Who: NPCs When: August 15, dawn. Where: Summerhall, the lake. Rating: PG-13 Status: Closed.
The dead lady lay on the bank. She looked like she was sleeping, except for her head was on wrong. She was pretty even, on one siide. The other side looked like her pa had the temper like what Old Jolly John had when he'd been at the whiskey. She had to be one of them court ladies all in finery like that. Liam closed his hand on the piece of material he held. If had come away with him after he'd tugged on the stuff holding her down. Like a gift, like she were sorry for scaring him.
He looked down at it again, watching the way it shined in the light- he'd seen themselves a-wearin' stuff as looked its like but he'd not thought to ever hold it. You could see patterns in it close like this. He traced them with a fingertip. Ned probably sawed things like it all the time, bein' among the fine lords and ladies all the time... He looked again at the lady. It were like a prize, he decided, like what ladies in songs gave their old knights who rescued them.
Of course, he hadn't rescued her, but neither had any old knight.
"Move your damned self, boy! You've seen a dead woman 'fore this. We've got to be off." His father's voice was rough and angry but Liam knew enough of his father's moods to know the forester was scared. "Time we get to the prince, it may be too late, else."
"The prince?" Liam stuffed the bit of soft into his shirt so's the old man wouldn't see it. The edges tickled his skin a bit, but it were better than losing it.
"'s right. We're off to meet o' Themselves, lad. Elsewise we'll be the ones what catch the blame for this lot." He waved at the dead lady. "They'll say as we laid her way off o' th' trails and tried to hide the loot or some old blathering nonsense. Ha! I knows them and their ways. But if we just run it'll be dragons we feed at nightfall."
Liam shuddered at that. Dragons. He'd seen them in the skies overhead since the king came to Summerhall, and before that when he was little and Prince Rhaeys came with his big one. Sometimes as the court went, the dragons took sheep or cows. Or worse. They said they took children too. Behave or we'll lock you out for the dragons. His ma had told him once that the king wo uld pay you for your cows or sheep, but children were free. He didn't quite believe it anymore, but he knew that not even hunters like his father went out alone when the dragons flew near. It was why he was here at all- his father's apprentice boy was ill and losing his stomach all the night before. Father had said twas bad fish but he'd looked worried when he'd said it and yelled at Liam twice as loud as normal.
"Do we have to see the prince?" he asked again, watching his father mount up.
"Aye it's that or hang, but I'll go alone for this. It won't be the prince as yet, but it soon will be like as not... You keep watch here and tell the damn fisherfolk if they take one bloody ring off of her it'll be the prince they answer to, or the king if they aint so lucky as that. I'd move her but it's death to touch one o' they great ladies, and I can't rightly say as it matters if she's dead 'fore you do. So keep watch lad, and don't get too near her."
His father turned the horse and rode off at a canter, leaving Liam sitting on the ground by the lady again, but not close enough to touch. He'd sat with the dead before- his own mother a year ago, and two little sisters before that. They hadn't sat with the dead during the plagues, but had the country men bury them, and the old wise women swore that the ghosts of the plague would haunt their families forever for that disrespect.
Liam put a hand of his heart where the silk was kept and looked at her again. "We ain't family, ladyship, but I don't mind. I won't let them take your rings or nothin'. Ain't right takin' from the dead." He half-imagined then that she turned to him, and her face was all matching, and she smiled.