Fly_Goose Girl Retold Page 4

  Yun bowed reverently. "Thank you, Mother. I will do as you say."

  "Have you given any more thought to finding a bride?" she asked wryly.

  He bowed lower still. "No, Mother."

  "When we have solved the mystery of the missing lady, I will find you a bride."

  "As my Empress wishes." Yun touched his forehead to the floor at her feet before rising to go. "In the meantime, I must return to my post on the walls."

  Thirteen

  Onward Ava plodded, pausing every dozen steps to push Lagle higher onto her horse's back so she would not slip off. She would have given everything she owned to be riding full tilt along the dusty army road with Bianca to the Summer Palace.

  The thirst she thought she'd quenched raged again, but she could do nothing about it except hope that the journey would be over soon.

  The forest ended as abruptly as it had begun – on the banks of another river, or so it seemed, for this one was wider and deeper than the one they had forded several hours back. There would be no fording this river, so it was a mercy that a wooden bridge spanned the watery barrier that would otherwise keep them from the city.

  Until they emerged fully from the forest, trees had hidden the city walls, which rose up higher than those of Ava's father's palace. Why, she could see men marching atop them, armed with bows and spears. Whispering a prayer to the ancestors that the men would not see two women as invaders to shoot at, Ava led the horses onto the old bridge. The paint had long since faded and cracked. Much like the road that led to it, the bridge had fallen into disuse. Perhaps Ava should have prayed for the bridge to hold them so that they might reach the city – never mind the men on the walls.

  Falada turned skittish, having to be coaxed over the bridge with soothing words and repeated tugs on the reins before the warhorse would follow Ava to the open city gates. She was so preoccupied with the horses that Ava didn't see the approaching guard.

  "HALT!"

  The authoritative shout undid all Ava's efforts to calm Falada. The horse reared, throwing Lagle to the cobbles.

  The guard who'd presumably shouted jumped clumsily out of the way of the horse's flailing hooves – no mean feat, given he was covered head to toe in armour.

  "Get your animal under control!" he growled.

  Ava wanted to say that she'd had them under control until he startled them. What kind of barbarians were these people, causing trouble and then blaming her for it? Surely it was a man's job to protect women, not frighten their horses and shout at them.

  Unless he was a true barbarian, the kind that would ignore the fact that Lagle lay on the ground, more injured than before.

  Ava slid to the ground, keeping a firm grip on the reins of both horses as her lifeline to the civilisation of home, as she went to where Lagle lay in a crumpled heap. Her head wound had resumed bleeding.

  "Look what you've done!" Ava cried, lifting her bloodied hand so he could see it. Tears trickled down Ava's cheeks and she was helpless to stem the flow. Would he throw her to the cobbles next?

  "This is a city gate, and it's my job to guard it, mistress, letting no enemies inside," the man said. "Be you friend or enemy?"

  "We have done nothing to you. Nothing. And you…she…do you have someone who can help her? If you fetch a physician, someone who knows how to care for her…" Ava dissolved into tears again. She might not like Lagle, but she had no desire to see her sister die.

  "Mistress, I am a guard. I can't leave the gate unguarded. My captain would – "

  "Berate you if he knew you'd let a woman die while you argued with a girl at the gate," another voice finished for him. The second man wore similar armour to the first, though his seemed to fit him better, with a shine to the leather that caught the sun. "Fetch a physician. I will find out what kind of threat a two-woman army presents to the city." None whatsoever, the dark eye slits of his helm seemed to say.

  "Begging your pardon, sir, but if one of the women was Da Ying, she could take the city single-handedly, or so the stories say." The first man hesitated, then bowed. "I will get that physician." He hurried away.

  The new man cocked his head as he surveyed Ava. "You're smaller and younger than I'd expect of the legendary Da Ying. But I am told appearances can be deceiving. Is that who you are?"

  Ava peered up at the man through the veil of her tears. "I've never heard of her. I am Princess Ava, the daughter of King Chinggis, and we've been sent to forge an alliance with your king." She struggled to lift Lagle off the ground, but she wasn't strong enough. "If she dies, my father is likely to consider this as an act of war if you don't help her!" Her words ended in a sob.

  "I think we have more than enough war for two kingdoms right now. Though you might want to remember we have an emperor, not a king, when you meet him." The man crouched beside her, slid his hands under Lagle and lifted her effortlessly into his arms as he straightened. Covered in mud and blood, her clothes torn from two falls, Lagle looked more like a beggar than a princess against the leaping fish tooled across the front of his breastplate. "I will see that your maidservant is cared for. Is there anything else you desire, Princess? Or do you wish to be presented to the Emperor immediately?"

  Ava's mouth dropped open. Why would she be presented to the Emperor when Lagle was…was…

  She swallowed. Lagle was unconscious, injured, and in no fit state to be presented as an emperor's bride.

  "I would like to freshen up, and make myself presentable," she managed to say. If she took long enough, perhaps Lagle would wake and recover sufficiently for an audience with the Emperor.

  He nodded. "I'll have some of my men form an honour guard to escort you to the palace, where apartments will be prepared for you." He gestured toward another guardsman, issued his orders, and marched off with Lagle still in his arms.

  Ava opened her mouth to protest, but a crowd of men surrounded her, taking the reins from her nerveless fingers. The memory of waking up beside the pool silenced any urge she had to speak. Meekly, she went with them without saying a word.

  Fourteen

  Yun's favourite part of guard duty was walking the walls, even before his mother had ordered him to do so. Officially, he was watching for invaders, and from that high vantage point he could see so far, some days he could see clear to the mountains, on the rare occasions when they weren't shrouded in cloud. Striding along the walls gave him a sense of purpose, for if war came here, he would happily fight to protect his home.

  Today, the mountains hid their crowns, and the people of the city went about their normal business. All except one woman, by the sound of things, whose shrill voice rang through the streets like a warning bell. Curiosity drove Yun to investigate.

  The woman – scarcely more than a girl, judging by her diminutive size – struggled to keep two horses under control while she tried to lift a woman from the ground. A guardsman stood by, speaking to her but not offering her any assistance. Yun hurried down to the gate, shaking his head in an attempt to banish the image that suddenly plagued his mind – one of the women penned up in his brothers' camp. These two were nothing like them, judging by the richness of their clothing under the dust.

  Why would two women travel alone? They had not even a single guard to see to their safety. Perhaps they, like Baron Dong, were the sole survivors of an enemy incursion.

  The same incursion that had killed the owner of the silk gowns? Yun's blood ran cold. These women still had their saddlebags, so they could not be one and the same.

  As Yun approached, it quickly became apparent that the larger girl was unconscious and injured. Sending the guardsman for a physician also gave him the excuse of questioning the girl to assuage his curiosity.

  He knelt to lift up the injured girl as he asked the younger one what her name was. If he knew where she was from, Father might be able to send troops there to prevent further bloodshed.

  He almost dropped her companion when he heard the girl's name.

  "I am Princess Ava, the daughter of
King Chinggis." She stood tall and proud, as Yun would expect of his enemy's daughter, and she surprised him again by insisting she came in peace.

  Yun was lost for words. He managed to babble something about how he would take care of the unconscious girl, before he remembered himself and asked the princess if there was anything she wished of him. He prayed silently that she would not ask for anything that he, as the Emperor's youngest son, could not deliver.

  He breathed a sigh of relief when all she asked for was a place to wash, and an audience with the Emperor.

  Yun rounded up a squad of guardsmen to act as her honour guard, sending a runner ahead to make sure an apartment would be prepared for her. He carried the unconscious girl to the palace gates, before passing her to some servants. They could find suitable accommodation for her and see that a physician tended to her injuries, whatever they might be.

  He had one last task to complete to keep his promises to the foreign princess. He strode into his father's throne room, whistling a folk song about geese.

  The crowd of petitioners parted for him, some more willingly than others. Yun didn't stop whistling until he'd reached the foot of his father's dais, where he sketched a quick bow that he knew would scandalise the courtiers even more.

  "Chinggis sent you a gift, Father," Yun said.

  The Emperor's tolerant smile turned into an expression of thunderous anger. "More heads? Or hands? If he thinks to butcher my people, he will pay dearly for it."

  "Two heads, four hands, attached to two lovely young women, actually," Yun said. "One of them claims to be his daughter."

  "And the other?" Father demanded.

  Yun shrugged. "Unconscious, and not saying much. I think she might be the Princess's maid."

  This only seemed to darken Father's mood. "Keep them apart. Send their belonging to the Empress, and make sure she knows to search them. The Horse People are treacherous by nature and the women are worse than the men. Especially the witches. Did she cast a spell on you? Or touch you at all?"

  Yun burst out laughing. "If she'd cast a spell on me, how would I know? And of course I touched the maid. I carried her into the palace, for the unconscious girl couldn't walk, and the Princess was too small to carry her." He sobered when he remembered the Princess. "The Princess seeks an audience with you. I had her shown to a guest chamber so that she might bathe before she comes before you. What am I to say to her when she asks for her clothes? You cannot think to invite her to come to court naked."

  Several men laughed, but the Emperor did not.

  "Have your mother send something suitable," Father said, waving his hand in dismissal.

  Yun considered sending a servant, but his father's attitude toward the Princess and the Empress nettled him. An empress was not some common maid, to paw through a guest's clothing or source a gown for a girl. And the Princess was no witch, he was certain of it. If she was, she would have enchanted the guard and sneaked into the town unseen instead of causing the scene where he'd been forced to intervene.

  Yun executed a mocking bow. "As the Divine Emperor wishes, for his smallest whim must be obeyed."

  He heard his father's snort as he marched out of the throne room, toward his mother's apartments.

  The Empress was waiting, as though her spies had already told her the news. Yun didn't doubt that they had – his mother knew everything that went on in the palace.

  "I thought you would be too busy to visit me," Mother said before Yun could even offer a greeting. "Carrying a girl through the city streets into the palace, getting bespelled by witches, and upsetting your father." Mother set down her embroidery. "Are you in love with the girl?"

  It was Yun's turn to snort. "The Princess's maid? No."

  Mother's eyebrows rose. "So you believe that the girl is a princess, the daughter of Chinggis?"

  Yun considered for a moment. "She didn't bow or lower her eyes or any of the things I'd expect from a lower born woman. And the way she said it…I believed her. If she'd wanted to lie, she would have said she was the daughter of one of our allies, not the daughter of such an enemy. Why, my brothers would have killed her on the spot once they heard her father's name."

  "Does this princess know who you are?"

  "Everyone knows my armour. Who else carries the leaping fish?"

  Mother shook her head. "Everyone in the palace, maybe, but not all of the common people know it. How would a foreign princess know that you are a poor fisherman?"

  "I'm not a poor fisherman," Yun protested. "I fished that koi out of the ponds myself, with no help from my brothers. I lay there for hours, waiting for it to take the bait. It was only when I tried to pull it from the hook that it leaped, flying so high it reached the top of the waterfall. It must have swum upstream to the river, for I never saw its like in the palace gardens again."

  "None of your brothers would have borne the insult, armour made to immortalise your defeat. Yet you…"

  "It's good armour," Yun said. "Chao intended to shame me, I am sure, but the joke was on him when I wore the breastplate anyway. What use is a youngest son but to make his elders laugh? Perhaps I should sharpen my singing skills so that I might entertain you all at dinner." He didn't mean to sound so bitter, but that's the way the words came out.

  Mother laid a hand on his arm. Such small fingers were surprisingly heavy when they carried the weight of a mother's love. "You are not useless, Yun. Perhaps you have yet to find your purpose, but I pray it shall reveal itself in time. How goes your poetry?"

  "It goes poorly. All I can see is carnage, Mother. The blood on the battlefield. The honour and glory and all the things that go with victory elude me." Despair welled up. He would never be a poet.

  "Describe the Princess for me."

  Yun hadn't heard right. "What?"

  Mother repeated patiently, "Describe the Princess for me. What manner of beast does she remind you of?"

  A beast? She was a girl, a woman, not some coarse creature. And yet the idea took root, spreading through his thoughts. "A bird of a girl, small and light and delicate, but with a sharp tongue and a shrill voice." Yun smiled at the memory.

  "What kind of bird?" Mother demanded.

  "Not an eagle. She is no hunting bird of prey. Yet she is no seed-eating sparrow, either. She is a caged songbird, I think. Her colours do not blaze the brightest, and her song is not the sweetest, but she belongs. Yet from looking into her bright eye, you know she is watching the door, waiting for something to change so that she might be free."

  Was she? The vision of the Princess as a bird flying from her cage felt so right, it was hard to doubt it. Yet he did not doubt the vision had leaped fully-formed from his own imagination.

  Mother's eyes were upon him, searching his soul, it seemed. "When your father meets this girl, I shall be in court. And so will you."

  Yun knew better than to protest. Besides, he'd get to see the Princess again, and see how she compared to the songbird in his imagination.

  Fifteen

  Ava was led to a sumptuous apartment that would have satisfied the Queen – much too grand for her, Ava wanted to say, but perhaps this kingdom was richer than her father's. This might be an ordinary chamber in an emperor's palace. Lagle was surely just as well accommodated. If not, Ava would soon hear of it, the moment Lagle awoke. For she would wake. She must.

  "Do you wish to wash, mistress?" a female voice asked.

  Ava whirled, to find a half dozen maids bowing low, each bearing a bundle of fabric. They bowed again in unison.

  "Ah…yes," Ava said, looking for a jug and a bowl.

  "Follow me to the bath house, mistress," the same voice said, and one of the maids turned and led the way out of the chamber.

  When Ava entered the bath house, she wished she hadn’t. The ornate bath inside was big enough to swim across, or to hold at least a dozen people. Lagle would love it, Ava was certain. As for Ava herself, she felt the maid’s eyes upon her as she forced herself to undress and enter the bath as if she was used t
o this kind of luxury. To her relief, the water was warmer than the pool outside her father’s barracks, so she managed to slip beneath the surface without showing too much of the un-princess-like panic welling up inside her.

  At least fishy thoughts seemed more natural in water, she thought to herself as she scrubbed away the dust from the journey.

  All too soon, she was clean, and she surrendered her body to the army of maids who had returned. They dried, patted, perfumed and dressed her in finery that she definitely didn’t recognise. Judging from the way the maids fluttered around her, up to and including three of them dropping to the floor with needles and thread to raise the hem of her gown, Ava assumed the clothes were new garments made especially for Lagle, who was almost a head taller than Ava and somewhat stouter, too.

  Ava considered telling them that they would have to unpick their work when Lagle awoke and demanded her dress back, but she decided against it. Let Lagle give them the bad news. Ava had enough to worry about, being presented to the Emperor and all. Being presented as his possible bride, if Lagle didn’t recover.

  A shiver ran through her at the thought, one that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. What if she was like the heroine in one of Bianca’s stories, and the king fell in love with her, naming Ava as his bride instead of Lagle? For one thrilling moment, Ava imagined herself as a queen, no, an empress, seated upon a throne with a crown on her head. Were crowns heavy? With so much gold and jewels, surely it would be a heavy burden on one’s head. She had heard that her father preferred a military helmet because it did not weigh so heavily on him as a crown.

  If even her father complained of it, then wearing a crown must be a heavy burden indeed. Far too heavy for Ava, a princess so insignificant she would live out her days in service to Lagle.

  The weight of this thought brought Ava rapidly out of her reverie. She shook her head, resolving to think braver thoughts, as Bianca had advised her. Lagle might marry the king, but there were surely princes and noblemen who might marry her and whisk her away from her miserable fate as Lagle’s maid.