Sophia, Princess Among Beasts Read online

Our kingdom was large enough, I told him. It was time to stop fighting. Time to protect instead of attack.

  Let us not cause any more suffering: that was my argument. What I didn’t admit to him, though, was my fear. How when he was gone, the castle felt haunted, and I couldn’t sleep from worry. First, of course, was the worry that I would lose my father, having already lost my mother. And if I were left alone, what then? I’d be expected to rule a kingdom by myself—I, who had never even been permitted to dress myself.

  Please, I’d said. Enough.

  My father’s face grew ashen as he listened. His hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. But he was a man of his word, and he had promised me anything I wanted. And so Great Leonidus the Warrior King set aside his weapons and shield to honor his only daughter’s wish.

  Now I bent and kissed my father on the cheek. Sunlight spilled in dusty rays through the high windows, but still the room was dim. As big as it was, it felt cozy to me.

  Safe, safe, safe.

  “Ah, you are brighter than the sun this morning, my little songbird,” he said, as a manservant in blue livery came bearing a platter of bread and meat and a pitcher of small ale for my father, and a bowl of fruit for me. “Tell me, how does this day find you?”

  How could I answer his question truthfully? My father was unable to bear the thought of anything troubling me, so I dared not admit my fear of the coming battle.

  “I’m well enough,” I said, sitting down next to him.

  “You look a bit tired,” he said.

  I lowered my eyes and said nothing. I picked up a slice of apple and then put it back down again.

  “You were writing songs all night long again, weren’t you?” he asked. I heard a low chuckle. “If only you’d been practicing the harp instead of singing—I know your teacher begs you to.”

  “And I endlessly disappoint her,” I said, offering him a smile. I had neither talent nor affection for the instrument, and we both knew it.

  At my father’s elbow, the servant poured small ale into his goblet. When he finished, he bowed solemnly and then stood up, his gaze meeting my father’s. “To the defeat of Ares’s army,” he said, as if he were a lord giving a toast.

  I turned to him in surprise—he must have been new and untrained to dare to speak in front of the king unprompted.

  My father’s jaw clenched as he rose from his chair. I put my hand on his to calm him, because I knew his temper. But he roughly shook me off. His lips curled in a snarl, and then he struck the man across the face with the back of his hand.

  The blow rang through the hall.

  “Father!” I gasped, as the servant crumpled to the ground with a cry of agony.

  The guards, too, seemed stunned. Though the king was known for his fury, never had he struck a servant with his own hand. No one moved except the man on the floor, who clutched his cheek and moaned.

  Then my father snapped his fingers, and the guards stationed at the door rushed forward and pulled the servant roughly from the floor. The man looked at me dazedly, pleadingly, as they dragged him away by the hair. A dark rivulet of blood trickled down his cheek.

  “You know where to take him,” my father said to his men, and then he turned back to his breakfast.

  “You mustn’t let them hurt him more,” I pleaded. “It was a misunderstanding—”

  He grunted. “You have only me in this world, Sophia, and it is my duty to protect you. I do not care that he forgot his place and believed he had the right to speak. But I will not let you be disturbed by any talk of strife,” he said.

  “So am I to pretend that Ares will simply pass us by?” I asked quietly.

  My father’s dark eyes flashed with warning. “Do not speak of such things. Listen to me, Sophia. That man shall be taken to the dungeon, where he will be whipped until he screams. And he deserves every burning lash.”

  I stiffened at his words. This was a side of my father I hated to see. But had I truly expected him to change after only a year of peace? If so, I’d been wrong. I loved him—of course I did, he was all I had in the world—but I couldn’t call him kind. Couldn’t argue that he was merciful. And I knew that if I said anything else right now, his wrath might turn against me.

  He stabbed his knife into the charred meat on his plate. “I know what is best, daughter,” he said.

  I nodded. I knew it was best to keep quiet. Though I was his flesh and blood, I, too, was the King’s subject. And though Ares’s approach troubled us all, we would not speak of such things.

  CHAPTER 3

  My father sucked the marrow from the center of a pheasant bone and then threw it to Dogo, the snarling hound that kept him faithful company. I could see by his appetite—voracious, as usual—that he had already put our moment of discord out of his mind.

  I, however, could not stop thinking about the servant’s beseeching eyes. I knew too well what would happen next. He’d be stripped shirtless, his wrists tied to a whipping post. Two men would take turns flogging him until the skin on his back hung down in bloody shreds. And when they’d tired of whipping him, they’d salt his wounds and throw his unconscious body into a prison cell, where he’d wake—if he woke at all—to darkness and agony. All this, the price of a single, well-meaning sentence.

  Order must be kept, my father would say, at any cost.

  Was there anything I could have said that would have spared the man?

  I pushed away my golden bowl. I had lost what little appetite I’d had. I decided I would ask Jeanette to tend to the servant, if he was indeed alive, to see that he was given a sip of ale and a crust of bread. Without risking my father’s wrath again, there was nothing else I could do.

  A princess has no true power, and her crown is but a decoration, if she even bothers to wear one.

  A new manservant came into the room to refill our glasses, and he did it so silently he might have been a ghost. My father took a big draught of his ale and wiped his greasy mouth on his sleeve—a sleeve that I myself had embroidered with the blue gentian flowers from our family crest. Well, to be fair, it was not my best work.

  “And what will my princess do today?” he asked.

  “I’m going to the village,” I said. “As I always do on Fridays.”

  His brow furrowed. I knew he didn’t want me to make the journey, though it was my favorite part of the week. He objected to my walking among our subjects as if I were not their superior, just as he objected to my sparring with his loyal knight Odo as if I were not a girl. But he himself had given me my silver sword, and he had never forbidden me to go down to the village. He knew that if he kept me in the castle, occupied only with needlework and plucking at harp strings, I would be a far less pleasant meal companion.

  But had he understood how lonely I was, he might have encouraged me to visit the village more often.

  “Today of all days, you must be quick,” he said.

  I couldn’t help what I said next. “But isn’t Ares’s army still days out?”

  My father’s face immediately darkened. “Have I not made myself clear? I will not have you talk of strife, either,” he warned.

  “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “But don’t worry, Father, I’m not afraid of Ares. You’ll protect me.”

  “That I will,” he said, nodding his great shaggy head. “I always have.”

  “And in my own way, I protect the villagers.”

  My father looked somewhat skeptical. “You’re but a child,” he said—though not unkindly.

  “I am not a child, I’m seventeen. And the villagers welcome me. They rely on me. They need the food I bring.”

  “Last year was a hard winter,” he acknowledged.

  “Then came the long spring and summer rains,” I reminded him, “and many of the crops fell to rot before they were ever ripe.”

  I hoped that he’d somehow hear the question I didn’t dare to ask: where were the villagers to turn if not to us? We, who had lush gardens, fat livestock, full cellars, and a forest full of phea
sant, deer, and elk. If I had my way, we’d share everything we owned. But that wasn’t how my father saw it. As far as he was concerned, our family was better than everyone else. Our birthright was luxury, whereas theirs was labor. Our blood was royal; theirs might as well have been mud.

  He’d raised me to believe that, anyway, but it was a lesson I hoped I’d failed to absorb.

  He drained the last of his small ale and set the goblet on the table with a bang. “We have a duty to our subjects in the village, but always remember one thing, Sophia. They are, for want of a better word, beasts. Never, ever forget that.”

  I ducked my head humbly. I didn’t dare contradict him.

  My father put his rough hand on my cheek. “You are so dear to me. Be careful today.”

  I forced a smile onto my face. “You always act as if I’ll never come back.” I placed my fingers around his wrist and squeezed it. “And yet I always do.”

  “There is no honor among beasts, my daughter,” he said. “Remember that.”

  “I am always safe,” I assured him.

  “Always safe,” he repeated.

  And it was with those words, I believe, that we tempted Fate, who is more powerful than any king.

  CHAPTER 4

  After breakfast I went to visit my mother, as I did every morning.

  “Good morning, Mama,” I whispered, as I sat down on the tufted stool I kept beneath the portrait of her that hung in the hall. Quickly I looked around to see if anyone had noticed that I was talking to a painting. It was a habit I’d been scolded for more than once. A princess should not talk to the dead, they said. It was unbecoming. Strange. Morbid.

  I would point out that I had no siblings, no friends. Who else was I supposed to talk to? Also, no one dared call my father strange or morbid, though he’d commissioned dozens of portraits of her. He kept at least twenty of them in a single hall near his privy chamber, and I’d certainly heard him bid her likeness goodnight.

  To sit before my mother’s picture every day soothed my loneliness a little somehow, and perhaps it was the same for my father when he paced that long corridor, the one the servants secretly called the Hall of the Flat Queens.

  Here, in her cloth-of-gold gown, with its exquisitely embroidered partlet and heavy, jeweled neckline, my mother looked impossibly beautiful. Impossibly regal. Her skin was opal, luminescent. She had smooth cheeks and wide green eyes under arching, dramatic brows. Her thick braids coiled around her head like a crown. In this painting—my favorite of them all—she wore jewels in her plaits: diamonds that winked like stars in the dark night of her hair.

  “I’m taking food to the village today,” I whispered. “I don’t know what they’ll do when Ares comes. We’ll have to let them seek refuge in the castle, won’t we? It’s the only way they’ll be safe. Father will want to refuse, but I’ll—” I heard footsteps ringing on the stone floor, so I shut my mouth and bent my head as if in prayer. No one would dare reprimand a princess for praying for the soul of her poor dead mother.

  But instead of praying, my lips moved with the words of a song I’d written for her a long time ago.

  Once you ruled over forest and fen, reigned over river and sea.

  Now you sit on eternity’s throne, watching over me.

  My place is here within the world; I cannot join you yet.

  Though I was too young to remember you, I also never forget.

  Jeanette came up behind me and placed her hands on my shoulders. “She married your father when she was just sixteen,” she said wistfully. “Oh, if you could have seen her on her wedding day! Her gown was ivory silk, embroidered in gold, and when she came into the chapel she was more beautiful than the sun.”

  “I can’t imagine being married so young,” I admitted.

  Jeanette turned my face toward her own. “She was engaged to your father by her tenth birthday, you know. And it’s high time you were betrothed, Princess. Come the spring, the King will have to reckon with the matter. A kingdom can grow in other ways besides war and conquest, and he’d do well to remember that. A wise marriage means a strong alliance.” She smiled gently. “Of course, he doesn’t want to part with you. You are all he has! When you leave us, Sophia, we’ll both be lost.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I said firmly.

  “I’m sure your mother told her lady in waiting the exact same thing before she journeyed to marry your father.”

  I touched the ruby ring that circled my finger. It was meant for her—a birthday gift from my father—but she died before she got to wear it.

  “I miss her,” I whispered.

  “I know you do.”

  “But how can I miss what I’ve never even known? Dogo doesn’t miss flying. A bird doesn’t miss swimming.”

  “And I myself don’t miss being king,” Jeanette agreed. “But a girl longs for her mother, no matter what, and that is the sorrow you must carry. It is heavy, I know, and I can only hope it makes you stronger.”

  I reached out to touch the painting’s gilded frame, and my fingers came away dusty. My mother had died when she was nineteen—just two years older than I was now. “Sometimes I feel like she’s watching me. Like she’s not truly gone,” I said. Then I shook my head. “But I know that’s impossible. It’s only what I wish were true.”

  Jeanette smiled gently. “There have been times when I sensed her, too. Perhaps she really does visit us. Or maybe we long for it so much that we trick ourselves. Maybe I’m just a foolish old woman, and you are a lonely young girl.”

  “You’re not foolish or old,” I said. But I did not deny my own loneliness. She saw it trail me like a shadow every day.

  “I wish you could have known her.” Jeanette sighed. “She was lovely and full of grace, and she sang and played the harp like an angel.” She patted my hand. “And on one of your good days, Your Highness, you’re almost exactly like her. Beautiful and poised—although your harp skills, Princess, are nearly nonexistent.”

  It should have pleased me to hear Jeanette’s praise, but instead it made me feel a sudden shiver of dread. I didn’t want to be just like my mother. I didn’t yearn to be sent to marry a stranger in a far-off realm, only to hope I’d grow to love him.

  Though I knew it was a futile wish, I wanted to find love for myself.

  And most importantly, I didn’t want to die before I’d really had the chance to live.

  CHAPTER 5

  In the stable yard, twelve mounted guards waited to accompany me to the village. This seemed excessive, even for my overprotective father. Each one sat on a pawing charger, and each carried a sword, a parrying dagger, and a billhook. Their shields bore our family crest: a raven with a cluster of blue gentians in its talons.

  Red-bearded Odo, who led the men, bowed as I approached.

  “I hardly think I need all of you this morning,” I said lightly.

  “It’s a fine day for a ride, Princess,” he answered. “My men and their mounts were eager for exercise.”

  “Liar,” I muttered as I patted his horse’s sleek dark neck.

  Odo’s mouth curved up in the faintest shadow of a smile. “Did you say something, Your Highness?”

  I looked at him innocently. “Oh, no, Sir Odo.”

  Though Odo often indulged my whims—giving me my sparring lessons, accompanying me on gallops through Elk Forest—his first loyalty was to my father. This meant that he couldn’t “cause me strife” by admitting that an army of bloodthirsty enemies approached.

  And I, in turn, could not point out that I could see the castle preparing for war, because I needed his company too much to vex him. Though age and rank separated us—and though I could never say it—I loved Odo like an uncle. It was because of him that I could swing a sword and fling my roundel dagger into the heart of a target at a hundred paces. He could perform this feat blindfolded, and he’d promised to teach me how someday.

  “Are we ready to go, then?” he asked as his charger shook his black mane.

  “One more
moment,” I said. Before I climbed inside the gilt-and-ebony carriage, I peered into our supply cart, which Pieter the groom had hitched to two sad-eyed mules.

  I saw vegetables, barley, bread, and smoked venison: everything I’d asked for. But it was so much less than I’d been expecting!

  “Why is the cart only half full?” I asked.

  Odo’s fingers tightened on the reins. “We cannot take more today,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  He looked away from me, too faithful to my father to tell me the truth.

  “Your silence is answer enough,” I said. “I know the reason. If Ares’s men lay siege, we’ll need all the food we can get. Bandon Castle will become our cage.”

  He bowed almost imperceptibly: I was right.

  “Except there won’t be a siege,” I said firmly, “because look at all of you. My father’s men are so fierce that just the twelve of you could defeat Ares’s whole army.”

  “I believe we are well prepared for battle, Your Highness,” Odo allowed. “Should a battle be imminent, which is not to suggest that it is.”

  I tried not to roll my eyes at him. How ridiculous that my father would not let anyone speak to me of Ares’s advance when its signs were everywhere. In the courtyard, great fires had been stoked to boil cauldrons of water for the murder holes. Laborers assembled wooden hoardings high up on the ramparts to protect our marksmen from enemy arrows.

  Of course, Ares’s army was never supposed to get close to Bandon Castle in the first place. Our knights would cut them down like stalks of wheat on the great field of war, just as they had done with every other foe.

  A footman opened the door to my carriage, and, giving the paltry offerings one last dissatisfied glance, I lifted my skirts and climbed in.

  I loved this weekly trip into the village. The hours I spent on my errands of mercy were the only hours I was sovereign to myself. Alone in the carriage, with no one to scold me, I was free to sing loudly (and possibly out of tune). Free to pull my hair from its coils, let it fall around my shoulders and blow against my face as the wind rushed through the carriage window. Free to delight in everything around me—at the vast grasslands, the steely curve of the River Lathe, and the snow-tipped mountains in the distance.