Free The Scarecrow King: A Romantic Retelling of the King Thrushbeard Fairy Tale by Jill Myles Page A

straight through. But as we are near neither, we have no choice but to sleep here, unless you’d like to get back on the horse and ride through the night.”
    I stared at him, then glanced over at the horse. Then back at him again. His words, eminently sensible, had deflated the argument out of my body. I flopped to the ground in a mess of wrinkled skirts and crushed petticoats. “So, then what? I’m tired, cold, and hungry.”
    “If you’re tired, go to sleep in the tent. If you’re cold, I’ll stoke up the fire a little. If you’re hungry, I’m sure I can catch something around here.” He squinted into the darkness. “Well, maybe not. But I do have some dried meat and cheese leftover from before.” He reached into his pack and offered me a little of both, then held out his waterskin.
    I took the offered meal and ate a few bites. I was starving, but the entire thing was dry and coarse. As I ate, Aleksandr busied himself around the camp, rubbing down the horse and collecting more wood. Now I was only tired, instead of cold, hungry and tired. Still miserable, though. I cast a furtive look at Aleksandr, who was whistling under his breath as he gathered firewood and dumped it nearby. Why was he so happy all the time? We were stuck in the middle of the woods. We were poor as beggars – no, poorer than the beggars who now had my clothes – and we were married. I wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all. Instead, I bit my tongue and glared at the fire.
    A flower appeared in the corner of my vision, and I stared up at Aleksandr in surprise, dread trudging in my stomach. Was this a preliminary to…a wedding night? Here? With him?
    My expression must have been telling. Aleksandr blushed and sat down next to me, shaking his head when I scooted away. “I should explain,” he stammered, sticking the flower so close to my face that it nearly tickled my nose. “This…it’s a tradition where I come from.”
    “Shoving a flower into a woman’s nose?” I retorted, pushing the flower aside.
    He raked his free hand through his hair, causing it to stick up. “No, I…not exactly.” Aleksandr pulled back and gave the flower a frustrated look. “You see, where I come from, marriages have strict traditions for the first month. Courting happens after the marriage.”
    “After?” I sneered at him, hugging my knees close to my body and staring at the fire. “Doesn’t that seem rather pointless to you? The woman can’t escape once the vows are made.”
    “That’s not true,” he protested, and offered the flower to me again. “We have tradition. The vows are said, and every night for thirty nights, the husband gives his wife a flower. If she accepts the gift, she can take him into her bed that night. If she declines, he sleeps alone.”
    Well, that was easy enough. I reached over and crushed the flower in my hand, then tossed it aside. “There’s your answer.”
    Aleksandr grinned, showing white, even teeth in his tanned face. “I thought you might say something like that. But don’t worry! Twenty nine more nights before I can convince you otherwise.”
    That would never happen. “And what happens after thirty days and I still refuse you?”
    His face grew sober. “Then we dissolve the marriage. It’s over.”
    A laugh bubbled from my throat. “No, truly, what happens?”
    Aleksandr didn’t smile back. “If we cannot get along within a month, why should we stay married?”
    Why indeed? Hope spiraled through me, and I could hardly breathe with the relief of it all. So I wouldn’t have to be married to him forever? If I held out for a month – a mere month! – I could return home. Had my father not realized Aleksandr's strange wedding customs when he’d married us? Or had he simply not cared?
    The world was suddenly full of promise again, and I smiled.
    Aleksandr was studying the crushed flower with a bemused expression on his face. “You certainly don’t mince words, do you?”
    “Not often,” I