"I call it," he said, "the letter D."
D
was his initial—not mine; not King Cynric's. Maybe this was the wrong ring after all.
When we got to the castle, I traded in Sir Deming for Counselor Rawdon, who was not wearing a ring. OK, so it had to be one of the royal family. That made more sense, anyway.
Queen Andreanna and her three sons, Wulfgar, Abas, and Kenric, were just as charming as last time, lounging about the thrones in the Great Hall, looking down their noses at me.
"Hello," I said. Last time I had approached timidly and hesitantly, wanting to make friends. I was determined not to make that mistake twice. Going for brisk, confident, and assertive this time, I said, "May I offer my condolences—"
"This
girl,
" the queen said to Abas, "smells like a goat."
Back to that again. I wouldn't let myself get caught up in that argument.
"Excuse me," I said in a tone that would have gotten me a lecture from my grandmother, "I believe the king died and named me his heir. That makes you my subjects. Obviously, you're so overcome by grief at the death of your old king that you're forgetting yourself. I will forgive you this once, but from now on you are to show me proper respect."
"
'Proper respect'?
" the queen snapped. "Abas, show her the respect she's due."
Luckily for me, sarcasm was a bit beyond Abas's mental grasp. He began to bow. This gave me time to take a quick step back.
"Kill her," Queen Andreanna clarified for her son.
I remembered Kenric's reasoning from last time. "Too many people have seen me already," I said.
Abas had unsheathed his sword and wasn't even slowing down.
I ducked behind a pillar.
"Everyone would know who killed me," I called back to the queen. No use trying to reason with Abas. If the queen didn't call him off, my attempts at logic certainly wouldn't.
For such a big guy, Abas was incredibly quick and agile. He jabbed with the sword, left and right of the protective column, and sooner or later I was going to move too slowly, or he Was going to correctly anticipate my next dodge.
I said, "You'll be in trouble for killing the appointed heir." That sounded feeble, even to me.
Abas's sword caught on the trailing edge of my dress that swirled a second slower than I did. With his free hand, he caught hold of my hair and dragged me from behind the column.
"She's probably right," Wulfgar drawled.
"Probably," the queen agreed equably.
Her voice was the last thing I heard.
Janine!" my foster mother's voice called. "Janine, come back to the house."
I couldn't believe it. I'd wasted another half day. "What was the matter with me? Surely, the programmers at Rasmussem didn't intend for their game to be so complicated that a reasonably intelligent fourteen-year-old couldn't get beyond the first hours of a three-day game.
Was my brain overloading already? Was the damage the CPOC saboteurs had inflicted making me stupid?
All in all, I preferred to believe that I just wasn't playing this game as well as Rasmussem's average teenage gamer.
"OK, OK," I told Dusty as she once more licked my face. "Sit. Stay. Guard."
At the foot of the hill, I again rushed my mother and Sir Deming through the introductions. Did Rasmussem
have
to start me at the very beginning every single time?
Deming told me the king had named me his heir. I acted surprised. My foster mother wept that I had to leave. I told her to give my love to my foster father. I spared a thought for my real-life father, who'd given me the Rasmussem gift certificate.
Gee, Dad,
I thought,
you shouldn't have.
When I was introduced to Counselor Rawdon, I interrupted him when he said he'd take me to meet my family.
"And what are they like?" I asked, though I knew well enough. "Are they to be trusted?"
"'Trusted,' Princess Janine?" Rawdon repeated.
"Do they present a danger to me?"
"Well..." Rawdon said, and I was sure he was going to give an evasive answer. But he said, "Probably."
OK, I liked that honesty. "Should I take steps?" I asked.
"Assuredly," he told me.
For a counselor, he wasn't very forthcoming with counsel.
"Would, for example—just in theory here—would it be a good idea to have my family confined?"
"It
might,
" Rawdon agreed. "On the other hand, you
are
new here. An unknown element. The soldiers who would have jumped to your late father's orders might not be so quick to respond to you." He smiled and added, "In theory."
"I understand," I said. No royal beheadings on the first morning.
I sighed, suspecting that I wasn't imaginative enough to figure out half of what needed to be figured out. I was already in a rut: hill, Deming, Rawdon, family, death by various unpleasant means. I said, "Perhaps I should dress more suitably before I meet my royal kin. So I don't offend them."
"Certainly," Rawdon told me.
After I was scrubbed and coiffed—that was the word Lady Cynthia, my newly appointed lady-in-waiting used,
coiffed
—and perfumed, I was given a beautiful gown of burgundy-colored velvet.
I almost did feel like a princess as Lady Cynthia brought me to the Great Hall.
The guards blew their fanfare, opened the doors for me to walk in, closed the doors after me.
And nobody was there.
Oops.
Apparently my royal kin didn't like to be kept waiting—even more than they didn't like me smelling of sheep. Who could have guessed?
I went out the way I had gone that first time with Kenric. No sign of the royal family in the courtyard, although one of the guards was raking the dirt. I started to go over, then realized what he was doing: covering up blood. With a sinking feeling, I remembered the peasant boy accused of poaching. Apparently by taking the time to bathe, I'd missed the opportunity to keep the guards from chopping his head off.
It was just a game, but I didn't like the turn it had taken.
"Guard!" I called the man over to me so that I wouldn't have to go any nearer.
"Princess Justine," he said.
I didn't correct him. "Where's the queen?" I asked.
"I believe she and Prince Wulfgar are in the topiary maze."
Maze.
I sighed. "I don't suppose you know the way through?"
He looked surprised that I would ask such a thing. "It would be more fun if you figured it out on your own."
"Show me," I ordered.
The hedges were boxwood, which is a smell that always makes me think of cat pee. The bushes were full, so that I couldn't see through them at all, and they were about seven feet high, which is about two feet taller than me. I was just thinking that I should have been paying closer attention to the turns, when we found ourselves in the center, an open area with a pair of stone benches, and sitting there—drinking tea—was Queen Andreanna. But the guard was mistaken: With her was her youngest son, Kenric, not Wulfgar.
"Ah," Andreanna said, "the sheep princess. I thought I smelled something bad."
"I
did
take a bath," I said.
"A bath," the queen said, "no matter how long, is not sufficient to wash off the stink of a bad birth." She waved her hand at the guard, so that her ring caught a glint of the sun. "You," she ordered him, "go."
"I'm sorry I kept you waiting," I said. "I tried to make myself presentable before appearing before you. I know this is a difficult time for you—"
"Oh, hush, you tiresome thing!" the queen commanded. "Kenric, can't you do something about her?"
"What exactly?" he asked.
"Well, I was thinking you could kill her."
Apparently there was no pleasing the woman.
"She
has
been seen here," Kenric pointed out.
"Maybe she'll have an accident," Andreanna said wistfully.
"Maybe," Kenric agreed.
"Listen," I said, "obviously you're upset by the king's decision to name me—"
"Go away," the queen ordered me. "You may speak to us at supper." She gave a dismissive wave, fluttering her fingers.
Maybe,
I thought,
I was playing too cautiously.
This time I caught her hand. "My, what a lovely ring."
Kenric grabbed my wrist even as the queen demanded, "Unhand me immediately."
"Sorry," I said. I let go; Kenric did not, and his grip was beginning to hurt. "I was just wondering if that ring was meant for me."
"It's my wedding ring, you stupid twit of a sheep girl."
"Sorry," I repeated. How could it not be the right ring? Mr. Rasmussem needed a good shaking. "Sorry."
"Just leave."
Kenric finally let go of my wrist.
"Could one of you—" I started.
The queen gave a snort of impatience.
All right, all right. I'd make my own way out of the maze.
Except I
really
should have paid more attention to the turns when I'd been with the guard.
I was sure three right turns, then a left, would bring me to a Y-shaped intersection I remembered, but it didn't Maybe three left turns, then a right? I tried backing up but realized I'd bypassed one turn, yet when I went back, I lost track of which way I'd been feeing: I thought I should be at a T intersection, but found myself in the middle of an X—and by then I had no idea where I was.
OK,
I thought.
There is a strategy to mazes.
In most mazes, if you consistently choose one direction, you eventually find your way—maybe not the quickest way, but
a
way. So, I told myself, I would choose left.
The sun was hot on my velvet gown, and the smell of boxwood was making me cranky and itchy.
Come on,
I told myself. Surely I should be out of the maze by now, or back in the center.
And then I heard a sound behind me, a single footfall. Andreanna? Kenric?...Except I had the momentary impression of an animal. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was the growl.
I didn't have a chance to turn around. Something struck me hard on the back, knocking me face first to the ground. I cried out at the pain in my palms and knees—and at the back of my neck. I felt fizzy bubbles all over my skin. "No!" I screamed. Then I heard my foster mother call, "Janine! Janine, come back to the house."
I pounded my fists on the ground. "I hate this! Hate this! Hate this!" I screamed.
Dusty licked my face to show me that she loved me.
I was going to die. I was
never
going to get past the first step of the game, and I was going to die. And this was going to be the rest of my life—this hill, and the trip with Sir Deming, and fatally ticking somebody off moments after arriving at the castle, and experiencing a death that, while not painful, was fizzy and disorienting—I would relive that whole boring, frustrating routine for whatever was left of my life.
I'll be READY to die by then,
I told myself.
But I knew that wasn't true. I didn't want to die now, and I wouldn't want to die in the few hours I had left, either. Boring was one thing. Feeling like a dissolving Alka Seltzer was another thing. But the prospect of really dying was something else entirely.
Well, then,
I told myself,
DO something.
I got out from under Dusty, who was still trying to lick my face to let me know how glad she was to see me. If I had any time to spare, I might have tried just staying here, refusing to go to the castle, where I would be surrounded by surly retainers, murderous family, and treacherous guards.
No,
I could tell Deming,
I'm not interested. Go away. Let somebody else be king. I'll just stay here with the dog and the sheep.
But I doubted the Rasmussem program would allow this. It would probably have the sheep get rabies and attack me. Or have Dusty lick me to death.
I forgot to tell Dusty to tend the sheep, but apparently she didn't need me to tell her her job. She was obviously a smart dog. She could probably make better choices in this game than I had. I started down the hill, and she stayed behind.
All right,
I thought,
I was supposed to already have gotten the ring by the time Mr. Rasmussem came to me, after the family conference.
It had to be the lack of the ring that was causing me to bomb out so quickly. When I thought about it, Rasmussem was doing me a favor: It would be worse to let me keep on playing for three days, get to the end of the game, then fail because of something I had overlooked in the first minutes of the first day. This was like—in the old games—not being able to make it to the next level.
OK,
I thought. It probably wasn't a member of the royal family who had the ring, since my three half brothers didn't appear to have any rings and the queen had only a wedding band. I doubted I was supposed to bully a widow out of her wedding band. Besides, the person who had been the friendliest and most helpful—Rawdon—didn't know anything about a ring. Still, who else had I met before Mr. Rasmussem's appearance?
I mentally retraced my steps.
And could have smacked myself on the forehead when I got to the boy accused of poaching. Of course, a normal peasant boy wouldn't have a valuable ring. But a boy who was willing to break the law by poaching might also be a thief) and there was no telling what kind of goodies a thief may have accumulated.
Exasperated that it had taken me so long to reason this out, I ran the rest of the way down the hill. I sailed through the preliminaries with my mother and Sir Deming: The king is dead? Gee, that's too bad. I've been named his heir? Well, how nice. Hang around long enough to say good-bye to Dad? I don't think so.
Deming and I once again rode to the castle in sullen silence. When I spoke to my family, it was humbly and quietly, with no attempt to defend myself against their rudeness. The queen once again ordered Abas to kill me, and Kenric once again came to my defense, in his own sentimental way, by advising against killing me now that I had made a public appearance at the castle.