“You heard that I’m getting married?” Liana said, inviting Miri to sit on the white velvet sofa in her suite. She looked more beautiful than ever in a pink silk dress, her hair pinned up as the Aslandian women did. “My betrothed is paying for my private accommodations here. He keeps a country home in Elsby and a town home in Asland, and employs twenty-eight servants, not including his tenant farmers, of course. He owns a gem mine and paid fifteen gold for my trousseau, which includes two velvet travel dresses, three garden party dresses, five—”
“I know you betrayed Britta,” Miri said.
Liana’s mouth was still open from speaking. She snapped it shut. Then, batting her eyes, she said, “Pardon me?”
“Yes, the king pardoned all of you, didn’t he?” said Miri, holding up the news journal. “That faithless guard saw the bitterness you harbored against Britta and Steffan and knew you’d be willing to help. Was your part to keep the Mount Eskel girls away from Britta so she would be alone and vulnerable? You might as well have tied up a goat and left her on a hill for the wolves. I suppose you thought you should have been chosen as the princess. I have made a lot of mistakes—we all do—but what you did was way beyond wrong.”
“Really, Miri—” Liana started, but Miri was not done. She’d seen Britta almost killed, and Peder was so fevered her own skin ached just to think of it. She was in no mood to worry about the rules of Rhetoric.
“The king pardoned all of you,” said Miri, “and so I’ll try to as well. But if you do or say anything against Britta again—make no mistake—I will tell your parents.”
Liana stared, and Miri expected her to deny everything. But then she laughed. “You’re going to tattle on me?”
“For all you’re so eager to leave Mount Eskel, I know you care about them. Just imagine the look on your parents’ faces if I told them you tried to get our Britta murdered.”
Liana was not laughing anymore.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tattle if you’re good,” Miri said, rising to go. “But I do think Britta and Steffan should know what you did. I doubt you will be welcome in their court.” If they marry, Miri thought. “I understand nobles who aren’t courtiers are often scorned by other nobles in Asland. I hope you enjoy Elsby, because that’s where you’ll be spending the rest of your life.”
She was stepping out the door when Liana spoke again.
“Britta knew what the lowlands were like,” Liana said. “She knew about the food and servants and furs and feather beds, the concerts and the carriages and the way the noble ladies dress. You know why she never told us how wonderful it is? Because she didn’t want any of us to get between her and the fancy linder palace.”
“You’re wrong. Her lowlander life was not wonderful, no matter what she ate or wore.”
“Don’t imagine for a moment she would have given up this life to freeze half the year and work in a quarry.”
“Steffan chose her, Liana. It’s over.”
“She had no right!” Liana’s beautiful face turned a beautiful shade of purple. “She’s a liar! If she hadn’t been there—”
“Then Steffan would have chosen me!” Miri shouted back. She’d never allowed herself to think it, let alone say it, but she knew it was true. “So it’s my choice to make, and I say Britta is more of Mount Eskel than you are, and I give her to Steffan. Liana, you never would have been the princess.”
Liana leaned back as if she’d been struck. She blinked rapidly and then stammered, “It-it-it’s not over, you know. The revolution has already started. The people won’t just let it go.”
Miri let Liana have the last word and quietly shut the door.
Gerti was waiting for Miri back at the palace entrance.
“They want you in the physician’s chamber.”
Miri ran. Her heart pounded harder than her feet against the floor. Fear pricked sweat on her forehead.
Don’t be dead, Peder, don’t …
She slammed open the door. Esa and the physician were standing beside the bed. Esa turned to Miri. She was smiling.
“There you are,” said Peder. “I’m sick of this bed and they won’t let me out. Make me laugh?”
Miri stared at Peder. She looked at Esa, who nodded happily. Miri looked back at Peder. She stuck out her tongue.
He shrugged. “Not your best.”
“Just give me a moment to realize you’re not going to die, will you?” she said.
He nodded.
She stuck out her tongue and crossed her eyes.
Peder laughed.
Chapter Twenty-one
She wore white heirloom lace about her throat
And in her hair a bright golden feather
A pearl like a plum hung ripe from her neck
But her smile fetched ten gold together
Peder’s fever had broken. A kind of stupor that had lain over the palace broke as well. Steffan asked, the king agreed, and Steffan and Britta held a private ceremony in the palace chapel. The second ceremony of the royal marriage completed, there remained only the presentation on the Green.
Gummonth warned there were rebels too angry to be placated by the story of a small boy and a carriage wheel. But Britta and Steffan declared they would rather risk their necks than wait any longer.
In a move Miri thought surprisingly wise, the king revoked Britta’s family’s title. Miri read of it in the news journal as she rode in a carriage to the Green.
In punishment for conspiring to undermine the sacred academy, His Royal Majesty King Bjorn strikes down Pawel Storason of Lonway and his immediate family. They are reduced to commoner status, and all their lands are hereby the property of the crown. The former Lord Pawel is the father of Britta Paweldaughter of Lonway, betrothed of Prince Steffan. For her part, Britta will also remain a commoner for life. However, the king, the prince, and the priests of the creator god accept Britta as the lawful and dignified betrothed to the prince. She will hereafter be known as Britta of Mount Eskel. She will marry the prince as a commoner.
They got a commoner princess after all, Miri thought.
Britta and Steffan rode from the palace in an open vehicle for two, Steffan at the reins. Miri could not stop thinking about how the Green served as the place of executions as well as royal marriages, praying that today it would not be both. The copy of “The Robber Princess” was still stuck to the edifice, its corners curled from rain.
Britta was wearing a simpler dress than her lace marriage gown—peach silk gathered in folds around her hips and back, then falling to a hem short enough that her bare feet were visible as she climbed the edifice steps.
Traditionally a bride’s family stood beside her, but Britta had asked the Mount Eskel girls to take that place of honor. Liana was not present, of course, and Bena was too afraid of muskets to climb the stairs, but Miri, Frid, Esa, Gerti, and Katar held bouquets of tulips and daffodils and smiled at the crowd. The priest wore a robe of brown with a white cap on his head, reminding Miri of Mount Eskel, forever topped with snow.
The wood of the edifice creaked beneath Miri’s feet, but it did not collapse. The sun was setting. The empty frames of Miri’s square banners faded from blue into rust and gold. The priest spoke the sealing words. Britta kissed her prince. And the crowd cheered.
Miri did not see Britta for a few days, while she and Steffan vacationed at the Summer Castle. She knew Britta must be happy and perhaps did not have the time to think of her friend. Perhaps Miri would never know if she was forgiven.
One morning on the way to the Queen’s Castle, Miri passed Sisela’s house. The windows were bare of drapes. She could see into the Salon, now empty. Even the chandelier had been removed from the ceiling.
The door opened, and the elderly servant limped out, startling when he saw Miri.
“Lady Sisela … er, she is …”
“I know she isn’t a lady anymore,” Miri said.
The man nodded, his shoulders relaxing. “I suppose there’s no point in protecting her any longer. I
warned her she could not pretend to be a wealthy noble forever, but she begged me to come on Salon nights.”
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know, but it looks like she’s sold the rest of the furniture, even dug out the linder tiles from the entry. Maybe she made enough to get her to Rilamark.” He shook his head, his thin gray hair wagging. “I used to work in her family’s home till my hip gave out. She was such a sweet little girl ….”
At the Queen’s Castle, Miri inquired after Timon, who had not come to classes since the assassination attempts.
“I’ve had no word from him,” Master Filippus said. “Perhaps there was a problem with his endowment.”
“His what?”
“His endowment,” said the master. “All who become scholars here write over a parcel of land or equivalent to the Castle. I imagine Timon endowed one of his father’s ships.”
“But I don’t have any ships or land or anything,” said Miri.
“Mmm? Perhaps someone gifted land in your name.”
That evening, Miri hurried with her questions straight to Britta’s old chamber and almost knocked before remembering she no longer lived in the south wing. Miri went to the king’s wing, passing over the linder threshold with an exhale. Britta and Steffan had returned to Asland, but Miri did not have the password to go farther.
Britta, she called in quarry-speech, using a memory of the first time the two of them had talked at the academy.
From down the hall Miri could hear the soft slaps of bare feet running.
“Miri!” said Britta. “I thought you were here. I was sure … almost really sure …”
“You did hear me,” said Miri. “You see? You are one of us.”
“Some official tried to tell me I couldn’t come find you, and I thought, why not? They always act the tyrant to me, and I’ve let them, but no more. If I want to see my friend, then I shall!”
Miri was going to ask if she was forgiven, but Britta hooked her arm and smiled, and all was as it had been.
They walked into the garden. The night air lay against Miri’s skin, wet and cool as well water. She leaned into Britta.
“Are you happy?” Miri asked.
“I’m happy,” said Britta, her smile pushing dimples into her cheeks. “So happy. Whatever this linder palace does to Steffan, it went away as soon as we did. And now that we’re back … well, I think he’s figuring it out.”
“I’m trying to figure something out myself. What are bridal lands?”
Britta flinched. “What?”
“I heard a story about Queen Gertrud and how she donated her bridal lands for a school.”
“Oh that. Well, when a noble girl gets betrothed, her father allots her some land that will always belong to her. It’s a safeguard, so if her husband treats her cruelly or abandons her, she’ll have land of her own and an income from its farms and rents.”
“So women tend to hold on to their bridal lands,” said Miri.
Britta nodded.
“And it would mean a lot if a bride were to give them away for some reason—as Queen Gertrud did.”
Britta nodded again.
“Britta, how did you gain me admittance to the Queen’s Castle?”
She squeezed her eyes shut.
“Britta, you didn’t …”
“You see? This is why I didn’t tell you. Because you would make a bigger deal of it than it is. They were my bridal lands and I could do with them whatever I wanted, and what I wanted was for you to go to the Queen’s Castle and learn everything you wanted to know so you could be as happy as I am. But my father did not give me much, and so I could only get you into the Queen’s Castle, and not Esa or Bena or anyone else, and I’m so sorry, Miri ….”
Miri laughed. “Yes, by all means, apologize for giving away your most valuable possession for my sake.”
“Stop that. Besides, they’d have been lost to me anyway, since the king claimed my family’s lands. You realize that I’m a commoner now. How the tables have turned, my lady!” She smiled slyly. “The income is only enough for one scholar at a time, but you could stay on for as many years as the farmland produces crops.”
“I could?”
Britta nodded, her smile easy. “I saw a copy of ‘The Robber Princess,’ by the way. Thank you. I was thinking about how I’m going to end up as one of those names in lists of kings and queens. Isn’t that strange? And I don’t want the sum of my life to just be that I feared my father and lied, even if it was for love.”
“Your history isn’t written yet,” said Miri.
Lately she marveled at how her own history was constantly shifting. Two years before, she would have written: Laren of Mount Eskel was disappointed in his daughter Miri. She was so slight and weak, he forbade her from so much as stepping foot inside the quarry.
Just the past year, Miri had learned the truth. Her ma had been injured in the quarry and died a week after Miri’s birth, and so great was her father’s love and sorrow he would not risk his baby girl in that place. What other truths would one day be revealed about old stories? History was as hard to hold as a wet fish.
Britta’s silence felt mournful, and Miri pulled her closer.
“What do you want history to say of you?”
“That I did things,” she said. “Helped people. But I’m not very good at figuring those things out. I hope you stay, Miri, and help me be a good princess—and one day, a good queen.”
“I … I would like to ….” Could Miri’s home be Asland? The thought made her stomach feel like a beehive shaken. “Um, how are your parents handling the loss of their lands?”
“They’re livid, of course.” Britta picked a blossom from a tree and twirled it in her fingers. “The king left them the smaller house in Asland, though they will pay tribute for it and will have to work to earn income. It won’t kill them to work a little, and maybe having them closer won’t be all bad.”
Miri folded her arms. “I won’t let your father anywhere near you.”
Britta’s fingers worried at the blossom till the stem bruised and stooped. “He mostly ignored me, you know. He wasn’t terribly cruel until … until he first told me to go to Mount Eskel and I refused. I ran from him and hid, and he made everyone leave the house so no one could help me, and he hunted me out, and …” She briefly closed her eyes. “I’ve never been so afraid, Miri. If I never see him again, that would be all right.” She watched the blossom’s petals drift to the ground. “But my mother … Perhaps we would like each other. If we knew each other. I’m willing to try again.”
There was movement in the shadow, and Miri jumped.
“Don’t worry, it’s just a couple of heavily armed, scary-looking men,” Britta said, looking over her shoulder. “They follow me everywhere now, by Steffan’s command. I think he’s overreacting, but he just can’t forget what almost happened.”
Britta’s words stayed with Miri as she kissed her good night and headed back to the girls’ chamber. Steffan can’t forget. No one could. Liana had predicted that. Miri had hoped that everyone was so enamored of the shoeless princess, there would be no more violence. But it was a foolish hope. Nothing had changed for the shoeless of Danland, and tributes would soon strike Mount Eskel.
The girls looked up at the sound of Miri locking the door.
“Hello, girls. It’s been a long time since we had a Salon night,” Miri said. “Do you think we could have one now?”
She confessed to writing most of “The Mountain Girl’s Lament” and disclosed some of the dangerous talk from Sisela’s Salon. While she spoke, Katar checked the door three times to make sure it was locked.
“The rebels lost,” said Bena. “Britta and Steffan are married. It’s over.”
Miri shook her head. “An idea is like a fire under ice. You can try to put out the fire, but the melting has already begun.”
“Who made up that saying?” Frid asked. “Doter?”
“Um, no,” said Miri. “Just me.”
&
nbsp; “It’s pretty good,” Frid said, squinting. “But I don’t understand why there would be fire under ice. And Doter’s sayings are shorter.”
“Anyway,” said Miri, “those ideas are out there, and the people are not going to forget. If things don’t change, the people will turn to violence. In the palace library I read about charters—a group of laws that protects a people’s rights. We could write a charter in favor of the commoners. Katar can take it before the delegation and the king—”
“You have something against my head, Miri?” said Katar. “If they don’t chop it off, at the very least they’ll throw me out of the delegation, and then Mount Eskel won’t have any chance for fair treatment. The delegates are all nobles; they won’t vote against themselves.”
“And no one but nobles can create new laws,” said Miri. “It’s an impossible situation! We’re the only nobles who have been commoners and understand the shoeless. It’s our responsibility to make change. If we’re convincing, the delegation will agree for the good of the country—commoners and nobles alike.”
“Even if I thought we had a chance, I can’t,” said Katar. “A member of court must sponsor any new laws.”
A member of court? Miri had not realized. She slumped in her chair.
“Surely Britta would do it for us,” said Esa.
Miri shook her head. “She lost her noble title when her parents did, and the king said he won’t raise her back up. I think he realizes that the people are happy calling her the commoner princess.”
“Would Prince Steffan do it?” asked Esa.
“He can’t,” said Katar. “The king and the prince heir oversee the delegation and cannot sponsor new laws.”
Miri was still wearing her scholar robes. She ran her fingers over the embroidered emblem on her chest: a crown and an open door. The sign of the queen.
Chapter Twenty-two
The army slew a thousand and showed little pity
The king ordered fealty from the conquered city
The prince charmed its people with words wise and witty