Chapter Nine

9 - The Fallen Princess

That afternoon the four children left the landpaters' place. Eldrus had given them a new map, saying he had plenty. He had told them that he hoped Empress Sarifia would look kindly upon them. He alone had waved them cheerfully goodbye, and they all were very happy they had met him. He had even organised for them to borrow four of the landpaters' horses, asking that they return them eventually.

                Their horses trotted along nicely, enjoying the cool breeze as the humans were. It was hard to think then that they were really in much of a threat from Lord Gendon.

                They were going faster than Tably had hoped they would on foot and they thought they would reach Fareast City easily by the next day.

                The road was bare - they met no-one. Tably said that there were fewer travellers every year as everyone was becoming more protective of their house possessions, in fear of Lord Gendon. So the four of them had a boring and uneventful journey.

                They entered Fareast City the next day. Jesse, Melissa and Rhias looked for the first time upon Silvadale castle, just on the outskirts of the city.

                They rode through, looking around at all the people. It seemed like a happier and more protected place than the last village they had been to, and had very good reason to be so. The walls were thick and high, but perhaps the people of Fareast City were a little too relaxed for their own good.

                They reached the end of the city and looked up to the very high front doors in awe.

                Rhias offered to knock, but Jesse stood forwards and knocked himself. A soldier of Doria answered the door.

                "We're the people who were foreseen in Raynar the head landpater's vision."

                The guard stepped out to blink in the sun at them.

                "You?" he sneered, looking around at them all. "But you are only children! Ha! Anyway, there was only two when I heard of it."

                "Well... it's only me and my sister," he said, pointing to her, "but these are friends of ours..."

                "Look mister, we're coming in there whether you'll let us or not," Rhias said clearly, and strode right past the guard. He looked stunned at her girl-ish voice as he, too, seemed to have mistaken her for a boy, and her forwardness surprised him too, so the rest of them took the opportunity to hurry in after her.

                "Take us to the important people here," said Rhias, trying, unsuccessfully, to look important herself, but not successfully for her appearance. "I mean, we are officials ourselves!"

                She appeared to enjoy watching the man scuttle away and they stood looking around yet another entrance hall, except obviously the most grand yet.

                The man scuttled back. "This way," he said, and they followed him through a few rooms and staircases till they got to a room similar to the sitting room in Orstina.

                "I'll go fetch... a few people," he said, and hurried out and closed the door.

                Rhias walked to a chair and reclined in it, sighing with pleasure. Melissa joined her, but just sat neatly at the end. Jesse sat opposite her and Tably stood behind Jesse, refusing to sit down.

                Soon the door opened again and two men entered.

                "Ah, so you're the children," the first one said smiling. "Forgive me, my name is Horris and I am the leader of the Dorian army. I sort of... well, I suppose Lord Gendon rules over us, but I am one of the people who rule Doria, while we wait in darkness for the light of a better future and a new king.

                "And this," he said, pointing to the other, "is the king's adviser, Vakky. Well, he was, until the king died twenty years ago." He shook his head sadly.

                 "I'm also one of the three who help rule Doria rightfully under Lord Gendon's nose," Vakky explained. "That's my purpose, until there's a new king.

                "Three?" Jesse said, staring at the two of them pointedly.

                "Well... I suppose we do kind of lead Doria by ourselves... but being the heir and all that... well, the king's daughter Jenadah helps too, but by the law she isn't really supposed to... then again I suppose we aren't really supposed to either..."

                He looked uncomfortable, rocking back and forth on his feet.

                "Well, anyway, I suppose you'll meet Jenadah soon enough, so I'd better explain her to you now. You see, when Lord Gendon took over, in the reign of three kings ago, he allowed the kingship to continue as long as they followed his way. He wanted Doria to be just as it had before, except the threat of him lay upon us all. No-one alive has ever known a time without him...

                "But anyway, when the king died this time it was suddenly and without warning. He caught a plague from a village on his visit to Naidium and died only minutes after he returned here. There are laws you see, Sarifia's second law, that there can be another king if he has a son or if his daughter marries. Our princess refuses to marry, and she will not be swayed. She says she no longer wishes to remain a princess as she has so much pressure to marry. But she is strong and I know she will never change her mind. And there's something in the law that says that when there is no king the land will develop famine, and that has happened over the last few years."

                The children got his point that Doria was drawing closer to an end all the time. They were also piecing together that this Empress Sarifia seemed to be quite different to a human - who could have control over causing a famine? In fact, Jesse and Melissa were beginning to wonder whether the people of Doria may have made up this Empress as a sort of typical explanation of how the world worked, and she really had no essence of reality at all.

                "So," Vakky said, "That is why we were very happy when news of you and that vision reached our ears."

                Jesse and Melissa smiled half-heartedly. These people really thought they were going to be some help... but how were they to do anything? There came a soft knock.

                "Come in," Horris said, and the door opened to reveal a very beautiful woman wearing a completely black dress, complete with a black veil. As if to make some kind of point, her curly hair was also black.

                Both Jesse and Tably were at first slightly breathless by her beauty, but then they both realised that she looked over forty. Her looks had even taken them in for a moment.

                "This is Jenadah, our princess," Horris said, and the four children bowed.

                "Do not bow to me," she said in a soft voice, "I am not to be bowed to. You should only bow to the king, but there is none, I have had to remind Horris and many others many times."

                A gong rang out from another room that sounded downstairs.

                "That will be the dinner bell," Horris said cheerfully, ushering the children out. "I hope you plan on staying."

                "Well... we don't really know what we were supposed to do next anyway," Melissa said. "We were sent on this journey by a messenger of the Empress, and she only ever told us to reach here. We don't know what to do next."

                "Oh, was that Hanni? Yes, she's well known around here. Quite handy when she's around. Well, stay as long as you can, until your month is up. Somehow you are supposed to help us. I shall show you to your rooms where you can get changed for dinner. When the second gong sounds you should just come down the staircase and it's the first room you see."

                He ordered two of the guards walking past to show them to rooms. The children were relieved to see they each had a room to themself as they were slightly sick of sleeping near each other.

                A servant came into Jesse's room and gave him some nice-looking dinner clothes. He thanked him and got changed, looking at himself, impressed in the mirror.

                A maid came into Melissa's room after a few minutes, holding a blue dress which she offered to help Melissa on with. Melissa loved it and eagerly let the maid help her on with it. The tie at the back took a while to tie up and she was a bit breathless with how tight it was, but it was pretty all the same. She went into Rhias's room to see how she was going.

                She was still wearing the same tatted clothes, but a plain green dress that had been laid out was lying on the bed.

                "Why don't you put the dress on?" Melissa asked.

                Rhias glared at it. "I'm fine with what I'm wearing."

                Melissa came over to her at the mirror. "I think you would look very nice in a dress. Why don't you try it on? Anyway, wouldn't you feel a bit funny being in this castle without looking nice?"

                "I do look nice, thankyou very much," she said coolly.

                "Come on, surely you don't really want to look like a boy," Melissa persisted.

                "Yes, I do actually."

                "Why not just try it for once?"

                Rhias looked back at the dress, then back at Melissa. "But," she said softly, "what if I look stupid? I don't ever remember ever really looking like a girl. You look very nice, but I wouldn't."

                "Come on," Melissa said, picking it up, "I'll help you on with it.

They all went down to dinner at the sound of the second gong and sat together at the table.

                The boys did not recognise Rhias at first glance, for she did look very nice, but her hair gave her away in the end. It was still very short, but she couldn't help that. Horris came in and sat across from them. He leaned in.

                "Now, I must warn you a bit more about Jenadah that I didn't get to say before," he said quietly. "She was once engaged, years ago, when she was only nineteen. A hansome man named Doni. But then one day he died, just a few weeks before their marriage. Jenadah and the rest of us wore the black clothes of grieving, but we who did not know him well only grieved for the night, then went back to our business. Some grieved for a few days, but Jenadah kept wearing her black, as if in defiance to say she'll never stop loving him, or will never forget him. And now, over twenty years later, she still wears her black clothes.

                "She prefers not to talk about it all when it can be helped, so just try to act as if it is normal. It is custom that you do not work while you are in the stages of grieving for the dead, so Jenadah has not done much practical work since Doni died. And then her father died she was twenty-three. Everyone depended upon her marrying to renew the kingship to stop the famine, but she said she was a fallen princess and her role was over. She did not wish to ever live again. She has been like that ever since. She said she could never love another man."

                Then Jenadah herself entered the room.

                She paused after she sat down. "You look very nice," she said across to Rhias. Rhias went red.

                Then the servants came out with food. The Henryson children found they had been comparing everything to their stay in Orstina and Miradel, and thought the food was in between the niceness and richness of the two meals they had had at those places.

To Be Continued...