by Shannon Hale
Miri could no longer get her legs to move. She could not even manage to breathe.
Sus’s and Felissa’s poles dangled loops of rope at one end. Miri had seen the girls use them to hook fowl by the neck. Felissa widened the loop. Astrid was coming closer, her eyes never leaving the not-log.
“Ready?” Astrid asked.
“Go for the neck,” Sus whispered. “Remember last time. Aim true.”
“Strike swiftly,” said Felissa.
There was no warning. The beast lunged for Miri, its impossibly huge mouth open and full of long, crooked teeth. Miri screamed and scrambled back. The beast’s mouth snapped shut, just a hand’s breadth from Miri’s foot. And it would have gotten her too, if Felissa had not hooked its head and pulled up on the pole. Sus’s pole had missed. She kept trying to hook the beast from the other side.
The beast lunged again, but Astrid sprang onto its back, driving her knife into its soft, white throat. The beast thrashed, long, thick tail whipping. Sus managed to loop its neck just before both Astrid and the animal went underwater. The pole began to slip from Sus’s hands. Miri crawled up beside Sus, grabbed on, and helped pull.
They yanked its head out of the water. It had twisted and was upside down, thrashing, blood oozing from its neck and making blackish clouds in the green water.
“Astrid!” Miri shouted.
A hand seized the beast from the water. Another followed, still gripping a knife. Astrid pulled herself on top of the beast and stabbed again. This time the thrashing slowed.
Astrid clambered up the bank, threw aside her knife, and took hold of Felissa’s pole.
“Pull!” Astrid said. “Pull!”
And with each call, the girls pulled, inching the beast out of the water.
It had stopped moving. The girls all fell to the ground, muddy and exhausted. The animal lay between them, longer than Miri and Sus put together, its eyes cloudy like a struck fish’s. It had dark-green, hard, and knobby skin and four short legs with long claws. Beside its narrow, teeth-filled head and long tail, its stout body seemed tiny.
Miri stared at teeth the length of her thumb and shivered in the muggy sunlight. She felt Sus shiver beside her. Astrid was breathing hard.
Felissa giggled. She looked at Astrid, waggling her eyebrows, and smiled hugely. Astrid giggled too.
And then all three girls began to laugh. Miri gazed at them. Had they lost their minds? They’d almost been killed! Felissa put her arms around her sisters’ shoulders, reaching out to put a hand on Miri’s back.
“It’s not every day something tries to eat you, huh, Miri?” said Felissa, laughing.
Miri smiled. The relief and the smile mixed together in her, making her stomach ticklish till she laughed too.
“That was a big one,” Astrid whispered.
“Really big,” said Felissa. “Bigger than the one the villagers brought in last month.”
“We brought in one too, last year,” said Sus.
“Yes, but they all said it was small and skinny and anybody could’ve done it,” said Astrid, “and that it takes a man to bag a big caiman.”
“This will show them,” said Felissa.
“Woo-wee!” Astrid shouted. “That’s a lot of meat.”
“You’re bleeding,” Miri said, gesturing to Astrid’s cheek.
Astrid touched her face and then examined the scratches on her hands.
“Not as badly as the caiman did. I win.” She smiled wide.
It took an hour to drag the caiman back to the linder house.
“Good work, Miri,” Astrid said, huffing with the effort. “Your clumsy movements attracted this beast. We should use you as bait more often.”
“She’s kidding,” Felissa said, equally out of breath.
Miri nodded. She could not find the air to respond.
When they finally reached home, Astrid scaled the house and stood on the roof. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she shouted toward the village, “We’ve got meat! We’ve got meat!”
There was a small answering shout, then another. She made her announcement again, and more voices responded, repeating her words.
A man came running up the slope to the linder house. Miri recognized him as one she’d seen at Jeffers’s house. He was holding a knife with a serrated edge.
Miri ducked behind the house and hissed at Astrid. “What are you doing? He’s going to steal your caiman!”
Astrid rolled her eyes.
“This much meat would rot before we could eat it all,” said Sus, “so if you bag a caiman, you share a caiman. It’s sacred law.”
“Big one,” said the man approvingly. “That’ll feed forty.”
“Forty!” Astrid called from the roof. “Meat for forty!”
“One caiman alone can’t feed all the villagers,” Felissa explained to Miri. “So for this feast, only the first forty get a piece.”
The movement from the islands reminded Miri of a hive of ants fleeing a flooded nest. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to take part in the feast. People ran up the hill, offering dried peat for a fire, baskets of water plants, or stacks of flat brown bread. Two other men squatted by the first to help butcher the caiman, expertly cutting up pieces of meat and placing them on a reed mat. A stooped woman put some of the guts into a pot. Another man scraped the fat off the skin and sprinkled it with salt to dry it out. Such a skin would be worth something to traders. Miri suspected that if a person did not contribute to the meal in some way, they were not invited to stay. There would be others ready to take their place. Astrid stood over it all, queen of the feast, her arms folded, smiling.
Miri stayed inside at first, keeping an eye out for that bandit Dogface. Cook fires sputtering in mud holes, with pots of water heating for the stew of organ meat and water plants. The villagers began threading chunks of white caiman meat onto green reeds and roasting them over the flames.
The smells of cooking meat made Miri’s stomach plead. She took up a branch and chose a fireside, facing town to keep watch for Dogface.
She blew on a chunk of white meat and popped it in her mouth. The meat was denser than fish, chewy with a mildly spicy aftertaste. The image of the caiman attacking burst into her mind, and she squeezed her eyes shut. She took a deep breath and bit down on another piece of meat, chewing hard enough to kill. She was the predator now, she was the beast with teeth to fear, tearing and biting and killing!
“What are you smiling about?” Felissa asked, sitting beside her.
“Oh nothing,” Miri said, blushing. “Well, just about how that caiman almost killed me. But now I’m chewing it up. And even though it’s already dead—”
“It’s still kind of satisfying?” Felissa asked.
“Prey becomes the predator,” Miri said. “You know, maybe it is time I became a bandit.”
Felissa laughed. “A bandit? You’re too nice.”
“I don’t want to be too nice. I want to be as mean as they are.”
“Or just more clever,” said Sus, joining them.
“What are you talking about?” asked Astrid. Her mouth was full of meat, and around her neck hung a necklace of caiman teeth, punctured and threaded with a thin reed fiber. A gift, perhaps, made by someone who did not have anything else to share.
“Bandits,” said Felissa.
“Naturally,” said Astrid.
“Is it always wrong to steal?” said Miri. “Or at least, is it wrong to steal back what someone else stole from you?”
“Ask one of your books,” said Astrid.
“If it’s yours to begin with, then it’s not stealing at all,” said Sus, her chin in her hand as she watched the flames.
“What do you want to steal?” Felissa scooted closer, her smile huge.
“Your allowance,” said Miri. “They preyed on us. Why can’t we take a turn?”
At a far fire, Miri spotted him. Thick, bearded, scarred, eyes that seemed disinterested but never stopped looking. Dogface the bandit. Miri hurried inside.
The feast continued all day. Meat roasted over flame till the organ stew was ready, followed by thin slices of white belly skin crackling and crisping over the embers.
Miri watched it all through the window while making plans. Dogface had been a bandit once, and perhaps was one still. Certainly Jeffers and the trader Gunnar, despite their pretended respectability, were no better than common bandits.
Something had to change. Perhaps before the girls could learn to be princesses, Miri needed to teach them how to be bandits.
Chapter Nine
That caiman struck with yellow eyes flashing
Its eyes were as hot as the boiling sea
That caiman struck with yellow teeth gnashing
Each tooth was as long as a cypress tree
After two months in the swamp, the soles of Miri’s feet were as tough as lizard skin, but the walk to the woods still poked and scuffed her. Here, the ground was drier and harder, and broken brambles bit like snakes. But the sisters did not complain, so neither did Miri.
She took them to the mouth of the narrow road that led to Greater Alva.
“Fat Hofer said bandits plagued these woods in the past,” said Miri. “The king’s guard recently broke up most bandit groups. But still, because of past attacks, the traders might assume any attackers are bandits. Certainly they wouldn’t suspect royal cousins.”
“That won’t stop them from trying to kill us,” said Astrid. “I don’t care about stealing our allowance from them. We’re doing fine without it.”
“But that allowance is ours,” said Felissa. “It was Ma’s too. How can we just let them take it?”
“I want to try,” said Sus.
“Once we get your money back we can buy food,” said Miri. “Food like eggs and ground wheat and honey. I make the most amazing honey cakes!”
Astrid had no answer to that.
Miri felt reckless. The loneliness and weeks of inactivity bit her, a death grip threatening to pull her under. At last, a task! Something she could do to try to fulfill her duty.
“It’ll be like bagging a caiman,” said Miri. “Only this meat won’t spoil. One big catch that’s worth an entire month of hunts and traps.”
Astrid looked thoughtfully into the forest canopy. Miri wagered that Astrid quite enjoyed hunting caiman.
“According to your mother’s letters, the king’s allowance used to come monthly with the traders from Asland,” said Miri. “That’s when we need to pounce. They might be prepared to squash a real bandit attack, but we’re not trying to steal their goods. We just need to get in and out fast enough to slip away with one parcel.”
“And how will we do that?” asked Astrid.
“We’ll need a plan, Sus,” said Miri.
“Me?” said Sus, her serious expression opened in surprise.
“Why Sus?” Astrid asked Miri.
“When the caiman attacked, Sus was the one telling us the plan,” said Miri. “She’s got a mind for strategy. You were the leader and chief actor. Felissa was the support and conflict resolver.”
“Caimans are one thing,” Sus said. “I don’t know anything about bandits.”
“Everything connects,” said Miri. “Gunpowder was discovered first by circus performers and later adapted for muskets. Engineers learned skills from musket makers that improved things like bridges and locks. The more we know about everything, the easier we can make connections between one subject and another. What you know of caiman hunting might make you good bandits.”
And maybe, she thought, good bandits can become good princesses.
“Sus is the planner, Felissa the support, and I’m the leader,” said Astrid. “So what are you?”
“Me?” said Miri. “I’m your tutor.”
They walked the forest path, scoping out the best ambush spots. Miri offered a general idea of what they could do.
“A diversion, and then someone swoops in fast to free the mail bag.”
“I could do it. I’m fast,” said Sus.
“You are not,” said Astrid.
“I’m like the striking snake,” Sus said, her face deadly earnest. “I’m a diving kestrel.”
“I’m faster than you, froglet,” said Astrid. “And I’m the oldest. If anyone’s going to risk her neck, it’ll be me.”
The sisters debated this point the whole way back home. Miri kept silent. The more Astrid argued in favor of her banditry talents, the more she committed to the scheme. Miri yearned to chew up Jeffers and those traders so badly her jaw ached.
At the house, Miri stood at the threshold till one of them officially invited her in. It was Sus this time.
“I … uh … I’ll need to teach you to read, just a little,” said Miri. “If anything goes wrong with the plan, all of us should be prepared to get to the mail and read what’s written on the envelopes.”
Astrid raised one eyebrow. “Is this whole bandit thing just a trick to get us to read?”
Beginning that very day, Sus began spending as many hours with Miri as hunting allowed, learning the letters and the sounds they made. Sometimes Astrid and Felissa sat by too. While out hunting, they practiced writing their names in mud with a stick. They memorized the letters of one another’s names, and of their mother’s and Miri’s. If the traders did have a letter from the palace, there was no telling whose name it would bear.
“Why do you care so much about teaching us to read anyway?” Astrid asked.
“Three years ago I didn’t know how,” said Miri. “But once I did, I learned things that made life on our mountain a lot better. Reading a book is like going on a great journey. You don’t know what’ll happen, but something is bound to change. And for me, that change has always been good.”
Miri managed to sneak in other lessons besides reading. She told them about great historical battles under the pretense that the knowledge could help with strategy. She instructed them on Aslandian culture and social structure, because, she said, “Understanding how city folk like the traders think can only help.”
The morning of trading day, they ate the rest of last night’s supper, which had been simmering over the fire. It tasted like smoke and mud. Astrid filled their precious waterskin from the rain barrel and gave it to Felissa, who went ahead to watch from deep in the woods where the road was straightest.
The traders likely would not leave Greater Alva till after breakfast, and their journey would take half the day. But the girls were too anxious for hunting or other chores. They waited in the woods near the mouth of the road for word from Felissa.
The sun was angled toward afternoon when Felissa came running.
“There are more,” said Felissa, out of breath. “There are a dozen more than last time.”
“Our plan won’t work,” said Sus.
“That’s it,” said Astrid. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Wait,” said Sus. “If we had a bigger distraction, like in the Battle of Holgoth … Miri, you said that in Aslandian culture, men are supposed to behave a certain way around ladies. If Miri gets dressed all ladylike in one of her fancy dresses, she can be our distraction. All right, Astrid?”
Astrid frowned, but she nodded.
“You three carry on as you would,” said Miri. “Remember, if you get caught, proclaim your name loudly. They’ll kill some bandit quick but they’ll hesitate to slay the king’s cousin.”
“Strike swiftly,” said Felissa, repeating advice Miri had heard them give one another often while hunting.
“Aim true,” said Sus.
Astrid said, “Let’s go hunting.”
Miri ran back to the house and dressed in Britta’s finest silk gown. She put her hair up and stuck a feather in it. It was a heron feather, not a fancy dyed ostrich feather, but she gambled that the traders were not well versed in fashion. She washed her face and scraped dirt from under her fingernails. She hitched up her skirt to keep it out of the mud as she trudged up toward the woods, moving as slowly as she dared so that she would not sweat noticeably
on the silk.
Miri was just a few minutes into the woods when she heard hooves on the narrow road. She did rush now. She had to get to the designated spot before the traders did.
She spotted Gunnar first, backed by the usual troop of traders, but he was also joined by armed men. There was no palace insignia on their armor, so they were not royal guards. The traders must have hired warriors for added protection on the road, which meant the roads had become more dangerous lately. That would certainly lend more credence to the girls’ banditry charade. Then again, it could also earn them a sword point.
Miri stopped. She’d made a terrible mistake.
Those swords at their sides were sharp. The arrows in their quivers were tipped with steel. This was not a philosophical exercise Master Filippus was posing to students in the safety of the Queen’s Castle. This was not a story in a book of tales. Miri was asking the girls to face real men with real muskets who could do real damage.
“Uh … ,” she said cleverly.
Her mind was whirling, and there did not seem to be enough air to think. How could she warn the girls to stop without the traders catching on to what they had planned?
Astrid would not back off, not now, no matter what Miri did. Miri took a deep breath. Don’t hesitate, she told herself. Just swing.
“Good day!” she said brightly. Her palms were sweating. She did not dare wipe them on the silk dress.
Gunnar groaned. “Come to accost us again before we’ve even arrived?”
“If that’s what it takes to get what’s rightfully mine.”
“I told you, all the mail goes to Jeffers. You’ll have to deal with him.”
“Jeffers is stealing my mail,” said Miri. “If it has my name on it, give it straight to me.”
“And how am I supposed to know your name, eh? You could be any old swamp rat.”
“Sir!” said one of the guards. “Don’t speak so to a lady.”
Guards coming to her defense. That was good.
“May I just look at the letters so I know if there is one for me?” asked Miri. “Then I’ll wait for Jeffers to give it to me himself.”
“The king’s mail official trusts me to keep these safe,” Gunnar said, patting the bag strapped to his donkey. “I won’t let—”