“How thrilling!” Gretel declared to the woods. An image flashed through her mind of the glamour of a hunting party. There would be sleek, prancing horses, ridden by brave and sporty men, no doubt turned out smartly. Perhaps they would be accompanied by ladies in sumptuous riding habits wearing fetching veils, their cheeks flushed attractively but showing not a jot of fear as they cantered gracefully after the hounds. There might be a dozen of those black and tan dogs, eagerly tracking the scent of their prey, baying with excitement. It might even be a royal hunting party! In which case there would be handsomely uniformed soldiers, and the horses would be tacked in the very finest leather, trimmed with brass or silver. And there would be more than a simple bugler; there would be extra musicians, and courtiers, and minor members of the royal family, and no doubt a whole entourage following on with an elaborate picnic for after the hunt.
“Marvelous!” Gretel announced, standing up and craning her neck to listen better. There was the horn again, and even the shouts of the huntsman urging on horses and hounds. And now she could clearly make out the hungry cries of the pack as they picked up the scent of some poor creature. As she listened the sounds grew louder. And it was just as Gretel experienced a fleeting moment of pity for the animal that was being tracked, just as she briefly but vividly imagined the hounds upon it, sending it to ground, leaving it no escape, just then that a terrible, queasy thought took hold of her. And would not let go. For a terrible thought that has its roots in truth and fact and the inevitability of a chain of events that will lead to an unavoidable conclusion will not easily be shaken off. And that thought was that that prey was … herself.
There is nothing like fear to lend wings to the heels of even the most reluctant runner. Gretel tore through the woodland undergrowth, heedless of the brambles that clawed at her or the nettles that stung her, so focused was she on getting as far away from those now-terrible toothsome hounds as possible. She tried to tell herself that they were not trained to hunt people, and so would not, ultimately, tear her limb from limb. But at the same time she knew she must smell of nothing so much as a woodland creature herself by this time. And a terrified, sweating one at that. And was it not the smell of fear that drove hunting animals to a frenzy of bloodlust that would be sated by nothing less than a kill? Or would training prevail, and the dogs be brought meekly to heel by the huntsman? It was too great a risk to put the theory to the test. She could not trust someone else’s skill, nor the fickle nature of any animal whose natural will had been bent to suit man’s wishes. She had no choice but to run and to keep on running. It soon became clear to her, however, that she would not succeed in outrunning the pack, no matter her head start. She must outwit them. Spotting a brook she recalled the knowledge that scent could not be tracked through water and flung herself into the stream. It was not, mercifully, the swift torrent of earlier in their journey, but shallow and tame. The cool water revived her a little as she splashed through it, seeping its way into her boots. She was aware of Jynx bumping about on her wig as he held fast while she ran.
The horn was sounded.
The hounds were in full cry.
The huntsman hollered view-halloo!
The water dragged at Gretel’s ankles even as she pulled herself up the bank on the far side. For a moment she lay panting on the riverbank, her wet nightdress gathering a coating of dusty soil that turned to mud upon it. She lurched to her feet and ran on. Glancing over her shoulder she saw the rich dark colors of hounds’ coats in the frighteningly close distance, and fragmented glimpses of colorful riders between the trees. At that moment Gretel was not sure which fate would be worse: to be savaged by the pack, or exposed to the scorn and ridicule of the hunting party.
She was horrified to hear the sound of the paws splashing through water. Her subterfuge had failed. Gasping, she looked around for some other means of escape. A twisty tree presented itself, one of the few that, not being a narrow, towering pine, offered its low, broad branches as if a ladder. She grasped the lowest boughs and hauled herself upward. Her boots enabled her to tread boldly on the knots and rough bark, but her nightdress and short cape gave scant protection, so that her limbs were soon scraped and scratched horribly. Her sweaty fingers slipped as she tried to grasp a smoother branch, and she only succeeded in pulling herself up onto it on the third attempt. With the pack now circling the base of the tree and leaping and snapping at her, she was at last able to straddle the chosen bough and sit, clinging tight, praying that the hounds were poorer climbers even than she was. She had only ever before seen hounds from afar, streaming picturesquely across the landscape. Up close, with the sharp end pointing at her, they were nothing more nor less than slavering beasts intent on murder. She wondered when they had last been fed. Or if the wretched things were fed at all. Perhaps they relied upon killing their prey if they were to eat. Even so, it was hard to feel sympathy when they were viewing her as dinner.
The huntsman’s shouts preceded him into the small clearing. He called to his pack with a firm voice that seemed to calm them a little. He was accompanied by another rider, a member of the hunting party, riding a glorious black stallion, wearing the uniform of one of King Julian’s personal guard. A uniform that included a cape of rich burgundy. With a gold silk lining.
“Not now!” Gretel muttered to herself. “For pity’s sake not here!” For she knew too well the broad shoulders, the slim hips, the long legs, and the shapely calves in their fine leather boots, even though from her perch it was hard to see the rider’s face. Only one man had such a figure and sat a horse so well. Only Uber General Ferdinand von Ferdinand.
“Fraulein Gretel, can it be you up there?”
Evidently he had a better view of her, more was the pity.
Gretel sat up as straight as she could, mustering what remained of her battered dignity. She lifted a hand to straighten her wig and felt the furry softness of Jynx still nestled there. She told herself silently that it is not what you wear that matters, but how you wear it. A philosophy she had never, in fact, subscribed to before. Now, however, seemed a good time to start. Her supporting branch chose that moment to sag unhelpfully low. The hounds increased their snarling and snapping, bringing forth words of stern rebuke from the huntsman.
“I am investigating a case,” she told Ferdinand. “I am working in secret, not wishing to reveal my identity,” she added, in the hope it would explain her outlandish appearance.
“Indeed? You certainly look like something in disguise.”
The bough dropped suddenly another arm’s length. Gretel held on tight.
“I wonder if you would be so good as to tell your man to call off his hounds … ?” she asked.
“But of course.” The general gave the command, and the huntsman, somewhat reluctantly, Gretel noticed, gathered his pack and took them back in the direction of the party.
“Thank you so much,” said Gretel. She made no attempt to get down, knowing how undignified her descent was likely to be. Looking back through the trees she could see elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen seated upon their pretty horses, waiting to see where the chase would take them next. She willed them to stay where they were. Any closer and she would be discovered by the entire gathering. To compound her discomfort, she spotted Ferdinand’s fiancée among them, riding a snowy white horse with pink ribbons plaited through its mane. She was wearing a habit of the dreamiest sky blue, which set off her golden hair coiled beneath a matching veil to perfection.
Gretel had always made it a policy not to waste time and energy hating someone she had never met, however terrible their misdeeds. Ferdinand’s intended, it had to be said, had not committed any misdeeds, as far as Gretel knew, but that didn’t stop a boiling hatred stirring within her breast. She became aware Ferdinand was watching her.
“Are you acquainted with the Countess Margarita?” he asked.
Gretel ground her teeth. A title was just about the last straw.
“As I said earlier, I am here on business, going a
bout important work in my capacity as a private detective. I do not have time for chitchat and small talk with …” She searched for a description that would not put her forever beyond the pale, but that would make her feel better having used it, “… people,” she finished lamely, feeling considerably worse for being so feeble.
The general smiled his infuriatingly handsome smile. “Of course, I understand entirely.”
“Do you?” she snapped. “I don’t think that you do.”
“Oh, I am not as slow on the uptake as I look.”
“Now you are fishing for compliments.”
“Fishing and hunting at the same time?” He laughed. “I’m not that clever.”
“No? It is as well you have found yourself a clever bride then, isn’t it? Together the two of you will be almost as clever as …”
“You?” He continued to smile.
Gretel could only manage a scowl.
“Please, Fraulein, allow me to assist you in getting out of that tree.”
“There is no need.”
“Truly? You look a little stuck.”
“I am not. I am perfectly comfortable. I am up here the better to survey my surroundings and observe points and facts salient to the case upon which I am working,” she told him, fervently wishing that she had not been interrupted by the hounds mid-pee.
“I see. So, you don’t want me to help you down.”
“Thank you, no.”
There was an awkward pause.
She looked down then and met his gaze, and her already weakened knees weakened further, for he was looking at her with what she believed was true tenderness and warmth.
“Fraulein,” he began, then, more softly, with some yearning even, “Gretel … I have wished to speak with you for some time. I would not want you to think …”
But what he didn’t want her to think would remain a mystery, as at that very moment came shouts and cries and a great clamor and commotion from the hunting party.
“The king! The king is hurt! King Julian is injured! Fetch the apothecary! The king, the king!”
Ferdinand’s expression turned grave. He looked over toward the hunt and then back up to Gretel.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I must go. The king …”
“Yes of course. You must. Go, go!” she dismissed him with a wave and what she hoped was a brave-but-touchingly-forlorn-and-I-don’t-care-if-you-know-it smile.
He wheeled his horse around and urged it forward. Gretel watched him plunging through the woodland, galloping to the aid of his master.
TWELVE
Gretel did not attempt her descent from the tree until she was certain the royal hunting party had departed. Fortunately they were entirely taken up with getting their injured king back to the Summer Schloss and therefore not in a mood to tarry. From overheard shouts and commands Gretel gathered King Julian had dismounted to stretch his rather frail and creaky legs and one of the more excitable horses had trodden on his foot. Not a sufficiently terrible injury to bring about a change of royal backside upon the throne, but enough to send everyone into a flap, not least the rider of the errant horse, whose future was less certain. Gretel slid from the bough as carefully as she could but still sustained further scrapes and bruises. At least her own blundering tracks were easy to spot and retrace, taking her back to where she had left Hans.
“There you are!” he cried upon seeing her. “I was on the point of setting out to search for you.”
“So I see,” Gretel replied, looking pointedly at the fire he had going and the pixie pastries warming upon it.
“Well, I thought about trying to find you, and about not knowing which way you might have gone, or why, or how far, etcetera and so forth, and then I thought, No, Hans, you are cleverer than that!”
“You did?”
“Yes, I deduced … see? You are not the only one to be able to do that, sister mine. I deduced that you would not have strayed far from camp, for it was nearing snack time and you wouldn’t want to miss that. I further deduced that you hadn’t raised the alarm, therefore there was nothing to be alarmed about.”
“Brilliant, Hans.”
“And my final deduction led me to action …”
“… which was to start cooking?”
“I knew that the smell of good food would bring you back.”
Gretel wanted to pull her brother’s reasoning apart and stick pins in all the pieces, but she was too weary, too battered, too tired, and too cast down to be bothered. Instead she lowered herself gingerly to the ground close to the fire. “Your investigative methods may be suspect, Hans; happily your culinary skills can be relied upon.” She waved at the steaming pastries. “Pass me one of those before I lose the will to live, would you?”
Hans pushed his rather misshapen hat a little farther back on his head and leaned over the low flames, expertly retrieving a pastry with two hazel twigs. He had at last been able to remove his eye patch, thanks to the poulticing, which stopped him looking quite as peculiar as he had, but he now sported spectacular bruising and swelling, such as might have been sustained in a boxing match. With a sigh Gretel realized that she probably looked no better than he did, with her disheveled hair, sullied wig, wholly improper (not to mention soaking wet) attire and now scratched and bruised limbs. What was more depressing was the fact that she could not see a way their situation would improve, either easily or soon. They would simply have to plod on, stick to the map, and find the place she believed the sorcerer would be. Unless the man was a complete idiot (and there was still room for doubt and hope on this score) he would be holed up in a modicum of comfort, and therefore might be able to obtain clothes for them, at the very least. Their situation was not helped by the increasingly sticky weather. The air was now thick with the promise of a thunderstorm. While a freshening-up of the day would be welcome, Gretel knew they were not equipped to withstand heavy rainfall.
“Here you are,” Hans handed her a leaf platter bearing two pastries and some apple chutney. “Those pixies know a thing or two about food. Though it would be better washed down by a flagon of their rather splendid ale, have to say.”
“We are making slow enough progress as it is,” Gretel pointed out, taking the food from him. “Last thing we need is for you to be intoxicated again. How’s your headache?”
Hans gave a rueful smile. “Still with me, but nothing that can’t be improved by a snack and a nap.” He lifted his hat the better to rub his brow. Instead of replacing it on his head, however, he uttered a mild oath as he dropped it into the fire. He snatched it up, dusting off ash and cinders. “Good heavens! Gretel, look at this,” he said. He held it up to show her the slim wooden arrow that had pieced the green felt and now adorned the thing like an oversized hat pin.
Before Gretel had time to utter a warning, another arrow whooshed through the space between them, plunging into the trunk of a nearby spruce tree. Hans threw himself on the ground. A third arrow thwacked into the earth not a hand’s breadth away from where Gretel was sitting.
“We have to move!” she cried. “Come on, Hans, get up, but keep low.”
“How is a body supposed to do that? Dash it all, Gretel, I am no circus contortionist.” He puffed as he attempted to run while crouching, only managing a few strides before falling facedown upon the loamy ground. Gretel ran around behind him and gave him a shove. She felt rather than heard an arrow whiz by her head. Jynx flew past in loopy circles, presumably the better to avoid being pinned to a tree.
“Keep going! We are still in range.”
“But who is shooting at us?” Hans gasped as they lumbered deeper into the tangle of trees and undergrowth.
“The who is not of paramount importance at this moment. Look for somewhere to give us cover, but for pity’s sake keep moving!”
At that moment there came a loud rumble of thunder. The sun disappeared behind a heavy cloud, so that the forest became a dark, murky place, strewn with half-visible obstacles.
“Ouch!” Hans squawk
ed, pushing aside a whippy branch that he had run into. “It’s too gloomy to move through this stuff at speed. I can’t see where I’m going or what I’m running into.”
“Take comfort in the fact that we too will be obscured. Ah, here!” She grabbed his sleeve and hauled him to one side, dragging him through the dense flora.
“We can’t run through this.”
“Don’t have to. Shhh!” She flapped a hand to indicate they must be silent and dropped to her knees. Crawling forward, ignoring the thistles and sharp stones that dug into her, she led Hans under a fallen tree that had wedged itself a couple of feet from the ground. Ivy and other plants with a tolerance for gloom had enmeshed themselves around the tree, providing a curtain behind which the pair was able to hide, with the timber as their roof. There was only just enough space, so that they had to squeeze themselves in. As they did so, Gretel’s wig was knocked from her head. It was not until they were wedged in their hideout that she saw it, sitting large as life, silver bells glinting merrily in the slender rays that here and there penetrated both canopy and cloud. Gretel cursed silently. It was too late to drag herself back out and retrieve the thing, but it might easily be spotted and give them away. They had no choice but to wait and hope.
There was another growl of thunder, much closer this time, followed by a startling flare of lightning that lit up the whole forest and made them both wince and gasp with the loudness of its accompanying crack. And then came the rain. It did not so much fall as hurl itself down from the leaden sky. It bounced off every leaf and branch and plant, forcing its way through the gaps in their shelter to spit and splash upon them. Gretel’s heart constricted at the sight of her beloved wig sitting unprotected beneath such an inundation. Instinctively she began to crawl toward it, but Hans grasped her arm.
“Don’t go out there!” he hissed. “They might be waiting and watching still.”
Gretel had to admit he had a point. She sat back, ignoring the dripping water that was finding its way down the back of her neck while she could do nothing but witness her wig’s gradual destruction.
The Sorcerer's Appendix Page 11
