Heart's Key

Leander carried the picnic basket while the Maiden herded the sheep. She had two dogs with her named Stag and Buck. They were so interested in bossing the sheep around with their long noses and sharp barks that the Maiden hardly had to do anything.

She walked leisurely, always quite aloof from where Leander was walking. If he tried to walk near her, she noticed a wildrose off the path and rushed to pick it.

After he tried for the third time, she said to him, “They’re watching us, you know.”

“Are they?” he replied, glancing over his shoulder at the castle and spotting several shapes at the watchtowers.

“Yes. They’re going to watch us the whole time. It would be wise of you not to let them see you get too close to me.”

“I see. I wouldn’t want to end up like a drowned rat in the pool again,” he laughed. “Weakest hazing ever!”

“They can do worse,” she said in a distant voice. “Part of the reason I invited you here and offered to eat with you was to keep them from poisoning you at lunch. I don’t want you to starve or spend the next two days throwing up.”

He beamed at her. “Well, that’s very kind of you. What was the other part?”

“Other part?”

“U-huh. You said part of the reason you invited me here was to protect me. What was the other part?”

She tried to stifle a smile. “You’re very playful. Where do you get so much energy? Arranging fist fights in the middle of the night.”

“I did that for you,” he said plainly.

“I know,” she said, brushing her hair out of her face and taking a step further away from him.

“So you know what they were doing?”

She nodded. “It’s stupid. They’re stupid.”

“Is that why you can’t choose one of them to marry?”

“I feel nice about a few of them. Your friend, Stocking, was really lovely to me. I could have chosen him or three or four of the others. Maybe I should have.”

“Why didn’t you?”

She cocked her head to the side and let her head loll on her shoulder. “I love wearing this dress. I never want to give it up.”

The red dress she was wearing was a thing to behold. It had dazzling rouge stones all over it. The neckline was square and framed her bosom, collarbone, and throat. It led the eye up to her lips with such effect that when Leander looked at her, he could only think of pulling her into his arms and burying his face in any of the corners he found there. Both the ones that pointed outwards and the ones that pointed inwards. He wanted to fit himself together with her in the most playful way.

Leander scoffed at her remark. Lucky for him, he was the type who could still think when his body wanted something. So, he put away the flush of blood he felt and put the pieces together. “Are you like Stocking then? You were an orphan who followed a red dress into the woods, past the blades, and right to the castle door? Did a red dress like that become your gospel, your dream, and all you ever wanted? To be like the woman in the red dress who led you to safety?”

Her large eyes grew even larger. She was still wearing the dress, but perhaps she felt suddenly uncovered because she put her hands over her heart and stepped further away from him. “What would you know about that?”

He grinned. “I’d know more if you’d tell me.”

“Oh,” she said absently. “The girls aren’t led to this castle. They’re kept elsewhere. It’s a secret to stop the boys here from visiting them. In that place, I was finally safe, but not exactly happy. I sewed. All the girls sewed. I made dresses, table clothes, all sorts of things. They were all sold. Sold to pay for our dinner, for more materials to make more clothing. I didn’t get to wear any of it. This is the first nice dress I’ve ever worn.”

He nodded, trying to understand. He wasn’t sure if he did understand. The dress she was wearing was not like other dresses. In truth, he wasn’t sure if the Queen or any of the princesses owned more than one dress that elaborate each. Indeed, it made her look prettier than a queen… unless she was the freshly crowned queen of hearts.

“Hmm…” he said, stepping further away from her and making his voice loud enough to compensate for the distance. “I know what you mean. I wanted something like that myself. Not clothing exactly, but sort of. I wanted to be a knight. I wanted a suit of armor. I don’t know what you know about warfare, but I wanted to be a knight on the field of battle. Have you ever seen a knight in plate armor?”

She shook her head in the negative.

“They’re basically indestructible. That’s what the stories say. When you’re not wearing armor and you see those knights coming on the field, you know they’re going to kill everyone they face and they’re going to walk away from the battle with a few scratches. It’s terrifying when they’re coming against you. It gives you fresh wind when you’re on the side they’re coming from. I didn’t believe in angel wings for protection, I believed in silver polished plate armor. I’d take that in place of a halo any day. It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen when I saw a knight taken down for the first time.”

The Maiden took a few steps toward Leander. His story intrigued her. She knew she wasn’t supposed to get close to Leander, but she couldn’t help herself and she came forward.

He smiled and then let his smile go cold. “Do you know how to kill a knight?”

She took another step forward. “No.”

“First, you have to knock him over. It’s best if you can get him on his stomach. It’s also easiest to knock him over from behind. Once he’s on his face, you have to straddle him. Even if he’s a monster of a man, it’s difficult for him to lift you and the weight of his armor at the same time.” Leander took another step away from the Maiden intentionally as he coaxed her to chase him. “If you’re smart... when you’ve got him on his face like a turtle on the beach, you’ll lift between the armor plates and see how they’re held together. If they’re held with fabric, you can cut those ties and have him standing there in his chainmail. Once that’s done, it’s easy to overwhelm him and kill him. But if the armor is held together with leather, it’s going to be hard to cut, no matter what knife you have.”

He was zig-zagging away from her, rounding the area where the sheep were grazing and she was walking after him, moving in awkward steps to stop him from getting too far away for her to hear what he was saying.

“What do you do if you can’t cut his armor off him?” she asked.

“Oh,” he stopped walking and let her come much closer to him than she meant to. It could be a romantic moment if Leander didn’t have to say the next words. Instead, he looked at her lingeringly before jumping on a nearby boulder and singing, “Then you have to gouge his eyes out.”

“How horrible!” she called back at him.

He knew from the merry look on her face that she’d been subjected to a thousand gory fairy tales and he wasn’t shocking her.

He jumped down in front of her. “From there, a good fighter will call over some of the lesser soldiers to finish him off while a man of my skill will move on to the next.”

“Did you ever get your suit of armor?” she asked him, taking a swat at his shoulder with the flat of her hand.

“Oh, yes,” he said with a grin. “Do you see that point of light?” Leander pointed to the place where he’d left his armor. It was a heap of silver metal reflecting the sunlight in the distance.

The Maiden couldn’t see it, so he pulled her back toward his chest and showed her with his finger as the line of sight.

He smelled her hair and enjoyed the nearness the activity allowed. “It’s right there.”

She gave him a sharp glance and pulled away. “Why did you leave it there?”

He moved further away, giving her more space than she wanted. “I came to the castle, I saw you behind the curtain wall playing with the sheep and Blueleg said I couldn’t be flown over unless I lost some weight. I left it there to come here, to meet you, and to fulfill my quest. I couldn’t let my desire for a lesser thing keep me from my larger goal.”

“What do you mean?”

He spun around and faced her. “I mean that my goal was to be a knight. If my armor is stopping me from being that, then it has to go. The weight and treasure-like nature of a suit of armor can kill me as easily as not wearing it. I want to reach for something bigger.”

“What?”

“Maybe you. Maybe I’d like to want something more than I wanted a suit of armor. Maybe I’d like to want something more than I want myself. Well, Maiden, what do you want?”

“I…” she hesitated. “I worry that there isn’t a happy ending.” She curled into herself and lowered herself onto a boulder with her arms across her chest.

The pose was ten thousand times too seductive for Leander and though he didn’t mean for it to, his blood completely took over. With long strides, he came to her and pulled her up to meet her eyes. “You don’t know anything about what happily ever after will look like.” And he kissed her.

From her reaction, she had never been kissed before, and she tried to pull away.

However, Leander knew from experience that inexperienced girls didn’t need less kissing, they needed more. So he made his kissing more gentle, laying careful kisses on her knuckles, on her wrists, on the tip of her nose, and then finally to her mouth again.

She kissed him back, entwining her arms around his neck.

She slid off the rock and he came down on the grass next to her. It had been a long time since he had rolled around in the grass with a woman and the Maiden was as light as a feather. He got on his back, put her waist on his feet, and held her hands until she was high up in the air.

“Fly,” he said, as he let go of her hands.

Their fingertips unclasped and she shrieked with laughter. “I’m flying!” she called gloriously.

And for a moment, her hair fell around her face and fell so low, it brushed across Leander’s nose. He couldn’t resist her for another moment, and he rolled her down, so her legs were tangled up with his.

He kissed her.

Grass was in their hair.

She kissed him.

A sheep was standing over them.

Wait. It wasn’t a sheep.

“Get up,” Blueleg said. “These boys are about to kill you, Leander. Get up and come with me.”

Leander sat up and opened his eyes wide to the world. All the shapes from the watch towers had abandoned their posts. As fully materialized men, they were glaring at him, spears and bows in their hands.

“Excellent job you guys are doing,” he said as he rose and helped the Maiden to her feet. He kissed her hand again. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Then he crossed the meadow with Blueleg.

As soon as they were a decent distance from the others, the little balloonist started laughing. “Damn. None of the other boys have moves like yours.”

“Were you watching?”

“The whole time. We should have you give them lessons before you leave tonight. If only we could do that.” He grinned and led the way back to the castle in the spangling sunlight. It was the kind of sunlight dreams were made of.

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Author's Notes: Thanks for reading. I am actually so proud of this book I'm practically bursting at the seams. I hope all of you enjoy it.