“Excited, but kind of nervous.” I’ve never competed internationally before, and the standard is going to be eye-wateringly high.
Wraye gives me her biggest smile. “You’re going to be amazing. We can’t wait to see you ride.”
We walk the long way back to Levanter House, along the park and then through some side streets.
A snippet of song reaches my ears. I peer down a side street and see a girl skipping rope. She’s maybe ten or eleven, and she’s singing in a sweet, high voice. I don’t recognize the tune or the words, but I could have sworn I heard a familiar name.
I turn to Wraye. “Did I hear that right? Did that girl say Gunvald?”
Wraye thinks for a moment, and then walks us closer to the girl. “Hello,” she says with a bright smile. “I think you were singing a song that I used to jump rope to when I was your age. I’ve forgotten how it goes. Would you mind singing it for us?
The girl beams, delighted to have an audience, and then resumes skipping and singing the song.Down in the valley where the green grass grows,
There sat Aimee, sweet as a rose.
Along came Gunvald and he kissed her thrice.
He shot himself once and he shot Aimee twice.Wraye thanks her when she finishes, and then says, “Yes, that’s the same song I used to sing. Where did you learn it?”
The girl thinks for a moment, and then shrugs. “Everyone knows it. We all sing it.”
“Do you know who Aimee and Gunvald were?”
She shakes her head. “No. Why, were they real?”
Wraye replies that she’s not sure, and then we say goodbye. As we walk away, a strange feeling twists in my belly. It’s disturbing seeing a happy, carefree child singing such a horrible song.
“Where did that song come from?” I ask her.
“I don’t know who made it up. We used to sing it in the slums, but if anyone heard us, we got into horrible trouble.”
“Are you sure it’s about the same Gunvald?”
“Down in the valley where the green grass grows. That’s referring to the meadows of the southern provinces, where Varga sent Lungren after the revolution. They were fiercely royalist, and they refused to accept the People’s Republic as their rulers. At first, anyway. Lungren and his men imprisoned or killed everyone who opposed them, and then he came back to the capital a hero.”
Bringing Aimee, Cassian’s mother, with him to Ivera, presumably. “Did you really sing that as a child with a smile on your face?”
Wraye shrugs. “I didn’t know that Gunvald and Aimee were real. No one talked about him by the time I was old enough to skip rope, and it didn’t seem odd to me that I was singing a song about people dying. We tell children grisly stories all the time. I mean, look at Hansel and Gretel. Taken prisoner and nearly eaten by a cannibal witch, and that’s a bedtime story.”
A shiver goes down my spine. It’s true. We do tell children the most horrible stories, so why wouldn’t they sing a song about the soldier who murdered the King and Queen in cold blood and took Daddy prisoner. Poor Cassian, if he really did lose his parents in a murder-suicide. Gunvald Lungren lived as a monster, and it sounds like he died as one, too.
As we approach Levanter House, I say, “I wish I knew who Aimee was, and if Lungren really did what the song says he did.”
“You could probably find out if you asked the right person. Just don’t mention it to Devrim.”
“No, I wasn’t going to.” I’ve made Daddy angry enough with me lately as it is.
The right person is probably Cassian. I’m Devrim Levanter’s daughter, and he’s Gunvald Lungren’s son. We’re inextricably linked through murder and tragedy.I arrive at the stables at eleven the next morning, and Cinnamon has already been turned out into a field. I’m about to go and fetch her when I stop and look around for Cassian instead. Maybe I can get him talking a little, and like it was for Daddy, it will be good for him.
I head for the house, because that’s a good place to start when he doesn’t seem to be anywhere around the stables. I knock on the door, and an older woman answers, the one I’ve seen before, gray and stooped and wearing a black dress that buttons down the front. She has a wrinkled, fragile appearance. This must be the woman Cassian calls Muriel.
“Hello. I was wondering if Cassian was home. It’s Aubrey.”
The woman peers up at me. “Aubrey who?”
I don’t want to tell her, but this woman is barring my way, and as fragile as she seems, there’s a stubborn gleam in her eyes. “Aubrey Levanter.”
The woman’s mouth presses into a thin line. “So, you’re here to make more trouble for him, are you?”