Ian grinned, then went to the pincushion and stretched outon it, his hands behind his head. Arit remained sitting close by him. He looked extremely pleased about something. “Mekos and I sneaked into the palace and rescued my sister.”
The women looked at him in surprise.
“Tell us,” Aradella whispered.
He shook his head in memory. “Mekos moves so fast even I can hardly keep up with him. He only stopped to listen. I don’t know what he heard, but then he’d sprint through the halls. We had to go down two flights of stone stairs. Did you know there are underground rooms in that old palace?”
“Yes,” Aradella said. “I used to play in them when I was a child.”
Ian nodded. “We had to go through four locks to get to the room where my sister was kept.”
“And you opened them all.” Arit sounded proud.
“I did. And there she was, my dear sister, Laylit.” He smiled for a moment. “The good part was that her guard was an old woman, and they’d become friends. Laylit was given the freedom to fly about the room and they talked. The woman used fabric scraps from Olina’s clothes to make dresses and a little bedchamber for my sister. Mekos had a piece of swan cloth with him and he gave that to her.”
Aradella said, “Mekos is very kind, and he thinks about other people. He can move silently and he hears everything, and he—” She broke off as they were staring at her. “Where is your sister now?”
“Home, I hope. I sent the woman to the Lair. I think she’ll like Valona’s old maid.” His eyes sparkled. “You and Mekos are heroes to those women. They’d do anything for you.”
Aradella smiled in memory. She knew that whatever happened, she’d always remember those days at the Lair as the best of her life.
10
When Aradella woke the next day, it wasn’t yet dawn.After today,she thought,everything will change.
She listened carefully but she heard no sounds. But then, with yesterday’s free-flowing beer and that divine beef, people were probably sleeping it off.
Not long after the arrival of Arit and Ian, Olina had sent more guards. Aradella knew it was a symbol of her anger. The visit of the men wasn’t going as she’d planned. Maybe she was afraid that the princess would somehow join with the men. Then what would happen? Aradella would lead an army to reclaim the throne? Or maybe Prince Nessa would get angry and refuse to marry her.
I should be so lucky, Aradella thought as she put her arms up, her head on her clasped hands. How wonderful yesterday had been!
There was Mekos in bed with her in the early morning, then sneaking into the palace to hear Sojee give orders to the men. The memory of the men’s looks of defeat made her laugh.
The rest of the day had been full of visitors, all of them bursting with news.
Three women from the sewing school came by to measure Aradella for what would be her marriage gown. Of course the robe had been made months before, but the idea of seeing thereclusive princess was too much to forego. They’d made up excuses to visit. The women felt the pads under Aradella’s big dress but they made no comment about them. Instead, at Aradella’s encouragement, they excitedly told her what was going on outside.
“Men are seeing their daughters for the first time,” one gushed.
“No one is talking about how those conceptions occurred,” another one said.
They all knew the husbands sneaked across the water to get to their wives. And the women risked their lives to spend a few hours in the secret meeting. Afterward, when the warning came that Olina or one of her suck-ups was coming, the pregnant women were hidden away.
But on this day, families were openly together. Girls who’d never been around men in their lives were seeing their fathers and brothers for the first time.
“And mothers are seeing their sons,” they told Aradella.
The whole island experienced the tears and horror of a boy’s seventh birthday. That’s when he was taken away and sent to Selkan to be with the men. The wails of the women were so deep, so loud, that the birds left the trees to seek the safety of the ground.
Those boys had returned to their mothers, many of them now grown men.
“But you wouldn’t know they were men from the way their mothers tend to them,” one of the women said. “They treat them as though they’re toddlers!”
“The women have been baking for weeks and they ply the men, young and old, with breads and cakes and pies of every flavor.”
“Don’t forget the wounds on the men! If a man so much as scratches his shoulder, a woman will insist on applying salve to his back. Hisbareback.”
“And his front,” a woman added and they laughed together.
