“Why did you leave Farthendale? What are you doing in Astoria?” I bit my lip. It had come out more bluntly than I had intended.
He raised an eyebrow at me, and I shrugged. “I can’t imagine Queen Cassia allowing Prince Casimir or Prince Bernhard to leave Astoria and wander around Farthendale on their own. And I know Farthendale isn’t so different from Astoria.” I gave him a wry look. “As you know, one of my sisters lives there.”
One side of his mouth quirked up. “I was wondering when you were going to ask me.”
I said nothing, and he continued. “I’m the youngest, so I never had much of a royal role. Just a spare in case of disaster. And now that Geraint is married with a child, and Lunette has a whole brood, I’m not even needed for that. No one seemed to know what to do with me, so I decided to take myself off and see if I could find a way to be useful.”
When I looked at him blankly, he sighed. “Not forever. I’ll have to go back eventually, I know. But for now, I want to be myself for a while. Not Prince Arthur, just Arthur.”
I continued to stare at him, and he slumped a little, looking sheepish. “So, no, it’s not exactly a sanctioned trip.”
One side of my mouth quirked up, despite myself, and he chuckled easily in response. “But look at me! Complaining about being the youngest to someone with six older siblings. How unusually tactless of me.”
I felt the warmth of his jacket around my shoulders and breathed in his scent which clung to it. Prince Arthur might be lighthearted, but he wasn’t tactless.
“I can understand wanting to escape,” I said.
He grinned at me. “From Rynn’s stories, it sounds like most of your siblings felt the same way.”
I rolled my eyes. “My poor father. All he wanted was for us to settle down, he could never understand any of us having any sort of wanderlust. And after Sophie’s outrageous ways and final rebellion, he tried to get stricter on the rest of us.”
I sighed. “She brought her bear husband to visit us—once they’d broken the curse, of course—but her happy ending didn’t make him relax his stance much. Ellie and Martin—they’re the other twins, but don’t worry if you can’t keep us all straight, most people can’t—left as soon as they turned eighteen. If you had been at Ellie’s wedding last year, you would have met Martin, too. He refused an official role in the ceremony, but he attended as the bodyguard of Prince Lukas of Caladonia. Apparently, he’s been winning all sorts of prestigious tournaments. So, he and Ellie both found plenty of success. But Anneliese couldn’t use their happy situations to try to convince our father to stop attempting to marry us all off to farmers, because she’d already run away by then.”
I stopped, knowing his head must be spinning. My family generally had that effect on people.
“I can’t imagine you married to some farmer,” said Arthur.
I looked down at the ground as I tried to work out what he meant by that. But there were too many potential interpretations, so I gave up.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter too much how many siblings you have,” I said, after a moment of silence. “Being the youngest is being the youngest. It’s hard to carve a place for yourself when everyone sees you as just another—smaller—one.”
He grinned at me. “It’s hard to imagine anyone failing to notice you.”
I sighed. “They all notice me at first. But once they realize these don’t mean anything…” I gestured at my eyes. “Then everyone realizes there’s nothing much about me worth noticing. They tend to get distracted by Anneliese at that point.”
“I can think of a few things worth noticing,” Arthur said quietly.
I flushed, but he immediately added, “But I look forward to meeting Anneliese. She sounds like your opposite.”
My heart sank, and I scolded myself for it. Why was I surprised? Everyone was more interested in Anneliese than me. No boy had ever looked twice at me when she was around. I always got the first look, but I never got the second.
“She is, and she isn’t,” I said. “It’s hard to explain.” Anneliese wasn’t my opposite, she was my complement. I just sometimes wished she hadn’t received all of the charm.
A moment later, Arthur spotted the perfect clearing to stop for the night, and our conversation was broken. I told myself it didn’t matter. I had no claim to his time.
We continued to move south, veering slightly southwest after joining a main road. Marblehill was larger and considerably more established than either Horley or Talbot. With traders commonly stopping there on their route between Caladonia’s capital and Torina, it had developed into a thriving town. My family had spent a night there on our way down to Anura for Elisette’s wedding, and I had enjoyed the feel of it.
After her experiences with Talbot and with the river, Rapunzel seemed much less excited about encountering ‘bustling streets’, so I did my best to paint the town as an attractive and pleasant place. I wanted her to be cautious, not afraid, as she discovered the world.
We started to encounter other travelers on the road, either passing them or being passed depending on their speed. The first time we overtook a slow-moving wagon train, I realized how much faster we had become over the last few days. Rapunzel still alternated between walking and riding, but she didn’t seem to be in constant pain while doing so anymore.
On our last night camping before we reached the city, we stopped at an established rest stop. Another group arrived soon afterward and also began to set up camp. After getting a good look at them, I wished we had bypassed the place and found our own clearing.
The three men looked rough, their clothes ill kept, and their expressions sharp and calculating. I didn’t like the look of them at all and wondered if I would be able to sleep. From the worried looks Arthur kept throwing me and Rapunzel, I suspected he was thinking much the same way.
Other than a quick greeting, we kept to ourselves until two of the men asked Arthur for help breaking an enormous branch into firewood. He cast a quick glance toward the third man, but he was occupied lighting their fire, and I gestured that he should help. At least it meant we wouldn’t need to send one of us foraging for wood for our own fire.
I busied myself lighting the beginnings of our blaze and became so involved in the task that I didn’t even notice the sound of voices at first. When Rapunzel’s laugh filtered through to my consciousness, I spun around and found her chatting with the remaining man.
I hurried over to join them, trying not to look too anxious. The man was smiling and looking far more friendly than earlier, but something about the way his eyes assessed everything about us and our belongings did nothing to alleviate my discomfort.
“These gentlemen have been staying in Marblehill,” Rapunzel informed me as I neared them. “He’s been warning me about some of the questionable inns.” Her wide eyes suggested she hadn’t considered the possibility of questionable inns before. “It’s very kind of him.”
The man nodded his head. “Just trying to be neighborly to my fellow travelers. Which reminds me that I should warn you off the Rose and Hammer, too. It’s a nice place, but too expensive for the likes of us.” He laughed, a gravelly sound that held no true mirth.
Before I could think how to extricate us from the conversation, Rapunzel smiled at him and spoke. “Oh, that’s not a problem. We’re not short on coins. I’m—”
“Needed to help with our fire. I’m afraid I’ve made a mess of it.” I grimaced apologetically to Rapunzel’s new friend while I sidled close enough to tug on her dress.
She looked at me in confusion, and opened her mouth, but I jumped in before she could ask why I was pulling at her. “Come on, Rapunzel. Arthur will be back soon, and he’ll expect us to have the kindling alight ready for the branches.”
She still looked confused but followed me anyway.
“I’d be happy to give you a hand,” the stranger called after us, but I shook my head quickly.
“We’ll be fine, thank you.”
He shrugged his sho
ulders and turned back to his own fire, just as his two companions and Arthur returned.
“Rapunzel!” I hissed once I got her back over into our camp. “What were you doing?”
She looked at me blankly. “I was talking to that man. Why are you acting so strangely?”
“Yes,” agreed Arthur, “what’s going on?”
“What’s going on is that Rapunzel just told that man we have plenty of coin on us.”
“What?” Arthur kept his voice lowered but only just.
Rapunzel looked back and forth between us. “I don’t understand. You told me to stay near you, and I was only a few steps away.”
I put my head in my hands and drew a deep breath. “Did you see the gleam in his eyes when you mentioned the coins? I’d bet everything we have that they’ll try to rob us before the night is over.”
Rapunzel gasped, both hands flying to cover her mouth. “Robbers! But how do you know?”
“Can’t you tell?” I asked. “By how they act? It’s the way they hold themselves and look at us. They look like they were guards once, but they don’t seem to be employed that way now.”
Rapunzel stared at me wide-eyed, and I could tell she was trying hard not to look back over at the men.
I sighed. “Of course, you can’t tell. This is my fault, I should have warned you.”
“It’s as much my fault as yours,” said Arthur. “I should have thought of it, too. But what do we do now? Leave immediately?”
I tried to think it through. How would they react if we started packing up?
“Best to leave now, while there’s still some light,” said Arthur after some thought. “We’ll pack quickly.”
The three of us rushed around and had everything back in our packs and our sputtering fire doused within minutes. The three men watched us silently, and we merely nodded a farewell as we started back onto the road.
I wished we could push on for Marblehill, but the town was big enough to have sturdy walls, and the gate would be closed for the night by now, let alone by the time we arrived there. We walked on for another hour before deeming it safe enough to stop again and, even then, Arthur set himself up to sleep with his naked sword beside his bedroll.
I retrieved my own small knife, determined to have it handy for once, and settled down to try to sleep. Slumber eluded me for a long time, but eventually I succumbed to exhaustion.
A loud whinny from Aster woke me, and I leaped up, knife already in hand. A dark figure loomed over Rapunzel’s prone form. Rushing forward, I threw myself on his back and swung out wildly with the knife.
A loud cry of pain ripped through the night, and I was thrown from the man’s back. Rapunzel screamed and scrambled up, weaving around the man to pull me to my feet. In the moonlight and the faint glow of the fire, I saw my knife had somehow stabbed into his hand. He pulled it out, turning toward us. I shoved Rapunzel behind me, trying to remember what my brother Martin had told me about facing an armed attacker. We hadn’t made it that far in our lessons with Arthur.
Before I had to put any of my practice into action, however, a crunch sounded, and the man crumpled to the ground. As he fell, he revealed Arthur standing behind him, his sword raised, hilt downward. He must have cracked him over the head.
I looked around frantically but soon saw two more groaning bodies.
“I think we had best keep moving, despite the late hour.” Arthur sounded grim and neither of us gave any protest. Rapunzel shook like a leaf behind me, and I couldn’t help comparing how differently my twin would have acted if she had been here with me. And yet, I also felt a swell of pride at the way the princess had rushed to help me despite her fear.
Chapter 9
For the first two hours, we stayed silent, straining to hear any sound of pursuit. When no vengeful robbers appeared, we began to breathe a little easier. But we still stayed quiet—now out of exhaustion.
We reached the city gates before the sun had come up and had to wait for dawn for them to open. Rapunzel had slumped forward on Aster’s neck and seemed to be sleeping, and I kept casting her envious glances, wishing I could do a similar thing.
The guards who opened the gate appeared only mildly surprised to see us waiting there, making no effort to question us as we stumbled forward into Marblehill. We made our way down the main road, a few early risers moving around us, already started with their day.
A cheerful looking farmer rumbled through the gates behind us, and Arthur flagged him down. After a round of pleasantries, the prince asked for a recommendation on inns and was directed to the Green Lion. I was relieved it wasn’t one the robbers had mentioned and even more that it sounded close.
Three streets later we entered the courtyard of the inn and had to wake Rapunzel so we could hand Aster over to a groom. I let Arthur handle the process of requesting rooms, merely glad to collapse into a proper bed as soon as possible. He procured only two rooms for us after I assured him that Rapunzel and I were happy to share, and I was soon blissfully sinking into clean sheets and a soft pillow.
When I woke, it was mid-morning, and Rapunzel was sitting beside my bed, her chin in her hands, and her eyes fixed on me.
“Marhghggh,” I mumbled, pulling back sharply and bumping my head on the wall behind me. “Ow!” I rubbed the spot and glared at her. “What in the kingdoms are you doing?”
“Watching you sleep.”
I rubbed a hand across my eyes and groaned. “Do I even want to know?”
“You were making a funny noise every time you breathed. Sort of a…” She opened her mouth wide and scrunched up her nose as she prepared to demonstrate for me.
I cut her off with my hand. “I really don’t need a demonstration. Especially not before breakfast.”
“Oh.” She deflated, her face returning to its normal shape. “It was a very strange sound, though.”
“Snoring is normal enough.” Not for me, though. I hoped it was the stress and the new bed and not that I was coming down sick.
“That’s snoring?” She stared at me. “I always imagined it sounded like…” She once again scrunched up her face, and I once again held up my hand.
“No. Just, please, no.”
She subsided, and after a quiet moment in which I tried to muster the energy to get out of bed, her face fell. “I did the wrong thing again. Last night. But I really am trying, I promise!”
“I know you are.” I forced myself to sit up, wondering how much of the day I’d slept away. “But the world is a big place, and there’s a lot to learn.” I gave her a stern look. “And you can start with this—don’t watch people while they’re sleeping. It’s creepy—and terrifying to wake up to.”
For a moment she looked penitent, and then her giggles broke through. “You look peaceful when you sleep, but then when you snore, you look—” At my glare she dissolved into incomprehensible giggles.
How could she be so perky? Shouldn’t she feel exhausted and haggard like me? Maybe it came from being a princess, maybe you were born with some sort of extra stamina, or something. I glowered at her perfect hair.
Why couldn’t Mortimer have given me and my sisters useful gifts like that? Even the rogue fairy who had imprisoned Rapunzel in the tower had managed to give better gifts than my family’s fairy godfather. It figured.
“Penny’s grumpy,” announced Rapunzel as we joined Arthur in the dining area of the inn.
I glared at her until my expression morphed into a yawn. “I think I could sleep for a year.”
“A year?” Rapunzel stared at me. “But then you’d miss—”
“It’s just an expression,” I said hastily. “I mean I’m very tired.”
Arthur, who also looked unacceptably awake after our short sleep, interrupted to tell us he had already ventured forth and made a few enquiries.
“No one knew anything about a girl called Anneliese, although that’s hardly surprising given the size of the town and how many people travel through it. We know she was looking for a prince or an en
chanted knight, though, so that will give us somewhere to start.”
I nodded, thinking now wasn’t the time to bring up my doubts about Anneliese meekly trotting off to look for a prince. “From memory, Marblehill is built around the manor house of an earl. Perhaps we could go and ask there. If Anneliese visited looking for a knight, the servants will most likely remember.”
“Christopher, Earl of Marblemount,” said Arthur.
His expression shifted slightly as he named the earl, but he offered no extra information. I opened my mouth and then closed it again. As the prince of a neighboring and allied kingdom, it made sense that he would be familiar with the names of the nobility. But it also made sense that he might know them personally. And yet he had brought us here to an inn, and he made no mention now of knowing the family in the manor house.
We ate a quick meal and headed out into the streets, but not before Rapunzel changed into the practical dress Arthur had managed to procure for her while making his enquiries. After the various adventures experienced by her pink satin, it was definitely for the best. The dress had long since needed a proper wash and some mending, despite Rapunzel’s efforts to clean it in one of the streams we passed.
The streets looked very different in the mid-afternoon, and Rapunzel couldn’t stop staring at everything and everyone we passed. Carriages and wagons rolled over the cobblestones, single riders on horses weaving between them. Whinnies and shouts and loud conversation filled the air, and the smell of food from the stalls in several small markets weren’t enough to mask the animal refuse left behind in the streets. I saw Rapunzel wrinkling her nose and reminded myself to warn her later not to make her response so obvious. It would be just our luck for her to make such an expression at some ill-smelling but belligerent townsperson. As it was, at one point several people jostled us in the street, and she nearly had a panic attack.
With so much of my attention on her, I didn’t have a chance to sidle up to Arthur for a quiet word until we were nearing the earl’s residence, at the center of the town. The Green Lion—positioned near the town’s wall—had been built of the same timber used in most of the newer sections. But as we moved upward, approaching the manor house, the buildings became smaller, built of gray stone.
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