Gazing at the Distant Lights
Dec. 24th, 2008 09:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamcranverTitle: Gazing at the Distant Lights
Band(s): Cobra Starship and The Hush Sound, with guest appearances by members of other bands.
Pairing(s): Greta/Vicky-T
Prompt assigned: the prince and the pauper
Word count: About 21,750 words
Rating: NC-17, to be safe, for sex and cuss words
Summary: Greta always wanted an adventure, even if she had to switch clothes with a random stranger to get it.
Notes: Title is from "A Summer Song" by Chad and Jeremy. Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wistfuljane and murklins for setting up the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
bandom_solstice challenge. As always, I don't own or have any rights over the real people on whom the characters in this story are ever-so-loosely based, and am using names and traits of public personae without permission. No offense or attempt to profit is intended.
The life of a princess, Greta thought with a sigh, was not nearly as romantic as the tales would have one believe. No knights in shining armor, no opportunities for virtuous maidens to outwit enchanted serpents, not even an evil stepmother—just long days of boring lessons and lectures on duty. “Bob,” she said, “I need an evil stepmother.”
“Easy enough,” said Bob. “We’ll just have to find a lady who doesn’t mind if her husband’s a million years old and excruciatingly unpleasant.”
Greta made a face at him, stifling laughter. Bob was being completely disrespectful, but to be fair, her father was excruciatingly unpleasant. It was probably just as well that he’d had her brought up in another city and only ever sent for her when he wanted to show her off to visiting princes. Boring visiting princes. “Be serious. I’m in a terrible predicament.”
“Who’s not serious?” asked Bob. “I’m completely serious. People’ll put up with a lot to marry a king. The evil part might be a bit tricky, though, depending on what you count as evil. We’ll have to put an advertisement out.”
Greta imagined the advertisement, and then imagined a woman trying to flirt with her father, and couldn’t help it—she giggled, and hopped off the window seat to kiss Bob on the cheek. “You’re the best, Bob Morris,” she said. “When I’m queen, do you want to be prime minister? Because I could make that happen.”
“Is there a job where you sit around all day making tons of money and having witty conversations with beautiful ladies?” asked Bob. “Because I want that job.”
“If there isn’t one like that, I’ll make it just for you,” Greta promised. It was a beautiful day outside, the sun reflecting off the trees in the courtyard and shining on the pond outside the palace walls. It kind of made Greta want to go on an adventure, trekking through deep, dark woods and hunting for hidden treasure. “Bob,” she said, “Do I have to go to lessons today?”
“You do if you don’t want Patrick to yell at me about responsibilities again.” Bob made a face. “That man’s got quite the pair of lungs on him.”
“The secret is to distract him,” said Greta. Patrick was really quite sweet, but he had a bit of a temper, and he was a lot more devoted to making sure Greta grew up to be a proper princess than Greta would have preferred. To be fair, it was his job, but then, it was Bob’s job, too, and Bob had no problem helping Greta skip her stupid deportment lessons. Usually.
Bob started to shake his head, then stopped and blinked at something over Greta’s shoulder. “Hey,” he said, “you can try it out now. Your distraction, I mean.”
Greta turned around, and sure enough, there was Patrick, looking slightly more flustered than usual. His face was red and he kept pushing his spectacles up his nose though they weren’t slipping down the least bit, as if he couldn’t help it. “So, um,” he said. “You won’t be having your deportment lesson today.”
Greta couldn’t imagine why she was getting an unexpected holiday, but frankly, she didn’t care. She turned her head back around to Bob to grin at him before returning her attention to Patrick. “Why not?” she asked. She didn’t even bother trying to look disappointed, because there was no way Patrick would believe it.
“You need to pack,” said Patrick. “Your father wants you to visit him. At his new palace in Ramenia.”
By ‘visit,’ of course he meant ‘sit through boring banquets while I talk about you like a horse I’m trying to breed and you try to look alluring and chaste at the same time.’ Splendid. On the whole, Greta thought she might have preferred the deportment lesson. Of course, she’d never been to Ramenia, so she supposed that might be something of an adventure.
The trip there was certainly exciting, for certain values of exciting. The roads were a complete mess, potholes and mud everywhere, and they had to stop half a dozen times because an axle had broken, or a horse had lost a shoe, or Bob had gotten sick and had to throw up in the bushes. This last was funny at first, but as the trip went on, the novelty of traveling began to wear off and the delay began to wear on Greta’s nerves.
“Come on, Bob!” she shouted out the window. “We can’t be a mile outside of Ramenia! Couldn’t you stop puking just long enough for us to get there?”
Bob reached over his head and made a rude gesture, and Patrick sighed. “Your Highness,” he said, “You do realize you’ll be expected to be just a bit more proper at the court, right?” He made a face in Bob’s direction and said, “You, too, Bob.”
“Don’t tell it to me,” said Bob, standing up and wiping his mouth with a grimace. “Tell it to Little Miss—to Princess Greta, here.” Greta stuck out her tongue at him.
“I knew I should have gotten her a maid,” muttered Patrick. “I knew a manservant was a bad, bad idea.”
“Well, the next princess you raise, you can do a better job on,” offered Greta. She had no intention of actually angering her father, but mouthing off to Patrick was a time-honored tradition.
Patrick rolled his eyes. “Right,” he said. “Are we all ready to go?”
Bob settled himself in next to Greta again, smelling like puke and dirt. “Next time,” he said, “I’m aiming right at your lap.”
Greta would have threatened him with terrible, terrible things, like cow pies on his pillow or worms in his shoes, but the cart started rolling again and at that moment, the spire of a castle appeared above the trees in the distance. “Oh, oh,” she said, “Is that it? Is that the city?”
“That’s it,” said Patrick. He heaved a small sigh and said, “I’m going to need a good, stiff drink when we get there.”
“You and me both,” Greta said. Underneath the excitement of finally getting there, she was having a hard time keeping back the knowledge that once she was there, there wouldn’t be any opportunity for laughing loud or talking frankly or being herself at all once they arrived at the palace. For just a moment, she let herself resent her father with all the anger she could muster. And she could muster quite a bit.
Even Bob seemed somewhat subdued as the castle grew closer. The music didn’t help—someone was playing an accordion and singing from somewhere in the direction of Ramenia, and it was a mournful, savage, frightening song that sent shivers up Greta’s spine and made her arms break out in goosebumps. On any other day, she would have loved it, but now it was making her bad mood less petulant and resentful and more ominous and unsettling.
The music stopped just as it was growing so loud that it sounded as if it was coming from their coach. Greta stuck her head out the window to see if she could see the musician. The city gates were a stone’s throw away, and right in front of them was a woman with dark hair and ratty clothes and striped stockings, a little older than Greta. She was sitting on a barrel holding the accordion, and there was a hat at her feet with a few coins in it.
“Spare a little money?” the woman asked, standing up as they passed by her.
And to be sure, the music had weighed a little on her mind, but some might say that was the sign of good music anyway, being able to affect people like that, and anyway it had been very good. “Patrick,” Greta said, “will you ask Ian to stop the carriage?”
Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have even bothered asking, but she happened to know that Patrick was extremely fond of music. Sure enough, he didn’t even bother to fake a grumble before pulling open the little window between the coach and the driver’s seat and saying, “Ian, could you stop for a minute?”
They rolled to a stop, and Greta hopped out, Bob a step behind. “That was wonderful!” she said to the woman. “So creepy!”
The woman smiled crookedly and said, “I like a little creepiness.”
“Me, too,” said Greta. She turned to Bob. “Bob, do you have my money purse?”
Bob rummaged around in his knapsack for a minute before pulling out Greta’s little coin purse and handing it to her.
Greta wasn’t sure just how much you gave musicians who played creepy music outside the city gates, but she grabbed a handful of gold coins and handed it to the woman. “I’m Greta,” she said.
“Amanda,” said the woman. She looked at the money in her hand and her eyes widened; she shot a quick glance at the carriage and took a step back. “I didn’t expect to be playing for the princess,” she said, making a little curtsy. Her dress was too short for it to really work. "I'm outside the city limits," she added, sounding momentarily defensive.
Greta was baffled for a moment, before she remembered that the royal insignia was painted on the side of the carriage. She still didn’t know why Amanda had added the bit about city limits, though. “Yes, I know,” she said. “I didn’t expect to be hearing music here. Are you a traveling musician?"
Amanda straightened up and shrugged. “You could say that, I suppose. I don’t get very far.” She gave Greta a sharp-eyed, questioning look and said, “Do you play anything?”
“Yes,” Greta said, surprised and pleased. People didn’t usually ask her questions or talk to her like she was a normal person much, or at least, people who weren’t Bob or Patrick didn’t. It was so exhausting to have to be the princess all the time, and so refreshing to meet someone who’d have conversation with her without ending every sentence with ‘Your Highness.’ “I play the piano, and sometimes Bob and I sing together.”
Amanda smiled at that. “I play the piano, too.” Her smile turned rueful, and she added, “Well, when I can find a piano, I do.”
Patrick cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Miss….”
“Palmer,” said Amanda, fixing Patrick with a wry look.
“Miss Palmer.” Patrick gave her a tense smile and turned to Greta. “Your Highness, we really need to get going. Sundown’s only in a few hours, and your father will be expecting us for supper.”
Ah, well. Greta hadn’t expected much fun on this trip, anyway. “All right, Patrick,” she said, trying not to sound too disappointed.
“Great,” said Patrick, his voice relieved and his smile still nervous. “I’ll just run ahead to the gate and sort out the traveling papers.”
“They’re not gonna let her in?” Bob snorted.
Patrick rolled his eyes. “It’s just a, a security thing.” He took a few steps towards the gatehouse, and then stopped to look back at Greta and Bob. “Don’t…okay, don’t go anywhere. Seriously.”
“We’ll be good. Promise.” Greta waved at him and gave him her sweetest smile.
“Right,” he said, nodding. “I’ll just be a minute.” He looked one more time at them with a stern kind of worry before walking away and vanishing into the gatehouse.
Greta let her smile drop and made a face at Amanda. “I wish I had your job,” she said. “I have a piano, but I never have any time to play it.” Amanda looked supremely skeptical. She didn’t say anything, but Greta could just sense her objections. “I mean it,” she said. “I never do anything important or interesting, but I do a lot, especially at court. It’s all dances and feasts and making small talk, all day, every day.”
“Hell,” said Amanda with a short, breathless laugh, “I could do that.” She immediately dropped her eyes and said, “No offense.”
“No, you’re right,” said Greta. An idea was niggling at the edge of her mind. “You could do it. Anyone could.” It was foolish, maybe crazy, but now that it had crossed her mind, she couldn’t let the notion of freedom slip away. “Hey,” she said, “how’d you like to be the princess for a day or two?”
“What?” Bob and Amanda had spoken at the same time.
“You know. Amanda puts on my clothes, I put on hers, Amanda goes into the city with you and I go have an adventure, and then I’ll come back tonight or tomorrow and we’ll switch back.”
“I don’t think anyone’s going to mistake me for you,” Amanda said, eying Greta critically.
Greta had to admit, Amanda was taller and brunette and had very distinctive eyebrows, so it wasn’t likely that anyone who had even a remote acquaintance with Greta would confuse the two of them, but still…. “Doesn’t matter,” said Greta. “I’ve never been to the palace at Ramenia, so none of the staff there know me, and since I’m not likely to see my father or any of his advisers for a while, the only people who’ll know you’re not me are Patrick and Bob.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” said Bob.
“I’m serious!” Greta said, turning to him with her very best serious, persuasive expression. “You know Father won’t see me at all for probably a week—not until he’s gathered enough suitors to throw a suitably boring ball. Nobody at the Ramenian court knows me. Amanda!” She turned back to Amanda and looked as sincere and imploring as she could. “I know you could pass for a princess, couldn’t you? It’s really only the clothing—I don’t pay any attention in deportment lessons, anyway.”
“I could probably wear fancy clothes for a day or two, yeah,” said Amanda dryly.
“Oh my God, Greta, this is a terrible idea,” said Bob, looking over at the gatehouse anxiously. “Patrick’s going to kill me.”
“Oh, pshaw, Patrick wouldn’t kill anyone,” Greta said dismissively. “And this is a great idea. I get some fun, and, and….” She gestured towards Amanda. “Amanda gets to go to a couple of great dinners, and—anything you want out of my closet, you’re welcome to it.” Something occurred to her, and she added, “And I bet there’s a piano at the palace, if you want to play.”
“Am I gonna get executed for treason or something?” asked Amanda, one eyebrow raised.
“Am I gonna get executed for treason?” Bob echoed.
Greta’s father was a dried-up old creep, but even he couldn’t be so cruel as to punish Amanda and Bob and Patrick for such a silly little thing. “No,” she said firmly. “I’ll be back and bored out of my wits before Father even knows I’m gone. And if anything goes wrong, you can blame me.”
Amanda looked curiously at Greta. “You really want to do this, don’t you?” At Greta’s nod, she asked, “What are you planning on doing, anyway?”
The array of options momentarily dazzled Greta. “Oh, lots of things. Go find some mud puddles to splash in, or maybe a local shop, or—climb a tree, or buy a beer at a tavern, or anything!”
“Anything, huh?” Amanda said, looking amused. “Well, who am I to deny the princess anything?”
“That’s the spirit!” said Greta, unable to stop herself from clapping her hands with joy. She turned to give Bob a look until he sighed.
“All right,” he said. “But hurry up and change before Patrick gets out again.” He shot another nervous look in the direction of the gatehouse.
“Well, look in the other direction, then,” Greta told him, and he turned around. Amanda was a lot quicker about getting out of her clothes than Greta was, probably because of all the layers and laces in Greta’s outfit. It was a lot easier and freer to pull on Amanda’s frayed stockings and worn dress and then help Amanda lace up the gown in the back.
“Oh!” Greta exclaimed when she had finished getting Amanda into the gown. “You look wonderful!” And she did—imposing and majestic, like a queen.
Amanda squinted at her and said, “You kind of look like a ragamuffin child.”
That was the point, of course, so Greta didn’t take offense; she just beamed at Amanda and yelled, “Hey, Bob, have a look!”
Bob turned around slowly, as if afraid of what he was going to see. He just snorted with laughter at the sight of Greta, and Greta stuck her tongue out at him. When his eyes swept over to Amanda, though, his jaw dropped and he swallowed audibly. “Oh, wow,” he said. “You look….”
“Think I’ll be able to be a convincing princess?” asked Amanda, striking a pose.
“I think….” Bob swallowed again and nodded eagerly. “Yeah. Um. Definitely.” He blinked a few times and said to Greta, “Hey, why don’t you leave now and get a head start? You know Patrick’s gonna nip this thing in the bud if he catches us.” He didn’t sound nearly as freaked as he had a minute ago, and he had said us. Greta smiled.
“Okay,” she said. “Oh, wait!” She grabbed a piece of parchment out of Bob’s bag and scribbled out, This is Amanda Palmer, who is dressing in my clothes and assuming my name under my orders. She and Bob Morris and Patrick Stump are not to be blamed for this deception; it is all my doing. Greta Salpeter, Princess of the Realm. She closed it with a somewhat squishy wax seal fished out from the bottom of the bag and pressed it shut with her signet ring, which she put into her pocket. It wouldn’t do to give herself away as easily as that. “Here,” she said, handing the note to Amanda, “So you don’t get in trouble.”
“Thanks,” said Amanda, and she stuffed the letter down the front of her dress.
“All right then.” Greta could scarcely believe this was happening. “I guess I’ll see you soon, then.”
Amanda nodded. “Have fun.”
“Yeah,” said Bob, starting to look worried again.
There was no point in delaying anymore. Greta made sure Amanda’s worn black shoes were laced on tightly, and then she dashed past the gatehouse. The guards would still be too busy with Patrick to worry about her.
The city was wonderful. She was still trying to avoid being caught by Patrick, but it would be completely suspicious to actually run through the streets, so as she walked briskly down avenues and alleys she eagerly drank up the sights of dirty two- and three-story buildings, of signs, both freshly-painted and weather-beaten, for the smithy and the taverns and the horse farrier, of little shops selling produce and baked goods. And the people! There were well-dressed women shopping, and men in messy work clothes, and ragged little children playing tag among the crowds, and not a person was looking at Greta as if she were anything other than a normal eighteen-year-old girl.
Greta had never been happier in her life. She could barely keep herself from skipping along the cobblestones and singing at the shopkeepers.
She strolled past a long line of covered booths selling everything from candles to woven scarves to carved wooden children’s toys, but she couldn’t decide on anything—it was all too splendid—so she kept on walking. At the corner where the street with the booths met a street full of close-packed apartment buildings, there was a fountain. The water looked lovely and cold, and there were two boys about her age sitting on the edge of the fountain, one of them with a lute and the other with a small drum.
She took a drink of water. It had an ugly metallic taste and was kind of lukewarm, but it soothed her thirst, which was all it really had to do. Straightening up, she walked around to where the boys were sitting.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m Greta.”
The boy who had been aimlessly strumming the lute paused and said, “I’m Chris, and this is Darren.” Darren waved.
“What are you playing?”
Darren shrugged. “Not much. We were busking for most of the day, but I think people are pretty much done spending money today.”
Chris scowled at the ground. Greta hadn’t noticed, but there was a large hat sitting at their feet, with only a few coins in it. They were clearly musicians like Amanda, who depended on passersby to give them money, but they didn’t seem to be too successful at it.
“Hey,” she said to Chris, “if you’re not busy now, could I play your lute for a minute?”
Chris looked surprised by the request, but he said, “Sure,” and handed over the lute. It was kind of beat-up looking, but it felt warm and solid in Greta’s lap, and when she strummed it, the strings rang out true and clear. She began to hum a bit of song that had been rattling around in her head after hearing Amanda’s song, a sort of eerie, ghostly thing, and when she had the melody clear enough in her mind, she began to find the fingerings on the lute. She hadn’t had nearly the training on lute that she had on piano, but both Patrick and Bob played, so she knew her way around a lute fingerboard.
“Oh, that’s nice,” Darren said, tapping out a rhythm on his drum that matched the song Greta had found herself singing. The sound startled her, and she stopped.
Chris frowned. “Don’t stop,” he said. “Or, wait, does that song have words?”
Greta shrugged. It didn’t really, not yet, but she had some ideas.
“Well, if it does, you could give me back my lute and you could sing and we could play.” He gave her a crooked smile and said, “You have a nice voice.”
It was the nicest offer she’d ever gotten from two complete strangers who had no idea that she was the princess. She smiled at Chris and handed the lute back, only a little disappointed at having to give it up again. He took it with another little half-smile and plucked a few strings experimentally, picking out the melody Greta had been singing and inserting harmony chords while Darren looked at him intently, tapping out a tentative rhythm. After a few minutes, Chris turned to her. “Well,” he said. “You wanna sing?”
She was a little nervous at first, that they wouldn’t like her singing or would think the song she’d made up was stupid, but they seemed as thoroughly engrossed in the music as she had been when she was figuring out the song, and soon she let her mind wander to the lyrics, trying to make up a story that fit the music.
“Hey,” said Darren when Greta’s song came to what seemed like an end, “Do you know ‘The Shepherd and the Giant?’”
She did, so they sang and played that one, too, and then a song Patrick had taught her when she was a little girl, and then a song Chris had heard in a tavern, and then a dance tune, and then a song that a traveling minstrel had played for Darren. By the time they were done, the sun was sinking behind the buildings and they had earned two more silver pieces and seven more copper pennies.
“Wow,” Darren said when the streets around the fountain were starting to empty out, “you ought to sing with us more often.”
Chris nodded. “Yeah, and if you have a lute, you could bring it, and one of us could play the melody and the other one the harmony.”
“I’d love to,” said Greta, feeling as if her heart would burst for happiness. She’d made friends, all on her own, friends who didn’t even know she was the princess.
Chris heaved a sigh. “We’d better pack it in,” he said. “Curfew’s in less than an hour.”
“And my mother will be worried about me,” said Darren. He dumped out the pile of coins and divided them into three even piles, handing Greta one of them.
“Oh, no,” said Greta. “I couldn’t take this.”
“Why not?” asked Chris with a frown. “We wouldn’t have earned nearly so much if you hadn’t come to sing with us.”
“I just did that for fun,” said Greta. “I couldn’t take your money.” Darren’s clothes were threadbare, and Chris didn’t have any shoes, and Greta didn’t need money at all. She put the coins back down, splitting them between the other two piles.
Chris looked like he wanted to argue, but Darren just bit his lip and plucked out one of the silver coins. “At least take this,” he said. “A thank you for playing with us, because it was fun, and something to make you want to come and join us again.”
Greta didn’t like to take any money at all from two boys who clearly needed it, but she didn’t want to offend them, either, so she closed her hand around the silver piece and said, “Thank you.”
Chris looked vaguely placated, and he said, “Where do you live? We could walk you back, if it’s not too far from the Market District.”
Greta had figured she’d find an inn or something for the night, and she thought she could probably find one on her own all right. “Oh, that’s all right,” she said. “I live right around here. It’s not a long walk at all.”
“All right,” Chris said with a shrug. He slung his lute over his shoulder and turned to Darren. “Are you ready?”
Darren slid his handful of change into his pocket and stood. “Yeah. Bye, Greta. Will we see you tomorrow?”
Greta was having the time of her life, and she wasn’t any too eager to head back to the boring feasts and even more boring suitors at the palace, but on the other hand, she didn’t want to force Amanda to deal with her father, either. “Maybe,” she said. “Depends on what else I have to do.”
“Okay,” Darren said. “We’re here all day, if you want to come by.”
Maybe she would, at that. “All right,” she said. “Maybe I’ll see you.”
Chris and Darren nodded and waved, and she watched as they vanished down a dark street running perpendicular to the street with the shops. She was alone again.
Part 2
Band(s): Cobra Starship and The Hush Sound, with guest appearances by members of other bands.
Pairing(s): Greta/Vicky-T
Prompt assigned: the prince and the pauper
Word count: About 21,750 words
Rating: NC-17, to be safe, for sex and cuss words
Summary: Greta always wanted an adventure, even if she had to switch clothes with a random stranger to get it.
Notes: Title is from "A Summer Song" by Chad and Jeremy. Thanks to
wistfuljane and murklins for setting up the bandom_solstice challenge. As always, I don't own or have any rights over the real people on whom the characters in this story are ever-so-loosely based, and am using names and traits of public personae without permission. No offense or attempt to profit is intended.The life of a princess, Greta thought with a sigh, was not nearly as romantic as the tales would have one believe. No knights in shining armor, no opportunities for virtuous maidens to outwit enchanted serpents, not even an evil stepmother—just long days of boring lessons and lectures on duty. “Bob,” she said, “I need an evil stepmother.”
“Easy enough,” said Bob. “We’ll just have to find a lady who doesn’t mind if her husband’s a million years old and excruciatingly unpleasant.”
Greta made a face at him, stifling laughter. Bob was being completely disrespectful, but to be fair, her father was excruciatingly unpleasant. It was probably just as well that he’d had her brought up in another city and only ever sent for her when he wanted to show her off to visiting princes. Boring visiting princes. “Be serious. I’m in a terrible predicament.”
“Who’s not serious?” asked Bob. “I’m completely serious. People’ll put up with a lot to marry a king. The evil part might be a bit tricky, though, depending on what you count as evil. We’ll have to put an advertisement out.”
Greta imagined the advertisement, and then imagined a woman trying to flirt with her father, and couldn’t help it—she giggled, and hopped off the window seat to kiss Bob on the cheek. “You’re the best, Bob Morris,” she said. “When I’m queen, do you want to be prime minister? Because I could make that happen.”
“Is there a job where you sit around all day making tons of money and having witty conversations with beautiful ladies?” asked Bob. “Because I want that job.”
“If there isn’t one like that, I’ll make it just for you,” Greta promised. It was a beautiful day outside, the sun reflecting off the trees in the courtyard and shining on the pond outside the palace walls. It kind of made Greta want to go on an adventure, trekking through deep, dark woods and hunting for hidden treasure. “Bob,” she said, “Do I have to go to lessons today?”
“You do if you don’t want Patrick to yell at me about responsibilities again.” Bob made a face. “That man’s got quite the pair of lungs on him.”
“The secret is to distract him,” said Greta. Patrick was really quite sweet, but he had a bit of a temper, and he was a lot more devoted to making sure Greta grew up to be a proper princess than Greta would have preferred. To be fair, it was his job, but then, it was Bob’s job, too, and Bob had no problem helping Greta skip her stupid deportment lessons. Usually.
Bob started to shake his head, then stopped and blinked at something over Greta’s shoulder. “Hey,” he said, “you can try it out now. Your distraction, I mean.”
Greta turned around, and sure enough, there was Patrick, looking slightly more flustered than usual. His face was red and he kept pushing his spectacles up his nose though they weren’t slipping down the least bit, as if he couldn’t help it. “So, um,” he said. “You won’t be having your deportment lesson today.”
Greta couldn’t imagine why she was getting an unexpected holiday, but frankly, she didn’t care. She turned her head back around to Bob to grin at him before returning her attention to Patrick. “Why not?” she asked. She didn’t even bother trying to look disappointed, because there was no way Patrick would believe it.
“You need to pack,” said Patrick. “Your father wants you to visit him. At his new palace in Ramenia.”
By ‘visit,’ of course he meant ‘sit through boring banquets while I talk about you like a horse I’m trying to breed and you try to look alluring and chaste at the same time.’ Splendid. On the whole, Greta thought she might have preferred the deportment lesson. Of course, she’d never been to Ramenia, so she supposed that might be something of an adventure.
The trip there was certainly exciting, for certain values of exciting. The roads were a complete mess, potholes and mud everywhere, and they had to stop half a dozen times because an axle had broken, or a horse had lost a shoe, or Bob had gotten sick and had to throw up in the bushes. This last was funny at first, but as the trip went on, the novelty of traveling began to wear off and the delay began to wear on Greta’s nerves.
“Come on, Bob!” she shouted out the window. “We can’t be a mile outside of Ramenia! Couldn’t you stop puking just long enough for us to get there?”
Bob reached over his head and made a rude gesture, and Patrick sighed. “Your Highness,” he said, “You do realize you’ll be expected to be just a bit more proper at the court, right?” He made a face in Bob’s direction and said, “You, too, Bob.”
“Don’t tell it to me,” said Bob, standing up and wiping his mouth with a grimace. “Tell it to Little Miss—to Princess Greta, here.” Greta stuck out her tongue at him.
“I knew I should have gotten her a maid,” muttered Patrick. “I knew a manservant was a bad, bad idea.”
“Well, the next princess you raise, you can do a better job on,” offered Greta. She had no intention of actually angering her father, but mouthing off to Patrick was a time-honored tradition.
Patrick rolled his eyes. “Right,” he said. “Are we all ready to go?”
Bob settled himself in next to Greta again, smelling like puke and dirt. “Next time,” he said, “I’m aiming right at your lap.”
Greta would have threatened him with terrible, terrible things, like cow pies on his pillow or worms in his shoes, but the cart started rolling again and at that moment, the spire of a castle appeared above the trees in the distance. “Oh, oh,” she said, “Is that it? Is that the city?”
“That’s it,” said Patrick. He heaved a small sigh and said, “I’m going to need a good, stiff drink when we get there.”
“You and me both,” Greta said. Underneath the excitement of finally getting there, she was having a hard time keeping back the knowledge that once she was there, there wouldn’t be any opportunity for laughing loud or talking frankly or being herself at all once they arrived at the palace. For just a moment, she let herself resent her father with all the anger she could muster. And she could muster quite a bit.
Even Bob seemed somewhat subdued as the castle grew closer. The music didn’t help—someone was playing an accordion and singing from somewhere in the direction of Ramenia, and it was a mournful, savage, frightening song that sent shivers up Greta’s spine and made her arms break out in goosebumps. On any other day, she would have loved it, but now it was making her bad mood less petulant and resentful and more ominous and unsettling.
The music stopped just as it was growing so loud that it sounded as if it was coming from their coach. Greta stuck her head out the window to see if she could see the musician. The city gates were a stone’s throw away, and right in front of them was a woman with dark hair and ratty clothes and striped stockings, a little older than Greta. She was sitting on a barrel holding the accordion, and there was a hat at her feet with a few coins in it.
“Spare a little money?” the woman asked, standing up as they passed by her.
And to be sure, the music had weighed a little on her mind, but some might say that was the sign of good music anyway, being able to affect people like that, and anyway it had been very good. “Patrick,” Greta said, “will you ask Ian to stop the carriage?”
Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have even bothered asking, but she happened to know that Patrick was extremely fond of music. Sure enough, he didn’t even bother to fake a grumble before pulling open the little window between the coach and the driver’s seat and saying, “Ian, could you stop for a minute?”
They rolled to a stop, and Greta hopped out, Bob a step behind. “That was wonderful!” she said to the woman. “So creepy!”
The woman smiled crookedly and said, “I like a little creepiness.”
“Me, too,” said Greta. She turned to Bob. “Bob, do you have my money purse?”
Bob rummaged around in his knapsack for a minute before pulling out Greta’s little coin purse and handing it to her.
Greta wasn’t sure just how much you gave musicians who played creepy music outside the city gates, but she grabbed a handful of gold coins and handed it to the woman. “I’m Greta,” she said.
“Amanda,” said the woman. She looked at the money in her hand and her eyes widened; she shot a quick glance at the carriage and took a step back. “I didn’t expect to be playing for the princess,” she said, making a little curtsy. Her dress was too short for it to really work. "I'm outside the city limits," she added, sounding momentarily defensive.
Greta was baffled for a moment, before she remembered that the royal insignia was painted on the side of the carriage. She still didn’t know why Amanda had added the bit about city limits, though. “Yes, I know,” she said. “I didn’t expect to be hearing music here. Are you a traveling musician?"
Amanda straightened up and shrugged. “You could say that, I suppose. I don’t get very far.” She gave Greta a sharp-eyed, questioning look and said, “Do you play anything?”
“Yes,” Greta said, surprised and pleased. People didn’t usually ask her questions or talk to her like she was a normal person much, or at least, people who weren’t Bob or Patrick didn’t. It was so exhausting to have to be the princess all the time, and so refreshing to meet someone who’d have conversation with her without ending every sentence with ‘Your Highness.’ “I play the piano, and sometimes Bob and I sing together.”
Amanda smiled at that. “I play the piano, too.” Her smile turned rueful, and she added, “Well, when I can find a piano, I do.”
Patrick cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Miss….”
“Palmer,” said Amanda, fixing Patrick with a wry look.
“Miss Palmer.” Patrick gave her a tense smile and turned to Greta. “Your Highness, we really need to get going. Sundown’s only in a few hours, and your father will be expecting us for supper.”
Ah, well. Greta hadn’t expected much fun on this trip, anyway. “All right, Patrick,” she said, trying not to sound too disappointed.
“Great,” said Patrick, his voice relieved and his smile still nervous. “I’ll just run ahead to the gate and sort out the traveling papers.”
“They’re not gonna let her in?” Bob snorted.
Patrick rolled his eyes. “It’s just a, a security thing.” He took a few steps towards the gatehouse, and then stopped to look back at Greta and Bob. “Don’t…okay, don’t go anywhere. Seriously.”
“We’ll be good. Promise.” Greta waved at him and gave him her sweetest smile.
“Right,” he said, nodding. “I’ll just be a minute.” He looked one more time at them with a stern kind of worry before walking away and vanishing into the gatehouse.
Greta let her smile drop and made a face at Amanda. “I wish I had your job,” she said. “I have a piano, but I never have any time to play it.” Amanda looked supremely skeptical. She didn’t say anything, but Greta could just sense her objections. “I mean it,” she said. “I never do anything important or interesting, but I do a lot, especially at court. It’s all dances and feasts and making small talk, all day, every day.”
“Hell,” said Amanda with a short, breathless laugh, “I could do that.” She immediately dropped her eyes and said, “No offense.”
“No, you’re right,” said Greta. An idea was niggling at the edge of her mind. “You could do it. Anyone could.” It was foolish, maybe crazy, but now that it had crossed her mind, she couldn’t let the notion of freedom slip away. “Hey,” she said, “how’d you like to be the princess for a day or two?”
“What?” Bob and Amanda had spoken at the same time.
“You know. Amanda puts on my clothes, I put on hers, Amanda goes into the city with you and I go have an adventure, and then I’ll come back tonight or tomorrow and we’ll switch back.”
“I don’t think anyone’s going to mistake me for you,” Amanda said, eying Greta critically.
Greta had to admit, Amanda was taller and brunette and had very distinctive eyebrows, so it wasn’t likely that anyone who had even a remote acquaintance with Greta would confuse the two of them, but still…. “Doesn’t matter,” said Greta. “I’ve never been to the palace at Ramenia, so none of the staff there know me, and since I’m not likely to see my father or any of his advisers for a while, the only people who’ll know you’re not me are Patrick and Bob.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” said Bob.
“I’m serious!” Greta said, turning to him with her very best serious, persuasive expression. “You know Father won’t see me at all for probably a week—not until he’s gathered enough suitors to throw a suitably boring ball. Nobody at the Ramenian court knows me. Amanda!” She turned back to Amanda and looked as sincere and imploring as she could. “I know you could pass for a princess, couldn’t you? It’s really only the clothing—I don’t pay any attention in deportment lessons, anyway.”
“I could probably wear fancy clothes for a day or two, yeah,” said Amanda dryly.
“Oh my God, Greta, this is a terrible idea,” said Bob, looking over at the gatehouse anxiously. “Patrick’s going to kill me.”
“Oh, pshaw, Patrick wouldn’t kill anyone,” Greta said dismissively. “And this is a great idea. I get some fun, and, and….” She gestured towards Amanda. “Amanda gets to go to a couple of great dinners, and—anything you want out of my closet, you’re welcome to it.” Something occurred to her, and she added, “And I bet there’s a piano at the palace, if you want to play.”
“Am I gonna get executed for treason or something?” asked Amanda, one eyebrow raised.
“Am I gonna get executed for treason?” Bob echoed.
Greta’s father was a dried-up old creep, but even he couldn’t be so cruel as to punish Amanda and Bob and Patrick for such a silly little thing. “No,” she said firmly. “I’ll be back and bored out of my wits before Father even knows I’m gone. And if anything goes wrong, you can blame me.”
Amanda looked curiously at Greta. “You really want to do this, don’t you?” At Greta’s nod, she asked, “What are you planning on doing, anyway?”
The array of options momentarily dazzled Greta. “Oh, lots of things. Go find some mud puddles to splash in, or maybe a local shop, or—climb a tree, or buy a beer at a tavern, or anything!”
“Anything, huh?” Amanda said, looking amused. “Well, who am I to deny the princess anything?”
“That’s the spirit!” said Greta, unable to stop herself from clapping her hands with joy. She turned to give Bob a look until he sighed.
“All right,” he said. “But hurry up and change before Patrick gets out again.” He shot another nervous look in the direction of the gatehouse.
“Well, look in the other direction, then,” Greta told him, and he turned around. Amanda was a lot quicker about getting out of her clothes than Greta was, probably because of all the layers and laces in Greta’s outfit. It was a lot easier and freer to pull on Amanda’s frayed stockings and worn dress and then help Amanda lace up the gown in the back.
“Oh!” Greta exclaimed when she had finished getting Amanda into the gown. “You look wonderful!” And she did—imposing and majestic, like a queen.
Amanda squinted at her and said, “You kind of look like a ragamuffin child.”
That was the point, of course, so Greta didn’t take offense; she just beamed at Amanda and yelled, “Hey, Bob, have a look!”
Bob turned around slowly, as if afraid of what he was going to see. He just snorted with laughter at the sight of Greta, and Greta stuck her tongue out at him. When his eyes swept over to Amanda, though, his jaw dropped and he swallowed audibly. “Oh, wow,” he said. “You look….”
“Think I’ll be able to be a convincing princess?” asked Amanda, striking a pose.
“I think….” Bob swallowed again and nodded eagerly. “Yeah. Um. Definitely.” He blinked a few times and said to Greta, “Hey, why don’t you leave now and get a head start? You know Patrick’s gonna nip this thing in the bud if he catches us.” He didn’t sound nearly as freaked as he had a minute ago, and he had said us. Greta smiled.
“Okay,” she said. “Oh, wait!” She grabbed a piece of parchment out of Bob’s bag and scribbled out, This is Amanda Palmer, who is dressing in my clothes and assuming my name under my orders. She and Bob Morris and Patrick Stump are not to be blamed for this deception; it is all my doing. Greta Salpeter, Princess of the Realm. She closed it with a somewhat squishy wax seal fished out from the bottom of the bag and pressed it shut with her signet ring, which she put into her pocket. It wouldn’t do to give herself away as easily as that. “Here,” she said, handing the note to Amanda, “So you don’t get in trouble.”
“Thanks,” said Amanda, and she stuffed the letter down the front of her dress.
“All right then.” Greta could scarcely believe this was happening. “I guess I’ll see you soon, then.”
Amanda nodded. “Have fun.”
“Yeah,” said Bob, starting to look worried again.
There was no point in delaying anymore. Greta made sure Amanda’s worn black shoes were laced on tightly, and then she dashed past the gatehouse. The guards would still be too busy with Patrick to worry about her.
The city was wonderful. She was still trying to avoid being caught by Patrick, but it would be completely suspicious to actually run through the streets, so as she walked briskly down avenues and alleys she eagerly drank up the sights of dirty two- and three-story buildings, of signs, both freshly-painted and weather-beaten, for the smithy and the taverns and the horse farrier, of little shops selling produce and baked goods. And the people! There were well-dressed women shopping, and men in messy work clothes, and ragged little children playing tag among the crowds, and not a person was looking at Greta as if she were anything other than a normal eighteen-year-old girl.
Greta had never been happier in her life. She could barely keep herself from skipping along the cobblestones and singing at the shopkeepers.
She strolled past a long line of covered booths selling everything from candles to woven scarves to carved wooden children’s toys, but she couldn’t decide on anything—it was all too splendid—so she kept on walking. At the corner where the street with the booths met a street full of close-packed apartment buildings, there was a fountain. The water looked lovely and cold, and there were two boys about her age sitting on the edge of the fountain, one of them with a lute and the other with a small drum.
She took a drink of water. It had an ugly metallic taste and was kind of lukewarm, but it soothed her thirst, which was all it really had to do. Straightening up, she walked around to where the boys were sitting.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m Greta.”
The boy who had been aimlessly strumming the lute paused and said, “I’m Chris, and this is Darren.” Darren waved.
“What are you playing?”
Darren shrugged. “Not much. We were busking for most of the day, but I think people are pretty much done spending money today.”
Chris scowled at the ground. Greta hadn’t noticed, but there was a large hat sitting at their feet, with only a few coins in it. They were clearly musicians like Amanda, who depended on passersby to give them money, but they didn’t seem to be too successful at it.
“Hey,” she said to Chris, “if you’re not busy now, could I play your lute for a minute?”
Chris looked surprised by the request, but he said, “Sure,” and handed over the lute. It was kind of beat-up looking, but it felt warm and solid in Greta’s lap, and when she strummed it, the strings rang out true and clear. She began to hum a bit of song that had been rattling around in her head after hearing Amanda’s song, a sort of eerie, ghostly thing, and when she had the melody clear enough in her mind, she began to find the fingerings on the lute. She hadn’t had nearly the training on lute that she had on piano, but both Patrick and Bob played, so she knew her way around a lute fingerboard.
“Oh, that’s nice,” Darren said, tapping out a rhythm on his drum that matched the song Greta had found herself singing. The sound startled her, and she stopped.
Chris frowned. “Don’t stop,” he said. “Or, wait, does that song have words?”
Greta shrugged. It didn’t really, not yet, but she had some ideas.
“Well, if it does, you could give me back my lute and you could sing and we could play.” He gave her a crooked smile and said, “You have a nice voice.”
It was the nicest offer she’d ever gotten from two complete strangers who had no idea that she was the princess. She smiled at Chris and handed the lute back, only a little disappointed at having to give it up again. He took it with another little half-smile and plucked a few strings experimentally, picking out the melody Greta had been singing and inserting harmony chords while Darren looked at him intently, tapping out a tentative rhythm. After a few minutes, Chris turned to her. “Well,” he said. “You wanna sing?”
She was a little nervous at first, that they wouldn’t like her singing or would think the song she’d made up was stupid, but they seemed as thoroughly engrossed in the music as she had been when she was figuring out the song, and soon she let her mind wander to the lyrics, trying to make up a story that fit the music.
“Hey,” said Darren when Greta’s song came to what seemed like an end, “Do you know ‘The Shepherd and the Giant?’”
She did, so they sang and played that one, too, and then a song Patrick had taught her when she was a little girl, and then a song Chris had heard in a tavern, and then a dance tune, and then a song that a traveling minstrel had played for Darren. By the time they were done, the sun was sinking behind the buildings and they had earned two more silver pieces and seven more copper pennies.
“Wow,” Darren said when the streets around the fountain were starting to empty out, “you ought to sing with us more often.”
Chris nodded. “Yeah, and if you have a lute, you could bring it, and one of us could play the melody and the other one the harmony.”
“I’d love to,” said Greta, feeling as if her heart would burst for happiness. She’d made friends, all on her own, friends who didn’t even know she was the princess.
Chris heaved a sigh. “We’d better pack it in,” he said. “Curfew’s in less than an hour.”
“And my mother will be worried about me,” said Darren. He dumped out the pile of coins and divided them into three even piles, handing Greta one of them.
“Oh, no,” said Greta. “I couldn’t take this.”
“Why not?” asked Chris with a frown. “We wouldn’t have earned nearly so much if you hadn’t come to sing with us.”
“I just did that for fun,” said Greta. “I couldn’t take your money.” Darren’s clothes were threadbare, and Chris didn’t have any shoes, and Greta didn’t need money at all. She put the coins back down, splitting them between the other two piles.
Chris looked like he wanted to argue, but Darren just bit his lip and plucked out one of the silver coins. “At least take this,” he said. “A thank you for playing with us, because it was fun, and something to make you want to come and join us again.”
Greta didn’t like to take any money at all from two boys who clearly needed it, but she didn’t want to offend them, either, so she closed her hand around the silver piece and said, “Thank you.”
Chris looked vaguely placated, and he said, “Where do you live? We could walk you back, if it’s not too far from the Market District.”
Greta had figured she’d find an inn or something for the night, and she thought she could probably find one on her own all right. “Oh, that’s all right,” she said. “I live right around here. It’s not a long walk at all.”
“All right,” Chris said with a shrug. He slung his lute over his shoulder and turned to Darren. “Are you ready?”
Darren slid his handful of change into his pocket and stood. “Yeah. Bye, Greta. Will we see you tomorrow?”
Greta was having the time of her life, and she wasn’t any too eager to head back to the boring feasts and even more boring suitors at the palace, but on the other hand, she didn’t want to force Amanda to deal with her father, either. “Maybe,” she said. “Depends on what else I have to do.”
“Okay,” Darren said. “We’re here all day, if you want to come by.”
Maybe she would, at that. “All right,” she said. “Maybe I’ll see you.”
Chris and Darren nodded and waved, and she watched as they vanished down a dark street running perpendicular to the street with the shops. She was alone again.
Part 2
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