“Lady Ellarie dismissed my parents today,” Bash said, his voice rasping. He had caught a sickness several quarters ago that infected his lungs, and he had begun coughing up blood a few days back. “They won’t be able to afford my treatment. I—” He broke off in a fit of coughing. His sister, who had been curled under her blankets until then, reached out and shoved a handkerchief into his hands.
“I know,” Cal said. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have disobeyed her.”
“We shouldn’t have been friends in the first place,” Bash said weakly. “We both knew we’d get caught in the end.”
“Yeah, but it didn’t matter, did it? Not until now.”
“Not to you, maybe.” Bash looked away from Cal. “What are you doing here now? You can’t help me. I might only have a few days left.”
The way he said that, so matter-of-fact…Cal’s chest tightened. Bash had been his oldest friend—they had played together from the moment his mother took a position as a nursemaid in the Aldsvell wing—and he had never cared that Cal was a prince and he was a commoner. Now he was dying.
“That’s why I’ve come,” Cal managed at last. He fumbled at his belt and produced the pouch of coins, which he set on Bash’s knee. “I didn’t know how much you’d need, but hopefully this will be enough.”
“Where did you get that?” Bash’s brother asked sharply. “Are we going to get locked away for theft?”
“No. Of course not.”
Bash’s eyes had gone watery. Cal reached out and grasped his bony hand. “Don’t die, do you hear me? Use this to get better, and send me a message when you do. I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again, but I need to know you’re safe. It won’t be the same without you there.”
“I’ll miss you too,” Bash whispered. He started coughing again, his grip on Cal’s hand tightening. When he recovered, he smiled weakly. “Thanks. I had given up. My parents too.”
“Now, how do you plan on getting back to the palace?” Bash’s brother asked. “It’s not safe out at night. It’s a miracle you made it here without incident, especially with that.” He gestured at the coin pouch.
“Can I stay here until you start work? I’m not allowed back through the gates until first light.”
“Do what you like,” Bash’s brother said, chuckling. “You might be shocked at how early a baker’s day starts.”
* * *
Cal had barely fallen asleep on a spare bedroll by the oven when a light flared to life, starting him awake.
“What’s this?” a familiar woman’s voice asked.
Cal rubbed his eyes and squinted until he recognized Bash’s mother standing at the foot of the stairs.
“Calden? Is that you?”
“What’re you doing awake, Ma?” one of Bash’s sisters asked.
“I want to help. As long as your da are getting in his brother’s way, I want to do my part. But why is Calden here?”
“I’m just—just—” Cal yawned hugely. “I’m just going now. How long until first light?”
“Several hours yet.”
“Hmm. Maybe I won’t go for a bit. Can I help too?”
Bash’s siblings were all getting to their feet now, packing away their bedrolls and stretching in the darkness of early morning, except Bash, who remained where he lay.
“You can help me move Bash upstairs,” his brother said. “He needs sleep, which he won’t get with this lot around.”
Cal and the young man helped pull Bash to his feet and stumble toward the stairway, while one of his sisters cleared away his bedroll. Bash looked half-asleep still, his eyes squeezed shut, and his feet kept slipping out from underneath him.
At the end of a narrow hall, they led Bash to a bedroom with a single bed one of his siblings had just vacated. Once Bash was tucked in, he mumbled, “You look after yourself too, huh, Cal?”
Cal squeezed his shoulder. “Yeah.”
Then he hurried away before Bash could see the tears that threatened. His friend looked much worse now than he had even yesterday—the walk from the palace must have drained him. Cal wasn’t sure he would live long enough to see a healer.
He spent the next two hours kneading mountains of bread dough and shaping rolls for the oven, trying not to think about Bash. His friend’s parents treated him as they always had, with respectful distance. They should have thrown him out, furious that he had lost them their jobs, but they didn’t. He didn’t think Bash or his siblings had mentioned the purse of money. Cal hoped it was enough; if it wasn’t, it would seem an insult.
Eventually, Bash’s brother said, “Don’t you think you ought to be going now if you want to reach the palace by first light?”
Cal swore. He had lost track of the time. After scraping and scrubbing dough from his hands, he grabbed his coat and hurried to the door.
“Wait,” Bash’s father said. “Don’t you want a snack for the walk?” He reached in the bread oven with a long stick and pulled out a beautifully browned roll.
“Thanks,” Cal said. “And thanks for letting me stay. I’m so sorry. I hope Bash is all right.”
“We do too, son.” He sounded weary. “Hurry, now. Dawn is on its way.”
* * *
Cal dashed up to the palace gates, a stitch searing in his side, just as dawn began painting the sky a hazy pink. The familiar gate guard had returned, his bearded face wrapped in a scarf against the early-morning frost.
“Wait a moment,” he said grouchily when he spotted Cal. “I don’t remember letting you out yesterday.”
“I had to leave at night. Urgent business, y’know.”
The guard stumped over and unlocked the gate. “That’s a funny thing. I got orders just before my shift started that I oughta keep a lookout for a boy just like you. Fourteen years old, shaggy brown hair, about your height. Only, they didn’t say anything about flour all over his face. Apparently he’s a prince. I’m meant to arrest anyone who might know where he’s been.”
Cal backed away, heart thumping against his ribs, but the gate guard planted himself in front of the door to the servants’ wing.
He had to get back to the Ruunan wing. If he didn’t, his mother might go after Bash. She could round up all the employees she had just released and question them.
“Please let me in,” Cal begged. “I’m not the one you’re looking for. But I need to get to work before anyone notices I’m missing. My friends might get in trouble otherwise.”
The gate guard wrenched open the door to the servants’ wing and beckoned Cal down the stairs. At the foot, he whispered, “You’ve made a mess of this, haven’t you?” His voice suddenly lost its rough edges; he sounded like a courtier, not a commoner. “Listen. I know who you are, and I can get you up to the historic wing before anyone panics. Pretend you couldn’t sleep and went in search of something to read, or whatever your mother would believe. If anyone asks, I’ll swear no one passed through this door while I was stationed here.”
“Who are you?” Cal asked softly. Was this truly the same man who had stood guard over the servant’s gate for years, the man who never seemed to recognize Cal?
“No one important. I once lived in the palace myself, but that was many years ago.”
“Why are you helping me?”
“You’re not the only one who sneaks through this gate. I keep my silence.”
Cal stared at the man. Now that he looked closely, his dark eyes seemed intelligent. His beard obscured the lower half of his face—Cal doubted he would recognize the man if he shaved it away.
“Go on, no time to tarry!”
The gate guard led Cal down a passageway he had never followed before. “Up that way leads into a cleaning cupboard in the historic wing. Until next time, Your Highness.”
Cal blinked at him. When the gate guard turned to go, he dashed up the steps two at a time, finally bursting out into a room crowded with brooms and mops and feather dusters. Sneezing once, Cal cracked open the door. No one was around, so he darted out.
/> He was in the wing near the practice room, where Prince Leoth took dueling lessons. That gave him an idea. If his mother caught him disobeying a completely different rule than she expected, she would likely chastise him for that and look no further into the matter.
He let himself into the sparring room, leaving the door ajar in hopes he would be spotted before long. Then, mind still racing with questions about the gate guard and worry over Bash, he strolled over to the rack of practice swords and selected one. A mirror stood near the front of the room, so Cal posed before it. Plagues. He was still wearing the homespun clothing, and as the gate guard had mentioned, one cheek was streaked with flour.
After scrubbing the flour off his face, he dug through a chest of clothing used for sparring, the whole lot reeking of sweat. He stripped out of the homespun and pulled on the first shirt and pair of close-fitting leggings that looked as though they might fit, burying the servants’ clothes at the bottom of the chest. He would no longer need them. This was the last time he would ever sneak around behind his mother’s back—he could not risk hurting anyone else. Besides, all of his friends had been sent away.
Just moments after he picked up the practice sword once more, a servant walked past the doorway and gave a cry of surprise. “Prince Calden!” she called. “Your mother is searching for you! She’s worried you’ve been kidnapped. When you didn’t show up for breakfast—”
“Is it that time already?” Cal asked. “Sorry. I’ll get back now.”
Cal put away the practice sword and sauntered back to the Ruunan wing just in time to find the servant describing to his mother what she’d seen.
His mother’s eyes widened when she spotted him, still in the sparring clothes. “Cloudy gods, Calden! Where have you been?”
“I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d burn off some energy.” He shrugged.
“The guards outside our wing didn’t see you go! How did you slip past them?”
Cal paused. He didn’t want to pretend the guards had failed at their duty, or they might lose their jobs as well. “I took a back way through.”
“Calden! What did I say about sneaking around behind my back?”
“I was by myself, in our perfectly safe palace, Mother. No one wants to assassinate me. No one cares what I do here.” He paused. “Any chance I can take dueling lessons? If you let me, I promise not to cause trouble.”
She sighed. “Perhaps. Let me speak to the dueling master. Right now, it’s time for breakfast. And you ought to have a bath. You reek.”
* * *
Three days later, word reached Cal through one of the kitchen hands. It was scrawled in a barely-legible hand, half the words misspelled.
Yu askd me to rite. I am better. The heelr fixed me. Thank yu for visiting. Yu ar stil my best frend.
Bash
Forbidden Queen: A Court Intrigue Fantasy (The Forbidden Queen Series Book 1) Page 24
