Books of Bayern Series Bundle

by Shannon Hale

  “How’ll we achieve it at all?” said Ani. “She rode into town with light-colored hair wearing my dress, and they accepted her as the princess. I show up with lighter hair, and the workers, the former prime minister, and at least one palace guard vote for me. Will our fate be decided when we stand side by side and the king judges which of us looks the most like a princess?”

  “You have truth on your side,” said Talone.

  “And on her side, the gift of people-speaking. I don’t think this can be a mere matter of telling the truth.”

  “Nor do I,” he said. “That is why you do not go alone.”

  They had passed sight of the walled city late that morning and rode through its sprawling villages most of the day. The road was wide, trampled hard as stone from centuries of hooves and cartwheels, and edged with houses and taverns, and people who peered curiously at the ragtag band and their unlikely leader. “Another yellow girl,” Ani heard someone say. By late afternoon, the road crossed the borders of a farm and into uncultivated fields, leaving behind the smells of smoke and cows. The afternoon light picked white tree seeds out of the air, like suspended snowflakes too light to fall. The voice of the wind that came out of the wood was husky and restless. Then, from ahead, the wind brought images of men and horses.

  “Could we already be near, Ratger?”

  “No, tomorrow’s ride, at least.”

  “Then we’re coming up on another company.”

  She led them off the road and they walked their horses along its side, moving in and out of scattered spruce and aspen. At length, they saw a forest lane that converged on the main road. From it came a company of foot soldiers and some mounted men. They were many times larger than their own, each man carrying a javelin, iron points up and tipped with afternoon light like many tiny stars. Their shields were brightly painted.

  “A hundred-band,” said Razo. “See their shields? The spruce tree and four stars—they’re the hundred-band from Urifel.”

  “Every village forms a hundred-band for a war, Isi,” said Enna. “Usually they’re made up of the younger men old enough to’ve received their javelin and shield, and older men who’ve never killed before. They’re part of the community when they get a javelin, but they’re men after their first kill, so they all want to kill. If you see any with beards, those are the ones who really take it seriously and won’t shave, ever, until they’ve killed an enemy. The mounted men, those’re the experienced fighters and are given command and a horse in battle. The rest fight from the ground.”

  “The army must be gathering at the lake,” said Talone.

  “One hundred from every village,” said Ani. “Enna, how many villages does Bayern claim?”

  “I don’t know, maybe fifty, maybe two hundred.”

  “If that army crosses the mountain pass, they could wipe out Kildenree. My mother thinks she just made a marital alliance. Kildenree’s not prepared. Even so, I know they’ll fight. And all this so Selia can hide her deceit.”

  A few supply wagons trailed the soldiers, two carrying women—young women with babies in their arms, small children at their feet leaning out of the wagons to watch the wheels spin.

  Ani looked at Enna. “They take their wives to war?”

  She nodded. “It’s been a tradition for centuries. All Bayern children’re raised on stories of the ancient days and heroes and warriors, when gods still lived in the forest and spoke through sacred horses. It used to be that Bayern armies were aggressive, and every man was a warrior, not just a bully who carries his javelin into taverns. The peace-keepers say they’re the last guardians of the old ways, but I think the old ways just meant attacking every nation that touched our lands.”

  “Yes.” Ani had read some of that history in Geric’s book. Only the immensity of the Forest and the formerly impassable mountains had protected Kildenree all those centuries.

  The last of the hundred-band and their families trailed out of sight into the horizon of the road, and Talone motioned that it was time to mount again. They had no real reason to hide, but Ani wished to avoid having to explain themselves to anyone before they reached the estate, so the party skirted the road, out of sight, passed the slower moving hundred-band, and rejoined the road some distance in front. Talone kept a steady pace for the remainder of the day. The damp night descended, and the wood by the road trembled with voices of crickets and the hard wings of hunting birds.

  They halted off the road near the line of trees. Talone made a fire. Its light sought out the faces of the company attending to their horses and feeling the ground with booted feet for smooth places without stones. Its light gathered them and kept them in its circle. They ate and talked, and sometimes were silent, the fire the only movement, each watching the flames lick the air and thinking of the next day. Enna sang a Forest song. Her voice was high and soft and simple, and she sang of a carpenter’s daughter who fell in love with a tree, and of her father, who carved the tree into a man. Her voice faded, and Ani again became conscious of the croaks of night insects that came from the wood at their back and all around, surrounding them, an overwhelming army.

  “Isi, tell a story,” said Razo.

  “Oh, you know all my stories now,” said Ani. “I’d like to hear one. Do you have one, Enna?”

  “There’s the history or legend, I don’t know which, of why our women go to war.”

  “Yes, that’s perfect.”

  Enna was silent a moment, the thoughtful crease between her eyes as dark in the faint firelight as the infinite blackness of the Forest night. Her eyes were distant, and she seemed to be listening to that voice that first told her the story, a mother, sister, or aunt. Then her voice, like her singing, cut through the crickets and crackling fire.

  “There was a battle between Bayern and Tira, a kingdom to the southeast. The battle was so great that all the feet and falling bodies broke the earth, and the sweat of the warriors slipped into the cracks and soaked into the soil, and to this day, that plain in the south of Bayern’s a marsh where no one can farm. The leaders were killed, and the men of Bayern ran away. At the camp, the women waited for the battle to be over and victory to be bawled to the trees and hills and its echoes to ring like a bell, as had always happened. But this time their men ran back shouting, ‘Vanquished! Vanquished!’”

  “Vanquished,” said Razo.

  “Vanquished,” Offo repeated. They nodded, remembering the tale.

  Enna continued. “The women left their babies in their tents and came forward as one to meet their fleeing husbands. They slipped their dresses from their shoulders and let them fall to their waist, and stood there in the road, in the daylight. ‘See me,’ said each wife to each husband, ‘see me as you first saw me, your bride in your bed when your warrior hand first touched my skin. See me as you saw me when I suckled our first baby, his eyes like your eyes looking up at mine. See me now, as the enemy’ll see me when he carries me off to his dirty bed and his bastard children.’

  “The men cried, and their hearts hurt more than their wounds, seeing what defeat meant, seeing what would be lost. When the enemy gained on their flight, the men turned and stood and fought the Tiran in their own camp, where wives looked on from the tents and wagons and mothers nursed their babies and watched their husbands fight to victory.”

  Finn sat near Ani, and she saw his face change color from merely reflecting the orange light of the fire to a flushed red. He stared down at his hands, shaking his head.

  “You all right, Finn?” said Ani.

  “I never understood that story,” he whispered uncomfortably. “If I saw all those women—I’d want to hide.”

  “It’s about fighting for what’s most valuable,” said Enna. She raised her brows in good humor. “Wouldn’t you want to fight for me, Finn?”

  “Yes, I would. But you wouldn’t have to—show—me anything.”

  Enna smiled at him, and Ani saw the shadow of his hand touch Enna’s fingers.

  “Tomorrow,” said Ani in a voic
e that raised all the faces to her, and the hollows under their eyes filled with light, and their hair was flushed with the colors of dark fire, “I don’t want you taking risks. If I’m not able to get to the king or to convince him, it won’t do you any good to rush about looking for a head to bash.” She looked from their faces to watch the flames kick the logs they burned. “I hope this works. I hope they believe I’m my sister and you my escort from Kildenree, and just let us in. And I hope the king listens and believes. No matter what happens, I want to thank you. It’s a comfort to have you by my side.”

  Voices around the fire murmured affirmation. Talone’s expression was calm and determined, the face of a soldier prepared for battle. She was relieved that at least one person knew what he was doing. She put down her bedroll and wondered if she could sleep with thoughts of tomorrow. Her plan, if it worked, would get them through the gate. After that, the only power she could depend on was that of words, and her weaknesses haunted her. Just after closing her eyes, Ani was greeted by the first images of a dream—Ungolad at her heels, and instead of running, she reached out for aid. Her fingers touched darkness.

  Ani rose before first light and slipped away from the workers, just gray, still shapes under shared blankets. The winds were whispering of a stream nearby, and she searched their images for a deep place, finding it behind a tangle of wild raspberry. She walked there, stripped, and used its brambles as a bath curtain. I’m bathing, she told herself, because I need to look the part of a princess, not on the chance that Geric might be there among the prince’s guard.

  The water was so cold, she gasped when she surfaced and bit her lip to hold back a yelp. The stream moved softly there and was deep enough for her to submerge her chin while she balanced her toes on a slick stone somewhere under the green-blackness. She had to clamber up the slippery bank to scrub her hair and body with the hard, burnt-smelling block of dish soap, and then she leapt back in, gasping. She dried herself with Gilsa’s tunic, gratefully put back on her shift, and finally donned the lake green gown and slippers she had taken from Selia’s wardrobe.

  When she entered camp, the morning preparations halted with a hush. For the sake of her impractical slippers, she had to weave her path around muddy spots where dishwater had been thrown and hold up the hem of her dress in one hand as a lady would do when braving stairs or stepping out of a carriage. Razo whistled through the space in his teeth.

  “Yellow lady,” said Offo, grinning.

  “Now mark this, all honor the princess,” said Ratger in serious, trained-guard tones. One by one they bowed, some falling to one knee. Enna curtsied deeply and did not meet Ani’s eyes.

  “Stop that,” said Ani. “Oh, stand up, now, you know it’s just the dress.”

  “You look very lovely,” said Conrad, still managing to sound perfunctory.

  “I thank you, sir.” She ruffled his scruffy head with her hand, and he nearly loosed a smile. “And now that I’ve my costume, you all need to put on yours. All but Talone make sure your hats cover your hair, and ladies, wrap your heads. Pull them as low as you can, though I don’t think the charade’ll take long enough to allow them a good look at your eyebrows. You don’t look Kildenrean, but at least let’s not make it obvious that you’re Bayern.”

  While the others ate and packed up the camp, Enna insisted on brushing the wetness out of Ani’s hair with the pilfered silver brush.

  “I can do that,” said Ani, still feeling self-concious in her princess garb among her worker friends. She reached up to take the brush from Enna.

  “Oh, leave it,” Enna said, and slapped her hand away.

  “We should help pack up camp,” said Ani. Enna ignored her.

  “Your hair’s like a streak of sunlight through a window,” she said. “Like a river in the morning. I don’t know, but something pretty. You’re different this morning, Isi. You don’t look like the goose girl anymore.”

  “I hope I’ll always be, even if I become a princess again.” Ani smoothed the fabric against her leg, soft as moss. “But I wonder if you’re readying me for court or to be laid out in my coffin.”

  Enna rapped her lightly on her head with the brush. “Now stop that or you’ll have us all in jitters.”

  Kit, a quiet worker with a mess of black curls, stood by watching. He timidly put a hand to Ani’s hair, like a nest-building crow charmed by a shiny object.

  “A warning there, pig boy,” Conrad shouted from across the camp. “Don’t touch her hair without leave, or keep a good hold on your hat.”

  Ani laughed.

  Talone stomped down the breakfast fire. Hard embers crushed beneath his heel, a sound like weak bones breaking. He looked around.

  “Time to ride.”

  Chapter 20

  The party rode at a brisk pace for half a day, stopping only to water their horses and briefly allow those unused to much riding to touch their feet to steady ground and stretch out the sitting sores. The road moved past scattered farms and settlements until the occasional houses clustered into a village and the village led into a town visible from the road as orange-tipped towers and rooftops, the bells tolling absolute noon. They did not leave sight of houses again.

  When the afternoon dazzled the west, the road arched down into a broad valley flanked by a wide, gray river. Over a rise, they could see where the river fattened into a lake, the waters flat as a coin in the still afternoon. The estate on its near shore was all of pale yellow stone, its many banners held up in the wind like raised hands, its many chimneys and turrets slender and high, ladies’ fingers pointing straight to the sun, and the whole structure proclaiming itself and shouting, Glory, glory.

  There were shouts from the valley. It was a broad bowl, cleared of trees and filled from rim to rim with the shining, living ocean of the army. The royal army and all the present hundred-bands from villages across the kingdom camped in a wide, open circle around the estate, each centered by a brightly colored tent for their leaders, each bearing the vivid banner of their shields. Ani felt there was no relief from the constant motion of dark heads, the glaring metal of weapons and armor, the colors of the tents, banners, and painted shields. Some bands marched in their camps, circles within circles spinning as they walked, staggered lines playing at advancing and retreating.

  Out of the commotion came the notes of a song, loud and perfect. Not far from where Ani’s group paused, a hundred-band stood at attention. They rested their round shields on their right shoulders, the rim pressed to their cheeks, the hollow belly of the shields turned to their mouths. Into that metal bowl the soldiers sang a war song. Soon other hundred-bands joined in. The sound rang off the iron and pushed into the air toward the estate and beyond, to the place where Ani’s company stood. The song against metal was strange and loud, the notes a flock of fierce, scattered birds, the melody the sound of war.

  “Oh,” said Ani, as though she finally understood. “I think they must love that sound. It makes my bones feel cold.”

  “Indeed,” said Talone.

  “Talone, this is impossible. This can’t be done.”

  Talone looked over the valley, and she thought he was estimating the numbers of soldiers and counting the banners. He squinted against the sun. “What did your horse say to you, that last word you said you heard?”

  Ani thought it was an odd question but answered, “He said, he called me Princess.”

  Talone nodded. “Lead the way, Princess.”

  In the valley at her feet, the distant soldiers milled around like ants, the thousands of spear tips sparkling like sunlight on a handful of sand. She sat up straight and felt the bay tense beneath her, ready for command.

  “Yes, all right, let’s go.”

  They rode in formation like a flock of geese: Ani at the lead, followed by Talone and Ratger, then Enna and Finn, Razo and Offo, and so on. Ani sat tall in her saddle. Her stirrups were lost in the long hem of her skirts, her hands were poised with reins ready to command, her hair fell down her back, her head was
up. She visualized her mother and commanded her body to feel that form—regal, imperious. The guards along the valley road watched the company’s passing with wonder and apprehension. Who was this Kildenrean girl entering the camp of the army about to invade Kildenree? Because their numbers did not pose a threat, they were not stopped, though Ani could see runners taking the word of their coming to each subsequent post. When she could pick out the faces of the estate gate guard from the haze of distance, she saw they were alerted and awaiting their arrival with stern curiosity.

  Ani stopped her bay short of the gate, as though expecting that it would open automatically before her. She could hear the company behind her stop quickly, the restless shifting of saddles like the creak of old wood, the whisk of a horsetail, the light thud of a quarterstaff resting on the ground. The guard stared at her with austere patience.

  Ani opened her mouth to speak. Her throat felt cold, and she bade her voice not to shake. “I am Napralina-Victery Talianna Isilee, second daughter of Kildenree and granted emissary of her queen. I am arrived to be witness to the wedding of my sister, Anidori-Kiladra, the first daughter. Escort us to the king immediately.”

  The guards’ formality slipped from their faces like drops of sweat, and they stared with open incredulity. No one addressed her. No one moved.

  “Permit me to repeat myself. I said, Please allow my escort to pass and let us present ourselves to the king immediately so we may pay our respects. I expect to see the king first and no other. We have been traveling through hard weather these months to arrive in time and have suffered losses of both wagons and a small number of my guards. I take it most unkindly to be kept mounted at the gate.”

  “We had no word of your coming,” said a slender man slightly older than the rest. Ani turned to him as the possible captain of the watch.

  “I am sorry for it. After our losses, I could not spare a guard and dared not send one of my waiting women alone. All the more reason to inform the king of our arrival immediately.”