Bravely(25)

“Good night, Ms. Merida,” Leezie whispered back.





BRRRRONNNNG! Brrrronnnng! Brrrronnnng!

Another bell woke them in the morning.

The door opened, a maidservant set breakfast just inside, and, just as the door shut again, an authoritative voice from behind the maidservant said, “I’ll be back shortly to take you through the day.”

“Look at all these squares,” murmured Leezie, standing at the window of their bare, bright room. Merida joined her there. The huge space they’d come through the night before looked completely different in the daylight. Unlike DunBroch’s untidy, overgrown little courtyard, this one seemed to resemble the Roman arenas Merida had read of in stories. The vast castle walls framed an enormous courtyard paved in geometric stonework. But it wasn’t the patterns in the stones Leezie was talking about—it was the people. The bright, shadeless courtyard was filled with soldiers drilling in perfectly straight lines, blocks upon blocks of men swinging arms, legs, swords. Boys practiced in smaller square formations, too, lifting weights and practicing feints in perfect unison. Merida tried to see if she could glimpse Hubert or even Colban or Gille Peter among them, but everyone looked identical from this vantage point.

There was something both thrilling and intimidating about the sight. It was exciting because it was nothing like DunBroch, reminding Merida that she was on an adventure again, but also intimidating because it reminded her of the soldiers she’d sometimes encountered on those adventures. Sometimes they were brash and boisterous, just men with swords, but other times there was a glinting intensity to them, a savage surety of purpose that Merida wasn’t sure she agreed with or trusted.

Merida asked, “Where are the women?”

Leezie peered out at the courtyard again. There was not a woman to be seen. “Maybe we’re the only ones?”

They soon found out.

At the ringing of another bell, the maidservant who’d brought breakfast returned with a woman dressed in a sharp, dark dress and sharp, dark wimple who introduced herself as Mistress mac Lagan. A handful of other young women stood behind her, quiet and demure, also dressed in sharp, dark dresses, their hair up and tidy and hidden away beneath veils. Leezie looked very rumpled in comparison and Merida suspected she did, too, despite her best efforts.

“Have you been fostered before?” Mistress mac Lagan asked, in the same authoritative voice they’d heard from the hall before.

Fostered! Even though none of the DunBroch children had been fostered, Merida was familiar with the custom. Most noble families sent at least some of their children off to neighboring families to learn new skills, sometimes for a few months, sometimes for a few years. As a child, Merida had first dreaded the idea of fosterage, then begged for the adventure of it, then dreaded the idea of it again. She’d always been torn between staying in the nest of DunBroch or borrowing someone else’s life for a little bit. She wouldn’t have considered her current journeys searches for fosterage, though. Fosterage was for children, for dependents, and Merida wanted to be an equal.

“No,” Merida said, and then, belatedly, “ma’am. My lady.”

Neither felt particularly right for either her mouth or Mistress mac Lagan’s face, but Mistress mac Lagan didn’t remark on it. Instead, she just said, “You will walk through your typical day as a foster daughter with us. You will be well taken care of; your handmaid can join the others.”

A second line of young women waited behind the first; these were dressed in matching gray dresses and white veils. Without waiting for Merida to answer, two of them stepped apart to make room for Leezie. Leezie waltzed over with her usual float and vague smile. She was wildly out of place in their orderly line, but if she noticed it, she didn’t show it.

Brrrronnnng! Brrrronnnng! Brrrronnnng!

Mistress mac Lagan said, “Girls, let’s go.”

And then Merida was plunged into life at Ardbarrach.

For the next several hours, her movements were dictated by the clockwork ringing of bells.

Three chimes: she was led through the bedchambers she’d share with the sisters and daughters of the warriors who practiced out in the courtyard.

Three chimes: they knelt in the chapel to say prayers for the warriors as blocks of uniformed clerks moved in lockstep in the background.

Three chimes: they sat in the sewing room to embroider cloaks for the warriors to wear and banners to fly above the warriors and colors for the warriors’ horses to wear.

Three chimes: they memorized war poetry in the dining hall, where they would sing or recite the lengthy ballads and poems about the warriors’ feats.

Three chimes: they took instruction on foreign languages, reason, and beautiful speaking in the library.

Three chimes: they paused to pray again in the common area, where they’d listen to visiting musicians and speakers tell tales of what was happening on foreign shores.

Three chimes!

Everywhere was order.

Three chimes!

Every person in Ardbarrach moved like a piece of a massive war machine.

Three chimes!

Every moment of every day was accounted for. It didn’t seem possible that anything was missing in this machine, but there must have been, because Mistress mac Lagan demonstrated the perfect, Merida-sized hole that she would fit into if she came there.

Three chimes! Three chimes! Three chimes!