Frid’s lower lip twitched and her stare was too bold. Miri guessed that this was the first time Frid had ever lied.
“Now then, that wasn’t so hard.” He squinted at Frid and made a face as though he sucked on something sour. “There’s no accounting for taste, though, is there?”
Some of the men laughed. Frid blinked a little longer than normal, the only indication Miri could see that his comment hurt her.
Miri did not know what would have happened if Frid had not spoken up; perhaps Dan would have beaten them all, perhaps he would have killed Gerti as an example. He believed that the prince had chosen a bride and would not cease his hunt until he had discovered her.
Clearly, Frid supposed Dan would take her away and let the other girls go free, that it was better to sacrifice herself than risk everyone. It might be so, but Miri found herself remembering an account she had read in one of Olana’s books. Decades before, bandits had set upon a king’s traveling party in a wood. They had taken the king for ransom and left his men and horses tied to trees. Before other travelers came upon them, over half of the party died of thirst.
Miri wondered if Dan truly would let the other girls go and risk their families hunting down the bandits or if would he leave them tied up in the academy to die from the cold or thirst, or even hurry death’s job.
Perhaps he would release them; perhaps a village three hours away posed no threat. Even if he did, Miri quaked to imagine what kinds of things would happen to Frid if she went alone. But what if they could keep Dan guessing, if he could not be certain who was the princess?
Keeping her eyes on Frid for courage, Miri pulled herself to her feet. The ache in her head made her wobble, and she leaned on the wall for support.
“You must be lying,” said Miri. “The prince told me at the ball that he would marry me. He said he’d announce it in the spring.”
Frid clenched her jaw. “No, he told me I’d be the princess.”
Miri could see that Frid was willing to be the martyr, but Miri would not let her. “That’s impossible, because he told me the same thing.”
Dan growled. “I’m heating up to whip the liar, so which one of you is it?”
Frid and Miri pointed at each other. “She is,” they said at once.
Miri tried to catch eyes with the other girls and prod them to act with a look. Britta was staring at Miri, her mouth slightly agape, then understanding resolved her features. She stood.
“I don’t believe either of you,” she said in a tiny voice. “He chose me.”
“How dare you?” said Katar. She was fighting a smile, as though she actually enjoyed it all. “I don’t think a prince would lie, and he told me he chose me.”
That unleashed every voice in the room, and girls leapt to their feet, each shouting that she was the princess. Some of the girls pushed each other, feigning anger. Even Gerti kicked her feet and shouted, “Let me down! The prince will be furious if he hears how you treated his future bride!”
Dogface let go of Gerti’s rope, and she slumped to the floor. Dan looked around the room, his face bewildered.
“Enough!” he shouted. The girls quieted except for one belated “Me, me!” from Esa, who blushed.
Dan rubbed his beard. “Either they’re lying or that prince took pleasure from sweet-talking all the girls just to disappoint them later. Except one. But which one? Any guesses?”
His men pointed to one or another of the girls in halfhearted speculation.
“Since we don’t know, we’ll have to take them all, won’t we? We’ll rest here tonight and head out in the morning.” Dan huddled in the corner of the room and conversed with his lieutenant, a short, hairy man named Onor. Miri could not hear the words, but the sound of their talk pricked her with dread. She wished she could find a reason to laugh.
“A palm lashing and a closet suddenly don’t seem so bad,” she whispered. Esa chuckled without any merriment. A bandit hushed them.
In silence, the girls watched the afternoon fade. The hearth fire burned a shallow warmth, its uneven light filling the room with moving shadows. Britta rested her head on Miri’s lap. Frid and Esa wrapped Knut’s broken arm tight to his body to keep it still. He fell asleep, his face tense and lined, as though it were only with great effort that he could sleep through the pain.
Miri’s own head had never ceased pounding, and she did not think she could rest. But when she lay down and closed her eyes, she found she wanted nothing more than to forget where she was, and her body let her.
n
Chapter Twenty-one
Then the mountain shrugged
And the mountain yawned
Its voice was a hiss of steam
That sank into every
Dream, yes, sank deep in each dream
n
That night, winter came early. Snowfall slowed the morning’s arrival, and the groggy gray light finally filtered out the night some hours past dawn. The view from the window showed a world lost to a storm of snowflakes thick as ash thrown from a bonfire. It was enough to change Dan’s mind—they would stay at the academy until the storm broke.
The bandits allowed the girls to keep the hearth fire burning, but the chill crawled in through the stones, and the girls huddled in cold and fear in the center of the room. Dan had locked Olana and Knut in a separate room so that “the grown ones won’t be inciting the young ones.” When the bandits paid them little mind, the girls risked whispered conversations.
“I’m sorry now that we sent the soldiers away,” said Esa.
Frid tilted her head, considering. “No, two soldiers wouldn’t have stopped this lot and would’ve gotten killed trying to protect us, I think.”
“Esa, your brother was here yesterday.” Miri froze at a noise, but it was just the wind whooping and plunging in the chimney. She continued in an even softer voice. “I told him about the prince and staying at the academy until his return in the spring.”
“That means no one from the village will be coming anytime soon,” Britta whispered.
“My pa will come,” said Gerti. “He wouldn’t just let Olana keep me another winter.”
“Not in that snow he won’t,” said Katar.
Esa nodded. “Your pa doesn’t know we’re in danger, Gerti. Even if he plans to come and get you, he’d wait until the snow stops. They all would. But by the time they get to the academy, the bandits will have us halfway to—”
Dan rushed across the pallets and lifted Esa from the ground with just one hand around her neck. He spoke so close to her face, she flinched from the spittle flying from his mouth. “You talk again, I make sure you can’t talk at all.”
Then he smiled his sick, mock smile and put her down as gently as if she were a newborn baby. Miri sat on her hands and glared at the floor.
After another day of snow, the bandits discovered the academy’s winter food storage. More and more of them left the bedchamber and returned with heaping plates of food—roasted pork and liver sausage; loose salads of turnips, potatoes, carrots, and apples; jerky stew with onions. The constant smell of roasting meat was agonizing to Miri’s rumbling stomach. The bandits gave the girls watery wheat porridge.
Whenever the men watched the window and the snow that continued to fall, Miri noticed tension tighten their brows, but otherwise they seemed content to stay for the winter, eating all day and playing a game involving little cubes and stones. They talked in hushed tones, glaring at the girls.
Two of the men whispered to each other in voices too low for Miri to hear, but apparently Dan could.
“Speak up!” he shouted, shoving one of the bandits against the wall. “You have a concern, you tell me to my face, not whisper about it like little boys.”
The bandit lowered his head deferentially. “Easy now, Dan. I was just wondering what we were doing holed up i
n here, like we were just waiting for their pappies to come save them.”
Dan let his face set hard before he spoke. “Nobody’s going to walk miles in that snowstorm, and I’m not marching out in it, either. We’ll stay here until the weather clears, then we’ll march them down to our main camp.”
“That’s a lot of hostages to feed,” said the bandit.
“But it’ll be worth it once the king pays ransom for his son’s betrothed. Besides, we won’t hold them long.”
Dan turned and caught Miri looking at him. She flinched.
“Then we’ll let the little princesses go home,” he said, his rough, low voice straining to sound sweet.
Miri tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry.
Without seeming to, she kept an eye on Dan. She sat on the pallet closest to the bandits and watched him with eyes half-closed. Often he paced about and roared at his men. When he was still, he turned to the window, and the silvery light of a snow day did not reach the dark puckers of scars in his cheeks. His eyes ticked as if trying to track the falling flakes. Though he was sitting, his whole body was tight, a rope pulled as taut as iron. Miri felt her own body tense just watching him, afraid of what he might do when he sprang.
The evening of the third day, Miri observed Dan scratch at his beard and rub his neck, stand up, and pace. She inched back on her pallet. He cursed and swung at a chair that stood in his way, sending it cracking against a wall. That did not seem to relieve his agitation enough, so he cursed again and reached out to the closest girl, dark-haired Liana. Before his hands seized her neck, Onor stood between them.
“Not now.” Onor spoke in tones almost too low for Miri to hear. He pushed Dan’s chest, trying to calm him. “Don’t kill anyone now. There will be plenty of time later.”
Dan spat to the side in frustration. He glared at Liana, who scuttled out of his way and curled up against the wall.
“I’ve got to get out of this room,” he said to Onor, though still glaring at Liana. “You watch them.”
Dan slammed the door behind him, and Onor settled in the corner, his eyes on the girls. There will be plenty of time later. Miri filled in the rest of Onor’s statement: For killing.
Doter often said, Truth is when your gut and your mind agree, and a heaviness in Miri’s gut confirmed what she was starting to believe—if the bandits took them down the mountain, none of them would return. They had to run, and soon.
Miri waited until it was night and only three men were guarding the girls. Two were playing a quiet game, throwing marked pebbles off the wall. One slouched low to the floor, his eyes covered by a cap, his breathing like the creak of a door opened slowly. She could not bear the tension another moment and did not dare wait until Dan lost his temper and killed someone. They had to chance it.
Miri hummed a quarry tune, lying on her side and resting her head on her hand. She pressed her other hand against a floorstone. One of the bandits glanced her way, then looked back to his game.
To the bandit, she appeared only to hum and lounge. Inside, she sang out in quarry-speech. Rabbits, run! Her body was tense, her blood felt cold. She waited until every girl looked at her and seemed ready. Then she grabbed Britta’s hand and took to her feet. By the time she crossed the threshold, she saw that only half the girls had followed her down the corridor. It was too late to stop now. She looked forward and concentrated on escape.
The linder floorstones felt slick beneath her in the darkness, as though she skated on ice. Her breath came hard, and she focused on chasing the misty huff she pushed before her with each exhale. She could hear the startled cries of two or three girls behind her as they were caught by the bandits at the door.
“They’re running!” one shouted.
Faster, she wanted to say, but she was too terrified to speak. Out the front door, down the steps, and suddenly outside. The cold, breezy air felt unfamiliar to her, and the uneven ground of snow over rock shards seemed as dangerous as walking on knives.
She had made it only a few paces from the building when her head jerked, her body flung out in front of her, and she fell on her back in the snow. Dogface had caught her braid. He started to pull her back to the building by her hair, and she scrambled to stand and staggered beside him. In his other hand he held Esa by her limp arm.
When Dogface dumped Miri and Esa to the floor, she counted heads with a fearful hope—twenty. None of the girls had gotten away. If only all of them had run at once.
Every bandit now stood in the bedchamber, including Dan.
“Who’s your little leader?” he said, his voice even more hoarse than usual. “Tell me quick, who gave the order to run?”
“She did.” Bena pointed at Miri. “She told us to escape, but some of us ignored her. She’s not our leader.”
The ten girls who had not run grouped together—they were all the older girls except Katar, some younger girls who were often cowed by Bena’s fierceness, and thirteen-year-old Helta, who seemed too frightened to move. Bena smiled, for a moment. But then Dan looked her over, and the force of his attention was enough to make her squirm. The standing girls sat, and Liana hid her face in her hands. Miri glared. Did Bena think that by betraying her Dan would give her a pat and let her go?
One of the bandits who had been gaming in the corner spoke up. “We’ve been watchful, Dan, and we never heard her nor nobody say a word.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” said Dan with a glower. The bandit shrank back. “Dogface, Onor, come over here. I want a plan to keep these girls locked up and out of my hair until this snowstorm stops.”
They clumped by the door, and Dan growled at them, reprimanding and demanding better vigilance.
“I wish I’d run home,” Helta whispered, then started to cry.
“Shut up,” Dan yelled at her.
Miri clenched her hands and wished that she were as strong as her pa and could knock him down like the bully he was. She knew hitting him would be useless, but she yearned to strike at him in some way, have a chance to see him squirm.
She waited until there was a lull in his conversation with the bandits, and then she spoke.
“Pardon me, Dan,” she said meekly, though her heartbeat roared in her ears. “Sir, I think you should know something.”
Dan looked at Miri, and she tried not to fidget.
“One lifetime ago bandits came to Mount Eskel,” she said.
At the sound of that phrase, all the girls looked up. It was the first line in the story told every spring holiday.
“What?” said Dan. “What are you talking about?”
“They thought to sack such a small village easily enough,” said Miri, forcing her wavering voice louder to steady it. “They thought they could steal, burn, and be gone before the sun saw their deeds. But they were ignorant, tiny men. They did not know Mount Eskel’s secrets.”
Dan clamped his hand over Miri’s mouth. “I didn’t ask, and I don’t care much for—”
“The mountain knows the feel of an outsider’s boot, and the mountain will not support its weight,” said Esa, rushing ahead to the middle of the story. All eyes turned to Esa, and her right hand quaked at the attention. Miri’s heart ached with pride.
“Dogface,” said Dan, and stuck out his chin to point at Esa. Dogface shut Esa’s mouth, but Frid crossed her arms and continued the story.
“The mountain will not support its weight,” Frid repeated. “The bandits came nearer and nearer, and the mountain groaned in the night.” Two bandits seized her, and she fought to keep talking. “It groaned, and the villagers heard and awoke.”
A third bandit stuffed his cap in her mouth to silence her. She clenched and unclenched her fists as though it were only with great restraint that she kept herself from pummeling him.
“These girls are creepy,” said a bandit with a scar through one eye
.
“They’re just trying to get under your skin,” said Dan. “Don’t—”
“The villagers awoke,” said Katar, chin up, eyes flashing, “and they were waiting. With mallets and chisels and levers they waited. That night, the quarriers stood taller than trees, taller than mountains, and they struck like lightning. When the first bandits fell, the rest ran. They ran like hares from a hawk.”
“Stop it!” said Dan. “We’ll gag every one of you if we have to.”
Katar started the last lines of the story, and every girl who had run with Miri joined her.
“Mount Eskel feels the boots of outsiders.” They paused, and then not even Bena stayed silent for the final line. “Mount Eskel won’t bear their weight.”
All the men in the room stared at the girls, half with mouths gaping, all with eyes so wide that their foreheads creased. One man rubbed his arm as though trying to get warm. Britta looked at Miri, a secret smile tensing her lips.
Then the sound of Dan applauding chilled the room. “Lovely bedtime story, and like all beddie-byes, as true as snow in summer. Tell another one, and you’ll all wait in ropes for the storm to clear. I think gagging the little inciter will be enough for now.”
Miri felt Dan pull a handkerchief over her mouth and tie her hands behind her back. Then he grabbed the roots of her hair and pulled her ear to his mouth.
“I know your kind.” His throaty whisper gave her chills, like rat claws scurrying across her skin. “You think you’re a little bandit, hm? You think you’re clever? There’s nothing swimming around in your head that I don’t already know. I’ll share with you the only thing on my mind—the next time there’s trouble, I slit your throat first and ask questions later. Nothing’s keeping me from my fortune. Understand, little princess?”
She did not move, so he pulled her head up and down, forcing her to nod. She tried to swallow, but the thought of a slit throat made it painful. Dan smiled as if he did indeed know what she was thinking.
You don’t know everything, Miri thought fiercely, because she could not speak it aloud. I’m no princess. I’m a Mount Eskel girl, and I know things you could never guess. It was a weak defense, but just the thought made her feel stronger.