Thorn

by Intisar Khanani

  I set the cup down on the table and point to myself again. “Thoreena.”

  Reassured by my ability to speak, the hostlers introduce themselves in a quick round of pattering, sing-song names I cannot catch. They ladle out a bowl of stew for me, hand me a flatbread, and wait patiently as I eat, only occasionally murmuring a comment to each other. I leave as soon as I am done, smiling and nodding to them, as glad to escape, no doubt, as they are to have their common room returned to them.

  Chapter 10

  The same woman hands me a bowl of cinnamon-spiced porridge in the morning, gesturing to the table. Other than her, the common room lies empty. The porridge has been kept warm in a ceramic bowl wrapped in a blanket, and is more delicious than most breakfasts I can remember. We never had cinnamon for our porridge at home. The woman looks up from the pieces of a harness set out before her, smiling at my look of rapture, and pours me a cup of spiced milk. I want to ask her name again but she returns to her work at once, deft fingers piecing the harness together.

  My day passes much like yesterday. Corbé gives me no greeting, his broad face hard, black hair pulled back in a tight tail. He opens the gate and drives the geese out without a glance at me. I return from the pasture, a different one from the day before, and spend the morning cleaning out the barn. That is the worst part of the day; the best is my afternoon in the pasture. There is a particular peace to the land, a quiet that the honking of geese and flapping of wings only enhances. There is only the slowly creeping shadows of the rocks by the stream, the waking and napping of our charges.

  When it is time to return, driving the geese back to the road and up through the city gates, I find myself coming awake as if from a dream. I hurry ahead, throwing the barn gate open just as the first geese get to it. I close it behind Corbé, but still he does not speak to me. I wish he did not dislike me so.

  I eat dinner with the stable hands again, and today they speak more among themselves, welcoming me and then hesitantly forgetting me except to make sure I have what food and drink I wish. I watch them covertly, studying the three men, who are all within a few years of each other, and whose features carry a certain resemblance mirrored by the younger woman at the table. I wonder if they are all siblings, and if so, if the older, gentle-eyed woman is any relation of theirs as well. I listen to the patter of their conversation, their words are quick and their meanings, I guess from the frequent laughs and lasting smiles, varied. It is enough to make me want to shout—what use was my studying courtly phrases? Why couldn’t have Bol taught me the language of living and laughing? I will have to learn, I think wearily. Somehow, I will have to teach myself.

  Before I leave, I touch the older woman’s sleeve and show her a small wild rose I had found beside the goose pasture. “Thoreena.”

  She looks at it. “Thorn.” She points to the thorny stem, nodding, and turns to her companions before I can stop her, speaking quickly.

  “Thorn,” they say, pointing from the rose to me.

  “No, no,” I say quickly. I have to resort my own tongue, explaining uselessly, “Rose and thorns together: the whole plant–thoreena.”

  But they do not understand, and when I leave a few minutes later I am only “Thorn.”

  I venture forth from the stables, twirling the rose between my fingers, unsure whether I should laugh at myself or shout with frustration. Outside, the night air is chill. I leave the rose by one of the drinking troughs and cross the empty yard to the first stables. Curiosity carries me through the still open doors to walk past the stalls in the hopes that, perhaps … yes, there.

  The white turns his head to watch my approach, ears pricked forward, his face faintly luminescent in the half-light.

  “Well, it’s about time,” he murmurs as I reach him. “What do you find so amusing?”

  “Did you miss me?”

  “No,” he replies immediately. If he were human he might have blushed. “Do you realize I’ve been locked in this stall since we arrived?”

  “They didn’t take you out to the practice ring?”

  He snorts in disgust. “They tried to saddle me. Can you imagine? A hostler riding a true Horse? Unheard of!”

  “I suppose you didn’t let them, then?”

  “Of course not,” he snaps. “Would you?”

  I blink, try to imagine myself being taken as a beast of burden. “I don’t know,” I say, wondering if I have always been that, if I have only just now escaped it. He glares at me, and I say quickly, “I hope not.”

  “Well then.” He looks at me expectantly. I look back. “Let me out!”

  “I’ll have to put a halter on you, for form’s sake.”

  He acquiesces and with a minimum amount of fumbling with tack on my part we walk out to the ring together. As I unbuckle the halter, the ring’s gate closed and latched behind us, I ask, “What’s your name?”

  He shakes his head free and then pauses, dark eyes meeting mine, “Falada.” He takes off, running at breakneck speed around the edge of the ring. I climb up to the top of the fence and sit there to wait.

  It is not even a quarter of an hour before a hostler comes sprinting out of the stable. He glances around, spots the halter hanging over the gate, and the next moment has climbed into the ring with it in hand. I sigh and jump down again, watching as the hostler tries to corner the white. Falada will have none of it, prancing away, then breaking into a canter and swerving around the poor man.

  “Falada!” He comes to me at once, the hostler watching grimly. I turn to him with a forced smile and hold out my hand for the halter. He crosses the sand with a few long strides, studying me carefully as he hands it to me. He is as old as the hostler woman in my stable, tall and sinewy. He watches me as I reach towards Falada with the halter, and I hope I have not angered him as I did Sarkor. Falada cooperatively lowers his head to me, and a moment later I hand the hostler the lead. Falada promptly plants his feet apart and refuses to move.

  “Falada,” I say again, gently, and with one hand on his crest I reach out and touch the hostler’s shoulder. The man makes no move. “For God’s sake, don’t be an ass; go with this man.” Falada snorts and glares at me, but when the hostler tries to lead him out of the ring again, he follows.

  In the stables, the hostler ties the lead to a ring and leaves, returning with a box of brushes and hoof picks. Recognizing disaster when I see it, I take the box from the man, gesturing to Falada and then myself: I will care for him. The hostler looks at me again and I wonder what he has heard about me, what the rumors say of the princess’s cast-off companion. His gaze is measuring, knowing. He steps back, tilting his head. He will watch me work.

  Only after I have vigorously brushed out clouds of white hair and picked out all of Falada’s hooves does the hostler seem satisfied that I know what I’m doing. I am grateful to Redna for humoring me many an afternoon, teaching me how to help her with Fleet Wind, and I murmur a soft prayer for her as I work. Still, the hostler relaxes only once Falada is back inside his stall, the halter hanging from the hook by his door.

  I turn to him before he can leave, pointing to myself. “Thoreena.”

  “Thorné,” he echoes, the last part blending away so that it sounds to me almost as if he too has said, ‘thorn.’ He introduces himself as Joa, and with a nod departs.

  “A fine fellow, that Joa,” Falada mutters darkly.

  Chuckling, I turn back to him. “I’ll try to take you with me to watch the geese tomorrow. Would you like that?”

  “It will be good to be out on the plains again.”

  “Alright.” I turn to leave.

  “Before you go, princess, there’s something you might want to consider.”

  I glance at him quizzically. “What’s that?”

  “Won’t your mother notice if you don’t write to her, or if, when you do, your script had changed?”

  “She might,” I concede, the quiet of my day quickly slipping away. My mother’s voice, directing me to write often, echoes in my ears.
>
  “You’d better figure out what to do then, hadn’t you?” The white watches me intently. I shrug. “Hadn’t you?”

  “Yes,” I sigh. “I will.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight … I’ll go up to the palace and talk to—her.”

  “You’ll tell me about it in the morning.”

  “Yes,” I agree without enthusiasm and turn to the door.

  The walk to the palace takes me half an hour. I see no one but a few drunkards; I hurry past, head bent, and though one or two call out, no one follows after me. Here and there an inn door stands open, light pouring out with the sound of voices.

  The palace guards give me only a passing glance before waving me on through the gates. The Hall’s doors stand open, and as I ascend the steps I see that the palace still feasts. Great tables are set out across the Hall, stretching down the corridors created by the rows of pillars. The floor shines, for there are neither rushes nor dogs here. Instead, tiled mosaics spread across the floor: flowers and circles and vines, much more intricate than the courtyard I had seen. Far away, across the Hall, I can make out a dais at which the royal family and highest nobles sit. The lofty ceiling is lost in dim shadows.

  A doorman steps forward and clears his throat as I stand gaping the in doorway. I drag my eyes away from the Hall. He speaks, but the words are in Menay and I can only shake my head in frustration.

  “I am Lady Thoreena,” I say carefully in Menay. At least I have this much. “I must see the Princess Alyrra.” His brow creases as he deciphers what must, no doubt, be an atrocious accent, but then he nods, waving over a page. I follow the boy out of the Hall, through hallway after hallway, coming finally to a sweeping marble staircase that takes us up to a carpeted hallway of deep red, lit by small lamps set in carved niches along the wall. The woodwork rising from the floor, the mosaic walls, the carved ceilings here are like nothing I have seen before.

  The sitting room the page shows me into is lavishly decorated. The floor is spread with a silk carpet depicting more flowers and vines as well as songbirds hiding in the greenery. A chandelier hangs from the ceiling, fully lit, light shimmering through the hanging crystals. Low couches line the wall, and a series of ornate tables no higher than the couches are arranged at intervals, no doubt to bring refreshments easily to hand. There are two latticed windows in the far wall, the shutters drawn closed, and a fireplace to one side, empty and shielded from sight by a three-paneled painting of storks in flight. A large, many-sided table with an inset silver tray, exquisitely engraved, draws the eye to the center of the room and the crystal vase with its bouquet of flowers set upon it.

  I stand gazing at the room as the page calls a greeting, wondering if I should feel regret. I feel a twinge of envy—how different is this room from my own in the stable! But I would not want to be princess.

  A woman answers his call, entering from a connecting room. She looks like a lady of some import herself, but she is holding a folded tunic in her hand. A lady-in-waiting or attendant of some sort, I wonder? The page tells her who I am as well as, I believe, that I seek an audience with the princess. She considers me shrewdly, dismisses the page, and leads me across the room towards the window. A small chair has been set in the far corner, half-hidden behind a folding silk screen of mountains and snow. I thank her, sinking into the chair. She shrugs one shoulder and leaves, her expression a mix of contempt and amusement, and returns to her duties. I lean back, grateful. At least this way I have the chance to organize my thoughts without Valka present.

  Some time later, I hear voices from the hallway, muffled by the door but vaguely recognizable. Then the door opens and closes, and Valka snaps, “Mina! Zaria! Where are you both?”

  My mouth drops open in surprise. Surely her attendants are higher born than common maids. I would have expected some semblance of respect for them from Valka. They hurry into the room murmuring apologies, the words foreign but the sound familiar. Valka snaps at them again, her voice growing weaker as she moves into the other room. Still, I can hear her railing against the uselessness of attendants who hardly know her language.

  Time passes gently, marred only by Valka’s grumping at her attendants. I close my eyes and think of the forests, the dell, my old friend the Wind. Eventually, the attendants emerge once more, closing the door softly behind them. I listen to their fluid voices, the whisper of their skirts as they walk. I wonder if they have forgotten me, but then the woman who had shown me my chair appears before me. She smiles as she gestures for me to go through to the next room. It is a cool, mocking smile, and the other woman hides a laugh behind her hand. They must not like Valka.

  I thank them both, taking the lamp they offer me. They leave without another word, but I hear their muffled laughter as the door closes. The second room is another sitting room, this one smaller, simpler, and yet even more elegant. The third is Valka’s bedchamber.

  I set the lamp down on a carved stand beside the low divan that serves as a bed. She snores softly. It is strange to see myself lying there among the pillows and silken sheets; in sleep, the emotions of the day have fallen from my features so that I look not so much arrogant or petulant as young.

  “Princess,” I whisper to myself, and Valka opens her eyes.

  She well near flies out of bed, face white. She faces me across the divan, one hand clutching her neck, her chest heaving. Brown hair, straight as always, falls over thin arms poking out of the sleeveless nightgown. My face is filling out, I note dispassionately.

  “I’ll scream! Don’t you come near me!” she cries.

  I almost laugh at that. “I’ve only come to talk to you. After all, I’ve no interest in being hung for a traitor.”

  Her eyes flash. “I shall have you thrown out of the city. You forget that if it weren’t for me you would have nothing now.”

  Does she think I have a great deal with my sleeping mat and stool? I meet her glare, trying not to rise to her bait. “Only a fool would send me away.”

  “You insolent witch!”

  “You need me for my knowledge,” I snap, my patience at an end.

  She looks momentarily taken aback. “Oh?”

  “I promised to write to my mother upon my arrival. She will wonder if she receives no word.”

  “If that’s all, I’ll write her in the morning. I don’t need you for that.”

  “You may have my body but you do not have my script,” I point out, seething.

  Valka absorbs this without a hitch. “Then you shall write what I tell you, or I shall have you thrown out.”

  “I shall write what I wish, or not write at all.”

  We glare at each other over the divan. Valka is the first to look away. “How do I know you won’t betray me?” she asks sullenly.

  “You’ll have the reading of every letter I write,” I say, as if offering a compromise.

  “Every letter?”

  “I will have to write regularly. My mother is concerned with the alliance this marriage is to make.”

  “What is your price?” Valka asks tightly. I smile: like my brother, she gives little of her own and so expects avarice of others. It never occurred to her that I might not demand a payment.

  “Only this: that you will leave me alone; and if I should ever need anything, you will provide me with it.”

  A smile lights Valka’s face—it is frightening to me to see those features burning with greed and happiness. Her words are laughably conservative in comparison. “I suppose I can do that.”

  She walks to a writing table and gathers up a sheaf of papers for me. “You are content to be a servant, then? You are more the fool than I thought.”

  I ignore her words. “How will I get the letter to you?”

  “I will send a page.”

  “It will be ready in the morning.” I pause in the doorway. “And Valka? If you betray the prince to the Lady, I will kill you, cost me what it may.”

  Chapter 11

  In the morning, I take a few minutes to go
through my—or rather, Valka’s—trunks. They had been delivered the day before while I was out with the flock, but I hadn’t wanted to look at them after meeting Valka. The first trunk contains the clothes and belongings Valka brought with her, including a small box of jewelry; the second contains her trousseau. I sit back on my heels, my single-candle lantern throwing a dim light on the contents. Daerilin truly did not wish to see Valka again. She had been sent here, to Menaiya, to marry where she might and be forgotten. I remember my mother’s words and a sadness wells up inside of me for the future Valka had been faced with. I almost pity her.

  I look through her belongings hesitantly for I do not want to take anything of hers, but my old slippers, caked in goose dung and sagging at the seams, will hardly last another day. And gloves for my hands, rubbed raw by the shoveling and raking, would be wonderful. Thankfully, I find a pair of riding boots that fit perfectly. The gloves are all silk and utterly useless.

  As promised, a page knocks at my door a few moments later. He is dressed in a different version of the hostlers’ outfit: where they sport olive tunics and tan trousers, with a dark green sash at the waist, he is all blues and white. When I open the door, he bobs his head and says, “Letter.” I have folded the letter into an empty sheet of paper and closed it with a few drops of wax; Valka will be able to read it before sealing it with the royal crest. The page departs with a quick bow.

  Once the goose barn is done, I seek out Joa. It takes a few broken phrases and plenty of gesturing before he understands me, for I have no wish to be mistaken for a thief. Eventually, he assents and I lead Falada away by his halter. Once through the city gates, I unbuckle the thing and he takes off, racing down the road and then trotting sedately back to walk with me.

  “Feeling a little cooped up, were you?”

  “Of all human inventions, stalls are by far the worst,” Falada informs me, humor tingeing his words. I grin and shrug noncommittally.