Betrayal

All the heads in the valley turned to us as Roxanne screamed. For a moment no one moved, everyone just shocked by seeing us. I was motionless too, my mind too numb to work out what needed to be done. Surprisingly, princess was the one to break the silence:" please, do not kill him!". It was like her words broke the spell and my brain started processing our situation in a split of a second: we were standing there without our horses, they could get to us in 5 minutes and that was the time we had to save ourselves. Alexander looked at Roxanne, still not believing what he was seeing, then opened his mouth: " get them"! I heard another voice as I took the princess's hand and ran with all my power: run! Get away from here!". The voice was not from Darius, it was Aria's, our brave commander in chief. 

The princess, as if just realised what she had done and the danger she put us in, ran with me towards the woods where we hoped to find our horses. I was breathless considering my age, but the fear of my life made my feet to move as fast as they could. We could hear them coming towards us, they were getting close and we still could not find our horses. Even if we did, there still was a big possibility that they could catch up to us.

I saw princess's horse and we to it. Princess jumped on it and said: "there is no time to search for yours, you can ride in the back. My horse is strong enough for both of us." It was not a good idea, with me on the back, the horse would have been slower than usual and we would have definitely got caught. 

All of a sudden I remembered a cave nearby, its entrance was covered with leaves so there was a chance we could hide there for a little while. I thought that we could stay there with princess's horse to buy some time, when the barbarians got away from us, then we could emerge and run.

I guided princess to the cave while praying for it to be safe and not occupied by wild animals. We got to the entrance which was a narrow hole hardly visible because of ivies and leaves. I entered first and quickly searched inside to make sure there was no danger. Then I helped Roxanne to enter with her horse.

As we hid inside, we could hear the horses' hooves and soldiers shouts. Princess was scared, and honestly I was terrified too. Who would not be? I knew about barbarians and how they behaved towards their captives and prisoners. They previously attacked and conquered our neighbour kingdom, Ashur, and we all had heard stories of  the genocide, rapes and other crimes they committed in that land.

After killing Ashur's king, they had killed all the nobles, not wanting anyone to threaten Alexander's authority and all the widows and daughters of the nobles were given to Alexander's soldiers as wives, bed mates or slaves. This was going to be 100 times worse for us, our king had insulted Alexander and as far as he knew, our princess refused his offer of marriage.

I sat beside Roxanne, wanting to  conciliate her as she was crying. Her velvety voice was cracking as she said:" do you think he killed the king?"

I paused not knowing what to say:" i do not know my lady, but even if he did, our king died with honour and pride defending his land and his family." she sobbed:" this is all my fault, i wish i was dead." I felt a clench in my heart, she was so innocent that it became painful some times.

I had a sudden desire to hold her tightly, to take away her veil and look at her eyes and tell her it was going to be alright. i was in love with her mother and Roxanne always looked at me as a father figure, I had known her since birth and I was one of a few who had seen her without a veil.

Even though it was a long time ago, i could still remember her angelic face. She was not allowed to appear in front of anyone without her veil except for her mother and the king. But still, 6 years ago when she was ten, I went to see queen Atusa  and Roxanne was there doing tapestry with her mother. My visit was unplanned so they did not expect me. As I walked in and she ran to get her veil, I looked at her face and I went speechless for a while. 

This was the second time I saw her face. The first time was the day she was born. Even then her eyes could hunt a man down. She had a spell in them, something that drew men into a violet sea and dropped them to their knees. I Could have loved her and wanted her like others if I was not so madly in love with her mother.

I ignored my urge to remove her veil, took her hand and said:" you should not say that my lady. Our land needs you now more than ever. You are destined for something great." she cut me: " no, I am not. Why do you always say that? Look at us now, because of me our land is under barbarians attack and hundreds had been killed. They are going to find us and make us their slaves."she paused as we heard foot steps and shoutings nearby. We stood there in silence, awaiting our fate and praying. 

My mind flew to the castle, i could just hope that Azarm escaped with the women and saved the queens. I could not bear the thought of Atusa being captured by these dirty men. I knew now that i could not go back for her so the only thing I could do was to save her daughter. I heard the horses and footsteps getting closer and then after a while getting far. I let out my breathe, gods helped us. We were safe.

We waited there in silence for another hour, scared of moving or making a noise. I was trying to not think of the king's fate in the hands of Alexander, just hoping that he was not killed. Slowly, i decided to come out and have a look around to make sure it was safe for the princess to escape. If we could ride to the north then, we would have been in my house by midnight and from there we could decide what to do. I knew that all the neighbouring lands would have had us as refugees, if their kings and princes thought they could have a chance with Roxanne.

I walked towards the entrance, peeking outside. There was no one to be seen so I carefully went out and scanned around for any potential danger. Since I could not see anyone, I signed to the princess to come out. She walked out slowly, pulling her horse's bridle. She looked around and jumped on her horse waiting for me to join. As I was walking towards her, I heard a whistle so close to my ear and in a split of a second, I saw an arrow hitting a tree just behind me. 

I was stunned, not knowing what to do, in a moment the princess rode towards me and asked me to jump on the horse. From the corner of my eye, I saw a black horse ridden by a silver armour knight. Silver armour? Thank the gods, he was one of our knights! Then what was he doing shooting arrows at us? I watched him in confusion as he circled us with his horse and took out his helmet. It was Dara, one of the King's generals. 

Roxanne said:" thank gods you are here Dara, we were so scared. Where are others? Who else escaped? Did you help the king?"

I felt uneasy for some reason, did not feel good about the smirk on Dara's face:" do not worry yourself my princess, I did all I could to help the king, but not your worthless brother, I have a new king now to serve, the great Alexander, and now I am helping him capture the run away princess." . Before we could move, I saw soldiers coming towards us. This time, there was no hope to escape. Like our land, we were betrayed.