The Forgotten Sisters (23 page)

Miri shook the flask, discovering it was half full—not enough to last the five of them for even a day. They each took a sip to clear the dust from their throats and talked in urgent whispers, discovering no solutions.

A creak. Miri held her breath. Britta squeezed her hand. A small square of wall opened in.

A boy crawled through and let the small door shut quietly behind him before looking into the room. He startled upright.

He was about the same height as Sus, though a little younger, perhaps eight or nine, with sandy-colored hair that hung to his shoulders. He wore a fine yellow coat and trousers, with a short sword hanging from his belt.

“Please don't scream,” Miri whispered.

The boy stiffened. “Of course I won't scream. I'm not scared of five girls. I'm a soldier.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” said Sus, “you're too young to be a soldier.”

“Sus!” said Felissa. “Sorry, she's not as mean as she sounds,” Felissa said to the boy, but he ignored her.

“I am not,” he replied to Sus. “Stora's boys are warriors born.”

“Quoting King Tore, are you?” asked Sus.

The boy blinked. “How did you know? I bet you're the Danlandian girls they're looking for and not even Storan.”

“I
read
,” she said. “I know about King Tore who
allegedly
led the Storan forces to victory against Eris in 214, when he was just eight years old.”

“And I'm
much
older than he was,” said the boy.

Sus raised an eyebrow as if she doubted that.

“Are there people out there?” Britta whispered, indicating the door he'd crawled through.

“They have more important things to do than sit in the attic,” said the boy.

“What's your name?” Miri asked.

“Kaspar,” said the boy. “I'm leader of the greatest army in the continent.”

“Yes, we found your army,” said Astrid, nodding toward the toys in the corner.

“Hello, Kaspar.” Sus curtsied as if practicing a Poise lesson. “I am Susanna Apollonia Bjorndaughter, princess of Danland. These are my sisters and friends. And please don't run to the soldiers and tattle on us.”

“Sus,” Felissa said with warning, but Astrid had already declared herself a princess too, so it seemed too late to worry about keeping their identities a secret.

“I don't tattle. I'm not a little boy.” He pulled out his sword. “And this isn't a toy, obviously. It's a
real
sword.”

“Who let you have a real sword and go rushing around stabbing people?”

“I haven't stabbed anyone.
Yet
,” he said significantly.

Sus laughed. Without her usual serious expression, she looked as young as she actually was. “So, are you going to stab me?”

“No,” he said, trying to be serious but smiling anyway. “But I could if I wanted.”

He stepped back and chopped the air, making impressive swooping sounds. Sus's eyes lit up.

“Can I try?” she asked.

He handed her the sword hilt first, and she took it reverently.

“Quietly, Sus,” Felissa whispered.

“Princess Susanna Apollonia,” Sus corrected, looking over the sword.

“So you
are
the Danlandian prisoners?” Kaspar asked.

“If you tell on us, you'll be a real spoilsport,” said Sus.

“You can't escape an island anyway,” said Kaspar. “Look, this is how you hold it.”

Kaspar showed Sus a parry and thrust move. Sus took the sword and thrust, sticking it into the wood wall. She laughed with delight.

“Shh,” said Felissa.

“Now who's stabbing things?” said the boy.

“Oh, I stab things all the time,” said Sus, putting her foot on the wall for leverage as she tried to pull out the sword. “You don't need something this long to skin a swamp rat or a frog. But I wouldn't mind having a sword when facing a caiman.”

“I don't think caimans are real,” the boy said.

“They're real. My sister Astrid is the best caiman hunter in all of Danland, but I'll get better as I get older. When they come swimming at you, all you can see is their eyes and a little ridge of their back. They're as quiet as water, and then suddenly, they
snap
!”

Sus clapped her hands at the boy's face. He leaned back.

“Sus, please, no noise,” said Miri.

“No one comes up here,” said the boy. “That's why I made it my throne room. I'm the king of Stora.”

“Kaspar, do you know of any way off this island unseen?” Britta asked.

“I wouldn't tell you even if I did. Aren't you the enemy?”

“Aren't you the king of Stora?” Felissa said with a teasing smile. “We don't have to be the enemy if you say we're not.”

“Well, my father would be angry with me if I harbored his enemies,” said Kaspar.

“Anyway, a caiman's jaws are this big”—Sus made a circle with her arms—“and can swallow you whole, but even more dangerous is when the caiman pulls you into a death roll underwater. It's scary work, but when you kill it, you shout to the village, ‘We've got meat!' And everyone comes running to have a caiman roast. The meat is white and thick and so good, and you just sit and eat and eat till you want to burst.”

The boy smiled. “I want to do that. How soon can we go?”

“There's a war on,” Miri said. “There won't be any caiman hunting for some time.”

“I wish we could go hunting now,” he said, occupied with trying to dislodge the sword from the wall. “Everyone made the war sound fun and I was excited to ride a warship, but it's been nothing but boring talking and sitting around. Still, sometimes war is necessary for the good of a kingdom.”

“And sometimes it stinks,” said Sus. “Storan soldiers invaded our village. They killed an unarmed man just for getting into his own boat. That's what happens in war. If you'd read
A History of Peace
, you'd know.”

“I have read it,” said Kaspar.

“Oh?” said Sus.
A History of Peace
was one of the books Miri had tried to explain to Sus from memory. “What did
you think about Master Trundell's theory that all progress begins with education, and whenever war begins, education ceases?”

“You know, I overheard someone quote that very bit to Commander Mongus when everyone was talking about invading Eris, but Commander Mongus said that things written on paper and action in the living world have nothing to do with each other.”

“That's silly,” said Sus.

Kaspar shrugged, still working on the sword. It came loose from the wall and he held it up, grinning. “Someday I'll join the war too.”

“Kaspar,” said Britta, “is King Fader really dead?”

He nodded, taking a few swipes at the air. “Like this, Princess Susanna. See how I keep my wrist straight?”

“Let me try,” said Sus.

“Just a minute,” said Kaspar.

“I only got a short turn,” she said.

“Kaspar, we're in trouble,” said Miri. “I think the soldiers mean to lock us up for a long time and maybe even kill us.”

“Oh they won't hurt you,” said Kaspar, still swinging, his forehead wrinkled in concentration.

“Well, yes, they might,” said Miri.

Felissa stepped closer, smiling kindly. Kaspar lowered
his sword. She bent to her knees, and took his free hand.

“I'm asking your aid, Kaspar,” she said. “As a gentleman of Stora, can you help protect us?”

His voice warbled lower as if putting on a grand tone. “Of course, lady, because I
am
a gentleman. But you have nothing to fear. I mean, Mongus is a beast sometimes but ‘Storan men are honorable all,'” he said as if quoting someone. “Ooh, I want to show you something. I'll be right back!”

Kaspar sheathed his sword and scampered out the tiny door.

“
Who
is he?” Astrid whispered.

“I'm betting the high commander's son,” said Miri. “Only a high-ranking officer could bring family to war.”

“Maybe he is a king,” said Sus. “After all, I turned out to be a princess.”

“King of what?” said Astrid.

“King Fader did have a son named Kaspar, though there are …” Sus briefly shut her eyes, as if counting, “… twelve others in line for the throne before that Kaspar.”

“What if he's going to get the soldiers?” said Britta.

“He won't,” said Sus.

“He might,” said Astrid. “Miri?”

Miri shook her head, meaning she still had no plan. The day was a game board, and the Storans were well-placed pieces about to win. The only moves for Miri's pieces were to evade and retreat. Except for Kaspar. He did not quite fit, and she thought to wait and see what he might do.

But night slouched outside their tiny window and he still did not return. The girls finished the water. Miri's few slender drops seemed to miss her dry throat altogether.

Astrid stood. “I'm going.”

“No, let me,” said Miri. “Maybe I can find a path out of the castle now that it's dark, or at least some more water.”

Felissa shook her head. “We stay together.”

They climbed back into the walls, descending down crumbling ladders, inching through dusty passages, alert for sounds through the walls. They crouched on the other side of one secret door for some time, listening. Between her own anxious breaths, Miri heard nothing but silence. Finally they emerged into a dark storage room packed with furniture. They sidled out of that maze and into an empty corridor.

They were creeping toward a staircase when footsteps resounded behind them. The girls ran. The bootfalls began to chase. Miri turned a corner and slammed into a
soldier. And like that, all five girls were caught as easily as flies in honey.

The soldiers marched the girls downstairs, not to see High Commander Paldus but lower and lower still, the weight of the entire castle above, pressing them into darkness. Down where walls were rough cut right into the stone of the island and dungeons still slunk in the deep. The jagged rock glistened with water, and Miri could hear the river roaring as if it were about to break through and pound into the room.

The soldiers deposited the girls into a cell and locked the iron-barred door. The walls were mud-colored bricks, the only light from torches on the cellar wall, flickering through the bars to paint black shadows on their faces.

A voice called out, thick and hollow, from the cell beside theirs. Miri scooted closer to the wall.

“Yes, hello, who's there?” she said.

“Master Hansa,” he said.

“I'm Miri Larendaughter of Mount Eskel, and I'm with—”

“Miri? Miss Miri?” A second voice called out, as thin and crinkled as old paper.

“Master Filippus!” she cried back. “Are you all right? What's happened?”

“Stora happened,” he said. Miri imagined his eyes crinkling with a smile, the white of his hair and beard gray in the shadows. “They came, we cowered, and they tossed us down here to deal with later. Most of the scholars they let escape across the bridge, but we master tutors are apparently too
dangerous
to let free.” His voice warbled with age.

“I don't understand what they're doing,” said Miri.

“Well, Miss Miri, I may be a useless cowering old man, but I understand a great deal. I have read dozens of books about Stora, after all.”

“They were right, Master Filippus—you
are
dangerous.”

So she told him what they knew.

“ ‘The north men defend honor with iron.' The commander said those words?” asked Master Filippus. “Then this might be an honor war. Storans admire their own ethics above all else. If King Bjorn committed a crime against them, they could use it to justify an attack on Danland.”

Britta was pressed against the wall close to Miri, listening with her whole face tense.

“If they believe King Bjorn guilty, would Stora justify killing his son as well?”

“Historically, there is precedent,” said the master.

Miri could feel Britta shiver. She put an arm around her.

“They're besieging the palace,” said Miri. “But they can't think the king will run out of food and surrender before Danland's army returns. It's expected any day.”

“Mmm, clever,” Master Filippus said. “Small bands of Storan soldiers could make strikes against Danland's army as it travels, slowing it down. Meanwhile, the Storans have impressive stocks of gunpowder. If King Bjorn doesn't surrender, they could make bombs, set them outside the palace walls at night, blow it to bits, invade, and capture all they find within.”

The guard's boot steps paced outside their cell door, and Miri fell silent. Britta's shivering turned into crying. Miri held her, and they worried silently together.

Master Filippus was just guessing, of course. But Commander Mongus had hinted that they were already breaching the palace wall in some way that the royal guards did not notice.

No one noticed. The king and his delegates and advisers. The queen, crying in her room, Steffan there, consoling her. Peder and Katar, waiting to see if King Fader would honor his previous promise, wed one of the royal sisters, and form an alliance with Danland that war would not dare to break.

But it seemed King Fader was dead. There was no simple way to end the war. Stora could not hold Danland as easily as it now held Eris, but they would not try. They were here for an honor killing. If the Storans breached the palace wall, the royal family might believe they could surrender and depend on the Storan army's honor to keep them alive while they waited for Danland's army to rescue them. But the Storans were here to kill the king and perhaps the royal family too. And no one in the palace knew.

This winter, twice I heard you quarry-speak to me
, Katar had said.

Long nights and empty days Miri had sat alone in the little linder house, in a swamp that had seemed to gnaw on her and try to spit her out. Hours quarry-speaking to the void, believing no one could hear, clutching the hawk Peder had carved.