the forest. It wouldn’t be hard; Joachim had taught her how to camp ages ago. But if she could find a farm that still had haystacks in the fields, that would be preferable. She had a distinct advantage over most travelers and gypsies and tramps; she could ask an Air Elemental to stand guard for her and wake her before sunrise so she could get out and away before the farmer could catch her.
For that matter, she could ask her Elemental allies to scout ahead and find a field with haystacks. Then she could wait until dark, slip in before the moon rose, and have herself a cozy little roost without anyone the wiser.
I’ll do it, she decided, and felt a good bit better. Lebkuchen would be taken care of too; the amount of hay the mare would eat overnight would be negligible to the farmer, but it would cost more than Giselle liked at a stable.
She whistled the odd little spell-tune she used to summon the friendliest of Air Elementals—those were usually, though not always, sylphs. This time she got one that wasn’t; an odd little creature with the face of a girl and the everything else of a scarlet-feathered bird. She’d gotten Elementals like this one before, and they were a welcome sight when she needed a helper that was steady and not flighty. The bird-creature flew along beside her and listened as she explained what she needed: a farm near the road with haystacks still in the field, somewhere near where she and the horse would be at around sunset.
The bird-girl listened intently and whistled her agreement when Giselle was finished. Off she flitted, leaving Giselle only concerned as to whether or not such a thing actually existed. Well, if it doesn’t, I’ll camp in the woods, she reminded herself. It wouldn’t be as nice a bed as a haystack . . .
But it’s preferable to a gaol.
By the third day she had finally relaxed some of her vigilance and begun to enjoy the journey. Even sleeping in haystacks wasn’t so bad; Mother had taught her how to chase away insects so she was able to burrow in and sleep peacefully until a sylph or a sprite awoke her.
And since she was, quite literally, seeing more people than she had ever seen in her entire life, even the most mundane things were entertaining. Sometimes it was all she could do to keep a straight face at some of the goings-on. Were the village beauties really so unaware of how absurd they looked, mincing about the way they did? Were the handsome lads not the least conscious that they acted just as absurdly? The prosperous also put on ridiculous airs, men and women both, when in fact they themselves might have done nothing to earn their prosperity, and had merely inherited it. Her sylphs were only too happy to flit about her, whispering tales of village life like the little gossips they were—and oh how chagrined those proud creatures would have been if they had known that the huntress riding through their town knew some of their embarrassing secrets!
This was altogether a new development, at least as far as Giselle was concerned. Then again, the nearest village to the abbey was miles away, and probably the sylphs that hung about the abbey had little to no interest in its inhabitants. The sylphs that were turning up on her journey were all local, and sylphs went where the air went. They saw and heard everything.
They probably would have told her a lot more, if she encouraged them. As it was, it was like reading a gossipy book every time she passed through a town or village.
Today, she was about to pass through her first large town, or rather, city, and she was definitely looking forward to it. There were things in a large town that she had never seen, only read about. Theaters, coffeehouses, street players . . . ladies in the sort of fashions she only saw in magazines . . .
Sadly, of course, things like theaters and coffeehouses cost money she was loath to spend. But street players were free, and so was watching fashionable ladies. And there were other things, like great cathedrals, and perhaps museums. . . .
Also, in a big town, she would no longer be an object of scorn or curiosity with her split skirt and riding astride. People saw much more scandalous things every day in a large enough town, and took