His pupil brightened, and Maggiore Totus tried to convince himself that he wasn’t betraying his teaching standards more and more with every passing day. Almost every lesson had to have something about the military in it to hold his pupil’s attention. Still, he comforted himself, she would one day be Queen of the Icemark and would probably have to lead her troops in battle, too. He couldn’t expect a daughter of King Redrought’s to be anything other than warlike and uninterested in the gentle arts of learning. He would feel he’d succeeded if at the end of her schooling she could write an understandable sentence, read a letter without help, and discuss the accounts with her quartermaster. In the meantime he’d aim for the stars, in the hope that he could at least get her to the top of a reasonably sized hill.
He drew the battle positions of the opposing fleets on the blackboard, and watched as Thirrin happily copied them into her book. But his attention was drawn back to the garden beyond the window and its signs of the coming winter. If only he could leave before the terrible winds and snows came, before the deeply penetrating frosts etched every window with thick patterns of ice-ferns. At his home on the southern coast of the Middle Sea, the winter would bring a little gentle rain and the days would be warm rather than hot. But the wine would be mellow, and the lilting language of his people would sing and lull his mind to a quietness he’d almost forgotten here in the cold north.
“Mr. Maggiore Totus!” Thirrin’s voice cut into his thoughts. “You’re not daydreaming, are you?” And she smiled so brightly he couldn’t help but smile back.
Thirrin could be charming when she forgot to be a princess. But just recently that happened only rarely, and Totus was beginning to wonder what was on her mind. He thought that perhaps he knew but couldn’t be sure. And how exactly would one ask the heir apparent if she was afraid that she’d have to rule the country before she was ready, and if she was frightened that her father would die before she’d had time to experience life properly? Redrought was a strong man, a very strong man, but the history of the Icemark was violent, and Maggiore’s studies had shown him that of the previous eight monarchs only two had died in their beds and only one had ruled for more than twenty years — and that one was Redrought himself!
He could almost feel sorry for Thirrin, even when she was at her most obnoxious. She might be undergoing the best training for her future role as Queen, but the very real possibility that she could be ruling the Icemark before she was sixteen had to be a terrible burden, especially when the country had The-Land-of-the-Ghosts as a neighbor to the north and the formidable Polypontian Empire and General Scipio Bellorum to the south. To rule even a tiny kingdom at such a young age would be pressure enough for anyone, but the Icemark had no one but the most vicious enemies on its land borders and only the pitiless sea, with its pirates and raiders, to the east and the west.
For the rest of the day he was gentle with his pupil, allowing her a little time to relax before she was called away by the weapons master or horse mistress. Not that she seemed to find those particular lessons difficult. She always ran from his rooms with a most insulting air of happy relief whenever she was off to raise a shield-wall with the housecarls or put some fierce war stallion through its paces. Maggiore Totus sighed. He’d have left for home long ago if he hadn’t thought Thirrin had it in her to be a good scholar. But he knew that her sharp intelligence would never be used to sift through the complex facts and figures that might reveal some exciting new truth, some previously unthought-of theorem.
A sudden hammering on the door made him yelp with fright, and a huge bearded housecarl marched into the room. “I’ve orders to take the Princess to the parade ground!” he boomed.
Maggiore glared at him. Why did they always have to shout? And did they really have to carry a shield and spear with them at all times? “I’m not sure that the Princess Thirrin has finished all of her work yet,” he answered, deciding to stand upon his