DISCLAIMER
Though the characters in this tale may physically remind you of
people that you know, they are in no way affiliated with, or based upon, the
characters of Xena and Gabrielle as used in Xena: Warrior Princess. It
may shock you; nay, disgust you to know that I have watched barely three
episodes of your favourite TV series (perhaps four years ago?) and so would not
be able to draw upon those characters even if I wanted to. Not my fault, mind
you, but that of the broadcasting authorities in my country. However, I am aware
of certain physical similarities and therefore invite you to employ your own
wild imagination to make the leap.
Art thou suggestingeth that I am a
pottymouth? For shame! Eth! Truth be told this story has no more swearing and
violence and bad behaviour than your average fairytale. Oh wait. In those
children get eaten by wolves who are subsequently chopped up violently by no
doubt swearing woodsmen. I have no wolves or woodsmen. Maybe a little bad
language in the best sense of the word. And sex? Pfft. Don't be ridiculous. I'm
a good girl, I am.
COMMENTS
You are most
welcome to share them with me, as long as you adore me madly. No, but really.
Please don't waste time with pettiness or snotty comments - karma will pay
attention, but I won't. Constructive criticism will be welcomed with open arms.
As will pounds, yen, dollars, euros and still Diane
Lane. Find me at: kalexy@webmail.co.za
AND FINALLY
Thank you
to those who have e-mailed me - I appreciate your comments greatly. I cannot,
however, return the favour, because my server is apparently disinclined to do
so. Just know that if I had ten more fingers I would have to buy new handpuppets
(unacceptable), that I am a great fan of people who write without punctuation,
and that I wanted this story to be 15 chapters long, it demanded 10 more for
overtime, and we finally settled somewhere in the middle.
CHAPTER
FIVE
Crispin was surprised to see
the sun sitting higher than usual when she pried her eyes open the next morning.
It was not the sunlight that had woken her, however, but a strange burning
sensation on her stomach. Rapidly increasing, too. She looked down to see the
princess plastering large green leaves over the scalded skin, a beatific smile
on her face. Helena’s expression swiftly changed to horrified when the knight
vaulted from the bedroll, knocking her hands away and brushing at the leaves
frantically to dislodge them.
“Hey!”
“What in the name of… “
“I went to pick some leaves
to soothe your burns. I read about these in a book of…“ She stopped talking
as the knight began a strange hopping sort of dance, rubbing her stomach
frantically. “Crispin?”
“You… yaaaah!” The
knight looked around frenetically before she ran off into the forest like a
rabid wolf. With a sigh Helena got to her feet and followed Crispin’s strange
sounds as fast as she could. Where the trees parted to allow a pretty little
river, the princess found the knight sitting in the freezing shallow water,
scratching at her stomach furiously. With a scowl Helena sat down on a rock near
the bank, crossing her legs and resting her elbows on her knees.
“Do you have that much of
an affinity for water?”
“You…” Crispin seemed
to be struggling with the wording, “… you... was it a book of witchcraft
you were reading??” She sounded livid.
“Why would you say that?”
There was now a pronouncedly insulted air about Helena.
“Because…” Crispin’s
voice started out silky, “that is the only book that will possibly
advise you to cure a burn WITH POISON IVY!!”
“Oh …” Helena’s
expressive green eyes widened in shock. “Poison Ivy? Are you sure?”
The knight stood up and held
her arms theatrically away from her body. Her stomach, which was moderately
swollen and red yesterday, was now raised in blazing angry bumps. “I’m
sure.” Eyeing the princess with malevolence she sat back down, bathing her
stinging skin in the icy water.
Helena bit her lip in dread.
“Will the… does the water help for it?”
The knight seemed to bite
back a few retorts before she finally replied, her voice barely audible and
barely under control. “I don’t know. At least the cold is numbing it.”
The princess sat on the rocks
for a moment, completely lost for words, and then cleared her throat.
“Crispin?” The knight merely glared at her darkly. “Crispin, I’m
terribly sorry. I was only trying to help you because… “
“Stop – trying – to –
help - me.”
“But Crispin, I was just
trying to…”
“If you help me any more I
am probably going to die.” Crispin’s words were clipped and abrupt. “So
far, Helena, I have been helped towards a dragon, into a burst of fire, down a
hill, into a pond, into a bunch of poison ivy, and right back into the water.
You have just turned me into someone who is now completely and utterly terrified
of having any assistance whatsoever perpetrated towards me!”
Helena looked like a child
who’d been reprimanded. “But that’s not fair, Crispin. Just yesterday you
told me that my impulse to help is not a bad thing... “
“Yesterday I was only burnt
and wet.”
“My intentions were
good!”
“Your intentions are taking
my skin off in patches!” Crispin ground her teeth angrily. “Tomorrow you can
go back to your tower. Crown and all.”
“What? Now you don’t want
me anymore?” The princess was a picture of righteous indignation. With a scowl
she folded her arms and stuck her nose in the air. The knight sighed, spotting
an unfair defeat approaching in the distance.
“Don’t want you? Excuse
me? Yesterday you were begging to go
back and today you’re complaining about rejection?”
“Crispin, do you know what
your problem is?”
“Still you?”
“No.” Helena stood up and
dusted her dress off imperiously. “Your problem is that you have
no good intentions. And that,
Crispin, is why you do not appreciate it in other people.” She turned her back
on the wet knight, ignoring the open mouth. “I am going back to the camp. To
pack my bag. Enjoy the water.”
The small blonde was stuffing
the last dress into her bag with vehemence when there was a sudden sneeze behind
her.
“I do have good intentions.
Isn’t it a good intention to let you go back?”
Ferociously Helena pounded
the ample material into the small opening with her fists. “No. It is not. You
do not want to do it for me; you want to do it for yourself. So that you can be
rid of me.”
“Well, yes, I can’t argue
with that.” Sneeze. “But I had good intentions when it came to the dragon
– I followed you up there to make sure you would be safe.”
“You were protecting an
acquisition. My highly lauded and oft discussed crown.” The princess suddenly
stopped pummelling the dress, yanking it out fiercely instead. Then she sank her
arm into the leather bag and scrabbled around, completely surprising Crispin
when she withdrew her hand and lobbed the weighty golden crown at the knight.
“There. Have it.” Her
hands were clasping the blanket which was draped around her shoulders, and
Crispin could not react quickly enough to catch the offending object. It struck
her chest with a hollow thump and dropped onto the ground, landing on one of her
feet. Both women stared at the crown for a moment before the knight nonchalantly
pulled her throbbing foot from under it.
“I do not want it. Not like
this.” Pulling the blanket closer about her freezing shoulders she stepped
over the crown and looked earnestly into wide green eyes. “Helena. A lot of
what you have said is completely correct. I more often than not do have my own
best interests at heart. But when I followed you to the dragon it was not one of
those times.”
“Fine.” Helena blinked
and looked away, slightly taken aback by the candid sentiment in the knight’s
bright blue eyes. “But I am still going back.”
“Fine.” Sneeze. “Your
constant bickering is driving me to drink anyway.” Turning around Crispin bent
down and picked up the crown, hefting it in one hand pensively. “Heavy. And
quite attractive, too.” She handed it over to Helena, who promptly stuffed it
back into her bag. “If your aim had been better you could have cracked my
skull.”
“It will probably improve
with practice.” Helena picked up the dress which she had so unceremoniously
dumped on the ground and tried to dust it off. At the sound of another sneeze
she frowned and turned to study the knight, who was now sitting on a rock with
the blanket wrapped around her. “Crispin, are you feeling poorly?”
“If I say yes, will you
drug me with nightshade?”
“If you say yes I’ll know
you’re feeling weak and be more optimistic about my ability to suffocate you
when you’re sleeping.” Stuffing her dress back into her bag Helena muttered
irritably under her breath. “Insufferable knights and their insufferable
...”
“Excuse me, I …”
sneeze, “missed the last part.”
“I wasn’t.
Addressing. You.” The princess dropped the bag and composed herself.
“Now look, Crispin. If you don’t … Are you still
wearing those wet things?” Striding over to the knight Helena pried the edges
of the blanket from her cold fingers and opened it, her eyebrows almost touching
her hairline. “No wonder you’re not feeling … you dim-witted knight…
take that off right now.” When Crispin complied Helena draped her own warm dry
blanket around the knight’s shoulders and hung the damp one over a branch in
the sun. Crispin kept a hand cupped over her mouth surreptitiously, as much to
control her sneezing as to hide her silent laughter at the incessant and rather
rude muttering coming from the sweet-faced young blonde.
“If they just stop to
consider, but noooo … son of a … I’d be better off with an inebriated
Valkyrie suffering from a bout of … and then she behaves like a bloody
bandy-legged badger with a propensity for … has the audacity to accuse me
of… Crispin?”
“Yes, Helena?”
“How far is the closest
town from us?”
“About two days.”
“That settles it then.”
With a toss of her golden hair Helena started gathering their things. “We’re
going. I need to sleep in an actual bed. And you need to get some rest.” She
began to saddle Toby with the skill of a goat herd, and then looked at the
bemused knight over her shoulder. “Up. Come now. You do this while I tie the
bedrolls.”
“Is this the part where I
start getting decent rest?”
“Don’t try to be clever
with me.”
“I don’t have to try.”
“Shut up!”
Sneeze.
All in all, Helena thought to
herself, the next day could probably have been worse. How, she was not sure, not
at all - but it helped to have a positive outlook on even the most miserable of
miserable times. Or so those damned “Aid thyself” books said.
“Perhaps if a griffin sat
down on me by accident…”
Sneeze. “Whad?”
“Nothing. I was talking to
myself.”
“Oh.”
The princess kneeled next to
the fire, her brow furiously furrowed as she stirred the soup. Behind her the
knight sat propped against a log, her cheeks a flaming red against the grey
blankets which were wrapped around her. To Helena’s extreme ire the dark woman
had refused her offers of assistance graciously. It wasn’t so much the refusal
that irked her as the polite tone of voice in which it had been delivered –
somehow Crispin could make the most courteous comment sound completely impolite.
What she had said, exactly, was: Thank you for your concern, but I am actually
not feeling too poorly. What she had meant, exactly, was: Stay away,
I’m too young to die.
Muttering another inventive
oath under her breath Helena gave a floating chunk of meat a stab that would
have severely damaged it if it hadn’t already been dead.
Before glancing at the knight she took a moment to compose a positively horrific
scowl, but the effort (as usual) was wasted on the woman - Crispin had fallen
into a light sleep and was snoring delicately. Curling her top lip into a rather
inelegant snarl Helena gave a frustrated growl and turned back to the soup,
poking around for another victim to molest. It wouldn’t have been so bad, she
mused, if she had actually been looking forward to reaching the next town in a
day or two just so that she could discard the knight and return to her tower
with her crown intact. The truth was - and this most definitely needed to stay
between her and the flickering flames she was staring into – that imagining
herself back in her tower with her books did not exactly provide the thrill she
had imagined it would. The knight was an infuriating character, refusing with a
certain amused inattention to yield to any of her wiles, and yet… And yet
what? Biting her bottom lip thoughtfully she stirred the soup. And yet… even
without the excitement of dragons and fire and all kinds of potentially
hazardous situations, Crispin had shown her a way of life which was so much more
stimulating than the royal domestic lassitude she had imagined to be her goal
all of this time. Helena grimaced slightly and glanced back at the sleeping
knight. Aye. There lies the rub, making a sound like a purring feline. This
woman had almost been toasted alive, had rusted into her suit of armor, had been
plastered with poisonous leaves, and had picked up an illness – all due to one
sweet little blonde princess. Convincing her that it would be a passable idea to
take that same sweet little blonde princess with her on her travels would take
more than natural charm – it would take outright begging. And that was one
skill Helena did not possess. She did, however, possess a fiery imagination, and
by the time she had finished her soup her mind had already offered up and worked
through a suited argument, leaving her outraged at the imaginary Crispin’s
lack of reason and downright discourtesy.
Of the two women sitting
around the fire that night, only one understood what had just transpired to make
her so fractious. The other could only utter a groggily confused “huh” as a
soup spoon was unceremoniously stuffed into her mouth.
It was with immense joy that
Crispin spotted the outer walls of the little town close to dusk on the
following day. Helena had been strangely belligerent the whole day, and it was
all the knight could do not to motion Toby into a gallop and simply leave the
argumentative girl behind on her own. The forest had thinned out and their
surroundings were now more even and open, but even in this area bandits and
villains roamed freely; men who had been forcibly removed from society, and
preyed on vulnerable parties at the edges of it. Sniffing peevishly the knight
eyed the young blonde who was now having a complete conversation with an
appreciative Toby, and then scratched a spot of rust off her armor with one
fingernail. Once she was ensconced in a comfortable bed at a respectable inn,
Helena would be most welcome to wander right back into the wild and offer
herself up to any number of dangerous situations on her way to her tower, and
Crispin wouldn’t worry one little bit.
Well. Maybe just one
little bit. All right. I’ll just take a tiny detour when I’m feeling a bit
more able… to see whether she’s doing all right. Hah. And she says I don’t
have any good intentions.
The sound of a rapidly
flowing river had been growing systematically clearer, and now they stood at the
banks of the water. A narrow drawbridge stretched across the swirls and eddies,
providing an entrance to the town which was both secure for the traveller and
safe for the townsfolk. In times of unrest Crispin knew that a series of gears
would lift the drawbridge, not only blocking the entrance to the town, but also
leaving the expanse of strongly flowing water to be reckoned with. A guard stood
at the entrance of the town, leaning lackadaisically against his long spear.
Having already sized up the knight and the princess, he had clearly dismissed
them as inconsequential and was now chewing something earnestly. Not having seen
anything she would classify as civilised in more than six days, the princess
enthusiastically launched herself at him and began to chatter enthusiastically.
For a moment he stopped chewing completely, his mouth half open, and stared at
Helena with undisguised bewilderment. Almost bursting into hysterical laughter
at his expression, Crispin managed to hide her empathetic reaction in a
fortunate spell of coughing. Suspiciously Helena spun around and studied the
knight with narrowed eyes, seemingly appeased when all that greeted her vision
was a coughing woman swiftly thumping her own chest. Drawing a breath to
continue her conversation (for so she thought of it) with the guard, her
relatively good mood soured instead when she turned back and found an empty
space where the guard had stood. He had taken his chance and fled into his small
wooden guard hut, peering at her from the slats with apprehension. From this
range Crispin could only see the whites of his big staring eyes. It brought to
mind a wolf being cornered by a small white rabbit, and the image immediately
brought on another coughing spell.
“How rude!”
Not sure whether the
indignant woman was referring to the guard or to her, Crispin surreptitiously
wiped a tear from one eye and gave a nonchalant sniffle, not even slightly
surprised when Toby meekly followed the silently raging princess into the town
streets.
Two inns were rejected
offhand by the ill-humoured blonde; one on account of the grime which coated the
windows, and the other on account of a large oafish ruffian whose over-sociable
suggestions to the princess were met with rather icy disapproval – and then a
spirited retort, naturally. The third seemed clean enough, reputable enough, and
all-round civilised enough even for a princess, and it was here (though in the
stables) that Helena discarded Crispin and wandered off into the downstairs room
in search of ale. With a sigh at her taxing companion and a wince at her painful
muscles the knight slid down from Toby’s back and gave the stable-boy a coin
to tend to the placid animal and clean her armor, then slung the saddlebags
around her like a pack-horse and went to pay for a room. She paused for a moment
at the foot of the stairs, hearing Helena already loudly knee-deep into an
exaggerated version of their adventures. It sounded as if she was going to be
the villain of this story, so with a shake of the head the tired knight wandered
upstairs. The rooms were small but clean, with two soft beds placed on either
side of a window that looked down into a courtyard at the back of the inn.
Dumping Helena’s bags in one corner unceremoniously she placed hers carefully
under her bed and then collapsed face-down on the mattress, her feet hanging off
the edge of the bed. It didn’t take long for sleep to claim her ailing
exhausted body.
Helena had finally found a
place where she was in her element. Even though the truthfulness of most of the
story she had told had been dubious, her audience had enjoyed her animated
nature and been sufficiently charmed by her youthful innocence. They had even
plied her with drinks to keep her from stopping. Truth be told, now that she
stood rather unsteadily at the foot of Crispin’s bed watching the knight sleep
fitfully, she felt just a tad guilty that the most enjoyed segment of her story
was the bit where the pig-stubborn mule-headed knight fell clumsily over her own
sword and rolled down a hill.
Stumbling closer she tried to
put a strangely uncooperative hand on the knight’s forehead, managing only to
poke one finger into her ear rather insistently. The dark woman groaned in her
sleep and turned her face in the opposite direction, dislodging the slender
finger. Making another attempt, Helena leaned over Crispin, immediately losing
her footing and landing directly on top of the warm knight. Groggily Crispin
opened one eye, then the other, as she came face to face with a sheepish
princess who smelled like a brewery and could not seem to move off her.
“Helena?”
The princess blushed a beet
red which would under any other circumstances have been perfectly charming.
“H’loa Crispy, owayou
feeling?”
“You have your hands all
over me, princess. You tell me.”
With an inane grin the blonde
woman shifted her hands, managing to knock her forehead into Crispin’s nose.
When she looked up and saw the dark woman’s eyes full of involuntary tears,
she started patting her chest earnestly. “You’re not feeling well, you
should relly go backta sleep, you know.”
“I could, if you got off
me?”
Unperturbed by the solemn
comment Helena climbed off the knight’s body shakily, staying upright beyond
expectation. With an inward sigh Crispin eyed her unfocused pupils.
“Helena?”
“Yeah?”
“Were you drinking
tonight?”
“Oyah.”
“Drink some water before
you go to sleep.”
“Not thirsty, Crispy.”
Giggle.
“Crispin.”
“No. I’m Helena.”
Sigh. “Just drink some
water, all right? You’ll feel better for it in the morning.”
“Nuh uh.”
Crispin scratched her ear
irritably. “Fine. Then don’t drink any water.”
“Don’t you tell me whada
do!”
“I’m not telling you what
to do. I’m telling you what not to do. Don’t drink any water.”
“I can drink water if I
want.” Picking up the jug that stood on the little table, the beleaguered
princess drank most of it, spilling some down her chest. Then, giving a little
hiccup, she turned to the knight and stuck out her tongue. With a small smile
the dark woman rolled over and went back to sleep.
The
blonde girl woke the next day with annoyingly fuzzy memories, but not much the
worse for wear. Blinking the sleep from her eyes she sat on the edge of her bed
and peered out the window, estimating it to be somewhere just after dawn. The
dark woman in the bed opposite her had had a fitful night of sleep, as evident
by the twisted linens under her. With a small frown Helena studied the flushed
face. Why did she keep having flashes of herself lying stretched out on top of
this woman? With a shrug she discarded the image. Probably something perverse
concocted by her over-active imagination. Stretching her spine contently she
mused on the joy of a soft bed as opposed to the hard ground, then stood and
bathed her face with what remained of the water in the jug. She was just tying
the laces of one of her nicer dresses when Crispin’s rough coughing attracted
her attention. Wandering over she placed a hand on the doubled up woman’s
forehead and bit her lip at the resulting heat. It didn’t take her long to
summon the inn-keeper and send for a healer.
When
the healer, a tall grey-haired man, arrived, Helena was rubbing Crispin’s back
gently to sooth her frantic coughing. After a quick examination he mixed some
herbs into boiling water and instructed Helena to have Crispin drink it when it
cooled down sufficiently.
“And
don’t let her wander about. She needs to remain still and calm. Otherwise she
will not get well.”
When
it was time to wake Crispin Helena tapped her face softly with one hand, smiling
sweetly when two blue eyes opened groggily and focused on her.
“Come
on, Crispin. Sit up.”