by Anita Valle
The breeze lifted her curls as she swung. She enjoyed the soft pressure of Luxley’s hands pushing her forward. The moment was right. She decided to hop off the swing and wobble at the water’s edge. Luxley would rush to catch her in his arms. She’d clutch his shoulders, letting her eyes speak her gratitude. And he would kiss her.
She loosened her grip on the ropes.
Her swing drifted backward. But instead of Luxley’s gentle nudge, she felt a hard shove. Air rushed across her ears as she swung fast and high above the lake.
“Yaaah!” Shocked by the sudden thrust, Coralina looked back and became dizzy. Her head spun, her fingers couldn’t find the ropes, and somehow the plank slipped away. One wild moment of midair flailing. Then she dropped into the lake like a stone.
Chapter 3
Black water, jolting cold, clenched her whole body. Thrashing with blind panic, she broke through the surface. “Luxley!” Her shriek was broken by rough coughing. She twisted around, searching for the willow. Instead of Luxley, a giant man stood by the tree, watching her.
Coralina screamed like a banshee. The giant held up his hands. “Don’t be frightened, Princess Coralina. You’re safe.”
“Maelyn! MAELYN!” Coralina splashed wildly as she paddled away from the man. He walked slowly, following her on the bank.
“STOP!” Coralina yelled. “G-go away!” Her jaw clattered and her limbs burned with the struggle to swim in her heavy ball gown. But what could she do with that monster standing there? “Luxley!”
“He’s out cold.” The giant pointed at the tree. A dark shape lay beneath the swing that still drifted back and forth. Coralina’s eyes widened as she recognized Luxley’s boots.
“It’s all right, my lady,” said the giant. “I’m not here to harm you. I am Gord, a carpenter of Creaklee.”
Coralina’s fear washed away like soap bubbles from her skin. A peasant! And she knew the name. Maelyn had mentioned him recently though she couldn’t remember why. Coralina clenched her teeth. “G-get me out of here, you dumb ox!”
Gord crouched on the bank while Coralina swam toward him. He tugged her up by the elbows and stood silent while she wrung the lake from her hair and gown. “Now g-give me your c-cloak before I die out here!” The mild breeze felt like a blizzard on her wet skin.
“Yes, my lady.” Gord shrugged out of his massive cloak and dropped it on her shoulders. She hadn’t anticipated the weight. Beneath the cloak and sopping ball gown, she was ready to collapse.
“Take me inside,” said Coralina, finally looking at Gord. Enormous. The top of her head did not reach his shoulders. A broad chest twice her width, thick arms and legs, hands the size of dinner plates. The moonlight obscured his face but she sensed nothing remarkable. Just a peasant – only a big one.
“Take you?” Gord sounded confused.
“Carry me!” Coralina yelled. “My clothes are too heavy-”
“Oh.” Gord scooped her up like a sack of grain and draped her over his shoulder. He walked toward the castle on heavy strides. Swaddled in the enormous cloak, Coralina felt like a sack of grain. She’d never been carried more inelegantly, facing backward, her rump higher than her head. She gazed at the dark lump of Luxley under the swing. She’d never get that kiss now….
Arialain, the youngest princess, opened the door. Gord managed to bow despite his load. “My lady, there’s been a mishap. Princess Cora-”
“Where’s Maelyn?” Coralina wriggled down from Gord’s shoulder. “Find her at once!”
Chapter 4
Coralina never enjoyed the sight of Maelyn on her throne. The ivory cape that shimmered on her shoulders, the sapphire crown that nestled in her hair, the elevated chair that held her above the people… all because she was first. First of the nine orphans adopted by the childless king. And though Coralina tried not to think about it, first in their father’s heart.
Maelyn raised an eyebrow at Coralina’s sodden state. “Did you fall in the washtub, Coco?”
“HIM!” Coralina jabbed a finger at Gord who stood beside her. “He threw me in the lake!”
Maelyn raised the other eyebrow.
“Thought the fellow was a bandit, my lady,” said Gord. “Seems I guessed wrong.”
“You thought Prince Luxley was a bandit?” Coralina shouted.
Maelyn held up a hand. “It’s not unreasonable. The bandits are masquerading as nobles in order to lure their victims. Usually a girl of humble caste, flattered by the attention. They go for a cozy stroll in the forest… and the girl loses her hair.”
“Why haven’t you caught these bandits?” Coralina snapped. “You seem to know enough!”
“I don’t, Coco.” Maelyn rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know why they’re stealing hair. And I don’t know who they are. That’s why I asked Gord to guard the castle tonight. I told him to watch for any nobleman who tried to sneak out with a lady.”
Gord stepped forward. “That’s what happened – or what I thought happened. I hid in the forest, like you said, my lady. Later I see the princess come out with a fancy fellow, alone. I don’t trust this fellow or his oily way of talking. So I follow them to a big willow by the lake.”
“The deer!” Coralina cried. “Luxley saw you!”
Gord went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “For all I know he’s planning to give her a shearing right there. So I find a big stick and head for the tree. Soon as I’m close, I break through the branches and bash the fellow’s head.”
“OH!” Maelyn’s hand flew to her mouth. Coralina smiled. Attacking a prince would have dire consequences.
“But then it went wrong,” said Gord. “I looked around for the princess. But something big and dark came rushing down on me. I didn’t know there was a swing, didn’t know it was her in it. Thought something was attacking me and shoved it away hard as I could.”
“I swung high as the tree, Maelyn!” Coralina yelled. “Then I fell off, right into the lake!”
Maelyn cleared her throat. She looked at her lap and cleared her throat again, lips folded tightly.
She wants to laugh, Coralina realized. How typical! When the visiting Twin Queens of Kurzha both slipped and fell on the same spot, Maelyn was anything but amused, though most of the princesses turned blue with smothered laughter. But when a muckwit peasant tries to drown a royal princess, well that’s uproarious!
“Arialain,” said Maelyn, addressing the small, blonde princess who hovered behind Coralina. “Warm some milk for Prince Luxley and see if you can rouse him.”
“Yes, Maelyn.” Arialain, also smiling, pattered over the marble floor to an archway in the wall. Coralina bristled. “I suspect Luxley’s father, King of Bella Reino, will not be so amused by this.” She looked at Gord, hoping to scare him.
Instead it was her heart that shriveled.
In the candlelit brilliance, Gord looked nothing less than powerful. Halfway between six and seven feet, she guessed. Older than twenty but younger than thirty. A squarish face with blunt features; light brown hair, curling gently on his brow; dark eyes that drooped with a tender sort of sadness. Not actually handsome… but commanding respect.
Maelyn smiled. “I doubt Luxley will even mention this to his father. His vanity won’t let him admit he was clobbered by a peasant.”
Gord bowed his head. “I ask your pardon for attacking the fellow, my lady. I should have been more careful.”
“Oh yes, apologize to Maelyn,” Coralina snapped. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten who nearly drowned!”
Gord turned to Coralina, and though their eyes met for barely a moment, she felt as if a horsewhip had been cracked across her shoulders. Something in his dark eyes made her cheeks burn. Suddenly she couldn’t speak.
“I’m not angry, Gord,” said Maelyn. “It was foolish of Coralina to wander out after dark – especially when I told her not to. Your actions were a bit reckless, but your eagerness to protect a princess of the realm shows a generous nature. I believe you deserve a reward.”
Coralina�
��s temper flared. Maelyn was trying to teach her a “lesson”.
Gord shook his head. “No reward, my lady. I have money enough.”
“Nothing?” Maelyn looked stunned. “A cut of meat? Cloth for a new tunic, perhaps?”
Gord frowned. “Have you got a soft doll?”
“A… a soft doll?”
“For Pipsy, my daughter. All she’s got are hard dolls I carved from wood. I think she’d like something soft.”
Coralina rolled her eyes. Now she remembered. Maelyn had spoken about a carpenter who was raising his daughter alone. He’d come to Maelyn for help in finding a nurse for the child.
Maelyn’s smile softened. “I’m sure we can find something for Pipsy.” She looked at Coralina.
Still soaked, still shivering, and still squelched by the look in Gord’s eyes, Coralina slunk out of the throne room. She’d rather cut off her curls than fetch the doll, but she knew it was her punishment for going out. If she refused, Maelyn would devise something more creatively cruel.
A soft doll…. Didn’t Arialain keep some old toys in her trunk? Coralina heaved her sodden gown up miles of staircases to Arialain’s chamber. She flicked open the scarlet trunk by the bed and grabbed the first doll on top.
A cloth rabbit, missing an ear. Coralina tossed it aside. Better find something nice or Maelyn would send her climbing back up here. She dug until she found a smiling doll with yellow yarn hair and a shiny gold dress. Good enough.
She plodded down the stairs, deliberately sluggish. Her blood sizzled when she thought of Gord waiting to claim his prize.
He had pushed her in a freezing pond. Deprived her of a prince’s kiss. Ruined her silk gown. Carried her like an old sack. Humiliated her before Maelyn. And for that he’d walk away a hero?
Oh no, no, no....
The fairest princess of a hundred realms did not tolerate such an insult. The man deserved a punishment.
And she knew how to punish a man.
Chapter 5
The royal carriage lumbered over the farmland that lay between Merridell and Creaklee, a sort of green ocean between the two towns. Except for grazing cattle and stranded trees, the land held nothing to draw the eye. Coralina slouched by the window, waiting for cottages to clutter the horizon.
Her mood was not sweetened by her two sisters on the opposite bench, both in crippling fits of laughter.
“How did you fall? Head first or feet first?” Jaedis cried.
“I don’t remember,” said Coralina. “But I do remember the cold. And the dark. And the terror!”
Heidel grinned and brushed her fringe to one side of her forehead. A long braid, autumn red, hung over her shoulder. “I’d have given my supper to see Luxley get clubbed. Often wanted to do that myself.”
“What’s wrong with Luxley!” Coralina cried. Why did everyone see this backward? Gord was a hero whereas she and Luxley were a pair of buffoons.
“He’s a puffed pastry,” said Heidel. “He needed squashing.”
“What did you think when you came out of the water?” Jaedis asked with hushed excitement. “Did you think you’d been attacked? Did you think Gord was a bandit? Did you think Luxley was dead?”
Coralina might have replied but Jaedis began jabbering about how she would have felt. When the king, their father, had adopted nine baby girls from nine different realms, he found Jaedis last, in a kingdom so far east almost no one had ever heard of it. Like her native people, Jaedis had slippery black hair, shiny as glass. Her eyes sloped at the corners and nearly squinted shut whenever she smiled. She never minded that her foreign features often drew stares from strangers. Jaedis liked everyone. And everyone, it seemed, liked Jaedis.
Coralina smoothed the skirt of her gown and tugged the low-cut neck a bit lower. “So. What do you know about him?” As Market Princess, Jaedis travelled all over the kingdom to buy supplies for the castle. She knew the people even better than Maelyn.
“Gord? Hmm. Well. He’s a carpenter – you know that. Very big. You know that too! Um… a good man. Well respected in Creaklee. Let’s see, what else? Oh! He has a little girl, his wife is dead, and he’s going blind.”
Coralina was startled. “Going blind?”
Jaedis nodded. “He survived Red Fever two years ago. But it weakened his eyes and he’s gradually losing his sight.”
“You mean… Maelyn hired a blind man to guard the castle last night?”
“Oh, he’s good,” Jaedis said earnestly. “Even with poor eyesight. He knows how to catch a criminal.”
Coralina sniffed. “If his eyes worked, perhaps he might’ve noticed that his ‘criminal’ was actually a prince!”
Heidel laughed. “I’d have hit him anyway.”
Jaedis began chattering about what she planned to buy in Creaklee, and a few friends she intended to visit. Since Jaedis’ idea of friends meant anyone who wasn’t dead, Coralina knew she’d have plenty of time.
Blind. Coralina sank into the white velvet seat and listened to the carriage wheels grinding over the road. Blindness made things difficult. But not impossible. It just meant she’d have to use more than her looks.
But really... what else was there?
Chapter 6
They left their horses in a stable by The Old Ogre Inn. Princess Shulay, who had driven the carriage, spoke of a personal errand that prevented her from joining them. Coralina, Jaedis and Heidel set off down the narrow street.
Coralina thought of Creaklee as the town without color. The peasants they passed wore brown, gray or black. They hurried about their work, barely sparing a glance at the royal trio. Coralina grimaced at the ruckus crowding her ears: hammers banging, men shouting, animals squealing, wagons jostling, children laughing, doors slamming.
Jaedis grinned. “I love Creaklee! It’s so busy.”
“And dirty,” Coralina muttered. The only admiring look she received was from a grimy blacksmith who treated her to a wink and nearly-toothless grin.
They passed through tight streets where the shops elbowed each other, their wares hanging in windows or clustered outside the walls. As the center of town fell behind them, the shops relaxed and spread out to breathe. They came at length to Timber Lane, a scatter of gray cottages built near the ramblings of a small forest.
“Woodcutters live here. Carpenters too,” said Jaedis. “Gord is over there.” She pointed to a cottage that sat further from the others, its back end nearly tucked into the forest. A sign swung above the door, emblazoned with a hammer and saw.
“Thank you,” said Coralina. The sisters separated, agreeing to meet later for supper. Coralina approached the weatherworn door and pushed in without hesitation.
“Princess... Coralina?”
Coralina was surprised to find a young woman in the shop. She held a straw broom, plainly in the midst of sweeping wood shavings. Her brown hair hung in a disorderly braid, barely noticeable over her mud-colored dress. “C-can I be of service, my lady?”
“I’m looking for Gord the carpenter.” Coralina glanced around the shop. A large worktable and bench. Wooden planks of different lengths leaning against the walls. Shelves with strange tools she couldn’t name. And in the middle of the room, an unfinished cabinet, carved with delicate patterns of roses. Coralina raised her eyebrows. It was a fine piece.
“He’s in the yard,” said the girl with the broom. “Getting some air with his daughter. Quite an elegant gown, I must say, my lady.”
At least someone noticed. Coralina wore a white gown, splashed with large flowers of pink, purple and blue. She had gathered back her hair with silver combs and wore matching silver slippers.
Coralina gave a friendly smile. “And who are you?”
“Grenna, my lady.” She curtsied again. “I look after Pipsy. It got hard for Gord, with his eyes so bad. He still does his carpentry but not for much longer, I think.”
Coralina nodded. “Thank you, Grenna. I will go to the yard.”
After passing through a small bedroom, Coralina stepped
out to a clearing behind the house. Except for ragged patches of grass, the yard was a long slab of dirt, fenced in by the encroaching forest. Both sides of the yard held stacks of logs, and on one of these logs sat Gord. He hunched over something in his hands, working at it with a short knife. A small girl watched by his elbow, her dark eyes riveted. In one hand she clutched the soft doll in the golden dress.
“Is it a cat?” the girl asked. Gord laughed. “Not a cat. Guess again.”
“Is it-” The girl stopped because she’d noticed Coralina. “Pa!” she cried, pointing.
Gord shifted on the log to face Coralina. Instead of greeting her, he squinted and looked puzzled.
He can’t see me, Coralina realized. She stepped forward. “Good day, Gord. I have something to ask of you.”
“Princess Coralina.” Gord stood respectfully. His daughter hid behind his leg.
Coralina smiled. “How old is she?”
“Four,” said Gord. He reached behind and tried to nudge the girl forward. “Give a curtsy, Pipsy. It’s the princess.”
Pipsy peaked around him. “Pretty,” she said. Like Gord, she had pale brown hair, curling at the ends.
Coralina grinned. “Do you like your doll, Pipsy?”
Pipsy hid behind her father again but Gord nodded. “Hasn’t let go of it.” His dark brows pulled together. “Are you still upset, my lady?”
Coralina carefully softened her voice. “Not at all, Gord. Please forgive my anger. I failed to recognize that you were, in truth, trying to save me.”
Gord looked relieved. “I’m glad you understand. It was the fault of my poor sight. I made a mistake.”
“How... how much can you see?” Coralina asked.
“I can see your hair is black and your dress is white, with some other colors,” said Gord. “But it’s all smudges. I can’t see your face. Not unless you got very close.”