The Thirteenth Princess (7 page)

“Scoot into bed then, my pet,” she told me, and I crawled in beside Akila. Nurse blew out the lamps and shut the door as she went out, and I knew no more.

The next day I was full of energy from my early night. I had left my sisters at dawn and snuck downstairs as I usually did, and I did not see them until midafternoon, when they were at a deportment lesson in the dining room and I was told by Cook to bring tea to Master Beolagh.

“He'll not be with us much longer,” Chiara, who had come down for her own tea, pointed out. “He couldn't make the princesses speak, that one. He's no good at all!” Her eyes gleamed with pleasure at the thought of his dismissal.

When I entered the room with the tea tray, my sisters, oddly, showed no sign that they knew me or had any interest in the tea. They were seated around the long table, slumped in tired and very unladylike positions, and Master Beolagh, too silly to know that his job was in peril, was visibly annoyed with them.

“Tea, ladies,” he said pointedly, which was a signal for Aurelia to pour, as she was the eldest. Aurelia stared down at her hands clasped in her lap and gave no sign of having heard.

“Princess Aurelia!” Master Beolagh shouted, clapping his hands. The sudden noise in the silent room startled everyone, and the cups rattled as I trembled. I set the tray on the table and backed quietly away, but I was not yet at the door when Master Beolagh said, “I don't know what is wrong with you ladies today. Your comportment is dull and lifeless, and your manners are lacking entirely! Don't you recall the lesson on boredom from my book
Deportment for Princesses
? I quote: ‘If you are bored at a social occasion'—and surely you ladies must be bored, or else why would you be so entirely lackluster?—‘you must disguise your dullness and appear as interested as if you were experiencing the most fascinating of people at the most fascinating of events.' I do not see that happening here, ladies. Your dullness is not in the least disguised!”

I could barely keep from laughing, and I looked to catch Adena's eye and share a smile with her. But Adena, too, stared at her lap, and her face was drawn and tired. The concern that I had felt the day before came back stronger than ever. I hurried out the door and went looking for Nurse.

I found her in the princesses' bedroom, straightening up their combs and brushes. “Nurse,” I said without preamble, “are my sisters ill?”

She spun around, startled at my presence. “Zita!” she said. “What do you ask, dearie?”

“Are they sick? They seem pale and tired—they aren't themselves at all.”

Nurse shook her head. “I don't think so, my pet. I haven't noticed anything amiss. I'll look to it, though. They were tired yesterday. Perhaps a dose of the castor oil…”

I backtracked hurriedly. “Oh, I don't think they need that. I'm sure it's nothing. Just a touch of…” What? Sun—this late in the year? Hay fever—after the first frost? I could think of nothing. I just knew that if they were aware I'd been the cause of a dose of castor oil, they'd never forgive me.

“Don't worry, dearie,” Nurse said, smiling. “I won't say a word about you. And don't you worry about them, either. I'm sure they're fine.”

I did not see the princesses again until the following Sunday night. They did not go out at all, but spent the days in their room, resting. I spent a frustrating week trying to see both them and Breckin, but there was always something preventing me. Cook had endless chores, for though we did not entertain, Father still required feasts' worth of food for the various autumn celebrations. The cold settled in seriously, and I was glad to be confined to the kitchen most days, for the great fires kept the room dry and warm when the rest of the palace ranged from damp and chill to damp and freezing.

On Sunday night I sat in the dumbwaiter and waited to be pulled upward, but nothing happened. I yanked on the cord, my usual signal, but there was no answering yank. I tried to pull myself upward, and at first strained mightily, achieving nothing. Finally, with a groan, the dumbwaiter began to rise very slowly. I paused after every few moments, frightened that if I let my grasp of the rope loosen the dumbwaiter would plunge downward. Up and up I pulled, my muscles aching and throbbing. If I hadn't been strong from carrying wood, kneading dough, and rolling out crusts, I never could have done it, but after what seemed an hour, I arrived in my sisters' closet.

I tumbled out of the dumbwaiter and stepped into
the bedroom. All was silent. The candles burned low, and my sisters slept, one to a bed, in the still room. I could barely hear their breathing; even Asenka, who often snored, was quiet.

I went to Asmita's bed. I was to stay with her tonight. “Asmita!” I whispered, near to her ear. She didn't move. I was suddenly struck with a nameless terror, and I stepped back and stared hard at the coverlet over her. As I watched, it rose, then fell with her breath, and I breathed deeply in relief myself.

I wandered the room aimlessly. Because I had waited so long to be pulled up, Nurse had already come with our chocolate. I poured myself a cup, wincing as the heat of the cup touched my hands, raw from the dumbwaiter rope. As I sipped, I walked over to the window and stood looking out. A cold moon, masked with cloud, shone above in the sky and below in the lake water, and I thought how on my embroidered coverlet, I stood at the exact same spot in the same window. Then I remembered the shadow that seemed to stand behind me on the embroidered cloth, and a shiver ran up my spine. I stood very still, suddenly convinced that someone stood behind me. The room was noiseless, but I felt sure that I could hear breathing just by my shoulder. I spun around fast, spraying chocolate in an arc, and saw—nothing. Just the rows of beds, the dressing gowns
tossed over chairs or bed frames, the slippers placed by Nurse hopefully beside each bed. But was that a sound outside, in the hall?

I tiptoed to the door and opened it carefully, quietly. It squeaked on its hinges, and I cringed. When I had it open far enough that I could peer out, I saw Chiara disappearing down the stairs, and I wondered what she was doing up and about so late. The corridor was empty but for the line of my sisters' shoes, placed outside for cleaning and repair. Embroidered cloth, butter-soft leather, gleaming buckles, bows, silk flowers, French heels—the shoes stood side by side like small sentinels, guarding my sisters' door.

“Was it just Chiara?” I whispered to them, feeling a little foolish.

I closed the door softly and padded between the beds to Asmita's. As I climbed in, rubbing my cold feet against her sleep-warmed ones, I felt an overwhelming drowsiness come over me. The next thing I knew it was dawn, and I had to leave.

A
s the next week passed, my sisters seemed to grow still paler and weaker. They did not even come downstairs for their lessons, for when they tried to climb the stairs, they were so slow and feeble that Nurse declared they must not leave their chamber except for Sunday services. Master Beolagh, no longer needed, was sent packing, much to Chiara's glee, and the other tutors took their leave as well. Cook made up little treats for the princesses, and Nurse had us boil up some tinctures of herbs and smelly teas. Meals came back untouched, and the atmosphere in the palace began to be one of anxious waiting.

Then on Sunday morning, at chapel, Adena, always the most delicate of my sisters, fainted. She stood for the Kiss of Peace, and suddenly, gracefully, she collapsed. Alanna screamed, and all of us below their balcony looked up to see Adena draped over the railing. Quickly the service halted, servants were dispatched, and Adena was carried out.

I was frantic. Cook said I could not go up to the bedroom, but I chafed under her stern eye until she relented at last, sending me up with a pot of chocolate “in case the poor things will take any nourishment at all.” I ran, as fast as I could without spilling, up the marble staircases and down the long hall to my sisters' room. The door stood open and the room was full of activity, but I did not notice in all the ruckus, until it was too late, that at the center of it all was my father.

In my shock I let the tray in my hands become unbalanced, and the pot of chocolate began to slide. I righted it with a gasp and a rattle of cups, and everyone in the room turned from Adena's bed to stare at me. I felt my father's eyes on me, and again the tray wobbled. Aurelia came to my rescue; she plucked the tray from my hands and set it on a little inlaid marble table, saying, “Oh, thank you, Zita. This is just what we need. Father, will you take some chocolate?”

Father shook his head with disdain. “This is a
sickroom,” he said firmly. “No one should be here but the princesses, the doctor, and me.”

My sisters moved toward me, surrounding me. I could see us reflected in the great mirror on the wall, and saw what my father must have seen: my own rude, ruddy form beside my sisters' limp paleness. My good health and high color made them look all the more wan and wasted. But ill as they were, my sisters stood beside me as if daring my father to expel me from the room. My heart warmed as I felt them pressing against me.

“Zita has just brought us chocolate, Father,” Aurelia said smoothly. “We will not disturb Dr. Valentin. We will just sit over here and drink our chocolate and wait.”

“Then do so, and be quiet,” Father said crossly. “You twitter like a flock of birds. This child needs rest and quiet!” He stood aside as Dr. Valentin worked over Adena. I felt all the more anxious for the doctor's presence; he only came to the palace in times of great emergency, as when Amina broke her arm when she fell trying to balance on a crossbeam in the stable, or when Allegra, long ago, had developed pneumonia and we had thought she would die. As we waited, my sisters barely touched their chocolate, each picking up her cup and bringing it to her lips, then lowering it untasted.

Finally the doctor stood back, wiping his hands on a
cloth. Under the bedclothes, Adena's small body barely made a bump.

“She has an excess of melancholy,” Dr. Valentin announced. “I shall have to bleed her to restore a balance.”

I felt panicked. Even I could see that the last thing Adena needed was to be bled. She was so pale and weak now that to lose blood might kill her. Luckily, Father thought the same.

“Nonsense, man!” he said. “You know I don't hold with bleeding. The girl's not melancholic, she's ill. It's your job to find out what's wrong with her!”

The doctor looked very nervous. His mop of gray hair flopped back and forth as he shook his head at my father's stubbornness.

“Your Majesty, I have looked for all the signs of illness. She has no fever, no swellings, no untoward cuts or scrapes, no infection of any sort. Her hair is not falling out, nor are her eyes yellowed. Her throat is pink, not red, and she exhibits no signs of pain, except for the blisters on her feet, and they are not infected. I have concluded melancholy and prescribed bloodletting because I can find evidence of no other problem.”

My father hated that. He liked an answer to a problem, and a solution that would work, and he liked it
now.
The veins on his neck stood out. Dr. Valentin
nervously picked up his bag and hurried toward the door, bowing to us as he passed. “Princesses,” he murmured, “eat more red meat.” And he was gone. He'd not be paid for this visit, poor man.

We turned back toward Father, expecting an outburst, but he was looking down at Adena, small and silent on the bed. Aurelia hurried to them and put her hand on Father's shoulder. He turned to her, and I could see worry on his face—a look I certainly had never seen there before. I was envious. Why could I not be sick and in my bed, for Father to look like that over me? But then I felt guilty for my envy, and my sensibility won out. I knew that even if I were sick to death, Father would not look like that. Not for me. Still, I was glad that he could worry for Adena. It hinted that there was still human feeling in him.

“Daughters,” Father said, “you must all take care of yourselves. You must rest, and not study so hard. You do not look well.” My sisters cast their eyes downward, embarrassed. He went on. “I do not wish to see you ill, like your sister, do you understand?” My sisters nodded as one. “And as the doctor has nothing useful to recommend, I will ask you and your nurse to take care of Adena. Give her possets and porridge, and keep her away from drafts. Can you be counted on to do that?” Again they nodded.

I was growing angry. Adena did not have an ague; she did not need to be kept away from drafts and fed porridge. There was something truly wrong with her. Perhaps she was dying! Why were my sisters so timid? But then my father's glance fell again on me, and I remembered why. His attention was imposing, his gaze piercing.

“Zita, you bring sickness from the lower reaches,” he scolded me. “Stay out of the chambers until this malady has passed. Confine your work to the kitchen.” I too stared at the floor, but I could feel my face redden and see my fists clench. I could not stay belowstairs when my sisters were sick! Still, like my sisters and like the servant I was, I nodded and curtsied and stumbled to the door and out into the hallway.

Outside the bedchamber, I took a deep breath—my first deep breath, I realized, since I had entered that room. I shook my head to rid it of the stuffiness of the chamber. Then I noticed my sisters' shoes in front of me, each pair standing primly matched together. I looked at them and frowned. They seemed in terrible shabby shape. The curved heels were worn unevenly, and the rich fabric and leather uppers were scuffed and threadbare. I picked up a shoe that I recognized as Ariadne's, dark green silk embroidered with roses, and turned it over. The sole was worn to holes. I could
see my own hand right through it. I thought back to the previous week, when I had peeked through the door and seen the shoes. Had they been so worn? I didn't remember thinking so. Why were they tattered now? What had happened in that week to wear down the heels and put holes in the soles? It was surpassing strange.

I ran down the stairs and emerged into the kitchen, where the maids were gathered before the warm fire, talking in hushed voices of Adena's collapse.

“What news?” Cook demanded of me. “Did she take the chocolate? You were gone a marvelous long time, Zita!”

I shook my head. “She wasn't awake, I don't think. The doctor was there, but he didn't know what was wrong. He wanted to bleed her—”

“That'll do her good,” Cook said, pleased.

“—but the king said no. She's to rest and eat porridge.”

“Porridge!” Cook protested. “I've been making her porridge all week, and she hasn't touched a bite.” She fulminated, her broad red brow furrowed with the effort of her thought. “Perhaps a dainty, just for her. A little pastry, in the shape of something. What does she like especially, Zita?”

I thought quickly. I wanted to see Breckin badly, to tell him about the shoes and ask his opinion. “She likes
walnuts,” I said. “I could go and find some. There are still nuts fallen on the forest edge.”

“Run then,” Cook said agreeably. “We'll make a tiny walnut tart, shaped like a daisy. All the princesses like daisies.”

I pulled my cloak from a peg on the wall and dashed out, picking up a small basket on the way. Over the bridge I ran, and then when the path turned toward the stables in one direction and toward the forest in the other, I looked back to see if any eyes were watching me from the palace. I could see no one, so I turned toward the stables.

I found Breckin grooming Father's stallion, Ashwin, currying his deep brown flanks. And when the stallion moved, I stopped in surprise, for on his other side was a man, dressed in the uniform of a soldier. He was tall, with dark auburn hair and a trim beard, and he leaned against the wall comfortably, laughing at something Breckin had said. I saw the stripes on his sleeve and realized with a shock that he was the same captain I'd seen on horseback not long before, the one who had bowed to Aurelia.

I turned to run, fearful that the captain had perhaps been hired as a new guard of Father's and would tell that he'd seen me, but it was too late.

“Zita!” Breckin said, a huge smile on his face. “Look
who is here! This is my brother, Milek, visiting on leave from the Reaches.”

Milek bowed, and I dipped automatically into a curtsy, grateful to my sisters for my training in manners.

“Princess,” Milek said. “I am honored.”

I laughed. “Honored—to meet
me
? Don't be ridiculous.”

Milek raised an eyebrow at his brother. “I see you did not exaggerate,” he said to Breckin mildly.

I was flustered. “I just meant—I'm sorry. I'm not really a princess. Well, I am. But still—”

“Oh, do be quiet, Zita,” Breckin broke in. “He was just being polite.”

“Far more so than you!” I snapped, deeply embarrassed. I turned my back on Breckin and faced his brother. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,” I said in my most refined tone. “And how long will you grace us with your presence?”

Milek smiled at me, and I noted that, although he was older than I'd thought at first, with sun-burnished skin and craggy planes and angles to his face, his brown eyes were warm and very handsome—very like Breckin's.

“I am able to stop for only a night or two,” he said. “I am on my way home to help our mother for a few days. She is unwell, and I must ready the house for winter.
Then it's back to my duties.” He touched a hand to the sword at his side, and I wondered whether he had ever had cause to use it.

“I hope her illness is not serious,” I said, looking to see whether Breckin seemed worried.

“I think it is not,” Milek replied, “but she cannot manage alone just now, and my sister and her husband are away. So I am needed.”

“I've seen you before,” I said then. “Two months or so ago, on horseback.”

I could see immediately that he remembered, for the color rose in his face.

“Yes, I recall,” he said. “It was just after Breckin had begun his employ here. We were patrolling nearby, and I was hoping to see my brother. But instead…”

“Instead you saw my sister,” I said slyly. Milek did not reply, but only smiled, so I did not speak on it further. After all, he was not Breckin, a mere boy to be teased.

“Perhaps if you come to the kitchen tonight, late, I can find you a morsel or two to eat, and some to take on your journey,” I said. “You'll have to be wary crossing the bridge, though. The guard will challenge you if he sees you.”

“We men in uniform make allowances for one another,” Milek told me. “I'd be glad of some food to take with me. Walking makes me powerfully hungry.

Will…will anyone else be there?”

I was puzzled for a moment, but then I remembered the moment of silent communication between him and Aurelia, and I realized that he was thinking of her.

“There will be no one else in the kitchen at that hour,” I told him, smiling inwardly.

In the excitement of meeting Milek, I had quite forgotten why I had come to the stables, but Breckin asked me, “What brings you down here, Zita?”

“Oh!” I said, my hands flying to my cheeks. “I'd wanted to ask—maybe you can tell me. There's something very odd happening with my sisters. Does this sound like magic to you?” I told them about Adena, and my sisters' exhaustion, and the shoes, and they looked concerned.

“Are all the princesses affected?” Milek asked. Again, I looked at him, knowing to whom he referred.

“All are tired and seem ill,” I said, “but only Adena is bedridden.”

“It does sound like magic, if the doctor can find no illness,” Milek said.

Breckin nodded. “And not a good kind, either. If Babette saw magic in the palace, perhaps it's directed against your sisters. Or against Adena, in particular. Do you know anyone who doesn't like her?”

I shrugged helplessly. “Who would she know? She
sees no one—none of them do. Only peddlers and beggars and men on the king's business come to the palace.”

Milek put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “When I come tonight, perhaps I can better judge. Will you bring me to the princesses?”

I gulped. It would be dangerous, and terribly improper. But I would do anything for my sisters, and somehow I felt that Milek could be trusted. I nodded.

“I'll be there at moonrise,” he promised.

Grateful, I clasped his hand, and then I sped back to the palace, stopping only to get a few nuts for Adena's tart.

The moon rose late that night, and I could see the trail it made on the still waters of the lake as I watched through the kitchen window for Milek. I saw his tall, lean figure stride across the land bridge, and I panicked for a moment when the guard stepped forward to challenge him. They spoke briefly, and then the guard clapped Milek on the back and allowed him into the palace.