Over My Rainbow

Chapter 6

IN THE weeks to come, not many princes bothered me. As Nathan hinted, Andrew left a short while after the incident. Henrie's stay lasted three weeks, a long time for him before he took his leave. At that time, only three suitors remained at the castles, all of which I had yet to meet. They were probably all terrified after every other man left. Or they were simply that desperate. All three haunted the castle and took their meals in their rooms, causing much gossip. The maids were sure that the men were hideous, but immensely rich all the same.

The days got cooler and a lot more boring as the season progressed. I mostly spent my time with Hayden or Nathan, whomever I could find who wasn't busy. Although Hayden was seldom able to give me much time, Nathan is free often. Most of his work is done delivering messages to and from the castle and I pass him in the halls every day. Sometimes Nathan has good messages and other times Nathan is the bearer of bad news. He brought Mother a message saying that her cousin had married, but only a week later he had to bring in the message telling us that the suitor of mine that was late had been shipwrecked and was probably dead. Mother immediately sent her condolences before the country threatened war. When Nathan brought letters for Father it was almost impossible to tell his the news was good or bad by the schooling of his face. But one day a message came and he immediately left the room.

Jale is a large island. On our island alone are five, or six kingdoms. I can't remember if we are recognizing the independence of one. Jale is on one of a cluster of islands off the mainland. Some of the islands are small, like Henrie's country of Ceah. Others are as large and expansive as ours and hold multiple kingdoms. And although we do not like it, Jale is not the most powerful of the five( or six).

Now Father's letter that Nathan delivered told him that another kingdom had plans to overthrow every kingdom on the island. An encoded message had been intercepted with extensive plans to make Arktanin the only kingdom to control the island. Father had stormed out immediately to ready his troop and defend his border along with the other united kingdoms. The only word he gave us was that Hayden, not Mother, as usual, was completely in charge of Jale while he was gone.

I recall saying that suitors were my main problem, but this is truly the heart of my story, the beginning of my life to come.

Nathan now ad to train for long hours because he was now the backup if Father's knights are killed. Both Hayden and Nathan seemed to disappear from my life. The war stole all of the money and food Jale had even though we never saw it inside out borders. Hayden kept importing food but eventually, the treasury and food ran out. The food that we were growing ourselves was getting neglected because every able man was pulled to find with the king. People ate what was growing in the field, but it wasn't good. It was far from good. It was sickening. The people who picked it picked it too early or too late and much of the food sat around and got moldy. Most of the women and girls were too overwhelmed to correctly preserve the food and they honestly didn't know that the food they were eating had gone bad. Many who ate the food made in Jale got stomach sickness and died.

Hayden went out into the villages and taught the women how to care for the crops, and educated them on their farms. He helped them care for the sick and showed the boys left that they could fill in where their fathers had left. He was only able to work with a couple of villages, but once he taught one village, that village taught five others. And it worked. The death rates dropped. People were healthy and good food was spread around. The men started being released from service as the war moved further away from Jale. The sick were nursed back to life. It looked like the war was ending. We got reports that Father was helping support our neighbors, but Jale was safe.

But then Nathan came and brought bad news. The news worsened every day and with every new message Mother's face became white and she refused to read the reports at breakfast. Nathan stood beside her at breakfast one day and once Mother had finished reading she broke into tears and handed the message to me. I stand up and take it from her pale hand. Nathan stands still as a board. He knew the message was terrible before he even arrived, I could read it in his face. For weeks, I only heard what Mother was willing to say when the children couldn't overhear. Now I got to read for myself.