[Books of Bayern 1] The Goose Girl (20 page)

"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 clear 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.

That night, Ani told the workers a story of a woman who loved a man, and when he married another, she turned into a bird and sang such sad songs to his window that his bride died of the heartbreaking sound. The hall was quiet at the tale, and when Ani left for her room, Razo just patted her shoulder and looked down.

The evening was caught in the early dark of near winter. The city was so empty and still, it seemed no creature had ever walked those stones. Ani stopped in the street outside her window. Silvery moonlight made her pane a mirror. She sought the lines and curves of her mother's face—her mother, who was beautiful.
Do others want to look at me?
she wondered.
Did he?
She put a hand to her cheek. Her face was gray, unsure, shadowed. She did not know if she was beautiful.

"Work here long enough and you can convince Ideca to give you a table mirror."

Ani straightened. Enna stood a few doors down, entering her own room.

"I didn't know you were there," said Ani. She hurried through her own door and sat on the bed beside Jok, feeling flustered and stupid. Jok made the sounds indicating he was ready to sleep, so she took off her hat and unwound her hair, scratched her head, and sighed. The weight of her hair on her back reminded her that she was not who she was. That she was a secret.

She turned at a movement. Her curtains were open, and Enna stood at the window, staring, her eyes wide like an owl's.

"Oh," said Enna.

Ani put a hand to her uncovered hair, stepped forward, and opened the door. "Please come in," she said, and closed her curtains.

Enna sat beside her on the bed.

"I'm getting pretty careless, I guess," said Ani. "I've become so used to being a goose girl, I forget to worry."

"I just came to apologize. I didn't mean to see." Enna put out her hand and fingered an end of Ani's long yellow hair. "That's why you always wear a hat or a scarf. But your eyebrows?"

"Dyed," said Ani.

Enna ran a finger across Ani's brow and looked at her clean fingertip. She gave a little laugh and shook her head.

"If I tell you about me, can you keep it secret?"

"Yes, of course," said Enna.

So Ani whispered the story, because she knew of no other way to buy Enna's trust. She told it backward, forgetting which parts might be most important, and realized that she was better at telling imaginary tales than her own true one. The story began with the fact that she was a goose girl because the king gave her the job, because she had come to the city from the Forest, where she had been lost. She got lost when her company had mutinied, and there had been a massacre—she stumbled over that part—and her horse had witnessed it and gone mad.

The reason they had rebelled against her was that her friend, her lady-in-waiting, had designs to rob her name, her title, and then kill her. And her title was, her title had been, princess.

"From Kildenree," said Ani, with true accent. "My mother was, is, the queen." She felt awkward saying it, like bragging, like saying she was something that she was not, sitting there in her goose girl boots in her room built right on the hard street against the city wall.

"Princess," Enna said quietly.

The candle had sputtered out midtale, and Enna's face was a dark shape on darkness, a faint, silvery line of cheek and chin. Ani wished to see her expression, to see if her brow lifted in surprise or her eyes tightened in doubt, or if the darkness bedded beneath her eyes and in the lines between nose and mouth, a wrinkle of deep thought, of betrayal.

"So," said Ani.

"Do you want," said Enna, still whispering, "should I bow to you? Princess?"

Ani gasped. "No. Please, no. I'm just waiting to see if you believe me."

"Believe you? Mercy, Isi."

Then Enna had questions, and they flowed in a fast current, scarcely giving Ani time to respond. About the Forest, and the kingdom, and the thornroot that could darken hair, and her horse—she could speak with him?—and how evil were those guards and how black must be their desires to spur them to murder. Ani answered every question. She felt safe there, in the absolute dark, Jok asleep in her lap, Enna's hand occasionally bridging the blackness to touch her knee, the warm conversation filling up the dark space like heat fills the air around a fire.

Enna ran out of questions, and they sat quiet again, each thinking, seeing in the dark the bright images of a white horse and red blood and green trees, and on top of it all, a high, turreted palace with blind eyes.

"It must be past midnight," said Ani.

Enna agreed.

"You've been very kind to listen," said Ani, slipping back into her Bayern accent, which she discovered felt natural to her now. "And, I'm sorry if I've ever been unkind when you sought my friendship. I'm wary of that now, I think."

"I can see why. Selia." Enna said the last word as though she might spit it. "We've got to get you your name back."

Ani nodded. "I've thought a lot about it. After the first time I met the king, I realized I couldn't go there alone and demand they take my word over Selia's and all her guards'. And I thought, maybe if I was surrounded by people who believed me, I'd be safer and have a better chance of convincing the king."

"Yes," said Enna, "let's get all the workers together and we'll be your guard and make the king listen. They can't kill all of us, right?"

Ani pressed her lips together. "Yes, that's what I think sometimes, and then I remember Adon and Talone, and Dano the cook, and the others. There were a lot of them, too, and Ungolad's friends killed them all."

"Oh," said Enna.

"For a time I thought that idea was my best hope, but the more time I spend in the workers' hall, I know that I can't risk your lives."

"Not even Conrad's?" Enna tilted her head as though it were an appealing idea.

Ani laughed quietly. "It's my trouble. Even if some of the workers were willing to go to battle on this, I don't think it'd be right to endanger their lives just to get back my name."

"Maybe," said Enna, smothering a yawn.

"We should sleep, I guess."

"Yes, don't worry, we'll figure it out."

"Enna," said Ani as the girl rose to leave, "those guards would kill me if they knew I was here."

"I know," she said. "I won't tell anyone. You'll see that I won't. And Isi. . . can I still call you Isi? It fits you. I want to tell you how I believe you. I don't know why. I wouldn't believe Razo if he pricked his finger and told me he was bleeding, and your story's almost as crazy as your bedtime tales, but I really do believe you. And when you get tired of worrying and mourning your horse and trying not to be afraid, tell me and I'll do it for you a while so you can shut your eyes and sleep peaceful."

C h a p t e r 1 3

he next afternoon, Ani awaited Geric's visit, her ears so attuned to the distant sounds of hooves on cobbled streets that she did not hear Jok calling after her until he stood by her side. She tore grass for him and plucked loose feathers from his tail, setting aside the quills for the bundle Tatto would collect later that week.
Perhaps,
she thought,
the
king or prince himself will use the quills I gather here,
and again she wondered what the prince might be like, though she found it not half so interesting as thinking about what Geric was like.

She was planning to tell Geric. Enna had believed, and so might others. Geric could help her with Falada. And if he had the princes ear, perhaps he could convince him of her identity. She tripped on that thought. Is that what she wanted? To marry this prince and live the rest of her life with Geric standing as the silent guard at her husband's side?
No, no, there
must be a better solution than that.

When he finally came, Ani waited by the tree and watched his approach. Geric was tall, and he rode his mare with a height and ease that made Ani feel proud. She often thought of him as a boy, the way he teased her and chased the geese and got excited over the desserts he brought with dinner. But just then he did not look silly at all—
in fact,
she thought,
in fact,
quite handsome.
She smiled at him, but when he neared, she could see that his expression was troubled.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Geric wiped his forehead as though trying to dismiss unpleasant thoughts.

"Nothing that should disturb this autumn peace." And he tried to smile.

They walked beside the stream. Geric did not want to talk about the events that shaped his mood, saying only that there was ill gossip at the palace. He looked back to where his horse stood grazing and cursed himself, realizing that he had forgotten to bring dinner from the kitchens.

"Don't mind for me," said Ani.

But he was angry with himself and talked little, and Ani's inclination to confess secrets began to harden in the mood. Soon they sat by a hushed bit of stream, watching the yellow leaves of the autumn birches plate the surface of the water. Ani looked across the stream, contemplating fording its shallow cold to hunt out late walnuts. Conrad used to bring back pockets full, and the thought woke her stomach to mumble a complaint.

"I'm sorry," said Geric. "I came here today to escape the gloom, and I've brought it with me."

"Let's distract ourselves somehow. I heard that when the princess arrived she rode a fine mount. Can you tell me about her horse?"
My horse. Falada.
The story Enna knew was in her throat, eager.

Geric sighed. "The white stallion. Not well. I think they'll kill him."

"What?"

"So I've heard."

"But, kill him? No, surely not kill him."

"Yes, I think so. I understand the princess thinks it's best, has said from her arrival that he was a dangerous creature. And he's her horse. It's her choice."

"Oh, Geric." Ani was standing. He noticed her expression and stood beside her.