The Sleeping Beauty (28 page)

There was silence for a moment after the announcement, which seemed to take the Princess as much by surprise as everyone else, then the chatter began. “Well, that’s certainly an interesting and appropriate challenge,” said Leopold after a while. He sighed. “I think I will go find the gaming tables.”

Siegfried blinked. “Shouldn’t we be thinking of—”

Leopold interrupted him. “Siegfried,
we
should not be doing anything. It’s obvious that this is the last trial. You go think of your way to answer the challenge, and I’ll think of mine, and may the best man win.”

Siegfried was taken aback for a moment, but Leopold had not lost his slight smile. Whether or not he actually intended to compete at this, Siegfried couldn’t tell. Maybe going to the gaming tables was his way of thinking about it. But he was right. Now it was every man for himself.

He nodded, and clapped Leopold on the shoulder. “Don’t forget your promise,” he said. “When you win Rosamund, you help me find a woman who will break my Fate.”

Leopold laughed and punched Siegfried’s bicep, swiftly reverting to his usual cheer. “Siegfried, some of the women I’ve met down in the city would set
themselves
on fire for enough money, provided they didn’t get hurt doing it. So don’t worry. One way or another, we’ll break your Fate for you.”

Feeling a little more cheerful, Siegfried headed back into the Palace for Rosa’s next training session. This one should be…interesting.

He met her at the door of one of the guest rooms, recently vacated by one of the candidates for her hand, which the servants would be cleaning thoroughly when he and she were done. All of the break
able ornaments and furniture had been removed and replaced with things that didn’t matter, or were already broken.

“Are you ready?” he asked. She nodded and went inside. He gave her a moment to orient herself, and then flung open the door.

And had to duck immediately as a huge, and incredibly ugly, vase came flying at his head.

From that point, it was sheer mayhem.

This was the test of what he had told her to practice over the last few days; to enter a room with an eye to what might become a weapon, and prepare to use everything that came to her hand.

That was exactly what she was doing. While he tried to catch her, anything that could be thrown at him, was, and with great accuracy. He wasn’t going to trust this test to anyone else. Anyone else might get hurt; his reflexes were superb, possibly the best here, for he had certainly won the tournament
and
the archery contest. He was having a hard time dodging what she threw, too. She was good.

Her eyes sparkled with mischief and excitement as she aimed directly for his head with small objects he had only a glimpse of while he was dodging them. Her cheeks were very pink, and she grinned like a mad thing as she raced around the room, grabbing and throwing. It sounded as if there was a fight going on in this room, and he hoped there was no one nearby, other than her guards, to hear it, or a full-scale rescue party might come crashing through the door in spite of her guards.

Meanwhile he chased her, and she ran. They made three circuits of the room, and each time she passed the door she touched it quickly, as the mark that she knew it was there and if this had not been a test, she would have been out of it. She did the same at the window. He had taught her how to jump out of one without getting hurt a few days ago.

When she ran out of things to throw, she began finding things to turn over in his path, or knock over and kick at him. She picked up a shard of the vase to use as a knife. She picked up pieces of things still big enough to throw and threw
them
at him. Finally, when they had sped around the room too many times for him to count, she was getting out of breath, and he called a halt to the proceedings.

She put a hand to her side, laughing. “Oh the poor servants are going to hate me!” she gasped, and collapsed on an ancient sofa in the middle of the room, the only thing still standing. He plopped down beside her.

She was still laughing. “You looked so funny! It was like a scene out of a farce!”

He chuckled. “Leopold took me to a farce, so at least I know what you mean. Like the scene where the angry girl throws plates at the clown?”

“Exactly! Or her faithless lover.” She patted his head. “Poor Siegfried! I hope you do not have too many lumps now!”

“Not too many.” He grinned sheepishly.

Rosa’s side hurt—and the corners of her mouth hurt from smiling so much. She knew this was
supposed
to be a serious exercise, but how could she be serious when Siegfried looked so funny, dodging all the horrible little ornamental things that people had bequeathed on the monarchs of Eltaria for the last hundred years or so?

She didn’t think he’d been hit—the man had the dodging ability of ten cats!—but she patted his head to make sure. That shaggy blond pelt was softer than it looked, much to her surprise. She didn’t feel any lumps.

But suddenly, she was seized with an impulse to—to—

Her hand seemed to snake to the back of his head without any conscious thought on her part, to pull it forward. His eyes went startled.

Then her lips met his.

The same physical sensations raced through her that she had felt when she had awakened in the grove and Leopold had been kissing her. And other things. Except that this time…this time, the sensations were more intense. All of her skin felt a thousand times more
alive
than it ever had. And there were fires burning everywhere inside her. And—

Oh no—no I must not do this yet—

She let go of his head with a conscious effort of will and moved herself back a little on the sofa. He blinked owlishly at her, then licked his lips, and did the same.

“If that is another weapon you threw at me, Princess,” he said carefully, “it is most effective.”

She laughed weakly. “Not…exactly.”

Well, I wanted sparks. Some sign. That was certainly a sign. Desmond might not have this, whatever it is, but Siegfried certainly does.

He blinked again, and moved back as far as he could before he ran into the arm of the sofa. “I think I had better sit here, or I might—we might— It would not be wise,” he finished, his voice strained.

She did the same, and folded her hands primly in her lap. Then she smiled, and felt her face flushing. He smiled back, then began to chuckle.

“Well I did tell you to use everything you had as a weapon,” he said, his voice a bit steadier. “And as a weapon, that is a useful one. When your enemy is disconcerted, you can use the same techniques I taught you for being seized.”

She was amazed that he was able to think clearly, because she was still a bit muddled. As if he had read her thoughts, he chuckled again.

“Also it becomes easier with practice, much easier, to keep at least
part of your mind clear even when the rest of it is reeling with confusion.” He ran his hand through his hair—oh, she wanted to do that!—and grinned ruefully. “This is useful when one has had a mighty blow to the head. As I can testify. It is a very good thing that my skull is very, very thick.”

His bird, after landing on the windowsill and peering around cautiously, flew in and landed on her customary perch on his shoulder.

“You two certainly made a mess,” she trilled. “It looks as if a bear went on a rampage here! Well, Princess, did you pass the test?”

“Oh, yes,” Siegfried said first. “She certainly passed that test. Now all she need worry about is magic. I can do nothing to train her for that. Well, other than ‘kill the magician before he can cast his power over you.’”

“Which is difficult to do if he is out of bowshot,” the bird observed shrewdly. “Well then, Princess, even though your guards know what is going on and are listening for screams, the silence unnerves them almost as much, and I think you should go tell them it is all right before they burst in here with crossbows. Yes?”

“Oh! Yes!” Rosa leapt to her feet, grateful to the bird for breaking the awkward moment. “Yes, I certainly should. Thank you!”

Siegfried did not immediately get up, and when he did, she had already opened the door for herself. “Thank you, Prince Siegfried. I hope I never have to use your training, but I am so
very
glad I have it! This was the best gift anyone has ever given me!”

She had just enough time to see his face light up before she whisked out the door.

The guards were all huddled outside the door, faces strained and anxious. They, too, lit up when she saw them, then looked shocked when they saw the wreck she had made of the room. Siegfried gave them a little salute, and grinned.

“Do not annoy your Princess, gentlemen,” he said with a laugh.
“Her aim is
very
good. Perhaps you might consider if your ability to dodge is as good.”

They didn’t reply, of course. It wouldn’t be appropriate. But she could see that she had impressed them.

Good. It won’t hurt for them to know that I can defend myself. It might keep them on their toes a bit.

With a little wave to Siegfried, she set off down the hall. After that workout, she needed a bath.

And it was in the bath, chin deep in hot water, that she was able to think.

There was no doubt that Desmond was wonderful. Unbelievable, in fact. But did that mean that he was in fact unbelievable? He saw her for no more than an hour at a time, less than that was spent alone in his company. He had
plenty
of time to study her, quiz servants about her, even use more esoteric means to find out about her. Then, all he had to do was be utterly charming for the short period of time he was with her, and guardedly genial when he was with anyone else, just to be sure that no bad reports got back to her.

Whereas Siegfried had every opportunity to lose his temper with her. Over the course of training, she had hit him by accident many times, quite hard, including once in his “jewels”. He had never done worse than shout at her the one time she had very nearly done something stupidly dangerous to herself. He had lost his temper, yes, but never taken it out on her, and always apologized.

She licked the salty sweat off her upper lip and pondered.

She certainly had had the answer to her question of who she was attracted to.
No, do be honest with yourself. It is a great deal more than mere attraction.
And this was Eltaria, where Kings and Queens and Princes and Princesses actually fell in love all the time. It was not out of the question that she could be falling in love with Siegfried. He might
not be the sharpest sword in the rack at times, but there was no doubt that he also wasn’t stupid. And he was kind, brave, loyal…

But there was still the last trial to go.

Damn you, Tradition!
she thought fiercely.
Do something about this!

IT WAS WARM, TOO WARM. ROSA HAD TOSSED
and turned in her soft, rose-scented sheets until the last sound faded from the Palace and the last servant went to bed for the night. Now she lay in her bed and stared at the patch of wall where a beam of moonlight, piercing through a parting of the curtains, slowly moved its way down the wainscoting. The too-warm air pressed down on her. She longed for a storm.

The moonlight was an irregular, pale slash on the wall. Crickets chorused outside the window, and once in a while she heard the steady footfalls of a guard patrolling the grounds. She was tired, and yet couldn’t sleep. Her brain buzzed with thoughts. She felt as if she had been awake for hours. Judging by the position of that patch of moonlight, she probably had been.

And still her mind buzzed and chirped like the crickets and would not let her rest. She kept trying to think of a way she could covertly help Siegfried, and nothing would come.

It had been two days since the last trial had been announced, and so far, there were two dropouts. She hadn’t expected more than
that, but every man less meant more pressure on the ones still in the competition.

One was Andret. Andret had always been one of the more…enthusiastic and cheerful of the competitors. He had come to Lily all smiles immediately after the trial was announced.

“Majesty,” he had said, after his bow, “in a sense, I came here under false colors. Frankly I never intended to try for Rosa’s hand.”

Lily, so she told Rosa, had been unsurprised, and a little amused.

She had asked why he was telling her now, though. “Because I have no good ideas for the defense of this realm,” he had replied. “If I did, be sure I would tell you, but I do not, so I must bid you farewell. I have greatly enjoyed testing myself against your challenges.”

It became obvious
why
he had never intended to finish the trials when his mother, the Sorceress Aubergine, arrived to fetch him away. With her, driving a second chariot, this one drawn by a pair of Gryphons, was a stunning flame-haired young female. Any thoughts that she might have been his sister evaporated in the heat of their greeting. It was quite entertaining for those who happened to be present to watch it.

The other dropout was the son of the ruler of Reritain, to the east. No one had been sorry to see him leave. He had been sullen to the point of surliness, and had made no allies here.

That left three remaining candidates from the neighboring kingdoms, which was enough to prevent anyone from deciding to invade, whether their candidate had lost the contest or was still in the running. At least, for now.

Rosa turned over again, trying to find a cool spot. Nothing. Her thoughts kept circling around the remaining competitors, trying to work out if there was anything she could do to keep them from quitting. The longer this trial went on, the better.

There were eight left now. Eight young men who had taken various approaches to the problem they had been set.

Leopold gambled. Every night he sat down at the gaming tables with her courtiers—and by day, she knew, he went into the city to a gambling club where he pitted his luck against that of rich young men of merchant families. He was winning, too, quite handily, and growing increasingly cheerful as he did so. She didn’t know him well enough to tell if this meant he couldn’t think of anything so he was glad he was making a small fortune at the tables, or if it meant he
had
thought of something, and he was cheerful and winning because of it.

As for Siegfried—well, Siegfried vanished from the Palace for most of every day. His bird told her that he was going out to the forest. She could sympathize with that; if you were used to being alone in the wild a great deal, then the Palace was not the best place to be able to think. But what if he was going to the forest to escape having to see her, knowing he had no ideas and was not likely to have any?

She intercepted him early one morning—getting up much, much earlier than she usually did, only to have him look at her with the eyes of a man cut off from what he most desires. “Princess,” he had said, holding up his hand. “This is the hardest thing I have ever done. I am not good at thinking—but I will not give up and go away.” He had paused then, looked at his feet and stammered, “And I wish you were a shepherdess so that there would be no contest over you, and I could put you in a ring of fire and awaken you and we would live happily ever after.”

That had left her dumb for a moment.

“If you did not mind being poor, I would rather be wandering roofless with you, than living in a palace with anyone else.”

Her heart thudded in her throat when he said that. But before she could muster the wits to reply to him, he had turned, striding rapidly away.

Desmond tried to corner her. When he caught her, briefly, he asked, framed in cautious words, if she would give him a boost over the pack. She was both angry and hurt by this—angry because he had asked her to cheat for him, hurt because of the way he had asked. Not that he wanted to win for her, but because he wanted to win, no matter what it took.

“This trial isn’t a form of joke or the sort of test that the riddles were, Desmond,” she had said gravely. “And there is no ‘right answer’ sealed away somewhere. This is a situation that needs resolving. Thus far, none of the best heads in the Kingdom have an answer for it, and whoever comes up with that solution will properly be the right one for the throne.”

She had to give him this much: he took her rebuke well, as far as she could tell. He bowed over her hand, and had been pretty solitary ever since.

The remaining five closeted themselves in the library or in their rooms. Presumably they were looking for answers, too.

“She distracted you, didn’t she?” The bird was keeping pace with him, flitting from branch to branch.

“Yes, and I cannot afford to be distracted. Do you think the Godmother could build a great wall around Eltaria?”

“I think if she could have, she would have. Besides, you’d need troops to man it, wouldn’t you? Otherwise all it would take to get in would be a battering ram.” The bird was quite good at picking holes in Siegfried’s ideas—which he appreciated no end. An idea that was only a little good was not going to win him the girl.

The forest was a good place to think, and even Luna—who was, of course, pacing on the path behind him—knew enough to keep quiet while he was trying to come up with a good idea.

It didn’t help, not at
all,
that there were rumors of mysterious
sleeping women in rings of fire appearing in random meadows. Doom was trying to close in on him. And he knew how The Tradition worked. He was a stag, and The Tradition was the pack of hounds. Sooner or later it was going to run him into exhaustion, or into a dead end that he couldn’t escape from.

Then again…

If I can’t win Rosa…I don’t think I want to escape.
Doom would be preferable to going through the rest of his life knowing that he’d lost her.

“What about some sort of magical wall?” he hazarded. “One that won’t let enemies in?”

Rosa had gone to bed unhappy, and her unhappiness had brought on insomnia.
“I would rather be poor with you…
” She might have thought it was flattery, but not with that haggard expression on Siegfried’s face. Siegfried was known to stay out in the forest from dawn to dusk. She wished he wouldn’t. She wished he was here. She was very much afraid that this was the last chance she would ever have to spend any time at all with him. One of the others, more clever, with better connections and resources, would have a plan that would save her Kingdom. And in a choice between her own needs and those of her Kingdom, Eltaria would win.

No matter how unhappy it made her.

She was sure of it now; she was, if not already in love with him, certainly falling in love with him. There was no doubt that he felt the same; when she intercepted his gaze—at breakfast, at supper—it was full of longing and frustration.

But he was not the sort who would give up. Not until the last of the remaining candidates offered his solution and he either had none, or had one that was rejected. And not because he wanted a throne; she had the feeling that if a crown was all he’d wanted, he’d have gotten
one a long time ago. Not because he wanted her only to escape his fate, either. No…his feelings were quite clear. As clear as hers were.

Finally she got tired of lying in bed, unable to sleep a wink, running the same problems over and over in her head and coming up with the same lack of answers. She got up and pulled the curtains aside enough to flood the room with moonlight. This wouldn’t be the first time she’d slipped out for a walk in the middle of the night; when she was younger, she’d often had restless nights. Thanks to her mother, she could do entirely without maids when she wanted to.

She delved into the back of one of the great wardrobe cabinets in her bedroom, dressed herself in the simplest of her clothing and carried her shoes, and easily slipped out of her rooms, past her sleeping maids. If she was seen, she’d be taken for a servant; she wore the gown and petticoat she had worn when her mother had given her lessons on how shepherds lived. She would have liked to have used the disguise cloak, but Lily had used it last, and it was in
her
room. Once out in the corridors that the servants used, she pulled on the shoes; a servant tiptoeing around the halls would arouse suspicion, not quell it. The gown still had the faint scent she associated with that happy time, of hay and clover blossoms, a little of the oily sheep smell, and smoke. When that scent was released from her gown, warmed by her body, she found herself suddenly overwhelmed with memories. She had to put her back to the wall of the servants’ corridor and cry soundlessly a little.

Finally she fought her tears down and made her way out into the kitchen yard, between the Palace and the stables. She lost herself quickly in the passageways among the stables, the mews, the chicken-houses, the dovecotes, the rabbit-hutches—the Palace supported a lot of animals, more than most people might guess. Many of the buildings were brick and stone, even the chicken-houses, since stone and brick were easier to clean than wood, and easier to secure against
predators and vermin. The stables, the kennels and the mews even supported living quarters for those servants who tended the beasts.

Once safely in the shadows, she put her back against one of the cool stone walls, and deeply breathed in the night air, only faintly scented with straw and horse and dog.

Dog?
She realized with a start that she must be near the kennels. Not necessarily a good thing…the kennels were where the Huntsman had his quarters, and he was the very last person she wanted to encounter in the dark even if he didn’t recognize her.

Just as that thought passed through her mind, she heard the voices.

One was Desmond’s.

What was Desmond doing out here so late at night?

She didn’t recognize the other.

Impelled by concern as well as curiosity, she inched forward until she could hear the two speakers clearly.

“…the progress on hunting that unicorn?” Desmond asked, impatiently. Her hand went unconsciously to the necklace at her throat.

“Slowly, Prince.” That was the Huntsman! “The beast is proving elusive. I find its spoor, but always days old. I took the bait—verified bait, I swear to you—out into the forest, and the unicorn never came near.”

“I want that horn. I
need
that horn. Besides that, I need the blood, the mane and the hooves, but the horn is imperative.” This was an entirely different Desmond from the one she was used to hearing. Arrogant. Demanding.

And ordering the Huntsman to kill a unicorn. Anger suffused her, and outrage. How dared he! This was
her
Kingdom’s treasure, in
her
forest!

“As you say, Highness. Have you any other tasks for me?”

And then, after the anger, disgust. Kill a unicorn? Of all things, a
unicorn?

When she told Lily—

“The Princess is proving resistant,” Desmond was saying, snapping her attention back to the topic at hand. “I am going to need you to stand ready to take her at any moment.”

Had he been the one giving the Huntsman his orders all along? Had he been the one who had sent the Huntsman in the first place?

“That won’t be easy, sire,” the Huntsman replied, and she could almost hear the frown in his voice.
Sire?
“She is well guarded these days.”

And I am going to be even better guarded now that I know about you!
she thought with a feeling of shock. The Huntsman she had been wary of, but Desmond? He was in no way related to any of the five enemy Kingdoms on the border! At least…they had thought he was not…

She calculated how quickly she could get help here if she just started running and screaming now—

Not quickly enough. The guards won’t know it’s me. They might not even realize it’s a human sound. It could be taken for one of the peacocks, disturbed, or some other animal. We are near enough the forest that anything could come into the yard and be killed by a dog or kill something else.
If she began running and screaming, Desmond and his lackey would have plenty of time to grab her and make off with her before help came. She knew then she was going to have to get away, get to the Palace, raise an alarm—

No, that would not do—it would be her word against his. Between this moment and when she finally organized guards to come after him, the Huntsman could be back in his bed, and even if Desmond was found outside of his rooms, he could say, well, anything. He could deny he was ever at the stables, and he
would
deny that he was talking to the Huntsman. He could claim that she was dreaming, sleepwalking. She would have no way of disproving him.

No, she needed to get back into the Palace, wake Lily and tell her what she had overheard. Her best bet to catch him was through
magic. All this time, they had been watching the Huntsman, not him. Now that they knew what he was up to, they should be able to catch
him
at meetings with the Huntsman. At something, anyway—