Heartless

Word spread fast. Soon all of Sondhold was bestirred. Working girls feigned sickness to be excused, and schoolboys made no pretense of attending classes. The washerwoman let the dirtied white shirt lie untouched, and the smithy allowed his fires to die. How could anyone attend to mundane things on the day of the Twelve-Year Market?

The hubbub bubbled all the way to the crest of Goldstone Hill and flowed on into the palace, where Princess Una sat with her nose in her history text, wallowing in academic misery. Dates and battles and dead kings’ names swam before her eyes while spring fever, cruel and demanding, picked at the back of her brain. She and her brother had ceased their squabbling for the time being, and their tutor’s voice filled the room in one long, endless drone that commanded no one’s attention, least of all the tutor’s.

Monster stood up on the windowsill. He stretched, forming an arch with his body, and flicked the plume of his tail. Then, after a quick wash to make certain his whiskers were well arranged, he interrupted the lecture.

“Meaaa.”

The tutor droned on without a glance at the cat. “Abundiantus V was never intended to sit upon his father’s throne, being the second son – ”

“Meaaa!” Monster said, with more emphasis this time. He unsheathed his claws and scratched the window, a long grating noise.

“Dragon-eaten beast.” Felix threw a pencil at the cat’s nose, missing by inches.

“Princess Una,” the tutor said, “we have had this discussion. Would you kindly remove that creature from the room so that our studies may continue uninhibited?”

Una huffed and went to the window. But when she reached for him, Monster made himself heavy and awkward, slipping through her grasp. He landed back on the windowsill with another “Meeeaa!” and pressed his nose to the glass.

Una looked out.

She saw the colors. She saw the movement. She saw the dancing far below, as though she was suddenly gifted with an eagle’s eyes and able to discern every detail even at that great distance. Wonderingly, she opened the window, and music carried up Goldstone Hill and filled the room.

“Oh,” she said.

“Meeeea.” Monster looked smug.

Felix was on his feet and at her side in a moment. He too looked down. “Oh,” he said.

The tutor, frowning, came around from behind his desk and joined them at the window. He looked as well and saw what they saw. His mouth formed an unspoken “Oh.”

A clatter of hooves in the courtyard drew their gazes, however unwillingly, from the sight down the hill. Una and her brother saw their father, King Fidel, mounting up with a company of his guard around him. Brother and sister exchanged a glance and bolted for the door, falling over themselves in a headlong dash from the chamber, down the stairs, and out to the courtyard, heedless of the tutor’s feeble attempts to restrain them. Monster trailed at their heels.

“Father!” Una burst into the courtyard, shouting like a little girl and hardly caring that she drew the eyes of the stable boys and footmen standing by. King Fidel, upon his gray mount, looked back at his daughter. “Father!” she cried. “Are you going to see?” She did not have to say what.

“Yes, Una,” Fidel replied. “I must make certain all is well below.”

“May we come?” Una said, and before the words were all out of her mouth, Felix was shouting to the stable boys, “My horse! Bring my horse!”

King Fidel considered a moment, his eyebrows drawn. But the day was fine, the air was full of holiday spirit, and his children’s faces were far too eager to refuse. “Very well.”

Una and Felix rode on either side of him as he descended the King’s Way, the long road that wound down Goldstone Hill to the teeming lawn. The breath of the ocean whipped in their faces, carrying the spice of other worlds up from below.

Sheep left neglected trailed across the road as the riders came to the bottom of the hill. The animals trotted out of the way, lambs scurrying behind their mothers. Una saw a man leaving the market with a great embroidered rug over his shoulder, and children ran hither and yon eating golden apples. A juggler tumbled just in front of Felix’s horse, tossing what at first looked like knives, but then seemed to be silver fish, and then, Una could have sworn, shooting stars. A dancer with eyes as large and wet as the moon on water, with pupils like a cat’s, too strange to be either beautiful or ugly, twirled past trailing what could have been iridescent scarves or perhaps wings. A man with green-cast skin sprang alongside Una’s mount and held up an empty hand. Flowers bloomed from his fingertips, and he smiled hugely, bobbing and bowing.

“Blossoms for the lovely lady? A fair price! Always fair! I do but ask for a strand of your hair. Is that not fair? A single strand of hair!”

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