by Shannon Hale
“We can walk home tonight,” Esa whispered to Frid when Olana left the room for a moment. Then she turned to Miri, her expression full of happy anticipation. “I don’t care how late, so we’ll have all day tomorrow!”
Miri nodded, pleased to have been included.
When Olana continued the reading instruction, Miri noticed Gerti rubbing her forehead as if thinking gave her pain. No doubt the time she had spent in the closet their first day put her behind. She would need extra help if she was ever to catch up.
There was a village saying that Miri thought of more than any other: “The unfair thing stings like nettles on bare skin.” It was not fair that Olana had let Gerti lag behind and did nothing about it. Miri’s instinct prodded her to do something, so she went to Gerti and crouched by her desk, clinging to a wild hope that Olana would see the justice in her action and let her be.
“I’ll help you, Gerti,” said Miri quietly. She drew the first character on Gerti’s tablet. “Do you know what this is?”
“What is going on?” asked Olana.
“Gerti missed the first lesson,” said Miri. “She needs help.”
“Come here, both of you,” said Olana.
Gerti’s mouth dropped open, and she gripped the sides of her desk.
“Gerti didn’t do anything,” said Miri, standing.
She wished for words to defend herself, but Olana did not ask for an explanation. She picked up a whittled stick as long as her arm.
“Hold out your hand, Miri, palm up.”
Miri stuck out her hand and was dismayed to see it tremble. Olana lifted the stick.
“Wait,” said Miri, pulling her hand back. “I was helping. How can you hit me for helping?”
“You were speaking out of turn,” said Olana. “Continuing to do so won’t excuse you.”
“This isn’t fair,” said Miri.
“On the first day in class, I made clear that a broken rule would result in a punishment. If I don’t follow through on my word, that would be unfair. Hold out your hand.”
Miri could think of no response. She opened her fingers to expose her palm. Olana brought the stick down with a crack and a sting, and Miri’s arm shook with the effort of not pulling away. A second time, and a third. She looked at the ceiling and tried to pretend she had not felt a thing.
“And now, miss, we should deal with you,” said Olana, turning to the younger girl.
“Gerti didn’t ask for help.” Miri swallowed and tried to calm her quavering voice. “It was my fault.”
“So it was. Now you all have learned that those who speak out of turn choose punishment for themselves and anyone they speak to.”
“So if I speak to you, Tutor Olana, will you get the lashes?”
Miri had hoped to draw out a laugh and ease the friction, but the girls stayed as quiet as hunted prey. Olana’s lips twitched in anger.
“That will earn you three lashes on your left hand as well.”
Gerti took her three lashes and Miri hers again on the other hand. When the lesson continued, Miri found it difficult to grip her stylus. She kept her head down and focused on making each character just right in the clay. Sometimes she could hear Gerti’s breath catch in her throat.
“Olana.” A soldier entered the room. “Someone from the village has come.”
Olana followed him out, and Miri could hear her voice echo from the corridor. “What do you want?”
“The village sent me to ask when the girls are coming home,” came the voice of a boy.
Expectation crossed Esa’s face, and Bena and Liana whispered and giggled. Miri’s own insides felt buoyant and sick at once. Peder was just outside.
“You tell the village that everything is fine. I know the soldiers explained to their parents that I must have absolute freedom to teach and train the girls if I am to succeed. They will visit home when they earn it, and disrupting my class with questions will not bring them home any sooner.”
Olana came back and resumed her lecture. Through the window, Miri could see Peder standing in front of the academy, trying to see past the sun’s glare on the windows. He kicked the ground, picked up a piece of scrap linder larger than his fist, and ran back toward the village.
At noon when Olana dismissed them to the dining hall, Miri’s palms were still red. Her thoughts and emotions played a game of tug-rope inside her. That she should be punished for helping Gerti. That she should be ignored and humiliated. That Peder had come all this way and been dismissed, and she had not been able even to wave. And added to it the ever-present shame of being useless.
“This is stupid,” Miri said as soon as they had exited the classroom.
Katar, who walked beside her, said, “Hush,” and glanced back to see if Olana had heard.
“Let’s go home,” Miri said a little louder. Her gut still felt hollow since seeing Peder, and her stinging hands felt bigger than her caution. “We can leave before the soldiers even know we’re gone, and if we all run at once, they’ll never catch us.”
“Stop!” The commanding voice made Miri halt midstep. No one turned around. The click of Olana’s boot heels came closer.
“Was that Miri speaking?”
Miri did not answer. She thought if she spoke, she might cry. Then Katar nodded.
“Well,” said Olana, “another offense. I did say earlier that speaking out was punishable not only to the perpetrator, but to her listeners, isn’t that right?”
Some of the girls nodded. Katar glared.
“None of you will be returning to your families tomorrow,” said Olana. “You will spend the rest day in personal study.”
Miri felt as if she had been slapped. A cry of protest arose.
“Silence!” Olana raised her walking stick. “There is nothing to debate. It’s time you learned you are part of a country with laws and rules, and there are consequences for disobedience. Now back to the classroom. There will be no noon meal today.”
The girls made more noise than usual taking their seats, as if to give voice to their anger, scraping the wood chair legs against the stone floor, clattering their tablets on their desks. In the quiet that followed, Miri heard Frid’s stomach moan in hunger. Normally, Miri would have laughed. She pressed her stylus so hard into the clay that it snapped in two.
That afternoon, Olana let the girls go out for some exercise. They pulled on cloaks and hats, but once outside Miri took hers off. The instant cold felt fresh and freeing after all day in the fire-heated classroom. She longed to run like a rabbit, so light that she would leave no tracks to follow.
Then she noticed that she was standing alone and the others were in a group, facing her. The oldest girls stood in front, arms crossed. Miri thought she understood how a lost goat would feel on meeting a pack of wolves.
“It’s not my fault,” said Miri, afraid admitting that she was sorry would condone Olana’s actions. “Her rules are unfair.”
Frid and Esa glanced back to see if Olana was near, but it was understood that outside, the girls could talk.
“Don’t rush to apologize,” said Katar, flipping her orange hair out of the neck of her cloak.
Miri’s chin began to quiver, and she covered it with her hand and tried to act unaffected. If everyone thought her too weak to work in the quarry, at least she could show them she was too strong to cry.
“I was trying to stand up for all of us. This is another case of lowlanders treating mountain folk like worn-through boots.”
Bena glared. “You were warned, Miri. Why can’t you just follow the rules?”
“No one should have to follow unfair rules. We could all run home right now. We don’t have to stay and put up with closets and palm lashings and insults. Our parents should know what’s going on.” Miri wished that she could find the right words to express her
anger and fear and longing, but to her own ears her argument sounded forced.
“Don’t you dare,” Katar said, folding her arms. “You do that and they might shut down the academy and ask the priests to announce some other place as the home of the future princess. Then we’ll all lose our chance because of you, Miri.”
Miri stared. No one was laughing. “You really think they’ll let one of us be a princess?” she asked, her voice dry and quiet.
“Of course, acting the way Miri does she’d never be chosen, but there’s no reason the rest of us can’t try.” Katar’s usually confident voice began to sound pinched and strained, as if, for some reason Miri could not guess, she was desperate to convince the others. “Being a princess would mean more than just marrying a prince—you’ll see the rest of the kingdom, live in a palace, fill your belly every meal, have a roaring fire all winter long. And you’ll do important things, the kinds of things that affect an entire kingdom.”
Be special, important, comfortable, happy. That was what Katar was offering with her plea to stay. Some of the girls shuffled closer, leaned slightly toward Katar, as if feeling the pull of her story. Miri was embarrassed to feel chills sneak across her own skin. What would her pa think of her if she was chosen out of all the other girls to be a princess?
It was a lovely idea, a beautiful story, and for a moment she wished she could believe it, but she knew no lowlander would let a crown sit on a mountain girl’s head.
“It won’t happen . . . ,” Miri whispered.
“Oh, be quiet,” said Katar. “You’ve made us lose a meal and a return home. Don’t you dare spoil our chances of becoming a princess.”
Olana called, and all the girls, even Gerti, turned their backs on Miri and went inside. Miri stared at the ground, hoping no one would see how her face burned. She followed them in at the back of the line.
Britta walked just ahead of her in the corridor. Before they entered the classroom, the lowlander girl turned and smiled. Miri almost smiled back before she realized that Britta must be glorying in her disgrace. She frowned and looked away.
The next day was unbearable. Although Olana insisted returning to the village each rest day should be an occasional privilege, she also declared she must have a break from the girls unless she were to go mad. So the girls passed that day unsupervised in the classroom. Miri sat alone, aware that even as the noise of levity grew, she was not invited to take part. When a conversation fell on the topic of Olana, Miri offered what she thought was a remarkable imitation of the tutor’s pinched lips. No one laughed, and Miri resigned herself to practicing her letters in silence.
She spent the next week counting hours until rest day. Surely after all the girls could sleep by their own fires for a night, the tension would ease. Perhaps when Miri told her pa about the rules and the palm lashing, he would admit he had made a mistake, that he needed her home just as much as he needed Marda. Just three more days to freedom, then two, one.
Then that night, snow fell.
The school awoke to white drifts that rivaled the village’s strewn rock debris for covering everything and threatening to keep piling up to their windowsills. The girls were quiet as they looked outside, imagining the distance back to the village, the hidden holes and boulders they would not be able to see for the snowfall, weighing the danger against their desire to go home.
“To the classroom, then,” said Olana, ushering them away from their bedchamber window. “No one will be walking through this weather, and if the tale I hear of this mountain is correct, we’ll be huddling inside until spring thaw.”
Olana stood at the head of the class, her hands clasped behind her back. Miri felt herself sit up taller under that gaze.
“Katar has informed me that some doubt the legitimacy of this academy. I won’t risk having flabby-minded girls to present to His Highness next year, so let me assure you, the prince will choose one of you to marry, and you will live in the palace, be called ‘princess,’ and wear a crown.”
Olana called to Knut, and he entered the classroom with something silvery in his arms. Olana took it from him and shook it out. It was a gown, and perhaps the most beautiful thing Miri had ever seen besides her mountain view. The cloth was unlike anything she knew, sleek and light, and reminded her of a running stream. It was gray in its folds and shimmered silver where the window light touched it. Pale pink ribbons gathered the fabric at the shoulders and waist, and tiny rosebuds scattered on the long full skirts.
“This dress,” said Olana, “is like the ones that a princess would wear. A royal seamstress crafted it for whichever girl finishes this year as head of the academy.”
The girls gasped and sighed and oohed to one another, and for once Olana did not hush them.
“Let us see who wants this gift the most. The victorious girl will be introduced to the prince as the academy princess, and she will wear this dress and dance the first dance. His bride will still be his to choose, but the academy princess is sure to make a significant impression.”
As Olana spoke, her eyes flicked to Frid, and Miri imagined she was hoping that the broad girl would not be the victor, as she was too big for the dress as it was. But Frid’s face did not reveal any concern for the garment’s size. She ogled the silvery thing with eyes even wider than usual. Miri tried her best to look unimpressed but could not help wondering, What would it feel like to wear such a dress?
“Be warned that you will not easily meet my expectations,” said Olana. “I have very real doubts that mountain girls are capable of measuring up to other Danlanders. Your brains are naturally smaller, I’ve heard. Perhaps due to the thin mountain air?”
Miri glowered. Even if Olana’s promises were true, Miri would not want to marry a lowlander, a person who despised her and the mountain. Prince or no, he would be like Olana, like Enrik and the traders, like the chief delegate frowning at the sight of the mountain folk and all too eager to get back into his carriage and drive away.
She rubbed her eyes, and the clay on her fingers got under her lids and made them sting. She was tired of lowlanders belittling her and tired of wondering if they were right. She was going to show Olana that she was as smart as any Danlander. She was going to be academy princess.
n
Chapter Five
Everybody knows that the best things come last
That’s why my ma says I’m last in everything
I always wear cast-off shirts and worn-through boots,
Scrape the bottom of the pot, and bathe downstream
n
Once, words had been invisible to Miri, as unknown and uninteresting as the movements of a spider inside a rock wall. Now they appeared all around her, standing up, demanding notice—on the spines of books in the classroom, marking the barrels of food in the kitchen and storeroom, carved into a linder foundation stone: In the thirteenth year of the reign of King Jorgan.
One day Olana threw out a parchment, and Miri snatched it from the garbage pile, kept it under her pallet, and practiced reading it by firelight to the sound of snores. It listed the names of the academy girls and their ages. Miri felt a thrill tickle her heart to read her own name in ink. “Marda Larendaughter” was there as well, though her name was crossed out. On the list, Britta had no father name.
Throwing herself into learning helped Miri ignore the painful chill of solitude around her. As they fell two, three, and then four weeks into winter, Miri felt utterly frozen in her blunder. She thought about trying again to make amends, but the silence of the other girls meant they had not forgotten how Miri had cost them the last possible visit home before snow fell. Even Esa did not save Miri a place in the dining hall; even Frid failed to offer a casual smile. Miri shrugged away the hurt and told herself they had never truly been her friends.
Miri missed Peder. She missed the ease of always knowing exactly what he was trying
to say, and she missed the agitation of his nearness when her fingers felt thick and clumsy and her mouth dry. Watching him swing a mallet or throw a stone, listening to the pleasant rasp of his voice, the way he laughed whenever he heard her laugh. Feeling herself lean to him as she would to warm herself at a fire.
Outside the classroom window, the snow kept falling. Miri looked away, struck by the throbbing in her chest. She had caught herself longing for spring and their return and was sliced by sharp truth—she missed Marda, Pa, and Peder, but did they miss her? She focused on her tablet and studied twice as hard.
One late afternoon, Olana set the girls loose outside. They had spent all day at their desks except for two outhouse breaks and one of Knut’s increasingly sad meals—salt fish boiled to mush and potatoes without so much as a ribbon of grease or grain of salt to cheer them. Frid had received a palm lashing for falling asleep during quiet study, and Gerti had spent an hour in the closet for whimpering when she could not draw the last letter of the alphabet.
Miri watched the girls file out and considered joining them. She yearned to forget that she had cost them a journey home and go out smiling and laughing, or even just to run through the snow alone and relish the cold air stinging her cheeks.
But if she stayed indoors, she would have the classroom to herself. She had been hoping for this chance all week.
When she heard the last footsteps fade down the corridor, Miri stood and stretched. Thirteen books stood on a high shelf above Olana’s desk. Miri had counted them, had read their spines and anticipated what might be inside. She stood on her toes and pulled one down.
The words History of Danland were painted in white on the dark leather spine. The book smelled dusty and old but also carried a sweet tang, a hint of something inviting. She opened to the first page and started to read, pronouncing the words in a reverent whisper.
She did not understand a thing.
Three times she read the first sentence, and though she could speak the individual words, she could not understand what they all meant together. She shut the book and opened another, Danlander Commerce. What was Commerce, anyway? She put it away and opened another, and another, and felt an urge to start throwing them. She had just pulled down a thinner book titled simply Tales when the sound of boot heels on flagstones made her heart jump. Miri did not know if she would be punished for borrowing a book, and it was too late to put it back. She stuffed it under her shirt.