Ungolad is the secondary antagonist in The Goose Girl. He is a traitorous member of the royal army of Kildenree.
Biography[]
Ungolad was once a tradesman escort, a profession regarded to be little more than mercenary. He traveled to Bayern at some point and earned a reputation of being "a little unpredictable", but nevertheless managed to become a member of the royal army of Kildenree.
At some point he met Selia, lady-in-waiting to Princess Anidori, and fell so deeply in love that he would do anything for her.
The Goose Girl[]
When Princess Anidori is sent off to marry the Crown Prince of Bayern, Ungolad volunteers to be a part of her royal escort and is welcomed, however uneasily, as the only man who has traveled the months-long road to Bayern before.
Ungolad talks privately with Selia throughout the journey about their plans to kill the princess so Selia can steal her identity. At her command, he tries various unsuccessful ways to kill Princess Ani while making it look accidental, such as throwing a rock at her legs in an effort to make her stumble down a cliff and whipping her horse in the hopes of throwing her off down a gorge. After one such attempt, Ani confronts him with knowledge about his horse that she could not possibly know. Managing to spook him, he is all the more driven to kill her.
Only a week away from Bayern's capital, the escort splits. Some of the guards and Princess Anidori circle around Captain Talone's campfire, but the majority of the guards and Selia are drawn to the fire Ungolad builds. The next day, the tension between the two groups snaps when one of Ungolad's men, Yulan, removes his shirt in the summer heat. Talone orders him to stay properly dressed while he is in the presence of a lady, but the man refuses as Selia insists she does not mind. Gritting his teeth, Talone states that while they are the princess's guard, they will act as such. Scornfully, another man of Ungolad's named Terne points out that they are a long way from Kildenree and Bayern hasn't claimed Ani as their princess yet, causing several of Ungolad's men to hail Selia as their new princess. Although he mentions that they didn't intend for their mutiny to happen like this, Ungolad states that there will be some changes. Realizing that the traitors want to kill Ani in order to replace her with Selia, Talone commands the true princess to escape. However, Selia spots Ani hiding behind a tree and sends Ungolad after her. Talone's right-hand man Adon moves to defend her, but is swiftly killed for his trouble. Battle erupts between the two sides and Talone is furious when Ishta murders the defenseless cook Dano, but his rage likely makes him too reckless, allowing Ungolad to deeply stab him in the side of his body. A frightened Ani takes a horse amidst all the chaos and manages to escape into the woods, but despite losing the princess, Ungolad, Selia, and their fellow traitors are victorious. By midnight, they are digging graves for all the men they have slain.
Ungolad helps to make sure that Selia's entrance to the city as Princess Anidori goes perfectly. Once she is welcomed with open arms by the king, she has Ungolad drive Ani's horse Falada insane so she can have him put down, preventing Ani from reuniting with her horse and displaying their "oh-so magical bond", which would lead to awkward questions. Although they hope that Ani died somewhere in the Forest, they can't be completely sure and so take no chances. Ungolad keeps his men on the lookout for the little princess, but there is no sign of her until the Wintermoon festival. Ishta reports that he and Yulan successfully captured Anidori during the festivities, noting that she disguised herself by dyeing her eyebrows and wrapping her Kildenrean blonde hair under a headscarf. However, she managed to escape them with the help of the local peace-keepers who killed Yulan in the following struggle. Ungolad redoubles the search for Ani as Selia begins to enact her plan that will prevent anyone from Kildenree -including royal envoys, Ani's siblings, and the queen- from ever exposing them.
Selia tells the king that Kildenree is plotting to attack Bayern and that she, Princess Anidori, was sent to act as a decoy to pretend all is well and keep Bayern off-guard, but she has grown to like Bayern and doesn't want to be a part of Kildenree's deceitful ways. Outraged, the king prepares Bayern for war.
In the meantime, Ungolad and his men search for Ani everywhere they can think of, but no one reports seeing a girl with foreign yellow hair. Their search remains fruitless for weeks until the goose boy is summoned to see the king for valiantly defending his flock from thieves. The boy deliberately seeks out the Kildenrean guards and tells them that the yellow girl they've been looking for is none other than the goose girl he works with. That very night, Ungolad sneaks as quietly as he can to the tiny house Ani reportedly lives in and silently creeps in. He prepares to stab her to death in her sleep, but the instant he twitches aside the blankets the night explodes in a uproar of startled squawking and flapping wings. Instead of the princess, two geese had been sleeping in her bed. The geese attack him angrily, but he catches sight of Ani running down the road and chases after her, paying no heed to the birds. She manages to make it all the way to the goose pasture gates before Ungolad is close enough to lunge at her. He swipes at her with his dagger and manages to pierce her back, but the effort causes him to stumble to the ground and she just keeps running. Ungolad springs to his feet and tears after her, determined not to lose her in the royal woods nearby, but a sudden gale hits him so hard he falls once again to the ground. By the time he gets to his feet, Ani has already vanished among the trees. He desperately searches for her in vain, but eventually is forced to report to his beloved Selia that Ani got away. She isn't pleased that the princess escaped into the Forest -again- but consoles herself with the fact that Ani's chances of surviving in the Forest with a severe dagger wound are very slim.
With the king on the warpath, Selia and Geric's wedding is decided to take place at Lake Meginhard, a grand manor that is on the way to Kildenree. Selia bribes the guards at the front gate, just in case Ani shows up with any big ideas. Sure enough, Ani attempts to gain access to the king by pretending to be her younger sister Napralina, as an emissary and witness to the wedding. The guards lead her straight to Selia, who asks Ungolad if he can take her away from the estate quietly. But before he can, the king summons "Napralina" to his presence.
Ani does her best to convince him of her true identity, but Selia's voice is too powerful. Eventually, At Geric's suggestion, the king decides to leave Ani alone with her countrymen in the hopes that they will achieve a suitable resolution. As soon as they leave, Ungolad kisses Selia deeply, elated at her triumph. She asks him to cut her so they can claim Ani attacked her, but Ungolad is extremely reluctant to cut his beloved Selia's skin. She soothes him enough to agree to her plan, but only if he can kill Ani first so he can claim that he was defending Selia. Suddenly, they are interrupted by the king, Geric, and some guards, who burst through the tapestry behind them.
Geric had remembered that there is a secret passageway behind the throne so that a hidden adviser could whisper clever things to the previous lord of the manor. Geric had convinced his father to hide behind it so that they could overhear every word the Kildenreans said. Ungolad holds Ani tightly with a knife to her throat as a panicky Selia tries to cling to her claims of being the true princess, but she quickly accepts that it's hopeless. Suddenly, an inexplicable winstorm swirls to life around Ani, who appears to be controlling it somehow. The wind pushes her away from a frightened Ungolad, whose very breath is drawn out from his lungs. Finally losing what little patience he had with Ani, he swings his sword at her. The strong breeze knocks the blow aside, but as he prepares to swing again Talone barges into the room and challenges Ungolad to a duel. As Ungolad eagerly battles Talone, Ani's escort of animal-workers rush in and help the Bayern soldiers fight the Kildenrean traitors.
Talone manages to hold Ungolad off, but only just. Ungolad presses his old captain down to the floor and manages to stab his shoulder, but before he can finish Talone off Geric hurriedly steps forth to challenge him. Talone forgotten, a suddenly-serious Ungolad directs his sword at the man who "would have shared [Selia's] bed". Their fight is brutal. Although Geric has the build of a swordsman, his skills have never been used outside the training fields whereas Ungolad is an experienced killer. He presses the prince down again and again, maddened with bloodlust and jealous hatred. He bashes the prince's head, but before he can deliver a deathblow Ani silently sends a bolt of wind to thump his chest, forcing him to stumble back and giving Geric enough time to recover. Back into the fray, Ungolad manages to stick his dagger in the prince's side. However, the pain seems to give Geric strength until he manages to give Ungolad a deathblow.
Ungolad collapses onto the king's throne and appears to see a vision of Selia in his final moments. He holds out his hand covered in his own blood as an offering to Selia, a symbol of his complete devotion, before he slumps over and dies.
Quotes[]
- "Why do you not crawl, little princess? Why do you not beg?"
- "Selia, love, I can't cut you. I can't cut your skin."
- "Yes, you. You would have touched Selia. You would have shared her bed."
- "I fight a boy. She would never love a boy."