Goose Chase (16 page)

I was silent, scanning the shoreline for evidence that this last statement was true.

I reached out a cold, damp hand and touched the Prince's.

"O look there," I whispered.

There were soldiers on the wharf that jutted out into the
river, and they were speedily piling into boats. But that is not all that chilled my blood. Behind the sailors, in a long line, were posts rising up eight feet from the ground, normally used for the drying and mending of fishing nets. And on each post, suspended from large iron hooks, dangled a hanged man. Or woman. 'Twas too distant to tell the sex.

"Row!" commanded the Prince. "Sit you down next to me and we will row together, using all our might. They will come up with us in an instant, if we do not make haste."

With a will, I flung myself down on the bench beside him and gripped the oar in both hands.

"Ready?" asked the Prince. "
Down
stroke!"

We found our rhythm quickly and rowed as smooth as silk together; the little boat seemed to leap over the waves. Alas! 'Twas in vain. However swiftly we moved, our pursuers moved yet more swiftly. One boat possessed several sets of oarlocks and several rowers, and another raised a sail.

"Smeatt knew this," I grunted, as my oar dug deep into the river. "No wonder he wished to leave us before we came abreast of Clove City. So much for his fine words."

"Tis not worth thinking of, Mistress Alexandria," said the Prince calmly. "Tis the sort of man he is, that is all."

"True," I assented. "What shall we do?" The other boats were approaching fast.

"Whatever we must," answered the Prince. "One thing you shall
not
do is to attempt to save me at your own expense. 'Twill not serve and I shall not permit it. Do you understand me?"

"I do, my lord," I said meekly. A spirit of mischief overcame me, even at this grave moment. "What," I gasped out as we swung our oars overhead, "became of your promise to obey me in all things?"

"Release me then from my bond, for 1 will otherwise fling myself into the river to be drowned or speared like a fish, rather than do aught that would harm you, mistress."

"You are released, then," I said, privately thinking that his bond had not been worth a great deal, thus far. And yet I would not have said so for all the world, for I was much moved by his words.

They overtook us in a matter of moments. We offered no resistance; it seemed pointless. I had no desire to get wetted through once again, and there truly was no hope for escape. In any case, I was tired of escaping. 'Twas all I seemed to be doing lately.

The two lead boats surrounded us, one on each side. A soldier climbed gingerly into our boat and tied us up once again, this time both hand and foot. Rather than attempt to convey our trussed-up bodies into one of their boats, they made our boat fast to both of theirs and towed us along, the soldier remaining with us to help speed our journey by rowing.

To my surprise, we did not head for Clove City and those dreadful dangling corpses, but rather continued on downstream.

"Where are we going?" I asked the soldier when once our direction had become evident.

Like most of his kind, he disliked being questioned by a prisoner. He looked at me briefly and then away, rowing hard. When I persisted, he reluctantly replied: "Roseboom," and snapped shut his mouth, merely shaking his head when I inquired further.

"The King," I murmured softly to the Prince, "will certainly be with his army in Dorloo, will he not? I wonder why they bring us to Roseboom."

The Prince shook his head. "The Baroness no doubt summoned him back to Gilboa when she realized who we were. We are prisoners of some importance, I fear. Important enough to warrant the King's personal attention."

So we were, then, to be taken before the King.

A
PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHT.

—J
OHN
H
EYWOOD,
P
ROVERBS

Our craft moved swiftly downstream, ever closer to the great city of Roseboom and the King's castle. The Prince took my bound hands in his and I will confess that I derived some comfort from that fact, for I was sore afraid. We did not speak, but sat gazing out at the sunlit lands which slowly uncurled and stretched out before us. When once this river journey was done, I doubted that we should either of us ever see daylight again. I had escaped the King once and he was unlikely to allow me to do so a second time. And as for the Prince—

Until the King's treasury was filled to bursting with riches, until not one more thimbleful of gold dust or diamonds could be crammed in howsoever hard the King's seneschals tried, there was ample reason to keep me alive. What reason was there for keeping the Prince alive? Why,
none at all. Nay, there was every reason to send him to his death, and the sooner the better.

The Queen of Dorloo was long since dead and the King of Dorloo was ailing. As rumor had it and the Prince had confirmed, his father was addled in his brains. Naught save the Prince's life stood in the way of the prompt annexation of Dorloo into Gilboa.

My hands tightened on the Prince's.

"My father is dead," he murmured. "Did you know?"

"No!" I cried.

"They told me of it on the second day in the dungeon. He died of an apoplectic fit, it seems, when his ministers were at last able to make him understand that the King's army was battering at the very castle gates and that no one knew where I was."

I was silent for a moment. Then I said, "Mayhap they lie. It might not be true."

He frowned and whispered fiercely, "I
want
it to be true."

Startled, I turned and stared at my gentle Prince.

"But why, sire?"

"Otherwise the King of Gilboa would have dragged him out and humiliated him in front of our people before executing him. As 'tis, they have displayed his severed head on a pike over the castle gatehouse." He flinched and closed his eyes. A single tear trickled down his cheek. "He was very good to me always, even in these last few years, when as like as not he did not recognize me. He was a kind man."

We sat quiet, watching my Geese swimming serenely alongside us.

"Now he need never have to live with the knowledge that he fathered a fool," said the Prince.

"O, sire, you must not—"

"Must I not?" he demanded. "I think I must."

A load of guilt settled like an iron band over my heart.

"If 'twere not for me—" I began.

Irritably the Prince cast my hands away. '"Twas naught to do with you. Or almost naught." He recaptured one of my hands and stroked it absentmindedly. "Twas but a boy's prank, going off after you without telling anyone what I was doing. I was sick to my very gizzard with old Pennyfavor and the Code of Chivalry and the duties of a King. The old twiddlepoop hasn't let me out of his sight for three years, not since my father's wits went wandering. That day, the day that you flew away, was the first time in years I had escaped my minders. 'Twas glorious freedom to be out in the woods alone, unmarked by other eyes, at least until darkness fell and I found myself in a strange land alone."

He smiled rather wanly at me. "So you must not blame yourself. You never asked me to follow you, did you?"

I had had that very thought less than a week ago. Yet now it seemed to me that I was in the wrong, all the same.

"You will make a fine Queen of Gilboa and Dorloo, Mistress Alexandria." He smiled again. "If, that is, you can circumvent the plots and schemes of the King's intended bride. If I were a betting man, I would be glad to wager all I
own that yourself rather than the Baroness of Breakabeen will win out in the end. I only grieve that I shall not be here to watch you wipe up the floor with Her Ladyship. You are a woman of character, mistress. I did not truly value what I was pursuing until now, when I have lost you for once and for all."

"Stop, I pray you," I whispered. "Do not speak so. Remember how we escaped in the valley of the Ogresses. Remember how we escaped from the dungeons of Castle Breakabeen. Mayhap we will also escape from the castle of the King."

"Mayhap we will." His eyes blinked, fighting off tears. He lifted his bound hands up to finger the curls of my hair. "Tis most amazing stuff," he said, shaking his head in wonderment. 'As is its mistress."

We lapsed into silence once more, and for some time watched the countryside passing by, without comment.

There was some cause for comment, however. 'Twas a lovely land, but something had gone wrong with it. Golden sunlight fell on broad acres which had not yet been plowed and planted, although 'twas June. Weeds grew, rank and wild, over grape arbors, choking and smothering the good vines. Bony cattle roamed untended and unchecked, eating the few tender young crop plants that sprouted from the fields. At intervals we saw grim lines of dangling corpses such as we had first seen in Clove City. There were many habitations, both sizable communities and lonesome farmhouses, as I had observed when flying over with my Geese,
but they appeared to be in bad repair and some were blackened with the brand of fire.

At length I could hold my peace no longer. "What ails the people of this country? Are they mad to let their land go to rack and ruin?"

"They are mad, yes, but only with grief, or so I think," said the Prince. "The King's rule has been harsh in these past fourteen years. There are fewer to till the soil and tend the beasts, and those that remain are sick at heart and have little joy in their toil."

"Why do you say, 'in the past fourteen years'? I was born but fourteen years ago and am therefore ignorant of events before that time."

"I was myself but a babe at the time and can tell you little save that prior to that time this country was ruled over by another and more kindly sovereign. The man you know as the King of Gilboa was then no more than a Baron, the Baron of Dwelly and Zeh, which Barony is located quite near that of Breakabeen. No doubt that is why he and the Baroness were early affianced. He does not seem to have taken that promised union very seriously, by the by, as he has married and buried two wives already, neither of them the Baroness."

"But what happened to the other King?" I asked.

"Brutally butchered," said the Prince in a melancholy tone. "There was a family too, I understand. All killed by the Baron of Dwelly and Zeh, or those in his pay."

I shivered and fell silent, meditating upon the character
of the man that I was to wed in such short order. However, as harsh as my fate was likely to be, it could not compare with that facing the Prince. I tried to think of aught that would divert him as we drew moment by moment closer to his doom.

"Tell me," I said, tucking my hand through his arm, "about your father in the years before his illness."

He spoke to me of his father's goodness, of his great concern for the welfare of his people, and of his unfortunate weakness for staging, and engaging in, tournaments. '"Twas a tournament three years ago that was his downfall, for he was felled by a mighty blow which cleaved him open to the very brain pan. He lived, but never truly recovered in body or mind."

When the Prince's words finally faltered to a halt, I began to speak affectionately of my own mother, and then of the years lived on my own alone in the little cottage in the wood.

And so the bright hours passed one by one. The great orb of the sun reached its zenith and declined. And when the shadows began to streak across the fields and meadows, we came at last to Roseboom and the King's castle.

"You had best take Little Echo when we get out of the boat," said the Prince. "She is not fit to be on her own and I will not long be able to care for her."

"Yes, sire," I said, and tried to take her from him. The silly little Goose struggled and would not come to me, however.

"Mayhap you should carry her as long as you can. She does not seem to wish to leave you."

I turned to speak to the other Geese, sitting up in the boat as best I could.

"O my clever and beautiful ones," I said. "My dear friends and companions. We must bid you adieu, for the place we are going is not a healthy locale for such as thee." Or, I thought, for such as we, but I did not trouble myself to speak the thought aloud. "If you linger in this place for some days, I hope to find a way to return your sister Little Echo to you, when she is healed of her hurt. Fare thee well and go thy ways in happiness and peace."

I waited. Naught happened. The foolish little fizgigs went swimming along next the boat as though I had never spoken.

"Go!" I said sharply. "Leave us! You have never been laggardly before in taking to wing when danger threatened! So go now!"

"Mistress Alexandria! Do not be so unkind," said the Prince as the boat thumped against the quay and two soldiers jumped out to make it fast. "They do not wish to desert you. Do not abuse them so."

We were hauled, none too gently, out of the boat and laid like cargo on the dock. From this position 'twas difficult to see what was happening, but I heard someone approach and speak in a low tone to one of our captors. We were thereupon dragged to our feet and our ankle bonds released. My
Geese joined us upon the quay and followed us in two straight lines as we marched up the long, long ramp from the riverside in through the castle gate. Little Echo, who was surely well enough to walk with her sisters, did not, but rather remained clasped in the Prince's arms.

The Castle of Roseboom was a very different affair from the Castle of Breakabeen. 1 did not wish to admit it, even to myself, but the great stone building in which we found ourselves was an imposing residence.

Vaulted ceilings soared so high over our heads that the top was hazy with distance. Gigantic tapestries, which must each have cost whole lifetimes to complete, hung on the walls, glowing with jewel-like hues. These were interspersed with innumerable colored banners which lifted and fluttered in the breeze blowing in off the river through the large high windows. A U-shaped banquet table, fifty feet long and fifty feet wide, filled the room. A multitude of servants scurried about, preparing for the evening meal.