Free A Tale of Fur and Flesh by Unknown Page B

but to have carrots thrown at my head.”
    “You may go now, hairy animal,” Liam said, but Lally
could not leave without a final look at the king.  His dark eyes twinkled with
the flutter of candle flames glowing overhead.  Did he suspect her?  Could he
tell from the eyes behind her wolf’s mask that the hairy animal was
Allerleirauh?  Had he deduced, for that matter, that Allerleirauh was Princess
Lally of the Southern Kingdom?  There were far too many layers to her
existence.  Oh, for a time when life was simple.
    “Go!” Liam again instructed, pushing Lally toward the
palace. She grasped her throbbing knuckles.
    “Are you injured, furry creature?” the king called
out.  The concern in his low voice stopped Lally in her tracks.
    “No, your highness,” she replied meekly as she set
off toward the palace.
    Why must he not discover her true
identity?   Ah yes,
because the threat of war loomed large.  Despite her father’s lunacy, Lally did
not wish to see his kingdom taken from him.  Father had been a just and
decisive leader when mother was alive.  And yet, what good did he for the
people in his current state?  Perhaps he ought to be dethroned.  Was this the
conclusion King Aelwyn had reached?
    The following morning, Lally told Cook she injured
her hand fetching water.  “These fingers are really paining you, aren’t they?”
Cook asked with something like pity in her gaze.
    Lally nodded.  “I imagined my condition would improve
overnight, but just the opposite has happened.”
    Cook launched a queer glance in her direction.  “I
thought you said your hurt yourself carrying the water.”
    Lally had tripped
up.  “Yes, I meant carrying the water yester-morning.  My fingers pained me all
day, but I said nothing as we were so busy preparing for the festival.”
    “Poor beast,” answered Cook in a comforting tone. 
“Well, don’t you worry.  I know how to make a splint from string and twigs, and
a compress from forest herbs.  We’ll have that hand feeling better in no time.”
    After pulverizing the herbs and placing them in a
cloth against Lally’s hand, the cook bound it in twigs.  Lally’s suffering
seemed to bring out the best in her.  “I’ll tell you what’s funny,” the cook
laughed.  “Before this, here I was thinking you were a witch!”
    “A witch?” Lally winced as Cook tied the string
around the twigs.  “Why-ever would you think such a thought?”
    “Because the king always liked the soup what you made
for him.  I was thinking it were an enchanted soup you cast a spell on, like
you thrown in some bat’s blood and eye of newt.”  The cook chuckled until she
snorted.  “But here now you’ve injured your little fingers.  If you were a
witch, you could heal ‘em up yourself.”
    “I suppose so,” Lally agreed.
    Cook rose from her stool and wiped her hands on her
apron, already grey with the soot in the air.  “Well, you’d better get started
plucking the fowl.  With only one hand, your day’s tasks are bound to take
twice as long.”
    Small mercies were all Lally could hope for anymore.
Cook changed her herbal compress every day until the hand was healed.  She
allowed her to eat more than just scraps for her meals, and asked that Lally
call her Berthe.  In all the months she lived in the kitchen, Lally never
realized she did not know the cook’s name.

 
    Chapter Eight
     
    Soon the weather became cool and the leaves fell to
the ground in crisp heaps.  As the harvest feast drew near, Lally grew
anxious.  Would it be terribly unwise of her to ascend the kitchen stairs once
again?  Yes, her thoughts dwelled constantly upon him, but last time they met,
she ended by assaulting a man!  Perhaps she would now face the consequence of
her misbehaviour.
    In the heart of a nineteen-year-old girl, even if she
was old beyond her years, love was sure to triumphs.  Thus, on the evening of
the harvest feast, Lally told Berthe she planned to endeavour