The Greater Challenge Beyond (The Southern Continent Series Book 3) (7 page)

Several minutes later, after Grange finished soaking and scrubbing in the tub, he returned to the outer chamber and found a set of green and red clothes waiting for him.  He dressed in the outfit, noting that it was slightly mismatched, but understanding that the clothes had been collected on the spur of the moment to meet his immediate needs.

When he opened his door he found that an armed guard had been assigned to serve as his guide down to the dining room.  “Lead on,” Grange said in a friendly tone.

The man looked at him.  “You’ll wear that?” he asked, hesitating as he spoke in Grange’s language.

“It’s better than what I wore on the way here,” Grange admitted.  If he thought he was likely to spend any time in Southgar, he’d have to learn to speak their language, he told himself.

The guard hesitated, then shrugged, then took the lead, going down to the dining room, where Hope, her uncle, and a pair of others were already waiting around a table.

“Grange!” Hope said with some hint of distress in her voice.  “What outfit are you wearing?” she asked.

“It was the best one available,” he said blithely.  “Your clothes look nice,” he added, as he noted the blue, white, and silver gown she had changed to.  It provided a startling alteration in her appearance, confirming her claim that she was a princess, though Grange had never doubted it, as she had an indisputably regal air about her.

She motioned for Grange to circle around the table to join her, and he obediently complied.

“This is my uncle, Goala, the Earl of Skengare, and his sons, my cousins, Oehla and Skore,” she motioned to each of the three with her.  Grange had met Skengare at the castle gate, an older man who was true to the Southgar archetype of pale, light-haired, and thin.  Oehla was heavier than his father, but similar, while Skore had a head of thick auburn hair that differentiated him from the others in his family.

“He’s my father’s brother,” Hope explained as each of the men stuck hands out and shook with Grange.

“Where did you two meet?  Where have you been?” Goala asked.

“Let’s be seated, uncle.  I’m famished!” Hope insisted.  “We’ll tell you the whole story while we eat.”

Grange was pointed to a seat across from Hope, as Goala sat at the table’s head and the two sons, each slightly older than Grange, sat on the sides of the table as well.  Servants delivered plates of warm bread, which all the diners immediately began to eat.

“It started when Acton spoke to me in a dream, and told me to rescue Jenniline,” Hope began her story.  Oehla guffawed around his mouthful of bread, spewing crumbs across the table.

“I snuck south to find her,” Hope ignored the action, “but I was caught in the near wilderness by the Bloomingians.

“They took me captive and held me, and they said they were going to force me to marry the Bloomingian pretender to the throne,” she explained.

The men all looked at Grange, who shook his head sorrowfully.

“They said it was going to be their way to restore their line to the throne,” she explained.

“They told me that she would either be married or they would ransom her for money and weapons,” Grange interjected.   “I couldn’t stand the thought of that.”

“Grange came to my tent, and we talked, and then he came back and smuggled me out at night,” Hope resumed her story.  “Then we traveled for four, almost five days to get here, and now we’re safe,” she smiled.  “Thanks to Grange.”

“So you’re from the Bloomingian camp?” Goala asked Grange.

“No, I was walking through the wilderness on my way to Southgar, and got swept up by the Bloomingians.  I didn’t know their camp was there,” Grange answered.

“Traveling through the southern wilderness?  From where?” Skore asked skeptically, as a large dish of wide noodles was delivered to the table.

“I met Jenniline at the Yellow Spring.  I drank the water there, and now I don’t remember anything,” Grange answered directly.

“So you were traveling with Jenniline?” Oehla asked.

“For a while,” Grange answered.  “But we split up.  I couldn’t travel as fast as she could.  She left Hot Springs a day before I did,” he told them.

“And they told this story to you too, about how they found this wandering boy in the wilderness?” Goala asked Hope, as platters of sliced meat were also added to the table.

“Well, Grange told me some, and they said some of the same, and I just heard a little more here,” she answered.  “He told me about Jenniline in the wilderness.  He knew that Trensen was with her before he died.”

“Trensen’s dead?” all three men looked at Grange.  “How could that be?” Goala asked in a hollow voice.

Grange hesitated.  He didn’t want to describe how the others in the group had been possessed by the small demons.  It wasn’t a believeable story, he knew, though he’d lived through it.

“It was an accident,” Grange tried to gloss it over.  “All three of them, Burr, Trensen, Anthel, they all died, and I was injured,” he lamely tried to explain.

“What kind?” Oehla started to ask, before his father waved him off.

“So what are your plans now?” Goala asked Hope instead.

“I want to go home to the palace.  I figured Grange could escort me there, since he’s my Protector,” she smiled between words and bites of food, as she tried to sample every dish that had flowed to the table during the conversation.

“Is he a good fighter, then?” Skore asked.  “Did you see him fight?”

“No, we were never detected while we escaped, and so he never had to fight.  But he’s pretty good, he told me,” she asserted.

“Will you have his child?” Oehla asked, shocking the room into silence.

“Well, I mean,” the young man put down the tumbler of ale he had been drinking.  “With all this talk of marrying and breeding and all, I just wondered what the two of you did in the wilderness together all those nights.”

“That’s rude,” Grange couldn’t prevent himself from saying.  He pushed his chair noticeably back from the table.  “She’s a lady and I’m a gentleman.  We did nothing of that order.”

“I apologize for my son,” Goala said immediately, as he stared at Oehla.  “He didn’t phrase the question well.

“We’re just glad you’re here,” the uncle said to Hope.  “And we’re glad you’ve brought her safely to us,” he said to Grange.

“Now, I’m sure that after your long day, you’d like to return to your rooms and get some rest,” he said.  He motioned to a servant, and an attractive girl entered from the shadows of the hallway.  “Here is Morine; she’ll escort our guest to his room,” Goala stood and motioned for the serving girl to come next to Grange.

“We’ll take Hope back to her room, and chat along the way,” he added.  “Please lead on, and enjoy your evening in our home,” he said to Grange.

“Come with me,” Morine said to Grange. 

He turned and bowed to Hope.  “I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asked the question as much as he stated a fact, feeling a strange sense of uncertainty about what was going to happen next.

“Most certainly, Knight Protector!” Hope smiled at him.

Morine led him back through the halls of the castle to his room.  When they reached his door, she stopped and knelt down to pick up a wine bottle and two glasses that had been left in front of his door.

“The castle is offering you its fullest hospitality,” she told him with an odd smile, a forced expression it seemed.  “Shall we go in and drink a toast to your arrival?”

“”Thank you,” Grange prevaricated, feeling both exhausted, and reluctant to invite the girl into his room.  “I could go to sleep this instant without a drop of wine to drink.”

“This is from the best vineyard in the region.  You owe it to the Earl to at least try a glass,” Morine pressed.  She boldly opened the door.  “I’d like a chance to hear about your adventures, besides,” she added with another forced smile.

Grange followed her into the room.  She opened the wine bottle and set it on a side table after filling the two glasses.  “Here’s a toast to your arrival,” she told Grange in a soft voice, after she handed a glass of wine to him.  She stood close, and when she raised her toast, her face was just inches from his.  He raised his own glass, and following a soft clink of the ceramic goblets, they each took a sip of their wine.

“Drink up,” Morine insisted as she stepped back.  “We want the lord to know that we appreciate the gift of this wine.”

Grange politely took another sip of the wine, and as he did, Morine reached over and tipped the bottom of the goblet higher, so that the ruby red contents gushed forward into Grange’s mouth, while some flowed onto his cheek and dripped down onto his chin.  He desperately gulped down the liquid in his mouth to overcome the deluge.

“Forgive me please!  That was just too tempting,” Morine said contritely.  “Here,” she lifted the bottle and poured more into Grange’s glass.  “Just have a bit more.”

“You can take the bottle with you,” Grange answered.  He felt tired, even more tired after drinking the wine, his mind feeling fuzzier.  He wanted the girl to simply leave, so that he could sprawl upon his bed and descend into a restful sleep at last.  “I don’t want any more.”

“Just drink this bit,” she urged, as she pressed his hand and the goblet it held towards his mouth.  “And then it will be bed time.”

“Just drink this and then you’ll leave so that I can go to bed?” Grange asked owlishly.

“Yes dear, just drink all of this in one swallow and you’ll be done for the night,” she assured him in a sweet voice.

Grange swallowed the wine, then felt his grasp on the goblet start to weaken.  The room was spinning, as he felt Morine take his hand and lead him over towards the bed.

The goblet fell from his grasp, just before he sat on the mattress.

“You just lie down and sleep,” Morine told him.  His eyes fluttered open and shut, watching her as she looked down on him with a satisfied expression, then walked away.  And that was the last thing he saw before he fell profoundly asleep.

Chapter 6

Grange woke up in the darkness, groggy and confused.  He was in pitch black surroundings, on a bumpy, hard surface.

“Hope?” he asked at first, thinking that he was still on the journey through the wilderness.

As soon as he heard his own voice though, he remembered that he had reached the end of the journey, or at least a stop that was close to the end.  He had the freed princess delivered to her own family, and they were just a short journey away from her home.

“Hello?” he called as he sat up.  He put his hands down, and felt more of the rough surface.  It was gravelly.  It wasn’t his mattress.  He must have fallen onto the floor, and the floor must be strangely dirty, he tried to conjecture.

He suddenly remembered drinking wine, and Morine.  The girl had been strangely persistent in coming into his room and making sure he drank wine, he recollected.

“Hello?” he stood up shakily, and tried to remember which direction the windows were in, so that he could open them and see if it was light outside.  He placed his hands in front of him, realized that he felt unsteady, and still tired, then took two steps before his hands touched the wall next to him.

It was a hard, clammy, cool wall, one made of stone or brick.  He didn’t recollect any walls in his room that were made of stone or brick.

He spun around and stooped to lower his hands, then explored the space behind him, searching for his bed mattress.  He stepped and stepped and stepped, until his fingertips bluntly collided with another stone wall.

Puzzled, he placed his hands on the wall and edged along its length, one hand high and one low to intercept furniture.  He turned the inside of a corner, and after an improbably short distance, he turned another corner.  The realization was dawning on him that he was no longer in the room where he had fallen asleep, and when he came to a metal grill door, he knew something had gone terribly astray.

“Hey!” He shouted loudly through the metal bars, as he rattled them, and his hands groped to find a latch or other means of opening the door.  There seemed to be a faint glimmer of light off to his left, he sensed, too dim to reveal any details of his surroundings.

“Hello!” he shouted again, as he continued his tactile exploration of the door.  There was a single place where a latch was installed, but it was immovable – locked somehow, by something he couldn’t see.

He left the door and continued around the walls of the room, which proved to be a very small cell, one whose perimeter took little time to define before returned to the door again – the door and a built in bench were the only features.  His sword and knife were missing he realized, when he considered the prospect of trying to dig out the mortar around the hinges of the door.

He found his way to the bench and sat down in bafflement.  He was still groggy, and slowly drifted off to sleep as he leaned back against the wall, but he started into upright alertness when he heard a cacophonous clanging noise sometime later.

A glow was visible through his door, and it grew brighter as he sprang up, anxious to find out what had happened – what mistake had been made to move him to his cell, and where Hope was (he prayed she was not in a cell somewhere else).

“Hello!  Hope?” he called.

“Stop your racket!” a voice rasped.

Moments later a pair of torches appeared at his door, bright enough in the darkness that their glare was blinding.  Grange was unable to see who was at his cell door, but he heard the rattle of metal on metal, and then heard the hinges creak open.

“Traitor, we’re here to find out what you had planned,” Grange heard Goala say, as he watched the Earl step out of the glare of the two torches, which spread to either side of him in the small cell.

“I’m not a traitor; I’m not even a part of Southgar, as far as I know, except that Hope called me her Protector,” Grange answered.  It was baffling – completely baffling – to him as to how such a situation of mistaken identity, or mistaken assumptions, could have come to such a ludicrous situation.

Goala’s hand appeared out of the darkness and slapped Grange’s cheek hard, rattling his teeth and sending him crashing backwards against the stony wall behind him.