A Posse of Princesses (3 page)

“I know.” Rhis recited:

“
Fall in love

with heart, not head,

to trouble you’re led.

Fall in love

with heart and mind,

then true love you’ll find.”

She couldn’t help but feel a little
impatient, for she’d already endured last-lectures from Elda all
during supper, and even afterward.

Sidal got to her feet. “Then I’m sure you’ll
have a wonderful time, and that’s what I want most for you. But . .
.” She twisted a fine opal ring off her finger, and slid it onto
one of Rhis’s. “Just in case. No one need ever know. If you do find
yourself in trouble, and need me, then touch this stone and say my
name three times.”

Rhis glanced down at the ring, and closed her
other hand over it. “Thank you, Sidal,” she said. “Do you foresee
trouble?”

The tall princess-mage bent down and kissed
Rhis on the forehead. “No one ever foresees trouble, unless she is
looking for it,” she said. “So if you don’t use the ring-magic, I
will know that you are having a wonderful visit and that you don’t
need it. It would be terrible if trouble found you, and you had no
one to help you. Never mind. Just wear it and think of me when you
are dancing. She caressed Rhis’s cheek, then left.

Rhis clapped off her glowglobe and snuggled
under her quilts, thinking about the ring, and about Sidal. Did her
serious sister have a romantic side after all?

Feeling very confused, Rhis let her thoughts
drift into her own dreams, and then into sleep.

She woke up to streaming sunshine and a
promising new day. Remembering her trip, she raced out of bed and
into her dressing room where Keris, the new maid, had her new
traveling gown all laid out and ready for her. The rest of the room
looked empty, with all her trunks packed and gone downstairs to the
stable.

After a hasty breakfast, she danced into the
audience room to kiss her father good-bye, for he was already at
work. The rest of the family accompanied her to the courtyard to
see her off. She embraced them all, winning a smile from her mother
when she gave Elda a spontaneous hug. “Thank you for bearing with
me, Elda,” she said happily. “I’ll do my best to make you
proud.”

Elda’s cheeks flushed red, but she smiled a
little. “Dignity, Rhis. Remember, a
worthy
prince looks for
dignity and dedication to duty above all in his future queen.”

That sounds just like my boring
brother
, Rhis thought, but all she said was, “I’ll
remember!”

Then Rhis climbed into the coach, waved from
the window, and they were off.

Rhis watched her home until the road down the
mountain took them around a great slope and the mighty stone castle
slid from sight. It was not a handsome castle, Rhis thought,
watching the last tower disappear from view. In fact, most would
probably consider it gloomy, for it had been built to withstand
weather and marauders. Elda, who had grown up in the more peaceable
Gensam, had once said, “A palace is quite different, child. Built
not just for beauty but for comfort.”

Rhis grimaced, for the first time thinking
about what those words meant. She’d grown up with all those narrow
stairways and stone rooms and cold slate floors, so she was used to
them. Would a visitor think them barbaric? Maybe it was better that
no prince had shown up to court her!

Anyway,
now
she’d see a real palace.
Impatience gnawed at her as she realized just how long a trip lay
ahead of her. Though Nym was small on the map, it would take
several days to wind down through the treacherous mountains—if the
weather held. If the weather turned truly severe, as it sometimes
did, she could be held up a week or more.

She wished that she could travel about by
magic, as Sidal and her mother did. But people other than mages
seldom traveled by magic, because apparently it was dangerous, and
sometimes had nasty effects. And you could only go one at a time,
to specially designated destinations—either a place, or, more
rarely, a person.

Rhis looked down at her ring. Would it be
dangerous for Sidal to transfer directly to Rhis, wherever she
might be? Rhis considered her sister, who had professed not to like
dangerous circumstances—but who was obviously ready to face them if
necessary.

People are surprising
, she thought,
settling back in the cold coach, and pulling a soft woolen quilt up
around her chin.
Even the ones you think you know
.

oOo

A long series of days followed, each much
alike, as the coach made its way steadily northward. The journey
out of Nym did not take weeks, for the weather stayed relatively
mild. They descended steadily through the fir-dotted heights, down
into pine forest, then at last reached the Common Road along the
coast of Arpalon. They sped along the rolling hills, under a
variety of trees Rhis had only seen pictures of. The roads were
paved and smooth, and the journey seemed less arduous. Though still
quite long.

The inns they stayed at were comfortable, but
after the first exciting night of sleeping away from home, they
blended into a series of big wooden buildings with nice beds and
fine meals, supervised by the quiet, efficient staff that Elda had
sent to protect Rhis. These servants also kept her from talking to
anybody on the road, nor did they tell anyone who she was. The days
when Nym’s royalty were routinely kidnapped for fabulous ransoms if
they left the protection of the mountains were not all
that
long in the past.

Rhis knew these things, but she still found
traveling to be very dull. She caught glimpses of people who looked
interesting, from far-away places, as she was conducted straight to
her room at night—and then to her carriage in the morning, after
her lonely breakfast.

She had begun the journey resenting the fact
that Elda had arranged for her to meet her younger sister, Princess
Shera of Gensam, at the border. By the time Rhis had made her way
north without speaking to a single person except the quiet Keris,
she was looking forward to Shera, in spite of how boring her
letters had been.

Shera was a year older than Rhis. When Rhis
turned six, not long after Elda married Gavan, Elda had insisted
that it would be seemly for the two princesses to start a
correspondence. She had supervised each of Rhis’s letters, saying,
“It’s as well you learn early how royalty carry on a
correspondence, for you never know when you might need it.”

So Rhis had had to write, in her very best
handwriting, formally phrased letters describing her studies—and
not much else. Just once she’d said something about her favorite
ballads, but Elda had been horrified. “You have to remember that to
the rest of the world, Nym is a country full of wild people. No one
in those old songs was the least bit civilized.” So Rhis had had to
recopy the letter, leaving out her favorite subject.

The letters she received back were neatly
written, and very, very uninteresting. Elda had obviously told the
truth: civilized princesses really did just brag about their
studies, and proper interests, like growing flowers. Rhis was
always glad when winter came, preventing messengers from getting
through too often, which slowed down the tedious exchange.

When at last they neared the border of
Arpalon and Gensam, Rhis was so looking forward to seeing Shera she
felt she could talk about roses and starflowers all day, if only
she could
talk
.

They were to meet at the ancient Royal Inn on
the border, where many treaties and royal marriages had been
negotiated in the turbulent past.

The word ‘inn’ was misleading, Rhis decided
when she saw the huge building with its numerous windows and fine
columned archways. A great many well-dressed people strolled about,
and for the first time she was glad of her entourage when they
rolled up the carriageway to the splendid courtyard. Nothing in Nym
was this fine! People stared so when she emerged from her carriage,
but no one smiled.

She walked inside quickly, glad to follow
Mistress Ranla, her father’s courier, who was the leader of the
entourage. A brief glimpse of a spacious area full of fine
furnishings and handsomely dressed folk strolling about was all she
got before she was conducted up a grand, sweeping stairway to
another storey, and then to a suite of huge rooms where nothing was
made of stone. The walls were smooth wood painted a warm cream
color.

She sank down onto the nearest chair, as
servants and retainers curtseyed and moved about arranging things.
A few moments later a girl her own age approached with a cautious,
uncertain step. She was much shorter than Rhis. She had a round
figure, a moon-shaped face, and the honey-brown skin common to
their end of the continent, with a rosebud of a mouth. Her hair was
a rich chestnut brown, glinting with red highlights, and it had
natural wave that made long bouncy curls that Rhis envied at once.
Her gown, light green trimmed with pearls and dark green ribbons,
was at least as fine as the finest of the gowns in Rhis’s trunks,
and it made her brown eyes look greenish, contrasting delightfully
with her reddish hair.

She gave a correct nod as Rhis rose to her
feet. “Princess Rhis?” Her voice was high, with a slight lisp.

“Princess Shera?” Rhis said, giving the same
nod.

“My parents bid me welcome you to Gensam,”
Shera said in a carefully modulated voice. “I trust our journey
together will be pleasant.”

Rhis knew what to say to that. “Thank you. In
my turn, I am to convey greetings and thanks from my parents to
yours, and from your honored sister, Princess Elda, as well.”

The conversation proceeded like that for a
short time, each girl admirably formal and dignified and very, very
proper. Rhis was glad of her lessons with Elda. At least she wasn’t
making a fool of herself. But by the time a quiet servant had
brought in hot chocolate and biscuits, Rhis was feeling the strain
of so much dignified, formal conversation. At the thought of two
more weeks of it, she found herself wishing that she would be alone
after all.

When next Shera spoke, it was to praise the
inn’s garden. Rhis half-listened to the slow, lisping voice
enumerate the fine early blooms and important plants that she had
found in her five days’ stay while waiting for Rhis’s arrival.
Since very few flowers grew in cold, high Nym, Rhis didn’t
recognize half the names she heard, and she couldn’t help her mind
wandering.

She was choosing her fourth biscuit—she
wasn’t hungry, but at least it gave her something to do with her
hands—when she happened to look up, just as Shera started to
yawn.

The princess closed her jaw at once, her eyes
watering slightly.

“If you are tired, Princess Shera, it will
not discommode me if you wish to retire to rest,” Rhis said
politely, hoping to get rid of her for a time.

Shera’s round face went bright pink. “I’m not
tired—” she said quickly, then she turned even redder.

Rhis stared. Was it possible that Shera was
as bored as she was? How to find out, without making some terrible
mistake in etiquette that would disgrace her family—her entire
kingdom?

“Not tired?” she repeated in her most polite
voice.

“Well, a little, maybe. There was music last
night, and perhaps I stayed awake too long to hear it,” Shera said,
just as politely.

“Do you, ah, like music?” Rhis asked, even
more politely.

Shera’s eyes widened slightly, an expression
of surprise and delight, but then her face smoothed into blankness,
and she said very formally, “Fine music is a very appropriate
diversion.”

Rhis almost choked on her biscuit. Elda had
often said that, in just the same voice:
Fine music is a very
appropriate diversion
—meaning, of course, that ballads and the
like were most definitely not ‘fine music’ or ‘appropriate.’

“Princess Elda says that often,” Rhis said
slowly, watching Shera’s face.

At the mention of Elda’s name, Shera’s little
nose wrinkled slightly, then her face smoothed and she languidly
picked up her hot chocolate cup, her fingers held precisely in the
approved position.

Rhis took a deep breath. “I,” she said
bravely, “happen to like ballads. And I know that those are not
considered fine music.”

Shera hastily lowered her chocolate cup. She
gulped once or twice, her eyes tearing again, and Rhis clapped her
hand over her mouth in an effort not to laugh.

“Ballads?” Shera squeaked, her big
greeny-brown eyes going wide and round.

Rhis nodded firmly. “Love them.
All
of
them.”

“Do you . . . know . . .
Prince Aroverd
and the Snow Woman
?” Shera asked, her voice high, and not at
all modulated.

Again Rhis nodded firmly. “All twenty-seven
verses. And I know the older version—”

“—
The Snowlass and the Toadfield
,”
Shera breathed.

The girls stared at each other.

“My favorite part is when she turns the
invading army into toads,” Shera said.

“I like that part, but my favorite is when
she pushes the evil Red Mage into the swamp and stops the prince’s
runaway coach before it sinks—”

“Oh, I love that part, too.” Shera gave a
fervent sigh. “I used to pretend I was the Snow Lass, going on
adventures, and having princes wanting to marry me.”

Rhis dared one more thing. “I can play it on
the tiranthe,” she said quickly.

And again Shera’s eyes widened in delight,
but this time she forgot to smooth out her face. Instead, she
clasped her hands together. “Oh, I
do
envy you,” she said.
“We could never learn to play anything.”

Rhis grinned. “Elda told me that only
entertainers play. A princess might strum if a boy professes to
like music, but only to look decorative, and that proper princesses
summon entertainers when they want real music. But proper
princesses don’t ever want ballads. So after I learned the chords
from a tutor, and she sent him away, I learned in secret from the
cook’s nephew, who comes home every winter from his group of
traveling players. Of course I wasn’t allowed to pack my tiranthe
for the trip.”