The Princess Trap (32 page)

T
he traffic on the dam
had gradually dwindled to nothing. Just an occasional car came from the city, looking almost lost on the broad highway, but not a single vehicle crossed the dam to go into Holmburg.

Had the road farther out been blocked to clear the way for tanks and troop transport? If so, the people who were now beginning to arrive must have found a way around any barriers. One by one or in small groups they headed toward Nahira, their weapons in their belts or in their hands. Jenna saw scythes and axes, knives of all sizes, and at least one man carrying an air gun. So these were the dreaded rebels? It was laughable — they were farmers and shepherds, laborers and factory workers, and they’d brought their tools with them. How could Nahira possibly think they’d be able to hold up an entire army? Fifty, sixty, at most seventy men and women without real weapons? What could they do against tanks and machine guns? It was stupid even to go on hoping.

Nahira now stepped out of the darkness into the middle of the road. She stood in the center lane and raised her arms for silence. In the cold light of the streetlamps, her tiny figure cast a long shadow.

“Thank you for coming!” she said. “All of you. But there are only a few of us, and we should not deceive ourselves. Against the soldiers and their tanks we don’t stand a chance. We are too weak. We don’t have proper weapons. All we have is ourselves and our courage.” A silence had fallen over the crowd. “So lay down your scythes, your axes, your knives, and your guns. We shall gather here in the middle of the road. The soldiers should know that the people standing before them will not use force. The people standing before them have nothing to oppose the army with except their lives, and their hopes for a better future.”

“No weapons at all?” cried a young man, grasping his ax even more tightly. “Have you lost your mind, Nahira? They have tanks. They have —”

“That’s precisely the reason,” said Nahira. “They have tanks. We have our hope for justice and our dream of a better life. We shall wait.”

“There aren’t enough of us!” cried a woman with a scythe. “Nahira, it’s insane. How can we possibly …?”

But the first of them had already begun hesitantly to lay down their weapons. The pile of things they had brought to defend themselves with grew higher and higher. And the higher it became, the more pathetic it looked, and the more helpless they appeared.

“Nahira!” whispered Jenna. They had to stop this. Perry was right: It was madness.

And then they heard the rumble of the tanks. The chains grating over the asphalt. The sound was unmistakable.

“They’re coming,” murmured Jonas. Jenna hadn’t even noticed that he was standing next to her. Maybe he hadn’t realized it himself. “Oh God, they’re really coming.”

Then, out of the bushes in which they themselves had been hiding, stepped a slender figure. Her long blonde hair shone even in the pale light of the streetlamps.

“Ylva!” gasped Jenna. What was
she
doing here?

Ylva didn’t look at her, or at Jonas. As the rumble of the tanks drew ever nearer, Ylva marched straight up to Nahira.

“If you don’t mind,” she said, “I’d like to stand with you.”

Once again they’d spent the whole evening glued to the television.

“That’s mine!” Bea kept shouting when the blurred pictures of the trucks and the hangars flickered across the screen. “Look! From my cell phone!”

“Yeah, yeah,” said her father for the third time. “I think we’ve got the message.”

Nevertheless, she knew how proud of her he was. After all, it had been thanks to her that these reports were going around the globe. Ordinary Bea from Nowheresville. Thanks to her, and thanks to the policeman who had sent the video from her phone to all the newspapers and TV companies.

B
ea had totally lucked out
by being at the police station when she’d called Jenna. Who would have put a semihysterical girl straight through to the chief political editor? But with the authority of the state behind him, the policeman had been connected automatically.

“Hate to think what the phone bill will be,” the policeman had said. “But what the heck, it’s all for a good cause, right?” And he’d gone on to call the next one, and the one after that.

Now they were watching yet another special news program about Scandia.

“Breaking news!” said the anchorman. The shock effect of the words made Bea realize just how close she’d been to falling asleep. It was almost two o’clock in the morning. At this time on a normal weekday, she’d have long since been in bed.

“As these scenes, which our reporter filmed from his hotel window, clearly show, Scandians are flocking by the thousands to the palace square. It seems that the whole country has now heard about the imminent threat of a coup, and even the South Scandians, who have lost and will lose many of their privileges because of the reforms, are in an apparent majority on the side of the king and the elected government.”

“What is he talking about?” asked Bea.

The reporter now left his room to mingle with the dense crowd of people in the street, who were all heading in the same direction. He held his microphone out to an elderly man.

“You don’t think we’d actually let ourselves be tricked like that, do you?” he said. “We’ll never believe another word they tell us! Have you heard what they did? The shortages? It wasn’t the rebels at all! Do these plotters seriously think we’ll let ourselves be governed by people who’ve betrayed us like that? Ha! The scoundrels. We won’t let them get away with it!” And then he disappeared into the crowd.

The familiar face of the reporter now appeared on the screen. “And so it appears that, by opening up their country with the reforms of the past year, the government took a step that might now be crucial to its survival,” he said. “Access to foreign television channels and the Internet, which had been denied to the Scandians until recently, has allowed every citizen to find out what’s being reported beyond the state-controlled stations of Scandia 1 and 2. And the commitment of the people to defending and promoting these reforms is both surprising and dramatic. If indeed the tanks should enter the city tonight …”

“I bet they will,” said Bea’s father. “We know what those plotters are like!”

“… they will have to point their guns not only at the government, but also at their own people. Whether the plotters expected such a development remains to be seen. How will they respond? How much blood are they prepared to shed when the world as well as the rest of the Scandian nation is watching? Everyone now knows that this is an artificial crisis deliberately staged by a secret cabal claiming they want to free the people from the strife that they themselves created!”

Bea leaned back on the sofa. “And all thanks to me!” she said. She’d never been interested in politics — who was? But now, suddenly, she had helped change the fate of an entire nation.

“OK, freedom fighter,” said her mother. “Isn’t it about time you went to bed?”

Bea shook her head. “Not until they say that Jenna is safe. What happened to her? Don’t they know?”

Her father said nothing.

“Then I suppose I’d better brew some coffee,” said her mother. They were in for a long night.

Until now Jenna had only seen tanks on television. Since she had been a princess living in Scandia, there hadn’t been any more military parades, and now, as these mighty machines came rumbling toward her, she held her breath. Out of the darkness of the forests they were advancing, four abreast, slowly and massively. Their searchlights lit up everything before them as bright as day. She knew that they were all helpless in the face of such power.

Next to her in the human chain stood Perry, holding her hand tight. On her other side was a North Scandian boy with bags under his eyes, who had somehow come between her and Jonas.

Next to Jonas was Ylva.

The tanks were so much darker and larger than Jenna had imagined, and her fear suddenly grew equally large and dark. Why was she standing here? They would never be able to save the country. The tank treads split the asphalt, and the barrels of the guns moved from left to right, like the antennae of giant blind insects hungrily seeking their prey.

The machines were coming nearer and nearer, but they weren’t slowing down. It was as if the soldiers in the turrets really were blind, as if they didn’t see the people waiting ahead of them, hand in hand in the glaring light.

“Now!” whispered Jenna.

The first row of tanks had reached the pathetic pile of weapons. Metal splintered under the chains, and scythes and axes, sickles and knives, were crushed to powder, air guns and pistols ground to dust. But the massive hulls didn’t deviate an inch from their path. They rolled forward, crunching the weapons as if offering the people in front of their gun barrels one final proof of their terrible power, one final chance to get out of their path.

“Mom!” Jenna murmured, and felt her legs desperately wanting to run away. But Perry’s hand held her fast, and on her other side the fingers of the North Scandian boy pressed equally hard — maybe to encourage her, maybe to warn her.

Only thirty feet to go. Only twenty. Only ten. They were really going to do it.

And then the column stopped. The guns were still aimed at the people in front of them, but the terrifying noise suddenly ceased. The silence only increased Jenna’s fear.

Along the hard shoulder of the road, racing at breakneck speed past the stationary tanks, came an armored car. Even before it screeched to a halt just a few feet in front of the people on the dam, the passenger door flew open and a man leaped out. In the bright light, Jenna could see gold braiding and stars on his uniform and his cap. She heard the crackle of a megaphone.

Von Thunberg
, thought Jenna, and threw a sideways glance at Ylva.

But Ylva did not try to release herself from the human chain.

“Please clear the road!” boomed the general. “Attention! Attention! Please clear the road at once! If you don’t, we will have no choice but to —”

“No!” said Nahira. Unnoticed, she had stepped out of the crowd, and now stood in front of the general, tiny and tired, but driven by an inner strength. “Why would we have come, General, if we were prepared to leave at the first threat, or the first shot you fire at us?” She turned and looked straight into the faces of her followers. “We stay!” she cried. “We stay!”

Someone in the chain began to clap, but then stopped abruptly when no one else joined in. After that, the quietness seemed even more menacing. But nobody moved, and the silence was so complete that you could almost hear it.

“Please be sensible!” shouted von Thunberg. His voice sounded strained. “Please clear the road! Otherwise we will be forced to —”

“Forced?” cried Nahira. “Forced? Who is forcing you, von Thunberg? Isn’t it entirely your own decision what happens next?”

One of the tanks inched forward, then stopped again. The people on the dam cried out and reflexively took a step backward; some stumbled, but the chain of hands did not break.

And so they stood, the gun barrels pointing directly at them. Jenna was trembling.

Von Thunberg had turned to Nahira. “Can’t you see what will happen if I give my men the order to proceed?” he shouted into his megaphone. “Can’t you see how afraid your people are? Tell them to clear the dam — if they’re still willing to listen to you! Are you prepared to take responsibility for what’s going to happen if the tanks roll on?”

Nahira shook her head. Her voice was loud enough to be heard even without a megaphone. “Oh no, General!” she cried. “The responsibility will be yours and yours alone! It’s you who will give the order! We’re doing nothing except standing here. We’re not attacking anyone. We don’t even have any weapons.
You
will be responsible for every injury, every death,
you
alone, and you will have to live with that for the rest of your days!”

The general was about to raise the megaphone to his mouth again, but Nahira cut him off. “No,” she said, quite softly now, “no, not just
you
. But all those young soldiers in your tanks. They’ll also have to live with it, von Thunberg, and I don’t know how they will cope with that. So don’t try to shift the responsibility onto us. It’s not ours.”

Von Thunberg still held the megaphone in his hand.

“It’s not a matter of individual people, as you well know,” he said. “It’s for the whole country. It’s our beautiful Scandia that you rebels are trying to destroy. I’m going to give the order now to advance. Your people still have the chance to leave. For the sake of the country!”

The general raised his arm.

At that moment a figure detached itself from the human chain.

“Stop!” cried a shrill voice. “It’s always a matter of individual people! Always! What else is it about, Dad? What else matters?”

“Ylva!” cried the general, shocked. His arm sank down. “Ylva, what are you doing? Come here! Come here at once!”

If there was one person in the world that Jenna hated, it was Ylva von Thunberg. Blonde, arrogant, smart, she had made this past year a living nightmare, and worst of all she had taken Jonas from her.

And yet, in spite of all that, Jenna now felt something different.

Defiant, Ylva stood there in the middle of the road.
All that’s missing is a flag she could wave
, thought Jenna,
like the woman in that famous painting of the French Revolution.
But Ylva didn’t need a flag.

“So was it always just words that you said to me?” she cried. “Just words, Daddy?” And as her father approached her, hesitant and confused, the circle of rebels closed silently and protectively around her. “Only words, about princesses who love their people so much that they’re ready to do anything for them? Only words, about the noblemen and the rich who share their wealth with the poor? Only words, about princes who sacrifice their lives for the sake of justice?” She took a deep breath. “Was it only words that you spoke to me before I went to bed each night, when I was small and ignorant enough to believe everything you told me? My strong, brilliant, kind father? Were they just stories then, but this is real life?” Her voice was trembling. “Is that it, Daddy? How could I have been so stupid as to believe you?”

All around her, the rebels stood as if frozen to the spot. No one spoke; they scarcely dared to breathe. Yvla continued. “And so now you’ll turn your guns on these people who want nothing more than the justice you always spoke about? Did you always lie to me? Was it all lies, Daddy?”

With these last words, her voice cracked. Jonas went to her and held her in his arms.

So now there are three of us
, thought Jenna.
Three! My father, Perry’s father, and von Thunberg. It’s unbearable. Betraying the country, and betraying their children.

“Ylva!” cried the general. Still he tried to come closer to her, but still the rebels barred his way — silent and unarmed. “My child! You’ve joined the wrong side! We’re here to free the country, my men and I! We have to enter Holmburg! We have to march on parliament, Ylva, and on the palace. The government and the rebels are destroying our country!”

“The government and the rebels?” repeated Nahira in her tired voice. How tiny she looked next to von Thunberg. “I am Nahira, leader of the rebels, and now it will be easy for you to capture me at last, unless you prefer to shoot me along with my people. But before you do, explain one thing to us, General. Why are you lying to yourself and to your soldiers? Even now, though the truth has for hours been filling the television screens in every living room …”

Jenna could see the bewilderment on von Thunberg’s face, and she realized that Ylva saw it, too.

“It’s not the rebels, Dad!” cried Ylva, releasing herself from Jonas’s arms. Her face was stained with tears, and her voice sounded questioning. Jenna sensed that, quite unexpectedly, a ray of hope had illuminated Ylva — the hope that her father might know nothing of what had happened, might himself have been deceived, and therefore might not after all be the traitor over whom she had wept. “You must have heard! They must have told you! You’ve got a telephone in your car — you’re updated on any new developments …”