Finn came to her immediately. His mien betrayed concern, and she realized that it was mirroring her own.
“I’m in trouble.” She pulled him apart from the others and spoke in her natural, unused voice, dropping the pretense of accent. “I need to tell someone that, and I’m so confused, and there is nothing to be done, except listen and wait, and be careful.”
The boy patted her shoulder.
“They killed my friend, or near enough.” She bit her lip, hard, to keep from crying. “They want to kill me. I can’t go home, and I am so tired of being afraid.”
Ani sobbed once and put her head on Finn’s shoulder, letting herself be held a moment, be told it was all right, and imagine what it would be like to be safe and known and cared for. She did not allow herself another sob. She stood straight and laughed to disguise the sensation of crying that still hung in her throat.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“Two men came to the Forest,” said Finn.
“Fair-haired?” she asked.
Finn nodded. “They asked after a yellow-haired girl, and Mother said she never saw one and wouldn’t let one cross her gate if she did.”
Ani heaved a breath and nodded.
“The way to my mother’s house is the southwest Forest road called Lake, and then right toward the sign that says Spruces, and then other roads that go second on left, third on right, fifth on right, or you can ask anyone around there.”
Ani repeated the way aloud several times to commit it to memory. They were looking for her. They did not think she was dead. They thought she was hiding. Fear tugged in her chest, but she pushed it down. No more. She took out the king’s silver coin and gave it to Finn.
“I came here to give this to you, not to cry,” she said. “For your mother, just part of all that I owe her.”
Finn took the coin but handed in exchange a brown paper-wrapped package from the cart. “From Mother.”
It was a deliciously thick pullover of Forest wool, in orange, brown, and blue, and on the back was the design of a yellow bird, wings out in flight. Unlike most of the other pullovers, he had somehow managed to keep it dry. She held it to her face and appreciated its warmth and the smell like a smoky fireside and the raw wool and wood floor of that safe shed where she had slept in the Forest.
“I can see that one can never pay back Gilsa for the fear that she will give again.”
As she left the market, spending her copper on a warm bun and a tracked-down thornroot, Ani saw that the hanged men had been transferred from the central platform to the city wall. It was long used to bearing the dead and was marked with the thin, dark blood of past corpses like stripes on a banner of decay. She swallowed the last, hard bit of bread and hurried past.
Chapter 12
Days later, Jok was still angry at Ani for leaving him in the pen two nights. She stood outside the pasture arch, counting the orange beaks as the geese waddled through, and she heard Jok’s familiar honk on the far side of the group, letting her know that he would not be sitting on her lap again that day. He was a true goose, and Ani was lonely under her beech, passing the time picking out words of goose speech and practicing new words to the wind.
At noon, when Conrad had crossed the hedge to the sheep boys’ field on his daily wanderings, Ani heard hoofbeats. It was one man on a dark horse, and he rode directly to her tree. Her muscles shook quietly, but she stayed still and watched the shadow of his hat move on his face until she recognized him.
“Goose girl,” Geric called out.
She stepped out from behind the tree and leaned against its smooth gray trunk. Geric dismounted and walked the horse to her, one hand resting on the neck of his mare.
“I don’t know your name,” he said.
“I’m called Isi,” she said.
“Isi. That suits you better than goose girl, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Yes, sorry that I didn’t know, before. Isi.”
“That’s all right. I didn’t tell you.”
“No, you didn’t, did you.”
“No.”
“Hmm,” he said. And coughed.
The conversation halted, Geric staring at a print his boot left in the still wet ground, Ani looking off toward the geese as though they might flee to the woods if not under her constant gaze. He cleared his throat and said the beginning of a word, then stopped and lowered his brow. Ani noticed that he had an expressive brow and eyes the color of warmed honey. She looked away from him to the horse.
“Not the bay,” she said. At her words, he looked up gratefully.
“No,” he said, “I traded him for one a mite tamer. I thought after my embarrassing display, it was clear the beast needed to be handled by a master. Did I do well?”
“Surely,” she said, surprised he sought her approval.
He was quiet again, and she waited.
“I came here for two days,” he said, “but you were gone, and the geese were gone, and I thought I was mistaken and it was a different pasture where we met.”
“No, but it was raining, and then it was marketday, of course. Don’t you go to market? And you came in the rain?”
Geric laughed a little. “I was wretched wet, and so were the flowers.”
He looked at her curiously, paused, and then deluged her with explanations. “I’m such a dunce, truly I am, and I went home that night after we spoke and you rode the horse, and I made that terrible error, made you feel as though I thought you were of less worth than a stone, I’m sure. Well, you know, I felt like a kingly dolt, as I should’ve. I hadn’t a right to come here and ride around like a fool and insult you and leave without explanation, except that I’ve never met a goose girl before, and you’re not what I expected, though that’s no explanation, I know. Still, I thought I’d better come back and bring you flowers, because I read that a gentleman gives a lady flowers, and I thought maybe I’m not a gentleman, but no reason not to treat you like a lady, isn’t that so?”
He waited for her to answer.
“Yes,” she said. It seemed the only answer to give. He nodded, relieved.
“Well, the rain made them a mess, the flowers, half of them bald of petals and the stems weak as noodles, and I was beginning to think that flowers were a silly idea, that you’d think, I don’t know what, but I kept them all week because the last couple of days I couldn’t escape to come and explain, and yesterday the flowers just flat died. So when I left today I didn’t have any flowers, and wasn’t sure I’d find you anyhow, so I grabbed what I could find, and it was food.” He pulled a potato sack off the back of his saddle and showed the contents: apples, a loaf of potato bread, cold ham, and a leather pouch filled with custard.
“What you could find? This’d be a feast in the workers’ hall. Are you a kitchen-man, then?”
“No, thanks be, or I could never escape so often as I do.” He gave her half a grin as he spread out their feast on the sack. “I should confess something to you. Some of the palace guards bet me that I couldn’t tame that bay, and if you had taken him for a time, I would’ve claimed credit for his taming.”
Ani gasped and smiled. “You would not.”
Geric laughed a little, bowing his head, and nodded. “Yes, yes, I probably would’ve. You may not know what terrible ego beatings we men give each other.”
“So, you’re a guard?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Now why couldn’t he have been one of mine? But if he were her guard, she would be a princess, and just then she wanted to be someone who sits in a pasture with another someone and eats cold ham on potato bread. So they did. After a time, he lost the halting manner of his apology, and they talked so long and easily that Ani’s throat went dry and she wished for water. He wanted to know all about how she passed her time. When he learned that his picnic was the first noon dinner she had eaten as a goose girl, Geric swore he would bring her dinner every day.
“If I ruled, you’d all dine,” h
e said.
“Would that you were king.”
Jok rushed toward her, honking all the way as though he would bite her, but she honked once to stop his advance, and he turned and waddled away.
“What was all that?” asked Geric, standing.
“Jok, my little friend. He’s angry that I’ve left him in the goose pen these past nights. He’s grown used to sleeping in the crook of my knee.”
“Well, I’ll have none of that, some brazen bird speaking harsh words to his mistress. After all, I’m a gentleman.” He stuck out his tongue in an ungentlemanly face and ran after Jok. The goose soon realized he was being pursued and fled across the field, flying in short spurts and running as fast as his flat feet could propel him. Geric slipped once on the wet grass but quickly regained his feet and grabbed Jok around the middle.
“It’s time for an apology,” he said, walking back to the beech with Jok in hand. “I’ve become an expert in apologies today, so I know, little brother, that it’s time.”
“Careful, Geric, you might—" said Ani as Jok turned his head and bit Geric on the arm. Geric exclaimed and dropped the goose who wasted no time in fleeing the scene. And Ani, despite her experience with goose bruises, could not hold back a laugh.
“I’m sorry, my lady,” said Geric, rubbing his arm, “but I failed to force an apology out of the offending goose.”
“You’re not likely to, either. He’s a naughty bird. They all are.”
“Poor company.”
“Oh, but I like my geese. Like cats, they can’t be told what to do, and like dogs, they’re loyal, and like people, they talk every chance they get.”
“Though they’ll not deliver half so good an apology as I do.”
“Not half so good,” she said.
They laughed together and lay back on the grass, their heads on his rolled cloak, chuckling intermittently and claiming clouds to be ponies and dragons and large-bosomed women. Geric took his leave long after noon. He promised to return the following day if he could, hoisted himself on the mare’s back, and rode away.
“Geric,” she called.
He turned back around.
“What kind of flowers were they?”
“I don’t rightly know,” he said. He made faltering gestures with his hands, forming their size and shape from the air.
“They were yellow, and smallish, and had lots of petals.”
“Thank you,” she said. “They were beautiful.”
Ani looked toward the stream and held a branch of her beech tree as she might hold a hand. The river birches were leafing brilliant—hundreds of thin, gold coins dangling from their arms. It was perfect, as though their green leaves had been a falsehood all those months and just now the trees showed their realness, their pure autumnal yellows. Ani felt a stirring, a hope, a winged thing waking up in her chest and brushing her heart with its feathers.
Geric came back the next day, and the next, and more, and they sat in the shade of the tree or walked together along the spongy rim of the goose pond, the birds moving at their feet like incarnations of the bright white words that fell from their mouths.
“How do you get away so often?” said Ani.
“When the prince doesn’t go out, I’ve nothing to do. I’m his guard.”
“Oh. What’s he like?”
Geric grinned. “Oh, he’s a nice enough lad, but not half as charming as I am.”
Yes, she thought, I’m certain you’re right.
He was ignorant of goose-keeping and listened with interest as Ani explained what she knew. When she mentioned how much time she sat alone, the next day Geric brought her books on Bayern history and some tales of courtly love, evil, and justice. He was afraid at first that he had erred again and that she had never learned to read, and then he was relieved that she had.
Ani in turn wanted to know about the palace, and after some days, she had the courage to ask after its newest members.
“The Kildenreans,” he said. “A quiet lot, keep to themselves, very grave, earnest men. The senior man, the braided one, he beats the palace guards regularly at sword matches on the training grounds. I’ve never faced him, though I’d like a go. I’ve seen him beat three men consecutively, and my arm hurts just to watch.” He rubbed his upper arm distractedly where Jok had bit him.
“Hmm, maybe you should challenge him to a horse-breaking match instead,” she said.
“Easy, easy, my lady, for your tongue’s losing its gentility from speaking too long to geese.”
At that, he tossed a handful of grass blades at her, which she tossed back, until Jok appeared, snipping at the falling grass with an eager beak. The goose could not long hold a grudge.
“What of the princess? The boys here, they call her the yellow girl.”
Geric smiled, amused. “Princess Anidori-Kiladra.”
A cold tickle burst in her stomach at Geric speaking her own name. “You’ve met her, of course, being the prince’s guard.”
“Yes, I have. Before she came, the prince took to pacing the floor while trying to memorize her name. Princess Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee.They take the names of their grandmothers there—Talianna, Isilee. Nice sentiment, though it makes for a long name.”
Ani coughed, feeling self-conscious of the name Isi, and quickly said, “Shouldn’t a princess have a long name, just as she should have a long life?”
“Yes, I suppose.” He flung one stray blade of grass her way. She picked it up and ran her finger up its smooth side.
“She’s lovely and graceful and witty and courtly, and all that a princess should be.” Geric shrugged, and he no longer smiled. “But there was some darkness with her arrival. I didn’t know that relations were so drawn between the two countries, but they’re more tenuous than I think anyone’d thought.”
Yes, thought Ani, because Kildenree wishes to be left alone and Bayern greedily cut through the mountains. She wondered if her city would ever be safe. She doubted that even were she to eventually marry Bayern’s prince that their alliance could bind this country to peace, this country where they hanged their dead criminals on their walls and only honored a man who carried a javelin and shield. She did not speak aloud of this to Geric. She was a goose girl and thought perhaps she should not know of such things as maps and borders and war.
One morning in midweek, Geric arrived in the pasture with not only dinner in a potato sack, but an extra horse, a chestnut gelding two hands shorter than his black mare—a lady’s horse.
“They’re both pretty tame. Not that I don’t think you could handle a bit more, but I didn’t think I could.” He grinned, and his face was a different kind of handsome from his thoughtful stare.
Ani took the chestnut’s reins in silence and stood a moment before him, allowing the horse to sniff at her hands and neck and look over his rider. Geric stood by and watched. Ani waited for his approval, patted him down on both sides, then mounted. She was careful that her skirts did not rise above her ankles.
“By the way, Geric, um, did you see my shift that first day, when I rode the bay?”
Geric bowed his head. “I saw a bit of your leg.”
“You saw my leg?”
“How can a man help what he sees?” he said. “And, if I could add, you possess a very fine leg.”
Ani felt her face go hot and was too shocked to speak a word. Geric shook his hands in front of him in a feigned gesture of innocence.
“I’m just a gentleman and sworn to truth, and that’s my defense.”
“Your defense is you’re an idle guard who leaves his prince to seek out maidens to spy on.” She tried to still a smile, and when it threatened to push through her defenses, she nudged the horse forward.
They let their mounts canter for a bit, dashing back and forth across the pasture. From that height Ani could see Conrad’s orange cap at the far end of the sheep pasture, so she dared lead Geric across the stream and into the beginning wood on the other side, as she had seen noble men and women do many times on c
lear autumn mornings.
They rode through the thickening evergreens, stepping over the scattered sunlight that bled through the canopy to the forest floor, windblown river birch leaves gleaming like loose coins caught in a ray of light. A cold wind came from the heart of the wood and washed over Ani’s hands. She halted. The trees, the shadows, the chill, called to mind another afternoon in a forest. Talone’s howled rage, Adon’s sword-tipped chest, the scream of the stallion that bore a slash down his rump, the pressure of Ungolad’s hand on her ankle.
“What’s wrong?” asked Geric, and he leaned toward her.
The wind moved over her hand like a searching thing.
“Nothing.” She flinched, and the wind left her hand like a feather blown from a palm. She shook her head and told herself that the wind was not speaking to her and that this was not the forest that was full of death and betrayal. Nothing in this wood put bodies on those thin memories and made flesh what was nightmare. In fact, she discovered, there was a comfort in the close trees. And just being on horseback again gave a confidence to her entire body. She smiled. “Nothing. This is perfect.”
Geric tipped his head. “Someday you’ll have to tell me what that expression on your face means when you look at these trees.”
They rode on until Ani expressed concern that the geese had been too long unattended. When they returned to the stream bank, Geric halted.
“Do you dare race a man, my lady?” he said.
Ani only smiled. As one they kicked their horses into a run. Their horses splashed through the stream, wetting boots and hems, and then galloped up the pasture. The riders leaned low on their horses’ necks and hollered against the wind and the sound of hooves pounding at the late autumn grass. The wall stopped them, and they gasped for breath between laughs and held their shaking stomachs.
“I won,” said Geric, fighting to speak while exhaling.
“You . . . did . . . not,” said Ani. “And your horse is taller.”
They finished laughing and caught their breaths, and looked at each other, and Ani thought Geric looked at her too long, as though he forgot he was looking, as though he did not wish to do anything else. She looked back. Her heart took its time quieting down.