All that morning and afternoon the servants were dismantling her room and packing her things away for the journey. She couldn’t stand to watch them work and she had nothing else to do.
“I’m going to take a ride,” she told Torvald.
“Enjoy your horses of yours – you’ll never ride any of them again.”
“But – I thought – Father said …”
“Your father has nothing to say anymore. You’re my wife now. You’ll be living in my home and I have a full stable already.”
She turned away.
“Be back in time for dinner! It’s an important night for both of us. I want you by my side an on your best behavior when your father turns over the dowry.”
She paused, turned back to him and nodded. Then she continued out the door.
She walked to the stables and saddled Lochinvar with no help from the stable-hands. She scarcely spoke to Anders but he sensed that something was wrong.
“Princess?,” he said as she was leading Lochinvar out of the barn. “Where will you be riding today?,” He asked it more as an excuse to hear her voice and gauge her state of mind than out of any real curiosity. It was a foolish question anyway -- she rarely rode out with any set destination and he knew it.
“I have no idea. Do I need to supply an itinerary now?
He bowed. “Of course not, Princess. Please pardon my presumption.”
She swung up onto the saddle with her old effortless grace and trotted away. Anders watched her go and he felt ill inside. Something was horribly wrong. It was the way she looked him and spoke to him, the tense lift of her shoulders. The castle gate shut behind her. This was bad. He couldn’t explain the feeling but he didn’t need to – all he needed to do was trust it. He sprinted back into the barn, took the fastest stallion out of his stall and threw a saddle on his back. Young William, brightest of the stable boys, came in to ask what was going on.
“You’re in charge until I get back,” he said. “Make sure all the mucking out is done before lunch. And clean the drinking tubs. Daisy and Bartholomew need currying. Keep everyone busy. I’m relying on you.”
William grinned and bowed. “Yes, sir!”
Anders finished adjusting the bridle, lifted himself into the saddle and tightened the reins. The Princess had a good head-start but he had a very good guess about where she was going, and there were many short-cuts along the way. He lifted a hand to William and galloped off toward the castle gates.
He was right about the Princess. She was heading for the forest, for the section east of town where the plants that might be gryphillaria and might me pormelusia grew in such profusion.
He suspected that she didn’t much care any more which leaf she ate.
He rode hard for two hours, he used every trick he knew, and in the end he was just behind her. He had been right. She was on her knees amid the dense shrubs, tearing at the leaves with both hands. He brought the stallion to a jarring halt and leapt off his back. The Princess was gaping at him angrily.
“What are you doing here?”
“Princess – ”
“Leave me alone.”
“Do you remember, I told you – the death from the pormelusia is long and painful.”
“At least no one calls it living.”
“Don’t do this.”
“Give me one reason not to.”
He saw then that nothing he said could stop her. He had no arguments to marshal in favor of a life with the grotesque Torvald. And he could see no way out of it. Words failed, as they did so often. Action had always served him better. And in thinking that he was inspired. He dropped to his knees and tore out a handful of leaves.
The Princess was confused.
“What are you doing?”
“You know very well. If you eat them so will I.”
“You wouldn’t. You’re bluffing.”
“You know me better than that.”
“You would die if I died?”
“I would follow you anywhere.”
There was an electric pause – they could both feel the charge of it running down their spines and through their arms to their fingers. Neither of them noticed the soft, stalking crunch of an approaching animal’s steps in the bushes. Katerina put the leaves to her mouth and Anders did the same. He knew he was telling her the truth, he was drunk with it. He knew she could feel it.
“I forbid you to do this,” she told him.
He smiled. “Under threat of death?”
“Under threat of damnation.”
“I think I’m damned already, Princess.”
“Suicide is a mortal sin. You’ll go to Hell.”
“Then we’ll be there together.”
She was crying, he saw the tears bright in her eyes before they spilled down her cheek. “Please,” she begged him, “Please leave me alone, just go away and leave me here and let me do this.”
He shook his head slowly, never taking his eyes from hers.
“I can’t.”
She saw that it was true and in the finality of her despair, which she knew no one, could ever fully understand, she dropped the leaves. She was defeated.
In two steps he was by her side. He held her but she tensed against him, her arms hanging straight down, palms at her sides.
It was at that moment that he finally noticed the animal footfalls behind him. He was unarmed and it was too late to turn and defend himself anyway. Katerina heard it too, but her eyes were closed and she saw nothing. Before she could react, the creature had come around beside her and pushed its cold nose into her hand, just as he had done a thousand times before.
“Wilf!”
The word came out as a sob.
“OhmyGod, Wilf, Wilf, where were you, you sweet boy, are you hurt?”
She sat down hard in the shrubbery and let Wilf bound onto her chest and knock her down, licking her face, his tail slashing the air. “Good boy, good boy,” she said, stroking the length of him, feeling his ribs.
“I can help, Princess. I can help, I can help.” The words stumbled out of him as he panted and licked.
She took his head in her hands. “How?”
“I know the difference between the leaves! I can smell it. Dogs have a good sense of smell.”
Lochinvar had walked over. He nuzzled Wilf too hard and the little dog rolled over. He bounded to his feet and took some time licking Lochinvar thoroughly. Anders stood back, stunned, just watching. For half an hour Wilf told his story about his mission and the bad man who had caught him and his escape. He told about the boy Tomas who had helped him and brought him to the healer woman, how the boy had hidden him from his parents and fed him in secret and changed his dressings as the woman instructed him to do. Finally, when he could put weight on the injured paw again, the boy gave him a haunch of mutton and sent him on his way. He had run non-stop and he had found the two of them here, just in time.
Then Wilf went to work, sniffing through the plants that carpeted the forest floor, quartering the area around the Princess, pulling up a stem and then another, depositing them in her lap.
“You were holding the poison, Princess,” he told her.
“What’s going on?,” Anders asked.
“Wilf can find the gryphillaria. Isn’t it wonderful? He knows the smell. He’s picking it for me now.”
“But – “ Anders stopped himself. Rational arguments were pointless here. Something more important was going on. A dog was picking herbs for a Princess. The proper thing to do was stand back, keep a respectful silence and watch.
I am thoroughly hooked on this story