Chapter Seven Kit #3
I walk ahead of Catharine so that I can spot pools of water or gaping holes hungry for an ankle. This body is sore but hardy, able to be pushed without collapse. In it, I could take a fall. But I know her body—my body—would punish any mistake for days.
We reach the crumbled remains of some long-ago building.
As we pause, perched on what was once a wall, I break open a handful of nuts and offer them to Catharine.
In my body, she doesn’t seem to mind them anymore.
The sharp crack of shells against stone cuts across the wide, wide silence of the moors.
The silence of us. The air is crisp with cold, and my lungs pinch with every breath.
I search for words, but what do you say when your mother has stolen your sister’s face and given it to you?
I pull my wool skirt over my legs—long and graceful and strange—trying to preserve any warmth I can. The nuts taste chalky and aged on my new tongue. I barely keep from making a face. And still we say nothing.
There is only sky and ground, hill and marsh, forever and forever. I don’t know how I’m going to get her safe. I’m not sure there is a safe out there.
But it’s certainly not behind us.
I rise, and my boots crunch on rubble. I wonder who lived here, and who they loved, and whether their bones rest easy.
“I’ll get some kindling,” I say. I am still not used to hearing Catharine’s voice when I speak, and I pause to clear my throat. “I think we’re sheltered enough that it won’t be spotted.”
Catharine nods. I hesitate, looking again at my sister in my body. Have I always seemed so little? Or is it only that she sits now, hunched, as if she would collapse if she let herself?
“I can make us some beds,” Catharine says. She smiles. It’s my body, my face, but the smile somehow looks like her. “And maybe see if there’s a corner somewhere that has a bit of roof left.”
I nod and leave her to it. There is no wood, as it turns out—it’s all grass and heather.
When I return, Catharine has indeed found a bit of roof and made beds with some moss and our pelisses laid over the top.
It is dry, miraculously, and I whisper a thanks for this unseasonable autumn.
I sit beside her, shoulder to shoulder for warmth.
“How about a story?” I ask, closing my eyes.
Catharine thinks for a moment. “Have I told you about Mervyn and his impossible tasks? It’s been on my mind. They say Mervyn was an ancestor of Prince Idris and Prince Abram.”
“No. Go on then.”
Catharine reaches into her bag and pulls out the folktale collection. She takes a moment to find the place, then begins:
Once there were two sons born together, Mervyn and Erik.
Mervyn was the eldest by seconds, and the midwife wrapped a blue string round his hand to mark him.
Mervyn was weak and his brother strong, so the king told the midwife to move the string to the younger.
Thereafter, the king claimed the younger as eldest and heir, but the queen knew the truth.
She told it to Mervyn, and he grew in resentment of his brother.
Time passed, and the queen died. As her dying wish, she told the king to honor his real firstborn and give the kingdom to the most worthy. The king made the promise but spent time afterward seeking a way to be faithful to his wife and his inclination. He devised a scheme.
He brought his sons together and told them, as they were now of age, he wanted to follow their mother’s request. Conveniently, he left out her wish that the throne be given to Mervyn, the legitimate firstborn.
He alleged that her only desire was for him to choose the most worthy.
They were both to go and live three years among the peasants, unknown, and work for wages like every man.
At the end of the three years, they would return and present the king with the finest evidence of their labor.
Erik took himself to the southern lands, where the weather was calmer and life easier. He let slip that he was a prince and lived his days on credit and charm. He was apprenticed to a composer, but he played the man’s daughter more than any instrument.
Mervyn took himself to the far reaches of their islands, in the heady cold where the wind was never still.
There he was apprenticed to a smithy. Though his childhood and adolescence had not improved his weak stature, the rugged landscape and harsh labor did what nothing else had.
Mervyn grew strong, skilled, and handsome.
He spent three years crafting a fine sword for his father.
When the sons returned, Erik presented his father a composition that could barely be played for its many mistakes. Mervyn presented his father with a blade that rivaled any master’s. There was a clear winner, but the king could not bear to give up on his favorite son.
So the king set them a second task. An heir would need a wife. The son who found the most bonny woman in the land would be given the throne. She was to be beyond anything their court had ever seen. Again, this had to be done without anyone knowing that they were princes.
Erik left his composer’s daughter and went courting across foreign lands. He let it be known that the woman who caught him would win a crown. He wooed and charmed and returned at last with a woman draped in jewels and soft with luxury.
Mervyn stayed nearer the islands, believing that he could find a worthy wife among his own hearty people.
However, it was not one of his own that he found, but a woman of a different kind.
She sailed the waters with her pirate father, her hands rough with work and her mouth full of every language.
She had no fear of the wilds and was only adorned with her stout heart and quick wit.
With her came new trade routes and connections to all corners of the world.
No one could argue: She was a princess of the seas, and when Mervyn presented her to his father he was presenting the world.
The king again was caught in a bind. Erik’s spoiled wife already spoke of leaving their unforgiving land, and she had not been there a month.
Mervyn’s pirate wife could match any courtier, broker any deal, and map any path.
There was a clear winner, but the king could not resign himself to declare it.
The king set them a third task, a final task. They must both go into the world and find the greatest treasure.
Erik went with his wife back to temperate lands and warm waters. And whether he was lulled by the comfort of that life, or whether he fell to one of the many diseases of the south, who’s to say? For he never was seen or heard from again.
Mervyn took his pirate wife, and they sailed across torrid seas, gathering and trading.
When they returned, Mervyn laid the most beautiful seal skin at the king’s feet.
The court murmured with approval, but Mervyn said, “This is not my treasure.” Mervyn lay a golden crown at the king’s feet, decorated with rubies and diamonds.
The court crowed with approval, but Mervyn said, “This is not my treasure.” Mervyn lay an illuminated Bible at the king’s feet, illustrated in the rarest inks and bound in the supplest leather.
The court exclaimed with approval, but Mervyn said, “This is not my treasure.”
“My treasure,” said Mervyn, taking his wife’s hand, “is the heart of the most courageous woman in this and any land.”
The king took the seal skin and had it made into a royal cloak, which he draped round his son’s shoulders. He took the crown and placed it on the pirate wife’s head. He took the Bible and swore on it that this son, Mervyn, would be king.
“And so it was,” Catharine murmurs.
“Do you suppose the seal skin was a selkie’s?” I ask, still trying to nibble through my nuts. It isn’t as if I have a choice about being picky out here.
“The tale doesn’t say.” Catharine flips back to check. “I think it would. And the pirate princess certainly wasn’t a selkie.”
I shrug. Not all seal skins are magical.
We eat more nuts, drink some of our water. Then we sleep.
And we wake. And we walk.
Our trek takes longer than it would if we had taken the roads, but we don’t dare travel openly.
Even with the misdirection that had us going south, it’s likely that the king will send some men north just in case.
So we fight through the wilderness, trying to skirt the mountains when we can.
But the valleys are marshy and the going slow.
Many times, the most direct route is obscured by gorse, the thick bushes all thorn.
There’s no getting through those thickets, so we go round them. Sometimes whole miles round.
Along the way, we shelter in shepherds’ huts.
Occasionally we are lucky enough to find a farmer who will house us in their barn.
Catharine is always the one to ask, while I hang back in the shadows.
No one would recognize my old body as anyone important, but Catharine’s—the one I wear now—is a danger out here.
One description spoken to the wrong person, and the hills would be swarming with the king’s men.
More often than I’d like, as we cross the land in relative silence, my thoughts drift to the princes. Or one prince in particular.
Idris’s sudden departure had not drawn my attention before we encountered Speir, but now I wonder.
Mother said she saw them talking on the night of the ball.
What did the Hidden Folk want with him? When Catharine invited him to dance with me, he looked so unwell—and that must have been after this conversation in the garden.
And the next day, the whole family took off without warning. Hardly a coincidence.
I’m not sure that we’ll be able to avoid the princes on the main island of Skyare, even if we only use it as a stepping stone to an outlying place. But I don’t think it is wise to seek the princes. For all Idris was kind to me, we don’t know if we can trust them.