The Lost Kingdom of Bamarre, Page 2

  It took me a moment to understand. Then I had to laugh, which made me feel more at ease. “They’d look funny, being blown in full armor.” Working in the subject of speed, I added, “Your arrows were as fast as mine.”

  “Unlike my legs.” He sounded regretful.

  We reached the trees.

  In a burst, I said, “You could run faster. I can tell you how.”

  “Really?” He crouched to pick up an arrow. “Yours.”

  Mine were fletched with peacock feathers, everyone else’s with goose.

  He handed me the arrow without looking at me.

  I forged ahead. “You twist when you run.”

  “I’ll try not to, Lady.” He handed up another arrow.

  No one called me Lady. I wouldn’t be a lady for years. I thought something had gone wrong but didn’t know what. “Here’s one of yours.” I picked it up.

  “Don’t trouble yourself, Lady.”

  “All right.” I found one of my own arrows and plunged on. “It’s because your arms almost—”

  “I think Mistress Clarra is the one to tell us what—”

  I almost shouted. “But I run faster than she does!” In exasperation, I added, “And her legs are longer!”

  Finally he looked at me. His dark face had flushed even darker, but after a few seconds his frown smoothed and he laughed. He had a lopsided, likable mouth. “Perry . . . Cousin . . . you can teach me how to run better if I can teach you how to talk to people better.”

  I’d never thought about it that way, but that was exactly what I wanted to learn. “Yes. Yes! I wish I could be like you.”

  He stared at me. I thought he was pleased, but I wasn’t sure.

  He bowed, and I was sure.

  “You first,” he said. “Show me what you mean.”

  I bent my arms at the elbow and closed my hands into loose fists.

  “I do that,” he said, frowning again.

  “But you don’t keep your arms at your sides. Your hands almost touch. They make you twist and slow you down. You should lift your knees higher, too.”

  He nodded. “I see. I’ll pay attention next time.”

  “My turn.” I gave him one of his arrows to see if he’d take it—to make sure he’d forgiven me.

  He accepted it. “You shouldn’t criticize people unless you’re sure they want to listen.”

  But I just wanted to help. “I—”

  “Not even if you don’t mean to hurt their feelings.”

  Oh.

  “What else?”

  He started to answer, but then his eyes shifted to a point above my shoulder.

  Mistress Clarra arrived to order us to rejoin the others.

  Willem was a faster runner after our conversation and often ended a race right behind me. I learned only the lesson about giving criticism—which was helpful more than once. We both tried to speak alone together again, but Lady Mother kept me apart from the other children, and Mistress Clarra allowed us no free time. Willem and I exchanged yearning looks. I could have helped him with his fencing, too, and I was sure he could make me the girl I wanted to be—liked and admired by all.

  True friends, Lakti to Lakti,

  Kept apart but never forsaking,

  Willem and Perry, Perry and Willem.

  I loved linking our names.

  Six months after our friendship began, Willem had to leave dinner with a stomachache. I turned to watch him run from the great hall, knees high, arms held tight to his sides, a performance I was sure was for my benefit, and I grinned.

  But his stomachache turned out to be the first sign of the pox. The next morning, his parents took him to their home in hopes that others might be spared infection.

  I was beside myself with fright. Would the pox steal my friend as it had robbed me of my parents? I plagued both Lady Mother and Annet with questions. Would he recover? Could our physician be sent to treat him? Did it hurt to have the pox? Why did he have to catch it? Might a messenger be sent to find out how he was faring?

  Lady Mother answered each question once and without softening. In life there was no certainty; the pox killed many but not all. Our physician would stay with us in case any of us fell ill, too. Willem’s head might ache, and his muscles would be sore, nothing a Lakti couldn’t bear. A messenger would not be dispatched for such a trivial reason. As for why he’d caught the pox, such foolishness didn’t deserve an answer.

  That night, I couldn’t sleep. A half hour after Annet blew out the candle next to my bed, I sat up.

  “Annet?” She slept on a pallet next to my bed.

  Moonlight streamed in through the casement window. I saw her raise herself on one elbow.

  “Do the fairies cure Bamarre children who get the pox?” Fairies occasionally visited the Bamarre, never the Lakti.

  “No.”

  “Why did he get it and I didn’t?”

  “You still may.” Pause. “I may, too.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. “Oh.”

  If Willem had given me more instruction, I would have known to tell Annet I hoped she didn’t get sick. I did hope that, but I didn’t think to say so.

  She added, “Would Lady Klausine’s physician treat me if I got sick?”

  “A Bamarre physician would treat you.”

  “We don’t have physicians.” She might have added that the Bamarre had healers, who were sometimes better, sometimes not.

  I said, “I’d tell our physician to take care of you,” though I doubted he would.

  “Don’t worry. The pox kills or it doesn’t.” She seemed determined to give me no comfort. “Nostrums never cured anyone. Go to sleep.”

  “I can’t!”

  “Then don’t.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ALTHOUGH NO ONE else in our household fell ill, the pox struck the king’s castle. His Highness himself caught the disease and recovered, but both his children died. Father’s cousin Canute became crown prince, and Father moved up in line to the throne. If anything befell King Uriel and Canute, Father would rule.

  Distant tidings to me, although I heard Lady Mother and Father discuss the change.

  The three of us were striding in the snow-dusted outer ward, a mile’s march that Lady Mother called health-giving and Father called bone-chilling. I loved the movement and relished having them to myself. And their company helped me stave off worries about Willem.

  “Long life to Uriel,” Lady Mother said. “Canute isn’t fit to rule.” Even I had heard that the crown prince was weak-minded.

  “He means well, darling. Uriel has a soft spot for the Bamarre. Canute would be firmer.”

  “You mean, you would be firmer.” She favored him with a sweeter smile than she usually bestowed on me. “Canute dotes on you.”

  “Nonsense.” But Father sounded pleased. “Perry, I want you to be there for the audience with Einar next week. Klausine, she’ll see what we put up with, and she can entertain Dahn.”

  Einar, who was king of the Bamarre, had a son, Prince Dahn, the same age as Willem. I’d never entertained anyone, and I doubted I could. Still, I was delighted to be part of Father’s plans. “I’ll do my best.”

  “You’re a credit to us both.” He squeezed my shoulder through my thin cloak, and happiness warmed me.

  Lady Mother said, “You must be polite and gracious, Perry.” The castle’s stone battlements seemed to echo her words.

  Though the Bamarre had their own king, they had to obey Lakti law, and our king ruled them in everything important. I understood King Einar to have a pretend title.

  He lived in a house only a league from our castle and ran his enterprise from there, sending Bamarre-made shoes across New Lakti in the eight carts he owned. The task of meeting with him generally fell to Father. Every year, as well as when edicts were issued, he called King Einar in for an audience.

  The week passed. No word about Willem. I ate little for worrying until Lady Mother noticed. If I put down my spoon, she said, “Eat, Perry,” and I ob
eyed without enjoyment.

  The evening of the audience came. Father gestured to the guard—a Lakti, as all guards were—to admit King Einar and his son to our great hall. When the royals entered through the distant double doors, I glanced at Father. His expression smoothed, as if he had put on a bland mask, and his smile held no warmth, a smile that made me uneasy.

  The king, who was a decade younger than Father, looked regal in his gray wool cloak, sewn by a Bamarre tailor to fall in soft folds and to show off the width of the royal shoulders rather than the slightness of the royal frame. The faces of both father and son had an indoor pallor. Lady Mother, Father, and I wore no cloaks in the castle. We Lakti could withstand cold.

  King Einar merely nodded and didn’t return Father’s smile, as if this meeting were a favor he had granted.

  Prince Dahn possessed a small round nose, big gray eyes enlarged by spectacles, and thick lips, which, after he annoyed me, I decided were blubbery.

  The two mounted the dais and halted a few feet from the row of chairs where the three of us sat. After a pause long enough for me to count to ten slowly (an insult of a pause), both bowed.

  Father and Lady Mother rose instantly. I followed their lead. We bowed or curtsied without hesitation.

  “Soon, across the Eskerns,” King Einar said. Another insult, as even I was old enough to realize. He’d spoken the traditional greeting from one Bamarre to another, but we were Lakti and wouldn’t allow the Bamarre to cross the mountains and leave New Lakti.

  Father’s eyes hardened. “Lady Peregrine will entertain the prince.”

  “Follow me.” I led him behind a screen that had been placed to hide the servants’ corner, where trestle tables, benches, and sleeping pallets were stacked. I’d had the servants set up two chairs and a low table, which held a yellow ball, a set of knucklebones, and a game of Nine Men’s Morris—items to help me be polite and gracious. “Do you like to play these, Prince Dahn?”

  “No, begging your pardon.”

  The Bamarre—excepting Annet—were always begging people’s pardon or saying other polite phrases the Lakti hadn’t time for.

  “What games do you play? Can you teach me one?”

  He shrugged. “No, begging your pardon.”

  “I’ll teach you mine.”

  “Excuse me. We Bamarre don’t play Lakti games.”

  “What do you play?”

  “If you please, we play Bamarre games.”

  “Teach me one.”

  “No, begging your pardon. You’re a Lakti.”

  I thought, He’s only a Bamarre. He probably doesn’t know he’s rude. “Do you like to race?”

  “Never!” His green tassel flew to mark his vehemence. “Begging—”

  I thought of making him eat the tassel. “What do you do all day?”

  “I write down the accounts for Father, and I read.”

  During the rest of our half hour together, ungracious or not, I occupied myself by playing knucklebones against myself and hated the prince for making me fail my parents. When the audience with Father ended, we were called out to share refreshments, which included delicacies rarely served even at a Lakti feast: dates, figs, almond-paste candies, and preserved cherries in ginger and honey.

  After the Bamarre royals left, Father wiped down the front of his tunic. “Sweetheart, I had better bathe. I start to itch when Einar’s here, as if his Bamarre bugs jumped from him to me.”

  There were Bamarre bugs? In addition to the lice and fleas that plagued everyone? I scratched my chin. “Can I get Bamarre bugs from Annet?”

  “They aren’t real insects,” Lady Mother said, glancing sharply at Father.

  Father put his arm around me. “On our Bamarre servants, the bugs stay where they belong.”

  I understood that a Bamarre king discomfited Father, while Bamarre servants didn’t.

  Out of shame for my performance, I tried to forget the audience. What I never thought about, because I’d seen it hundreds of times, was the embroidery on the screen the prince and I had sat behind, which depicted the last free Bamarre king kneeling to a victorious Lakti ruler.

  My first news of Willem came two weeks later—from Annet, who was brushing my hair, always a mass of tangles in the morning.

  “Ouch!”

  “Your friend is better.”

  I twisted around, which hurt even more. “He is?” Why hadn’t Lady Mother told me? “Ouch! Really?”

  “Am I a liar?”

  “Oh!” I had been taught not to be affectionate or effusive, but I hugged her awkwardly around her chest and an elbow.

  She grunted and wielded the comb again.

  Willem alive and getting better, when I feared that he’d died!

  “How do you know?” I watched her in my vanity mirror.

  “A messenger told me.”

  Most messengers were Bamarre. This one had carried a letter to Sir Noll, Willem’s father, and had returned with word that Willem was recovering and Sir Noll would arrive in a day or two to plan the spring campaign against the Kyngoll.

  Alas, the pox had departed with much of Willem’s hearing. When he returned to the castle a month later, he was a changed boy. He no longer waved to me, though I waved to him. I continued to try, with even greater desperation than before, to get close to him. If he had been entirely deaf—and blind, too—I wouldn’t have liked him less. I imagined him legless as well and I his only friend. I didn’t wish disaster on him, but I longed to prove my faithfulness.

  He kept his distance.

  I received no nods from Lady Mother for my performance as a scholar. I could barely sit still long enough to learn anything, even in the subjects I liked, which were just geography and Lakti history (mostly battles). My lessons were held in the upper chamber of the castle’s southeast tower, where the windows beckoned and the walls tormented.

  Lady Mother herself, rather than a tutor, attempted to teach me oratory, at which the Lakti nobility were expected to excel.

  At these lessons, I perched on a high stool, separated by a table from Lady Mother, whose eyebrows arched, giving her a surprised look—rarely a happy surprise during our lessons. Soft cheeks and not much of a chin belied the grim set of her mouth. Her nose, her best feature, was short and straight; the nostrils flared when she was gripped by feeling.

  My worst performance came on a day when I was nine years old. Annet sat in the west window seat and stitched tulips on linen that would become a wall hanging. Father wasn’t home, but he would have stayed away in any case—he hung back in domestic difficulties.

  I had been swallowing tears since we climbed the stairs. I didn’t let them fall, but they thickened my voice and made my task even harder.

  “Begin, Peregrine.” Ordinarily, Lady Mother called me Perry; during lessons, I was always Peregrine.

  The night before, supervised by Annet, I had copied out three paragraphs that Lady Mother had chosen. Strangely, they concerned a scourge of boils on the elbows of Lakti men two hundred years ago.

  Now I had to declaim what I had copied. Since I wasn’t a strong reader yet, to shout words that I could barely sound out—to do so in this confining tower with Lady Mother glowering—was beyond me.

  I swallowed. “A plague of—”

  “Louder, Peregrine.” Lady Mother’s voice was patiently pained.

  I eked out a little more volume. “. . . plague of fur-furun-furunsells—”

  “Furuncles, Peregrine. ‘Uncle’ like your uncle Aleks.” Father’s younger brother. “Still louder.”

  “. . . fur-furuncles reflects not on—”

  Lady Mother stood and paced, nostrils flaring.

  I tried a diversion. Sometimes this succeeded. “Did the speech make people feel better?”

  “Orate!”

  “. . . not on Lakti character, but tests . . .” I looked up.

  Lady Mother loomed over me across the table.

  I knew what would come next. She’d declare her disappointment. I’d disappointed
her twice this week already. Another time was more than I could bear.

  I bolted, pelted down the tower stairs, and raced across the inner ward. A stableman caught my arm, but I squirmed free. Elation replaced dread. No one could catch me.

  In five minutes I had crossed the drawbridge. On the other side of the road, I entered a small wood, where I climbed a low-branching oak tree. Thoughts of escape—stealing a horse, or running until my legs gave out—kept me company, but in truth, I was waiting to be found. My exhilaration drained away.

  A guard returned me to the tower, where Lady Mother delivered three sharp strikes to my knuckles with her sheathed knife.

  The thought I had nurtured while I was being brought back erupted. “If I were a Bamarre, you wouldn’t treat me this way.” The Bamarre didn’t have to declaim, and I’d never seen Lady Mother strike a servant—though other Lakti did.

  Annet hissed, a quiet sound that seemed to slither around the tower.

  Lady Mother lifted me by my shoulders and shook me.

  Still defiant, my voice rattling from the vehemence of her shaking, I blurted out, “I wish I were a Bamarre.”

  Annet gave a strangled laugh.

  Lady Mother’s expression settled to stone. Through lips that barely moved, she said, “If you were a flea, you would disgrace your fellow fleas.” She dropped me.

  I landed hard and lost my balance and could no longer hold back my tears. From the floor, I bawled.

  Lady Mother and Annet left. I heard a bolt driven home. I hurled myself against the door, willing to say anything to be freed. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it. Please let me go. Please! Let me go. I don’t want to be a Bamarre. Let me go. Let me go. Let me go.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I FAINTED. When I awoke, I was still alone. I rammed my shoulder against the door. Again. Again.

  Didn’t Lady Mother know how I was suffering?

  If only I didn’t mind being in a small space. If only I could be calm. If only I could stop throwing myself against the door.

  Didn’t anyone love me enough to rescue me?

  An hour later, Lady Mother found me, exhausted, pacing the periphery of the chamber. Blood stained both shoulders of my kirtle, and my forehead was sorely scraped. I would bear bruises for weeks.