Amanda watched wistfully from the carriage as her town disappeared behind her, trying to convince herself that one day she would see it again. Maybe the king would only need her service for a while— older girls sometimes left her town to be domestic servants for a year or two, to earn some extra money. Amanda satisfied herself with that until the town was out of sight, and the carriage pulled into the forest. Then her stomach started sinking as she realized how much Mrs. Talbek had paid. It was enough to hire a servant for a few hundred years. The only time she'd even heard of such a sum was when Mr. Simmons, the richest man in town had paid a young couple two lens to adopt their newborn son. Her father must have sold her like that, she realized. It was the only thing that made sense, with the money and the way he had acted as Mrs. Talbek had helped her into the carriage, refusing to even look in Amanda's direction.
And she hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye to her brothers, she thought with a lump in her throat. They were probably waking up and wondering where she was right now.
"Whe—" Amanda tried to speak, to ask Mrs. Talbek where they were going. She looked back with a bit of a smile, as if pleased with her acquisition.
"Eat as much as you want, dear," she replied, mistaking what Amanda was trying to ask and indicating the bag of fruit beside her.
Amanda rolled an apple in her hand, but couldn't bring herself to bite it.
The carriage rolled on, and soon they were in a different village. One of the men driving the carriage called out, and soon the road was filled with parents and children, all Vulcan.
"Stay in the carriage," Mrs. Talbek warned Amanda before climbing out, and standing in front of the crowd. She told them to form three lines so that their children could be evaluated.
Reluctantly, the crowd lined up, with people pushing to be at the front. Mrs. Talbek took one line, and the two men in the carriage took the other. They started asking each girl the questions Mrs. Talbek had asked of Amanda.
Surprised by the noise, Amanda looked up from apple she'd been gazing at despondently, and after looking at the crowd for a minute, started to giggle. She'd only seen Vulcans twice in her life, and they looked so strange. Their ears were pointed like mice, and their posture as they walked was comedically stiff. She covered her mouth after Mrs. Talbek shot a dirty look in her direction.
"Next!" Mrs. Talbek yelled, pushing aside a girl who had missed the first two questions.
"But Tavi is very bright," a woman who looked the girl's her mother protested, moving her back towards Mrs. Talbek.
"Every girl must pass the test," Mrs. Talbek snapped, moving to the next girl, who she turned away because she was cross-eyed.
Two more girls failed the test. Then a woman leading a small girl walked up.
"Ladies in waiting must be between the ages of twelve and sixteen," Mrs. Talbek yelled, motioning the woman away.
"But she is twelve," the woman protested. Amanda stared at the girl. She looked about six. Mrs. Talbek shook her head.
She was about to test the next girl when one of the men called her over. He thought he had found someone suitable. Standing next to him was a girl who looked about fifteen. She was tall and muscular and her hair had a sheen that suggested she was well fed. Mrs. Talbek asked her some more questions, which she answered eagerly. Pleased, she peered in the girl's mouth, and then at her hands, and then under her long hair. Satisfied, she nodded to one of the men, who helped the girl into the carriage. She sat next to Amanda, beaming.
"Why are you so happy?" Amanda asked without thinking.
The girl gave her a strange look,
"I just got picked to be a lady in waiting, of course."
She grinned again, as if she couldn't believe her good fortune.
"Why is that good?" Amanda asked dourly, thinking of the fact that he father had sold her again.
The girl didn't seem to share her dismay.
"We'll get to live at the palace and have all the best food and clothes, and we might get to marry the king. We'll be princesses!"
The girl's eyes were half opened as she relished the thought.
Amanda tried to cheer herself up by imagining herself in a beautiful dress marrying a handsome prince, but then another thought occurred to her.
"What do they need me for then?" she asked, "I thought King Sarek was Vulcan."
The girl rolled her eyes, as if this should be obvious.
"King Sarek," she said slowly, as if she thought Amanda might not be very bright, "Needs to protect his throne from people who might seek his power, like jealous siblings. So he makes them marry humans, so they won't have any children to continue their reign."
"That's not very nice," Amanda said, thinking of how desperate Mr. Simmons had been.
"Not really," the girl said with a bit of a wink, as if she thought all this talk about the royal family was great gossip, "His father Skon was so paranoid, he ordered all his siblings killed as soon as he took power."
Amanda shivered at the thought.
Hearing a disturbance, Amanda looked over at Mrs. Talbek. She was arguing with the mother of a young boy.
"We are looking for girls only," she snapped, indicating writing on the side of the carriage, "Can't you read?"
The woman looked back at her, embarrassed. She clearly couldn't.
"Any boy or man will be accepted into the King's service," Mrs. Talbek went on a bit more kindly, "But they have to arrange their own transportation to the clinic."
She sent the woman and her son over to one of the men, who drew out the route with a stick in the dirt.
Several hours passed before the line had waned, and by the end, Mrs. Talbek had picked out three more girls. None of them seemed quite as excited as the first girl, who Amanda had learned was named T'Belah, and one of them kept looking back worriedly.
"We will be spending the night in Langstrom before making our way to the palace," Mrs. Talbek said before slamming the carriage door shut, and going to sit in the front with the men.
Throughout the journey, no one talked. One girl fidgeted with her skirt, while another sat and sobbed silently and a third stared out the window, as if entranced by her surroundings. Meanwhile T'Belah kept smiling and looking around, as if she was expecting something amazing to happen.
The horses plodded on for hours, until the sun started to set on the horizon. Then a house became visible. The men brought the carriage around to the front door, and helped the girls out. When they got inside, dinner was already waiting on the table. Amanda ate it hungrily, amazed that they were eating meat on a day that was not a holiday. T'Belah winked at her from across the table, as if to gloat that she was right about them getting the best food.
Afterwards, Mrs. Talbek sat the girls down, and gave them a long talk on the role of a ladies in waiting, royal history and palace rules.
"You will notice that there is a hierarchy among women at the palace," she said at one point, "Make sure you respect it. If you ever run into a higher-ranked woman, let her go before you."
"Conflict is common among ladies in waiting, and the king's young wives," she said at another, "But it serves no purpose. It is in your best interest to avoid conflict if possible."
After what seemed like hours, Mrs. Talbek said it was time to go to bed. Amanda was put into a room with T'Belah. The room was eerily dark, except for the light from the fire. Amanda was relieved when one of the men from the carriage came in and lit a lamp in the corner, and passed the two girls clean sleeping robes. T'Belah was used to having servants, and put her arms out for the man to dress her, but Amanda waited for him to leave so she could change in private. Then she spread her clothes out on the floor, and started to lie down.
"You can sleep in here, I don't have Labargo," she heard T'Belah call from the bed.
Amanda looked up, embarrassed. She had slept on the floor for all of her life. She had never even considered sleeping in the bed.
"And it's warmer with two," T'Belah teased as she climbed in.
The bed was more comfortable than anything she had ever felt, but Amanda still tossed and turned before she fell asleep. She wondered what her brothers were doing. Were they asleep? But what about Colin, who would never close his eyes until she had sung to him three times? She pictured her father, listening to his cries in the night. Was he thinking of her, or contemplating his new found fortune? She wondered if he regretted selling her.