Fairytales Slashed: Volume 8

by Samantha M. Derr

  Under a low spreading tree, she spread her blanket and curled up to rest, letting Ilaka forage. Before she closed her eyes, she opened her purse. Inside, the white silk shawl was rolled, sadly wrinkled and still more sadly stained with smudges of blood. Holding it by the edge, between thumb and forefinger, she pulled out a few inches of it. She could almost see that white silk against the princess's black skin, see how the blue morning glories of her family crest would bring out the blue faith-marks by her eyes. Neneya was mostly solitary―though sometimes she liked to visit Akafu, her parents, and a few friends all over the sky―but she seldom forgot a face… especially that one.

  Guilt wormed through her stomach. She'd stuffed it in her purse to get it out of the way and then forgotten about it, and in doing so she'd stolen something lovely from a princess. Maybe some secret part of her mind, she admitted, had put it in her purse wanting to keep it—something to prove to herself that she really had seen a beautiful princess sleeping in her royal bedchamber. But she couldn't ever return it or she'd likely forfeit her life.

  She couldn't even sell it for something practical; it was too obvious whose it rightfully was.

  She tucked the corner of the shawl back into her purse, laid her head on a rolled bit of blanket, and tried to sleep.

  *~*~*

  Tekelei lay long awake, shaken. A man's cry of fear and rage had woken her, she'd heard a woman's voice―fighting him, perhaps―and then guards and Prince Darim had charged in. Just after, Tekelei had peeked through her curtains and glimpsed two dead men, rough and scarred, in mismatched leathers with large bronze torcs at their throats. Her maid Meli had stumbled into her bed, sobbing, and she'd held Meli and calmed her down until she exhausted herself.

  When Tekelei woke from a restless doze, mid-morning, her father had sent a maid with a new necklace for her. Little teardrop sapphires dangled everywhere from a lattice of silver.

  So he had probably heard of the attempt to kidnap her. She wondered whether he'd sent a servant out to the jeweler at dawn, or kept a stock of gifts for emergency occasions. It was his usual interaction with her, perhaps to assuage his guilt over paying her little attention, and had been for years.

  "Your father summons you to attend him in his throne room once you're washed and dressed, Your Highness," the maid said.

  Meli made Tekelei presentable, though the white shawl she'd left draped over a chair before she went to bed had vanished. She wore her blue one instead, its embroidery also in her own hand.

  In Yenok's throne room, Prince Darim went down on one knee and bowed to her until she hoped he'd lose his balance and fall face first on the floor. Yenok regarded him with apparent respect and gratitude―for some reason.

  "Your Highness, I offer you my sincerest thanks for so bravely saving my daughter," Yenok said, as Darim straightened.

  Darim had saved her? She'd thought at least the two bandits left dead on her floor had been dead before he arrived, but she'd been frozen with fear behind her bedcurtains; maybe she was wrong.

  "I accept it with gratitude, Your Majesty." Darim bowed low to Yenok as well. "Might I humbly ask for the Princess Tekelei's hand in marriage as a reward?"

  Her skin turned to ice.

  "Of course! It would be an honor, Prince Darim, and I welcome you to our family." Yenok smiled broadly and slapped Darim's back with exaggerated fatherly affection.

  "No."

  They both turned to Tekelei, mouths slightly open as if they both wanted to speak but neither wished to talk over the other―or as if neither could quite believe her reaction.

  "I must decline the proposal," Tekelei said. The words dropped like lead into the silence. She knew it was selfish, she knew it was ungrateful, but binding herself permanently to Darim was unbearable even if he had saved her life.

  Darim overcame his speechlessness first. "So I risk my life for you, and you act as if I'm nothing?"

  She swallowed a sick pang of guilt. "I'm sorry, Prince Darim, but I can't marry you. I can give you my gratitude, but I can't give you the rest of my life."

  "I'm doing you a favor," he said, a bitter hurt in his eyes. "Offering you honorable marriage to a prince isn't an imposition."

  Yenok rose from his throne, brows drawing down. A vein began to pulse visibly at his temple. "I've accepted on your behalf, Tekelei. It's not a choice."

  "Our faith decrees there can be no marriage without consent of both parties," Tekelei reminded them.

  "And you will consent. You do consent. You have no right not to after what he's done for you!" Yenok stepped down from the dais toward her.

  "If I go to the Keeper of the Heavens, he will rule otherwise."

  "And how would you do that, when I forbid it?" Yenok advanced on her further. The two guards at the dais shifted uncomfortably, their wooden armor clacking.

  "Someone would need to carry me to the wedding, and guard me every minute so I couldn't run away." She'd finally done it. She'd finally defied him openly, and once she'd started she had so little left to lose.

  Darim visibly mastered his anger; she could see the effort involved in softening his voice, uncurling his fists. "Princess Tekelei, I deserve a chance to make you happy."

  "And you'll never have it. You'd have a prisoner, not a wife. I wouldn't be happy. I'd―I'd rather be a laundry maid."

  Darim and her father went very still, and Tekelei felt a sudden dread.

  "You'd rather be poor than marry him?" Yenok hurled the ceremonial scepter in his hand; it flew to the side and clattered to the floor. "Then go be poor! Take off all your royal clothes and jewels so no one knows who you are, and go sleep in a gutter!" He pointed to the door. The two guards by the dais, and all the eight other guards along the long carpet that led to the throne, stiffened in shock. Darim looked as if he did not know whether to be angry or grimly satisfied.

  When Tekelei did not move immediately, Yenok grabbed her arm and marched her to the inconspicuous back door behind a curtain that led to a dressing chamber. He pulled her new necklace so the clasp was at the front and swore as he struggled to unlock it. He yanked the wrap from around her shoulders, the armlets from her arms, the ties of her gown before apparently realizing what he'd forgotten and calling for a servant to fetch old clothes from the laundry, which were waiting to be cut into rags.

  "Father, I can do the rest myself," she managed to say.

  "Don't forget to take those fancy braids out of your hair," he snapped.

  The clothes had been washed and washed to a drab brown-gray, whatever color they had originally been. They were a loose, smock-like half-sleeve top over skirt-pants gathered at the ankles for modesty, made for a common woman who would be walking over bridges. The weave was rough, the threads thick, the fabric stained and threadbare, the garments ill-fitting and coarse against her skin.

  "I'll put it about that you've gone to live with Lanisa," he said, as she stepped out from behind a screen in a poor woman's garb, fraying her braids apart from the ends. "But you're not to tell anyone who you are!"

  Tekelei nodded silently.

  He turned to the guards. "Only let her leave when her hair looks like a beggar's. And anyone who speaks of this will lose his head!" he roared.

  All the guards nodded, stiff with fear.

  "Now go, and live the life you clearly want!"

  Tekelei stood for a long time, willing herself to silence, only her fingers working to take apart her braids, yanking painfully at her scalp in her fury. The hasty disassembly left a tangled mess, shedding, strands breaking. At last she found her way out through the maze of servants' passages, getting lost and doubling back but eventually reaching the grounds. She ran through the gates into the city. Not long ago it would have been her fondest wish to be allowed to roam alone, free to do anything and go anywhere she wished, but now she barely saw the streets and markets and new high vistas she'd longed for. She fled in worn-through boots until her feet hurt too much to go on, and then she curled up in an alley and cried.

  *~
*~*

  For a long time Tekelei huddled against the alley wall, staring at the paving stones. Cramping and protesting against holding that position too long, her legs finally prompted her to stand. She scrubbed her hands against her face, hoping to obscure that she had been crying, breathed deeply in and out, and went out into the city she'd always wanted to explore.

  She would not beg. She would be a working woman, as if she had always been. She needed a name, a history, an occupation. But what could she do? She didn't know a trade. She'd watched servants working, but doubted she knew enough of how they did their jobs to do them passably herself. She could read and write and do sums and draw, and embroider, and maybe those things were worth something to someone, but how could she convince a stranger to allow her to prove her skill? She wasn't sure how anyone found work.

  So she went to one shopkeeper after another, everyone down street after street, asking if they were looking for help. Some declined politely and wished her well. Some all but rolled their eyes. A silversmith snapped that he'd have no ragged beggars scaring away his customers. A tailor leered at her and tried to snatch her into his lap; sick fear gripped her belly, and she fled. She gave her name as Tela and reminded herself she was now a farmer's daughter from a homestead even further up come to Kilibara to seek her fortune. No one knew her as the princess in her rags.

  Finally, a potter named Momosha, a woman the age Tekelei's mother would have been, gave her a smile of relief. "The girl who used to sell my pots left," she said. "Can you keep sums?"

  "I can," said Tekelei, and chalked a column of numbers on a slate Momosha had left on a table, then added them up.

  "Tomorrow, you'll sell some at the market for me," Momosha said.

  That night, Tekelei ate a little of Momosha's flatbread and stew, and lay on the floor of her locked-up shop rolled in an old blanket. It was all strange and uncomfortable, but eventually exhaustion pulled her into sleep.

  Tekelei took a small supply of pots the first day, and to her surprise she did well enough. The market was full of people and things new to her, and she watched all around her eagerly as she waited for customers. Buyers peered at the pottery and asked questions, and Tekelei answered as best she could and sold nine of her twenty-two pieces, unsure if that was good or bad. She pushed Momosha's little cart back to the shop with the money and a record of the sales on a scrap of alela rag, and Momosha congratulated her for doing so well. The next market day she went back with the unsold pots and twenty more, and the next, and the next.

  It was far from the free and soaring adventure she'd dreamed of, looking out the palace windows, but it was new and different from anything in her life before.

  On the seventh market day when Tekelei sold pots, it all fell apart.

  She was sitting under an awning as the sun winked past the rim of Kilibara. She'd just set out today's pots, including a particularly fine jug and vase both glazed in pearly blue circled with birds in flight.

  Two grubby boys of ten or so charged across the larger pots she'd set on the ground, knocking them over. When none of them broke, the boys each picked one up and smashed it gleefully.

  "Stop! Stop that immediately!" After her first shock, she shouted in her most commanding royal voice, but then remembered she could no longer command anyone. "Get off!"

  She hadn't fought since she and her siblings were small, unless one counted her fencing lessons, but she slapped ineffectually at one boy. He dodged, barely bothered, and dashed a brown-glazed goblet to bits on the cobbles. She gathered her courage and tackled him. He went down flailing, hitting her in the face, but the other boy kept smashing. She couldn't restrain them both at once.

  "I'll have the Watch on both of you," she shouted, tasting blood, as the earliest shoppers of the day shied away from the commotion.

  "No, you won't," said the boy who was wriggling out of her grasp. He kneed her where belly met ribcage. A creaking noise escaped her mouth; she couldn't breathe. "Prince Darim paid us good coin. Not sure who you are, but he said smash your stuff."

  Despair slammed into her, as hard as the boy's knee―then fear, then a hatred so fierce it rippled through her vision.

  She lay amid the shards until she could stand. Then she gathered them into her cart and trudged back to Momosha's shop.

  When Momosha saw what had become of her work, she wailed. Tekelei, who had seen her own fine embroidery ripped, recognized it as grief for her creations as well as despair at her lost money. Then Momosha advanced on Tekelei, fury in her eyes.

  "Two boys broke it all right in front of me," Tekelei stammered, backing up. "I tried to stop them. I wrestled one down, but I couldn't hold them both at once."

  Momosha's eyes took in the new rips in Tekelei's clothing, the street dust streaking her, the swollen cut at the corner of her mouth, and she slumped against the doorframe. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm so sorry, but I can't keep you on any more. Not unless you pay for all of the…" She shook her head. "Why? Why did they do that? Did you have any idea who they were?" Tekelei hurt for Momosha as well as for herself, looking at her face. "Or at least what they looked like?"

  Tekelei described them as best she could, but she knew it was little use. Even if Momosha had sent her back out with more pots, someone might come to destroy them again. She had not noticed anyone recognizing her, but evidently someone was watching, and Darim was still in town.

  So, for a second time, she wandered Kilibara, going nowhere. She wanted to leave the city, but she had no way to pay for passage on a glider-gondola or skycoach. Even so, she found herself in the neighborhood of the port. She crossed a skybridge for the first time in months, and looked down into a cauldron of blowing clouds where slivers of the Land Below appeared and vanished far in the distance.

  On that little island at the far edge of the city from the palace, everything fed the port: warehouses, flophouses, a fine inn and several rowdy ones. Around the corner from one of those last, a line of ragged people straggled out a door; the wall beside bore an unskilled painting of a bowl and ladle, tilted toward her, steam billowing out.

  The scent of stew drifting from within sent a dizzy pang through her. Maybe at the end of the night they would have extra left over, just as in the palace anything not eaten at the king's table went first to servants and then, if any was left over, to beggars. She stood behind a man with one arm, and soon another man shuffled in behind her.

  Inside were long tables and crowded benches of rough wood. At the front of the room, a bearded man and two boys a few years her junior hurried about between a serving table and a kitchen she could just glimpse through the door. At the sight of one boy balancing a dish on his hand like a palace footman, her eyes misted. She stood blinking as people nudged her aside, then remembered she probably wouldn't be welcome as a non-paying guest and edged to the wall. But the bread and stew, simple as it was, smelled so good, and she did not want to go back out into the darkening city. She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.

  "You all right, miss?"

  She opened her eyes. It was one of the serving boys, looking at her with concern.

  "Sorry. I'll just be leaving." She turned toward the door.

  "Have you eaten yet?"

  She looked down, ashamed. "I don't have any money." Strangely enough, she'd never had money as a princess, either. She'd never needed any―nor had the independence to spend it.

  "But that's the idea," the boy said.

  She raised a brow, puzzled.

  "We serve people who don't have money to buy food."

  She'd promised herself she would not beg. But she'd worked, until Darim had sabotaged her, and she expected he'd find a way to ruin any new employment she found in Kilibara. And it was so hard to refuse a meal, hot and right in front of her.

  The bearded man who seemed to run the place―the boy's father―served her himself. His gaze rested on her face for a moment, then her hands, then her face again, but he only said "Haven't seen you before. New from out of town?"
<
br />   "N―yes." She almost forgot to maintain the story she was telling about herself. "I'm from a homestead up a little higher. I haven't been able to find work yet."

  He nodded sympathetically. "It's hard, especially when you don't know anyone." He ladled stew into her bowl and handed her a piece of flatbread.

  She ate slowly, perched on the edge of a bench as far from her nearest neighbor as she could manage, not wanting company. Out the small window there was only another wall across the alley; she imagined she was looking out the tall glass windows of the palace dining hall on swooping fliers below. But she couldn't face the only way back to that. Darim had, no doubt, hired the boys who wrecked her merchandise in an attempt to force her back to the palace, to leave her no choice but to marry him. She couldn't let him win that way.

  After her unexpected dinner, she went to an open boulevard with a clear view to the port, and watched a skycoach take off, eight fenyaras harnessed to points all along its rim. She'd ridden them a few times to visit her married siblings on other islands or on formal visits to the other five kingdoms of the Upper Air, and she could feel the wobbling lurch of liftoff in her stomach as she watched―but she remembered it as a thrilling feeling, as if she'd climbed to the top of a staircase and discovered she could keep climbing past it into the air.

  A very different takeoff followed the ponderous lofting of the skycoach: a woman in vast glider wings leapt into the sky from a tower at the precipice and soared east toward Kunaka, where Lanisa lived with her new husband. Tekelei had never ridden a glider, or a fenyara―the next best things to having real wings. The best nights of Tekelei's childhood had been her recurring dreams that she could fly; she'd lost them, long ago.

  Tekelei watched the woman in the glider until she disappeared into the dusky clouds.

  The air cooled as darkness fell. Wide streets were chilly and still well-trod; mouths of alleys were uninviting. Tekelei had never slept in the open before, without walls and safety. The walls and guards of the palace, she reminded herself, had not stopped bandits of the Falcon Brotherhood from trying to kidnap her.