"Perfectly," said Lily, with great satisfaction. "We have beef and chicken, and goose, too, but Robin wants deer in storage, and some wild fowl — "
"The house has a larder that preserves anything put into it and keeps it at the state it was when it went in," Robin said gravely, turning away from his cooking for a moment. "You've heard us speaking about the house growing? And you recall from yesterday that Madame Elena is now the Godmother for Kohlstania as well as her other Kingdoms? As a Godmother's responsibilities grow, so do her obligations, and we believe that we may be required shortly to be able to play host to visitors. I wish to have something more on hand than the ingredients for simple country-fare."
"And we don't hunt," Lily concluded. "If you do, and you're good at it, then Godmother thinks you're ready to have the bounds taken down so you can go hunting."
A few months ago, that pronouncement would have set his plans for running into motion. What more could he have possibly asked? He was being made free of the forest and fields, with a weapon in his hands! No matter how far away Kohlstania was, he was certain he would be able to find his way there.
Of course, that was before he learned — thanks to what had happened to Octavian — that the Godmother was perfectly capable of putting a curse on someone that would make him wander in circles until she cared to collect him.
He might still have considered making the attempt to escape, but — no. When he left this place, he wanted it to be because he was deemed ready to go. Like Octavian.
"I'd prefer fowl, to begin with," Robin was saying, interrupting his thoughts. "Since I don't believe we'll be seeing more than one or two important visitors at a time, at least at first. Frankly wild boar is no tastier than domestic swine, and we have plenty of farmers prepared to sell or trade us for pork."
"I'd like to be deeper into fall before I hunt deer," he replied, "and since we're hunting for the pot, I would prefer to draw them to a bait-spot where I've set up a blind, anyway. It might not be as sporting, but it will give me a better chance to select a target, and the best chance for a clean, quick kill. I'll leave the does and the King-stag, given my choice, and cull out some of the younger bucks."
"That sounds like a fine plan." Robin nodded agreeably. "Hob?"
"Finished your plate?" Hob asked, and at Alexander's nod, said, "Come with me, then. We'll get something that suits you, and I'll point you in a good direction for some fowling."
It was to another of the outbuildings that Hob led him, one that was no bigger than a gardening shed on the outside, and in fact, the last time Alexander had looked at it, it had been a gardening shed, empty but for a few pots. But when Hob opened the door —
"Ah, I thought that might've happened," Hob said with satisfaction.
Alexander knew he should not have been surprised, and yet he foolishly was. Outside was a shed he could have circled in ten paces. Inside was a royal hunting-lodge, with polished wooden floors covered with bright carpets, polished wooden walls adorned with hunting-trophies from all manner of animals (including a span of antlers that must of once belonged to a creature the size of a small elephant), and furnished with massively constructed chairs and benches. And there must have been a second, perhaps even a third floor, since there was a staircase beside the door. There were no windows on the outside. Ten enormous glass windows on the inside let in the light from a landscape of stunning beauty, a wide meadow studded with flowers on one side, and a forest with tall, graceful trees of no species he recognized on the other. It was mountainous, too, the purple, snow-capped mountains rising above the trees at the far edge of the meadow, and of course, there were no mountains within sight of the Godmother's cottage....
"Good place for putting visitors," said Hob matter-of-factly. "'Course, the Great Fae can come a-visiting by coming through here, an' they choose." And as Alexander stumbled across the threshold, Hob strode the length of the lodge to the racks of hunting-bows on the wall at the far end — which also had a door in it. "Come along, lad!" he called over his shoulder, reaching for a longbow. "You'll want to check the pull on these for yourself."
Alexander hurried across the room, which did not show a single sign of wear, dust, or occupancy, and took the bow that Hob had selected; it was a thing of beauty, the work of a master craftsman, who had not wasted time, skill or the strength of the wood on foolish carving or inlay-work. It was a thing of perfectly polished simplicity, the close grain of the wood speaking for itself, the surface like satin. Only the ends were sweetly capped with silver-chased fittings. Alexander nocked the string and tried the pull.
"Too light," he said with disappointment, for it was an otherwise exquisite piece, and had roused an unexpected avarice in him.
"Aye, well, you've muscled up a bit since you came here," Hob replied, with a smug smile. "Doubt you could still fit in that candy-soldier tunic you showed up wearing." And before Alexander could react to that statement, Hob handed him another.
This one, just as fine as the first, differing only in the chasing on the silver tip-caps, was still a bit light. But the third choice felt perfect, and Hob took down a quiver full of fowling arrows and a second of target-arrows, and led him back outside again.
"Have you — seen that place before?" Alexander asked, as they set up a target at the bottom of the garden.
"Oh, aye, back when the Godmother here — that'd be Madame Beaubaton — was the first mortal after the Fae Godmother, the Emerald Fairy," replied Hob, eying the distance between Alexander and the target. "Back up a bit, lad. I think you'll find with that pull you have more distance to work with. Aye, by rights, she should've been a Sorceress, should Madame, but she was more minded to the herding of things, so to speak. Happens that way, sometimes. Them as should be Sorcerers decides they want to be more active. Said she didn't care to sit on a mountain and wait for a Great Quest to set things aright when she could nip trouble in the bud." He sighed, reminiscently. "That there was the hunting-lodge of the Emerald Fairy, and that's Fae lands you see outside the windows, and since Madame was so powerful and all, the lodge stayed put until we didn't need it again. Last of the outbuildings to shut up, and first to open. Fae can come and go from there, and now, probably will. Oh, aye, we had visitors in them days. Great Sorcerers, mortal Kings, and Fae — needed the room then. Me and the rest, we was under servants then, serving under Ald Kelm, he's Sir Kelm now, if you please, him as runs the Elven Queen's household as her Seneschal now. Never dull, but a mort'o work, I tell you. We scarce need magic now, but then — crikey! Couldn't get through a day without casting till you was dizzy with it, and that was just to keep the stables clean! So many invisible servants the air fair buzzed with 'em!"
"Do you miss it?" Alexander asked, taking careful aim.
"Truth to tell — no. Ah, good! See, I told you that you've got more range with this one." As Alexander took aim again — his first shot having hit the target, but high — Hob continued. "No, I'm a simple fellow, and I like a simpler life. We all do, or we wouldn't be here. But — now, well done there! — that's not to say I wouldn't like things a little livelier. A visitor, now and again, that's a good thing. Seeing some of the Great Fae. Madame Elena's like Madame Bella before her; she's got some good notions, not minded to just react to what The Tradition does, more inclined to do a bit more pushing and a bit less following, if you take my meaning. I'd like to see some of the Great Ones putting some consideration into her notions. But a Court here again? Like Madame Beaubaton and the Emerald Fairy before her? No, no. Now there you go! You've got the range of her now!"
Alexander's last arrow hit dead in the center, and he felt comfortable with the bow now. "Well," he replied. "I agree with you. Now, where do you suggest I go?"
Much to Rose's exasperation, Elena was taking Alexander's place out in the old orchard — though little did Rose guess that Elena was doing so in order to talk with Lily privately. All that Rose knew was that Elena and Hob had decided to see what Alexander would do with the freedom to hunt alone and unescort
ed. She didn't know that this was part of a much larger plan, nor that Lily had gone to see if she could have an audience with the Elven King before the sun rose this morning.
"So, Madame, like you thought, when I mentioned the lad, they took me right to His Majesty. And like you said, I made no suggestions." Lily upended her basket of apples into the back of the cart, and Elena followed it with hers a moment after. "I just said that you were looking for a real trial for the Prince, knowing that he'd recognize all the usual sorts of things, and that you were sending him out hunting today. And His Majesty did give me a look, then told me to tell you that he'd see to it personally." She gave Elena a look of her own; pleased, but wary. Well, she was right to be wary.
Elena shivered a little. "It is chancy, leaving this sort of thing to them," she said soberly. "The Great Fae don't always think like us...." She included the House-Elf in that; Brownies were as close to mortal in their ways of thinking as any Fae could get.
"True enough," Lily agreed. "Whatever trial they give him is going to be dangerous. But letting him wander about in the forest like a donkey would have been dangerous. Sending him off on any redemption trial would have been dangerous. Questing is dangerous — and with all that reading he's been doing, he will recognize just about any trial that you could put him to. That the Great Fae don't think like mortals will just mean that he's not likely to recognize a trial for what it is until after he's passed it."
Or it's too late, Elena thought, but kept that thought to herself.
So they worked on, side by side, with a tacit agreement to say no more about it. If Alexander passed his trial, and if he was the something that the King had been looking for, and if he was so unusual that Randolf was right, and he was suited to remain here, only the King and Queen could make that judgment and mark him in a way that even Rose would respect. Elena knew now, as she had not known when she first came as an Apprentice, that the first Godmother, the Emerald Fairy, was the sister of Huon, the King of the Sylvan Elves of this part of the Fae Lands. He had a particular association with the Godmothers of this place; though his Queen made most of the decisions concerning the mortals who lived here, he had the right of direct intervention whenever he cared to exercise it. But she still worried. Had she been within her rights to call on the Elven King and Queen for this? Had she been within her rights to subject Alexander to that sort of danger? The Fae operated by laws and rules that few mortals really understood. But how else was she to test him? And if Randolf was right about him — how else was she to get the authority to allow him to stay?
Well, it was out of her hands now. And whatever happened, she would have to live with the result — or the blame.
Now this is the way to hunt, Alexander thought, with great satisfaction, as he stood on the edge of a sun-drenched meadow, waist-deep in waving grass, a light breeze stirring his hair.
Hob had outfitted him with moleskin breeches, stout boots, a doeskin jerkin, and a most remarkable game bag. "Made it myself, back in the day," he'd said with great pride — and besides being of fine workmanship, there was another reason for the pride. It was magical; it would hold virtually as much as you cared to put into it, without ever getting an ounce heavier.
Alexander had already stuffed two pheasants and a half dozen quail into it. It was much better than trying to carry around a conventional game bag, or tying the game to your belt. It was better even than having to trail around with a crew of servants to carry what you shot, since a pack of servants always managed to scare off so much game that it hardly seemed worth having them along.
He missed having beaters or a dog, though; having to go it alone, flushing his own game, was chancy. When confronted with a single man, quail and pheasants were as likely to run away under the cover of the grass as they were to flush into the air.
On the other hand, given those circumstances, he wasn't doing badly, and it was wonderful being out here, without anyone looking over his shoulder. It was a perfect day, too; sun bright in a blue sky, air crisp, not enough breeze to give him any serious windage problems.
In fact, he could almost believe that he was a free man, free to do whatever he —
A shriek cut across the peace of the meadow, startling a covey of quail into the air practically at his feet.
They whirred away, tiny wings a blur, presenting him with five clear shots. But he had no time for game now, not when a second scream rent the air, and he knew it for the cry of a woman in terror.
The quail were barely in the air, and he was already half across the meadow, running in the direction from which the scream had come.
A third scream put more speed into his heels, and he burst through a coppice of birch trees to find himself at what was clearly a woodcutter's cottage, with an axe still in the stump and a pile of wood chopped that was as tall as the cottage, and a second and third beside it. A chestnut palfrey in fancy tack was tied to a sapling nearby. He took little more note than that of his surroundings, though — not with the bleeding body of what must have been the woodcutter himself lying facedown on the ground, and a young woman struggling in the grasp of a richly dressed man not thirty feet away.
Without even thinking about it, he had an arrow nocked and flying, and a second one drawn. The first flew right past the man's ear, close enough to brush him with the fletching, and thunked into the tree behind him — just as Alexander had intended.
The man froze, the struggling girl still in his grasp.
She could not have been much older than fourteen or fifteen, and only just woman-ripe. And once, maybe Alexander would have laughed to see this, and gone on his way, for the girl and the man on the ground were only peasants, after all. And had he not come down the path that Madame Elena had laid for his feet, some future, harder Alexander might even have demanded his share of the girl —
But that past Alexander was gone, and the future one erased. And this bastard, be he never so noble, was not of a like kind with the Alexander who stood there with his second arrow aimed for the eye.
The stranger slowly met Alexander's gaze. He was clad in blue velvet and silk, and around his neck was a thick chain of golden links. Otherwise he was nondescript, with short hair cut to fit beneath a helm, and an ordinary enough, moustached face. "Well met, fellow," the man said, coolly. "Come to take a share of the spoils? I saw her first, but you're welcome to her when — "
"Let her go," said Alexander, feeling an icy fury rising up in him at the sight of the poor child's terror.
"I don't think you quite understand the situation here," the man replied, without turning a hair. "These are my lands. I own these peasants. They are mine to — "
"Let her go!" Alexander interrupted with a roar. "Lands you may well own, but people, never! Now unless you want my arrow in your eye — "
The man barked a laugh. "And what if my men have you in their sight? What then?"
"I can drop you before they can reach me," Alexander countered, instantly. He knew it for truth; he also knew that it was unlikely the man would have positioned his men in hiding, if he'd even come with men at all. "If they had bows, I'd be dead already. Assuming they even exist. Now let her go. You have until the count of three, or you die like the base-born cur you are. One."
Slowly the man's grip loosened on the terrified girl.
"Two."
The girl wrenched herself free and threw herself down beside the man on the ground. Alexander did not lower his bow.
"Girl," he barked. "Girl!"
Weeping, she looked up from the victim.
"Does that man live?" he asked harshly.
She nodded, tears streaming down her face.
"Good. Then he'll last long enough for us to find him help — and deal with this dog here. Give him what tending you can, then get you rope from the house."
The face of the nobleman went blank. "Just what, precisely, do you intend, fellow?" he asked, carefully, and the girl ran back to the house.
"Justice," Alexander replied succinctly. "I see by
the belt you wear that you are a knight — or you pretend to that rank. By the laws of chivalry, I could kill you where you stand for the insult you gave that maiden."
The man's face went black with rage, and he shook as he made his reply. "You dare!" he howled. "You dare take me to task for what I do with my cattle on my — "
"Shut your mouth!" Alexander roared again. "Yes, I take you to task, for people are not cattle, to do with as you will, and the vows you swore as a knight bind you to honor all women, be they never so base! And speaking of bind — bind him, girl. Bind his hands behind him, and bind his arms to his body. Then take up that poor man and put him on that horse I see over there." He jerked his head in the direction of the richly caparisoned palfrey that clearly belonged to the knight. "You will lead the horse, and I will prod this dog before us, and we will go to a lady who will see justice done for you, and to this — "
Fairy Godmother fhk-1 Page 33
