Thorn

by Intisar Khanani

  “Did you meet with that Valka woman?”

  “We came to an agreement.” I am suddenly loathe to tell him more.

  “Yes?” he prods.

  “I’ll write letters home for her. In return, she’ll leave me alone.”

  Falada jerks to a stop. “That’s all?”

  “I did tell her I’d kill her if she betrayed the prince,” I admit, continuing down the road. After a moment, Falada follows.

  “Would you?”

  “No. I don’t know that I could kill anyone. But I thought the threat would make her think twice.”

  He makes a slight sound of consideration—a hmm of horsely sorts—but lets my words pass. “Do you think this sorceress is after the prince as well?” he asks instead. I nod, feeling a tightness begin around my neck.

  “Shouldn’t you warn him?”

  “I’m sure he knows.”

  “Are you? How?”

  “I think she wanted me to betray him,” I reply slowly, one hand massaging my throat. “She saw that I wouldn’t, so she—” My breath stops in my throat with a jerk. I grab a handful of Falada’s mane as pain slices through my neck. The world sways around me. I close my eyes, clinging desperately to Falada. And then the chain loosens. I take a long, faltering breath, then another. Falada stands stone still beside me. I force myself to step away from him, smoothing down his mane with shaking fingers.

  “My apologies,” I rasp.

  “Let’s keep walking,” he murmurs. “If you are able.” I shuffle along beside him. I see the reason for Falada’s concern a moment later: a wagon approaches. The driver—a farmer with a load of ripe melons—watches us intently as we pass. We must make an odd picture: a small, foreign woman carrying a halter, accompanied by a white stallion wearing not a single piece of tack. The crunch of gravel beneath wagon wheels steadily dies away, to be replaced by the honking of the geese.

  “You will have to tell me how the prince is involved,” Falada murmurs as we draw near the pasture. “Perhaps tonight.”

  “We’ll see,” I say. I doubt he will think much of me once he knows.

  The day passes in the same quiet rhythm of the day before. Falada grazes nearby. Corbé watches us darkly. I can almost feel his anger in the air. Even Falada, as he pauses next to me in the early afternoon, softly asks, “Your fellow goose boy doesn’t always look that black, does he?”

  “No.” I reach up to scratch Falada behind his ears. “I don’t quite understand him.”

  “Jealousy,” Falada says and steps away, leaving me to worry at that one word for the rest of the day.

  Falada helps drive the geese back to the barn, prancing along near me, chasing feathery rebels back to the flock. He seems to take a sheepish pleasure in enjoying such work—as if he would have thought it beneath him to drive geese and is somewhat embarrassed to find that he enjoys it.

  I rub him down and brush out the grasses caught in his tail when we reach the stable. Falada waits patiently, eyeing the serving of oats and grains awaiting him in his stall.

  “You can’t possibly be hungry; you’ve been eating all day!” I say as he goes straight to his food.

  He throws me an amused glance. “Think of it as dessert,” he suggests.

  In the common room, I tear into my own dinner in a way that would have made Mother purse her lips and glare icily at me. My meal is a steaming bowl of vegetable stew seasoned with spices I have no name for, served up with flatbread. I doubt any meal has ever tasted half so delicious as this. The other hostlers glance at me, grinning, and bend over their bowls as well.

  When I am finished, I push my bowl back, ready to leave. The older hostler woman reaches out and sets a twig with leaves before me. I glance from it to her; she points to herself, saying her name slowly. I pick up the twig, study the leaves, and feel a smile break across my face: her name is Laurel. When I look up, the second woman presents me with a dried violet, perhaps got from an apothecary’s shop. She is young and pretty, a few years older than me, her eyes bright and merry. Her brothers grin and hold up their names—the youngest a rowan branch, the second the leaves of an ash tree, and the eldest two oak leaves. They teach me their names in Menay, and I laughingly repeat them, committing them to memory: Laurel, Violet, Rowan, Ash and Oak. I carry the warmth of their kindness with me to bed and wake in the morning still smiling.

  ***

  Falada asks me about the prince again on the way to the pasture. It isn’t until he asks if I am afraid to tell him that I finally do give him the gist of what happened during Kestrin’s visit to my room. With a harrumph, Falada tells me I am a fool.

  “You should have told me before,” he says, stopping to glare at me.

  “What difference does it make?” I ask, pretending nonchalance.

  Falada sputters. “Your prince is a sorcerer! Has that occurred to you? Your prince, and no doubt the king as well. There is no other way Kestrin could have reached you.” He shakes his head. “They must have fallen out with this sorceress and she is looking for revenge.”

  I flush. Of course I’d known that. “I did say that it was the prince she wanted, not me.”

  “Excellent thinking,” Falada says with derision.

  I flinch but forge on. “Since the prince is a sorcerer, and knows quite well who is after him, I’m sure he can take care of himself. As long as I can keep—the princess in check.” I come to an abrupt end, remembering how the prince had faced the Lady.

  Falada merely looks at me.

  “Alyrra, why do you think the king and his son chose you?”

  I shrug. I had intervened to help him against the Lady, certainly, but the prince could not have foreseen that; that encounter had come after the betrothal was announced.

  “What makes you a better choice than a princess from a richer nation, a princess raised to be a queen? One who could never learn to be a goose girl?”

  “Thank you,” I say, glaring at him. “No, I don’t know why they wanted a clumsy, incoherent princess from a tin-cup kingdom like ours. Even Mother couldn’t figure it out.”

  “Then how did you convince them you were the right person?”

  “They were already convinced when they came.”

  “In that case, they could have sealed the betrothal by letter. They wanted to meet you. Or at least, the king did, and I have no doubt that he told the prince what he thought of you.”

  “Just because the prince dabbles in magic doesn’t mean his father does too.” I wipe my palms on my skirts; they are sweaty despite the cool day. “Does it?”

  “You don’t have any sense of magic, do you?” Falada asks. “Transporting oneself to another kingdom—which is to say across a mountain range as well as over plains and forests—is no easy task. To do it with enough precision to arrive in a particular person’s bedroom, when you have neither met the person nor seen the room, requires mastery.”

  “And he could not have become a master without the king’s knowledge,” I finish.

  “The king’s knowledge, yes,” Falada agrees, “but also his help: in training, in finding tutors, in keeping it secret. Mastery at such a young age as his is unusual. He would have had to devote much time and energy to it.”

  “Why do you think it’s a secret? Wouldn’t the court know—and the—the Council of Mages?” I stumble, trying to dredge up what memories I have of the regulation of magic in Menaiya. “And certainly then everyone would know.” Then again, I had never guessed at my own mother’s witchery.

  “I have never heard magic mentioned in relation to the royal family, not before we arrived and certainly not since. Why they would want it secret is easy enough to guess: the Council of Mages can’t control what they don’t know about. It’s a question of power.”

  “You understand Menay?” I ask in surprise.

  “Of course,” Falada says, not to be deterred. “But consider this, Alyrra: you have a family of sorcerers with a great and potent enemy; they must have seen something in you to make them choose you. What
did you do?”

  “I exchanged less than ten sentences with the king up until the betrothal. I was put under guard for my own protection in my own home. And I generally stayed out of the way.”

  Falada considers this for a moment. “You showed yourself to be without pretensions, requiring protection …”

  “And vulnerable and biddable,” I finish. We are nearing the flock now, having already left the road.

  “Perhaps,” Falada muses. “Perhaps they were looking for someone whom they could trust, someone who would accept their authority and be grateful for their continued protection.”

  “Maybe they wanted a princess whom no one would miss if she were to get killed,” I say bitterly.

  Falada does not respond immediately. When he does, it is to ask, “What would you have given to be valued and protected?”

  I pause, staring at the ground. I wish that I could lie to him. “A lot,” I say roughly.

  “Your loyalty?” I don’t look up, but I know he is right. Perhaps Falada can see the truth of it written on my face, for he says gently, “Then there’s only one question left, isn’t there?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Can they trust you?”

  Chapter 12

  A quick, hard knock sounds on my chamber door. I open it to find the soldiers Matsin and Finnar standing in the shadowy hall. Matsin makes a cursory bow and says, “Lady Thorné will come with me.”

  A small carriage awaits us next to the practice ring; a single hostler passes us as we walk to it, for with nightfall the stables have quieted. Matsin hands me in and shuts the door, and he and Finnar climb up behind the carriage box. The other two soldiers in their quad sit up with the driver. With the crack of a whip, the carriage turns out, rattling up West Road towards the palace. I wonder if the king intends to question me again, and if so, why he did not send a page to fetch me that I might feel more at his mercy. Perhaps the carriage is meant to remind me of what I have lost, or perhaps the soldiers are meant to intimidate me.

  It is not the king that the quad takes me to, however, conducting me down quiet hallways. When Matsin opens the door to a small evening room, nodding for me to enter, I find it is the prince instead.

  I curtsy at once, keeping my head bent to hide my confusion. What would Kestrin want with me, thinking me nothing more than the Valka’s cast-off companion? Behind me, Matsin closes the door, leaving us alone. The room is well lit, showing two low arm chairs tilted towards each other before a small fire, the floor spread with a plush, knotted carpet, and a writing table and chair standing against the wall.

  “Rise,” the prince says, his voice already familiar to me. I straighten, raising my gaze to meet his. He is exactly as I remember him, dark eyes glinting in the lamplight. Only his face, as serious as it was that night in my room, seems more drawn and weary than before. His expression as he considers me is guarded.

  “I apologize for bringing you here in such an abrupt fashion. I am afraid there are few here who speak your language. I hope you have taken no offense.” His voice is gentle, even sweet, and utterly lacking real emotion.

  “No, Your Highness,” I reply on cue. Yet I remember hearing Matsin speak my language to my own escort on our journey to the border. He had spoken well enough; he might have offered an explanation tonight had he been told to.

  “I am glad,” Kestrin says, stepping toward me. “I have a small favor to ask: I need a letter written to your queen. While I pride myself on speaking your language, I have not yet mastered its written form. You will help me?” Though the words are phrased as a question, the authority in his voice will not be belied.

  “Of course, Your Highness.” My heart beats painfully loud in my ears. What could he possible want from my mother that Valka couldn’t ask for herself?

  He gestures to the writing table. “I will dictate the words,” he explains as I sit down. He takes up a station at the corner of the table, watching as I ready myself for the task.

  Kestrin dictates a simple formal letter, beginning with the usual “To Her Majesty the Queen,” proceeding through to “the delivery of a particular cloak, gift from His Majesty the King of Menaiya, which Her Highness left behind,” and ending with, “sincere gratitude.” By the time I am done my palms are sweaty, my stomach knotted. And all the while he has watched me as I wrote.

  I lay down the quill and hand the letter to the prince. He takes it from me and then, to my surprise, he moves to the small table between the two chairs and picks up another paper. He stands, his back towards me, studying the papers. I rise and wipe my palms on my skirts. I cannot see what the other paper is, nor can I imagine what it might be.

  “Your Highness,” I finally venture, throat dry. He turns to look at me. “May I return to my room?”

  He lowers the papers. “Your letter has raised some interesting questions for me.”

  “Your Highness?” I pray he does not hear the slight wavering of my voice. His story is beginning to unravel in my mind—there must surely be court scribes, scribes that accompanied the king and helped to prepare the betrothal papers, scribes that could easily have written such a note to my mother. Why did he not ask them?

  “Come sit with me.” He takes one of the chairs, the papers still in his hand. I move with leaden feet to the other.

  “You seem to have displeased the Princess Alyrra during your journey,” the Prince observes. I dip my head in assent: it certainly seems so. “Tell me then, how did you send Alyrra a letter for her mother—or rather, how did you write a letter from her to her mother?”

  “Your Highness?” My words are hardly more than a whisper, and as I meet his gaze he smiles, but there is nothing good in that smile.

  “Perhaps you have forgotten. I traced a copy to be sure you would not. Listen:

  “‘Dear Mother:

  It has been two full days since we arrived in Tarinon. I hope you will forgive my tardiness in beginning this letter, but I have been kept very busy. As I am sure Lieutenant Balin gave you a favorable report of my well-being at the time that he left, I hope you have not worried.

  We were met at the Border by two of the king’s lords, Filadon and Melkior by name—’

  “Shall I go on? Or is it starting to sound more familiar now?” the prince asks amiably.

  “It is familiar,” I say hoarsely.

  “Why is that?” I shake my head; I can think of no explanation but the truth, and that I cannot tell him even if I wished to.

  He drops the letter on the table between us. “I do not believe Alyrra cares for you enough, or trusts you sufficiently, to have you write a letter for her. Certainly she would not request a letter of such an intimate nature. How then did you come to write this?”

  I sit silently, my gaze now trained on my hands. They are clasped just so on my lap, the fingers of one hand cradling the other.

  “And how came you to sign it for her?” His voice is rich and low, and laden with distrust. “You have the exact same signature as the princess; I compared yours to her signature on the betrothal papers and could hardly note a difference.”

  Still, I cannot look at him. I study the way shadows gather in the hollow of my palms, the contours of my hands. I have no answer for him.

  “Look at me.” My eyes snap to his, for his voice is that of my brother’s. But he does not raise his hand, does not lean forward to reach me. Instead he speaks, his voice as cold and hard as iron. “How do you write her script and sign her name?”

  I study his features—the high cheekbones, the sable hair, the tightness around his eyes, his lips. Whatever small trickeries he may use now, I still owe him something for the trust I have betrayed in accepting the life of a goose girl. By allowing Valka to take my place, I have offered him the blade of a dagger.

  But when I open my mouth, different words slip out. “Let me go.”

  Kestrin arches an eyebrow, but I see something in his eyes shift. Pity? “My father offered you a chance to return to your home,” he says, willfully mi
sunderstanding me.

  I shake my head, making myself answer. “There is nothing for me there. My—family would be upset if I returned.” At least my voice is stronger now.

  “Lord Daerilin doted upon his daughter.”

  For a moment I am at a loss, and then I almost laugh. “At court. Every person is different alone with their family.” It is a truth I have long known; Valka’s trousseau stands witness to Daerilin’s rejection of her. “He has wished to be rid of me for years, since I was sent home from the Hall in disgrace.”

  Kestrin leans back in his chair, thinking, his arms crossed over his chest. In the lamplight he cuts a dark and imposing figure.

  “Tell me how you wrote that letter,” Kestrin says again. The words settle around me. I know he will not let me leave until he is satisfied with my answer. Yet I would not lie to him. There is a way, I think, to explain the letter without telling the full truth. He meets my gaze, waiting, and into the silence I begin to speak.

  “There was a time, Your Highness, when you might have considered the princess and I inseparable. We grew up together, took our lessons together. We learned to write similarly, and I often wrote letters for Her Highness, only bothering to show them to her before sending them. I learned her signature to simplify matters.

  “Despite our disagreements before and during the journey, I still owed her a favor. I agreed to write the letter for her, since she felt unable to write it herself.” For the space of a breath, I think he believes me.

  “You are lying.” My heart jumps a beat. He continues, “The princess had few friends growing up. She never had a long-time friend as you claim to be.”

  His words are accurate—but they do not sound like Valka’s. She was never lonely. Friends and family had always surrounded her—both at the Hall and her own home. No doubt that is the truth she would have spoken of.

  “Did she tell you that?” I ask.

  “No,” he admits.

  “Then how do you know?”

  “I have my sources,” he responds enigmatically. The words make me want to laugh, for they remind me of children keeping secrets from each other: I know something you don’t.