in the woods felt a little bit like fate, if she had believed in such things. Was it her fate to lose both her mother and her father and be raised by an aunt with no ability to love? She didn’t know, but her heart told her Henri was someone she could trust. She wondered if he felt the connection like she did.
“Please, Henri, tell me how you came to find my father,” she said, and all eyes turned to him.
“And you better be telling us the truth,” Grumpy added.
“No lying to the princess!” Doc agreed, and the other men nodded as they sat on chairs, the couch, or the floor, ready to listen.
Henri took a deep breath and looked from Snow to the others. “I have no reason to lie. I wasn’t looking for Snow’s father. I knew nothing about King Georg being missing.”
“Not missing,” Sneezy corrected. “He abandoned his kingdom and daughter!”
Henri nodded, casting his blue eyes downward. “Right. After I saw Snow in the aviary, I tried to meet with Queen Ingrid, but she wouldn’t hear of it without an appointment, and an appointment with the queen is hard to come by. I was told I’d have to wait months to have an audience, and even then, it couldn’t be guaranteed. I decided to head home, feeling as if I’d failed my people.” He looked at Snow. “I was so distressed. I didn’t know what I’d tell them. Maybe that’s why I pushed through my journey so quickly, traveling day and night to get home, not caring what the weather was. And it was treacherous. It rained for days and I was soaked to the bone. It was no wonder I took ill.” He smiled grimly. “So ill I took a spill into a lake and nearly drowned.”
Snow leaned forward. “What happened?”
“It was raining so hard I didn’t see the cliff. My horse did, stopping short and throwing me off,” Henri explained. “He ran away, which was a good thing, because that’s how Georg found me. He spotted my horse and the baggage it was carrying, and knew there had to be a rider nearby. He went searching for me.”
“Mighty brave of him,” Sneezy blurted out, eyeing Snow. She didn’t say anything.
“Yes,” Henri agreed. “The current was fierce and I was fighting to get back to shore with my last breath. I was so tired I grabbed on to a tree limb that had fallen into the water. I was ready to give up when Georg arrived and pulled me to safety.”
“Probably caught a good cold or even pneumonia in those waters,” Doc hypothesized. “The weather has been pretty bad in much of our kingdom of late, too.”
“Yes. I wish I had known this before I set out.” Henri’s face was grave. “Georg says I spiked a fever and slept fitfully for days. If he hadn’t taken me into his home and nursed me back to health, I wouldn’t have made it. I’m sure of that.”
They were all quiet. Hearing Henri’s story reminded Snow of a moment she’d had with her father as a small child. A bird had fallen in the aviary and hurt its wing, and she’d tearfully rushed into one of his sessions with the royal court. He had stopped everything to listen to her story. Then he’d helped her make a nest in the aviary for the bird to see if it would get well again. One morning, when they went to check on the bird, it was gone. “We did all we could for him, till he could make it on his own,” her father had said. Was that what her father had done for her as well? Had he thought she was strong enough to make it on her own?
“I’d been prepared to leave him right away, but I still wasn’t myself and the weather was still bad, so Georg invited me to stay,” Henri explained. “It was only when I was well enough that we got to talking. That’s when I told him about my trip to your kingdom. As soon as I mentioned it, I could see the change in him. He seemed distressed, almost outraged, like a man consumed, and he began pacing the floor. When I asked what was the matter, he wouldn’t say. Instead, he asked me to tell him more about my visit there. I told him of the queen’s refusal to see me, and”—he hesitated, his cheeks coloring slightly—“about the beautiful maiden I met