get moving. The sun was going down. Hadn’t it just been morning?
North. I need to find my way north, he told himself sternly.
Which way was north, again?
The sun goes down in the west, he recalled vaguely. He subsequently pointed himself toward what would be, by extension, north. But once he was in the air, it was only a few minutes before the wind charmed him again, and the bird joy overtook him, and when he came back to himself more hours had passed and it was dark and there was no way to know which direction he’d been flying in, and which way he should go.
So, as we said before, the king was lost.
For a while he followed a carriage that was making its way slowly down a road. The carriage must be carrying someone important, he concluded, because there were mounted guards riding on all sides of it. Then he figured that someone with so many men—perhaps twenty—could be heading toward London, and that was the last place he wanted to go, so he turned around and flew in the opposite direction.
The road led him to a shabby-looking village. At the edge of the small cluster of buildings there was a large oak tree, and he settled into the upper branches and looked around. His eyesight, he found, was quite marvelous in the dark.
The village was comprised of a scattering of cottages with thatched roofs, and a smoke-bellowing building that must be the blacksmith, a small stable, and a large ramshackle wooden building in the center that seemed to loom over all the others, with lit windows and a sign over its door with a horse head carved into it. He could hear bawdy music from inside, and men laughing and talking loudly. An inn.
He could become human again, and go inside. People would surely recognize him—after all, his face was on their coins. His subjects loved him, didn’t they? He was their beloved king, deigned by God to be their ruler. That was what he’d always been told.
But how did one return from bird to human, exactly? There were no magic words that he was aware of, no series of gestures, no spells to transform him. He wasn’t entirely sure how he’d managed to go from human to bird, before. He’d simply jumped from the window and wished for wings and hoped he wouldn’t die.
He glanced at the inn again. In an inn, there’d be food. Real food, not mice. And dinner rolls. And tall glasses of ale. All of which would almost certainly not be poisoned.
There’d be stew—maybe rabbit stew, so tender it almost melted in your mouth, with onion and a bit of carrot and potato, something that would warm his empty belly, at last.
There might even be blackberries.
Edward fell out of the tree. Since he was in the highest branches, his crash down made a spectacular amount of noise, branches breaking and Edward cursing and then thumping hard onto the ground. He landed on his left ankle all wrong, which alerted him to the fact that he had ankles again. He had done it somehow. He had wished to be a human eating human food, and here he was.
The door to the nearest cottage was flung open, and a large, red-faced woman wearing an apron stepped out. She was holding a rolling pin. From behind her wafted the smell of baking bread, which instantly made Edward’s stomach grumble and his mouth began to water.
Lord, he was hungry.
He struggled to his feet. His ankle hurt so much his eyes watered.
“Madam,” he wheezed.
The woman looked him up and down, which is when Edward realized a second important bit of news about himself.
He was, apparently, naked.
Edward tried to respond to this humiliating situation in as kingly a way as possible. Kings didn’t cower down holding their hands in front of their private parts like simpletons. He stood up straight. Tried to look her in the eye.
“Er . . . madam, I know this looks . . . less than ideal, but I can explain. I’m—”
“Pervert!” she screamed.
“No, no, you’ve got it all wrong.”
“You’re one of those filthy E∂ians, aren’t you?” she yelled, her face growing even redder in hue.
Or maybe she didn’t have it all wrong.
“This was a decent village, you know, before your kind came around spoiling it. Thieves and murderers, the lot of you. Like those dogs that watch me get dressed through the window and then run away. Perverts!”