Fortune's Fool - Mercedes Lackey [49]
He dismounted, and slowly walked toward the beautiful creature. She let him approach. He got within a few feet of her, then stopped. “Are you under a curse or a spell?” he asked.
Slowly, the doe nodded.
“Can it be broken?” Sasha asked, as he heard Katya behind him respond to that answer with a swift intake of breath. Again, the doe nodded.
“Does it have to be a Prince of the Royal House?” he asked, hoping that the answer would be no. Because all of the White Doe stories had a period of sorrow and trial to them, and he was hoping his brothers would be spared that. And oh no—he had chosen his bride, if it could be done, if Katya would have him, and in no way was he going to be this girl’s rescuer. To his intense relief, the doe shook her head. “Any boyar will do, then?” he asked, and was rewarded with a nod.
Thanks be to the blessed saints. He thought about the man whose hunting lands these were. What he knew of Boyar Arkadij was all good. He was a kind man, good to his peasants—as witness the fact that poachers here went unpunished—faithful in his loyalty to the King, solitary by nature. Perhaps that was why the doe appeared here.
“I will send a message to the boyar whose forest this is,” he told the doe. “I think you will like him. I suggest you start showing yourself near the hunting lodge in this forest as soon as possible.”
The doe bowed her head and delicately pawed the ground. Sasha smiled as the doe reared a little, then whirled on her hind feet and vaulted off into the shadows under the trees so lightly he did not even hear a rustle of branches.
“Well,” he said, looking around at the perfect little glade. “This looks like as good a place as any for our lunch, no?”
Katya had known from the moment her father had asked her if she fancied Sasha that she was falling in love with him. Since he’d begun making moves she could only interpret as courtship almost immediately, she could see no reason why she shouldn’t. Traditionally, they were a very good match. The Fortunate Fool never, in any of the tales that she had ever heard, was paired up with an ordinary girl, not even a Princess unless she had some sort of magic about her or was the captive of a magical villain. He always found a wife who was a swan maiden, or a captive of some evil creature, or enchanted into the form of a bird, or a deer or—
That was why she realized, after Sasha himself had clearly figured it out, that the pure white doe must be exactly the latter. And her heart sank as she came to that conclusion.
But then Sasha had questioned it, and when he’d asked about how the curse could be lifted, then promised to tell the boyar who owned these lands about the poor thing, her heart had risen again.
She helped him to unpack the pannier they had brought with them, and set out a meal. There was far more food in there than two people could ever eat in a day, but Sasha explained to her that he always tried to pack a great deal of food, in case he should meet a little old lady begging, because such little old ladies popping up in the path of princes were almost always witches. That was even more the case when the Prince was a Fortunate Fool. Mostly they just gave him their blessing and let him ride on if he fed them, but once he had been sent to a treasure, and once he had been sent to the aid of an old hermit.
“That was a very kind thing you did just now, Sasha,” she said, going to the stream and returning with both their cups filled with water. She could hardly get enough of pure water when she was on Drylands. It was almost intoxicating in its sweetness, after the heavy salt of sea water. Sasha found that very amusing, she imagined, though he never said anything.
“Kind? I suppose so.” He helped himself to a boiled egg and began to peel it. “I was just hoping she hadn’t come for me, or for one of my brothers. She won’t have an easy time of it. The boyar will break the curse, I am sure, but whatever cursed her will know that the curse has been broken and come here to plague her.