“No, it’s because you seem so happy and comfortable. It’s easy to say that I enjoyed dancing and talking with you tonight more than with anyone else.”
She opened her mouth to say something disparaging about herself, but her heart was thumping, and she was afraid her voice would shake, and then she remembered one of the rules of Conversation—Be gracious to compliments.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I mean it,” he said. “I really do.”
They sat in silence, and Miri had time to wonder why his voice had sounded sad, almost regretful. But the night was cool and dark, and he was warm sitting next to her, and she let what he had said repeat in her mind again and again. He had enjoyed being with her the most. She was the favorite. And she, Miri of Mount Eskel, was sitting next to the prince heir of Danland as casual as anything. What an amazing night.
n
Chapter Nineteen
She put a wedge beside my heart
And then she brought the mallet down
She sang no song to guide her work
I lost my heart without a sound
n
The next morning, Miri scarcely spoke. She sat by the window and listened to the swells and whispers of conversation that filled their bedchamber like wind fills a chimney. Other girls had held private talks with the prince after Miri, and they exchanged details, how polite he was, how handsome. Others complained that he was distant and plain.
“He was kind,” said Esa, “but I don’t know yet if I’d want to marry him. I hope we get more chances to talk over the next few days.”
“I don’t need to know him any more,” said Bena, yawning without bothering to cover her mouth. The prince had led her through one dance and not spoken to her again. “I thought princes were supposed to be more interesting than other boys, but he was as boring as watered-down porridge.”
“I thought he was nice,” said Liana. Bena glared at her, and Miri wondered if the friendship would survive their first disagreement.
Knut served them breakfast in their bedchamber. Britta was feeling much better, and she sat up and ate.
“Tell me what you thought of the prince,” she said to Miri.
“Nice,” said Miri. “At first I was awed by him; then I thought he was dull and a little rude. But he was just nervous. I like him pretty well.”
Britta leaned in and whispered so the other girls could not hear, “Did he ask you . . . ?”
Miri shook her head and whispered back, “But he said he liked me best of all the girls he danced with.” She shut her eyes tight to hide from the thought before she could blush.
“Of course he did!” said Britta.
“If he liked me best,” Miri whispered, “do you think that means . . . ?”
Olana entered then, letting the bedchamber door slam behind her, and Miri wondered what they could have done to upset her already that morning.
“The chief delegate would like to address you,” said Olana. “Stand properly, never mind your beds. If you haven’t smoothed your blankets, it’s too late now. Head up, Gerti. Not so high, Katar. You look like a soldier.”
She opened the door to admit the chief delegate. He glanced around the room without seeming to see the girls, though Miri thought his gaze paused for a moment on her face. She curled her toes in her boots.
“Prince Steffan bade me greet you this morning and convey the pleasure he took in your company last night. He had high praise for this academy and compliments for the quality of young ladies on Mount Eskel.”
Some of the girls giggled. Miri felt frozen by the anticipation of what he would say next.
“However,” said the chief delegate, and with that one word Miri felt all her self-confidence drain from her like the cold feeling she sometimes got by standing up too fast.
“However, the prince regrets that he must return to Asland today. He will revisit soon to make his choice.”
In the shocked silence, Miri could hear a horse neigh a long way off.
“But it could snow very soon, maybe next week or the next,” said Katar, barely above a whisper. “Then you couldn’t get back up the pass until spring.”
“Then the prince will return in spring,” said the chief delegate.
He adjusted his collar, which appeared to be pinching his neck uncomfortably, bowed, and took his leave. Only a handful of girls recollected themselves enough to curtsy in return. Miri was not one of them.
As soon as the door shut, conversation moaned all over the room. The sound of it reminded Miri of one of the songs the musicians had played the night before. It had been a sad song, and the instruments had creaked and wailed disappointment.
“Are you all right?” asked Britta.
Miri nodded, but her head felt light and giddy. For a slim moment, she had actually believed that she would leave the mountain, become someone new, see and do great things. Now her barely realized dreams of becoming the princess emptied liked tipped jars, and she felt as though she sat in the puddle.
“I thought he was going to stay longer,” said Britta. “I was sure he’d make his choice before leaving.”
Miri nodded again, too humiliated to speak or even meet Britta’s eyes. She leaned against their bedchamber window and watched the men and women who had accompanied the prince tear down the tents, saddle and harness the horses, pack up their goods, and start down the winding road away from the academy.
The prince’s carriage was near the back, its curtains down. She kept her eyes on a swaying gold tassel that knocked against the curtain. This time, she did not wave.
A shout from Olana brought silence to the room.
“Apparently, you failed to polish yourselves sufficiently this past year.”
“Did he say that?” asked Frid. “Is that why he went home without choosing?”
“What else could this mean?” asked Olana. Her face was blotchy red, and Miri guessed she was mortified that her students had failed to measure up and frustrated that she could not return home. “The chief delegate left supplies and fuel for the winter and instructed me to continue this academy until the prince’s return. You must study harder and improve yourselves by next spring.”
A collective groan went up. Miri felt as withered as a winter carrot just thinking of being locked up in the academy again through the cold months. Last night he had been so kind. What had changed?
She thought of running home or chasing after the prince and demanding an answer, but she just slipped outside alone.
Some minutes later, Miri was scratching letters on a large stone when someone came jogging from the direction of the village. He slowed when he neared, and Miri found herself stunned for the second time that day when she saw that it was Peder. She was used to having the idea of Peder nestled constantly inside all she did, but she realized now that since her talk with Steffan all thoughts of Peder had flitted away.
He looked around as if expecting to see more activity. “I thought the prince would’ve come by now.”
“He did.” Miri threw a rock shard as far as she could. It hit another stone and cracked into more pieces. “Came and went.”
“Oh.” Peder looked at his feet, then at Miri, then at his feet again. “Did he choose you?”
“He didn’t choose anyone,” Miri said more harshly than she meant to.
“Sounds like you’re upset about that.”
“Well, he shouldn’t make us all live in this drafty building practicing curtsies and stupid Poise and make us all believe we could be a princess, then just come and leave again, as though we’re not worthy of him. As though he’s disappointed.”
“So, that’s it?” said Peder, his voice getting louder. “You wanted him to choose you.”
Miri glared at Peder. “What are you yelling at me for? Now we have t
o stay here another winter and try to be better, but I’ll fail again. I can’t work in the quarry, I can’t be a princess, what am I good enough for?”
“Well, if that’s what you want, I hope you get it,” said Peder. “I hope he comes back and carries you off to be a princess and keeps you as far away from Mount Eskel as you want to be.”
Peder started to walk back toward the village, then after a few paces he tripped into a jog and then a run. Miri watched him go, at first ready to shout something nasty at his back, then losing her anger so quickly that she felt chilled by its loss. Why had he come, anyway? To see me? Miri wondered.
Wait, she wanted to shout, but hesitated. The distance swallowed all sign of him, and she turned and kicked a stone so hard, she cried out at the pain in her toe.
Just then, as if in response to her own cry, she heard someone wail.
Her first thought was that Olana had broken the terms and delivered another palm lashing; but no, the sound was wrong. It had been strange and sad, like an animal dying. Though she was none too eager to join whatever unhappiness was boiling inside the academy, she was curious and so crept toward the bedchamber window.
Miri had crossed half the distance when another wail unwound and then stopped short with a crash, as if someone had thrown a ceramic plate against the wall. She stopped, her skin tingling with prickles, though she could not imagine what she had to fear.
A jolt of quarry-speech thrust every other thought out of her head. It was the strongest quarry-speech she had ever heard, and it carried with it the feeling of Esa. The memory was a time when she, Esa, and other children had played Wolf and Rabbit in the village center. Miri had been the rabbit and run as fast as she could flee around the circle. She could not see the face of the wolf.
With sickening terror, Miri thought she understood. Esa was telling her to run.
n
Chapter Twenty
Well, the bandit man
He told his first man
Climb up and when you arrive
Leave no mountain man
Alive, no, leave no man alive
n
Miri did not wait to learn more. If Esa said to run, then she would run. Peder would be just minutes ahead, and perhaps she could catch him. The rocky path she had run on her entire life suddenly felt as treacherous as sprinting through mud, and she wished with all her breath that she could fly as the hawk, though she did not know what she was running from.
She passed the bend in the road and hoped to see Peder just ahead, but the road stretched long before her with no one in sight. After leaving her, he must have kept running.
Then she heard the someone behind her. At first she hoped that she was hearing her own echoes, but no, the rhythm of bootfalls was different, faster. She peered back and saw a man she did not know. He was getting closer.
She would have screamed for Peder if she could, but fear constricted her throat and the effort to flee used up all her breath. She tried to focus on making her feet spring over the rocks and her legs pump her forward, though fright began to gnaw at her hope. She knew she was caught even before the rough hands reached out to seize her.
She kicked and screamed and tried to get her teeth into his hand, but she was so small and her attacker so strong. He carried her back to the academy writhing under his arm and dumped her on the floor of the bedchamber.
“I found this one outside,” said her attacker, his breath wheezing in his throat. “Gave me quite a run, the little rodent.”
The girls sat on the floor. Knut was leaning against a wall and holding his arm as though it might be broken above the wrist. The room was crowded by fifteen men in sheepskin and goatskin, leather boots tied with long cords up their thighs, and fur-lined caps. Some had golden loops in their ears, some carried cudgels and staves. They all had untidy beards and faces dirtier than an unswept floor.
“Bandits,” Miri said aloud to make herself believe it. After so many years, bandits had returned to Mount Eskel.
Olana crouched in a corner, and her hands shook as they fluttered about her neck. That one detail made Miri’s heart beat as if it would come loose. If Olana was scared, then the situation was very bad indeed.
The bandit nearest to Olana caught her throat in his hand and shoved her against the wall.
“You said they were all here before.” His voice was low and raw, as though he had battled a chest cough for months on end. “Count them again, this time as though your life depended on it, because, in fact, it does. Is anyone else missing?”
Olana scanned the room, her eyes scarcely blinking. She shook her head. The man smiled with dirty teeth.
“I believe you this time,” he said. “How fortunate for you.”
He let her go and turned to face the rest of them. He was larger than most of the other bandits, though Miri noted that none looked as large as her father, Os, or most Mount Eskel men. No wonder the bandits avoided attacking the village directly.
“Hello, children,” he said. “If you need to address me, you may call me Dan.”
“His ma named him after the first king himself,” said another, who had a thick, jagged scar from one side of his mouth up to his ear. “Hoped he’d grow up into a proper nobleman.” Several of the men laughed.
“Dan suits me fine,” he said amiably. “Better than Dogface.”
The men laughed louder, and the scarred one called Dogface spat on the floor.
“Looks like we’ve some talking to do.” Dan sat on his heels, rested his forearms on his thighs, and looked at the girls with a smile that made Miri’s stomach feel sour. His rough voice became singsong, as though he were telling a bedtime story to small children.
“We jumped a traveling man of business a few weeks ago and gently pressed him for anything more valuable than his life. The information he had about the prince’s visit to Mount Eskel was almost worth letting him go.” Dan smiled at Dogface and shook his head as though sharing some private joke. “We’ve been watching this building for a few days now, but the prince had so many soldiers guarding his precious hide, we didn’t have a chance to pounce him. No matter. When no young lady accompanied him home, I told my lieutenant here, ‘How fortunate. What a gentleman that prince is to leave behind a nicety for our plucking!’ And so I come to the matter at hand. Tell me, which one of you birdies is the future bride?”
His gaze dragged the room and reminded Miri of the time she had seen a wolf eyeing her rabbits.
“Speak up!” His expression raged, then just as quickly he resumed his mock-friendly demeanor. “We may look rough, but we’re not ignorant. We know the prince was here to choose a bride, and once he’s chosen and the betrothal sealed, it cannot be undone. A princess-to-be will provide a hefty ransom.”
“The prince left without choosing,” said Katar, speaking first. “He said he’d be back.”
Dan stalked across the room to Katar. “That’s a nice little story.” He clutched her curly hair in his fist and pulled her to her feet. “Now tell me who she is.”
“Ah, ah, I don’t know, I mean, no one,” said Katar, tears rising in her eyes. “He didn’t choose anyone.”
Dan let her fall to the ground. It occurred to Miri that it was the responsibility of adults to make sure everyone else was all right. But Olana just stood there looking at the ground, her lips tight with fear, and Knut bent over his arm, his eyes closed.
“There’s no sense protecting the princess,” said Dan. “I’ll get it out of you eventually.” His voice sweetened as though he spoke to a baby. “All I want is one little bitty girl, and the rest of you can go home to your families. That’s not too much to ask, is it?”
It seemed futile to assert again that the prince had not chosen, so no one answered.
Without warning, Dan grabbed Gerti and pulled her upright. The one they called D
ogface wrapped her wrists with rope, threw the rope over a ceiling beam, and pulled so that Gerti hung by her wrists. She cried out, a noise like a wounded goat kid.
Miri stood. “Why are you hurting her? She didn’t do anything.”
Miri did not see Dan hit her, she just felt herself fly. When her tilting vision straightened, she found herself on the floor, her head against the wall. Pain battered both sides of her head. She was aware that Britta was holding her hand, but the touch gave little comfort. The pain tightened, and she wanted to vomit, but she sat very still, stared at a linder floorstone, and breathed.
“I’m not playing here,” Dan was saying. “And you see that I’m not a man of patience. I want to know who will be the princess, and I want to know it before I count to twenty, or each of you will have your turn feeling the back of my hand.”
Dogface tugged again on the rope, pulling Gerti higher. She whimpered. Miri lifted her head to look at Gerti but quickly looked down again when Dan turned her way. She wanted to make this stop, but her head throbbed, and the pain seemed to radiate everywhere. Her teeth began to chatter and her legs felt loose, like half-empty straw mattresses. She had never experienced any sensation like this. Real fear. She was helpless under its weight.
Miri was vaguely aware of Dan’s voice counting, “Twelve, thirteen,” a hard voice, and the sound of those numbers pulsed in her headache. She knew that something bad would happen when he stopped counting, but she did not believe she could do anything to prevent it.
Then Frid stood up slowly, crossing her arms, her feet wide apart as if daring anyone to knock her down. Miri expected Frid to challenge Dan to fight or threaten him or even curse him, but instead she looked him straight in the eye and said what Miri least expected.
“It’s me.”
Dan stopped counting. “He picked you?”
Frid nodded. “He took me aside after we danced. He asked me not to tell anyone, so I didn’t speak up earlier, but it’s true. I’m going to be the princess.”