[Books of Bayern 1] The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale Page A

kindness, but the girl did not meet her eyes.
    "Go on, Nod," said the driver. He looked askance at Finn and tapped the horse with the reins.
    They rode at a horse walk well into night. Ani curled onto her pack of blankets and watched the clean brightness of trees in open places slowly slide by. The three neighbors chatted regularly and even managed to coax updates out of Finn. He admitted he was worried about a chick that was born with a marred foot and his mother, who often knit in too little light.
    As they told stories of what had passed at home since last marketweek, Ani listened and tried to piece together what l i f e must be like living in the Forest on the edge of Bayern—
    difficult, impoverished, backbreaking work and the persistent question if they would last through another winter, she guessed. But she envied their commonality.
    She had no stories to share and did not speak, and the four did not speak to her. Ani curled up tighter on her pack and tried to take up as little room as possible.
    The wagon stopped for the night near a blackened fire pit that was soon ablaze.
    As the travelers prepared a group meal and set up their bedrolls, Ani thought to be grateful for the second half of her Forest journey when Selia had refused to help her. At least she had had some practice at setting up her own bedroll. Finn, aware of Ani's ineptitude with meals, quickly fixed hers along with his and saved her a small embarrassment. Ani thanked him in her Bayern accent.
    The next morning, Ani awoke before the others. She looked at their faces in the pale hint of dawn and felt acutely alone. In sleep, even the relative familiarity of Finn's face was dulled. They seemed complete strangers, their dark hair, their work-shortened fingernails and dirty hands, their peaceful sleep noises assuring they felt at rest in this great wooded world.
    She rose and stretched, pulling even tighter that tension of solitude that was strung inside her chest. The horse whinnied sleepily. The sound was like a wound awakened, and she hungered for Falada's company. The horse's brushes and fittings stood on a rock by his side, and she set to work on his dull brown coat.
    Ani whispered as she brushed, hummed softly at his twitching ears, imitating the nickering of mares to their foals, and tried to sense where he most liked to be rubbed. Though she could not speak to this horse, though his words did not enter her head as Falada's had, his flesh was familiar beneath her fingers, and his movements made sense to her eyes.

    "Nod seems to like you."
    Ani started and turned to see the driver yawn and rub his eyes. He reached out to pat his horse's neck. "So tell, then, you're good with the beasts?"
    "I think so." She did not know how the Bayern looked upon those who were able with animals, but the boy did not seem suspicious.
    He patted Nod's rump. "Finish getting him ready, if you like."
    The companions rose and breakfasted in sluggish silence. As the others clambered into the wagon, Ani picked up a cooled piece of charcoal from the fire pit and slipped it into her skirt pocket, reasoning it might work to darken her eyebrows and complete her disguise as a Bayern.
    They traveled for most of the day. The landscape opened up ever wider. After the sun began its slide into the west, the small party rambled in the company of hundreds of wagons down a broad avenue. Ahead rose the city.
    Outside the forest, Bayern was a land of surging hills and rising lowlands, and the capital was built on the grandest of hills, sloping upward gently. Surrounded by a wall five men high, it ascended into tall, narrow houses and winding streets and towers and many spires, the city a tremendous candled cake ablaze with red-tiled roofs. All the grandeur met at the peak, where stood the many-turreted palace, red-and-orange banners worried by a high wind like candle flames. Next to this, her mother's illustrious palace was a country estate.
    Ani jumped and stared at the noise and colors, a