Sleeping Beauty fhk-5 Page 13

  "It's not your fault!" Rosa said fiercely. "No Kingdom ever had a better Godmother than you! It's the blasted Tradition, that's what it is!"

  Lily took a deep breath. "Thank you," she said, simply. "I hope you are right. But even if you are not, the fact remains that we must deal with what is on our plate as best we can." Then she smiled a little, taking in the Brownies, Rosa and Jimson, who had appeared to gaze anxiously out of his frame. "And no one could ask for better friends."

  Chapter 9

  Siegfried had been a little overwhelmed at the luxury of the rooms he had been given. Actually, he had been a little overwhelmed from the moment he'd seen the Godmother turn the cart into a coach.

  Yes, he had seen magic. After all, his mother and father were half god. He'd reforged his father's sword in a Dwarven forge. He'd fought and killed two dragons. He'd tasted Dragon's Blood, and getting the gift of tongues was certainly magic.

  But...not magic like this. Not magic that casually turned one thing into something else. The bird had been kind enough to explain Godmothers to him. He wasn't sure his people had a Godmother. For that matter, he wasn't sure that his land counted as a Kingdom; there were no Kings, only Clan Chiefs. And the gods seemed to interfere much, much, much more there than they did in places that had Godmothers.

  He was beginning to have suspicions about his gods. He was beginning to think they were just another kind of Fae Folk. Very, very powerful Fae Folk, but ones who were quite shortsighted and not particularly bright, with a penchant for meddling like a lot of old grannies. Why else would they act pretty much like thickheaded warriors without the common sense of a goose?

  But at any rate, this new sort of magic had fair made his eyes bulge. And then, they got to the Princess's Palace.

  Now...he'd spent most of his time, a good eight years of it, wandering in the wilderness of just about every Kingdom he'd been through. Leaving home that young was unusual, even for a Hero, but he hadn't had a lot of other options — and at least, wandering in the wilderness was relatively safe. On the whole, cities made him feel like a bumpkin, and on the rare occasion he'd done some hero business for a noble or a King, it was generally when he'd followed rumor to a war, or had encountered one of those nobles or Kings wandering on their own in the wilderness. Mostly, when he'd been entertained, it had been in remote stone castles that were not a great deal different in the sort of things you found inside them than the Clan houses he was used to.

  So when he saw the sort of affair they were riding up to, he'd been taken a bit aback. He had to keep reminding himself that if you measured worth in terms of deeds, he was just as good as anyone who lived in a place like this.

  And that had held him right until the servant brought him to his rooms and left him there. Rooms! In the plural!

  He had spent most of his life before he had left his land sleeping out-of-doors, or in a cave, or at best in the sort of one-room Clan house shared by most of his people when they were gathered under the protection of a Clan Chief or a petty lord. Oh, they were big places, really big. Big enough to house a hundred or more. But it was all one big room, with a hearth fire in the center and a smoke hole above it. Impressive, if you were used to tiny cottages, yes, and large, definitely, but they were nothing like the buildings in these lands, and the idea of a bit of space carved out with walls for just one person was laughable.

  After he had left his homeland, well, it had been the occasional room in an inn, where people mostly slept several to a bed, the occasional bunk in the barracks of some notable for whom he had done heroic service, or the occasional cottage, pretty much identical with the ones back home, where he slept on the floor next to the fire in the middle, because as the warmest place, it was the one first offered to guests. Otherwise he slept out-of-doors, or in a cave.

  He had never had an entire room to himself — unless you counted a cave as a room — much less several.

  This was the first time he had spent any length of time with the high-ups of any kingdom in a setting other than a battlefield. The bird had coached him on how to behave, or he would likely have covered himself with embarrassment. The bird on his shoulder didn't seem to give them any pause at all, which was a great help. Then again, half of the dandies, half the old ladies, and half the young ones were toting around a fluffy little thing that they said was a dog, or were followed by whole clouds of the yappy creatures. He had to be very careful where he put his feet. It was a good thing that they seemed better trained than the dogs at home, or he would have had to be very careful about where he put his feet for an entirely different reason.

  He hadn't been in those rooms long enough to get over the shock of them when one of the servants turned up with a big pile of clothing for him. Another shock. All his life, he had had two sets of clothing, the one he was wearing and the one he had just cleaned. Now he had...well, a great deal, and someone was always whisking away what he took off to clean it for him!

  He did like the clothing; it was much like his own, without the armor, and was very practical. The stuff of which it was made was certainly the finest leather and linen he had ever set eyes on. The leather was so soft to the touch it felt like the finest swansdown, and the linen was like warm water on the skin. He'd seen other men here, who were not servants and not Guards, wearing much the same sort of thing, so he knew he was not being mocked subtly. It seemed to be the clothing of choice for a sober sort of man.

  Well, that was all right. He supposed he could be considered a sober sort of man. He would not have wanted all the nonsense and folderol that the other fellow, Leopold, was wearing.

  He did know good table manners, however. He'd picked that up fairly soon after passing out of the Clan-lands and into a real Kingdom. And he also knew how to manage polite conversation — which was pretty much talking about nothing, when you came down to it.

  But he could manage that. The way he managed, even if he didn't understand half of what the other person was on about, was that he simply looked grave, paid close attention, and when their intonation and body language told him they were asking for his confirmation of something they already believed, he nodded gravely, and said either "yes" or "no" as fit the question. And when they looked at him for a simple comment he would nod again, and say "indeed."

  So he had himself a bath — his people were fastidious about baths; they bathed all the time, even in winter, or they'd have been eaten alive by lice and fleas. He was very partial to a good steam bath with an ice-water plunge after. He put on the clothing and went out into the hall, then followed the sound of people until he came to where everyone was gathered — gathered to await dinner, he finally understood. People at this court seemed to wait a great deal. But then, they seemed to have very little to do.

  Within hours he was reasonably popular. The bird said they found him a good conversationalist, which meant, he supposed, that they liked the way he listened and agreed with them. The young women found him fascinating. Maybe it was because all their young men were so spindly. But the few times anyone flattered him, or tried, about his strength, he simply looked somber and said, "Size and strength are not the answer to everything. Cleverness can overcome strength nearly every time. A small clever man can almost always best a strong, dim one." Or, "I cannot take great credit for having a strong father and a sturdy mother."

  As a result, he got fewer black looks from the young Eltarian men than he might have, and a reputation for commendable modesty.

  He also made no attempt to follow up on the interest of any of the young ladies, and devoted himself as much as possible to making friends with their elders. The black looks rapidly diminished to nothing.

  Not that this was from anything other than self-interest in his part. He certainly did not need any smoldering resentment here, and while the young ladies were attractive, he very much doubted any of their fathers would be interested in acquiring a penniless northlander as a son-in-law, however heroic he might be. At any rate, there was only one young woman he was interes
ted in, and that was the Princess. What with that Godmother about, she could be counted on to have rings of magic fire at her disposal. And she might even be persuaded to put on a breastplate for the purpose of being awakened. So far this was the most promising alternative to his Maiden of Doom he'd encountered yet. Provided that she was reasonably interested in having a penniless northlander as a husband, she was certainly comely, definitely practical and had a commendable fighting spirit. These were all good things in anyone, woman or man. Now, since her father was apparently away, trying to stave off a war, if Siegfried could just manage to find out if the Princess found him sufficiently interesting, he had a number of options to think about. The most promising, and the one that made the best use of his talents, was to go off to join her father, and challenge the champion of the other side to single combat. He'd lost count of the number of champions he'd defeated in single combat.

  The only times he'd lost was when he hadn't listened to the bird, and he'd wound up fighting on the wrong side. The bird liked his chances this time.

  It was possible that the father might not care for penniless northlanders, but if that penniless northlander saved his kingdom for him, from everything Siegfried could tell, he was pretty much obligated to offer the Princess in marriage.

  So that was good.

  Leopold, on the other hand, was seemingly in his element, which was more than worrisome. He was equally popular with the young ladies and young men, he dressed the way they did, spoke the way they did and knew how to keep them entertained. In the two days after they all arrived, while the Princess was incommunicado, and all that they saw was that dreadful black-clad glacier of a Queen, he fitted himself right into the very center of things. If there was a big group of people laughing about something, you could be sure he was at the heart of it, telling an amusing tale. He was always in the middle of games — generally not winning most of them, but Siegfried had the shrewd notion that this was on purpose. Siegfried worried that when the Princess finally did appear, Leopold would be far more attractive to her than he himself was. He certainly wasn't going to force himself on her as a suitor. That was not fair. And if she did favor Leopold over him, it would complicate things immensely.

  Of course, as luck would have it, when she did finally recover from her ordeal and make her appearance, there was no chance for either of them to put themselves forward before everything went straight through the ice and into the frozen river.

  Because the very first either of them saw her, it was standing next to Queen Crow while the woman delivered the news that the King was dead, and that she and the Princess were now the rulers. To say that the people of the court reacted like a flock of spooked sheep was to give less credit to sheep than sheep deserved.

  At first, Siegfried couldn't understand why they were acting as if the world-snake had let go of its tail and was about to come eat them all. Granted, it was very sad that the King was dead, and he felt very sorry for the Princess, but there was no need to carry on as if you had just seen the Fedris-Wolf and Vallahalia was in flames.

  Then the bird explained it all, and their reaction made sense. Quite a lot of sense, provided you were senseless to begin with.

  And cowardly.

  And you regarded the King as if you were toddling babes, and he was father who kept the Fedris-Wolf away.

  On the other hand...from what the bird said, he really had kept a metaphorical Fedris-Wolf away. Still, they acted, well...rather stupidly. Despite the fact that Queen Glacier had a very sound plan — and having hostages to prevent other people from acting stupidly was always a good plan, as his people knew very well — once the court had been dismissed, a good half of the people in it reacted with varying degrees of panic. A few actually rushed off, declaring wildly that the only sensible thing was to flee and fling themselves on the mercy of one side or another. Now, since in Siegfried's experience such mercy was generally nonexistent, and since a would-be conqueror could as easily — and with far more profit — declare them to be agents of the enemy, take all their valuables and fling them into a pit, this showed very poor planning on their part. He did try to remonstrate with as many of them as he could, out of sheer pity — for some of them had rather nice daughters and not-so-terrible sons who had not made fun of him to his knowledge. Some of them listened and managed to calm themselves and their families down. Others did not. One declared hysterically that he was going to disguise himself and his family as gypsies in order to escape. Siegfried attempted to explain that gypsies were not much welcome in any kingdom, and that in all events, such a disguise would be quickly penetrated, but the fellow was in no mood to listen to him. He ran off declaring he was going straight to a gypsy camp and buying himself a wagon before anyone else got such a good idea.

  Siegfried had to console himself with the knowledge that he had tried, he really had, and with any luck the fellow would not get more than a day away from the city without discovering that he did not know how to manage a wagon, or drive a team, did not know how to make a camp, and no one in his family knew how to cook over an open fire, or indeed, knew how to cook at all. That did not even begin to cover all the difficulties of passing a wealthy, well-born family off as gypsies.

  At least some gypsy family would certainly find themselves much the richer out of this. And, being gypsies, they stood a very good chance of slipping across the border with every penny intact.

  Still, he did manage to talk sense into some. As he spoke, reasonably, calmly, as he would to a bunch of terrified children, some of his calm communicated itself to them. "The news cannot yet have reached your enemies," he said. "And when it does, it will still take them some time before they can move their armies. Have any of you ever been with an army?"

  He looked around, took in the soft hands, the arms that had never actually borne arms. Oh there were plenty of people whohad at this court, but they were not here, among the ones that were panicking. So, no. They didn't even have to shake their heads. No, of course, they had not.

  He racked his brains for a practical comparison. Wait...he recalled some of the young ladies lamenting that they were going to go to a "summer home" soon. That implied moving, twice a year. That would do. "Well, think about how it is when you need to move your whole family. Yes?" He saw brows furrowing as they tried to imagine how rounding up the family, servants and all was anything like moving an army.

  "An army is like that, only a thousand times bigger. A much more complicated thing to get going in one direction."

  "But disciplined!" said one man, voice breaking pitifully. "All the generals have to do is issue orders, and things get done without any arguing!" Siegfried looked at his rabbity face. No wonder he had been sitting in a chair despairing, instead of panicking and trying to flee. It sounded as if he already knew he couldn't get his family to agree on anything regarding an escape until it would be too late.

  "Yes, but they need to be fed. They need to get their provisions together. Yes?" His expression prompted reluctant agreement. "Then they need to get their equipment. Armies need arrows, bowstrings, spare bows, spears, spearheads. They need horseshoes and horseshoe nails, spare reins, spare wagon wheels. They need blacksmiths and farriers andthose people need supplies. Then they need to be sure of their supply lines, because they certainly cannot take everything they need with them, and they certainly cannot live off their own land because their own people will object to that. So getting them moving takes time." And he pointed out, carefully, that the Queen's messages had not yet had a chance to reach their intended hands, much less produce Prince-hostages. "Prepare to flee if you must," he told them calmly. "But I intend to remain. I expect we will be seeing more Princes soon, and the more that arrive here, the more difficult it will be to attack us without getting other Kingdoms declaring war."

  His calm, he thought, did some good at least, even if his arguments weren't all that convincing.

  Eventually, the remaining people dispersed to meet up with their families and retainers and decide wh
at to do.

  He had sent the bird off to his rooms as soon as all the panic began; he did not want someone to swat her accidentally, and although he could have used her advice, he was a little uneasy about the notion of people watching him talk to her.They couldn't understand animal speech, and it might make them less inclined to trust his sanity. As soon as he was alone, and the Palace had settled for an uneasy night, he went to see if the bird was still awake. She was, though very sleepy. Still, she fluffed all her feathers and got herself alert willingly enough for him.

  "I didn't even have to sing 'Doom!'" she observed. "They were already singing it for themselves. Which is a bit silly, really. There isn't any sign of Doom. But tell me what else happened."

  He told her everything he had learned since he had sent her back here. It was not much, but he was a careful fellow and had learned that the more the bird knew, the better her answers were.