The Four Princesses of Illyria

* Abby *

The weather was perfect the day that Father and his grand army left the castle for Padua. This seemed only to aggravate Ivy further, and I guessed she was imagining herself in armor, riding a stallion astride like a man, preparing to lead the army into battle. I noticed she seemed to be making a study of not looking at Julian.

Father made his farewells down the line formed by his five women.

Sophie was crying. As usual.

“I shall m-miss you terribly, Papa,” she sobbed.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes; the soldiers were watching, and it would have been far too adolescent a gesture.

“You know I will miss you too, sweet Sophie,” Father said to her. “Be a good girl, and help your mother and sisters.”

“I will, Papa,” she said. “I love you! I wish you wouldn’t go.” Then she flung her arms around him and I looked away, trying not to see her snot all over the front of his armor. The child had no sense whatsoever.

He stopped in front of me next, and I looked up at him. I had his eyes, but not his softness. He was too much a mix of a soldier, a poet, a diplomat, a lover. When I was grown, I would be a diplomat and tactician and not have to struggle with such contradictory ambitions.

“I wish you victory and a swift return,” I said solemnly.

He looked at me for a long moment, then he nodded and leaned down to kiss my forehead. When he pulled back I feared for a moment he might shame us both by crying, but, thankfully, the moment passed.

“I love you, Abigail,” he said, matching my tone of formality.

“I love you too, Father,” I replied, and bowed my head respectfully.

He moved on to Dinah, and I bit down hard on my tongue to repress the shameful tears that welled up of their own accord. I swallowed hard, then looked at Dinah.

Her eyes were red-rimmed but dry, and she held her hands tightly in front of her. It was commonly held that she was the most beautiful of the princesses, with a smile ready for anyone. But in my eyes, her grief made her lovelier than ever. It tightened the plumpness of her cheeks and stole the color from her face, leaving her rosy instead of ruddy.

I watched her carefully. Emotions flashed across her face, and she swallowed audibly, clearly repressing tears. She looked up at our father.

“I don’t know what to do without you, Papa,” she whispered. Her lips barely moved. It was obvious she was trying to keep us from hearing.

I wondered if he would attempt to buoy her spirits with some hackneyed, generic response, but he surprised all of us—or at least he surprised Dinah and me.

He touched her hair. “Just be you, my darling Dinah.”

She bit her bottom lip, and her dark lashes brushed against her cheeks as she closed her eyes momentarily.

“Your valor will bring you to destruction,” she said.

I was shocked. Dinah never spoke that way to our father! To the king!

“The Achaeans will set upon you in a body and kill you. It would be better for me, should I lose you, to lie dead and buried, for I shall have nothing left to comfort me when you are gone, save only sorrow.”

Ah. She was quoting to him—again. It seemed to me an odd game they played, to quote poetry to one another. It was terribly impractical, and a waste of time, to say the least.

“Have mercy upon me; stay here upon this wall; make not your child fatherless, and your wife a widow.”

It may have been folly, this game they played, but I had to admit that my sister was charming nonetheless. The only trouble was that she looked pitiable as she stood before our father, and I never wanted to be pitied.

I cringed in embarassment, hoping he would speak softly, when he answered her.

“I too have thought upon all this, but with what face should I look upon the Trojans, men or women, if I shirked battle like a coward? I cannot do so: I know nothing save to fight bravely in the forefront of the Trojan host and win renown alike for my father and myself.”

Dinah took one of his hands in both of hers, and held it to her. “Papa,” she said, and her voice cracked.

He shook his head. “Do not take these things too bitterly to heart. No one can hurry me down to Hades before my time, but if a man's hour is come, be he brave or be he coward, there is no escape for him when he has once been born.”

Poets, I thought scornfully. What did poets have to teach us?

“I love you, Papa,” she said.

“And I love you,” he replied. He moved on to Ivy, who stared straight ahead as though she couldn’t see him.

“Ivy,” he said gently.

“Goodbye.”

“You know I would take you with me if I could.”

I could practically feel my mother raising her eyebrows in disapproval.

“Of course,” Ivy responded coolly.

Father sighed. “I love you, Ivy, for the strong young woman you are.”

She didn’t respond.

I wondered why he waited. Naturally she was furious with him. I had no desire to go campaigning with him, but if he’d forbidden my visits to the senate or to his throne room, I would have acted the same way Ivy was now. He nodded, resigned, and moved on to his final goodbye.

Mother was resplendent in crimson, and I swelled with pride as I watched her bid Papa farewell. She was formal, but affectionate, having expressed her wifely worries and indulged in extended embraces the night before.

“Godspeed, husband,” she said, and kissed him on both cheeks.

“I leave my heart in your keeping,” he said to her, and, catching her hand in his, drew it to his mouth and kissed her knuckles.

Dinah and Sophie sighed on either side of me. I supposed they thought the sentiment terribly romantic. I found it absurd, and was glad when Mother corrected him.

“No, it must go with you. Your men need to follow a man with a heart full of courage, not a man who has left his heart at home with his wife.”

He grinned—grinned! In full sight of the army and the courtiers and the crowd that had turned out to see them off—and laid her hand on his cheek. Her hand lingered there for a moment, then she stepped back and smiled, clear-eyed.

I stood straighter, bursting with pride. My mother was a queen, through and through.

* Ivy *

The king took his place at the head of the army. All the grand speeches had already been made—all that remained now was for him to leave, to leave me here in the castle in the dead of winter. My father thrust his fist into the air.

“For Illyria!” he shouted.

“For Illyria!” echoed the soldiers. The sound was deafening. I shut my eyes. They were really going to leave without me.

The crowd roared with approval, and I felt like I was dying. I was nineteen, three years older than the youngest men allowed to enlist, two years older than the women. I had been trained my whole life to fight—shown since I was a toddler how to hunt, to joust, to master the art of swordplay. While Dinah disappeared into ancient Greek and Roman poetry and Abby studied the art of diplomacy, I pored over endless volumes discussing strategy, valor, necessity—a warrior’s books. I had learned from the best: from Thucydides the Greek, from Sun Tzu the Chinaman, from my father, the Illyrian—and still it was not enough. It was not enough that I had lived for this moment, when the finest young men and a few women were gathered together to ride out in the defense of our country. Still I was not permitted to go.

Not because I was a girl—but because I was a princess. My military training had been my right by birth, and now that same noble birth was going to bar me from fulfilling my destiny.

The injustice stung. I lifted my chin and looked out over the ranks as if I were bored by their grand assemblage. Inwardly, I longed to leap forward and shove the nearest one off his mount and go riding off to the north at the head of the finest army that had been assembled in Illyria in my lifetime.

I saw Julian break rank to ride past me. He inclined his head respectfully to my mother, and I swallowed to keep from spitting in his face.

“Princess Ivy,” he said carefully.

Oh, certainly he was formal now. What happened to all those hours he wasted insisting we call one another Julian and Ivy?

I turned my gaze onto him, adopting my mother’s queenly posture, lifting my chin haughtily. “Congratulations on your promotion, Lieutenant,” I said. “I am sure that you will show you have earned it on this campaign. They say it will be a long one.”

He dismounted and stood so close to me that I could smell him. He smelled of the horse he had been riding, of the metal that covered his body, of impending danger and glory. How I longed to join him. I knew he wanted me with him, and still he would not speak on my behalf.

“Ivy,” he began, his voice lower, more intimate, but my mother interrupted.

“This is hardly the time, Lieutenant,” she said in an undertone.

He looked at her. “Please, Your Majesty,” he said. “I just need…” He looked back at me.

“You need what?” my mother asked him.

His eyes met mine, and I felt a blush rising in my cheeks. He wanted to marry me, I knew. He told me as much every time we were together. I thought it was a nuisance, something that would pass. He was wonderful company when he wasn’t trying to woo me or propose marriage. I was not going to be married for a long time yet—as I had told him on countless occasions—so he was only wasting his time by filling his head with pretty notions about me as a bride.

Julian cleared his throat and looked back at my mother. “May I have your permission to bid the Princess Ivy goodbye?”

“No,” the queen replied.

Sophie let out a little gasp. Abby smirked.

“But you do have my permission to say farewell. Goodbyes are much too permanent, Lieutenant. I shall expect you to return alongside my husband. Do you understand?”

I could tell he was fighting back a grin. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Very good,” my mother said, and gestured for him to stand before me.

“Farewell, Lieutenant,” I said, hoping to hasten his departure.

“Farewell,” he said, and in an impetuous, impertinent gesture, he took my hand and kissed it. Not like a knight playing at courtly love, but like a lover who is loath to bid his beloved farewell, no matter how short the separation. He raised his eyes to mine. “Ivy.”

My name was like an embrace in his mouth, and for half an instant I believed he would sweep me up into his arms and demand we be married at once. But then he had released me and bid my sisters all a good day and fallen back into the ranks of the eager, boisterous soldiers.

Between the kiss and the murmuring of my name, he’d somehow managed to slip a ring onto my finger without my noticing. I slid it off behind my back and closed my fist around it. The cool, smooth metal pressed into my skin.

When I found him in the crowd, he was looking right at me, as though he’d known I would seek him out. I stared at him, schooling my features into an expression as cool and as impenetrable as stone.

“Think about it,” he mouthed to me.

I felt a flicker of doubt, felt my resistance waver. He must have known, for he grinned broadly, and mimicking my father’s earlier action, raised a new battle cry.

“For the Illyrian princesses!” he shouted.

The soldiers echoed his cry, and then the crowd, until their shouts overwhelmed all other noise on that cold, sunny morning. But when he looked at me, I knew what he meant.

It was for me. For me, Ivy—the princess of forbidden desires.

* Sophie *

I had never had less merry company in all my life. Even the gardeners and stable hands, who were normally so glad to see me, and practically leaped to do my bidding, didn’t look happy when I came skipping down to the gardens or to the stables.

I tidied my room one afternoon, thinking that it would please my nurse, but she didn’t even notice! And I did such a lovely job too. I worked like a servant to get my chambers so clean—like a common scullery maid! And still, nothing.

Mama was the same, only quieter. Abby was meaner. Ivy said nothing at all. Dinah was quieter, and wouldn’t sing to me as often. She said she didn’t feel like singing, but I didn’t understand how anyone can not feel like singing if they had a voice as agreeable as hers. If I could sing like her, I should have sung all day long. Then maybe the castle would not have looked so gray all the time.

And it’s not just that everything looked gray—it even felt gray. Of course I missed Papa and Julian and all the others, but their absence did not give us license to sink into the deepest of despairs! I resolved to tell this to everyone I encountered. It did not go as well as I had hoped.

“Dinah?”

“Mm.”

She was reading again. She read often, certainly, but it seemed that since Papa left she did nothing but. I warned her that she would get nasty wrinkles around her eyes, but she didn’t seem to care. My sisters baffled me at times. If I had a complexion as lovely as hers I’d take great care not to ruin it.

“Will you go out with me?”

“It’s too cold, Sophie.”

“Is not,” I protested. “It’s nice and sunny out.”

“It’s snowing.”

“Even more perfect!”

She gave another noncommittal “hm,” and turned the page in her book.

I sighed. Maybe I could try something else. A new tactic, as Ivy would say. She always thought in terms or warfare. Or Abby. She always thought in terms of strategy. Papa always said it was a good thing she wasn’t interested in fighting in the same way as Ivy, or he would have the most bloodthirsty daughter in the world. I privately agreed, and said so too. Abigail was too smart for her own good.

“Dinah?”

“Mm.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

It worked. She looked up.

“What?”

“I said, have you ever been in love?”

She stared at me for a moment, then narrowed her eyes slightly and looked back down. “No, of course not.”

I was persistent. “Why not?”

“I never had time,” she said absently.

I giggled. “Don’t be silly, Dinah. You’ve had plenty of time, not to mention opportunities.”

She frowned at me. “I have not.”

“What about Master Flynn’s son?”

“What about him?”

“He’s handsome.”

“So?”

“Do you like him?”

“Yes.”

I squealed and pulled my legs up into the chair I was sitting on, hugging them to my chest. “Ooh, do you really? I’m so happy, Dinah—he’s terribly handsome.”

“Not like that, goose. Now stop it so I can read.”

“Oh, but Dinah, think of what lovely children you would have!”

“Sophie…” Her tone turned to one of warning.

I sighed, and rested my chin on my knees. “Oh all right, so he’s not that handsome. Besides, he’s blonde. You need someone with dark hair. Yours is so lovely that I would positively wail if you had blonde children. Wouldn’t that be just terrible?”

“Tragic.”

“Dinah, be serious.”

She laughed and pushed her book away, pulling her legs up into her chair like me. Except she looked very nice when she did it, and not like a little girl. Of course, I was a little girl—everyone’s favorite little girl—so I supposed it didn’t matter much.

“You’re asking me whether or not I’ve been in love and then trying to marry me off to our tutor’s son, and you want me to be serious? Sophie. Have you looked at poor Thomas Flynn lately? Or have you forgotten how old he is?”

I frowned. “Eighteen, right? Isn’t he? A little short for eighteen, but that doesn’t change his face any.”

“He’s fourteen.” Dinah laughed again.

I wrinkled up my nose. “Oh. I was thinking of someone else, I suppose.”

She raised a brow at me. “Who?”

I hugged my legs to my chest with glee. “That dashing captain. I know he’s gone with Papa, but he’ll be back eventually, won’t he?”

“He’s thirty-seven!”

“Well, that’s not so old, is it?”

“Sophie, really. I’m not going to marry someone twenty years older than me.”

“I think he likes you,” I said, and giggled.

She fixed me with one of her sterner looks. “He’s married.”

I frowned. “He is?”

Dinah laughed. “Oh, darling, you really are an oblivious little thing, aren’t you?”

“Oh, probably,” I said, and rocked back and forth happily. I wasn’t sure what oblivious meant, exactly, but I guessed that it was good. I was everybody’s favorite, after all.

“Tell you what,” Dinah said, resting her arms on top of her knees. “When I fall in love, you’ll be the first to know. Agreed?”

“Agreed! Oh, Dinah, will you really tell me? As soon as you’re sure?”

She laughed. “Yes, sweet, as soon as I’m certain, you will be the first one to hear the news.”

I shook my head. “No, no, not when you’re certain. I don’t like that part. You’re never certain of anything, besides your old books. I want to know as soon as you think you might possibly be in love.”

“Sophie…”

“Please, Dinah?” I begged. “You’re so pretty already. I can only imagine how lovely you’ll be once you’re in love. Women in love are always so much more beautiful.”

“How would you know?” she asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

“I just do,” I said confidently. “Why do you think mother’s so beautiful? Because she’s in love with Papa of course, and the kingdom too. Just promise me you’ll tell me as soon as you think you are. Promise?”

“Oh, all right.”

“No, really promise.”

“Sophie, come on, I want to finish this.”

“No, you have to!” I dropped my legs and hopped out of my chair, coming around to Dinah’s seat. I stuck out my hand. “Promise?”

Dinah sighed, hesitated, then took my hand. “I promise.” We wove our fingers together (hers, mine, hers, mine) and then kissed the opposite sides of our hands, she on the pinkies, I on the thumbs. It had been our sisterly seal of commitment for my whole life. I wasn’t about to let her think she could get out of it now.

She pulled away, and reclaimed her smelly old book, pulling it onto her lap as she lowered her legs.

I watched her for a moment. Then, “Dinah?”

“Mm.”

“Can we go outside?”

“No, Sophie.”

I groaned, and exited the library very dramatically. Clearly it had the desired effect, since Dinah looked up after I left. (I knew because I peeked back into the room after I had slammed the door with great enthusiasm. I was a very gifted and effective performer.)

I felt satisfied that I had given Dinah something to think about. Finding something to entertain me was going to be another matter entirely.

Thank you for reading and commenting!

**

* Dinah *

I woke suddenly. Confused, I tried to separate dream from reality as I watched Ivy strip off a cloak drenched in mud, then step out of ripped trousers even dirtier than the cloak.

I remembered poring over a book with Ivy until our candle had sputtered out, then we had climbed into Ivy’s bed and talked until I fell asleep. Ivy always managed to stay awake the longest. I envied her for that.

I sat up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “Ivy…what are you doing?” My sister sometimes woke me after an early morning walk, but never in such a state of utter disarray.

“The Paduans,” Ivy muttered, looking around the room.

I pushed the blankets aside, shivered in the morning chill, and pulled them back over my legs. I, unlike Ivy, took a few minutes, sometimes hours, to fully wake in the mornings, and nothing was coming together in any sort of coherent order. “What?”

Ivy pulled the tie from her hair and began to re-braid her dark locks. “Julian and I were walking this morning—“
“Again?”

“Yes, again. But more importantly—“

“I thought you were worried about giving him the wrong impression.”

“I was, but this morning—“

“Ivy, you know he’s in love with you. If you don’t feel the same way, you shouldn’t be spending time alone with him.”

“Dinah—“

“In fact, you shouldn’t be spending time with him alone at all. You know Mother doesn’t approve, and even if Papa doesn’t comment, he doesn’t either. You should have Master Flynn chaperone. He would allow you to go where you pleased, though you would have to give up those ragged trousers and wear something proper for a change—“

“Dinah, the Paduans have invaded.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Julian and I found a messenger boy this morning. He looked half-dead, and barely managed to tell us what he’d seen.”

“Are you sure?”

Ivy nodded. “He wore the Illyrian crest. And his report…” She shook her head. “It was too authentic to be fabricated.”

I gathered a mass of blankets to my chest, hugging them tightly. I was the tallest of the four princesses, but now I felt very small and vulnerable. I stared down at the blankets, avoiding Ivy’s gaze. “Papa will leave again.”

Ivy pulled on a pair of clean, fur-lined boots. “Has he a choice?”

“His men are competent. He shouldn’t have to go.”

Ivy rose and reached for a gown she’d left hanging over the back of a chair. “He would go whether he had to or not. You know he prefers foreign to domestic affairs. Mother handles much of what he considers dull. He won’t be able to go on too many more long campaigns.”

“Good,” I said. My voice dropped. “I hate it when he leaves.”

“I wish I could go with him.”

“Ivy!”

“I do! He hasn’t taken me on a campaign since I was twelve. Then I started ‘developing’, as Mother calls it, and I haven’t been allowed to go any farther than the outskirts of the castle. I would give anything to go with him on this campaign. This isn’t a diplomatic mission. This is going to be a real war.”

I shivered—from both the cold and the fear of my sister’s soldierly ambitions. “I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.”

Ivy pulled the gown over her head and moved to where I still sat on her bed. “Lace me. It’s not as though I speak of it like it would be a relaxed jaunt to see some mountains. I want to see the places in the books you like you so much. I want to do something other than marry and bear children. I want to be a part of something great, Dinah. I want to—ugh, must you lace it so tight?”

“Tightly,” I corrected.

“Fine, tightly,” Ivy said irritably. “Please loosen it.”

I bit down on my lower lip and did as she asked. Ivy turned to face me.

“Do I pass inspection?” she asked.

I climbed out of bed and tucked an errant strand back into her loose braid. “Only if Mama doesn’t see you.”

“She won’t.”

“You should fix your hair.”

Ivy’s frown made her appear younger than her nineteen years. “I hate dressing my hair.”

“I’ll do it for you. Sit.”

“I have to get back to the throne room.”

I moved my sister firmly toward the dressing table. “If Papa saw you in the state you were in when you woke me, then you’ll want to stay clear of him for a while, and return only when you look unquestionably female. Let me braid your hair.” I pressed my toes into the back of my calf to warm them.

Ivy complied without comment, but released impatient sighs every few moments, until I finally told her to hush.

“I’m nearly finished.”

A shriek in the hallway turned our heads to the doorway, and Ivy had moved there before I could force her to sit still. It was fortunate she had not reached out to open it yet, for it came flying open at that moment as the younger half of the princesses burst into the room.

“Give it back, Abby!”

“I warned you!”

“He’s mine!”

“Then why was it in my bed?”

“He likes it there.”

“He’s about to lose his floppy head.”

“No! Dinah! Make her stop!”

Ivy and I exchanged a look before Ivy moved to close the door to her bedroom. The two younger girls were darting around Ivy’s bed. Abby, our second-to-youngest sister, clutched a stuffed giraffe by the neck, waving it tauntingly in front of Sophie, the baby of the family.

Ivy shook her head. “I don’t have time for this,” she muttered, and began pacing.

I snatched the giraffe from Abby’s fingers.

Abby turned her dark-eyed glare on me. “I warned her twice. I don’t want her freak animals in my bed.”

“They’re not freaks!” Sophie cried. “They’re part of the family!”

“No wonder they fit so well in your room.”

“Hush, Abby. Sophie, stop whining.” I handed the animal to Sophie, who held it protectively against her chest, and pressed a kiss to its nose.

The play giraffe had been given to her by a visiting African emissary the year before. It had large, black eyes with long eyelashes, and its soft insides were covered by a real giraffe pelt. That detail had of course been omitted when it was given to Sophie. She would have been inconsolable if she knew that her giraffe—christened “Edgar”—lived only because something else had died.

“Sophie, go sit on Ivy’s bed. Abby, don’t even think about it.” I raised a warning finger as Abby reached for a pillow, presumably to be used as a weapon against Sophie.

Sophie clambered onto the bed, nuzzled Edgar with her cheek, and gave a wounded little sniff. Abby rolled her eyes.

“Let me finish your hair,” I said to Ivy.

Ivy looked as though she’d rather eat one of the tapestries on her bedroom chamber walls, but she reclaimed her seat at her dressing table.

Sophie chattered while I wove Ivy’s hair into a simple bun at the base of her neck, tucking away all the errant strands. I pulled her hands away for a moment, studied the result, then slipped in a small, jeweled hair ornament.

I rested my hand on Ivy’s shoulder. “Finished.”

Ivy shifted in her seat and raised her head to look at me. Neither one of us said anything for a moment.

“Does Mother know?” I asked softly.

Ivy shook her head. “No. I’m going to tell her now.” She rose.

“What’s going on?” Abby asked. She was leaning on Ivy’s bedpost, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Nothing,” I said at the same time as Ivy, who said,

“The Paduans.”

Abby dropped her arms and stood up straighter. “What happened?”

I didn’t want her to, but Ivy explained briefly anyway. Seeing Abby’s brow furrow and Sophie’s eyes widen, I was careful to add in such reassuring comments as, “But Father will take care of it,” and “Papa and his councilors are already at work,” and “We’re well out of harm’s way here.”

“Is Papa going away?” Sophie asked. Her voice sounded rather higher than usual.

I joined her on the bed, wrapping my arms around her. “We’ll see,” I said vaguely. “You can even ask him yourself, at breakfast. All right?”

Sophie nodded and dropped Edgar on the bed, snuggling further into my embrace. I held her tightly, more for my sake than for hers.

But Papa wasn’t at breakfast. After informing Mama of the situation, Ivy had immediately returned to the throne room, only to be denied admittance. She tried bribing, threatening, begging, and even tricking the guards into letting her in, but to no avail; his Majesty had left very specific instructions.

She stormed into the gardens, where Sophie and Abby were trying to persuade me to join in with their snowball fight.

“There isn’t enough snow,” I said stubbornly. “My fingers get too cold when I have to hold for ages just to make one ball.”

“Please, Dinah?” Sophie pleaded. “Please?”

“I’ll play,” Ivy said as she approached us.

Abby frowned. “What are you doing out here? I thought you were going to join Father and the others.”

“I was.” Ivy squatted down and began to pack a snowball.

“Where’s Julian?” Abby asked.

“In the throne room,” Ivy said bitterly.

“Why aren’t you—“

“Because I’m not, all right? Are we going to play or not?”

Abby shrugged. “Fine, fine. Don’t get your knickers in a twist. Or are you wearing a gown now?”

Ivy’s snowball smashed into her arm.

Abby, Sophie, and I were squealing and running and laughing as we hurled hastily packed snowballs at one another, but Ivy’s jaw was tight, and her missiles reached their marks with a little more power than was really needed. The game was over when Sophie got dirt in her eyes.

She screamed and fell to the ground, covering her face.

I was in the middle of packing a snowball, but dropped it immediately and ran to her.

Abby glanced down at the snowball in her hand. She considered it momentarily, then shrugged and threw it at Ivy, who had been lost in her own thoughts all day.

She spun around. “Don’t touch me,” Ivy snapped.

“Sophie’s fit doesn’t mandate a standstill.”

“And your childish whims don’t excuse cheating.”

“One snowball is hardly cheating.”

“Why are you being so difficult?” The last word came out half scream, half growl. Ivy flung her half-packed snowball to the ground.

“Would you two stop it?” I cried from the ground, where I knelt beside Sophie. “Sophie, please be still. I can’t see.”

“It hurts,” Sophie wailed. “It’s hurting my eyes!” She tried to move my hands away with little, ineffective slaps. “Let me go! Stop it—it’s in my eyes!”

“Put your hands down so I can see.”

“No!”

“Sophie—“

“I want Papa!”

“Let me look at your eye.”

“No!”

The shrill scream reverberated off the wall of the castle behind them and went echoing down into the valley below. It fell beyond the garden, and rang in our ears. Other than Sophie’s sobs, the garden was quiet.

Ivy sank down onto a bench nearby. “Oh God,” she murmured. “We’re all going mad and nothing’s even been announced.”

I reached out and lowered Sophie’s hands. “Let me see, darling,” I said, as calmly as I could. “Come on. Good girl. Let me just have a quick look.”

Sophie’s hysterical weeping subsided to pathetic little sniffles as I knocked a piece of dirt from her red-rimmed eyes. She collapsed into my arms.

I was tense as I stroked Sophie’s light brown hair. “Shhh. There now…you’re all right.”

I looked up to find that the mischievous glow had disappeared from Abby’s eyes, and she now stood quietly, wide-eyed and serious. “Do you need me to send for anything?” she asked.

I shook my head, careful not to allow my surprise to show on my face. “No, she’s fine.” I glanced over at Ivy, who was flushed. She was staring at nothing, eyes unfocused.

“Let’s go indoors,” I said, and quietly herded my sisters back into the castle.

We spent the night together in my room. Ivy was silent, deep in thought, and Abby was uncharacteristically subdued, making only a few half-hearted jabs at us. Sophie didn’t say much either, except to ask me to sing, or to brush her hair, or to tuck her in more tightly.

My lullaby faded into a hum when slow, steady breathing on either side told me that Abby and Sophie were fast asleep. I laid awake until the candle across the room finally flickered out. I expected Mama or Papa—or both—to come to us, to tell us everything was all right, that all this was just a misunderstanding and everything was perfectly all right.

It was the middle of the night before the exhaustion of keeping the peace all day finally won out, and I barely felt Ivy pull the blanket over my shoulder before I fell asleep. We didn’t see either one of our parents again until the next morning at breakfast.

“Papa!” Sophie cried, and flung herself into his arms.

He caught her up and held her tightly. Her legs dangled several feet off the floor, and even though I thought Sophie was getting too old to be babied so, I half-wished I were still small enough to curl up in my father’s lap. But even thirteen-year-old Abby stood composed, so I, three years her senior, could hardly disgrace myself by letting them all know how frightened I was.

“Good morning, sweetheart.” He set Sophie back on her feet, and kissed the top of her head.

“Girls, take your seats,” Mama directed.

I bit down on my bottom lip as I watched my family sit down. Ivy’s frown had become a permanent fixture on her face in the last day, and Abby was beginning to look sullen. I searched for signs of strain on my mother’s dignified face, but saw nothing there that alerted me to further anxiousness. Papa looked tired, but nothing more. I began to relax.

The meal passed quietly. We said little, and the solemn atmosphere of the table was a contrast to the usual liveliness we enjoyed first thing each morning. None of us even commented when Mama and Papa offered polite apologies for their absence from their table the previous morning. Finally it seemed that Abby couldn’t take any more.

She pushed her plate away and looked to the head of the table. “Father, are you going to the border?”

“Abby,” I said softly. “Mother and Father will tell us what they want to, when it is a convenient time.”

“I’m tired of waiting,” Abby said peevishly. “Ivy’s done nothing but mope since yesterday morning. You have dark circles and you’re acting like you’re ready to burst into tears at any moment. That would be the perfect invitation for Sophie, of course, who’s not stopped crying and whining for a full day. Father, are you, or are you not, going away?”

Donovan sighed and pushed his chair away from the table. “I am.”

My heart sank.

Sophie started crying. “Papa, I don’t want you to leave.”

Mama reached over and took her hand. “Sophia. Enough.”

She wiped her eyes. “Do you really have to, Papa?” she asked. “Do you really, really have to go away?”

I was wondering the same thing.

He nodded. “I see no way around it.”

“When?” It was the first time Ivy had spoken all morning.

Our father regarded her with a level gaze. “Two weeks hence.”

Ivy hesitated. Then, “Take me with you.”

“Ivy!”

“Mother, I’m sorry, but I can’t bear to wait here while Father and Julian go off and take care of this issue.”

To my great relief, Papa was already shaking his head.

Ivy left her seat and knelt at his side, clasping one of his hands in both of hers. “Please, please, take me with you. I’ll do anything you ask me to. Don’t leave me behind again, Father, please—“

“Ivy, get off the floor,” Mother commanded

Father shook his head and held up a hand. “No, Charlotte, this must be dealt with.”

Ivy dropped her head and kissed his hand. “I need to go with you. Please take me. I can fight just as well as any man, whether with bow and arrow or spear or broadsword or dagger. You know I can—you have seen me do it. You need me there.”

I watched, transfixed by my sister’s boldness.

“It pains me to see you thus,” he said. “But the thought of you lying wounded, or God forbid, dead, somewhere in the North, at the hand of the Paduans, is more than I can bear. You must stay here.”

“But—“

He raised his voice to interrupt Ivy’s protests. “You must stay here and assist your mother and take care of your sisters.”

Ivy looked up into his face. I saw it as her last appeal, and for one long, horrifying moment, I thought Father might actually say yes. But then he closed his eyes and shook his head.

Ivy rose and left the room without comment, ignoring Mother’s calls for her to return.

“Let her go,” the king said wearily. “She has borne much, and will continue to do so as long as the men and I are away.”

Later, in the privacy of my room, I paced back and forth in front of my window, and wept. Papa had to change his mind. He could not go to ward off the invading Paduans; he had to stay here, and keep the family together.

I feared what would happen if he went, for it seemed that this news had torn apart my safe, comfortable world in only a few hours. I dared not imagine what would happen if those hours were to become days, weeks, months—even years.

I clasped my hands to my chest, head bowed, feet moving rapidly. “Please,” I whispered. “Please keep us all together.”

I think that this is a good story, and it intrigued me from the beginning. All together, there wasn't much I saw that needed a lot of change. But I was wondering something. That whole first part from Sophie's point of view, was that really necessary? It seemed to me that it didn't really need to be there.

Also (one of those little nitpicky things. Ignore it if you wish), in the beginning of the part from Ivy's point of view, it says

The sentry might not have ever seen the boy from his position atop the rampart, had it not been for the sergeant walking the perimeter of the castle. Or rather, the young woman walking beside the sergeant.