Quatrain (33 page)

I dropped the empty vial in a basket by the bed and lay back against the pillows, watching the night sky through the woven wall. Coincidentally, Orlain had been at the castle the day I swallowed that first love potion my mother had mixed for me. He had ridden in a week earlier with a formal letter from Roderick, recommending Orlain be accepted into the royal guard. I had known Orlain practically since I was born, of course, so I had been pleased enough to see him when he arrived, but a little ruffled, too. He never treated me with the excessive flattery I had grown used to from all the other young men at court; in fact, he always seemed to view me as a rather exasperating little sister. Much as I had viewed Keesen. In return, I treated him coolly, trying to prove by my remote courtesy that I was indifferent to his existence. For the most part, I had succeeded in persuading myself that that was true.

But the day I drank the potion, all that changed. Keesen had dragged me down to the stable to introduce me to his puppy’s littermates, and Orlain had been there, talking horseflesh with the head groom. It was as if I had never seen Orlain before. It was as if I had never seen
any
young man before, and his height and body mass and rumbling voice struck me as almost godlike. I could hardly get my breath. I was so unnerved that I crawled into the empty stall where the puppies made their home and actually tried to avoid drawing Orlain’s attention.

I had been crushed when he walked out of the stable without even bothering to greet me.

I recovered—somewhat—over the following days. At least, I could speak in the man’s presence again, and eventually I resumed my pose of haughty indifference. But I never quite got over my bedazzlement. In my eyes, a faint glow of glamour still clung to Orlain. But I was never tempted to coo and sigh over him, since he never gave the slightest indication that he felt anything except affectionate derision for me. All in all, I was heartily sorry that I had had the misfortune to lay eyes on him so soon after swallowing my mother’s brew.

I turned on my side and tucked my hands under my chin. I couldn’t believe that my mother intended me to fall in love with Alora or any of its people. She had to know that this hidden kingdom possessed plenty of beguiling magic on its own. But she wanted me to discern some truth, see the reality of some person or some situation. I could only wonder what Alora would look like to me tomorrow, now that my eyes had been opened.

I
n the morning I rolled out of bed, realized that I had never put my bracelets back on, rectified that omission, and dressed myself in a set of human clothes. I eyed the swaying rope bridge with a mix of annoyance and determination, and climbed down to the ground level wishing that the aliora had bothered to learn the basic carpentry skills that would have resulted in a proper stairway. At breakfast, I skipped the dayig and had a second helping of bread.

Royven eyed me uncertainly. “You’re different this morning,” he said at last.

“Am I?” I said. “I feel very much like myself. What kind of project do you have for me today? I have so much energy I must do something with it or my head will start steaming.”

Jaxon burst out laughing. “So much for Alora putting its spell on you,” he said. “Most humans drowse away their time here, but not Princess Zara.”

I smiled prettily. “It’s a quality I get from my mother,” I said. Truer than he knew.

“Some of my friends are building a cottage,” Royven said. “Do you feel like helping out with some hard physical labor?”

“Your idea of a
cottage
is half a wall and one or two weight-bearing beams,” I retorted. “I wouldn’t think such a construction would be all that taxing.”

Royven came to his feet and held out his hand. “Then let’s go join them.”

I stood up without his aid, flashing my palm at him. “Gold again,” I said. He looked so startled I had to laugh. I added, “It just felt right to put the pieces back on.”

Rowena watched us all this time, smiling slightly. Whatever else looked different to me in the clarity provided by the potion, Rowena was unchanged. So beautiful that she was dangerous to look upon. If there were hazards in Alora, they were embodied in its queen. “Indeed, it is clearer every day why your mother felt safe sending you here to us,” she said. “Go. Enjoy your day with Royven.”

I did enjoy the day, though I hoped I never again had reason to try to complete a construction project with the aid of aliora laborers. What a hopelessly disorganized bunch! No wonder none of the structures in the kingdom had finished walls or tiled floors. It was a wonder any buildings were standing at all.

Royven’s friends were the ones who had marched past the day I worked on my dress with Cressida’s girls. Apparently that morning they had been gathering the materials they needed to build a house for a young couple who were expecting a baby. In addition to the logs and branches they’d collected, they’d rolled a few stones up from some gully and woven a couple long lengths of hemp and laid out half an acre of wide, flat leaves to plait into a roof. The young mother-to-be—thin as any other aliora except for her great round belly—had invested some time in procuring materials of her own: yards of fabric to serve as curtains to divide the rooms, stacks of baskets to hold household items, platters of food to serve the hungry workers.

There were, of course, no hammers, no saws, no nails.

It was clear from the beginning that whatever resulted from this effort, it would be nothing like an actual house.

Even so, everyone fell to work with a will. I was still filled with tremendous energy and, with such an untidy group, my natural tendency to order others about came to the fore. So I consulted the floor plan, divided the workers into teams, and directed the labor for the rest of the day. I don’t flatter myself that I’m any kind of carpenter but I
do
think this particular cottage went up with more efficiency than most houses in Alora, and it looked more likely to survive a strong wind, too.

Once we were done, the soon-to-be parents held hands and darted through the rooms, laughing in delight, ducking around curtains, and checking the view from each of the windows (which were really incomplete walls). I couldn’t understand what they said, of course, but it was easy enough to interpret.
Thank you so much for helping us build our home! We will be so happy here!

They were in Alora. Of course they would be happy.

I was happy, too, but today, at least, I saw the place for what it really was. A strange, bewitched, drowsing kingdom, full of an insidious beauty. It was a little like quicksand—if you didn’t keep moving, it would draw you remorselessly in. Once you abandoned yourself completely to its pull, it would never release you.

For some folk, I thought fairly, that would be just fine. I wouldn’t blame them for wanting to merely exist, blissful and serene, suspended in a pool of unspoiled gorgeousness. Such a life had its definite attractions. But more was required of a princess of the realm. I did not want to spend the next fifty years smiling beatifically as I contemplated peace. I wanted my life to count for more than that.

“Are you going to
run
all the way back to my mother’s house?” Royven asked, striving to catch up with me as I strode back toward Rowena’s.

I laughed. “I might.”

“Just watching you exhausts me sometimes,” he said.

“Do you suppose you’re the first person to ever say that to me?”

He sighed. “Probably the first person in Alora.”

I bustled through dinner, took a brisk walk before bedtime, and charged up the idiosyncratic stairs. I even straightened my room before seeking my bed. Once tucked in, I pulled out another one of my mother’s vials.

The fourth one. Six more bottles before it was time for Orlain to come back.

This one, like the first two, held clove and nutmeg and distilled memories. I lay back uneasily in bed, worry a needle in my heart. Was my brother safe? Were my parents under siege? Were all the things I loved already broken and scattered, or already sheltered and secure? I wasn’t sure I could wait six more days to find out.

But those six days slipped by more indolently than I had expected. There was still work to do for someone determined to keep busy, but there seemed to be less of it, and I felt less urgency to do it. I rejoined Cressida and her young seamstresses for two of those days, but unaccountably, I didn’t quite finish my red dress. There weren’t enough bone pins to hold the bottom edge in place, so I never got around to hemming it. I wanted to add a fall of lace at the throat, but none of the pieces in Cressida’s basket pleased me, so I started to look for ribbon instead. I thought I might embroider a decorative design around the cuffs. I needed to put the buttons on the back. Someday I would finish these details. Certainly before I left Alora.

Similarly, Royven and I joined another crew of young men putting up a house for a newly married couple, but the work did not go as smoothly as before. The floor plan was more ambitious, so I let someone else step forward to direct operations. I spent a good hour with one of the prospective owners, transplanting forest shrubs along what would be the front walkway, should the walkway ever be laid in place. The whole lot of us spent three days laboring to raise the walls and level the floors, but even so, we hardly made any progress at all. I felt a little bad about it, but the young bride and groom seemed pleased with the shell we
had
managed to construct, and they walked around the site all three days with wide smiles on their narrow faces.

Royven and I spent one day simply roaming the forest. The plan had been to bring back more raw materials for the new house, but we abandoned that notion fairly early on when it turned out that I didn’t have the strength to carry my end of a fallen tree farther than fifty yards. Instead, we started gathering herbs and flowers that grew wild throughout the woods—and what a bounty we harvested! Nariander and stiffelbane, siawort and orklewood, ingredients that my mother used every day in her concoctions. I even found a small patch of haeinwort, one of the rarest herbs of all, and I plucked half a dozen blossoms. My mother would be delighted.

Naturally, we had to clamber over deadfalls and splash through little streams many times during this expedition. I needed Royven’s help so often to keep my balance that it was just simpler to leave my bracelets in my pockets.

“What are you going to do with all these roots and flowers that you have so industriously gathered up?” Royven asked as we finally wended our way back toward his mother’s house. “Will you turn apothecary or midwife? Cure all our illnesses? Minister to our broken hearts?”

“I’ll give them to my mother,” I said. But who knew when I would see her again? And her stores of herbs might be running dangerously low if there had been much bloodshed near the castle. I added, “Maybe Orlain will take them back home with him.”

“The inestimable Orlain,” Royven said, for of course I had told him all about the guardsman. “I’m sure he will.”