Post by devilinthedetails on Feb 27, 2018 14:08:40 GMT 10
Title: Brave New World
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Brave New World
Summary: Roald and Shinko struggle to navigate a brave new world. Set during Squire.
“O brave new world, that has such people in it!”—William Shakespeare, The Tempest
Brave New World
I Fish in the Sea
“A ship from the Yamani Islands docked today, my lord.” Roald glanced up from sorting parchment into piles on his knightmaster’s desk. If he tilted his head when he stared out the window of Lord Imrah’s study, he could glimpse in the distance the sails white as foam in the Emerald Ocean on the hundreds of vessels moored at Port Legann’s wharves. From this far away, he had no hope of guessing which ship had come from where, bearing crates of wine from Carthak, spices from the Copper Isles, or even silk from the Yamani Islands.
“Yes, I heard that,” Lord Imrah answered, and Roald might have been surprised—the arrival or departure of a single ship rarely interested the lord of a port city—if they weren’t discussing a boat from the Yamani Islands which were still rarer than rainbows in the harbors of Port Legann. The treaty with the Yamani Islands that Roald’s marriage would seal had ended the centuries’ long Yamani policy of strict isolation from the Eastern Lands, but Yamani trade with Tortall was very much in a fledging state. Pale eyes twinkling, Lord Imrah added, “Your betrothed won’t be on that ship, lad. She’s sailing into Port Caynn and not for a week yet with favorable winds.”
“I know.” Roald resumed dividing the parchment into piles because it gave him an excuse not to meet his knightmaster’s too shrewd gaze. “Lady Cythera wrote to tell me that she is busy preparing the finishing touches for the princess’s chambers at the palace. I thought if the ship’s merchant was selling waving cats, I’d buy some and have them delivered to Lady Cythera to decorate the princess’s rooms.”
He didn’t know the princess who was traveling across the Emerald Ocean to become his bride, but he hoped she would find the waving cats a reassuring presence, a warm welcome to a foreign land she’d have to make her home, a promise of good fortune, and a wish for a happy marriage.
“Waving cats?” Lord Imrah’s eyebrows arched.
“They’re made of porcelain, sir.” Roald smiled slightly at his knightmaster’s bafflement. Catching one of the realm’s greatest tactual minds off guard was always amusing. “They’re not real cats.”
“Of course they aren’t. A real cat could never be trained to wave.” Lord Imrah was partial to dogs, falcons, and horses. Cats in his opinion were too haughty to love and obey their masters. “I don’t understand why your princess would want a waving cat whether porcelain or real.”
“Waving cats are a symbol of good luck in the Yamani Islands, my lord.” Roald’s smile broadened.
“Who told you that?” Lord Imrah sounded as dubious as a man told the sun would rise in the west the next morning.
“Keladry of Mindelan.” Roald was smug since he had a reliable source on the Yamani Islands. “Her father was diplomat to the Yamani Islands for years, sir.”
“Are you certain she wasn’t pulling your leg, Roald?” Lord Imrah rubbed a thumb along his chin. “Waving cats sound more like a joke than a symbol.”
“She wasn’t teasing me, my lord.” Roald trusted Kel and every picture of the Yamani Islands she had painted for him with her vivid descriptions. She had seen through the calm, accepting mask he wore about his engagement to the anxiety it concealed and always spoke in a soothing tone imbued with all the details he had to absorb about the Yamani Islands to understand the unknown woman who would be his wife. Kel would never be so cruel as to lie to him or prank him when it was his future at stake. “She was teaching me.”
“Waving cats seem a bizarre custom.” Lord Imrah’s lips quirked. “Then again, I suppose our traditions must appear nonsensical to people from the Yamani Islands. It’s an old Legann saying that fish don’t know they swim in water, and there are so many of us fish swimming blindly through our little sea here in Port Legann.”
“Does that mean I can go to market to see if the ship’s merchant is selling cats tomorrow, sir?” Roald pressed. Lord Imrah might have wanted to be philosophical, but Roald had a more practical concern.
“Yes, if you’ll escort Julienne there.” Lord Imrah referred to his younger daughter, who was not quite ten. “She’s been begging me to take her into the city to buy new ribbons for almost a week now.”
“It’d be my pleasure, my lord.” Roald bowed in his chair.
“Then take this.” Lord Imrah opened a drawer, pulled out a bag of clanking coins, and pushed it across the desk into Roald’s hands. “This’ll be enough money for Julienne’s ribbons as well as a meal and a sweet snack for you both.”
“I’ll guard the money for Julienne, my lord, but”—Roald flushed and fumbled for words, feeling like a hooked fish out of his element, gasping for air he couldn’t find—“you don’t need to give me any, sir.”
After all, he had more than enough money of his own. As Crown Prince, he’d had extensive lands and titles even in the cradle.
“I know I don’t need to, Roald.” Lord Imrah squeezed his shoulder. “I want to because you’re my squire, and a knightmaster should get some nice things for his squire even if his squire is a prince.”
“Thank you, sir.” Roald realized that his knightmaster’s generosity extended beyond coins and hoped that the gratitude in his eyes transcended the rote response.
“Don’t thank me too soon when we’ve a mountain of parchment to climb.” Lord Imrah chuckled as he waved a palm at the stack of parchment they had yet to sort. “Within the hour, you’ll be cursing me under your breath.”
“I’d never be so vulgar, my lord.” Roald was all innocence, but if Lord Imrah’s snort was any indication, his knightmaster wasn’t convinced.
II Adrift in the Ocean
Though she was born and bred on an island, Shinko had never been on a boat before she left her home in the horizon behind her forever. The sailors claimed that the wind was mild and the ocean placid for autumn, but she had been seasick each day since they lifted anchor from the Yamani Islands. Dizzy from the rocking waves, she remained locked in her cabin, attended by her ladies and protected by a vigilant pair of soldiers outside her door every hour of the day and night although an assassination attempt would be improbable leagues away from the nearest land.
Unable to keep anything else down in her heaving stomach, Shinko sipped on green tea sweetened by honey and nibbled on rice cakes spread with mulberry jam. Even with her bland diet, she was still reduced to the shameful position of bending over a bowl while her ladies held her curtain of hair away from her face.
Afterward one would carry the bowl to be emptied overboard while the other would clean her cheeks with a cloth. She appreciated that neither Lady Yukimi nor Lady Haname ever showed a flicker of disgust during her sickness because Shinko was afraid that she was growing uglier by the day. Always slim, she now wondered if she dared to step onto the deck if the breeze would blow her like a goose feather to Carthak.
“You’ve lost weight since we boarded the ship.” Prince Eitaro’s slight nose wrinkle conveyed his condescending contempt for Shinko’s ailing condition when he visited her cabin. The prince didn’t hold women in high regard. Wickedly Yuki speculated this was because his wife had all the wit and softness of a stone. In the slanderous shadows of her heart, Shinko agreed with Yuki’s sharp-tongued assessment. “That will not make you seem beautiful to the Tortallan eye. Tortallans prefer their women to have curves like mountains not be thin as a glaive.”
“I’ll have servants bring me a proper meal, Your Highness.” Shinko doubted she could swallow food especially after he had tightened her throat with worry that the Tortallans would find her hideous. Still she could appease him by offering the illusion that she would eat. Obedience was more about the appearance of acquiescence than action.
“Good.” Prince Eitaro’s brusque manner suggested little satisfaction. “Speaking of your glaive, Your Highness,I would advise you don’t train with your weapon in Tortall. Training with your weapon will not please your future husband.”
“The honored mother of my betrothed is a warrior woman.” Shinko managed to turn her shock into polite inquisitiveness. “I confess that I fail to understand how my training would offend my betrothed, a crime I would never wish to commit.”
“Men do not desire their mothers.” Prince Eitaro’s lips were a thin knife that cut Shinko’s soul. “A son of an unconventional woman will crave a traditional wife the way the ground longs for rain to follow a drought.”
“I will heed your wise counsel.” Shinko inclined her head, letting her ink black hair fall over the blank scroll of her face. “I’ll strive only to be Prince Roald’s faithful, dutiful, and obedient wife in all matters.”
It sounded like a concession, but it wasn’t. Shinko had never intended to be less than a proper Yamani bride to Prince Roald since the emperor, ruling by the mandate of Yama, had annulled the betrothal that would have bound her to a tyrannical mother-in-law. She would watch without seeming to the prince it was her duty to marry and would decide when and if to reveal her secrets to him. She would train with her glaive but he didn’t need to know until he proved worthy of her trust.
“That will please him.” Prince Eitaro bowed and moved toward the door without showing her the grave insult that was his back. “It is important that you please him, Your Highness, or your marriage will not bring the promised peace between our islands and Tortall.”
Her temples aching whether from the tossing ocean or the conversation, Shinko bit her tongue around a remark that she was quite aware of how her marriage to Prince Roald was what truly determined the success of the treaty with Tortall as Prince Eitaro departed her cabin.
“Do you think he’s right about the prince I’m to wed?” Shinko asked her ladies instead, seeking their advice because she valued it more than Prince Eitaro’s.
“I’ve often heard that men choose to marry their mother.” Haname’s comment reminded Shinko that she’d been told that as a child. In a rush of memory, she heard her mother whispering into her ear that men sought women who made them think of their mothers. The notion should have been a solace but it wasn’t. Shinko trained with a weapon but she wasn’t a warrior woman like Queen Thayet. She would never be the queen that rode into battle though she knew how to fight since she had to do her duty far from enemy lines. “If so, I don’t see why His Highness should balk at a woman who trains with a glaive.”
“Didn’t Lady Ilane write that Prince Roald is a friend of Keladry’s?” Yuki strummed on a lute, and Shinko’s head throbbed either from the question or the music.
“Yes, but there’s a difference between what a man accepts in a friend and desires in a wife.” Shinko resisted the urge to massage her temples. “I would prefer if you read me poetry, Yuki.”
“I could read some of the verses written in your honor before you set sail.” Yuki’s eyes were agleam with mischief as she tucked away the lute and dug a pile of poetry from the chest at the foot of Shinko’s bed.
Before Shinko had left the Yamani Islands, her promised marriage to the Tortallan heir had produced a flowering of poetry at the imperial court. Flowing verses had been composed about her being wedded to a distant sunset, exiled to a strange land, and lost to an unknowable people. These stylized mournings of a princess handed over to barbarians had slowed from a flood to a trickle when it reached the ears of the emperor’s first minister that one poet dared to imply that Shinko’s fate was not only regrettable but a wrong done to her by an emperor who was as perfect and untouchable in his rule as the stars in the night sky. The poet had lost his hands and head on the emperor’s execution block, and the verses about Shinko had dried like an old ink spill. The quill, Shinko had seen, was not mightier than the sword if the sword belonged to the emperor’s executioner.
III Waving Cats
The sun burned down on the teeming marketplace nearest the wharves of Port Legann. Salt made the cloudless azure sky smell of the sea it resembled, gulls gossiped as they perched on the fountain in the center of the square, and Roald could taste fish in his mouth from the fishmongers creaking their carts along the cobblestones and hollering their fresh catches even as he chewed on his almond crescent. The flaky pastry was a Legann speciality that never failed to delight his tongue.
“I’m glad that you decided to get a gift for your betrothed.” Julienne, standing beside him as they admired the shapes the water made as it rose out of the fountain, peeled an orange from Carthak, throwing the pieces on the cobblestones, where they were gobbled by a flock of gulls that flew off the fountain. “Da would never have let me come into the city by myself.”
“It’s my pleasure to accompany you into the city.” Roald provided the customary reply and didn’t mention the guards Lord Imrah had sent into Port Legann with them. Constant protection only became oppressive when he dwelled on it.
“How does it feel to be betrothed?” Julienne bit into a chunk of orange, and Roald supposed it was natural that she should pose such a bold question. After all, she might be betrothed soon herself. She had to be looking up at him and considering her own future.
“Very predictable.” Roald paused before settling on the best description. “You’re doing what you’re meant to do. You know who you’re going to marry. You sense that everything has been planned for you so there’s no room for you to choose anything. It’s not a bad feeling or a good one. Maybe it’s not even a feeling at all but a numbness.”
“That’s not very romantic.” Julienne gaped at him, and he could see the orange she was midway through chewing. From her scandalized voice, Roald gathered that he should’ve been more romantic with her and less forthright. At nine, she still believed the nursery tales about knights in shining armor rescuing fair damsels in distress, and he was too much of a prince charming to tell her that such stories were an escape from the world and not a mirror of it.
“I apologize.” Roald gave her a rueful grin. “I’m afraid I haven’t a romantic bone in my body.”
“That’s an exaggeration.” Julienne licked juice from her orange off her fingers, taking advantage of the fact that her mother wasn’t around to scold her for the flagrant breach of etiquette. “You want to get a gift for your betrothed. That’s romantic.”
“It’s not romantic.” Roald shook his head as the wind off the ocean tousled his hair into disarray. “It’s just trying to be kind and dutiful.”
“Trying to be kind and dutiful is romantic.” Julienne had finished her orange and the juice on her fingers. “It’s in all the love songs and poems. I’ll tell Da that he has to teach you more of those.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Roald was convinced that the pages’ wing provided all the education a lad could ever require in ludicrous love poetry and smitten songs. Realizing that he wasn’t hungry any more—nothing destroyed his appetite quicker than romance—he threw the remainder of his almond crescent to the cobblestones for the gulls to squabble over. To distract her, he pointed at a table of fabrics and ribbons a merchant was hawking. “Shall we pick some ribbons for you, Julienne?”
As he had anticipated, she hurried over to the ribbons, love songs and poetry mercifully forgotten. Trailing a finger along a ribbon blue as the bowl of sky above them, she murmured, “I wish I could wear a blue ribbon, but it wouldn’t match my eyes.”
“I don’t believe that you’re restricted to wearing the color of your eyes.” Roald managed to maintain a straight face so she wouldn’t imagine he was mocking her.
“Simple for you to say.” Julienne pouted. “You’ve blue eyes instead of boring brown. You could wear this ribbon.”
“Think of how stunning I’d look with a blue ribbon in my hair.” Roald kept his expression blank but allowed a trace of irony to seep into his tone.
“I was talking in general.” Julienne shot him a withering glance. “In general, everything looks beautiful with blue eyes and dull with brown.”
Roald hated to hear brown eyes disparaged because part of him wished that he had his sister Lianne’s warm brown eyes instead of his father’s cool Conte blue ones. “That’s not true. Pink and green look better with brown eyes.”
“I like pink.” Cheering up, Julienne focused her attention on a pink ribbon.
In the end, she picked a ribbon pink as a rose and another green as ivy. When her ribbons had been paid for, they crossed the square to the booth of a Yamani merchant who had set up in the shade of the temple of the Great Mother Goddess, where everybody in Port Legann from wealthy merchants to sailors without two coppers to rub together prayed for the Goddess to bless their journey before they traveled.
“He does have waving cats.” Roald stared at a waving porcelain cat that was painted white with black circles around its eyes and paws. Next to it was a waving cat that was all black except for white dots on its eyes and paws.
The merchant, noticing what had captivated Roald, bustled over in a rustle of silk. Despite a heavy accent, his command of Common was strong. “Waving cats bring good fortune in the Yamani Islands, but those two would cause bad luck if separated. They’re made to bring balance to each other. They’re the dance of light with darkness and the mix of masculine energy with the feminine. In the Yamani Islands, we believe that everything contains its opposite, and that is harmony.”
The merchant might have been spinning a pretty story to encourage Roald to purchase the pair of waving cats instead of just one, but Roald had been planning to buy more than one anyway, and he found the Yamani philosophy fascinating even if it was invented. He bought the set of waving cats and slipped the merchant an extra gold crown for the lesson on Yamani culture because it was so peaceful to think that everything contained its opposite. That enthralled him since it meant no differences were irreconcilable and all opposing forces existed to create balance in the end. Roald had always been drawn to the idea of equilibrium.
That night in his bedroom, he wrote a letter to Lady Cythera explaining to her what waving cats signified in the Yamani Islands and requesting that she put them in Princess Shinkokami’s chambers along with a note he had enclosed in its own envelope.
This letter to his betrothed was brief though it took him over an hour to compose it, anguishing over every word, wanting each one to be right and fretting that every one wasn’t. The note was courteous, he thought as he sealed it. It just lacked passion but that wasn’t so mysterious when he was writing to a princess he had never met but who would one day be his wife.
IV Stranger in a Strange Land
Shinko had thought that when she stepped on land, the shakiness that had plagued her on the ship would vanish into the wind whipping the wharves, but this proved to be a misconception. When she stood on Tortallan soil, she found it wasn’t solid as the ground in the Yamani Islands, and she continued to feel as if she were on a rocking boat.
The riot of color that assaulted her as she was greeted by the delegation on the docks only made her feel even more of a stranger in a strange land. Even from a distance, she could see hair in shades that existed only in the imagination in the Yamani Islands—yellows as bright as the sun and reds of a hue she had believed was reserved for dying autumn leaves—and eyes of colors—blue, green, gray, and every blend of those—she had seen in the Emerald Ocean.
She might have felt sick at the reminder of the ocean if she hadn’t spotted a familiar figure at the front of the Tortallan party. Abandoning her decorum, Shinko flung herself into the arms of Lady Ilane of Mindelan.
“My lady.” Shinko almost tripped over her words in joy—or perhaps sheer relief—at discovering a friend among judging strangers. Tears pricked like needles at her eyes but she grabbed onto the remnants of her composure before she could cry. The glares from Prince Eitaro and his wife that stabbed her spine like daggers were proof that she had already surrendered too much of her pride with such a wild embrace. “You came.”
“Of course I came.” Lady Ilane bowed as if they were in the Yamani Islands instead of an ocean away from the imperial court. “It’s an honor to see you again, Your Highness.”
“It was good of you to greet me.” Shinko wanted to say much more—she had a thousand questions about Tortall—but Haname, who had glided across the wharf to stand at Shinko’s heels, nudged Shinko in the ribs with her fan and tilted her chin at the woman beside Lady Ilane.
Haname was probably mortified to be serving a second rank princess prone to public displays of emotion and forgetting to greet foreign dignitaries in the appropriate order. A daughter of an exalted lineage, Haname had likely never envisaged that she could sink so low.
Trying to lessen her and Haname’s disgrace, Shinko transitioned as smoothly as she could into addressing the woman beside Lady Ilane. “It was also good of you to greet me. I thank you.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness. Welcome to Tortall.” The lady slid into a graceful Tortallan curtsy. “I’m Lady Cythera of Naxen. Her Majesty sent me to make your adjustment to our country as straightforward and happy as possible.”
“Her Majesty is generous to send you to me.” Shinko remembered that Lady Cythera was the wife of the Prime Minister, a cousin of the king who had his ear. Lady Cythera was a woman she would want on her side in the endless wars waged at any court. “Forgive my inattention, Lady Cythera. I look forward to becoming better acquainted with you.”
“There’s nothing to forgive you for, Your Highness.” Lady Cythera’s remark made Shinko recall that in Tortall princesses didn’t apologize as often as they did in the Yamani Islands. Shinko had gotten their less profuse phrasing right but had apparently offered an apology where none was expected. “You must be weary from your long journey. A family of local nobles has graciously invited us to spend the evening in their castle. Please follow me. We have carriages waiting.”
Shinko allowed herself to be steered into a carriage. Ladies Cythera, Haname, and Yuki joined her, but Lady Ilane was placed in another carriage with Prince Eitaro and his sour lemon wife. As a bowing footman shut the carriage door, Lady Cythera elaborated on her role. “If it’s agreeable to Your Highness, I’ll be your social secretary as I was for Her Majesty, drawing your schedule of events and providing you with conversational suggestions for those you’ll encounter at functions.”
“It is agreeable and appreciated, my lady.” Shinko wondered how she would make conversation with the Tortallan prince she was destined to marry. Deciding that a woman could never be faulted in any culture for wanting to learn how to please her future husband, she collected her courage and asked, “What topics does Prince Roald find most engaging?”
“Prince Roald has been schooled in the conversational arts since he could talk,” Lady Cythera assured her. “He can speak sensibly on any subject.”
Sensibly implied a certain gravity but Shinko recited in her head a Yamani proverb about two ears and one mouth proscribing the proper proportion of talking and listening. A prince must have an air of dignity about him or his people would treat him as a court jester. For a Yamani princess, a serious husband didn’t mean a life of misery.
“He’s reserved but never anything less than courteous,” continued Lady Cythera. “There are topics, of course, that have been known to pull him from his turtle shell faster than others. The Crown Prince loves horses like his mother and shares his father’s enchantment with books and magic.”
“Thank you for the insight, my lady.” Shinko inclined her head in gratitude, noticing that Lady Cythera had provided her valuable information about not only the interest of her betrothed but of the king and queen of Tortall. Lady Cythera was clearly a clever woman, and if her kindness was as genuine as it seemed, Shinko hoped to discover in her one of her first friends in Tortall.
V A Game of Chess
“You may be white.” Lord Imrah nodded at the ivory pieces of his chess set—made from the tusks of Carthaki elephants Roald could only dream of touching when attached to the enormous animals—as they sat down at his board.
“Thank you, sir.” With a wry grin, Roald noted inwardly that he needed the first move advantage when playing against Lord Imrah, who could be very crafty. As he arranged his pieces on the board, he found his gaze drawn to his white queen. As he placed her in her designated spot, he observed, “The queen is the one who makes the major moves in chess, and if you win, she’s often the one who does it for you, while the king stays protected at the back of the board because if you lose your king, you lose the game. Which piece is really more important?”
“The king is the most valuable, and the queen is the most important.” Lord Imrah finished positioning his pieces on the board. “You win with your queen, and you lose with your king.”
“My mother is a queen who rides around fighting battles while my father is a king who remains in his palace to manage the daily affairs of government.” Seeking to control the center of the board, Roald slid his knight’s pawn forward two places. “Are all relationships between a king and a queen like that?”
Roald was pondering whether his future queen would want to ride into battle like his mother and if his role would forever be to hang back, strategizing from a lofty vantage above the danger.
“Your own family history tells you otherwise.” Lord Imrah moved his king’s pawn forward a single space, a sign he had a trick up his sleeve. “When your grandparents reigned, both of them ruled from the palace, but in the days of King Jasson, when he want off to his wars, his queen did much of the governing.”
“She was called a she-wolf for that, my lord,” commented Roald, dry as the sand on the coast.
“Strength always intimidates the week. You’ll have to decide with your bride how you wish to handle your responsibilities since I know that’s what you’re truly asking, Roald.” Lord Imrah gestured at the chess board. “Your move.”
Roald made it, and, as ever, hoped it wouldn’t prove to be the wrong one.
VI Stone Princess
When she arrived at the Royal Palace outside Corus, Shinko was received by King Jonathan, Queen Thayet, and their four youngest children: Jasson, Liam, Lianne, and Vania. Queen Thayet had a body most women would envy before having a baby nonetheless six. Appearances were shifting and superficial, but they still made Shinko feel ungainly in the Eastern style gown she was unaccustomed to wearing.
Shinko’s instinct was to fall to her knees before the king and queen but she stopped herself because this wasn’t a formal court introduction, and, thus, she wasn’t expected to kneel before the monarchs.
Doubtful that she would ever adapt to the lack of kneeling required of her in Tortall, she dropped into a curtsy until King Jonathan lifted her out of it with a gentle hand on her elbow. His eyes were blue fires and his hair was jet black, leaving Shinko breathless.
“We’re happy to meet you, Your Highness,” King Jonathan said as he guided her out of her curtsy. “Welcome to Tortall. We hope that your travels through our realm haven’t been too onerous.”
“Not onerous at all, Your Majesty.” Shinko bowed her head, shy even though he was beaming at her. “It’s been a joy to travel through such beautiful country.”
“We’re glad to hear it. It’s our sincere wish that in time you’ll regard Tortall as your true home.” Queen Thayet leaned close to murmur in Shinko’s ear as if sharing a secret though that was impossible because a future mother-in-law would never confide in someone who would soon be her daughter-in-law. “I can understand how strange everything must seem to you. Everything felt different for me too when I first came here from Sarain but in time I discovered my place here, and I know you will as well.”
Shinko told herself to become a stone princess as she had whenever anyone at the imperial court had snubbed her since her family was in disgrace with the emperor. She had to be a stone princess as she couldn’t trust that Tortall would be a place where she was loved or that her mother-in-law would treat her with compassion.
“My place is to serve Your Majesties.” Shinko curtsied, determined to give her future mother-in-law no cause to criticize her courtesy if she was aiming to entrap Shinko by lulling her into a false sense of security.
Queen Thayet’s hazel eyes seemed to pierce through Shinko’s stone princess facade with a knowing kindness, and it was a relief when Shinko was escorted to the refuge of the rooms Lady Cythera had prepared for her.
The rooms were decorated with Lady Cythera’s defining delicacy. Elements of Yamani style were flawlessly integrated with Tortallan decor to form an overall impression of diverse cultures in harmony. Sofas for Tortallans were balanced by cushions for the Yamani to kneel upon when using the preferred low tables. Tortallan tapestries hid behind Yamani screens.
A shelf with a pair of waving cats—one white with black spots and the other black with white circles in what she imagined was a tribute to the mingled light and dark of the world—made her eyes widen with excitement. Until she bent to admire the painted details on the waving cats, she thought the envelope beneath them was a lace doily.
Her forehead beetling as she picked up the envelope, she saw that it was addressed to her in a hand she believed was precise enough to write Yamani calligraphy. Opening the envelope, she read the note inside:
To Her Imperial Highness Princess Shinkokami
From His Roald Highness Prince Roald,
Greetings and welcome to Tortall. I hope that your experiences of our country have been agreeable so far. I regret that I will not be at court to receive you when you arrive, but I look forward to meeting you at Midwinter. In the meantime, please accept these waving cats as a token of my esteem. May they ever bring you fair fortune.
Yours in Faith,
Roald, Crown Prince of Tortall
It was too formal to be a love letter, Shinko decided as she rolled up the note and tucked it against her chest, but consideration had been poured into every word, and consideration was more than many women ever received from their husbands.
Glancing at the waving cats, Shinko reflected that consideration had gone into them too for his letter suggested he understood they symbolized good luck in the Yamani Islands. Closing her eyes, she silently prayed to Yama that the gift was a mirror of her prince: thoughtful, quiet, unobtrusive, and laden with meaning. She thought one day she could send and receive love letters from such a prince.
VII Wishing on Stars
Roald knelt in the temple of the Goddess in Port Legann. Tomorrow he would begin traveling with his knightmaster, Lady Marielle, and Julienne for the Midwinter celebrations where he would meet Princess Shinkokami. He had gotten Lord Imrah’s permission to pray at the temple—accompanied by a guard, since he was never allowed to be alone—to ask the Goddess to smile not so much on his journey to Corus but on the longer one he would be taking with the Yamani princess who was stranger and betrothed to him.
As Roald stared up at the stars shining silver as wishes in the vaulted dome of the nave, a novice slipped beside him. Lighting a candle before the statue of the Goddess, she whispered, “What do you pray for, pilgrim prince?”
“Safe travels. The strength to do my duty. The heart to fall in love.” Roald grinned at the familiar glimmer of ash blonde hair under her headdress and the glint of humor in the chestnut eyes she had inherited from her father. He would have hugged her if it wasn’t sacrilege for a man to touch a female consecrated to the Goddess. Jaquetta might not have taken her vows as a priestess yet but Roald would never risk the wrath of the Goddess with any act that might be deemed irreverent. “Well met, Jaquetta of Naxen. I trust you’ve heard that I’ll be meeting my betrothed soon.”
“The whole realm knows, including those living under. rock, which is an apt description of convent existence, I assure you.” Jaquetta smirked.
“How does a man make his betrothed fall in love with him?” Roald’s question came out as a sigh.
“You’re asking the wrong girl.” Jaquetta’s lopsided smile was almost sad. “I haven’t been permitted to touch a man since I came to this convent, and, before I came to this convent, I preferred books to boys. I’ve never known love, dear Roald, and I never will.”
He wondered what was a worse fate—to never be allowed to marry or to be betrothed to a stranger—and was filled with pity for them both.
“I’ll pray for you, Jaquetta.” He spoke as if a novice would need his prayers. Remembering that those who had given their lives to serve the Goddess were supposed to have more influence before her throne, he added, “Will you pray for me?”
“I’m a Naxen, and Naxens always pray for Contes.” Jaquetta managed to assume an elegant posture while kneeling. “Besides, I’m a novice, and we pray for the entire royal family every service. Obviously I’m praying for you.”
“When you pray for me, pray for my happiness.” Roald doubted that was mentioned during the official prayers at services.
“None may force you to wed against your will.” Jaquetta shot him a sidelong glance. “Any coercion invalidates a marriage in the eyes of gods and mortals.”
“Duty isn’t coercion.” Roald returned her look. “You haven’t taken your vows yet, Jaquetta, so you’re free to leave this convent, but you don’t flee. Duty keeps you in your convent and me in my betrothal.”
Duty was all the choice either of them had ever had and all that they would ever need, since, in the end, they hadn’t known anything else.
VIII Watching over the Ramparts
“I’m adjusting to this new country already.” Shinko flicked her fan in a signal that her next remark was intended in a lighthearted spirit as she walked along the ramparts of the Royal Palace with Keladry of Mindelan. “I have become a lady from Tortallan romances, watching from the ramparts as I dutifully await the arrival of my future husband.”
“You’re as beautiful and kind as any lady in a romance.” Kel might have heard the unease behind the joke and decided to offer reassurance. “Your prince could also be pulled from a ballad.”
“Could he truly?” Shinko placed an emphasis on the last word to make it clear that she wanted to hear what was real, not a flattering fairy tale.
“He’s handsome as his father, but he’s fairer than his father because he’ll do what he believes is just even when it costs him.” Kel did not trust her king, Shinko had quickly learned in their walks along the wall, and Shinko was grateful for the wind that swept Kel’s words away as soon as she had spoken them. “He’s quieter than his father and will never be able to hold a room breathless while he talks, but he’ll listen to everyone and make the right decision. He’s been a faithful friend to me, and I know he’ll be loyal to you.”
“If that is so, Yama has smiled upon me.” Shinko fiddled with her fan, thinking that she didn’t need to add that if what Kel said was not so, then Sakuyo had made a laughingstock of her yet again.
“He’ll love you.” Kel sounded firm as the flagstones beneath their feet, and Shinko wanted to believe that Kel, a friend to both of them, would know, but love wasn’t mathematics to be ordered, figured, and predicted. Nobody could foresee what leap the heart would make next, which was why it was often called the most traitorous part of the body and the most likely to kill a person. To drown in love or to wither from lack of it were blamed on the heart that could burst or break too easily. With a flash of a swan wing grin that told Shinko her friend was an emotional Easterner, Kel went on, “You’ll love him too.”
“Your time in the Eastern Lands has made you bold, Keladry of Mindelan.” Shinko drew her fan up to her face so that Kel couldn’t see the flush that flamed her cheeks like dragons.
“I apologize if I’ve offended Your Highness.” Kel planted her palms on her thighs and bowed in proper Yamani fashion, a diplomat’s daughter again.
“You haven’t offended.” Shinko struggled to articulate what Kel had done—amused her and comforted her in her loneliness—and settled on, “You were ever my friend in the Yamani Islands, and you remain my friend now. I thank you for your friendship and boldness.”
“It’s an honor to be your friend, Your Highness.” Kel bowed again, and Shinko wished she wouldn’t, since it put distance between them when she didn’t want to be alone.
IX A Long Road
The road from Legann to the Royal Palace was a long one, but it didn’t feel long enough when Roald thought about the unknown princess who waited for him at the end of it.
“What if the princess thinks I’m ugly?” The thousandth time this question looped around Roald’s head, he took advantage of the fact that Julienne and Lady Marielle, flanked by a pair of guards, had rode ahead to pose it aloud to Lord Imrah.
“You aren’t ugly.” Lord Imrah obviously wasn’t going to build Roald’s Conte pride by assuring him that he was handsome. “The princess won’t think you are.”
“I’m not ugly to an Easterner.” Roald fidgeted with his saddle horn even though it had to make him look undignified and far from a marriageable age. “What if I’m ugly by Yamani standards, sir? The Yamani don’t have blue eyes among their people so they probably find people with blue eyes cold and creepy.”
“The princess will have seen plenty of people with blue eyes before meeting you.” Lord Imrah’s tone was patient but there was a gleam of amusement in his gaze, which Roald didn’t appreciate. His anguish over an arranged marriage shouldn’t have been a joke to his knightmaster. “If she found blue eyes disconcerting when she first came to Tortall, she won’t by the time she’s introduced to you.”
“Maybe she won’t find them disconcerting.” Roald bit his lip. “She could still find them unattractive, my lord.”
“You can’t control how she sees you,” pointed out Lord Imrah, brisk as the window blowing along the coastal bluffs. “You can control how you treat her. Always focus on what you can control. Everything else is a distraction that should be ignored.”
That made sense as Lord Imrah’s instructions almost always did, but Roald found it too tempting to indulge in another worry he had no power over, the mirror of the question he had asked earlier. “What if the princess is ugly, sir?”
“Roald!” Lord Imrah spoke so sharply that his horse winced.
“I’m just asking what if the princess is ugly, my lord.” Roald dropped his reigns and raised his palms in a placating gesture. “I wasn’t saying she is ugly. That would be rude, and I’m just being curious.”
“I think Her Majesty satisfied your curiosity in her last letter where she described Princess Shinkokami as beautiful, courteous, and graceful as a swan.” Lord Imrah’s mouth was a thin line that suggested he was unappeased by Roald’s response to his reprimand.
Unfortunately Roald was as dissatisfied with deferring to his mother’s letter as Lord Imrah was with his reply. “My mother would write that Princess Shinkokami is beautiful even if”—Roald, about to say ugly as a hag, trailed off as he realized that comparison would earn him a lecture on chivalry and the good manners expected of a prince long enough to last them to Corus. Recovering the flow of his sentence, he finished, “She’s painfully plain, my lord, because my mother has to make everything about this marriage sound positive and persuasive.”
“Your mother’s letter should’ve assured you that the princess has appeal beyond her appearance. Tartly Lord Imrah added, “As do you when you take off that scowl you’re wearing, which you should know if you’re so concerned about your looks, is the only expression that makes you seem ugly.”
“I didn’t notice I was scowling.” Roald had thought he was closer to sulking than scowling. “Forgive me, my lord.”
“Stop scowling, and I will.” Lord Imrah spoke so wryly that Roald’s scowl slid into a slight smile.
X Brave New World
Shinko, resolved to prove to her betrothed that she could be a perfect Eastern lady and wife, resisted the urge to squirm on a chair that felt too high for her. Pillows on a floor would have been more comfortable for her, but she couldn’t wiggle as if she were sitting on a pincushion during the first meal she shared with Prince Roald as they breakfasted with his parents, Prince Eitaro, and his wife in a private dining room of the royal quarters. He would think her ill-bred, and he seemed the model of manners when greeting his parents and being introduced to her that morning.
Shinko wanted to feel warmth for him. He had kissed his mother on the cheek after bowing to her— in the Yamani Islands women whispered that man treated his wife with the respect he did his mother—and he nodded polite gratitude whenever a server placed or removed a dish from in front of him. Still, Shinko knew she was squinting at tea leaves in the hope they portended a happy future because his blank face and measured words gave her little insight into what living with him would entail.
The thought of a happy future reminded her of the good luck waving cats were supposed to bring. Deciding that the money had come to thank her prince for his present, she said, fighting fingers that wanted to fumble her fork because it wasn’t the chopsticks she was used to eating with, “Thank you for the waving cats. They were a thoughtful gift that brighten my chambers with the fair fortune they bring, Your Highness.”
“I’m glad you’re pleased.” He inclined his head to her, and, seeing him from a different angle, she observed that he had his mother’s nose under eyes that were blue as his father’s but called to mind calm summer lakes rather than the hottest parts of fire. “I hoped you’d like them.”
“Waving cats symbolize good fortune in the Yamani Islands.” Shinko wanted to show him that she was eager to learn the culture and customs of the new land she had been thrust into as his promised bride. “Might I ask what they signify in Tortall?”
“In Tortall, they signify nothing more than insanity or a joke, Your Highness.” Roald’s sliver of a smile was so small that Shinko didn’t know whether he was enjoying a private jest at her expense or inviting her to join in his mirth.
“That is interesting.” Shinko hid her disappointment and prayed to Yama that he wasn’t laughing inside at her ignorance.
“Since they’ve no meaning in Tortall, we might create our own.” Roald’s suggestion was earnest enough that she didn’t believe he was mocking her for his entertainment. “Perhaps they might signify a new beginning?”
“That is fitting since a new beginning is often insanity, Your Highness.” Shinko felt she could flash her wit for the first time since meeting Roald, and she thought she might enjoy discovering the Tortallan meaning of waving cats with him. It was a new beginning if a tentative one in a strange new world they would have to inhabit together.
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Brave New World
Summary: Roald and Shinko struggle to navigate a brave new world. Set during Squire.
“O brave new world, that has such people in it!”—William Shakespeare, The Tempest
Brave New World
I Fish in the Sea
“A ship from the Yamani Islands docked today, my lord.” Roald glanced up from sorting parchment into piles on his knightmaster’s desk. If he tilted his head when he stared out the window of Lord Imrah’s study, he could glimpse in the distance the sails white as foam in the Emerald Ocean on the hundreds of vessels moored at Port Legann’s wharves. From this far away, he had no hope of guessing which ship had come from where, bearing crates of wine from Carthak, spices from the Copper Isles, or even silk from the Yamani Islands.
“Yes, I heard that,” Lord Imrah answered, and Roald might have been surprised—the arrival or departure of a single ship rarely interested the lord of a port city—if they weren’t discussing a boat from the Yamani Islands which were still rarer than rainbows in the harbors of Port Legann. The treaty with the Yamani Islands that Roald’s marriage would seal had ended the centuries’ long Yamani policy of strict isolation from the Eastern Lands, but Yamani trade with Tortall was very much in a fledging state. Pale eyes twinkling, Lord Imrah added, “Your betrothed won’t be on that ship, lad. She’s sailing into Port Caynn and not for a week yet with favorable winds.”
“I know.” Roald resumed dividing the parchment into piles because it gave him an excuse not to meet his knightmaster’s too shrewd gaze. “Lady Cythera wrote to tell me that she is busy preparing the finishing touches for the princess’s chambers at the palace. I thought if the ship’s merchant was selling waving cats, I’d buy some and have them delivered to Lady Cythera to decorate the princess’s rooms.”
He didn’t know the princess who was traveling across the Emerald Ocean to become his bride, but he hoped she would find the waving cats a reassuring presence, a warm welcome to a foreign land she’d have to make her home, a promise of good fortune, and a wish for a happy marriage.
“Waving cats?” Lord Imrah’s eyebrows arched.
“They’re made of porcelain, sir.” Roald smiled slightly at his knightmaster’s bafflement. Catching one of the realm’s greatest tactual minds off guard was always amusing. “They’re not real cats.”
“Of course they aren’t. A real cat could never be trained to wave.” Lord Imrah was partial to dogs, falcons, and horses. Cats in his opinion were too haughty to love and obey their masters. “I don’t understand why your princess would want a waving cat whether porcelain or real.”
“Waving cats are a symbol of good luck in the Yamani Islands, my lord.” Roald’s smile broadened.
“Who told you that?” Lord Imrah sounded as dubious as a man told the sun would rise in the west the next morning.
“Keladry of Mindelan.” Roald was smug since he had a reliable source on the Yamani Islands. “Her father was diplomat to the Yamani Islands for years, sir.”
“Are you certain she wasn’t pulling your leg, Roald?” Lord Imrah rubbed a thumb along his chin. “Waving cats sound more like a joke than a symbol.”
“She wasn’t teasing me, my lord.” Roald trusted Kel and every picture of the Yamani Islands she had painted for him with her vivid descriptions. She had seen through the calm, accepting mask he wore about his engagement to the anxiety it concealed and always spoke in a soothing tone imbued with all the details he had to absorb about the Yamani Islands to understand the unknown woman who would be his wife. Kel would never be so cruel as to lie to him or prank him when it was his future at stake. “She was teaching me.”
“Waving cats seem a bizarre custom.” Lord Imrah’s lips quirked. “Then again, I suppose our traditions must appear nonsensical to people from the Yamani Islands. It’s an old Legann saying that fish don’t know they swim in water, and there are so many of us fish swimming blindly through our little sea here in Port Legann.”
“Does that mean I can go to market to see if the ship’s merchant is selling cats tomorrow, sir?” Roald pressed. Lord Imrah might have wanted to be philosophical, but Roald had a more practical concern.
“Yes, if you’ll escort Julienne there.” Lord Imrah referred to his younger daughter, who was not quite ten. “She’s been begging me to take her into the city to buy new ribbons for almost a week now.”
“It’d be my pleasure, my lord.” Roald bowed in his chair.
“Then take this.” Lord Imrah opened a drawer, pulled out a bag of clanking coins, and pushed it across the desk into Roald’s hands. “This’ll be enough money for Julienne’s ribbons as well as a meal and a sweet snack for you both.”
“I’ll guard the money for Julienne, my lord, but”—Roald flushed and fumbled for words, feeling like a hooked fish out of his element, gasping for air he couldn’t find—“you don’t need to give me any, sir.”
After all, he had more than enough money of his own. As Crown Prince, he’d had extensive lands and titles even in the cradle.
“I know I don’t need to, Roald.” Lord Imrah squeezed his shoulder. “I want to because you’re my squire, and a knightmaster should get some nice things for his squire even if his squire is a prince.”
“Thank you, sir.” Roald realized that his knightmaster’s generosity extended beyond coins and hoped that the gratitude in his eyes transcended the rote response.
“Don’t thank me too soon when we’ve a mountain of parchment to climb.” Lord Imrah chuckled as he waved a palm at the stack of parchment they had yet to sort. “Within the hour, you’ll be cursing me under your breath.”
“I’d never be so vulgar, my lord.” Roald was all innocence, but if Lord Imrah’s snort was any indication, his knightmaster wasn’t convinced.
II Adrift in the Ocean
Though she was born and bred on an island, Shinko had never been on a boat before she left her home in the horizon behind her forever. The sailors claimed that the wind was mild and the ocean placid for autumn, but she had been seasick each day since they lifted anchor from the Yamani Islands. Dizzy from the rocking waves, she remained locked in her cabin, attended by her ladies and protected by a vigilant pair of soldiers outside her door every hour of the day and night although an assassination attempt would be improbable leagues away from the nearest land.
Unable to keep anything else down in her heaving stomach, Shinko sipped on green tea sweetened by honey and nibbled on rice cakes spread with mulberry jam. Even with her bland diet, she was still reduced to the shameful position of bending over a bowl while her ladies held her curtain of hair away from her face.
Afterward one would carry the bowl to be emptied overboard while the other would clean her cheeks with a cloth. She appreciated that neither Lady Yukimi nor Lady Haname ever showed a flicker of disgust during her sickness because Shinko was afraid that she was growing uglier by the day. Always slim, she now wondered if she dared to step onto the deck if the breeze would blow her like a goose feather to Carthak.
“You’ve lost weight since we boarded the ship.” Prince Eitaro’s slight nose wrinkle conveyed his condescending contempt for Shinko’s ailing condition when he visited her cabin. The prince didn’t hold women in high regard. Wickedly Yuki speculated this was because his wife had all the wit and softness of a stone. In the slanderous shadows of her heart, Shinko agreed with Yuki’s sharp-tongued assessment. “That will not make you seem beautiful to the Tortallan eye. Tortallans prefer their women to have curves like mountains not be thin as a glaive.”
“I’ll have servants bring me a proper meal, Your Highness.” Shinko doubted she could swallow food especially after he had tightened her throat with worry that the Tortallans would find her hideous. Still she could appease him by offering the illusion that she would eat. Obedience was more about the appearance of acquiescence than action.
“Good.” Prince Eitaro’s brusque manner suggested little satisfaction. “Speaking of your glaive, Your Highness,I would advise you don’t train with your weapon in Tortall. Training with your weapon will not please your future husband.”
“The honored mother of my betrothed is a warrior woman.” Shinko managed to turn her shock into polite inquisitiveness. “I confess that I fail to understand how my training would offend my betrothed, a crime I would never wish to commit.”
“Men do not desire their mothers.” Prince Eitaro’s lips were a thin knife that cut Shinko’s soul. “A son of an unconventional woman will crave a traditional wife the way the ground longs for rain to follow a drought.”
“I will heed your wise counsel.” Shinko inclined her head, letting her ink black hair fall over the blank scroll of her face. “I’ll strive only to be Prince Roald’s faithful, dutiful, and obedient wife in all matters.”
It sounded like a concession, but it wasn’t. Shinko had never intended to be less than a proper Yamani bride to Prince Roald since the emperor, ruling by the mandate of Yama, had annulled the betrothal that would have bound her to a tyrannical mother-in-law. She would watch without seeming to the prince it was her duty to marry and would decide when and if to reveal her secrets to him. She would train with her glaive but he didn’t need to know until he proved worthy of her trust.
“That will please him.” Prince Eitaro bowed and moved toward the door without showing her the grave insult that was his back. “It is important that you please him, Your Highness, or your marriage will not bring the promised peace between our islands and Tortall.”
Her temples aching whether from the tossing ocean or the conversation, Shinko bit her tongue around a remark that she was quite aware of how her marriage to Prince Roald was what truly determined the success of the treaty with Tortall as Prince Eitaro departed her cabin.
“Do you think he’s right about the prince I’m to wed?” Shinko asked her ladies instead, seeking their advice because she valued it more than Prince Eitaro’s.
“I’ve often heard that men choose to marry their mother.” Haname’s comment reminded Shinko that she’d been told that as a child. In a rush of memory, she heard her mother whispering into her ear that men sought women who made them think of their mothers. The notion should have been a solace but it wasn’t. Shinko trained with a weapon but she wasn’t a warrior woman like Queen Thayet. She would never be the queen that rode into battle though she knew how to fight since she had to do her duty far from enemy lines. “If so, I don’t see why His Highness should balk at a woman who trains with a glaive.”
“Didn’t Lady Ilane write that Prince Roald is a friend of Keladry’s?” Yuki strummed on a lute, and Shinko’s head throbbed either from the question or the music.
“Yes, but there’s a difference between what a man accepts in a friend and desires in a wife.” Shinko resisted the urge to massage her temples. “I would prefer if you read me poetry, Yuki.”
“I could read some of the verses written in your honor before you set sail.” Yuki’s eyes were agleam with mischief as she tucked away the lute and dug a pile of poetry from the chest at the foot of Shinko’s bed.
Before Shinko had left the Yamani Islands, her promised marriage to the Tortallan heir had produced a flowering of poetry at the imperial court. Flowing verses had been composed about her being wedded to a distant sunset, exiled to a strange land, and lost to an unknowable people. These stylized mournings of a princess handed over to barbarians had slowed from a flood to a trickle when it reached the ears of the emperor’s first minister that one poet dared to imply that Shinko’s fate was not only regrettable but a wrong done to her by an emperor who was as perfect and untouchable in his rule as the stars in the night sky. The poet had lost his hands and head on the emperor’s execution block, and the verses about Shinko had dried like an old ink spill. The quill, Shinko had seen, was not mightier than the sword if the sword belonged to the emperor’s executioner.
III Waving Cats
The sun burned down on the teeming marketplace nearest the wharves of Port Legann. Salt made the cloudless azure sky smell of the sea it resembled, gulls gossiped as they perched on the fountain in the center of the square, and Roald could taste fish in his mouth from the fishmongers creaking their carts along the cobblestones and hollering their fresh catches even as he chewed on his almond crescent. The flaky pastry was a Legann speciality that never failed to delight his tongue.
“I’m glad that you decided to get a gift for your betrothed.” Julienne, standing beside him as they admired the shapes the water made as it rose out of the fountain, peeled an orange from Carthak, throwing the pieces on the cobblestones, where they were gobbled by a flock of gulls that flew off the fountain. “Da would never have let me come into the city by myself.”
“It’s my pleasure to accompany you into the city.” Roald provided the customary reply and didn’t mention the guards Lord Imrah had sent into Port Legann with them. Constant protection only became oppressive when he dwelled on it.
“How does it feel to be betrothed?” Julienne bit into a chunk of orange, and Roald supposed it was natural that she should pose such a bold question. After all, she might be betrothed soon herself. She had to be looking up at him and considering her own future.
“Very predictable.” Roald paused before settling on the best description. “You’re doing what you’re meant to do. You know who you’re going to marry. You sense that everything has been planned for you so there’s no room for you to choose anything. It’s not a bad feeling or a good one. Maybe it’s not even a feeling at all but a numbness.”
“That’s not very romantic.” Julienne gaped at him, and he could see the orange she was midway through chewing. From her scandalized voice, Roald gathered that he should’ve been more romantic with her and less forthright. At nine, she still believed the nursery tales about knights in shining armor rescuing fair damsels in distress, and he was too much of a prince charming to tell her that such stories were an escape from the world and not a mirror of it.
“I apologize.” Roald gave her a rueful grin. “I’m afraid I haven’t a romantic bone in my body.”
“That’s an exaggeration.” Julienne licked juice from her orange off her fingers, taking advantage of the fact that her mother wasn’t around to scold her for the flagrant breach of etiquette. “You want to get a gift for your betrothed. That’s romantic.”
“It’s not romantic.” Roald shook his head as the wind off the ocean tousled his hair into disarray. “It’s just trying to be kind and dutiful.”
“Trying to be kind and dutiful is romantic.” Julienne had finished her orange and the juice on her fingers. “It’s in all the love songs and poems. I’ll tell Da that he has to teach you more of those.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Roald was convinced that the pages’ wing provided all the education a lad could ever require in ludicrous love poetry and smitten songs. Realizing that he wasn’t hungry any more—nothing destroyed his appetite quicker than romance—he threw the remainder of his almond crescent to the cobblestones for the gulls to squabble over. To distract her, he pointed at a table of fabrics and ribbons a merchant was hawking. “Shall we pick some ribbons for you, Julienne?”
As he had anticipated, she hurried over to the ribbons, love songs and poetry mercifully forgotten. Trailing a finger along a ribbon blue as the bowl of sky above them, she murmured, “I wish I could wear a blue ribbon, but it wouldn’t match my eyes.”
“I don’t believe that you’re restricted to wearing the color of your eyes.” Roald managed to maintain a straight face so she wouldn’t imagine he was mocking her.
“Simple for you to say.” Julienne pouted. “You’ve blue eyes instead of boring brown. You could wear this ribbon.”
“Think of how stunning I’d look with a blue ribbon in my hair.” Roald kept his expression blank but allowed a trace of irony to seep into his tone.
“I was talking in general.” Julienne shot him a withering glance. “In general, everything looks beautiful with blue eyes and dull with brown.”
Roald hated to hear brown eyes disparaged because part of him wished that he had his sister Lianne’s warm brown eyes instead of his father’s cool Conte blue ones. “That’s not true. Pink and green look better with brown eyes.”
“I like pink.” Cheering up, Julienne focused her attention on a pink ribbon.
In the end, she picked a ribbon pink as a rose and another green as ivy. When her ribbons had been paid for, they crossed the square to the booth of a Yamani merchant who had set up in the shade of the temple of the Great Mother Goddess, where everybody in Port Legann from wealthy merchants to sailors without two coppers to rub together prayed for the Goddess to bless their journey before they traveled.
“He does have waving cats.” Roald stared at a waving porcelain cat that was painted white with black circles around its eyes and paws. Next to it was a waving cat that was all black except for white dots on its eyes and paws.
The merchant, noticing what had captivated Roald, bustled over in a rustle of silk. Despite a heavy accent, his command of Common was strong. “Waving cats bring good fortune in the Yamani Islands, but those two would cause bad luck if separated. They’re made to bring balance to each other. They’re the dance of light with darkness and the mix of masculine energy with the feminine. In the Yamani Islands, we believe that everything contains its opposite, and that is harmony.”
The merchant might have been spinning a pretty story to encourage Roald to purchase the pair of waving cats instead of just one, but Roald had been planning to buy more than one anyway, and he found the Yamani philosophy fascinating even if it was invented. He bought the set of waving cats and slipped the merchant an extra gold crown for the lesson on Yamani culture because it was so peaceful to think that everything contained its opposite. That enthralled him since it meant no differences were irreconcilable and all opposing forces existed to create balance in the end. Roald had always been drawn to the idea of equilibrium.
That night in his bedroom, he wrote a letter to Lady Cythera explaining to her what waving cats signified in the Yamani Islands and requesting that she put them in Princess Shinkokami’s chambers along with a note he had enclosed in its own envelope.
This letter to his betrothed was brief though it took him over an hour to compose it, anguishing over every word, wanting each one to be right and fretting that every one wasn’t. The note was courteous, he thought as he sealed it. It just lacked passion but that wasn’t so mysterious when he was writing to a princess he had never met but who would one day be his wife.
IV Stranger in a Strange Land
Shinko had thought that when she stepped on land, the shakiness that had plagued her on the ship would vanish into the wind whipping the wharves, but this proved to be a misconception. When she stood on Tortallan soil, she found it wasn’t solid as the ground in the Yamani Islands, and she continued to feel as if she were on a rocking boat.
The riot of color that assaulted her as she was greeted by the delegation on the docks only made her feel even more of a stranger in a strange land. Even from a distance, she could see hair in shades that existed only in the imagination in the Yamani Islands—yellows as bright as the sun and reds of a hue she had believed was reserved for dying autumn leaves—and eyes of colors—blue, green, gray, and every blend of those—she had seen in the Emerald Ocean.
She might have felt sick at the reminder of the ocean if she hadn’t spotted a familiar figure at the front of the Tortallan party. Abandoning her decorum, Shinko flung herself into the arms of Lady Ilane of Mindelan.
“My lady.” Shinko almost tripped over her words in joy—or perhaps sheer relief—at discovering a friend among judging strangers. Tears pricked like needles at her eyes but she grabbed onto the remnants of her composure before she could cry. The glares from Prince Eitaro and his wife that stabbed her spine like daggers were proof that she had already surrendered too much of her pride with such a wild embrace. “You came.”
“Of course I came.” Lady Ilane bowed as if they were in the Yamani Islands instead of an ocean away from the imperial court. “It’s an honor to see you again, Your Highness.”
“It was good of you to greet me.” Shinko wanted to say much more—she had a thousand questions about Tortall—but Haname, who had glided across the wharf to stand at Shinko’s heels, nudged Shinko in the ribs with her fan and tilted her chin at the woman beside Lady Ilane.
Haname was probably mortified to be serving a second rank princess prone to public displays of emotion and forgetting to greet foreign dignitaries in the appropriate order. A daughter of an exalted lineage, Haname had likely never envisaged that she could sink so low.
Trying to lessen her and Haname’s disgrace, Shinko transitioned as smoothly as she could into addressing the woman beside Lady Ilane. “It was also good of you to greet me. I thank you.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness. Welcome to Tortall.” The lady slid into a graceful Tortallan curtsy. “I’m Lady Cythera of Naxen. Her Majesty sent me to make your adjustment to our country as straightforward and happy as possible.”
“Her Majesty is generous to send you to me.” Shinko remembered that Lady Cythera was the wife of the Prime Minister, a cousin of the king who had his ear. Lady Cythera was a woman she would want on her side in the endless wars waged at any court. “Forgive my inattention, Lady Cythera. I look forward to becoming better acquainted with you.”
“There’s nothing to forgive you for, Your Highness.” Lady Cythera’s remark made Shinko recall that in Tortall princesses didn’t apologize as often as they did in the Yamani Islands. Shinko had gotten their less profuse phrasing right but had apparently offered an apology where none was expected. “You must be weary from your long journey. A family of local nobles has graciously invited us to spend the evening in their castle. Please follow me. We have carriages waiting.”
Shinko allowed herself to be steered into a carriage. Ladies Cythera, Haname, and Yuki joined her, but Lady Ilane was placed in another carriage with Prince Eitaro and his sour lemon wife. As a bowing footman shut the carriage door, Lady Cythera elaborated on her role. “If it’s agreeable to Your Highness, I’ll be your social secretary as I was for Her Majesty, drawing your schedule of events and providing you with conversational suggestions for those you’ll encounter at functions.”
“It is agreeable and appreciated, my lady.” Shinko wondered how she would make conversation with the Tortallan prince she was destined to marry. Deciding that a woman could never be faulted in any culture for wanting to learn how to please her future husband, she collected her courage and asked, “What topics does Prince Roald find most engaging?”
“Prince Roald has been schooled in the conversational arts since he could talk,” Lady Cythera assured her. “He can speak sensibly on any subject.”
Sensibly implied a certain gravity but Shinko recited in her head a Yamani proverb about two ears and one mouth proscribing the proper proportion of talking and listening. A prince must have an air of dignity about him or his people would treat him as a court jester. For a Yamani princess, a serious husband didn’t mean a life of misery.
“He’s reserved but never anything less than courteous,” continued Lady Cythera. “There are topics, of course, that have been known to pull him from his turtle shell faster than others. The Crown Prince loves horses like his mother and shares his father’s enchantment with books and magic.”
“Thank you for the insight, my lady.” Shinko inclined her head in gratitude, noticing that Lady Cythera had provided her valuable information about not only the interest of her betrothed but of the king and queen of Tortall. Lady Cythera was clearly a clever woman, and if her kindness was as genuine as it seemed, Shinko hoped to discover in her one of her first friends in Tortall.
V A Game of Chess
“You may be white.” Lord Imrah nodded at the ivory pieces of his chess set—made from the tusks of Carthaki elephants Roald could only dream of touching when attached to the enormous animals—as they sat down at his board.
“Thank you, sir.” With a wry grin, Roald noted inwardly that he needed the first move advantage when playing against Lord Imrah, who could be very crafty. As he arranged his pieces on the board, he found his gaze drawn to his white queen. As he placed her in her designated spot, he observed, “The queen is the one who makes the major moves in chess, and if you win, she’s often the one who does it for you, while the king stays protected at the back of the board because if you lose your king, you lose the game. Which piece is really more important?”
“The king is the most valuable, and the queen is the most important.” Lord Imrah finished positioning his pieces on the board. “You win with your queen, and you lose with your king.”
“My mother is a queen who rides around fighting battles while my father is a king who remains in his palace to manage the daily affairs of government.” Seeking to control the center of the board, Roald slid his knight’s pawn forward two places. “Are all relationships between a king and a queen like that?”
Roald was pondering whether his future queen would want to ride into battle like his mother and if his role would forever be to hang back, strategizing from a lofty vantage above the danger.
“Your own family history tells you otherwise.” Lord Imrah moved his king’s pawn forward a single space, a sign he had a trick up his sleeve. “When your grandparents reigned, both of them ruled from the palace, but in the days of King Jasson, when he want off to his wars, his queen did much of the governing.”
“She was called a she-wolf for that, my lord,” commented Roald, dry as the sand on the coast.
“Strength always intimidates the week. You’ll have to decide with your bride how you wish to handle your responsibilities since I know that’s what you’re truly asking, Roald.” Lord Imrah gestured at the chess board. “Your move.”
Roald made it, and, as ever, hoped it wouldn’t prove to be the wrong one.
VI Stone Princess
When she arrived at the Royal Palace outside Corus, Shinko was received by King Jonathan, Queen Thayet, and their four youngest children: Jasson, Liam, Lianne, and Vania. Queen Thayet had a body most women would envy before having a baby nonetheless six. Appearances were shifting and superficial, but they still made Shinko feel ungainly in the Eastern style gown she was unaccustomed to wearing.
Shinko’s instinct was to fall to her knees before the king and queen but she stopped herself because this wasn’t a formal court introduction, and, thus, she wasn’t expected to kneel before the monarchs.
Doubtful that she would ever adapt to the lack of kneeling required of her in Tortall, she dropped into a curtsy until King Jonathan lifted her out of it with a gentle hand on her elbow. His eyes were blue fires and his hair was jet black, leaving Shinko breathless.
“We’re happy to meet you, Your Highness,” King Jonathan said as he guided her out of her curtsy. “Welcome to Tortall. We hope that your travels through our realm haven’t been too onerous.”
“Not onerous at all, Your Majesty.” Shinko bowed her head, shy even though he was beaming at her. “It’s been a joy to travel through such beautiful country.”
“We’re glad to hear it. It’s our sincere wish that in time you’ll regard Tortall as your true home.” Queen Thayet leaned close to murmur in Shinko’s ear as if sharing a secret though that was impossible because a future mother-in-law would never confide in someone who would soon be her daughter-in-law. “I can understand how strange everything must seem to you. Everything felt different for me too when I first came here from Sarain but in time I discovered my place here, and I know you will as well.”
Shinko told herself to become a stone princess as she had whenever anyone at the imperial court had snubbed her since her family was in disgrace with the emperor. She had to be a stone princess as she couldn’t trust that Tortall would be a place where she was loved or that her mother-in-law would treat her with compassion.
“My place is to serve Your Majesties.” Shinko curtsied, determined to give her future mother-in-law no cause to criticize her courtesy if she was aiming to entrap Shinko by lulling her into a false sense of security.
Queen Thayet’s hazel eyes seemed to pierce through Shinko’s stone princess facade with a knowing kindness, and it was a relief when Shinko was escorted to the refuge of the rooms Lady Cythera had prepared for her.
The rooms were decorated with Lady Cythera’s defining delicacy. Elements of Yamani style were flawlessly integrated with Tortallan decor to form an overall impression of diverse cultures in harmony. Sofas for Tortallans were balanced by cushions for the Yamani to kneel upon when using the preferred low tables. Tortallan tapestries hid behind Yamani screens.
A shelf with a pair of waving cats—one white with black spots and the other black with white circles in what she imagined was a tribute to the mingled light and dark of the world—made her eyes widen with excitement. Until she bent to admire the painted details on the waving cats, she thought the envelope beneath them was a lace doily.
Her forehead beetling as she picked up the envelope, she saw that it was addressed to her in a hand she believed was precise enough to write Yamani calligraphy. Opening the envelope, she read the note inside:
To Her Imperial Highness Princess Shinkokami
From His Roald Highness Prince Roald,
Greetings and welcome to Tortall. I hope that your experiences of our country have been agreeable so far. I regret that I will not be at court to receive you when you arrive, but I look forward to meeting you at Midwinter. In the meantime, please accept these waving cats as a token of my esteem. May they ever bring you fair fortune.
Yours in Faith,
Roald, Crown Prince of Tortall
It was too formal to be a love letter, Shinko decided as she rolled up the note and tucked it against her chest, but consideration had been poured into every word, and consideration was more than many women ever received from their husbands.
Glancing at the waving cats, Shinko reflected that consideration had gone into them too for his letter suggested he understood they symbolized good luck in the Yamani Islands. Closing her eyes, she silently prayed to Yama that the gift was a mirror of her prince: thoughtful, quiet, unobtrusive, and laden with meaning. She thought one day she could send and receive love letters from such a prince.
VII Wishing on Stars
Roald knelt in the temple of the Goddess in Port Legann. Tomorrow he would begin traveling with his knightmaster, Lady Marielle, and Julienne for the Midwinter celebrations where he would meet Princess Shinkokami. He had gotten Lord Imrah’s permission to pray at the temple—accompanied by a guard, since he was never allowed to be alone—to ask the Goddess to smile not so much on his journey to Corus but on the longer one he would be taking with the Yamani princess who was stranger and betrothed to him.
As Roald stared up at the stars shining silver as wishes in the vaulted dome of the nave, a novice slipped beside him. Lighting a candle before the statue of the Goddess, she whispered, “What do you pray for, pilgrim prince?”
“Safe travels. The strength to do my duty. The heart to fall in love.” Roald grinned at the familiar glimmer of ash blonde hair under her headdress and the glint of humor in the chestnut eyes she had inherited from her father. He would have hugged her if it wasn’t sacrilege for a man to touch a female consecrated to the Goddess. Jaquetta might not have taken her vows as a priestess yet but Roald would never risk the wrath of the Goddess with any act that might be deemed irreverent. “Well met, Jaquetta of Naxen. I trust you’ve heard that I’ll be meeting my betrothed soon.”
“The whole realm knows, including those living under. rock, which is an apt description of convent existence, I assure you.” Jaquetta smirked.
“How does a man make his betrothed fall in love with him?” Roald’s question came out as a sigh.
“You’re asking the wrong girl.” Jaquetta’s lopsided smile was almost sad. “I haven’t been permitted to touch a man since I came to this convent, and, before I came to this convent, I preferred books to boys. I’ve never known love, dear Roald, and I never will.”
He wondered what was a worse fate—to never be allowed to marry or to be betrothed to a stranger—and was filled with pity for them both.
“I’ll pray for you, Jaquetta.” He spoke as if a novice would need his prayers. Remembering that those who had given their lives to serve the Goddess were supposed to have more influence before her throne, he added, “Will you pray for me?”
“I’m a Naxen, and Naxens always pray for Contes.” Jaquetta managed to assume an elegant posture while kneeling. “Besides, I’m a novice, and we pray for the entire royal family every service. Obviously I’m praying for you.”
“When you pray for me, pray for my happiness.” Roald doubted that was mentioned during the official prayers at services.
“None may force you to wed against your will.” Jaquetta shot him a sidelong glance. “Any coercion invalidates a marriage in the eyes of gods and mortals.”
“Duty isn’t coercion.” Roald returned her look. “You haven’t taken your vows yet, Jaquetta, so you’re free to leave this convent, but you don’t flee. Duty keeps you in your convent and me in my betrothal.”
Duty was all the choice either of them had ever had and all that they would ever need, since, in the end, they hadn’t known anything else.
VIII Watching over the Ramparts
“I’m adjusting to this new country already.” Shinko flicked her fan in a signal that her next remark was intended in a lighthearted spirit as she walked along the ramparts of the Royal Palace with Keladry of Mindelan. “I have become a lady from Tortallan romances, watching from the ramparts as I dutifully await the arrival of my future husband.”
“You’re as beautiful and kind as any lady in a romance.” Kel might have heard the unease behind the joke and decided to offer reassurance. “Your prince could also be pulled from a ballad.”
“Could he truly?” Shinko placed an emphasis on the last word to make it clear that she wanted to hear what was real, not a flattering fairy tale.
“He’s handsome as his father, but he’s fairer than his father because he’ll do what he believes is just even when it costs him.” Kel did not trust her king, Shinko had quickly learned in their walks along the wall, and Shinko was grateful for the wind that swept Kel’s words away as soon as she had spoken them. “He’s quieter than his father and will never be able to hold a room breathless while he talks, but he’ll listen to everyone and make the right decision. He’s been a faithful friend to me, and I know he’ll be loyal to you.”
“If that is so, Yama has smiled upon me.” Shinko fiddled with her fan, thinking that she didn’t need to add that if what Kel said was not so, then Sakuyo had made a laughingstock of her yet again.
“He’ll love you.” Kel sounded firm as the flagstones beneath their feet, and Shinko wanted to believe that Kel, a friend to both of them, would know, but love wasn’t mathematics to be ordered, figured, and predicted. Nobody could foresee what leap the heart would make next, which was why it was often called the most traitorous part of the body and the most likely to kill a person. To drown in love or to wither from lack of it were blamed on the heart that could burst or break too easily. With a flash of a swan wing grin that told Shinko her friend was an emotional Easterner, Kel went on, “You’ll love him too.”
“Your time in the Eastern Lands has made you bold, Keladry of Mindelan.” Shinko drew her fan up to her face so that Kel couldn’t see the flush that flamed her cheeks like dragons.
“I apologize if I’ve offended Your Highness.” Kel planted her palms on her thighs and bowed in proper Yamani fashion, a diplomat’s daughter again.
“You haven’t offended.” Shinko struggled to articulate what Kel had done—amused her and comforted her in her loneliness—and settled on, “You were ever my friend in the Yamani Islands, and you remain my friend now. I thank you for your friendship and boldness.”
“It’s an honor to be your friend, Your Highness.” Kel bowed again, and Shinko wished she wouldn’t, since it put distance between them when she didn’t want to be alone.
IX A Long Road
The road from Legann to the Royal Palace was a long one, but it didn’t feel long enough when Roald thought about the unknown princess who waited for him at the end of it.
“What if the princess thinks I’m ugly?” The thousandth time this question looped around Roald’s head, he took advantage of the fact that Julienne and Lady Marielle, flanked by a pair of guards, had rode ahead to pose it aloud to Lord Imrah.
“You aren’t ugly.” Lord Imrah obviously wasn’t going to build Roald’s Conte pride by assuring him that he was handsome. “The princess won’t think you are.”
“I’m not ugly to an Easterner.” Roald fidgeted with his saddle horn even though it had to make him look undignified and far from a marriageable age. “What if I’m ugly by Yamani standards, sir? The Yamani don’t have blue eyes among their people so they probably find people with blue eyes cold and creepy.”
“The princess will have seen plenty of people with blue eyes before meeting you.” Lord Imrah’s tone was patient but there was a gleam of amusement in his gaze, which Roald didn’t appreciate. His anguish over an arranged marriage shouldn’t have been a joke to his knightmaster. “If she found blue eyes disconcerting when she first came to Tortall, she won’t by the time she’s introduced to you.”
“Maybe she won’t find them disconcerting.” Roald bit his lip. “She could still find them unattractive, my lord.”
“You can’t control how she sees you,” pointed out Lord Imrah, brisk as the window blowing along the coastal bluffs. “You can control how you treat her. Always focus on what you can control. Everything else is a distraction that should be ignored.”
That made sense as Lord Imrah’s instructions almost always did, but Roald found it too tempting to indulge in another worry he had no power over, the mirror of the question he had asked earlier. “What if the princess is ugly, sir?”
“Roald!” Lord Imrah spoke so sharply that his horse winced.
“I’m just asking what if the princess is ugly, my lord.” Roald dropped his reigns and raised his palms in a placating gesture. “I wasn’t saying she is ugly. That would be rude, and I’m just being curious.”
“I think Her Majesty satisfied your curiosity in her last letter where she described Princess Shinkokami as beautiful, courteous, and graceful as a swan.” Lord Imrah’s mouth was a thin line that suggested he was unappeased by Roald’s response to his reprimand.
Unfortunately Roald was as dissatisfied with deferring to his mother’s letter as Lord Imrah was with his reply. “My mother would write that Princess Shinkokami is beautiful even if”—Roald, about to say ugly as a hag, trailed off as he realized that comparison would earn him a lecture on chivalry and the good manners expected of a prince long enough to last them to Corus. Recovering the flow of his sentence, he finished, “She’s painfully plain, my lord, because my mother has to make everything about this marriage sound positive and persuasive.”
“Your mother’s letter should’ve assured you that the princess has appeal beyond her appearance. Tartly Lord Imrah added, “As do you when you take off that scowl you’re wearing, which you should know if you’re so concerned about your looks, is the only expression that makes you seem ugly.”
“I didn’t notice I was scowling.” Roald had thought he was closer to sulking than scowling. “Forgive me, my lord.”
“Stop scowling, and I will.” Lord Imrah spoke so wryly that Roald’s scowl slid into a slight smile.
X Brave New World
Shinko, resolved to prove to her betrothed that she could be a perfect Eastern lady and wife, resisted the urge to squirm on a chair that felt too high for her. Pillows on a floor would have been more comfortable for her, but she couldn’t wiggle as if she were sitting on a pincushion during the first meal she shared with Prince Roald as they breakfasted with his parents, Prince Eitaro, and his wife in a private dining room of the royal quarters. He would think her ill-bred, and he seemed the model of manners when greeting his parents and being introduced to her that morning.
Shinko wanted to feel warmth for him. He had kissed his mother on the cheek after bowing to her— in the Yamani Islands women whispered that man treated his wife with the respect he did his mother—and he nodded polite gratitude whenever a server placed or removed a dish from in front of him. Still, Shinko knew she was squinting at tea leaves in the hope they portended a happy future because his blank face and measured words gave her little insight into what living with him would entail.
The thought of a happy future reminded her of the good luck waving cats were supposed to bring. Deciding that the money had come to thank her prince for his present, she said, fighting fingers that wanted to fumble her fork because it wasn’t the chopsticks she was used to eating with, “Thank you for the waving cats. They were a thoughtful gift that brighten my chambers with the fair fortune they bring, Your Highness.”
“I’m glad you’re pleased.” He inclined his head to her, and, seeing him from a different angle, she observed that he had his mother’s nose under eyes that were blue as his father’s but called to mind calm summer lakes rather than the hottest parts of fire. “I hoped you’d like them.”
“Waving cats symbolize good fortune in the Yamani Islands.” Shinko wanted to show him that she was eager to learn the culture and customs of the new land she had been thrust into as his promised bride. “Might I ask what they signify in Tortall?”
“In Tortall, they signify nothing more than insanity or a joke, Your Highness.” Roald’s sliver of a smile was so small that Shinko didn’t know whether he was enjoying a private jest at her expense or inviting her to join in his mirth.
“That is interesting.” Shinko hid her disappointment and prayed to Yama that he wasn’t laughing inside at her ignorance.
“Since they’ve no meaning in Tortall, we might create our own.” Roald’s suggestion was earnest enough that she didn’t believe he was mocking her for his entertainment. “Perhaps they might signify a new beginning?”
“That is fitting since a new beginning is often insanity, Your Highness.” Shinko felt she could flash her wit for the first time since meeting Roald, and she thought she might enjoy discovering the Tortallan meaning of waving cats with him. It was a new beginning if a tentative one in a strange new world they would have to inhabit together.
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!