He hacked off chunks of frozen meat and we boiled it all into a thick stew, which we ate so hot it burned our mouths. A welcome change from the cold rations Harlan had packed for our escape. Then we slept. All the remaining day and through the night. I warmed up the leftover stew while Harlan checked the horses. He came back saying that the snow had fallen so deep we might as well stay another day. So I made more stew, and we stuffed ourselves again and slept more.
By the time the storm cleared and we left, we both felt rested. And I felt human again. Not only because I got to see the sun. Astonishingly bright, it glittered off the snow that covered everything, scorchingly brilliant and cold. The sky shone with a blueness like I’d never seen. And the days of rest had let me heal enough to try sitting astride. Harlan gave me lessons on sitting a horse, how to hold on with my legs and not my hands.
A lot of it was not being afraid—not easy for me. I jumped at the least thing anymore, and—though I’d found a place of equanimity—the rime of fear that Rodolf would find me ran through my blood. But my mare was a pretty thing, chosen for her dark hide and amiable nature, as well as her sturdy mountain-climbing build. She mistrusted my scarves, and I learned to tie the ends in tightly so they wouldn’t flutter. Otherwise she tolerated my poor technique. In return, I let her follow Harlan’s horse, which made her happy enough.
In another day, we descended over a gentle ridge to find warmer wind blowing in our faces. It smelled different than the mountain air, a hint of salt and the fish we occasionally ate in the seraglio. Harlan reined up and pointed. I looked, trying to understand what he showed me. The mountains fell away into hills beneath us. Beyond them, the land lay flat and featureless, a uniform dark gray. A dot glided across it and I frowned.
Then I understood in a rush of awed astonishment. “Is that the ocean?” I asked.
Harlan grinned over his shoulder at me and nodded. “I remember the first time I saw it, too. Not like you expect, is it?”
“No.” I’d expected blue water and palm trees, like the paintings on the walls in the seraglio. As with the deer, the reality of the ocean was magnitudes beyond the images I’d been shown. It stretched out farther than I could see, immense and with a power that made me feel even smaller than I’d come to understand myself to be. Once I’d been an Imperial Princess, reigning over my limited empire, thinking myself something beyond special.
Now, in Harlan’s castoff boy’s clothes, stripped of my jewels—the ones I could liberate myself from—filthy and soon to be an exile from everything I’d known, I knew myself to be immeasurably tiny. And without worth, unless I made myself into something more.
We rode down through valleys, growing warmer as we went, the snow thinning and wildlife increasing. Deer and elk thundered past in great herds. Birds flocked in chorusing flights overhead. Finding a travelers cabin in late afternoon, we stopped early. We’d eat the last of our cold rations, as the next day we’d ride into the harbor city of Sjør, and seek a ship to sail to Halabahna.
“Jenna,” Harlan said in a serious voice, seating himself beside me. I knew that tone, the one that would convey unpleasant news. “We need to see about removing your ring and wedding bracelets.”
“Good,” I replied, and held out my hands. He looked nonplussed, so I laughed. “Did you think I’d mind? The cursed things are like shackles. I’d love to be free of them.”
“It’s not that.” He gathered my hands in his. “Believe me, I understand. The thing is…I don’t have the tools. We need a metalworker to break them open.”
“Oh.” Which meant I’d be recognized. “Then leave them on. I can cover them with scarves and we can find someone in Sjør to do it.”
Harlan scrubbed a hand over his scalp. “It’s too great a risk. If word has made it to Sjør, then people might be watching for someone disguising bracelets like this—and the ring is showy. Too easy to slip and have it catch the eye. One glimpse of a diamond like that and everyone will know you’re no commoner. Women traveling abroad are rare enough. One as beautiful as you with such gems…”
I nodded. “We could cut my hands off,” I offered, not entirely joking. I’d be willing to pay that price.
Harlan, however, looked horrified. “I think we can avoid that. We should, however, cut off your hair. And dye it darker.”
My hair. Of course. “All right.”
A strange smile twisted his mouth. “Just like that?”
“I’ve lost more of myself than hair,” I replied, matter-of-factly. Only flesh. “I’m not who I was, so fine. Do you have a knife appropriate for this purpose?” I’d been learning knives; which were for chopping food, which for plants, which to keep clean and sharp for fighting.
“I can do it for you,” Harlan offered, pulling out the sharp meat-cutting knife.
“No,” I replied. “I want to do it.”
I had my hair tied back in a single long braid—the same I’d put it in that night at the seraglio. My braid for sleeping, that I hadn’t taken down as I had no way to wash my hair or comb it out. Taking the knife, I slipped the blade under the tie at the back of my neck, the metal cool and smooth, then sawed upward.
Short hairs came free as I cut, billowing and blowing around my face in that ever-present breeze off the ocean. The braid came free and my scalp tingled with lightness, my head feeling as if it could float off my neck. Harlan watched me with a strange expression, then held out his hand. I gave him his knife back.
“The braid,” he asked, “could I keep it?”
“If you want to.” I handed him the long rope of ivory hair. Not sleek or lovely, not interwoven with pearls. Hairs stood out in branchy brambles. It looked like nothing of mine. Harlan carefully tied off the free end, coiled it up and put it in one of his packs, and I ran my fingers through the short fluff of hair, marveling at the sensation. “Why do you want it?”
Harlan gave me a kind of sideways look. “Superstitious, maybe. It seems wrong not to.”
I’d have thrown it on the fire, but such was my state of mind. “And dying what remains?”
He shook his head thoughtfully, studying me. “I’ve changed my mind on that. Dasnarian women are mostly fair-haired, so if we dyed it dark you’d stand out more. And with it so chopped off… well, you look nothing like Imperial Princess Jenna.”
I smiled at that. “Good.”
Because I wasn’t her anymore. Once I’d shed Rodolf’s jeweled manacles, I’d be free of the last vestiges of the stupid, helpless girl I’d been.
Then maybe I could start becoming someone else.
~ 19 ~
We rode down into the harbor city of Sjør the next morning. The back way, sadly, which was more circumspect, but just as thrilling. A real city. Harlan had told me there wouldn’t be much to see. He’d explained apologetically, coming from the woods, down the country lanes and past the little farms that gradually clustered together, that there would be other cities, other bright mornings, when I could ride down the main thoroughfare and drink in the sight of the sailing ships and merchants selling all manner of things from their handcarts, not just glimpses between houses.
But I loved every small glimpse, every sight so tame to Harlan’s experienced eye. I drank every bit of it in, thirsty for more, and Harlan had to keep reminding me not to look about like a country mouse seeing the city for the first time. Even though that’s exactly what I was.
Still, I mostly managed to remember to keep my head down, face hidden beneath the cowl of my cloak. I had wrapped my hands in the heavier scarves, so none would see. We took a roundabout route to a denser, smellier part of the city, where men called blacksmiths worked at blistering fires that belched smoke, metal ringing loud as they worked it.
We stopped at several, Harlan having me wait while he went in. Each time he came out, shaking his head. “Why not that one?” I asked, after the fourth time.
“I’m looking for a p
articular type,” Harlan explained. “A man honest enough to do the job and not look to make more by selling us out; and yet dishonest enough to take the bribe in the first place.”
I considered that. It made sense, and yet… “How can you determine that?”
Harlan grimaced. “I ask them if they’ll reshoe my horse—and I’ll let them keep the higher quality shoes in exchange.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Our horses were shod at Castle Fjaltyndar. I’m obviously no prince of that castle, to their eye, so they assume I’ve stolen them and look to cover the crime by changing the shoes.”
“Ah.” I nodded. “And little do they know that the stolen property to be stripped of identifying equipment is actually me.”
He glanced at me, frowning. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
I lifted a shoulder and let it fall, as I’d seen Harlan often do. “I’m not offended. I’m well aware of my relative status in the world I’m leaving behind. So these men have all refused?”
“Actually, no—they agreed too easily, and with greed in their eye. I don’t trust any of them with you, so we keep looking.”
“What if they alert the guard that a man is trying to reshoe stolen horses?”
“It’s possible, but the city guard isn’t like at the Imp—where we came from,” he amended, as a group of farmers passed us, pulling a wagon with a broken wheel. “They are spread thin and kept busy with existing problems. They’re unlikely to chase down a possible problem, guessed at by a blacksmith who never examined the shoes in question.”
We passed a blacksmith shop smaller than the others, but neatly kept. Three young girls played in the dusty yard, two chasing a round spinning toy they drove with strikes of a stick, and the other sitting in the sun, intent on something she worked with her hands. They all looked clean and well-fed, barefoot with pretty bangles jingling on their ankles, but too young for klúts yet. As I watched, the one who’d been working on something jumped up, ran over to a man working the forge, and showed him. He took it, nodding, then patted her on the shoulder.
“That place,” I told Harlan, pointing with my chin.
He squinted in that direction. “It doesn’t look like much.”
“We don’t need much.”
“Why that one?”
“He’s good to his daughter.” He’s letting her do something useful, I didn’t add, but I continued to watch as the man showed the girl something.
“As good a criterion as any,” Harlan agreed. “Wait here.”
But I didn’t. Fully aware that I disobeyed him—and feeling a little thrill in the doing, as apparently rebellions feed each other, making each one easier—I allowed my mare to follow after his horse, into the yard. The two younger girls stopped in their play, observing us with curiosity but no fear. A woman dressed in a simple klút, tucked up high for chores, appeared in the doorway of the attached house and called to them to come help her. She waved to us in greeting, gaze averted enough to be polite, but not so much that she didn’t look us over. She had an easy smile and moved with the supple energy of a happy woman.
The blacksmith sent the older girl inside, too, as Harlan approached, and she took me in more boldly, likely wondering at my heavy cloak in the warm sunshine. Harlan and the blacksmith still talked, the man shaking his head, casting a dubious eye at our horses. Too honest.
Making a decision—as this was my choice, ultimately—I dismounted and clomped my way through the dirt to the men. The blacksmith nodded me a greeting, respectfully enough, and spoke to me, too. “Well met, young lord,” he said, “but I’ve told your companion here, while I sympathize with your plight, I cannot help you. I have a family to think of.”
I nodded back, understanding. Instead I turned my back to the street, opened my cloak and began unwinding a scarf from my left hand. Harlan gripped my forearm. “No,” he whispered, a harsh warning. “We’ll find someone else.”
“I trust this man,” I told him. “I have to start trusting somewhere. Surely not every man is my enemy.”
Harlan shook his head, but let me go. The blacksmith looked between us curiously. I pulled the cloth aside enough to show him the edge of the jewel-encrusted bracelet. His breath hissed out, and his gaze went to my shadowed face, which I lifted enough for him to see.
“I need you to cut off my wedding bracelets. In exchange you may keep one. As you can see, they’re valuable.”
He leaned a hand on his workbench, lowering his head, shaking it as if he had an earache. “You’re her. The lost princess.”
Harlan put his hand to his sword, ready to draw. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that, with this honest man and his happy family.
“Yes. I wish only to flee, not to cause any trouble. If you won’t do this, I understand. We’ll leave and never bother you. But I’m asking you to help me.”
“You’re leaving the empire?” He asked, disbelief and horror hushing his voice further. “Why? Your people love you. You have everything.”
I unwound the scarf a bit more and slid the bracelet down, showing him the marks the cuffs left on me, the deep bruises that had yet to heal fully, shadowing the pink ridged skin where the deep cuts worked to become scars. “He hurt me,” I told the blacksmith, willing him to understand all the details I couldn’t bear to say. “If this isn’t enough to convince you, I’ll undress for your wife and she can bear witness to …” I swallowed. “To my other injuries.”
He wouldn’t look at me, pained tension ridging his shoulders. “And who are you—her lover?” he asked Harlan.
“He’s my brother,” I answered for him. “He’s risked his life and future to help me.”
The blacksmith fully gaped now, knees flexing instinctively. “You’re one of the Imperial Princes! Forgive me, Your—”
Harlan gripped him by the shoulder, stopping him—an incongruous sight, with my little brother shorter and slighter than the big blacksmith. “Not anymore,” Harlan said quietly, and firmly, full of resolve. “I’ve resigned my rank. I’m no more royal than you.”
The blacksmith breathed a laugh. “I don’t believe it will be so easy, young lord, but so be it.” He gripped Harlan’s shoulder in return, then faced me. “The law says a man may do with his wife as he will, but I’d eviscerate any vámr who treated a woman so. Let’s go in the house. I don’t need the forge for this and we’re better away from curious eyes.”
* * * *
I sat at the table where the family normally ate, all together, apparently, as there were six chairs—always an extra for visitors, the wife told me with a cheerful smile—set in the middle of their pretty, cozy home. With windows all around that let the sunshine in.
The blacksmith took his wife aside, explaining in a low voice. She paled beneath her healthy tan, glancing at me with trepidation, then nodded decisively, coming over to me. “May I take your cloak, Your—”
“Just Jenna,” I interrupted, adding a smile to soften it. I wondered then if I should change my name entirely. No reason not to give up everything of who I’d been.
“Our eldest is also Jenna. Named for the Imperial Princess, you know.” She winked at me. “So many girls with that name now, but it’s so pretty. Auspicious, too, to be named for the pearl of the empire. I am Rillian.”
“It’s lovely to meet you,” I told her, letting her take the much-too-warm cloak, and sitting where she gestured at the table. The blacksmith had gone to fetch his tools, and Harlan stood outside, apparently checking our tack, but keeping an eye out for trouble. I didn’t know where the little girls had gone.
“Would you care for something to eat or drink?” Rillian offered.
“No, I won’t trouble you more than I am already.”
“It’s no trouble,” she replied crisply, eyes on the wounds I revealed as I finished unknotting the scarves. “Brian shouldn’t have hesitated. This is what any d
ecent person would do.”
“It is trouble,” Brian corrected, entering the room, tools in one hand and the oldest girl snugged against his side with the other. “But we’re doing it anyway because it is the decent thing to do. Right, Jenna?”
I nearly answered, then realized he meant his daughter, for she looked up at him with an admiring smile, as if he were the sun of her universe. “Right, Daddy.”
“Jenna,” Rillian began, “why don’t you—”
“I want her to see this,” Brian cut in. “The littles are playing.”
“She’s only thirteen…”
“And I see the neighborhood boys making eyes at her. Don’t they?” He turned a fierce gaze on young Jenna, who giggled nervously. “She needs to know what can happen, if she doesn’t choose wisely.”
Jenna edged over and sat across from me, eyes wide and dark on my hands, where I laid them on the table. The jewels glittered with cold beauty, merciless contrast to the bruised and battered flesh they encased. She raised her eyes to mine. “Did you not choose wisely?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” I told her.
“But… you’re an Imperial Princess!” She lowered her voice when her mother hushed her. “You can do anything.”
Brian inspected the bracelet on my left hand, shaking his head. “I’ll have to saw it off. This kind of lock, once engaged, is designed to be unbreakable.”
“Whatever you need to do.”
He grunted, attaching an implement to the table edge, then clamping my bracelet in it. “Hold still—the vise will help—and I ought to be able to avoid your skin.” With a long, thin serrated blade, he began sawing at the metal on a side away from the heavy clasp.
“You’re right,” I said to Jenna. Rillian sat beside her, an arm around her daughter, who looked terribly unhappy. “I went along with everything because other people told me to. I could have refused.”
“Could you have?” Rillian asked, her expression somber. “Not without great difficulty, I think.”
Prisoner of the Crown Page 17
