Princess Juniper of the Anju

by Ammi-Joan Paquette

  “Thrice-toughened rawhide,” she said. “Strong but flexible.”

  “And these?” Juniper touched a finger to the stiff prongs that extended all along the bottom of the shoes, and out from the front tip as well.

  “For traction,” she said. “We’re a climbing people, if you haven’t noticed. It works fine for walking tough terrain, but it’s magic on bark.” She smirked.

  Juniper looked down at her hobnailed boots, with their hard, unbending soles. She considered taking them off, but it was a bit too cold for that. Well, there was nothing she could do for her feet. Her gown, on the other hand . . .

  “Do you have a knife, by any chance?”

  Zetta looked startled, but shook her head. “Not on me,” she said. “We don’t hold much with weapons here, as you will no doubt discover.”

  “I’m not looking for a weapon, only a way to make my climbing efforts tolerable. Just a minute.” Tugging the wide sash off from around her waist, Juniper held it up by its end and considered the neat stitching. With a pang of regret, she chose a spot at the narrow end and began to work at it with her teeth. It took a couple of minutes, with Tippy and Zetta staring on in confusion, before the delicate fabric frayed and a small tear appeared. Juniper grasped one side in each hand and yanked them smartly apart. The sash gave a satisfying rip straight down the middle. Juniper pulled the tear through to the end of the long band of cloth. Then she took one of the two newly narrow ribbons and laced it around her right calf in a crisscross pattern, fixing the billowy material snug to her legs. She did the same with the left side, then gave a proud twirl.

  “That shall do well enough,” she proclaimed.

  “Oh, Mistress Juniper, you do look a picture!” said Tippy. She had hiked her own skirts up around her knees and tied them into a serviceable knot. Her knobby knee bones peeked through her undergarments, but Tippy was young enough that no one could possibly take offense.

  “Well. If we’re done with this precious grooming moment,” said Zetta dryly, rubbing a hand along her sleek pantsuit, “perhaps we can resume the tour?”

  “Indeed we can,” said Juniper, “and I thank you for your patience.”

  Zetta shrugged, but with another look at Juniper’s freshly created trousers, she added a tiny smile of approval.

  Now that Juniper was comfortable, she took in her surroundings. They had come up through a hole in a plank floor onto a wooden balcony edged in a smart carved handrail. Again she was reminded of their own dear Great Tree, back in Queen’s Basin. But while their tree house’s floor was made of hewn wood and nailed-down planks, the construction around them seemed to have been coaxed out of the living tree: a bright, rounded structure that was solid and gleaming and daringly wide open. It was a lot like the tiny rooms in the Great Tree’s trunk, actually—the way they seemed to have been hollowed out with no sign of human intervention, almost as though the tree itself had grown up that way. The result was breathtaking, and made Juniper feel quite at home.

  Their height was astonishing, too, for now they were right in the ice-crusted shoulders of the sturdy tree. Above them, the leaves spread wide and fat, so that a mere dusting of snow showed on the roofs of the nearby dwellings. The floorboards and stairs had been brushed clean, with no slick surfaces at all. Far below, the ground looked leagues away.

  “It’s a wonderland!” Tippy squealed, and shot off down the nearest walkway.

  Juniper soon saw that the Anju village was constructed entirely of wood. It was strung across the interconnected treetops like a woodland fairy paradise: webbed bridges and delicate banisters; gleaming halls with polished turrets and stepped bark roofs; walls and columns and apple-round windows to let in the sun. There were people, too, scattered here and there, busy villagers going about their work and play with little concern for the visitors in their midst. Small cabins and huts were built around the tree trunks, linked to the main settlement by a network of narrow airways. Or sometimes—

  “Look! A swing!” Tippy leaped onto the miniature platform and swung herself breezily from one landing to the next with the ease of a native.

  From within each home, faces appeared at windows, bodies filled doorways and then moved away: lean, slender, strong-shouldered men and women, boys and girls. Their eyes were frank and curious, but where Juniper would have liked to linger, introduce herself, hear a little about them, Zetta moved briskly on by. She passed each one with a smile and a nod, but led the way steadily forward.

  As they progressed through the settlement, Juniper silently took in the information shared by Zetta: here lived this family and there that one; here the Littles took their morning lessons; over yonder was the Memory Wall, a giant historical record on the trunk of one great tree; there was the Climbing Tree.

  “Climbing Tree?” Juniper interrupted, for she couldn’t help herself. Tippy, a dozen steps in front, cocked her head and turned back.

  A smile creased Zetta’s sharp face. “Do you wish to try? If there’s a better way to pass an hour or two of leisure, I don’t know it.”

  Juniper tilted her head back, taking in the trunk in question. Unlike the other picturesque, well-crafted Anju structures, this tree was a welter of slapdash construction: there were bars and handles and knotted ropes and swings of all shapes and sizes. Brightly colored dye had been rubbed into the pale bark in various looped, overlapping patterns.

  “Never should I snub the chance of new adventure!” Tippy trilled. “But how do you tangle out all this zig-a-zag color stuff?”

  “Here is the starting platform,” Zetta explained. “You simply pick one color and follow it through to the end. Start with the green track—that’s the simplest. Then you move up to red, violet, and then black: the most daring of all. Will you attempt it?”

  There was a challenge in Zetta’s eye that settled that question for Juniper right quick. Glad for her newly appropriate climbing outfit, she gripped the first rope and began to climb with fervor. She fell behind Zetta almost immediately, of course, but that hardly mattered.

  The moment her hands closed around the pull ropes, she was hooked.

  Her Anju roots might have been left deep in her past, little more than the stuff of her mother’s tales and legends. But right now, in this moment, she climbed like she was born to it.

  • • •

  In the end, Juniper completed the green and red tracks, and half the violet, before she set her boot down wrong and skidded sideways. She plummeted off the ramp, toppling head over legs to flop down on the thick rope net that was strung up around the course.

  “My Lady Juniper!” Tippy screeched from above. The little girl scurried down the Climbing Tree after her, but Juniper just flapped a hand to show she was fine.

  Juniper found that she enjoyed the floaty sensation of resting on the knotted ropes nearly as much as she had the climb. She bobbed gently, arms wide, taking in the leafy roof above with its peekaboo stretches of blue sky edging through, and wondering if she’d ever felt this light, this carefree. There was something about the Anju that went right to the core of her, like a half-remembered dream coming unexpectedly to life in the waking world.

  A few moments later, Tippy flopped next to her, and Zetta joined them last of all, first looking down with disapproval, then finally picking her way over to sit primly alongside them. It was, Juniper thought with a giggle, quite nearly as though Zetta had been the one raised in the Royal Palace, and Juniper herself out in the wilds.

  What on earth had become of that overscheduled, super-organized princess of Torr who had not a moment for leisure nor ever edged one foot off its prescribed path?

  Juniper had no idea. But she felt no hurry to reclaim that version of herself.

  Eventually Zetta said, “You see how our whole life is in these treetops? I told you that we climb for fun, and that is true. But more than that, we climb out of necessity. I made my start up the Climbing Tree be
fore my third summer. You didn’t do poorly for a first climb. Both of you,” she added. “And with your barbarian footwear, no less.” She wiggled her own flexible, sharp-edged monstrosities—which Juniper thought had never looked more practical or appealing.

  Still, shoes notwithstanding: “I enjoyed it ever so much,” Juniper said, still feeling the strain in her arms and legs. She couldn’t help thinking how different her life and upbringing would have been had her mother made different choices, all those years ago. Of course, then her mother wouldn’t have met her father, so there was no sense going down that path.

  Zetta cleared her throat. Offhandedly, she said, “Chief Darla was my mother.”

  This woke Juniper clean up. Darla, the newly deceased chieftain? “Oh, that’s awful,” Juniper said. “Zetta—I’m so sorry. You must be . . . I mean, are you all right?”

  Zetta shrugged, though some play of emotions struggled across her face. “We were not close,” she said simply. “I entered the Littles cabin before my fourth summer. Earlier than some, but a chief’s life is not as others’. My mother was a busy woman.”

  She went silent then. Zetta’s revelation loosened something inside Juniper’s own chest, so that she wasn’t even sure what she was going to say before the words were spilling out.

  “I lost my mother when I was seven. But before that . . . we were inseparable. She was the queen, of course, but I was with her nine hours of every ten. She didn’t even let me have a maid—imagine? She took all of my care upon herself, sat me right next to her during any royal function she was required to attend. Except for the long boring ones, of course, or those that went until the early hours.”

  Zetta was looking at her curiously. “Your mother was Alaina.”

  “Yes,” Juniper said. “I know she was a chief’s daughter. I don’t know much more about her than that. My mother told me stories, of course, but I was so young. It was all trees and rivers and loving life in the wild. It was places, not people. I suppose that’s what I wanted to hear, at the time. I wanted adventure and action and silly tales. By the time I figured out what kinds of things I most needed to know, it was too late.”

  “She was to have been the next chieftain, you know.”

  Juniper propped herself on an elbow. “What?”

  Zetta nodded. “Our chiefs rule for a period of thirty years, as Mother Odessa said. During the last half of the period, understudies are appointed—three or four, usually, young girls of the Bloodline who have the qualities for leadership.”

  “Wait—girls only?”

  Zetta smirked. “Of course. What do you think, a man would be our chief?”

  “Well . . . I suppose I never thought of it. You only have women rulers, then?”

  Now it was Zetta’s turn to frown. “It’s different in your country?”

  “In Torr my father is king. My mother was the queen, of course, but he was the direct heir to the kingdom. He carried the load of rulership.”

  Zetta shook her head, as though such an alien custom was beyond her understanding. “In any case, Alaina was one of those appointed. The main one, I heard. Your mother was Firstblood, and my mother only Secondblood. They trained together, but Alaina was far superior. Or so I’ve been told.”

  “Firstblood and Secondblood? What’s that, then?” Tippy cut in, startling Juniper. She’d almost forgotten the little girl was there.

  “It’s the oldest way of measuring bloodline,” Zetta said. “Legend says the first Anju sprang from the earth and rock of the Hourglass Mountains, and every one of us who came after is one of their descendants. Much has changed among us since those days; people come and go, and that earth connection does not extend the same across each one of us. Those who are chosen to lead our tribe must first show that their link to this land is rock-solid. Blood-solid. We are not just born to these mountains; they’re a part of our very selves.” Her eyes narrowed. “As you would know for yourself if you’d ever bothered to come here before now.”

  Juniper shook her head. She wouldn’t rise to this bait. “Go on with your story,” she said. “My mother was Firstblood, you were saying.”

  “All right. Well, Alaina was so much the frontrunner—by blood but also by skill, you know, she was that gifted—that the others were barely more than afterthoughts. That’s why she was chosen to accompany the group going to launch a dialogue with the lowlanders.”

  Juniper digested this for a moment. “So then when she decided to stay in Torr . . .” She could imagine how that must have gone over.

  “Yes,” said Zetta. “Our whole tribe was thrown into disarray. The other candidates weren’t nearly ready; my mother admitted that herself. She was so angry with Alaina; everyone was, for a terribly long time. Thoroughly irresponsible, she was—everyone still thinks so. Who would ever choose to put her own wants before those of her people?”

  Juniper tried to imagine her mother, not even ten years older than she herself was now, being so swept away by the romance of this dashing man and his kingdom (lands, but it squicked her stomach to think of her father that way!) that she unexpectedly, impulsively decided to leave behind everything she’d ever known and start a brand-new life with him. Not only leaving behind her people and their leadership, but also knowing she would likely never see her home again. What must have gone through her mind? Juniper swallowed. “And what do you think of her?”

  “Truthfully? It sounds like the bravest thing I can imagine. Callous and irresponsible, to be sure, but awfully brave. To follow your heart like that, with no regard for where it might lead? She must have been iron-hard, your mother.” Zetta sighed. “I don’t deny I hated her a bit. Every time the other mothers gathered for Evening Hours and mine was off occupied with tribe business, I blamed her. Darla shouldn’t have been the one wearing the leather band; Alaina should have. But eventually . . . I guess I got used to it.” She smiled wanly. “And now Darla’s gone, and Alaina as well, and here we are, both of their daughters together again. Who could have predicted it?”

  “Who indeed?” said Juniper, pushing gently at the rope net on which they rested. Then a small, Tippy-shaped ball landed squarely in the middle of her stomach and knocked the wind clear out of her.

  “Augh!” cried Tippy, unfolding herself. “I am bright pink with apology, Your Shamefully Bruised Royalty! I went back up to try to finish the violet track, but that last twist is powerful tricky. I can’t believe I landed right on you . . .”

  “It’s quite . . . all right,” Juniper said, pulling herself off the nets and easing back up onto the course. All this talk of the past was messing with her head, so the rude dash back to the present was actually a welcome relief. “I suppose it’s time we got moving anyway. Is there more of the village for us to see?”

  Zetta had already hopped onto the platform, and extended a hand to hoist Juniper up after her. Tippy monkeyed right alongside, crushing a heel into Juniper’s ear but managing to avoid further damages after that.

  So they continued on through the rest of the tour. But much as she enjoyed the sights and oohed and aahed when appropriate, a certain part of Juniper stood several steps back from the action, observing with an odd, detached wonder the small kingdom for which, had her life’s course run just a little differently, she might have been in line to rule.

  10

  JUNIPER MET UP WITH ALTA AND CYRIL JUST as the sky was beginning to pink and the sun was dipping toward the far cliffside. With so much of the village under the cover of trees, the sunsets weren’t so clearly visible here as in the Basin. The Anju did have one concession to ground-based living, however: a raised, rounded hillock where the entire tribe appeared to gather for meals and occasions. This was where they were all coming together now. It was colder here, out from under the shelter of the trees and undergrowth. When two runty youngsters bustled up to the Queen’s Basin group bearing heavy fur wraps, the adventurers accepted them gratefully.

>   Once she’d wrapped the silky furs over her cloak, Juniper leaned in close to Alta. “How went your time?” Juniper asked. “Did you find—”

  “Yes,” Alta said, face aglow. “We found the horses. They’re all safe and well cared for. They shall be ready to head out at morning’s first light. The Anju have been as good as their word, and I foresee no troubles at all.”

  “What about the”—Juniper lowered her voice—“you know, the cat? Was it . . .”

  “See for yourself.” Alta tilted her head toward where Tippy sat, muddy skirts blooming out in a poof along the ground around her. In the hollow of her lap sat a dollop of gray fuzz.

  Juniper sank down beside Tippy, after pausing first to unlace the ribbon from her calves. The self-styled pantaloons had been indispensable during her climb, but now they were making her feel clumsy and off balance (plus, she couldn’t help thinking the puffball look didn’t quite flatter her figure). This task completed, she reached out to prod the wobbly creature that sat licking Tippy’s hand.

  “If that’s not the ugliest mongrel alive, then I’m no true Lefarge,” said Cyril with distaste, from Tippy’s other side.

  The cat was skin and bones, but its distressing looks actually went a good deal deeper. It had blotchy gray fur that was worn away in large patches, a crooked tail, and ears like wilted sunflower petals. It also had what could only be described as a snout, which it now bared, showing pointy yellow teeth. Juniper leaned back involuntarily.

  “Such a little love,” gushed Tippy. She draped the unfortunate creature across her forearm and lifted it up to nuzzle her cheek.

  Cyril shuddered.

  Juniper, swallowing, ran a finger across the cat’s back. “It looks surprisingly . . . healthy,” she managed. “Where did you find it?”