Her own way

Chapter 32

It took a few attempts for Prince Joshua along with Lucas and Sam to come up with a plan that would not only get Kate out of the dungeons, but also out of the kingdom and into safe hands. There was no way that Josh would allow Kate to stay in Rynemona, especially while Raphael is still King. If all went well the Kate would be safely tucked away in Eardheorte within the coming week. 

When the plan had been finalized, Sam wrote a short coded message to King Thomas saying that the girl will be rescued soon and that they needed extra men to be posted at the border between Eardheorte and Rynemona for protection. The idea was that once Josh, with the help of Sam and a select few of his men, had rescued Kate from whichever area of the castle she happened to be in, she would be escorted to the border by Josh's cousin Lucas and the remainder of Sam's men. Josh intended to stay behind so that his father would not be so suspicious. At least this way he knew that Kate would be safe and far away from this evil place. 

Josh knew it would only be a matter of time before his father would summon him and send him off on some task designed to keep him out of the castle and away from Kate so they needed to get moving before Raphael did anything. The main part of the plan was keeping Raphael distracted and out of the way so that Josh and Sam had time to get in and get out of the dungeons. It would not be too difficult to find the right moment, just a matter of finding the patience to wait for it.

Each day had it's own routine although some things never changed. Breakfast was always served when the bells tolled for the 8th hour of the day, lunch was an hour after noon and dinner was the bells chimed for the 6th hour after noon. Most mornings saw King Raphael and his closest companions would head off to the western woods hunting deer, rabbit, pheasant or other animals. The afternoons were different: Mondays and Thursdays saw the open court - citizens of Rynemona had the chance to come forward and present any problems to the king, Tuesdays was for tributes - offerings made to the king so that many could keep their lands, council was held on Wednesdays and Fridays enabling Raphael to exert his dominance over the laws of the land. Saturdays and Sundays were not always the same each week. The majority of Saturdays were spent entertaining whatever Raphael wanted. If there were to be executions or punishments then this would be the day he would oversee proceedings. Sundays were the opposite, the most relaxed day of the whole week. Raphael would often lock himself away in his study for the whole day, allowing the staff  to do about their day at a more leisurely and enjoyable pace.

One task that Josh had passed to Lucas in all their preparation was to search the King's study for a clue as to where Kate was being held. After a few close calls, Lucas managed to find a scrap of parchment amongst the masses of books and other pieces of parchment. This one was the only one that stood out as odd, mainly because Lucas couldn't quite understand the meaning ehind it:

"Servant. Main block. Hunt and Tanner. Thursday noon and three."

It seemed like absolute nonsense but thinking about it, when did anything King Raphael did ever make any sense? He found a blank piece of parchment and copied the message out for Josh to try and understand.

Josh spent several hours pouring over the possible meaning of this note while he was trying to come up with another way to figure out where Kate was. He could tell that everything in this note was important, otherwise it wouldn't be so hard to work out! Part of it was simple, the names - Hunt and Tanner were the family names of two guards, Thursday was obviously a day and the 'noon and three' might have been a time but that would need a bit more work. All of a sudden it just clicked in his mind and Josh was quick to find Lucas so that he could tell him how much of a fantastic cousin he was and that he had in fact found the most important piece of information.

"Lucas! Wake up!" Josh barged into his room speaking rather loudly for the time of night.

"Go 'way. M' sleepin'." Lucas grumbled into his pillow before rolling over presenting his back to Josh. Josh huffed and punched Lucas on the shoulder. "Man, what?! It's late cousin, time for sleeping not time for talking."

"We have it Lucas." Lucas just stared at Josh with bleary eyes and a confused look on his face. Huffing again, Josh continued. "Kate's location. She's being moved on Thursday when my father is holding court. The plan can be put into action and we will have her safe by dinner time! We can really do this Lucas."

"That's great," Lucas yawned, still not quite following what Josh was saying. "Can I go back to sleep now?" Josh gave a small chuckle at his cousin's tired speech.

"Yeah. Get some rest, it's going to be a busy few days while we finish planning. Goodnight."

"Night." Lucas had already closed his eyes and was drifting off when Josh slowly closed his bedroom door. It was hard for Josh to contain his excitement but he was now one huge leap closer to rescuing his girl. Come Thursday, Kate would be free once more.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

**AN**

This took so long to write, an actual pain... It's not very good and a bit of a filler but some things had to be done before the next chapter! Hopefully I'll get cracking on the next chapter pretty soon :-)

Once again, comments are appreciated! Thanks