“We’re not in this together,” she said, shaking the leaflet. “It makes Britta look like a thieving, dishonorable snob.”
“Isn’t she?”
“No!”
“We are what we do,” he said quietly.
“But the leaflet will make people hate her.” She sat in the chair beside him, planting her head facedown on the desk. “This is really, really bad.”
“I am sorry, Miri. I have a tendency to get excited and act without thinking. But your words were so perfect! I added my own at the end, but I believe them true and important enough to risk execution. Is the part you wrote true?”
“Well, yes, but it’s not that simple, Timon.”
“Why not? How can telling the truth be bad? This kingdom is blind. It’s our job as scholars to keep speaking out and describing the world as it is until the people can truly see it.”
“But Britta—”
“People are afraid to challenge a king in his palace surrounded by his army. He seems too large to overcome. But a robber princess? That’s an easy rallying point.”
“She’s my friend!” Miri said.
Timon flipped open a book to a genealogical chart of the kings and queens of Danland.
“History is names on a page. Years from now, your friend could be just another meaningless name school-children memorize. Or hers could be the name that ignites the change. You are smart, Miri. You know you can’t support both your friend the princess and the commoners’ fight for fairness.”
No, she had not known that. The idea hit her like a stone.
Timon was on his feet, his cheeks flushed. “Let the people question a princess. That will give them the courage to keep asking until those questions shake the kingdom. The people will rise, the crown will fall, noble titles will be abolished, and at last everyone will be equal.”
When Timon spoke that way, her mouth wanted to shout and her feet wanted to march. People rising, kings questioned, a country changed! Her heart beat, but her stomach rolled, sick with guilt. How had things gotten so complicated?
Miri took genuine comfort in studying Mathematics that day. She could sort numbers into two simple ideas: true and not true. Unlike numbers, words were rarely just one thing. They moved and changed, camouflaging and leaping out unexpectedly. Words were slippery and alive; words wrestled out of her grip and became something new. Words were dangerous.
One and one will forever be two, Miri thought.
She looked at the girl in the painting. Had her expression always been so forlorn? The girl seemed trapped, aching to go explore the world but unable to put that stupid jug down.
I’m sorry, Miri thought at the girl in the painting, because she needed to apologize to somebody. I’m so sorry.
Chapter Thirteen
Goodness knows she is too fierce for you
Goodness knows she has eyes for a lord
Goodness knows she yet will prove untrue
Her cheek’s blush is as false as her word
Miri did not wait for Timon at the end of the day, hurrying back to the palace alone. Words tumbled about in her head, but she could not form them into pleasing sentences. Nothing she could think of to say to Britta would make it better. She knocked at Britta’s chamber and cracked open the door.
“Miri, come in!” Britta said with a grateful smile. She was not alone. Britta introduced her guests, Aslandian noble ladies seated primly on the sofas. “And this is my dearest friend, Lady Miri of Mount Eskel.”
Miri curtsied, wishing she could have her dearest friend alone. The truth of the leaflet was a live coal in her gut.
The conversation dallied on the weather, preparations for the royal wedding just days away, and the best toppings for custard. Miri was about to blurt out her confession anyway when one of the ladies, her eyes on the fan in her lap, said, “We saw a leaflet this morning. Normally I wouldn’t read such things, but the servants were in a fervor. We wish to give you the benefit of the doubt, Lady Britta, and so we came in person to allow you to explain.”
“Explain?” said Britta. Her face drained of color.
The woman nodded. “Surely the claims in the leaflet were not true.”
Miri wished the palace would come down over her own head and bury her alive.
“I have little explanation and no excuse,” said Britta. “Some of the things written were, in fact, true.”
“Some?” asked a woman with an arch of her eyebrow.
Britta’s ruddy cheeks deepened into a painful red. “I did go to Mount Eskel. I did claim to be an orphan and attend the princess academy.”
“I see. And what do you think about that, Lady Miri of Mount Eskel?” asked the woman.
Miri sat on her hands, then remembered her Poise lessons and folded them on her lap. “I think … I think that Britta is my friend. And maybe whoever wrote that leaflet didn’t mean any harm. And I don’t think Britta meant any harm, going up to Mount Eskel. And I didn’t want to be the princess anyway.”
Miri winced. Master Filippus would have given a sad shake of his head at the way she’d shambled around the rules of Rhetoric. Confusion and even amusement crossed the ladies’ faces. Britta looked lost.
The ladies reminded Miri of the hungry fish she had seen in the ocean, swimming beneath the fishing boats and waiting for the cast-off entrails of gutted fish. Knowing that Britta’s “dearest friend” had written the leaflet would only give them more fodder for gossip. She excused herself.
In the girls’ chamber, Miri could not meet anyone’s eyes. They’d been right—she had written “The Mountain Girl’s Lament,” or at least most of it. But how could she explain without implicating Timon? Sisela’s husband had been executed for as much.
Miri wrapped a cloak around her scholar robes and went outside.
Night had fallen over Asland, flames fizzing in the kerosene lamps like fallen stars. The lamplight drained the color out of the painted houses, making the world as black and white as the starred sky.
In Lady Sisela’s part of the city, the flower beds overflowed with heaps of crocuses and daffodils. Soon wagons would lumber up to Mount Eskel for spring trading. The thought gave Miri a shiver. Though she had written a dozen letters to Marda, she could no longer imagine sending any of them. What could she say of the tribute and the cruel poverty that threatened them? How could she fix anything in time?
She entered the Salon, and all the faces turned, their eyes brightening at the sight of her. She tightened her fists, wanting to hold on to her anger.
“Miri!” said Sisela, rising to take her hand and kiss her cheek.
Clemen played a few bars of a popular song, changing the words for Miri.
Goodness knows she is so fierce and true
Our warrior girl slays giants with words
He pounded out the final notes, and the room applauded—not for Clemen but for Miri.
“I read ‘The Mountain Girl’s Lament,’” said Sisela, “and I understand you better than I ever have before. My sweet, lovely girl, how I adore and admire you!”
“Don’t, please. I didn’t want this. I didn’t mean to betray my friend.”
Sisela tilted her head to the side. “I respect your loyalty, but Miri, this girl tricked Mount Eskel out of the right to have one of your own on the throne.”
“Britta and Steffan are in love …”
“It makes a pretty story,” said Sisela. “But consider it logically. Is this wedding good for all of Danland?”
Miri did not answer.
“It is difficult to find a soul in this city who supports Britta,” said Sisela. “Yet I suppose she’ll be princess whether they want her or not.”
“And that, too, is getting people to think,” said Timon. “I know she is your friend, Miri, and I am sorry, but people are finally speaking out. The heat of the revolution is spreading!”
He offered her a strip of blue cloth. She took it, not understanding, and then saw they all had tied strips around their upper arms.
“For you, our lady of the revolution,” Clemen said with a bow, “Asland is draped in blue.”
Timon smiled at her quizzical look. “You don’t know your own power, do you? In ‘The Mountain Girl’s Lament,’ you talk of Mount Eskel wrapped about by blue sky. Your words resonated across the capital, and all of like mind are wearing blue bands. The color of the coming change!”
Miri sat heavily on the sofa, letting the blue strip go. It rippled as it fell, reminding Miri of a living thing—an undulating caterpillar, a snake.
“You shouldn’t have taken my words.” She glared up at Timon. “You shouldn’t have used them that way.”
“I know you, Miri,” he said. “You wouldn’t sacrifice the good of all the people for one entitled girl. Please, I’m sorry.”
“I can’t let Timon take the blame.” Sisela sat beside Miri and put a hand on her back. “This is my fault. I encouraged him to print the leaflet. You have fit into our group so easily, you seemed a sister to the cause from the beginning.”
“I am,” said Miri, straightening. “I really am. I think.” Her voice dropped lower. “I don’t know what to do.”
The anger was straining out of her, her hands relaxing. Timon and the rest had grown up in a huge city, reading books and talking in Salons, while she’d been tending goats. Surely they knew better than she did.
Sisela smoothed a lock of hair off Miri’s forehead.
“My poor girl, you’re too hard on yourself,” she said. “Why should you have the burden of doing everything?”
It was true. None of the other girls had come to Asland with so much responsibility. They could relax, enjoy the city, develop interests. But Miri was expected to “go and learn for all of us,” as Britta had said. Miri felt tired just thinking about it. It was a relief when Sisela lay Miri’s head against her shoulder.
“I don’t know what to do,” Miri whispered again.
“You don’t have to do anything,” Sisela answered. “Just let things happen. Everything will happen as it should.”
“In three or four weeks, officials will go to Mount Eskel and demand tribute,” Miri said. “The families are finishing off their winter food supply and counting what coins they have saved, anticipating buying enough food for the season, and perhaps a comfortable chair for a grandmother or new blankets for a baby, spoons and pots, boots and buckets. Instead they’ll give their saved coins to the king—and likely lose their goats besides. They’ll be … they’ll be devastated … ruined … and they’ll wonder if there wasn’t something we could have … I could have done ….”
Tears stole away her words. She looked at the floor and in the silence felt the compassion of those around her. They, like her, had faced the brutalizing injustice of kings and nobles or they would not be here. She could not sell them out to the king, as Katar suggested, not even to save Mount Eskel. There had to be another way.
Sisela said, “A few weeks can change the world, Miri. I will do all I can. I promise.”
Miri closed her eyes. She wanted to believe so badly, her muscles tensed. Clemen was playing a sweet melody, and the notes softened the edges of everything. The room smelled of lavender and beeswax candles. The music and hum of conversation sounded as familiar to her now as the bleating of goats.
Her stomach still felt tight as a fist, but Sisela’s hand was on her head, motherly, comforting.
She knows best, Miri told herself. She is smart and wise.
Miri squeezed her eyes shut tighter.
Winter Week Thirteen
Dear Marda,
I do not know what to write. I stare at this blank paper and wish words wrote themselves, words to tell me how to feel and think and what to do.
There will be a tribute demanded of you all. You and Pa and everyone thought I was so smart to figure out how to trade linder for fair value. But soon you will know that I am useless. Nothing I changed lasted. Everything is falling apart.
I am so sorry about the two gold coins in mother’s shawl. I had imagined them for you when you wed, to fix up your own house with a door and windows, a table and chair, a pot and spoons and such. Gone. And our goats! My heart aches for our goats.
I honestly believed that we would not have to go hungry anymore.
Britta’s wedding is near, at least. I wish she were safely the princess already and that no one could try to stop it. I want change, but I want Britta to be happy too. Why is that impossible?
I cannot stop the tribute. I cannot do anything. Except maybe be Britta’s friend. And your sister,
Miri
Chapter Fourteen
Loan me your lace of yellow, sister
Lend me your fine kid gloves
Tonight is the bridal ball, sister
Tonight I’ll meet my love
Present me a sash of blue, sister
Gift me a ribbon of white
My love awaits me below, sister
I am a bride tonight
Britta finished Miri’s hair by pinning a white hothouse rose at the back. It was the night of the bridal ball, the first of three ceremonies that would bind Steffan and Britta as husband and wife. By this time tomorrow, they would be wed. The Queen’s Castle was on hiatus for the week, so Miri had been free to help Britta practice the ball dances and her part in the coming formalities, as well as to make her laugh during her final dress fittings.
It was so easy to be with Britta, there were moments Miri forgot why her insides felt like a twisted rope. Then she would remember—the leaflet, the tribute, the revolution. Sisela believed the commoners would rise soon, and Miri was not as happy as she thought she should be. She had decided to put it out of her mind for the wedding and focus on Britta.
“Tradition holds that single young women who attend a bridal ball will marry one of their dance partners,” said Britta. “Steffan says every girl in the city has probably been checking daily for an invitation!”
“Who gets to attend, Britta? Just the noble girls of Asland? Any commoners?”
“I never thought to ask.” Britta rubbed a rose petal against her chin. “You see, this is why you would be a better princess.”
Miri remembered Sisela declaring the same thing. The truth of the leaflet was heavy on Miri’s tongue. She would not spoil Britta’s wedding with her confession, not before she could figure out how to fix everything. She hoped Britta did not realize how many Aslandians opposed her marriage. Just one more day, and Britta will be Steffan’s wife.
Servants came to ready Britta, but she sent them away.
“I want to do my own hair tonight and put on the dress of my choosing,” she told Miri. “Maybe that’s silly, but I want to look myself, not what the palace has made me. Steffan is still distant. Maybe he’s just busy, or else he always acts stiffer in Asland than he would in Lonway. But if he’s the tiniest bit hesitant … well, when I walk into that ball, I want to be sure he knows I’m just me, no flounces or pearls to distract him.”
Britta had asked to borrow the silver-and-pink dress Miri had worn at the academy ball and lowered the hem. In turn she lent Miri one of her new ball gowns, a deeper blue than the open-sky robes, with full skirts over layers of tulle.
“I saw a crocus this color, working its way up between cobblestones,” Miri said, letting her hand slide down the tight middle and over the exploding skirts. “Exactly this color.”
Miri wore a pair of Britta’s heeled shoes so her skirts would not drag too much.
“You look so …” Britta smiled shyly. “I’m going to keep track of everyone who asks you to dance tonight.”
But Peder won’t be there, Miri thought, and then quickly shrugged the worry away. It was just an old wives’ tale that the bridal ball paired girls with their future husbands. She need not take it seriously.
Britta would enter the ball later, so Miri walked with the girls into the linder grandeur of the king’s wing.
“Why is it, Miri, that you always try to be the fanciest?” Liana asked, looking over her royal gown. r />
“If I looked like you, I wouldn’t have to try.” Miri said it smiling, but Liana answered the compliment with a glare.
“She thinks you’re trying to outshine her,” Esa whispered. The palace seamstresses had added a pocket to Esa’s gown so she could tuck her limp arm away. In bright pink silk, she looked like a princess herself.
“Liana spent three hours putting all those tiny curls into her hair and a week fixing up that gown,” said Gerti, running her fingers through her own wavy hair that never grew past her shoulders.
“And she looks pretty,” said Miri. “She always does. I don’t know why she has to be the prettiest.”
They arrived at the ballroom doors and gave their names. Miri had attended a ball at the princess academy and thought she knew what to expect. This time, she was determined not to gawk like a coarse mountain girl.
And then she entered the palace ballroom and gawked as she had not since first arriving in Asland.
She had never seen so large a room. There were countless candles lit and sparkling in massive chandeliers. Hundreds of people resplendent in gowns and suits of silk spoke and laughed, moving fluidly as if aware of their own beauty. An orchestra played sounds so sweet and resonant, Miri felt herself reduced to sand, swept up and flying.
“You look beautiful.”
Miri opened her eyes to find that she was not actually sand blowing about on the music but a mountain girl in a ball gown, and Timon was looking at her.
“I meant, you are beautiful,” he said.
She wanted to shake her head but managed to say “thank you,” because a rule of Poise stated that one should always accept a compliment. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Commoners can attend, for a price. My father is always willing to pay for a chance to rub shoulders with nobility.” Timon smiled, and she realized how tense he looked, afraid even. Of her? “For once my father and I agree on something—you.”
“Me?”
“He approves of my courting you because I told him you are a noble. But I know you would throw off your title in a moment if that would help release others from the shackles of poverty.”