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I came to myself but I didn't want to stay there. From the depth of a murky, shadowy place, I got pushed into a world where a glaring light and an equally glaring anguish ruled.
I gasped in pain. An error. Even gasping was bad.
Something hot and liquid was pressed to my mouth, the steam rising into my nostrils. I tried to back away, but couldn't find control of my muscles.
There was a voice. Through the pulsing of the blood in my ears, words floated, but it took me a while before the sounds started to carry meaning.
"Padget, little Padget. Didn't they tell you, over and over. You should have listened to Cook. Please, please, just another sip."
The brew pressed to my lips again, and they parted and bitterness filled my mouth. I choked weakly, but still it ran down my throat, hot and tart.
"Here we go, just a little more. My sweet greedy boy."
I was suddenly wide awake and spat out what I could in shock. My body protested, all muscles screaming.
"Poi... poison," I managed to croak weakly and blinked into the candle she had put onto the floor.
She laughed. "Yes. Poison."
I tried to get away from her, but her grip was firm. After a short struggle that I lost, she managed to force more of the brew down my throat. I gagged and sat panting, leaning against the wall.
And then I started to feel better.
My vision no longer blurred, I focused.
The princess was walking busily around her chamber, clearing the plate of food I had brought her. I watched, open-mouthed, how she stuffed everything into a napkin, pink cakes and raisins and all. The carafe of water she poured into the chamber pot.
She patted the potbellied napkin. "I need to bury this somewhere, later. It would be too conspicuous if a pile of food suddenly gathered beneath my window."
I was still shaking, but more confused than ill by now.
"I beg pardon, my lady. I don't understand."
She came over to where I sat slumped, and suddenly her cool fingers were at my brow.
"I beg your forgiveness, little one. For I don't know what I shall do with you now."
I was bewildered at how she could speak so to me, our stations did not allow for this. She was of royal blood and I just a page, the son of landed but impoverished gentry. I wasn't worthy of her attention nor her touch. I was also sick and overwhelmed, and so I just stared.
Whatever she read in my eyes, it made her draw a heavy breath and speak.
"Poison." She lifted the cup from which she had given me earlier. "Poison is what they feed me here, and danger is what lurks in the corridors of this keep, tailing me wherever I go. Little knives and daggers, needles and splinters of steel. All the small toys that are an assassin's pride."
She brushed her long hair out of her face. The dim light smoothed her features, and suddenly I realized that she was very young, not much older than me.
"For you must know, little Padget, that our lives are dispensable. We are nothing more than figures in the play, stones on the board." Here she smiled, a smile that showed too many teeth.
"But in all their meticulous calculations, there was no room for a variable like you. That a little page could crave a little pink cake so much that he would steal one from his lady's plate - inconceivable. Ah, all the things they think we must strive for, and all those we should cease to desire. All their spoken and unspoken rules of how one must act." She made a small noise, like a little snort.
"They never thought I would defy them." She caught my gaze and I caught my breath. Her eyes shone vibrant, with willfulness and steely determination. Like prey in the face of a predator, I stayed silent, listening to the cadence of her voice.
And she told me the story of her kingdom and how the generals, thirsty for power, had persuaded her father to the ruse. Send them the princess, as a hostage of war. Send her and then she dies. Oh, what a neat martyr that will make of her. The beautiful princess, so beloved by her people. Her death at the hands of the enemy will rouse even the war-weary people of her homeland.
"And then it will be war again. A war they think they can win."
"But you didn't die." I had finally found my voice again, but it was a wobbly, brittle thing. I was amazed by her story, but even more at her sharing it with me.
"First, long before their henchmen, there came all the little tools that would give me a silent and pleasant death. But I refused to swallow the poison they sent me." She glanced at the darkly stained cup on the floor. "Markman leaves. The perfect antidote for-"
"Common Dragonwort," I supplied the answer. I knew my herbs. I spent half of my time in the kitchens, after all.
Our gazes met and then we both smiled a smile full of secret understanding, until hers faded away, and she stared at the wall, growing all thoughtful and distant.
"I just want to live." Her voice was no more than a whisper that cracked on her words.
And that was when I knew what I needed to do. I reached out to her, and she startled, as if wanting to flinch, but then relaxed again. Stations be damned, I reached for her and clasped her hand. I looked into her eyes, a gaze that was firm, I hoped, and that conveyed all my earnestness.
"Tell me what we must do to get you out of here."