The Scarecrow King: A Romantic Retelling of the King Thrushbeard Fairy Tale (7 page)

My stomach dropped. We were leaving – so soon. I had to check that I’d packed everything, say goodbye to my sister…I picked up my skirts and hurried out of the courtyard, rushing back inside the keep. My maid met me there at the door, a sad look on her face.

“Princess,” she began, then stammered and put her hands up when I tried to push past her. “Wait! Your father has asked you not to re-enter the keep.”

The breath caught in my throat and I froze, staring at her. “He
what
?”

Her head bowed, and I noticed the two guards flanking her, in the shadows. Guards? To keep me out of my own home? “I’m so sorry, Princess,” she stammered. “Your father’s orders were firm. You are no longer welcome in the castle.”

Surprise made me stiffen. That my father would insult me so…I should not have been surprised, but a tiny part of me could not help but feel shocked that he would stoop so low. “I see.” My voice was cool as ice. “Very well. I don’t want to see my father either. Where is Imogen? I need to see her before I leave.” My sister, who was my dearest – and only – friend and the only person I would truly miss in the castle. I couldn’t imagine life without my sister at my side.

“She is unavailable, princess.”

“Unavailable? But…but I’m
leaving
.” I waved at the maid with my hand, indicating for her to move out of my way. “I won’t be here for her to see later. I’m leaving the city. With my new
husband
,” I emphasized, the word leaving a sour taste in my mouth. As if anyone could forget whom I had just been married to. “Is she napping? Go and wake her. This is important.”

But the maid stood there like a frozen lump, unwilling to meet my gaze. Nor did she move away from the doors she barred. “I’m sorry, princess. I have my orders, and I’m not to let you in to bother the King or Princess Imogen.”

“I…see.” Hurt welled up inside me. I tamped it down and gave her a sneer instead. “If my father asks, you may tell him that I have left–”

The woman smiled, quickly interjecting, “I will tell him, princess.”

“–And that I hope he rots.” I gave the maid a sweet smile and turned on my foot.

With the sound of her gasp echoing behind me, I picked up my skirts and flounced back to the lumbering cart across the muddy courtyard. The trunks swayed atop it, held down by rope, and the cart creaked as if it were about to splinter apart from the load.

On the seat, grinning like a madman, was my new husband, his hair sticking up in wild, messy spikes. “I don’t think this cart is going to make it. The wheels are straining.”

“For the last time, we’re not leaving anything behind,” I snapped back at him. If he was so worried about the cart, I’d take care of it. Crouching next to the wheels, I pulled out my ever-present needle that I kept in a slim carrying case, pricked my finger. I blotted the blood on one of the spokes of each wheel and the underside of the wooden cart, thus ensuring that it would hold together. With that, I stood and dusted off my skirts, ignoring the puzzled look that Aleksandr was giving me. I climbed onto the seat of the cart next to him and sat in a flounce of puffy skirts. “Now drive!”

“As you wish, dear lady.”

I could hear the grin in his voice, and I wondered if it would be impolite to choke one’s new husband.

~~ * ~~

My chin resting on my palm, I hunched over on the seat next to my new husband, scowling at the narrow streets of Balinore’s capital city, Threshold, as our cart rumbled down the cobbled streets. My mood was foul, the cart was slow, and the man next to me whistled and hummed as if he were having a fantastic day.

Of course he was, I thought irritably. He’d just married a princess.

“Why are there so many yellow cloaks?” Aleksandr said to me, between greeting the people that passed.

I sat up, resisting the urge to rub my posterior. The cart was rough and I was pretty sure that I was going to have splinters in it by the end of the day, splinters that a paltry three layers of petticoats wouldn’t save me from. “What are you talking about?”

He gestured, raising one of his large hands, the other capably holding the reins of our horse. “Over there. Against the wall. I keep seeing the yellow cloaks everywhere we go.”

My gaze was drawn to where he pointed, and I looked down the street. Threshold was a busy city, nestled tightly in a valley between the many mountains that made up Balinore. We were a people of tall buildings and narrow, twisting streets, all the better to make use of the lack of space. The streets were lined with muck from horses, and some of the poorer districts had broken-down houses that were crammed too tightly together, like piles of haphazard wood. Down the narrow streets, people darted back and forth, emptying buckets or running errands and going about their day. The person that caught Aleksandr's attention was probably the beggar shrouded in his yellow cloak, a begging bowl placed next to him as he huddled on the edge of a busy street. “That man?”

Aleksandr nodded. “This city is crawling with yellow cloaks. Why is that?”

“It’s because he’s poor,” I said with a sniff, losing interest. “They pass them out at the almshouses.” Just seeing the cloak left me with a sour feeling in the pit of my stomach. The cloaks were yellow because my mother had spun spindle after spindle of yellow, trying to regain her powers to spin gold once more and have my father love her again. She had spun so much that my father had donated it to the poor houses and even now, years and years later, yellow fabric was still associated with the poor.

“But…there are so many of them,” said Aleksandr, his brow creasing into a frown. “How can there be so many poor people in the city when you have trunks full of gowns?”

I frowned at him. “What do my dresses have to do with anything? I live richly because I am a princess of Balinore. You cannot possibly compare me to a pauper.”

“Your father is king,” he said. “It is a king’s duty to look after the people of his kingdom.”

An indelicate snort escaped me. “My father does not think beyond what will amuse him in the next two days, much less think about the poor. Do you think that if my father were as kind and caring a ruler as you make him out to be, that I would be sitting here on this cart married to you?” Scorn dripped from my voice.

Rather than be offended by my slam, Aleksandr seemed thoughtful. He said nothing else on the topic, instead guiding the cart through the streets and continuing to be unfailingly friendly and polite to everyone that passed. Many looked at me in curiosity, but word had not yet spread that I had been married, and I was not known for my friendliness, so they only stared and whispered. It made my mood even worse.

The cart pulled into the city square, and stopped next to the large public fountain. It was market day and the streets were crowded with folk, and I cringed at the thought that they might see me with my new husband. A man across the way let his horse drink from the fountain and gave me a puzzled look, and I knew what he was thinking – what they were all thinking. What was the princess doing on a rickety cart with a crazy man?

I was beginning to wonder the same thing myself. This was like a bad dream. I leaned over toward my new ‘husband’ and whispered, “We need to go
now
.”

Aleksandr stood up on the bench and began to fuss with the ropes atop the cart, still whistling. People, upon recognizing me, began to gather and whisper nearby, stopping in their errands. My face flamed hot and I yanked on Aleksandr's leggings. “Why are we stopping?”

“I am fixing something in the cart, my pet,” he said in a too-loud, cheerful voice.

Titters arose from the audience.

“It’s fine and I’m not your pet,” I hissed at him, mortified. I averted my face, staring at my pearl-crusted slippers so as not to make eye contact with the people blatantly staring at us. “I fixed the cart. Nothing is going to break. Please, can’t we just go?”

Instead, he handed a mess of fabric down to me. “Is this your favorite dress?”

I stared at the green brocade in my hands. It was handsomely jeweled, with a large emerald set into the front of the bodice, but the pale yellow underdress that matched it was nowhere to be seen. “It is one of my favorites, yes,” I admitted. “But why–”

“Attention everyone,” Aleksandr boomed. “The kind and gracious Princess Miranda–”

“Rinda!” Insufferable man!

“–Princess Rinda,” he corrected, with a wink down at me. “Has decided to ease herself of the burden of her riches. Show us a yellow cloak and she will generously give you one of her lovely gowns!”

“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?” My screech was drowned out by the cheer that swept through the marketplace.

As I watched, helplessly, one beggar came up to him and showed his yellow cloak. Aleksandr tossed down my purple watered silk. “Thank you, milord,” the man cried.

“Wait,” called Aleksandr, and the beggar flinched, as if expecting a reprimand. But Aleksandr only held up my amethyst-encrusted shoes. “You forgot these. Now, who’s next?”

People surged forward, cheering, and Aleksandr tossed down garments as they reached their hands up.

I stared up at him, aghast. He couldn’t do this! Could he? I stood up to stop him and retrieve my belongings, but as soon as I stood, a deafening cheer went through the crowd.

“They love your generosity,” Aleksandr shouted in my ear, then returned to tossing away more of my precious gowns. Numb, I sat back down on the bench and watched as yellow cloak after yellow cloak left with my costly belongings. All around, people were cheering and smiling at me – me! The brown, useless princess! – with happiness. Hands touched my skirts and murmured blessings, and one woman tried to pass me her baby, as if that was a sign of approval of some sort. All of my protests were drowned out and unnoticed as Aleksandr tore through the trunks, giving away everything they contained, save the one dress I clutched in my hands.

Part of me wanted to stand back up and snatch my dresses and shoes and hair baubles and veils and belts back from the greedy hands clasping them home. What was stopping me was the happy cheers of the people around me. For once…someone liked me.

For once, the cheers were for Princess Rinda. It dazed me.

“Can you get up, dear lady?”

Lost in thought, I clutched the green dress harder to me and stared up at Aleksandr. His face was flushed with exertion, and the unruly spikes of hair clung to his forehead instead. His brown eyes were bright in his face. “Up off the cart, if you please,” he repeated.

I stood and took his hand to climb to the ground. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing at all,” Aleksandr replied, and moved to unhitch the cart. As I watched, he pulled it free from the tack and then lowered the two rails to the ground, then clapped a waiting farmer on the back. “All yours, my good man. The lady assures me that it’s been magicked to hold together.”

The man touched his forehead in a gesture of respect for me. “Thank you, princess. Thank you.”

A small sound of protest erupted from my throat as Aleksandr took the horse by a pair of newly-acquired reins (traded for my favorite blue silk sleeping gown) and led him toward me. “Ready to go, then?”

“But…the cart…”

“Unnecessary now that we’ve gotten rid of all the extra garbage,” he said cheerfully, wiping his brow with his free hand.

“Garbage? Those were my dresses! My clothes! They were worth a fortune!” I gestured at the green dress in my hands, showing him the enormous emerald sewn into the bodice. “Each dress was a work of art, hand-crafted with the appropriate gems sewn into the fabric.”

Aleksandr leaned in and peered at my green dress with obvious interest. “Is that an emerald?”

“It is!” Maybe now he would see the foolishness of his ways. There was still time to hunt down the recipients of my dresses. If we were lucky, maybe we could get a few of them back.

He pulled out a belt knife and began to cut the emerald free of the embroidery.

“What are you doing?” I jerked the dress back from him, and the emerald broke free and clattered to the ground.

Aleksandr scooped it up and walked over, and handed it to the farmer. “Here you go, sirrah. Luck to you and your family.”

The farmer’s eyes grew wet and he touched his forehead repeatedly in our direction. “Thank you, thank you, Princess Rinda.”

Real panic began to set into me, and I stood mutely as Aleksandr grabbed me by the waist and lifted me onto the horse’s back. There was no saddle, and I wobbled and nearly fell to the ground again, barely managing to stay on as he mounted behind me. I clutched my spare dress in my hands as he wrapped an arm around my waist and gigged the horse into a gallop.

Unused to being atop a horse – I never traveled unless we had a court visit – I wobbled and clutched at the horse’s mane, my gown threatening to fall off my lap. Aleksandr took pity on me and looped an arm around my waist, steadying me against him. This did not ease my mind. Instead, I only grew more furious.

“You have given away all of our worldly possessions,” I protested, stunned beyond functioning. All my life, I had been wealthy. Ridiculously so. In the span of a few short hours, the man behind me on the horse had divested me of everything – my name, my family, my homeland, my possessions. All I had left was a rapidly-wrinkling green dress with the emeralds stripped out of it. “You said you were poor. I was
not
poor. I had money – we could have sold the gems on my dresses and bought a house, but you have given it all away.”

“We don’t need money, dear lady,” Aleksandr said cheerfully, giving me a squeeze. “We shall live a life of nomadery and sing for our supper when we need the coin.”

My hands fisted in the dress and I counted to ten.

“Do you like to sing?” Aleksandr prompted. “Ladies are refined, are they not? I do hope you can carry a tune, or one of us is going to go to bed hungry quite often.”

I counted to ten again.

“Silent, my pet?” I could hear the amusement in his voice. He was enjoying this far too much.

“I am envisioning the ways I should like to remove your head from your shoulders,” I said viciously, the words erupting from me in a stew of anger. My voice rose with anger until I was practically shouting at him. “You are the most insufferable, ignorant, rude, foolish, irritating halfwit that I have ever had the misfortune to lay eyes upon! I wish that I had never seen you! The most I can pray for out of this horrible marriage is that you take ill very rapidly and die and leave me a widow! At least then I will be free of your endless chatter!”