by Shannon Hale
She smiled to show he was correct, but it slid off her lips too quickly.
“Do you forgive me?” he asked. “Will you forgive me and dance with me?” He bowed over her hand. His eyes were blue as mountain ice.
She nodded. Though her insides were still as knotty and worried as ever, she could not muster any more anger. He closed his eyes and kissed her hand. Heat ran from that kiss up her arm and into her cheeks till she suspected she looked more apple than girl.
Timon put his other hand on her lower back and guided her into the center of the dance floor.
She had never danced like this, one body in the swirl of many bodies, spinning so fast she seemed part of everything and Timon too. The room spun. The world spun. And Miri was at the center of it.
The orchestra played another song, and Miri and Timon danced on. She worried at the unfamiliar tune, but he led her easily through the steps. She whirled. She skipped. She lifted her head and smiled. In her extravagant gown at an Aslandian ball in the arms of a scholar, she did not feel a bit like the girl from Mount Eskel.
At that moment, she did not miss it. At that moment, she did not care if she ever returned. She skipped. She swayed. She spun.
The music thrummed out of the dance tune and into a march of state. At the head of the room, the king and queen arose from their chairs, Gummonth beside them as he almost always seemed to be. Golden doors opened, and Britta entered alone. She’d plaited her hair in two braids as she had often worn it on Mount Eskel and tied them with ribbon. Her braid loops and ankle-length skirt made her look very young. At the academy ball, Miri had thought the silver-and-pink dress as royal as diamonds, but in the palace, it looked humble, a poor girl’s dream of royalty.
All eyes were on the hopeful princess. Britta clenched her skirts, and Miri wanted to go to her and hold her hand. She made a wish on the flower in her hair that Britta could be happy tonight.
The dancers parted as a procession, led by Steffan, crossed the ballroom. Despite Britta’s fears, Steffan went straight to his intended bride, bowed, and offered his hand. Britta took it. The crowd applauded politely. The music began again, and Britta and Steffan danced.
“And so ends the first act of marriage,” Timon said. “Britta has become Steffan’s partner on the dance floor, a symbol that they intend to be partners for life.”
Miri exhaled, one knot inside her relaxing. “So they’re almost married.”
“Until they complete both the chapel ceremony and the presentation on the Green, nothing is official,” said Timon. “Britta need not be the princess.”
“But she will.”
“Logically, is Britta the best choice?”
“Yes, she is. I’ll write a Rhetoric paper on the subject and get back to you, Master Timon.”
He smiled. “Sorry. I know I sound like an old man. I have a tendency to feel things too strongly, and I’ve worked hard to think instead.” He was holding her gloved hand, feeling her fingers beneath it. “I love to think about things with you, Miri. But sometimes when I’m with you, all I can do is feel.”
Miri could not find her breath to respond, but she did not need to. They were dancing again, her crocusblue skirts swishing. Timon held her waist so that her feet seemed to barely touch the ground. They leaped and whirled, and Miri imagined wings on her back. Her breath was fast. Timon’s hand was warm.
They danced for hours, it seemed, and Miri did not ever want to stop. But at last Timon offered his elbow to escort her from the floor to the refreshment room, where she drank cucumber-scented water and ate cups of red currant pudding drizzled with browned butter and crunchy sugar. He kept his arm around her waist to hold her close in the crowd, and they whispered about recent protests.
It was not until she saw Peder that Miri recalled what Britta had said about the bridal ball.
Peder was wearing his nicest clothes. Miri knew his mother had scavenged the best bits of cloth she could and carefully stitched each piece of the trousers, shirt, and vest. How grand they had looked on the mountain. Miri’s chest pinched.
“Excuse me,” Miri said to Timon, and hurried away.
Peder was looking around as if unsure how he’d arrived in this place. His gaze stopped on Miri, but he stared at her for several moments before seeming to recognize her underneath all the tulle and silk and roses.
“Peder!” she said. “You came!”
“Britta sent an invitation, but Gus let me go only now.” Lifting a cautious finger, he poked at her skirts. “How do they stick out so big?”
“It’s all padding for show. For some reason, huge hips on a girl are supposed to be pretty.”
“Huh. I don’t think I’ll ever understand lowlanders.” He smoothed out his frown and offered his arm. “I mean, you look pretty.”
“Even though my hips are as wide as a wagon?”
“Even though.”
She took his arm and pulled him toward the music.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you in weeks,” she said.
“I’m sorry. It’s your fault, you know,” he said with his teasing smile.
“Oh really?”
“Absolutely. You think I’m so amazing and talented.”
“I do, do I?”
“Uh-huh, and so I’m forced to prove you right by working like a dog.”
“Because it would be horribly impolite of you to prove me wrong.”
“And if I was ever rude to a girl, you know what my ma would do to me.”
“Hang you by your ankles on the clothesline and whack you like a rug?”
“Or make me sleep on the floor of the goats’ pen.”
“So that’s why you used to smell like a dung heap. And I thought you’d just dabbed on some lowlander cologne.”
He jostled her with his shoulder, a playful nudge, and she caught a whiff of his clothes. He must not have worn them since leaving the mountain because they still carried the smell of Doter’s homemade soap. As if the scent were a quarry-shout in the linder palace, the memory of home became vivid. She imagined they were tending goats on a hilltop, looking out at the eternal chain of mountains. The dazzle of candlelight was just the sun sparkling off Mount Eskel’s snowy head. The music was the sensation of her heart beating.
“That’s funny,” Miri breathed. “All winter I haven’t been able to remember home clearly. Not till just now. Here, smell.”
She lifted the corner of his vest, and he breathed in. His smile was softer but just as real.
“Every day I finish up my chores and stay awake as long as I can to practice carving, and then I fall into my cot, too tired to take off my shoes. But even then, all I want to do, more than sleep even, is talk to you. Talk like we used to when we tended the goats or hiked to the summit.” He shifted, looking at his shoes. “The longer we stay here, the more you seem to belong, and the more I miss home.”
The conductor announced the final number of the night, “Rose of Asland,” and as the music began, panic charged into Miri’s throat. She took Peder’s hand and pulled him onto the floor.
“Come on, quick. We have to dance.”
“Why?”
Because she had looked into Timon’s eyes and felt wonderful in his arms. Because it was the bridal ball, and what if the old wives’ tale was true after all? Because she had made a thousand wishes on a thousand miri flowers that she and Peder would one day hold hands as they entered the carved chapel doors on Mount Eskel and stand together under the stone lintel to swear devotion, and hear the cheers of their families and friends and receive gifts of goat kids and blankets and a wooden chair to put in their own little stone house.
But she had danced with Timon at the bridal ball, and the world was spinning so fast she did not know where her feet stood or where her heart lodged. Perhaps it would be her last dance with the love of her childhood, or perhaps it would be her first ball with the boy she would marry. Either way, she needed to dance.
But all she said to Peder was, “Please.”
He
took her hands. And they danced.
It was a simple dance to follow. All the dancers spun in a wide circle around the floor, the pace gallop-quick, the exercise jovial and breathless.
Peder’s arms did not hold her as securely as Timon’s had. She did not float, did not feel wings on her back. Peder’s turns were sharper, and he looked more at his feet than into her eyes. They barely made it around the room one time before the other couples went zooming past. Was everyone staring? Did they look like the most backward, ham-fisted, lame-footed, provincial dancers Asland had ever witnessed? Miri felt tired and embarrassed, and she almost groaned. But as the groan rose up in her chest, she decided to turn it into a laugh. And when she laughed, Peder laughed.
They danced a little faster, and laughed a little louder, clomping their way over polished linder stones in the palace of the king.
Spring Week One
Dear Marda,
It is late. I danced at a ball tonight with two different partners. I still feel dizzy from spinning, and I suspect that feeling will not go away anytime soon.
Britta and Steffan danced, and it was as if he had chosen her all over again. Tomorrow is the chapel ceremony. I have failed Britta in ways I will tell you about one day. I do not think I can undo what I have done. But I can see her wed, at least. And I can be happy for her.
Miri
Chapter Fifteen
We stand up for the farmers
Who can’t keep enough to eat
We walk out for the workers
Who don’t know the taste of meat
We run forward for the children
With no shoes upon their feet
We will march this kingdom down
We will break the golden crown
The next morning, the sun seemed a little closer, the air almost mountain-fresh after a night rain. Spring pulsed green and golden. The palace courtyard filled with the courtiers and ladies of the princess, their clothing fine though more subdued than their ball attire, and their eyes showing evidence of a late night dancing.
“Brutally early,” muttered a man with a green-feathered cap and heavy fur coat. Liana was on his arm.
“Must the chapel ceremony take place the very morning after the ball?” she said. Miri had not realized that Eskelites spoke with an accent until she noticed how much Liana sounded like an Aslandian. Miri wondered if Liana had practiced long to work the accents of home off her tongue.
Liana would marry this noble, so whispered Bena. If she returned to Mount Eskel, it would be to visit, not stay. Such a future was possible—for Liana at least. And for Miri?
The murmuring stopped when Britta and the royal family emerged. Everyone curtsied or bowed. Britta wore a white dress, tight in the waist, lace over silk that spilled to the ground. Her head was wreathed in daffodils, her cheeks reddish-purple. She did not smile.
Just nerves? Miri wondered. Or is Britta having second thoughts? Perhaps Steffan’s aloofness had finally worn her out and she would not go through with the ceremony. Some part of Miri hoped that were true. Changing Danland would be less complicated if Britta were not tangled up with royalty.
Courtiers began climbing into the carriages, hiding yawns behind hands. An official directed Miri, Katar, and the other Mount Eskel girls to the front carriage. Britta came toward them, running as if she feared she were late. Her slippers fell off. She paused to put them back on, and an official directed her to a nearer carriage.
The caravan began at a leisurely pace through the quiet streets.
“What is wrong with this city?” said Katar. “The chapel ceremony isn’t open to the people like the presentation on the Green, but still, it’s been over twenty years since the last royal marriage.”
“You’d expect people lining the route of the procession,” said Esa.
“Exactly,” said Katar. “I know many are angry that Britta isn’t an Eskelite, but she’s still the prince’s choice. Besides, I like her.”
“You like someone?” said Miri. “That is saying something.”
Katar yawned hugely, as if to show how little she cared about Miri’s jest.
They turned a corner, and Miri could hear singing. At first she thought it some Aslandian celebration song, but then she recognized the tune and the words: We will march this kingdom down, we will break the golden crown.
It was “The Shoeless March.” Perhaps her Salon friends were in the crowd. Miri looked out the window. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people surrounded the chapel and spilled into the street. They were not waving handkerchiefs and cheering. They were forming a barricade. As the carriages neared, yelling replaced the singing.
Katar leaned out the window and cried, “Don’t stop!” at the driver, who was already whipping the horses faster.
The mob rushed forward, pushing at the carriages, their faces twisted with anger.
“… not our princess!” Miri heard one man shout as he hurled himself at their carriage door.
“Well, I’m not your princess either!” Frid yelled back. He yanked at the door, but she shook it until the man fell off.
The carriages crawled on, tilting and jolting as people banged on the doors and threw stones. Miri gripped the seat. They hit something, and with a bounce Miri and the girls fell onto the floor of the carriage, knocking heads. A moment later there was a cracking sound, so loud Miri’s ears buzzed. The glass pane of the carriage window was fractured, a neat hole in the middle. Miri started to get up, but Katar pulled her back down.
“They’ve got muskets, Miri. They’re firing at us!”
Miri could not have stood up then if she wanted to. Her legs felt wooden, her feet useless.
“Why us?” she asked.
“Maybe they think Britta’s in here?” said Katar.
Until that moment, Miri had not believed, could not have imagined, that the people who yearned for change in Danland also wanted Britta dead.
The air stung with another shot, but the horses were running now. Miri could hear the carriage straining against the motion, wood creaking, nails pulling. She put her arms over her head and waited for whatever was happening to be over. She hated waiting. She wished for a mallet or a hammer, a needle and thread, a pen and paper—something she could do.
She did not look out again until the carriage stopped. Through the cracked glass she recognized the palace courtyard and leaped free, her legs shaking under her as if solid ground were still a carriage in motion, the whole world on the run.
The rest of the caravan was pulling in, with clatters and shouts and the brays of worried horses.
Britta spilled out of a carriage, her feet lost in her long skirts. She started toward Steffan, who looked equally dazed, but members of the royal guard surrounded her and led her away. Beside tall and striking Gummonth dressed in brilliant green, the king looked pale and weak. Miri had no trouble imagining him as a small prince locked all day in a closet.
“They should be hanged for this!” Gummonth was shouting.
“Now is not the time for aggression,” said another official. “You need to placate the people, sire, console them, promise them peace and prosperity.”
“Are you insane?” said Gummonth. “Now is precisely the time for aggression. I warned you, sire, if you did not punish the provinces after their insolence at the gift giving, the people would think you weak, easy to topple.”
“You did, Gummonth,” said the king. His hands shook as he pointed. “You warned me.”
“Sire, you must act swiftly and decidedly,” said Gummonth. “Round up as many protesters as you can, and have a public execution on the Green as a warning to others. You will prove to them that you are the king. If we show any weakness, they will attack again.”
“That’s right,” said the king. “The people must recognize the absolute power of the crown. They will fear me.”
“Please, Your Majesty,” Miri said. “I think the other official was right. If we—”
“You may not speak,” Gummonth interrupted her. �
��The king has not asked you to speak.”
“But I know some of those people, and if you want peace—”
“You know them?” said Gummonth. “You sneaky little Eskelite rat. You’re a part of this!”
“No! Well, I … I mean …”
“Get her out of my palace,” said the king. “Out!”
Miri was scarcely aware of anything but hands on her arms. Two soldiers pulled her so quickly she managed to take only a step or two of her own on the way to the courtyard gate. The gatekeeper unlocked it, and the guards pushed Miri out. By the time she turned around, they had locked the gate against her.
She peered through the bars. The group was going into the palace, and Esa and Frid looked back.
Miri hurried into the street. She did not want them to speak up for her or do anything that would get them in trouble. Miri felt she deserved this, and worse too.
She wished for wings to take her back to her mountain. No wings appeared. So she walked. At first headed for Peder, she changed her mind.
She had never been to Sisela’s house by daylight. The facade was painted the same red as the brick of the Queen’s Castle. Patches were flaking off, revealing gray wood beneath. The crocuses and daffodils in the front garden were weedy and sparse, springing up defiantly.
Miri knocked at the door. Sisela herself answered.
“Oh! Hello. My … servants are off this morning,” she mumbled, straightening her shawl and patting her uncombed curls. The black paint that outlined her eyes was smudged and made her look tired. “I wasn’t expecting …” She laughed lightly. “I must be a sight! Never mind, come in, sister, dear.”
Sisela led her into the Salon, the room lifeless without lamplight. She opened one of the drapes and let a slice of hard sunlight enter. Rather than bring color into the room, the high contrast made everything look black and white.
It felt odd to sit casually, just the two of them, in that formal and spacious chamber. Surely in a house that size there would be a smaller reception room?
