The Orphan's Secret

by R. J. Francis

  Elaina’s most intense learning came in her meditation practice. She was often overwhelmed by the strangeness of the mysteries visible only to the soul. She nibbled on the arcane mysteries as if she were trying a new food she wasn’t sure she would like, yet her curiosity drove her to explore more and more each day.

  She began to repeatedly see in her meditation a white stone archway, which was engraved with fine lines and curves that were in constant motion, rippling and writhing like the surface of water. She couldn’t see through the archway—it was filled with a luminous mist—but she felt that beyond it was a thing or place of great importance. Alessa told her not to rush to go through it.

  On the morning of Second-day, Alessa and Elaina stopped by the market, and Elaina couldn’t resist approaching Lairen at his stall. He seemed to be packing up to leave, although he had plenty of inventory. “Going so soon?” Elaina asked him. She held back her tears when he clearly didn’t recognize her.

  “I can’t put up with this. Everyone’s asking me where my assistant is,” he said. “This must be some joke the whole city is in on. Well it’s not funny.”

  “You don’t have an assistant, do you?” Elaina asked.

  “Certainly not this girl everyone keeps on about. But I have hired some neighbor boys to help out.”

  Elaina knew the boys he was talking about, and she was confident they could process milk through the warming machine, but she knew that cheese, yogurt, and krenna were beyond their ability.

  “You just need to keep the customers focused on your fine products,” Alessa suggested to him. “It’s probably one of your competitors playing a cruel joke. If someone else asks about your assistant, just say she’s off visiting family.”

  “That should work, eh?”

  “It should. Don’t pack up yet. We’ll take two tubs of krenna, six milks, and two cheeses,” Alessa said.

  “Do you have any more cheeses aging?” Elaina asked him.

  “Basement’s full of them,” Lairen said.

  “We’ll buy them all,” Elaina said. “My friend here will pick them up tomorrow.”

  What are you thinking? Alessa grumbled in her mind, and Elaina heard.

  “I’ve put a lot of time into those cheeses,” Elaina explained as they were leaving. “And they need to be tended to properly. Lairen’s not going to know what to do with them.”

  On their way home, when they were passing Elaina’s farm, Elaina climbed up onto the pasture fence. Her cows sauntered over to greet her. At least they remembered her.

  Nastasha came out to the house on Third-day and Fifth-day to introduce the sword and the bow to Elaina. Elaina took to each quickly, handling them with physical strength, confidence, and precision.

  In the evenings, Jaimin and Elaina relaxed by the fireplace for hours, baring their thoughts and trading tales. She hand-fed him decadent desserts of her own invention.

  She also convinced him to try out the pools. She owned no swim clothes, so she just knelt on the bank while Jaimin soaked. Her fun was in manipulating the water’s surface to entertain and tease him.

  On Seventh-day night, Jaimin and Elaina didn’t meet. The court’s Seventh-day festivities had resumed, and the prince was expected to stay up late entertaining guests. He knew the girls were dying to dance with him, but he always chose Nastasha for a partner as payback for all the rumors they floated during the week.

  That night Jaimin wore a dark red banded-collar dress shirt and thick black dress pants. Nastasha had on an extravagant forest-green dress trimmed with real gold. Her wrists, hands, ears, and neck sparkled with gold and diamond jewelry.

  “Love seems to have improved your dancing,” Nastasha said, her cheek against his.

  “This afternoon,” said the prince, “I decided to try Joelle’s dance class.”

  “I heard. I bet the girls were climbing all over you.”

  “They’re not as bad as they used to be. What were you tied up with?”

  “I was in the Royal Archives. I finally found the book. I must go with you to Alessa’s house.”

  “Tomorrow night, then. Meet me in my closet after dinner.”

  “It’s your first night without her,” she said. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m counting the hours until I see her again.”

  The following night, Elaina was overjoyed when both Nastasha and Jaimin came to visit. She greeted her boyfriend with a kiss, and Nastasha with a firm hug. “What a wonderful surprise!” she said. She wore a simple black dress and a wide cotton apron.

  “Nastasha has some information for you,” Jaimin explained.

  “And I have a new dessert for you,” said Elaina. “Thank goodness you came, Nastasha, because it’s far too much for the two of us to finish. Please, come to the table.” She disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a steaming sweet squash pie in her oversized mitts.

  Setting her creation out on a trivet, Elaina went back twice for three cups, three plates, three forks, a pie server, a butter knife, a bottle of milk, and a metal tub of fresh krenna. “It needs to cool just a touch more,” she said. “And then we can enjoy it.” She undid her apron and joined her guests at the table.

  “May we have tea?” Jaimin asked.

  “Sorry, no. Tea will ruin the taste,” Elaina said. “This pie can only be served with ice-cold milk.”

  Nastasha quickly got to the reason for her visit: “I’ve spent all week in the archives, but it wasn’t until yesterday that I found the book that doesn’t want to be read.”

  “You found it?” Elaina seemed to lose some of her cheer.

  “I thought, ‘If I were a book, where would I go if I didn’t want to be read?’”

  “Out of view,” Jaimin offered.

  “Right. Well, I explored that possibility, but everything in the archives is on view. So, I thought if I had to be on view I would probably situate myself in the least convenient place on the shelves, up high, or way down low, and definitely in the furthest corner from the entrance.”

  “And… what was there?” Elaina asked.

  “Maintenance manuals. Books on the workings of the stinky room. On the materials used to construct the ceilings. On the places where mold is most likely to grow. There was an archive copy of the gardeners’ manuals for the Glass Gardens. I thought I was completely mad, and I went to look in the other corners, until something made me return.”

  “One of the titles?” Jaimin asked.

  “Simpler than that. On the bottom shelf, there were about twenty of the gardening manuals, all the same shade of red, except for one, which had a hint of green.”

  “It doesn’t want to be red,” Elaina said. “Of course. Well, what did it say?”

  “Guess what? It wasn’t a gardening manual at all. It was a history text. The cover was a fake. I also found this note inside.”

  Nastasha slipped her suede-bound notebook out of her satchel and removed from between its pages a folded, discolored note. She opened it and set it before the others.

  “What language is that?” Jaimin asked.

  “It’s Celmarean for sure,” Nastasha said. “But I haven’t had time to translate it. I thought maybe Alessa would read it for us.”

  “I doubt she will,” Elaina said, “but I’ll ask her.” She took the note.

  “Anyway,” Nastasha continued. “The book itself was intriguing—and also what was not in the book.”

  “How’s that?” asked Jaimin.

  “The book chronicles the events surrounding the Celmarean War, from Prince Radovan’s first visit to Celmarea in 1004, until Julian’s coronation in 1008. It’s loaded with important details, but three pages are missing.”

  “Missing?” asked Elaina.

  “Neatly torn from the book. And the missing pages aren’t sequential. The first was torn from a section discussing Radovan’s motivation for attacking the island; the second from a description of the melee itself; and the third from a passage about the survivors’ resettlement.”

 
; “Well, tell us what the pages that were there said,” said Elaina, who was used to getting only partial information. “Maybe we can figure out the rest.”

  “I took some notes on the rest.” Nastasha took in a deep breath, and read: “In the summer of 1004, Prince Radovan and his father traveled to Celmarea on a trade mission. Certain plants found only on Celmarea are useful as medicines and spices, and the Destaurians had long been perturbed because they had no access to these species.”

  “What were the plants?” Elaina asked.

  “Well, let’s see,” said Nastasha, flipping to the back of her notebook. “I didn’t think you’d ask, but I did jot their names down because I was curious about them myself. I have an interest in medicines, you know.”

  “And I have an interest in spices,” said Elaina.

  “One of the spices, called curdean in our language, is the dried orange pollen of a bright red six-petaled wildflower. It’s used in meat marinades to impart a sweet, smoky flavor. Another spice, demfaron, is derived from a dried and powdered freshwater blue alga found only in the coolest pools near the mouths of caverns. Let’s see… it has a distinctive astringent smell, almost like mint, but less jarring to the nose. It’s used to flavor compotes and ice cream. The last spice mentioned was tresamar, harvested in mid-winter from the woody parts of the rare and fickle tresamar bush. It has a delicate cherry spice flavor—pleasant, but almost undetectable unless it’s used in lighter substances like whipped butter or white tea.”

  “What a terrific place to be from!” said Elaina.

  “Don’t think you’ll be tasting these spices anytime soon,” said Nastasha. “In Arra it’s now a crime to possess them.”

  Elaina was undamped. No law could stop her from dreaming up recipes calling for the exotic plants.

  Nastasha continued to read from her notes: “The medicinal plants are a black fern called shomenur, an aphrodisiac; a brown moss, reti-reti, which is a potent narcotic; and a banana-like tree called chiff whose young roots, after being macerated in ethyl alcohol for at least two weeks, can lower blood cholesterol.”

  “Nobody’s tried to grow these plants outside of Celmarea?” asked Jaimin.

  “There were no specimens on the mainland. Other nations begged for access to the species, but your people always said ‘No.’ Then, one day, Radovan’s father, King Errol, had an idea. He would offer the Celmareans something no one else could.”

  “What did he have to offer?” Jaimin asked.

  “It turns out,” Nastasha continued, “that Radovan is a mender, and he’d discovered a new way to apply his mending ability. He’d found a way to split a human embryo into two viable embryos at one of the earliest stages of gestation.”

  “Making twins!” Elaina said.

  “Right.” said Nastasha. “Errol wanted to offer his son’s ‘service’ to others—for a price, of course. Excuse me.” Nastasha took a bite of her pie. Elaina had made the gingery crust out of a rich, dark flour. “I couldn’t smell this for one more second without taking a bite. Mmm! Amazing!”

  “Anyway,” she continued, “we all know that with human birth and death rates just about equal, we’re lucky if we can replace ourselves. But what if somehow a nation’s population could double or even triple in just a few generations? A nation’s power and influence could expand exponentially.”

  “Why didn’t Radovan just split embryos in his own kingdom?” asked Jaimin. “Then his would be the most powerful nation in the world.”

  “Well, he did, and he probably still is. But the text suggests that Errol was taking a unique approach. He figured if he could get nations addicted to the idea of expanding wealth and productivity, they would still have to rely on Radovan to actually split the embryos. He and his son would be in a position to ask for and receive anything they wanted.”

  “He should have known the Celmareans were the least likely group to accept their offer.” said Elaina.

  “One would think.”

  “And Radovan did everything his father asked?” Elaina asked.

  “Well, it turns out Radovan wasn’t all about his father’s business. He and his father were on Celmarea for a few days before the islanders kicked them out. During his stay, Radovan became enamored of a Celmarean maiden. She returned his affections and they established a secret romance.”

  Jaimin raised his eyebrows, and Elaina said, “We must have a weakness for foreign princes.”

  “Careful, my dear,” Nastasha advised. “This love affair did not have a happy ending.”

  “Please, go on,” said Elaina.

  “Radovan convinced his father to let him return to Celmarea on his own to try to negotiate further. This was, of course, just a ruse for him to see the girl. Then we get to the first ripped-out page. On the following page, the love affair has soured.”

  “Oops. What happened?” Elaina asked.

  “Not sure, exactly, but from what follows it seems that she was the one who broke off the relationship.”

  Nastasha took another bite of pie and a sip of milk while she scanned her notes further. “Radovan told his father there was no hope for a trade agreement. He secretly stewed over the break-up for a year and a half, until he got so worked up he convinced his father to let him lead the Destaurian army and navy against Celmarea. For King Errol and the Destaurian people, it was a war of conquest and a response to the islanders’ refusal to trade.”

  “But for Radovan,” Elaina said, “it was a lover’s revenge.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Somebody really close to the story must have written this,” Jaimin remarked.

  “Your mother, perhaps?” Nastasha proposed.

  “Maybe.”

  “And who tore out the pages?” Elaina wondered aloud.

  “Good question,” said Nastasha. “Anyway, Jaimin, your grandfather, King James, got wind that Radovan was assembling an attack force against Celmarea. James was too ill to make the journey, but his oldest son Julian offered to lead a mission to the island to warn their council, and to pledge Arra’s support. The council appreciated the visit—it was the first time in ages foreigners had come to the island without asking for anything.”

  “They trusted my father?” asked Jaimin.

  “Yes, they believed him, and they recognized the danger they were in. Julian returned to the mainland to brief his father and the Arran army and navy, who were already prepared to sail.”

  “Julian’s forces—eight hundred sailors and soldiers and forty commanding officers—arrived on Celmarea and took up defensive positions with the two thousand islanders who could fight. Sadly, the force Radovan arrived with the following day—eighty ships and nearly ten thousand men, was enough to exterminate Celmarea’s entire population and their Arran allies.”

  “And that’s what he did,” Elaina said.

  “Just about,” Nastasha said. “But the allies were hardly easy to defeat, especially the resourceful Celmareans. It took until the afternoon for Radovan to fully crush their defenses and claim the island. The retreating Arrans escaped on ships they had moored off the island’s north shore, taking with them a tiny remnant of the great Celmarean race.”

  “After that, another page is gone. Then, on the next page, the Celmarean survivors are in Arra attending the mass funerals.”

  “Here’s what I don’t get, though: this book says there were twenty-one Celmarean survivors—while all the other books I’ve read said twenty. It also says that of the eight princesses on the Celmarean council at the time of the attack, four of them survived the war.”

  “Eight princesses?” asked Elaina. She pictured eight crowned women.

  Crowns. Suddenly, Elaina began to recall her dream about the ceremony on the beach.

  In her dream there were six crowned women and… two babies. And a beach… Celmarea?

  Hadn’t Nastasha said on Celmarea even babies can be princesses? Would that make eight princesses in all?

  “Is something wrong?” Nastasha asked. Elaina’s eyes
had closed halfway.

  “I… I… Just give me a moment…” she said. The rest of her dream came back to her. She reviewed it over and over again in her mind, and each time she did she recalled more details. Nastasha and Jaimin looked at each other, not sure of what to think.

  Through the fabric of her dress, Elaina felt the sea star pendant she wore. She was now convinced it was the one worn by the baby held up over the blowhole. Was her dream actually a memory? Was she that baby? Could she possibly be a princess?

  It was just a dream, she said to herself. And dreams are notoriously misleading. But what the queen said about the pendant… “This, my dear, is yours.”

  Someone asleep upstairs knew for sure.

  “Go on, please,” Elaina said. “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure?” Jaimin asked.

  “Yes. Please, go on.”

  “The book begins to name the survivors,” Nastasha said, “and then another page has been ripped out. The final chapter describes the joyous marriage of Julian and Alethea, and, two years later, the coronation of Julian after James dies of his illness.”

  “Who does it name as survivors?” Elaina asked.

  “There are only two names on that page.” Nastasha handed her notebook to Elaina, and let her read the two names.

  The first name was Princess Alethea. The second was Princess Alessa.

  The next morning Elaina woke Alessa with: “Good morning, Princess.” Still in her nightshirt, Elaina flopped onto the bed and started pawing through Alessa’s hair. “I don’t see any crown marks,” said Elaina. “They must have faded.”

  Alessa whacked Elaina with her pillow. “What are you talking about? Get off me.”

  Elaina, giggling playfully, poked Alessa repeatedly with her finger. Alessa put her arm over her eyes. “What time is it?”

  “It’s morning,” said Elaina. “Time for you to make me breakfast. Oh, I forgot. Cooking breakfast is beneath Your Highness.”