Meanwhile Katherine was drifting in that soft blue place between dreaming and waking, curled into a ball in the armchair by the window. Lily was sat on the floor, her back pressed against the door in a silken nightgown, she was eating a fresh green apple, stolen from dinner, and she listened intently for footsteps. They had been waiting hours for Josie's return and the sun was close to rising. Lily wondered if something had happened to her, if she had betrayed them to the Queen, or if she had simply forgotten about them. Lily paced, she sat down again, she paced and sat down again. By the time Josie did arrive Lily had fallen sleep on top of the bed but Josie's knock and haughty whisper jolted her awake.
Lily rushed to open the door and ushered Josie inside, Josie checked the spy hole. She had not been followed. Katherine was roused by the frantic movement, Josie was breathing heavily, shocked with herself. Terrified of being caught. She checked the corridor again for good measure. Katherine offered her the armchair and Lily offered her some bread and cheese, she looked as if she were about to faint.
"Take your time Josie, calm down." Josie took a bite from the bread and breathed, it was the best food she had eaten for years. The servants food revolved around wet oatmeal and boiled vegetables. The bread was a fresh sourdough infused with rosemary and the cheese was a creamy, tart Wensleydale with sweet cranberries. It delighted her, it made her forget her fear.
"I...I don't know where to start." Josie fumbled and pulled at her sleeves. Lily knelt before Josie's chair and Katherine perched on the end of the bed,
"What were you smoking earlier?" Josie dug her nails into her palms.
"We call it the dragon. It makes you feel like heaven."
"So why call it the dragon?"
"Because we cannot escape it." There was a period of heavy silence, while the waited for Josie to expand, she was pale, her hands clammy. "She pays us with it, so we can never leave. If you don't smoke it she'll start putting it in your food and then you'll have to work for it. You must get out."
"How?" Lily and Katherine were afraid to face that fate, a lifetime of servitude to false joy, all while enabling a tyrant's gutting of the earth. Josie shook her head, she was about to cry.
"I don't know." She tried to stifle a sob, Lily gripped her hands to bring Josie back from the pull of despair.
"Think, think, you know this castle better than anyone. Take your time." Katherine was frozen, petrified, sat stricken across the room. Barely able to breathe as she watched her fate be decided, it was being slowly unraveled in Josie's drug addled mind.
"It's dangerous... but you could take the mines."
"How dangerous?" Katherine asked, preparing herself for the worst, she was preparing herself to do anything, to risk anything, rather than live a half life.
"If you are caught you will be executed. But there are rarely soldiers in the mines, only her miners but they're kept so high on the mines fumes that they won't notice. She'll likely send some knights after you so you'll have to move fast."
"Is it possible." Katherine stood and walked towards the quivering kitchen maid, despite the mess of her white hair and the dirt under her nails she radiated royalty and command.
"I believe so. You'd have to go at night to get a head start and pray there's somewhere to hide at the end." There was no decision to make for Katherine.
"We'll do it." Lily was not so sold, she looked up at Katherine whose face was taught and serious.
"Will the fumes effect us?" Lily asked.
"Not if you're just passing through, you'd have to be down there days to get the high." Josie responded, she had once been tasked with moving through the mines to deliver meals to the miners.
"What is the Queen mining?"
"The drug, it's a type of crystal. As well as emeralds, and rubies and diamonds. She plans to sell it to get rich... richer." Josie was stricken.
"And the war?" Pressed Lily.
"She's invading Dwarven land for her mines, this whole palace belonged to them once." The Dwarves were close allies of the mountain king, they had a complex labyrinth of diamond mines running through his kingdom. Katherine had met many of them during her time at the mountain castle and had always had a great respect for their people. Dwarves were creatures of the earth, stubborn, brutish and cold but proud and reliable. Creatures of wealth and pleasure. The mountain palace itself had been built by the Dwarves.
"Where did she come from?" Josie shrugged with resignation.
"I've only heard rumours, the kitchen girls think she was just a farm or village girl and she found a bag of rubies and bought a mine, then went mad with power. The knights say she was a noble that married a prince, she ended up murdering him for his wealth and his power. The cooks think that she came from across the sea, that she's a disgraced elf with clipped ears. I don't know the truth and I'm frightened to ask." Lily nodded, assessing the information.
"Will you lead us to the mines?" Katherine knelt before Josie also, in gratitude and pleading. She would be risking a great deal. Josie nodded.
"Come with us?" Lily would feel better if Josie was comfortable risking the mines herself, but Josie began to shake her head, paling at the thought of freedom. "Why not?" Questioned Lily, carefully maintaining her comforting, motherly attitude.
"I can't... I need the drug. I hate to admit it but I do."
"You wouldn't give it up for freedom?" Josie shook her head, with great melancholy.
"I hate myself for it." She was about to cry but she tensed her jaw to fight the flood. "I hate her for it." Her eyes stung with the drying tears.
"And if she finds out you helped us?" Josie leant back in the armchair, wiping her eyes on her sleeves. Choking on repressed sobs.
"Then I die." The sun had begun to rise up over the horizon, it filled the stoney valley with rich golden light. As time passed and the sun moved the turret rooms of Queen Isolde's palace were flooded with blinding light. Lady Isolde and the knight were disturbed by the flash, they were naked, entwined with one another. "I have to go, give me a few days to make a plan." Josie jumped to her feet, her eyes on the sun, she knew Isolde would call upon her soon. "I'll come back when I've thought of something." Josie scurried from the room, locking them inside. Exhausted, afraid and hopeful Katherine and Lily retired to sleep.
The Queen rolled over in her black silks, she ran her fingers across the dips and curves of the knights body, delighting in his form. Their flesh glowed in the light, they embraced one another. For the first time in years Isolde's heart was full, it was warm and yellow. They were light, they were floating, their chains lifted.
"Leave with me?" He pleaded. Isolde shook her head, she could not leave everything she had gained behind; despite the misery it caused.
"Stay with me?" The knight shook his head. He could not give up his freedom, not even for a strange and brilliant passion. There was dread in her throat, the gods had given her everything she had ever wanted and then ripped it away from her. In her mind she was screeching, cursing the old Gods, cursing the new, cursing the stars and the moon, cursing the passage of time.
"I don't want you to go." The mysterious knight kissed her forehead, a delightfully tender display. Then he moved to sit on the edge of the bed, his back to the Queen. She fumbled underneath her pillow and drew a blade, the Queen approached the knight, kissing the back of his neck and running her free hand along his waistline.
"I have to." Just as the knight finished speaking Isolde pushed the dagger between his ribs, penetrating the lungs. He cried out, a desperate gasp for air, a terrible betrayal. The knight slumped to the ground, bleeding over the Queen's silks and marble floor. Isolde dropped the blooded knife beside him, she stood over him, naked and unshaken. Her expression was numb as she watched the life slowly leave him. When he finally lie dead the Queen took her seat in the window and pushed all of her agony and regret down with a drag on her pipe. She justified it to herself over and over, staring at his corpse, feeling nothing. 'How could I let him live, I had to protect myself, he would have hurt me, he would have broken my heart. It was too big a risk.' The thoughts went racing around her head, giving her no peace no matter how much smoke she filled her head with. She would regret it for the rest of her life, she wished she had gone with him, she wanted to burn the castle to the ground. When the sight of him became too much she hauled his body to the balcony and with a great struggle forced him over the railing. She watched him twist and dance through the air before crashing through the stain glass roof of the throne room. The Queen sunk back into the solitude she had always preferred but it did not taste the same, she broke into sobbing, into wailing.
Queen Isolde took no meals that day, she called upon no servants, she just sat and stared into the sun. She lamented and lamented, she thought naught of her mountain prisoners. She could have died of grieving. The day was spent thinking of the past, of the last time she had been captured by love. The screaming and the brutalisation, how she had spent years living in a world suspended across pleasure and pain. She had loved him because she was a fool, he had tortured her, severed her body from her mind; and she him in return. Then the day came where it was kill or be killed, the fire had grown too hot. Too much was never enough. Sometimes she wished that she had just let him kill her.