Books of Bayern Series Bundle

by Shannon Hale

  That night was the first slept under the sky. Ingras ordered a small tent, the only private one in the camp, assembled for the princess. Even under the eaves of evergreens, he insisted on treating Ani as her mother had wished. Drinking from a gold cup in that wilderness seemed ridiculous to Ani and, she thought, to the rest of the company as well, but she was accustomed to being served and made no protest. Selia helped her undress in the privacy of the tent and then set up her own bedroll just outside.

  “There is room for another,” said Ani, though there scarcely was.

  “No, I am fine out here, Crown Princess,” said Selia.

  Ani lay down in the strange solitude of her tent, closed in by walls only paper-thin. She could hear Falada move somewhere near.

  Falada, the camp horse-master wanted me to tie you up with the others.

  I will not run away.

  I know, she said. Neither will I.

  The night was cool. The day world was summer, but the night still dipped its ladle into the well of spring air. Even through her mat, Ani could feel the stony earth, and its chill hardened her bones. The trees made noises that she had never heard, hissing and sighing like a new kind of animal. The wind brushed through the tent flap and against her cheek, waking her with words that she did not understand.

  In the first few days, Selia and most of the others seemed silenced by the forest shadows. But the Forest did not spook Falada, and Ani soon caught his mood. She liked how she felt surrounded by trees, mixing the feeling of safety in close quarters with open possibilities. Dew fed the moss and lichen, trees creaked and moaned with growing, and birds conversed in the spiny branches. Ani’s ears reached for the sounds of their chatter, and she felt like smiling to discover that she understood. She did not know what birds they were, but their language was so close to the sparrows’ she knew from the palace gardens that it was like hearing someone speak her same language but with a different accent. Besides the birds, other forest animals appeared—intermittent sightings of foxes, red deer, wild pigs, and, once, wolves.

  Just a week into the forest, Falada woke Ani, saying, Mad wolves. Coming toward the camp.

  “Wolves! Rabid wolves!” Ani crawled out of her tent, shouting. The night guard shook himself awake and kicked the bodies of the best archers. They rubbed their eyes and strung their bows.

  “Where?” said the guard with sleepy incredulity.

  Falada told her, and she pointed. Other horses were prancing and testing the ropes that held them. The commotion woke the camp, and all sat up in their bedrolls and looked into the distance that was neither near nor far in the absolute dark. Out there, something moved, shadow sliding on shadow.

  It leapt. The dying fire picked out eyes and teeth. Then, with a whisk of wind, a pale shaft pierced him through the throat. He fell to the earth at the first archer’s feet. His two companions were similarly downed with the hard, sharp whip sound of arrows in the dark, and in the long silence that followed, someone sighed in relief.

  The next morning, Ani noticed how many of the guards now looked at her with the same wariness that marked their eyes when they contemplated the dark profundities of the forest.

  I thought they would be grateful, said Ani.

  Falada snorted and idly pawed a stone. In his opinion, people never made sense.

  Ani scolded herself. Just because they had left Kildenree did not mean these companions would feel any better disposed to her speaking gifts than had the sour-skinned nurse-mary. A brown-speckled forest bird whistled at her passing. Ani looked down and refused to listen.

  Some days later, Ani felt the tension finally ease. Spirited conversation and laughter returned, mostly centered around Selia. Many of the guards sought to ride near her, and Ungolad most of all. Ani observed that he often rode by her side and seemed to find reasons to touch her, reach out to pick a pine needle from her skirt or examine a scratch on her hand. Ani hoped a romance might make the journey worth-while to her faithful lady-in-waiting.

  Ani had been lagging behind, talking with Falada, but at the sound of wild laughter she trotted forward to join the lively group. As soon as she neared, the laughing ceased. No one looked at her.

  “Did I miss a good joke? ” said Ani.

  “No, not really, ” said Selia.

  One of the guards said something to Ungolad that Ani could not hear. No one else spoke.

  “The days are certainly warmer now, ” she said.

  “Yes, Princess, ” said the guard Uril.

  “Well, that breeze is pleasant, isn't it? ”

  “If you say so, Princess. ”

  “Mmm. ”

  Ani, confused, looked at Selia. Her lady-in-waiting glanced up briefly and gave a subtle shrug that said, What do you want from me? Coolly, she set her gaze at the passing trees as though Ani did not exist.

  Ani scowled, scraping her memory for everything she had said and done that day. Had she inadvertently offended Selia and half the members of her escort guard? They could not possibly still be upset just because she knew the wolves were coming before they did. No reasons made sense to her, and the silence became unbearable. At last she flicked Falada into a trot. Once she left the group, conversation resumed behind her and Selia’s lovely laugh rang out. Emotion caught in Ani’s throat, and she hummed quietly to ease the tightness.

  As always, Talone rode at the front of the company, his ardent gaze sweeping about as though he expected a bandit attack any moment. Ani asked Falada to slow to a walk beside him. His silence made her wonder if what she had done to affront the others also included Talone, but soon he spoke.

  “I don’t know if you recall, Princess, but we have been alone before.” His stoic face relaxed a little as he raised his eyebrows in an amused query.

  Ani tried to remember. She had so rarely been alone.

  “It was about ten years ago, I think.”

  “Oh,” said Ani, “was that you who took me from the shore of the swan pond?”

  “Well done. You were very young. It scared me how the fever chills racked your tiny body. And know, Princess, that it is not easy for a brave soldier to admit to ever being scared.”

  “I’ll remember that of you if ever I’m in need of a brave soldier,” said Ani, teasing.

  “Yes, well, if the danger can be stuck with a sword, I am your man.” He smiled at her and quickly returned to watching the road.

  “You are ever vigilant,” she said.

  “Mmm. For such a long journey, this terrain is dangerous. If there was a road cut through the Bavara Mountains, one could reach Bayern in a matter of a fortnight. But the Forest Road circumscribes the mountains. The Forest itself is striped with gorges, and the road doubles in length to avoid them. A straighter path would have to cross many bridges.”

  As he spoke, Ani saw the way in front of them begin to wind sharply up and left. The road cut across a long arm of mountain, and between there and the next arm the ground dropped into a deep and narrow ravine.

  “Gorge to the right, mountain to the left,” said Ani.

  “There’s much flat land in the forest, but the climbs and drops are unpredictable.”

  The Forest did not seem dangerous to her, just dark and brooding. She envied the permanence of the tall, thick-trunked firs that had stood in one place for generations. Her own family had always lived in Great City Valley. She was the first of her line born as crown princess, the first to leave the valley, the first to see the Forest. She wished it had been her choosing, that she had been the kind of person who would steal a horse and leave in the night to find adventure instead of one who is handed duty and numbly complies.

  This road is long, said Falada. How long until we arrive?

  Weeks yet, said Ani.

  A warm breeze came up from the gorge beneath them and stirred their hair. Falada flicked his tail at it and walked a little faster.

  That evening a stream passed near the road and Talone called for an early camp. It had been a week since they had found moving water. Th
eir water barrels were low, and the company was irritable with dust, stink, and horse hair. Ingras set up a metal tub in Ani’s tent and ordered water heated for her bath. While Ani soaked in the hot water in her thin privacy, the rest of the company hiked to the mountain runoff to scrub their clothes and themselves, Selia upstream and the men down. Talone assigned Ishta, a thin man with a long, tipped nose, to guard Ani. Ishta did not seem too concerned about bathing.

  It was dark before the others returned. Ani dried her hair by the fire and waited. Ishta stood on the other side of the fire. The light turned his face orange, the hollows of his cheeks still in shadow. She could hear him scrape the undersides of his fingernails with a knife.

  When he spoke, his voice was soft, with a lilt that seemed feminine. “How is it, Princess, to bathe in nice, warm water in your own little tent?”

  “It is nice, thank you,” said Ani with some unease.

  “Mmm.” He took a step forward. “You like being a princess?”

  “I don’t know. It is what I am. Do you like being a man?”

  He walked to her, dead pine needles breaking like glass under his boots, and crouched beside her. He leaned in. Her pulse snapped in her throat.

  “Do you like that I am a man?” He smiled. His teeth looked rotted at the roots.

  “Step back,” she whispered. He held his face there, and up close his expression was leering, inhuman, his face as sharp as a weapon, his breath the promise of ugly things. Ani gripped her brush in both hands and could not seem to let it go, not to push him away, not to push herself to her feet. Never had she felt this way, helpless, alone, no servant to call, no guard outside her door. No door. And a man who came too close.

  “Step back, Ishta,” she said again, but her voice held no more of the authority of her mother than the chattering of a magpie. He sneered.

  There was a sound of bent underbrush and low laughter. Ishta stood and casually walked away as a group of guards, their faces shiny and red from bathing, entered the camp. Talone added a branch to the fire and sat beside her. Ani looked down at her shaking hands.

  “Princess, is something wrong?”

  She set her brush on the log and folded her hands. “I’m all right.” She had never felt before that someone could hurt her—and enjoy it. That new awareness made her look at Talone with suspicion. He had assigned Ishta to her watch. Had he known? Could she trust him? Who could guard her from her guards?

  Ani made her way to her tent, feeling blindly with her slippered toes for rocks and shooting roots. Selia was readying her own bedroll beside the tent. Her wet hair was luminescent in the near dark.

  Ani sat on a corner of Selia’s blanket, held her knees against her chest, and hoped for conversation. Something just happened, she wanted to say. There was something strange, and I wanted to tell you, she would say, if Selia seemed in a mood to talk, like they used to do for hours on her balcony, Selia brushing oils through her long hair and relating gossip that had slipped up the stairs from the kitchen or out of the idle mouths of waiting ladies, their promises of secrecy dulled by the tedium of embroidery. Ani longed now for such an hour, the comfort of casual talk and a warm blanket around her shoulders to hold off the heavy blackness of so much space at their backs. She waited for Selia, who liked to start conversations on her own terms. Selia finished with her bedroll. She stood by her pillow and said nothing.

  “How was your bath?” said Ani.

  “Cold.”

  “Oh. I’m thoughtless, Selia. Of course you should bathe in camp in warm water.”

  “You mean in your used, tepid bathwater? For who is to heat water for the lady-in-waiting? No, thank you, I would rather use the stream.”

  “Selia, are you angry?”

  Selia turned to her, and in the dark of a night before the moon and too far from the fire, all Ani could see was the pale outline of her cheek and the glint of one eye.

  “No, of course not, Crown Princess,” said Selia. Her voice was ordinary again, a lilting tone, pleasing and artless.

  “Once we get to Bayern,” said Ani, “there will, thankfully, be hot water and beds again.”

  “A very apt observation, Crown Princess.” Her voice was still even and polite. “Yet I believe in Bayern there will be much more waiting for me than just water and goose feathers.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Selia did not answer. Someone added wood to the fire, and in the sudden flush of light she could see Selia’s face. She was looking across the camp. Ani turned. Ungolad stood by the fire. His eyes were on Ani. He smiled a closed smile, not showing any teeth.

  Chapter 4

  The first four weeks of forest travel had merged into one another in the perpetual landscape of firs and pines. Despite the tension, Ani found she enjoyed the journey. A breeze moved across her face, and she fancied it was the breeze of the trees’ breathing, the pines on either side inhaling and exhaling across the road.

  “The tales that trees could tell, the stories wind would sing,” Ani said to herself. It was a piece from a rhyme, one that as a child she had begged the nurse-marys to sing. It had filled her with wonder and mystery and made her want to throw off her shoes and hat and run to meet the wildness just outside the closed panes. Her aunt had once spoken of the knowledge of speaking not with animals, but with the elements of nature. And she thought of the story of her birth, how she had not opened her eyes for three days. Her aunt had said she was born with a first word on her tongue and would not wake for trying to taste it. What word? she wondered.

  The stories wind would sing. Just then, she could not think of the rest of the rhyme.

  Ani noticed Talone scanning the roadside for a marker and trotted up to join him.

  “There will be a notched tree on the right hand to mark halfway, Princess,” he said. “Or so the last trader we passed informed me. We are at a disadvantage here, none of us having ridden this road. Except Ungolad.”

  “Can you tell me about Ungolad?”

  “He was a tradesman escort for a time, but he has not ridden the Forest Road in ten years. Still, I imagined he would be a greater asset to this trek than he has been. He volunteered, you know. They all did.” Ani raised her eyebrows, and Talone nodded. “The queen did not need to command anyone to join this guard.”

  “But why?” said Ani. “I thought that the prospect of riding weeks through a forest would be daunting to anyone.”

  “Oh, not to many of us, I think. We are stout warriors, after all.” He thumped his chest and smiled.

  “Indeed. And I think it best that I forget how many stout warriors I saw gripping their swords and getting headaches from squinting at the trees on our first week here.”

  Talone cast a glance of mock terror into the depth of trees to the side. His expression made her laugh, and she realized how much she wanted to trust him.

  “But what interest could a man like Ungolad have in being in this guard?”

  “I don’t know. I tell you truly, Princess, I was hesitant to accept Ungolad’s company when he volunteered. He has always been a little unpredictable, and traders’ escorts often garner as little respect as mercenaries. But he is a member of the royal army now, and he has been to Bayern before. Look, here it is.”

  On their right hand, a trunk of living fir was carved with the symbol of Bayern’s sun and crown.

  “We are halfway,” said Talone.

  “That symbol—does Bayern claim this road, then?”

  “Kildenree does not. Technically it is neutral territory. But if Kildenreans do not live here, what is to stop the Bayern if they so desire?” His voice grew softer. “If a country like Bayern decided they liked the looks of the Great City Valley, they could take it without much ado.”

  Ingras trotted to them. “Captain, time for a midday halt.”

  “All halt!”

  As she unsaddled Falada, Ani heard the soldiers conferring pleasantly. “Midway, we have passed midway.”

  “Midway, not long now, lads.” Ungolad�
�s voice was encouraging, and he slapped a few on the back. He saw Ani watching and added, “Not long now, Princess.”

  After eating, Ani wanted a different brush for Falada and went back to the supply wagon to retrieve it. Selia stood in the third wagon. She was holding up Ani’s green gown against her front.

  “Selia,” said Ani. Selia jumped, dropping the dress.

  “Oh, hello, Crown Princess,” she said, quickly casual.

  Ani could not understand why Selia seemed so nervous, and she waited for Selia to speak.

  “Just looking at your pretty things.” Selia shook off her expression of surprise and smiled, holding up the dress again. “I know I don’t have your eyes, but do you not think I would look beautiful in this gown? You are almost my size.”

  Ani did not respond.

  Selia tipped her head to one side. “You’re angry, Crown Princess. You’re jealous of your treasures and don’t want them sullied by a servant.”

  “Of course I don’t mind, but Selia, you’re acting so curiously. I can’t believe that it’s just my imagination.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Selia.

  “No, I am. Are you unhappy to be going to Bayern after all?”

  “Not a whit.”

  “Then what? I hope I’m still your friend. . . .”

  “Yes, your condescension is most entertaining, Crown Princess.” Selia stepped down from the wagon. “You must congratulate yourself that you have treated me better than any servant deserves.”

  Selia’s tone made Ani’s fingers feel cold. She swallowed nervously.

  “A servant,” said Selia again. She looked down as her face flamed and her chin began to quiver. “All I have ever wanted is what you have. And you, you don’t even care about what you are. And I have had to serve you and call you mistress and wait and wait and wait.” Selia put a hand over her eyes, and her shoulders began to shake. “What a horrid title, lady-in-waiting. I have waited and waited until I thought my bones would crack and my muscles freeze and my mind shrivel like a raisin. And there you were, with horses and tutors and gowns and servants, and all you did was hide in your room.”