Swords, Sorcery, & Self-Rescuing Damsels Read online

  A keening wail rose from the forest behind them. All the horses and donkeys bucked or danced at the sound. The huntsman plowed in among his dogs, cuffing them to make them stop howling at the mournful noise. Marie-Jeanne froze. The lure dropped to the ground.

  “What in hell was that?” the comte demanded.

  “Some poor beast being torn by a wolf,” the bishop said, with an expression of disapproval at the noble’s blasphemy. “Nothing to do with hell at all, my good comte.”

  “Very well, then,” de Velay said, sulkily. He did not like to be corrected, even by Holy Mother Church. “Let us go on with our hunt.”

  But the cry had alarmed Mistinguette. She lifted from the branch and fluttered into the woods. The bishop laughed.

  “Curse it, let her go!” the comte barked. “She’s of no further use to me. I have better birds.”

  Marie-Jeanne knew better. Once out of sight of his illustrious company, he would demand that Father reimburse him the price of the costly falcon, meaning that the family would work for years with catastrophically reduced pay. It would be a horrible way to reward Father for sending her on her first hunt.

  “I will find her, my lord,” she said, gathering up the lure. De Velay waved her away impatiently. Marie-Jeanne marked the direction that the kestrel had flown, and ran after her, hoping to spot a glimpse of her white feathers against the dark trees.

  The lure was of no use among the undergrowth of the forest. Mistinguette had not yet learned to come to her name. Without Father’s cantrips for finding and trapping, all Marie-Jeanne could hope was to find the kestrel on a low branch and coax her back onto the glove.

  The forest was usually alive with the sounds of birds and small animals, but it was eerily silent that day. Marie-Jeanne could not help but think that the terrifying cry had silenced them all with fear. Her own heart beat hard against her ribs. What if La Bête was real? What if it came upon her in the woods all alone? Would anything be left of her to tell her grieving parents what had become of her? Her blood ran like ice in her veins.

  Behind her, the rest of the hunting party had carried on. The nobles shouted encouragement at their birds as they flew after rabbits and pheasants that the dogs flushed from cover. Soon, their voices died away in the distance. Marie-Jeanne crossed herself, hoping that she would not become lost. She had scavenged in the forests for mushrooms and nuts all her life, but usually in the company of friends or siblings, one at least who knew the way home.

  A reassuring peep sounded from far ahead.

  “Mistinguette!” Marie-Jeanne called. “Come back, chick!”

  Another peep, as if in answer, gave the girl a direction, at least. A well-worn deer path led her that way. She pushed aside branches, scaring a squirrel up the nearest tree, where it scolded her as she passed. More peeps made her turn left, then right, then right again, stepping over humped roots and avoiding the piles of scut left by animals.

  “I’m coming, chick!” At last, the plaintive sound seemed to come from above her. Marie-Jeanne looked up. Mistinguette clung to a branch high over her head. The girl held up her wrist and the lure.

  “Come down to me, chick!” she called, keeping her voice soothing.

  The kestrel rose a handspan, then dropped back, scrambling to clutch at the branch. She tried again, swung upside down, and flapped hard to right herself. Marie-Jeanne realized with horror that the hawk’s jesses were caught. If she struggled too hard, she could break her neck.

  The thought of Father shamed and impoverished struck Marie-Jeanne with shame. She had no choice. Fastening the big leather pouch tight to her back, she found a handhold and pulled herself up against the stout bole. She felt for a toehold and boosted herself up another foot. The first big branch was still over her head. One long stretch with her right arm, and she managed to hook a hand over it. The gloves kept her from skinning her palms on the rough bark.

  Mistinguette’s flapping and calling became more frantic. One long feather, dislodged by her struggles, floated down past Marie-Jeanne’s head.

  “Don’t struggle, dear one!” the girl pleaded. The hawk could do herself a mischief, perhaps even break a wing! “Oh, how I wish I could tell you – all you need to do is sit calm!” That was unlikely. Mistinguette would probably tear her face in her hysteria. What would Father or one of the boys do? She had seen Henri, the eldest journeyman, soothe an eagle from insane fits to cooing affection with a few soft words. Not that the bird was tamed, far from it, but she had never understood how he had done it. When she asked, the boys put her off. Did they seem...embarrassed as to how they had learned to communicate with the hawks? In all the years since Father had let her begin to handle the birds, she had been bitten, screamed at, battered by wings, soiled upon, scratched, and coldly ignored by them. What more could they possibly do?

  It didn’t matter. Her duty was clear: save the bird then go back to face whatever punishment the comte chose to subject her to for not controlling it. He was not a bad man, only impatient. If she was successful, he would calm down. She’d receive no money, but at least Father would not be the loser on the day.

  A warm stream rained down on her unprotected head. Marie-Jeanne touched the liquid and looked at it. White and pasty. She groaned. The bird had soiled on her hair! Stifling her resentment, she gritted her teeth and felt for the next handhold, and the next. Mistinguette was upset. She understood. Suddenly, a mad golden eye glared at her. Marie-Jeanne recoiled just in time from a strike by the deadly beak.

  “There you are!” she said, in the same tone Mother used to talk with babies. “Hold on, my chick. I’m here. I’ll help you.”

  Mistinguette couldn’t understand her or didn’t believe her. The kestrel swung upside down, bating and flapping helplessly. Marie-Jeanne pulled herself up to the branch above the falcon, and gently drew her up by the tangled jesses. The kestrel shrieked, a sound that penetrated the girl’s ears like a spike.

  Mistinguette fought hard. She beat her powerful wings, trying to take off through the treetops. Marie-Jeanne held on, keeping up the stream of calm nonsense words, all the while desperately hoping she wouldn’t tumble off the narrow branch.

  “There, there, my chick. You’re fine now. Look at what you’ve done to your feathers! So untidy. You don’t want anyone to see you like that, do you? No, of course not. Let me smooth them down. You’ll feel much better when you’re neat.”

  As she spoke, she gathered the wild kestrel into her lap, petting and petting at the skewed feathers, patting them down into place. Mistinguette panted, her beak half open. Marie-Jeanne closed the heavy cloak about them both, enveloping them in a tent of wool. It smelled familiar and comforting to her. She hoped the hawk found it so.

  Gradually, the kestrel stopped struggling. Marie-Jeanne’s hands found her crouched in her lap, in the hollow formed by her smock’s skirts. Mistinguette scratched with one foot after the other, making herself comfortable. She fixed the girl with a searching look, then very deliberately hunched down, her tail feathers held high.

  She’s going to soil again, Marie-Jeanne thought, in despair. Mother will make me wash all my clothes in the brook.

  But no white stream issued from the hawk’s backside. Instead, Marie-Jeanne felt a warm spot in the bottom of her skirt. When Mistinguette rose, a small white sphere lay where she had been crouching. An egg!

  “Well, aren’t you the clever girl?” Marie-Jeanne exclaimed. Father would be pleased. The kestrel was old enough to produce eggs! They would have to find her a mate. She reached for it to put it in the lure bag. The shell was still soft. It deformed slightly against the glove leather.

  The kestrel jumped up on her wrist and nudged at the egg.

  “You don’t want me to take it? Why not?”

  Mistinguette looked up at her, then rolled the egg toward Marie-Jeanne.

  “You...want me to have it?”

  The kestrel shrieked. She bent down with her beak open, then looked up at the girl again. Her meaning was clear. Marie-J
eanne gasped.

  “You want me to eat it? Father would be furious!”

  Mistinguette nudged the egg again. Marie-Jeanne raised it to her mouth.

  “No, I ca—”

  She had no time to finish her protest. The falcon shoved the small sphere into her open mouth with its hard, little head. Marie-Jeanne almost vomited. The shell tasted bitter and salty. It was very small, though, about two inches long. She might be able to swallow it whole. But, ugh, the shell collapsed and broke on her tongue! The slimy insides, all still hot from the falcon’s body, filled her mouth. She gagged, ready to spit, then she caught Mistinguette’s eye. For once, it was patient, waiting and watching.

  Suppressing her disgust, Marie-Jeanne swallowed once, twice, and the mouthful of slime and shards went down.

  “There,” she said. Her voice sounded weak in her own ears. “Happy? Now, may I take you down so that the comte does not wring both of our necks?”

  Mistinguette peeped like a new-hatched chick and climbed up from the woolen skirts to take a post on Marie-Jeanne’s right shoulder.

  The girl could not believe her eyes. The kestrel understood her!

  It peeped at her again, as if to tell her to hurry. Marie-Jeanne didn’t hesitate. She tied the hanging leather jesses to the neck of her cloak and turned to face the trunk. Slowly, she felt her way down. It seemed years before her foot crunched onto the fallen leaves and twigs at the base of the tree. Marie-Jeanne sighed and dusted her gloves together.

  Then, she winced.

  “I don’t know which way is home,” she said. “I followed your calls. I turned this way and that, and I can’t really see where the sun lies. We could be lost in here for days!”

  Mistinguette almost chuckled as she trod on Marie-Jeanne’s shoulder. She took hold of a lock of the girl’s hair in her beak and tugged.

  “What, you want me to go that way?”

  Another tug.

  Marie-Jeanne trembled at the notion that a miracle was occurring. A beast that could understand the speech of men? Or...was this the secret that the falconer’s apprentices refused to share? Had they eaten an egg that made them bird-kin? She must ask Father, but first, she must return home safe and alive.

  She turned in the directions the kestrel indicated. To and fro, to and fro, Mistinguette guided her, not even protesting or crying out when Marie-Jeanne tripped on a root or raised her arm to swat at biting flies.

  The forest was still quiet, but it was a waiting silence. The animals sensed some kind of danger. Could it be La Bête? Marie-Jeanne drew her belt knife. She walked faster through a small clearing, feeling eyes on her back. The villagers complained of wolves in the woods. Had she rescued the falcon only to be eaten by a beast?

  Snuffling noises broke the silence. Marie-Jeanne heard them off to her left and diverted to avoid the source. A musky odor filled the air. It could be her imagination, but her senses seemed keener than before. Every leaf had a sharper edge. Every smell had intensified so much she might have had her nose pressed to everything she passed. Sounds, too, reached deeper into her ears, creating a landscape in her mind. This was magic, then. Marie-Jeanne felt the sort of awe she experienced during mass, of something so great that her poor small brain could sense but a dust mote of a distant mountain.

  A sudden burst of sound and smell erupted before her. Marie-Jeanne stumbled backward and fell against a tree, moments before a great gray boar hurtled into the clearing, no more than twenty feet away from her. Its tiny eyes had a mad glint. It saw her and bared its teeth. The sharp, pointed tusks at the sides of its mouth gleamed. It pawed the ground like a bull. She couldn’t fend it off with only a knife. If only she knew some of Father’s protective spells!

  “Jesu preserve me,” she prayed, clasping her hands together. “Oh, God, I will be dutiful!”

  The boar lowered its huge head and charged toward her. She was doomed.

  An earsplitting cry erupted in her right ear, rising higher and higher until she feared her skull would split. Marie-Jeanne dropped to her knees. The boar, whose approach threw clods of earth up on both sides, stopped so suddenly its front legs buckled. Mistinguette shrieked her hunting cry again, louder than ever. The boar charged at them, but a yard from Marie-Jeanne, it rebounded as though it hit a stone wall. Marie-Jeanne gasped. The boar scrambled up, bellowing angrily, but it hurtled out of the clearing, avoiding them in a wide arc.

  She stared at the kestrel. Mistinguette tilted her head and chuckled again, as though to say, “It was nothing, really. You could have done it yourself.”

  Marie-Jeanne shook her head. Magic. The world was full of wonders. She had so much to learn.

  In between steering her toward home, Mistinguette let out her hunting cry any time an animal approached them. Marie-Jeanne tried to imitate the sound, but the kestrel sounded as if it laughed at her efforts.

  “You must give me a chance to learn,” she told the bird, sternly. “No one has ever told me what it was really like to be falcon’s kin!”

  They emerged from the forest by the barley field. The farmer and his workers were doing their best to repair the damage done by the hunting party. By the position of the sun, more than two hours had passed since the falcon had flown away. Marie-Jeanne sighed. She could discover no sign of the comte and his guests but footsteps and hoofprints. If she was lucky, perhaps they had stopped to dine, and she could retrieve her donkey. Otherwise, it would be a long and a disgraceful walk home. She wished for some of that promised feast, even a crust of bread and a sip of watered wine.

  “A raw egg is hardly a meal,” she pointed out to the kestrel. “Too bad I didn’t keep the coney. I could have cooked it for us.” Mistinguette peeped in reply.

  At least the path was dry. Marie-Jeanne trudged up a gentle hill, following the broken branches left by the party. She hoped they weren’t far ahead.

  A distant murmur met her enhanced hearing. That was the comte and comtesse, and the bishop! She had found them!

  With an apology to Mistinguette, she began to trot down the hill. A strange smell met her nostrils. So strong it made her eyes water, she knew it wasn’t dog, horse, or human.

  As she looked down the road, she saw it: a beast the size of a large man, but on all fours, with thin black fur over gray skin. It could have been a boar bred with a she-wolf. Marie-Jeanne’s heart wrenched. La Bête! It held the entire hunting party at bay.

  “Spread out, men,” the comte said, his voice amazingly calm. He had his arms out to his sides, his sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. Two men lay on the ground. At first, Marie-Jeanne thought they were asleep, but one of them had no head. “Keep it from charging the ladies. Madame,” he said to his wife, “ride hell for leather. Go home and summon all the men-at-arms!”

  The comtesse turned her horse this way and that, looking for a way around. Any time she moved, La Bête growled at her, making as if to charge. With a wrench of the poor beast’s head, the lady kicked her steed. It leaped into a gallop. La Bête sped after her. It was fast as lightning.

  A page in red livery sprang into its path.

  “You shall not harm my lady!” he cried. The horrible beast cannoned into him. With one bite, it severed his head then plunged its jaws into his heart. The men charged at it with their hunting weapons. Like a whirlwind, La Bête tossed one after another onto the ground. The comte brought his sword down on its spine. The blade bounced off as if it had been a stick. La Bête jumped onto his chest and opened its jaws.

  “No!” Marie-Jeanne screamed. But instead of the word emerging, a deep-throated scream came from her lungs, rising higher and higher into the sky. Mistinguette added her shriek.

  In a heartbeat, the beast sprang off the comte’s body and hurtled toward the girl. Marie-Jeanne didn’t know where the courage came from, but she found herself running at the monster, her arms wide as if they were wings. She screamed and screamed, feeling herself fill with power. The kestrel kept up her cries as well, creating a veritable wall of sound into which
La Bête hurtled. And fell.

  It rose to its feet, looking shaken but angry. Marie-Jeanne saw its face clearly for the first time. Its teeth were as long as her fingers, and its tiny eyes gleamed with evil.

  “You monster!” Marie-Jeanne shrilled. “Foul beast of Satan! Die! I will break your neck! Die!”

  La Bête charged her again and again and again. It could not penetrate the kestrel’s spell. Marie-Jeanne faced an impasse. If she stopped screaming, it would devour her, and destroy the comte and the others. She glanced at Mistinguette. The kestrel kept up her cry, keeping her safe, keeping them all safe, but for how long?

  By now, all the hawks had joined their voices to Marie-Jeanne’s. Seeing hope, the comte rallied the hunting party. They mustered all their weapons.

  “I’m sorry, girl!” the comte called. He dropped his hand, and the huntsmen loosed quarrel after quarrel at the monster. The arrows bounced off the invisible wall, but also from La Bête’s hide.

  “It is an unholy monstrosity,” the bishop declared, regaining his wits at last. “Robert! Bring me Matilde!”

  With a puzzled look, his huntsman ran to him, bearing the crying gyrfalcon. From a saddle pack, the bishop took a small bottle. He uncorked it and put it into Matilde’s talons. The gyrfalcon looked as confused as the hunter, until Mistinguette raised a call higher and shriller than ever before. Matilde lifted from the bishop’s wrist and flew over La Bête. It dropped the bottle on the beast’s head.

  Holy water poured down the black-furred creature’s body. Where it touched, it left red runnels like fire. La Bête leaped in the air, trying to catch the gyrfalcon, then it rolled on the ground, keening in pain.

  “At it, men!” the comte shouted. He led the charge at the monster, with all the men, horses, and dogs behind him.

  Despite its agony, La Bête sprang up. With one final snarl at Marie-Jeanne, it galloped into the undergrowth. Cracking branches and threshing footsteps disappeared in the distance.