“What do you mean by ‘Death-Wish Princess’?” Anya did not like the sound of that.
Gerald reached inside his yellow sleeve, pulled out a slip of parchment, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it down to the princess. Anya unraveled it and saw the familiar handwriting of the Duke, with its tiny, pinched letters interspersed with grandiose capitals and emphases. It said simply:
Herald. Spread WORD to suitable Blackguards, MALCONTENTS, Assassins, rotters, HOBDEHOYS, evil witches, and No-goodniks as follows: “Huge REWARD for head of Princess Anya. Not NECESSARILY attached. 200 GOLD Nobles. Apply Duke of Trallonia.”
“Had it by raven two hours ago,” said Gerald with a sniff.
“Why show this to me?” asked Anya suspiciously. “And how did you find me?”
“I’m a herald, I am, and heralds spread the news. Knew there must be news behind this, so here I am. What’s going on? Princess Flees Vengeful Stepstepfather? Anya Devotes Short Life to Transformed Amphibians?”
“How did you find me?” Anya persisted. She looked around the clearing, at all the oaks gathered close with the undergrowth so thick between them. If Gerald the Herald was already on her track, Duke Rikard’s assassins might be as well. She’d thought she would at least get the rest of the day and the night as a head start.
“Nose for news,” said Gerald, tapping his admittedly long nose with his forefinger. “And … ah … I was lucky. On my way to Trallonia to look into the story and thought I’d stop by Martha’s for some pea-and-ham soup. That is pea-and-ham soup I smell, right? Sometimes she makes leek and barley and I don’t like that half as much.”
“Not as good as pea-and-ham soup,” Ardent agreed.
It was entirely possible, Anya thought, that Gerald the Herald did have a nose for news—some inherent magic that led him to important events or people when things were happening, in much the same way that smiths could sense bad metal and could not be beaten in a fistfight fought at a crossroad.
Anya kept looking. There was something odd about Gerald’s hair and moustache, and his face for that matter. He didn’t quite look the same as he had the last time she’d seen him. Anya peered more intently, tilting her head on one side just like Gotfried did when he was in owl shape and thinking hard about something.
“You’re wearing a wig,” she observed. “And a false moustache. You’re not Gerald at all!”
“Oh, yes I am!” said the man indignantly. “I am one of the three duly certified and paid-up Gerald the Heralds for Trallonia, Revania, Monstonbury, and Trallon Forest.”
“What?” asked Anya. “There’s more than one Gerald the Herald?”
“Hundreds,” said the man. “Across the land. Always vacancies too, if you’ve a mind to become one. Dangerous profession, spreading the news. But honorable. Now tell me straight, Princess—what’s with the transformed frog and the newt?”
“None of your business,” said Anya. “Get out of that tree and be on your way!”
“News is my business,” said Gerald, holding up an admonishing finger. “A princess running away with two transformed humans is news. Big news. So what’s going on?”
“I can’t tell you,” said Anya stiffly.
“But you’re going to turn them back, right?” Gerald leaned forward eagerly and almost fell. Ardent reflexively jumped up at him, snarling, before settling back to watch, as if the man was a rabbit about to emerge from a hole. “I heard you talk about a magic lip balm. You’ll kiss them, right?”
“I have nothing to say,” said Anya. “Ardent, let Gerald down so he can be on his way.”
“Princess Anya Is the Frogkisser!” bellowed Gerald. “Transformees Flock to Princess for Chance to Regain Humanity!”
Anya looked at Denholm and Shrub. Hardly a flock, she thought. Which was just as well. She turned to Hedric.
“On second thought, perhaps we shouldn’t let the herald go. Can you keep him here for an hour or two, while we go?” she asked. “He’ll lead the Duke to us, even if he doesn’t mean to.”
“Aye, I can do that,” said Hedric. “I’ve no fondness for heralds. Too loud in the greenwood, they are.”
He strode over to the trunk of the oak and laid his hand against the bark. The tattoos on his arms shivered as he did so, the leaves moving as if in response to a sudden breeze.
“What are you doing?” asked Gerald nervously. “Dangerous Druid Frightens Herald!”
Hedric whispered something to the oak. A strand of mistletoe, previously unnoticed on the trunk or perhaps not even there before, shook in answer and began to twine its way up towards the herald, who squeaked and began to climb higher.
“Come on,” said Anya to Ardent and Shrub. “Lead the way, Master Newt.”
“What about the ham wrapped in cheesecloth?” asked Ardent anxiously, pointing with his nose towards the hut. “And shouldn’t Shrub say good-bye to his mother as well?”
“Quickly, then,” said Anya. “There might be assassins or hunters looking for us right now, if other Geralds have spread the news.”
“Mother!” called out Shrub, not bothering to go near the hut. “I’m off now. Bring the ham!”
“Go over there and ask her nicely,” said Anya. She still felt the long-ago loss of her own mother keenly and didn’t approve of treating any mother in such a careless manner.
“She heard me,” Shrub grumbled.
Ardent growled and lowered his head towards the newt. One bulbous eye rotated and looked up at Anya, who was frowning deeply. Her eyebrows were drawing together, the beginning of one of her stern looks forming on her face.
“I mean, I’m just going over now,” he said hurriedly, then lumbered over to the hut, sliding around the half-open door with a flick of his tail.
“Badly trained puppy,” said Ardent with a sniff.
“We’ll fix that,” said Anya. She was already having serious misgivings about taking Shrub with them and was wondering whether it might be better if she left him here and promised to stop past once she had made the lip balm. But then, he did know the way to his father, the ex-druid, and they would presumably be more likely to get four drops of blood if he was with them.
“Ble-blup,” said Denholm. Anya glanced back over her shoulder to the frog in his cage hanging from the end of her staff. She’d have to catch some bugs for him to eat soon, and pour some more water over him. Which reminded her they needed a bigger water bottle. She’d already had to refill the small one twice at the streams they’d crossed, and that with only her drinking from the bottle. Ardent drank straight from the watercourses, or in fact any old puddle, but there might not be so many ahead, particularly once they were on the downs heading to Rolanstown.
Questing really does require quite a lot of equipment and preparation, Anya thought. Most of which she didn’t have or had missed doing. She was having to work a lot of it out along the way.
Possibly this was the difference between an adventure and a mere expedition, considered Anya. She would have preferred the latter, with several weeks to prepare, and lists made in the comfort of the library, and things checked off.
Shrub reemerged from the hut with Martha behind him. She was sniffling into a large tartan handkerchief. Anya was relieved to see she held the wrapped piece of ham in her other hand, some distance from her dripping nose. She handed the ham over and Anya tied it to the end of her staff. It was quite heavy, and she flexed her shoulder, anticipating that it would be sore before she walked much farther.
“Princess Worn Down by Heavy Load!”
Gerald the Herald had climbed as high as he could in the oak, pursued by the slowly creeping mistletoe. But he was still true to his profession.
“You be a good boy … a good newt for the princess,” said Martha, snuffling away. She bent down to kiss Shrub’s head, flinching back at the last moment when she remembered he was poisonous.
“I will, Ma!” said Shrub, not very convincingly.
“I’ll bring him back as a boy, not a newt,” Anya promised. “As s
oon as I can. Thank you for the soup and the ham.”
“Thank you,” repeated Ardent. He only just managed to look away from the tantalizing lump of meat dangling above his head to bow towards Martha.
“Good fortune!” called out Martha, now moving from snuffling to full-on sobbing. “Good fortune and come back human!”
Shrub muttered something and began to head off down the road. Anya waved at Martha, then followed, with Ardent close by her heels looking up at the ham every few seconds until Anya told him to range ahead.
“This way!” called out Shrub. “We go along the road for a bit and then take the path by the fallen silver birch.”
Anya followed the newt. Behind her, Gerald the Herald started up again, his voice growing fainter as they headed down the road.
“The Frogkisser Sets Forth! Herald Detained by Druid Accomplice! More News to Come! Thousands Eagerly Await Raven Dispatch from Field Correspondent!”
He paused for a breath and then added, “Deadly Duke’s Killers Swarm in Search of Princess!”
The fallen silver birch was not much more than a faded, ancient trunk that had come down long ago. It lay by the side of the forest road, angling off into the darker interior. Shrub led the way alongside it, and then onto a path that Anya didn’t think she would have noticed, or even called a path, since it was little more than relatively bare patches of undergrowth every few paces, like stepping-stones through a close green sea.
Several times as she followed along behind the lizard, Anya was tempted to ask Shrub if he was really sure he knew where he was going. But she didn’t, as he seemed confident, never hesitating when other paths crossed their way, including paths that were much more distinctly formed.
Both newt and dog found it easier going than the princess. She was hampered by her staff, bundle, frog cage, and ham, and also just by her size. Unlike the others, she couldn’t always slide under a fallen log or squeeze between the trunks of two trees that were practically embracing.
By the time the sun began to set, Anya was very tired, very scratched, very sweaty and dirty, and feeling ever more cross that she had been forced out of her pleasant home and her quiet library to go on not just one Quest but what was rapidly becoming a whole series of interconnected Quests. She had also drunk almost all her water and was hungry again. The soup felt like it had happened a very long time ago.
“Not far now,” said Shrub. “It’s starting to open up.”
Anya gave a little snort of annoyed disbelief. The forest seemed as thick as ever, perhaps even thicker now that the light was fading. It was just as well Shrub was bright orange, or she could have easily lost him, and thus her way. Though Ardent would undoubtedly come back for her and track the newt by smell—
She stopped, because Ardent had stopped and was smelling something. His head was up in the air and he was sniffing away, moving his head from side to side.
“What is it?” whispered Anya.
“Man,” said Ardent, the word half a growl. “And oiled steel. Also onions.”
“You can smell a frying pan?” asked Anya.
“No, oiled steel probably a weapon,” Ardent reported. “Sword or dagger. Onion on breath. He’s up a tree a bit ahead.”
“Shrub! Shrub!” Anya hissed at the newt, who had paused but was about to continue on his way again. She waved him back, and they hunkered down close together by the bole of a huge oak to have a hurried, whispered conference.
“There’s someone up a tree ahead,” said Anya. “Could be an assassin, one of Rikard’s hired murderers.”
Shrub shook his head.
“We’re in Bert’s part of the woods. There’s no way she’d let any old murderer attack us.”
“Maybe she doesn’t know he’s there,” said Anya. “Ardent says he’s hidden up a tree.”
“She’d know,” Shrub replied with some confidence.
“True,” said a deep voice. All three of the questers jumped, just as there was the thrum of a bowstring, followed a moment later by a scream and the thud of someone falling out of a nearby tree.
Anya slowly stood up and turned around. A dark-skinned woman dressed in forest-green leathers with a sword on her hip and a longbow and quiver on her back was standing on one of the lower branches of a lesser tree. Another slighter woman who wore similar clothes but in a russet shade stood close behind her. There were more armed women and men on both sides of the path.
“Bert, I presume,” said Princess Anya, bowing to the woman in forest green. Ardent followed her example, looking rather embarrassed that he hadn’t smelled out what appeared to be a very large number of members of the Association of Responsible Robbers. (They had been downwind of him, so he was not actually derelict in his duty.)
“Yes, I am Roberta, leader of ARR. And as everyone does, you may call me Bert. I take it from the Gerald the Herald we spoke to earlier that you are Princess Anya, sworn enemy of Duke Rikard of Trallonia and defender of transformees?”
“Um,” said Anya, “I am Princess Anya. And definitely sworn enemy of Duke Rikard, though I wouldn’t call him ‘of Trallonia,’ much as he’d like to be. I’m not a defender of transformees, as such—I just have to change back Prince Denholm and … er … now Shrub as well.”
“So you’re not helping all transformed humans?” asked Bert.
“Well, I hadn’t planned to,” Anya admitted. “This just sort of happened, starting with Denholm … ”
She stopped talking as two Responsible Robbers dragged a moaning, black-clad man through the bushes and laid him down at Bert’s feet. He had been wearing a mask but it had slipped, revealing a very ordinary face, currently screwed up with pain. The cause of this was an arrow in his shoulder, a cloth-yard shaft from a longbow, undoubtedly shot by one of Bert’s people.
“An assassin,” said Bert. “From the city. They never learn that black isn’t very sensible up a bare tree in daylight.”
“I’ve got nothing to say,” said the assassin, suppressing a groan.
“I haven’t asked you anything yet,” Bert pointed out. “But now that you mention it, would you like that arrow taken out and the wound dressed?”
“Yes, yes, I would,” said the assassin.
“So you have got something to say,” said Bert.
“You’re tricky,” said the assassin admiringly.
Anya rolled her eyes. He wasn’t a very smart assassin.
“Oh well,” the assassin went on, “I might as well talk! This never happens to any of the others. I mean, shot by a robber! We’re meant to be on the same side, robbers and thieves and assassins and all. Why are you interfering in the course of my legitimate business?”
“Because we are not on Duke Rikard’s side,” said Bert. “Or on the side of anyone else involved with the League of Right-Minded Sorcerers.”
“Is he?” Anya interrupted. “Rikard, I mean. Involved with those sorcerers who turned Shrub into a newt?”
“Paid-up member of the League,” said Bert. “I’m surprised you didn’t know. They all specialize in transformation, and they have big plans. Not just taking over little places like your Trallonia.”
“What do you mean?” asked Anya.
“They want all of it,” said Bert, stretching out her arms to encompass the forest, the sky, and everything beyond. “All of the old High Kingdom of Yarrow. Can you imagine everything ruled by cold sorcerers who’ve gone beyond any human feelings? Some of them have even gone beyond having human bodies, like the Grey Mist.”
“So he really is just a cloud of mist?”
“She is,” confirmed Bert.
“Well, if I’d known all that, I never would have taken the job,” the assassin declared indignantly. “Head office never tells us anything! I just get a raven with a message to give me the job number, the target, and so on. No background—that’s the trouble with the assassination business. No big picture. I never should have signed up. Should have been a public executioner like my mum. Now there’s a steady, safe job—”
/> “Take him away,” Bert ordered. “Bandage him up and drop him off on the Rolanstown road.”
“Thank you kindly!” called out the assassin as he was carried away. He waved awkwardly at Anya as well. “No hard feelings, Princess. Glad I didn’t get to finish you off.”
“Not as glad as I am,” said Anya. She looked speculatively at the leader of the robbers. Though Bert was very old from Anya’s point of view, perhaps even thirty or thirty-five, she was clearly as tough a forester and highway robber as ever walked the earth. Yet she also was no ordinary robber, with her association and its ideal of only robbing from the rich to help the poor, as well as her hatred of evil sorcerers.
Her robbers were well disciplined, well armed, and, even just from the ones she could see, there appeared to be quite a lot of them. They would be perfect allies to join in the fight against Duke Rikard. Anya was just about to mention this when Bert forestalled her.
“So, Princess Anya. You know that I lead the Association of Responsible Robbers?”
“Yes,” said Anya.
“We steal from the rich and give to the poor.”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’re a princess. That puts you with the rich.”
“What?” asked Anya. “I’m not … ”
Her voice trailed off as she was hit with the sudden realization that compared to most of the folk of Trallonia she was rich, even when Duke Rikard didn’t hand over her pocket money. She had three hearty meals a day, and good clothes, and a very comfortable place to live. There were servants who looked after her, and would do even more than that if she let them. Basically, she was rich.
“Um, I suppose you’re right,” said Anya slowly. She’d never thought about her own good fortune compared with that of the ordinary folk before, and felt a sense of unease that perhaps she should have made herself more aware of what was going on outside her library and beyond the castle walls.
“I don’t have a lot of valuables on me at the moment, though,” she continued, “and I need the ones I have for my Quest. Could you perhaps agree to rob me later? I mean, afterwards, once I’ve transformed Prince Denholm and Shrub back, and defeated Duke Rikard.”