He collapsed down onto a pile of rubble in a great clattering of plate mail, his sword falling to the ground though still chained to his gauntlet.

“Brave sir knight, you have rescued me from incarceration, wouldst though remove thine helmet so I might gaze upon thy countenance?” the princess asked with all the confidence of being born into wealth and power.

“No,” he replied curtly.

The princess looked at him dumbfounded, having never been refused a request so harshly; even her captors had treated her like royalty, apologising for the necessity of her kidnap.

“What do you mean ‘No’, she asked finally finding her words even if not the high born speak expected of royalty.

“It’s a simple enough word, two letters, no, I’m not going to take off my helmet,” the knight answered gruffly after taking a moment to catch his breath.

“I never…” the princess stammered out.

“Look, why do you want to see under my helmet, I’m sweaty, flushed, poorly shaven, I’ve not brushed my teeth since yesterday and I stink inside this armour because I’ve been riding for a day straight to rescue you. Do you think this is some kind of tale where the low born knight rescues the princess and asks the king for his hand in marriage?” he scoffed out an interruption.

It was the princesses turn to slump down on her rump in the rubble. She had indeed grown up on bards tales of knights rescuing princesses and scandalous marriage proposals that the king was honour bound to uphold. It was what had made the whole kidnapping process bearable.

He looked over at the slumped princess seeing her disappointment. For a minute he was reminded of his own daughter and he felt bad for being so gruff with her.

“Look, life isn’t a bard’s tale, I hate to be the one to break it to you princess, and I understand, what you’ve got waiting for you back at the palace is a proposal from some pampered prince who couldn’t lift his own bath sponge let alone a sword,” he consoled.

The princess looked up at him tears in her eyes, not just from the disappointment, her emotions in general were bubbling to the fore. She had put on a brave face but being kidnapped had been stressful and scary, and the whole time she hadn’t been able to escape the memory of her lady in waiting, clutching a white pinafore to her belly that was gradually turning a deep claret colour; while her ordinarily rosy cheeks grew paler in exchange.

“Look you’re about the age of my daughter and I’ll tell you what I told her, if you don’t want to have a marriage arranged for you then become the kind of woman that gets to pick out a man you want confidently,” he said before groaning and awkwardly getting himself back onto his feet.

The princess looked up at him bleary eyed and simply asked, “how?”

The knight pulled off his helmet and shook out his thinning mop of sweaty hair. He smiled down at her the way a father does to his daughter then kicked over one of the kidnappers fallen blades.

“Let’s start with the basics, how to hold a sword, then work our way up to not getting kidnapped and needing rescue again, I’ll probably too old to do this next time,” he joked.