Early one morning Catherine was woken up by the prince. He looked terrible, face drawn in a snarl, hair spilling over his face. Her first thought was that the magic had taken hold of him again, and that she would spend another few hours clutched to his chest.
"We are leaving, get up now! Go and dress yourself in anything that you have"
The urgency in his voice made her obey him right away. Without stopping to see if he had turned away, she walked out of the room in her night gown and went to dress herself in something simple. She was glad that she had also kept a set of comfortable clothes made of sturdy materials ready for this day. She had not expected the prince to be with her, but she was prepared. She emerged and found him waiting for her.
"Do you still have all that gear of yours laying about?"
She nodded.
"Good. We'll need to use that for a few days. I can't let anyone know that were are going."
He handed her a heavy cloak that he had brought with him. She noticed that he was wearing one himself. He took her hand. They ran to the stables, leaving Catherine a mess, struggling to breathe. She had not had much exercise in the past three months. The prince found a stable boy that he seemed to know well and helped him get their horses ready. Catherine was glad that she had had clothes ready for this occasion. She could have been looking forward to a very uncomfortable ride indeed. He had not even mentioned that they would in fact be riding.
She told him where to find her things, still wondering why he had never mentioned them to her before, since he obviously knew about them, and mounted her horse. That at least she now knew how to do.
The prince joined her and led the way out of the castle grounds. It was still early enough that not too many guards saw them. The ones that did were paid handsomely to keep quiet for at least a few days.
As soon as the reached the city, they sped up and rushed down the empty streets. Catherine had to concentrate to keep up, and was terrified that she might fall off. She hoped that all the riding she had done would be enough for her to stay alive on this sudden journey.
They went out of the city and into the fields that surrounded it. An hour after she had been woken up, they were already quite far away from the castle. Two hours later they entered the forest that lay to the west of the city and the prince finally slowed down. After a short while he came to a full stop and went down on the ground. He drew a few lines in the dirt and started blowing a black powder from his pocket onto them. She watched as the powder glowed where it hit the ground and then faded to a dull grey.
The prince looked up at her.
"This is going to divert them if they follow us."
"Who, sir?"
He must have forgotten that she still had no idea what was happening. He made a strange face, then mounted his horse and made a sign for her to continue riding next to him. They rode slowly and he started telling her.
"I am afraid the king is dead," he began. Catherine wanted to express her sympathy, but he waved her off. "It is for the best. I have been waiting for that my entire life. We were not exactly close. What I did not expect was my cousin travelling towards us with an army. I have given orders for my own troops to fight, but I happen to know that his assassins will succeed in killing me if they find me. So until further notice, I am running away like a coward, letting my men do the fighting for me."
"You're not a coward, sir," Catherine said. "It cost you a lot of pride to do what is best for the country and stay out of the reach of these men. That isn't cowardly."
He looked at her and smiled bitterly.
"Thank you, little one. I am afraid it is not that pretty, but I appreciate your trying. Anyway, I have made sure that my prospective brides have all been sent towards their homes. It would not do for them to be found here. No need to have them be used as weapons against me."
"When will they arrive at the castle, sir?"
"About an hour after sunrise. Early enough that they might have caught us all off guard and killed everyone important right away."
"Good thing that you did not sleep. Why didn’t you sleep, sir?"
He looked at her again, a warning on his face. After a long silence he answered her anyway.
"I've been too uncomfortable to sleep for a while now. I did not think it appropriate to take measures to relieve my distress, and so I have spent my nights looking after all sorts of things. Both out of boredom and out of hope that I would stumble across the right answer."
Catherine had no answer. For a while she thought about how grateful she was that he had not come to sleep next to her again. He easily could have done as she had very few real rights. No one would have cared if he had done so. Honour must have kept him in his own rooms, she thought.
"Sir, have you been getting any closer to the answer, then?"
"To be honest, I probably had it down to either Lily Maria, Iris or Corinna," he said, confiding in her as he had been doing ever since she stopped making mistakes. "They would all make rather good queens, and I have found nothing to discredit either of them. I was very close to just picking one, actually. I am still not sure which one I would have gone with, but one of the three to be sure."
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