The Tangled Forest
Page 32
“Your people know me,” Tovenaar proclaimed. “What do they know of you? Only that you are a runaway girl who would not stand by her people when her father – their king – was most in need.”
“That is not true. You drove me away.”
“And now I shall return you to them.”
I looked again to the queen. “I will not go with him. I refuse to return to my lands if I bring such evil in my wake.”
“A woman who would give up her crown for her people,” the Woman in the Woods said. “Perhaps there is such a thing as a good queen after all.”
“I did it once, I will do it again,” I spat, anger roused to my lips.
“And where shall you go this time?” the queen asked, moving to the fire to warm her hands against it. “You cannot hide among the streets now that they know your face.”
“Then I will stay here in the woods.”
“And the Queen of the East will move against you in your sleep,” Tovenaar replied.
His words were meant as a warning, yet they sounded different to my ear. She had moved against me the night before and the brush of her gentle touch returned as a sigh. Looking up, I found her watching me from the fire. Could I believe that someone who had kissed me so softly would order such violence against the innocent?
Words cast spells across our minds.
Was this another of Tovenaar’s tricks? Fears and threats conjured from my own uncertainty.
“I do not believe you,” I told him.
“You have seen all that I have done to you, and do not believe I will do more?”
“I will not believe it until I hear the words from the queen herself.”
The queen lowered her hands from the fire and turned to me, her face expressionless.
“Robin of the woods,” she said, soft as the glow of the hearth. “You do not believe I would take all that you have?”
“I do not believe it. I do not believe the hand that protected me would cut me down. I do not believe the lips that kissed me would speak against me.”
“Hah!” Tovenaar roared. “And you thought your father’s love un-natural.”
The queen lowered her eyes from mine and in that moment I felt my-self forsaken.
“You will take Tovenaar with you,” she said. “You will need him.”
“I will not.”
“He will provide for you.”
“I need not his provision.”
“He will proffer much wealth.”
Before I could draw breath to refuse, the old man came forward, faster than I thought possible for one of his age. I watched in wonder as he wrapped my donkey skin about Tovenaar, its limp hooves falling to his crooked knees.
“Safeln na devin deor, amach um ach felice,” the Woman in the Woods intoned, raising her hands as she stepped forward.
Tovenaar struggled beneath the weight of the skin, his face twisting as wrong as his tooth. As the witch chanted, his form writhed like a worm in the beak. He wriggled and shook, trembled and eventually fell. As his arms stretched to the floor, they met with the hooves and merged. His back rippled like a wave, rising into the haunches of the beast. The donkey’s jaw dropped to cover his face and within moments a screeching mule stood before me.
Hee-haw, hee-haw it screamed as it lifted its tail and shat a lump of gold onto the ground.
“Much wealth indeed,” the old man said, picking up the warm lump of metal and turning it so that the diamonds within glittered.
The queen came to me then, took my hands in hers and kissed them.
“I would never cut you down. I would never speak against you.”
“Do you love me?”
“I love you.”
She moved her lips to mine and the Woman in the Woods cackled with glee.
*
I led Tovenaar back to my kingdom at the end of a rope. His hooves stuttered over uneven ground and now and then he would stop to brace his behind and drop more riches on the ground. I left it there for the fae folk to gather and continued to the gates of my castle.
One of my guards rode ahead, so that when I arrived, all the people of my kingdom lined the road to welcome me home. There on the path stood Francesca, thinner than before but still possessing her tongue. She called out to me and I called back.
“Bring your brother,” I said. “Take him to the main hall, for I shall knight you both!”
After a month of mourning, in which I visited my father’s grave every day, we opened the gates once again to receive the Queen of the East. I wore her ring and she wore mine. We held a ball in which everyone was glad to dance. We sang songs and drank wine. We laughed and joked. We were truly alive.
“I love the princess who ran from me,” my lover said, as we lay in my chamber one night, stroking our fingers over soft flesh. “My prince in britches and a cap.”
“And do you love her still, now that she wears pearls and lace?”
“I love her more,” she replied. “For love is strength, and we rule two lands as one.”
“We women of royal blood,” I smiled. “What would our fathers think?”
“It matters not what anyone thinks. Dressed in daybreak, drenched in stars, we rule our queendoms and ourselves.”
“You are mine.”
“And you are mine.”
“Together.”
“Eternal.”
“Until the end of time.”