by Lynn Red
“Listen to me, sister,” Alara said, drawn up close to her baby sister. “Whatever has happened, whatever trouble you’ve got us in, or got yourself in, I’m sure it’ll all work out.”
A heavy sigh escaped Helena’s lips. “That’s what he says. And that’s what Maret – she’s my mentor in the harem, and apparently the prince’s mother – says. I don’t know why I can’t have the same optimism.”
“Because you haven’t spent your life in a sequestered palace full of cushions, hookahs, and court jesters. They do have those, right? Fools that entertain the king? And the prince, isn’t he some kind of regional governor? Where’s his land? Certainly not out in the middle of a wasteland desert, is it?”
Helena shook her head. “I don’t know, to be honest. I’ve only rarely been to court. I’m not a favorite, or experienced at all, so I spent most of my time entertaining at the feasting hall attending to the partying dignitaries.”
“I don’t know how you do it,” Alara said. “I wouldn’t be able to keep my nose out of all the intrigues were I in your position. There’s so much to poke around in, so much trouble and gossip to find.”
And here is where her sister finally got excited. She got giddy at the idea of news, secrets, and all other sorts of things she wasn’t supposed to know. Helena watched her sister’s face for a moment, studying her expression. “I only know one secret. Well, two, really.”
Alara’s eyes lit up. “Aside from the fact that the prince is waging a war with his father?”
“That’s not exactly secret.”
“True, the enormous fires and the armies kind of gave that away I suppose.”
“Well, you know how I said the prince is the son of my mentor? And not fully royal?”
Alara sat forward, edging up to the end of the bench where she was sitting. “I’m listening,” she said with wide open eyes and excitement in her voice. The thing about being all analytical and intellectual is that she couldn’t get enough tidbits of news, gossip, whatever you wanted to call it. If it was there, Alara wanted all of it. “Although princes are often born to harem women, as I understand it.”
“Well, it’s true, in a way. Often kings bear sons on harem women. But, not before they become king, and not with her not being his first wife.”
“Oh this is good. How is he the heir, then?”
“Maret was, is, I mean, the king’s favorite. She’s his confidant, his best friend. If not for the fact that she was born a commoner, they’d probably have married and Arad would be legitimate. So it’s all very secretive. People in the kingdom think he’s the product of the king’s late great wife. If they knew about the whole commoner thing… well, there is more than one reason that he’s fighting this war.”
“But it does make it romantic, doesn’t it?” She asked. “Gives him such credibility among the rabble. That’s what they call us, you know.”
“Arad doesn’t,” Helena felt her face growing hotter. “His father maybe, the others at court, for certain. But the prince? He’s a kind man who would never do anything of that sort.”
“Calm down, sis,” Alara said. “I’m sure he’s perfectly gentle and kind and wonderful. But you have to admit, it is a little strange that he’d fall head over heels in love with a commoner he’s only known… what, a few days?”
“Weeks,” Helena said, not for the first time realizing how ridiculous the whole thing was. “But his mother – Maret – who I’d expect knows him very well, says he’s never done anything like this. She said she’s been trying to get him to go after this freedom fight for years and years, but he always refuses. Until now.”
“Hmm,” Alara mumbled. “The prince has his own confidant, doesn’t he? An Englishman? Stork or something?”
“Crane,” Helena stifled a laugh. “He’s very stiff and strange. Maret says he’s a lush and a letch.”
“Well he is English,”Alara said with a haughty grin. When Helena didn’t respond in any way, she just kept talking. “Anyway, I’m worried that you’re being suckered into something you don’t understand because this ridiculous war smells of royal gamesmanship and posturing. What’s he going to do if he wins?”
“I asked him that,” Helena said. “He told me that he had plans. That he had everything ready to go. And he never talked about ‘if’ anything. It was all very certain.”
“It always is. Otherwise,” Alara said, “who would listen to him? Politicians are all the same. Things are going to work, things are going to go along one way, everything is fine, the world is either perfect or a disaster, everything’s so right and wrong, black and white, let me guess, he told you things about how he had never felt the way you make him feel?”
“I, er,” Helena smirked, bashfully. “Yes, well maybe. But I said the same things.”
Alara shook her head. “Well, either way, it hardly matters now. It’ll go the way it’ll go. You said you had two—“
“That ibex,” Helena cut in, “it was the prince.”
“You said,” Alara continued, “that you had two… wait, what the hell did you just say?”
“The ibex that, I guess, the neighbor girls told you they saw me coming in the other night, riding? It might have been the prince who shifted into an ibex and rescued me from the harem before the king and his guards came after me.”
Alara, for the first time in her entire life, as far as Helena remembered, was speechless. Just that was worth the spilling of royal secrets. “He… what?”
Helena smiled brilliantly. “Well, apparently it runs in the family. Maret said that the two of them – the king and the prince – regularly turn into ibexes and ram each other to work out their differences.”
“Oh,” Alara said, as a great noise from outside kicked up. “That’s… something, isn’t it?”
*
The creature standing out front of the house, in a cloud of wild dust, was decidedly not an ibex. Rather, it was an Englishman in a long, stiffly-tailored, two-tailed coat. He didn’t quite look like he had marched in from the eighteenth century, but it was close enough.
“All he’s missing is the powdered wig and the flag to plant on our land,” Helena’s father said. “Is he one of the prince’s cronies?”
“Diplomat,” Crane said, apparently hearing what her father had said. “Jonathan Crane, diplomat from England. Currently,” he laughed a scoffing sort of sound, “diplomacy has taken a back seat to espionage. And I need to speak with my chief agent.”
An audible gasp swept over the room. “Chief… agent?”
Helena stepped forward, through the threshold and into the dust, to a chorus of mooing cows and bleating sheep and tittering sisters. The sisters were the loudest. “Who is he?” one of them asked. “Do you think she can get me in with him?” asked another. “Give her space,” Alara said, “no one’s getting a date tonight.”
How he heard their hushed conversations she had no idea, but when Crane made his little clucking sound with tongue between teeth to catch her attention, it did the job. Helena trotted over to his horse and patted the beast on the neck in a meditative manner. “What is it?” she asked. “How’s the fight?”
“Over,” Crane said. “Thanks to you, it was over mostly before it started. There was some token battling in the streets, some posturing and so forth, but… that’s not why I’m here. Let’s ride.”
With a quick glance to her father and her sisters, Helena stuck her hand up and took hold of Crane’s. “Why did you come for me?” she asked as he swung her up into the saddle. She noticed he had a second seat behind him, and grabbed the horn. “Surely there is enough to do in the capital?”
Crane laughed in his haughty way. “There’s always enough to do in the capital. But let’s go, I need the wind in my hair to think.”
“Your hair is pulled so tight it may as well be a helmet,” Helena remarked, which got another laugh from the stiff-necked Englishman as he kicked the horse into action.
“Fair enough. Arad sent me, obviously, to find some thing
s out from you that may be of service in finishing the transition.” Ascending a gravelly dune, Crane let his mount slow to a trot and then stop completely. It craned his neck and took a mouthful of some tiny brush leaves, and began chewing happily.
For a long moment, the two uneasy friends sat on the horse as it ate, and stared off into the distance. Helena watched the capital – or at least the lights from it – streaming up into the western sky. “It’s beautiful,” she said wistfully. “Especially without the fires burning.”
“I know what you mean,” he said with a longing look in his steely eyes. “But without the flames, the phoenix can never rise.”
For a long moment the two sat on the back of the grazing horse, staring at the lights of Salomana. At length, Crane spoke again. “We need to know if we can trust Maret.”
Helena jolted in surprise, almost toppling off the horse. “You what? She was my partner, my mentor. And she’s Arad’s mother! How can you question her?”
Crane stroked his jaw, letting the bristled whiskers rasp against his fingertips. “Yes, well, that’s part of the problem. We know who she is, but she holds so many cards, so many secrets. She’s either a great ally or a dangerous enemy, and we need to know which.”
She just shook her head, not sure what to say or how to say it. “I just… how can… without her, I would have been caught. I gave you the list of people to look out for, and you did whatever you did with that list.”
“No one was hurt at your behest,” Crane said, in as reassuring a voice as he’d ever used. “We removed them, but they stayed safe. The only ones who were punished were those who moved against Arad directly.”
“Don’t tell me anything more,” she said. “I can’t be part of this. I couldn’t live with myself if I knew what was happening.”
Crane shrugged. “As you say. But we need to know about Maret. And rest assured, we’ve already asked her about you.”
Helena’s eyes went as wide as saucers. “Me?” she hissed. “You doubt me? You pulled me into all this! You and Arad are the ones who got me to do what you wanted me to do. I did this out of confusion, I did it out of desperation. I did it out of—“
“Love,” Crane cut her off. “As Arad said you’d say. And not to worry – Maret was just as angry when we cornered her about you. I think that’s answer enough for me to know the truth. I know this is hard, but know that it’ll all be over soon. When it is, Arad will come for you. You won’t see me again.”
She hadn’t even realized the horse was moving until they were partway down the hill. Helena looked up at the moon, shining brilliantly overhead, making a trail of quicksilver that seemed to lead all the way back to the dead center of Salomana, to the keep that stood in the middle of the palace. She knew that at that moment, Arad was probably sitting right in the center of that pool of moonlight. “Is he okay?” she asked, in a quiet, almost pensive voice.
A haunting silence followed that tied Helena’s stomach in another knot. She was starting to get used to the clenching, the upset, and the dyspepsia. It took him long enough to respond, that Helena thought she might finally give in to the nausea, but he rescued her from her own digestive system.
“Arad?” Crane turned his head back so she could see his profile. “He’s never been better.”
*
“What was all that about? Is everything okay?” When they were finally alone, after everyone else had gone off to bed, Alana cornered her sister. “The fires are out, I noticed.”
“They’re out, yes.” Helena looked at her sister, studying her face for a long moment. “The fires are gone, the fight is over… if it ever happened at all.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alara asked with a skeptical squint. “All those flames we saw on the horizon were just illusions?”
“No,” Helena said, looking off into the distance in the direction of the capital, that only a day before had been illuminated against the night sky with streaks of orange and red and yellow. “They were real. Except, from what I was just told, they might not have been what they seemed. Maybe illusion is the right word. Crane said they were just cover for the king to get the hell out of town, all the while pretending that battles were raging in the streets.”
Alara stared at her sister. “It was all a show? So you’re not a spy? Or you are? Sister, I am absolutely confused.”
Helena managed a short burst of laughter. “You’re not the only one. Apparently, the king just wanted his love. He didn’t want to rule, but he didn’t think Arad was ready. I guess just his mounting a rebellion proved to his father he was the leader that Salomana needs.”
“Even if he did it for love, and nothing else?”
“Especially because of that, I think.”
The two sisters shared a glance before they both looked off into the horizon. Alara was the first to break the silence. “Well then, I’m glad everything worked out. Or at least, it sounds like it has.”
“We’ll see,” Helena said with a smile. “But you know, for the first time I remember, I think you might just be right.”
It wasn’t long – two days – before Helena knew, beyond any doubt, that everything Crane said was true.
On the morning of the third day, as she and her sisters shared some of the thick, wonderful coffee that they both loved, an ibex appeared on the hill that led down to the house. He stood there, in the gray of desert dawn, framed by red fingers of sunlight. His coat shimmering in the dying light of the moon as it gave way to morning.
“Look at that,” Alara said. “You’d think he was regal, the way he’s preening around. Unless…”
Helena laughed softly. “I told you sister,” she said. “Salomana has a whole lot of secrets. And the prince? He has the most of all. Come on, I’ve wanted you to meet him since I met him.”
The two girls clasped hands, and though they started at a walk, it didn’t take long before the two of them were trotting, then jogging, then sprinting, toward the huge ibex standing at the crest of the hill. Except when they got there, it wasn’t an ibex anymore.
Prince Arad stood with his back to them, and when he turned, he took Helena’s hand and bowed deeply to her sister. “You must be Alara,” he said with a smile. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
-9-
As the trio descended toward the house, dawn had just broken, and the horde of livestock was beginning the morning round of bleating, mooing, and baaing. Helena’s father had just made his way to the kitchen and sat down, pouring himself a mug of coffee and wondering where it had come from since no one else seemed to be up.
As the door swung open, creaking softly, he looked up. Helena, he saw she was wearing a smile as bright as any he’d ever seen. “Helena? Alara? What are you—oh, who is this?”
He noticed the prince after his daughters, as the big, brown-haired man stooped to enter the house. “The animals were welcome, I see?” he was smiling too, but hadn’t yet noticed the stooped old man sitting at the table. And he never did – as soon as Helena’s father saw the prince and realized who he was, he straightened his back and pulled his shoulders high.
With pride, both sisters looked at Papa, who they’d not seen act so proud, so strong, since they lost their mother, and the crops had all dried up and blown away all those years ago. “I suppose I owe you the thanks for all this?” he asked as the prince flashed another smile. “Whatever I can do for you, I will,” the old man said. Pride swelled in his voice, there was no mistaking it. “I owe you everything, for what you did… you saved my farm. You saved my family.”
“No,” the prince said. “You saved me.”
Helena’s father stood and stuck out his hand. “At least do me this honor, Prince Arad.”
The big, muscled prince took the old man’s hand and shook it. “And I’ll take some of that coffee, too, if you don’t mind. It’s been a very, very long few weeks. Seeing your daughter’s face,” the prince paused for a long look at Helena. The relief on his face was like that of a man taking a lon
g drink after making his way across the desert and not knowing if he’d come out the other side alive or dead. “Seeing her has made me realize that everything I’ve done was worth it.”
As he poured the coffee, Papa was humming to himself under his breath. When he returned to the table, sitting down heavily and pushing the mug in front of Arad, the old man was shaking his mostly-bald head. “But why?” he asked. “Why all this for us? We’re just common farmers, she’s just a girl who had a chance to make it out.”
“Helena?” Arad called. “Would you make ready to leave? Everyone else is invited too, of course. The coronation is tomorrow and I’d like all of you to be there.”
“Of… of course,” she said. “And thank you.”
She crossed the small room and they exchanged a quick kiss with a shared look afterwards that lingered. Both hearts interlocked, both souls intertwined. Though the kiss was short and soft, the heat between them, the passion they shared, was obvious to anyone for a mile around. The crackle of energy that shot between them was sweet and light in the air. “Go now,” he said with a smirk. “It’s not a long journey, but we have to make it quickly. I’ve sent for a carriage to bring the rest of your family to the palace, but I…”
“What is it?” she asked.
“I want to be alone with you on the way back. I’ve missed you more than I can say. But hurry, our time is short.”
He didn’t need to ask twice. With a bunch of tittering giggles, Helena and her sister went to wake the rest of the girls and gather their things.
“They seem excited,” the prince said, returning his attention to both the old man sitting across from him, and the steaming mug, from which he took another sip. “But neither is as much as I am.”
“Ah hah,” Papa said. “But you still haven’t answered me. And royal or no, when an old man asks a younger one a question, the younger one should answer.”
Arad laughed. “That’s true,” he said. “And I will, but there’s something I want to ask of you past the coffee and your friendship.”
“And that is?”
