Free Dragonskin Slippers by Jessica Day George Page A

Seat.
    “The curfew’til the crown prince’s wedding!”
    “What?” I still didn’t follow.
    “Can I help?”
    The guard and I both turned to look at the young man who had come up while we’d been trying to understand one another. He looked to be about my age, some sixteen years or so, but was far better dressed than I in a tunic of fine grey wool and black leather breeches. He had brown eyes and brown hair with streaks of gold in it.
    “Your Highness!” The guardsman tapped his fist to his chest in salute.
    “Another one?” The question burst out of me in a squeak before I could stop it, and I stared at the young man in horror.
    The prince and the guardsman looked at me with amusement and shock, respectively. I covered my mouth with both hands, wishing I could take those two words and shove them right back into my mouth.
    “Another one?” The prince looked momentarily confused, and then he burst out laughing. “Don’t tell me you’re the maid who faced off with Amalia this afternoon? The one she claims tried to assassinate her lapdog?”
    My face turned red and I put my hands on my cheeks. “Oh, no, has the entire city heard that story?” I silently cursed the princess and my clumsy feet. “I wasn’t trying to kill her dog! I swear!”
    “Oh, this is too wonderful,” the prince said. “Did you hear that, Tobin?” He looked over his shoulder at someone.
    Out of the shadows came a large man neither I nor the guardsman (judging by his flinch of surprise) hadseen. He was huge, taller than any man I had ever met, his shaved head rising even above the prince’s, and the prince was quite tall. Blue tattoos ran up both bare arms and over his scalp, and there were fat gold rings in his ears. He opened his mouth and laughed soundlessly, looking at me with kind blue eyes.
    “This is the person who attacked the Roulaini princess?” The guard gaped at me. “I shall take her into custody at once!” He reached towards me.
    I skipped out of the way. “I didn’t attack her! She was only …” I couldn’t say that she was being mean, or foolish; she was a princess, after all. “It was a misunderstanding.”
    “Yes, yes,” the prince said, waving his hand. “My brother was quite satisfied that no harm was meant.”
    Suddenly, bells began chiming all across the city, making me jump. Both the prince and the guardsman looked up at the sky, checking the position of the moons, I guessed. The tattooed man, Tobin, continued to simply stand and watch.
    “It’s curfew, Your Highness,” the guard said, a trifle unnecessarily, in my opinion.
    “Indeed it is,” the prince said lightly. “So I had best escort this young lady to her lodgings. Carry on there, guardsman.” And with that, the prince took my elbow and steered me away.
    I was too numb to protest. I had not thought it possible to be more tired or frightened or lonely than I had been as I had made my weary way along the King’s Road from Carlieff. But I was wrong: right this moment I wasso exhausted and terrified and homesick that it was all I could do to stay on my feet. “I don’t have any lodgings,” I mumbled.
    “Yes, I heard. And you’re trying to find work in the cloth-workers’ district?”
    I could only nod and blush; he had heard me pleading with the guard. I was embarrassed, though I wasn’t entirely sure why.
    “I’ll take you there, or near there. I know someone who has an inn just a few streets over.”
    “Why is there a curfew?” It was the only one of the many questions buzzing around in my head that I could think to ask just now.
    He looked at me, seeming surprised. “You haven’t heard? You must be from far away, then.”
    I didn’t say anything, so he went on.
    “It’s because of Amalia and Miles getting married. A lot of people don’t like the idea of him marrying a foreigner, especially one from Roulain.” A shrug. “Old prejudices run deep. There have been protests, and even attacks. Mostly little things: mud