Goose Chase (10 page)

"They have turned to stone," I whispered. "They are no more."

"They were Ogresses," the Prince said. "Perchance 'twas the sun that turned them to stone and not the pebbles at all."

'Twas true enough that the Ogresses had always returned home ere dawn and left past dark, but yet it had not occurred to me to try to defeat them with daylight.

"I do not know," I said. Then, "It does not matter."

I laid myself down upon the ground just where we stood, next to the piles of crumbled Ogresses. I closed my eyes and slept without dreams for several hours.

"Good morrow, Goose Girl," said the Prince cheerfully when I woke.

I looked about. The sun was high in the sky. The Prince had started a small fire and sat by it looking at his book. I sat up on one elbow and watched him. He was
reading.
I was struck dumb with amazement.

"I have been industrious while you slept," the Prince said virtuously. "I cleared out my saddlebags so as to make them lighter to carry. What a quantity of old roots and bits of plants there was within! I cannot think how they came there; it must have occurred during the fight with the Ogresses."

"You—-you what? Old roots, do you say? Bits of plants?"

"Aye. They made the bags quite heavy."

I looked wildly about us. "What did you do with them?" 1 demanded.

"O, I carried them down to that lake we made from eggshells and threw them in. They made a tremendous splash," said Sir Spick-and-Span happily. "Do you know, the lake is still there. I wonder if 'twill always remain, and will the people hereabouts name it after us? That is," he said discontentedly, "if there
are
any people hereabouts. It seems the most dismal wilderness to me."

"You threw them in the lake?" I said in dangerous tones. All of them?"

"I did," the Prince said, beginning to look a bit wary of me. "Was that not your wish?"

"Considering that Your Highness has flung away our food supplies for a week, no, 'twas not my wish."

"Food? O no, Goose Girl, 'twas not food, but only dead plants and suchlike."

"What, pray tell, does your lordship think that food
is,
save dead plants and suchlike?"

The Prince looked crushed. "Ah. I see. I am deeply grieved. I—I did not think. 1 have contributed many a bird to the pot at home, but I am ignorant of cookery else."

"In certes, sire, I hope that you will contribute a bird or two to
our
pot, else we shall starve," I said grimly.

The Prince had turned pale and sat silent staring for a time at the fire. "I perceive that I am naught but a burden to you, Goose Girl," he said at length. "In the cottage of the Ogresses I unwittingly betrayed you in the matter of the scissors, and now I have destroyed provisions carefully gathered by you for our flight. I am most humbly sorry."

And indeed, he seemed to be so. There glimmered a tear in his eye and I remembered that he was little older than I was myself. I felt much like weeping as well. I could, of course, find a few of those plants as we traveled, but this was different country here in the hills than below us in the Ogresses' valley; 'twas drier, with great towering trees and little underbrush.

The Prince stood up. He replaced his book within the saddlebags and withdrew his bow and his arrows, those that were left from the encounter with the Ogresses.

"I am generally accounted a good shot," he said. "I would have gone in search of game while you slept, did I not fear to alarm you by my absence when you woke. I will not fail you now."

He looked up at the sky, fitting an arrow to his bow. A bird was flying overhead. 'Twas white as snow, and fair. Swift as thought he drew the bow tight.

"No!" I shrieked. "No!"

The bow twanged and an arrow sped forward, heedless. Silence. Then a cry that would haunt my dreams.

Little Echo tumbled to our feet, an arrow in her chest.

"Murderer! Go thou hence and leave me!" I sobbed, hunched over Little Echo's poor white corpse.

"I am sorry, Goose Girl, but how was I to know 'twas one of
your
Geese?" asked the Prince, looking nervously about himself at the other eleven Geese, who were landed, and now formed a menacing circle about him. "I have
said
1 was sorry more times than I can count. What else would you have me do?"

"Leave me," I repeated curtly.

One of the Geese — I think 'twas Lydia-the-Loud—nipped at his foot. Stealthily he aimed a kick in her direction, but desisted when he saw that I was watching.

"Go," 1 said, and pointed toward the direction we had come. "Go away."

"Nay, I will not," he said, shaking his head.

"Sire, you promised to do my bidding. I bid you go."

"I will not. Stand back, birds," he said, waving his arms at the Geese in an aggressive manner.

"What of your honor? What of your word?"

"O, aye, I know, but 'tis complicated, Goose Girl."

'"Tis most assuredly
not
! I bid you go. Now go!"

He shook his head decisively. "I have done you wrong, Goose Girl, not once but thrice. Three times have I harmed you, though I never meant to. I cannot now leave you without making amends."

"
Four
times," I corrected him.

"Nay," he said, puzzled. '"Twas but three." He knitted his brows and counted on his fingers. "One: that I did let the Ogress know you possessed the scissors. Two: that I did lay waste our food supply. Three: that I did kill your most dearly beloved Goose."

"The tower, Prince. Pray do not forget six months' detention in the tower."

"But that was for your protection! Were you not well treated?"

"O, well treated! Aye, Your Majesty, I was well treated save for the fact, the small, insignificant fact, that I was robbed of my liberty."

The Prince grew red in the face. "Would you rather have lost your liberty in the King's dungeons, there to languish until your death? Your life has been a sheltered one in the forest, Goose Girl, so perhaps it is not surprising that you know little of men. I must tell you that the King"—he lowered his voice and whispered in my ear for fear of eavesdroppers in this vast unpeopled wasteland—"is not a nice man." He shook his head. "No indeed, Goose Girl, not a nice man at all. I may say no more to one of your sex and lack of experience."

Nearly choking with rage, I cried, "Then why did you not bar him from your country? Why do you allow him to bring soldiers upon your lands to menace your subjects?"

"Because his army is larger than mine," said the Prince simply.

I was silent, having no ready response. Eugenia butted me with her head, wanting attention, but I pushed her away.

"Marriage to me," the Prince said, "was the greatest, indeed the only, security you could have. If you did not choose it, why then, you were best off in the tower, where the King would have to declare open warfare and bring a great force of men in order to capture you.

'And, do you know," he went on, sounding a bit hurt, "I thought that you might be quite pleased to marry me. My councillors tell me that my hand is greatly sought after both at home and abroad. I was much criticized, in fact, for offering to marry you, though you brought so much wealth. I might have married the Princess Chlotilde of Broome and thereby united our countries. Instead I chose to marry a Goose Girl who was coveted by the King of Gilboa, which put my life, and the welfare of our country, at risk."

So the Prince had realized how dangerous our marriage would have been to him. And yet...

"Do you mean to say that my gold and diamonds had naught to do with your courtship?"

"O well," he said, blushing, "perhaps a trifle."

He grew gloomy. "Now for certain sure they are most tremendously wroth because I would go in search of you. If
I die, Old Pennyfavor—he is chief of all my father's councillors, and the fussiest old fudgeon you ever did meet—-Pennyfavor will be so annoyed if I die. I am the only child of my father, who, as you may know, is failing in health."

Since I had been born a subject of the Prince's, I quite naturally did know. "Humph," was all I could find to say in reply. Penelope nibbled at my fingers and honked dolefully, but I ignored her.

"So far as my other misdeeds are concerned, I have nothing to urge in excuse, save ignorance. Indeed, I am sorry about your Goose, Little—What did you call her?"

"Little Echo," I muttered sullenly.

"Well do I understand your feelings, having recently lost a most tenderly loved horse under particularly horrible circumstances."

I flushed uncomfortably and began, "Your Highness, that stew was not—" when Simple Sophia bit my arm.

"Stop it at once, Simple Sophia!" I cried, abandoning my explanations to chastise my Goose.

"Nay, Goose Girl, but I think—indeed I am certain, that your good Geese in their wisdom are trying to tell you something." He smiled and pointed at the body of Little Echo.

I whirled about, furious. What, pray tell, could the Prince find so amusing in that pathetic sight?

"See? She stirs. She is not dead at all."

I cried out and dropped to my knees beside her.

"Soft! Have a care, Goose Girl. She may not be dead but she is surely sore wounded."

The Prince had removed the arrow in the first dreadful moments after she fell. The bleeding had stopped, and so I had assumed that she was no more.

"O my poor Little Echo! She was wounded less than a fortnight ago, in much the same place. Tis a great wonder she did not die."

"The wonder is that I did not hit her square. I would not wish you to gain a poor idea of my skills as a marksman. You must have joggled my arm as I released the arrow, Goose Girl."

I regarded him coldly. "So I must hope, my lord." I returned to consideration of Little Echo's needs.

'Twas difficult to continue being out of charity with the Prince, however. He was so pleased at Little Echo's having rejoined the living, so genuinely helpful in fetching water to be heated over the fire and rigging up a comfortable bed inside the saddlebags in order to carry her with us when we left in the morning, that I had not the heart to dislike him further.

I wanted to carry Little Echo myself, naturally, but now that the Prince had got rid of our food, there was far more room in the saddlebags than in my sewing kit.

We were headed home, to Dorloo. I knew not where else in the world to go. The cottage of the Ogresses, where once I had thought to live, was now inaccessible behind a mountain of snow and a great lake. I had the Prince's word, for
what it was worth, that he would defend my right to remain a single woman. Perchance I might find some other cottage in his realm, far from the border to Gilboa, where I could live in strict retirement and thus escape the King's notice.

And so in the morning the Prince cheerfully shouldered the saddlebags and walked off down the ridge with nary a sigh or moan over Little Echo's weight, which was not inconsiderable. I walked beside him and the other Geese waddled placidly ahead of us. Our stomachs were not quite empty, for I had found a good quantity of acorns which I roasted over the fire and a handful of berries to sweeten our repast. The Prince had grumbled a bit over the coarse and scanty nature of the meal, but catching my eye, he fell silent.

As we walked along I asked him, "Why, Your Highness, did you follow me, and why did not the King? And how did you manage it? We flew, my Geese and I, and left no trail. How did you track us through air?"

The Prince opened his mouth and then closed it. I had confused him with too many questions. I rephrased my inquiry.

"I pray you, my lord, tell me what happened after I escaped from the tower."

The expression on the Prince's face cleared at once. "We were much amazed," he began, "when we perceived the featherbeds rising from the tower. We had no thought of you being upon them, as we believed you to be within your chambers. You were
supposed
to remain within your chambers." He frowned at my willful ways. Although," he added,
"now that I think on it, you might have grown a bit dull, always remaining within those few apartments. In truth, 'twould have been enough to drive me mad. Was it dull for you, Goose Girl?"

"It was, sire."

"I gave you a little bird from the Canary Islands, thinking that it would cheer you; what happened to it?"

"The King killed it, sire."

"Ah! I am sorry for that. Well then, when once I found that you were gone, I followed you, only pausing to demand a goodly store of provisions from the cook ere setting out to rescue you. I am of an impetuous nature," he said, smiling in a self-satisfied manner. 'Also, had I returned home, they would not have let me go."

"And the King, sire? What did he say when he knew I was gone?"

The Prince looked discomfited. "I may not say."

"Sire?"

"His—his language," he said, obviously much embarrassed, "'tis not fit for a maiden's ears."

"I see. And after he cursed me roundly, then what did he do?"

"He went home."

"Home?" I said, my hopes rising. "Do you mean that he has renounced all claims to my hand?" Perhaps, just perhaps, I might go to my own home again and live in peace.

"As to that I could not say. What he said was that he had other fish to fry, at present."

I pondered. "What," I wondered aloud, "could he mean by that?"

"I do not of course know, but 'twas my belief that he meant the peasant rebellion. I thought mayhap that would be occupying his time and attention for the immediate future."

"Which peasant rebellion, my lord?" I asked patiently.

"Why the King of Gilboa's peasant rebellion, of course. Really, Goose Girl, I had not thought you such a clumperton. Who else have we been discussing?"

"Do you mean to tell me that those poor, oppressed people have risen up against the King after all?"

"They have. Do you know, I rather think it may be unwise for a ruler to spend a
great
deal of time away from home, especially if he is not much loved by the populace. The populace may get the idea into its head that 'twould be possible to muddle along without him. Which idea may be decidedly dangerous for the ruler, you see.