by Cynthia Hand
She stopped walking and turned to look at him. “Acquire a horse, you say? Do you know of any nice, friendly farms just giving away their horses?”
He quirked an eyebrow at her. “You’re a thief, aren’t you?” At least that was what she claimed as her occupation: stealer of chickens, professional bandit, highwayman when the need arose, cat burglar, occasional pickpocket. She admitted easily to her loose association with the law. Edward wondered how one came by that particular skill set at the tender age of seventeen, which is how old she told him she was, but Gracie didn’t answer a lot of questions when it came to her past. She was somewhat evasive about her present situation, as well.
“Stealing a horse is punishable by death,” she reminded him.
“Unless you happen to know a king who could pardon you.”
She set her hand against her hip and he instantly regretted bringing up who he was. Ever since he’d confessed to being king, the girl had been moody. Oh, she seemed to like him well enough most of the time; she was kind and often merry of soul, and sometimes even wonderfully, confusingly flirtatious, but every now and then she’d remember that he was not just her travel companion but the King of England, and then she’d go quiet. Or even worse, she’d get annoyed with him.
Like now, for instance.
“Well, Sire,” She loved to call him Sire, but the way she said it made him suspect she was making fun of him. “You might not have noticed, but you’re not exactly a king around here. We can’t snap our fingers and have a coach with golden wheels and four fine white horses to carry us wherever we wish to go. We have to make do with our own two feet.”
Edward tried to think of a clever reply, but then he had to stop to lean against a tree, because he was out of breath.
Gracie saw the haggard look on his face and turned to squint toward the west, where the sun was quickly descending. “We should stop for the night.” She slung her pack against a nearby stump and started to set up a quick, makeshift camp.
“I could keep going,” he wheezed as she bustled around gathering kindling. “I’m perfectly capable of continuing.”
She ignored him.
“All right, then,” he conceded graciously after she got a fire started. “We can stop, if you feel you can’t go on.” Even as he spoke his traitorous body sank to the ground beside the fire, craving its heat. He closed his eyes. Just to rest them for a moment.
“Are you going to be all right?” Gracie asked.
He opened his eyes and cleared his throat. “Of course. I’m perfectly fine. I only agreed to stop because I know women need to rest more often, on account of your delicate constitutions.”
She snorted. “All right, then. Wait here. My delicate constitution and I will be back soon.” She bent to remove her boots. Edward tried not to ogle her shapely feminine ankles (a sight that would have been indecent in the royal court, as a woman’s ankles were considered scandalously provocative at this time), but he couldn’t help staring.
She had lovely ankles, he thought. Very nice.
Gracie glanced up like she’d felt his gaze. “Would you like to paint my portrait, Sire? It will last longer.”
He flushed and looked away, which was a good thing, because then she turned her back to him and quickly removed the rest of her clothes and was therefore completely naked for all of three seconds, which he just caught a glimpse of in his peripheral vision before a light flashed, and where Gracie had been standing there was a small red fox, complete with pointed ears, whiskers, and a bushy, white-tipped tail.
Yes, Gracie was a fox. No, really. She was. Literally. (We know. It’s too good.)
The fox slipped away into the underbrush, silent as a shadow.
Darkness fell. He watched the stars come out. The rain had finally stopped, and a gentle breeze was blowing, cooling his face. An owl hooted from somewhere in the trees. It was a beautiful night. The kind of night that makes you pensive. And Edward was alone.
It should be mentioned that Edward wasn’t accustomed to being alone. In his life before, it’d been exceedingly rare for him to have even fifteen minutes to himself. He’d been the glorious sun with an orbit of men revolving constantly about him. Men to watch that when he ate he did not choke. Men to help him onto his horse. Men to teach him Latin. Men to comb his hair. Men to refill his glass when it was empty, which it never was, because he had men to fill it. Even while he slept there’d been men standing just outside his door to guard him.
And now here he was, completely alone. He found this situation both euphoric (he could scratch himself and no one was looking; no one was judging him—no one!) and unsettling. (What if he choked?)
Edward could have used this time to think about many things: to consider his next move in finding Helmsley and his grandmother and a cure for the poison, to reflect on the nature of trust and betrayal and how hard it was even as king to find good, reliable help these days, to plot a way to regain his kingdom, or at the very least to worry about how his little cousin Jane was doing at that very moment, facing down Mary’s army. But Edward didn’t think about any of that.
He thought about Gracie. How she was a fox (but Edward was not aware of this little irony, as to our knowledge the term fox, used to convey the attractiveness of a woman, was not invented until Jimi Hendrix sang “Foxy Lady” in 1967). How she was, undoubtedly, a thief (but it was all too clear to Edward that although Gracie was definitely a criminal, there was nothing common about her). And how he very much wanted to kiss her.
This last part he found astounding. Gracie was the least appropriate girl in the world for him to receive his first kiss from; he knew that. He was the King of England. She was a Scottish pickpocket. But still, impractically, impossibly, he wanted to kiss her.
She was the one, he’d decided. The lucky girl he was going to kiss.
Now all he had to figure out was how to make said kiss happen.
Usually, when Edward wanted something, he simply had to ask for it. He had no doubt that back at court, if he’d wanted a woman to kiss him, all he would have had to do is say, Lady Suchandsuch, I wish you to come over here right now and press your lips to mine, and his wish would have literally been her command. He wouldn’t have even had to say please.
But this was different. First off, as Gracie had so generously pointed out, he wasn’t much of a king around here. Secondly, if he came right out and asked Gracie to kiss him, he had a feeling that she would laugh in his face. And thirdly, he didn’t just want to kiss Gracie. He wanted her to want him to kiss her.
But how could he make her want him to kiss her? It had seemed to Edward that she’d been at least slightly interested in the prospect of snogging back in the barn. She’d looked at him that way. He shifted uncomfortably in front of the fire. But after that she’d immediately tried to get away from him. But then she’d been helping him. But then she was always leaving him alone.
Women were complicated creatures.
The bushes rustled and Gracie-the-fox stuck her head out and gave a funny little bark, the cue for Edward to turn away again so that she could dress. He stared down at his feet as the E∂ian light flashed and Gracie-the-girl snatched up her clothes and disappeared again into the forest.
When she finally emerged, she was carrying a dead rabbit and a bundle tucked under her arm. She tossed him the bundle.
Edward unfolded it eagerly. Whenever she left him for a time, she always returned with something they needed: a pair of pants, to start with (because that had been Edward’s biggest shortcoming), followed by a battered cloak, a linen shirt, and a warm woolen blanket. A loaf of bread here. A flask of water there. A slightly rusted but otherwise decent sword. And, the pièce de résistance—boots. A fine, supple pair of boots in exactly his size. How she had pulled that off, he had no idea. He thought it best not to ask.
This particular bundle turned out to be a pair of mismatched socks.
“Thank you,” he said, immediately kicking off his boots to put them on.
�
�You’re welcome.” She didn’t look at him, but sat down on a stump across from the fire and drew from her belt a hunting knife with a beautiful pearl-encrusted handle. Edward felt a bit sick as she made a cut in the rabbit’s belly and then pulled its skin off in a single smooth motion. Before this, most of his food had been served to him already dressed and prepared and looking like food, not like some poor defenseless animal.
He remembered the field mouse he’d eaten as a bird. His stomach grumbled unhappily. He turned his attention back to the socks.
“Oh, there’s a hole in the toe,” he discovered.
“Is there?” She didn’t glance up from where she was now gutting the rabbit. “I suppose you’d like me to mend it for you?”
“Yes, that’d be nice,” he said, pleased. “When you get time.”
“And you’ve let the fire go down, so you’ll be wanting me to stoke it up again.”
“Whatever you need to cook the rabbit,” he answered.
“And should I press your shirt while I’m at it?”
“It is a bit wrinkled,” he admitted, although he wasn’t sure how she would manage it.
There was a gross plop at his feet—rabbit innards. He gasped and looked up to find her standing over him, feet apart, green eyes furious.
“I’m not your serving wench!” She shook the skinned rabbit under his nose. “I said I’d help you, and I will, but I won’t be ordered about. You’re not my king, and I’m not your subject. So don’t you be telling me what to do.”
He blinked up at her, taken aback.
“I wasn’t—I didn’t mean to give you orders, or make you do all the work. It’s just that I . . .”
She folded her arms across her chest.
“I’ve never had to look after myself before,” he muttered to his feet. “I don’t know how.”
She was still for a moment, and then he heard her move away. When he dared to look up again she was roasting the rabbit on a stick over the fire, her black curls all tumbled about her face and shoulders, her expression grave as she stared into the flames.
His heart sank. She hated him. She was probably thinking about what was the fastest way to be rid of him.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly.
She lifted her head and met his gaze, her face aglow with firelight. “I’m sorry, too,” she said at last. “I shouldn’t have bitten your head off. I’m just touchy on the subject, I suppose.”
“The subject?”
“Of English kings.”
“Oh.” He gave her a weary smile. “Well, that I’ve noticed. But I think my head is still attached. Last I checked, anyway.”
Her dimples appeared; she was trying not to smile back. Hope flooded back into his chest. Maybe she did like him.
“I suppose it’s not your fault,” she said. “You must be used to people waiting on you hand and foot and tripping over each other to serve you.”
“Yes.” But he hesitated to tell her about how often he’d felt trapped in a gilded cage by all of that attention. How he’d yearned to accomplish things on his own.
“And you spent your days passing royal decrees, not working to keep yourself warm and fed,” she added.
He shrugged. “I left most of the decree making to my counselors.” He’d always found the running of the country to be about as interesting as watching grass grow, so he’d mostly delegated it to others. It’s what they were there for, he reasoned.
“So what did you do?” she asked. “Eat, drink, and be merry, all the livelong day?”
“No.” He scoffed, but he was thinking of the way he’d started each day as king being dressed by his servants, his morning meal taken in his private chambers on a literal silver platter, then off to his hours of lessons with the most impressive tutors of the realm. Then lunch. Then he’d spent the afternoons (before his illness had struck him, anyway) playing tennis or practicing at archery and swordplay. He was fairly good with the lute, too, and sometimes he’d perform little plays with his grooms. And sometimes he’d gone hunting. For deer. And bears. And (gulp) foxes.
It occurred to Edward then that in some ways he’d always been preparing to be a king, instead of truly being one.
He cleared his throat. “So, how old were you,” he asked, to change the subject, “when you discovered you were an E∂ian?”
“Oh, I’ve always known it,” Gracie answered. She turned the rabbit slowly to its other side. “My ma and da were, and all my aunts and uncles and cousins and such. It would have been a great disappointment to me if I’d turned out differently.”
“But when did you know you were a fox?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Many Scots are foxes. And harts and hinds, martens and roes, the beasts of the chase, we are. Why else do you think the English have taken such pleasure in hunting us?”
Gulp. The English, aka Edward. Although he considered the bad blood between England and Scotland to be completely his father’s doing, certainly not his own, except for all that business with Mary Queen of Scots. He shuddered. “So why are you helping me, if you’re Scottish and I’m English and we should be trying to kill each other?”
She lifted the roasting stick from the fire and drew out her knife again to divide the rabbit. To answer his question, she said, “I’ve always had a weak spot for the truly pathetic creatures of this world.”
“Thanks,” he said wryly, and promptly burned his tongue on the rabbit. “God’s teeth, that’s hot!”
Gracie handed him a flask of water, which he took gratefully.
“So tell me about this granny of yours who’s going to save the day.” She had the sense to blow on the meat before she began to eat it, and for a moment Edward just watched her. “Your granny at Helmsley?” she prompted.
“Oh. She’s the old Queen Mother,” Edward explained. “My father’s mother, Elizabeth. She was supposed to have died half a century ago, even before my father became king. But they only told the people she’d died, when in truth they spirited her to Helmsley, where she’s been ever since.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s a skunk.”
Gracie snorted with laughter. “A skunk?”
“An E∂ian, in the time when it was illegal to be an E∂ian,” Edward continued around a more careful mouthful of rabbit. “But my grandfather loved her, he truly loved her, so rather than burn her at the stake he decided to stage her death and send her away. We’d take a trip out to the country to see her every few years, Mary and Bess and I, and my cousin Jane a few times, too, since Gran is her great-grandmother. She’s so old—she’s got to be nearing ninety now, I’d say—and she has no decorum whatsoever. Once, she made Father so angry that he turned into a lion, and we were afraid he’d devour her, but then she turned into a skunk and sprayed him right in the face. It took weeks for him to be rid of the smell.”
“Sounds like I’m going to like her,” Gracie said with a grin.
“Jane and I adored her. She loved to play games with us. It’s her face on the cards, you know, whenever you draw the queen of hearts.”
“Is that so?” Gracie was already done with her rabbit, and flung its bones into the brush. She always ate quickly, without anything resembling manners, as if she might have to flee at any moment. Edward, on the other hand, was taking time to savor his rabbit. He was finding this fire-cooked food better than anything he’d been served in the palace, because now when he ate he was always so hungry, and he could feel the food giving his body strength that he desperately needed. This food was giving him life.
“So is it really only a day left before we arrive at Helmsley?” he asked when he was finished.
“If we don’t run into any more problems.” Gracie sucked at a bit of rabbit grease on her fingers. “But, like I’ve said time and again, we could get there much faster if you’d only—”
“And I’ve told you time and again,” Edward interrupted. “I’m not going to become a bird and ride on your shoulder like your pet. If it were so simple as that,
I could change and fly straight there, couldn’t I? I could leave you behind.”
“Well, don’t be staying on my account.” She leaned back on her arms and gazed up at the stars. “Fly, then.”
“I can’t,” he admitted. “I don’t know the way.”
She made a sound like a chuckle.
“Besides,” Edward continued lightly, “I suppose I’ve come to enjoy your company.”
It could have been hopeful thinking, but the Scot seemed pleased at this announcement. “Have you, now? Well, I suppose I like your company as well, when you’re not being a spoiled brat.”
“Oh, thank you very much,” he muttered.
“You’re quite welcome. But you should fly away, if you can. Helmsley wouldn’t be very far as the kestrel flies.”
He shook his head. “When I’m a bird, I forget myself. I forget everything but the wind and the sky. I’m just flying, floating above it all, and it’s the best feeling in the world. I’m not sick. I’m not king. I’m free.”
She’d moved closer to him when he spoke of flying, her expression pensive. She gazed up at the stars, and he tried not to be distracted by the alluring arc of her neck. “It does look lovely up there,” she murmured. “I’ve often dreamed of flying.”
“But I lose all sense of time and purpose when I do,” he continued. “Does that happen to you when you change? Does the animal take over?”
She looked thoughtful. “I do have foxy thoughts, sometimes. A love of holes. Of running. The squawk of a chicken just before my teeth sink in—” She blushed and showed her dimples again, eyes dancing in the firelight.
He pretended to stretch his arms, in order to shift even closer to her. (This isn’t in the history books, of course, but we’d like to point out that this was the first time a young man had ever tried that particular arm-stretch move on a young woman. Edward was the inventor of the arm stretch, a tactic that teenage boys have been using for centuries.)
Gracie didn’t move away. The kiss might have happened then, but at that exact moment the wind shifted, sending a cloud of smoke from the fire into their faces. They both coughed, of course, but Edward coughed and coughed until his vision blurred. Curse Dudley and his poison and his plan and all this wretched coughing, he thought. No way she’d kiss him after he just hacked up half his lungs.
