Sleeping Beauty fhk-5 Page 18

  But although they had thought through the sheep problem, they had not thought about the eggs, nor the difficulty of handling them in heavy metal gauntlets. Very shortly all three of them were cursing and covered in bits of shell and spattered egg. Their return trip was going to be quite...fragrant...as the raw eggs aged ungracefully in the heat.

  Rosa only hoped they weren't getting egg inside the armor. That would be rather nasty. Meanwhile more riders were appearing with every moment, and more sheep being released, and the ensuing chaos as riders left their horses at a run, only to be confronted with a sea of swirling sheep, was hilarious. It was a giant white wooly whirlpool, in which every sheep had only one urge — not to get away from the flank of its neighbor.

  Some just stood and stared. One very large man had evidently decided that the only way to deal with the problem was to tackle it as he would another unarmed warrior. Which was to say, he was tackling the poor sheep.

  Or to be more precise, he was trying to. Sheep, it appeared, were able to evade tackles fairly well, and he ended up facedown on the turf time and time again as the flock swirled away from him. When he finally did manage to seize one, he caught it firmly around the middle and hauled it up off the ground — except that the poor thing was upside down, bleating pathetically while he tried to ignore the fact that he had a smelly sheep's rump right in his face. Doggedly, he hauled the bleating, struggling, unhappy animal to the pen, dumped it in and went after another.

  Another fellow had the idea that he was going to toss a loop of rope over each sheep's head and lead it to the pen one at a time. This was, in theory, a good idea. The problem was the sheep were not cooperating. He'd get the rope almost over the beast's head, and it would toss it off again. He kept trying to get closer and closer to it, talking coaxingly, but what he was cooing to them were the vilest, funniest epithets Rosa had ever heard. Evidently the sheep's father, mother and grandparents for the last hundred years had gotten up to some interesting assignations if you believed the incredible words emerging from this man's mouth....It was a wonder this beast still looked like a sheep.

  "You really shouldn't be listening to that," Lily murmured, her eyes sparkling with suppressed laughter.

  Other men were just attempting what the big man was doing, and the herd swirled faster, in further confusion, sheep leaping over each other in alarm as armored men lunged at them. Finally some of the men realized that once the designated three sheep had been herded up for those who had the foresight to hire shepherds, those shepherds no longer had a job to do. In other words, there were an increasing number of shepherds standing around laughing at them.

  But shepherds standing around were shepherds who could be hired now. At least the sheep got a chance to settle down, as the princes converged on the shepherds and began desperate bargains with them, the bids rising higher and higher as each one tried to gethis sheep to be the next in line.

  Then more riders arrived. One, an extremely handsome fellow — Prince Desmond, Rosa thought — clearly had some magical charm to help him; he simply walked up to three sheep and touched them, and they followed him as if they were lambs and he was their mother. She narrowed her eyes and concentrated, and sure enough, she saw a sort of green-brown glowing tether reaching from their foreheads to his hand. Magic. Another had a different sort of charm; he flung some sort of dust at them, and wherever the dust fell, a sheep fell asleep. This wasn't magic, per se...it must have been some sort of herb. He put halters on three and led them to their pen; the stuff didn't last long, since the rest of the sheep woke up pretty quickly once he was working on the eggs.

  Oh yes, the eggs. Some of the men had clearly thought the egg problem through and had brought various things to pick up and move the eggs with.

  Others...had not. And they waited like hungry ducks, watching the wiser fellows, ready to beg the use of their tools when they were done.

  Rosa made a note of who took pity on his fellows and gave them the tools, and who did not. "I'd like to add a point for whoever shares his egg-things," she said quietly to Lily, who nodded. "Not penalize for not sharing, but reward for generosity."

  "That's a good idea," the Godmother replied, and designated a Brownie to keep track of just that. Prince Desmond, interestingly enough, had neither tools, nor trouble. Rosa wondered if he had another magic spell to keep the eggs from breaking. If so, it was so minor she couldn't see it from this distance. Well, that was not against the rules, and it was a good idea...though it also made it impossible to say whether he would have shared or not.

  Then up rode Siegfried and Leopold, who dismounted and took down those bundles of greenery from behind their saddles, and immediately it became clear what the bushes on the backs of their horses were. Fodder.

  "Interesting," Lily said quietly. "I would have expected them to try hay, which sheep will only eat in the winter. But those are bean plants, which sheep love."

  "Do you suppose that Siegfried went and listened to sheep to find out what they like?" Rosa wondered aloud.

  "I would not be in the least surprised." Lily leaned forward and watched them keenly. Leopold and Siegfried, instead of going to the milling, frightened flock, went to the sheepfold and asked for six sheep that were not in a panic to be released. And as the gate was opened, they stood side by side and thrust the bundles of fodder in the sheep's surprised faces. Then, still side by side, they backed away. The sheep were hungry, the men were not acting like predators and the bean blossoms must have smelled delicious. They managed to lead all six sheep, step by careful step, across the space between the sheepfolds and into the pens. While not as fast as the shepherds and their dogs, it was efficient, and clever.

  Then they went and dealt with their eggs, just as efficiently, using a spoon and some sort of scoop. When they were done, they generously gave the tools over to two of the other Princes without even being asked.

  "Very kind," Lily murmured.

  Then just as calmly as they had arrived, the two men got on their horses and galloped off. A slow gallop, meant to eat distance without tiring the horse. Rosa felt like applauding.

  But the distraction of new riders turning up and trying even more ploys on the hapless sheep was too much, and she turned her attention back to the trial. Several of the men finally decided to be herd dogs themselves, banding together to chivvy all their sheep at the pens at once. Which was fine, and a good idea, but the pens weren't made for more than three sheep each, and the wooly idiots all tried to crowd into one, met the fence, panicked and began leaping over each other's backs to get out again.

  It became very clear that eventually what was going to happen was that, short of more magic, or someone who actually knew what to do about the sheep, the Princes were going to keep paying the shepherds to take care of the problem for them, and there were going to be enough discarded implements to get the eggs moved into their lines. Rosa glanced over at Lily, who nodded. They used the mirror to get back to the one set up at the starting line, which was now the finish line.

  There were already some of the first arrivals there, with the clerks that Lily had left in charge. These were not the ones who had arrived at the sheepfolds first; their mouse-horses were not exhausted and they were mostly clean of egg. Prince Desmond was among them, standing a little apart from the others, his expression pleasant but unreadable, as he waited for his own horse to be brought to him.

  "When this is over, those shepherds back there are going to be able to hire more shepherds to do their work for them," Leopold said to Siegfried, as they rode toward the finish line. "In fact, their dogs are going to be able to hire dogs!"

  "And a flock of their own to mind." Siegfried chuckled. He was in a very good mood. He and Leopold had gotten through the first trial in good order, and now that they were on their way back to the finish line, he was extremely pleased with where they were. The mouse-horses seemed pleased, too; they loped along at an easy pace, just about a slow gallop, only a little warm and not at all winded. In fact, he and Le
opold were passing the occasional rider whose mouse-horse was refusing to get above a trot, horses whose necks and flanks were spotted with dried flecks of foaming sweat. "I think they may be the ones who made out the best out of all of us."

  "You're probably right. Still, I have to say, this was not so bad when we used our heads. And your business with the fodder worked a treat." Leopold grinned at the Northerner, who grinned back.

  "We could have moved twice the number of eggs with your spoon trick." Siegfried had no trouble returning the compliment. "All things considered, we should do very well in these trials if they are all going to require us to use our heads. You and I are rather good at that."

  The horses made a snorting, snickering sound.

  Leopold laughed. "Face it, we are geniuses." Then he sobered. "This gave me a good chance to measure our real opponents, actually. I think I've pinpointed five of them that could give us some serious trouble, and I don't mean mere honest rivals..." He shook his head. "I don't much like them. They are clever, no doubt of it. They all thought to hire shepherds. But they went at this as if we were all on a battlefield, and I'm not entirely certain they didn't do some bashing in the pack on the race-leg out. Grigor is as cold-blooded as a snake, and Karl looked like he was ready to kill three of the sheep and chuck the carcasses in the pen."

  "The rules didn't say the sheep had to be alive...." Siegfried replied, and shook his head. A chill passed over him, as if the sun had gone behind a cloud for a moment. "I get the feeling that if that one had thought of it, there'd have been mutton before you could say 'knife,' and never mind the shepherd. I expect to see some more trouble out of Karl. And we should watch our backs carefully anytime he is near."

  Leopold rode on in silence for a moment; they were far enough from any other riders that the only sounds were the pounding of their own mounts hooves on the sod, and their rhythmic blowing as they galloped. "Themas and Peder might kill each other. Did you see the way they glared at each other? Fairly made my blood run cold."

  "And Stenoth looked like he'd kill the lot of us if someone offered him enough to do it." Siegfried patted his horse's neck, more to comfort himself than anything. Karl might murder you in a conflict, but Siegfried had the impression that Stenoth would be willing to do so in the dark, when you were least expecting it, if he thought he'd profit from it. "That mademy blood run cold."

  "Desmond seems like a good chap. Look, there's the line — " Leopold waved ahead of them, where a faint line of color against the green of the commons had resolved into a line of tiny figures. "Desmond seems much better than the five. Look, they've brought the carriages up already to the finish line." Leopold pointed at the distant crowd at the point where they had started, and sure enough, the carriages that had brought them all here were pulling up to take them back to the palace. "Hmm. We'll have to share with four other fellows, the way we did when we came in." And since Leopold and Siegfried were still in the front half of the middle group —

  "There's going to be a lot of egg-going-bad about." Siegfried slowed his horse to a trot and looked down at its ears. "So, mice, would you be willing to take us all the way to the Palace so we don't have to put up with that?"

  The mouse-horse he was riding flicked his ears. "As long as it's at a walk," the Magic Beast replied, sounding amused. "We'd have to walk back there anyway, since we aren't going to be restored in front of everyone. That would be giving part of the game away."

  Leopold's mouse-horse glanced over at Siegfried with an amused glance. "I wouldn't want to be in those carriages. How did you know we were mice?"

  "A little bird told me," he laughed. The mouse-horses snorted.

  "Don't worry. I've no intention of telling anyone else. The Ice-Queen is also the Godmother, isn't she?"

  Leopold stared at him as if he had gone mad. "Where did you get the idea that the Queen is also the Godmother? That's pre — " Then he stopped, blinked and sucked in a breath.

  "Bloody hell," he said. "That's clever. That is damned clever. That is astonishingly clever. It lets the Godmother run all this without anyone knowing she's doing so. No one can cry 'cheat.'"

  More than clever, as Siegfried well knew, and not just because it allowed the Kingdom's Godmother to appear to be aloof from this. It might be one of the reasons why the Princess was alive. The bird had been telling him about The Tradition off and on for years, but this was the first time he'd been able to use some of the things she'd told him to sort out someoneelse's situation. That was why he'd first realized that the Queen could not possibly be as evil as she seemed. If her stepmother really had been a Traditional Evil Stepmother, Rosamund would not even be there. The Queen would be the one making the choice of consort, Rosamund would probably be dead. And probably the trial would be much, much smaller, limited to the five enemy princes, and going on for quite some time as she played them against each other.

  "How did you figure that out?" Leopold asked him, his eyes narrowing. "And don't tell me a little bird told you."

  "I'm astonished. I think you're getting smarter!" the bird sang from above them. She dipped her wings in salute. "I think I may be a good influence on you!"

  "Well..." Siegfried felt rather embarrassed, as not only was Leopold staring at him, the ears of both horses had swiveled to catch what he said. "Partly it was because the Princess isn't nearly as intimidated in her presence as she should be, and partly that the Queen isn't doing the sort of things I would expect if she really was bad. Do you know what I mean?"

  "Not.. .really..."

  Siegfried rubbed his eyebrows, because with the helmet on he couldn't reach his hair to run his hand through it. "I'll tell you what. Let's get to the Palace, get rid of this armor and go find a good bathhouse. I'll tell you there." He cast a slightly nervous look at the crowd they were rapidly nearing. "You never know who's listening."

  Chapter 13

  Siegfried's people might have been barbarians by some standards, but they were quite fastidious about cleanliness. Every Clanhouse had a bathhouse attached, and bathing was not a luxury; it was needful. In the winter, the bathhouse was one place you knew you could go to get warm when you were half-frozen, and when your clothing tended to be made of wool and fur, it was a good idea to deflea and delouse them and yourself quite regularly. Bathhouses, as Siegfried knew from experience, were excellent places to have a conversation that you didn't want overheard. The bath attendants would cheerfully put you to soak or steam, and then leave you alone, especially in summer. The walls of a bathhouse were thick to keep in the heat, and usually made of stone or entire logs, which had the effect of preventing most eavesdroppers from listening through walls.

  The bathhouse attached to The King's Arms was no exception, with walls at least as thick as Siegfried's arm. It had several small rooms with two tubs in them rather than one big soaking pool, but that was the only way it differed from most of the others Siegfried had seen. The idea was that you scrubbed down, the attendants doused you with buckets of water to clean off the soap, then you soaked in the hot tub. The tubs were very much like oversize barrels, and you soaked in hot water up to your neck in them. Siegfried would have preferred a northern-style steam bath, but this would certainly serve to soak out the aches of riding. He knew how to ride of course; he just didn't do it often. Drachenthal wasn't suited to horses, so he hadn't actually learned until he left his homeland, but even after he had learned, he preferred not to travel in the saddle. He tended to lose horses, actually. Or rather, people tended to shoot them out from under him. He would get fond of the one he had, only to have someone decide that the best way to get rid of the big blond hero was to kill the horse under him. It got disheartening after a while.

  He was just settling in for a nice quiet soak, prepared to think about nothing for a while, when he was interrupted by Leopold taking him at his word and bringing up the subject of the Godmother again. "So," Leopold said softly, "tell me what gave you the idea that Queen Sable was the Godmother."

  Siegfried eased hi
mself back in the water, bracing against the side of the tub. It was hard to pinpoint exactly where his suspicions had started. "The name, maybe. It's just a small thing, but it was what made me wonder in the first place. It was...too obvious. Too blatant. Who names their daughter 'Sable'? The name is both the color black and a nasty little weasel that lives in the north. King Thurman was supposed to be no fool, and you would think he would see someone named Sable and avoid her at all costs. He wouldn't marry her. And if someone was named Sable, whether she was born with that name or took it on herself, and if she wanted to marry King Thurman, you would think she would know that and use another name."

  Leopold considered that, as the steam from the water rose up around his face. "All right. That's got some logic to it, although I think you could be reading far too much into a name. What else?"

  Siegfried couldn't blame him for being skeptical. Leopold wasn't able to understand the bird, and it was likely he was having second thoughts about leaping to the same conclusion. He would have to be very careful about mustering his arguments. "It seemed strange to me in retrospect that the Godmother rescued the Princess, delivered her to the gate, then vanished, and only then did Queen Sable appear." Time to elaborate on that statement. "I would have thought that the Godmother would have stayed to have some sort of confrontation with the Queen, warn her that the Princess was under her protection. Wouldn't you?"