by Jill Myles
“While I could not blame a man for doing so,” my father said dryly, “He yet stands behind you.”
How had I missed him? I turned fully and glanced behind me. No one but the guardsmen and the minstrel. The minstrel gave me a cheerful smile. “Greetings to you, fair lady.”
I stared at him. His voice was slightly accented, making all of his speech sound more fluid than it should be. His voice was lovely, even if the rest of him was somewhat…alarming. For a minstrel, he was very large, with broad shoulders and a tanned face. His hair was a nondescript shade of brown that seemed to stick up in short, unruly spikes and his face was clean of everything but a boyish smile. His hands, I noticed, were large and callused, and his clothes were garish and patched at the knees. A poor minstrel. A very friendly, poor minstrel.
I turned back to Father, wary. “You must be joking.”
“I’m afraid not,” said my father the king. “Summon the priest.”
“What? I–no!” I strode forward, gathering the massive amounts of lace from my dress into my arms. “Father, you can’t do this!”
“A princess’s duty is to help secure the kingdom. You proved to me last night that you have no concern about this kingdom or the royal family in the slightest, and you have offended the nobility. As king, my duty is to remove you from court. As your father, it is my duty to teach you a lesson.” The look in his eyes was hard, and he leaned forward as he spoke, as if enjoying every word. “Therefore, you shall marry.”
“Fine, I’ll marry,” I began in a panic. “Bring back that dirty king. I’ll apologize to him–”
“The Lioncourt retinue left this morning,” Father said sharply. “You have ruined a potential alliance with them when you could have been Queen.”
I didn’t care about being queen, not if I had to be married to a dirty scarecrow of a king. “Then another noble–”
“No one will marry you, Rinda. You made quite sure of that last night.”
Cold fear spread through me, and I shook my head furiously, my fingers twisting in the thick lace of my gown. He wouldn’t marry me off to this stranger. Even my own father did not hate me that much, surely. “There has to be someone else.”
“I vowed I would give you to the next man that showed up at my door.”
“But this?” I protested, gesturing wildly at the man who stood behind me. “This…this…beggar!”
“Minstrel,” the man behind me cheerfully corrected. “Shall I sing you something?”
“No,” I ground out furiously. I was inches away from screaming. “Father, you can’t do this.”
“Can’t I, Rinda? I am the king.”
Imogen sobbed into her handkerchief, looking at me with despair.
Helpless, I sank to the floor, staring at my father in disbelief and horror. I knew he’d always felt distaste for me. Knew that he was furious with me for last night. But I’d never in my life expected him to revenge himself upon me so cruelly. “Father, no.”
But Father was enjoying himself too much. A fervent light was in his eyes, and he couldn’t hide the smile on his face from the room. “You. Boy. What is your name?”
The minstrel stepped forward to my side. “I am called Aleksandr, Your Majesty,” he said in the pleasant, accented voice. “Are you sure she is quite agreeable–” He cast a concerned look down at me, his eyes warm and brown.
Like that of a commoner. My father was marrying me to a commoner. I stared in horror at his callused hands. This wasn’t happening to me.
“I am the king. She cannot go against what I decide,” said my father in a cold voice.
My head bent to the floor, and I let my curtain of dark hair hide the despair in my face. He was right – I couldn’t do anything. The word of the king was law. How many times had I used that against my own servants in the past?
“Very well,” said Aleksandr, far too chatty for my tastes. “Does she come with a dowry, then?”
My sister gasped in outrage.
I turned to stare at the man at my side with something akin to hate. “You’re marrying me for my money?”
He grinned at me, nonplussed. “Absolutely not. I’m marrying you for your charming demeanor.”
My father gave a bark of laughter at that. “Her trunks contain a fortune, trust me.” Father raised a hand, beckoning someone behind us forward. “Good, the priest is here. Stand her up and we can begin.”
Aleksandr's hands were on my waist, hauling me to my feet. They were warm and the calluses snagged on the silky material. Humiliation burned on my face and I slapped his hands away, shoving him back. “Don’t touch me,” I hissed.
“You sure you’re a princess?” he said, grinning. “I always thought the nobility had, you know…manners.”
“Her lack of manners is why she is marrying you, boy,” my father said as the priest moved to the king’s side.
“I see,” said Aleksandr, in a more somber tone. “Very well then.” He offered his arm to me in a chivalrous gesture.
I ignored it. My thoughts were frantic. I could run away from the room, hope that the guards wouldn’t catch me in my flowing nightgown…and then what? Hide in my royal apartments until Father had the door broken down? Run away? Or would he go even lower? Marry me to a pig farmer?
Father took my silence as acquiescence. He gestured at the priest. “Begin the vows.”
“No,” I screamed, pulling away from both my father and my new bridegroom. “Father, please.”
“I will hear nothing of it,” he said in a strident voice, his face becoming tense.
“No wonder my mother died giving birth to me,” I spat. “It was the only way she could get away from you.”
“You insolent little witch!” Father roared. “I will tolerate this no longer!” My father raised his hand to slap me and I flinched, shutting my eyes tightly.
The blow never came. I squeezed an eye open to see Aleksandr's large, strong hand grasping my father’s forearm, inches from my face.
“You may be king,” Aleksandr said in an even voice. “But that will be my wife, and I will not tolerate you harming her.”
My eyes wide with fright, I stared at my father and Aleksandr. Would the minstrel be dragged away? Whipped and tossed into the streets?
But instead, my father narrowed his eyes at Aleksandr and flexed his hand. “Very well.” He turned to the priest. “Let us begin the ceremony.”
The priest opened the thick Libram and began to intone the sacred rites. I could barely focus on the words, my thoughts spinning in my head wildly.
I, Princess Rinda of famed Balinore, was being married to a minstrel. With my father’s blessing.
What was to become of me now?
Chapter Six
“Ready to leave yet?” My groom’s cheerful voice grated in my ears as he wandered over.
I ignored him, watching as servants loaded trunk after trunk into the back of a horse-drawn cart. Only twelve of them would fit – I’d be leaving so much behind. My custom saddle, my palfrey, the gilt-edged dishes that I’d ordered from Corlais just last month. My favorite dresses barely fit in the pitiful amount of trunks I was allowed to take with me.
“Well?”
“I’m packing,” I ground out after it became painfully obvious that I wouldn’t be able to avoid answering him.
“All of those trunks are coming with us?” Shock laced his voice and he rubbed his head, ruffling his hair. “We can’t possibly take all of that.”
I got to my feet and brushed off my skirts, irritated that I’d dressed in my plainest riding habit and only three petticoats. Just the somber feel of it was vexing me. “We are taking all of it,” I declared, casting him a defiant look.
He raked a hand through his spiky hair that could not seem to decide if it was blonde or brown. “Princess,” he began, then peered at me as if seeing a stranger. “Brandy, was it?”
“Rinda!” My fingers curled, itching to slap him. “How can you not know my name? You just married me!”
&nbs
p; “Rinda, that’s the name,” he said, completely ignoring my wrath and striding over to the cart. It teetered high with trunks, the servants ignoring him as they shoved and lashed rope across the trunks. “Very pretty name,” he said absently. “So why is all this being packed up again now? Who is taking it?”
“Those are my things.” Was he soft in the head? Had I married a fool?
He scratched his head, the gesture making tufts of hair stick up. “Er, see…Rindy–”
“Rinda!”
“Rinda,” he corrected, the slow smile on his face making me wonder if the mispronunciation of my name was entirely an accident. “We can’t take all this with us. It’ll be impossible to make any time on the road.”
I watched the servants strain to tie down my smallest trunk, and sighed. I was not entirely unreasonable, after all. “I suppose you’re right. I shall simply have to do with less dresses. Let’s cut it down to eight trunks.”
“One,” he said in a surprisingly firm voice.
“One trunk?” My voice rose an outraged octave.
“One dress,” he said, and tossed a pack in my direction. “One dress and ask the servants to pack enough food in there for a few days travel.”
I caught the pack he tossed, and stared down at it, uncomprehending. It was so…small. My favorite dresses had layers of crinolines and thick, puffed sleeves encrusted with jewels. Even half of one of my dresses wouldn’t fit in this ridiculously tiny pack. “You must be joking.”
“I assure you, dear lady, I am quite serious.”
Overcome with furious frustration, I threw it to the ground. “I am not a pauper, you fool.”
“You are now,” he said, beaming a sunny, unconcerned smile at me. “You married one.”
My hands clenched into fists and I gritted my teeth. I forced myself to count to ten before giving him a cool courtier smile. “I hate you, minstrel.”
He shrugged, completely unconcerned with how I felt at the moment, and seemed far more interested in the horse hitched to the cart. “Do we get to keep the horse?”
“We’re keeping all of it.” I was not going to leave the castle with nothing but the dress on my back. The man was fooling himself if he thought otherwise.
To my surprise, he simply squinted at me, and then smiled. “Have it your way. We need to leave soon.”
That was better. Somewhat mollified at his easy capitulation, I raised a hand to my eyes and shielded them against the too-bright midday sun. “Why? Where are we going in such a hurry?” Did my poor minstrel husband have somewhere to be? A job singing or dancing in a bar?
At the thought, my stomach churned in revulsion. Me. Married to a minstrel. I was going to be sick.
“Ah, but that’s a secret, my dear lady, and one you do not need to know.” Aleksandr grinned at me. “Now go say your goodbyes and I’ll try and figure out how to get this cart onto the road.” He slapped the horse’s hindquarters and the entire cart creaked with the weight of my trunks. “Er, somehow.”
My stomach dropped. We were leaving – so soon. I had to check that I’d packed everything, say goodbye to my sister…I picked up my skirts and hurried out of the courtyard, rushing back inside the keep. My maid met me there at the door, a sad look on her face.
“Princess,” she began, then stammered and put her hands up when I tried to push past her. “Wait! Your father has asked you not to re-enter the keep.”
The breath caught in my throat and I froze, staring at her. “He what?”
Her head bowed, and I noticed the two guards flanking her, in the shadows. Guards? To keep me out of my own home? “I’m so sorry, Princess,” she stammered. “Your father’s orders were firm. You are no longer welcome in the castle.”
Surprise made me stiffen. That my father would insult me so…I should not have been surprised, but a tiny part of me could not help but feel shocked that he would stoop so low. “I see.” My voice was cool as ice. “Very well. I don’t want to see my father either. Where is Imogen? I need to see her before I leave.” My sister, who was my dearest – and only – friend and the only person I would truly miss in the castle. I couldn’t imagine life without my sister at my side.
“She is unavailable, princess.”
“Unavailable? But…but I’m leaving.” I waved at the maid with my hand, indicating for her to move out of my way. “I won’t be here for her to see later. I’m leaving the city. With my new husband,” I emphasized, the word leaving a sour taste in my mouth. As if anyone could forget whom I had just been married to. “Is she napping? Go and wake her. This is important.”
But the maid stood there like a frozen lump, unwilling to meet my gaze. Nor did she move away from the doors she barred. “I’m sorry, princess. I have my orders, and I’m not to let you in to bother the King or Princess Imogen.”
“I…see.” Hurt welled up inside me. I tamped it down and gave her a sneer instead. “If my father asks, you may tell him that I have left–”
The woman smiled, quickly interjecting, “I will tell him, princess.”
“–And that I hope he rots.” I gave the maid a sweet smile and turned on my foot.
With the sound of her gasp echoing behind me, I picked up my skirts and flounced back to the lumbering cart across the muddy courtyard. The trunks swayed atop it, held down by rope, and the cart creaked as if it were about to splinter apart from the load.
On the seat, grinning like a madman, was my new husband, his hair sticking up in wild, messy spikes. “I don’t think this cart is going to make it. The wheels are straining.”
“For the last time, we’re not leaving anything behind,” I snapped back at him. If he was so worried about the cart, I’d take care of it. Crouching next to the wheels, I pulled out my ever-present needle that I kept in a slim carrying case, pricked my finger. I blotted the blood on one of the spokes of each wheel and the underside of the wooden cart, thus ensuring that it would hold together. With that, I stood and dusted off my skirts, ignoring the puzzled look that Aleksandr was giving me. I climbed onto the seat of the cart next to him and sat in a flounce of puffy skirts. “Now drive!”
“As you wish, dear lady.”
I could hear the grin in his voice, and I wondered if it would be impolite to choke one’s new husband.
~~ * ~~
My chin resting on my palm, I hunched over on the seat next to my new husband, scowling at the narrow streets of Balinore’s capital city, Threshold, as our cart rumbled down the cobbled streets. My mood was foul, the cart was slow, and the man next to me whistled and hummed as if he were having a fantastic day.
Of course he was, I thought irritably. He’d just married a princess.
“Why are there so many yellow cloaks?” Aleksandr said to me, between greeting the people that passed.
I sat up, resisting the urge to rub my posterior. The cart was rough and I was pretty sure that I was going to have splinters in it by the end of the day, splinters that a paltry three layers of petticoats wouldn’t save me from. “What are you talking about?”
He gestured, raising one of his large hands, the other capably holding the reins of our horse. “Over there. Against the wall. I keep seeing the yellow cloaks everywhere we go.”
My gaze was drawn to where he pointed, and I looked down the street. Threshold was a busy city, nestled tightly in a valley between the many mountains that made up Balinore. We were a people of tall buildings and narrow, twisting streets, all the better to make use of the lack of space. The streets were lined with muck from horses, and some of the poorer districts had broken-down houses that were crammed too tightly together, like piles of haphazard wood. Down the narrow streets, people darted back and forth, emptying buckets or running errands and going about their day. The person that caught Aleksandr's attention was probably the beggar shrouded in his yellow cloak, a begging bowl placed next to him as he huddled on the edge of a busy street. “That man?”
Aleksandr nodded. “This city is crawling with yellow cloaks. Why is that?”
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“It’s because he’s poor,” I said with a sniff, losing interest. “They pass them out at the almshouses.” Just seeing the cloak left me with a sour feeling in the pit of my stomach. The cloaks were yellow because my mother had spun spindle after spindle of yellow, trying to regain her powers to spin gold once more and have my father love her again. She had spun so much that my father had donated it to the poor houses and even now, years and years later, yellow fabric was still associated with the poor.
“But…there are so many of them,” said Aleksandr, his brow creasing into a frown. “How can there be so many poor people in the city when you have trunks full of gowns?”
I frowned at him. “What do my dresses have to do with anything? I live richly because I am a princess of Balinore. You cannot possibly compare me to a pauper.”
“Your father is king,” he said. “It is a king’s duty to look after the people of his kingdom.”
An indelicate snort escaped me. “My father does not think beyond what will amuse him in the next two days, much less think about the poor. Do you think that if my father were as kind and caring a ruler as you make him out to be, that I would be sitting here on this cart married to you?” Scorn dripped from my voice.
Rather than be offended by my slam, Aleksandr seemed thoughtful. He said nothing else on the topic, instead guiding the cart through the streets and continuing to be unfailingly friendly and polite to everyone that passed. Many looked at me in curiosity, but word had not yet spread that I had been married, and I was not known for my friendliness, so they only stared and whispered. It made my mood even worse.
The cart pulled into the city square, and stopped next to the large public fountain. It was market day and the streets were crowded with folk, and I cringed at the thought that they might see me with my new husband. A man across the way let his horse drink from the fountain and gave me a puzzled look, and I knew what he was thinking – what they were all thinking. What was the princess doing on a rickety cart with a crazy man?