Summoned! To Grimworld

Chapter 3: The Princess with the Calloused Hands

Assuming Grimworld had cycles of day and night that were similar to those of Earth, then it was after mid-day when Marcus climbed a dune and saw the sea. A line of silver was drawn straight and thin under a whiteness that only became azure blue far above the horizon. The sea was several kilometres away, across an exposed terrain of dunes and mud and clusters of grasses.

Breathing heavily, Sina joined him. 'Oh no. I thought we were closer. I'm so thirsty.'

'We don't have to reach the sea though, we can turn here.'

'All right. Let's do that then.'

They tramped along the top of the dune, the treeline of the forest on their left and the sea in the distance to their right. The waves were too far away for Marcus to hear them, nor could he hear the cries of the sea birds that were evident, diving and wheeling in large numbers. Those birds would have eggs somewhere, but probably in cliffsides that were hard to access.

'How many hours would you guess we've been walking?' Sina had drawn alongside, a light breeze lifting her black tresses so that he couldn't see her eyes.

'Four?' Marcus offered and Sina nodded thoughtfully.

'And would you say that the sun has crossed the sky to about the same degree as it would have in four hours on Earth?'

He could feel the star around which Grimworld orbited warming his head. 'I would. I was thinking that myself.'

'How long then, do you think we have before dark?'

There was anxiety in her question. An understandable anxiety. Were these suits equipped with lights? 'Six or seven hours, don't you think?'

'I agree, that was my assessment. Six hours.'

They walked on in silence. Then the princess asked, 'do you know what I'll miss the most?'

'Servants?' Marcus answered as a joke, but he immediately regretted the quip.

'Mine was a rhetorical question, to which no response is necessary other than an enquiry as to learn my answer. It certainly did not call for a mean-spirited response by someone who doesn't know me at all and has no grounds for making assumptions about me.'

'Mea Culpa.' Marcus threw open his arms. 'You are right. It's just with the sun and the sea air and my youthful body, I'm in great form. I was trying to be funny.'

She said nothing. Nor did she look anywhere but directly ahead.

'What will you miss, Sina?'

'Music.'

Marcus was relieved when she spoke. Her voice was natural, not angry. 'Music?'

'It's my passion. I couldn't care less about sports. Literature I will miss somewhat. Cinema too. But music. We don't have Bach here; every day back on Earth I played his music for practice.'

The sincere look of loss in her eyes affected Marcus and for a moment punctuated his own high spirits. He reached across and patted her arm. 'I once read an anthropology book that said early humans, because they lived in relative freedom and were not slaves to their work, probably produced a dozen Mozarts with every generation. Perhaps there is music here, amazing music.'

'Were these early humans cannibals and slavers?' she asked scornfully.

'Ahh, probably not.'

After walking for another an hour it seemed to Marcus that it was likely that they would find a river soon, for looking towards the sea, Marcus made note of the darker tone of the mud and an increase in the number of wader birds out in that direction. He did not, however, comment on this in case he was mistaken. There was no need to raise Sina's hopes only to dash them if he was wrong.