Princess Academy: Chapters 21–25

Dan had locked Olana and Knut in a separate room so that "the grown ones won't be inciting the young ones."

By the time she crossed the threshold, she saw that only half the girls had followed her down the corridor.

They clumped by the door, and Dan growled at them, reprimanding and demanding better vigilance.

She waited until there was a lull in his conversation with the bandits, and then she spoke.

Yet the kernel of that idea was true—quarry-speech allowed the villagers to talk through the mountain, to send their song down into the linder so another could hear.

It was not like the quarry-speech Peder had spoken to her at spring holiday, strong and garish, images shouting behind her eyes.

She quarry-spoke until her thoughts felt rough and grating, her mind as hoarse as her throat would be after hours of yelling.

A bandit allowed Britta to remove Miri's gag for a moment and feed her porridge; then despondency made her sleepy, and she lay down and dreamed of climbing a slope that had no peak.

Miri was seven again, standing in her doorway, watching some thirty men and women set out to hunt down a mountain cat that had stalked the village's rabbits. They held levers, pickaxes, and mallets, and their faces were grim and determined.

The night was solid with snowfall, but as she stared into the torrent of flakes, a wind rose briefly and parted the storm.

Bena's hands were deft and silent, and Miri found herself thinking that Bena was a wonderful, wonderful person.

She grabbed a privy pot and broke it over his head with a noise and a stench that brought the others to their feet.

Miri could see him tighten his hold on the mallet shaft, look to Miri, look at Dan, wanting nothing more than to beat the bandit into the snow.

Everyone was quiet now. The frenzied running and brief fighting had stopped as quickly as it had begun.

"I want a prize for my trouble, and I will have it or this girl is first to go. I'm not jesting."

"Because if you attack us now, I guarantee their survival prospects are much, much worse."

"I'm a thief and a murderer, remember? You can't trust me not to kill her out of spite."

She did not let go of her pa for hours, watching from his arms as Onor and Dogface released Britta and Esa and with the other four bandits fled the academy. Twenty stout quarrymen followed briefly to make certain they kept going.

A few men stood guard around the academy in case any bandits had the gall to return, and the rest took shelter inside from the snow.

When she thought about it with her head only, she did not believe that the mountain could really hear her, but her heart wished it to be so. Just in case, she whispered, "Thank you," and blew a subtle kiss to that white peak against the sunny blue sky.

Though the trek was precarious and slow going through the deep snow, the mood was as merry as a holiday.

Her thoughts were filling with the lush expectations of a quarry filled with snow, allowing everyone days of free time, of Marda and reading lessons, of winter at home with plenty of fuel and plenty of food.

But it was not long before Olana proved she could be useful skinning rabbits and was dispatched to many houses to perform the unpleasant task.

This is what I want. I've been all muddled and stirred up by the princess stuff, but now I know.

Miri wanted to learn more about Mathematics to help with trading, Liana's interests tended toward etiquette at court, and Esa was curious about the social classes beyond the mountain.

When Katar inquired about a princess's daily duties, Olana detailed the responsibilities of the current queen of Danland—overseeing the administration of the palace and servants, paying calls with delegates and courtiers, planning celebrations, maintaining friendly relations with the merchants and traders of neighboring kingdoms, a day as long as any quarrier's.

"It won't be one long ball. It'll be boring work, long days talking to people you don't care about, and married to a dull boy with a fancy title. I can't believe after all our lessons in History, knowing about all the assassinations and political plots and wars and barren queens, that anyone would want to be a princess."

The future loomed before her, and she felt as though the prince stood between them, keeping them one step apart.

Britta showed her how to loosen the soil and make furrows in the earth to catch water runoff.

For months, it seemed no one here liked me a whit, and all I had to look forward to was making a fool of myself in front of the boy I've been in love with for years.

Britta's face went ashen. "Do you think I might...?"

"A pleasure, sir. Steffan." Her face could not bear the solemnity. She smiled with such ardor that Miri's own heart beat faster just to see her.

The priest spoke a lengthy discourse for the ritual of betrothal binding, including naming all the kings and queens from King Dan on down.

Miri noticed that he missed one in the middle, and she tilted her head and looked back at the girls. Others had apparently noticed, too, and tittered about it.

Her gestures lost their flustered anxiousness and became smooth and confident, the weight of her insecurity lifted.

Steffan held Britta's arm in his own, and they talked low, having to incline their heads close to hear.

Steffan was loath to leave Britta's side, but a minister soon had him rounded up to speak with Olana and sign official documents.

"There never was such a house. I brought this painting to give you girls another incentive to be diligent."

Miri balked at the thought. "There couldn't be that many in all the world...." She tried to imagine it. Could there be? And how long would it take to read them? And what would they say?

At their feet, the curly fronds poking up in Britta's garden were greener than the mountain grass, greener than the needles on the small, twisted trees, almost greener than the garden in the painting.