Chapter 10

She came to her senses in the morning and the two snow white feline bed coverings melted away as mysteriously as they had originally materialised, much to the relief of the horse, who had slept uneasily all night, with one eye ever on the lookout for a move from the leopards.

She shivered, now that she was once more entirely bare and unprotected from the bitter cold and the wind which howled and whistled over the mountain. "I hope I will be over these awful mountains and into the southern plains before too long. This is killing me!" she muttered, as she took food and drink from the saddle bags and saw to the sustenance of herself and her equine companion. Her hands blue and stiff with cold and the fine golden hairs on her body standing out vertically in the intensity of the Arctic chill, she urged the mount forward at a trot and ran behind it, heedless of the damage she was doing to her feet on the razor sharp stones - anything to get the blood flowing and to save her extremities from frostbite!

By infinitely slow degrees, the unprecedentedly hellish agonies that were gripping her abated and departed from her, being replaced with nothing more than intense and terrible pain, which she could easily bear, being well used to it by this time. The upward course of the ever more stony path seemed unending and her breast was bursting with the combination of the pain of exertion and the rarity of the mountain air.

Just as she doubted that she could go any further, she saw before and far away beneath her the plains of that Southern land where she was to spend the next few months. It looked like Paradise to the poor tortured Princess, a plain covered with lakes and trees, through which she must pass in order to reach the southern tip of the country below, her ultimate destination.

The descent was in many ways more of a trial than that long climb which she had barely been able to complete. One compensation for the perilous nature of the downward journey was the gradual slackening of the terrible cold. By the time she had reached the plain, her knees, hands, arms and body bleeding from several falls on the way down, and her left eye bruised and cut from contact with one wickedly sharp stone which had broken a particularly nasty fall, the air was warm again and she sank to the ground on her bruised and bleeding knees praying her thanks to whomsoever had made it possible for her to come through such a fearful ordeal.

"You should thank yourself and your own great courage" said a voice which came from nowhere and everywhere at one and the same time. "You had no help save from the leopards. You have saved yourself by your exertions and bravery. Well done, oh fair Princess!"

Instead of pride at these words, for some strange reason she felt more utterly humbled than at any time since she was a little child - humble and grateful to the unseen voice for its words of praise, which she could not in any way feel to be merited. She knew that more dangers lay ahead and that she could not rest upon her laurels, but must press immediately on.

Before this adventure was over, she knew that she must to pass through many more dangerous situations and endure much more terrible pain. It was a thought that filled her with dread. Only her continuing love for the indifferent and uncaring Prince, and her undiminished determination and desire to transform his indifference into love, sufficed to keep her true to her mission.