“Not possible!” Thirrin almost shouted, for some reason horrified at the thought of having to stay with the strange boy overnight. “We’ve no bedding.”
“There are plenty of blankets in the back cave. Perhaps one of your men can fetch them?”
“The King will expect me back tonight,” she said firmly, and almost laughed in relief when she heard the sound of approaching horses. She strode to the cave mouth and watched as an escort of ten cavalry were led along the path by the soldier she’d sent off earlier. Obviously she’d been right. Redrought really did expect her home tonight.
“Gather your things and saddle the horses,” she ordered the men, suddenly in full command of herself again. Then to Oskan she said, “We’ll leave the injured one with you and send a surgeon for him later.”
4
Thirrin had a full day of studying to get through. Math, geography, the natural world, and what Maggiore Totus called “alchemical science.” She wished her father hadn’t decided to educate her and had just allowed her to rely on scribes and others of the “clever ones,” as Redrought called them. After all, he couldn’t even write his own name, and yet he’d managed to rule his kingdom with intelligence and cunning for more than twenty years. So why did she need to know how to write and reckon and do all of those other bright things that got in the way of her being herself?
“Because the times are changing and I want a daughter who knows her place in the world and how to keep it!” Her father’s booming voice sounded in her memory.
Well, perhaps the world was changing, but did it really help her to know the main exports of the Southern Continent? Or how to calculate the area of a cylinder, or how to brew a sovereign remedy against dropsy? She didn’t think so, but her father was determined, and so she must learn to be like one of the educated clever ones of the commonality.
“Well, Your Highness, am I to presume that you’ve completed your mathematics assignment?” Maggiore Totus asked.
Thirrin handed him a sheaf of paper in cold silence, hating the way the little man managed to make her feel guilty even when she had done her homework. She knew she could kill him in a variety of gory ways in less time than it took him to adjust the strange spectoculums that rested on the very end of his nose, but even this distraction didn’t seem to help!
Her tutor tutted quietly to himself as he read through the messy sheets of paper. “Well, the answer is correct, but how you arrived at your conclusion remains a complete mystery.”
“If the sum’s right, what does it matter?” Thirrin asked irritably.
“It matters because it would prove to me that you didn’t just guess at the answer.”
She privately thought that in the case of math, getting the right answer was all that was needed, but she didn’t say anything.
“Now tell me, what exactly does this jumble of lettering mean here?” the little tutor asked, pointing to a blotchy mess of ink. Thirrin shrugged, and Totus began to calculate just how far he could push her before she exploded and stormed out. He decided she was just short of abandoning the world of learning and spending the rest of the day with her father’s housecarls, so he retreated with decorum. “Very well, we’ll assume that you arrived at your answer by conventional and logical means, shall we?”
She shrugged again, and the tutor walked back to his desk. He looked out the window on to the garden that had so surprised him when he arrived to teach the Princess. Somehow one didn’t expect to find such a beautiful haven of peace in the middle of the grim fortress of Frostmarris. Magnificent rosebushes blazed rich and dazzling colors onto the air, and neatly clipped hedges and borders barely contained an ordered tumble of bright flowers. But already some of the beautifully kept plants were beginning to look just the slightest bit jaded, and the leaves on some of the more delicate trees and shrubs had already turned crimson. He felt a sudden dread as he realized the bitter winter of the Icemark couldn’t be far away.
“For the rest of the day we’ll study geography,” he informed her, “concentrating on the Southern Continent.” Thirrin groaned. “And in particular on their navy and its role in the defeat of the Corsairs and Zephyrs in the great Battle of the Middle