by A. R. Henle
“Perhaps the Terparchon does not recognize or consider the power of prime numbers.” Fissil waved a hand at Dur. Gisela winced to see how swollen his fingers were, and stopped to massage her own in sympathy. The old sire cast her a warm glance before turning back to the courtier.
“Ah, but she does.” Amara spread her hands wide, lips twisted in a half smile. “For when the Dancing Princesses are gathered, she moves among them as the thirteenth.”
“That enough for you?” Ilburna leaned forward to shoot Dur a glare.
The elder gave a grunt, and no other answer or objection.
“So, the Terparchon and her twelve princesses protect us. Why does that bring you here?” Ilburna raised her chin at Amara, who nodded back.
“Misfortunately, one of the princesses was injured recently and cannot dance.” Amara gestured at Dur. “This leaves us with only eleven. That will hardly serve to protect the realm, not with countries to the east drooling over our borders in hopes to pry away some of our rich farming lands. Or, of equal concern, the rapid approach of summer storms from the sea.”
Gisela dropped her stylus as a sharp pain ripped through her leg. She rubbed the muscles. The ache faded as quick as it had passed, but left her nerves jangled.
“We need a full complement of thirteen.” The older dam shrugged a shoulder, her body all at once settling into a loose slump with no grace whatsoever. “Dances have been tried with eleven, and with seven and other prime numbers, but only thirteen has proven strong enough to grant us protection with ease.”
“That’s all well and good, but what has it to do with us?” Fissil shook his head. “What do you want of us? Monies to find another dancer?”
“Don’t bother us.” Dur wrinkled his nose. “We render our due to the Terparchon and Marchon, and never has there been anything but a request for more monies. I tell you, we cannot pay and pay and pay.”
“Nor do I ask that of you.” Amara tilted her head in his direction. “Instead, I offer you the chance to pay less.”
Every single councilor sat at attention.
“How much less?” Alvi leaned their chin atop their entwined fingers.
Amara bent her head and stepped back.
In her place, Stevan brought forward short, slim scrolls that he passed around. Three for the councilors to share, and one to Gisela for the records. The parchment was still warm and slightly damp from his hold.
When unrolled, the scroll bore a beautifully scribed list of the taxes paid over the last decade. Contrary to Dur’s earlier assertion, the number had risen only once over the years. Nevertheless, it represented a sizable proportion of the Escalli’s profits.
Below this was written a number far smaller. Gisela couldn’t make the calculation in her head, although given the twitching fingers of a few councilors—Ilburna, Alvi—they were busy figuring it as a percentage of the others.
“We are empowered to offer forgiveness of as much as one-fifth of the amount currently owed, for an undetermined span of time.” Stevan nodded to each councilor in turn.
Silence fell on the room, broken only by irregular breathing. Stevan’s face remained calm and serene, despite the almost comical expressions on the councilors’ faces as a whole—many jaws, including Dur’s, gaped wide open.
“What are we asked to yield in return?” Fissil snapped his jaw shut. His eyes narrowed as he watched Stevan.
“The forgiveness is conditional. For each year that one among your villagers joins the court to dance with the princesses, so too will your taxes decrease.”
Again, silence fell. Distant sounds of life barely registered on Gisela. A villager, an Escalli to join the princesses. Dance with them. Be one?
What would it be like to move among people dedicated to dance? Who had magic flowing through them alongside music? A small sigh escaped her, and she straightened hastily. Positioned her stylus over the tablet. Then dared glance around to see if any had noted her distraction.
And found three sets of eyes trained on her. Amara, Stevan, and, which Gisela found most concerning, Ilburna.
“But you said few have such a gift at any time.” Alvi twisted around to follow Stevan’s gaze to Gisela, then shrugged and turned back to face him. “Why would one be among us? We are, as a people, gifted in the dance but have noted none with extra grace or, more importantly, magic.”
“Perhaps you have not noticed one such,” Stevan said, “but the Terparchon did on the progress to the summer court.”
The stylus dropped from Gisela’s suddenly nerveless fingers, rolling across the floor until it stopped at Stevan’s sandals. The council chamber faded from her awareness, replaced by visceral memory of the Terparchon probing her hands and feet.
Her head whirled and she shivered.
When she returned to herself, she’d lost time. Everyone in the chamber stood except for her, even the frailest councilors propping themselves on their canes and chairs. All eyes fixed on her with avarice, pity, hope, other things she couldn’t or wouldn’t name.
“Will you become one of the Dancing Princesses?” Stevan stood before her, holding out his hands.
Amara smiled encouragement from beside him.
The Dancing Princesses. Leave. Escape from the constant presence of so many people who knew what she could and couldn’t do. Voyage off to new places—with all she knew and loved far behind. Out of sight, of reach. Amidst people who thought and acted in other ways. Who would watch her with lascivious or judging eyes when they learned from whence she came. As their ancestors had suffered until they found this haven.
Gisela’s voice failed her, not that she knew what she would say. For every lump she swallowed, another formed in her throat directly. Her hands and feet ached from the remembered pressure of fingers.
“You are Escalli. We are one, we are many. What we do as one we do for the many.” Ilburna clumped her cane against the floor. “You have always sought to do your duty, at all costs, Gisela, for which we thank you. For some years now, you have served as council scribe. Will you lay aside this duty to render the village greater rewards by taking a place at court and dancing for us and the realm?”
Whether Gisela wanted to go or not—and she didn’t know, it was too soon and to strange and unexpected an opportunity—she would. Ilburna’s words left her no choice. To insist on remaining here, serving the village only as scribe, would mean putting her desires before the welfare of her people. She could serve better by leaving to go elsewhere.
What would she leave behind, except all she knew. All she loved . . . and all she had failed in one of the most basic services asked of every villager. She did not desire to leave, yet at the same time lightness filled her. For perhaps, by going away and dancing for her people elsewhere she could make up for what she’d been unable to offer here.
In the end, though, her worries and fears and hopes meant nothing.
She’d been asked. Ordered. Guilted.
“I will go.”
Chapter 10
Three words turned Gisela’s world dreamlike, a fragile bubble of unreality that she couldn’t escape no matter where and how she looked. Better, easier, that way than facing the reality of leaving everything she knew.
An old cloth with the ends tucked under covered her loins. An equally aged breast band wrapped around her upper chest. Both were clean, but simple. Two people more finely dressed than her, in similar yellow tunics, whisked around her. They whipped away her over-tunic and tunic, with no word as to whether she’d ever see either again as she was stripped down to her underthings. Little bumps lined her arms and legs and she shivered despite warm air redolent with the smell of rosemary and other herbs known to discourage insects.
Lengths of tarp hung only a hand’s breadth above her head. The closeness made it hard to breathe, even though she stood at the center of a tent the equal in size of her chamber. No, bigger, for it held three people besides her and an array of trunks that exceeded the chests of scrolls and bookshelves surrounding her bed.<
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But here, it wasn’t scrolls and books and wax tablets that proliferated and filled space.
Clothes, clothes, clothes. Tunics of fine linen in a rainbow array of colors, all bearing some embroidery or ribbon at the neckline or hem. Even the simplest and plainest had vines and flowers decorating the edges. Likewise the pile of loincloths and breast bands set at one side had bits of ribbon or color decorating them in some way. Then there were the mantles in place of over-tunics. Long lengths, that stretched taller than Gisela, made to be wrapped around the body in various patterns and held in place with pins and belts.
One whole trunk held more sandals than Gisela had ever seen in her life, even when traders came through and offered wares for sale. Those sandals were simple, flat layers of leather or compressed straw to protect feet from the cold of earth in winter. Sometimes the traders pulled out more decorative footwear, but rarely. No one in the village ever bought such. Not even the elders, although they were the most likely to wear sandals along with thick, knitted socks to keep their feet warm and dry.
Her toes curled against the soft, woven rug underfoot.
She’d walked such a short way from the village, yet already entered another world. A place of plenty, where her usual clothes would not pass muster. Indeed, the two servants twittering around her made it quite clear the items they’d taken from her were not acceptable for those who served the royal family and their courtiers.
Service she understood. The younger aided the older. Those who could do a task did so for those who could not, who in turn took on other responsibilities in an endless cycle of helping others and being helped, all for the good of the village and the people.
But this? She had arms and legs. She should be able to dress and undress herself. True, she might need assistance from another in identifying where to take up or let down a hem—but that was a task one turned around and helped the other with.
The two buzzing around her would not allow her to so much as fold and lay away a mantle rejected as displeasing for her coloring. All the while, Amara stood back and watched and smiled and nodded.
That Amara did not take an active role in undressing and dressing Gisela made sense. The other was older, if not quite an elder—Gisela could not determine her age. But one of the two . . . servants . . . appeared of an age with Amara. Rik had introduced themselves as an eleee in service to the Terparchon and delegated to assist in fitting Gisela for presentation at court.
Both Rik and the other servant, a dam named Emmi, were about Gisela’s height and size. Rik made sharp, efficient gestures which made their short, stubby braid roll back and forth along their neck. Emmi had a full, rounded face and twinkling eyes as she pulled and prodded Gisela.
Rik and Emmi in turn dictated Gisella's movements and proved adroit at guilting her into doing what they wanted.
Standing still so they could mark hems for adjustment.
Undoing her hair and letting them comb a cleansing scrub through it.
Wearing what they declared looked good on her.
Why could her new life not wait until she’d left the old to begin?
After untold ages suffering this torture, Gisela put her foot down, literally stamping, when they wanted her to leave the tent in a fine linen tunic and elaborate mantle.
“No. Not this.” She ducked as Emmi tried to wrap the light but thickly embroidered purple mantle around her body. “Not yet.”
“It is the fashion. You must be ready when you arrive, for many eyes will turn to you and not all friendly.” Emmi clucked her tongue and tilted her head.
“But we are not at court here. Give me the simplest for now. The most comfortable. When I get to the palace, I will wear what you decree, but not here.”
Emmi looked at Rik, who turned to Amara. The older dam scrutinized Gisela up and down, then nodded.
“For now, yes, except your feet.” She pointed at Gisela’s bare toes. “The princesses dance in sandals, even when they wear through the soles in a single evening. You will need time to adjust.”
That was that. A half-full mug was better than none at all.
Thus Gisela spent her last days in the village wearing much finer clothing. Her tunics had no carefully mended rents. Although little more than a simple fall of linen, each and every one had a strip of ribbon at the neckline, and these were the worst of those passed over to her while simultaneously being nicer than almost any she had owned before. One in a lovely shade of pink lacked any sign someone had owned it before, except for creases where it had been folded into a square and lain at the bottom of some heavy heap so long that even the humid weather had yet to fully remove them.
Then there was the mantle Emmi and Rik deemed simple. Unadorned, yes, but the fabric was almost as delicate and light as a tunic and a strong green far more brightly dyed than anything she’d ever worn before. The launderers in the village had strong opinions about the difficulty of cleaning heavily dyed clothing, and cowed most into favoring pale, easily washed colors.
But so long as Gisela did not wear the mantle to hard labor, or hard dancing, surely it would not need much more than a regular brushing even after she left the village. In truth, she enjoyed the way it flowed about her and allowed cool breezes to sneak under and ease heated skin. Nor did the look of admiration in Stevan’s eyes hurt the first time he viewed her.
The easy sway of tunic and mantle alone might have allowed her to continue in a dreamlike state, and overlook the cautious and curious glances sent her way.
After all, she had ducked away from the watchful eyes of her fellow villagers often over the last year. Her failures had inured her to being the subject of caution and gossip. More than once she’d endured nightmares of moving through the village with everyone laughing and pointing at her: nude with all the hairs on her body dyed purple, not just the streak in her hair.
At least when she walked about the village in her new attire she was fully clothed.
No, the clothes were not the change that made the difference—except for the sandals. They, above all else, dispelled the illusion that at some point she’d wake to her old life.
The first hours she wore them she couldn’t keep from lifting the hems of her tunic and mantle or kicking up or to the side, just to see her feet, which didn’t look like hers but seemed narrower and longer. Decorations adorned the straps binding the soles against her feet: green vines and leaves, and purple flowers.
After the first hours, however, her feet hurt nearly everywhere the sandals pressed against her skin. The sores the sandals left lingered. Emmi produced soft squares of sweet-scented lambswool to cushion Gisela’s skin as she—and the shoes—adapted to each other.
Her feet still hurt.
And she missed the connection with the earth. Only when walking in shoes did Gisela realize how much she’d become accustomed to feeling a distant beat from the earth beneath her. The leather muffled it. Made it harder to sense, to the point she sometimes bent down and laid a hand on the ground to be sure the beat still resided there. The earth always responded to the touch of her bare skin, but when she pulled her hand away, the beat reduced to a distant memory through the leather.
How she walked slowed and shifted as she wore sandals—as much because she stopped at nearly every tree and bush to touch and feel that which no longer seeped up into her.
“Do the princesses really dance in these?” Gisela asked Amara, as Emmi removed a stained square of lambswool and replaced it with a new, unmarked one.
“Oh yes.” The older dam nodded and patted Gisela’s shoulder. “You will understand when you see the floors upon which they dance.”
After which she said no more.
In contrast, Emmi provided word-pictures of floors made of cut stones in all colors, shaped into intricate patterns. Most were laid straight, the tiles embedded in special muds upon the earth or foundation stones, or layers of adhesive atop wood, so that one walked across a smooth, even surface. Sometimes, though, the earth moved, or things shifte
d so that sharp edges jutted up ready to scrape the unwary.
Specially trained floor wards tried to keep this from happening, or at least fix such instances before anyone might be badly hurt, but they did not always succeed.
And this was where Gisela was headed? She already missed walking barefoot.
In counter-balance, something else throbbed in her blood and bones: growing awareness of how little time remained until the courtiers would leave and carry her away with them.
All the while everyone knew, and watched her with different eyes. As one who would leave.
Nor did it help that, although permitted to sleep in her own bed, Emmi woke Gisela early in the morning. Gisela refused assistance in donning underthings and the plainest of her new tunics, a pale yellow that fell to just below her knees. She sat on her bed and sucked in her breath as the dam rubbed lotion on her feet. Her sores had eased in the night, and the lotion reduced the lingering ache, but the sharp tang drove every vestige of sleep from her head. It also rendered her stomach unwilling to take anything Emmi offered other than a few sips of a tisane.
Then, suitably shod in the simplest of the sandals, Gisela followed Emmi out of the village to the clearing. The sun had barely peeped over the sky, and a light haze lay over the largely somnolent dwellings.
Once in the clearing, Gisela was delighted to discover Amara and Stevan standing on the sunniest side. The warm rays eased the last of dawn’s chill from her skin.
Amara wore a white tunic, similar to Gisela.
Stevan had on only a loincloth. The swathe of fabric drew Gisela’s attention to the russet brown of his skin, stretched over finely-wrought muscles, sinews, and bones. Dark hair dusted his arms, chest, and legs. Built on tall, solid lines, he carried his weight well. Though she’d danced with him round after round, and kissed him, she’d only grazed his body in passing. The layers of tunics and enveloping cloth concealed too much—he should never wear them again. This was how he was meant to be seen.