Palace of Lies (17 page)

“And did that happen?” I asked, concentrating mostly on the pattern of reeds in my hands.

Janelia looked up and smiled ruefully.

“It would appear to most people that
you
made out all right,” she said.

Herk pushed back in at the sheet again before I had a chance to answer.

“Mam! Mam!” he cried, and I feared that the snakes or wolves he'd talked about earlier had materialized beside the fire. But he went on, “It's your turn to eat!”

“Thank you, Herk,” Janelia said, with exaggerated patience. “Next time you enter Princess Desmia's private chambers, make sure you have permission, all right?”

“ 'Private . . . chambers?' ” Herk repeated in puzzlement. “We're outside!”

Janelia pointed at the sheet.

“This is the most privacy we have to offer her, so please respect it,” she said.

“Sor-ry,” Herk said, backing away.

Janelia patted him on the head, as she slipped out past the sheet.

“You're forgiven,” she said.

Janelia and Herk weren't actually related, but was this how normal mothers and children talked to one another? If the queen had lived, would she have treated me with that same bemused but proud affection?

I reminded myself that if the queen had lived, she probably would have had more natural-born children of her own. Ones that didn't die at birth. She wouldn't have had to engage in that desperate charade of passing off orphaned pauper babies as princesses.

And what would have become of me then?

What was going to become of me now?

It was the middle of
the night, and I could not possibly have been wider awake.

Actually, I was only guessing about it being the middle of the night. Out here in the wilderness, far from the palace clock (which no longer existed, anyway), I had no way of knowing the exact time. But it was dark out, and it had been dark for hours. And the darkness weighed on me in a way that made me feel certain there were hours more of darkness ahead of me.

You're surrounded by a sheet and three walls of rock—it's not like you're missing any lovely view in the absence of light,
I reminded myself.

If I'd been back at the palace—if it still existed—I could have lit a candle and opened a book of poetry. Or whiled away the rest of the night by hunching over needlepoint.

The thought of needlepoint reminded me of the basket Janelia had started me on. I used up a moment or two
groping for it, but I'd only just learned basket-weaving—I couldn't trust myself to do it in utter darkness.

Wasn't there light anywhere?

My eyes prickled, searching for it. Wait—was there a hint of light over at the bottom edge of the sheet?

Yes, and if there's light, it's outside the sheet, out where the landscape and the sky will terrify you,
I told myself.
Just go back to sleep.

I closed my eyes.

They popped back open.

A jagged rock dug into my back, and when I squirmed to avoid it, another one just as sharp dug into my side. My wounded feet throbbed. But my muscles screamed for me to just get up, just
do
something that wasn't lying still, wasn't waiting, wasn't worrying.

Something that wasn't imagining my sister-princesses dead. And wasn't imagining Terrence bringing all my enemies galloping after me.

I turned over.

The slight glimpse of light at the bottom of the sheet was more definite now that my right eye lined up with the ground.

You can keep yourself from screaming long enough to look out for a moment,
I told myself.
Just to see where that's coming from. Just to know.

I got up onto my knees on the stretcher, and shoved the opposite end of the stretcher to the side. I was pretty
sure that that would enable me to crawl the length of the stretcher to the edge of the sheet.

But crawling was awkward, and I wasn't used to feeling awkward. I was used to gliding across the polished floors of the palace in silken dresses that whispered of grace and refinement. I hadn't crawled since . . .

Since the fire
, I thought, slipping back into the memory of falling to my knees to avoid the smoke and gracelessly hiking up my ball gown to crawl toward the unconscious Fidelia.

That memory reminded me to hitch up my rough-woven skirt now, and perhaps that saved me from pitching forward and smashing my face against the jagged rocks. I froze, seeing in my mind how easily that could still happen: One moment of losing my balance and then I'd have a cheek or even an eye bloodied by the rocks surrounding me. . . .

Don't be such a coward,
I chided myself.

That propelled me to scoot forward along the stretcher until my outstretched hands brushed the sheet. I inched it back, cautioning myself,
Don't scream, don't scream . . . Even if you start to panic, don't do anything to let anyone else know. . . . Just drop the sheet and go back to sleep. . . .

The first glimpse I got beyond the sheet puzzled me. Were those . . . sparkling jewels studded in some rock wall at a distance far beyond me?

I pulled the sheet back farther and gaped.

No, not jewels . . . stars.

The empty sky that had terrified me at high noon was no longer empty or terrifying. It was a velvet dome studded with stars everywhere I looked—stars so abundant and wondrous and beautiful that it was like seeing thousands of diamonds scattered across the sky and glittering back at me. I craned my neck and peered side to side, horizon to horizon.

“Desmia?” a voice whispered. “You have need of . . . help? Shall I wake Mam?”

It was Tog. I blinked, my eyes struggling to make out his location, halfway between me and the two slumbering lumps that had to be Herk and Janelia, out on the flat expanse nearby. Tog was beside the embers of the fire he'd built earlier. That fire must have been the source the glow I'd noticed before, from behind my sheet. In my awe over the stars, I'd forgotten that that was what I'd been searching for.

I realized Tog was asking an indelicate question.

“No, I have no need of a . . . chamber pot,” I said, even though we had no chamber pot with us. I had discovered earlier in the day that my only option was squatting over the ground, with Janelia's help—an embarrassing procedure made even more difficult by my wounded feet.

I went back to staring at the stars.

“The sky doesn't frighten you now?” Tog asked.

I shook my head.

“How could it?” I asked. “Not when it's . . .” There were no words to fit what I wanted to say. I settled for gesturing and murmuring, “. . . like
that
.”

Tog laughed, but it was a friendly laugh.

“Your eyes are as big as globes,” he observed. “Have you never seen stars before?”

“Of course I've seen stars,” I snapped indignantly. Tog looked hurt, and I softened my tone. “But . . . I don't think they looked like this from the palace.”

The truth was, I couldn't remember even one moment at the palace that I'd spent gazing out the window at stars.

Probably Janelia would tell me that
she
used to watch the stars with me, when I was little
, I thought scornfully.

But the thought tickled something in my brain—maybe I had watched stars with Janelia, years ago. Maybe I had just forgotten.

“Probably all the torches around the palace were too distracting,” Tog offered. “I don't remember stars looking like this from Mam's basement, either. Maybe you have to be out in the wilderness to see stars properly.”

“Maybe,” I said. I kept gazing at the stars. “In the chapel, back at the palace . . . there were gilt stars painted on the ceiling, and it was supposed to be a marvel. Whenever we had foreign dignitaries visit, we showed them that, and they were always amazed. But those painted stars were nothing compared with this.”

I wondered now if the foreign dignitaries had only been pretending to be amazed—yet another show of falsehood in the palace full of lies. For surely, traveling to Suala, they'd seen the night sky in the wilderness for themselves.

Or maybe they hadn't,
I thought.
Maybe they'd gone from carriage to inn to carriage and never looked up.

That's how I would have traveled to Fridesia, if I'd had my way. And would I have had even a moment of noticing the stars in the night sky, on that kind of trip?

I sneaked a shy glance at Tog.

“Are you staying awake just to admire the stars?” I asked. Perhaps he wasn't just a beggar boy. Perhaps he had the soul of a poet.

Tog snorted, then stopped himself.

“Uh, you may believe that if you wish, princess,” he said.

“But it's not true, is it?” I asked, suddenly annoyed just by the word “princess.” Or maybe it was the way he said it.

I could barely see Tog's face, because it was shadowed even so close to the fire.

“No,” Tog said. He turned, and I could see his face more clearly. The dim light made his features stand out more than the dirt covering them. He had a nose as straight as any courtier's. His eyes were a nice shade of green.

“Tell me,” I said.

“Mam and Herk and I are taking turns standing watch through the night,” Tog said. “Mam took the first shift. I have until the moon reaches there”—he pointed toward what I thought might be the west—“and then it's Herk's turn.”

I should have been able to figure this out. After a long day of walking and carrying me, of course Tog wouldn't
stay up for something as frivolous as gazing at the stars.

“You think we're in danger, even way out here,” I said. “You could have told me.”

“I wouldn't have thought I needed to,” Tog said.

Was he calling me stupid? Was this the kind of insubordinate insult that any royal should quash immediately?

“But . . . the stars
are
beautiful,” Tog said, and somehow that made it impossible for me to scold him. It was enough that he appreciated the stars as much as I did.

He twisted something in his hands, and I realized he was weaving the same kind of basket that Janelia had shown me.

“You're almost done with that?” I asked in surprise.

“Oh, Mam did most of it,” Tog said. “I'm probably making it
less
valuable, because I'm not as good at this as she is. But I thought she'd be happy to have at least one basket done.”

“I could do some of it,” I offered.

Instantly I worried that I'd offended him yet again, but he walked over and handed it to me. Even in the dim light, I could tell that the last two rows of weaving were pulling the basket lopsided.

“Keep in mind, I was trying my best,” Tog said apologetically.

“I think, if you just don't pull so hard . . . and let out the tension of what you just did . . . then maybe . . . ,” I murmured. I sat down and began tugging on the reeds.

Tog crouched down beside me.

“You
are
making it better!” he announced.

“But here, can you pull this reed this way for me, while I pull back on it . . . ,” I asked.

We worked together for a few moments, then Tog suggested, “Put it down flat, and let's see if it looks better now.”

It did.

“Mam will be so happy if we finish this!” Tog cried. “She worries, you know, about food. . . .”

I shifted uncomfortably. Maybe I could have found a way to tap into the royal treasury for money for the trip. Maybe there would have been a financial adviser I could have trusted.

Maybe I'd been unfair to Herk and Tog and Janelia expecting them to take me to Fridesia in the first place.

“Do you want me to finish the basket?” I said.

“Be my guest,” Tog said, grinning.

I expected him to go back to the fire and leave me alone. Instead, he slid down to the ground beside me, leaning his back against the rock.

“Maybe if I watch, I'll learn how to do it right,” he said.

I fell into a rhythm with the reeds and the weaving. In no time at all, I reached the end of one of the reeds, and Tog and I agreed that the basket was tall enough.

I leaned my head back against the rocks and started giggling.

“If anyone from the palace could see me now,” I said, “they'd . . . they'd . . .”

I couldn't finish the thought; it was too absurd. I could imagine Cecilia, for instance, gawking at the sight of me sitting on a bare, dirty rock in the middle of the wilderness, wearing a cheap, rough-woven peasant dress instead of silk or satin, my hair neither brushed nor combed by any servant in days, not since . . .

Since the night of the fire,
I remembered.
Since Cecilia and the other princesses and I sat in our chambers together, getting ready for the ball.

Something twisted in my giggling. If it changed much more, it might be sobbing, rather than laughter.

Tog began pounding me on the back. Evidently he thought I was choking.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “Should I get my mam?”

“No, I—”

“Is the empty sky scaring you again?” Tog asked frantically. “Do you need to go back into your tent?”

“No,” I said. “No.”

I looked back at the starry sky above, and somehow this steadied me. It made it possible for me to be silent again. After a moment I felt composed enough to explain.

“This sky is too beautiful to scare me,” I said.

“The sky is beautiful in the daytime, too,” Tog said. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “Maybe you need to work up to appreciating it. Just glance at it a second or two at a time. Then a little more each day.”

I squinted at Tog. It had never occurred to me that I
could stop being terrified of the daytime sky.