Heir Apparent

by Vivian Vande Velde

  Staggering under its weight, they carried it toward where the royal family sat, then saw that—unless the royals moved their bench (and why would they, when they hadn't budged yet?)—there was no room.

  I pointed to my feet, to indicate, Right here.

  The servants came around to where I was, and placed the throne dead center on that side of the table.

  I sat down and looked into the startled faces of my family. "There." I smiled brightly and settled my skirt as though it was a voluminous gown, like the queen's. "Isn't this nice?"

  And it was, except that the roast pig had been placed before them, so I was looking at his curlicued rear end, not the world's best view.

  A servant came rushing up with a bowl of rose-petaled water and a towel, to wash and dry my hands. Other servants provided a dish heaped with slabs of roast pork and luscious fresh fruits, and a cup of mead (which is a sweet beer or wine or something, disgusting in my point of view, and I'm amazed Rasmussem gets away with serving alcohol—even virtual alcohol—to minors).

  Kenric leaned forward and told me, "You're sitting on the serving side of the table."

  "No," I said firmly, "all of you are."

  He considered that for a moment, then gave his extraordinary smile that had caught my notice during the promos.

  Wulfgar glared; I was beneath the queen's notice, so she angled herself on the bench to face Wulfgar and began talking to him about the quality of the peaches; and Abas decided I needed an instant replay of his battle against the three barbarians in the courtyard.

  I was pleased to note that Wulfgar didn't tear into his meat as a beast would but ate with the same degree of table manners as everybody else. Those manners were about equal to what you'd see in an elementary school cafeteria. I could live with that.

  "You were fantastic," I assured Abas when he paused to take a breath. "One of them mentioned something about a crown—the crown of Brecc." I looked at each of them in turn and was able to tell nothing. "Any of you know anything about that?"

  Kenric said, "Father won a crown from one of the barbarian kings."

  "Won how? You mean he killed him? Or overcame him in battle? Or he won it in a poker game?" My subconscious tried to warn me the people of this time would not play poker; the phrase a game of dice bubbled up.

  But the Rasmussem programs are sophisticated enough to ignore most anachronistic phrases and references, otherwise the game would constantly be delayed by the characters saying things like, "OK? I do not understand this OK of which you speak." Kenric blinked. Perhaps his subconscious—if he had one—told him poker must be some peasant gambling game he'd never heard of before. Or perhaps he just chose to ignore one of the many inane things I'd said. He said, "He won it in a tournament."

  Abas interrupted. "I wasn't old enough to participate in that particular tournament except in the capacity of a page helping the squires help the knights get into their armor, but I remember it well. Two years later was my first—"

  "In a moment, Abas," I said. "So your father won the tournament, winning the loser's horse and equipment."

  "Yes," both Abas and Kenric said. But Abas was inclined to add a blow-by-blow account of the event.

  I went ahead and talked right over him. "But if your father won the crown fairly, why do the barbarians feel they have a right to demand it back?"

  "Because they are barbarians," Abas said.

  Which I would have accepted, but Kenric's lips twitched and he chose that moment to lift his cup to his mouth.

  "What?" I demanded.

  Kenric answered with a question of his own. "Who said anything about winning it fairly?"

  "Kenric!" his mother snapped. "That's no way to talk about your father."

  From the look he gave her, I gathered he wasn't used to hearing her defend King Cynric's good name.

  "Well," Abas admitted, "there were certain questions..."

  "He cheated," I said. "You're saying he won the crown by cheating. So now the barbarians want the crown back and—in fact—they probably have every right to it."

  Kenric shrugged, indicating his indifference to moral nuances.

  Abas spoke slowly so I would understand. "No, he won the event, so he won the crown."

  Wulfgar was gnawing, with alarming energy, every last bit of meat off a bone, but at least he had the bone raised to his mouth, rather than sinking his face into the pig carcass.

  Queen Andreanna was making one of the dogs stand on its hind legs and beg for a strip of meat.

  "So where is this crown?" I asked.

  "I don't know," Kenric said.

  Abas shook his head to indicate he didn't, either.

  "Wulfgar?"

  "Dunno."

  "Your Highness?"

  She gave me a blank look. "I'm sorry, what? Were you saying something? I wasn't listening."

  Though I'd already seen she had been, I explained, "The crown your late husband won from the barbarian king at the tournament several years back, whatever happened to it?"

  "I'm sure I have no idea," she told me.

  I summoned one of the servants. "Could you please get that bench"—I indicated the one I had been offered earlier—"and bring it here, then invite Sir Deming and Sister Mary Ursula to join us."

  "On the serving side of the table?" the servant asked.

  "On this side of the table," I corrected him.

  When the two advisers had sat down, I explained about the crown and asked if they knew where it was.

  "Perhaps in the king's treasure room?" Sister Mary Ursula suggested.

  Deming shook his head. "He gave it to the dragon."

  "What dragon?" I asked.

  Deming sniffed at my ignorance. "The one that was ravaging the southern provinces eight years ago, burning fields, scattering livestock, devastating manor houses, demanding maiden sacrifices."

  The faintest hint of imposed memory tickled at the edges of my brain. I'd only been six, and the southern provinces were nearly a week's journey from the safety of St. Jehan, but I had heard people talking.

  I said, "Excuse me, I don't understand. This dragon was eating cows, horses, and maidens, and then King Cynric bought him off by giving him a crown that had been won at an iffy tournament?"

  Deming rolled his eyes, and the queen gave him a sympathetic look like, I know, I know. Deming said, "Dragons like gold."

  "And a crown," Sister Mary Ursula added, "that would make the dragon feel as One with all the other kings."

  OK. I guessed it made sense. "Do we know where this dragon lives?" I asked.

  "No," "Nope," "Haven't a clue," they all told me.

  "Any idea how we can find out?"

  "No," "Nope," "Haven't a clue," they all repeated.

  But then Deming speculated, "Maybe one of the magic-users knows something or could find out."

  Waiting for the magic-users again. Estimated time of arrival: tomorrow, if I remembered correctly from last time. And I did. I was working on a deadline—never mind the awful pun.

  "Oooo, magic," Sister Mary Ursula said. "Nasty stuff. Best to keep away from it."

  "As much as possible," I assured her, just to keep her happy.

  Deming sighed. "If," he said, sounding as though each moment of speaking politely was an effort, "if you're determined to return the crown of the barbarian king, may I point out to you that the king is, in fact, currently separated from his head, thanks to our prince Abas—and I would consider this a serious drawback to the enjoyment of wearing a crown."

  "Good point," I said. "We'll send a messenger to the barbarian camp, apologizing for the unfortunate death of their king, which happened by mischance since he did not openly declare himself but led a raiding party into the castle courtyard. As a sign of our goodwill, we will forgive this raid and return the crown to King Grimbold's successor."

  Deming pursed his thin lips. "Do you think they'd accept an apology for the killing of their brand-new king?"

  Andreanna was looking directly at me as she
answered, "I would. Accidents happen."

  I could imagine. I forced a smile at her. To Deming, I said, "It's the best we can do. See to the sending of a messenger. Now, what about the unrest among the peasants?"

  "Our laws are too harsh," Sister Mary Ursula said.

  "Too lenient," Deming countered.

  "I liked the death penalty," Abas said, "before you abolished it. Can we bring it back now?"

  We never really came to a conclusion. I felt I didn't know enough to ask the right questions, and nobody volunteered much of interest.

  The servants were cleaning up the remains of the meal, and we were the only ones still sitting. The guards I'd sent in pursuit of the barbarian raiding party returned, having lost the trail in the woods. Another set of guards were sent to find the barbarian camp to offer official regrets for Grimbold's death. Meanwhile, I needed to wait for Rawdon's return to make a decision about the peasants, and I needed to wait for the magic-users to do anything about tracking down the dragon who had Brecc the Slayer's crown.

  "Well," I said, looking at my filthy sheepherder's dress, "maybe now is the time for me to clean up."

  "Oooo," Sister Mary Ursula said, "I have an extra dress you could use."

  Since she looked as though she wore Feordina the Knitter's hand-me-downs, I said, "Maybe something from one of the ladies-in-waiting would be more appropriate."

  "I can arrange that," she told me.

  She showed me to one of the second-floor rooms, but it wasn't Lady Cynthia's. This lady's name was Bliss. One glance told me that if Bliss shopped at the mall, she would need clothes whose size included at least a couple of Xs.

  "Oh, this is such an honor!" Bliss giggled, so pleased, her feet practically fluttered off the ground. "Thank you, thank you, thank you for choosing me."

  "Well ..." I started.

  "I have so many clothes," she told me, "because"—she leaned forward to whisper as though we shared a secret—"I do have a bit of a weight problem."

  OK, I thought. This might work.

  But as she flung dresses out of her clothes chest onto her bed, I saw that her size varied from big to very big.

  "Isn't this a pretty red?" she asked.

  "It is," I agreed. I couldn't ask for Lady Cynthia by name because I had never been introduced to her in this lifetime. And I hated to ask for just any other lady, because Bliss was so enthusiastic.

  Did Rasmussem want me to be nice to her and make her my friend for a particular reason? Or were they only intent on making me look like a fool?

  Still, I couldn't look any worse than I did now.

  So I chose the red velvet dress, and—after I finally got my bath, and with a lot of tucks and gathers and a belt—eventually got the dress around me. I had just fastened the magic ring around my neck with a length of ribbon when someone knocked at Lady Bliss's door.

  "Captain of the guard," Penrod announced from the hallway, "looking for Princess Janine."

  Bliss opened the door for him. "And doesn't she look exquisite?" she asked.

  I think clean was really the best we could say in all honesty, but Penrod didn't have time to quibble. "Bad news, Highness," he announced.

  "Regarding the messengers dispatched to try to make peace with the barbarian camp?" I asked, though it seemed too soon for them to have had any result yet.

  Penrod shook his head. "Regarding Counselor Rawdon."

  Now what?

  "The man I sent to Fairfield just returned. He said there is no one in Fairfield answering the description of Penrod's mother."

  "But you're sure it was Fairfield that Rawdon said he was going to?" I asked.

  "Positive," Penrod said.

  I tried to work this out. "Rawdon said Fairfield, and he carried bundles of food for his family..." It suddenly struck me that when I'd asked the servants carrying the pig if they'd seen Rawdon, one of them had said something about Rawdon getting field rations for his trip.

  Surely field rations weren't carried in great bundles?

  "How long has Rawdon been bringing supplies to his mother?" I asked.

  "About three months."

  "And how long has it been since you've been having trouble getting paid?"

  Slowly, Penrod said, "About three months."

  I was beginning to get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. "Did I hear somebody say something about the king having a treasure room?" I asked.

  Penrod took me there, a locked chamber off the king's own bedroom. Guards had to kick in the door because Rawdon had the key. It was an enormous room, bigger even than the king's bedchamber.

  And, of course, the room was totally empty.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Treasure Hunt

  The next door we broke down was the one to Rawdon's room. I hoped to find some nice clues indicating where he'd be likely to head now that he'd made off with all the loot from my treasury. But we found nothing—no handy map where X marked the spot, no travel brochures from sunny Aruba, no abandoned diary with the crucial page ripped out (but that a clever detective could read by studying the impressions on the page beneath). Rawdon had left behind the rugs on the floors, the tapestries on the walls, and all the furniture; but his clothes were gone and there were no personal items or papers—nothing to show this wasn't simply a spare guest room.

  "Any thoughts?" I asked Penrod.

  He gestured his men out of the room, then closed the door for privacy. In a low voice he told me, "The news is spreading already—there's no way to contain it."

  It took a moment for his meaning to sink in. The guards had not been properly paid for the last couple months, and even now those who knew about the theft were telling the others that the new king had no money left with which to pay them.

  "What are the men likely to do?"

  "Leave," Penrod said, "most of them. They'll try to find employment elsewhere."

  Sure, there was that nice barbarian camp in the vicinity that could probably use some new recruits, being down a few men since morning.

  And even if my guards didn't join the barbarians, how long could the castle stand without anyone to defend it?

  "I'll stay," Penrod assured me, "of course." It was nice to have him feeling indebted to me. He continued, "I'll try to convince the men to give you a day or two. I'll tell them you're tracking Rawdon down, that it's just a matter of time before you recover the treasury."

  "You need to practice saying it with a straight face, or no one will believe you," I warned him. "Where do you think I should start looking?"

  Of course it wasn't that easy.

  "I don't know, Princess."

  Obviously that was part of the fun of the game, figuring that out.

  "Maybe I should start in Fairfield," I said. "You said Rawdon always headed off in that direction. Just because the people there never heard of Rawdon's mother, that doesn't mean they didn't see him. And wherever Rawdon was taking those bundles of money, it was within a day's journey of here. I'll take men with me, and wagons to carry the money should we recover it." Talk about optimism.

  "Do you want me to accompany you or to stay here?" Penrod asked.

  He was the only friendly one I'd met—besides Lady Bliss. Well, and Rawdon had been friendly, but now I saw that didn't count. Still, Penrod was more useful here. "Stay," I advised. "Try to talk the men into remaining here. Explain that if they leave now, they've already worked the majority of the month without pay. The worst that can happen if they stay is a couple more days of work without pay. On the other hand, if things work out, they'll get paid when we get back. Bonuses for anyone who stays."

  "I'll assign loyal men to accompany you and to guard the treasure on its way back." This time he managed to keep his skepticism from showing on his face.

  My good friend, my carefully chosen ally, Abas, refused to come with me, saying if I was just leaving now, I'd be away half the night, and he'd miss his weightlifting exercises for the evening. But he promised if I did get back in time, he'd let me watch. />
  As for my advisers, Sir Deming told me to ask my officially chosen adviser, and Sister Mary Ursula was going to be busy with her soul-cleansing skinny-dipping-in-the-moonlight routine. As my official adviser, she advised me to join her.

  So off I headed to Fairfield.

  I rode ahead with five men, leaving the rest of the squadron to accompany the slower-moving wagons. Guessing I'd need all the time I could get to find Rawdon's stash, I hadn't even bothered to switch out of Bliss's extravagant dress and into more sensible clothes.

  Fairfield was much bigger than St. Jehan, which was no surprise: Some of my friends at St. John the Evangelist School have families that are bigger than St. Jehan. But Fairfield had a few hundred people, which doesn't sound like much until you begin to think about questioning every one of them.

  We arrived at dusk, and our first stop was a tavern. The red dress got a few whistles from having worked its way down so that it revealed more than I wanted revealed, but nobody remembered seeing anyone fitting Rawdon's description.

  We stopped at Fairfield's three other taverns. Some of the people had been around that afternoon when my messenger had been looking for Rawdon's mother. They remembered the messenger but not Rawdon. "Isn't there anyone in Fairfield," I asked the tavern keeper at the last place, "who's a bit of a busybody, who sits around watching people, and always likes a bit of gossip?"

  "Information costs," the tavern keeper said, "and you and your group haven't spent a penny here yet."

  "I'm the new king," I said. "I'm the one who'll be setting your taxes next year—are you sure you want to talk to me about paying for things?"

  He directed me to his mother-in-law, who thought she'd seen a man who might have been Rawdon, but she couldn't be sure when or where. She suggested I talk to a friend of hers—a guy who couldn't help but said he got a lot of his news from the goose girl. The goose girl's mother complained that it was past her daughter's bedtime, but she got the child up when one of my men—the only one of us with any cash at all—loaned me a copper penny to pay her if the information was good.

  Wiping sleep from her eyes, the eight-year-old assured me that she had seen Rawdon.