“So then he helps me into my coat while I've got the bag of jewels tucked under my arm and-- what is bothering you?”
“Hmm?” Grace looked up from her third glass of wine, realizing she had zoned out and hastily drawing her attention back to Alex.
“Something's bothering you. What is it?”
Grace shrugged, preparing to brush it off, and found herself explaining about Jack and Nell instead, details pouring out as she pushed the wine aside.
Alex nodded, quiet, and Grace found she couldn't stop talking: about the worry, about the difficulty she had convincing people to believe she wasn't blowing things out of proportion, about how she didn't even know how to find out more.
“I'm sorry,” said Grace, abruptly stopping herself when she noticed Alex had finished her wine. “Some fun date I am.”
“I'm going out of town next week,” said Alex, and Grace was suddenly terrified that Alex would make an excuse to never see her again. Instead, Alex continued: “When I get back, we should do this again. Maybe we can find something out about your friends.”
Autumn
Chapter 5
Petra walked in on Grace throwing things into a pack the next morning. The entire room was in disarray. Tools made of precious lightweight alloy lay scattered across Grace’s rumpled bed, and the bag where they were normally stored lay empty on the floor. Clothes draped over every spare surface. A row of bright formal tunics hung neatly on their rod: the only spot of order in the jumble, as if the whirlwind that had hit the room had forgotten about their existence.
“What are you doing?” Petra sounded horrified. “The court engagements aren't that bad.”
“Jack and Nell,” said Grace, not pausing. “I'll feel better once I know. One way or another, I have to know.”
Petra took several deep breaths and nodded. “OK. OK.” Shook her head. “Not really okay, but we'll cope with it. They'll think you've come unhinged.”
“I don't care about any of that.” Grace slammed her travel cutlery into the bag, where it jangled against her pocket knife.
“You should.” Petra spun around and pressed a hand against the wall, too quick for Grace to see her face.
Grace sank down on the bed, ignoring the way an empty box pressed uncomfortably into her hip. She could feel the very edge of Petra’s frustration. “It's driving me crazy, Petra, I can't handle this any more. If I wait any longer I won't make it there and back through the mountains before it snows.”
Petra nodded, turned back slowly. “And we'll bill it as a camping trip, your excuse to get out of the ball the day after tomorrow. Everyone knows you hate those things.”
“And just like that, Mom and Dad will be fine with it?” Grace raised an eyebrow.
Petra's mouth thinned. “You're going to be out of town before they know.”
Grace didn't say anything, caught out. She busied her hands with packing again. The pack bulged with blankets and clothes: she had already packed most of the bulkiest items. She weighed a light ceramic canteen in her hands, wondering how many she needed to bring. Water would likely be easy to find.
“That's what I thought.” Petra paused, cocking a head as if listening. “Grace, what else happened?”
The canteen shattered on the floor between Grace’s feet.
Petra took a step in, pressed her advantage. “I'm not stupid, Grace. You've been on edge for weeks, but not like this.”
Grace got down on the floor to sweep up the shards of the ruined canteen into a spare handkerchief.
“Grace.”
Petra’s soft boots came into view, carefully stepping around the mess. Grace didn’t look up. “I can't talk about it.”
A soft hand landed on Grace’s shoulder. Petra’s voice was as quiet as the queen’s. “What did you do this time?”
Grace’s fist closed over a ceramic fragment. It bit into her palm. “Nothing. Nothing. I can't. Nothing bad, no one's hurt, nothing's broken.”
“And you're running into the mountains because of it.” Bending down, Petra reached out and pried the ceramic fragment from Grace’s hand. It left a drop of blood behind it.
Forced to meet Petra’s eyes, Grace said, “I'm looking for Jack and Nell.”
Petra gave Grace a long, cool look. “You're going to tell me when you get back.”
Grace mouthed words, and finally gave up. “OK.”
“Promise?” Petra rose, tugging on Grace’s wrist.
Setting the handkerchief full of broken canteen aside, Grace stood up as well. “I promise I'll tell you. When I get back.”
Petra spun on her heel. “Don't you dare get yourself killed.” She was gone before Grace could open her mouth.
It was hard to feel angry and frustrated about her inability to solve things with the sun shining warm on her face, Grace decided, loping along the trail. It would get harder later, but now the action felt good. Her pack was still light on her shoulders, the staff felt good in her hands, and the trail was an easy shallow incline.
She could hear heavy breathing that meant someone else was walking, winded in the foothills, probably out looking for late-season berries or early apples. It didn't bother her: people weren't a threat the way that rockfalls were, and anyone so easily winded wouldn’t be able to catch her if she needed to run.
She was a little more concerned when the breathing persisted. Everyone knew that it wasn't safe to go into the mountains if you were out of shape. Of course, everyone knew it wasn't safe to go into the mountains alone, either, but it was still summer and she knew at least the lower parts of the mountains. She'd be careful.
The labored breathing turned up behind her, and Grace whirled around.
Harold, red in the face and puffing like a tea kettle, rounded the corner of the trail. “You WILL wait for me!”
Grace stopped, dumbfounded. He had hung tubes with scrolls off his belt to clatter in the wind, and his pack was twice the prudent size for a long trip. At least.
Clacking madly, Harold caught up. “If you think you're going out there alone, you are even stupider than I thought.”
Understanding dawned. “Petra put you up to this.”
Harold clattered after her. “Unlike you, she has a healthy respect for the mountains.”
“You'll get yourself killed.”
Harold smiled grimly. “You won't let that happen. I'm along to go for help if you do something stupid.” He gave her a look that indicated just how many things he could think of that would fall into that category. “You had better not do anything stupid.”
Grace boggled. “You don't even like me.”
“No, I don't. But your sister does, for reasons that are beyond me, and so here I am.” He fidgeted with the straps on his pack, which clearly weighed too much for him to carry the distance they'd travel.
Grace looked at the sky and judged the sun more out of form than out of any real kind of hope they could make it back in time to drop off the excess weight. It glared back at her, nearly at its peak, and her parents would note her absence within two hours if they hadn't done so already. If they went back, they would lose a day of travel. Worse, there would be questions and explanations and possibly another horrible excursion in foreign diplomacy while her father tried to convince her to seek adventure through the proper channels.
Grace would pass on that one. They were already well into the foothills, and the route Grace had chosen deliberately to avoid questioning eyes meant they wouldn't pass near enough to a household to give over some of the things Harold had brought along.
There was nothing else for it. Harold was coming camping, and his books were coming too.
“Right,” said Grace. “Have you ever even been into the mountains before?”
“Um.” Harold faltered. “There's a first time for everything?”
Grace rolled her eyes. “You're not even the least bit afraid? There are mountain lions and avalanches and quicksand and things.”
“No,” said Harold. “It's the summer and there
are plenty of hares around, which are far easier prey for mountain lions. There have only been three recorded cases of mountain lions attacking humans in the last five years anyway. All three involved a child under the age of five and happened in the middle of the winter. Avalanches typically happen in the winter or early spring and can generally be avoided with reasonable caution.” Harold gave Grace a look that made Grace feel unreasonably defensive. She exercised reasonable caution whenever reasonable caution made sense. Anyway, she hadn't died yet.
“… and so the quicksand isn't really as lethal as people think it is,” Harold finished, sounding oddly triumphant.
“Right,” Grace said again, reeling against the torrent of words. “Well, you brought too much stuff.”
“I brought maps.” Harold tugged on a strap of his pack defensively. “And camping gear.”
“For an army?”
“I can carry it.”
Grace eyed him as the pack listed to one side and he had to step quickly to keep his balance. He clearly couldn’t. It wasn’t her problem. “Come on, then.”
She had to give him credit. He had lasted far longer than she expected, even at the reduced pace she'd set. He'd finally stopped, though.
“You win,” he snarled, clearly embarrassed. Sweat poured down his face in the mid-afternoon heat and he drooped as the pack slid off his back. There were trees in sight, blanketing the distant mountains with the first hints of autumn color, but they weren’t traveling that way. Rolling plains surrounded them, and there wasn’t an ounce of shade anywhere. Even Grace was beginning to wonder when the summer heat would let go of the weather.
Grace eyed the pack. He’d carried the thing for most of the day, impressing her with his determination. She didn’t feel inclined to give him a hard time about it. “We can find you a place for your stuff and pick it up on the way home.”
He squinted at her, into the sun. His voice had gone quiet. “I can't carry this load much farther.”
“Yeah, well, lucky you’re not alone. There should be a stream coming up pretty soon. We can take a break there. You can make it just a little bit longer.” They were still in the area Grace knew from a thousand outings, farms running in stripes as mountain streams ran downhill into the river Abura. She glanced careless over her shoulder and resumed loping along.
Harold made a noise like a squashed cat, but re-adjusted the pack on his back and began to trudge along behind her.
It was minutes before they got to the stream. Grace had found a large, flat rock and taken her boots off to run her feet through the water by the time Harold unceremoniously dropped his pack on the ground. She motioned to him to sit beside her, enjoying the cool pull of the current and calculating the best route towards a town. Every step away from the city had made her feel lighter.
Once her feet had cooled, Grace loaded some of the heaviest books into her own pack. It would be a good workout, she told herself when she found out that the number of books had exceeded her original estimate. In any event she couldn't leave Harold behind. His tenacity would make him a strong asset.
Of course, finding a safe spot for Harold's books meant finding a family and staying with them. As the sun began to set, Harold pointed out a house half-built into a mountainside. They had found a family.
The stones even a day north of the capital city had already lost the tan tones that meant the heart of Coura, and only the bottom floor had stone walls: the top story was finished in wood. The family even had a spare room, where Grace ushered Harold into the bed and stretched her bedroll out on the floor. She would rather have camped.
Instead of eating burnt trail rations by herself in the woods, she made small talk and ate a very nice meal. She learned that the family lived close enough to send periodic shipments of wood into the city. It turned out that the bulk of the food on their plates had come from the local forest, which functioned as a very large, very hardy and very slow garden. The family also maintained a small family plot. The smallest child implored her to take another helping of the squash that she had planted all by herself.
It was only a matter of time before Grace caught one of the adults wincing at something she’d said, and it was less time than Grace had hoped. Perhaps she shouldn’t have told the story about Derrick, Chloe, and the visiting religious dignitary from Geneana.
Instead, she shut up and let Harold carry the conversation. It appeared he had read a book on the subject of mountain gardens, and launched into a spirited debate about bean varietals. Grace didn't follow a word they said after the first few minutes of the debate. If Harold could make small talk as well keep up as well as he had, she would have to see if he could be persuaded along on a training exercise. Her militia was full of the surly and the taciturn, and it never bothered her-- but having someone with a diplomatic touch along could smooth over some of the rough edges.
Musing on the subject, she zoned out of the conversation, nodded politely at intervals, and ate her squash.
After dinner, she went into the town square. The phone call she could make to Petra nearly made up for having to go out of her way.
“Thank God he made it to you,” she said. “I didn't know if he could catch up.”
“He didn't do bad,” Grace replied.
“Getting along?”
“Don't be hasty.” Grace twisted the hem of her tunic between the finger and thumb of her free hand. A loose thread had begun to fray off. She snapped it off. “So, am I in trouble?”
“Mom squawked a bit when she realized,” Petra said. “But they're not really upset. I think they're secretly glad you're not pacing through the floors and punching diplomats.”
“I punched one diplomat. One.”
“That's a thousand times more diplomat than you're supposed to punch.”
Grace wasn't in the mood to argue about the calculus of acceptable violence, and asked Petra how everything else was at home.
It was nice, Grace reflected as she hung up, that Petra would entertain her with the stories of the day. Petra always knew when Grace was out of energy to talk.
To her surprise, Harold met her as she was on her way back to the house. He told her he would see her in a bit, and Grace made half an effort to stay awake, but the exertion of carrying Harold’s books on top of her own gear had caught up to her and she was asleep by the time he came in.
They had meant to get an early start the following morning, eating a quick breakfast with the family before they all left the house for the day. It had turned out that one of the sons had fallen asleep on top of one of Harold’s books, and Grace thought that perhaps a day of harvest without enough sleep would teach the boy a lesson. Harold had given him a brief lecture on the proper application of bookmarks, but Grace was beginning to recognize the gruff tone that belied Harold’s respect. “I will expect a full report from you when we come back this way,” he told him severely, and the boy had grinned before scampering out to pick tomatoes. The answering smile on Harold’s face kept Grace from resenting the delay.
With his books safely shelved, Harold’s huffing and puffing had evaporated. Grace tentatively increased the pace, and was pleased when Harold matched it easily. It would have surprised her more the day before, before she'd emptied forty pounds of books out of his pack after he had nearly kept up with her.
He had begun the day with remarks about how fine the weather was, and she made polite noises in response instead of telling him how much hotter it would get when the sun emerged from behind the mountain at mid-morning. He continued on with remarks about the various types of terrain they were passing through, and Grace made polite noises at decreasing intervals until he lapsed into silence and simply trailed along after her.
Grace felt like she was supposed to keep up some sort of banter with him. They'd reached an uneasy truce, after all, but she thought too much of him to force him into polite conversation. She wasn't comfortable enough with him to talk about anything real yet, either. Instead, she watched the hills grow steeper and the tri
butaries turn into smaller and smaller streams as they covered ground. Glancing into the sky, she wondered what the etiquette was for agreeing on lunchtime. The sun had climbed past its peak in the sky and was beginning its descent, but they were making good time and she didn’t want to stop.
Her dilemma resolved itself when a tall, curvy hooded figure appeared out of the woods behind them, calling Harold’s name.
“Harold, I never thought I’d see you camping!” She enveloped Harold in a hug.
Harold squashed his face against her shoulder. “I’m just glad you could make it. I never get to see you.”
Grace, who hadn’t stopped immediately, caught an airy gesture out of the corner of her eye as she turned to face them.
“Well, you know, it was on the way.” The figure pulled away and took down her hood. A wicked smile spread over Alex’s face. “Harold, you didn’t tell me you were escorting the princess.”
Harold’s jaw dropped. “Really, Alex?” He had read the situation correctly, and the look of horror Harold was giving Alex made Grace shift her weight uncomfortably from boot to boot.
“I’m right here,” Grace pointed out.
Alex gave Grace a long, delighted look from head to toe. “So you are. You didn’t mention you had plans to go north.”
“I made them after I saw you. You were going out of town, and…” Grace, suddenly realizing how that sounded, stopped there.
“And so you told Harold all about it, and he agreed to come out with you?”
Alex’s smile faded as Grace and Harold both found somewhere else to look. She raised an eyebrow and waited.
Harold broke first. “Petra called me and asked me to keep her idiot sister from getting killed in the mountains. I thought Grace was dodging court again.”
Grace fidgeted. “I just couldn’t sit still, not with people going missing and everything being confusing.”
Harold rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t an outrageous conclusion. So it’s about your obsession with Jack and Nell?”
Misfit Princess Page 6
