“Then it’s just as well she’s coming with me, isn’t it?” said Leo.
Redbird whispered, “Silent Lady!” and Leanbear spat. “You don’t know what she is, do you? Have you taken a moment to look at her?”
Leo stood with his feet planted. “Look at what?” he demanded. “There’s nothing to look at.”
Leanbear bared his teeth like a dog. “Look at how she covers herself. Look how she hides.”
“So what?” Leo shrugged but did not relax. His hands balled into fists. “She’s got a right to wear what she likes. It’s her business.”
“You know what she is, same as the rest of us,” Leanbear said. “That, or you’re blinded. Or bewitched.”
Daylily caught Leo’s eye. “Bewitched,” Foxbrush had told her, just as Leanbear said now. She searched now for signs of that bewitchment but saw none. Perhaps the enchantment was too powerful to be detected, but all she saw in Leo’s eyes was a rising, boiling anger.
“You all are dragon-eaten idiots,” he declared, advancing aggressively. The servants backed up, save for Leanbear, who also stepped forward. “What nonsense are you all talking? Bewitchment? Spells? Magic? You’re as backward as first-year schoolboys! Your mountain superstitions have blinded you.”
“Careful what you say about the mountain folk,” Leanbear growled. “We know more of the goings-on in these parts than you, with all your pretty city ways. We’ve lived in these forests, breathed this air, dug our hands deep into the roots and dirt and rock. Call us superstitious if you must, but don’t insult our ways. We’ve survived up here for centuries while the rest of you fled to the lowlands. And we’ve survived by not lettin’ the likes of her poison our lives.” Leanbear raised his fire irons threateningly and took yet another step forward. “She’s not welcome among us.”
“Baah!” said the goat.
Leo uncrossed his arms and held his fists tense at his sides. “I’m not scared of your nursery stories.” He turned to Foxbrush then. “You’re as bad as the rest of them, aren’t you? My own fool cousin—why don’t you speak up? You’ve studied science; you’ve studied logic. Tell them they’re being idiots, and let’s all move on. Or do you believe in this magic as well?”
Foxbrush hung his head, too ashamed to speak. For Daylily had turned her gaze upon him, and he found he had no courage under that blue-eyed stare.
Leo snorted and returned his attention to Leanbear. “Stand aside.”
“For your own sake, I will not,” said he.
Suddenly, to the surprise of everyone watching, Daylily stepped forward. With a sneer on her face for the carriage man and Foxbrush, she passed between them and approached the veiled girl. Rose Red had remained silent and trembling throughout the encounter, her goat pressed up against her legs. Daylily stood more than a head taller than she and looked like some ancient goddess to Rose Red, crowned by all that russet hair shining in the setting sun’s light. Daylily’s face alone in that crowd showed neither fear nor anger.
Which made her still more terrible.
Rose Red had been taught social niceties only in the vaguest theory. So when she tried to curtsy, it was not a pretty sight, and her scrawny limbs stuck out at awkward angles. But Daylily’s keen eyes noticed a certain natural grace behind the awkwardness, and her mouth set in a thin line.
“So you are the goat girl,” she said quietly.
Rose Red, still crouched in her curtsy, whispered, “And it please m’lady.”
“Leo has spoken of you,” Daylily said. “Several times, in fact. He is, I believe, fond of you.”
“And it please you,” Rose Red repeated.
Daylily studied the slit in the veil. It revealed nothing of the girl’s face, not even a glimpse of her eyes. “Why are you veiled?” Daylily asked. Her voice was too soft to be heard by any save Rose Red and her goat.
Rose Red gulped. “That is my secret,” she said.
“Does he know your secret?”
Rose Red hesitated before she shook her head.
Daylily did not believe her. She knew very well what those gathered in the yard thought of the goat girl, what they believed she hid beneath all those rags. But Daylily was not one to believe simply because everyone else said it was so. Her own idea began to form then and there, an idea she did not altogether like.
She turned to Leo. “You have asked this girl to become your servant?” she said.
“I have,” Leo replied. His tone was defensive.
“Then why is she not inside being prepared for the journey?”
Leo flung up his hands. “Don’t you hear what they’re saying? They think she’s . . . they think there’s something wrong with her, and they’re scared. It doesn’t take half a brain to see she’s as harmless as a butterfly, but they’re scared out of their minds, the dragon-eaten fools!”