The Scarecrow King: A Romantic Retelling of the King Thrushbeard Fairy Tale (9 page)

In response, he turned and reached into the grasses, then held something fuzzy and brown aloft by the tail.

I rubbed my eyes again. “Is that a squirrel?”

“It is. As soon as we skin it, I’ll throw it on the fire.”

I flinched, my hand going to my throat. “S-skin it?” I whispered. It…no. It looked like the squirrels that used to frolic in the castle gardens and in the hedges and trees at home. It still had a head and a tail and…skin! “We’re going to eat
that
?”

“Well, we’re not going to eat it exactly like that,” Aleksandr said, grabbing a hunting knife and beginning to cut into the small dead creature. “First, we have to skin it, like I said. Get all the hair off.”

I swallowed hard.

He glanced over at me with a smile. “You’re not much of a camper, are you?” To my horror, he dug his fingers into the flesh of the animal and began to…roll the skin backward, like peeling a piece of fruit.

I ran for the bushes, throwing up the little I had in my stomach. When I was finished vomiting, I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and sighed miserably.

To my surprise, Aleksandr was right at my side, waiting patiently for me to finish vomiting. He offered me the water skin, grimacing at the look on my face. “I apologize – I did not realize your stomach was that weak.”

I glared at him and snatched the water skin out of his hands, uncorking it and pouring the water down my throat. It was clean and cool and wonderful on my burning throat. I drank nearly the entire thing before handing it back to him. “Thank you.”

He shook the little water left inside the skin and smiled at me. “Feel better? If you do, why don’t you let me finish making breakfast? You can head down to the stream and clean up, and refill the water.”

I wobbled to my feet, and this time I took the hand he offered when I was unsteady on my feet. “There’s a stream nearby?”

Aleksandr gestured into the trees. “A few lengths that way. Look for the split tree. Can I trust you to find it on your own?”

How insulting. I snatched the skin from his hands and scowled at him. “I’m not a child. I can find a stream.”

He grinned at me. “Very well then.”

Gathering my damp, wrinkled petticoats in one hand and the water skin in the other, I picked my way through the greenery, looking for a split tree in particular. Ridiculous that he should send me away from camp.

Ridiculous that I should vomit at the sight of a dead animal. That had been a little embarrassing. Life at the castle had not quite prepared me for an outdoor living. Not that I should ever think that I would need it, but I was needing a lot of things that I wasn’t prepared for now, and I hated having to rely on Aleksandr – even though he was all understanding smiles and spiky, ruffled hair.

I did find the stream without help, though, and it took several moments for me to figure out how to get down the slippery, muddy bank to the water. My skirts kept getting in the way. I would try to get close to the water, only to have a shoe slide into the muck. How was I supposed to get down to the water?

Eventually, my need for cleanliness overtook my frustration and I stripped down to my chemise, left my shoes on the bank, and moved down to the water half-naked. It was cold and crisp and felt marvelous against my skin. I splashed my face to clean it and rubbed the water over the rest of me, not even caring when the hem of my long chemise trailed into the water. It felt nice to get clean, even if I had no soap or clean towels.

“Rinda?” Aleksandr called. “Rinda? Are you all right?”

Before I could respond, he burst through the underbrush and onto the bank of the stream, his hand on his sword. He saw me, crouching in my damp petticoat, and his eyes widened. Aleksandr flushed and raked a hand through his spiky hair, then abruptly turned, his back facing me.

“I, er…sorry,” he began. “You were gone a while and I was worried you might have gotten…lost.”

He seemed more embarrassed than me that he had seen me in my chemise. I hastily pulled my overdress back onto my body, but the laces had been loosened and it wouldn’t fit on my body properly. I tried to fix the laces on my own, but couldn’t get a good grip. Frustrated, I glanced over at Aleksandr, who was still staring off into the woods, most pointedly not in my direction.

“Well?” I said, leaning over to tap his shoulder. “Are you going to stand there or are you going to help me?”

He whipped around, giving me an awkward, sheepish look. “What? Oh yes, of course.” His fingers fumbled on the laces on my back.

“You’re very awkward for a minstrel,” I observed, thinking of his scruffy hair, threadbare clothing, and the ready smile paired with an even readier blush. “The court ones were always very flirtatious and bold. Are minstrels very different in Lioncourt?”

Aleksandr chuckled, and even the sound was self-effacing and good natured. Did the man not have a mean bone in his body, I wondered. I’d been horrid to him and he’d done nothing but smile at me.

“I haven’t always been a minstrel,” he admitted. “I spent most of my years as a soldier. Before that, I grew up at a monastery.”

That explained the blushing, at least.

Chapter Eight

Shortly after I choked down breakfast, we mounted the horse again and retook the trail. It was almost immediately when my muscles began to ache, but I gritted my teeth and ignored it after Aleksandr suggested walking instead. Sometime in the early afternoon, a village came into sight, nestled at the base of the mountains that loomed taller the further we went down the road, and I was delighted to see the nestled rooftops amidst the greenery.

My excitement was short lived, however, when Aleksandr announced that we had no money, and he would need to sing for our supper. Despite my protests and embarrassment, my new ‘husband’ spoke with the innkeeper and set up in the corner of the common room to perform for a bit.

Little did I know…Aleksandr was a terrible singer.

Humiliated, I watched as my husband earnestly sang marching songs, war songs, and ballads. All off key and sung with far more gusto than finesse. The innkeeper shot irritated looks at me as patrons got up and left, as if I were somehow responsible. He needn’t have bothered – my face was red enough to shame us for three leagues over.

Still, the audience was polite and dropped a few coins in Aleksandr's cup as they grumbled and left, and I watched it fill, trying to determine how much we’d need for a decent night’s sleep at the inn and some food.

Encouraged by the coins, Aleksandr broke into a new song.

For three long days

They journeyed in the dark, under the stone

And when they emerged from the Ghost Roads

Their voices rang against the mountain walls

Echoing voices, echoing their joy

Free of Lioncourt

They made the new land their home

And called it Balinore

Will you take the Ghost Roads?

Will you take the mages’ way?

Will you take the path under stone?

Will you seek out and find your new home?

I jerked to my feet, glared at Aleksandr with meaning, then stormed out of the inn. I couldn’t stand another minute of the humiliation.

Not only was I a minstrel’s wife, but I was a very, very awful minstrel’s wife. This just went from bad to worse.

Aleksandr appeared a few moments later, jingling the coins in his hand and gave me a sheepish look. “Too many songs?”

“Too many
bad
songs,” I said archly. “I thought minstrels were supposed to be good at what they do?”

He blushed, his ears turning red as the crooked smile spread across his face and he raked his hand through his spiky hair. For some reason, I enjoyed seeing that smile. My father had always blustered and thrown things when I was sharp to him, but Aleksandr seemed to take it all in stride. I…liked that.

Which irritated me even more, that I should like something about my new, poor, untalented husband. It made my tone harsher than it should have been. “Did you get enough for a night’s stay?”

Aleksandr grinned. “Not hardly, dear lady. We have enough for a meal and some rations for the journey.”

My good humor was gone, and I found that I wanted to choke the smile off his face. “Rations? That’s it?” I’d been looking forward to a hot bath and changing dresses. I still had a wrinkled one in Aleksandr's pack, and this one was starting to feel sweaty. I pointed at the inn that he had recently vacated. “Go back in there and sing until you can buy me a hot bath.”

“Can’t.” He moved toward the horse and began to undo the bridle from the hitching post. “We need to go if we’re going to catch up.”

I trailed behind him, not even caring that my skirts dragged in the mud. “Catch up? Catch up with who? Are we meeting someone?”

Maybe
they
’d have the money for a bath and a room at the inn.

Aleksandr ignored my questions, unhitching the horse and helping me up on its back. When I was perched atop our horse, he took the reins and began to lead it out of the village. I cast a longing look at the cozy inn, then sighed and stared pointedly at the back of my husband’s head in irritation. I said nothing else as he spent our few coins on provisions – some traveling bread, nuts, dried meat and cheese.

Aleksandr talked quietly with the shopkeeper for several minutes, gesturing at the road. I kept trying to nudge the horse closer, but I could not make out their conversation and gave Aleksandr a frustrated look when he didn’t immediately fill me in.

“Well?” I said as we left the village behind. My spirits sank as the trees grew thicker and the sleepy little town receded behind us. “Who is it we are meeting?”

“It’s a surprise,” he said, grinning up at me as he moved to lead the horse again. “But I think it’ll be a good one. I daresay you’ll be rather pleased with things by the end of the day.”

I arched an eyebrow at him. “Unless we’re going to be traveling with the king of Lioncourt himself, I think you’re wrong.”

Aleksandr just grinned up at me. “I thought you hated the Lioncourt king.”

“I never said that,” I protested. “Where did you hear that?”

“It was all over court when I arrived,” he said casually. “That you’d called him names and laughed in his face.”

“Ridiculous,” I sputtered, my face heating. I forced a casual tone to my voice, and studied the road with great interest. “It was all just a misunderstanding. I would have married him if he’d simply asked me.”

Aleksandr stopped and stared up at me, incredulous. “Would you really?”

I shrugged. “It beats being the wife of a minstrel without two pennies to his name, does it not?”

“So money is the only thing that interests you, then?”

“It did not interest me very much at all,” I admitted. “At least not until I found out we had
no
money.”

He laughed at that, grinning up at me. “Are you always this honest?”

“I am,” I agreed, biting the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t smile back at him. He looked very boyish when he smiled up at me, and with his spiky hair…it made my heart flutter a little. But I ignored that – being a poor man’s wife did not match my plans. I was a princess, and I liked being a princess. So I couldn’t smile back at Alek. I needed to harden my heart against him, because I was going to refuse his marriage and when the thirty days of courtship were up, I was going to march myself to the Lioncourt palace and introduce myself to the king. He’d clearly been interested in an alliance if he’d traveled all the way to Balinore for my father’s party, and therefore I was going to remind him that I was available.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have a cordial relationship with Alek until then. “My father was never very…pleasant to me. Therefore, I took it upon myself to say whatever would discomfort him the most. I think it’s a habit I’ve gotten rather used to.”

“I like it,” he admitted. “It’s rare that you find people that speak their minds, especially at court.”

I gave him a suspicious look, eying his poor clothing. “And do you spend a lot of time at court?”

He glanced back at me, his smile fading a little. “I prefer not to.”

Indeed. I could see how he wouldn’t fit in very well. I gave a haughty sniff, then frowned at the endless line of trees in front of us. “Do you smell smoke?”

Aleksandr brightened. “I do. That must mean we’re close.”

“Close to what?” I stiffened as he raised a hand to help me dismount. “Wait? Why are we dismounting? Where are we going?”

“Just trust me,” Aleksandr said with a smile. “I have a surprise for you, and it’s something that I think you’ll find quite pleasing.”

I took his hand and dismounted, scowling at him. “I don’t like surprises.” It was true – I hated surprises. In my experience, when someone had something they wished to surprise you with, it never worked out in my favor. That was one reason how I’d managed to wind up married to a poor minstrel, after all.

No, surprises definitely were not on my list of favorite things.

But Aleksandr looked pleased, and nervous. He kept glancing at me, his hand tight on the horse’s reins as he led her forward. Almost as if he were worried what I’d think of his surprise.

“So what kind of surprise is this?” I said, grabbing my skirts and following behind him as we headed down the road. My slippers – perfect for castle life – weren’t meant for the uneven roads, grooved from wagons. I gave Aleksandr a forced smile and hoped that whatever the surprise was, it wasn’t too far ahead on the road. “Shall I guess?”

“Oh, I doubt you’ll be able to guess.” He raked a hand through his nondescript hair and gave me a blindingly white smile.

If he hadn’t been so irritatingly married to me, it would have been a charming smile – all boyish enthusiasm. As it was, it just annoyed me even more. “Do let me try,” I said in a dry tone.

“I don’t think you’ll be able to guess,” he said again.