Sir Trit-Cohn, Laellinon’s godfather, with his wife, Laellinon’s godmother.
The crowd disbanded slowly after Their Graces had dismissed it, murmurs of dismay and sympathy for the king and queen rippling through it like the wind through wheat. The Morranians’ cherished princess had unexpectedly deserted them. Why had she done it? All over the Four Kingdoms and beyond, people would hear the story and
shake their heads.
Coedas and his family were richly rewarded for their service to the crown of Morranius, but they chose to remain goatherds in their plain cottage below the mountains, for they loved their goats and they loved their life in the hills. But Coedas asked for Sir Lathel to buy him a few sturdy horses as part of the gift, so that he could ride through the Laktu Pass and visit Lathel at Tarafel. And if ever Princess Laellinon had hoped that her deeds, mischievous and otherwise, whilst in hiding with the goatherds would go unheard by her friend Sir Lathel, she would have been disappointed, for Lathel and Coedas talked about her, and laughed over her, and remembered her, for as long as they both lived.
The End.