Chapter Seventeen The King and I #2
The horses’ hooves crunched through leaves and needles.
It was a brisk late-autumn day. The air was dry and chill, carrying the promise of winter.
It was warmer than the mountains at this time of year, though.
Back home, fat flakes of snow would have already turned the peaks white and begun to drift onto the steep paths and sloped rooftops lower down.
We wove our way deeper into the trees, turning to the left or right according to some timetable I couldn’t figure out. My sense of direction abandoned me not long after the castle vanished from sight. Within half an hour, I was helplessly lost. I hoped someone knew how to find the way back.
“When the princess arrives,” said a huntsman behind me, “we should give her a fairy-tale wedding.”
“What do you mean?” asked his companion.
“Leave her in the woods with a bag of breadcrumbs!”
That would be Max and Harry, I had no doubt.
Clem swore at them in dialect too thick to be comprehensible, although the intent was clear.
Their nonsense felt strangely comforting.
If I was heading into the depths of the forest again, at least I was headed there with the same band of rogues as last time.
For the most part. We were a sizable hunting party. Armed guards, seated atop dauntingly large destriers, accompanied the king and his twelve huntsmen. And there was also, of course, one enormous lion. Sight hounds and scent hounds loped alongside us.
Given our random route, it would be impossible to hunt in the usual way, with additional dogs strung out through the woods at predetermined points. No one had bothered to tell me what we were doing instead. No one had given me a weapon, either, not so much as a cudgel to club small game.
It wasn’t long before we encountered the peculiar denizens of the forest of Tailliz.
Up a small slope, I spied what I thought was a stag, until I noticed it had no fur and the tentacled proboscis of a star-nosed mole.
It bounded away in fright as we came close.
None of the hunters tried to bring it down.
The dogs didn’t give it chase, either, but whined in dismay, crouching low on their haunches until it disappeared.
Once it was out of sight, King Gervase surprised me for a second time by maneuvering his courser next to Poma and matching my pace.
On his other side, one of the huntsmen drew his own steed close by and watched me warily.
The lion was never far from the king, either, and I could feel Poma tense as the great cat approached.
I would have to handle her carefully to keep her from shying.
I wondered whether Gervase planned to keep his promise to discuss our wedding plans.
It seemed an odd topic for the present circumstances, but I imagined that rulers often had to multitask.
My stepmother certainly never aimed for one goal when it lay in her power to aim for seven.
That wasn’t what was on his mind at all, as it happened. “So, sorceress,” he said. “If we are attacked on this day, what can you do to offer us protection?”
I blew out a sigh. This would be a short conversation; there was so very little to say.
“Almost nothing, Your Majesty,” I admitted. “My greatest magical talent is rapid hair growth.”
He looked at me blankly. “Hair growth?”
“I suppose it might confuse the kind of creature that is bewildered by a hat. Let us pray we are attacked by a parrot or a small dog.”
He laughed. A nice laugh—cheerful, loud, and unrestrained. I liked it.
The lion, on the other hand, remained unamused. “Small dogs,” he sniffed, “are an unlikely threat. And easily defeated by other means. We would not need to employ your dubious ability.”
“She knows that, Lion,” the king explained patiently. “It was a joke.”
“I fail to see the humor in poor tactics.”
“I tried to tell Princess Angelique I wasn’t a very powerful sorceress,” I said, “but I’m not sure she cared to hear it. Surely the huntsmen must have told you how useless I was in the battle against the spider wolves.”
“Some of my huntsmen,” Gervase responded, his eyes sliding to the one riding next to him, “have their own opinion about those events.” The man in green looked away without replying.
The lion drew his mouth into a snarl. “Huntsmen,” he growled. “You have no huntsmen.” His teeth were bared. Poma would have bolted if I hadn’t kept a tight hold on her reins.
“I told you to speak no more of that,” the king said. “Your test failed.”
“But—”
“Enough!”
Silence descended, although only over the small group near me. Farther off, I heard laughter and chat. One of the huntsmen grinned as he snatched Max’s hat off, making the temperature drop until Max managed to grab it back again.
We rode on, passing through a wide, stony glade dotted with wildflowers.
Towers of worn rock poked out of the ground like stretching fingers.
The morning sun had risen higher in the sky by now, although it did little to warm us.
My breath frosted in the chilly air. The wind blew the grasses into undulating patterns that glittered in the light like ocean waves.
Overhead, birdlike creatures wheeled through the sky on wings of feather or skin or chitin, shrieking and screaming.
“What is the princess like?” Gervase asked me.
“I—What?”
“The Skallan princess. You are her handmaiden, are you not?” He studied his horse’s ears. “All I know is her name. And that only because your queen mentioned it in her reply to my letter.”
I hadn’t expected the question. It had never occurred to me that Gervase would be just as curious about me as I was about him.
“You needn’t reply if your answer would do discredit to your loyalty,” Gervase said when I failed to respond.
He had taken my silence to mean Princess Melilot was so awful I didn’t want to speak of her aloud.
“Nothing like that!” I said. “I was merely…considering where I should start. She’s, she’s…”
What could I say? What did I know about myself?
“She’s the middle child of three,” I said at last. “And has always felt it. Neither one thing nor the other, not the eldest, not the youngest, just there. Awkward and out of place, like a puzzle piece that doesn’t quite fit.”
After I said it, I wanted to bite my tongue. I wished it came more naturally to describe myself another way—as the most beautiful, the most powerful, the sweetest, or the cleverest.
The king had a thoughtful expression on his face. “I see. I was the youngest child myself. A late arrival. My brothers were too old to be jealous, so they fussed over me instead. And my sister grew used to me, in time.”
“You received all the available attention, then.”
“Oh, yes. So you’re familiar with the way of it. You have younger siblings yourself, I take it?”
“One. She was much indulged by the whole family.” No lonely towers or savage dismemberments for dear Calla.
“Much indulged is a good description of my own childhood as well. My whims and fancies were catered to. I was never expected to take the throne, which meant no one thought letting me do what I wanted would have any consequences.” He exchanged an unreadable look with the huntsman beside him.
This time, Gervase was the one who broke it off, turning back to me.
“Perhaps your mistress and I can learn to get along, then. I can indulge her where she has been ignored, and she can ignore me where I have been indulged.”
“I’ve heard of worse foundations for a marriage,” I said cautiously. I had also heard of significantly better ones, but I wasn’t sure how much contradiction the king would tolerate from a handmaiden.
He chuckled. “I spoke in jest. For the most part. We might do well by each other, if nothing else. She will receive the respect due to her as a queen. And I, as a king, am no longer able to evade my responsibilities.”
“Perhaps,” the lion grumbled, “you will even start taking your royal counselors seriously.”
Gervase inclined his head in the lion’s direction. “I take heed of your advice, Lion, as generations of kings have done before me.” He smiled thinly. “The court would have a collective fit if I did not.”
The lion sniffed. “As well they might. My wisdom, knowledge, and perception are of a superior nature, tempered by centuries of experience.”
The king’s final offhand remark to me was weighing on my mind. “Do you view your marriage to Princess Melilot as one of your responsibilities?” I asked.
He hesitated a long moment before replying. “My marriage to her was my father’s last wish. I could not, in good conscience, gainsay it.”
“He wanted you to have a magical protector,” I said. “A sorceress.”
He nodded. “The royal family of Skalla is known for its powerful magic.”
“You might have asked for help from elsewhere instead.” The huntsman, who had been silent for so long, had a bitter tone to his voice.
“I made a promise to a dying man, Jack,” Gervase said heavily. “And was he wrong?”
“We’ve managed so far,” the huntsman—Jack, I could say now—replied.
I’d been right about Gervase’s reluctance. He had no greater desire for this marriage than I did. He, as much as I, was fulfilling a duty and hoping to make the best of it.
It was only to be expected, yet I was disappointed, nonetheless. Jonquil had found ardor and romance in her arranged marriage. Calla had wed her love. I would have to content myself with being useful. Except, of course, I wasn’t even that. Behold, the great grower of hair.
“I suspect it’s too late for second thoughts now,” Gervase told Jack, before turning to me. “Am I right in doubting your queen would appreciate a broken courtship?”
“It would be a disaster,” I answered honestly.
“She doesn’t enjoy having her plans foiled, and she likes being slighted significantly less.
Your current troubles would seem a pittance in comparison.
She might tear your castle apart stone by stone or turn the forest into a desert.
As for you yourself, there is a good chance she would leave you blind, penniless, and wandering the wasteland for the rest of your days. ”
He took a sharp breath. “Are her daughter’s powers as potent?”
“Not…as potent as that,” I admitted.
“I confess to being somewhat relieved.”
I wasn’t convinced he should be. “Isn’t it better for you the more powerful she is? I doubt you feel any safer now, with only me by your side to offer magical protection.”
“Your mistress will prove her worth, I’m sure, even if she cannot turn Tailliz into a wasteland.”
I made a noncommittal noise. It struck me as a bad time to tell him my “mistress” was neither what he expected nor what he wanted. He’d gotten a bad bargain in me. A very bad bargain indeed.
“And as for you,” he continued, “I wouldn’t worry unduly. No one knows where in the forest we’ve traveled. Nothing has happened to the hunting parties since we adopted Jack’s strategy. There’s no chance whatever that anything will happen today.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
And that, of course, was the moment the monsters attacked.