After tasting the ale, she looked at the bowl. The stew was thick. There were potatoes and small pieces of meat in a thick dark brownsauce with carrots and other chopped vegetables. Besides that, there was a large hunk of bread that looked to have been torn off a loaf by hand.
By hand! She had never seen bread broken that way!
The meal was a far cry from the delicately decorated courses she ate at the castle, but as she took a tentative taste, surprise shot through her. It was good! Peppery and hearty. The bread was a bit dry, but still soft and spongy, a thick piece. The bowl had only a spoon, and Sonya wondered how to eat the bread. She looked to the group next to her: the men were eating a similar meal. She watched as one man dunked his bread into the stew, then took a bite.
Feeling slightly ridiculous, Sonya did the same. Delight spread through her. Delicious!
She bit back a smile, hoping she didn’t look too silly and draw attention to herself. She had spent so many days staring out of the windows of her high tower, looking out to the world beyond her castle. She had dreamed of what it would be like to explore, and now here she was!
It was a lot dirtier and busier than she had imagined, but she was still proud of herself for making it here—even if she was a bit guilty about running away.
You had no choice,she reminded herself.
Eating her food, she listened to the conversation of the group of men next to her. They looked to be in their thirties; one man had a beard, one had long hair pulled into a bun, and one man was very thin.
‘…worked like dogs all day to prepare Castletown and for what?’ the man with the beard complained, taking a large sip of his ale.
‘ForHer Royal Highness, of course,’ the thin man said, adoptinga high-pitched, mocking tone. He drank his stew straight from his bowl, carelessly wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
Sonya’s heart rate quickened as she realized they were talking about her.
The man with the bun made an irritated sound. ‘Don’t see whywehave to repave the streets just ’cause the king is having a fancy tourney to sell off his daughter.’
‘Job’s a job,’ the bearded man said, ‘but, lord.’ He stretched his back, groaning.
Sonya bristled.
King Roshan of Fairendelle was hosting suitors to win the princess’s hand, and Castletown was preparing for their arrival next month. The courting would last however long it took for the princess to make her choice; then, she would be wed on the summer solstice, June 21st.
It was why Sonya had run away.
‘You will be wed on your birthday,’ Roshan had informed her at breakfast one morning, a few months ago. ‘It is up to you to decide who will be at the altar beside you.’
Sonya had all but choked on her eggs. ‘What? Why?’
Her father looked at her as if she was silly, brow furrowed as he slathered jam across a slice of toast. ‘Because it is time for you to be wed, beta jaani,’ he replied to his dear daughter. ‘Do not worry, your brothers will each choose a suitor and you will have your pick!’ His tone was magnanimous.
Sonya had been shocked by this sudden development.
Shahmir, her eldest brother, had smiled at her kindly. ‘Don’t worry, dearest,’ he’d said. With a twirl of his hands, a rose appeared, and he handed it to her. ‘We will choose the very best suitors, of course. I’ve already got my sights set on the Duke of Granger’s son.’
‘I have high hopes for anearlfrom Crownley.’ Irfan, the second eldest at twenty-three, added, petting a puppy in his arms.
Mustafa, the youngest brother at twenty-one, was too busy jotting down a note on a piece of paper beside his breakfast plate to chip into the conversation.
‘Butwhy?’ she had asked, incredulous.
Shahmir looked confused. ‘Because that is what princesses do, Sonya,’ he said. He was nine years older than she, but at that moment, he spoke to her as if he was many decades wiser. ‘They get married.’
Well. Not this one.
‘I’ve heard the princess is plain,’ the bearded man said now, pulling Sonya’s attention back to the present.
‘And she has no magic,’ the thin man added. ‘She isn’t the best catch, is she?’
They were being so casually cruel, snickering into their stew, and Sonya’s heart sank. But what else could she have expected of the real world? This wasn’t her father’s castle, where the staff were paid to be kind to her. These people did not know the very princess they insulted sat beside them.
‘At least the princes are involved,’ the man with the bun said. ‘The princess must think she’s too good to leave her castle.’
