Chapter 5
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Moxie and her escorts walked through an unguarded gate a few hours before dawn. They had horses and their saddle bags were filled with supplies. Moxie even left her wedding dress behind to make room for more food.
To prevent any noise from waking up a guard, they agreed not to mount the horses until they gained the ridge line. Along the way, by the light of an almost-full moon, they noticed two boulders lurking in the distance. The boulders rolled into shadows as they watched.
A depressed and silent Moxie pondered what she would do with the rest of her life. Her dream of having a loving husband and ruling her own household had been shattered by Gamel. She knew she wasn't pretty enough to attract men on her own. She now faced a life of luxurious imprisonment in her father's castle because Smedley wouldn't be able to find a replacement husband. Gamel had been her only hope for marriage and freedom.
Her father didn't care if she was around or not. Smedley rarely talked to her or even took notice of her. On occasions, she received an invitation to a royal feast. During these events, Moxie saw and talked to other nobles and that cheered her up for a while.
In her future as she saw it, the servants and guards would be her only companions, just as they had been ever since her mother had died. Maybe her father would relent and allow her to have a circle of noble lady friends. If he refused, she faced a lonely life.
Moxie realized she wouldn't have these problems if she had been trained to be self-sufficient like Percivale, Bors and Gareth. They didn't waste time worrying whether someone was noble-born or peasant. It was as if birth status was unimportant to them. They didn't need servants to wash their clothes or cook their meals. They feared little and accepted challenges as a part of normal life. They did whatever had to be done, whenever it had to be done. That gave them a degree of freedom that Moxie had never experienced and probably never would.
Moxie wondered if she could gain insights into how they did things, how they solved problems, how they thought. Perhaps, she could learn valuable lessons. Perhaps, she should stop waiting for her father to decide everything in her life. Perhaps, it was time to take matters into her own hands, time to chose her own destiny. The alternative to choosing her own path was to live like a caged bird.
Moxie shuddered at the difficulty of deciding her own fate, but it was better than than being a caged animal.
~ ~ ~
Merlin entered the room in the back of the keep where Tristan rehearsed his new play, Rolf and Hild. The play's premier was planned for Camelot's annual Yuletide Feast and Merlin was curious about what abomination Tristan had hatched this time.
A few knights milled about the room while an apprentice knight with a bandaged arm stood on a chair. The apprentice had a woman's wig on his head and didn't look happy. Tristan placed a second chair alongside the first. "Let us begin with an important scene. One that will leave not a dry eye in the audience."
"You are Hild," Tristan said to the apprentice on the chair, "a rich maiden. Let us pretend the chairs are a balcony in a garden behind Hild's house." Tristan smacked a second knight in the chest with the back of his hand. "Your name is Rolf. You are wandering knight who has fallen in love with Hild as she has with you. Her family refuses to allow you to marry her or even see her, so you have to meet in secret. Is this clear?"
Both characters looked puzzled.
"Why don't I just kill her parents," Rolf asked, "and run away with her?"
