Chapter 25: The Winds of Change
****
When Peri finally found Clarkent, he was slumped forward on Phantom, who was wandering the forest without direction from his master. Clarkent gave him a weak greeting, but he seemed too enveloped in his own pain to truly guide Phantom, so the magician took both horse and rider to the cave hidden nearby. Peri couldn’t help but think Clarkent fortunate that he hadn’t been harmed more than he was by the conniving knight Tempos. This jousting match had been even more dangerous than a normal one.
Inside the cave, Peri helped Clarkent take off his heavy armor, and then he laid the boy on the ground. Clarkent groaned a little but was otherwise quiet. As Peri tended to the young man, he kept up a quiet one-sided conversation.
“You’ve lost more blood than I would like, but you’ll be okay. You’re lucky, son, that you have old Peri to help you. Did you know I’m called Peregrine the White because I can only do white magic? That means I can’t do magic that hurts people. The stories that have built up about my power have mostly been spread to scare enemies of the crown. In fact, most magicians aren’t as powerful as they like to think they are. Ours is a dying art, I’m afraid. But maybe it’s for the best.”
****
Clarkent found the magician’s talk soothing. It gave him something to drift along with as Peri worked to heal his side and ease his pain. He stared upward, watching as light from the eternal flame danced on the ceiling of the cave. If he listened carefully, he could hear Phantom eating something, no doubt utterly unaffected by the events of the day.
But Clarkent’s head was full of what had happened. And finally, he said softly, “I was stupid to go.”
Peri smiled down at him. He seemed to be glad that Clarkent was now talking. “If you think that, why did you go?” the magician asked.
Clarkent closed his eyes. Maybe he would have been fast enough to dodge Sir Tempos’s dagger if he had been wearing jousting armor--maybe things would have ended differently if he had made the decision to participate in time that he could be properly prepared. “I couldn’t stand the thought that everyone would think so badly of the Black Knight,” he admitted. “I didn’t want anyone to think the Black Knight a coward.” He had felt that perhaps it could destroy all he’d been fighting for--but maybe he’d just done that himself.
“What you did out there will be talked about for a while,” Peri told him kindly, though Clarkent couldn’t take comfort in his words. “You managed to knock him off while also splintering your lance--it was a good hit.”
Clarkent gave a bitter laugh and shook his head, opening his eyes. “I ran away, Peri.” He really was a coward like his friends had said, wasn’t he? “He stabbed me, and I ran away.”
“People will remember the full match,” Peri told him. “Surely a few people were able to see what he did to you. And besides, Sir Tempos has not often been unhorsed. You did well for your first joust, so don’t try to convince yourself otherwise. Now, try sitting up.”
Clarkent slowly did as Peri had suggested. He touched his side in wonder--it wasn’t bleeding any longer. He still felt sore, but he was obviously a whole lot better than he had been when he left the list fields. “I need to go back to the stable before I’m really missed.”
“They’ll think you snuck away to the joust,” Peri pointed out, “but you’re right--it won’t be good for you to be gone for too long. Can you walk?”
Clarkent nodded and got to his feet without too much trouble. “I should be all right. Thanks for your help, Peri. I think I’ll probably give the Black Knight a rest for a few days until I get completely better.”
“That’s a good idea,” Peri agreed. “There is only so much I can do with herbs and magic. You have to let your body take care of the rest. Now, let me look at your side once more before you leave.”
****
When Clarkent returned to the stable, he immediately set to work. He had lost some time with the tilt, and he didn’t want to seem as if he were shirking his duties. Seeing as there was still a lot of activity around the castle due to the joust with Sir Tempos, it was best to look busy. Most Nobles disliked idleness in servants.
As he worked, it was all he could do to keep a blank expression. Though the magic had healed him, he felt a sort of tightness in his side. Peri had told him that part of the reason was because the body still remembered the wound. Clarkent wasn’t sure if he believed that, but he wasn’t dying, so that was all he cared about.
But as he worked, he found himself thinking not about the tilt anymore . . . but about the princess. He still couldn’t believe she had agreed to meet with him on her big night--and he couldn’t wait to give her his gifts. At least . . . he thought he wanted to give her both the book and the necklace. He wasn’t entirely sure, though. Would it be strange for him to give her two presents? And was the necklace too intimate a gift?
Both the necklace and book were personal, catering to the princess specifically. But there was just something different about giving royalty a piece of jewelry. But as he thought of it around her neck, he knew he really wanted to do this for her.
When she was queen, he probably wouldn’t ever be able to do anything like this again.
****
When Loisette entered the stable in her Gawain clothes, she was brimming with news about the tilt. “Clarkent!” she exclaimed. “Did you see it? Did you see the tilt?”
“N-no,” he denied, not looking away from the horse he was wisping with straw.
“The Black Knight actually knocked Sir Tempos off his horse!” she told him. “And then they fought with their swords on the ground!”
Clarkent turned to look at her, and she frowned as she noticed him wince. It looked like he was favoring his left side. “Are you all right?” she asked him in concern.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said dismissively. “I guess the Black Knight wasn’t as scared to come as you thought, huh?”
“I guess not,” she agreed with some reluctance. She stared at her friend for a few seconds, thinking there was something a little odd about how he was acting, but then she dismissed the notion. “You should have seen when their lances struck--it was *amazing*. Both of them split!”
He turned back to continue grooming the horse, as if he wasn’t interested, but she was just able to see a small smile tugging at his face.
****
Clarkent, trying to hide a smile, realized this might be the best time to ask Gawain about his opinion of the Black Knight. “Why do you hate him so much?”
“Who?” Gawain asked with a frown.
“The Black Knight.” He turned to look at his friend. “Is it because you thought he was a coward?”
Gawain shook his head. “That’s not it. It’s the stories I’ve heard about him.”
“What stories?” Clarkent asked earnestly. “What have you heard about him?”
“For instance, he has attacked the guards of the forest more than once,” Gawain pointed out. “Those men are just doing their duty.”
Clarkent resisted the urge to say that he hadn’t *attacked* the forest guards per se. He had just kept them from hurting desperate people who went to the forest to find food for their families. “What else have you heard?” he forced himself to ask calmly.
Gawain crossed his arms. “He’s kidnapped Assigned servants.”
Clarkent’s face darkened. He had with James’s help found a few Assigned servants who were being treated abusively--much like the girl Ayma whom he and Gawain had discovered in a bush--and he had helped them escape. Peri had taken care of the rest. “And?” Clarkent asked, his frustration mounting at Gawain’s one-sided view of the Black Knight.
“He stole a ring from Sir Naigel.”
It was all Clarkent could do to keep his face blank. That *man* had taken away a gold ring from a poor girl whom he’d found sobbing underneath a tree. That ring had been all she had left of her mother. Its value to the girl had rested not in its expensive nature but in its sentimental value. Clarkent had restored it to its proper owner without a hint of remorse.
“By this reckoning, the Black Knight’s sins *are* heavy,” Clarkent murmured to himself. He wanted to counter Gawain’s claims--wanted to tell him the truth of what had happened--but it was dangerous for him to claim knowledge he should not have, and so he remained silent.
But though he now knew Gawain disliked the Black Knight for false reasons, it still hurt to think about the boy’s opinion of him.
****
The next day was the day before the ball.
Servants scurried around frantically all over the castle, preparing for the big event--cleaning, decorating, planning.
Alexander sat on the throne, mired in thought. The day after the ball would be the princess’s coronation. But he was feeling strangely displeased about it.
The princess was in a bad mood. He had gone to talk to her, to ascertain how she was feeling about the fact that she would be queen in two days . . . .
“I do not know why she snapped at me,” Alexander murmured. The princess mystified him--he could not always predict what mood she would be in, and sometimes she spoke with a fiery passion that initially surprised him but now intrigued him. Yet her mood of late had been different--tinged more with grouchiness rather than the respect she usually gave him.
Tempos, who was standing beside him, heard what he had said and correctly guessed the object of his thoughts. “Oh, you know how princesses are,” the knight commented. “The smallest vegetable under their mattresses make them cranky.”
“I suppose you are right,” Alexander admitted. But he was unable to shake the sense that something was off. Why would Princess Loisette be anything but thrilled that she was about to be handed the reins of the kingdom? She was about to become *queen*. Did that not please her? Was she not attracted by power?
****
Loisette sat in her room alone, having asked Mishal to give her a little time to herself. There was too much for her to think about, and she couldn’t stand hearing about Arneld’s exploits anymore that day. Not when she had so much on her mind.
She couldn’t believe she was about to be queen. Her whole life was going to change--and she hated it.
She wouldn’t be able to sneak out as Gawain to be with Clarkent anymore--she would be too busy with her royal duties. She would be a woman, and she would have to put all childish cares behind her. It wasn’t fair! She had never desired this. No one had ever asked her what she wanted.
A rapping at her shutters caught her attention, and she moved to open them. In flew James, who went to perch carefully on a chair.
“**Hi, James,**” Loisette greeted, surprised but pleased that he had come.
“**Greetings, Your Highness,**” he returned. “**Peri told me to check on you. How are you doing?**”
“**I’m glad to see you,**” she admitted with a small smile. “**I’m beginning to feel so . . . closed in.**”
“**Wishing this wasn’t your birthright?**” he guessed. “**Overwhelmed by the thought that you’re going to be queen soon?**”
“**Yeah. It’s . . . strange how everything is going to change. I guess it’s finally all sinking in.**”
“**You do not have to give up everything,**” James told her. “**Even a queen gets to have a life.**”
“**But not the life I want,**” she said sadly. As if the shackles of womanhood weren’t tight enough . . .
“**Maybe you’ll be happier than you think,**” the falcon said, trying to be positive.
She tilted her head and looked at him wistfully. “**Are you sad that you are no longer human? There are so many troublesome things about being human . . . but I guess there are a lot of good things, too. At least--as long as you aren’t royalty.**”
The bird lifted his wings a little before setting them back down. “**I used to be sad, Your Highness . . . . But I’m not anymore. I’m accustomed to my fate now--flying is certainly a perk of this body. And besides, there’s no point in being sad--Peri’s magic cannot help me. There is no sense in wishing for something I cannot have.**”
A pang of sorrow shot through Loisette at that. Was it really pointless to make wishes for the impossible? Or if someone hoped hard enough, could the impossible sometimes spring into being?
She gave the bird a small smile as an idea occurred to her. “**Will a kiss from a princess bring you back?**” she asked hopefully.
James made a sound that was almost like laughter. “**While I would like that, no, I don’t think it would. It isn’t as if I am a prince hunting for my one true love.**” He lowered his head. “**But don’t worry, Your Highness. Things have a way of working out.**”
Loisette found her thoughts drawn to Clarkent. An idle thought flitted across her consciousness--would it be possible for things to work out between a stableboy and a princess? Could that ever happen?
But she quickly dismissed the idea. It was silly. And besides, she wasn’t interested in him in that way. So . . . why was she even wondering about it? She didn’t know.
But one thing that she did know . . . was that she wanted to have one more adventure with him before she became queen.
She associated Avalon Lake with memories of that awful fight between her and Clarkent. But what if they went and explored the forest behind it? Maybe she could make those memories metamorphose into ones that were more positive. Maybe they could have one last triumph together.
She walked over to the Peregrine Falcon and placed her hands on the sides of his head. Then she bent down and kissed his feathered crown. “**Thanks for talking to me, James. I feel a little better now.**”
The bird--for he hadn’t transformed, though she had secretly hoped he would--craned his neck back to look at her. “**Anytime, Your Highness.**”
