Seventh Bride Read Free

was how this was supposed to go. They had refined it to an art.  
    She wasn’t supposed to stand her ground and make noises.
    It hissed uncertainly.
    “I don’t want to do this,” Rhea said. The sandwich seemed to burn in her hands.
    It took another step forward, then two. Its eyes locked on the sandwich.
    “On your beak be it!”  
    She hurled the sandwich at the bird. The special sandwich.  
    The sandwich that she had spent yesterday evening carefully hollowing out, so as to contain the largest horse turd she had been able to find.
    The swan snapped it out of the air and began gulping it down as rapidly as possible.  
    Rhea leaned forward.
    Just when she was afraid that the swan’s appetite had defeated her best efforts, the bird slowed down.
    It kept eating for a moment or two, apparently out of sheer disbelief, while green bits dropped from the sides of its beak. Olive streaks drooled down the white feathers. The swan hissed again, awkwardly, and began shaking its head. Bread crumbs sprayed. Rhea stepped back.
    The swan’s wings drooped. It dropped its head and began frantically wiping the sides of its bill along the grass.
    “That’ll teach you,” said Rhea, with deep satisfaction.
    The swan turned and waddled away. It staggered into the millstream, dipping its head underwater and making odd snorting sounds one didn’t usually associate with swans.  
    “Hmmph!” Rhea dusted her hands off, as the gargling swan swept away out of sight.
    She hadn’t wanted to hurt the swan. Sure, she could have laid hands on a pitchfork or a reaping scythe easily enough, but it just wasn’t in her nature. She cringed when her mother killed a chicken for dinner. You just didn’t bring a pitchfork to a swan fight.
    Something had snapped the other day, though. She couldn’t do anything about Lord Crevan, she couldn’t do anything about getting married, she couldn’t do anything about being fifteen, but two days ago, when the swan had snagged her lunch, she’d realized that here was something she could do.  
    And she’d done it.
    She probably couldn’t get out of marriage by feeding Crevan a horse manure sandwich, but maybe there were other options.
    She turned away from the stream, her head held high.
    When she caught a flash of white out of the corner of her eye, her first thought was that the swan had mounted a treacherous rear assault. She bolted to her feet, sandwich held over her head, ready to break and run.  
    The man in white cleared his throat.
    “You’re not a swan,” she said.
    He raised both eyebrows. “I’ve been accused of many things, but never swanhood.”
    He wore a flowing white shirt, which had caught Rhea’s eye, and a long, sweeping blue cloak. His boots were pointed and had elegantly cut cuffs. They were not boots that had to stomp around a farmyard for a living. His hair and skin were as dark as Rhea’s own, but considerably better groomed.
    Behind him, reins thrown carelessly over its neck, stood a large roan horse. Its coat shone the almost-pink of strawberry roan, and it had hooves the size of dinner plates. Rhea realized that she must have been very intent on her vengeance on the swan not to have heard the approaching hoof beats.
    Oh, hell , thought Rhea, I’ve just insulted a noble . If “You’re not a swan,” is really an insult, which I’m not sure about.
    “Err,” she said.
    “Sorry,” she said.
    “I wasn’t expecting…” she began, and then realized she was very close to babbling and clamped her teeth together.
    “Neither was I,” he said agreeably. “I am Lord Crevan.”
    Ah. Yes. Of course. She felt very stupid for not having guessed, but of course the odds of two nobles stopping by to talk to her were…well, actually not that much lower than the odds of one noble talking to her, and here he was and dear god, he was old , he was at least as old as her father and she didn’t want to marry him and—
    Easy. First things first. Don’t just stand here and stare