That night, Queen came to the designated location: an old, stone ruin on the palace grounds that no one used anymore. There had been talk of demolishing it, but the place had historical value (insofar as anything in Orstoll could) and as such, no one had gotten around to tearing it down yet. The place was silent and appeared to be deserted.
“Fie?” Queen called. Something flashed before his eyes with a sharp whistle of wind in response. An arrow! It was a training arrow with its rounded tip blunted by cloth, but it would still hurt if it hit its mark.
Queen froze in shock as a voice issued from the ruins. “Queen Dober!” the voice cried. “I challenge you to a duel! If I win, then you will give up your position as a squire and bequeath it to me!” It was, of course, Fie’s voice.
“Uh...what...?” Queen said. That was an impossible request. Even if Fie won and Queen tried to yield his squire rights, she still couldn’t be a squire again.
A second volley of arrows whirred past him, one after the other in quick succession. Queen yelped and dashed for cover behind a nearby tree.
“What are you doing, Fie?!” he yelled.
“I’m dueling you!” she screamed back.
Queen looked pained. “This is dangerous! Stop!”
“No! But you are free to try scaling my fortress and taking me down!”
“But tomorrow’s our wedding!”
“If you want to marry me, you’d better defeat me first!”
There was no point in arguing with her any further. With a clicking sound like someone had pulled a lever, a number of wooden spears rained down from the tree Queen was hiding under. He leaped out of the way, stumbling over a wooden practice sword lying at his feet. This, Queen thought, must be his weapon. Queen grabbed the sword and then looked up at Fie’s so-called fortress. He wasn’t entirely sure how this was supposed to play out, but it looked as if he’d need to climb to the top of the ruin in order to find her.
He stepped in through the long since doorless entrance and immediately fell into a pit. A trap! He flailed and kicked off the sides of the pit, managing to escape with his impressive physical abilities. Just as he did, another rain of arrows whizzed down at him from the upper story. Queen batted them away with his sword.
He peered farther into the room. The stairway up was blocked off with rocks, but, as he saw when he ducked out to check, the outside staircase was still clear. The moment he stepped foot on the stairs, a thick wooden spear surged out of the wall towards him. He stepped back and heard a clang as an iron shackle clamped closed around his foot. The shackle was attached to a heavy weight with long chains, the whole setup locked in such a way that Queen knew it would be challenging to escape from. Queen’s mobility was his weapon, and now that mobility was restricted.
Fie called out to him, “This is what I’ve been preparing these past two weeks. If you underestimate me, you’ll be in for a world of pain!”
Even with his foot bound as it was, Queen gingerly began to climb the stairs. He had no idea why this was happening, but he’d worry about that later. For now, all he needed was to make it to the top floor and find Fie.
Much to his relief, the stairs seemed like they would be out of the line of fire of her arrows; even weighed down as he was, he only needed to watch out for traps. Just then, he heard a whistling noise unlike anything that he had ever heard before. It was a strange weapon shaped like the letter V, which was called—although Queen didn’t know the name—a boomerang. The boomerang traveled in an odd arc and bore down on Queen. He panicked and scrambled away, his encumbered right foot trailing behind him. Unlike Queen, who only ever learned to use a sword, the older knights had taught Fie to use all sorts of weapons as a method of overcoming her comparative lack of physical strength, or so she had claimed. Queen now realized that wasn’t just a bluff.
I guess I have no choice, he thought. He wound up the trailing chains and charged up the flight of stairs. No weight could rob Queen of his agility. He dodged the boomerang, another rain of arrows, and even more traps as he ran.
Then he arrived at the top floor and gasped. There Fie stood behind a ring of fortifications, traps and fences meant to block anyone coming her way, a specially made pike in her hand.
“What is all this for...?” he asked.
Her face was hidden in shadow as she answered, “Because it’s not fair...”
“What’s not fair?” Was it something he’d done? He couldn’t recall doing anything unfair to her. He had done his very best in his knight training and wedding preparations for Fie’s sake, hadn’t he?
Instead of answering, she stabbed at him with the pike. It was very clearly a deliberate action, no hastily made decision on her part. Queen tried to duck to avoid the pike, but the traps and fences blocked his way, forcing him to stay within her range and take the blow.
As he tried to dodge, he yelled, “Tell me why you’re attacking me! If I did something wrong, I’ll apologize!”
Fie roared back, “I challenged you to a duel! You’re not supposed to just stand there talking with me! If you want to talk to me, you’ll have to defeat me first!”