Chapter 1

I could tell what age the children were by the amount of clothing that they wore. The youngest, the ones who could just barely walk, ran around with nary a stitch on them, giggling as they chased each other in a game as old as time. After the age of four, children began to acquire articles of clothing as if it was a game. A skirt here, a vest there- it was all collected a year at a time, until they were about ten or so. That was when girls were presented with a pair of earrings and boys with a dagger.

All of the children, if their various states of dress, had gathered around me, faces bright with expectation. Father laughed at me and retreated back to his tent. I knew that he was discussing the terms of my marriage with Tem, the goat boy that he had chosen for me to marry. I knew that Tem would accept no dowry, no matter how great. For him, I was reward enough.

A sharp tug on my arm pulled my thoughts away from Tem and towards the naked little girl who was begging for my attention. “Jaelle, please tell us a story!” Several of the others screamed their agreement and before I could even nod, they had pulled me towards the upturned stump that I often used for story time.

Pulling the little one onto my lap, I asked them, “What story would you like to hear? The Three Spinning Sisters? Or the Story of the Goatherd?” I poked the little girl in the stomach, knowing that the last story was one of her favorites.

The children all started talking at once, and they were all requesting the same thing. The Story of Princess Odette. “You really want to hear that one? I tell it every week!”

“Please tell it, Jaelle! Please!” They begged me.

Rolling my eyes, I complied. “Oh, alright.” As I prepared to tell the story, saw a man of nineteen, three years older than I, stand behind the small crowd of children. His smile made a shadow cast over the long white scar that was slashed into the middle of his left cheek. That scar did nothing to deter from the bold look in his eye or the square set of his shoulders. I knew that Father was relieved that I had fallen for Tem. It made the entire situation of our arranged marriage easier, seeing how there were no objections from either party.

A boy’s impatient sigh forced me to tear my eyes away from my betrothed. The children started laughing and chanting, “Jaelle loves Tem! Jaelle loves Tem!”

Turning my nose in the air, I pretended to get up and leave. “It seems that you no longer want to hear the story. Goodbye.” I walked slowly and allowed myself to be pulled back by my skirts.

Sitting back down, I rolled my eyes at Tem and said, “Fine. I will tell it!”

After some celebration, they finally settled down to listen to my tale. I started it the same way that I always started it. “It is a sad thing, but this story is true. Six years ago, Saria had a little princess. Odette.”

“What was Princess Odette like?” Someone asked, as they always did.

I smiled. “According to palace servants, Odette was twice as lovely as the moon and as radiant as the stars. She was certainly going to grow into a beautiful young lady. She was ten and betrothed to the fourteen year old Prince Connor of Westerlyn. She was to be the future Queen of Saria.”

“But her beautiful face hid a heart of ice.” Tem pulled another log over so that he could sit next to me. He knew the story as well as I did. It was a well-known story in this kingdom. “For the servants of the Palace of King Sebastian and Queen Coralie had a nickname for the little princess. She was called the Devil’s Spawn.”

I chimed in, discretely hooking my pinky with Tem’s, since we were not yet married. “Odette had an evil soul. She was prone to violent rages and referred to her own parents as irresponsible idiots. She believed that Prince Connor was not fit to be the future King of Saria.”

One of the older children said, “But is Prince Connor not known for wisdom and learning beyond his age?”

I nodded. “Yes, but it was no matter to the Princess. At the time, Connor was gangly and awkward, having neglected training in etiquette in favor of his travels and his studies. But as we all now know, he has grown into himself.” Several of the older girls had smiles and a faraway look in their eyes. Many in Saria found the prominent jaw and deep set eyes of Prince Connor very handsome. Me, I loved the goatboy with his sharp nose and cheerful grin.

Continuing with the story, I wiped the wistful smiles away from the girls’ faces. “Throughout the Palace, Odette was known for her selfishness and unforgiving nature. She ordered beheadings daily and more sadistic tortures when she was in a particularly bad mood. After an incident where she ordered the Chef to be cooked upon his own spit because the night’s steak had been tough to chew, the Guards took to pretending to carry out her sentences. A person sentenced to death was always allowed to go free and was given a small purse to apologize for the Princess’s behavior.”

I did not even have to look at Tem for him to take his cue to continue. “It was only said to be possible to converse with the Princess at one time a day. Every evening, she would play with her beloved pet, Jasper. He was a Royal Hawk that had broken his wing just after learning to fly. Before the hawkers could kill the creature, Odette saved him and kept him in her chambers, bringing him back to health. The King and Queen always took advantage of that time, because the Princess became a different person around the hawk. Where she was violent, she became calm and rational. Where she was stubborn, she became open to ideas.”

He had taken a breath to go on, but I stopped him to add to the story. New information leaked out of the Palace all the time, and I heard the gossip on the streets as I performed. The story of the evil little Princess was becoming more involved each year. “That was where the Queen told Odette of her engagement to Prince Connor. It was the next day where she became angry about it.”

I gave them a second to absorb the new information before I returned to the odd end of Princess Odette’s story. “The last days of Princess Odette were not so different from the other ten years of her life. A band of Romani had been invited to the castle to entertain the Royal Family on King Sebastian’s birthday. While dancing, a boy tripped and soiled Odette’s gown. Her face violet with rage, she slapped the boy and ordered him to be hanged. As always, once she left, the boy and his troop were set free.” I paused, feeling the riveted attention of the children, feeling dozens of dark eyes trained on me.

“Three days later, Princess Odette went missing. She simply vanished, with not a trace or clue as to where she had gone. Some say that the Romani troop had killed her in revenge. Some believe that she went mad and flung herself into the sea. And others think that the servants murdered her, to avoid having to serve under her as Queen.” I smiled slightly, enjoying those theories. Every time I told her story, I loathed Princess Odette a little more. It was certainly a good thing that all ideas of her whereabouts ended with her dead.

“What do you think?” Tem asked me, for the children’s benefit. He knew my thoughts.

“I agree with the third theory. If I had had the opportunity to kill that evil little girl, I would definitely seize it.”

The children were sitting with a number of looks on their faces. The smaller ones looked afraid, and I was certain it was because their mothers used the Princess as means to make unruly children behave. If you do not quiet down and sleep, Princess Odette will get you!

Others wore the comical image of relief. Relief that Princess Odette was certainly dead. Relief that she was not to be the future Queen. That was very understandable.

There were a few who smiled as I did. They hated the selfish, cruel, vain girl as I hated her. It brought a sense of happiness that she was dead and gone. She was not able to terrorize anyone anymore. And a small part of me hoped that whoever or whatever had caused her demise had let her experience some of the helplessness that she had caused others.

After a long silence, my father barreled into the clearing, throwing two children over his shoulder as he howled with laughter. Delighted shrieks made me wince as the crowd dispersed and started chasing each other again. Story time was over.

I laughed at the sight of my elderly father, with his tired white hair and deeply wrinkled face, running down the hill with two children in tow, preparing to toss them into the nearby pond. As the Elder, he was loved by both the old and the young, because he could masquerade as both. During times when the troop was at peace with outsiders, such as now, the only thing that betrayed his age was his appearance. But during times when soldiers arrested us for witchcraft or when other troops caused trouble, he transformed into the wise, serious leader that he could be.

The awkward position of my pinky changed as Tem released my hand and stood. “Would you like to help me put the herd in the pen for tonight? Before Shandor comes back and lectures you again about being alone with a man before your wedding night.” He smiled with good humor, revealing a set of slightly crooked teeth.

“Alright!”

He stopped at his own tent to grab his shepherd’s crook before leading me to the meadow where a small herd of goats grazed. We approached the herd from both sides, forcing them into a smaller group that could easily be controlled by his crook or my voice. As he tapped the stragglers back into line, he made a move to link his fingers with mine. We only had these stolen moments. If I was lucky and there was nobody waiting at the goat pen for us, perhaps we would have time for a quick kiss.

“I was talking with Shandor about the terms of our marriage earlier.” He told me, squeezing my hand a bit as he tapped the backside of a goat.

I snorted. “What did he offer you?”

He shrugged. “The usual dowry of five goats.” As if to punctuate what he said, a loud bleat sounded out from the front of the herd. “But I told him that I have enough goats to worry about. Besides, you are enough to make up for the pain of marriage.”

Rolling my eyes, I shoved him to the side. “Right. You’re the one marrying the Elder’s daughter. I’m the one marrying the goatboy. Who is the one going through the most pain in this arrangement?”

Grinning at me, he leaned down slightly to kiss the top of my head and playfully tug on the large gold hoop that I wore in my ear. “Shandor. He’s the one who has to give you up. That’s not something I would wish on anyone.”

Turning my face up, I kissed his cheek, right on the scar on his cheek. “Personally, I think that he’ll be glad to be rid of me. He’s had white hair ever since I woke up from my accident, but I know that I’ve added to his collection of wrinkles.”

Something flashed in Tem’s black eyes, but he had to release me in order to herd the goats into their pen and close the gate. We both smiled when we found that nobody was around.

Sitting side by side on the makeshift fence that we took down every time the band moved, Tem took the dirty white bandana from my wild black hair so he could twirl my locks around his fingers. I leaned my face into his hand. “Tem, thank you for helping me tell that story.”

“Those children adore you. As do I.” His thumb stroked lightly across my cheek and I laughed the type of laugh that really isn’t a proper laugh but more of a heavy breath through my nose.

“I cannot wait to marry you, Tem.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Why’s that?”

I craned my head to glance over his shoulder. “So I don’t have to constantly check before I do this.” I gave him the quickest of kisses, as I knew that he would want to decide if he wanted more.

It seemed that he did. But just as he was leaning in, we were interrupted by an old woman making her way over for the milking. “Tem, don’t you think I won’t tell Shandor about this! Isn’t this the third time I’ve caught you two?” We both stood and stepped away from each other as Mirela only half-joked with Tem.

Tem opened the pen for Mirela and told her in a slightly pouting voice, “Should we not have earned a bit of privacy? Our engagement is official, as of today.”

She looked back at us and smiled. “Well, for goodness sake! Jaelle, my darling, come here and give this old woman a hug! I cannot believe how fast you’ve grown into a young woman! Why, I believe it was just yesterday that you had your accident!” She hugged me tightly as I flinched slightly. That was how everyone talked about my past. Nobody ever talked about how I was as a child. It seemed that the day I woke up with no memory was the beginning of my life. It was bad enough that I couldn’t remember. It seemed that no one else did, either.

My sour thoughts were quickly turned into happy ones when Mirela gave me a slightly mischievous look. “Here, I will promise to turn my back and pretend that I noticed nothing. But you must promise me that you will be brief.”

“Brief?”

“With Tem! Take no more than a minute together before you return to the camp.” She smiled and pushed me towards him. “Go on, now.”

The woman promptly turned her back and Tem took the opportunity to wrap his arms around me and plant a few kisses on my cheek before dropping one on my lips. Before he could pull away, I put my hands on his face and held him there in a scandalously long kiss.

It was too long, because Mirela piped up, “I don’t hear you two going back to camp! Tem, don’t you think I wasn’t being serious before when I spoke about telling Shandor!”

Tem laughed and told her, “Alright, alright! We’re going! Yelling like that only scares the goats so that they won’t milk.”

Laughing together, he grabbed his staff and we made our slow way back to the camp, holding hands and then only hooking pinkies once we got into view of the others. Even as betrothed, physical affection was not looked at well to Romani. But maybe, just maybe, we could now get away with things like this.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” Tem asked, scratching at his scar.

“Oh, I suppose I will go into town with the performers. I need practice reading palms and I need to go shopping for some cloth and things. What about you?”

He shrugged. “Same thing I do every day. Play my pipes for that herd of stupid goats.”

“They’re not stupid and you know it. You love them.” I stopped walking, as we had reached the tent I lived in with my father.

Releasing my pinky, Tem leaned heavily on his staff. “Alright, if you say so.” We looked at each other for a long moment, trying to say with our eyes all the things that we couldn’t do with everyone watching. Finally, he sighed happily. “Goodnight, my love. I will try and visit you in the morning before you leave.”

“If you don’t see me in the morning, we are moving on tomorrow. So I will try and save you a seat next to me in the caravan.”

That face-splitting smile that he put on only made my arms tingle with the desire to embrace him. So instead of getting into that mess, I cordially kissed him on the cheek in a gesture that would easily be mistaken for a friendly farewell. “Goodnight, Tem. I love you.”

Author's Note

Is it a problem that I started the story with them already in love? Is it confusing or in any way unbelievable?