Princess of the Midnight Ball (18 page)

A maid woke Galen, her eyes alight with a question. Galen paused, and then shook his head, assuming a sorrowful expression. She sighed and patted his arm. He went down the hall to the room set aside for him to freshen up before breakfast.

Breakfast was another solemn affair, with Bishop Angier at one end of the table, a stern expression on his face, and King Gregor at the other, looking mournful. Dr. Kelling also joined then, his face anxious. All three men watched Galen carefully, looking for a sign of some small success, but Galen ate and chatted with the princesses as casually as he could. While he had been in his little room, dressing, he had come to a conclusion: he would not say a word until the third night was completed.

The silver twigs gave him some proof of where he had been, but he didn’t know how to proceed from there. Galen suspected that merely telling the king where his daughters had been would do nothing to help them. The spell that was over them was powerful indeed, controlling them not only when they
entered the underworld, but outside it as well. Otherwise they would have told their father by now. Galen’s hope was that, after three nights of following them, he would have learned enough to work out a plan that would free the princesses.

“Galen, please come to my study,” King Gregor said wearily when breakfast was over.

“I shall accompany you,” Angier said. He heaved his bulk upright and preceded the king and Galen across the hall and into the king’s private study. Dr. Kelling made as if to follow, but Angier dismissed him with a gesture. King Gregor began to protest, but the doctor shook his head.

The king sat in the chair behind the desk and the bishop took the comfortable chair before it. Galen stood calmly between them. His soldier’s training proved valuable here as it had so many times before: he was nervous, he was uncertain what to do next, but he would never let it show. With an impassive face and ramrod-straight spine, Galen reported to the king and the bishop that, after entering the princesses’ chambers, he had sat and talked with them for a while. Then, sometime before midnight, he had fallen asleep and not woken until a little after dawn. The princesses had all been in their beds, very peacefully asleep, but their slippers were worn through once more.

The king threw up his hands in despair. Had Galen been alone with the king, he would have been tempted to give the man some hint of hope, but he refused to do so in front of Angier. The bishop spoke Westfalian with a faint accent, and it had only been at breakfast that Galen had realized it was Analousian. Although as a man of the church he was supposedly
above such politics, it still made Galen nervous. Galen bowed himself out of the study and went to find Walter.

The peg-legged gardener was cleaning leaves out of a fountain shaped like a dejected-looking mermaid. The water had been drained, lest it freeze and crack the pipes, and now the empty marble bowl was a catchall for stray leaves and other debris.

Walter greeted Galen with a nod. “How fare our princesses?” the old man inquired.

“Not well,” Galen said bluntly. He pushed back the sleeves of his good jacket and bent down to help gather the leaves into a basket.

Walter stopped and sat on the edge of the fountain. “The nightshade worked,” he stated.

“It seems so,” Galen said, “Tell me: what do you know of a black palace far underground, guarded by a gate of silver set with pearls, surrounded by a forest of silver trees, and built on an island in the middle of a black lake?”

Walter’s weathered face went white. “Foolish woman,” he breathed. “So she made a bargain with
him.”

“Rose and the others—” Then Galen stopped. “Then you know of it?” He stared at Walter, angry. “Why didn’t you help them?”

Walter shook his head. “I didn’t know that Maude had gone so far. I knew that she had summoned help from some unseen source. But I didn’t know it was
him
.” Kicking his peg leg against the base of the fountain, Walter looked off into the distance. “Not
him.”

Galen ran his hand over his short hair. “So Queen Maude really …?”

“Wanted children so badly that she made a pact with the King Under Stone?” Walter sucked his teeth. “So it seems. And I’ve no doubt that she meddled again, to make certain we won the war.”

Galen rejected this, shaking his head. “But we fought hard for that war. It took twelve years—”

“No one ever said that
he
plays fair,” Walter interrupted. “Creatures without honor—without souls—never do. Why should they? That’s something that Maude never could understand. Ask such a being for strong children, he promises you a dozen, and you strike the bargain. And bear a dozen girls. Ask him to end the war, and he agrees readily … then takes twelve years to get around to it.”

Galen frowned. “But when the queen died, wouldn’t her bargain have become void?”

“Not as far as
he
is concerned, it seems. If she’s not there to pay, then her daughters will.” Walter hesitated. “So they are dancing for him?”

Galen nodded. “They danced from midnight to dawn with twelve tall young men. I believe they are his sons.”

The older man gave a low whistle. “So that’s his game, is it?” he said thoughtfully, staring into the distance. “Perhaps he meant to have them all along.”

“Walter,” Galen said, feeling almost hesitant about asking. “How do you know all this?”

The old man looked at him. The news that the King Under Stone had a hold on the princesses had shaken him, and he looked immeasurably old suddenly. “I have not always been a gardener, Galen Werner,” he said drily.

“Then tell me how to stop this.”

“Alone? And with twelve sons to aid him?” Walter shook his head. “It will take time.”

“We don’t have time,” Galen argued. “Rose… Little Pansy … They don’t have time, Walter.”

“I did not think Maude had gone so deep,” Walter was muttering, to himself more than Galen. “And you say its every night now…. He must need them more, or is preparing for something. There aren’t enough of us left to put a tighter seal on his prison….”

“Walter!” Galen shook the old man’s shoulder gently. He lifted his lapel and showed Walter the wilted sprig of nightshade. “I’m going to need more nightshade, at the least. There is a sleeping spell laid over anyone who comes into the princesses’ rooms at night,” Galen explained. “But it did not affect me as it had the princes.”

“Ah!” Walter nodded sagely, his eyes coming into focus again. “So that’s how the princesses slip away from their minders.” He frowned. “But weren’t the girls suspicious? And how is it that you could follow them?”

“They were suspicious at first,” Galen admitted. “But then I feigned sleep, and that satisfied them. As to how I was able to follow them … that’s a secret.”

Walter nodded again. “It’s good to have secrets.”

Together he and Galen gathered up the basket of leaves and set off for the gardener’s sheds. Galen dumped the leaves in the mulch pile and put the basket away. Then Walter beckoned, and Galen followed him to the herb garden.

Walter picked another sprig of nightshade, to replace the wilted one. Then he broke off a sharply scented sprig of dried basil and gave it to Galen as well.

“Nightshade will clear the enchantments from your eyes, and enable you to see the truth. And basil wards off evil,” he explained.

“Thank you.” Galen tossed his wilted nightshade aside and carefully pinned the new sprig in place. Then he put the more brittle basil in the breast pocket of his coat.

As he fumbled with his clothes, the pouch at Galen’s belt swung forward and one of the silver twigs sticking out caught on his shirt. Cursing, Galen freed the twig and tried to get it to fit better in the little drawstring bag.

“What are those?” Walter squinted at them.

“A little something that I took from the forest of silver,” Galen replied. Checking to make certain that they were alone, he pulled the twigs out of the bag and showed them to Walter.

Turning them over in his gnarled hands, Walter pursed his lips. “Interesting,” he said. “These weren’t part of his realm, at least not in the beginning.” He gave them back to Galen. “Interesting.”

“How do you know what his realm is like?”

Walter merely echoed the words he’d said to Galen earlier:
“It’s good to have secrets.” Then he paused. “But I will say this: silver has power, and so do names.”

“Names and silver…” Galen studied the twigs himself. They were long and straight, and the place where they had broken from the larger branch showed little silvery fibers that were some strange hybrid of metal and wood never before seen in the mortal world. “I should have broken off bigger pieces, to make arrows. Or a spear. Something more useful than just taking a souvenir to show King Gregor.” He snorted. “They’d make beautiful knitting needles, though.”

“Keep them handy,” Walter said. “You never know what you’ll have need of, when you’re in the palace.”

Something about Walter’s words rang in Galen’s ears. The phrasing reminded him of something, and he paused a moment to remember what, but Uncle Reiner came crunching down the gravel path just then. His face darkened when he saw Galen standing with Walter.

“Shouldn’t you be inside?” he demanded. “They haven’t thrown you out, have they?”

“No, indeed, Uncle,” Galen said respectfully. “I have just come to speak with Walter about something.” He slid the twigs into his pouch and pulled his coat closed over them.

“Nothing here is of concern to you anymore,” Uncle Reiner said. “Be off with you.”

Galen nodded politely to his uncle and Walter, and then he took himself off.

Inside the palace, he discovered that the younger princesses were having their lessons with the priest who had accompanied
Angier. The older girls were with their father, being questioned by the bishop himself. At loose ends, Galen sat down in his room to finish knitting his hat, but he couldn’t get the silver twigs out of his head. Studying them from every angle, he concluded that while they might be whittled down to make darts or something of the sort, they were otherwise useless. But whittling them down would change their shape in such a way that they might not be recognizable as twigs, and therefore unusable as evidence.

“They’ll make fine knitting needles, just as they are,” Galen said aloud.

He thought for a long time. He could not fight the twelve suitors alone. Besides being outnumbered, who knew what help their father might send. He couldn’t break the spell that bound the princesses…. He didn’t know what exactly it was, and he had no skill with magic besides. If he could just stop them from going to the ball… But then the King Under Stone would likely send someone to fetch them again. And this time, Galen doubted that Rionin and the other princes would let a rowan switch deter them.

There had to be a way to fight them, or to stop them from coming aboveground ever again.

As Galen’s mind turned the problem over and over, he remembered what Walter’s words had reminded him of: the crone.

When you are in the palace, you will have great need
.

He broke the silver twigs in half so that there were four pieces, each about the length of his hand. He used his knife to
pare away any jagged edges or splinters that might catch on the wool. Then he pulled out the black wool that the crone had given him.

Black like iron …

Galen began to knit.

Rose’s day did not go well. She had a headache, and her cough had returned. As if to aggravate both problems, she was forced to spend the day in the council chamber, being alternately questioned and lectured by Bishop Angier. His voice made her head pound, and her throat was sore from trying to hold back the coughs.

Having their country placed under Interdiction was a serious thing, and there had already been repercussions. Reports had been arriving all day, and they were not comforting. There had been riots in other cities when the archbishop’s edict was read. In Bruch, many people were packing to leave, hoping to immigrate to any neighboring land that would take them. Several grocers and livery stables had been robbed for supplies by those fleeing, and rocks had been thrown at the palace gates and even at the Orms’ distinctive pink house.

Rose had hoped that her younger sisters would escape the
bishop’s ranting since they had their lessons. And during that time they did, to some extent. But it seemed that the bishop had given his assistant quite stern advice about what the princesses ought to learn.

“I thought I would die,” Poppy said dramatically, flinging herself across Rose’s bed. “As if it wasn’t bad enough that we had to have some pinch-faced priest teaching us instead of Anne, you should hear what he’s teaching! Mathematics: gone. Science: gone. History: religious history and lives of the saints only. Literature: more lives of the saints.” She put a pillow over her face and howled through the muffling feathers.

“There is nothing wrong with a religious education,” Hyacinth reprimanded her, coming into the room.

“There is when you are taught nothing but,” Violet argued. She was shredding the edges of her handkerchief. “There’s to be no more music,” she said in a soft voice. “None at all. Father Michel says … he says that we are not serious minded enough to learn even religious music.” She bit her lip, her eyes filling with tears. “He’s locked my pianoforte and taken the key.”