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meals, with his mother and father sitting there watching us, and the occasional chaperoned walk in the gardens, and … and …”
    Britta pressed her hand against her mouth and took a sharp hiccup of a breath.
    “Britta!” Miri put an arm around her. “Don’t be sad. What did I do?”
    “I’m sorry, nothing, I’m fine.” Britta pushed the heels of her hands against her eyes. “It’s just all so much. The duties and the worries and the way the king and queen look at me, and my father is at court too, looking at me, everyone looking at me. Except Steffan. I’d never been in Asland with Steffan before. Perhaps he is always so distant around his parents. Or perhaps … he does not feel for me what I feel for him.”
    “I don’t believe it. He adores you. That was very clear when he came to Mount Eskel.”
    “I thought so too. Maybe he changed his mind. And I don’t know what to make of the attempt on the king’s life and all the whispers and frowns and … never mind. I just want to be glad you’re here.”
    “Well, I’m glad I’m here, even if I’m not sure where here is. Asland is overwhelming.”
    “I don’t worry about you a bit. You know, you would be a better princess. The king and queen would have approved.”
    “Yes, indeed,” Miri said, pursing her lips dramatically. “Their most Royal Highnesses long for a girl who knows a billy goat from a nanny and the business end of a soup ladle.”
    “I mean it.”
    Miri shook her head. “Britta, you’re being silly. Steffan chose you and that’s that.”
    Besides, I have Peder , she thought. Don’t I?
    Miri went to bed that night surrounded by the slow breathing of the other girls, her curtain pulled so she could read by candlelight without being seen. It was the first day in a long time that Miri had not seen Peder. And it was the first day she had known Timon.
    Autumn Week Six
    Dear Marda,
I have been in Asland nearly a week. There are still at least five months until traders will carry my letters to you along with the barrels of salt pork and bags of onions. But I want to talk to you now. I wish I could quarry-speak all the way from Asland.
Each day a palace carriage drives me to the Queen’s Castle, where I take my studies. I am glad of the carriage. I dare not edge a single toe onto a busy Aslandian street. Are you surprised that I am such a trembling baby?
There are so many things to learn at the Queen’s Castle my head hurts. And even more things I am supposed to learn, and those scare me some. I feel like a tiny bug, and the world is a hungry bird looking down at me.
I have not seen Peder in five days as he is only free at week’s end. Britta says Gus’s stone-carving workshop is close enough to walk to, but then I would have to enter the streets of Asland. The ones that terrify me to trembling. Are you laughing at me yet? I hope so.
I do not see Britta much. She is very busy preparing to be a princess. I do not see the other girls much as I am in my studies all day. How can anyone be lonely in a city seething with people? If you were here, you would poke me and tell me I am doing a fine impersonation of a grumpy old billy goat.
I miss you. I miss Pa. I wonder if I was wrong to come. Perhaps when it is time to send this letter, I will feel much, much better. That is hard to imagine. It is easier to imagine that you are here. It is easier to imagine rain is honey and stones are bread.
If you have not guessed yet, this is from your trembling baby of a sister,
    Miri

Chapter Six

‘Tis I, my sweet, your rough-and-ready man
Well hid by night to beg your fine white hand
Though king of bandits, draped in chains of gold
I’m poor in love and suffer grief untold
    In Asland, most people did not wake at dawn. Even the poor were rich in candles and fuel. They could afford to light a house after sundown and stay up late in the evening, window after window golden and flickering. Miri was in awe of the homemade sunshine of candles and kerosene lamps