by Shannon Hale
Miri did her best imitation of Olana’s twitching lips. Britta smiled behind her hand.
“Now then, let’s look briefly at Commerce,” said Olana, “just enough to keep you from embarrassing yourselves too horribly in front of the prince.”
Once the lesson began, Miri had to consider if mountain folk might actually be duller than lowlanders. She thought Commerce was just a fancy word for how they traded linder for other goods, but Olana blathered about supply and demand, markets, merchants, and commodities. It was as if she made it all sound more complicated than it was just to make the girls feel stupid. At least, Miri hoped that was the case.
At the next break, Miri opened the book on Commerce to see if she could puzzle it out. After five minutes and the beginnings of a frustration headache, she slammed the book closed. Perhaps her head was worn from constantly trying to reason out how quarry-speech worked, or perhaps she just was not smart enough.
Through the window she could see Frid throwing snowballs for distance and Esa laughing at something sixteen-year-old Tonna had said. Even Katar was outside today, sitting on the steps and sunning her face. The snow measured up to Miri’s waist in the swells. High winter.
The rabbit coats would be thickest now, and that meant slaughter time. It was a small celebration to have fresh meat for the stew and fur for a new hat or mitts. Miri hated the chore, but she did it every year to spare Marda, who wept to see any creature die. Miri wondered if Marda would steel herself to do the killing this year or if Pa would think to take care of it some evening.
Miri’s eyes went to the painting of the house. Wishing to leave her mountain felt like giving up on her pa, and she could not bear to do that. But with that house, she could keep her family close and still travel to new places and learn new things. And if she won, Marda would never have to kill a rabbit and wash off the blood in a snowdrift. Pa would never have to add more water to the gruel to get them through a late-winter dinner. They could sit in the shade of their large house and sip sweet drinks, learn to play lowlander instruments, and stare at the flowers.
Mount Eskel’s scattered trees and dull grasses could not stand up to the lowland’s gardens. It made Miri wonder if rumors were true that the lowlanders had a gift for making things grow.
Knut entered the classroom and stopped short when he saw Miri. “I thought you were all outside. I just came to clean.”
“Hello, Knut,” she said. He did not respond or even nod, and that made her laugh. “Are you forbidden to talk out of turn, just like us?”
Knut smiled then, and his short beard stuck out even more. “More or less. But I don’t think she’ll put me in the closet for saying hello.”
“I promise not to tell. Knut, have you ever seen the house in this painting?”
“What, the princess house? No, I don’t believe so, though there’re plenty of the like down in Asland and the other big cities. Pretty garden that one has. My father was a gardener for such a place most of his life.”
“You mean all he did all day was work in a garden?”
“Yes. Leastways that was his profession. He also liked to play a fluty instrument called a jop in the evenings and take me and my sister fishing on rest days.”
“Hmm.” Miri tried to imagine the kind of life where fishing was a holiday game instead of a way to get food. “Not many gardens here.”
Knut rubbed the gray in his beard. “Not many? I’d say not a one.”
Miri felt her face go hot, and she was trying to think of something to say in defense of her mountain when Knut turned his smile to the window and said, “Not that you need them for scenery with these mountaintops taking your breath away.”
And immediately Miri decided that Knut was the best sort of person. She asked him about gardens and the lowlands, heard about farms that stretched so far you had to ride a fast pony to get from one end to the other before noon, and the fancy gardens the rich had, full of plants just to look at instead of to eat. He taught her the names of several flowers and trees in the painting.
“My name is Miri, like the pink flower that grows around linder beds. Do you have miri flowers in the lowlands?”
“No, I think miri must be a mountain flower.”
He startled at a sound from outside. “I should go.” He looked out the door and around, as if checking to see if Olana were nearby, then leaned toward Miri and whispered, “I don’t like the way she treats you. It should change.” He gestured to the book in her hands. “Keep reading that one, Miri, and you won’t be sorry.”
So Miri sighed, sat down, and reopened Danlander Commerce. Even Olana’s obscure lecture had been easier to understand. Olana had said that Commerce was the trading of one thing of value for another thing of value. The only thing of value on the mountain was linder, so Miri thumbed through the book, scanning for any mention of it. She found a passage in a chapter titled “Danlander Commodities.”
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Of all the building stones, linder is most favored. It is hard enough to hold up great palaces and never crack, yet light enough to haul long distances. It is highly polishable, and linder one thousand years laid still gleams like new silver. Chapels must be made of wood, but a palace requires linder. In Danland, the only known beds of linder are found on Mount Eskel.
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Miri brushed her fingertips over the passage. She had not known that linder was so rare. “That makes Mount Eskel important, even to lowlanders.” She had always wished it so, and here was proof.
Olana had talked of supply and demand—if there was not much of a product available and demand was high, then that product would increase in value. It seemed to Miri that if linder was found only on Mount Eskel and yet prized enough to be used for palaces, then its value must be quite high. But how high? Near the back of the book she found a list.
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Market Prices, Set by King’s Treasurer
Bushel of wheat—one silver coin
Full-grown pig—three silver coins
Carriage horse—five silver coins or one gold coin
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The list went on, giving the number of silver or gold coins for a cow, a load of timber, a plow horse, a good wagon. The last item on the list made Miri’s heart pound. “Squared block of linder,” it read. “One gold coin.”
Just then the other girls entered the classroom.
“Look at Miri, still reading,” said Katar.
“Huh? Oh, yes,” Miri mumbled.
In the lowlands, one block of linder was worth five bushels of wheat. Five!
“Reading every book ten times won’t be enough to make the prince choose you,” said Katar.
“Maybe,” said Miri, sliding the book onto the shelf.
One block of linder would be worth a fine horse, finer than anything the traders hooked to their wagons.
“You don’t need to act as if you’ve already won, Miri,” said Bena.
“Indoor behavior,” said Olana, entering, “or you’ll take turns in the closet all night.”
Miri took her seat, dizzy with her discovery. She stared at her feet, resting so casually on a floorstone of linder. She tried to estimate how many blocks of linder had been used to build the foundation of that building, how many bushels of grain it would buy, how much wood to build a chapel big enough to hold the whole village, enough food so no one’s belly felt pinched on a winter’s night, a library of books, spun cloth like the lowlanders wore, new shoes, musical instruments, sweets for the little ones, a comfortable chair for every grandparent, and a hundred other necessities and fancy things. If the traders dealt fairly, her village could benefit from the heaps of wonders the rest of the kingdom seemed to enjoy.
She could not wait to tell her pa and the other villagers. Soon now. Spring holiday was in two months, and by then the snow would break enough to make walking to the vil
lage possible. Surely Olana would allow them to return home for that celebration.
“Miri!”
Miri jumped at her name and realized belatedly that Olana had spoken it several times.
“Yes, Tutor Olana?” she said, attempting to display meekness.
“It seems you haven’t had time to contemplate the value of paying attention. You just lost your outdoor privileges for the rest of the week, and since that doesn’t seem punishment enough, you are forbidden to touch the books for that period.”
“Yes, Tutor Olana.” In truth, Miri did not mind. Between quarry-speech and Commerce, she had plenty to think about.
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Chapter Nine
Breathe, buzz, hint, spell
Sigh, speak, say, tell
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Each day, each snowfall, each lesson until spring holiday felt endless, and Miri was sore and restless with waiting. Each night as she lay on her pallet, she held on to the thought that she was one night closer to telling her pa and the villagers about Commerce. All seemed to feel the anticipation of spring. Even Katar stared out the window as though measuring the snow depth with her eyes and counting the days until they could go home.
When Miri’s punishment lapsed, she walked outdoors with Britta, explaining what they had to look forward to.
“Food,” she said. “The best. Doter shares her honeyed nuts, and Frid’s pa makes salted rabbit so thin it melts on your tongue. And hot tea with honey, the last of the apples salted and roasted, bread on a stick baked over a fire and seasoned with rabbit fat. Games and contests, and when the night comes we build bonfires from wood gathered all year and hold story shouts.”
“Sounds lovely.” Britta’s faraway look said she was already imagining it.
“And it will be even better this year,” said Miri. “I have some secrets.”
Just by admitting she had them, the secrets pushed inside her, a snowmelt stream against a fallen branch, and the desire to share swept over her. She hesitated. Would Britta believe her? Or would she laugh? Miri thought of Doter’s saying, Never hesitate if you know it’s right. After months of ignoring Britta just for being a lowlander, at least she deserved Miri’s trust.
So Miri took Britta on a frantic stroll around the academy, telling her with huffs of frosty breath about Commerce and gold coins and quarry-speech outside the quarry. Telling someone felt good, like drinking warmed goat’s milk, and she rushed out every detail before Olana could call them back.
“That’s the most amazing story I ever heard.” Britta smiled, looking where the sun picked out stars on the icy husk of the snow. “What the traders are doing, that sounds dirty to me. We have to change that.”
“So, you really never heard anyone using quarry-speech? Not even when you were working in the quarry?”
Britta shook her head. “Before coming up here, I never imagined such things could exist. It makes sense to me that mountain folk have that talent. I remember, the noise in the quarry was deafening, even with clay plugs in my ears.”
“Up here, quarry-speech is as normal as bug bites. I don’t suppose anyone’s thought much about it.”
Britta scratched her nose. “Maybe that was why I had a hard time at first, that and everyone is singing all the time. I could never join in because I don’t know the words.”
“You don’t have to know the words, you just make up your own.”
“But I don’t know the tunes.”
“You don’t need to know the tunes, just find the rhythm and the song comes.”
“I can’t do that. I never learned how.”
Miri had never realized that singing was something that needed to be learned. “Is it true what they say about lowlanders, that they have a way with growing things?”
“I’ve never heard that, but it is a lot greener down there.” Britta looked west. “Less snow, more rain, green all along the seashore, and forests and farmlands for miles. Every house has its own garden.”
“I’d like to see it sometime.” It was awkward for Miri to admit, but she did want to see the lowlands, the places she had imagined since she was a child and the things she had read about at the academy. The ocean, cities, palaces built of linder, musicians and artists, people from countries across the ocean, sailing ships full of wonders to sell and trade, a king and a queen. And a prince. Perhaps he would not be so horrible; perhaps he would be Britta’s kind of lowlander.
“I’d like to see it with you,” said Britta. “Someday. When you’re the princess.”
Miri laughed and pushed Britta’s shoulder. “Maybe he’ll choose you, Lady Britta. I mean, Princess Britta.”
“No, not me. In a room full of girls, you and Liana and everybody, he won’t even look at me.”
“He will so—”
“It’s all right, Miri,” said Britta. “I don’t care. It should be you or someone else really from Mount Eskel. I’m glad I got to attend the academy and meet you. That’s the good part. Who cares about a prince, anyway?”
“I’d wager the prince himself cares a great deal,” said Miri as they rushed back to the academy at Olana’s call. “And he might have a puppy who is quite fond of him.”
“The only thing I wish is that whoever does become the princess is happy, I mean really, really happy. Otherwise, what would it matter, right?”
Back in the classroom as Olana spouted the principles of Conversation Miri had already memorized, she let her mind wander, imagined marrying a prince who looked like Peder and lived in a palace of linder, and wondered if she would be, as Britta had said, really, really happy. Miri shook her head at the thought. Such a thing felt impossible, like her outlandish miri flower wishes, like trying to envision the ocean.
On the other hand, academy princess, with its immediate promise and silver gown, felt real, something she could daydream about.
In order to beat Katar as first in the academy, Miri knew she would have to be an expert on everything Olana taught. The lesson on Diplomacy had been vague and rushed, so the next rest day during personal study, Miri read a chapter on Diplomacy in Danlander Commerce, puzzling over the rules and how one might actually use them.
Esa sat in front of her, twirling a lock of hair the same shade as Peder’s. Miri remembered the day Esa had gestured to her to come outside with the others. She had never explained about Olana and the closet and why she had not followed.
“Esa, what do you think this means?” Miri whispered, pointing to one of the general rules of Diplomacy—Build on common ground.
“I’m not sure.” Esa took the book and read for a few minutes, flipping through several pages. “The book gives an example here, talking about a time when Danlanders first started to trade with eastern tribes who didn’t speak our language. Before they could begin trading, they had to create relationships of trust, so they looked for things both peoples had in common.” She paused to keep reading. “Listen to this—apparently a friendship between a Danlander and a chief of a tribe began when they discovered that both enjoyed eating roasted fish eyeballs. Ick. Funny way to start a friendship.”
Miri smiled. “Didn’t ours start when we were two years old and ate half of your ma’s pot of butter under the table?”
Esa laughed and Katar shushed them. Miri frowned at Katar for spoiling the moment. She had always longed to be good friends with Esa, but Peder had never wanted his baby sister to tag along with them, and then as they grew up . . . Miri looked at the nineteen girls around her, bent over books and tablets, moving their lips as they read. It had been difficult to keep childhood friends while the others worked in the quarry and she was alone with the goats. But they were all together at the academy. If she wanted it, now was her chance.
“Thank you, Esa,” Miri whispered.
Build on common ground. The question of quarry-speech was constantly mur
muring in the back of Miri’s mind, and the truth in this idea held her and pushed her thoughts deeper. Her questions had to wait until she could relax into her thinking time, in the bedchamber after the hushed whispers and giggles of nighttime were replaced by snores and she felt safe, awake, and alone.
They didn’t speak the same language, she thought, pondering the story Esa had read, so they found other ways to communicate by sharing what they had in common.
When Gerti had heard Miri’s quarry-speech, she had remembered her own time in the closet. The thing they had in common—they had both experienced the closet and the scuttling noises of the rat.
Miri’s thoughts began to buzz like flies over a meal. That last day before coming to the academy, Miri had heard Doter tell another quarry worker to lighten the blow. How had she known what Doter said? Thinking back to that moment, she realized she had imagined the time Marda had taught her how to pound a wheel of cheese and corrected her when she hit it too hard. The quarry-speech had prompted a real memory in her own mind, and she had interpreted the memory into what it might mean in that moment—Lighten the blow.
Quarry-speech used memories to carry messages.
Peder and her pa talked about quarry-speech as though it were second nature, and Miri guessed they did not realize how it worked and did not really care. But Miri did. The doings of the quarry had always seemed some bright, forbidden secret. Now it was her secret, and holding it to herself felt warm and delicious, like drinking the last cup of honeyed tea. She wanted to keep that feeling.
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Chapter Ten
No wolf falters before the bite
So strike
No hawk wavers before the dive
Just strike
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One more snowfall, then the clouds retreated higher than any mountain. Winter’s grip eased, and the sun seemed to lean in closer to Mount Eskel. It was painfully bright, the sky a hot blue. The hard crust of snow softened and patches of earth emerged, showing green things rising out of the mud and pushing up onto the hills. The smell of the wind changed—it felt thicker, richer, like the air around a cook pot. Spring was stretching on the mountain.