The Forgotten Sisters (22 page)

“Yes!” Astrid strode forward. “I challenge one of you to a champion match. If I win, then we earn an audience with King Fader.”

The soldiers laughed.

“Are you laughing at a lady?” said Astrid in her Princess Helka voice. “That would be extremely uncivil.”

“Astrid, are you sure?” Miri whispered.

“What do we have to lose?” Astrid whispered back. “Besides, I really want to hit someone.”

Commander Mongus was frowning. “Champion matches are no longer respected under—”

“Stora's own King Michel respected the results of a champion match not one hundred years ago,” said Sus. “Surely
you
respect your own honored history.”

Miri had a vague memory of that detail from the book on Stora.

“Storan soldiers do not fight girls,” said the commander.

“Afraid you'll lose?” said Astrid.

The soldiers laughed again.

“Choose a man to fight my sister,” said Sus. “Using no weapons but your own bodies, the victor must bring the loser into clear submission. Your champion should beat my sister handily. And when you do, the laws of a champion match state that, as the instigator, her life will be forfeit.”

Miri sputtered. What was Sus saying? Astrid would be executed
when
she lost?

“Wait—” Miri started.

“Let her try,” Felissa whispered. “She's wrestled more than one caiman.”

But a caiman lived in water. And in the swamp Astrid had sharp sticks and caiman poles and sisters. In Miri's experience, there was no predator more dangerous than a man.

The commander still would not look at Astrid. He addressed Britta. “The north men do not wrestle lady's maids. I don't have time—”

“I am not a lady's maid!” said Astrid. “I am Princess Astrid, daughter of Their Royal Highnesses, King Bjorn and Queen Sabet of Danland, and I demand a champion match.”

Commander Mongus walked up to Astrid, so close
he breathed on her face, and he poked her collarbone with his finger. “You are a liar,” he said in a low growl.

“Keep insulting me,” said Astrid. “Makes me want to fight you even more.”

The commander's face was deathly still. “Very well, you deserve this. Sten?”

Sten was half a head taller than any other soldier in the room. And he was wide. And bore visible scars on his hands. He looked to Miri to be the kind of man who would not mind hitting a girl.

Sten unbuckled his sword belt and handed it to another soldier.

“Strike swiftly,” Felissa whispered.

“Aim true,” said Sus.

Sten started to turn toward Astrid, but Astrid did not wait. She took one, two, three running steps and jumped, ramming her head into his belly and knocking him to the floor.

It took a few moments before he managed to suck in a breath. He started to flip over onto his hands and knees. Miri wondered if Astrid not only expected this but hoped for it. After all, the safest way to wrestle a caiman was from behind. Astrid sprang, kneeling on the back of his neck to push him back down. She slid her right arm under his neck, locking her right hand onto her left arm and pushing his head down with her left hand.

Instead of standing, he tried to reach around and grab her. She ducked her head and clung on. A caiman would take its prey underwater, Miri remembered, and hold it there till it could no longer breathe.

Take his breath!
Miri wanted to shout.

Sten pushed against the floor to stand, and still Astrid clung. His face was turned a deep red. He grabbed her shoulders and flung her off his back. She tumbled and kept rolling to get some distance between them. Sten wobbled for just a moment but seemed to recover. Standing, he was nothing like a caiman. He punched at Astrid, and she ducked. He punched again, and she managed to roll to the side. If just one punch from that large fist connected with her head, the fight would be over. And perhaps Astrid's life.

But the third time he punched, she ducked low and came up again with her head hard into his gut right below his lungs. He staggered and fell on his backside.

This time he stood up fast. But perhaps too fast because he froze, blinking rapidly, the lack of breath and blood to his head finally catching up with him. He stared, as if trying to follow the path of a dust mote in a stream of light. His eyelids twitched, and then his legs buckled and his whole body hit the floor.

Astrid leaped onto his back and pulled her fist back, ready to strike his head.

“I'd rather not kill him,” she said to the commander. “Say I've won and I'll stop now.”

The soldiers just stared, some shaking their heads as if trying to make sense of what they'd just seen.

“Say it!” said Astrid.

“You won,” said Commander Mongus, surprised by his own words.

Other soldiers leaned over Sten, checking him for injuries. His eyes were closed, but he began moaning.

Astrid crouched beside him. “Are you all right?”

“Ow,” he said thickly.

“You fainted,” she said.

“Ow,” he said again.

He sat up, woozy, his hands to his head. Then he glared and pointed at the soldiers circling around him. “I'll kill the first of you who dares taunt me.”

Felissa and Sus hugged Astrid.

“We've got meat,” Astrid whispered.

Britta took Miri's hand, and Miri squeezed back.

The door opened, and several men entered, led by one who was as tall as Commander Mongus. Miri wondered if Storans chose their leaders by height.

“High Commander,” said Commander Mongus with a short bow, the other soldiers in the room offering deeper bows.

High Commander Paldus's head hair was not dyed blond but had turned entirely white with age. He was still tight with muscles, his face only lightly wrinkled. Like other Storan soldiers, he wore gold chains around his neck. His chains glittered with jewels.

“What are these girls doing here?” he asked.

Commander Mongus gestured to Britta. “This one is bride to Prince Steffan and insists on meeting—”

“Put them in the other room,” said the high commander.

Soldiers escorted them out of the master tutor room and into a side chamber, keeping an eye on Astrid, as if expecting her to suddenly attack.

They shut the door on the girls and the lock clicked. Miri rolled her eyes. The girls were here on a mission to meet King Fader. They were not likely to try to escape.

The room was much smaller than the previous one. Wood-paneled walls, cream-colored tiles. Though emptied of furniture now, Miri thought she recognized the chamber. There was one other door, also locked. The windows were narrow, as if for archers. Even if she broke the glass she could not fit through.

Miri stooped to investigate the fireplace. Master Filippus had shown her several novelties in the Queen's Castle, passages that opened beside fireplaces, hidden
closets, secrets built into the castle for long-ago rulers. Miri examined the mantel with her fingers, searching for a hidden lever.

Astrid was pacing. “I don't know what to wish for. I want King Fader to dislike us and send us back home. But then again, I want him to end this war and let everything go back as it was.”

“I just hope I get a chance to write about that champion match for the sake of history,” said Miri.

Felissa stood at the window, the light outlining each of her curls in gold. An old, proud king seemed likely to choose whichever girl looked prettiest in a dress and curled hair. But would Felissa be able to keep laughing, far away and married to an elderly, belligerent king?

“I'll marry him myself before I'll let him have Felissa,” Astrid whispered. There was no linder in this castle, yet Astrid still seemed to guess what Miri was feeling. Miri nodded.

The door from the corridor opened. Miri startled away from her search of the fireplace.

Commander Mongus leaned against the doorjamb. He pulled a knife from the sheath in his belt. The hilt was a creamy white, and Miri thought,
walrus ivory
. She waited for him to speak, but he started trimming his nails with his knife. The sound of it was slick and sharp, the kind of blade that can cut bone.

“Take us to King Fader,” said Astrid.

“It's fascinating how long it's taking you to realize that won't happen,” said Commander Mongus.

“Astrid won the champion match,” said Miri. “And you yourself promised us a visit with King Fader. Did you lie?”

“Certainly not.” Commander Mongus touched his fingertip to the point of the knife. “Lies are for cowards and dishonored wretches.”

“We earned the right to see him,” said Miri. “We've managed to sneak here all the way from the west—”

“The west?” Commander Mongus straightened up from the doorjamb. “Wait … who are you girls really?”

“They're my companions,” said Britta. “Now let us see King Fader as you promised.”

Commander Mongus glared, unknown thoughts ticking behind his eyes. He no longer held the knife casually but gripped the hilt in his fist. “King Fader is dead, may the creator god keep his bones. Are you ready for me to send you to him now?”

Linder kinder

Locked in stone

Hammer's clamor

Bares the bone

What's the matter?

No one's home

What Miri wanted right then, more than anything else in the world, was her pa. Tall as a tree, broad as a boulder, her pa with his stone-splitting mallet on his shoulder, and behind him the whole village of Mount Eskel bursting through the doors and facing down this arrogant commander.

Mount Eskel was days away. No linder rested beneath her feet; nothing and no one from her home could hear her quarry-speak or would come to her aid.

Miri did not know what to do. So she opened her mouth and screamed.

She screamed with all the air she had in her. Screamed as if she were a tiny girl hanging from a cliff, calling for
rescue. Screamed as if the sound could reach all the way home.

Commander Mongus stepped back. Miri took a deep breath to scream again.

“What is going on?” High Commander Paldus pushed past Commander Mongus.

“He just came in here with a knife and threatened to kill us!” said Miri. “Is that how you treat royal guests? Is that what the honor of Stora is worth? I expected more from you, High Commander. Five unarmed, innocent girls put ourselves willingly into your hands, trusting your sense of honor. But perhaps you have none, fighting under the name of a dead king!”

High Commander Paldus glared at Commander Mongus. He inclined his head, gesturing him out. They left, again locking the door behind them.

“Could it be true? King Fader dead?” Miri returned to probe the fireplace, her fingers rigid with urgency. “Who would be king now?”

“King Fader had over two dozen children,” said Britta.

Sus looked up, as if seeing the genealogical chart in her mind. “The eldest was a girl, Madel, then a boy, Unker, both grandparents themselves.”

“If Fader is dead … then we're not needed anymore, are we?” Astrid said.

Miri detected a little regret hidden in the relief of
her words. Astrid did not want to be forced into anything, but she had not minded being needed.

“Stora will still find a way to use us,” said Miri. “If they—
ah-ha!
”

A small decorative panel near the floor pushed back against her fingers, and a larger panel swung open, creating a narrow doorway beside the fireplace.

“Quick!” said Miri. She ushered them all through the opening, entering last and pulling the panel closed behind them.

They were inside a wall, the space so tight Miri had to walk sideways. Dust as thick as mud swirled around her feet, rising up into her hair. She covered her mouth with her sleeve and tried to swallow a cough.

“There's a ladder,” Astrid whispered.

Miri gestured that they should climb. She was the last up what were just boards nailed to the inner wall, some pieces so rotted they crumbled under their fingers like old bread. Miri gripped the narrow holds, her legs trembling, her lungs aching to cough.

The ladder spilled them into a second-floor between-walls space, this one a little wider than Miri's shoulders and as long as a man. They huddled there, listening to movement on the other side of the wall.

“What's your plan, Miri?” Britta whispered.

“To hide until I think of one,” Miri whispered back.

“Are there more of these passages?” Astrid asked through her sleeve.

“I think they run all through the castle.”

Astrid's eyes were watering. “Then let's find one with less dust and danger of sneezing.”

Felissa, pinching her nose, nodded in agreement.

So they tiptoed and climbed, tiptoed and climbed, by the light that came in through the cracks. They stepped over piles of things others before them had hidden in the walls—dried up leather, empty bottles, books reduced to scraps by moths. They passed other secret doors that would lead them out, but voices and footsteps always murmured from the other side.

Surely by now the Storans had discovered an empty room where the five girls had been. Would they think to look inside the walls?

They'd climbed up so many nailed ladders Miri expected to emerge into the sky when they stepped out instead into a tiny room. The floor here was not nearly so dusty, and as they stood and breathed, Miri could hear no footsteps through the walls. This far up in the castle, they seemed to be alone. A tiny window bore a glass pane thick with bubbles, offering a distorted view of the gray river under a sky choked with clouds. The island below moved with soldiers, as busy as an ant hill.

“Look,” said Britta. She'd found a bundle of a cloak,
with no sign of moth bites or age. Wrapped inside was a flask of water, a stack of cookies, and a set of wooden soldiers. “Someone's been here recently.”