Beauty (2 page)
‘They say you’re the best of the huntsmen,’ the king said as he studied the man before him. ‘That no one knows the forest as well as you.’
‘I know the forest, that’s true,’ the huntsman answered. He had no intention of expounding upon his own skills. The king had already formed his opinion, otherwise they wouldn’t be face to face. Boasting just set a man up for a fall, and the only reason to boast would be to somehow ingratiate himself with the king for personal favour or political gain. The huntsman wanted nothing from the king for, unlike so many, the glittering life did not appeal to him. He neither understood nor trusted it.
‘And you’re good with a knife? And a bow?’
The huntsman shrugged. ‘I’m a huntsman. Those are my tools.’
‘You don’t say much,’ the king said, smiling as he leaned back in his vast, ornate throne, inlaid with rubies and emeralds so large that the huntsman could almost see his reflection in them. ‘I like that.’ He waited for a moment as if expecting the huntsman to respond to his praise, and then his smile fell to seriousness and he continued.
‘The prince is my only son. He needs an adventure. He also needs to come back alive. He is my heir and the kingdom needs him.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ the huntsman said. ‘But I am only one man.’
‘If you were to return without him, it would not end well for you.’ Any pretence at warmth had vanished from the king’s face. ‘Or for your village.’
His father, not without an adventure or two of his own below his belt, had warned him about the merciless ways of the rich and royal, and the king’s threat came as no surprise. ‘As I said: I’ll do my best, your majesty. My best is all I have to offer.’
The king frowned for a moment as he tried to work out whether the huntsman was being ignorant, obtuse or just speaking plainly in a place where every sentence was normally laden with subtext, but eventually nodded and grunted.
‘Good.’ He ran thick fingers over his ruddy cheek. ‘The prince must never know about this conversation. He knows you are to be his guide, and that your skills will be needed to pass through the forest, but he must believe that he’s the hero in this tale, do you understand? Your role in protecting him must never be spoken of.’
The huntsman nodded. He had no time for heroes or stories or tales of true love, despite his own dreams.
‘Good,’ the king said again. ‘Good.’
T
he huntsman met the prince down by the stables where he was choosing their horses, fine steeds whose muscles rippled under their glossy dark hides. The prince was as blond as the huntsman was dark and his easy smile charmed all those around him. At least he looked fit, the huntsman thought, and they were of a similar age. Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad journey. The prince shook his hand vigorously and then pulled him close, patting the huntsman heartily on the back.
‘We leave at first light,’ he said and then winked. ‘Which gives us all night in the taverns to give this city – and its maidens – our farewells! There will be wine and women for us, my new friend, before we leave to find a new castle for the kingdom!’
The huntsman forced a smile as his heart sank. He had no problem with wine and women – especially not with the women – but it appeared the prince was in danger of believing the legends of his princely deeds even before he had done any. That was never good. When huntsmen got too cocky they normally ended up gored. What would happen to this fine, handsome prince, he wondered. And how on earth was he going to save him from it?
S
he hadn’t meant to come back this way but when her feet had turned her down the path she had followed them. Her basket was full and heavy and she should have gone straight to granny’s cottage, but the forest came alive in the spring and nowhere were the scents more alive than at the edge of the impenetrable wall of briars and bushes and, as usual, she couldn’t resist their lure.
None of the villagers ever came here. They spoke in whispers about it and the noises that could sometimes be heard in the night, and children stayed away, but Petra had always been drawn to it. She placed her basket on the rich long grass and pushed back the hood of her red cape so that she could gaze upwards. The dark green wall stretched up as high as she could see, blocking out any sight of the mountain, coloured here and there by small bursts of flowers poking through the brambles.
As she did every time, she wrapped her hands in her cloak to protect her from hidden thorns and tried to pull a few branches apart to see what lay on the other side, but it was a fruitless task and all she could make out were more twigs and vines, all locking together. She held her breath and listened, but there was only birdsong and the rustle of the forest. That was
all
there ever was in the daylight and she couldn’t fight the disappointment she felt. Perhaps she’d sneak out again tonight and see if she could hear the plaintive howling that sometimes carried quietly over the briar wall on the breeze. The sound might have terrified men and children alike, but something in it called to Petra and made her heart ache. For a while she had just listened, but then one night she’d thrown her hood back and howled in response and the forest wall itself had trembled as their two voices became one. It had become a song between them, a delicious, private secret that made her shiver in ways she didn’t really understand. But she longed to see beyond the wall and find the other half of her duet. What manner of beast was trapped there? Why did it sound so lonely? And what had made the forest create such a daunting, impenetrable fortress that no man had tried to break through it?
‘I thought I’d find you here.’
Petra jumped slightly at the soft voice and turned. ‘Sorry, granny. I just . . .’
‘I know,’ her grandmother said. ‘You just wandered here by accident.’ She was a short, stout woman whose face was rosy with both good humour and good nature. Here and there a grey curl sprung out from under her cap. Petra loved her very, very much. ‘The forest can be like that with places and people. When your mother, may she rest in peace, was little she was always up at the emerald pond. She’d stare into it for hours, hoping to see a water witch or some such foolishness.’ She smiled and Petra smiled back, picking up her basket and turning her back on the lush vegetation that grew so unnaturally and fascinated her. She’d heard her mother’s story many times before but she never tired of it and she knew it cheered her grandmother, although by nature a happy soul, to talk about her.
‘I’ve put some soup on for lunch,’ her granny said. ‘Let’s go home.’
They chatted about their mornings as they walked, the route second nature to them both even though the tiny paths that cut through the dense woodland would barely be noticeable to a stranger. The stream somewhere to their left finally joined them, babbling into their conversation as they walked alongside the flowing water, and finally came to the clearing where granny’s cottage sat. Smoke rose from the chimney and flowers were starting to bloom in the borders that ran in front of the small house. It should have been a beautiful sight but today, as had happened on too many days recently, it was marred by a bloody trail of innards that emerged from behind the house and vanished at the edge of the forest.
‘Oh, not again!’ Granny gasped and the two women, age being no impediment to panic, ran to the small enclosure behind the cottage where granny kept her precious goats. It was as Petra feared. The gate had been broken through yet again. From somewhere deep in the trees a low howl of victory drifted towards them. It had none of the plaintive texture of the sound that drew Petra to the mysterious forest wall; this was all animal, fierce and hungry.
‘Bloody wolves,’ her granny swore. ‘Bloody bastard wolves.’
‘I’ll mend it again,’ she said, quietly. ‘Make it stronger.’
Her grandmother was moving through the rest of the scared goats who had huddled at the far corner of the pen. ‘Adolpho. It’s taken Adolpho.’
Petra had never tried to persuade her grandmother to move to one of the houses in the village as she grew older – she knew how much the old lady loved the peace and quiet of the forest – but recently she’d started to think it might be a good idea. It had been a hard winter and the wolves, normally a rarity in this part of the forest, had arrived as a hungry pack and, when the weather broke, they’d stayed. Where foxes were a menace they’d learned to deal with, the winter wolves were braver and stronger. Men in the village talked of cattle lost in the night to the wolves working in twos and threes, and although they had tried to hunt them, the pack was elusive.
‘Go inside, Granny,’ Petra said, knowing that the old woman would want a quiet moment to mourn the loss of the animal. ‘I’ll clean up out here.’ The wolves would be back, that she knew for certain, and she couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be before they saw the stout old woman as an easy meal. Especially if they couldn’t get to the goats. She needed a fence as high as that wall of greenery around her granny’s cottage. She needed to protect her. The wolf’s gruff howl was joined by another and she was sure they were mocking her. She cursed them silently, then went to the shed and pulled out more planks of wood and rolls of wire. She would not give up. The wolves would not win. Her hair fell into her eyes as she worked, angrily focused on her task and wishing that the wolf from far away would come and scare these rough relatives away for her. At least then her fingers wouldn’t be full of splinters and her skin slick with sweat.
She was halfway through the job when there was a crash from inside the cottage, a scream, and the sound of plates being dropped.
‘Granny!’ Her heart in her mouth, she turned and ran.
T
hey had been travelling through the forest for several days before the two men eased into a comfortable silence. The first day, once out of sight of the fanfare and grand send-off the king had arranged for his son, had been a relatively slow one given the prince’s hangover. The huntsman’s own head was clear having been on the outskirts of the group for the night, gritting his teeth every time the prince introduced him to some new dandy as his servant. Huntsmen served no one but nature. He’d drunk one or two cups of beer but the group of rowdy young men hadn’t impressed him and neither had they particularly encouraged him to join them, which suited him just fine. He was glad when dawn broke and he could wake the prince and prepare to get out of the city. He’d had enough. He wanted their ‘adventure’ over so he could return to his people, and at least in the forest he would feel that he was almost home.
By the time they’d made camp, the fresh air had revived the prince’s spirits enough for him to make a fire while the huntsman fetched water and killed a rabbit for their dinner. At first the prince had been determined to prove his superiority by trying to impress the huntsman with tales of castle living, but after a while he’d become curious about his companion’s way of life. The huntsman answered his questions as best he could as he skinned and cooked the animal, and it was clear that the prince, away from the peer pressure of his cohort, was begrudgingly beginning to admire his companion. The huntsman relaxed his own judgement on the royal in return.
The next few days passed well and they even laughed together occasionally at some joke or story one or other would tell. They might not have been a natural pairing for a friendship, but it wasn’t the prince’s fault that the king had dragged the huntsman from his home and rested this burden – and the fate of his village – on his shoulders. He would make the best of it and perhaps they would both come out of the experience better and wiser men.
After ten days of travelling the Far Mountain had grown taller in the skyline and the forest thicker; green and lush and rich with life. The light scent of spring in the air became tinged with something heavier, and when they finally found a large pond to drink from the water was bitter and they had to spit it out. The prince declared it was magic they could taste and shuddered slightly, afraid. The huntsman pointed out that magic was simply nature in another guise and nothing to be either feared or courted, but before they could get into an argument about it he saw chimney smoke drifting up from behind some trees to their right.
‘They’ll know where there’s good water,’ the huntsman said.
‘Isn’t it your job to find it?’ the prince shot back.
The huntsman ignored him and found an almost invisible path through the trees that led to a small clearing at the heart of which sat a cottage surrounded by pretty flowers . . . and by the faintest blood-stained trail through the grass that none other than an animal or a huntsman would be likely to spot. He frowned slightly; there had been trouble here. He paused and looked up. The door was open and from inside came the crashing of plates and a short scream. He gripped the hilt of his knife and ran forward.
‘Granny!’ A girl’s shout came from somewhere behind the cottage but the huntsman and the prince didn’t pause. They ran straight inside.
A low growl came from beyond the cosy main room and the two men knocked over a side table as they followed it, the prince with his sword drawn and the huntsman with his knife.