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--33--

It was with no small amount of trepidation that the Innkeepers began to prepare for another visit from the royal court. Gavin said nothing, Ethy said nothing, Nat said nothing, and together they said so little that even Analie noticed that something was different, though she was too young yet to know how to ask why. The family took care not to burden her too much, instead letting her sit by Ferand's cradle where she could sing and chatter and rock him so that Ethy could devote her attention elsewhere. For a full month the inn was as quiet as it had been just before Gavin and Ethy's marriage. The amount of unspoken thoughts piled up like snow on the inn's roof, so heavy that only continued, cold expectation held it up. When the royal court was almost a week late, the thaw came, the silence collapsed, and Gavin and Ethy's thoughts fell in a heap on Nat. Whenever one of them crossed their son's path, he or she would lean over and whisper some little thing, some piece of advice, request, or reminder in his ear.

"You will help keep an eye on Analie, won't you?"

"Don't speak unless you're spoken to first, and don't say more than you need."

"Just remember to close your eyes and ears when you're supposed to."

"We'll need you to help keep Analie away from the noble children."

"You won't say anything impertinent, will you Nat?"

"Ignore them."

"You will try to maintain a respectable silence?"

"Don't listen to them if they say something unusual."

"Remember, you're not to see or hear, just serve."

"Ignore them."

"Remember..."

"Keep quiet."

Nat found the avalanche of attention particularly annoying. It had been upwards of five years since the last time. He was almost eighteen now, old enough to know that, to the nobles, he was supposed to be invisible, and old enough to know how to help the illusion along.

--34--

"Your Majesty honors us as always with his presence."

"Spare it, Innkeeper," the King grunted as he dismounted his horse. "We've had a long journey."

He looked a good deal older, Nat thought, more worn and battered than the last time he had come through. There were definite bands of grey in the black hair beneath his golden crown, and even though he had put on a little weight around the middle, he walked a little lighter, as though he no longer felt the need to go stomping about to maintain his authority. Nat's mind was off like a jackrabbit, darting from idea to idea as to what might have caused such a change. All the rumors surrounding the Queen's death had suggested that the King could have cared less if his wife lived or died. But then the King turned, and everyone saw the old rag tied around his upper right arm, the sign of mourning.

From there the villagers' eyes leapt from arm to arm, until it was silently confirmed that every member of the court wore the cloth as well, and that the only missing noble--indeed, one of the few whose absence would earn notice--was the Prince.

Nat heard Ethy draw in her breath, and Gavin took a half step back so that he could kneel and bow his head.

"My apologies, your Majesty," he murmured, as sincere as any father could be to another. "I offer all my regrets, and all my hospitality, in the hope that your loss--"

"That won't bring the Prince back," the King snapped. "You'll do as you've always done the way you've always done it. And I hope for your sake that no one tries to harm the Princess."

Nat kept quite still, knowing the last remark applied chiefly to him. Gavin, still on one knee, swallowed and nodded.

"The Princess and I will take our meal inside this year. My steward will give you the particulars."

"Yes, your Majesty."

The King swept away too quickly to catch Gavin's reply, and the villagers, guards, and servants fell to setting up the royal camp.

--35--

Gavin could try all he wanted to maintain order, but the death of the Prince was too much for the villagers to keep to themselves until the court left. With the inn off-limits in preparation for its grand guests, the yard out back became the hub of the gossip, though without a fence the whispered discussions spread throughout the camp. By late afternoon the villagers were so indiscrete that a guard threatened to box their ears for laziness and eavesdropping if he caught anyone at it again, and the chatter returned to the confines of the yard.

Nat suffered none of this. Food preparation kept him at his father's side in the kitchen, an ideal place to stay out of the way of the royals and to listen and learn without risking a guard's fist. While people thought he was too intent on the quality of the soup to pay them attention, he played his usual listening game while he worked, posing questions in his mind and seeing how many he could answer, tallying points for his correct predictions against his incorrect ideas.

By the time the King's steward had called the nobles to dinner, Nat knew that the story of the Prince's gradual demise was, as usual, far less interesting than the villagers made it sound. By all reliable accounts, he had simply succumbed at last to the illness that had plagued him since birth, and on the eve of the King's departure. The court had rushed through the weeklong noble ceremonies and buried him by the Fortress wall before they began their march across the country.

The villagers' primary concern now was the King's heir, which Nat found odd and downright stupid, as so many of the villagers were anyway. The Prince had been ill his whole life...how could the King have neglected to plan for just such a situation long in advance?

Nat had made a point of keeping his eyes down when the Princess arrived, but now that the fate of Tollan rested on her shoulders, he half hoped to get another chance for a glimpse. If she was as strong-willed as ever, she would make a queen of the present King's caliber. Any king by marriage would no doubt want to take charge, and if she had gained any obedience or restraint at all in the past five years, the Princess might very well lose power to her husband. If not, it was quite likely that she would rule just as her father and grandfather before her, with a firm hand and an eye each over the mountains and out to sea, her husband only there to provide her with heirs.

"Nat! Get that soup off the fire!" Ethy shrieked from the yard.

Nat jerked his head up so quickly that he hit his head on the mantelpiece, and had to bite his lip to stop himself from uttering one of Talem's many curses.

"Nat!"

"It's fine!" he yelled, a little louder than he intended. "I'm watching it, it's fine!"

But someone else had already caught her attention. Gavin appeared at Nat's side, sampled the soup, and laughed.

"Oh, your mother..."

"She really can't cook," Nat smiled into the pot.

"And she prob'ly never will." Gavin clapped a hand on his shoulder. "I'll get someone to watch this for a bit. You go straighten up, get out of that apron, get your jerkin back on–"

"You sure?" Nat asked, amazed.

"I wouldn't trust one of those blundering farmers to serve two dozen royals indoors."

The obvious avoidance of the question did not escape Nat's notice. "I thought you wanted me in here--"

Gavin shook his head. "No time to argue now, Nat. We're going to need you inside."

Nat swallowed his shock and nodded, then hurried out back to wash his hands and face in the rain barrel. Serving inside! Did Gavin want to upset the King again?

He dried his face on the apron that he shoved off on the first person who stepped in his way, darted through the cramped and crowded kitchen, and took a sharp turn into his family's room behind the fireplace. His fine jerkin lay on the bed, where he had left it before tending the meal, and he pulled it across his shoulders at once. He fumbled with his belt as he buckled and tied it, and realized that his hands were shaking. Surprised, he took a moment to hold them up before his face and stare at his fingers until they stopped. Only then did he spare enough space in his mind to realize that he, Carpenter-Innkeeper Nat--one of the few peasants alive who had twice angered royalty and escaped all but unscathed--was going to serve the King again.

Ah...help me, he groaned in his head, letting the thought float around. Even if there was nothing and no one to hear, thinking the words helped calm him.

"There, now, Nat," came Ethy's soft voice from behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw her teasing smile. "Make yourself pretty for the girls some other day." She set her hands on his shoulders and turned him to face her, so that she could look him over, then tugged his jerkin's collar slightly askew. "You only need to look neat, not nice."

Nat stared. Had his parents gone mad?

"You don't really think--"

"Of course not," she said quickly, taking her own fine jerkin from a peg on the wall and slipping it on over her everyday dress. "Just want to make sure that no one else does--"

"I know, I know," Nat muttered. "You two don't have to keep reminding me."

Ethy sighed and finished tying her belt. "You father and I love you, Nat," she said, keeping her eyes on her clothes while she smoothed imaginary wrinkles. "You have so much talent, there's so much you could do in this world..." She brushed the back of her hand over his cheek. "We know you know better than to risk all of that, we just don't want anyone else to take it away."

At last he knew for certain that his parents were not really worried about his behavior, but the Princess's! If any one of them voiced the thought aloud, the best they could hope for was a severe beating, if not immediate imprisonment or even death. Nat breathed long and deep, suddenly feeling much calmer.

"I won't hurt us," he said at last. "I won't do anything to let them hurt this family."

She smiled. "I know. I know and your father knows that you'll do your best to take care of us."

--36--

The Princess was beautiful now that she had grown. No longer just pretty with potential, she had picked up enough weight to enhance her curves and flaunt the fact that she had at least three full meals a day. Her clothes' dark shade of the prized purple dye combined with the perfect loops and swirls of her black hair to show off her features, framing the few exposed patches of pale skin and offsetting the brilliant white seed pearls lining her robe. The mourning rag on her arm looked utterly ridiculous on her magnificent person.

But the one thing that Nat noticed at once, which drove a new peg of disrespect into his heart, was her confident, superior smirk. She knew she had power...and she enjoyed displaying it.

He should not have met her eyes, should have kept them trained on the floor, but she drew attention wherever she went, and to deny it might well have enraged her more than any insult ever could. She held his gaze for only an instant before there was a low ping on the floor inches from her hemline: she had dropped a golden ring, one so large and heavy that its own bulk saved it from certain loss to the cracks between the floorboards.

Avelina's eyes flicked downward and then back to his face, and Nat understood at once that it was a challenge. But he was no naïve boy anymore. He knew what her real interests were, he knew how to behave as though he knew his place, and he would not give her the satisfaction of rebellion. With a single step forward, he swept up the ring without encroaching on the Princess's presence, then held it out before her with only the tips of his fingers, so that she would not have to touch him, and offered a slight bow.

Light laughter washed over him. "Oh, well done little foal, you really have learned your place!"

Nat gritted his teeth and kept his eyes lowered, but the cruel comment was not enough for the Princess. When she took the ring, she wrapped her entire hand around his fingertips and yanked, then trailed two fingers across his side as she brushed past and flounced over to the table.

It was all Nat could do to keep himself from running right then, but he did have to get outside, and fast. He barely kept himself from storming through the kitchen, then cut around the crowd out back to get to the woods, where he kicked the first large tree he came upon.

"That dog!" he snarled, pounding his fists on the tree trunk. "That spiteful little--"

"Nat!" Talem called from amidst the crowd of villagers. "Your father wants you back right now!"

With one final kick, Nat shoved himself away from the tree and stormed across the yard, pausing at the kitchen door only long enough to regain his control. This, he reminded himself, is what separates me from all of them. He might only be a peasant, but he refused to believe that he was doomed to spend the rest of his life subservient to the nobles--especially when he had, by birth, at least half a claim to their privileges. He refused to accept his place, but he knew that fighting his battle alone would only get him killed. Someday, he promised himself as he stood there, someday they'll look at me and see that they owe me some respect. He did not often entertain ideas so unlikely that they bordered on fictions, but this one was so pleasing, so promising, so full of potential possibilities that he calmed almost at once, and even smiled a bit.

"Someday," he whispered fiercely, then all but fell into the kitchen and set to his tasks.

Description
--33--

It was with no small amount of trepidation that the Innkeepers began to prepare for another visit from the royal court. Gavin said nothing, Ethy said nothing, Nat said nothing, and together they said so little that even Analie noticed that something was different, though she was too young yet to know how to ask why. The family took care not to burden her too much, instead letting her sit by Ferand's cradle where she could sing and chatter and rock him so that Ethy could devote her attention elsewhere. For a full month the inn was as quiet as it had been just before Gavin and Ethy's marriage. The amount of unspoken thoughts piled up like snow on the inn's roof, so heavy that only continued, cold expectation held it up. When the royal court was almost a week late, the thaw came, the silence collapsed, and Gavin and Ethy's thoughts fell in a heap on Nat. Whenever one of them crossed their son's path, he or she would lean over and whisper some little thing, some piece of advice, request, or reminder in his ear.

"You will help keep an eye on Analie, won't you?"

"Don't speak unless you're spoken to first, and don't say more than you need."

"Just remember to close your eyes and ears when you're supposed to."

"We'll need you to help keep Analie away from the noble children."

"You won't say anything impertinent, will you Nat?"

"Ignore them."

"You will try to maintain a respectable silence?"

"Don't listen to them if they say something unusual."

"Remember, you're not to see or hear, just serve."

"Ignore them."

"Remember..."

"Keep quiet."

Nat found the avalanche of attention particularly annoying. It had been upwards of five years since the last time. He was almost eighteen now, old enough to know that, to the nobles, he was supposed to be invisible, and old enough to know how to help the illusion along.

--34--

"Your Majesty honors us as always with his presence."

"Spare it, Innkeeper," the King grunted as he dismounted his horse. "We've had a long journey."

He looked a good deal older, Nat thought, more worn and battered than the last time he had come through. There were definite bands of grey in the black hair beneath his golden crown, and even though he had put on a little weight around the middle, he walked a little lighter, as though he no longer felt the need to go stomping about to maintain his authority. Nat's mind was off like a jackrabbit, darting from idea to idea as to what might have caused such a change. All the rumors surrounding the Queen's death had suggested that the King could have cared less if his wife lived or died. But then the King turned, and everyone saw the old rag tied around his upper right arm, the sign of mourning.

From there the villagers' eyes leapt from arm to arm, until it was silently confirmed that every member of the court wore the cloth as well, and that the only missing noble--indeed, one of the few whose absence would earn notice--was the Prince.

Nat heard Ethy draw in her breath, and Gavin took a half step back so that he could kneel and bow his head.

"My apologies, your Majesty," he murmured, as sincere as any father could be to another. "I offer all my regrets, and all my hospitality, in the hope that your loss--"

"That won't bring the Prince back," the King snapped. "You'll do as you've always done the way you've always done it. And I hope for your sake that no one tries to harm the Princess."

Nat kept quite still, knowing the last remark applied chiefly to him. Gavin, still on one knee, swallowed and nodded.

"The Princess and I will take our meal inside this year. My steward will give you the particulars."

"Yes, your Majesty."

The King swept away too quickly to catch Gavin's reply, and the villagers, guards, and servants fell to setting up the royal camp.

--35--

Gavin could try all he wanted to maintain order, but the death of the Prince was too much for the villagers to keep to themselves until the court left. With the inn off-limits in preparation for its grand guests, the yard out back became the hub of the gossip, though without a fence the whispered discussions spread throughout the camp. By late afternoon the villagers were so indiscrete that a guard threatened to box their ears for laziness and eavesdropping if he caught anyone at it again, and the chatter returned to the confines of the yard.

Nat suffered none of this. Food preparation kept him at his father's side in the kitchen, an ideal place to stay out of the way of the royals and to listen and learn without risking a guard's fist. While people thought he was too intent on the quality of the soup to pay them attention, he played his usual listening game while he worked, posing questions in his mind and seeing how many he could answer, tallying points for his correct predictions against his incorrect ideas.

By the time the King's steward had called the nobles to dinner, Nat knew that the story of the Prince's gradual demise was, as usual, far less interesting than the villagers made it sound. By all reliable accounts, he had simply succumbed at last to the illness that had plagued him since birth, and on the eve of the King's departure. The court had rushed through the weeklong noble ceremonies and buried him by the Fortress wall before they began their march across the country.

The villagers' primary concern now was the King's heir, which Nat found odd and downright stupid, as so many of the villagers were anyway. The Prince had been ill his whole life...how could the King have neglected to plan for just such a situation long in advance?

Nat had made a point of keeping his eyes down when the Princess arrived, but now that the fate of Tollan rested on her shoulders, he half hoped to get another chance for a glimpse. If she was as strong-willed as ever, she would make a queen of the present King's caliber. Any king by marriage would no doubt want to take charge, and if she had gained any obedience or restraint at all in the past five years, the Princess might very well lose power to her husband. If not, it was quite likely that she would rule just as her father and grandfather before her, with a firm hand and an eye each over the mountains and out to sea, her husband only there to provide her with heirs.

"Nat! Get that soup off the fire!" Ethy shrieked from the yard.

Nat jerked his head up so quickly that he hit his head on the mantelpiece, and had to bite his lip to stop himself from uttering one of Talem's many curses.

"Nat!"

"It's fine!" he yelled, a little louder than he intended. "I'm watching it, it's fine!"

But someone else had already caught her attention. Gavin appeared at Nat's side, sampled the soup, and laughed.

"Oh, your mother..."

"She really can't cook," Nat smiled into the pot.

"And she prob'ly never will." Gavin clapped a hand on his shoulder. "I'll get someone to watch this for a bit. You go straighten up, get out of that apron, get your jerkin back on–"

"You sure?" Nat asked, amazed.

"I wouldn't trust one of those blundering farmers to serve two dozen royals indoors."

The obvious avoidance of the question did not escape Nat's notice. "I thought you wanted me in here--"

Gavin shook his head. "No time to argue now, Nat. We're going to need you inside."

Nat swallowed his shock and nodded, then hurried out back to wash his hands and face in the rain barrel. Serving inside! Did Gavin want to upset the King again?

He dried his face on the apron that he shoved off on the first person who stepped in his way, darted through the cramped and crowded kitchen, and took a sharp turn into his family's room behind the fireplace. His fine jerkin lay on the bed, where he had left it before tending the meal, and he pulled it across his shoulders at once. He fumbled with his belt as he buckled and tied it, and realized that his hands were shaking. Surprised, he took a moment to hold them up before his face and stare at his fingers until they stopped. Only then did he spare enough space in his mind to realize that he, Carpenter-Innkeeper Nat--one of the few peasants alive who had twice angered royalty and escaped all but unscathed--was going to serve the King again.

Ah...help me, he groaned in his head, letting the thought float around. Even if there was nothing and no one to hear, thinking the words helped calm him.

"There, now, Nat," came Ethy's soft voice from behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw her teasing smile. "Make yourself pretty for the girls some other day." She set her hands on his shoulders and turned him to face her, so that she could look him over, then tugged his jerkin's collar slightly askew. "You only need to look neat, not nice."

Nat stared. Had his parents gone mad?

"You don't really think--"

"Of course not," she said quickly, taking her own fine jerkin from a peg on the wall and slipping it on over her everyday dress. "Just want to make sure that no one else does--"

"I know, I know," Nat muttered. "You two don't have to keep reminding me."

Ethy sighed and finished tying her belt. "You father and I love you, Nat," she said, keeping her eyes on her clothes while she smoothed imaginary wrinkles. "You have so much talent, there's so much you could do in this world..." She brushed the back of her hand over his cheek. "We know you know better than to risk all of that, we just don't want anyone else to take it away."

At last he knew for certain that his parents were not really worried about his behavior, but the Princess's! If any one of them voiced the thought aloud, the best they could hope for was a severe beating, if not immediate imprisonment or even death. Nat breathed long and deep, suddenly feeling much calmer.

"I won't hurt us," he said at last. "I won't do anything to let them hurt this family."

She smiled. "I know. I know and your father knows that you'll do your best to take care of us."

--36--

The Princess was beautiful now that she had grown. No longer just pretty with potential, she had picked up enough weight to enhance her curves and flaunt the fact that she had at least three full meals a day. Her clothes' dark shade of the prized purple dye combined with the perfect loops and swirls of her black hair to show off her features, framing the few exposed patches of pale skin and offsetting the brilliant white seed pearls lining her robe. The mourning rag on her arm looked utterly ridiculous on her magnificent person.

But the one thing that Nat noticed at once, which drove a new peg of disrespect into his heart, was her confident, superior smirk. She knew she had power...and she enjoyed displaying it.

He should not have met her eyes, should have kept them trained on the floor, but she drew attention wherever she went, and to deny it might well have enraged her more than any insult ever could. She held his gaze for only an instant before there was a low ping on the floor inches from her hemline: she had dropped a golden ring, one so large and heavy that its own bulk saved it from certain loss to the cracks between the floorboards.

Avelina's eyes flicked downward and then back to his face, and Nat understood at once that it was a challenge. But he was no naïve boy anymore. He knew what her real interests were, he knew how to behave as though he knew his place, and he would not give her the satisfaction of rebellion. With a single step forward, he swept up the ring without encroaching on the Princess's presence, then held it out before her with only the tips of his fingers, so that she would not have to touch him, and offered a slight bow.

Light laughter washed over him. "Oh, well done little foal, you really have learned your place!"

Nat gritted his teeth and kept his eyes lowered, but the cruel comment was not enough for the Princess. When she took the ring, she wrapped her entire hand around his fingertips and yanked, then trailed two fingers across his side as she brushed past and flounced over to the table.

It was all Nat could do to keep himself from running right then, but he did have to get outside, and fast. He barely kept himself from storming through the kitchen, then cut around the crowd out back to get to the woods, where he kicked the first large tree he came upon.

"That dog!" he snarled, pounding his fists on the tree trunk. "That spiteful little--"

"Nat!" Talem called from amidst the crowd of villagers. "Your father wants you back right now!"

With one final kick, Nat shoved himself away from the tree and stormed across the yard, pausing at the kitchen door only long enough to regain his control. This, he reminded himself, is what separates me from all of them. He might only be a peasant, but he refused to believe that he was doomed to spend the rest of his life subservient to the nobles--especially when he had, by birth, at least half a claim to their privileges. He refused to accept his place, but he knew that fighting his battle alone would only get him killed. Someday, he promised himself as he stood there, someday they'll look at me and see that they owe me some respect. He did not often entertain ideas so unlikely that they bordered on fictions, but this one was so pleasing, so promising, so full of potential possibilities that he calmed almost at once, and even smiled a bit.

"Someday," he whispered fiercely, then all but fell into the kitchen and set to his tasks.