Excerpt:

It was winter when the king died. It had been a long, cold winter but the king was still young and healthy. No one expected him to catch a chill and develop pneumonia. He was dead a week later. His younger son sobbed wildly; his elder son walked about the palace white faced and tight lipped. The people mourned him extravagantly. He was buried a few days later and soon afterwards his elder son was crowned in the grand and ancient coronation ceremony. His younger son carried his brother’s train in the procession and drank a great deal at the reception afterwards. He had to be put to bed when he was discovered snoring on the hearth rug early the following morning.

This much I learned from the traders who came through the mountain pass. Of course, it all came in bits and pieces, not all at once as I have told you. And a great deal was left unsaid. The old king’s elder son was responsible, grave, and kind. The younger son was unstable, volatile, frequently drunk, and a womanizer. It was the younger son that was greatly loved in the capital. A month into the new king’s reign there were rumors of plots to depose him and set his brother on the throne. This fact I did not find out until much later, after almost all of the events in this story had already occurred.

It would have been spring already in the lowlands around the palace when the messengers arrived here. Of course, spring comes late to the mountains. We still were huddled around fires and draped in shawls. The messengers had clearly been unprepared for the cold and the high elevations. We had to pour brandy down their throats and wrap them in our extra blankets before we could get a word out of them. When they were able to speak they informed us that the king wished to make a tour of the country. He would be arriving here, in Windham, in a few short weeks. After they finished speaking there was a moment of silence, everything so still that we could hear the creaking of the building in the cold. “Er,” my uncle said. “Well.” And then he paused, thinking of all the repairs that had been put off again and again. There was the room that had no ceiling, the store cellar that had been infested with mold three years ago, the staircase that had come unmoored from the wall. There was no money to fix any of it. But how could he refuse the king? It was impossible.

Despite our invitation to stay, the messengers decided that it would be best to return immediately to the city. They handed my uncle a letter from the king’s seneschal and bowed themselves out of the room. As they left we all distinctly heard one say to the other, “Dreary, drafty place. Would not care to live here myself.”

Uncle snorted. Though he cannot procure the money to fix the place, he is really very proud of it and of our family’s heritage. Anyone who casts aspersions on it is likely to get the full blast of his wrath. The messengers were too far away for him to yell at so he contented himself with glaring at them darkly. Then he sighed and the fight went out of him.

“Oh, hang it,” he said glumly. “I supposed this means meeting with the whole lot. I was hoping to go a few weeks without sitting through those meetings. But I am sure the king will want to see all the estates when he’s here. I will have to warn the others.” He looked around for Berton, who has been our butler since he was born, I think. Just now he was hovering about in the background, looking as miserable and cross as the rest of us felt. “Oh, Berton, there you are,” my uncle said. “Be a good fellow and send someone to tell the other lords that they’re wanted here for a meeting. Immediately. And then warn cook. They’ll all want tea or something when they get here.”

For the next few hours, he wandered irritably about the House, glaring at the holes in the tapestries and muttering at the stains on the walls. We tried to stay out of his way but he expected us all to be on hand to greet the other lords when they arrived, which made it difficult. Mostly we sat around in the entrance hall and studiously did embroidery. As a matter of fact, as soon as she had the chance, my aunt sent Tora around to pull down all the tapestries so we could mend them. “It will use up all of our thread,” she remarked, “and goodness knows what We will use to mend our clothes, but it must be done. We will manage somehow, girls. I just do not quite know how.” So we stitched diligently on scenes from our great past when, evidently, our ancestors were able to slay boars and dragons single handed. Stefa and I looked at each other and telegraphed the thought that we must be very degenerate. That is one of the things I love about Stefa. Our minds are so similar that we sometimes need no words at all. Not that I am insinuating that either of us are actually telepathic. It is only that when you live with someone for so long and grow up together as we did, your minds jump to the same conclusions if there are any similarities between them to begin with.

Eventually they began arriving and, as my uncle predicted, they were all snowy and cold and stamping and demanding hot tea, preferably with a good dollop of brandy involved. Lord Hansbury had brought his heir with him which I was glad to see because Tam Hansbury and I are good friends and I had not seen him since the snows began. Several years before I had been quite completely, ardently, and hopelessly in love with him but by this time common sense had prevailed and pointed out that to him I would never be anything but a sister. Also, he was completely, ardently, and possibly hopefully in love with Stefa. He came over at once, red checked and blowing, to greet us. Stefa first, of course, but me next. I was quite pleased until he pinched my cheek. It is quite true that we are on familiar terms, not to say filial terms, and it is also true that I have never attained Stefa’s height. But that is no reason to go about pinching my cheek as if I was ten and he was my great uncle who wanted to give me a sweetie. I glared.

“Are you quite done?” I enquired. I would like to say that I inquired frostily, but I have a strong suspicion that I merely sounded like I had a cold in the head.

“Not remotely,” he replied and grinned at me. That’s Tam for you. You cannot help forgiving him. At least, I have never been able to, even when he burned the Dorson’s barn down and blamed me just because I was there. Then he saw that Stefa had gone on ahead and hurried to catch up with her. I sighed a little. Maybe common sense had not entirely prevailed.

There were five Mountain Lords. My uncle, Lord Windham, Tam’s uncle, Lord Hansbury, Lord Gartham, Lord Norsbury, and Lord Cernham. Except for Lord Norsbury, they were all old. Lord Norsbury was quite young and dashing. We girls were not allowed to know him privately and all the Ladies in the area kept a close eye on us when he was around. To tell the truth, most of us liked Tam better. Lord Norsbury certainly had fascinating stories which he would tell at the drop of a hat, but he did not care a silver sixpence for the new wheat or the receipt for chocolate blancmange we had recently acquired. I do not know that Tam exactly did either, but he did care for us and so he listened patiently to our concerns and then told us all about the horse he was trying to break or the fighter from three towns over that he thought had a shot at the estate championships.

The other lords were certainly middle aged and Lord Cernham was downright elderly. I am not saying this with the callow certainty of youth either; he was ninety three and very chipper. When the news of the king’s death reached him, he dried a tear and then said, “I always told the silly chuckle head to drink more wine.” He claimed that a life of doing exactly as he pleased had preserved him thus far and he did not intend to abandon the plan now. He had been married three times and was the despair of his sons who, oddly enough, had all turned out to be very respectable and sober individuals. He retorted by despairing of them and telling them they would all go to early graves if they did not liven up a bit. Secretly I think they were proud of their father but they also knew they could never hope to duplicate his wildness and didn’t try.

I was not at the meeting that day, but Tam told me all about it later. When they had gathered in the little parlor (little being a somewhat figurative term here—the room had been built in the days of Windham prosperity) and consumed a great deal of mulled wine and tea, they got down to business. Uncle revealed the whole affair and voiced his immediate concern. “Where the devil are we to put him?” he asked. “I would be glad to, but goodness knows this House is falling down around our ears. But then, I do not imagine most of the rest of you are much better off.” Here he stopped, coughed significantly, and looked hard at Lord Norsbury, who always had mysterious sources of income. Lord Norsbury raised his eyebrows.

“Norsbury House is in better repair than Windham House,” he remarked calmly, “but it can hardly hold so many guests as would arrive. And I imagine some of the court lords and ladies who will be coming would be indignant at the thought of being separated from the rest. Or even worse, suffering separation from their servants.”

There was another silence after he finished this speech. Lord Hansbury cleared his throat. “Lords and ladies,” he said, his voice trailing off a little at the end of his sentence.

“Oh, double blast,” my uncle said. “How many of them, do you suppose?”

Lord Norsbury shrugged. “I haven’t the faintest idea. Is that a letter there? It might give more details.”

My uncle looked down at the letter in his hand. “So it might.” He opened it and read it through. Then he laughed grimly. “The king is arriving with a small retinue of twenty five attendants and fifteen ladies. Also, their personal servants and thirty of his own household servants.”

“Thirty?” Lord Gartham said. “I have only the three.” He blinked several times, apparently trying to imagine what such a life of luxury would look like.

“Thirty?” Lord Hansbury said. “Where would any of them put them all?”

“Thirty’s light traveling for a king,” Lord Cernham pointed out. “I suppose he thinks he’s doing us a favor.”

They all sat and thought for a minute. Then, according to Tam, they heaved a collected sigh. “Well, nothing for it,” said my uncle.

“We will all contribute something to the expenses for the repairs on the House,” Lord Hansbury added and looked hard at Lord Norsbury.

“Oh certainly,” he replied. “Windham House is, after all, the oldest of our Houses and with a few minor repairs here and there will not disgrace any of us.”

“Well, I hope not,” my uncle said and sighed again.

“I suppose that We will have to give some parties. Balls. That sort of thing,” Lord Gartham pointed out. “The king would expect it, I am sure.”

Lord Cernham snorted. “This king? I don't doubt he’d rather tramp all over the mountains and look for rare flowers. Reminds me of my sons. All the same, can't have people suggesting that we cannot put on as good a party as the next lot. Better have something of the sort.”

“Well, we needn’t decide that today,” Lord Norsbury pointed out hastily. His nose was getting cold and he foresaw a great deal of bickering if they got started on the subject of party arrangements. The others looked at him and thought black thoughts about the degeneration of young people but agreed to adjourn the meeting for the moment.

Meanwhile, I was sitting on my bed, thinking furiously. Aunt Gena had let us all go about our business as soon as the men had safely embarked on their meeting. I was in my favorite pose, my knees tucked up close to me, my arms wrapped around them. I was just considering going in search of Stefa when I heard a knock on the door and she came in. She looked at me and groaned.

“Yes.” I said. “I have just been thinking the same.”

“I mean, really Arne. We’ve been getting along somehow for so long that it wasn’t until today that I realized just how bad the situation had become. Do you realize,” she added, sitting on my bed and staring bleakly at the opposite wall, “that I have not one pair of socks that is not darned. Prominently darned. And while I hardly expect anyone to be looking at my socks, it is indicative.”

“I do not think I have had a new dress in three years,” I remarked gloomily. “And I am hard on my clothes.”

“In the general course of things it doesn’t matter. No one sees us but Tam and Lord Norsbury. Tam is a dear, of course, but one cannot imagine marrying him and Lord Norsbury…well he’s quite fascinating. But I can only take so much fascination and I reached my limit long ago.”

I nodded gloomily. “Well, you are the beauty of the family,” I pointed out. “If anyone is going to rise above dire circumstances and shine, it will be you.” She laughed.

“Don't be silly Arne. Compared to the court ladies I am not a beauty at all. And even if I were, the sight of anyone in a grey dress with a hole in the bottoms where the moths have got at it and a stain down the front where a friend spilled coffee would not inspire confidence or a sudden conviction of overwhelming beauty.”

“It's not the men I am worrying about as much,” I said. “It is the ladies. All of them in their glorious array, visibly thinking about our backward ways.”

Stefa groaned horribly and flung herself backwards on my bed. “You have spiders, dear,” she remarked, looking at the ceiling.

“I know.” Secretly I rather liked them. Certainly I didn’t want to kill them. But Stefa has a horror of spiders and would never understand this attitude.

“Spiders aren’t the point anyway. The point is, I do not know what we are going to do about our clothes.”

I lay on my back too and we stared up at the spiders for a long time, trying to think of something. We were still like that when Aunt Gena came in. She looked at us and sighed. “I think you look about the way I feel.” She sat down in my one chair and scratched her nose. This is something she often does when in a meditative mood. I find it endearing but Stefa says it drives her batty.

“It's the clothes,” Stefa explained from the bed. “We simply cannot think how to find, make, or steal anything that approaches decency without more time and money than it is possible to get.”

“I hadn’t even thought of that. I've been worrying about food. They’re not going to bring it with them, and where are we going to get enough to feed them all? In early spring? The snow will hardly be melted by then, and It is not as if we’ve mountains of food anyway.”

This was true. We usually made it through the winter with the loss of a few pounds but, as I have already said, this had been a long, cold winter. We were already feeling the pinch and now we looked at each other wildly, trying to imagine feeding the king and whatever court fixtures he brought with him on sprouting potatoes and slightly rotted parsnips.

A very dismal silence reigned.

Tam and his uncle stayed to dinner. We had parsnips, boiled beef, and almost the last of our butter. We tried to be as riotous as possible, but somehow our usual inanities fell flat. Usually Tam, Stefa, and I could count on amusing our relations and making them thankful to be old and sad that they weren’t young. But that night a smile here and there was all we got out of them. As Tam and Lord Hansbury said good night Tam whispered to me, “That was even more exhausting than usual.” He grimaced at me and gave Stefa his best bow. I know it was his best bow because once I caught him practicing. I laughed at him until he threatened to throw me in a nearby stream.

That night, lying in my bed, curling my cold toes around the warm brick at the bottom, I thought about what the king’s visit meant for all of us. Mostly a lot of fuss and bother, I told myself firmly. But there was a part of me that kept poking its head in and saying, “Oh yes, a lot of fuss and bother. And adventure and new people. You never know what might happen when strangers come to visit.” I rolled over and told that part of me to be quiet. It snorted and sat down to stay. All night long I tossed and turned. I might have done better if I had been able to get up and read for a bit, but I knew that my feet would be freezing in five minutes and after I set my bed curtains on fire when I was twelve my aunt had strictly forbad me reading in bed.

In general I am a fairly plodding sort of person. But somewhere in my makeup
there is a streak of wander lust. Sometimes I look at the mountains, their peaks so clear and crisp against the sky, and want so much to leave everything behind and see what is on the other side. In such moments I generally find it useful to sit myself firmly down and remind myself of all the people who are counting on me. Stefa, for instance. Aunt and Uncle, to some extent. Tam (without me his socks would be one large hole). Tora and Benton. Although these reminders never make my wanderlust disappear, they do quiet it so that I do not sudden disappear one day without a word of good bye to anyone.