Hunger raged through my stomach like a boar on an attack. I plucked a handful of red currants and stuffed them into my mouth, but the tart berries couldn’t begin to sate my appetite.
“We need to hunt today.” I reached for another plump bunch, and the ripe berries slid off their stems into my palm.
Jorg stood beside me, feasting ravenously on the wild currants. “We should have hunted yesterday instead of frolicking with Walter’s daughters.” He spoke through a mouthful, even as he shoveled in more berries. His ragged garments hung loosely on his tall, lean frame, elbows and shoulder blades protruding sharply. His overgrown dark beard couldn’t hide his sunken cheeks.
Guilt chopped into me like a back-cut threatening to fell me.
We’d grown thinner over the past four months of travailing in the wilderness, bearing witness to the hardships we’d endured since I’d started my Testing. But Jorg fared worse than me to be certain.
“You’re right,” I said. “As usual.”
“Of course I’m right.”
“But we had a jolly good time, did we not?”
“Yes, that we did.”
I dumped more berries into my mouth, as did he, and we lapsed into silence. The trilling of hawfinches filled the early morning air along with the distant squawk of blackbirds. Though I preferred the commotion and busyness of court, I’d adjusted to life in the lonely forest, and the quietude and slower pace wasn’t as stifling as it once had been.
A ray of sunlight slanted through the leafy ceiling and touched upon a dew-drenched spiderweb, glistening like a diamond crown. Thick moss cloaked the stately trees like kingly robes. And ground elder covered the forest floor like a royal carpet rolled out for a prince.
Except here I wasn’t a prince. I was a lowly woodcutter without crown, robe, or carpet. I didn’t have a home to call my own. I hadn’t had a roof over my head or a bed to sleep on since early May when I’d arrived in Mercia and the vast, overgrown Inglewood Forest.
Only two months until I finished my Testing and could return to Scania. Fifty-eight days to be exact. But who was counting?
I snorted, earning a raised brow from Jorg.
I shook my head and remained silent. My scribe had already heard enough of my complaining about how much I disliked being in the forest and living as a pauper. No sense in saying more.
I was under no illusion that I had any prospect of winning the Testing and becoming the next king of Scania. I’d never had a chance, not when lined up next to Vilmar and Mikkel, who could both do no wrong in my father’s eyes. Instead, to him, I was a disappointment, falling short of being the man he wanted me to be.
The truth was, I hadn’t wanted to join the Testing, hadn’t seen the purpose in subjecting myself to harsh deprivations when the kingship was out of my grasp. Nonetheless, I’d endured the past months for the sake of tradition and honor. I couldn’t spurn the Testing, not when every Scanian prince underwent the challenges and had done so for centuries.
My stomach gurgled from the sour berries—and with a craving for meat. If I’d been home in the great hall in Trommen Castle, our summer residence, I would have been sitting down at the morning hour to hot, salty porridge and sizzling bacon slabs.
The growling in my stomach rumbled louder. “Never mind porridge and bacon to break my fast. Give me a feast of roasted venison, stuffed duck, and a loin of veal.”
“Is that all?” Jorg asked wryly.
“Not in the least. I’d also like a bowl of plum custard as well as a hundred cherry tarts.”
“Perhaps we should do some fishing first this morn before the woodcutting?”
“Yes, maybe you’re right.” I tossed a last handful of currants into my mouth, then reached for my sack containing all the possessions I’d carried with me during my homelessness. The contents didn’t amount to much—a change of garments, blanket, flint, fishing net, a couple of traps, and the special scarf my mother had given me. I might not be my father’s favorite child. But at least my mother cared.
“You may have to forfeit everything else for the Testing,” she’d said to me on my last night in Bergen when she handed me the scarf. “But your family will be with you always, no matter how far apart we may be.”
I wanted to believe her—had tried to believe her—but I’d never felt as though Mikkel or Vilmar had much interest