The Goose Girl

  She had not communicated with the wind in many days, conscious always of Conrad’s gaze. The exercise delighted her. Tendrils of wind rose up her arms like candle smoke in still air, sought out the roots of her hair, and wound through them. She practiced sending the wind this way and that, noting that it did not always respond. Sometimes it was already set on one course and would not change. Sometimes it was too thin and slow to do more than loosen into still air, or so strong that it barely touched her skin before pushing itself away. Unlike a bird or horse, the wind was passionless; not thoughtful or playful, but often persuadable.

  The shadow of the tree darkened. She saw the shadow of a hand reach toward her wind-lifted hair. Ani grouped the wind that touched her into one thought and begged it to fly away, behind her, toward the lunging shadow. She felt it leave her skin.

  She turned to see Conrad chase his orange cap away from the tree. The breeze tossed the cap farther, always ahead, always a little faster. Ani watched him run and braided her wind-combed hair into a tight hoop on top of her head like a crown of gold. By the time Conrad caught his cap off the upper branches of the far pasture hedge and strode back again, Ani had replaced her hat with the ribbon firmly tied and was reading again. She could not keep her smile down.

  “You’re a demon, girl,” he said.

  “Goose girl,” she said.

  After that day, Conrad would not stand so near that she could put out her arm and touch him. When the workers in the hall made clear that they did not care to listen to his grumbling, he sat alone, holding sticks in the fire until they smoked and turned black.

  Ani placed her raisin bun beside him. Conrad took it and ate it with a kind of acknowledged defeat, but when he glanced up, she saw that his boyish face was still disturbed by lines of anger.

  Chapter 16

  Two months from wintermoon dawned brightly, and the workers, sequestered for over a week by icy rain and winds, left their rooms and stretched in the sunlight, glad for one morning to be taking their animals out to the fields again. The geese were as anxious as Ani to leave shelter and get soil beneath their feet, and they squawked cheerfully all the way.

  She stopped in the shadowy corner of the wall and greeted Falada. His mane was still damp, though his hide fared well in the wild weather. His glass eyes looked indifferently at the stones of the city.

  Falada, she said.

  Princess.

  Conrad was still disregarding her presence. Occasionally he dropped his despondency enough to tease the geese, chasing them for tail feathers or honking nonsensically. He stayed by the wall that morning, leaning against the gateway and combing his ragged, self-cut hair with his fingers.

  Ani sat under the beech and listened to the wind. It sought out trees, running around their trunks and weaving through their branches, the way a cat arches under a hand, seeking a good scratch. When it touched her skin, she could feel the rumbling, wispy voice that let images of its wanderings whisper out into sound. Not speaking to her, but just speaking, its existence alone a language.

  A spider’s web, sang the wind, the stream, the stream, the tattered cattails of autumn, the slender birch trunks, the wood. Men in the wood. Five men in the wood. Coming toward the stream, toward the geese and the beech and the princess.

  Ani stood up, pulling on a cool, gray branch to support her weight. Five men in the wood. No image of horses came on the wind, so they could not be nobles coming back from a predawn ride. Five was too many to be workers away from their keeps. She strained her sight toward the dark copses and light spots across the stream, looking for movement. A wild pheasant beat its wings, an agonizing sound against the tense silence. Nothing else.

  Then she spotted figures, dark, crouched, moving from one shadow to the next. They stopped.

  “Conrad,” she said, afraid to shout. He did not look up from his musings by the pasture archway. “Conrad.” She did not know if he could hear her or if he ignored her.

  She looked back, and the figures were moving again, nearing the line of birches that bordered the stream banks. Again, they stopped. She saw a glint of metal winking like an ominous star.

  Danger, Ani told the geese. Danger by the stream.

  She used the word for "bear,” a beast of size and fear, not "dog" or "cat,” which the ganders would be tempted to turn and face. As one, the birds scurried away from the stream, making a group like a pond of milk in the middle of the pasture. Conrad looked to the noise of forty-eight geese honking and flapping their wings in ado. His eyes lifted to the stream, and when he saw, he turned into the arch and disappeared.

  Ani ran to the head of the flock and placed herself between her charges and the approaching men. They wore leather of different makes and different animals, mismatched vests, jerkins, caps, and leggings, and leather-sheathed knives. Three bore poles tipped with wire loops, perfect for hooking goosenecks, and two dragged large, empty sacks. There was no temper in their miens. They met Ani’s eyes and did not slow their advance.

  “These geese aren’t for you,” said Ani.

  One grunted. They were nearer.

  “These’re the king’s geese. I won’t let you take them.”

  One acknowledged her. “Move aside, goose girl, or we’ll have to knock you aside.”

  Ani stood firm and held her crook with both hands. She felt as ridiculous as a gander facing a bear, but she did not move. She had decided that she would not run. The geese squawked behind her.

  The first man reached her. He slammed his pole down on her and cracked her staff in two with a sound like near thunder. Her knees folded, and she fell to the ground.

  Run, she told the geese.

  They did not run. The ganders had circled the geese and made terrific noises of defense, their heads lowered and menacing. The men paid no mind. With their long poles they snared the birds by the necks and pulled them in like fish on a line, bagging them without a bite. Ani watched. Her face was pressed to the ground. One of the thieves stood above her and held the end of his staff to her throat. She swallowed against the pressure that made her dizzy and stomach sick. There was a creeper breeze nosing around the ground. It crawled over her arm and bare hands.

  Up there, she urged, that man, his hat, something.

  The breeze spiraled up to the man, probing his head with its brisk fingers, and slipped the cap off his head with a brief gust. The hat fell to the ground. The thief glanced down, unconcerned. The geese were honking anger and fear as nearly a fourth of their number was stuffed into the bags.

  Ani concentrated on all the air that stirred on her skin, willing it to come together. Passing breezes joined, curious, wrapped together like crude wool folding into a ball. More, Ani pleaded. The breezes built up to a wind, flowing over her and on the grass in an ardent circle, building, like a finger-spun whirlpool in still water, like a beast pacing before attack.

  “Let me go,” said Ani. Her voice barely escaped the force on her throat. “These are the king’s geese. They’re protected.”

  The man did not glance at his prisoner, but he frowned slightly.

  The circle of wind felt restless now, swooshing around her head, picking at the tiny hairs on her face and hands, waiting for an idea to lead it. She gave it a suggestion to move away a little and tear into the ground. It followed. Still making contact with her outstretched hand, the mob of wind swirled and bit at the ground, pulling loose dirt and pebbles into its body until it looked to be a short, dark creature spinning on itself. The thief heard gusting and turned his eyes, then his head, then his whole self, unbelieving and unexpectedly afraid.

  “Libert, Odlef, look, will you,” he said.

  The men turned their backs on the geese and saw dirt-filled wind grown as tall and wide as the beech at its back.

  “A trick,” said one. “A sorcerer’s shabby trick.”

  “A trick,” said another. His face betrayed honest dread.

  Ani’s thought pushed the wind from the ground to hit the first man in the face. His eyes fil
led with dirt, his cheeks were pelted with small rocks, stinging like bees. He dropped his pole and threw his arms around his head.

  The wind continued forward and reached the other four, rushing at their eyes, swarming around them, pushing them together as though they were the prey caught in a sack. The geese exploded into an attack, biting the thieves’ ankles and calves below the isolated windstorm. The men, blinded by dust, confused the wind and the geese until it all seemed one monster, screaming in their ears, shoving them with stinging hands and biting their legs. More birds escaped from the forsaken sacks and attacked. The men, swatting at nothing like old women afraid of wasps, fled the pasture at a run. By the time they reached the stream, they had outpaced the geese and the wind had lost its ammunition and dispersed into wisps, but they still ran.

  Ani sat up slowly, watching until the wood shadows swallowed sight of their retreat. Her skin tingled. Three poles and two inert sacks lay on the ground like battle corpses. The geese ran in circles and toward the stream, some posted on the near shore barking at the woods while others trumpeted victory. She rubbed her sore neck but honked happily with her geese.

  The sound of running boots jerked her to her feet. Conrad raced through the arch, followed by three of the boys who worked in the field to the north. They halted when they saw Ani standing alone, dozens of angry geese running around and dozens shouting at the stream. They glanced at the broken crook that lay at her feet.

  “Where are they?” said Conrad. He saw the goose-nabbing poles and bags, and relief crossed his face at the evidence that he had not fetched the other boys for nothing.

  “Gone.” Ani laughed deep in her chest, wondering how she might explain.

  “Your staff,” said the boy named Sifrid. He picked up the two pieces and held them as testimony to the others. “You were attacked.”

  “Yes,” she said. They waited, and she cleared her throat. “I defended myself, and then the geese chased them away.”

  All four boys stared at her, their mouths slightly open.

  “How, how many were there?” said one.

  “Five,” she said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  One of the boys grinned. “The goose girl drove off the thieves. How about that?”

  Another laughed good-naturedly and gripped his shepherd’s crook. “I thought I’d have to fight when Conrad came running with tales of leather-donned men prowling in the wood. Thanks for saving me a sweat.” He punched her lightly on the arm.

  “You’re hurt,” said Sifrid, pointing at her throat.

  “I’m all right.” She could feel her heart beating on the spot where the thief’s pole had held her to the ground.

  “We’d best get back in case the thieves decide to swallow their first defeat and try another keeper’s flock.”

  “If they attack, we’ll come get you.”

  “Yes, we’ll yell, ‘Help, help us, goose girl, and bring the Terrifying Legion of Warrior-Geese.’”

  “How about the Bandits of a Thousand Feathers?”

  The three jogged away, giddy, jawing over the event and planning to stop briefly at the hall to recount the story to Mistress Ideca.

  “Thanks for getting help, Conrad,” said Ani. “I thought at first that you’d left me alone.”

  “I’m no coward,” said Conrad.

  “Of course not, that’s not what I meant.” Ani shook her head in frustration. She could understand the wind and speak with birds, but humans still eluded her. That was her mother’s gift, after all. And Selia’s.

  “I would’ve faced them,” said Conrad.

  Ani nodded earnestly, hoping to convey her good faith in him. He shrugged, leaned against the archway, and inspected his boots for holes. The geese were still squawking. Ani gathered them in with words of safety and calm.

  When the clouds blotted out the blue of the sky and the air shivered with an early spring chill, Ani took the geese in. As she opened the door to the hall, a cheer erupted and fists banged on the tables. Sifrid held up the pieces of her broken staff as a symbol of the battle. Mistress Ideca examined her neck and prescribed a cool pack. Though Ideca did not smile, she did not grumble, either. Ani declined to relate what had happened, so the cow and sheep boys stepped forward to relay their version, embellishing the parts they had not seen.

  “And then the goose girl knocked two down with her staff, a careful blow to the head, and the second head. Bam, crack. The third was a giant man grown in the Bavara Mountains on bear meat and raw eggs, and he crushed her staff with his fist.”

  The listeners responded with feigned and jovial gasps of horror. Ani laughed behind her hands. When she looked up again, she saw Conrad in a far corner. His face was serious and sad.

  “So the goose girl,” said Sifrid, “she tossed aside the broken weapon, and grabbed her opponent by his greasy hair and hit him with her own head right between the eyes. Bam. Down he fell, dumb as a dead tree, and shook the ground. With a word, she commanded her goose army to drive the scum from their land, and they followed their leader, trumpeting triumphantly.”

  There was laughter and applause, and four lads were sent to the pasture to retrieve the villains’ poles and bags for more mementos. Two did not return until much later and entered the hall not with poles, but with Tatto the pageboy.

  “The king’s heard of the strife for the protection of his geese,” said Tatto, “and he wishes to hear the story and thank those involved.”

  The workers cheered. Ani stayed seated. Her face felt cold.

  “I, I can’t go,” she said.

  “Oh, come on, Isi,” said Sifrid, “go brag a little.”

  “No, no, really I can’t.”

  Razo stomped his foot. “You’re not so shy as you let us think when you first got here. You can face a king. He’s just a man in a crown who eats potatoes and has gas.”

  “I bet he doesn’t eat cold potatoes,” said Bettin.

  “Well, maybe not cold potatoes,” said Razo, “but I’d bet my fist he’s as gassy as Beier.”

  “Nobody’s as gassy as Beier,” said Sifrid, dodging Beier’s shove.

  “Guess Isi’ll have to find out for herself when she goes to see the king, won’t you?” said Razo.

  Ani could see the workers were not going to let her sneak out of this. She spotted Conrad in the corner, pretending indifference to the commotion, and she went to him.

  “Will you come?” she said.

  He shrugged and stood up.

  They followed Tatto out of the hall, encouraged from behind by the cheers of the workers. When they had walked a block, Ani stopped.

  “I’m not going,” said Ani. “I can’t go. I was hoping, Conrad, that you’d go in my stead.”

  Tatto looked at her wide-eyed, but Conrad did not respond.

  “Please,” she said. “You were involved, and you would’ve fought them off yourself, but that you were being wise. Don’t even mention me. The story’s yours. Tell it how you will.”

  Tatto shook his head. “Aren’t you the one what drove them off?”

  “They don’t know that. What does it matter? Besides, Conrad deserves some credit. I can’t go to the palace. I just can’t.”

  In only two months she would have enough money and the weather would be right for a journey back to Kildenree. At this point, she knew it would be wise just to stay out of sight. Conrad shrugged and walked away with long, growing-boy strides, Tatto running after him. Ani watched their departing figures wane, two boys in a large city, and wondered if she erred in not joining them.

  In her fancy she imagined being lauded before the court, and Geric admiring her bravery and looking at her as he used to, and the king insisting on knowing her history and believing her when she told it, banishing Selia and the others far away and welcoming Ani home. That’s how it would end, she thought, if it were a bed-tale. But she knew it was useless to hope for such an outcome. If ever she was to walk into that palace without fearing for her life, she must first take the long road back to Kil
denree and plead the aid of her mother.

  If, after all that, the betrothal still stood, Ani realized she would not be sorry to return to Bayern. She did not look forward to the dim-looking boy prince as a husband and a forced marriage possibly devoid of affection, but being Bayern’s queen had its appeal, and besides, the city was truly beginning to feel like home.

  Ani lay on her bed and read the end of the Bayern history by the evening light. She closed the book and put her cheek against it. There was still an odor of a library on it, of dust, leather, binding glue, and old paper, one book carrying the smell of hundreds. She opened the front cover and found Geric’s name scratched into the first page with too watery ink, the signature of a small boy. She smiled to herself to imagine Geric at eight, with the round face of youth and impatient curiosity. She ran her fingers over the mark of his name.

  Enna rapped on her door and entered. Ani shut the book guiltily.

  “I thought you’d be in here. The boys’ve returned.” She examined Ani’s face. “What’s the matter? You’re upset?”

  “Huh? Oh, no. Well, I guess, a little. I was just lovesick, a bit.”

  “Ah.”

  “But I’m recovered.” She put the book down emphatically. “He’s not mine, never was. Well, for a spell he brought me picnics and books to pass time, and once flowers, though they lost their petals in the rain. He even offered to give me a horse, a very nice one, really, and mistook me for a lady.”

  “You are a lady,” said Enna.

  “But that’s beside the point, because I wasn’t then, am not now, but he still saw me that way, as though he saw me, and not the goose girl boots, and not a princess crown. He was—he’s beautiful, enough to make me sigh like a lovesick nurse-mary. He’s a guard, to the prince himself, actually, and much too close to Selia for my own liking, and besides, he doesn’t love me, so there it is.”

  Ani shrugged her shoulders with resignation and gave a quick nod as though dismissing the subject. Enna tried to smile at her, but her dark eyebrows were pinched together.