by M. Wiklund
"The last time I talked to him, he made his men threaten me with javelins. I had to command the javelins to sail out the window. I don't think either of us made a good impression."
"Well, now you will have to try again."
"I don't know if I can ever convince him, though. I'm a peasant."
Galina shrugged. "You have my favor, which is more than any other candidate has."
"This is why I say you are crazy." Elena pecked Galina on the cheek.
They spent the rest of the afternoon playing knucklebones. Galina was actually getting pretty good at it, though Elena remained very much her superior.
Chapter Six
Dinner was in the early evening. Galina offered to let Elena borrow one of her dresses for the occasion, that she might look more suitable than she did now in the same old, worn, sweaty smock and apron she had arrived in. Elena politely refused, saying she would look less respectable taking Galina's things than standing on her own, besides which it would be the wrong size. Galina did not agree, but she let it go.
Together, they walked to the private chamber where the king planned to meet with them. A parlor of sorts, for speaking with guests—very versatile. It had been used to greet diplomats, to hold private meetings with chancellors, and all sorts of other occasions, always over dinner. Something of an honor that it was being used now for Elena, after the company it had held in the past.
"Do you think he'll actually let me marry you?" Elena said.
"He'll have to." Galina had set any doubts aside. Elena might be wavering, but ultimately she was on Galina's side, and Galina felt that together there was little the two of them could not accomplish. "You'd be surprised, but when I actually want something…"
"I wouldn't be all that shocked. You seem kind of hardheaded." Elena swatted at the back of Galina's head, not actually making contact. "Still, the king seems even more so."
"I can make him listen. I am his daughter, after all."
They came to the room and entered.
Four guards stood on duty, perhaps guarding unless Elena should decide to pull an act of malicious sorcery and attack Galina's father. Other than that, there was only Galina's father present. He was seated at the head of a small table, where he gestured for Elena and Galina to be seated. And they did sit, Galina at his right and Elena at his left.
Galina's father nodded at the guard closest to the door. He stepped out and came back with another servant, this one a domestic carrying a platter of food. A meat pie, three plates, and three full cups of beer. He placed the meat pie in the center of the table and then placed each plate and cup separately before each individual.
Bowing, he left.
Elena tasted the beer. She almost coughed. "You have some odd brews in the capital, your Majesty."
Galina's father looked at her disapprovingly.
Elena straightened. "Still, I can appreciate the flavor. And I'm sure the meat pie will be delicious."
No servant offered to cut the pie so Galina did so, awkwardly aware of how demeaning it would appear to her father. It was his fault, though, for having only guards standing duty over a private meal. The pie should have come ready cut, and then she would not have been forced to lower herself.
"So tell me," Galina's father said. "What do you think you have to offer my daughter?"
Elena said, "I… I…" She looked to Galina for help, and, finding none, smiled brightly and said, "I am a hard worker."
Galina's father raised an eyebrow.
Galina said, "She's a powerful magician, one of the most powerful in the country. With her at my side I could be a great queen."
"I'd been expecting a great king," her father said. "Or have my wishes of late been unclear? How do you expect to continue our line?"
"There are ways." Adoption. Magic. All sorts of solutions, really—and if the line ended up moving over to a cousin rather than a direct offspring, Galina didn't care as much as her father might.
"And how do you expect the people to respect a peasant princess—or a queen who marries a peasant?" the king asked. "Or even takes a peasant into her bed?"
"They will respect us because we will be their rulers, and I will be their queen. A strong queen can face dissent."
Her father just looked at her.
Elena let out a little sound. A soft moan, almost a whimper. Galina looked over at her quickly, and found her hunched over her plate, clutching at her fork with fingers white to the knuckle. Her face was pale too, eyes distant. "Galina, I'm not sure I'm well."
Galina scrambled to her side. "Lean back. Let me see you."
"I," Elena said, but she swallowed the rest of the sentence.
"What's wrong?"
"I feel so…Galina, your face."
Galina cupped Elena's chin, tilting it up. "What about it?"
"You're shining," Elena said. "Are you made of snow, pretty little princess?" She grinned, but her eyes remained unfocused.
Galina's father cleared his throat. "Guards?"
Galina turned as the four guards converged on them. "Something's wrong with her," she said. "I swear, I haven't seen her like this before."
Elena let out another moan and then collapsed, her head thumping softly on her plate. Sauce and bits of crust smeared on her cheek and hair. Galina grabbed her wrist and checked the pulse. Steady. "Elena. Elena!" She didn't move.
Two of the guards pulled Galina away from Elena, maneuvering her until she was a few feet away. The other two guards pulled out Elena's chair and picked her up, draping her arms over their shoulders. They looked to the king.
The king shook his head again. "Dispose of her."
Galina stared.
The guards holding Elena walked to the door, and Galina came to her senses. With a wordless scream she yanked her arms free of them, but she only made it a step before they caught her again, and as she struggled against their hold, Elena was slowly carried away. The door clicked closed behind her.
Galina screamed again. "Bastards! Let me go! If you hurt her…" She elbowed at the guards, wishing her skirts didn't make her kicks less effective. "Let me go!"
"My daughter, I hate to see what this peasant girl has done to you."
"Fucking swine!"
"Princess Galina," the king said. He had stood now, though he still stood at his chair. "You will cease acting like a wild thing. You are a pillar of our family, and you will act like it."
"I'll see you dead." Galina wasn't sure who she meant—the guards, the king, every single person in this goddamn castle.
"She has stolen your mind," the king said, "as you might expect from a sorceress." He paused. Galina glared at him. "Unless you intend to tell me you were this foolish to begin with."
"I'll kill you. I'll kill you, I'll kill you, I'll kill you…"
Galina continued to fight against the guards. It hurt her more than it hurt them. Their tight grip was beginning to bruise her arms, and she probably tore a couple muscles in struggling, twisting her body in unnatural angles, thrashing, trying to escape. The guards seemed unmoved to her—while they strove to control her without causing her pain, they did not care about her wrath. They looked to the king for instructions, just as they always did, just as everyone in this castle always did.
Her eyes blurred with tears as the words in her throat dissolved into inarticulate howls. She struggled. She collapsed. She struggled anew.
She hung limp between the guards, and her father stood in front of her.
"My daughter, you will free your mind of this madness. Remember your upbringing. You were not raised to act like a wild thing, or to love dirty fools." He touched her cheek. A rare occurrence, that he would show her such physical sympathy. Usually he was distant despite all her obedience, all her loyalty. "You are my daughter. Come back to me."
"…kill you," Galina rasped. She lunged forward one last time, and the guards, having relaxed their grip, did not hold her back. Her hands latched around her father's throat as she knocked him to the floor. Only, once
they were there, she did not know what to do with them. She told her fingers to tighten their grasp, to strangle the life out of this statue of a man. But she could not get them to do more than rest on his tendons, feeling his pulse. This man, this murderer…
The guards pulled her off again, and shoved her to the other side of the room. Finally they had given up on gentleness. She was a princess, yes, but she was also a woman who had attacked their king, their true commander. There could be no softness towards such a person, not from them.
Her father slowly stood. His eyes were blazing. "Galina, I am surprised at such rashness from you."
"You cannot hurt her," Galina said. Her voice was soft and gravelly at once; her throat ached. "I love her."
"I see you cannot be persuaded to act rationally. Very well then. Your peasant girl is being thrown in the sea in a barrel, so think no more of her."
"No," Galina panted. "No."
"As for you, you cannot stay here as a princess and as my beloved daughter when you treat me with disrespect and act without rationality as your guide." Her father looked at her, perhaps waiting for some excuse.
When she did not speak, he said, "Very well. I banish you from my presence. Until you apologize, recant your love of this girl and mend your ways, you will live on the island off our coast. Eke out an existence on the rocks, and perhaps you will learn humility. It is not the way of things that a daughter should challenge a father and king."
The island off the coast was a barren place indeed. Galina had never been there before, but she knew of it. Occasionally soldiers would go there to hunt for fugitives, criminals that might hide in such an isolated location. No sane man would live there long, in a place unsheltered by trees or shrubbery, but covered in ice and snow and stone, shrouded in biting cold.
Galina took a deep breath. The floor seemed to shake beneath her feet, the air to tremble.
With every moment, they were carrying Elena further away from her. She would die. She would die. Nothing else mattered.
And Galina opened her mouth and screamed.
Chapter Seven
Elena slept.
Her sleep was not easy. It was dreamless, but through the black and gray she felt a sense of disturbance. She was moving, sometimes jerkily, sometimes in smooth whirls. Her head hurt, and so did her stomach, cramping and grumbling restlessly. But unconscious, or on the verge of consciousness, she did not have to think about such pain. It was muted, and not wanting to face it head-on, she allowed herself to stay half-conscious, unfocused, unaware.
In her slumber, the first thing she heard through the darkness was a voice, not loud but somehow quietly commanding.
"Elena, Elena. Foolish Elena. By the pike's command, you must awaken."
And then, suddenly, she was awake.
She was not, however, very comfortable. While her head had cleared now, leaving not even the slightest speck of the pain and fog that had invaded it earlier, she found her body hunched up in a little ball, and caged in on all sides by close fitting walls. When she felt the walls she found they were made of wood, and they were curved, so that she was lying in a tube closed off on both sides. And the tube was bobbing and swaying, and vaguely she could hear outside the rush of water.
But everything was dark, and she could see nothing. She pressed against the walls here and there, hoping to find some sort of peephole, but there was nothing there. There was only one small hole in the top that she could find, and through this air came, but little, very little light, certainly not enough to see by. Though she had no idea for how long she had slept. Perhaps it was night now. It might very well be.
"Elena. Elena."
The pike's voice! She had not heard it in more than a month now, but how could she forget it? Such a peculiar sound, squishy and scaly but still solemn and serious. She answered to it, "Pike, where are you?"
"Outside. I am swimming beside your barrel."
"Oh."
And so Elena's situation became very clear to her. A barrel, it seemed, and floating in the lake—or perhaps a river, or some source of water where the pike might swim beside her. It did not bother her that when she was last awake her town, the pike's home, had been miles away. A magical creature like this one doubtless went where he wished, and she had serious doubts that even her bucket would have been able to hold him if she had tried to eat him in earnest.
No, the bigger question here was, how had she ended up in a barrel?
"I might have known it was too good to be true," she said. "I should never have stayed another day—that princess tricked me. How stupid."
"No, the princess Galina really did want to marry you," the pike said, sloshily earnest. "This was her father's doing—she had no part in it, I swear."
Elena frowned, although she knew that from outside the barrel he could not see her no matter what expression she made. "How do you know that? For that matter, how did you know Princess Galina offered to marry me? It only happened a day ago."
"Three days now. You have been sleeping, Elena," the pike said. "And while you slept the king put you in this barrel and pitched you in the lake, but it was none of Galina's wanting. She has rebelled against his commands and has been sent to an island off the coast. And from there I heard her wailing and weeping, and that is how I knew what happened to you."
Galina, weeping and wailing? Surely she could never do such a thing. She had expressed affection well enough, and Elena had seen her both embarrassed and crossed, but always reined in, never moved to such an extreme. "You must be exaggerating."
"I am not."
Elena tried to imagine it: how Galina's face might crumple, how the salt water might flow in a graceful line down her face, tracing the curve of her cheek. Her eyes might squint shut as they did when she was amused. But still, she thought it could not be right. At any rate, it was not a cheerful thought. "You say she is wailing and weeping over me?"
"Who else? You are the one who has captured her heart, certainly—and I must congratulate you on that conquest! When I gave you your gift of magic, I hardly imagined it would be used for such grand things. I must say I am gratified that I, a humble pike, have assisted in such a union."
Elena sighed.
"So? What are you going to do now? Stuck in a barrel, your betrothed trapped on an island of rocks…"
"Well, I'll order the barrel to take me to the island, I suppose, and see what I can do for Galina when I get there. Though it's quite a situation. Not my fault, either. I never tried to make Galina marry me…that was her idea, and I still don't totally understand why."
Galina had explained her love, as best as she could. Said Elena was beautiful. Interesting. These were poor reasons to marry a woman, and more than that, Elena could not see how such descriptions corresponded to the person she was, poor and useless and stubborn as a pig. Galina had to be blind. Marrying Elena was the greatest foolishness imaginable.
"But you're still going to help her?" asked the pike.
"Yes."
"Even though it means going against the king?"
"Are you trying to talk me out of it?"
"True love," the pike sighed happily. Well, he was the first person to actually approve of Galina and Elena then—perhaps Elena ought to have been grateful for that. "I tell you, Elena, you've proven to have more depth than I thought you did. More than laziness and foolishness to you after all. And you've never misused my gift, which pleases me."
"What would I use it for?"
"Many would use it to gain power or wealth. But you did not." There was a pause. "I am so pleased with you, Elena, that you may ask any boon of me and I will grant it."
Elena's instinct was to say that he'd done little to help up until now—while his gift had saved her a lot of work and was quite useful, it had also landed her in a sea in a barrel, and completely ruined poor Galina. But then she told herself that he was a magical being. Doubtless he could offer any gift, and it would be foolish to refuse.
Besides, some of this had to be
her fault. She could have kept the news about her magic down, kept it a secret and only used it occasionally. The king would never have heard about it. Or she could have simply told him about her gift, or refused Galina's offer at the very least. She'd made a proper mess of things.
There was only one thing she really needed, if it was within the pike's power. But it was a hard thing to describe.
Elena bit her lip. "I want to be better."
A pause, filled only by the sound of the water.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I'm…well, you know what they say about me. I'm useless, lazy and stupid, made of excuses and rebellion and not a scrap of sense. I never work for anyone and I always get into arguments and I never do anyone any good. I'm worthless."
"Your parents did not think so."
Truly the pike had to be very old if he knew anything of Elena's parents. But he was stupid if he thought that was a persuasive argument. Elena laughed. "They believed a mumbling midwife who said I would be a blessing on the family."
"And haven't you been?"
"I've been more of a burden."
"Lately you've been doing all your sisters-in-law's work for them," the pike pointed out. "I've heard they think you've been very helpful, and believe that you've changed."
"I haven't changed. And if it weren't for the magic, I wouldn't be doing anything to help anyone."
"Yet you're still going to go and rescue your lover."
"Galina's only in trouble because she was in love with me in the first place," Elena said. She sighed. "Please stop arguing with me. I need you to make me a better person. If I marry Galina like this, only imagine how it would go. Queens and princesses ought to be kind and wise and selfless, even if they are only consorts. I'm none of those things."
Again the pike was silent in pondering, and Elena waited for him to speak. At last he did.