Free The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley Page A

that her
    movements were deft and exact with long practice even while her brain tended to
    go off on its own and contemplate her next meeting of swords with Tor, or the
    nagging Teka was sure to begin within the next day or two for her to darn her
    stockings since they all had holes in them and lately she had perforce always to
    wear boots when she attended the court in the great hall so that the holes
    wouldn’t show. She was thinking that the green stockings probably had the
    smallest and most mendable holes, and she had to have dinner in the hall tonight.
    Since she’d turned eighteen she’d been expected to take part in the dancing
    occasionally, and there was sure to be dancing tonight since the dinner was in
    honor of Thorped and his son, who were here from the south; one of Thorped’s
    daughters was one of Galanna’s ladies. It was difficult dancing in boots and she
    needed all the help she could get. At this point she realized that her arm was

    getting tired—and that the bit of yellow-slick wood was peacefully ignoring the
    fire that burned around it, and that the iron tongs were getting hot in her hand.
    She jumped, and knocked over the candlestick and dropped the hot tongs, and
    the greasy bit of wood skittered over the dusty, woodchip-littered floor, picking
    up shreds and shavings till it looked like a new sort of pomander. She had set up
    shop in a deserted stone shed near Talat’s pasture that had once held kindling
    and things like old axe handles and sticks of wood that might make new axe
    handles, and she had never gotten around to sweeping the floor. Her hands were
    shaking so badly that she dropped the candle again when she tried to pick it up,
    and missed when she went to stamp out the thread of smoke that rose from the
    floor where the candle had fallen.
    She checked her notes to be sure she could read what she had written about
    the proportions of this particular attempt; then blew out the candle and went off
    in a daze to darn stockings.
    Teka asked her twice, sharply, what was the matter with her, as she tried to
    help her dress for the court dinner. Aerin’s darns were worse than usual—which
    was saying a good deal, and Teka had said even more when she saw them, but as
    much out of worry for her sol’s extraordinary vagueness as from straightforward
    exasperation at yet another simply homely task done ill. Usually, big court dinners
    made Aerin clumsy and rather desperately here-and-now. Teka finally tied
    ribbons around both of Aerin’s ankles to hide the miserable lumps of mending
    and was even more appalled when Aerin did not object. Ankle ribbons were all
    the fashion among the higher-born young ladies this year; when this first became
    apparent Teka had had a difficult time convincing Aerin not to lengthen all her
    skirts eight inches, that they might drag on the floor and render all questions of
    ankle adornment academic; and Teka was fairly sure the only reason she’d won
    the argument was that Aerin couldn’t face the thought of all the sewing such a
    project would entail.
    Teka hung a tassel at the front of one ankle, to fall gracefully over the high arch
    of Aerin’s long foot (not that it would stay there; Galanna and the others had
    developed a coy little hitch and skip to their walk, to make their tassels fall
    forward as they should), and pinned a small silver brooch bearing the royal crest
    on the other, and Aerin didn’t even fidget. She was dreamily staring into space;
    she was even wearing a slight smile. Could she have fallen in love? Teka
    wondered. Who? Thorped’s son—what was his name? Surely not. He was half a
    head shorter than she and wispy.

    Teka sighed and stood up. “Aerin—are you sure you’re not ill?” she said.
    Aerin came back to herself with a visible jerk and said, “Dear Teka, I’m fine.
    Truly I am.” Then she looked down with a scowl and wiggled her ankles. “Ugh,”
    “They hide your—dare I call them—darns,” Teka said