The Secret Princess. Rachelle McCalla

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СКАЧАТЬ creature pulled her toward the wall, the trough, the pen. Evelyn scrambled for a foothold in the slippery mud. She screamed, but the pigs only squealed that much louder. No longer concerned about the bucket, she flung it toward the trough, hoping the pigs would take the bait and leave her alone.

      But the momentum of her toss carried her forward. She pushed away, batting at the hog in front of her, praying it would move back instead of biting off her fingers.

      The swine saw the bucket and turned its back to her just as Evelyn, all balance lost in the slimy mud, toppled screaming into the trough after him. The pigs saw her fall and turned. Evelyn tried to stand to leap out of the way, but her hands and feet slipped, the slick muck resisting her grip as the swine advanced.

      Evelyn felt a tug on the back of her dress. For an instant she feared a pig had gotten behind her and taken a bite, but strong arms pulled her up and back and set her dripping in the mud. She looked about for her pattens and saw them in the trough—a lost cause, as the pigs were already eating them. Then she looked up at her rescuer.

      The man from the forest stood over her, the bright sunlight setting his tanned skin nearly aglow. Somehow he’d managed to lift her out without getting any muck on himself. In fact, other than the stain of fresh blood that colored his habergeon, he looked clean and fresh.

      Evelyn looked down at her dress, which was caked with the most awful stench of filth. She felt her cheeks flame red—not just because he’d seen her lowly servant’s state but because he’d witnessed her fall. But her horror ran far deeper than that.

      “What are you doing here?” She looked around quickly but saw no one. Perhaps there was still time for him to escape unseen, before he was captured. “You must leave immediately.”

      The man shrugged off her concern. “I have yet to learn your name.”

      “You won’t learn it here.” She resigned herself to ruining her shoes in the mud. They were half-ruined already, and the man’s safety was a far greater concern than her shoes. “Follow me. This way.” If they hurried, she might be able to sneak him out the postern gate before anyone realized he was among them. She took a few steps in that direction, then looked back to find he hadn’t budged.

      And she’d finally made it out of the deepest mud. She wasn’t fain to tromp back through it again. “Please—whoever you are. I’m trying to help you.”

      The man shook his head, looking far too sure of himself, his air dangerously confident.

      She took a reluctant step back toward him. “I saved your life once before—you said you owed me for that. Do me this one favor, then, and follow me.”

      Her words penetrated the armor of his self-assurance. The man tipped his head, signaling deference to her, and moved toward her around the worst of the muck.

      Relief gripped her with such a strong hold she wondered at the ferocity of its power. She told herself her reason for helping him was no different than it had ever been, but her heart betrayed another reason. Did she care about him?

      As one Christian cared for another. That was all. Surely that was all. Whatever prayers she’d prayed for his recovery, the man was impossibly stubborn. Once she got rid of him, she’d do well to forget all about him. What was he thinking, coming here after she’d done her best to warn him away? The man must be daft.

      She slipped into the narrow pathway between the stables and the rear wall. To her relief, the man quickly joined her, though she realized an instant too late the space was barely wide enough to accommodate both of them.

      He stood so close she could smell the clean scent of the woods on him even over the odor of the pigs that clung in dripping mud to her clothes. Evelyn told herself her embarrassment didn’t matter nearly as much as the man’s safety. Still, she wished she didn’t smell so awful.

      “The postern gate is this way.” She pointed eastward along the wall. “I’ll take you as far as the gate and watch to be sure you escape safely, but I can’t risk being seen helping you escape.”

      “I don’t believe that’s necessary.” His eyes narrowed slightly.

      Evelyn looked up at him, distracted by her wonder that he lived, that he was here talking to her, close enough to touch. His white teeth flashed in the sunlight as he spoke, framed by that smile that was almost a smirk. What had he said? “What’s not necessary?”

      “Endangering yourself for me. I came to see King Garren. He’ll receive me.”

      “He’ll imprison you.”

      “That would be politically unwise.”

      Evelyn opened her mouth to assure the man that many of the king’s decisions could be described as such. In fact, King Garren tended toward unwise decisions as a rule. But before she could speak, a familiar scream rang out from the kitchen.

      “Cook.” Evelyn saw the man’s concerned question clearly on his face. “Probably saw a large rat or—”

      “A bear!” The cook’s shrill scream echoed against the stone walls.

      “—a bear,” Evelyn finished.

      “My bear.” The man turned back toward the great hall.

      “You brought—?” Evelyn started to ask, then realized the answer. “The pelt?”

      “With the head,” he explained, quickly skirting the worst slime of the barnyard. “It adds value.”

      Evelyn’s stomach swirled with sickening fear as she followed him back to the kitchen and through to the great hall. There was no stopping him—he’d gotten too much of a head start, and he was vastly bigger than she was. Even if she threw herself on him to stop him, she’d only succeed in smearing him with pigs’ muck. The man seemed determined to walk straight into danger.

      Perhaps if he was so determined, she ought to let him do as he pleased. He could find out for himself the wisdom of her warnings. She adopted that approach often enough with her brother, Bertie—not that he ever seemed to learn, no matter what chastisements he brought upon himself.

      Evelyn entered the great hall behind the man to find a crowd converging around the pelt. The bear sat atop a bench in a heap, its teeth bared, the head balanced above clawed paws in such a way that even if Cook had not smelled heavily of drink, she might nonetheless have been excused for thinking it a live bear.

      Certainly some of King Garren’s men looked determined to give the creature wide berth.

      The man from the woods stepped boldly toward it, grasped it by one furry shoulder, and unfurled it gracefully, the furry hide rippling impressively in spite of the lack of light in the hall.

      “Oh!” Cook shuddered and hid her eyes.

      King Garren bellowed a laugh, his mood considerably better than it had been during Evelyn’s encounter with him earlier that morning.

      “A gift for you, King Garren.” The man bowed with a flourish and held out the weighty pelt. “A symbol of Lydia’s commitment to peace in the borderlands. Any threat to the peace between us shall be similarly—” the man paused a moment, eyes twinkling “—disemboweled.”

      Still chortling, King Garren advanced with one СКАЧАТЬ