by Jordan Reece
They continued to wait for the Master-at-Arms. Pennies reappeared and more people sat upon the fountain’s edge. The light purple sky was strewn with clouds, a pretty sight that many were pointing out, but Arden’s eyes were caught on two of the prince’s gentlemen who were walking in circles around the fountain. Long they had been a couple, and now between them was a dark-haired little girl of four. She was an orphaned niece that they had taken in three years ago, and their faces were alight upon her as she cried, “More, Da! More, Pa!” They lifted her little hands in their big ones and she squealed to come off the ground and swing.
Arden turned away from their happy family in sadness and half-attended to the conversations around him. Gossip about a groom who had behaved so shoddily that he was dismissed just last week . . . a maid who had gotten herself into trouble and fingered the married milkman as responsible . . . the mystery of the stolen statue from the third floor drawing room . . . a handsome man who worked in the perindens and refused to propose to his beautiful girl . . . Arden came back to himself hurriedly as everyone laughed at him. Leefa squeezed his arm and said ruefully to her friends, “I’m still waiting!”
Dagad forgive him, he was going to have to scream in her face like a madman. He had few memories of his mother, and none concerning her opinion on how to handle a pushy girl, but he trusted that she would have given him good advice. He just couldn’t figure out what it was. But she never would have told him to scream in the girl’s face. Of this he was certain.
He was saved from more comments, queries, and embarrassment when the Master-at-Arms appeared from the armory door and held up his hand for silence. It spread like ripples out from his raised hand, shushes relaying through the courtyard until the only sound was a penny striking the cobbles, and the king’s man delivering a swift clip to the back of Mavic’s head. Then total silence fell.
The Master-at-Arms was an imposing figure. The most squirrely, half-witted squires and soldiers straightened their spines in his presence; the man dealt with nonsense harshly. His graying hair cropped closely to his scalp, scars ran down his thick arms from repeat altercations with blades. Despite all of this, he had a very soft voice. Even when he was counting out lash marks, he sounded like he was reciting the dreamy words of a lullaby.
His voice didn’t carry through the courtyard, but the gasps and cries told Arden all that he needed to know. The fresh-faced young nanny’s helper was proven right that it had to do with Princess Briala. She was missing. The last time she had been seen was the evening on Twoday, when she retired to her bedchambers with a severe headache and ordered her staff not to bother her for any reason. Her headaches had grown so overwhelming over the last year that she stayed in total darkness and could not tolerate company or even food for days. For much of the time, she slept under medication given to her by the doctor.
Thus, when her bell for meals did not chime on Threeday and Fourday, no one in the kitchen thought anything of it. She was asleep. If she woke up between the doses of medication she gave herself and was able to tolerate a little food, she had a bowl of fruit in her room. It was only yesterday that her absence began to feel overlong, and her high maid went to investigate at the queen’s behest. The bedroom was empty, as was the study. She wasn’t visiting her nieces and nephews, nor was she in the apothecary with the doctor. She wasn’t anywhere.
Coming to the fountain and stepping up to the rim, the Master-at-Arms’s voice carried further. “Those of you who have known Princess Briala since childhood are well aware that she has a love of the practical joke. It is highly probable that she is still on the palace grounds, but she could be concealed with a holographie crystal. It creates a modest projection-”
Insulted at this suggestion, Leefa hissed to Arden, “A practical joke? She is a month away from her marriage! Can you imagine this?”
Arden didn’t respond. Why would he have imagined this? Heads of older people shook around the courtyard and whispers rose of the gracious young woman that the princess had become. What was in character for her at the age of eight was out-of-step for almost twenty. Besides, Prince Reynar had usually been the instigator of those practical jokes and roped in all three of his little sisters for the ride. Beautiful Seeta was gone to Loria, married to the prince second in line to the throne, brave Zalai was performing her service to the Crown by managing the wild people of the southwestern coast, and clever Briala was betrothed to the youngest son of the Isle Zayre royal family. Childhood was behind them one and all, and it had been for some time.
Nodding to the first leads scattered through the throngs, the Master-at-Arms said, “All of you are to have your people search your area of the palace and grounds thoroughly. Leave no stone unturned and be very attentive to any young woman who appears to be out of place. The holographie crystal cannot change her into a man; it cannot add or subtract from her age. But it can lighten or darken her skin, shorten or lengthen her hair, twist her form and features into those of a stranger’s. It can even change her clothes. She could be among you now.” Everybody looked at his or her immediate neighbors in suspicion. Several pairs of eyes alighted on the new nanny’s helper, who protested that her identity could be accounted for by multiple personages both within the palace and former places of employment outside it.
“Could the princess have been kidnapped?” someone called out.
“Our investigation has concluded that she was not taken against her will from the palace,” the Master-at-Arms said. “There have been no threats against her as of late. Her room is far too high for someone to slip through the window. There is no evidence that anyone tried. Nothing in her room was stolen or disturbed. No, she is here.”
His eyes slid to the crowd of people that had Arden in its mix, and lingered on a whispering man and woman. “We will locate her soon, and I would hate to hear tales of this carried out of the palace gates. Oh, I would hate to hear that.” His fingers flexed. The out-of-place lullaby voice was somehow more frightening than the booming baritone the man should have had. Arden had never crossed the man, and stayed at a distance in the rare times the fellow came to the perindens. The couple stopped whispering and looked nervous.
They divided into their groups, maids together and dividing further by floor, Leefa pressing a kiss to Arden’s cheek before she joined the kitchen staff. Carmel threw over one more jealous look and went to the gardeners. Tolaman put up his hand imperiously and the perindens staff reported to him, Arden included. Rubbing his head, Mavic was scanning the ground for his lost penny and bumped twice into the crowd of squires on the way.
The clip from the king’s man to one of his staff had embarrassed Tolaman, who seized the boy by the collar and shook him. “Flicking coppers! You were told once to stop and once was too much already! How dare you shame the perindens in front of the whole palace?”
“Everyone was doing it! It was just a bit of fun-” Mavic complained.
“Once the princess has been located, get to the squelly pools and clean up in there. The water is disgusting from those clogged pipes and should have been taken care of on Threeday. That can be your fun and if the exhibit isn’t sparkling by dinner, then you won’t get one.”
“But I can’t hold my breath that long! I’ll need help scooping out the jelly clots-”
“Here’s all the help you’ll receive.” Tolaman boxed the boy’s ear viciously and Mavic ceased his argument. Arden winced. In his first two years in the perindens, Tolaman had often boxed his ears for no crime greater than existing. Then Arden grew taller and larger, and Tolaman stopped even though Arden never struck back.
A full-time staff of five managed the exhibits, and the first lead set Retel and Izac to searching the perindens kitchen and stock rooms since that was where they worked. Mavic was in charge of checking out the lower branches of animals, Arden the middle, and Tolaman would search the highest branches and the huts.
The king’s man strolled around the groups and whispered to first leads, whose voices then rang out to their
staff about certain places likely to be overlooked. The Master-at-Arms motioned to his soldiers and all of them split apart, having already received areas to search.
“Not a lick and a promise,” Tolaman said sternly, and far more loudly than needed for people standing within two feet of him. He wanted others to hear his authority. “If one of you misses the princess and it turns out that she was within your section of the perindens all along, I will dismiss you from the palace. Are we clear about that?” Arden listened without worry; he could not be dismissed with his penchant. His life and skill belonged to the king. In his angrier moments with Tolaman, he wished that he could be dismissed.
Tolaman’s voice grew even more loud and imperious, drowning out the first lead for the squires nearby. “Enter each exhibit, each pantry, each storeroom, and turn over every rock and saddle and bag of dragon meal. And if you do find her, do not run screaming it through the grounds! Notify me quietly and immediately. Now go.”
As they were leaving, the king’s man called for Tolaman. He flapped at them to go on and doubled back to speak to him. The reason Tolaman wanted to be notified first was so he could claim the discovery for himself. He was a man hungry for glory in a position that offered little. Arden had been tired of him within an hour of their meeting. Seven years of bombast and bossiness had only deepened the tiredness. The only way to contend with him was to keep one’s head low, and Arden had learned to keep his head so low that he was almost tripping upon it when he walked. There had been times after he’d first come that he had imagined running back to the orphanage. The matron there was harried but gentle, and liked Arden for taking care of the horses.
He began at the lowest of the middle branches and searched methodically through the exhibits. A monkey looked slyly at the door when he opened it and Arden thought shoo. He had to push his command harder into its mind; monkeys were much smarter than dragons and his penchant was less effective for their intelligence. He could tire himself out using his skill too long with them.
The princess was not with the monkeys, either in the exhibit or behind it, and he crossed the passageway to take a look at the birds. Neither was Princess Briala there. Of all four children of King Heros, she was the one he was most familiar with. Now and then she came to the perindens to set up a chair by an exhibit and practice her sketching of the animals within. Only once had they exchanged words. She had been about fifteen at the time, and had flown around the branches calling for help because one of the dear little dragons was caught in the net. Her black hair was falling everywhere and sweat was beaded on her brow from her franticness.
She watched anxiously from outside as Arden brought in the ladder and climbed up, and she clapped in relief when he freed it. No, she was not very knowledgeable about dragons, who regularly got themselves stuck in everything and occasionally spontaneously combusted if they were so stupid that they swallowed their flames. But she was kind. Arden had liked that about her very much. Although they had not spoken since then, she always smiled at him in passing. Her proclivity to practical jokes was new information to him; Arden paid little mind to the third floor and its inhabitants. Half of the year they weren’t even at the palace but in another of their homes around Odri, or traveling through the nearby lands of Loria, Isle Zayre, and less often Havanath. As Arden’s role was in the perindens, he stayed behind.
From the birds he went to the squelly pools, which were indeed a mess from the clogged pipes. The water creatures fought for dominance by encasing one another in a jelly-like substance vomited up from their gullets, and it did not disperse on its own. When Arden had been lower on the lead chain, he had made a weekly habit of dunking under the surface of the pools to root out the pipes. He didn’t wait for the clog to build up. Stepping around the murky pools as the creatures splashed water on his legs, he checked over the whole of the exhibit. The princess wasn’t there.
From the squelly pools he went to the pasture, which he paced from end to end. No one had ever informed the nag unicorn that she was old; she kicked and farted and ran all about as Arden walked around. Her much younger companions just grazed. Hav horses were wiser than Hav dragons but dumber than the monkeys from Isle Zayre, and Arden had had trouble controlling them when he was thirteen and fourteen. His penchant had grown enough that they no longer fought him when he was doing something deeply unpopular like putting medication in their eyes or squeezing the pus from an abscess.
No princess was sketching the horses from under the deep shade of the trees, or sunbathing down at the stream. The unicorn followed after him to the gate and made a whuffling sound for assistance. He paused his search to take out a towel and wipe down her horn. It needed to be dusted regularly or the sparkling grit fell into her eyes, a task that Mavic hadn’t done in a while judging from how much dust came off into the towel. Delighted to have it gone, the unicorn farted again and ran away gleefully with her tail flying. The boy hadn’t clipped the wings of the pegasus either. It was soon going to lead to the beast’s second escape when he took off to fly around Lighmoon and raid farms of their crops. Arden didn’t fetch the clippers. He couldn’t do all of his work and Mavic’s, too.
Then he searched the rest of the middle branches of the perindens, and finished up at the snake house. The doctor’s children had gone off somewhere else. Looking in all of the small exhibits through the glass, he went behind them to search the hallways. No one was there.
Then he just stood in the quiet, lining up the tasks that he had left to do for the day. None happened to be of too much importance and it was almost time to start the nightly feeding. If Retel and Izac were done with their search as well, they would be in the perindens kitchen preparing everything for Arden and Mavic to deliver.
When he returned to the main passageway, Tolaman was coming down it. “Anything to report?” he demanded of Arden.
“She is not in the middle branches,” Arden said respectfully.
“Then search the higher, you fool!” Tolaman burst at him, slashing his arm through the air to those branches. “I have to do the huts!”
You were to do the higher, Arden thought. He said nothing, his head down and gaze submissive, but Tolaman’s lips tightened until they were smaller than his wife’s, and then disappeared from his face completely. The first lead strode on and Arden turned back to hunt.
****
The search carried on through the evening and into the night. He could hear it in his hut, voices calling out, Princess Briala, Princess Briala, do you hear me, Princess Briala? These were queer circumstances. The curtain lit up from the torches going by outside. Then the voices faded as the search moved on.
Tolaman had searched Arden’s hut and made a mess of his meager belongings. The clothes from his closet were tossed on his bed, and all of the furniture was askew. The cupboards in the tiny kitchen had their doors left wide open, and the lid was off the teakettle. As the princess could not have concealed herself within it, Tolaman had searched it only to be nosy, and to remind Arden that the first lead could do whatever he wanted. Fortunately, he hadn’t found Arden’s stash of money, a small but noble amount in a leather pouch that was hidden beneath a floorboard in his bedroom. Arden wasn’t saving for anything in particular. He just liked to have that heavy pouch of money. It made him feel like a rich man even if most of it was copper and silver, not gold.
Cleaning up did not take long, and he shifted his chair back the way he liked it. Then he picked the grit from his boots over his waste towel, which he would flap out his window later so the hut didn’t smell overly much like shuffle. He thought about his problem with Leefa, stitching together elegant speeches that were sure to dissuade her. Each one fell apart in his fingers. Every avenue led back to screaming in her face. One of the widowers had complained to his first lead, who had gotten Leefa to give up by threatening to report her behavior to her superiors in the kitchen. Tolaman would not intercede on Arden’s behalf in this.
If he was polite, she was encouraged. If he was rude, she assume
d he didn’t mean it. If he avoided being seen, she wouldn’t believe that she was the cause. He finished one boot, flapped the towel, and got to work on the second. He could spend his money on a visit to a love penchant, who would give him a potion that would make him appear hideous to Leefa. Usually people bought those when the one they loved persisted in being in love with someone else, and slipped it into their rival’s drink. A potion like that would take up most of what he had in his money pouch, and he resented losing what it had taken him seven years to acquire.
Besides, if he were going to spend his money on a love penchant, it would be for a spell to bring a man to him, not to send a woman away. He thought of the gentlemen and their pretty little daughter at the fountain and was filled with envy. Arden hadn’t even been able to keep a man for two nights in a row, let alone a lifetime and with a child to call their own.
When his second boot was finished, he flapped the towel once more and closed it into a cabinet. Heating up water, he made tea and retook his chair. Then came a brisk knocking on the door. The cup had just touched his lips. Startled, he put it down in the saucer hastily and almost spilled the scalding liquid over his fingers.
His feelings of envy turned to dread. She was back. With curtains for the bedroom, a suggestion that she might warm his bed, a treat she had pilfered from the kitchen to share . . . This was ridiculous. It stopped now. Had she discovered some magic spell this afternoon that had transformed her into a devastatingly handsome man, he still wouldn’t be interested. Her clutching, pushy personality wasn’t attractive to him, and he didn’t want to be favored just because of his position.
The brisk knocking came again and Tolaman shouted, “Arden! Arden, open this door at once! I apologize, sir, my second lead sleeps very deeply.”
Arden lifted the plank and opened the door. A cluster of people was standing on the stoop. The king’s man, two soldiers, and Tolaman pushed inside to fill the tiny room. They thought the princess was hiding in his hut! That was the only explanation that Arden could conjure. “No one is here but I, sirs, madam.” One soldier was a woman. Tolaman hissed at him to be quiet and gave an apologetic shrug to the rest of the company.