Princess Academy (13 page)

After they were dismissed for bed, Miri stepped outside to have a moment with the sunset, gold and orange that pulled the sky close. She needed a break from a teary Liana consoling a red-faced Bena and the scalding stares of some very jealous seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds. It had been quite clear who had not voted for Miri.

From a spot at the cliff’s edge, Miri could see the mountains and hills ringing out from Mount Eskel like water ripples from a thrown stone. Just below her, instead of sheer cliff, a shelf stuck out, so if she happened to slip on rubble rock, she would land on the ledge instead of falling a long way down. She saw now that this spot was not only
her
favorite; Katar sat on the rocky outcrop, her knees pulled into her chest.

Miri climbed down and tried to think of something really good to say. She was just about to open her mouth when Katar made a sound like a strained hiccup.

It couldn’t be a sob
, thought Miri. She had never seen Katar cry. But when Katar turned toward the light, there was an unmistakable sheen of tears.

“Go ahead and gloat,” said Katar.

Miri frowned. She thought Katar was acting like a baby to cry just because she did not win.

“Go on,” said Katar. “Say how you’re going to wear that gown and dance first and be beautiful and go to Asland to be the future queen.”

“That’s not true, Katar. Just because I’m academy princess doesn’t mean he’ll choose me.”

“Yes, he will.”

Would he really?
“I have a chance, but—”

“It was my
only
chance. Nobody really likes me, so how will he?”

“Do you want to marry him so much?” asked Miri.

“I don’t care about the prince,” Katar snapped back. “I just wanted a way to leave here. I hate it here.” Her voice went soft, as if the words were almost too strong to speak aloud.

Katar tossed a piece of rubble rock, and Miri heard it strike the slope below, disturbing other stones as it rolled. She was waiting for Katar to amend her statement, but she did not.

After a few moments, Miri said, “You don’t really
hate
it here.”

“Yes, I do. Why wouldn’t I?” Katar hurled another stone over the edge. When she spoke again, her voice shook. “I know I’m not liked. I can’t help how I am, but I feel so tired never having anywhere to go where I feel good. Not at home, certainly, not with my ma dead.”

“My mother died, too,” said Miri.

“But your pa adores you. I’ve seen him look at you and Marda as if you were the mountain itself, as if you were the world.”

He does?
thought Miri. Her heart beat once as she thought,
He does.

“My father doesn’t look at me at all,” said Katar. “Maybe he blames me for my mother dying when I was born, or maybe he just wishes I were a boy or some other girl entirely. Everything about this place is cold and hard and sharp and mean and . . . and I just want to go away. I want to be somebody else and see other things. And now I never will.”

Miri shivered at a breeze coming up from the valley. All her life she had seen herself as the only lonesome thing in the world, but now even Katar seemed but a small child lost on a far hill.

Katar held her face in her hands and sobbed, and Miri patted her shoulder awkwardly.

“I’m sorry,” Miri said.

Katar shrugged, and Miri knew there was nothing she could say. A true friend might have been able to comfort Katar, but Miri felt she barely knew the girl beside her.

Everything was strange and wonderful and wrong at once. The girls had chosen Miri as academy princess. Autumn thrummed fresh and cold on her skin. Any day the prince would come and take one of them away. And Katar sobbed misery at her side.

“I’m sorry,” Miri said again, hating how hollow those words sounded. Katar had given her a small gift by opening her heart and showing her pain. Miri tucked the moment in her own heart and hoped somehow to repay.

n

Chapter Seventeen

Though the river is milk

It stops dead in my throat

Like a stone, stone, stone

n

A
fter the exam, the girls were free to make their own schedules. Many passed the daylight hours practicing Conversation or Poise and rehearsing the dances, aware that the real test, the ball itself, was still to come. Others were relieved to have a break and lay around gossiping about the dresses the lowlanders would bring or roamed the mountainside to laugh, fret, and wonder.

The girls seemed to avoid the prickly topic of the prince and his choice of bride, but an uncertain excitement persisted in the academy. Even practical-minded Frid was prone to stare at the sky with a hint of a sheepish smile.

Miri wished Peder would come and remind her that she did not want to be chosen, but whenever she thought about the prince, a ticklish sensation filled her chest. She had let loose her dream of being a quarrier, but her heart still longed for something to hope for. Even though she now understood the reasons behind her exclusion from the quarry, when she imagined returning to the village just to tend goats, she felt a racing kind of panic. Surely there was some other place for her, something she could do to continue to stretch and grow, to be of use. To make her pa proud. The idea of being a princess promised many things.

One morning, Miri found Esa on the steps of the academy facing the mountain pass.

“It feels like any moment they’ll come,” said Miri, sitting beside her. “When I look that way and see a bird or a cloud’s shadow sliding by, I think it’s the first wagon, and my stomach about drops out of my middle.”

Esa nodded, and Miri noticed that her eyes were sad.

“What’s wrong?”

Esa shook her head as if dismissing Miri’s concern. “The dancing.”

“What do you mean? You passed the dancing exam just fine.”

Esa looked up as if she had lost patience with herself. “I keep imagining the moment when I first dance with the prince, and he’ll put out his arms, and I’ll put my right hand in his, and he’ll stare at my left arm and wonder why I don’t move it, and then, when he understands, I picture how his face will change. . . .”

Esa breathed out long and slow. The sigh made Miri uneasy, and she wanted to get Esa to laugh.

“Maybe the prince will have an injured arm, too.”

Esa snorted.

“No, really. Or maybe a lazy eye that will roll around in his head so he can look two places at once. You could pretend to be two different people and hop back and forth between his gazes, having a chat with yourself. Just don’t forget to follow the rules of Conversation and continually bring the topic back around to, uh, to you.”

Motion in Miri’s periphery tugged her attention. It was no cloud shadow. Rock dust lifted around the first wagon as though it rode on drifting fog. Another followed. And another. The sheer number of wagons was thrilling and frightening. Some of the girls began to screech and run around, looking for either a place to better watch the arrival or a place to hide. Frid and Britta came to stand beside Miri and Esa.

“So many people,” said Frid.

Britta seemed to hold her breath, and Miri thought how, despite all her assurances that she would not be chosen, Britta was as anxious as any of them.

Behind the initial wagons and mounted soldiers rolled a closed carriage, its window curtain drawn. It was made from pale wood the color of Esa’s hair and pulled by four horses of the same shade. Miri stared at the window. Could the prince see her? The curtain shivered as if a hand touched it from behind. Certain that he was peering out, Miri smiled and gave a cheeky wave.

Esa giggled and slapped Miri’s side with the back of her hand. “What are you doing? He might be looking.”

“I hope he is,” said Miri, though she did not wave again.

Olana rushed outside, ordering the girls out of the way and into their bedchamber. Through the window they watched the visitors set up tents, care for the horses, and unload barrels and boxes into the far side of the building. Whenever one of the girls went to use the outhouse, she reported smoke pouring out of all three kitchen chimneys.

“Did anyone see him?” asked Gerti, standing on her toes to get a better view out the window.

“I thought I did, for a second,” said Helta, a thirteen-year-old with a snub nose and freckles. “He was tall and younger than I’d imagined and had dark hair.”

The chatter in the room died away. The prince had suddenly become a real person with a height and an age and hair color. Some of the girls peeked out the window as if hoping for a glimpse of the prince, but most stayed still.

“It feels awkward to talk about it,” said Miri, breaking the silence. “I don’t like feeling in competition with everybody to be seen and liked by Prince Steffan.”

“We should make a pact,” said Esa. “We’ll be happy for whomever he chooses, no jealousy or meanness.”

All the girls agreed, but Britta seemed not to have heard and stared at the wall, her back to Esa.

“Britta?” said Miri.

“What’s wrong?” asked Frid.

“She won’t agree to our bargain,” said Katar. “She’s already bitter, it seems.”

Britta rubbed her temple with the back of her hand. “It’s not that. I’m just not feeling well.”

Miri touched her forehead. “You are kind of warm. Maybe you should lie down.”

That night, whenever Miri awoke from anxious dreams, she heard girls shifting on their pallets, readjusting pillows, sighing. Twice she saw Britta’s eyes open as well.

“Are you all right?” she whispered.

“I feel funny,” Britta whispered back. “Maybe I’m just nervous.”

By morning, Britta’s cheeks felt awfully hot to the brush of Miri’s fingertips. They were confined to their bedchamber while the noise of preparation went on just outside their door, but Miri sneaked out to find Knut.

All over the building, women and men in brown-and-green clothing were sweeping, dusting, laying rugs and hanging tapestries, stoking fires in the hearths, and making the building warmer and livelier than Miri had known was possible. She kept her eyes down, hoping that if she did not make eye contact, no one would notice her enough to order her back to the bedchamber.

On her way to the kitchen, she passed the dining hall. The tables were covered in cloth and set at the far end of the room, leaving most of the smooth linder floor open for dancing. Three men hoisted a chandelier with dozens of candles to the ceiling, and candle stands as tall as quarrymen stood along the walls, waiting to be lit.

The door on the opposite side of the hall led to a section of the academy that now served as chambers for the prince and other guests. Miri could see a group standing there, and she slowed her walk to spy them out.

Several men, some as young as she, some with white beards, conversed together. In their midst was a boy with dark hair, a long nose, and a square chin. He stood straight as though aware of his importance, and even the old men nodded to him in a respectful manner. Just before she passed by, he turned, and their eyes met. Her heart jumped, and she scurried faster.

She found Knut tugging on his beard and gripping his stirring spoon as a horde of strangers took over his kitchen. She caught his sleeve and led him out, explaining on the way what was wrong with Britta.

“She’s sick all right,” said Knut when he knelt beside her. “Came on fast, did it? Nerves will do that. Nothing to worry about, I don’t think. She might improve by tonight.”

He instructed the girls to put a cool, damp cloth on her head, change it every so often, and give her sips of cold water. So the girls passed the morning tending to Britta, fussing with their hair, cleaning their nails, and taking turns with the bathwater. When the yellow blaze of afternoon poured through their window, two seamstresses from the prince’s party entered with arms full of gowns. The room hushed at once.

The older of the two seamstresses looked around and crunched her white curls inside her fist. “So many! Well, let’s see what we can do to make each one of you look like a princess.”

Miri tried to help Britta up, but as soon as she was sitting, Britta leaned over and vomited water.

“Better leave her be,” said the younger seamstress. “She won’t be able to dance a step.”

“But she can’t miss the ball,” said Miri.

The seamstress shrugged. “And she can’t attend it like that, can she? Still, sounds like the prince will be staying a few days. She’s bound to be better tomorrow and can take her turn wooing him.”

The seamstresses sorted through the dresses and called up different girls to be fitted. The largest dress went to Frid, and even that was not big enough to fit across her shoulders comfortably. Frid did not seem to notice. She fingered the frills on her sleeves and bodice, shook her skirts, and let her mouth hang open in awe. When she looked into the seamstress’s mirror, her face beamed.

“I never felt pretty before,” she said so quietly that only the seamstress and Miri could hear.

The younger seamstress was fitting Esa into a dark purple gown that made her eyes look violet and as big as a doe’s.

“I said, lift up your left arm,” Miri heard the seamstress say.

“I can’t,” said Esa.

“Why . . . ?” The seamstress’s expression softened. “Oh, have a blessed arm, do you? I’ve a bit of silk that will fit that dress like sunshine on water.”

Miri had never seen silk before, but she had read that it was the linder of cloth, and when the seamstress pulled a silk scarf from her bag, Miri could see why. It was heavy with brilliant colors swirled into a pattern of flowers yet shimmered secretly, like water under a crescent moon. The seamstress wrapped the scarf around Esa’s torso expertly, tying her left arm to her body so that it no longer hung limp.

The older seamstress smiled. “Well, aren’t you a pleasant sight?”

Esa’s smile seemed big enough to break loose.

All the girls were dressed, swirling their skirts and spinning and laughing, as colorful and beautiful as the painting of the house, yet Miri still sat on the floor in her well-worn woolens. The older lady sighed and sat down as though her bones would shift out of place if she moved too fast. The younger seamstress gathered up spare slippers and trimmed threads. After she was done she turned, her hands on her hips, and faced Miri.

“Now, you,” she said.

Miri felt a shy smile take her lips. “I thought I was forgotten.”

“How could we forget you? You’re the special one.”

Miri tingled to her toes.

The seamstress stepped out of the room and returned with the silver gown. In its folds it was so dark that the light parts seemed to shimmer. The seamstress held one of the pink ribbons up to Miri’s face and said, “This shade fairly shouts out the rose hues in your skin. If I was asked to make a dress for you, I’d have made it this exact color.”

She put it on Miri inside out, marked the seams, and sewed them tighter. Miri felt her face burn when the seamstress had to raise the hem two hands.

She slid the finished article over Miri’s head and arranged it around her hips and against her ankles. The fabric felt like bathwater against her skin. She wanted to coo at herself in amazement and delight, having never imagined just how different she would feel by wearing such a dress. The cloth was the hue of the silver texture in new linder and the rosebud ribbons pink like miri flowers—in that gown she felt like the best of Mount Eskel.

The seamstress took extra time with Miri, fixing her brown hair up on her head, pinning cloth rosebuds over her ears and brow. At last she held up the mirror, but Miri kept her eyes down. She wanted to imagine that she looked as pretty as she felt.

The seamstress laughed, as if guessing Miri’s thoughts. “You are lovely, miss. You all are. If you want my wisdom, though no one ever does, forget the prince and enjoy yourselves.”

Miri tried her best to ignore the nervous grumble in her stomach and how her cold hands felt as if they trembled even though they looked still. But when the light from their bedchamber window deepened, the sky was rich as wet soil and bluer than anyone’s eyes, and the hour they had prepared for that past year finally arrived, Miri found she could not pretend anything past absolute panic.

Olana entered in a dark brown dress of fine cloth with skirts so long, they swept the floor. She looked so natural and even lovely in her finery, Miri guessed some of what the tutor must have given up in coming to Mount Eskel.

“It’s time, girls,” said Olana. “Line up, Miri is first.”

Katar pushed her way to the front, just behind Miri. Miri felt as obvious as a mouse on a rock during the hawks’ dinner hour, and she took steadying breaths and thought of Pa and Marda and the house with a garden.

“Will you check on Britta later?” Miri asked Olana. “She’s asleep now, but she might feel better when she wakes and she could join—”

Music swept in from the hall.

“Yes, now go,” said Olana, giving Miri a push.

Miri lurched forward, nearly stepped on her skirt, righted herself, and with a pounding heart strode down the corridor, toe to heel, toe to heel.