A Tale of Fur and Flesh (9 page)

Allerleirauh would give anything to feel that way
again.  To feel safe, to feel loved, in the arms of the king. 
Of the king?
 
Lally’s heart beat quickly, and she smiled.  Covering her mouth with her
fingers, she stroked her lips, remembering King Aelwyn’s soft kiss.  She had
kissed many men.  She had seduced men on whims in what now seemed like her
youth.  King Aelwyn was different.  She loved him.

Through the
intensity of her emotion, Lally recalled what she’d done in the kitchen.  The
needle in the soup.  How could she harm the man she adored?  Her knuckles
throbbed as she leapt to her feet, darting through the darkness of the woods. 
She must stop the king from eating from that bowl.  Under the night sky, he
would certainly consume the needle without seeing it.  He could die, as Snake
did.

Concern carried her through the forest, narrowly
avoiding trees, leaping over stones and branches.  Her wolf’s mask bobbed
before her eyes.  When she came to a clearing, the festival’s fiery colours and
floating lamps came into view.  Though her side cramped and her hand throbbed,
Lally ran on through the clearing.  As she wheezed, she tasted blood in her
throat.  The drummer played on where she had earlier danced with the king.

Despite the lateness of the hour, there were more
guests at the festival than there had been earlier.  Her heart pounded. 
Shuffling through the crowd, she caught sight of the king just as he lifted his
soupspoon to his mouth.

“Stop!” cried Allerleirauh, attracting everyone’s
attention but the king’s.

“What are you doing
here?” Liam instigated from his position at the king’s elbow.  “Hairy animals
belong indoors.”

Lally did not respond.  Liam’s insult made no sense. 
Hairy animals belonged out of doors, did they not?  She ran straight up to King
Aelwyn and gazed into his soup bowl.  It was empty of all contents.  Lally
choked back tears.  He would surely die, and she would be twice a murderer.

“Your bread soup was once again delicious, furry
creature,” the king cheered.  “You must teach Cook to prepare it, in case you
are one day unable to serve here at the palace.”

What did that mean?
  Had the king already begun to fall ill? 
Were they preparing the gallows for poor Lally?  “You ate it all?” she asked,
hoping he might have spilled some and lost the needle.

“Everything but this,” King Aelwyn replied, holding a
thin shiny object between his thumb and forefinger. “I wonder where you might
have found a golden needle.  They are most uncommon.  And why, still, might you
have placed it in my meal?”

Her knuckles throbbed.  Lally massaged her aching
hand as she lied.  “I know not from whence that object came.  Was it really in
your bowl?  How strange.”

“It’s a mystery, then, like the thread,” said the
king, sporting a suspicious grin on his full pink lips.

“It is a mystery indeed,” answered Lally.

“What good are you if you can’t answer the king’s
questions?” the infuriating Liam spat.

Through gritted teeth, Lally replied, “I am good for
nothing but to have carrots thrown at my head.”

“You may go now, hairy animal,” Liam said, but Lally
could not leave without a final look at the king.  His dark eyes twinkled with
the flutter of candle flames glowing overhead.  Did he suspect her?  Could he
tell from the eyes behind her wolf’s mask that the hairy animal was
Allerleirauh?  Had he deduced, for that matter, that Allerleirauh was Princess
Lally of the Southern Kingdom?  There were far too many layers to her
existence.  Oh, for a time when life was simple.

“Go!” Liam again instructed, pushing Lally toward the
palace. She grasped her throbbing knuckles.

“Are you injured, furry creature?” the king called
out.  The concern in his low voice stopped Lally in her tracks.

“No, your highness,” she replied meekly as she set
off toward the palace.

Why must he not discover her true
identity?
  Ah yes,
because the threat of war loomed large.  Despite her father’s lunacy, Lally did
not wish to see his kingdom taken from him.  Father had been a just and
decisive leader when mother was alive.  And yet, what good did he for the
people in his current state?  Perhaps he ought to be dethroned.  Was this the
conclusion King Aelwyn had reached?

The following morning, Lally told Cook she injured
her hand fetching water.  “These fingers are really paining you, aren’t they?”
Cook asked with something like pity in her gaze.

Lally nodded.  “I imagined my condition would improve
overnight, but just the opposite has happened.”

Cook launched a queer glance in her direction.  “I
thought you said your hurt yourself carrying the water.”

Lally had tripped
up.  “Yes, I meant carrying the water yester-morning.  My fingers pained me all
day, but I said nothing as we were so busy preparing for the festival.”

“Poor beast,” answered Cook in a comforting tone. 
“Well, don’t you worry.  I know how to make a splint from string and twigs, and
a compress from forest herbs.  We’ll have that hand feeling better in no time.”

After pulverizing the herbs and placing them in a
cloth against Lally’s hand, the cook bound it in twigs.  Lally’s suffering
seemed to bring out the best in her.  “I’ll tell you what’s funny,” the cook
laughed.  “Before this, here I was thinking you were a witch!”

“A witch?” Lally winced as Cook tied the string
around the twigs.  “Why-ever would you think such a thought?”

“Because the king always liked the soup what you made
for him.  I was thinking it were an enchanted soup you cast a spell on, like
you thrown in some bat’s blood and eye of newt.”  The cook chuckled until she
snorted.  “But here now you’ve injured your little fingers.  If you were a
witch, you could heal ‘em up yourself.”

“I suppose so,” Lally agreed.

Cook rose from her stool and wiped her hands on her
apron, already grey with the soot in the air.  “Well, you’d better get started
plucking the fowl.  With only one hand, your day’s tasks are bound to take
twice as long.”

Small mercies were all Lally could hope for anymore.
Cook changed her herbal compress every day until the hand was healed.  She
allowed her to eat more than just scraps for her meals, and asked that Lally
call her Berthe.  In all the months she lived in the kitchen, Lally never
realized she did not know the cook’s name.

Chapter Eight

Soon the weather became cool and the leaves fell to
the ground in crisp heaps.  As the harvest feast drew near, Lally grew
anxious.  Would it be terribly unwise of her to ascend the kitchen stairs once
again?  Yes, her thoughts dwelled constantly upon him, but last time they met,
she ended by assaulting a man!  Perhaps she would now face the consequence of
her misbehaviour.

In the heart of a nineteen-year-old girl, even if she
was old beyond her years, love was sure to triumphs.  Thus, on the evening of
the harvest feast, Lally told Berthe she planned to endeavour upstairs.  The
cook did not argue.  “You’re young, little creature,” Berte said.  “Best to
enjoy life before you’re old and withered like me.”

The change in Berthe touched Lally deeply.  There was
something of her mother’s kindness in the cook after all.  When Lally dressed
in the third of her mother’s gowns, she prepared to sprint up the staircase. 
There was one problem:  Berthe stood leaning against the worktop, staring at
the closet.

“What’s that bright light shining through the cracks
in your cupboard door?” Berthe asked.  “It sparkles like starlight.  Deary me,
I can’t stop gawking at it!  What you got in there?”

There was only one way out. And, really, she had no
other friend but Berthe.  Why not share her secret?  Lally opened the flimsy
wooden door and revealed her human form to the cook.  Her golden hair fell like
rays of sunlight against her pale skin.  Under the horrible wolf’s head and
hideous mish-mash of peltry, she was not hairy at all, and hardly an animal.

Berthe covered her gaping mouth with one hand as she
held herself upright against the worktop.  “Hairy animal, is that really you?”

“Please, call me…” Which name would the princess
select today?  “Allerleirauh.”

“Mercy me!  My little kitchen pet has transformed
right before my very eyes.  A greater beauty I’ve never seen.  Why, you ought
to get yourself upstairs to dance with that king of ours afore that little
blonde missy shows her…”  Berthe stopped mid-sentence.  Her wide eyes revealed
what her mind had just pieced together.  “It was you all those times!”

“Only twice,” Lally smirked.

“Wait ‘til the king finds out he’s been lusting after
a kitchen rat all summer,” Berthe cackled.

Perish the thought!  Lally’s chest went numb.  A
ghostly ache shot through her knuckles.  “No, you mustn’t tell him!”

“Why ever not?  Seems to me our king has a fine sense
of humour,” Berthe reasoned.

Was she trying to be cruel, or was cruelty just an
inextinguishable part of her nature?  And even if the king could find humour in
most matters, Lally could not help but recall King Aelwyn’s displeasure when
she assumed he hailed from elsewhere but the North.  Perhaps he would not find
Allerleirauh’s box of secrets terribly amusing either.  “Pray, allow me to tell
him myself,” Lally pleaded.

Berthe could hardly argue.  Nodding, she replied,
“You just go on up and have yourself a good time.  Don’t even worry about
coming back downstairs tonight.  And if you’re not here lugging pails of water
in the morning, I’ll know we’ve got ourselves a new queen.”

The caring smile on Berthe’s lips made Lally wish her
mother was alive to see her off.  Still, she appreciated the cook’s sympathetic
words.  Before hopping up the kitchen stairs, she threw her arms around
Berthe’s neck.  “Thank you,” Lally said, kissing her cheek.  “You are a kind
woman.”

Fluttering along the corridor, Lally felt
feather-light after heaving one secret from her shoulders.  She might just
disclose her true identity to the king after all, if this was how wonderful
revelations felt.  There he was.  King Aelwyn.  Seated upon his throne at the
far end of the great hall, he represented all that was good in the world.  At
the winter feast, she would sit at his side.  King Aelwyn and Queen
Allerleirauh.  Her happy heart bounced in her chest as she stepped into the great
hall.  A path cleared before her.  King Aelwyn rose from his throne.  Relief
washed over his face. “Allerleirauh, you’ve returned,” he said, bowing deeply
before her.

At all costs, she avoided revealing her anxieties. 
They were not for him to see.  For him, she wanted to be more than the animal
in her past.  Superhuman, even.  A picture.  “You knew I would return,” Lally
answered, offering her hand to dance.  “How could I stray when I so love you?”

Lally froze.  Why did she never think before speaking? 
True though her proclamation was, she ought not have spoken those precious
words in public, in front of guests and palace staff.  It was the wrong place,
wrong time.

“That’s rich!” cackled Liam, stepping out in front of
the king.  He knocked Lally’s hand away, blocking her view of precious Aelwyn. 
“You really think the King of the North could love
you
?  Perhaps you’ll
marry in prison after you’re sentenced for punching the Ambassador of the
Eastern Kingdom!”

Lally didn’t have to turn to know the king’s guards
had congregated behind her.  The air was heavy with the scent of sweat and warm
metal.  Rough hands grasped her wrists, holding them at the small of her back. 
Her instinct was to attack, to kick back at their shins, do anything to get
away.  But what use would it be to attack the king’s guard?  She’d got herself
into enough trouble, assaulting an ambassador.  In any case, King Aelwyn would
not allow her to be locked away in the pit of the dungeons.

“Come on,” grunted a husky voice.  It was Boris.  The
guard who had always been kind to her as the hairy animal now pushed her toward
the entrance to the great hall.  Why did the king not help her? 

“King Aelwyn!” Lally cried in confusion.  Why did he
not reply?  Why hide behind scrawny little Liam?  “Boris, where are you taking
me?”  Though still unfamiliar with the palace, she knew dungeons were located
underground.  Why was Boris pushing her up the stairs? 

When he responded with an indecipherable grunt, Lally
asked again.  No response this time.  Where were they headed? 
A bedchamber?
 
Panic-stricken, Lally dropped to her knees on the marble floor.  As she fell,
Boris tightened his grasp around her wrists.  Her arms swung upwards.  The
strain on her shoulders made her wince, but this pain was preferable over the
unknown torture of the bedchamber.

“I haven’t got time for this,” Boris grumbled,
dragging poor Lally along the marble floor.  When she screamed in terror and
pain, Boris picked her up by the waist and threw her into a chamber.  She
landed with a thud on the hard floor, and quickly leapt to her feet.  Her heart
pounded in her chest, her ears like a rabbit’s on high alert.  Where was the
predator?  She spun around in quick circles, eyes peeled for her attacker. 
There was no one in the room.  Even Boris had gone, slamming the door behind
him.  All that was left was the dark wooden bed with its red velvet curtains
drawn, a desk heaped with books, a chair with feather fill poking up through
the seat, and a table near the window.