Heartless (3 page)

Monster stood up on the windowsill. He stretched, forming an arch with his body, and flicked the plume of his tail. Then, after a quick wash to make certain his whiskers were well arranged, he interrupted the lecture.

“Meaaa.”

The tutor droned on without a glance at the cat. “Abundiantus V was never intended to sit upon his father’s throne, being the second son – ”

“Meaaa!” Monster said, with more emphasis this time. He unsheathed his claws and scratched the window, a long grating noise.

“Dragon-eaten beast.” Felix threw a pencil at the cat’s nose, missing by inches.

“Princess Una,” the tutor said, “we have had this discussion. Would you kindly remove that creature from the room so that our studies may continue uninhibited?”

Una huffed and went to the window. But when she reached for him, Monster made himself heavy and awkward, slipping through her grasp. He landed back on the windowsill with another “Meeeaa!” and pressed his nose to the glass.

Una looked out.

She saw the colors. She saw the movement. She saw the dancing far below, as though she was suddenly gifted with an eagle’s eyes and able to discern every detail even at that great distance. Wonderingly, she opened the window, and music carried up Goldstone Hill and filled the room.

“Oh,” she said.

“Meeeea.” Monster looked smug.

Felix was on his feet and at her side in a moment. He too looked down. “Oh,” he said.

The tutor, frowning, came around from behind his desk and joined them at the window. He looked as well and saw what they saw. His mouth formed an unspoken “Oh.”

A clatter of hooves in the courtyard drew their gazes, however unwillingly, from the sight down the hill. Una and her brother saw their father, King Fidel, mounting up with a company of his guard around him. Brother and sister exchanged a glance and bolted for the door, falling over themselves in a headlong dash from the chamber, down the stairs, and out to the courtyard, heedless of the tutor’s feeble attempts to restrain them. Monster trailed at their heels.

“Father!” Una burst into the courtyard, shouting like a little girl and hardly caring that she drew the eyes of the stable boys and footmen standing by. King Fidel, upon his gray mount, looked back at his daughter. “Father!” she cried. “Are you going to see?” She did not have to say what.

“Yes, Una,” Fidel replied. “I must make certain all is well below.”

“May we come?” Una said, and before the words were all out of her mouth, Felix was shouting to the stable boys, “My horse! Bring my horse!”

King Fidel considered a moment, his eyebrows drawn. But the day was fine, the air was full of holiday spirit, and his children’s faces were far too eager to refuse. “Very well.”

Una and Felix rode on either side of him as he descended the King’s Way, the long road that wound down Goldstone Hill to the teeming lawn. The breath of the ocean whipped in their faces, carrying the spice of other worlds up from below.

Sheep left neglected trailed across the road as the riders came to the bottom of the hill. The animals trotted out of the way, lambs scurrying behind their mothers. Una saw a man leaving the market with a great embroidered rug over his shoulder, and children ran hither and yon eating golden apples. A juggler tumbled just in front of Felix’s horse, tossing what at first looked like knives, but then seemed to be silver fish, and then, Una could have sworn, shooting stars. A dancer with eyes as large and wet as the moon on water, with pupils like a cat’s, too strange to be either beautiful or ugly, twirled past trailing what could have been iridescent scarves or perhaps wings. A man with green-cast skin sprang alongside Una’s mount and held up an empty hand. Flowers bloomed from his fingertips, and he smiled hugely, bobbing and bowing.

“Blossoms for the lovely lady? A fair price! Always fair! I do but ask for a strand of your hair. Is that not fair? A single strand of hair!”

Una urged her horse closer to her father’s, uncertain whether or not to be frightened. But the green-cast man darted away into the crowds, shouting as he went, “Prices always fair! Blossoms to share!” She could hear his voice amid the din long after he vanished from sight.

Fidel’s guards called out in large voices, heralding the king’s arrival. But their words hardly carried over the music of the market, and the crowds did not part. The people of Sondhold, their eyes wide and wondering, scarcely spared a glance for their king or his children. King Fidel smiled as he looked around, for despite the noise and the otherworldliness of it all, it was impossible to remain unmoved by the wonders and the excitement. He called the captain of his guard to him and said, “Try to find out who is in charge here, will you?”

Before he had quite finished speaking, a path suddenly emerged in the crowds, and the most enormous person Una had ever seen stepped forward. He stood at least seven feet tall and was terribly ugly. He so exactly fit the image of a goblin she’d held since childhood that, at first sight of him, she felt all her limbs go atremble. But despite his craggy skin that looked as though it would turn sword blades and arrowheads, his face was welcoming.

He raised a hand and called a greeting to the king. “Fidel of Parumvir,” he said, “welcome to the Twelve-Year Market.”

Fidel raised an eyebrow and inclined his head, and because he was king he showed no sign of fear if he felt it. “And welcome to Parumvir, stranger,” he said. “You make yourself quite free in my lands without so much as a by-your-leave.” His voice was not unfriendly, but he spoke as a king not a friend. “What is your name?”

The goblin-man, now near enough for Una to see that he stood taller than the ears of her father’s horse, bowed low. He was clothed all in white, with a golden belt and a long knife at his side. “I am Oeric,” he said when he straightened, “knight in the service of the Prince of Farthestshore.”

“Farthestshore?” Fidel repeated.

It was a name from ancient days, from tales so old they were no longer called history but relegated to legend; and even in legends, these tales were mentioned only as myths believed by heroes of long ago. Yet the name of Farthestshore was deeply imbedded in the earth of Parumvir and all the nations of the Continent. When she heard it spoken, Una caught again that strong scent of the sea that she had smelled as she rode down the King’s Way. It came to her in a rush, overpowering the thousands of foreign spices and perfumes that misted the air of the market.

Odd, for she had grown up just a few miles from Sondhold Harbor, where tall ships sailed to and from far-off countries, and she had grown so used to the smell of the ocean that she no longer noticed it. But she caught it now, that whiff of wildness and salt and sun and storms, and she wondered how she could ever bear to sit long hours over textbooks or tapestry when that smell beckoned so?

Her father’s voice brought her back to the present. “Has the Prince of Farthestshore placed you in charge of this bazaar?”

Sir Oeric answered, “The Prince himself has led us here. Many would not have dared come otherwise. He is near at hand, and you shall meet him anon.”

“And in the meanwhile, you and your folk make yourselves at home upon my lawn?”

Sir Oeric bowed again. “It is an ancient and time-honored tradition, Your Majesty, that the people of the Far World visit the Near every twelve years so that we do not too soon forget one another. This very lawn has been kept clear and clean for that purpose. We apologize if we disturb you, but we of the Far World do not so swiftly forget agreements.”

Fidel considered this a moment, his face quiet so that Una could not read it. “You’re rather late, don’t you think?” he said at last. “You have not come to Parumvir in the time of my father or that of his father. If I am not mistaken, it has been two hundred years at least since a Twelve-Year Market was recorded.”

“But only twelve years as my folk count it.”

“Then your years are much longer than ours.”

“Shorter too, Your Majesty. And also wider and narrower, if you will.” Sir Oeric smiled, and Una glimpsed sharp fangs. “Time is rather friendlier with the people of Faerie.” Then his smile vanished, and his moon-wide eyes were serious. “We bring goodwill, Your Majesty, and wares to delight your kingdom. The Prince himself will assure you of this when you meet him. I know he wishes only to please you with our presence.”

“I am eager to meet him.”

“Until that time, Your Majesty, would your children like to explore the market?”

Fidel looked at Una and Felix. The prince was already scrambling from his horse, and Una was no less excited. “Very well – ” he said, and the two were off like a shot.

All fear overwhelmed by curiosity, Una followed her brother deep into the gathered throng. The people of Sondhold were at first too enchanted with the strangeness surrounding them to take notice, but by and by they recognized the faces of their prince and princess and edged away so that Una and Felix had a circle of distance around them everywhere they went. As she trailed behind her lanky younger brother, inspecting the wares presented before her eyes, Una could not believe that only a short hour before she had been locked away in that den of a schoolroom. The world had taken on a sudden romance and adventure, and anything was possible.

A woman with feathers in her hair – whether she had put them there or they grew right from her head, Una could not guess – beckoned her near to look at fine cloth. “Woven from all the scents of summer,” she whispered in a voice like wind-stirred trees. Una reached out to touch it, but the woman snatched it back. “For a price,” she said. “Only for a price.”

“The lady is not interested in such nonsense as yours!” said the vendor of the next stall over. He was a dwarf with a red face and slanting eyes that disappeared behind the folds of the most enormous grin Una had ever seen. “Step this way, damsel fair. Step this way and see what Malgril has to offer!”

She obeyed, and he pulled back a cloth to reveal silver statues of intricate work – little animals set with jewels for eyes. “Lovely,” she said.

“But wait,” said the dwarf. “Watch closely.”

She smiled and looked again. The animal statues were of the most exquisite workmanship, the bodies engraved all over with delicate scrollwork. They were of creatures she did not know or beings she recognized only from stories: a cat with a woman’s head, a snake with wings, a centaur, and a gryphon.

She blinked. Then she gasped.

The little figures had moved. Or had she imagined it? She blinked again, and sure enough, the woman-cat’s tail twitched, the gryphon’s mouth opened, the centaur turned his head.

“The scrollwork,” said the dwarf, “was wrought by my brother, the great Julnril himself. These are powerful charms, like those of the ancient golems. Do they please your ladyship? Would she hold one in her hand?” The dwarf picked up the winged snake and held it out to her, but when Una looked at it, blinking fast, it seemed to writhe in his fingers. She stepped back, smiling again but shaking her head.

Felix’s voice caught her attention. “Are you sure these are my size?”

“Standard size, my lord,” someone replied, and Una turned to see Felix sitting before a cobbler’s bench, shoving his foot into a boot made of old leather. It was a tough fit, and Felix made faces in his efforts to pull it on. The cobbler, rubbing his hands together, nodded and smiled and spoke encouragingly. With a final tug, Felix’s heel slid into place, and the prince stood up. “And these are seven-league boots, are they? They kind of pinch – ”

“Don’t stamp your feet!” the cobbler cried, but too late.

Una yelped. Her brother had vanished.

Immediately the cobbler began ringing a bell and shouting at the top of his lungs, “Thief! Thief! Stop, thief!”

The next instant, huge Sir Oeric appeared, shaking a fist at the cobbler. “You shouldn’t insist your customers try them on if you don’t want them to run off!”

“He must pay! He must pay!” the cobbler insisted.

“Give me a pair, and I’ll fetch him back.”

“But, sir – ”

“At once!”

King Fidel was there by now with the guardsmen, along with a great hustle of people, all shouting. “Which way did he go?” “He’ll be halfway to the Red Desert by now!” “You certain he didn’t step toward the sea?” “Fool boy, won’t know enough to turn around and come back!”

“I’ll get him for you, Your Majesty,” Sir Oeric declared, pulling on another pair of the cobbler’s special boots. Amazingly, they seemed to grow to fit his enormous feet. The next moment he vanished as well, and the yells of the market-goers doubled. The cobbler, grinning from ear to ear, was suddenly blessed with the best business he’d managed that day.

Una watched it all, laughing to herself and feeling a bit jealous of the fun Felix was having. She turned back to the silver statues but found herself instead looking into a pair of huge white eyes in a face like gray stone.

“My lady, would you have your fortune told?”

The man before her was the ugliest she had ever seen, uglier even than massive Sir Oeric. He was small, smaller still because he huddled into himself, and when he smiled he also displayed rows of sharp fangs. But then again – and here she frowned, for surely her eyes were lying to her one way or the other – he was also beautiful. Like the silver statues that moved only when she blinked, so this shrunken man seemed to change his face for hairbreadth moments, as though a veil wafted over his features and then away again. In those moments, he was beautiful.