by Shannon Hale
Trouble. Ani glanced back to Falada, who was still drinking at the river, and felt uneasy at being so far separated from him. But she reasoned there could not be any real danger or she would have a warning. She touched her chest where she kept the handkerchief and, prodded by curiosity, crept through the trees to get close enough to hear but still stay cautiously out of sight.
“While there are ladies in this camp, Yulan, you will stay dressed like a gentleman,” Talone said.
“Selia does not mind, do you, lady?” said a guard by Yulan’s side, and there was laughter.
“Let them be, Captain,” Ani heard Selia say, though she could not see her.
“I amend my statement, then.” He spoke through a clenched jaw. “While there is one lady in this camp, you will dress, and behave, like gentlemen. We are the royal guard of the princess, and we will act as such.”
“Royal guard of the princess,” said Terne, laughing. “She is not a princess, not here. Kildenree doesn’t claim her, and we haven’t reached Bayern yet.”
Talone ignored Terne. “As captain of the guard, Yulan, those are my orders, and to disobey them is treason.”
The pocket of men backing up Yulan shifted uneasily. Yulan looked at Ungolad, who was sitting on a log a few paces away.
“Nice and easy, lads.” Ungolad stood. “This was not the way to do things, but I think at last the time has come to tell the truth.”
“Not now,” said Selia.
Ungolad winked at her. “Don’t worry, my lady.” He looked at Talone and squinted, though Ani was not sure if it was for effect or just habit from the blazing day. “We don’t want a fight, but some things are going to change.”
“Yes, all hail Princess Selia,” said Yulan.
“Princess Selia!” Several men shouted and raised their swords above their heads.
“Hush up,” said Ungolad. He spoke with genuine anger.
Talone stepped closer to Ungolad. That Ani could see, they were the only two who had not drawn their swords. Both sides were poised, waiting for action from their leaders.
“Is that what this is about, mercenary?” Talone did not seem aware that he was shaking his head. “You’re aiming to dispose of a rightful princess and replace her with a fraud?”
Ani clutched at a branch to keep steady. Dispose of a princess. A fraud. They were trying to kill her. Until that moment she had never really believed it. Why would they try to kill her? So Selia could be princess. She remembered Talone’s order that she run at the first sign of trouble. But there’s still no warning, she thought. My mother’s handkerchief will protect me.
All the same, she thought she had better get closer to Falada. She spoke his name, but he was a long way off grazing at the river and did not respond. Slowly, so that she would not cause a noise, she started to make her way to him.
“Fraud?” said Selia. “Royalty is not a right, Captain. The willingness of the people to follow a ruler is what gives her power. Here, in this place, by this people, I have been chosen. These men are tired of being told whom to follow. Now they have a choice, and they use that choice to call me Princess.”
Selia’s words seemed seductively convincing. Even Ani, peering through pine boughs, had to stop herself from nodding. But Adon stepped up beside Talone and challenged her.
“You mean Princess Anidori-Kiladra, don’t you? You want to take not only the title, but the name—her name.”
“I suppose, my little warrior pup, but it’s the title that interests me most.”
Ani caught a glimpse of Ungolad smiling at Selia. A couple of men near Talone chuckled at the idea of Selia being a princess, but the other half was stiffly serious, and the laugh fell like water against a stone wall.
Falada, she said again. He did not respond.
“You’re mad.” Talone spoke the words as though they were the final revelation.
“If we’re mad,” Ungolad said, “then we are mad in large numbers, at least larger than yours.”
“Where is she?” said Selia. Ani covered her mouth before she gasped. They would look for her now. They would kill her as they had been trying since the waterfall. Why didn’t the handkerchief protect her, whisper to her through birds or nudge her to safety?
“She’s by the stream,” someone said. Ani could see Terne, one of Ungolad’s men, running from the group and toward the area where Falada grazed. Terne was already between her and her horse. Her cold fingers fumbled at the wet fabric at her breast where the handkerchief had been. Where it should be. Ani felt for it, patted her dress, looked at the ground around her feet. It was gone. She realized that she must have lost it in the stream. It would be far away by now. Who would protect her?
Falada, can you come to me? she said. He did not respond.
Talone shouted toward where Falada stood. “Princess, do as I told you!”
Ungolad motioned for another soldier to follow the first toward the stream. Do as I told you, he had said. Run away. Unable to reach Falada without being seen, Ani turned to the dim forest and walked softly, afraid to hear fir needles crack beneath her feet, afraid if she did run on her shaking legs, she would fall. Just a little farther, she thought, get to the next copse, and then run.
“There she is,” said Selia.
Ani looked back. Hul left Ungolad’s side and jogged toward her. Adon shouted and started forward to rush him. He had taken only one step when a bloody sword point burst through the center of his chest. His face ripped in pain and then stilled, dead standing. Ishta pulled his sword out of the dead man’s back and grinned with his animal teeth. Ani gasped, and suddenly everything felt terribly real. She tripped, turned, and ran.
There was the din of sword meeting sword behind her and horses screaming and men shouting and men falling. She ran. She tripped past a thornbush, and her hair caught in its barbed arms. She pulled herself free. A man was close to her. It was Ungolad, now, running after her, running faster than she. She could hear the thumps of his boots against the hollow forest floor like an anxious heartbeat behind her. He was getting closer.
Falada, she said, Falada, please. He was too far away, or perhaps he was already killed. “Falada!”
She heard Ungolad grunt and turned to see him trip on one of the roots that ribbed their path. There was a pounding of hooves to her right. It was Radal’s dun-colored horse, riderless, cantering, and dragging his reins. A long, shallow cut marked its rump. Ani ran to him.
The horse stopped when his path was blocked by a thicket of firs and startled when Ani grabbed his reins. The reins were unknotted, and she managed to grab only one when she mounted. She leaned over his neck to grab the other rein. At once Ungolad reached her, and he growled when he sprang. Ani kicked the horse. He lurched forward as Ungolad grabbed her heel. Ani pulled tight on the reins and held to his mane to stay in the saddle. The horse reared, and Ungolad’s grip loosened. She clamped her knees around his middle. When the horse’s forelegs touched ground again, he bounded into a gallop.
Part Two
Goose Girl
Chapter 5
Ani rode. She did not see the trees that dashed by her and the branches that moved like executioner axes just above her ducking head. There was no purpose to the direction the horse ran—except away. For all she knew, she could be riding a circle, and suddenly she would see the campsite before her and leap the horse over slain guards and dodge the survivors’ grasping hands. Whenever the horse showed signs of slowing down, Ani spurred him on with a hard heel, expecting at any moment to hear the rhythmic thuds of Ungolad’s bay close behind her. Sometimes she thought she saw yellow braids in her periphery.
She rode hard, and the horse’s neck was matted with sweat. At each beat of his heavy gallop, a bit of foam fell from his mouth. The reins were wet from her hands, so she clutched at his mane. The grip of her legs loosened, and when his hooves met turf she came down hard in the saddle. When a low branch struck her shoulder, she was knocked easily from the saddle and did not realize that she was on the gr
ound until the horse had galloped away without her.
She sat still for a long time, breathing. If Ungolad was still following, he would just have to find her and kill her quickly, for she could not move. She thought she heard a twig snap as though it cracked under a foot, and she sprang to her feet to run, but her first step brought her hard back to the earth. She lay still, hugging the ground and waiting for her doom.
Ani awoke much later and realized that she was cold, that she had fir needles piercing her cheek, and that she was confused.
Falada, she said.
She bolted upright. The forest was so dark, she knew that her eyes were open only from the sensation of blinking. An owl hooted, and she jumped. It hooted again, and she wrapped her arms around her chest and tried to think. She must have been asleep, but before that? She was running. She sought to remember more and saw Adon rushing forward to protect her and a bloody sword tip parting his chest. She shivered and lay down again, covering her face with her arms, and tried to sleep away the darkness.
At dawn Ani began to walk. The forest looked the same in every direction, and she realized that she could be just a few leagues from a town and yet wander the woods for days. The canopy-dimmed sunlight gave little indication of direction, so she chose what she hoped was east and strode forward.
Her stomach ached with hunger; she had never before, in her life of white marble and breakfast trays, missed a meal. But mostly she was so thirsty that she began to contemplate digging down to the tree roots to see if she could discover what they were drinking.
Hours later, Ani heard water and thought it perhaps the loveliest noise in all creation. The sound echoed off many tree trunks and confused her senses until she finally found the stream by stepping into it. She drank from the stream until her belly warned of bursting and then walked beside it, reasoning that it must run away from the mountains and so would meet the road. The road meant direction.
Ani chased the stream for two days, only leaving its banks a short distance to search for mushrooms. She ate them tentatively, relying on dim childhood memories of her aunt’s brief lessons in edible plants. Some wild onions grew in the wet black soil on the stream bank, and she bit into them raw, her mouth burning and eyes tearing from their fierce flavor.
On the third day, the stream stopped. It had thinned from waist width to a drizzle thin as a water snake and finally stopped in a green pond ringed with cattails. Ani circled the pond hoping for an outlet, then leaned against a tree and thought about crying. She did not know where she was, she had no skin to carry water in, and she had no stream to walk beside. She stayed the remainder of that day and the whole of the night beside the last bit of running stream. Thirst thrust into her dreams, coupled with the sounds of Ungolad’s heavy boots running behind her. She woke with a beating heart at every hoot of an owl.
In the morning, Ani sat awhile near the stream, playing the water through her fingers. I wonder, she thought, if this creek ever touched the stream where I lost my handkerchief. If I hadn’t lost that, none of this would have happened. No sooner had she thought it than the idea was completely ridiculous, a bed-tale, a lie. She almost laughed at herself, but the laugh pulled tight in her chest and threatened to tug loose a tear before she stopped it. I thought it was magic. I thought I was so safe. A bird warned me by the waterfall. And Falada. And my own weak reason. She shook her head and beat her fist once against her chest. It was I who stood up to Selia, and it was I who didn’t run soon enough, not soon enough for Adon or Talone, or Falada.
She leaned her head back to stop the tears from coming again and saw a brown owl in the pine opposite her, looking out at the morning with glassy yellow eyes.
“Are you the one that kept waking me up?” she whispered. “I don’t know why your silly hooting makes me shiver at night. You look harmless enough.”
She had once known the way to speak to the owls that kept watch in the stable rafters. It was long ago, and the memory awakened in her the empty confusion of homesickness. She brushed it away with an experimental hoot. The owl gave no reaction. If only he were a swan, she thought. Bird speech was all one language to her, yet with many different dialects, some more distinct than others, and it was swan she remembered best.
She tried her greeting again, and his head turned slightly toward her, recognizing her presence for the first time. After a few blinkless moments he greeted her, and she leaned back on her hands with tired hope. Ani followed with a question about how he was eating, a polite sort of conversation among owls, and he said nice warm mice. She wanted to ask him directions out of the forest and stumbled on how to phrase it.
Where is the place where the trees end? she said.
The owl did not know or did not understand. Perhaps he would know a place where people lived, but she had no idea how to ask about streets or buildings.
Where is the place where there is smoke?
One flight against the morning sun, he said. Then he flew from his tree to another, and then another, creating a straight line in that direction. Ani thanked him, took a long drink from the stream, and set off, praying that one flight was no farther than one day’s walk.
Ani labored to keep her course straight, focusing on one tree in the distance until she reached it and then picking another farther on. The work made her eyes sore. The air was stagnant and hung close to her skin, but the ground was dry, giving no sign of spring or stream.
At first, she did not see the house. The walls were made of rough wood, and the roof was laden with branches still green with needles. Beside it stood a small garden enclosed with a stick fence. Ani noticed ripe apples on the trees and the lovely green fronds and orange tops of carrots pushing up through the earth. Her stomach made a noise. A brown goat was tied to a post outside the garden. It turned to her and said, “Neeee,” in an annoyed stutter.
“What do you see, Poppo?” A woman came around the side of the house. She wore a red scarf tied on top of her head, a long tunic, and a skirt that hit above her ankles made of sturdy blue cloth. She spotted Ani and frowned.
“Well, Poppo, this isn’t a badger or wolf, though it might want to eat from my garden like a common hare.” The woman’s short-voweled, guttural accent reminded Ani that she was in or near Bayern. Ani cleared her throat. The woman waited for her to speak.
“Hello,” said Ani. She had spoken little in days, and her voice came through her throat like a fist. She cleared her throat again.
“Hmm?” said the woman.
“Hello. I’m lost.”
“Yes, I see that.” The woman folded her arms and looked over Ani’s ragged, filthy dress. She blinked her eyes, waiting for more information. “It might help to know where you’re lost from, or where you’re lost to, if you see my point, and then I could push you in the right direction.”
Ani opened her mouth and then closed it. I am, or was, crown princess of Kildenree, betrothed to your king’s son, what-is-his-name, I can’t remember, oh mercy, and half of my escort guard attacked the other half of my escort guard and attempted to murder me and replace me with my lady-in-waiting. It sounded absurd in her head. She began to wish for the comfort of the handkerchief in her bodice and reminded herself that she did not have it, and even if she did, it would do no good, and now she had to learn to rely on herself. That thought scared her as much as being lost in a strange forest.
“Well, child, I’m waiting,” said the woman.
Ani realized that she was extremely thirsty, that it had been hours since she had left her little stream, and that she was likely to faint from panic, hunger, and exhaustion. And as she thought that, thousands of tiny black dots rushed her eyesight until, thankfully, the woman, the house, and the goat were exchanged for darkness.
Ani woke to a cottage window that looked out with a black eye on the night. She realized with a comfortable sigh that she was indoors and lying on a hay-stuffed mattress.
“You’re awake, then?”
The woman had removed her headscarf, and Ani could se
e she wore her thick black hair cropped to her shoulders. She was sitting on a stool and knitting by the light of the hearth fire.
“You might’ve told me that you were thirsty and saved my boy Finn the trouble of carrying you in. I suspect you fainted on purpose just to get inside my house and onto a bed. Hmph.” Ani smiled politely because she believed the woman meant it as a joke. “I guess you may as well stay the night.”
She continued to knit, and Ani watched the yarn pile up in knotted lines, back and forth, with a speed she had never witnessed before. The woman nodded her head to a dish at her feet full of carrot broth and a ceramic mug of water. Ani drank quickly and then ate in silence. She could feel the water and broth go through her chest and into her belly with a warm tingle.
“So, girl,” said the woman after a few minutes, “tell me what you’re about.”
“I was lost in the forest and need to get back to the road or on to Bayern.” As she spoke, Ani was mindful of the long vowels and distinct consonants of her Kildenrean accent and wished she had thought to try to imitate the Bayern way of speaking. She thought she could learn it easily enough in the same way she had first learned to imitate the sounds of the swans, but now it was too late to try with this woman.
The woman laid her knitting down in her lap in a gesture of folding one’s hands and looked carefully at Ani. “You’re not from here,” she said. Ani shook her head. “You’re in some kind of trouble?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Well, I don’t want to hear about it,” she said quickly. “The less I know, the happier I’ll be, I’d say. By the look of you, there’s some mischief afoot. You’ve got yellow hair. And long, isn’t it? Too long to be a wandering field-worker. Obviously not from Bayern, obviously noble, look at your soft little hands.” Ani tucked her hands into each other. “And, your accent, tsk, child, you sum up to a problem, and I’ve got knitting to do and pullovers to sell by marketweek. You understand?”
Ani nodded.
“Why don’t you speak more?” The woman leaned forward, waiting for an answer.