by Zoe Marriott
The bear hesitated. It’s going to back away, I thought in awe.
“Down!” came Vangor’s distinctive bellow. He had hold of the animal’s shoulder harness and was dragging at it. Not hoping to hold the bear back, I realised. The old man stood no chance of that. He was just trying to get Skirpir’s attention. I yelled, clapping my gloved hands together, and the bear’s head swung around, looking away from Shell for the first time since she had confronted it.
“Down!” I yelled, adding my shout to the groom’s. “Down, Skirpir!”
A pale-faced Uldar raced up, catching the other side of the harness and tugging sharply. “Bad Skirpir! Sit down at once!”
With a creaking groan the bear folded back onto its haunches, seeming to halve in both size and menace. Shell picked up the sobbing child – a little girl – in her arms and carried her away to a dazed, trembling couple that I assumed were the parents. The castaway smiled calmly, refusing their babbled thanks with a shake of her head, although she allowed them to hug her and pat her hair.
Did the girl have no fear? I could barely stop my knees from knocking together and I hadn’t even been close enough to be hurt!
Later, when Skirpir had been thoroughly scolded and hitched back to the sleigh for safekeeping, and the locals had been soothed into compliance by a generous application of the contents of the party’s money purses, I slipped away. Leaning against the side of a little red house, out of sight, I ran through the deep breathing exercises that the Whisperers had taught me, until my hands slowly stopped shaking.
I had chosen my hiding place a too well. Behind me there was a scuffle and a sound of annoyance. I stiffened, wondering if I could get away quickly, before I was noticed. Then I forgot that as a voice said: “I said I would come, there’s no need to haul me – I’m not a child.”
That was Uldar, all offended dignity. Oh dear. That meant the person who was dragging him had to be...
“I always said they were dangerous,” Miramand hissed. “How many times have I told you to be careful and how many times have you promised me they were harmless?”
“No one was hurt, Mother.” Sullen and resentful. “Don’t fuss.”
“You stupid boy. If the child been one second slower it would be dead – and it was not you who saved it. You weren’t even paying attention. That little piece of flotsam you picked up had to do it for you. What if it had been the Princess the bear lunged at? Or me? Do you think your girl would have stirred herself to save one of us instead of a half-breed urchin?”
“Neither of you would have been so foolish as to goad him!” Uldar said. “Any animal can be dangerous, Mother! Dogs bite, horses kick, reindeer will run right over you if you panic them. It wasn’t my fault those children were stupid – and anyway, their parents should know better than to let them run wild like that. No wonder people say they’re lazy.”
My mouth dropped open and stayed open. This was the kind of defensive speech I might have expected from Aramin when she was eight. When she knew very well she was in the wrong, but was teetering on the razor’s edge between giving in and tearfully admitting it, or going the other way and indulging in a screaming tantrum instead.
Uldarana was nearly a grown man. The heir to a nation’s throne. And what was more, the infraction was not a broken vase or some trifling impertinence to a tutor. Shell and the little girl might actually have been killed today.
The Queen seemed to share my sentiments. The silence stretched on and on. I leaned against the side of the little red house, almost expecting to see the icicles overhead lengthen from the sheer savage iciness of that pause.
“I’ll be more careful in future,” Uldar finally said, chastened. “The bears...I’ve never seen Skirpir react like that, but this is a new place, and I should have been paying attention. I’m sorry. I’ll apologise to the parents, too.”
I sighed with relief. No tantrum – an apology instead. The storm had been averted.
“That isn’t good enough,” Miramand said with great decision. “You are lucky this happened here, that the near-victim was a wayside Llemansser and not the child of someone important. But the story of what almost happened here today will be all across the country before we return from this visit, and once we are home I will once again have to work my fingers to the bone trying to convince everyone at court that you were not reckless, selfish, foolish, uncaring. That you will be ready to take the crown when it passes to you. You say you’re not a child, but you act like one. Actions have consequences. When will you learn that?”
Now it was Uldar’s silence that made me cringe. What Miramand had said was true, as far as it went – but Uldar had already apologised and said he would try to do better. What more could anyone do but that? If she still treated him like a child even when he took responsibility as a man, how would he ever gain the strength of will to stand on his own two feet?
“The next time one of those animals threatens a human, any human, they will all be put down, Uldarana,” she said. “No. Not a word. Not one more word from you now. You will not cultivate a name among your people for this kind of sickening incompetence. I won’t stand for it.”
She swept away without giving him time to reply. I peered around the side of the house to see her return to the sleighs, seeming relaxed and smiling, patting the head of the little girl that had nearly died and slipping a few more coins to the family. What had she called them? Half bloods – Llemanssers? I kept hearing that word. What did it mean?
There was a thud that shook the little house, sending snow flaking off the roof like dust. A kick, or a punch to one of the walls. Then Uldar’s footsteps stalked past. Triple Gods. I leaned limply against the wall, attempting to put thoughts and feelings in order, and did not come out until I heard someone call my name.
When I did, I was confronted with the last thing in the world I wanted to see: Shell, sitting beside Uldar in our sleigh.
They were sharing a plate of potatoes and a mug of beer. Shell looked entirely unconcerned. Uldar’s face was defiant – but his eyes were red-rimmed. Frosty Hells. Miramand had pushed him, and he was pushing back. And punishing me too, although I doubted he had spared a thought for that. There would be no point at all in trying to speak to him. For a moment I considered turning my back and going to Miramand’s sleigh instead. But that would be giving up ground to the enemy, and I was my Mother’s daughter. And Miramand’s protégée, too.
You are the sun. She is the dirt.
It would not harm me to be gracious. And credit must be given where it was due. Taking a few breaths to centre myself, I approached the vehicle as calmly as I could, tilting my head in an attempt to catch the other girl’s eye.
“Shell,” I said, when my attempts were unsuccessful.
She jumped, twisting to look at me with wide eyes and parted lips. I had frightened her. Me. This girl who shrugged off the disapproval of queens and stood unflinching before monsters. Why did that make me feel so... so...?
“Princess...” Uldar began uneasily, clearly anticipating something unpleasant on my part, perhaps another lovely scene to really round out the morning. I held up my open palm, the universal signal for peace.
“Shell, I wanted to tell you how – how much I admire what you did. It was incredibly brave. That little girl and her family have much to thank you for.” I met Uldar’s eyes for a moment, arching a brow. He shrank in his seat. “We all do.”
Confusion, suspicion and shock passed over Shell’s mobile face like clouds chasing across the sky on a windy day. Then she smiled at me, pleased, and shyly ducked her head. My stomach lurched strangely. I turned away, circled the back of the sleigh – avoiding having to go anywhere near the bear – and climbed in on the other side. The still subdued Prince, now positioned in the middle of the bench between Shell and me, made no offer to help. He had some sense, then.
Within moments we were on our way again.
The sky continued to darken as noon gave way to afternoon. The feathery threads of cloud ha
d woven together into a thick, bumpy cover that now seemed to sag lower and lower, swelling with bruised colours as we crossed the snowy plain. The temperature dropped, too. Shell and Uldar bore it well. The girl was one of nature’s perpetual furnaces, it seemed, practically glowing with warmth. The Prince, who held her a little closer than was really decent, seemed perfectly comfortable basking in her heat. Damn him.
Huddled by myself on the other end of the bench, I set my teeth and ignored them both as pointedly as possible. I had no hesitation in wrapping myself in all the furs I could lay hands on, or in firmly nudging the hot, rag-wrapped brick, which had been supplied for a small fee back at the way-station, under my own booted feet. They wouldn’t miss it. And if they did, I didn’t care.
The road branched before us, and Vangor unerringly guided the sleigh onto the left branch, narrower and less well travelled. We entered another forest, very different from the dark green pines near the palace. Here the trees were shorter, with slender trunks and broad, spreading canopies. They were white with frost, and bare of leaves, the branches spreading above us like a tunnel of finely worked lace. Mist rose up among the trees, tinted rose-gold, and the sky above took on a ruddy hue. Somewhere beyond the clouds the sun was setting.
“Nearly there,” Uldar shouted, reaching out to catch my sleeve so that I would know his words were for me too. Shell leaned forward eagerly, sending me a glance of excited anticipation, as if we were all friends – then blinking and looking away when my face remained stony.
“Down there!” The prince pointed.
On our right side, the forest dipped, then tumbled down into a deep canyon jagged and rocky. Leaning across Uldar, I was able to see an opaque blue-white ribbon snaking through the bare trees at the bottom. A river, half-frozen.
The far side of the canyon surged up and became a bizarre rock formation, like a mountain, but below us. Its sides were black, barren except for more of the skeletal trees – and the shining tracks of dozens of thin waterfalls, crimson under the red-tinted sky. They weren’t frozen, but were wreathed in clouds of drifting gold mist.
The peak of the mountain was completely flat, as if its point had been sliced off with a knife. The smooth top was marked by thin, concentric rings of black rock, divided by thicker circles of a pale, cloudy blue. It took a few blinks for my eyes to adjust and my mind to accept that the blue rings were water. Hot water, somehow, that bubbled and steamed at the edges.
Situated neatly at the centre of the boiling lake – at what must, I realised, be the crater of some ancient, dead volcano – there was an island. It was connected to the dry land at the edges of the mountain by half a dozen great, arched stone bridges.
And on the island itself was – a town. A small, walled town, complete with houses, neatly fenced, snowy paddocks and stables, a pointed steeple – a church? – and, at the centre, a squat, practical looking little castle that flew the Silingan standard from its single, fat tower.
“Welcome to Skalluskar.” Uldar grasped my hand and Shell’s at the same time, pulling them together across his lap and letting me feel for an instant, through my glove, the heat of her bare hand. “Welcome!”
23
The low red clouds dissolved into white and spilled down over the little town of Skalluskar just as the last of our sleighs drew into the covered courtyard of the island’s castle. I turned to look back at the impenetrable wall of snow that now cut us off from the world outside. My glance passed over the old gentleman who had been in the last sleigh with Uldar’s friends – and then returned to him.
His posture had closed in on itself, leaving him bent and diminished as he staggered unsteadily from the sleigh into the arms of one of the castle’s grooms. Only then did I recognise him as the old Wind Caster who had been on the ship that rescued Uldar and me from the Numinast. What had been his name? I remembered what he had said to me all too well.
Built on the backs of Ice Breakers...
Had he been holding the snow up above us, preventing it from falling, for the whole journey?
More grooms rushed out to help unhitch the grumbling bears and begin to unpack the luggage from the sleighs. In the midst of the well-organised bustle a deep, golden voice boomed out joyfully: “Little Cousin ‘Drana, come to visit us at last!”
Uldar leapt to his feet and vaulted over Shell and the side of the sleigh in one bound. The next instant he was embraced by a tall, slender man with snow-white hair, and a face that was deeply lined with smiling.
“Have you grown? You have! Such shoulders, such a jaw! Who is this fine young man? I barely recognise my little one,” the man said.
“Stop play-acting, Cousin,” Uldar protested, laughing good-naturedly. “I visited you six months ago!”
“Six months is a lifetime, and I shall stop playing when I am dead,” the man I assumed was Cousin Yasha declared, but his voice softened as he went on, “How is my cousin Radugana? Is the season keeping him well?”
Uldar shrugged, grin fading a little. “Father is... much the same.”
“Well, perhaps that is as much as we could have hoped. You will take my good wishes back to him when you return home. Now! Is this your beautiful Princess you have brought to meet me?”
I began to smile and rise to my feet – and saw that Cousin Yasha’s twinkling eyes had passed over me and fixed on Shell. Shell looked blank for a long moment, and then, abruptly, mortified. She cast her gaze down, biting her lip. I was struck by her reaction. I did not think she would have been self-conscious enough to realise how awkward this was, even a few days ago. It seemed the Silingana was a swift, perhaps brutal, teacher – and Shell a faster than expected learner.
Meanwhile, Uldar’s mouth opened and closed slowly, like a crocodile whose teeth were being cleaned by a plover bird.
I waited for another stinging burn of fury, humiliation and bitterness. It did not come. Perhaps I was too tired by the journey. I only wanted to get inside and get warm. Letting my smile form fully, I straightened to my full height.
“I am afraid not, my Lord. This is our – friend. Shell. I am Princess Theoai, and I hope not too great a disappointment.”
The look of relief on Uldar’s face and the pleased gratitude on Shell’s was my unlooked-for reward. Yasha, smoothly recovering from his slip, moved around the sleigh to help me out of the vehicle.
“Disappointment?” he said, bowing deeply over my hand. “In such grace and loveliness? Your Highness, if we were not strangers I should count that as an insult.”
“Then I am glad you are not easily offended,” I said lightly, and smiled again at the appreciation that warmed his bright eyes. He gave my hand a quick squeeze, then released it.
“I must greet the Queen,” he said, sounding a little regretful. “But look, here is my daughter Katja, the lady of the house. I will leave you in her hands. Ah – a pleasure to meet you as well, Lady Shell.”
Yasha hurried away to where Miramand was just making a slow and stately exit from her own sleigh. The journey and its unexpected incidents could have been too much for her; I wished that I were closer so I could make out her colour better. She was smiling at least...
I turned back, making my way around the sleigh to where Uldar was bowing to a very tall, thin lady in an emerald green gown. She was in her early twenties, I judged, with hair a shade of near-white that was rare even among the pasty Silingans. Her eyes too, were nearly colourless – yet her face was tanned, freckled and brown. She finished her curtsy to Uldar, and then accepted his warm handclasp with a dimpled smile that brought sudden beauty to her face.
“You look well, little Cousin. Visit more often, won’t you? Papa sighs all evening long by the fire, missing you.”
“Oh, you’re as bad as he is,” Uldar said, exasperated, although I thought there was something wistful in the corners of his smile. I remembered how happy and excited he had been to come. Why didn’t he visit more often, when he clearly loved the place so much? “Anyway, less of the ‘little’, I’m as tall
as you are now.”
“If you say so, little one,” she said, ignoring Uldar’s splutter as she curtsied to me. “Princess Theoai, welcome to Skalluskar. We are so happy to meet you. How was the journey?”
“Exciting, thank you,” I said. And then, since Uldar seemed to have forgotten, and Shell was still looking somewhat lost, I sighed and resigned myself once more. “Let me introduce our new friend, Shell. She has been through a rather difficult time lately, and has become separated from her own people. At the moment she isn’t able to talk, but she understands Silingan as well as I do.”
“Poor thing,” Katja said with ready sympathy. Shell finally emerged from the sleigh, looking surprisingly shy. She bumped her shoulder into mine, a friendly gesture, as Katja shook her hand. Why did she keep doing things like that? Didn’t she know that we were rivals?
Remember that you want her gone, I told myself firmly.
Blushing a little at the brilliance of the smile Shell bestowed on her, Katja gestured us all toward a wide door at the top of a small flight of steps. “Would you all follow me inside? We have the fires stoked up and dinner waiting.”
*
Since the snow, driven to a blizzard frenzy after being held off so long by the Royal Wind Caster, showed no signs of letting up that evening, it seemed that the planned viewing of Morogana’s Lights would have to be postponed.
I found that I didn’t mind at all.
Castle Oborov – Oborov being the family name, Katja informed me – was in many ways more comfortable than the Silingana. The stone walls were hung with thick faded tapestries which kept the draughts at bay, and the floors were piled with layers of plush rugs going only a little threadbare. There were no towering ceilings – in fact, most of them were quite low, and criss-crossed with heavy beams of golden wood – and light came from scented oil lamps or the wide, un-shuttered windows, which were made of wood and glass. What was more, the place was awash with animals.
Dogs and cats roamed the halls, co-existing with wary neutrality as they curled up in piles by the many fires and begged together at the tables for scraps. Among the normal house cats were a handful of giants, nearly as tall as my knee and with long, shaggy, multicoloured pelts and luminous green eyes. Their purr, when they felt moved to bless you with it, was bone-shaking.
