Princess Juniper of the Hourglass

by Ammi-Joan Paquette

  “Not much space left in here,” Erick said, with a wicked grin. “We’ll have to see if there’s any room for you at all after I wedge this in.”

  Juniper fought a most un-princesslike desire to put her tongue out at him. But after a few minutes of grunting effort, he climbed out and swung into the driver’s seat on the outside of the carriage. “It’s a bit tight, but you’ll fit. Just.”

  Taking one last look up and down the row of goods and horses and people—her people, her new country on the move—Juniper climbed up the carriage steps and squeezed inside.

  It was a tight fit, maneuvering around all the bags and boxes and bundles. One particularly voluminous traveling cloak was fully blocking her way, and Juniper raised a booted foot to shove it aside when, quite suddenly, it came to life and reared up at her.

  Juniper fell back with a shriek. The cloak seemed to grow eyes and a face and—and—it was . . . laughing at her? Juniper’s heart pounded wildly, and she collapsed into her seat.

  “Oh, Your Princessness Juniper, you should only see your face!” howled Tippy, unfolding herself from her traveling cloak and breaking into a celebratory wiggle right there in the narrow space.

  “Everything all right in here?” Erick asked, ducking his head down from above to peer in the window. “Tippy Larson, what are you doing? Come up on the box.”

  “With great gusto, Master Erick,” chirped the younger girl. She glanced at Juniper. “Er, no bad feelings? I didn’t mean to scare you quite so much, only . . . the prank went off rather well, didn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Juniper faintly. She waved Tippy off and pulled the door shut behind her, trying to understand what had just happened. As a princess, one simply did not get pranked very often. In fact, with the exception of a certain distant cousin in years past, she hadn’t had much of this sort of thing at all. So to say she’d been caught off guard would have been a wild understatement.

  But it was more than that. There’d been a moment, a single frozen heartbeat while the animated cloak rose as though to sink jaws into her throat, when Juniper’s whole body had rung with a feeling of dire premonition: It looked like fun and games, this expedition. It looked like a group of well-organized youngsters setting off against the blackened sky, ready for a summer of carefree play. Yet even now, with the prank unmasked and Tippy bouncing cheerfully on the outside seat, setting the whole carriage shaking, even now with the dull groan of the carriage wheels creaking into motion and beginning to jostle across the graveled ground—even now, a cold thread wound through Juniper’s chest.

  She had the sinking feeling that nothing about this expedition would unfold as planned. And that even now, events had been set in motion that could never be undone.

  Outside, the clip-clop of horses’ hooves started up in earnest. The carriage lurched and picked up speed. They were on their way.

  THE HOURGLASS MOUNTAINS WERE NO MORE than a long day’s journey north, and with their early start, Juniper hoped to make it all the way before nightfall. Their road would veer perilously close to the Monsian border, which made her nervous. But the king hadn’t shown any concern over their path, viewing Monsia more with scorn than fear or alarm. He should know, shouldn’t he? Monsia was more than twice the size of Torr, its people famous for their greed, their excessive laziness, and their prize-winning heads of cattle. Torr, by contrast, made up for its small size by boasting the fiercest army on the Lower Continent—and the largest, to boot. King Regis’s confidence was not idly held.

  At first, Juniper kept busy enjoying the scenery, studying her father’s map, and making notes in the small, leather-bound journal she’d stuffed into her new waist-pouch. The pouch had been a parting gift from her father. Stitched in butter-soft leather and dyed an eye-popping shade of pink, it had roomy pockets and wrapped her waist snugly, ending in a jeweled clasp. For a newly minted queen-on-the-go, Juniper could want for nothing better.

  As the miles passed, however, her mood shifted from relaxation to general restlessness. Why had she packed herself into this stale little cubicle? She was glad for every peaceful hour—no sign of invaders, no road troubles, no foul weather—but before long, the boredom rankled thick as a wool wrap on a midsummer’s night. By the time the caravan pulled into a clearing at high noon, Juniper had had enough. There was only so much to write, and frankly, she was listed out. (She’d never thought that could be a possibility, but there it was.) Legs stiff and cramped, she pushed open her carriage door and toppled out.

  “How are you holding up?” Erick climbed down from the box seat, swinging his arms in wide circles. Nearby, Tippy doubled over and started somersaulting across the grass, clearly no worse for the long ride.

  “Better now that I’m out of that snuffbox! I believe I shall ride outside with you when we set off again,” Juniper decided. “You have space up there on the seat, don’t you?”

  Erick’s eyebrows shot up. “Juniper, you can’t.”

  “Can’t?”

  “Well.” Erick stuffed his hands in his pockets, eyes on the ground. “As a matter of fact, your father pulled me aside last night. Gave me a bit of a talking-to.”

  Juniper felt her cheeks heat up. “He did what?”

  “Don’t take it that way. You’re royalty! It’s our job to protect you.”

  “It’s Alta’s job to protect me. She’s my guard. You’re my adviser, and that’s a different job altogether.” Juniper knew she was being snippy, but couldn’t seem to stop. Was it still going to be like this in her new country? Had she just traded one closely guarded cage for another?

  Erick sighed. “Look, once we’re into the mountains, it’ll be different. But you’re the crown princess. With that attack on the palace, on top of everything else . . . The Monsian border is just across the river. Haven’t you heard all those stories about spies and ruffians hugger-muggering across the border to look for weakness and opportunity?”

  “Stories,” Juniper scoffed. “Nobody believes that stuff.” Relations between Torr and Monsia had been strained for centuries. In recent decades, Monsia had shut down its borders and forbidden any exports or trade with their continental neighbors. They would not even allow external census-takers or mapmakers into the territory to make their reports. But in the end, Monsians weren’t anything more than a nation of rude, lazy bullies.

  “Still.” Quiet but stubborn, that was Erick. “Your father is right to have us play it safe for now. Plus, you know, he is the king.”

  Juniper squinted, suddenly distracted. The sun was in her eyes, but a figure was approaching, and for a second, it was almost like looking into mirrored glass. Then Alta stepped out of the light and settled into her own shape—familiar, and yet . . . Juniper eyed her guard critically. Alta’s hair and skin tone were darker than her own, her build more on the sturdy side to Juniper’s slender. But for height, for shape of face, even the way they moved . . . it was a very near match. Juniper knew a good opportunity when she saw one.

  “Come here,” she said, grabbing Alta’s hand and tugging the bewildered girl back into the carriage. It was a tight fit around the mounds of luggage, but she managed to explain her idea, quash all protests, and exchange their outer costumes in a matter of minutes. Whispering into Alta’s ear, and tugging the hood of her cornflower-blue traveling cloak down further over the other girl’s face, she pried open the door, gave a little shove, and sent Alta teetering out of the carriage.

  “Listen, Juniper,” Erick said, leaning in toward Alta, who recoiled. Juniper clapped her hands and flung herself from the carriage, crowing. She’d scuffed up her hair and pulled Alta’s cap down over her forehead, wrapping herself from neck to boot in the other girl’s muddy, uncertain-smelling cloak.

  She could see the result in Erick’s gobsmacked expression.

  “You see?” she said. “This is how we can do it. Just like magic.”

  “See what? That you gave Alta y
our cloak? All I have to do is look at her face, and I can tell immediately it’s not you.” He looked flustered, though. She’d got him good.

  “Of course,” said Juniper, drawing herself up in a very un-Alta-like pose, while the other girl stood fidgeting uncomfortably between them. “But we’re not trying to hoodwink you, are we? It’s only the distant people—bandits or enemy soldiers or the like. Right?” She turned to Alta. “Look, I didn’t give you much explanation. Only I’m tired of riding in the carriage, and Erick here made some fool oath to my father that I can’t set my face out where I might be seen. Therefore you must . . . er, would you mind terribly taking my place in there?”

  “Riding in the comfort of a carriage, while Your Highness goes on horseback?” Alta looked aghast.

  “Oh, certainly not,” Juniper said, thinking quickly. “That is to say, there is a measure of comfort to be had in there. Or so it would appear on the surface. But in truth it’ll be ever so dangerous. What if we get accosted by ruffians? They might try to attack the carriage, and I’d be helplessly massacred if I stayed in there. You, on the other hand—I bet you could fight them off without even coming to a sweat.”

  Alta thoughtfully stroked the hilt of her sword, which looked drolly out of place paired with the finely woven royal cloak. “Very well,” she said at last. “I shall be happy to undertake this task. I would have needed your directions once we reached the base of the Hourglass anyway, which should be before sunset.”

  “Before sunset if we ever get moving again!” said Tippy, suddenly underfoot and weaving circles around them like the world’s most annoying girl-sized gnat. “Leena and Toby are back with lunchmeat buns from the village, and everyone wants to keep on traveling as we eat.” She paused. “All but Cyril and his cronies, naturally.”

  “We haven’t even stopped a full hour,” Erick said. “No one wants a longer break?”

  “Not a one!” Tippy lowered her voice. “Or maybe everyone just wants to get as far as possible from you-know-what. Also, I expect they don’t want to be camping out under the stars tonight. I wouldn’t mind that myself! But if we can get all the way to our new land, so much the better.”

  “So much the better indeed,” said Juniper. She turned to Alta and said with mock seriousness, “Milady, if you would take the carriage, I shall get back to my position at the head of this caravan.”

  Alta’s cheeks turned scarlet, but she swung her skirts around toward the carriage, stumbling a little over the hem as she did so. “Thunderstar,” she called over her shoulder. “That’s the name of my mount, and he’s a double handful.”

  With a barely suppressed thrill, Juniper sauntered up the row to Alta’s horse and spent a few minutes scratching the fine creature’s nose. She dug into the inner pocket of her traveling gown and found a single cube of sweetcrystal. Suppressing the thought of her beloved Butternut, she fed Thunderstar the treat, then pulled herself up into the saddle.

  The world looked different from this height. Thunderstar was at least two hands taller than Butternut, and obviously the kind of spirited mount her riding master would have called “unsuitable for royalty.” His coat gleamed black in the high noon glare and his body under Juniper was a watershed of barely controlled strength. He took the lead and set off at a brisk clip, so that Juniper had to rein in and walk him in circles while the rest of the procession got started. A fine beading of sweat started across her forehead. It occurred to her how simple a thing could sometimes seem from a distance, how apparently easy to manage.

  She gripped the reins tighter and willed her arms to be steel. She was in control.

  • • •

  At the crossroads, the path broke into a multipronged fork. To the right, three separate roads wound toward eastern Torr and the main cities of Sari and Longton. Still farther to the east was the spooky and mysterious Spyglass Lake, which lay like a thumbprint at the end of the Hourglass range, marking Torr’s border with Gaulia to the north. A narrow pass between the mountains and the lake was the only recognized border between the two countries, as the lake fed a network of rivers that flowed straight to the coast.

  By contrast, the left-hand road was rough and ill-used. It crossed the Lore River and led to the dread Monsian Highway, which had gone to disrepair since the closing of the border back at the turn of the century. Now the crumbling highway was used mainly by vagrants and desperados venturing out from Monsia in search of mischief or worse. Monsia bordered Torr all along its western and southern flanks, and the fact that this one road was their only link was a clear sign of the two nations’ long-standing hostility.

  The idea of Monsia launching a real attack on Torr was, as Juniper knew from a lifetime of Political Discourse lectures, historically laughable. Yet today, laughter was the furthest thing from her mind.

  Juniper nudged Thunderstar left toward the Monsian Highway, feeling bone-weary from the day’s travel. Or at least, that’s what she focused on to keep the twinge of fear at bay.

  Behind her, Cyril’s voice rang out, mocking and pitched loud enough to carry. “Surely we’re not turning onto the Monsteran Highway?” Even without looking back, Juniper could hear worried mutters ripple down the row of riders. It was bad enough they’d had to flee in the dark of night, bad enough they had to take this road at all, without Cyril aggravating things!

  Not for the first time, she wished Erick were riding next to her. When she and Thunderstar had taken the lead, Cyril and his fellow nobles, whose names she’d learned were Jessamyn and Root, had formed a sort of barrier blocking back the other riders. She’d compensated by keeping a horse’s length ahead of them whenever possible—for all the good that was doing.

  “Come on, Cyril. You’re not afraid to travel the Monsian Highway, are you?” she called over her shoulder, with one hand steadying Thunderstar and the other juggling her father’s map.

  “Afraid? Not a chance. I only wonder what’s going through the mind of everybody’s favorite princess—directing us up this wickedly perilous road while she stays hidden away at the back of the line, in the safety of her gilded carriage.”

  On the verge of whirling her mount around and getting up in Cyril’s face, Juniper froze. She’d been setting a hard pace for the last hours, leading the pack and not exchanging more than a few words with the others. Still . . . her Alta disguise had been intended to fool far-off brigands. Could it really have taken in Cyril himself?

  Well, then.

  Pulling Alta’s leather cap down further over her face and smoothing the map across her lap, Juniper lowered her voice an octave and kept her body turned away. “In any case, Cyril, you need have no fear. We take this road for a league or less. Then we turn off north onto the Hourglass Pike.”

  Without awaiting a reply, she gave Thunderstar his lead and set off, turning fully away from Cyril and ignoring further rude questions shouted at her back.

  As she trotted along, she took another look at her father’s map. Studying the chicken-scratch lines for the millionth time, she suddenly wondered why the king had drawn his own map. Had he been too much in a hurry to have his scribe do a proper job, with all that was going on? Or could there be some deeper reason?

  He’d said that the Basin wasn’t on any maps and that no one knew its whereabouts. Was it possible that King Regis wanted to keep things that way?

  Juniper squirmed in her saddle. Too many questions, and no answers in sight. She distracted herself by picking up speed, noting that her caravan of followers matched her increase. Apparently, no one wanted to spend any extra time on the Monsian Highway.

  The incline began gradually, but even so, Juniper’s heart skipped a beat when they came through a tunnel of sweetgum trees and saw the long-awaited fork in the road. From here, the way would grow increasingly steep, until they reached the base of the Hourglass Mountains. And then the real fun stuff started.

  “Take a right at this bend,” Juniper called.<
br />
  “Isn’t it time for a rest?” Jessamyn whined. “Look at that green pasture! We might stop there and have some provisions.”

  “Princess’s orders,” Juniper called over shoulder, then ducked her chin and laughed into Alta’s cloak.

  This new road was narrower than the hard-packed Monsian Highway. The scenery was quickly changing from the lush, well-cultivated farmlands of central Torr, becoming drier, more sparsely populated, and generally run-down. More exciting by far were the Hourglass Mountains, which loomed larger by the moment. By now, though, they had passed the fifth hour after noon. Could they really make their final destination by nightfall?

  “Say! You up there!” Jessamyn whined again. “Did you hear me? I am tired, and we’re ever so far from all that trouble back at the palace. I shall stop under that tree over yonder.”

  “We’re not stopping,” Juniper said firmly, lifting her eyes from the map to scan the landscape around her. According to her father’s directions, they were to travel just a few leagues more, and would then reach the cave’s opening that would take them through the mountains. But how was she to spot one particular gap in this never-ending rocky cliff side?

  “Cyril, make that odious girl listen. I have no longer any sense of my lower self,” Jessamyn wailed. “My legs are two blocks of dead wood, and my back does ache so!”

  In a fit of frustration, Juniper stuffed the map into her waist-pouch and whirled her horse around. “Carry on,” she barked at Cyril, who now headed the procession. “Keep the group moving at full speed ahead. You, come with me.” She knew she was acting very un-Alta-like, but at this point, she didn’t care. Her disguise was nothing more than a lark, and she was sick to pincushions of listening to Jessamyn’s whining. Neither Jessamyn nor Cyril showed any sign of recognizing her as she rode past them, though.

  Juniper pulled Thunderstar to a stop in front of her carriage and waved at Erick.