The World Above Read online

  “I know my own name,” Robin’s father barked in an irritated voice. “You don’t have to keep spouting it at me.”

  “Answer the question,” I insisted. “Do you love your son?”

  “It’s ridiculous,” Duke Guy sputtered. “You throw a good question away. Ask a different one.”

  “And I say I will not,” I said. “I like this question just fine. But I am beginning to think you do not wish to answer it. Is it because you know you cannot lie?”

  “Of course I love him,” Guy de Trabant snapped. “Why else would I place a bounty on his head?”

  “He speaks the truth,” the harp sang out once more.

  The final leap of faith was before me now. Either it would carry Robin, Jack, and me to safety, or we would lose it all.

  “If I can propose a way to give you back your son, a way to restore your honor in his eyes, will you take whatever bargain I offer?”

  This time the answer came without hesitation.

  “Yes,” said Robin’s father.

  “Truth. He speaks the truth,” the harp sent up its call.

  “You have had your three questions,” Guy de Trabant said. “Now answer one of mine: What can you possibly have to offer that I will want to accept?”

  “Peace,” I replied. “Peace for your heart and prosperity for your realm. Let your kingdom truly be united with that of Duke Roland’s. You took his lands by bloodshed, by betrayal, and by stealth. You won it all, but still you did not win your heart’s desire. But it is not too late. You can still make amends.”

  “How?” Guy de Trabant asked, and in his voice I heard the torment of hope. “How can this be done?”

  “Marry your son to Duke Roland’s heir. Unite the two kingdoms not through deceit and bloodshed, but through love and honor. Join the two families together; earn the respect of your people; win back the love of your son.”

  “Your words are fine, but they are nonsense!” Duke Guy exclaimed. He shot a glance in Jack’s direction. “I can hardly marry Duke Roland’s heir to my son.”

  “As a matter of fact, you can,” Jack spoke up. “Gen is the true heir. She’s five minutes older than I am.”

  A curious expression swept over the duke’s face. Despair and hope seemed to fight for possession of it. Then I saw his shoulders sag.

  We have won, I thought.

  “And you, my son,” Guy de Trabant asked. “What say you to this plan?”

  I held my breath. I had not told Robin what I intended to propose. I had said only that I would claim the bounty and use the three questions to secure our release.

  “I will accept it,” Robin said without hesitation. But I could not read his voice. Did he accept the terms because there was no other choice? Or because in his heart it was what he wanted for himself?

  “Then let it be so,” Duke Guy said. He raised his arms. “Hear me now, all of you,” he cried. “I hereby renounce my crown in favor of my son and Duke Roland’s daughter. May their union bring what I desired but could not achieve: prosperity, harmony, and joy.”

  The crowd began to cheer with a huge upswell of elation. Duke Guy lowered his arms.

  “I assume you will make some provision for me,” he said with a tired smile. “Come to the castle, all of you, and we will determine what must be done.” He turned to the soldiers, who stood, somewhat uncertainly now, around Jack. “Release Duke Roland’s son.”

  The moment Jack’s bonds were cut, he leaped from the platform to catch me in his arms.

  “So, Gen,” he whispered, as he held me close. “It looks to me as if you’ve had an adventure after all.”

  “I’ve had all the adventure that I care to,” I said as I hugged him in return. “And it’s still all your fault.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  In the end, it was simple. Duke Guy accepted one of the remaining magic beans and agreed to go into exile in the World Below.

  The day following the archery contest, Robin and his father set out early, to a place of Duke Guy’s choosing. I did not know where it was. But there, the man who had been responsible for my mother’s retreat from the World Above threw a magic bean over his left shoulder. Father and son remained together throughout the morning. The top of the beanstalk appeared in the World Above just as the sun was at its highest point in the sky.

  The two waited until the beanstalk was tall enough and sturdy enough to take Duke Guy’s weight. Then, like my mother before him, Robin’s father swung himself onto the beanstalk and disappeared from view, on his way to an uncertain future in the World Below.

  “It’s almost as if he was relieved,” Robin said, late that afternoon. We were walking through the Greenwood once more, on our way to the Boundary Oak. Making this pilgrimage had been my idea, but Robin had agreed to the expedition at once.

  Robin and I had not seen much of each other since our victory. He had spent much of his time with his father in private, or conferring with Steel and his father’s councillors. Robin was Robin no longer. He was Duke Robert de Trabant now.

  “My refusal to live life on his terms changed my father, I think,” Robin continued slowly, as if he was still sorting the whole thing out. “When you posed your questions, he could not deny that you were right: He had not achieved his heart’s desire. He’d done just the opposite. He’d killed the man he loved like a father; he’d alienated his only son. And then, when I saved his life . . .”

  Robin shook his head, as if he still couldn’t quite believe all that had transpired.

  “How did you know? How did you know what to ask? How did you know my father better than I did myself?”

  “I knew you, or at least I hoped I did,” I answered simply, though I felt my legs quiver, as if I were stepping out onto uneven ground. “I saw that you loved your father. I simply gambled that the opposite was true, that he loved you as well. That the bounty on your head was more than just a punishment. It was a way to bring you back to him.”

  I would do almost anything to bring you back, if I believed that I had lost you, I thought.

  “Well,” Robin said. “It’s clear that you were right, for here we are. Though I must say, I’m not quite sure I feel ready to rule a kingdom.”

  “Surely not all of your father’s ministers are corrupt,” I said.

  “Some, but not all,” Robin agreed.

  “And you still have Steel. I’m so sorry to have caused him pain. Sorry there was no way to explain what I intended to do ahead of time. But I didn’t conceive the plan until you and I were at the Boundary Oak, and by then, Steel had already departed. How long do you think it will take before he fully forgives me?”

  “Not as long as it takes him to forgive himself for having doubted you.”

  “I owe you an apology as well,” I continued, my words coming out in a rush. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the full extent of my plan ahead of time. I knew what I hoped, but even I couldn’t be entirely sure of how things would turn out. If your father had answered the first two questions any other way . . .”

  “Are you trying to say you do not wish to marry me?” Robin asked quietly.

  “No, of course not. I’m trying to say you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I stumbled on. “You could just be duke all on your own. The people will follow you. They love you, Robin.”

  “But you don’t. Is that what you’re trying to say?”

  “Stop putting words in my mouth! I haven’t said that at all.”

  “So you do love me, then,” Robin said.

  “Don’t be silly, of course I do,” I said. “I just—”

  Robin turned then and pulled me into his arms. “Gen des Jardins,” he said, “be quiet. Do you want to marry me or not?”

  “Robert de Trabant, make up your mind. I can’t be quiet and answer your question all at the same time.”

  “Yes, you can,” Robin said. And then he put his lips on mine.

  Jack had said I’d had quite an adventure, and he’d been right. But I can tell you that the first
kiss that Robin and I shared was the biggest adventure of all. For it was a promise of the future that lay before us, all the adventures that were still to come.

  “That’ll teach you to call me silly,” Robin murmured against my hair when the kiss was over. “And for the record, I’m not. You are. Of course I want to marry you, you impossible girl from the World Below. I want to marry you because I love you with all my heart. I think I may have loved you from the moment you fell off that sorry excuse for a horse.”

  “So that’s it, then,” I said. “This is happily ever after?”

  “This is it,” Robin answered. “Today and all our days to come. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to see the Boundary Oak.”

  Hand in hand, we approached the rise.

  “Look!” I cried. “Oh, look, Robin!”

  The Boundary Oak was no more. Overnight the great tree had split in two. The two halves had toppled and lay in opposite directions on the ground. But from the center a sapling had sprouted. Its green leaves shimmered in the late-afternoon light. Autumn was not usually a time of year for new things to grow. Still, there was something magical about this little tree.

  “Even the oak knows it is a new beginning,” I said softly.

  “Yes,” Robin agreed. “And the tree no longer marks a boundary, for now our two lands are truly one. Wherever he is, I hope my father makes as good a new beginning as this.”

  “And so do I.”

  We camped beside the young tree that night, one last night spent under the stars. Then, in the morning, we returned to the de Trabant castle and our own new beginning. The happily ever after of one day, and then the next, through all the days of our lives.

  EPILOGUE

  A good plan is like a well-wrapped present. Self-contained, even if it doesn’t always get tied with a pretty bow. Still, part of being self-contained is having no loose ends. And even though Robin and I ended up together, which was a lovely conclusion to my adventure, I have to admit that the story as I’ve just told it does leave a few things out.

  Take my mother, for instance. Of course she did not remain in the World Below. As soon as Robin and I had settled things between us, and Jack and Shannon had done the same, Jack tossed his magic bean over his shoulder and returned to the World Below.

  Eager to see the place for herself, Shannon clambered down right after him, a choice that made me love her all the more. One week later, first the top of Jack’s head, then the top of Shannon’s, and finally the top of my mother’s head appeared. After sixteen years, Celine Marchand was finally home. She rode to Robin’s castle perched on Verité’s broad, swayed back, looking every inch the duchess that she was.

  Though Robin and I were both on hand to greet her, it was Steel who helped my mother to dismount, going down on one knee before her as soon as both of her feet were firmly on the ground.

  “My lady,” he said. “I don’t expect you to remember me, but . . .”

  “But I do know you,” my mother answered, wonder in her tone. “You are the seneschal’s son . . . Gerard. My husband loved you well.”

  Steel looked up into my mother’s face, the tears plain in his eyes. “As I loved him,” he replied. “It would be my very great honor to serve you, my lady, in whatever capacity you care to name.”

  “Now wait just a minute,” Robin protested.

  And suddenly all of us were laughing. Steel got to his feet. My mother gave him her hand.

  “Let me think on the matter,” she said. “I would hate to alienate the new duke by stealing away the friend he needs the most.”

  My mother did think about it, and apparently doing this required that she spend large amounts of time in Steel’s company. A week after the double wedding that united Jack and Shannon, and Robin and me, Mama and Steel departed together for the castle that had once been my mother’s home. Her adventure, her new life, doesn’t have a happily ever after just quite yet, but even I can see the path that it might take to her door.

  And what of Sean? He makes his home in the Greenwood, by the riverbank where Shannon and I slept our first night in the forest, keeping his eye on the top of that last beanstalk. That is where Jack threw his last bean, the one that brought Mama back to the World Above. But with Mama, Jack, and Shannon all climbing up together, there was no one in the World Below to chop down the beanstalk.

  Someday, perhaps, another girl seeking adventure will find it. She, too, will climb up a magic beanstalk to discover what lies above.

  And if she doesn’t, there’s still one magic bean left. Robin and I keep it right were Mama did, in a white sugar bowl decorated with pale pink roses. She gave it to us as a wedding present, along with the portrait of her and my father. The painting now hangs in our own great hall. The sugar bowl sits on my dressing table, its contents safe and sound. The magic bean waits, patiently, for the next adventure to come along.

  PROLOGUE

  If You Would Know

  A story is alive, as you and I are.

  It is rounded by muscle and sinew. Rushed with blood. Layered with skin, both rough and smooth. At its core lies soft marrow of hard, white bone. A story beats with the heart of every person who has ever strained ears to listen. on the breath of the storyteller, it soars. Until its images and deeds become so real you can them in the air, shimmering like oases on the horizon line.

  A story can fly like a bee, so straight and swift you catch only the hum of its passing. Or move so slowly it seems motionless, curled in upon itself like a snake in the sun. It can vanish like smoke before the wind. Linger like perfume in the nose. Change with every telling, yet always remain the same.

  I am a storyteller, like my mother before me and hers before her. These things I know.

  Yet, in spite of all this, I have told no story for almost more years than I care to remember. Perhaps that is why I have the need to tell one now.

  Not just any story. My story. The tale of a girl named Shahrazad.

  You sit up a little straighter in your chair. “But wait!” I hear you cry. “I have no need to hear, to read, this story. I have heard it many times before.”

  And this may be true, I must admit. For my story is not a new one. It is old, even us I am new old.

  Though you cannot see me (not quite yet, for you have not yet truly decided to enter the life of this story), I smile. I take no offense at your objection. I can be patient, as anyone who knows even the smallest portion of my tale must know.

  I watch, as your hand hovers in midair above the page. Will you go forward, or back? Turn the page, or close the cover?

  There is a pause.

  Then from across the space that separates us. I see the change come over you. Your hand, so still and steady just a moment ago, now trembles in a slight movement toward the next page. . . .

  I smile again, for I know that you are mine now.

  Or, to be more precise, you are the story’s.

  For I recognize the thing that has happened: You have felt the tantalizing brush of surprise. And, close upon its heels, so swift nothing on earth could have prevented its coming, anticipation.

  This tale, which you thought so long asleep as to be incapable of offering anything new, has given an unexpected stretch, reached out, and caught you in its arms. Even as your mind thought to refuse, your heart reached back, already surrendering to the story’s ancient spell.

  Can you see me now? Not as I am, but at I was?

  A young woman of seventeen years. Straight and slim, my hair and eyes as black as the ebony wood chest that was the only possession my mother brought with her when she married my father. My skin, the color of rich, sweet honey. Others who have told my tale have said that I was beautiful. But I can see with no eyes but my own, and so I am no judge.

  Are you ready to hear my greatest secret? The one that I have never spoken? You know only a small part of my story. What I am about to relate has never before been told.

  I see you set the book down into your lap with a thunk. “But how can this be?�
�� you ask. All have heard of the storyteller so gifted with words that she told tales for one thousand and one nights in a row. With her gift, her voice alone, she saved her own life and that of countless others. Through the years, this story has been handed down, with never a hint at anything left out. How, then, can what I claim be true? How can there be anything more?

  Listen now. Listen truly. Fall under my storyteller’s spell. Did I not say that a story could change in the telling yet remain the same in its innermost soul?

  Did you truly believe that what you had been told was all there was to know?

  Did you ever stop to wonder how the spirit of a man, once a wise and benevolent king, could so lose its way as to plan to make a maiden a bride at night and take her life the very next morning? Did you ever wonder how such a spirit, gone so far astray, could find its way into the light once more?

  Was it truly done with words alone?

  Or could it be that there was something more?

  Something kept long hidden. Held back, untold. A story within a story. Not just the trunk and limbs, which have been told countless times, but something new. Something only I can tell you.

  Forget all that you think you know about me. Remember that what you have heard was always told by others. You have never heard me tell my own tale before. No one has, for I have never told it. I will tell it to you now.

  Listen to my name as I send it across the years. Do you not hear its power? The way the very syllables are hard and soft all at once, even as I was? They illuminate and darken. Reveal and conceal.

  Whisper it now, and my story begins.

  Shahrazad. Shahrazad. Shahrazad.

  CHAPTER ONE

  How the Story Begins

  Once, in days so long past even the graybeards among you remember them only in stories, there lived a king who had two sons. Their names were Shahrayar and Shazaman.

  Now, this king was a wise man. Where other rulers raised up their sons in jealousy and anger, keeping themselves strong by causing those around them to be weak, this king streangthened himself by making those around him strong, He raised up his sons in harmony and love. And so, at his passing, his kingdom reaped not the whirlwind, but a great reward. For the princes did not quarrel over their father’s earthly goods. Instead, Shahrayar, the eldest, said to his brother, Shazaman, “Hear my words, O Shazaman! You are my brother, and I love you well. Though I am oldest and could, by law, rule all, instead I will make a differnt choice. Hear now what I propose: