The Scarecrow King: A Romantic Retelling of the King Thrushbeard Fairy Tale by Jill Myles Read Free Book Online Page A

at me, a yawning mess just risen from bed.
    Or so I thought. But when the gasps and whispers continued, my nerves began to prickle. Why were there so many servants awake? Why did they stare at me more than usual? As I caught the smirk of a particularly irritating servant, it made me frown. What exactly was going on?
    “He is in the throne room, Princess Rinda,” Dorcas continued, leading me forward. She sounded suspiciously like she was choking back tears.
    “Do cease blubbering, Dorcas,” I said, sweeping past her as she opened the double doors to the main hall. “You’ll wake everyone else and then I’ll be even more cranky.”
    “Yes, my princess.”
    The fact that my father was meeting me in the throne room told me that he would have attendants with him – Father liked to make a scene when he sat upon the throne. He felt it was his duty as king – both law and entertainment. So I was not surprised when a guardsman opened the doors for Ruth and I and the room was filled with people.
    Rather, it surprised me to see my sister, Princess Imogen, seated next to my father, her eyes red with weeping. I strode forward, intending to take my place on the dais next to them.
    “Rinda,” my father said warningly, standing as I strode past all the whispering courtiers and guardsmen. “Where are your manners?”
    I stifled an impolite yawn. “Still in bed, I imagine, where I ought to be.”
    I expected my impudence to make father furious, as it always did. But for some reason, he simply…smiled. That was odd. When I moved to push past the guardsmen to take my place on the dais, they didn’t move. I glanced over at my father. His smile had grown even larger.
    “Stay there, Rinda. I wish to show you something.”
    Was this another one of Father’s veiled insults – not allowing me to sit? I feigned boredom as I stood before the throne like a supplicant, waiting.
    My father shifted in his chair and glanced over at Imogen. She continued to weep into a delicate handkerchief, shaking her head. Father ignored her reaction and turned back to me, gesturing in my direction with a magnanimous wave of his hand. “Do you remember what I told you last night?”
    I played with a lock of my tangled hair and tried to seem casual. “That you despised me?”
    Father’s eyes narrowed into cold slits of disapproval. “Since you were not interested in any of the suitors at the ball, I vowed to give you to the next man that walked through the door.”
    Ah yes. My father’s ridiculous threat.
    “He is here. Meet your bridegroom, daughter.” The look on my father’s face was nothing short of triumphant.
    Dread pitted in my stomach again. So he’d found someone to marry me off to, did he? I glanced around the room, puzzled. I saw no nobility lurking in the corners. There were guards dressed in the royal family’s livery lining the walls, my father’s vizier and advisors, and a shabbily dressed minstrel lurking behind me on the carpet, his hat in his hands.
    I glanced back at my father, my brows raising a little. “I do not see the man in question. Perhaps he has fled the scene at the thought of marrying the foul-tongued princess.”
    “While I could not blame a man for doing so,” my father said dryly, “He yet stands behind you.”
    How had I missed him? I turned fully and glanced behind me. No one but the guardsmen and the minstrel. The minstrel gave me a cheerful smile. “Greetings to you, fair lady.”
    I stared at him. His voice was slightly accented, making all of his speech sound more fluid than it should be. His voice was lovely, even if the rest of him was somewhat…alarming. For a minstrel, he was very large, with broad shoulders and a tanned face. His hair was a nondescript shade of brown that seemed to stick up in short, unruly spikes and his face was clean of everything but a boyish smile. His hands, I noticed, were large and callused, and his clothes were garish and patched at the knees. A poor minstrel. A very