Prince charming's Arc

Chapter 15 of 30

By noon Prince Charming had climbed the ladder twice to bring Princess Elara Rosemary water and bread. She had not left the platform since dawn. He watched her scan the road with one hand shading her eyes and knew she could not do this alone. One watcher meant one pair of eyes, and eyes closed at night. A hunter with sense would come at dusk or before first light, when the road was empty and the tower dark. He climbed down and walked the forest path until he reached the birdbath. He sat on its rim and thought it through. He needed a second watcher, or a third, or a way to know a stranger was on the road even when no one was looking. He went back to his house and took down the small bell his mother had used to call him from the fields. He carried it to the tower and climbed up. He told the princess his plan. They would string a line from the fence at the road up to the tower rail, and hang the bell at her end. Any cart that struck the line would ring her awake. She thought for a moment and said the line would need to sit low, across the cart track, tied to two stakes. She said she could sink the stakes herself before dark. They worked through the afternoon. He cut the cord from a coil in his shed. She drove the stakes at the road with the flat of an axe, her pink skirt tied up at the knee, her tiara set on a stone beside her while she worked. They ran the cord through the grass and up the rise and knotted the bell to the rail. Prince Charming pulled the line once from the road end. The bell rang clear across the field. Princess Elara Rosemary waved from the platform and rang it back with her hand. That night she slept on the platform under a blanket, and the bell hung above her head. Before dawn it rang. She stood, saw a lantern on the road, and called down her warning. The lantern stopped, turned, and went back the way it had come. Prince Charming heard the bell from his window and understood the ridge was watched now whether her eyes were open or not. One watcher and one bell had done what two watchers could not. What he did not yet know was that the cord could be cut, and that a man who cut it would climb past the tower in silence.