Autumn woke up at dawn, filled with a restless energy that demanded to be spent. After a cursory breakfast — brought in by one of the rabbit-eared servants from the previous evening, who vanished before she could introduce herself — she asked Knight to take her on a tour of the castle.

He had entered her rooms on the heels of the other construct, and had assumed a post next to the small table in her parlour, almost as if he expected her to give him a task. His arms were crossed behind his back while his gaze remained politely turned to the wall as she ate. She’d tried to get him to sit down opposite her, but the idea had seemed foreign to him, and she hadn’t been willing to push. Autumn was quietly relieved that he did not appear awkward nor nervous. She hoped that this meant that he had not overheard her the night before.

“Which part would you like to see first, my lady?” he asked her once she had made her request.

“What is there to see?”

“The public areas are impressive,” he began pensively, “but they haven’t seen much use. Perhaps they ought to be dusted before they come to your attention. The private wings are where you are likely to encounter the king.” He glanced at her repulsed expression and continued, without missing a beat: “there are also the functional rooms such as the kitchen and the guardhouse, although they will be busy at this time of day. May I recommend starting with the gardens?”

He gestured at the window, out of which she could only see a rocky courtyard surrounded by trees.

“There are gardens?”

She didn’t remember noticing any when they’d arrived the day before. There had been a first wall crowned by forbidding watchtowers, surging out of the forest in front of them without warning. Large reinforced gates had opened to let them pass, seemingly prompted by the same magic that had carved them a path through the woods. An ancient road of packed dirt ran from this gate all the way up to the castle, interrupted only by a small bridge arching over a stream. She’d estimated the distance between this outer wall and the inner ramparts to be about a mile, and had glimpsed the shape of a few buildings here and there between the trees, which she expected to be the stables and perhaps a guardhouse. However, once they’d reached the keep, it had not appeared to her as being surrounded by gardens but rather by stone, dead grass, and yet more trees.

Which was a shame, as she felt that just a little bit of landscaping might have gone a long way towards making this place appear less dreadful. She wasn’t asking for much; just a nice lawn, a few topiaries, and perhaps a small maze or a pond. Something to remind her of home. Back in Veld, her mother’s castle was surrounded by vast stretches of beautifully geometric lawns and paths, with the occasional bench in the shade of square hedges, or a rose garden fenced in by ornate trellis. The manicured grounds had been designed as an extension of the building’s architecture, enhancing and framing its impressive bulk. The succession of terraces and ha-has also served a more functional purpose, as they were positioned in such a way to allow the occupants of the keep to easily spot anyone that might be approaching, whether friends or foes. Whereas here, evergreens were growing so close to the walls that she’d heard branches scraping at her windows all night. An assassin, some part of her could not help but notice, would have no trouble at all scaling up those trees and slipping inside through a balcony door.

And yet, another part of her replied, if that was the case, then why had no one ever thought to do it? There had been enough armies marching this way over the years, after all. Maybe they had tried. Maybe it was simply that no one had ever succeeded.

She shivered, and brought her attention back to her knight, who was saying, somewhat awkwardly: “They might not look like the ones in the prairies. You don’t have trees there.”

She blinked at him. “Of course we have trees in the prairies. Not as many as here, but we do have them.”

“Oh,” he replied, looking as if he had been mildly worried by her kingdom’s lack of greenery and was now relieved to be receiving this new information. “I apologize. I’ve gone to the edge of the forest a few times and have never seen any past our borders. I suppose that I simply assumed that there was none.”

“The borders are fields,” she explained, “and they are kept clean so that there is no confusion where the line between both kingdoms is. But we are not entirely treeless, I assure you.”

“Well, of course,” he replied, now looking far more at ease. “If you have gardens, then you must have trees.”

Autumn still felt as if she was missing something. “Yes but... they’re not in the gardens. I mean, unless you count orchards as gardens? But generally, the idea is for the plants to see the sun.”

It was his turn to blink at her, bewildered. “I do not think that we are talking about the same thing. I meant gardens for growing flowers and food.”

Well, now she was even more confused. “Are you talking about orchards? Or, perhaps, vineyards?”

“I do not... think that I know what those are. Let me escort you outside, my lady, and then we can figure out if we are talking about the same thing?”

***

They were not, it turned out. Autumn had always understood gardens as being these highly organized spaces where plants were arranged in rows or, in the case of orchards, grids. But what she found outside of what she still referred to in her mind as ’Evil Castle’ — for lack of knowing its proper name — was far more similar to what she would ordinarily call... a forest, albeit one with a greater amount of fruit trees and berry bushes than usual.

But as Knight gently guided her down winding paths of faded stonework, she started to see what he meant when he called those woods a garden. The plants around her were vigorous, the flowers plentiful, and aside from berries and fruits, she was also surprised to recognize the leaves of various types of root vegetables dotting the understory. This place was obviously kept in health by some invisible hand, now that she knew to look for the signs. Here, a trellis supported the weight of vines in bloom. There, branches had been encouraged to grow in an arc over her head. Little boxes could be glimpsed between the leaves, from which emerged birds and all manner of colourful insects. As they walked deeper into this garden of wonders, the air turned fragrant and sweet.

“How wonderful,” she breathed, bending down to examine a bush laden with large white flowers. “I have never seen these before!”

“I do not know what they’re called,” rumbled her knight, reaching a hand out to pluck one of the blooms, “but they taste very good. You should try one.”

She took it as he handed it to her, bemused, but just as she hesitantly raised the flower to her lips, a loud voice snapped: “STOP!”

Autumn and Knight turned in unison to see a plump grey figure make their way to them through the trees. It appeared to be a peculiar little man, short in stature and dressed in a large coat with a chatelaine of gardening tools hanging at his belt. His hair was as grey as his clothing, with a shock of black strands around the temples, and tiny round ears crowned the top of his head. Evidently, he was another construct, but Autumn could not immediately place from the heart of which animal he might have been created.

“What did you just give her, you hedge-born ruminant? The lady’s a princess, not a Cervidae!”

The gardener turned to her and executed a perfectly ridiculous yet charmingly awkward curtsy by pulling on the edges of his coat.

“My apologies, your Highness,” he squeaked. “If I had been informed of your intention to tour my domain, I would have devised a better, more scenic path for you.” He glared at Knight from the corner of his eyes. “In any case, please excuse my interruption, but I must warn you not to eat anything that this one hands you. He is from a deer, you understand, empty heads the lot of them. Complete fopdoodles. If you don't mind, may I see what he has given you?”

Autumn blinked and glanced quizzically at Knight, but his expression had gone bland and his posture was one of patient waiting. She placed the white blossom into the palm of the gardener, and idly noticed that he wore small black leather gloves with the fingertips cut out. This tugged at something in her memory, and she suddenly realized that she was looking at a raccoon. Or, at least, a construct that had once been a raccoon. In a garden…? She wondered if there was any correlation between the species that the King chose for his creatures and the work that he intended to assign to them.

The small man examined the flower, lips slowly tightening into a displeased white line. “Well,” he said. “Well, alright. So you can eat that one.”

He shoved it back towards her abruptly. “But don’t eat anything else without checking with me first, do you hear? I won’t have the future queen fall ill from my garden. Not on my watch. And you,” he added, jabbing a thin finger at Knight, “stop snacking on my plants already! I’ve warned you!”

He curtsied at Autumn again and then stalked back the way he had come from, muttering angrily to himself. “Deers, I ask you!” they heard him say as he disappeared between the large leaves of a shrub. “They act as if everything’s a buffet!”

Once he was out of hearing range, Knight’s shoulders slumped. “I would never hand you anything poisonous,” he told her earnestly. “I’ve researched which of the plants humans can eat. In a book.”

“Oh,” she breathed, oddly charmed. She had been given plenty of flowers before, but never as food. “That’s very nice of you. I’ll just put this up here, for now,” she added, reaching up to slip it into her hair. “In case he comes back.”

Knight moved forward and his fingers closed around hers unexpectedly. “Let me.”

He gently pulled the stem out from where her first attempt had tangled it with her hair and placed it carefully back atop the curve of her ear. Autumn's breath caught at this sudden proximity. She stared at the hollow of his throat. He was so much taller than her. Standing like this with him, close enough to feel his warmth, she could almost forget the world around her and imagine herself to be safe. His hands left her, their duty done, and her own shot out without her conscious input to catch his fingers and cradle them to her cheek.

It was his turn to hold his breath, and they remained thus for a short second that seemed like an eternity, gazing at each other. She felt her lips part, and his eyes flicked down to rest on them.

“Thank you,” she finally murmured, casting out blindly for something to say, something to explain why she now pressed her visage to the palm of a man who was not her betrothed. How very scandalous.

Yet, she still held his hand.

“You’re welcome, my lady.”

And he still held hers.

Another eternity ticked by. Birdsong echoed nearby, an unfamiliar melody that could have been part of a dream. Something shifted in her knight’s eyes. Gently, he brushed the curve of her cheek with his thumb, before pulling his hand away from hers. Their fingers trailed together as she let him go.

“Perhaps you may want to see more of the courtyard?” he said, and she envied the way that he could make his voice sound collected, when hers quavered as she answered: “Please.”

The knight nodded and turned to lead her deeper into the garden. As he did so, his antlers clattered against a low branch that curved over the path and this, finally, broke through his composure. She saw the tip of his ears redden as he ducked his head. She wished, mournfully, that this was less adorable.

***

Autumn and Knight spent the rest of that first day in the gardens, only returning inside for lunch. The grounds were so much larger than she had expected, but the temperature was lovely, and Knight proved very pleasant company.

Eventually, their feet sore from walking, they sat in the grass in a small clearing surrounded by colourful blooming shrubs. There, he told her about the constructs who lived in the castle, and how there were only a dozen of them. She wondered at how this could be. An entire castle, staffed by so few servants? But Knight swore that he told the truth. According to him, the king did not like to fill his halls unless he thought that a war was imminent.

Autumn felt a strange pang of guilt at that. She remembered how, during their first conversation, Knight had mentioned the possibility of being sent to battle. Like most people in Esternia, she had always resented the Wizard King for the loss of so many lives every time the kingdoms moved against him. It had never occurred to her, until this moment, to wonder about the deaths on the other side. She tried to reassure herself that this is what she had been sent here to stop. If she succeeded in her task, then there would be no more wars.

Knight seemed to notice her discomfort, and soon changed the subject. For the rest of the afternoon, they only discussed the varieties of flowers in the garden, and which of them the gardener might scold them for picking.

Afterwards, she braced herself for another painful meal with the king. To her relief, however, Eltanin did not seem inclined to talk very much that evening. In fact, he ate quickly, then apologized to her and departed, claiming that a matter had arisen demanding his attention. She wondered what this could be, but he left so fast that she did not have the time to inquire. She doubted that she would have received an answer anyhow, even if she had asked.

She mentioned her annoyance to Knight on their way back to her rooms, and once more he proved to be the truest friend that she could have asked for. He went fishing for rumours on her behalf, and in the morning informed her of his findings. Apparently, after leaving the table, the king had gone to lock himself in his study, alone, and had requested not to be disturbed. This didn’t sound like much of an emergency to her, and she wondered whether it was possible that the man could have been simply avoiding her.