The Princess Trap (13 page)

A
s soon as the sun
was high enough to give her some warmth, Jenna lay down on the ground behind some bushes, rolled herself up into a ball, and immediately fell asleep.

She woke up when she heard the noise of a vehicle in the distance. There was an ominous tickle in her throat. She must not let it turn into a full-blown cold. The road was narrow and winding, with occasional exits to remote farmsteads on both sides. She wondered who might be driving along here at such an early hour in the day.

Looking over the hedge, she saw it was a milk tanker. She hesitated for a moment; she was tired and there was still a long way to go. All the same, she decided to continue on foot. It was safer. There was no guarantee the driver wouldn’t recognize her, even if she didn’t look in the least like a princess.

But peeking over the hedge was enough to bring the heavy truck to a screeching halt.

“Do you want a lift?” asked the driver. He had dark hair like hers. “Where are you going?”

“Saarstad,” said Jenna, before she could even think about it.

The man leaned across the passenger seat and opened the door. “Get in,” he said. “It’s not that far, but every mile counts, eh?”

Jenna sneezed and nodded. He hadn’t recognized her. How could he, with her straggly, matted hair and her shabby dress?

“Hey, you’re soaked through!” he said, putting the truck in gear and pressing the accelerator. The truck moved off. “Were you outside in the storm last night? Here, wrap this blanket around you.”

He stopped the truck again, stood up in his seat, and motioned to Jenna to stand up, too. Then he removed the blanket they’d been sitting on and draped it over her shoulders. “There,” he said.

Jenna didn’t know if she should feel disgusted or not. The blanket was threadbare, and had that musty smell that comes from being used for ages without being washed. But the warmth in it made her realize just how cold she had been. “Thank you,” she murmured. She wasn’t even aware of her eyes closing.

She was startled out of her sleep by an abrupt jerk of the brakes, and it took her a moment to remember where she was.

“Awake now?” asked the driver with a laugh. “You didn’t get much sleep. Sorry.” He turned on his radio.

“Are we in Saarstad?” asked Jenna. On each side of the road were wooden houses painted yellow, pink, and red, with well-tended gardens. Ripe berries hung from the bushes, there was not a weed to be seen in the vegetable patches, and the paths leading up to the houses were lined with bunches of daisies and hollyhocks. On the road ahead of them a line of cars stood bumper to bumper.

“Great!” muttered the driver, caught up in his own thoughts. “And we’re still only on the outskirts.” He fiddled with the radio, switching from one station to another. “No idea what this holdup is all about. Let’s see if I can find a traffic report …” He sighed. “At this rate there’s no way I’ll be able to get the milk to the dairy on time. I don’t know why everything’s started running short — suddenly people can’t get enough to eat. If there’s a cheese shortage as well, you’ll know the reason why.”

Jenna removed the blanket from her shoulders. “Thank you for the ride,” she said. “I’ll go the rest of the way on foot now.”

The man nodded. “You’ll get there quicker that way,” he said. “Out you get.”

Jenna thanked him again. She waved up at the driver’s cab, then walked on past the line of cars toward the center of town.

The short sleep had done her good, and she was warmer now. All the same, she couldn’t help sneezing.
I’ve caught a cold after all
, she thought.
I hope I’m not going to get a sore throat as well. I could do without that.

She’d gone about a quarter mile when she began to recognize the houses. There was still a long line of cars along the road beside her. Maybe there’d been an accident. It couldn’t be too far now to the marketplace where she’d called those horrible coup plotters, Bolström and Mrs. Markas, last year. She remembered the morning smell of freshly baked bread, and children on their way to school.

How frightened she’d been then. Now she just felt sad, though the morning sunshine made her situation seem more bearable.

At the sight of the market square, Jenna came to an abrupt stop.
What’s going on here?
she wondered with some apprehension. The square was so full of people, you could hardly see the buildings. Camera operators were standing at the sides with their heavy apparatus perched on their shoulders, filming; reporters were thrusting microphones into the angry faces of South Scandians; and in the center of the square she could see the satellite vans from the country’s two most important TV channels.

She moved a little closer, pulling a strand of hair over her face as she went. Recent paparazzi photos of her had shown little more than a gaping mouth, and in the months before that, they’d been portraits of a princess carefully made up for all occasions by the royal stylists. The driver of the tanker truck hadn’t recognized her, but that didn’t mean no one else would. There might still be people who’d see the ragged little northerner in the damp blue dress and identify her as the Pizza Princess.

Jenna felt the anger rising inside her. In her despair over Jonas, she’d forgotten all about that.
Well, now you’re rid of me
, she thought.
Now you’ll have to find someone else to write your vicious articles about. I’m no longer available to the media, so tough luck. The Roly-Poly Princess has left the building.

It was quite a satisfying thought, she noticed, and anger felt better than sadness. At last she’d stopped letting people tell her how to live her life and was doing something for herself. Even if it was only running away. She’d taken her life into her own hands. Yes, she liked the sound of that.

People were packed tight in the market square, watching something — it was surprising how many people there were for such a small town. Jenna heard a loud clattering, followed by yelling. She pushed her way toward the front.

About fifty women in aprons and headscarves were marching around the square, shouting at the top of their lungs, drumming saucepans with wooden spoons.

“Our pots are empty!” they yelled. “Our children are hungry! Down with the government!”

Cameras were filming the scene from all angles. Jenna hid her face behind some man’s broad back.

“Our pots are empty! Our children are hungry! Down with the government!”

The women marched up and down, up and down, chanting their slogan. The two at the front were carrying a large banner on which the same words were written.

So Scandia’s come to this
, thought Jenna.
Mothers demonstrating against hunger. Something’s got to be done! How can it be the government’s fault? Liron is a good, smart person and he’s Minister of the Interior. Surely he can make certain that people have enough to eat?

She ducked away, and moved slowly through the crowd toward the opposite side of the square. She had to take the road that led to the sea. There was still a short distance to go.

At the side of the square stood a woman holding the hand of a child who was staring at the microphone, its thumb in its mouth. The mother was being interviewed. “Of course it’s a scandal!” she said. “Mothers protesting because their children haven’t got enough to eat, here at home, in Scandia! This used to be such a rich country!”

“Down with the government?” asked the interviewer.

“Down with the government!” said the mother, and pulled her child away.

Jenna looked back at the marching women, pouring all their energy into the protest. She could see their faces. Suddenly one in particular caught her eye and she blinked in shock.

Mrs. von Thunberg!
she thought in utter disbelief. If the woman hadn’t been wearing a headscarf and an apron, she could have sworn it was Mrs. von Thunberg!

Jenna sneezed.

Well, Jenna knew better than anyone that people can have look-alikes. But the woman behind Mrs. von Thunberg looked familiar, too. And the one next to her. Hadn’t Jenna seen all of them somewhere before? Could it be …? Yes! Yesterday, at the party!

Jenna ducked her head and continued on her way.
I’m losing it
, she thought.
It can’t be them. When I think what was served at the von Thunbergs’ yesterday — no one was going hungry there! It just can’t be them. I’m seriously sleep-deprived, I’ve got a cold, I’m hallucinating. I need to get to the navigator’s house. I’ll be able to catch up on some sleep there. After that, we’ll see.

L
iron wanted to borrow
Carlson’s car.

“Why?” Carlson asked. He could only bear to drive his own little clunker because he spent the rest of the day behind the wheel of the large state limousine. “It’s over ten years old, sir!” “I just want to remind myself what it’s like to drive in an ordinary car,” Liron replied. He didn’t know whether Carlson believed him. But he couldn’t borrow the cook’s car again, and he was pretty sure the chauffeur’s personal car wouldn’t be bugged. “I may be Minister of the Interior, Carlson, but all the more reason why I shouldn’t ever forget how ordinary people live, should I?”

“But you don’t have to go out in an old wreck like this, sir! Couldn’t you borrow one of the other servants’ cars?” said the bewildered chauffeur. “I’ve been wanting to buy a decent car for ages. And I’ll do just that as soon as I’ve saved up enough. It’s better to wait and get something really top-notch rather than rush into it and get a load of old junk. That’s what I say. Am I right, sir?”

Liron agreed with him, but persuaded him his car would do just fine. He sat down in the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition. The car coughed and spluttered in response, then moved forward with a little jerk. “It will have to do,” murmured Liron.

He exited the grounds of the parliament and merged with the heavy traffic rumbling along the six-lane boulevard that led toward the city center. On each side of the road were wide expanses of lawn, with sprinklers watering the grass. This early in the morning there was traffic everywhere, and progress was slow through the narrow streets of Holmburg, which had been built more than a hundred years ago for horse-drawn carriages and only widened during the last few decades.

In the center of Museum Square stood a nineteenth-century fountain of a shepherdess holding a jug from which water cascaded down several levels of a large basin. It was here that Liron saw the first soldiers.
So soon
, he thought. It hadn’t taken von Thunberg long to deploy the army. Presumably he’d had plans drawn up for some time now, and was just waiting for approval to execute the order. The presence of soldiers should have given Liron a sense of security, but instead he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

He sighed. Magnus had yielded to pressure and the decision had been made. Now they would have to see how they could live with it. But having the military on the streets made it all the more vital that the crisis was dealt with quickly.

The spotless white buildings on both sides of the street were a sign of the nation’s former wealth. Behind the shining shop windows there had once been piles of goods for sale. Now, as he drove past, he could see that they contained nothing except the silk drapes covering the back walls.

And there he was, in his chauffeur’s used car, on his way to find a solution to all these problems.

At a crossroads, he made a gut decision. Instead of turning off onto the road that would take him straight across the dam to the meeting place, he drove past it. The next exit took him to one of the newer areas on the outskirts of the city, where from a distance the grim housing projects seemed to dwarf the old church. These prefabricated apartment buildings had been hastily thrown up in order to house the cheap labor from the north who were then so urgently needed to boost Scandia’s economy.

Just a year ago, he and Jonas, northerners themselves, had hidden in one of these anonymous buildings. It came as a shock to realize how long ago that seemed, and how unfamiliar the surroundings had become. He was in danger of forgetting how the other half lived. He shuddered at the sight of overturned garbage cans, a shopping cart abandoned in a straggly bush, the graffiti on the walls, plastic bags in the trees, and empty bottles in the gutters.

He drove at walking pace. A military transport stood in the school parking lot, but there was no sign of any soldiers. They’ll be sitting inside the school, thought Liron, in the administration office or the hallways. They’ll be afraid. They’re only boys themselves. They don’t want people yelling at them and pelting them with garbage. And they don’t want to shoot anyone.

On the pathway in front of a dirty yellow lawn before another bland high-rise stood three youths, smoking. Their pants only reached down to their knees, and their hair was shaved in bizarre patterns. One was holding a can, which he passed on with a nudge to one of the others. A woman with a child hurried past, bowing her head as if that would somehow make her invisible, but the three teens followed her, shouting and laughing. One of them threw his crumpled cigarette pack after her.

I can understand how the southerners feel
, thought Liron as he turned down a side street.
Why they’re afraid of us. Why they want us northerners to go home. They think we’re shiftless — we can’t even keep order in our own neighborhoods. What they see is all they know, and they can’t believe that if we started out with the same advantages as they do, we’d be ideal neighbors. Maybe one day people will come to appreciate the effects of the new government reforms, but it all takes time — maybe more than we’d like to think.

A little dark-haired boy with a runny nose and a plastic car on a string was standing at the side of the road, waving his chubby little hand at every passing car. Liron waved back.
Maybe by the time you’ve grown up
, he thought.
I hope it’ll be by then.

He turned off to the right, passing an overgrown empty lot where the people from the housing projects had dumped their trash: old bikes and fridges, even a burned-out car. Among the waist-high weeds he could see a tattered old sofa with a group of children sitting on it.
It has to be by the time you’ve grown up
, he thought.

Not far from this empty lot the forest began. It would take a few hours yet to get to the northern sound. The car radio didn’t work. He had time to think.

Every so often when he looked in the rearview mirror, he thought he recognized a car — a dark blue Volvo. He pulled over to the right and waited.

A few seconds later, the Volvo went by without braking.
You’re imagining things
, he said to himself. Nobody knew he was going for a drive. Besides, he was supposed to be meeting with the undersecretary at that moment — he’d better think of a good excuse for not showing up. So who could possibly be following him?

For the next hour, he felt calmer. Although the rearview mirror did not show anything suspicious, he continued to let other vehicles pass him — private cars, motorcycles, trucks.
If they really are trying to follow me, I’ll make it as hard for them as possible
. But he felt almost ashamed of himself for being so paranoid.

Last year, Lorok had driven Jenna, Jonas, and Malena to the navigator’s house at breakneck speed. The journey had been so exciting that she hadn’t paid any attention to how far it actually was.

When she first left the town, she came to fields of rye and wheat, cabbage and corn, and pastureland with black-and-white cows grazing. Then the fields gave way to forest.

The countryside around Saarstad was hilly. Little lakes glimmered between the trunks of the pine trees, and as she trudged up and down the sandy paths, Jenna grew more and more weary. She was about to sit down on one of the many moss-covered boulders at the side of the road when she heard the first shrieks of the gulls, followed by the splashing sounds of the waves as they crashed onto the shore. It couldn’t be far now.

The navigator’s house had been her mother’s retreat, a place to escape to with Norlin when they were young and in love. It was here that Bolström and Norlin had later held the king and her mother captive, and it was here, last summer, where Jenna had realized for the first time that she was a princess.

It had been evening when Lorok had driven them there; she would never forget it. The gulls were crying as they circled high above the shore; the countryside seemed so quiet and peaceful in the warm glow of the setting sun that it was hard to imagine the battle that had just been fought. She could still picture the windswept pine tree in front of the gable, the jungle of wildflowers in the overgrown garden with its mingled scent of salt and summer pine. And among all this there’d been the wounded — rebels as well as conspirators — and then the reporters with their microphones and cameras.

Today, though, it was noon and the sun was high. A wind was blowing from the sea, driving short, flat, white-crested waves down onto the shore and against the piers of the crumbling dock. With the sun directly above it, the water was almost too bright to look at. A sense of complete calm lay over everything.

A few paces from the house, Jenna stopped. Apart from the time of day, nothing had changed.

The paint was still peeling from the once-yellow wooden walls, with their white window frames, veranda, and corner beams. In the relentless midday sun, the house looked utterly desolate.

Jenna took another step toward it. She could not understand why she suddenly felt afraid. At least tonight she would sleep in the dry. She knew where to find the key. It was not until she reached the door that she saw the broken glass, and the window by the veranda hanging on its hinges. She reached up and ran her hand over the top of the doorframe. The key was waiting where it was supposed to be.

Why was her heart beating so fast as she put the key in the lock? Why were her fingers trembling? The house should be her refuge, so why this sudden fear?

Jenna listened.
The silence
, she thought.
A silence you can hear. Just waves and gulls and the occasional rustle of leaves in a gust of wind. It’s the silence that’s so frightening.

She pushed her shoulder against the door. It opened with a groan. In the tiny, almost square hallway, there was a musty smell, and a ray of sunshine came through the broken window and fell on the wooden floorboards. A thousand grains of dust danced in the light.

The doors inside were all open, reinforcing the feeling of melancholy abandonment.
Now, which room should I sleep in?
wondered Jenna. But it wasn’t a comforting thought. If it didn’t rain again, she would stay outside.

She stepped over the worn threshold into the first room. A tiled stove in the corner, from which one tile had fallen off, showed that this had been a living room. In the center there was a table, once highly polished but now covered with dust. Beside it were two chairs. Jenna began to walk toward them.

When an arm seized her from behind, she couldn’t even let out a scream.