“Do you have any idea what all this is really about?” Miri asked.
Esa and Frid shook their heads. She eyed them, trying to read in their expressions if they wished she would go away.
“I’d wager this princess nonsense is a trick thought up by the traders,” said Miri.
“My ma wouldn’t let me leave if she thought I’d come to harm,” said Esa. “But she doesn’t know what to make of it either.”
Frid was staring straight ahead as though looking at death itself. “How would a prince decide who to marry, anyway? Would they have a contest for the princess like we do on a holiday, lifting or running or throwing stones for distance?”
Miri laughed, realizing too late from Frid’s serious expression that she had not meant it as a joke. Miri cleared her throat. “I don’t know, but I have a hard time believing lowlanders marry for love, anyway.”
“Do lowlanders love anything?” said Frid.
“Their own smells, I imagine,” said Miri.
“At least there will be one less stomach to fill in my house,” said Esa, glancing back as if thinking about home. Her voice softened. “Look, there’s Britta. I can’t believe she’s going, too.”
“She’s a lowlander,” said Frid.
“But she’s been on the mountain all summer, so I guess she means to stay,” said Esa.
Miri glanced over her shoulder at Britta, walking alone between two groups. The lowlander girl was fifteen and delicate, as though she had never wrangled a goat or pounded out a wheel of cheese. Her cheeks were ruddy like the sun side of an apple, and the feature gave her a merry, pretty look when she flashed a rare smile.
“I’ve never spoken to her,” said Miri.
“She’s never spoken to most people,” said Esa. “Doesn’t she ignore everyone who talks to her?”
“She did in the quarry,” said Frid. “She carried water this summer, but when workers asked for a drink, she acted as if she were deaf. After a couple of weeks, Os said, what’s the use? And sent her home.”
The story had circulated that when her lowlander parents had died in an accident, her only living relations had turned out to be distant cousins from Mount Eskel. So one spring morning Britta had come riding on a trader wagon with a bag of clothes and food supplies bought from the sale of her parents’ remaining possessions. At least now she was wearing a shirt and leggings like the rest of them instead of dresses cut from dyed cloth.
“I can’t believe Peder thinks she’s pretty,” said Esa.
Miri coughed. “He does? I don’t think she is. I mean, she acts like she’s too good to talk to anyone.”
“All lowlanders think they’re above us,” said Frid.
“We’re the ones on the mountain,” said Miri, “so aren’t we the ones above them?”
Esa smirked at one of the soldiers, and Frid made fists. Miri smiled, warmed by their shared sentiments.
For three hours they wove around the puddles, holes, and boulders of quarries long ago abandoned, until at last they spied the roof of the academy. Miri had seen it six years ago, when the village had held their spring holiday inside its stone walls. Afterward they had deemed the walk too long to do so again.
It was called the stone minister’s house, and the villagers assumed that the structure had once housed a court minister who oversaw the quarry. No such person now lived on the mountain, but the house did prick in Miri a desire to see what other wonders there might be in the lowlander kingdom, just out of her sight.
Even from afar Miri could detect a white gleam—polished linder had been laid as the foundation, the only finished linder she had ever seen. And though the rest of the house had been built from gray rubble rock, the stones were squared, smoothed, and fitted together in perfection. Three stairs led to the main door and columns supporting a carved pediment. Workers perched on the roof, fixing weather damage. Other lowlanders replaced empty windows with glass panes, pulled up grass growing between the floorstones and steps, and swept away years of dirt.
The arriving girls milled around, peeking into wagons or gawking at the commotion. There were twenty of them, from Gerti who was barely twelve to Bena who was seventeen and a half.
A woman appeared in the building entrance. She was tall and lean, her cheeks sunken, her hair flat on the end like a chisel. She waited, and Miri felt self-conscious of the mountain girls, all standing about and staring, unsure of what to do.
“Step closer,” said the woman.
Miri tried to line up even with the others, but no one else seemed to have her idea, and they formed a small mob rather than a straight line.
“I see I did not underestimate the degree of finishing mountain girls would require.” The woman pressed her lips in a twitch. “I am Olana Mansdaughter. You will address me as Tutor Olana. I’ve heard about Danland’s outlying territories—no towns, no marketplace, no noble families. Well. Once you pass these columns and enter this building, you’re agreeing to obey me in all things. I must have absolute order in this academy if ever I am to turn uneducated girls into ladies. Is that understood?”
Frid squinted at Olana. “So, are you saying that we don’t have to go to the academy if we don’t want to?”
Olana clicked her tongue. “This is even worse than I expected. I may as well set up the academy in a barn.”
Frid’s expression became troubled, and she looked around, trying to fathom what she had done wrong.
“Please excuse our rudeness, Tutor Olana.” Katar stepped forward. Her curly hair was reddish like the clay beds beside the village stream. She was the tallest girl after Bena, and she held herself as though she were taller than any man and twice as tough.
“We must seem pretty rustic to you,” said Katar, “but we’re ready to enter the academy, learn the rules, and do our best.”
Some of the girls seemed none too eager, with backward glances and shifting feet, but Os had been clear. Most nodded or murmured in agreement.
Olana seemed doubtful but said, “Then let’s have no more nonsense and in you go.”
As soon as Olana was beyond earshot, Katar turned to glare at the girls. “And try not to act so ignorant,” she hissed.
Miri stared down as she entered the building, letting the tip of her boot slide across a floorstone—white as cream, with the palest streaks of rose. It seemed remarkable that with no one to tend it, the stone had held its luster for so many decades. The villagers had to clean and oil the wooden chapel doors regularly to keep them undamaged.
Olana led the girls through the cavernous house, warning them to stay silent. The walls and floor were bare, and Olana’s voice and the click of her boot heels echoed over Miri’s head and under her feet, making her feel surrounded.
“The building is too large for our needs,” said Olana, indicating that most of the dozen or more chambers would be left closed and unused so they would not need to be heated through the winter. The academy would confine itself to three main rooms.
They followed Olana into a long room that would serve as a bedchamber. Several rows of pallets lay on the floor. The far wall held one hearth for warmth and one window facing home. Miri mused that the girls on pallets farthest from the fire would be mighty cold.
“I have a separate bedchamber just down the corridor, and if I hear noises at night, I . . .” Olana paused, an expression of disgust crawling over her face. “What a stench! Do you people live with goats?”
They did, of course, live with goats. No one had the time to build a separate house for the goats, and having them indoors helped both the goats and the people keep warm in the winter. Do I really stink? Miri looked away and prayed no one would answer.
“Well, a few days here might air out the odor. One can hope.”
Next they visited the huge chamber in the center of the building that would serve as a dining hall
. A large hearth with a carved linder headpiece was the only indication that the room might have been grand once. Now it was bare but for simple wood tables and benches.
“This is Knut, the academy’s all-work man,” said Olana.
A man stepped through the adjacent kitchen doorway and cast his gaze up and down as though unsure if he should meet their eyes. His hair was gray around his temples and in his beard, and he gripped a stirring spoon in his right hand in a way that reminded Miri of her pa with his mallet.
“He will be very busy,” said Olana, “as will you all, so don’t waste time addressing him.”
The introduction seemed brusque to Miri, so she smiled at Knut as they left, and he returned a flicker of a smile.
Olana led the girls back through the main corridor and into a large room with three glass windows and two hearths. Wood fires were a rare luxury in the village, and the smoke was fresh and inviting. Six rows of chairs with wooden boards secured to their arms filled up most of the space. At the head of the room, a shelf of leather-bound books hung over a table and chair.
Olana directed them to sit in rows according to their age. Miri took her seat on a row with Esa and the two other fourteen-year-olds, put her hands in her lap, and tried to appear attentive.
“I will begin with the rules,” said Olana. “There will be absolutely no talking out of turn. If you have a question, you will keep it to yourself until I ask for questions. Any nonsense, any mischief, any disobedience, will result in punishment.
“This teaching position was supposed to be an honor. I’ll have you know I left a post at the royal palace tutoring the prince’s own cousins to climb up here and baby-sit dusty goat girls, though I suppose you don’t even know what the royal palace is.”
Miri sat up straighter. She knew what the palace was—a very big house with a lot of rooms where the king lived.
“Well, deserved or not, you are now part of a historic undertaking. In the past two centuries, the princess academy has merely been a formality, with the noble girls of the chosen town gathering for a few days of society before the prince’s ball.
“Since Mount Eskel is merely a territory, not a province, of Danland, and you cannot boast of any noble families, the chief delegate believes the academy must be taken very seriously this generation. Never before have the priests named a territory the chosen region. I may tell you that the king and his ministers are quite uneasy about marrying the prince to an unpolished girl from an outlying territory. Therefore the king granted me the solemn responsibility to verify that every girl sent to the ball is fit to become the princess. If any of you fail to learn the basic lessons I teach you this year, you will not attend, you will not meet the prince, and you will return to your village disgraced.
“Now, I understand that there is a true Danlander among us, is that so?” Olana sighed at the silence that followed. “I’m requesting a response. If any of you were not born on this mountain, you have my permission to speak now.”
Most of the girls had turned to look at Britta sitting in the fifteen-year-olds’ row before she raised her hand.
“I was born in the city of Lonway, Tutor Olana.”
Olana smiled. “Yes, you do have a look in you of some breeding. Your name?”
“Britta.”
“Is that it? What’s your father name? I would expect the villagers to be ignorant of such a formality, but not one from Lonway.”
Miri adjusted in her seat. They were not ignorant—a girl took her father’s name and a boy took his mother’s name to help distinguish them from anyone else with the same first name. Mount Eskel shared some Danlandian traditions, it seemed.
“I’m orphaned this year, Tutor Olana,” said Britta.
“Well then,” said Olana, looking ill at ease at how to respond. “Well, such things happen. I’ll expect you to lead the class in your studies, of course.”
The stares pointed at Britta began to turn to glares.
“Yes, Tutor Olana.” Britta kept her eyes on her hands. Miri suspected that she was gloating.
Then began the instruction. Olana held up a shallow box filled with smooth yellow clay. With a short stick called a stylus, she marked three lines in the clay.
“Do any of you know what this is?”
Miri frowned. She knew it was a letter, that it had something to do with reading, but she did not know what it meant. Her embarrassment was appeased somewhat by the general silence that followed.
“Britta,” said Olana, “tell the class what this is.”
Miri waited for her to spout the brilliant answer and revel in her knowledge, but Britta hesitated, then shook her head.
“Surely you know, Britta, so say so now before I lose patience.”
“I’m sorry, Tutor Olana, but I don’t know.”
Olana frowned. “Well. Britta will not be an example to the class after all. I am curious to see who will jump forward to take her place.”
Katar sat up straighter.
While Olana explained the basics of reading, Miri’s thoughts kept flitting to Britta. One summer trading day, Miri had overheard Britta read words burned into the lid of a barrel. Was she pretending ignorance now so she could amaze Olana later with how quickly she would seem to learn? Lowlanders are as clever as they are mean, thought Miri.
Her attention snapped away from Britta when Gerti, the youngest girl, raised her hand and interrupted Olana’s lecture. “I don’t understand.”
“What was that?” said Olana.
Gerti swallowed, realizing that she had just broken the rule of speaking out of turn. She looked around the room as if for help.
“What was that?” Olana repeated, pulling her vowels long.
“I said, I just, I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry.”
“What is your name?”
“Gerti,” she breathed.
“Stand up, Gerti.”
Gerti left her chair slowly, as though longing to return to its safety.
“This little girl is giving me an opportunity to illustrate the consequences of rule breaking. Even the prince’s cousins are punished when they choose to misbehave, though I think I’ll employ slightly different methods for you. Follow me, Gerti.”
The tutor led Gerti out of the room. The rest of the girls sat motionless until Olana returned with two soldiers.
“Gerti is in a closet thinking about speaking out of turn. These fine soldiers will be staying with us this winter. Should any of you have ideas about questioning my authority, they are here to make it clear. Each week that you show a marked improvement, you are permitted to return home for the rest day, so let us continue our studies with no further interruptions.”
At sundown, the workmen on the roof stopped hammering and Miri first noticed the noise for its absence. Pa and Marda would be home by now, white dust wafting from their work clothes. Marda would say how she missed Miri, her conversation, maybe even her cabbage soup. What would Pa say?
In the dining hall, the girls ate fried herring stuffed with barley porridge, onions, and unfamiliar flavors. Miri suspected it was a fancy meal and meant to mark a special occasion, but the strange spices made it feel foreign and unkind, a reminder that they had been taken away from home.
No one spoke, and the sounds of sipping and chewing echoed on bare stone walls. Olana dined in her own room, but no one could be certain if she was listening and would emerge at the first sound, trailing soldiers in her wake.
Later in their bedchamber, the tension had wound so tight, it burst into a flurry of whispered conversations. Gerti reported on the closet and scratching sounds she had heard in the dark. Two of the younger girls cried for wanting to go home.
“I don’t think it’s fair the way Olana treats us,” Miri whispered to Esa and Frid.
“My ma would have a thing to say to her,” said
Esa.
“Maybe we should go home,” said Miri. “If our parents knew, they might change their minds about making us stay.”
“Hush up that kind of talk, Miri,” said Katar. “If Olana overheard, she’d have the soldiers whip us all.”
The conversation lagged and then stopped, but Miri was too tired and anxious to sleep. She watched the night shadows shift and creep across the ceiling and listened to the low, rough breathing of the other girls. Her pulse clicked in her jaw, and she held on to that noise, tried to take comfort from it, as if the quarry and home were as near as her heart.
n
Chapter Four
nTell my family to go ahead and eat
To make it home I’d have to move my feet
But the mount’s made stone where my feet numbered two
And I’ve swallowed more dust than I can chew
n
The next day, the workers finished the repairs and left the academy, leaving Olana, Knut, two soldiers, and an unfamiliar silence. Miri missed the pounding and scraping and beating, sounds that meant work in the quarry was going on as usual and no one was injured. The quiet haunted her all week.
In the mornings before lessons started, the girls spent an hour doing chores, washing and sweeping, fetching wood and water, and helping Knut in the kitchen. Miri spied the other girls stealing minutes of conversation at the woodpile or behind the academy. Perhaps they did not mean to exclude her, she thought, perhaps they were simply used to one another from working together in the quarry. She found herself wishing desperately for Marda at her side, or Peder, who had somehow remained her friend, unchanged, over the years.
She glanced at Britta carrying a bucket of water to the kitchen and wondered for the first time if there was more to her silence than just pride. Then again, she was a lowlander.
Near the week’s end, the girls could barely follow their lessons, so rich was the anticipation of being able to sleep by their home fires and attend chapel, to see their families and report all they had suffered and learned.