Walls

“Daddy, catch me!”  The little girl cried as she ran, the breeze tugging at her brown curls.  A tall man raced after her, laughing.
“I’m going to get you, Ruthie!”
“No!  See how fast I run!”  The girl spurred on her efforts, despite being convulsed by giggles, and ran toward a broad stone wall.
“Not the wall, Ruth!”  The girl froze dead in her tracks, recognizing the tone in her father’s voice.  Catching up to her, he took her hand to lead her back to the castle where they lived.
Ruth’s face was suddenly serious.  “Daddy, why can’t I go past the wall?  What’s so bad about the places beyond it?”
The man picked her up and set her on his shoulders.  “Many evil things roam the world outside that would harm you.  That place is not safe for anyone to wander, except warriors prepared to fight.  Even they must be careful.  That is why there are the castles where people can live safely, and why you must never go beyond it.  You will understand more in time.”
Ruth held on to her father’s bearded chin as she bounced on her lofty perch back to her home.  “Is this one of those things I have to wait till I’m big to do?”
“We’ll see when you’re older.  But even if you do go, it will never be alone.  I’ll always be there.”
* * *
Ruth glanced furtively over her shoulder.  She was sixteen, and thought herself quite a big girl, old enough to do things on her own.  Her father was always too careful, as if she was china and might break.  She had never done anything like this before in her life.  She was done with being sheltered and wanted to prove she was tougher than china.  Now she was venturing into places she had never dared even to peek at before, and something in her – perhaps her conscience – was nervous of being caught.  Stealthily, she slid back the bar of the gate in the thick stone wall and slipped through.  Heart pounding in her throat, she surveyed the land that opened before her.
It was gray, as if wrapped in a perpetual brooding storm.  The grass swayed in the haunting wind.  Not a tree could be seen.  No other castles, no rivers, no flowers – just endless grass rolling in hills and up to distant bleak mountains.  Ruth looked around for people, but there was none to be seen, not even the dreaded Chosen of whom she had been told tales and warned against so many times.  She drew a deep breath.  True, it was rather doleful looking, but maybe it wasn’t as bad as her father had always said.  What had he been trying to keep her from?  She would go for a little explore, not too far or for very long, just to see if she could find anything interesting.  Then she would go back.
* * *
Within the hour, Ruth was back at the castle.  She bolted the gate softly behind her, and leaning against the wall, breathed deeply.  She had found nothing of interest, but also had seen nothing to cause her fear.  Had her father lied to her about the dangers all these years?  Why would he do that?  She had trusted him since she was a little girl, but now she felt betrayed and hurt.  She returned to the castle, silent and wrapped in deep thought.  At supper, Ruth put on her best pretense of normalcy, but she caught her father looking at her intently several times.  Fear of discovery quickly drowned out her hunger, and before the meal was over she excused herself and went to bed.
* * *
Ruth couldn’t sleep that night.  A desire to see more of the world beyond the walls was keeping her up, so she gave in.  She would go for a longer explore under cover of darkness, so she climbed out of her window and over the wall to avoid the gate guards who were watchful at night.  Outside the wall, there was no moonlight.  No crickets peeped under foliage.  No frogs croaked from pond beds.  Ruth felt the first pricklings of fear.  She wondered if, after all, this was such a good idea.  The wind howled mournfully about her, giving the whole place a still more desolate feel.  Maybe she should go back and wait for the morning.  Turning, Ruth looked back the way she had come.  Her father’s castle seemed miles away, a small blob on the gray horizon.  As she stood, wavering, two figures leapt out from hiding and knocked her onto her back.  They stood menacingly over her.  One was a man, tall and broad-shouldered, and the other was a woman, lithe and slender like a cobra.  Both had curving brands across their foreheads, showing up clearly against their smooth, wax-perfect skin.  With horror, Ruth knew them in an instant by descriptions she had heard.  The Chosen had caught her, and quite neatly too, far from all help.
Anger burned in her at these implacable rebels.  They would not take her without a fight.  Ruth scrambled to her feet and threw her best punch at the man.  It never landed.  The woman’s hand had shot out the instant she made her move and had caught Ruth’s wrist.  She kicked the woman’s leg and tried to wrench her wrist free, biting and clawing at the woman, but the grip that held her was firm.  The man’s hands seized her in an iron grip, holding her back.  In a moment the fight was over, and she was gagged, both wrists tied to the adjacent wrist of her captors, crushing all hope for escape.
“We are the Chosen.  You will come with us.  Our master will see you this hour.”  The woman’s voice was flat as she spoke, as if she had forgotten what inflection even meant.  Before Ruth even had time to think, the two Chosen who held her set off at a brisk lope, and she had to run to keep up with them or have her wrists torn off.  Mile after mile they went, but still they showed no sign of slackening the pace or even halting.  She was being dragged by now, not used to having to run so far and so fast.  Exhaustion drowned out even her hunger of last night.  Slowly, she slipped into unconsciousness.
Ruth groaned and opened her eyes.  Never, ever, had she felt this awful.  Every muscle ached, her lungs burned, and her head was throbbing like a drum.  She could feel bruises forming from where she had been dragged over rocks and hillocks.  A man’s face was above her, and his expression could only be called a smirk.
“Well, young runaway, tell me why you ventured from the protection of the walls,” he said.
Ruth tried to sit up, but pain exploded in her head and she flopped back onto stone.  The man shouted something and Ruth winced.  A Chosen stepped forward out of the shadows and jammed a bottle between her teeth, a cold liquid that burned sliding down her throat.  Coughing, she sat up and pushed away the black arm that held the bottle.  “Don’t poison me yet.”
The man stepped back out of view, and the first man, bearded like her father but with ashen pale skin, moved in closer.  “Tell me, my pretty maid, what brings you beyond the confines of the wall.”
Ruth hesitated, and looked away.  She couldn’t admit it.  Not to this man.  Not until she had admitted it to herself.
“I see.  See her taken to a cell in the bottom chambers, and post a guard,” he said to the man in black.  Ruth was dragged away again, turning her head so that no one would see her tears.
Ruth lay still on the floor of her cell, pain searing her body.  Why had she been such an idiot?  She should have screamed for help as soon as the Chosen caught her instead of trying to fight them.  Her father might have been able to do something then, but now he wouldn’t know where she was.  Why had she distrusted his word in the first place?  She wouldn’t be in this mess if she had.  It was her fault.  Oh, Daddy, why didn’t I trust you?  Now I won’t ever see you again, not even to tell you I’m sorry.  Sleep stole her away, and in her dreams she was again in the bright yard of her father’s castle.
How much time passed she didn’t know.  She was hungry, and wild with fear and longing, and as her pain began to subside, she became more alert.  She knew better than to try to bolt past one of the Chosen when they came, but she might manage stealing the key.  In the door was a grate. By sticking her fingers through she could just reach the keyhole, but she needed the key.  At last she heard the tromping of heavy feet and as the door swung open, she slid into a corner and watched.  A Chosen banged a small bowl of water on the floor and stepped back out of the doorway, slamming it.  The key turned, and Ruth saw in utter amazement that he hooked the ring on a nail beside the door and walked away.
When he had gone, Ruth stuck her fingers through the grate and reached for the key.  She wriggled her fingers.  She twisted and arched, trying to get the key, but all her efforts fell short.  Hour after hour she worked at it, trying to get more of her hand through or to extend her fingers somehow to reach the key. At last she collapsed back to the floor, hand blistered and raw, and had to admit defeat.
“So near and yet so very, very far,”  she moaned, the last word echoing like a death knell.  Hunched on the floor, head on her knees, she began to cry.  Why hadn’t she listened to her father and heeded his warnings?  If only she could return to that first decision and remake the choice!  Ruth choked on a sob as she heard quick footsteps in the hall outside her cell door.  Had they heard her trying to escape, or maybe her tears?  What would they do to her?  She retreated to the farthest corner, eyes wide and anxious.  The key was inserted and the door opened.
A bearded man, tall with sun darkened skin and black hair stood framed in the doorway.  A sword was in his hand and his eyes burned with fire.  “Ruth!”
“Daddy?”  She scrambled to her feet, not believing her eyes.  She forgot her cuts and bruises and her stinging hands as she leapt into her father’s arms.  Sobbing, she buried her face in his shoulder, and he held her close.  “I’m sorry, Daddy.  I’m so, so sorry.  I should have trusted you.  I should’ve stayed in the safety of the walls and I didn’t, and I’m sorry.”
“Peace, daughter,” he said, kissing her hair.  “We will speak no more of it.  Come, we must fly with all haste.”  He took her hand and led her quickly through the winding passages.  As they went the floor sloped upwards and in a few minutes it opened out onto a main corridor branching both left and right.  Without hesitation, her father took the right-hand way.  The stone floor became a slatted bridge over a huge gulf, and as they reached the other side Ruth felt fresh air drifting passed her face.  The way out had to be close.
“Halt!”  A voice rang out behind them.  Ruth glanced over her shoulder and saw with dread a seething mass of black on the other end of the bridge.  Every forehead was branded and every hand held a sword.  In the lead was the man she had seen when she had first woken in this place.  He held a broad-bladed ax and he smiled.  “So, the old rogue comes for his little girl, the runaway.  And neatly caught in the net he is, too!”
Ruth clutched her father’s arm, but he held steady, his sword level in front of him.  “What of it?  What does a renegade have to do with my child?”  She heard the quiet controlled anger in his voice and for the first time almost pitied the man with the ax.
The man sneered and waggled his fingers.  “Talk, talk, talk.  That’s easy enough, even for a caged man, issuing idle threats.  Take him down, my Chosen ones!”  The black figure advanced onto the bridge, swords raised and eyes flashing.
“Run for freedom, Ruthie.”  Her father squeezed her tight and his beard scratched her cheek as she held on.
“Alone?”  She asked through her tears.
“Now!  I’ll come later.”  He shoved her in the direction of the wind, and she stumbled into a run.  Looking back, she saw the Chosen charging at her father, and the flash of his sword.  “Go!”  he cried, and she did.  The corridor was fairly straight with no side passages, and light glimmered at the other end.  The sounds of the fight faded behind her, replaced by the sound of her own sobbing breath.  Bursting out into gray damp air, she tumbled down a steep slope before crashing into a large rock.  She lay still for a moment. Then, picking herself up, she peered up at the opening where an iron gate stood wrenched off its hinges.  The earth beneath her trembled and shook.  She sprang away from the hillside and raced onto the plain, adrenaline banishing all her pain.  A rumble came from behind her and looking back, she watched in horror as the hill folded in on itself like kneaded dough.  A thick fog of dust arose as a loud crack broke the heaviness and the clouds began to pour out their rain.  The fat drops landed on her face, mingling with her tears.  Pain and sorrow entangled around her, but she ran on, head bent against the rain and the throbbing in her skull.  The rain abated.  The skies cleared for the first time.  Raising her head, she saw a stone wall ahead, and in it, a castle she knew well.  She hammered on the gate with all her strength, which wasn’t much now.
“Who knocks on the gate so boldly?” a deep voice boomed.
“It’s me, Ruth, let me in!” she cried, and slipped to the ground, unconscious.
* * *
It was four long days later before Ruth was able to be about.  She had been brought in by the guards and tended by the castle healers.  In broken fragments they had heard the story, and now the castle was silent as those within struggled to accept the sudden loss of their beloved master.  Ruth, however, refused to wholly give up hope.
“He said he would come,” she insisted, and she steadfastly watched for him from the highest tower of the castle.  She did not go near the wall unless necessary, but had begged the gate guards to stay there day and night, ready to admit her father should he come.  Days became weeks, and many tried to dissuade Ruth from spending all her time on the tower, but she would hear none of it.
“He’s gone, Ruth,” the old cook told her one day as she stopped by the kitchen for food.  “I know it ain’t easy to lose someone you love dear.  You miss ’em bad and keep hopin’ they’ll come back, but death don’t work that way.  No ’un can show love more real’n givin’ his life.  You’re gonna have to let him go.”
Ruth gave her a tightlipped smile and went up with determination to the tower.  It was wise words, but she would not give up, not for a long time yet.
* * *
The gate guards were getting bored.  They, like the girl they could see on the tower, missed their master, but they had been rotating duty for three weeks with nothing to see and only each other for company.  One, named Gerald, was trying to convince his companion Larry to take a bet with him.
“Three weeks!”  Gerald held up three fingers.  “She hasn’t slackened a bit in her vigilance.  Bet you a gold piece she won’t relax her watch for less than three months.”
“No way!”  Larry protested.  “She can’t wait that long.”
“You take my bet, then?”
“Well…”  Larry was wavering, trying to make up his mind when both guards jumped into the air as the gate rattled with a violent knock.
Pulling himself together, Gerald bellowed in his most pompous voice.  “Who knocks on the gate so boldly?”
“A friend!”
The guard looked at each other with this declaration of the password.  “Lord Peter, maybe?”  Larry asked.  “Come on a sympathy visit?”  Gerald shrugged his shoulders, opening the gate and a cloaked figure stepped through.
* * *
Ruth had witnessed the arrival of the stranger, and seen him speaking to the gate guards.  But it wasn’t until she saw him turn his head that she knew him, and as she raced down the stairs with the speed of a deer, she wondered how she could have been so blind.  She dodged around two servants and the butler before blazing out the door at a speed that would have made a stallion proud.  As he looked up she ran straight at the man she loved and was gathered into the strong arms she had thought never to feel again.
“Daddy!  You’re back!”  The cry caused a great stirring in the castle, and men and women poured out of the doors and leaned out of windows to see what was happening.  “I trusted you this time.  I waited for you.”
Her father smiled back at her.  “I know, Ruthie.  You did.  Well done.”