"Just don't tell anyone where you got it," Siegfried said, and winced a little. "Or especially how you got it."
"I promise," Leopold pledged. But he couldn't help himself, and Siegfried saw it in his face. "But how did you — I mean, why didn't you — why are you still — "
He had to ask. Of course he did. "Because up until I left Drachenthal, every single female I met was my aunt! My aunt, Leopold! Even at twelve, I knew better than that! In fact, the Shieldmaiden of Doom is probably my aunt, too, or at least my great-aunt!" He felt his face burning. "Why would anyone want to — with his mother's sister?"
Leopold waved his hands in the air to stop him. "Wait, wait, I'm confused here. I thought you said you were supposed to fall in love with the first person you see who is not your aunt...."
"I am. I'm supposed to fall in love with the Shieldmaiden, then I'm supposed to forget the Shieldmaiden and fall in love with the person who's not my aunt and then — " Siegfried let go of the reins to wipe his forehead " — then it gets very complicated and involves all the usual messy things like jealousy and retribution, and unusual things like murder and suicide and the death of gods and the fall of kingdoms and can we just not talk about this anymore?"
They rode on in silence for a good while longer. "Um...there is a way to fix that, you know," the Prince ventured at last.
"Fix what?" Siegfried turned in his saddle to stare at his friend.
"Being uni — " Leopold's face twitched, but he managed to hold in his hilarity. "Being unicorn bait. I know a lady. In fact, I know several ladies."
Siegfried thought that over for a moment. It was tempting. In fact it was very tempting. On the other hand —
"Let's just leave it for now," he said. "We know there's at least one unicorn in the forest now, and we might need more hair."
"If you're sure." Leopold's face twitched. Siegfried was pretty sure he had more things to say, and most of them would be funny someday. Just not right now.
"We have all sorts of tests ahead of us. Do you want to take the chance we'd need something like unicorn hair?" he asked. "Or unicorn blood? Or unicorn tears? She'll give me whatever I ask, you know. Unicorn blood cures any disease and most wounds. Unicorn tears mend broken hearts and broken minds. If we need either of those, the situation would be very nasty, and there are not many substitutes."
Leopold sobered.
"All right then. You go get a silver clasp put on that. Don't let it out of your sight. Wait while the jeweler does it. If you can help it, don't tell him what it is. That stuff is worth more than gold." Siegfried was not about to tell his friend that he had enough hair for several more necklaces inhis pouch. No point in letting Leopold's greed get the better of him. He was going to braid one for himself; it might come in useful.
"How did you learn all these things?" Leopold asked, just before they split up inside the city gate.
Siegfried deadpanned, "A little bird told me."
Siegfried didn't particularly want Leopold around as he ran this lot of "errands" anyway. He figured that he had gotten enough teasing from his friend for one day as it was.
His first stop was at the market stalls. This late in the day, everyone was willing to sell him what he wanted at bargain prices, which was good, because it made his money go further. Granted, Leopold was very generous with his winnings, sharing them despite Siegfried's insistence that he didn't need them.... But Siegfried generally ended up giving the money away. According to the bird, one of the effects of resisting the Rivergold Ring that the dragon had guarded was that greed had no hold over him, and that made him particularly generous of heart. That might well be so, but he couldn't remember a time when he hadn't given things away.
In all events, since he had arrived here, he had done more, a lot more, than just help that one fox. Leopold had no idea, and Siegfried was fairly sure that he'd find what Siegfried was doing incomprehensible, laughable, or both.
His first stop, because he really wanted to get rid of that fish that was just going stale, was at an old warehouse. As he got off the horse, a cat and three lively kittens came running up to him. He had taken the kittens away from boys who were going to drown them, and rescued the mother from their confederate who intended to tie burning straw to her tail and then let her go, to watch her set fire to everything in her path as she tried to escape. He had taken them to this warehouse where they could earn their living catching mice, and stopped by whenever he could with old fish.
The entire little family spilled out of the warehouse when they caught his scent. The kittens greeted him with happy noises, and the mother cat bumped her head against his hand. "You have a good heart, BigMan," she said as he put down the fish. "We will remember you, you know."
He laughed, for this was the clearest thing she had ever said to him, and rubbed her head as she purred like distant thunder. Interesting! Maybe she was a Wise Beast? "Raise big cats to catch rats that make people sick," he told her. "That is all I ask."
When he saw that they had eaten their fill and he didn't need to stave off other cats, dogs or crows, he got on the horse and went on to his next stop.
This time, it was at a stable, where he made sure that an old, slow little donkey was still being cared for properly. The stable owner had a crippled child who was just the right size and weight to ride the tiny beast. He had rescued the poor thing from the enormous cart it was trying to pull. The cart was meant for a full-size horse or ox, not a donkey, but the skinflint drover was bound that the poor old beast was going to pull it, and had been beating her and goading her with an ox-goad. Siegfried tried to reason with him, and when the fellow tried to hit him with the goad, he knocked the man to the ground and beat him as he had beaten his donkey. Then he threw just enough money on the man's chest to pay for the poor old thing, cut the donkey out of the traces and took her away. She was happy here. Her sores were healing, she was clean, her coat was shining, and she had something over her bones other than skin. And she loved the little girl; the two had formed an instant bond.
The stable owner loved her, too, not only because she was his child's favorite companion, but because she ate the thistles that plagued his pasture. Siegfried would have left money for her care, but the owner would have none of it. The donkey came up as he turned to leave, the little child on her back. "Thank you, BigMan," she said. "I will not forget your kindness."
"Just love and care for the child," Siegfried replied, smiling. "That is all I ask."
Definitely another Wise Beast. Then again...he was smack in the middle of a Kingdom, engaging in Traditional Trials, for the Traditional hand of a Princess. Maybe he should be surprised he wasn't encounteringmore Wise Beasts.
Not long ago he had followed his ears to the door of another warehouse, where he had found a crowd standing around a crude arena, where a bear and a wolf were being forced to fight each other by a showman. The poor things were half-starved, covered with wounds and nearly mad. When he discovered them, lying on the floor of the arena, they were nearly dead.
He had treated the showman as he had the drover, then taken the animals. He had treated their wounds himself, not daring to entrust them to anyone else. At first, they had been too sick and weak to move, and by the time they had recovered their strength, he had won their trust. He kept them in roomy cages in a shed he had rented — in cages for their protection and not to confine them; bars meant no one could get near them to kill or steal them. Slowly, he was able to talk to them; they had been less than sane when he rescued them but with the healing of their bodies, their minds had also healed. He had known from the start, though, that he was going to have to get them out of the city, and as soon as he possibly could.