Princess Academy (7 page)

n

Market Prices, Set by King’s Treasurer

Bushel of wheat—one silver coin

Full-grown pig—three silver coins

Carriage horse—five silver coins or one gold coin

n

The list went on, giving the number of silver or gold coins for a cow, a load of timber, a plow horse, a good wagon. The last item on the list made Miri’s heart pound. “Squared block of linder,” it read. “One gold coin.”

Just then the other girls entered the classroom.

“Look at Miri, still reading,” said Katar.

“Huh? Oh, yes,” Miri mumbled.

In the lowlands, one block of linder was worth five bushels of wheat. Five!

“Reading every book ten times won’t be enough to make the prince choose you,” said Katar.

“Maybe,” said Miri, sliding the book onto the shelf.

One block of linder would be worth a fine horse, finer than anything the traders hooked to their wagons.

“You don’t need to act as if you’ve already won, Miri,” said Bena.

“Indoor behavior,” said Olana, entering, “or you’ll take turns in the closet all night.”

Miri took her seat, dizzy with her discovery. She stared at her feet, resting so casually on a floorstone of linder. She tried to estimate how many blocks of linder had been used to build the foundation of that building, how many bushels of grain it would buy, how much wood to build a chapel big enough to hold the whole village, enough food so no one’s belly felt pinched on a winter’s night, a library of books, spun cloth like the lowlanders wore, new shoes, musical instruments, sweets for the little ones, a comfortable chair for every grandparent, and a hundred other necessities and fancy things. If the traders dealt fairly, her village could benefit from the heaps of wonders the rest of the kingdom seemed to enjoy.

She could not wait to tell her pa and the other villagers. Soon now. Spring holiday was in two months, and by then the snow would break enough to make walking to the village possible. Surely Olana would allow them to return home for that celebration.

“Miri!”

Miri jumped at her name and realized belatedly that Olana had spoken it several times.

“Yes, Tutor Olana?” she said, attempting to display meekness.

“It seems you haven’t had time to contemplate the value of paying attention. You just lost your outdoor privileges for the rest of the week, and since that doesn’t seem punishment enough, you are forbidden to touch the books for that period.”

“Yes, Tutor Olana.” In truth, Miri did not mind. Between quarry-speech and Commerce, she had plenty to think about.

n

Chapter Nine

Breathe, buzz, hint, spell

Sigh, speak, say, tell

n

E
ach day, each snowfall, each lesson until spring holiday felt endless, and Miri was sore and restless with waiting. Each night as she lay on her pallet, she held on to the thought that she was one night closer to telling her pa and the villagers about Commerce. All seemed to feel the anticipation of spring. Even Katar stared out the window as though measuring the snow depth with her eyes and counting the days until they could go home.

When Miri’s punishment lapsed, she walked outdoors with Britta, explaining what they had to look forward to.

“Food,” she said. “The best. Doter shares her honeyed nuts, and Frid’s pa makes salted rabbit so thin it melts on your tongue. And hot tea with honey, the last of the apples salted and roasted, bread on a stick baked over a fire and seasoned with rabbit fat. Games and contests, and when the night comes we build bonfires from wood gathered all year and hold story shouts.”

“Sounds lovely.” Britta’s faraway look said she was already imagining it.

“And it will be even better this year,” said Miri. “I have some secrets.”

Just by admitting she had them, the secrets pushed inside her, a snowmelt stream against a fallen branch, and the desire to share swept over her. She hesitated. Would Britta believe her? Or would she laugh? Miri thought of Doter’s saying,
Never hesitate if you know it’s right.
After months of ignoring Britta just for being a lowlander, at least she deserved Miri’s trust.

So Miri took Britta on a frantic stroll around the academy, telling her with huffs of frosty breath about Commerce and gold coins and quarry-speech outside the quarry. Telling someone felt good, like drinking warmed goat’s milk, and she rushed out every detail before Olana could call them back.

“That’s the most amazing story I ever heard.” Britta smiled, looking where the sun picked out stars on the icy husk of the snow. “What the traders are doing, that sounds dirty to me. We have to change that.”

“So, you really never heard anyone using quarry-speech? Not even when you were working in the quarry?”

Britta shook her head. “Before coming up here, I never imagined such things could exist. It makes sense to me that mountain folk have that talent. I remember, the noise in the quarry was deafening, even with clay plugs in my ears.”

“Up here, quarry-speech is as normal as bug bites. I don’t suppose anyone’s thought much about it.”

Britta scratched her nose. “Maybe that was why I had a hard time at first, that and everyone is singing all the time. I could never join in because I don’t know the words.”

“You don’t have to know the words, you just make up your own.”

“But I don’t know the tunes.”

“You don’t need to know the tunes, just find the rhythm and the song comes.”

“I can’t do that. I never learned how.”

Miri had never realized that singing was something that needed to be learned. “Is it true what they say about lowlanders, that they have a way with growing things?”

“I’ve never heard that, but it is a lot greener down there.” Britta looked west. “Less snow, more rain, green all along the seashore, and forests and farmlands for miles. Every house has its own garden.”

“I’d like to see it sometime.” It was awkward for Miri to admit, but she did want to see the lowlands, the places she had imagined since she was a child and the things she had read about at the academy. The ocean, cities, palaces built of linder, musicians and artists, people from countries across the ocean, sailing ships full of wonders to sell and trade, a king and a queen. And a prince. Perhaps he would not be so horrible; perhaps he would be Britta’s kind of lowlander.

“I’d like to see it with you,” said Britta. “Someday. When you’re the princess.”

Miri laughed and pushed Britta’s shoulder. “Maybe he’ll choose you, Lady Britta. I mean, Princess Britta.”

“No, not me. In a room full of girls, you and Liana and everybody, he won’t even look at me.”

“He will so—”

“It’s all right, Miri,” said Britta. “I don’t care. It should be you or someone else really from Mount Eskel. I’m glad I got to attend the academy and meet you. That’s the good part. Who cares about a prince, anyway?”

“I’d wager the prince himself cares a great deal,” said Miri as they rushed back to the academy at Olana’s call. “And he might have a puppy who is quite fond of him.”

“The only thing I wish is that whoever does become the princess is happy, I mean really, really happy. Otherwise, what would it matter, right?”

Back in the classroom as Olana spouted the principles of Conversation Miri had already memorized, she let her mind wander, imagined marrying a prince who looked like Peder and lived in a palace of linder, and wondered if she would be, as Britta had said, really, really happy. Miri shook her head at the thought. Such a thing felt impossible, like her outlandish miri flower wishes, like trying to envision the ocean.

On the other hand, academy princess, with its immediate promise and silver gown, felt real, something she could daydream about.

In order to beat Katar as first in the academy, Miri knew she would have to be an expert on everything Olana taught. The lesson on Diplomacy had been vague and rushed, so the next rest day during personal study, Miri read a chapter on Diplomacy in
Danlander Commerce
, puzzling over the rules and how one might actually use them.

Esa sat in front of her, twirling a lock of hair the same shade as Peder’s. Miri remembered the day Esa had gestured to her to come outside with the others. She had never explained about Olana and the closet and why she had not followed.

“Esa, what do you think this means?” Miri whispered, pointing to one of the general rules of Diplomacy—
Build on common ground
.

“I’m not sure.” Esa took the book and read for a few minutes, flipping through several pages. “The book gives an example here, talking about a time when Danlanders first started to trade with eastern tribes who didn’t speak our language. Before they could begin trading, they had to create relationships of trust, so they looked for things both peoples had in common.” She paused to keep reading. “Listen to this—apparently a friendship between a Danlander and a chief of a tribe began when they discovered that both enjoyed eating roasted fish eyeballs. Ick. Funny way to start a friendship.”

Miri smiled. “Didn’t ours start when we were two years old and ate half of your ma’s pot of butter under the table?”

Esa laughed and Katar shushed them. Miri frowned at Katar for spoiling the moment. She had always longed to be good friends with Esa, but Peder had never wanted his baby sister to tag along with them, and then as they grew up . . . Miri looked at the nineteen girls around her, bent over books and tablets, moving their lips as they read. It had been difficult to keep childhood friends while the others worked in the quarry and she was alone with the goats. But they were all together at the academy. If she wanted it, now was her chance.

“Thank you, Esa,” Miri whispered.

Build on common ground.
The question of quarry-speech was constantly murmuring in the back of Miri’s mind, and the truth in this idea held her and pushed her thoughts deeper. Her questions had to wait until she could relax into her thinking time, in the bedchamber after the hushed whispers and giggles of nighttime were replaced by snores and she felt safe, awake, and alone.

They didn’t speak the same language,
she thought, pondering the story Esa had read,
so they found other ways to communicate by sharing what they had in common.

When Gerti had heard Miri’s quarry-speech, she had remembered her own time in the closet. The thing they had in common—they had both experienced the closet and the scuttling noises of the rat.

Miri’s thoughts began to buzz like flies over a meal. That last day before coming to the academy, Miri had heard Doter tell another quarry worker to lighten the blow. How had she known what Doter said? Thinking back to that moment, she realized she had imagined the time Marda had taught her how to pound a wheel of cheese and corrected her when she hit it too hard. The quarry-speech had prompted a real memory in her own mind, and she had interpreted the memory into what it might mean in that moment—
Lighten the blow.

Quarry-speech used memories to carry messages.

Peder and her pa talked about quarry-speech as though it were second nature, and Miri guessed they did not realize how it worked and did not really care. But Miri did. The doings of the quarry had always seemed some bright, forbidden secret. Now it was her secret, and holding it to herself felt warm and delicious, like drinking the last cup of honeyed tea. She wanted to keep that feeling.

n

Chapter Ten

No wolf falters before the bite

So strike

No hawk wavers before the dive

Just strike

n

O
ne more snowfall, then the clouds retreated higher than any mountain. Winter’s grip eased, and the sun seemed to lean in closer to Mount Eskel. It was painfully bright, the sky a hot blue. The hard crust of snow softened and patches of earth emerged, showing green things rising out of the mud and pushing up onto the hills. The smell of the wind changed—it felt thicker, richer, like the air around a cook pot. Spring was stretching on the mountain.

More and more often, the girls looked up from their books and toward the heartening sight of Mount Eskel’s peak, shedding white for brown and green. Miri could not think of returning home without a plummeting sensation in her belly. She hoped so powerfully to be able to share the secrets of Commerce and change trading for her village that she nearly trembled with it. Then, the day before they planned on making the trek for spring holiday, Olana announced a test.

“I know you think to return tomorrow,” said Olana. “Your spring holiday is not a Danlander tradition, and this academy is under no obligation to honor it. Let the exam determine if you’ve earned the right to return home. Those who don’t pass will remain at the academy, engaged in personal study.”

The testing began with reading aloud, and Miri winced when Frid struggled with the big words and Gerti had no comprehension of the text on the page. Olana asked questions on History, Geography, and Kings and Queens, and the girls wrote out their answers on clay tablets. They walked across the room to exhibit Poise and conversed in pairs. Olana kept track of each girl’s progress on a piece of parchment.

As painful as the testing was, Olana made it worse by declaring she would not give the scores until the next day.

“It will be good for you to ponder your performance until morning,” said Olana.

In their bedchamber, Miri heard panicked whispering late into the night.

“I have to go home.”

“Me too. No matter what.”

“I know I failed. I’m sure I did. All the questions were so hard.”

“She hates us. She’ll fail us all just to be mean.”

“Shush, or she’ll fail us for talking.”

The next morning, the girls sat so straight that they did not touch the backs of their chairs. The weight of Miri’s desire to return home made her feel lopsided and giddy.
If Olana won’t let me go
, she thought,
I may have to run.
But she was not ready to give up on the academy either, on all she was learning, on the hopes of becoming academy princess and being that special one, even on the rough and furtive yearning that she would not let herself think on too long—leaving the mountain, giving her pa the house in the painting, becoming a princess.

“Well,” said Olana, facing the class with hands clasped behind her back. “Any guesses?”

No one answered.

“No need to drag it out,” said Olana, and someone snorted at the comment. “You all failed.”

A collective gasp went up.

“Except Miri and Katar.”

Miri exchanged looks with Katar and saw that the other girl was pleased.

“You both may go.” Olana waved them off.

Katar walked to the door and turned, waiting. Miri had not moved.

“Tutor Olana.” Miri swallowed and spoke a little louder. “Tutor Olana, that doesn’t seem fair.”

“Passing the test doesn’t give you freedom to speak out, Miri,” said Olana. “Go this moment or forfeit your right to go at all. Now, the rest of you are miles behind where you should be, and I will not have you mortify me in front of the chief delegate and the prince. I will busy myself elsewhere in the building for the next couple of days. I’d rather not see much of you, which means I had better not
hear
much from you.”

Miri had not left her seat. If she went with Katar, the others girls might never forgive her, but if she stayed, she could not deliver her news before the first trading of the season. She pressed her hands on her chair, wanting to stand, afraid to do so. Katar made exaggerated expressions of impatience by widening her eyes and tapping her foot.

Before Miri could make up her mind, Esa stood, her face a burning red. She clenched her left arm with her right hand.

“No,” said Esa.

Olana turned her icy glare to Esa. “What was that?”

“I said . . . I said,” Esa stuttered. She blinked many times, and tears began to leak from her eyes. “I said, no. I said, I’m going to spring holiday, and I don’t care what happens.”

Miri stared at Esa and felt as breathless as if she had fallen on her back. Esa was the one girl who had never missed a meal or received a palm lashing, always holding her tongue, always obedient.

Miri could see no hope in Esa’s face. She seemed to cringe, waiting for the inevitable punishment, knowing she would never be allowed to leave but unable to stop her protest.

Never hesitate if you know it’s right.
Miri was going to spring holiday, and she wanted everyone to go with her. If they ran all at once, she believed Olana and the soldiers could not stop them.

“A few hours in the closet might chill the impudence out of you,” Olana was saying.

Miri knew she had to act before Olana called the soldiers or locked Esa up. After months of cold tension, she was afraid she could not convince the girls to run home. Besides, she would not be able to talk for long before Olana would have the soldiers haul her away. No, her gut told her that the only way to communicate her plea to run was to use quarry-speech.

She did not know if it was possible to say something so specific; she had never tried. But if quarry-speech used memories, could she convey more than just quarry warnings? Could she tell everyone to run?

Miri stomped her foot on the linder floorstones and sang out loud, hoping to distract Olana from taking Esa to the closet. “No wolf falters before the bite. So strike. No hawk wavers before the dive. Just strike.” It was a song for wedge work, when every stroke was critical. If any quarrier in the line delayed a strike, the crack could split the wrong way and ruin the linder block. There could be no hesitation.

Olana gaped at Miri stomping and singing. That made Miri laugh.

“That’s enough,” said Olana.

“No sun pauses before the set, so swing,” Miri sang on, while her thoughts dashed around, trying to find a common memory that would encourage all the girls to run at once. “No rain delays before the fall. Just swing.” Then she had it—Rabbit and Wolf, a game all villagers knew. The children would sit in a circle and the child who was the “wolf” chased the “rabbit” around the outside of the circle, trying to touch her hair. If the wolf touched the rabbit anywhere else, it was an unfair touch. The rabbit yelled, “Rabbits, run!” and all the children stood and ran.

Miri seized this memory and sang it with her thoughts, down into the beating of her boot, down into the linder.

The sight of Olana shivered, and her memory of the game expanded, seeming immediate and clear. Half the girls stood right up, and the rest flinched or jumped or shook their heads as if trying to jiggle water out of their ears. Only Britta and Olana did not react.

“What is going on?” Olana looked around. She seemed too bewildered by the odd behavior to know what to do. “Why are you standing?”

Again Miri sang the memory in quarry-speech, and the rest of the girls stood. Even Bena and Katar had knowing smiles on their faces. Miri took Britta’s arm and whispered, “We’re going home now.”

Despite her tears, Esa grinned. “Rabbits, run.”

Some of the girls squealed with delight and fear as they darted out of the classroom and dashed down the steps.

Behind them, Olana bellowed, “If you leave now, don’t think about coming back! Do you hear me?”

They laughed as they ran. It was still morning, and the chilly air of early spring nipped and butted Miri’s skin. She would make it home. She would have a chance to tell her pa about Commerce. She wanted to hug the whole world.

“Shouldn’t we hurry?” asked Gerti, looking over her shoulder. “What if the soldiers catch us?”

“One of us is going to be the princess one day,” said Miri. “What can they do, run us all through with their swords?”

Thirteen-year-old Jetta shrieked, and the others laughed at her fright. The soldiers did not follow, and the girls slowed to a walk, talking over everything they must have missed at home these last months and all that they would do for spring holiday. Miri took Britta’s hand, and Esa and Frid walked with them.

“I guess we’ve being playing Wolf and Rabbit with Olana all along,” said Miri, “but when she picks on Esa, that’s an unfair touch. I’m glad we ran.”

“So am I,” said Esa. “I was in the closet for sure.”

“And it’s time that rat’s reign of terror ended.” Miri stole a sideways glance at Esa, then looked back at the road. “I never apologized for getting everyone in trouble, and then I was too embarrassed to speak up. I thought you wouldn’t forgive me, but I am sorry.”

Frid’s eyes widened. “Oh. I thought all along you were mad at us.”

“You did?”

“You always stayed inside reading and didn’t talk to us. I guessed you were angry that we didn’t take your side against Katar.”

Miri laughed, pleased. “And I thought you were too angry to talk to me.”

“Miri, I’m dying to know,” said Esa. “That was you who quarry-spoke back there, wasn’t it? It felt like you. But how did you do it? I’ve never heard anyone say, ‘Rabbits, run!’ before, and outside the quarry!”

They were walking through a quarry some hundred years deserted, but patches of linder too thin to mine still gleamed through the mud and rock shards. Miri crouched on a lean slab, tapped the rhythm with her fist, and chose a memory. At age three, she and Esa had wriggled out of Doter’s notice and scampered dangerously close to the cliff’s edge. “Take care!” Doter had shouted before pulling them to safety.
Take care
, Miri now quarry-spoke.

Frid’s mouth hung open, and Esa nodded and smiled.

“I didn’t think it was possible outside our quarry,” said Frid.

“What did you just see?” asked Miri.

“See?” asked Esa. “What do you mean? I heard a warning about being careful and coming away from an edge.”

“But does anything else occur to you? A memory of anything?” Miri rapped again, sang aloud, and sang inside.

“I guess one time when you and I almost fell off the cliff and my ma pulled us back.”

“Me too!” said Miri. “But what does it remind you of, Frid?”

“When Os was on a block high in the quarry, and I saw him lose his balance and fall.”

Miri clapped her hands together. “It must be true. I’ve been thinking that quarry-speech works in memories. If two people have the same memory, like Esa and me, then we might imagine the same scene. But if not, then the quarry-speech nudges the nearest memory.”

“Maybe that’s why lowlanders can’t hear it,” said Britta. “We don’t have enough shared memories.”

“I’ve been trying to figure out quarry-speech for months,” said Miri, “but I still don’t know why it sometimes works outside the quarry and sometimes not.”

Esa shielded her eyes to spot the rest of the girls walking on the road ahead. “Let’s think about it later. I’m dying for some honeyed nuts.”

The four girls skipped to catch up with the others and hollered spring songs all the way home.