by Shannon Hale
“Sir, I met you once when I was a girl and you had come to my mother’s kingdom.”
He nodded, but his brows creased together. “You’re not the one I met with the prince.” He shook his hand as though gesturing at everything at once. “We arranged a marriage, I remember that. But a different girl’s marrying him.” He shrugged. “You both look near the same to me.”
Ani, waiting for his permission, sat on the edge of his bed and told the story of the designs and murders and war. The old man listened carefully, interjecting questions and receiving the answers with a deepening of wrinkles on his forehead.
“It is true, sir,” said Talone. “I am the last witness of the massacre.”
“And I saw the false princess’s guards twice try to kill this yellow lady,” said Enna.
The prime minister made a tsk, tsk sound. “War. That’s what killed the old king and his other sons some years ago. That’s what that lovely queen and I were trying to avoid, and look at it all come down on us like so many hunting falcons. Can’t stand war. Gets in the way of order and process and all the good things. Thiaddag, now, he loves the stuff. Can’t get enough of it. Eats it up like blackberry pudding. And you know what I think about Thiaddag.” He squinted and stuck out his tongue.
“They have gone north,” said Ani, “toward the mountain pass to invade Kildenree, and in three days the prince and Selia will wed. Do you know where they might be?”
“Oh, yes. North. Wedding. They would’ve gone to the estate on Lake Meginhard. The king was married there himself. I was present. It’ll become a tradition, I shouldn’t wonder.” His eyes livened with memory, and his thin lips took shape with a smile.
Ani breathed out a sigh. “Lake Meginhard. Good. At least we know where.” She twisted to look at Enna. “Can we get there in three days?”
Enna shrugged. The only place she knew outside the Forest was the city. Ani could see Talone’s jaw tighten in frustration that he did not know this terrain well enough to supply the answers.
“Three days . . .” Odaccar shut his eyes tight, as though trying to see a map in his mind. “On foot you might make it in three days, maybe four.”
“That is not good enough.” Ani leaned forward and put her hand atop Odaccar’s. “Sir, we need horses. We must get there in time to stop the wedding and the war. If we don’t, people like Thiaddag get their way.” Odaccar winced at that. “You once held a great deal of power in this kingdom, sir. Do you have friends in the stables? Can you get us horses?”
“Me? No, they think I’m old and useless.”
“Please,” said Ani, refusing to give up. “We don’t have enough coin to buy horses. If we had the time and skill, I would try to steal them. I must get to Lake Meginhard in less than three days, and the only way I see to do that is to get horses today, with your help. Can you think of a way to help?”
Odaccar rubbed his forehead and frowned. “Maybe.” Then he smiled, and his wrinkles stretched into long, pleasant curves. “Maybe if they don’t know it’s I.” He stood up by his small desk and rummaged for parchment, sending Enna to water his inkpot. The four stood by, twisting their hands with anxiety while he scrawled on the paper with the thick, scratchy strokes of a worn goose quill. He produced a stamp with a silver handle from a small drawer and shook it in the air. “Bet they don’t know I kept one of these!” He inked it and stamped the bottom of the letter.
“There now, that’s your passport to horses. I don’t think even that tight-fingered stable-master’ll think to ask which prime minister signed this letter.”
Ani took his hands and thanked him.
“You have done a noble thing, sir,” said Talone.
Odaccar laughed out loud and slapped his belly. “It’s good to be needed, I think.” The wrinkles around his lips and nose gathered together as though they existed solely to bear up his smile.
Ani sent Enna and Finn, the parchment drying in Enna’s hand, to find the stable-master. She begged Tatto to escort her and Talone to Selia’s quarters.
“This is good, Talone. If we can get to Lake Meginhard in time, this’ll be better than meeting the king today in my goose girl clothes. I just need one of my old dresses from Selia’s wardrobe, and then I think we can play Princess Napralina-Victery and her escort guard convincingly enough to get us through the doors.”
“Wait, wait, Isi,” said Tatto. “Do you know how wrong it’d be to break into the princess’s room, and me an oath-sworn page and due to receive my shield and javelin in two years?”
“I have to get a proper dress, Tatto, or they’ll never believe I’m the princess’s sister come to see the wedding. Anyway, it’s actually my apartment, isn’t it? Is it against your oath to lead the princess to her own room?”
“And if we get caught and they don’t believe you’re the princess—”
“Just tell them I bewitched you,” said Ani. Her eyes opened wider, her closed lips turned upward teasingly, and though the room was still, Ani caught at a slight breeze and her hem and sleeves and the loose end of her headscarf rustled in the invisible current. “That shouldn’t be too hard to believe.”
Tatto swallowed visibly and nodded. Talone stared, and she became self-conscious and released the wind.
“I told you,” she said to Talone.
“I suppose I thought you were being metaphorical.” He grinned and shook his head. “If your mother saw you . . .”
No one questioned their errand through the palace, though the pageboy wiped his sweating palms on his tunic and tensed at every sentry’s station, expecting to be pounced on and flung into a dungeon. At last he gestured to a set of doors, enjoined them to behave, and retreated down the corridor.
The doors were a double set of heavy, dark walnut, their borders engraved with climbing vines and half-opened blossoms. The brass knobs turned without stop, and they entered.
A long window breathed out over the courtyard and filled the room with light. Dark wood couches with thin velvet cushions, lamps that sparkled with dangling crystals, rugs so deep they kept the impression of her boot after she stepped away, walls painted deep orange and mahogany, tapestries of forest animals with starry eyes and horns in gold thread, curtains of curious weaving in all the natural colors that could be seen from the window, the odor of pure beeswax and rosewater. Ani felt doused by luxury, held underwater without breath. Her eyes sought out simplicity—she found a mirror and her own face.
This would have been my room, she thought.
“Would you stay here a moment, Talone?” Ani said. She left the main room for the changing room and found a wardrobe full of gowns that when rustled released the sweet, sharp scents of cloves and lavender. Not all the dresses she had brought from Kildenree were hanging from the steel hooks. Most noticeably the gold-and-white one was absent, the one the thread-mistress had intended for her bridal gown. Ani took down the pale lake green dress that had been dyed to match her eyes, held it to her chest, and looked at the long mirror. She thought, I look like a goose girl holding up a fancy dress.
Ani pulled loose her headscarf and let it fall to the floor. “I will not hide anymore,” she said to her reflection. Two feet, one in the mirror and one in the world, kicked the scarf aside. Her hair, braided up, had loosened, and its weight pulled it out of its plait and off her head. She picked up one of Selia’s—one of her—brushes, silver plated, the face of a horse a rigid knob on its handle, and broke her snarls loose. The sun was dipping low in the west and sent a lustrous orange glow from the horizon to her hair. She moved, and it flashed gold in the light. She held up the dress against her now, the ray of setting sun brightening her eyes, painting her face a yellow rose, regal as her mother.
“But different,” she whispered. “Not her. Me. Ani. Isi.”
She carefully folded the green dress and wrapped it up in linen she stripped from the princess’s bedchamber. She took only one swift, envious glance at the mattress two hands high and let her body briefly ache at that sight, her back and legs still
sensing every slat of her little bed that leaned up against the west wall.
Ani had just uncovered a pair of calfskin slippers dyed beech bark gray when she heard from the other room the sound of metal jarring against metal. She peered through the door. Talone stood in the center of the room with exposed sword, his expression deadly, and before him stood Ishta.
Ishta closed the door behind him and locked it with an unsettling click. He smiled, and Ani remembered the stink of his mouth when he’d held her hand to his lips at winter-moon, I will bite off a finger and his teeth, crooked and brown, giving the impression that the man was rotting from the inside.
“Alive, I see,” said Ishta, his eyes on his former captain. He pulled his sword from its scabbard and shifted it against the sunlight, reflecting beams on Talone’s face like pale, cancerous patches. “How lovely. I love that repeating dream where I get to kill you again and again.”
“Ishta,” said Ani.
He saw her and his brow raised, surprised but not displeased.
“For honor’s sake, Princess,” said Talone, “I ask to fight him alone.” Ani understood he did not wish for a wind to push the fight in his favor, and she nodded.
“Yes, no calling for help, little princess,” said Ishta. “The good captain wishes to die in private.” He smiled at Talone. “I hope you are not still upset about my killing Dano that day in the forest. I seem to recall that just because all Dano had to defend himself was his cooking knife, you put up such a stink. That is, until Ungolad ran you through.”
Talone’s temper did not display itself on his face. He gripped the hilt and swayed a moment on his feet, as though testing the strength of the floor. Then his blade rose, slicing through the beam of sunlight and falling hard on Ishta, his own blade held out in front of him, his smile twisted into a scowl. Ishta returned the hack, and the metal rang together, a mortal bell. Neither spoke. It was not a game of young warriors testing their strength or a match of pride, but a bout of death, each warrior watching his opponent’s eyes, fighting to end that life, their swords desperate vessels of their will. With each blow the other hoped to meet flesh, and each blow brought sword on sword, and the clanging was a wicked rhythm. Ani could not help the trembling in her legs, but she dared not sit. The force of Ishta’s strike pushed Talone to the ground. He held him there, his sword pressing Talone’s defense closer to his throat. Ishta glanced up at Ani, and for one moment the expression in his eyes said, Next. You’re next.
Talone thrust the guard backward and against a thin-legged table that splintered and sank under his weight. Talone took the moment to gain his feet before Ishta’s blade was drawn high and striking against his own. The guard had fire in his eyes, and he yelled in anger at every thrust that was countered, again, again, again, until he drove his blade with full force toward Talone’s breast. Talone dodged the thrust bodily. Ishta had swung too hard, expecting to be stopped by Talone’s blade. The weight of his sword and the momentum pulled him forward, and he stumbled. Talone turned, smooth as a diving hawk, and put his sword tip through Ishta’s body. Through his back and into his heart, as Ishta had done in the Forest to young Adon months ago. Ishta let out a high, quick gasp, crumpled face first on the floor, and did not move again.
“Talone,” said Ani.
“He was angry.” Talone’s breathing was heavy. “He should not have fought me angry.”
Talone dragged the body behind a low couch. Where Ishta had fallen lay a small pool of blood, dark red on darker wood, like a new moon on a black sky. Talone sat on the edge of a delicate, bird-legged lounge and looked at that dark pool. This man, thought Ani, should have a home and a round-cheeked grandson on his knee, not a stained blade.
“Are you all right?”
“Better than I would be if he had got me first. I don’t like killing.”
Ani stood at the feet of the corpse, holding her bundle to her chest. “Should I cover him?”
“No, leave him be,” said Talone.
He stood and exchanged his Forest-wrought blade for the dead man’s truer steel, more like the sword he had carried as captain of the princess’s guard. It occurred to Ani that it might even be the same blade.
“Time we left.”
They abandoned Ishta to discovery sometime by some unlucky maid, closing the door behind them.
Chapter 19
In the yards, the stable-master, an older man with a young man’s head of hair and a distracted expression, was directing the preparation of a dozen horses, all short, skinny, or old, and at least one betrayed features of donkey heritage.
“That won’t be enough, Talone,” said Ani.
“Perhaps not,” he said, “but I would be surprised to find a dozen in our company that know riding.”
Ani and Talone approached, and the stable-master squinted his eyes at them and came forward, his gait awkward as a new colt.
“You responsible here?” he asked Talone.
“I am,” said Ani.
His face swung to hers, and he eyed her uncovered hair.
“Are these all the mounts you have available?” said Ani.
“Who are you?” The stable-master had a faint whine in his voice. “What’re these animals needed for?”
“Business of war,” said Ani. “And that’s all you need know when the prime minister orders. Now, we asked you concerning the mounts.”
Ani had hoped the bold words might not seem too silly coming from her and surprised herself at how natural they sounded. Talone looked at her, his eyes smiling.
“Look here,” said the stable-master, “most of the mounts’ve gone north, and we’ve got to keep a fair supply for messengers and emergencies, as the prime minister would know if he wasn’t so absorbed in war, war, war, and gave a thought to animals and common sense.”
“What about that one?” Ani pointed to a far stable near the one where she had seen Falada. A tall bay paced his enclosure.
“That horse’s not for riding, miss. He’s still wild, and doesn’t respond to less experienced riders.”
Ani smiled. “I’ve ridden him. I’ll take the bay.”
The stable-hands thought it would be good sport to let the yellow-haired girl saddle the bay herself, and they sat back, prepared to be amused. One called, “Watch those razor-sharp hooves now, little girl,” and others laughed. A few minutes later, Ani walked the bay out of the corral, his hooves lifting high as though on parade. Ani smiled from the saddle.
“Could you shut that gate for me? Thank you kindly.”
The jeering stopped, and the group of chagrined stable-hands dispersed.
Talone, Finn, and Enna all mounted, Finn the most uneasily, gripping his docile mount so tightly that the animal did not know whether to run, buck, or sit still. The four led the remaining horses out to the front gate and were greeted by an astonished and delighted cheer. Those who could ride quickly volunteered to escort the princess north.
“Please be a truer escort than my first,” she said.
Among the volunteers was the palace guard Ratger.
“You’ll be expelled,” said one of his comrades. “You’ll be labeled a traitor and a post-quitter. You’ll never be allowed to enter a barrack or tavern again.”
“This’s the real princess,” said Ratger, mounting the last horse. “And a murderer and liar’s about to wed our prince and trick us into war. Tell me if my going isn’t fulfilling my post more than standing by, watching the army march away and waiting like a fancy column by a gate where nothing happens.”
“Welcome to the company of the true yellow girl,” said Razo.
Conrad was among the riders, and he spoke up then for the first time. “She’s the yellow lady, you dolt. Can’t you see she’s a lady?”
Ani’s four gold coins bought food and blankets, packed on two of the horses, and then hats and clothings for the workers that were muted in color and could be mistaken for Kildenrean design. Ani hoped they might pass for Kildenreans long enough to get inside the gate. After that fea
t was accomplished, all she could do was tell her tale. At the thought, her stomach felt sick. She was certain the royal audience would not be so easy to please as weary Forest workers clamoring for a bedtime tale.
It was full night by the time the company of eleven was on the road north, the outside of the city wall just a dark border to their left. They rode for two hours, then camped by the road and slept without fire. They rose at dawn and rode all day.
Ani was immediately grateful for Ratger. The guard was the only member of their company who had ridden the road to the lake and had seen maps of this part of Bayern. Ani spent the morning by his side, learning all she could of the king and the encounter to come.
“You’re so quick to answer my little queries, Ratger. At the palace gate, you clung to the suspicion and stubbornness that I’d expect from any Forest-born, but now you’re as easy in talking as a magpie.”
“Well, why not?” said Ratger. “We’re on the same side, and there’s little time to waste.”
“But why’d you believe them that I’m the princess?” said Ani.
Ratger shrugged. “You look like a princess. You seem like a princess. I saw the other one a few times, and now that I’ve seen you, I like you better.”
“Well, for whatever reason, I’m grateful,” she said, though his easy loyalty disturbed her even as it gratified her. She mulled over his statement under the conversation-stifling afternoon sun.
“Sometimes it seems my identity’s a matter of opinion,” Ani said later as she rode with Talone at the head of the company, hoping to pull the pace faster. Talone insisted they arrive by the next day, saying that once Selia wed the prince, their job would be near impossible.
