The Goose Girl Read online

  ‘“Hear the trees a-listening, feel the fire whispering. See the wind a-telling me all the forest dreams.’ It’s an old tune. I used to sing it to my boy.”

  “What does it mean?” said Ani.

  Gilsa’s metal needles clicked together, a sound like a strange beast feeding. “It talks about the old tales, I guess. How in faraway places there are people what talk to things not people, but to the wind and trees and such. ‘The falcon hears the boar, the child speaks to spring.’ And to animals, too, I gather. I’ve always wondered.” Gilsa looked down her nose at Ani. “Is it possible? Would you know about such things, child?”

  Ani continued packing. “It may be so. I . . . have heard tales about the times after creation when all the languages were known, and tales of people who still remember how to talk to the beasts. But about wind and trees and spring and all that, I thought it was just a nursery story.”

  “May be. But all things speak, in their way, don’t they?”

  “I suppose. Just not very clearly.”

  Gilsa looked narrowly at Ani as though at a troublesome child. “We all talk to something besides just ourselves, from time to time. I talk to my goat and my chickens and my apple tree. I don’t know if I’m heard, and I don’t think I’ve been answered back, but it can’t hurt. Now, just think of this, that a person could talk to fire or to a goat and the fire and the goat could answer back. How would that be?”

  “Are there such things in Bayern? Magic things?”

  “Magicians, sorcerers, witches,” said Finn. He rocked back on his stool, and it creaked.

  “Tricks is what they do, boy,” said Gilsa. “That’s not what she means.”

  “I’ve seen them,” Finn said softly, “in the market. A witch can look at you and say what ails you, and a sorcerer can make things into what they’re not.”

  “Yes, yes, child.” Gilsa waved a dismissive hand. “They’ve some kind of gift for seeing and showing, but it’s all flashy and comedy and giving a coin to hear what you already know. She’s talking about the old ways, aren’t you, little one?”

  “I think so. There are so many tales, so strange and beautiful and perfect. They are not what are real, but better. I thought I had something that was magic once, but I lost it, and now I don’t think it was at all.” She touched her chest where the handkerchief had been and frowned. “I wish there was magic. If all the tales were true, then maybe they could tell me what I’m doing, and what I am to do now.”

  “Ah, now, don’t cry over lost years and forgetfulness. The tales tell what they can. The rest is for us to learn. The question is, are we smart enough to figure for ourselves? Now, that’s what I’d like to know.”

  Ani did not respond. There was a thin wail of a wind caught in the chimney. For a moment the sound was stronger than the crackle of the fire, as sad as a broken bird.

  Chapter 6

  Early the next morning, Ani was arrayed in a yellow tunic and sky blue wool skirt. She wore a pair of Finn’s old boots, the soft leather laced tightly to her calves. When Gilsa told Ani that no Bayern was as fair as she, Ani requested a cloth like the one Gilsa wore to hide her long yellow hair. Disguised as a Bayern, Ani thought she had a better chance of getting to the king before being noticed by Ungolad’s men. After she was safely in the king’s presence, it would be simple enough to remove the headscarf and show her hair as proof of her heritage.

  Gilsa finished knotting the scarf against Ani’s forehead and patted her cheek as she might the goat’s neck after a milking.

  “These are your clothes,” said Ani.

  “They were,” said Gilsa.

  Ani slipped the remaining gold ring from her pinkie. “I would like to repay your kindness. I would like you to have the ring.”

  Gilsa looked down at the twinkling bit of gold.

  “Now what would I do with that, pierce Poppo’s nose?” She smiled, and Ani realized she had not known the woman could smile. “You may need that, my precious, before your road’s won. You’ll find some other way to repay me, that’s certain.”

  Ani had little practice in arguing, and she put the ring back on, disappointed. She felt the burden of the food she had eaten and the night she had slept in Gilsa’s bed.

  It was still early when Finn and Ani shouldered their packs and set out, and the forest was wet and humming in the morning blueness before true dawn. Finn seemed pleased to be silent, so Ani walked for a league listening to the heartening prattle of the forest birds and to her own breath that became heavier and shorter the farther they strode. By the time Finn motioned that they stop for a rest, Ani suspected the weight of the pack had rubbed the skin from her shoulders completely off.

  They halted again later that afternoon where their path merged into a green way pressed with wheel ruts. The trees there thinned into lighter woods. Ani looked back and surprised herself with a longing to stay in the true forest. Gilsa’s house, small and lost in a ponderous ocean of trees, seemed more like a home than all her memories of her mother’s palace. She found that she had little desire to return to that palace, except for the comfort of a bed and food and knowing her place. But, she reminded herself, Kildenree is no longer my place. Nor is Gilsa’s house. She looked back to the road.

  Through the whispering forest noises came the distinct sound of a horse’s hooves. Finn stood up, straining his eyes down the road, and Ani backed away to a tight group of trees. Her heart quickened her breath, and she did not dare even call out to Finn. But when she listened to the clomp and rhythm of the hooves, she realized that this was a horse with a short gait, and alone, not likely one of her pursuers. When the brown nose of a cob rounded the corner, there was recognition on Finn’s face.

  “Hello, hello,” said the driver, a boy younger than Finn. In the wagon sat another boy and a girl, her hair wrapped up in a red scarf. All their clothing was dyed in bright colors like Ani’s, for which she was relieved, having felt quite loud in her bright yellow and blue among the simple green and brown of the forest. The wagon halted beside them, and the rider stood up. Ani touched her head and made certain the headscarf was pulled low over her light brows.

  “Hello,” said the driver. “Finn, who’s she?”

  “Mother sent her to help me at market,” said Finn. The others looked at her, waiting. Ani had decided to use her grandmother’s name until she was sure she was safe from Ungolad, but there in the woods before that weather-beaten wagon, Isilee seemed too grand.

  “I’m Isi,” said Ani. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  Finn turned and looked at her. Ani had spoken with the quick vowels and smooth slurring of the Bayern accent, practiced for days while hunched over hunting for roots near Gilsa’s house. Finn frowned but said nothing, and she smiled at him gratefully.

  The wagon riders continued to stare.

  “Well, hand me a rotten apple,” said the driver.

  “What’s all this?” said the other boy. “She sounds like she’s from around Darkpond, but she’s not from around Darkpond, or we’d know her, you hear me, Finn?”

  “Yeah, you’d best tell where she came from.”

  “Forest,” said Finn.

  The driver shook his head. “Well, I don’t like it, and neither does Nod, and Nod’s not used to pulling five, and we’re not used to cozying up to strangers. We can take her pack in the wagon now, so she’s useless to you, and I think she’d best be on her way.”

  Ani was not surprised. She waited to feel her shoulders lighten as Finn lifted the pack from her back and to be left alone in the woods that she was beginning to know.

  Finn said, “All right, then,” touched Ani’s elbow, and began to walk down the road.

  “You can go with them,” Ani said softly. “I don’t mind, Finn, and you can’t miss marketday.”

  Finn shrugged and kept walking. Ani could hear the groan of the wagon as Nod pulled up beside them at a slow pace.

  “Don’t be stubborn, Finn,” said the driver.

  “Yes, get in, Gilsa-boy
.”

  “Look now, you dolts,” said the girl, “Finn’s sure to be carrying a seedcake from Gilsa, and we can’t get a crumb of it like this.”

  “Come on, Finn,” said the boy, “we just want to know who she is.”

  Finn kept his pace. The driver reined and groaned.

  “Get in, both of you, you goat brothers.”

  She and Finn clambered into the back of the wagon. There was little room, the large sacks taking up the floor space. Ani followed Finn’s lead and sat on her sack, like children winning individual games of king-of-the-hill.

  Finn reached into his pack and pulled out a small cake wrapped in a scrap of basket weave.

  “Fresh yesterday,” said Finn, and handed it to the girl to split. Ani smiled at her, sure she had made the protest from kindness, but the girl did not meet her eyes.

  “Go on, Nod,” said the driver. He looked askance at Finn and tapped the horse with the reins.

  They rode at a horse walk well into night. Ani curled onto her pack of blankets and watched the clean brightness of trees in open places slowly slide by. The three neighbors chatted regularly and even managed to coax updates out of Finn. He admitted he was worried about a chick that was born with a marred foot and his mother, who often knit in too little light.

  As they told stories of what had passed at home since last marketweek, Ani listened and tried to piece together what life must be like living in the Forest on the edge of Bayern—difficult, impoverished, backbreaking work and the persistent question if they would last through another winter, she guessed. But she envied their commonality.

  She had no stories to share and did not speak, and the four did not speak to her. Ani curled up tighter on her pack and tried to take up as little room as possible.

  The wagon stopped for the night near a blackened fire pit that was soon ablaze.

  As the travelers prepared a group meal and set up their bedrolls, Ani thought to be grateful for the second half of her Forest journey when Selia had refused to help her. At least she had had some practice at setting up her own bedroll. Finn, aware of Ani’s ineptitude with meals, quickly fixed hers along with his and saved her a small embarrassment. Ani thanked him in her Bayern accent.

  The next morning, Ani awoke before the others. She looked at their faces in the pale hint of dawn and felt acutely alone. In sleep, even the relative familiarity of Finn’s face was dulled. They seemed complete strangers, their dark hair, their work-shortened fingernails and dirty hands, their peaceful sleep noises assuring they felt at rest in this great wooded world.

  She rose and stretched, pulling even tighter that tension of solitude that was strung inside her chest. The horse whinnied sleepily. The sound was like a wound awakened, and she hungered for Falada’s company. The horse’s brushes and fittings stood on a rock by his side, and she set to work on his dull brown coat.

  Ani whispered as she brushed, hummed softly at his twitching ears, imitating the nickering of mares to their foals, and tried to sense where he most liked to be rubbed. Though she could not speak to this horse, though his words did not enter her head as Falada’s had, his flesh was familiar beneath her fingers, and his movements made sense to her eyes.

  “Nod seems to like you.”

  Ani started and turned to see the driver yawn and rub his eyes. He reached out to pat his horse’s neck. “So tell, then, you’re good with the beasts?”

  “I think so.” She did not know how the Bayern looked upon those who were able with animals, but the boy did not seem suspicious.

  He patted Nod’s rump. “Finish getting him ready, if you like.”

  The companions rose and breakfasted in sluggish silence. As the others clambered into the wagon, Ani picked up a cooled piece of charcoal from the fire pit and slipped it into her skirt pocket, reasoning it might work to darken her eyebrows and complete her disguise as a Bayern.

  They traveled for most of the day. The landscape opened up ever wider. After the sun began its slide into the west, the small party rambled in the company of hundreds of wagons down a broad avenue. Ahead rose the city.

  Outside the forest, Bayern was a land of surging hills and rising lowlands, and the capital was built on the grandest of hills, sloping upward gently. Surrounded by a wall five men high, it ascended into tall, narrow houses and winding streets and towers and many spires, the city a tremendous candled cake ablaze with red-tiled roofs. All the grandeur met at the peak, where stood the many-turreted palace, red-and-orange banners worried by a high wind like candle flames. Next to this, her mother’s illustrious palace was a country estate.

  Ani jumped and stared at the noise and colors, a sea of hatted and scarf-wrapped heads, faces marked with dark brows and lashes, soldiers bearing iron-tipped javelins and brightly painted shields.

  One among them had fair hair.

  She saw him before he saw her, and she quickly looked away. It was Yulan. He sat on a stone before the city wall, scanning every face carefully, his eyes squinting against the setting sun, one hand on his sword hilt.

  Ani lowered herself off her bundle and sat on the floor of the wagon. Her heart beat in her ears now, and the din of wagons and people seemed small and far away. Yulan was in the city. Ungolad and Selia must be there, too. She wondered if this meant that they had defeated Talone. That they were all dead. That there was no safety. She rubbed the tightness in her neck and kept her head down.

  Somehow she still had to get into the palace. In Kildenree there had been days when one of the royal family would see city supplicants, and Ani was praying for the same here. If only she could get inside the palace without being recognized by Yulan and the others, she could plead her case to the king, and if he did not believe her, then the prime minister. She hoped that more than five years after visiting Kildenree, he might still recognize her face.

  The many wagons poured through the gates and lined the open expanse of the market-square. Finn’s company was pushed up against the back of a three-story building facing the market. Ani set up her bedroll behind a wagon wheel and huddled there, waiting for night to hide her. Finn sat beside her and silently offered bread and cheese the others were sharing for supper.

  “Finn, can one go and talk to the king or queen, or prince?”

  “No queen anymore.” He slowly chewed a bit of bread, unaware that her skin crept with cold while she waited for his response.

  “On marketday I see people line up to talk to the king.”

  “That’s tomorrow?”

  He nodded. They ate in silence.

  “You’ll be wanting to leave early.” He pointed to a slender street that left the market and led up.

  In the gray morning, Ani awoke to a market of sleepy merchants pulling wraps and blankets and wood-carved boxes out of dewy bags. She folded her blankets, nodded farewell to Finn, and started up the street.

  Not far into her walk, Ani stopped on a vacant side street and arranged the front of her head cloth at its natural place just below her hairline. She pulled the charcoal from her pocket, bent to her reflection in a curtained window, and delicately darkened her eyebrows to a dusty black. If the Kildenreans were scanning the crowds for a fair-haired girl, they might pass her over. Ani could not afford to be recognized before reaching the protection of the king. She had no doubt that, if given the chance, Ungolad would drag her off and slit her throat in private.

  The farther she walked, the more people were walking with her, some in the brightly colored, simple clothing of the out-towns, others in finer stuff of the city. She arrived at the palace walls just as the sun glared its upper rim over the city wall. There was already a queue of petitioners winding its way from the high palace gates through the courtyard. She stepped in behind the last person and hoped she was blending in enough not to draw the attention of the likes of Yulan.

  The line moved quickly, though it was long, and Ani soon found herself wishing she had thought to bring along a shred of breakfast from Gilsa’s bag of food. The bite of hunger made her grumpy,
and her thoughts grumbled, Unfair, unfair. To have to eat out of others’ foodstuff and hope for goodness and charity, to be coinless and placeless. This palace would have been my home. She bent her neck back to stare up at the sheer height of the palace spires, each glittering with windows and a wind-nipped banner.

  She glared down at herself, leaning against the wall in travel-crumpled clothing, nearly last in a line of patient peasants, hungry, with feet aching on the soft soles of Finn’s boots. This is not who I am, she thought. So who am I? She did not answer her own question. Her mind was filling with thoughts of breakfast foods—molasses rolls, cooked apples, boiled eggs with cheese, nut breads, fresh sausages. She swallowed against her hollow stomach and waited. The line inched forward.

  At last her end of the line reached the cool shadow of the palace doors. Ani stepped forward and felt herself nearly knocked over with royal smell. Her stomach turned about as though it would jump into her neck and choke her until she cried. Floor soap, floor wax, curtain perfume, old metal, expensive stone, drinking water, garden roses, mending paste, armor oil, skin soap, rosewater. A kingdom of smells poked at her memories of her father, and of being comfortable and clean. Just a few months had passed since she had left home, but the smells came at her as though from far away, an echo of a memory, like being reminded of a dead loved one in the face of a stranger.

  She barely noticed stepping forward each time the line moved, absorbed in a reverie of memories. The man before her had just entered the king’s chamber when Ani saw Selia.

  Chapter 7

  Selia’s pale hair was striking among the dark heads, and she wore it up in a cap of curls tucked into a jeweled net. She was dressed in one of Ani’s new gowns, the rust-colored one with the simple bodice. She strolled with slow confidence, so pleased with herself that she almost betrayed smugness, accompanied by two other women in attire of the Bayern fashion—long-sleeved tunics and wide skirts cut from separate cloth. They laughed.

  Ani did not move. Her feet were heavy cobblestones. She bowed her head and tensed herself for discovery, listening to the soft sway of Selia’s skirts, the rustling of claimants as they moved aside and guessed at bowing. When the women turned down another corridor, Ani looked up to see the chamber-mistress motioning for her to enter.