by Cynthia Hand
Edward stayed in the tree for a while, disgusted with himself on the one hand, and on the other wanting to go out and find another delicious mouse, or perhaps a tasty garter snake. A growing bird has to eat. But he needed to get control of these bird impulses, he decided. He needed to get moving. The sun was going down. Hadn’t it just been morning?
North. I need to find my way north, he told himself sternly.
Which way was north, again?
The sun goes down in the west, he recalled vaguely. He subsequently pointed himself toward what would be, by extension, north. But once he was in the air, it was only a few minutes before the wind charmed him again, and the bird joy overtook him, and when he came back to himself more hours had passed and it was dark and there was no way to know which direction he’d been flying in, and which way he should go.
So, as we said before, the king was lost.
For a while he followed a carriage that was making its way slowly down a road. The carriage must be carrying someone important, he concluded, because there were mounted guards riding on all sides of it. Then he figured that someone with so many men—perhaps twenty—could be heading toward London, and that was the last place he wanted to go, so he turned around and flew in the opposite direction.
The road led him to a shabby-looking village. At the edge of the small cluster of buildings there was a large oak tree, and he settled into the upper branches and looked around. His eyesight, he found, was quite marvelous in the dark.
The village was comprised of a scattering of cottages with thatched roofs, and a smoke-bellowing building that must be the blacksmith, a small stable, and a large ramshackle wooden building in the center that seemed to loom over all the others, with lit windows and a sign over its door with a horse head carved into it. He could hear bawdy music from inside, and men laughing and talking loudly. An inn.
He could become human again, and go inside. People would surely recognize him—after all, his face was on their coins. His subjects loved him, didn’t they? He was their beloved king, deigned by God to be their ruler. That was what he’d always been told.
But how did one return from bird to human, exactly? There were no magic words that he was aware of, no series of gestures, no spells to transform him. He wasn’t entirely sure how he’d managed to go from human to bird, before. He’d simply jumped from the window and wished for wings and hoped he wouldn’t die.
He glanced at the inn again. In an inn, there’d be food. Real food, not mice. And dinner rolls. And tall glasses of ale. All of which would almost certainly not be poisoned.
There’d be stew—maybe rabbit stew, so tender it almost melted in your mouth, with onion and a bit of carrot and potato, something that would warm his empty belly, at last.
There might even be blackberries.
Edward fell out of the tree. Since he was in the highest branches, his crash down made a spectacular amount of noise, branches breaking and Edward cursing and then thumping hard onto the ground. He landed on his left ankle all wrong, which alerted him to the fact that he had ankles again. He had done it somehow. He had wished to be a human eating human food, and here he was.
The door to the nearest cottage was flung open, and a large, red-faced woman wearing an apron stepped out. She was holding a rolling pin. From behind her wafted the smell of baking bread, which instantly made Edward’s stomach grumble and his mouth began to water.
Lord, he was hungry.
He struggled to his feet. His ankle hurt so much his eyes watered.
“Madam,” he wheezed.
The woman looked him up and down, which is when Edward realized a second important bit of news about himself.
He was, apparently, naked.
Edward tried to respond to this humiliating situation in as kingly a way as possible. Kings didn’t cower down holding their hands in front of their private parts like simpletons. He stood up straight. Tried to look her in the eye.
“Er . . . madam, I know this looks . . . less than ideal, but I can explain. I’m—”
“Pervert!” she screamed.
“No, no, you’ve got it all wrong.”
“You’re one of those filthy E∂ians, aren’t you?” she yelled, her face growing even redder in hue.
Or maybe she didn’t have it all wrong.
“This was a decent village, you know, before your kind came around spoiling it. Thieves and murderers, the lot of you. Like those dogs that watch me get dressed through the window and then run away. Perverts!”
“No, I can assure you, I never—”
The woman’s mouth opened and she brandished the rolling pin over her head like a Highland warrior. “PERVERRRRRRRT!” she screamed, and then she ran at him, clubbing him wherever she could reach.
Edward tried to run. His ankle didn’t cooperate, and he was out of breath within a few steps, so he didn’t get away as quickly as he would have liked, but the woman wasn’t in the best of shape, herself. After she’d beat him about the head with her rolling pin a few times, she seemed satisfied to fall back, screaming “Pervert!” after him as Edward stumbled on nakedly through the night.
He tried to steal some clothes that were hanging to dry outside of a farmer’s house, farther down the road, but the farmer had a dog, who wound up giving him a nasty bite on his right leg—the uninjured one, of course. Finally he ended up at another farm in the hayloft of a large barn, hiding under a horse blanket in a pile of prickly hay.
I’m better off as a bird, he thought miserably. He tried to turn himself back—to imagine himself with wings again, but nothing happened. The hay made him sneeze, and then cough, and then cough some more. The poison was still inside of him, working its evil. He was so weak. And now his ankle throbbed. His calf burned from where the dog had bit him. There was a goose egg rising near his temple where the woman had beaned him with the blasted rolling pin, and bruises forming up and down his thin, shivering arms, which bore scabbing cuts from Master Boubou’s bloodletting.
Plus he was cold. And hungry. And horribly, horribly lost.
He buried his face in the blanket and blinked back bitter tears. What he wouldn’t give for his dog right now, her warmth and her protection, even though the thought of Pet as a girl continued to unsettle him. Now Pet was lost to him, too. Everything was lost. Jane. Bess. His crown. The kingdom.
What was he going to do?
Then, because he was exhausted on top of being poisoned and injured and starving, the king—or we suppose that Edward was technically no longer the king at this point, because the carriage he’d seen earlier had contained Jane and Gifford on their way to the castle, and Jane had, only moments before, been crowned the official Queen of England—the boy who had been king, then, dropped off into a fitful sleep.
He woke up with a lantern burning bright next to his head, and a knife at his throat. Because this was the kind of night he was having.
“Hello,” said the owner of the knife.
A girl.
A girl about his age—no older than eighteen, surely, although it was hard to tell in this light—a girl with startling green eyes.
He didn’t dare to move. Because knife.
“Well,” she said after a long moment, “what do you have to say for yourself, then?”
Only Edward didn’t understand what she said, because what he heard was, “Wull, whadja hev to see fer yeself, thun?”
“You’re Scottish,” he murmured. “Am I in Scotland?”
She snorted.
“I’ll take that as a no,” he said.
The green eyes narrowed. The knife didn’t leave his throat.
“Who are you?” she demanded, and he caught her meaning this time. “What are you doing here?”
He didn’t know how to answer her questions. If he told her who he really was, chances were that a) she wouldn’t believe him, and she’d cut his throat, or b) she’d believe him, and because he was the ruler of England and she was Scottish and this was the year 1553, she’d get even more pleasu
re out of cutting his throat. Neither option ended well for him.
She was looking at him expectantly, and the knife against his neck was cold and decidedly unpleasant, so he decided he’d better start talking, and he’d better make it good.
“My name’s Dennis,” he burst out.
“Dennis,” she repeated. Still with the knife. “Is that your first or last name?”
“I’m an apprentice for the blacksmith in the village,” he said quickly, to cover that he didn’t actually know whether Dennis was his first or last name. “And I was set upon by thieves on the road.”
At this, the girl’s mouth turned up in a charming—or Edward would have found it charming, if she hadn’t been threatening his life at the moment—little smile. She was pretty, and the green eyes were the least of it. A riot of headstrong black curls cascaded all around her face, which was pale and heart shaped with a delicate, pointed chin and a small red mouth.
“You’re a poor liar, is what you are.” With the hand not holding the knife she suddenly pulled back the horse blanket that was covering him and gave him a quick once over, neck to toes and everything in between.
Edward was too shocked to protest.
“Just checking to make sure you didn’t have a sword under there,” she said with a smirk. “But I don’t see anything particularly dangerous.” She removed the knife from his neck and sat back. “Poor wee thing. You’re a bit of a mess, aren’t you?”
Edward grabbed the blanket back from her and pulled it to his chest. He wasn’t sure what she could be referring to as a poor wee thing. Certainly no part of him. His face was hot as a branding iron. “I was set upon by thieves, as I told you,” he stammered finally. “They took everything.”
“Oh, wearing fine silks, were you? Poppycock. Who are you, really?” She grabbed his hand and turned it over in hers. “Because you don’t have the hands of a blacksmith, that’s sure.”
He jerked his hand away and rose unsteadily to his feet, still clutching the unwieldy blanket around him. The girl stood up, too, and brushed hay off her trousers. She was wearing trousers, he realized. Black trousers and a white tunic and a black cloak, with black boots that came nearly to her knees. He’d never seen a woman in trousers before. It was improper. And unnerving. And surprisingly attractive.
“Who are you?” he fired back. “Because I don’t think you’re the farmer’s daughter.”
The green eyes flashed, but she smiled again. “Do you know what I think?”
He couldn’t begin to guess.
“I think you’re an E∂ian on the run,” she said. “And when it started raining you ran in here for shelter, in your animal form, of course, so now you’re stuck here without a stitch of clothes.” She tsked her tongue sympathetically. “So what animal form do you take?”
“It’s raining now?” he said, and then he became aware of the pounding of water against the roof. Because, again, this was the kind of night he was having.
“Are you part of the Pack?” she asked. “You seem a bit green for that.”
He was about to say something like he didn’t know what she was talking about with the Pack, and of course he wasn’t an E∂ian. But before he could get this out, the girl’s head cocked slightly to one side, listening, and then she snuffed the lantern. The hayloft was plunged into inky blackness.
“Wha—” he started, but she stepped close and put a finger to his lips to quiet him, and he lost his train of thought.
Below them, the barn door opened. A man bearing a lantern shuffled in. He spent a few minutes feeding the animals, all the while grumbling about the rain. The entire time Edward and the girl stood frozen in the hayloft, a breath away from each other, her finger still against his lips.
Even in the dark, her eyes were green. Like the emeralds in the crown jewels.
He was holding his breath. He wanted to kiss her, he realized, which was ludicrous. She’d been holding a knife at his throat moments ago. She was a stranger. She was a woman who wore pants. She couldn’t be trusted.
Still, there she was, her finger against his lips, making him think of putting his lips on her lips. And when his gaze dropped, from her eyes to her lips, a girlish flush spread over her cheeks. Which made him want to kiss her even more.
The farmer went out.
The girl stepped back, the humor gone out of her expression. She cleared her throat and fingered the knife in her belt nervously.
“I should go,” she said.
For some reason, this was the last thing he expected—for her to leave now, after she’d woken him and threatened him and questioned him so relentlessly. Now she was leaving? And he didn’t want her to go.
“But it’s raining.” This sounded lame even to him. “And you haven’t found out who I am yet.”
She shrugged. “Sadly, I don’t care that much.”
She moved toward the ladder that would take her down to the barn floor. In another minute she’d be gone, and he’d be here in the same situation he’d started in—no clothes, no money, no plan. Alone.
“Wait,” he called.
She started down the ladder. She’d just reached the bottom when the barn door swung open, and there was the farmer again, this time holding a rusted old sword. The girl moved like she would run, but the farmer thrust the business end of the blade right at her chest. She froze.
“I knew you was in here,” the farmer growled. “Couldn’t stay away from my chickens, could you? Had to come back for the rest.”
She lifted her hands in a kind of surrender, but that aggravating smile tugged at her mouth. “They were very tasty chickens. I couldn’t help myself.”
The farmer snorted in disgust. “I ought to run you through right here and be done with you. But I’ll turn you over to the magistrate in the morning, and he’ll cut off one of your hands. That’ll teach you.”
I should do something, Edward thought. Save her, somehow. But he was naked and unarmed. Not exactly a knight in shining armor.
The girl stood up straighter. “Or what about this? You let me go, and I’ll steer clear of your chickens in the future.” Without waiting for an answer to her proposal, she feinted to one side and then darted to the other, but the man caught her by the hair. He dragged her away from the door. She struggled, reaching for her knife, but he grabbed it first and tossed it onto the dirt floor.
I really should do something, Edward thought. Now would be good.
“Or maybe,” the farmer said. “I’ll cut off your hand myself. . . .”
Okay, that does it, Edward thought.
There was a flash of light in the hayloft. The farmer looked up, startled, and then the bird that was Edward descended on him, talons clawing at the man’s face. The farmer screamed and released his sword. The girl took this opportunity to knee the farmer in the acorns. He dropped to the floor. She kicked him. She paused then, as if she might say something, one of her smart little lines, but she seemed to think better of it. She just grabbed up her knife and ran.
Edward followed her as best as he could from above. It was a good thing that as a bird he had sharp eyes, because she had a skill for melting into the shadows of the forest. It was difficult for him to navigate the trees. The rain was letting up, at least, a drizzle now, and the moon peeked between the clouds. The girl ran on and on, light on her feet, pacing herself, as if she were accustomed to taking such outings in the middle of the night.
She went for more than a mile or two before she stopped in a small grove to rest. Edward fluttered to the branches in the tree above her. She glanced up.
“Should I be worried about bird droppings on my head?” she laughed at him.
He gave an indignant squawk.
“Come down. You can change back now.” She swung her cloak from off her shoulders. “Here.”
He dropped to the ground, but then he stood there for several minutes in bird form without anything flashy happening.
“You really are a greenie, aren’t you?” she asked. “Do you not even
know how to change back, then?”
He changed. Still naked. The girl looked at the ground with a stifled smile and held out the cloak. Edward grabbed it and put it on, which was loads better than the horse blanket, but still left him feeling exposed and drafty.
“Thanks for your help.” The girl tucked a stray black curl behind her ear. “I’d have gotten clear of him myself, but it would’ve been messier.”
“So you’re a chicken thief,” Edward said.
“Among other things,” she admitted.
He’d never met a common criminal before. He would have found the whole thing wildly exciting if he wasn’t so tired of things being so wildly exciting.
“I’m Gracie,” she said, meeting his eyes.
“Is that your first name or your last name?” he said.
She grinned. “Grace MacTavish,” she clarified, and gave a little bow. “At your service.”
“Edward,” he replied simply.
“Not Dennis?” She had dimples, he noticed, not when she smiled so much as when she was trying not to smile.
“Not Dennis.”
“Good. I would have felt sorry for you with a name like Dennis. Shall we go?”
“Where?” he asked.
“Somewhere safer.”
Safer sounded good. Out of habit he held out his arm. She looked at him incredulously, but then she took it and they started walking.
“I would have turned back there,” she said as they made their way through the trees. “But then I would have lost my clothes as well, and it’s a half day’s hard run to the next place I’ve got clothes stashed. And I adore these boots,” she added.
“Turned? So you’re an E∂ian?” His heart thudded stupidly in his chest. What was it about this girl that flustered him so?
“Yes, an E∂ian,” she said. “I’ve never seen a kestrel E∂ian before. You make an attractive bird.”