The Bastard Prince

by Patty Jansen

  “How do you know all these things? Is it from that book your father gave you? I thought he worked for the church.”

  “He did, but he saw all the church’s involvements: the good ones and the not-so-good ones. The people in the church are just that: people. Not all of them have our best interests at heart, certainly not right now.”

  Dora grabbed Nellie’s wrist. Her hand was warm and fleshy and exuded a smell of cooking fat. “Please, Nellie. I still don’t understand what has gotten into you, but please stop saying these things. You’re my friend. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “If it does, you’ll find someone else to do my work and carry on. I don’t have a family who needs me.”

  “We need you here in the kitchen. You have a good job, enough to eat and good friends. You have a dry place to sleep. Why make a fuss and throw it all away?”

  “I’m not throwing anything away.”

  “Most of us would to disagree. You even have a handsome guard chasing after you.”

  Nellie gave a hollow laugh. “Henrik? He lived a few houses down from me that’s why I know him. But he’s married and has two daughters. He’s not chasing after me.”

  “You haven’t heard that his wife died three years ago?”

  Nellie met Dora’s eyes, feeling heat creep up in her cheeks.

  No, she hadn’t known.

  Why hadn’t he said anything about that when she told him he was trying to flatter her?

  Because he thought she knew.

  By the Triune, could she have acted any more ignorant?

  While they spoke, Corrie had pushed herself up from the table and hobbled into the pantry with her sore foot. She came back a moment later. “Has anyone seen that bag of carrots we got this morning? I wanted to wash them, but the bag’s not there.”

  Dora frowned. “It should be. I saw it there this afternoon.”

  She set her cup down and went into the pantry. “Well I never . . . It’s gone. Wonderful. Not only is there a poisoner in the palace, now we have a thief as well. I’ll have to report that to the guards. Wonder what someone wants with just a bag of carrots.”

  “Make soup?” Corrie said. “Many people out there are desperate and poor.”

  Chapter 23

  * * *

  NELLIE RETURNED to her room, feeling uneasy and impatient. She didn’t belong in the servants’ quarters of the palace anymore. She knew too much, had seen too many things and asked too many questions.

  The dragon might have gone, but she would be surprised if they had seen the last of it.

  Winter had barely begun. There would be discontent amongst the people if the Regent kept holding banquets like these. Deep inside her, she wanted no part in it. Sure, she would be comfortable in the palace, but didn’t that just make her part of the problem, too?

  “So it’s just you and me now,” she said to the kitten, who was much more interested in the bowl of cream than in anything she had to say.

  Nellie picked up the dragon box from her bed.

  Her hairbrush was too long to fit inside its silk-lined interior, but her mother’s old brooch and a couple of pearl buttons would do. And a half-cent coin from Florisheim, reminding her of her travels.

  While she sat there, the kitten clawed its way up the bedspread and onto the bed. It stuck its head inside the dragon box and nosed the corners.

  “It’s gone,” Nellie said.

  The room felt empty and cold.

  Nellie opened the drawer in her little table and read a story from the Book of Verses, but she found it hard to concentrate because she kept seeing Shepherd Wilfridus in the church, justifying the violence against those poor people. Where were Mina and Jantien and her children? Where was Bert? What had happened to Shepherd Adrianus? Would he continue to obey a man who condoned cruelty in the name of the church?

  She didn’t even finish reading the story about her favourite character Rose. It had been easy for Rose to say what she thought because everyone always knew she was right and accepted it easily. Real life wasn’t like that at all.

  In real life, if you said something the rulers didn’t like, they made it so that no one believed you, and they forced you to flee, so it was better just to keep your mouth shut, like her father had done.

  Nellie sat with the Book of Verses in her lap, feeling aimless and empty.

  Now that it was gone, she wanted the dragon to come back. She wanted it to teach all these people a lesson, especially Shepherd Wilfridus. But she had no idea where to look for it.

  She set the box, with the lid open, on the table next to her Book of Verses. The kitten meowed until she picked it up and let it sniff the box. But the only things inside were her brooch and other items she’d put there, which she took back out because they didn’t belong in this box. It was a dragon box and needed to have a dragon inside, not little trinkets.

  Eventually Nellie must have dozed because she woke suddenly through some kind of noise.

  By the Triune that sounded like someone was calling out.

  Nellie went back into the dark corridor. A glow of light came from the kitchen, but when she got there, the room was empty.

  A single pot stood bubbling on the stove. The hearty smell of vegetable soup spread through the kitchen. Loaves of bread lay on the table, two of them cut into slices. A large ham sat on a tray, covered with a thin layer of glazing, and with brush still in the jar of glazing. People had just walked away from their work. It was not late enough for the bakers to have arrived yet, so maybe Dora and Wim had been in here, and Dora made sure that no one was ever idle in the kitchen.

  “Anyone here?” Nellie said.

  There was no reply except the popping of the fire.

  That was strange. Really strange.

  Nellie strode through the kitchen into the corridor—which was empty, too. The sound of a man’s voice calling out instructions came from upstairs.

  A group of people stood on the top steps.

  Most of them were servants. Dora was there, wearing her apron and carrying a ladle.

  One guard—not Henrik—was talking. “When my colleague says it’s your turn, go into the audience room. Only one person at a time.”

  By the Triune, what was going on? At this time of the day, too.

  Even when she stood on her toes, the heads of people blocked her view of the happenings in the foyer. Most of it seemed to be empty and dark. The doors to the hall were shut.

  Just as Nellie was going to ask a man what was going on, the guard near the door beckoned and someone from the front of the group went to the hall. A guard opened the door, giving Nellie a small glimpse of the dining hall, which had been returned to its regular formation, with all the tables back in storage and the chairs stacked around the perimeter of the hall.

  What was going on in there?

  “Oh, there you are.” Henrik touched Nellie on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  He was, too, she could see that in his face.

  And she was just being stupid. “Look, I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t know—”

  “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

  But she did worry about it. She had been silly. “What’s going on?”

  “The Regent is combing the palace for who may have poisoned Lord Verdonck.”

  “So he has decided it wasn’t old age after all?”

  “Whether it was or not, he needs someone to blame. Adalbert Verdonck demands that a culprit be found or he will withdraw his financial support. The younger Verdonck has never liked the Regent, but now he has the final word over what happens to the loans his father granted the palace. He seems to be looking for reasons to demand his money back.”

  Nellie’s heart jumped. It was just as she feared.

  “He’s now interrogating everyone in the palace as to whether they’ve seen anything.”

  By the Triune. Did that mean she would have to go in there alone and talk about what she had seen in Lord Verdonck’s room? Did
Madame Sabine know she had the dragon box? Was Madame Sabine in that room, too?

  The man who had gone in came back out and the next person, a servant for the audience room and the Regent’s office, went in.

  The people on the stairs waited.

  Nellie wanted to go back downstairs, but a guard stood behind her.

  “I have a pot on the stove!” Dora said.

  “Everyone has to see the Regent,” the guard said.

  “Does the Regent want burnt soup?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Dora was the next one to go in.

  Nellie watched Henrik. He stood in the line of guards that went from the stairs to the door into the audience room.

  The door opened and Dora came out. That was quick.

  She grinned and gestured at Nellie. “Your turn.”

  The threat of burnt soup worked well, evidently.

  Nellie climbed the last few steps into the foyer and walked between the lines of guards.

  The guard opened the door.

  The hall had been returned to its normal setup, with the carpet down the centre of the hall leading to the dais where the Regent sat on an elaborate chair in front of the throne.

  In the years since the King’s death, no one had touched the throne. The cleaners dusted it, but it sat there as a memory of the good times and a promise that those good times would return. These days it made a mockery of the Regent’s court, and taunted him that he could not use it; and if it was up to the church, he never would.

  It was a testament to the church’s power that no one had yet removed it.

  Nellie walked along the carpet, feeling very small. She could feel the eyes of the people in the room on her. To be sure, there weren’t that many people in the room, but each of them was important.

  It looked like the Regent was conducting the investigations himself.

  He sat on the chair in the middle of a row, which included Madame Sabine and a couple of the minor court advisors. There was no one from the church.

  Nellie bowed when she got close. Servants in the palace were told to keep their heads bowed when facing the Regent, so she only saw the bottom of his gold-coloured robes and his shoes with big silver buckles that stuck out from under the hem. They were blue. Ridiculous. Who ever wore blue shoes?

  The black stockings he wore bulged at the ankles, where the flesh was constricted by the top of the shoes and kind of spilled over, turning his legs above those elegant shoes into shapeless sausages.

  She waited for him to speak.

  He began, “State your full name.”

  Nelly cringed. Full names were for times when there was trouble. “Cornelia Dreessen.”

  “I’m sure you are well aware that a man was poisoned and has sadly died. You served at the banquet, and I understand that you visited Lord Verdonck’s room after he became ill. Did you at any time see anything unusual, or do you have any knowledge of who might have poisoned him?”

  “I do not, my lord.” Nellie spoke into the carpet. It was uncomfortable standing like this and not looking into a person’s eye.

  Nellie risked a glance at Madame Sabine. Clearly, she knew Nellie visited the lord’s room, and she had told him about it.

  Madame sat a little sideways on the chair, oh, so slightly turned away from her husband. She wore a green dress with lots of frills and held her dainty feet crossed at the ankles. He shoes were plain, without much of a heel, green to match her dress and decorated only with little rosettes of glass beads.

  “I understand my wife called you as herb woman. When you visited our sad departed friend’s room, you did not bring any concoctions?”

  “A kitchen girl brought some juniper berry tea, but by that time the lord was already gravely ill. He was ill the first time I saw him.”

  “What was the last time you saw him healthy?”

  Nellie had to think about that. “I think it was when I served the afternoon meal and he was meeting with business associates.” He had argued with a deacon from the church. “Or maybe it was in the hall.”

  “Who was he talking to in the hall?”

  “Your son, my lord.” It was so awkward, this talking into the carpet!

  “Did he talk about anything other than my son’s exuberant behaviour?”

  “I don’t think so, my lord.” Depending on what he classified as exuberant behaviour.

  “You don’t think so, or you’re sure?”

  “I’m sure. He was telling the young people to go to their rooms.”

  The Regent snorted. “He’s always been a killjoy, that one. Can’t say the son is any better. But you saw nothing unusual?”

  “No, my lord.”

  Except she had seen a monk talking to Els, a monk who was really a girl. She knew not all the wine served at the banquet was tested because the palace trusted the Guentherite order. But there was no reason to distrust the wine and she truly had no idea about what might have been the poisoned item. But that still didn’t mean the poison couldn’t have been in the wine.

  She knew Lord Verdonck had obtained the dragon box illegally through someone with a key to the crypt that the church was unaware existed or had lost track of. Her father’s key was one of those, but it had probably not been her father’s key—or had it? How long had Lord Verdonck been in possession of the box?

  Did the church know he had stolen it? Nellie didn’t think so. He might have used a monk to steal it, someone with a secret key.

  All those things Nellie knew, and Madame Sabine, who sat next to her husband looking prim in her green dress, knew a good lot of those things, too, and either the Regent would already know or he would know as soon as his wife told him.

  All of which made Nellie wonder: will she say anything? Is she going to talk about the box? Is this just a game?

  Sweat broke out all over her body. Her neck was getting sore from keeping her head bent.

  Just one word by Madame Sabine, and things would end badly for Nellie.

  But Madame Sabine continued to say nothing. She held her hands—with painted fingernails—in her lap, and the fingers of those hands worried at each other.

  The Regent asked a few more questions to back up Dora’s replies that nothing strange had happened in the kitchens, and then Nellie could leave.

  Nellie bowed again, and turned around, finally releasing herself from that uncomfortable position. She walked across the carpet to the door as fast as her wobbling knees would allow.

  By the Triune, she had to get out of here.

  And she had to do so without raising suspicion. If they were looking for someone who had poisoned a noble guest, and one of the servants disappeared, it was clear this person knew something they weren’t willing to share.

  And how—how—had Nellie got herself into this situation?

  What a terrible, terrible, tangled mess.

  Chapter 24

  * * *

  NELLIE ARRIVED AT the door to the hall as if it were a portal to freedom.

  Under the eyes of the servants still waiting to go in, she crossed the foyer and walked around the group to go down the stairs.

  “Nellie!” Henrik came after her. “Nellie, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I don’t get questioned every day. You may be used to it, but I’m not. Really, I’m fine. A bit shaken, but fine.”

  But then she noticed Maartje who came running out of the corridor to the bottom of the stairs, her eyes wide.

  “Nellie! Your room!” She pointed. “There’s a . . . a . . .”

  By the Triune, no. The dragon.

  Nellie jumped down the stairs and turned into the corridor. She ran into the kitchen to grab a lamp and turned back towards her room. Maartje stood on the stairs, her hands over her mouth, but Henrik followed her. He held his hand on the hilt of his sword. Nellie gestured for him to stay behind her.

  She was only halfway
to her room before a waft of warm air hit her.

  The dragon was already in her room.

  Nellie crept along the corridor.

  The cupboard door stood open. Towels and aprons lay in a mess on the floor. A hollow atop them was flecked with black cat hairs. That darned kitten had gotten in. Many of the cats in the palace could open doors. This one had learned quickly.

  Nellie held up the lamp to light the room.

  The dragon lay curled up on the bed.

  It had assumed a solid form, and oh my, it had grown so much.

  Its head lay along its sinuous body and its tail curled around it. Nellie had never seen its powerful wings as clearly as this, folded up against its body. Previously, the dragon seemed to be able to fly purely through magic.

  Its eyes were closed. Its skin colour had deepened to dark red, overlaid with a satin sheen. The nostrils, the bearded protuberances along its chin, its ears and paws and tip of its tail were all much lighter in colour. The nails on its paws were black, curved and needle sharp. Those were the nails that had left scars on Madame Sabine’s back and Lord Verdonk’s leg.

  The kitten lay in the curve of the dragon’s neck, fast asleep.

  There was a soft sound behind her, and Nellie found herself pushed aside by Henrik’s hands. He drew his bow.

  “No, no, don’t do that! It’s a magical creature, you can’t kill it like that.” If was possible to kill the dragon at all, which she doubted. At least not with an ordinary weapon.

  Henrik lowered the bow, but the dragon had woken up and opened an orange eye.

  It uncurled itself from the bed.

  First it set one forepaw, with its fearsome nails, on the mat next to Nellie’s bed, and then the other. The paws were bigger than dinner plates.

  Then it added the hind paws. The tail pushed against the far wall, threatening to swipe the books and oil lamp off Nellie’s bookshelf.

  It moved towards the door. Henrik stepped back into the corridor.

  “Look at the cat,” Henrik said.

  The little kitten sat on the dragon’s back, between the folded wings. It showed no signs of panic.