Royal Outlaw: (Royal Outlaw, Book 1) (12 page)

The girl growled in a fashion that was more like a bear than lady. She brought her hand down across Mariel’s cheek again. This time she let her long nails dig into her opponent’s flesh. The hit burned, but Mariel had suffered worse and did not even wince as the blow struck her. The tall girl spun and marched out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Mariel had won the round.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” said the meek girl. “Now you’ll lose a meal. Isabel isn’t someone you want to be on the wrong side of.”

“Losing another meal doesn’t concern me. I’ve already lost three, plus free-periods for a week.”

The girl’s brown eyes widened. “What did you do to offend High Priestess so much?”

Mariel enjoyed the girl’s shocked expression. “Oh, I’m not very well behaved.”

“Losing meals is nothing compared to Isabel’s wrath.”

“She may be someone you don’t want to be on the wrong side of, but I’m not either.”

The meek girl gasped at the threat and threw her hands up over her head. Mariel thought it was a strange movement, but then realized the girl thought she was going to hit her. Mariel took a moment to observe the girl. Her lank copper hair was somewhat familiar, and High Priestess had said her roommate’s name was Cara. Mariel remembered the last undercover mission she had been on for Darren and how the master beat his wife.

“Is Lord Stonewell your father?”

The meek girl dropped her hands from her face and nodded. “Do you know him? I don’t remember meeting you.”

Mariel ignored the question. “I suppose it was a good thing I sat on this bed because it’s mine now.”

Cara cocked her head to the side. “What about Isabel?”

Mariel shrugged. “High Priestess showed me to this room and told me I would be rooming with you. She didn’t mention Isabel.”

Secretly, Mariel wondered if the priestess had neglected to mention the bully on purpose or if Isabel ran the school so perfectly that the students feared her and the priestesses thought she was the nicest person. Remembering the bullying of Cara that she had overheard, Mariel leaned toward her second theory, which made Isabel even more dangerous. 

Cara continued to stare. She noted the other girl’s dripping attire and asked shyly, “Would you like help out of your wet clothes and into a dry uniform?”

Mariel hesitated. She had no intention of feeling grateful toward this girl; after all, Cara was a noble. Mariel was an independent girl who relied on no one and was accustomed to doing everything on her own, but this contraption the aristocrats called a dress was something that she could not tackle on her own. She could remain in the sodden garment until after supper, but she knew she would be more comfortable in dry clothes.

After only a couple seconds of deliberation, Mariel nodded. The younger girl’s hands were gentle and careful, but moved with purpose. Cara remained quiet throughout the entire process and did not raise a single question during the time she helped Mariel undress, dress, and pin up her hair. Mariel had to give the girl some credit for not asking questions even when she saw the curiosity burning in the other girl’s eyes, especially when Cara saw the knives strapped in sheaths just above Mariel’s ankles and on her wrists.  

The tinkling of a bell alerted the girls to suppertime.

Cara hesitated, obviously unaccustomed to leading, but Mariel waited patiently in silence. The time for observation had begun. Mariel already had theories surrounding High Priestess, Cara, and Isabel, but she needed to understand more of the workings before she fully immersed herself in the task at hand: being thrown out of the finishing school, and eventually being rejected by the king.

“Er . . . I’ll show you where the dining room is.”

Cara led the way out of their shared bedroom, but Mariel hung back for a moment, suddenly unsure of herself. Isabel had gone to report her and had probably learned that Mariel was the princess. Her experience with people was that secrets did not stay hidden for long. The whole school probably knew who she was by now. Isabel would apologize, realizing the grave mistake she had made and then start behaving excruciatingly nice to the princess. Mariel did not think she could bear it. She could deflect hatred sent toward her, she had handled that all of her life, but she did not know what she would do with people being nice to her because they saw it as an opportunity. She had never had to deal with the issue of people gravitating toward her because of rank and did not know how to handle herself or how to deflect them. How was she supposed to determine who liked her for her, or just because she was heir to the most powerful kingdom in the Eastern Lands?

The girls gathering in the hallway stopped when they saw the new girl and pointed to her, whispering. Mariel’s stomach tightened and she resisted the urge to duck her head and stick to her roommate like a fly attracted to honey. She swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry and then fought a nervous laugh. She was more frightened of a bunch of school girls and her rank than she had been fighting those ogres. 

A plump girl with hazel eyes stepped out from the cluster of whispering girls.

“Hello,” she said in a melodic voice that reminded Mariel of her zreshlan friends. “I am Hallie, daughter of Xavier Feningon Earl of Silverwash.”

Mariel observed the girl. The hazel eyes, easily her best feature, were set into a large, round face. Large clumps of pimples caused her skin to look blotchy. Her self-assured smile revealed slightly crooked teeth and Mariel noted the trace of a scar beneath the girl’s jaw. Hallie’s confidence made Mariel uneasy. Was she confident because of her own wealthy status? Or was she certain being nice to the new princess would ensure a secure future and help her snatch a successful high-bred husband?

Before Mariel could decide on Hallie’s motives, Isabel glided down the hallway.

“Hallie, darling, you should not be conversing with those so much lower in status than yourself. You are the daughter of an earl. And she is Mariel
Quickwit
. Quickwit is not a place or a real name. High Priestess refused to disclose where the new girl comes from, but I do not doubt she is a merchant’s daughter, truly no better than a peasant. Come along, Hallie, you may sit with me tonight, and stay away from the rubbish the dog dragged in.”

The other girls made an aisle for Isabel as she disappeared down the stairs. Despite Isabel’s harsh words, Mariel felt a joy burn inside. Her identity remained unknown. High Priestess had not given away her secret. Mariel did not like feeling grateful to the woman who was her new prison warden, but she was glad she had not said anything to Isabel.

Supper was uneventful, but Mariel learned a great deal. Only a handful of servants worked in the convent, as most of the chores were performed by novices, some of whom were as young as nine or ten. The novices were younger daughters of wealthy nobles sent to the convent because their fathers’ spent all the dowry money on older sisters. Sixty priestesses sat at the tables with twenty-one students.

Isabel’s power among the other girls was easy to spot, but her cruelty was more subtle under the watchful eyes of the priestesses. Hallie sat beside Isabel and the look another girl gave her made Mariel realize that the spot was one to be envied. However, the plump girl did not look pleased to be sitting where she was.

High Priestess instructed Mariel to sit next to a priestess and Cara took the seat on Mariel’s other side. Undoubtedly, High Priestess was certain that misbehavior was inevitable after the girl’s earlier display, but the princess remained quiet and observant. She tried to keep her stomach from growling loud enough for others to hear as her mouth salivated from the aroma of venison and sautéed mushrooms. On one occasion Mariel’s stomach did betray her, luckily only those directly next to her heard it.

Cara, who focused all her attention on the food on her plate, glanced up at the sound of Mariel’s traitor stomach. Discretely, Cara pushed a couple of biscuits off her plate and into her lap where she wrapped them in a napkin and hid it in her purple uniform. When she caught Mariel watching, she blushed and focused her attention back on her plate. Mariel wanted to raise her eyebrow in an unspoken question, but she stopped herself at the last minute, reminding herself that Cara was nobility, not her friend. 

After supper, the girls and a couple of the priestesses gathered in a sitting room and worked on needlepoint as they chatted. Several girls approached Mariel and asked her who she was and where she was from. Mariel chose not to answer and pretended to be engrossed in her task of threading a needle. She was fairly decent at sewing since she had needed to know how to patch her own clothes in the human world and make clothes in Parloipae, but she kept that knowledge to herself and instead pretended she had never threaded a needle in her life.

Later that night, back in their room, Cara pulled out the biscuits she had taken from supper and handed them to Mariel.

“I thought you might be hungry,” she said as a blush reddened her cheeks.

Mariel forced out a thank you, but her stomach tightened nervously. As much as she tried not to, Mariel was starting to like her roommate. She shook her head to clear her thoughts and bit into a biscuit. Cara was still nobility and that was not going to change. Mariel planned to reject this new world and everyone in it. Cara made it more difficult than she expected.

Mariel stared up at the ceiling, not allowing herself to slip into sleep while she waited for the convent to settle down for the night. After an hour, she slid out of bed, appreciating the rain that continued to pound the windowpane and conceal any sound she made.

The sleuth reached under her bed and pulled out one of her traveling trunks. Earlier, she had placed the trunk on a rug so that it would make little noise when she moved it. Mariel repeatedly glanced at the sleeping form of Cara as she pulled the trunk from beneath the bed, but the girl continued to slumber soundly.

Mariel extracted her weapons from the trunk. She stood and pulled Aracklin from its scabbard. It felt good to have the familiar weight of the sword in her hands as she gracefully moved through a fighting pattern, relishing in the freedom provided by the thin nightdress. With her old friend in her hand, Mariel felt safe and confident.

When she finished the pattern, she slid Aracklin back into its scabbard and leaned it against the bed. Next, she extracted her throwing knives and carefully strapped them to her ankles and wrists, aware that if she was caught with them they would be taken from her. Cara already knew about them, but was probably too afraid to be a tattletale. Although, to Cara’s credit, she had suggested Mariel hide them before their maid came to help them into their nightclothes.

Mariel had heeded the advice and was glad she had because Betti, the maid, was not someone she liked. Betti was arrogant about her beauty. She helped both Mariel and Cara undress and departed with a sway of her hips that Mariel thought was only appropriate when flirting with men. This interaction discouraged the girl who had been hoping to befriend some of the servants.

The last thing Mariel pulled out of her trunk was her set of lock picks. She considered pinning them into her curls, but her hair was too happy to flow free after spending many hours pulled back. Instead, she put them in a pouch and tie them around her waist.

Carefully, she set Aracklin under the bed and found a petticoat to cover the sword. Mariel was not sure if the maids regularly cleaned beneath the beds, but she would take her chances over placing the sword in the armoire where her clothes hung and where Betti would definitely look.

She pushed the trunk under the bed and glanced once more at Cara’s sleeping form before slipping out the door. The halls were quiet and dark, but Mariel moved without a light, letting her instincts and training lead her on.

She stopped in front of one of the doors on the second floor, certain that this was it. She slipped inside. The room was the same size as the one she and Cara shared, but that was the only thing the rooms had in common. It was ornately decorated, although Mariel could not distinguish much in the dim light cast by the burning candle on the nightstand.

Afraid of the dark, are we?
Mariel thought, smugly eyeing the candle.

A girl slept peacefully in the only bed in the room, as rain pounded the window. Her dark hair was plaited in a long tight braid.

This is too easy,
Mariel thought.
Where’s the challenge?

She pulled one of her knives from its sheath and carefully picked up the long braid. Mariel held the silky hair gently as she began to saw through the braid with her sharp weapon. The long braid was heavy in Mariel’s hand, but she gripped it tightly and replaced her knife in its sheath. Before she left, she leaned over to the nightstand and blew out the candle.

A tapestry of flowers hung at the top of the stairs. Mariel removed the piece of art and rolled it up. In its placed she hung the long braid, which stretched halfway down the wall. She stepped back to admire her work and headed downstairs with the rolled tapestry in her hand.

She found the kitchen. The pantry was unlocked, which only served to disappoint the girl who had been hoping for more of a challenge. When she had eaten her fill of stolen bread and cheese she set about exploring the convent, beginning with High Priestess’s office. The door was locked, but her lock picks easily fixed that and soon she sat in the chair behind High Priestess’s desk.