Chapter Four: In which Lady Ann encounters Peril for the first time

For a moment, Lady Ann was not entirely certain what had happened. She had been sitting amongst the herbs looking at her torn sleeve....and now, she wasn't. She was looking at something else. What was it? It was black - no, dark brown - and hairy and sleek, and moving rhythmically. And below it, something was going by very fast. It was green and blurry, but it looked like it must be grass. It was hard to process quickly when you were being bounced up and down, slung across the front of a horse like an old sack.

As Lady Ann thought this, she suddenly blinked. This was a situation she understood. She had been kidnapped by a villain and he was taking her away from the spring palace to hold her captive until such time as she was ransomed, rescued, or agreed to marry her captor who was, it would turn out, very handsome and actually so deeply in love with her he'd forgotten how to use his words and so had decided on immediate action instead. Or perhaps he would be converted to good behaviour through the influence of her charms. This thought was quite agreeable, so Lady Ann decided to delay screaming until she could see what the evil villain who had carried her off looked like, and whether or not there was potential for redemption.

Unfortunately, it was not as easy as she had imagined to get a look at the man. She could see his right boot all right, as the stirrup was right next to her head, but not much else. Wriggling around on a galloping horse while not securely attached to said horse seemed like a little too much adventure for Lady Ann. She looked at the boot. It was quite large, and black, and altogether rather too shiny. It seemed somewhat familar, perhaps, but who notices boots? There was nothing she could learn from this, Lady Ann decided.

As a matter of fact, as the foot reading gypsies of the Wide Flat Plains of central Ablet could have told her, a lot can be learnt from a pair of boots. Or any other kind of shoes for that matter. If Lady Ann had been one of these gypsies, she would have known not only that her kidnapper had large feet, but also that he went through a lot of boot polish, dressed only in black and had a scar on his left cheek and was probably of villanous tendencies. The gypsies know the value of looking at the whole person and are less fearful of their personal safety - a galloping horse is a minor consideration. And to be completely honest, the foot reading is a bit of scam.

However, as Lady Ann was not a foot reading gypsy it would take her slightly longer to realise these things about the man who was carrying her off although some of them, it must be admitted, were evident even to a princess with little experience of peril. As it was, the jostling up and down was becoming unbearably uncomfortable, and Lady Ann was becoming increasingly aware that her glossy braids of golden hair were coming inelegantly unravelled. She decided that perhaps it would be a good idea to scream after all. And so she did.

There are few places where the sight of a screaming damsel in distress would not draw assistance from on lookers. Usually, there would be a seventh son, a handy woodcutter or even a handsome prince within earshot who would leap astride his noble stead or coming running bearing whatever useful implement or mythical sword he could find, and bear down upon the cad who was tormenting the beauty in such a way. Having borne down on him, he would then smite him manfully - in a fair fight, of course - and save the grateful princess who would them marry him, and they would live as happily ever after as was possibly, according the omnipotent and unignorable laws of birth dates. That is what would usually happen. But, unfortunately for Lady Ann, it did not always work that way.

Few of the villagers on the Western Shores had families running to seven children, and besides, it was mid-morning, and all the men were out in the fishing boats. The only males around were aged under thirteen or over sixty, and be they ever so willing, they do not make appropriate heroic rescuers. So that option was out. There were also not enough trees on the Western Shores - the salt having stunted the growth of any potential forest - to make woodcutting a viable occupation. Thus Lady Ann could not reasonably hope that a woodcutter would happen to be just passing by. It seemed to her that the most likely candidate for rescuer was a handsome prince - but, no! - she realised with a shock. All the princes around here were members of the house of Erd! They would see her across the front of the horse, screaming. They might utter some exclamatory remark. But they wouldn't attempt to rescue her. That was a job for a suitably marriageable princes. There was Prince Rupert, she thought as she screamed, but she hadn't yet made up her mind if she wanted to marry him or not. And just then, she remembered why the boots seemed so familiar.

Prince Rupert was carrying her off! It was so odd Lady Ann stopped screaming. Why in the world should a loquacious, wealthy,well dressed, handsome - if you ignored that large scar on his left cheek and a faintly sinister countenance - prince abduct her like this? Lady Ann didn't understand it. She didn't understand it all.

[Word count so far: 4124]