by Iscah
It was indeed a gathering, though the girl could not discern the exact nature, perhaps a family affair as there was a range of ages present.
"There she is," the Prince said. "The blonde one in the middle by the clothes line."
The girl spotted the blonde in question, who was quite beautiful. She was sandwiched between two other young women, both fairly attractive themselves and laughing. "What's her name?" she asked.
"Merit," Leifhound sighed. He looked sad when he said it, and it was the first time the girl had ever seen anything make him sad.
The girl stared down at the blonde and, partly to protect Merit's smile, partly to ease Leifhound's sadness, and partly because she was a twelve year old girl who thought it might prove nice to be kissed by a handsome prince, copied her form. "Will this work?"
"Perfect," Leifhound declared. He snatched her hand and pulled her away quickly, she supposed to a place they were even less likely to be seen, nestled in an alley of high walls. "Can I kiss you now?"
"If you like," the girl said.
The prince did, and it was very unsatisfying for both of them.
"You're right," he said. "It's not the same. You need to change again before someone sees you."
The girl did, though this time she left her hair a little blonder. "Why did you want to kiss her?"
"Because she's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen," Leifhound sighed as they walked back towards the castle. "She has a laugh that puts wings in my chest, and she's the sweetest girl I've ever met in my entire life. I keep dreaming about her."
"If you really love her, why not tell her?" the girl asked. "I know she's engaged, but she isn't married yet."
Leifhound scowled, though not at her. "Because I can't offer her anything. I'm a prince. I have to marry someone with political connections. The baker's daughter won't do. If I told her how I felt, it wouldn't accomplish anything. At best she'd laugh at me; at worst it would make her miserable and ruin her marriage."
The girl thought this over. "Did you really think kissing a copy would help?"
The prince shrugged. "I thought it might help me stop thinking about it." He picked up a stone from the pathway and threw it. "My father's down south right now trying to arrange a marriage for me to that Tivin princess with the silly name."
"I take it you don't like her."
"Oh, I'm sure she's a fine girl," Leifhound said. "But she's five. Tivans have a marrying age of nineteen. I'm not in the biggest rush to get married, but I don't want to wait fourteen years either. I'm practically a man now. I tried to convince father to arrange it for one of my brothers. Huntsen's six. Coiler's four. They'd be the least inconvenienced. But father's convinced that the Tivans will want the eldest son."
For the first time, the girl felt a little sorry for Leifhound. "Maybe they'll take the second eldest brother, so he can be king there and you here."
Leifhound laughed. "I hope not. Dolfe's an idiot. He'd make a terrible king. Pieter would be the best choice. He's brilliant, only ten but a regular scholar. But he's the fourth son, smack in the middle, which means no one notices him."
"That seems unfair."
"It would be," Leifhound agreed. "But I think Pieter likes going unnoticed. As I said, he's very smart."
The girl took Leifhound's hand to comfort him and herself. He allowed her to hold it until they came back in sight of others. "I have to think things over tonight," he said. "But I'll come back for you tomorrow."
Chapter 20
The next day Leifhound came for her early in the morning again and took her back to the castle. Instead of going through the gate, he took her around the back where the wall met the mountain. "I go this way when I want to sneak in and out unnoticed," he said. "Not that I really need to. It's more of a game. But I can't very well take you to my room through the front gate."
Leifhound came to a spot where the stones were uneven and began to climb the wall. "Come along. That's my window."
The girl knew enough of the world to hesitate. It is generally unwise for a girl to follow a strange boy into his room, particularly if he has to sneak her in through the window. But most girls can not turn into a bear or an eagle if a prince decides to be unprincely, so the girl had less reason to fear for her safety than most. She followed behind the prince using the same foot holds, and he lifted her inside when she came within reach.
"Why bring me here?" the girl asked.
"For the mirror," the prince said, pointing to a vanity with a large if somewhat clouded mirror. "I think it important you have a face of your own; otherwise, you'll draw the wrong sort of attention."
There were lingering traces of Merit and Leifhound in the face that stared back at the girl.
"Do you take a little bit of everyone you meet with you?" the prince asked.
"Doesn't everyone?" the girl asked.
The prince smiled. "Perhaps, but not so obviously. Most of us carry the people we know inside."
"Most people look like their parents," the girl said, realizing that she had no true image of them, not even in her own face.
"You could be the most beautiful woman in the world if you wanted," said Leifhound, pulling her hair back, so they could see her face clearly. "But I think a plain face might serve you better. I've been trying to think of the best way to install you in the castle and get you out of that cave, but it'll be easier if you don't draw too much attention."
"I like my cave," the girl protested. "It's mine."
Leifhound laughed. "Now you're starting to sound like a Urite. You realize having a hold makes you a citizen, which makes me your prince. You ought to bow your head to me now."
"You kissed me. I am not going to bow to you," the girl said stubbornly.
"As you like," the prince said, placing a second kiss on her temple. "A price for your silence. But I will insist you bow to my mother and father; we'll both live longer that way."
"Would your father really hurt you if I didn't bow?" the girl asked.
"Probably not," the prince conceded. "But if I make him angry enough, he could disown me or throw me in prison. Then we'd have Dolfe for a king, and the whole land would suffer."
"Do you want to be king?" she asked.
"Eventually. Why wouldn't I?" Leifhound asked.
"So you could marry Merit," she said.
Leifhound sniffed. "One can learn to love the wife they have. It's not like in fairytales where you have to go questing for it, or romances where there's only one girl in the world who could possibly do. At least I'll always be rich and important, and that's nothing to sneeze at. A poor man might not be able to marry for lack of funds, and heaven help him if he falls in love with a noblewoman. Everyone has their restrictions. Except for you, you could have anything you wanted."
The girl looked at the prince askew. "I don't have any of the things I really want."
"What is it you really want?" Leifhound asked, pulling up a stool to sit beside her. "I'll get it for you."
The girl thought of the mother who had left her, the old man who had died, and the father who would never give her a name, but even a prince had natural limits. So she thought of the only thing left that brought her joy. "Books."
"I'll see you have a library," Leifhound promised. "But first we need you to make a face you can call your own."
They spent well over an hour before the mirror, trying different colors and features. The girl started to make herself look older like Merit, but Leifhound advised her against it. "Let's learn from Pieter and try to avoid attention for now. A single twelve-year-old girl is not an oddity. A single eighteen-year-old girl who isn't hideous begs for suitors, and a pretty one always causes trouble."
At length they found features that suited her, but Leifhound did not like her choice of hair color. "The curls are fine, but you're not a blonde."
She could not resist teasing him. "But you like to look at blondes."
"No, I like to look at a particular blonde, and I don't need you reminding me of her,
" Leifhound said. "But that's beside the point. You, little witch, are not a blonde. Try auburn." She humored him. "There, that's perfect. You're pleasant to look at but not too distracting, and we can let you grow into quite a beauty. Plenty of pretty girls are gawky at twelve."
They sat a little longer, so the girl could try to memorize the face they had made. Brown eyes and auburn hair, pleasant but unremarkable features. When she was sure she could remember it, they climbed back out the window and down the wall. "Don't you worry about burglars or assassins?" the girl asked.
"Not really," the prince said. "It's not obvious you can climb up until you're right under the window. I bar the shutters from the inside when I don't want visitors, and I figure anyone who scales the wall to steal my hairbrush needs it more than I do. If they go past my room, they'll run into the guards who walk the halls. Besides, the front gate is usually open, so a thief could walk in that way easier than he could scale the back wall."
"Do I get to walk in the front gate next time?" the girl asked.
"This afternoon," Leifhound replied. "I'm going to take you to meet our magician."
"You have a magician?!" the girl exclaimed, more than a little surprised by this revelation.
Leifhound was less enthused. "The king of Cordance had one, so father thought we ought to. He's ridiculous, but I think now you've given me a use for him."
Chapter 21
That afternoon Leifhound took her to meet the castle magician. The magician was an average looking man, too old to be called young and too young to be called old, who dressed in bold, bright colors and an excessive amount of fabric. The prince's visit caught him off guard, and the magician scurried about his chamber trying to pack away tools of his trade that had been left lying about.
"You have no apprentice, correct?" Leifhound more stated than asked.
"Correct, Highness," the magician said, bobbing his head in a series of hasty bows.
"Good, I have one for you," Leifhound announced, surprising both magician and girl.
The magician twisted his hands. "Highness, please, a magician's secrets..."
Leifhound laughed. "I don't expect you to teach her anything, but she'll be a credit to you all the same."
The magician was not so easily convinced. "Prince Leifhound, I can't take a girl for an apprentice. What would people say? What would your father say?"
"My father left me in charge, Clythe, so take my word as his until he returns to contradict me." The prince had no laughter in his voice now.
"But Highness, where will she sleep?" the magician asked.
"In my cave," the girl said resolutely.
"As you like," Leifhound agreed with only the slightest hint of disappointment. "As long as you're here every day."
"As you like," she returned. "But we've yet to discuss my salary."
"Oh, right," Leifhound said thoughtfully. "Twenty gold per month?"
The magician surprised expression grew to one of pure disbelief. "Highness, I only receive five."
"Plus room and board," the prince reminded him. "Frankly, I think you're a waste of income, but humor me on this, and you'll keep your room even when my father passes."
Disbelief stewed into indignation which soured into suspicion. "Oh, I see..." the magician said bitterly.
"You see nothing," the prince snapped at him. "This is the girl that cured the harelip."
The magician looked at the girl with fresh eyes. "Ah, I offer my apologies, Highness, young lady. That's a different matter."
Satisfied, Leifhound bid them good day. "Believe it or not, I do have other things to do than get you settled."
Once he had gone, Clythe the magician encouraged the girl to close the door, so they could talk. "I've worked out how you did it," he said once she had taken a seat across from him at his work table. "Your healing of the harelip."
"You've really studied magic then?" the girl asked.
"Oh, exhaustively," chuckled the magician. "Beautiful but gutsy little trick. You've even got Leifhound convinced."
The girl felt her brow knit with confusion. "I'm sorry; I don't follow."
"The harelip was a modest girl who always kept her head down and did what she could not to draw attention," the magician explained. "Even when people looked at her, all they really saw was that unsightly gash. You found a girl, about the same height and build, and bribed her to take the harelip's place." The girl opened her mouth to object, but the magician continued. "Maybe you did everyone involved a good turn. Maybe the replacement wanted a nice steady castle job; maybe the harelip wanted an excuse to go into hiding. I'm pretty sure you bribed the mother with gold, but maybe she can hold her head a little higher now that her 'daughter' is no longer deformed.
"And your trick has worked well so far, secured you a spot in the palace. But I'd be careful not to overplay your hand with Leifhound. You have him convinced right now. Could be your head if he ever figures it out, though."
The girl's mouth still hung open, but even when the magician stopped talking, she could find no words.
"Close your mouth, little grifter. You'll only catch flies that way. Despite what the prince says, I think I'll call you my assistant rather than my apprentice. I don't doubt you're clever to pull off a trick like that, but a man must watch his reputation. And no respectable man takes a little girl on as an apprentice." The magician studied her for a moment, then pulled out a deck of cards. "Since I'm stuck with you, let's see if you can do a proper fortunetelling."
"But fortunetelling isn't magic!" the girl protested.
"Not exactly," the magician admitted. "Though you must admit both are about letting the audience fool themselves. There's something about the feminine mystique. People like their fortunetellers to be women, and their magicians to be men."
"But magician just means magic user...it's not gender specific."
"Don't confuse reality with perception, girl," the magician said, making a coin appear with a flip of his hand. "Magic is all about bending the perception to create a reality for the audience more wonderful than the real world." He closed his hand, and the coin was gone when he reopened it. "Now what's your name?"
At first, the girl thought the magician must be a rather great wizard to make coins out of air, but she soon came to realize that he preformed no true magic at all, only sleight of hand tricks. He did do a little chemistry, which is similar to magic, but even that was done to enhance an illusion with little fires and puffs of smoke.
To say the girl learned nothing from him might be unfair, but it was certainly not the sort of magic she had been hoping for or expecting.
She found the prince later and told him sulkily. "He thinks I'm a fraud."
"Men like to see themselves in others," Leifhound joked. "May as well let him think it for a while."
The girl was not appeased. "He's not a real magician at all. He only does tricks and knows nothing of magic."
Leifhound smiled in a way that said he was already well aware. "I did say he was ridiculous, but it gives you an excuse to hang about the castle, which is the important thing. Forget him and come with me, little witch."
"I'm not a witch," she corrected but followed him anyway.
Leifhound led her to a small backroom of the castle. "Here's the library I promised." It was not a large library for a castle, only a few shelves along one wall, but they were well stuffed with books. "Not yours exclusively. It'll take time to build your own, but this is the educational library for me and my brothers. You're welcome to any of the books here, though I ask you take them one at a time and return them as you finish."
"Thank you," the girl breathed. If she did nothing but read she might finish all the books within a couple of years, but it was still a welcome and generous gift.
"Have you ever handled a baby before?" Leifhound asked from the doorway as the girl took a book from the shelf and cradled it.
"No," she admitted.
Leifhound smirked. "Well, tomorrow you'll learn and start earning yo
ur keep."
Chapter 22
She met Leifhound the next morning by the castle gates. He took her inside to a grand bedroom, where a richly robed and lovely woman with long dark brown hair and tired dark brown eyes was lying back, propped up into a sitting position on an enormous bed. "Hello, mother," Leifhound said, giving the queen a kiss on her pale cheek.
Without being prompted, the girl dropped into an awkward curtsy. Not just because this woman was a queen, but because she was a mother. In the queen's arms was a small, swaddled babe peeking at them through slitted eyes.
"Are you better today?" Leifhound asked.
The queen briefly touched the jaw of her eldest before returning her hand to coddle the infant. "I'm tired from nursing, but there's no pain," the queen said in a voice of such perfect tone and dignity that the girl felt rather humbled.
"Mother, this is the girl I told you about," Leifhound said to introduce her.
"Hello, girl, I'm glad Clythe could spare you," the queen said with a weary but gracious smile. "You have experience with infants?"
"Mother," Leifhound interrupted. "Let me worry about Michter. You need to rest." With a little reluctance, the queen allowed Leifhound to take the baby. He held his littlest brother securely in one arm, took an extra blanket from the cradle beside the bed with another, and with a slight tilt of his chin telling the girl to follow, left the room.
The girl saw that the queen was nearly asleep before they were out the door. A nurse who had been sitting quietly at her bedside moved to smooth the queen's hair and check her brow. Since Leifhound had his arms full, the girl gently closed the door.
"Is she...?" the girl began and stopped, afraid to give voice to her concern.
"Oh, no, she'll be fine," Leifhound assured her. "She grows stronger everyday, but I do suspect this will be the last prince of Uritz." He laid the blanket over the girl's shoulder. "If you can hold Michter with half the care you showed that book yesterday, we should be fine. Be gentle, but keep your arms strong, and always support the head."