Chapter 33
No sooner had Marigold scattered sand on the last of the broadsides than Alfred’s bell jingled along the path to the cottage.
With less than a week before the festival, they needed to get the word out to as many people as possible. Alfred said the
markets were already buzzing with anticipation.
This would be so good for Bram.
Harvest Hollow would accept him—of that, she had no doubt. They’d be curious about the hermit orc, too, and many would attend
the Goldenmoon Festival to see him with their own eyes. That played into her plans.
With as big a crowd as possible, she could reveal to all that he was Sir Bram Duncan of Thornwick, her true love, and Prince
Crispin had forced the autumn sprite to transform him. She wanted everyone in the five kingdoms to know of the prince’s thin-skinned treachery.
She shimmied with delicious anticipation.
That smug royal blowhard had banished and tethered Bram to this remote farm to clear the path toward making his own play for
her. Crispin had probably enjoyed it since his people adored her true love more than they did their prince. But who wouldn’t
adore Bram? Not because he was handsome or long of limb. No, because of how he made them feel. Ever the gentleman, he was
unfailingly kind and put people at ease.
He was like that as a child, too.
Like with Rowan, her shy twin. As boys, Bram was full of good humor and possessed more confidence than he had a right to, whereas Rowan was a secret alchemist who uttered as few words as possible.
Beckett, a few years younger, was also a friend, but not as close as Rowan and Bram.
The two boys made each other laugh during their instruction in arms and horsemanship so much that Sir Patrick often separated them.
She knew, because she watched their lessons until Bess dragged her back to her needlework and penmanship lessons.
The knock on the front door broke her reverie.
“You in there, Miss Meg?” Alfred asked. “I’m here for the broadsides. Jask asked me to circle back twice as often as you get
ready for the festival.”
As she opened the door, the wind whipped it from her hand. “Goodness! Does this kind of wind visit Harvest Hollow often?”
“No, ma’am. It’s blustering more than my Great-Uncle Glorian, I’ll tell you that.” Alfred helped her tug the door closed.
“Hope it doesn’t tear all the leaves from the trees. The festival’ll be more picturesque with bright foliage in the background.”
“My hopes are the same.” Marigold peered out the window. “Did you see Jask?”
Alfred shook his head. “Nice pile of pumpkins in the field, though.”
“He harvested them for the activities. There should be three different piles for the jack-o’-lantern carving, pumpkin decorating,
and the pumpkin-chucking competition.”
“The kids’ll love it.” Afred sniffed the air. “Is that one of your mint tisanes?”
“Mint and blackberry. I’ll pour you a cup.”
“I’ll thank you for it.” Alfred took up his normal seat at the table. “Miss Meg, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
“Is it about the vendor stalls? Because we’ll have room for a dozen vendors to set up and sell their wares.”
“Ah, I’ll be sure to tell the nut monger—he was wondering. But no that wasn’t my question. I was wondering . . . are you the Thornwick princess?”
She spluttered her drink. “Excuse me, that was unladylike.”
“Doesn’t bother me.” He wrapped his wrinkled hands around the steaming mug. “But are you? The princess, I mean.”
Marigold met Alfred’s kind eyes. From the first, Alfred wasn’t intimidated by the orc who’d suddenly appeared on Grimroot
Farm. The carter was a lifeline for Bram from his earliest days here. For that, Alfred would forever have a place in her heart.
For now, though, for her safety and Bram’s, she needed to deny her identity.
“Don’t be silly, Alfred. Would a princess muck out stalls?”
“If she were a good one, yes.” Alfred blew onto his mug. “Good folk do what needs getting done, no matter what their station.”
“I agree. So, why are you looking for the princess?”
“I’m not. But the palace guards are. More aggressive than before, they are.”
She spluttered again, dammit.
The older man lifted a cookie from the plate on the table. “Need me to thump your back?”
“No, thank you,” she wheezed.
“Well, so anyway. A flank of knights were carousing in the Laughing Gourd last night. I tried to ignore their conversation.
You know me, I mind my business.”
Marigold laughed, and Alfred narrowed his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Go on.”
Crumbs caught in his beard. “One of ’em—portly guy—noticed a broadside about the festival plastered next to the taproom. Had
lots of questions for Elenor.”
“The alewife?”
He nodded. “I inched closer till I could hear what they were saying.”
Meg tangled her fingers together. “And he seemed interested in that?”
“Very. Seemed to think the prince would be interested in it, too. And by interested, I mean vexed. The knight seemed to think
he might pay a visit to the festivities. But it’s okay, right? Because you’re not that princess.”
Under the table she felt the warm glow of an orb on her palm.
“That’s right—I’m not.” She shook her head. Not quite a lie, because she wasn’t the same princess who’d left Thornwick.
Not by a long shot.
Now she was a princess who spoiled for a chance to fight her enemies in public rather than swallow it down. If Crispin came
to the Goldenmoon Festival, she and Bram would give him that fight.
And then some.
The effort of prying up the loose stones from the meadow caused Bram to break out in a sweat. Despite the whipping wind, he
stripped his tunic free. Better to remove it than soil it and grow the laundry pile.
Thankless work, this. But Marigold declared there must be dancing, so clear the stones he must. He’d already built the gazebo
for the minstrels, which he and Meg happily christened under a star-bright sky.
Steadily, he swung the pickaxe side of the mattock toward the earth, breaking the soil to loosen the rock. Next, he used the
flat side to pry the stones free. Once the earth coughed up the lumps of basalt, he lifted and heaved the stone into a growing
pile.
His aim was accurate—another knightly skill that earned admirers.
After the festival, he’d have enough fieldstone to expand the cottage.
Another room to allow Marigold to read in peace, perhaps?
He grinned. No—not a reading room. An enclosed space specifically for her bath.
He might even be able to rig a pump into the room to siphon in the cold water and add a fireplace to heat it near a permanent tub.
Not even castles could boast that kind of ingenious luxury.
He rolled his neck.
If she stayed. That was the delusion he was operating under.
She wouldn’t admit it to him, but she seemed determined to coerce the sprite into lifting the curse. To what end, though?
After her magic revealed he was both Bram and Jask, what would happen after the curse was broken? Would it restore him? Or
create a hybrid half orc, half man, forever mingled, never apart?
Like what the mirror showed him.
That had shocked him more than the first time he’d seen his raw orc face the night he was cursed. At some point in the last
three years, the orc had become an indelible part of him. Stitched into him like a squatter that refused to be evicted. The
whipping wind matched his mood. His shadow reminded him, with each stroke, he was as much beast as man.
He rested the axe, then stood tall.
Perhaps he was being harsh. This form had served him in ways his human body could not. Take that mountain of stones, for example.
Clearing the field would’ve taken a dozen strong men the same amount of time, if not longer. Orcs didn’t tire as easily, nor
did they need much sleep. Amazing what a person could accomplish when he only required four hours of rest each night.
If he’d been human and cursed to stay at Grimroot Farm, would he have made it? Or had the orc helped him survive?
Perhaps the sprite had done him a favor with this form.
He dragged a kerchief over his forehead, then sipped his flask of water.
What a twist of the mind if that were the case.
That the sprite had fulfilled Crispin’s command to curse an innocent soul but put his own brand of fuck you in the magic to keep Bram alive.
The frisson rippled over him.
He swung his gaze to the north—the direction of Brambleton Castle.
No falcon. Which should mean no Kevin.
If Coby delivered the letter and Garrick agreed to the scheme. Before becoming Jask, he’d trusted his fellow guards implicitly.
Time and again, the world had shown him most people were good. But the knights he’d been with that night broke that trust.
Please, let him not have granted them misguided trust.
In case he had . . . He ran toward the cottage. His orc speed was another point in this body’s favor. As Bram crossed the
meadow, the frisson rippled over him again.
Blood and bones, was an army invading? Still no falcon, though.
After trampling through the sunflowers that lined the meadow, Bram leaped over the larger pumpkins at the back of the field.
A quick hectare later, the cottage was in view. A palfrey stood tethered to the maple in their front yard, and Marigold was
speaking animatedly to a tall, trim man in black whose pauldrons reflected the bright fall sun.
Oh, sweet saints.
A knight.