Twice a Prince

  “So his killing Canardan wasn’t impulse so much as a long-term plan inadvertently carried out too soon,” Mom said.

  Jehan said, “I really believe the intention had always been there. Instinct took over.”

  “And he hadn’t shared it with his family?”

  Jehan shook his head. “Damedran made that clear enough back at Ivory Mountain. And his father was equally appalled. Almost tearfully so. I believe he was afraid he would be summarily condemned for a family conspiracy that hadn’t actually existed. The invasion, yes. But Orthan and Damedran had really thought that the king would then be convinced to set me aside as heir, appoint Damedran in my place, and everyone would carry on happily ever after. Except for me,” he finished wryly. “But even then, I’d no doubt run off chasing artists and bards.”

  “You did well.” Dad rose. “No. Sit there and eat. I have to get back to the mages and see if I can get them sorted out.” He winked at me, and left.

  Mom leaped up, rustled over in her long blue skirts and cupped her hands round his face. She leaned down and kissed his forehead. “So glad you are back, dear boy.”

  She whirled around, the fresh herbal scent from her skirts wafting through the air, and she was gone.

  “She seems happy,” Jehan said as the door closed quietly on us.

  “She’s happy with Dad.” I hesitated, then shook my head—which set our hands to swinging.

  Jehan gave me a brief grin. “Promise me. Don’t hide things. Spit ’em out. I will, too.”

  “Promise.” I turned his hand over and rubbed my thumb over his rough, callused palm. His skin so warm. “Mom is happy when she’s with Dad, but that’s not nearly often enough. She was happy, oh, the first day or so here, but the talk about Norsunder and possible war worries her. A lot. She likes being social, when everyone gets along.”

  Jehan drank off his tea. “I sensed that, when we were here in the summer.”

  “Speaking of the past. I never saw your father with her, but I’m wondering if she had a kind of weird love-hate thing going with him.”

  “I saw them together. That’s pretty much it,” Jehan responded.

  I nodded. “Dad won’t say anything at all, but he looks worried sometimes, when he watches her, and he doesn’t think anyone is looking. Not about her feelings for Canary—Canardan, sorry.” I sighed. “But about these future threats, and how that relates to the queen gig.”

  “Gig,” Jehan breathed, smiling at last. That smile, so pensive, so sweet, melted me right down to the socks I wasn’t wearing.

  “Jehan. Speaking of no one around. Who knows how long that will last. I have something to say.”

  Jehan gave my hand a brief, tentative squeeze. I got to my feet then pulled him up. We stood there in the golden shafts of sunlight, his white hair gleaming, pinpricks of light in his blue eyes.

  He looked into my face and grinned. “A prepared speech, eh? If it’s self-condemnation, don’t do it. But if it’s something you will feel the better having shed, well, let’s have it.”

  “We call it clearing the air.” I leaned up and kissed him. “And yes. I mean, I don’t think I’m Princess Perfect, and I want to apologize. For not trusting you. See, I wanted to trust you, oh, way too much. So I didn’t trust myself.”

  “Or Merindars,” he murmured.

  I groaned. “That sounds so awful.”

  “But it’s true.” He watched me closely. “Isn’t it? Truth is, if my father were alive, where would we all be? Would he be in prison, or halfway across the kingdom drawing as many to him as possible for a civil war? I don’t think he could have brought himself to give up being king. He probably expected, if your father really did turn up alive, that it would be Mathias who would conveniently go away with a cheery farewell. I am convinced it would have grieved your father to put him on trial, much less anything more drastic.”

  Echoing what Dad had said to Mom and me in private, two nights before: I don’t think I could have borne putting Canardan on trial, despite everything he’s done. And I know what he’s done, I’ve been inside his head a great deal this summer. Yet I also know his motives, and he was not at heart an evil man. But he was evilly educated and easily influenced to talk himself into what he wanted, and shutting his eyes to Randart’s goals.

  I said, “All true.”

  “So where does that leave me, I am beginning to wonder? There were some at the academy who did not like seeing me free and not in prison. Others assured me of their continued loyalty. I mislike the division between people that these attitudes imply. For surely, if there is so broad a range there at the academy, does it not hold it would be much the same across the kingdom?” He looked away, then met my eyes and said in a low voice, “In truth, I wonder if there is a place for me here at all.”

  What ever happened to “happily ever after”? I thought, trying not to show my dismay. “Please don’t decide anything without talking to Dad.”

  “I can’t begin to decide anything.” His gaze was steady. He’d tensed up again, and I could feel how important this conversation, this moment was. “Not until I know where I stand with you.”

  “I have been considering that. Trying to be practical. And adult. But I don’t know what to think. I mean, we have an attraction thing going on that would fuel suns. We seem to know where we are with trust. What we haven’t yet is a relationship.”

  “We have a friendship.” He gave me a whimsical smile. “Or we did. Beginning on board my ship.”

  “Oh, we got along great when I thought you were Zathdar. Soon’s I knew the truth, there was your name right there between us, like some kind of shadow. Merindar. You know, Dad asked me to do something for him. He wants me to write everything down from the beginning of the summer, when he could hear everyone’s thoughts. I hadn’t meant to tell you, but I think it important that I do.”

  “He even heard mine?” Jehan winced.

  “Yes, but he hasn’t told me any. That’s for you to do. If you want. He not only knows what happened, but why. What people were really thinking, though he can’t do it any more, and he says that what he remembers is already beginning to fade. Will you tell me your side? Maybe, I don’t know, maybe I can put it all together and understand some of what happened.”

  “I will do that.”

  “Thank you. But that’s for me. So what do you want to do?”

  Jehan let go of my hands and pulled me into his arms. “I want to begin all over again, courting you,” he murmured into my hair. “I want to spend the rest of my life courting you.”

  Whee. Even if we hadn’t gotten any convenient fairy godmothers wand-waving us into happily ever after, hearing those words came pret-ty close to making up for it all. I flung my arms round his neck and this time the kiss was long, satisfying, and didn’t end with sorrow, regret or distrust.

  So we did it again. And, oh, a few more times.

  When we did talk again, I said, “What’s next?”

  I meant it as a joke but Jehan let go and took a few steps away, as if proximity would restore rational thought. He looked over his shoulder. “Back to where we were. Which is deciding where my place is. Sasharia, what if the best thing for the kingdom is my leaving?”

  I shrugged. “If you and I get on the same page, and I think we’re going to, Mom and Dad would understand. I’m too old for them to stop me and they know it. So if you’re worried about the whole princess thing, well, it was never real to me anyway. I don’t hate it, but I’d rather be with you than wearing diamonds in my hair and making nice with duchesses. In short, if you’ve got to leave, let’s pack a hammock for two.”

  He closed the distance again, searching my face. “You mean that?”

  “Of course I do.” I laughed. “Heck, when I was a girl I never wanted to be a princess even if we did come back here. Princesses were small and dainty and neat, and I was too big. What I wanted to be—” I stopped, and felt my face redden.

  Jehan’s eyes narrowed. “Come on. Say it.”

&n
bsp; “You’re gonna laugh.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You will. I know it. One snicker, and I’m outa here.”

  He raised his hands, smiling.

  “All right. I wanted to be…a pirate!”

  How he laughed. I whirled around to march out, he caught me, we wrestled, then fell laughing onto the couch, where I kissed away his laughter.

  And when we were both breathless, he caught my hand. “I think it is time to talk to your father.”

  The result of which was today, New Year’s Week Firstday.

  This morning dawned gray with impending snow, but despite the prospect of dreary weather, the bells of the castle, echoed by the bells of the garrison and the guildhall, all rang the rarely heard full royal wedding and coronation carillons. Bell ringers crowded into the towers, wakening the big bells and the small ones that usually hung silent. They played wonderful patterns as two carriages, drawn by pairs of white horses, rolled slowly on a circuit of the royal city.

  This was New Year’s Firstday, the day Mom and Dad would officially become king and queen, and Jehan and I would marry.

  Mom and Dad sat in the first carriage, both dressed in the crimson and gold and silver of Zhavalieshin. Dad wore a fabulous tabard embroidered long ago with twined firebirds, hidden by Kreki Eban and triumphantly brought out last week. Mom’s hair was done up elaborately with pearls and beautifully cut stones that gleamed with amber highlights.

  In the back carriage, feeling very weird, I sat beside Jehan. I looked down at myself, wondering who was sitting there in the white brocade gown with the emerald green embroidery down the sleeves, round the neck and hem. Under the brocade I wore a green silk gown, which would only show when I moved. My hair had been done up by not one but two hairdressers (one joking, when she discovered the princess liked jokes, about how her arms were going to fall off, making all those little braids), each braid with a single tiny diamond fastener at the end before being looped up into a complicated coronet atop my head. Fitted against the coronet of hair, a tiara with diamonds and one single whopping emerald whose price would probably have netted me a brand new BMW, back in L.A. Nobody knew it, but I’d hauled that gem around all summer in my bag. It was left over from the bad old days.

  L.A. seems unreal now, a dream—endless hot days, cars, TV and palm trees. Reality was winter slowly closing in on days of hard work, in-between all these fittings. But the good side of reality were the evenings when the four of us would gather, tired from a day of labor, talking as we ate dinner, and relearning to laugh.

  Jehan told me his story privately, before he had to leave for his tour of inspection. Our going over all that old ground together—what did I think, what did he think—somehow cemented the bond that we’d always felt between us, even back on the very first day, when we’d fought side by side. We could say anything to the other, which helped us both.

  He said he didn’t want to hear Dad talk about Canardan’s inner thoughts, at least not until some time had passed. So it wasn’t until he left us to ride around the kingdom inspecting castles that Dad described Canardan’s and Randart’s view of events, and I wrote it all down as you’ve seen it here. Then it was Mom’s turn. When she had finished and read over what I wrote, she hugged Dad and me, saying, “It’s good to get that out of my headspace. The whole thing finally feels done. Finished business.”

  Jehan had not been able to decide about his father’s effects. Mom helped the servants clear all Canardan’s things out of his rooms, so Jehan would not have to do it. The rooms were clean and empty by the time he returned, his father’s personal things put into carved chests for him to keep or sort as he wished, whenever he was ready.

  Mom and Dad stayed up in Mom’s rooms, and I’ll get to why in a minute.

  When he returned a week ago, ahead of a huge snowstorm, Jehan was able tell us how Damedran was doing. By then he’d completed his month’s thorough tour with Damedran at his side, inspecting garrisons, handing out orders right and left “in the name of the king” and generally being In Charge.

  Because this is what Dad wanted. Just as he’d wanted the record. Just as he wanted the wedding today—Jehan joining our family, which would add Zhavalieshin to his name—the same day as the coronation. Emphasizing how the four of us were a family.

  The carriages stopped at the royal castle’s grand entrance as the first flakes began to drift from the sky. We walked into the great hall, glad of our heavy clothes, our breath puffing in the cold air. All the court was gathered, the smell of beeswax candles and personal scents, most of them made of wildflowers and herbs, a kind of echo of summer.

  It’s strange, how sharp my memory is with some details: the pale light glowing in the long windows, a soft bluish white light now that snow was falling; tears along my mother’s eyelids, and the corner of her mouth where the skin had softened over time, trembling even as she smiled; my dad’s hand holding hers tightly, his thumb rubbing absently over her palm the same way I liked to rub Jehan’s palm. The glow of that snowy light on the white hair of a woman with a curiously ageless face and Jehan’s blue eyes, who had slipped in among the mages in their fine, light gray robes. She was Feraeth Jervaes, Jehan’s mother. She stood side by side with the former Queen Ananda, who smiled fully now, for the first time in many years.

  One of the clearest and most precious memories was the look in Jehan’s eyes when he saw his mother, before he turned to me, smiling that smile with the deep dimple down one side.

  And one of the dearest memories was the slight huskiness of emotion, the conviction in his voice as he said, “I offer you this ring, which has no beginning and no end. It is a symbol of our love…”

  The funniest memory was the way I heard myself gulping for air almost every phrase as I echoed the same words and shoved the golden ring, all embroidered with intertwined leaves, onto his longest finger.

  “Your prosperity is my prosperity…”

  “Your hardship is my hardship…”

  “…and we call upon all who are gathered here to witness the joining of this family, as long as we shall live.”

  And then my memory grays out, but at some point I became aware of standing at my mother’s side, as Jehan stood at my father’s, and how their vows to the kingdom curiously echoed the vows of marriage.

  Three things my father had asked for: that I write the record, that Jehan take his name. That’s two.

  The third? Within the next three years, when the kingdom has accustomed itself to all of us, my father and mother will abdicate and go to Sartor as ambassadors, Mom to stay in a court she knows she will love, Dad to study magic with the most powerful mages. He thinks that’s the best way for him to prepare for the troubles ahead. He says that being king requires youth and strength. So he wants Jehan and me to take their place, and make those very same vows.

  But the whole idea of me and queenship doesn’t yet compute. I’m not really accustomed to the princess gig yet.

  So back to memories. Like the tenderness apparent in both as Jehan and his mother met again, after years of contact only through letters. She stroked my hair, whispering how welcome I was in her life.

  And the last memories are a montage of music, and dancing under the glittering lights illuminating the castle.

  So I sit here now, writing it all down—

  Jehan just leaned over my shoulder. “Are you not done with that thing yet?”

  “I have to put in our wedding.” I looked down at myself. “I have to describe me sitting in this ridiculous chair—who is the twit who put silk knots in the seat cushions? What were they thinking? And my first waltz in my wedding gown. Shall I put in how I tripped on my train? Then I have to get down what everyone looked like, and how your mom and mine got along like a couple of houses on fire—”

  “Sasha.”

  “What?”

  “You are not writing down everything I say. Are you?”

  “Yes. So speak slower.”

  I can hardly write, I am laug
hing so hard.

  “Shall. I. Describe. What. We. Should. Be. Doing. On. Our. Wedding. Night?”

  Okay, he wins.

  And here it is the next day, but as you can see, it’s going to be short, for very soon all these papers will lie on the desk of King Mathias and he can do whatever he wants with them.

  Because why?

  Because a little while ago, I was waking up with that happy, sleepy sense that all is right with the world. How rare, how wonderful! Outside it was cold and clear and icy, but inside warm and snug, and…

  I looked over, but no husband slumbering beside me!

  I sat up, peering through the open doors to the wardrobe—for I’d moved into his rooms, which were a lot less gloomy than Queen Ananda’s old chambers. And what did I see? Jehan standing before the mirror, trying on the most horrible pink shirt I’ve ever seen—all embroidered with orange peonies.

  “Jehan!” I yelped. When he turned around, I saw that he’d managed to dig up a pair of deck trousers of purple and yellow stripes. “You are not, not, not going out into the city in those.”

  “No.” He strode back into the bedroom and preened, then began tying his hair up in a rose and violet bandana with green fringes. “But I am wearing it on board the Zathdar.”

  “What?”

  He gave me his old, ironic grin. “Zathdar the pirate has to sail again.”

  “Today? Now? I thought we’d…” I waved my hand around the room. “Have some time to ourselves.”

  He flicked one of those magic communication boxes, which was lying on the desk. “I told you Owl rejoined my fleet. And Elva Eban’s the new navigator, by the way. He just wrote. He’s found Bragail of the Skate. Says he not only turned corsair, which doesn’t surprise me. But that far too many of the very ones among Randart’s old captains that I found had skipped out of Ellir are now poised in time-honored Khanerenth fashion to turn to piracy, aided by that slimy Chas, with half my father’s personal treasury. It’s time to do something about them, don’t you think?”