Delphine and the Silver Needle

by Alyssa Moon

  Success! The needle momentarily uncovered, Delphine managed to snatch it up with her paw. She kept running away from the rat as he reeled from her unexpected attack.

  “Delphine!” Alexander sounded closer. She glanced up, still clutching her needle so tightly that her knuckles were white. He dashed toward her, pointing as he ran. “Look!”

  Delphine turned to see a solid wall of soldier mice pouring out of the château, clutching weapons and running straight at them. Her heart soared.

  She leapt up and began to sprint alongside Alexander toward the mice and the château wall. As they grew closer, she noticed that the soldiers’ swords and halberds were raised, but they were coming no farther. It seemed as if an invisible line existed at the edge of the innermost garden ring.

  Delphine and Alexander reached the mice, who separated to let them through. Then the ranks of soldiers gathered together again, gazing menacingly at the rats.

  “Back to your side, rats,” shouted one soldier mouse. She swung her sword to emphasize the point. “You know the rule.”

  The rats grumbled and snarled but slowly backed away. Delphine couldn’t believe it. Just threatening the rats with a rule—that was all it had taken?

  As the rats dispersed back to their camps, the mice turned on Delphine and Alexander, staring intently. They had not lowered their weapons. Delphine gulped as she and Alexander found themselves backed up against a solid stone wall. Four of the soldiers loomed in front of them. Were they in league with the rats? Impossible.

  Delphine and Alexander braced themselves, but the mice didn’t lay a paw on them or attempt to disarm them. They gestured brusquely for Alexander and Delphine to walk toward the front entrance of the château. More confused and afraid than ever, Delphine and Alexander complied with their silent escorts.

  Inside the front hall of the château, they were greeted by a wigged and beribboned footmouse in full livery. He bowed low. “Lady Delphine,” he intoned. “Lord Alexander. Welcome to the Château Trois Arbres.”

  What knavery was this? Delphine redoubled her grip on her needle, but was surprised to hear Alexander slipping his stick-sword into his belt. She glanced over to see that his face had split into a huge grin. “Bertrand! We are at your service.” He clapped the footmouse on the back.

  “You old so-and-so!” continued Alexander heartily. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  “I’d be more fitted to ask you that selfsame question!” came the reply.

  “Wait a minute,” put in Delphine, now utterly lost. “Alexander—you know him? And you . . .” She turned on the footmouse who was apparently named Bertrand. “Aren’t you at all concerned that this château is entirely surrounded by rats? For that matter, why are the soldiers spending their time taking us prisoner instead of fighting off the enemy?”

  Alexander rested a gentle paw on top of hers, and she slowly lowered her needle. “Delphine,” he said, “Bertrand has been a loyal footmouse of the castle for as long as I can remember. Whatever brings him here can only be good news.”

  Mice from the castle were here at the château? Had they known she would be headed here in search of answers about the needle? Delphine leaned against Alexander, feeling light-headed.

  “Bertrand! What a shock this must all be to Lady Delphine.” Alexander put his arm around her. “We have traveled far and are weary and in need of nourishment.” He gazed down at her again. “We are safe here, my lady. The soldiers of the castle who brought us inside simply didn’t recognize me. But can you blame them?” And with a wry smile, he gestured at his bedraggled travel clothes and mud-caked paws.

  The chambers they were led to were sumptuous, but Delphine barely noticed until she’d gotten several cups of steaming hot barley tea in her, along with two servings of apple-jam cakes and nearly an entire brussels sprout. The serving mice bustled about all the while, bringing in clean garments and fresh linens. One of the serving mice looked unaccountably familiar to Delphine, but she couldn’t quite place her.

  Alexander hovered around Delphine, introducing her to everyone he recognized, which only made Delphine’s head spin more.

  “Let her rest first,” said a motherly hedgehog who had appointed herself as Delphine’s keeper. She gently fussed over her, combing her whiskers and picking the bits of dirt from her wounded paws before cleaning and bandaging them. “You both are in a right state. The difference is, you know who we are. She doesn’t.”

  After Delphine ate, she dozed. When she next opened her eyes, she found sun streaming through the windows. Alexander was watching from his seat across the room. She struggled to sit up, and he came to her assistance.

  “You slept for quite a while,” he said.

  Delphine nodded. “I didn’t mean to, but—”

  He cut her off gently. “You needed it.”

  “Thank you for staying with me,” she said. She looked around more carefully at her surroundings. On either side of the canopy bed, the drapes were tied back with rich gold threads. Elderberry logs burned fragrantly on the hearth. Above stood a marble mantel cunningly supported by the rooks of a human chess set. “Where are we? I thought you didn’t know this place. But you know the residents?”

  Alexander seesawed his head. “Not the residents. The guests. I know the footmouse who met us at the door, and a few of the servants who came to care for us last night.”

  “How?”

  “From court. The royal retinue is here because they accompany the princess whenever she travels.”

  “The . . . princess? She’s here, too?” Delphine gasped. Then she recalled the serving mouse she had recognized. It had been Ysabeau, Princess Petits-Oiseaux’s pawmaid.

  Alexander nodded, ears pink with enthusiasm. “And we’ve arrived at the most perfect time. The Winterberry Ball is mere days away!”

  But attending a ball was the last thing on her mind. She had unwittingly brought grave danger straight to Princess Petits-Oiseaux’s doorstep.

  “Hold on,” Delphine said, waving her paws in the air to try to get his attention as Alexander wondered aloud whether he could borrow proper attire from another lord for the ball. “What about the mice who captured us?”

  “They weren’t capturing us. They were escorting us to safety. They were as surprised as we were that the rats attacked.”

  “But why would anyone be surprised to see rats attack? Isn’t that what rats do?”

  “No, no, those rats out there are the ‘mis-rule.’” Seeing the blank expression on Delphine’s face, Alexander continued. “The rat guard that tracks the movement of the mouse royalty. It’s been like this for a hundred years. Something to do with the cease-war. Whenever a member of the royal family travels out into the kingdom, the rats of the castle send a whole troop to trail along and keep an eye on where the royals are going and what they’re doing. So the royals bring along a whole battalion of mouse warriors to ‘protect’ themselves from the rats. But they never fight. It’s all just for show.”

  Delphine thought that she would never understand the ways of the royal world. But she had more immediate concerns.

  “They did fight, Alexander. The rats tried to kill us.”

  “Well . . . we didn’t arrive with the royal caravan. So I suppose we were considered fair game? I’ve never traveled with the royals before. I don’t actually know exactly how the mis-rule guard works.”

  Delphine bit her lip, thinking intently. “I don’t think they knew who we were,” she said finally. “If they had recognized me, they wouldn’t have stopped when they did.”

  “Good point.” Alexander attempted to stifle a yawn.

  “Your turn to rest,” she said. “Just like keeping watch at our forest camps, right?”

  He smiled, not bothering to protest.

  “There.” She pointed to a sofa just on the other side of the room. “Lie down and sleep. I mean it. And we’ll . . .” She leapt up, suddenly realizing what had been gnawing at the back of her mind. “Cornichonne!”

  But
Alexander had already curled up on the sofa. “She’s fine. I snuck her into the cellar. She was very . . .” And he was out, snoring into his whiskers.

  Delphine rose and walked to the window. Her heart sank as she gazed down on the sward surrounding the château. The rats’ little campfires flickered ominously, strewn like hot coals in every direction.

  Delphine wandered through the château halls, gazing around in awe. It was fascinating, she thought, how the entire château had been built entirely by mice, to the scale of mice, for mice! She had never seen anything like it. She had spent her whole life in a human-size château, where the rooms inside the walls were mouse-size, but the walls themselves were scaled to humans. Here, everything—the staircases, the mantel-

  pieces, the cornices, all of it—was sized for her.

  She was welcomed into the princess’s quarters by her pawmaid, Ysabeau. Princess Petits-Oiseaux was perched on the settee in front of her dressing table. Bearnois, her pet bumblebee, was buzzing in lazy circles nearby. The princess spotted Delphine and a lovely smile ran across her face.

  “Ma chérie!” The princess rose elegantly, stretching out both of her paws. Delphine approached and took them gladly, bending into a curtsey. But the princess pulled her upright and into a warm embrace.

  “I am so pleased to see you, my dear. When I learned that you had disappeared on the same night the rats had crossed into the castle . . . I grew most worried! And nobody seemed to know a thing.” The princess’s eyes were damp, and Delphine found herself touched that the princess could care so deeply about just one of her many subjects in such a large kingdom.

  “I’m fine,” Delphine hastened to reassure her. “And Alexander has been at my side the whole time. Lord Alexander, that is.”

  The princess nodded. “I was so glad to learn that he was also safe. We’ve been worried for months. Some feared that the rats had carried him back across into the Forbidden Wing when they retreated.”

  “Then the rest of the castle was unharmed?”

  “All perfectly safe and sound,” Princess Petits-Oiseaux told her. “We castle residents don’t let a little thing like rats stop us. Not even when we’re traveling. Although I do hate to be away at such a time . . . did you hear? The human prince has been searching high and low for his mystery princess! It’s all terribly exciting.” She took a step back and looked Delphine over. “My pawmaids have been taking care of you, I see.”

  Delphine nodded. Cleaned, scrubbed, beribboned, cosseted, corseted, and finally topped with several splashes of eau de géranium, Delphine was feeling more elegant than she had since the whole adventure had begun. There was just one thing. “I don’t quite know how you manage to be so comfortable in these court garments, Your Highness,” she admitted. Delphine had had to borrow a whole new set of clothes to replace the ones that had practically fallen apart when the maids tried to wash them. It was only then that she realized just how loose-fitting and comfortable her country garments had been.

  The princess let out a peal of laughter that tinkled like a bell. At the sound, Bearnois floated toward her. His huge dark eyes regarded Delphine softly. “You are such a dear!” she said. “Whoever said that these were comfortable? Oh no, no, no, there’s nothing whatsoever comfortable about court clothes.”

  “Then why wear them? Why not wear knee ribbons and heeled shoes like the lords? Surely those give greater freedom of movement.”

  “Even less, my dear, even less. You think that we ladies suffer for our fashions; you have no idea how the lords are stifled and laced into their finery. It’s all the way of the court, you see.

  “Your whiskers, though!” The princess gazed admiringly. “You know I loved them when they were gray . . . but this silver is so striking. However did you manage it?”

  Delphine, flattered that the princess remembered her gray whiskers, related the moment she had held the needle in her paws under the light of the full moon.

  The princess’s eyes grew wide. “So it was almost as if your whiskers had been coated in a sort of tarnish, too. And when the needle’s tarnish was affected, the other was as well?”

  Delphine hadn’t even thought of that. The rumor around the kingdom had always been that the princess was clever, and Delphine quite agreed.

  She nodded. “How true!” Then she paused. “I’m sorry, Your Royal Highness, I just still can’t believe that you’re here.”

  The princess laughed again. “I can’t believe that you’re here!” she returned. “Imagine, as I’m standing at the window last night, what do I see but two mice heading straight into the rats’ camps? And then learning that the rats had engaged in an attack?!” Her voice hardened and Delphine saw her paws clench. “The castle rats have never attacked, not in a hundred years. They’ve harried and hounded us, following us across the kingdom and back, upholding this ridiculous mis-rule of theirs. But they’ve always kept an understanding with my guards. Neither side attacks the other, and thereby all remains in balance.

  “At least—” Princess Petits-Oiseaux stared out through the window at a flat gray sky. “At least until now. Perhaps peace is coming to an end. We must hope not, but it seems the winds may be changing.” She turned back to Delphine. “My little dressmaker.” She smiled. “You have been on quite an adventure. You must tell me all about it.”

  And so Delphine shared the tale of the past few months.

  The princess listened in rapt silence, and when Delphine finally finished, she shook her head in amazement. “And you ended up here, at the Château Trois Arbres, only days after my arrival. Incredible!” She clapped her paws together. “Clearly it is too dangerous for you to travel without an escort. And although I’m sure you wish desperately to return home at once, unfortunately I cannot spare a single guard. We travel lightly when we can.”

  Princess Petits-Oiseaux’s definition of “light travel” seemed very different from Delphine’s. But she politely replied, “I’m pleased to be here with you, my princess. And actually, I’m looking forward to exploring the château to see if I can uncover any clues about my ancestor or the needle.”

  The princess tapped one paw against her lips, contemplating. “Now how could the rats have possibly guessed you would be coming here?”

  “I don’t think they knew who I was when they attacked,” Delphine explained. “Now that I know about the mis-rule, I think that they just happened to see two mice who had no business being on their side of the camps. A bit of easy prey for rats with nothing else to do but sit and watch a château for days.”

  “Yes, I see.” The princess nodded slowly, her powdered whiskers bouncing lightly as she did so. “Well, you are safe now. And you are welcome to whatever the Château Trois Arbres can offer. I hope it holds the answers you seek.”

  The task of looking for these answers quickly became overwhelming to Delphine. The château seemed to contain an endless number of rooms, suites, chambers, antechambers, closets, foyers, backways, and other similar spaces tucked into every corner. And she had thought that little Château Desjardins was full of winding passages and hidden rooms!

  After hours of wandering, she stumbled upon a grand, high-ceilinged hallway lined with full-length windows down one side and massive tapestries down the other. The tall windows allowed plenty of daylight to stream in so that viewers could enjoy the delicate craftsmanship of the tapestries.

  She walked along slowly, studying the tapestries one by one. They told the story of the mouse family that built this château, generation by generation. The oldest ancestors were dressed in styles Delphine barely recognized. Then her heart soared as she noticed mice in the tapestries who were wielding giant needles to create magic and sew beautiful garments. So there were tapestries of the Threaded here, too!

  Delphine returned to the hallway the next day and spent all afternoon staring at the tapestries. She examined every stitch. She copied down the lists of names embroidered around the edges of one where Threaded mice stood front and center. Maydeline, Ertice, Arcon, Elodie
, Pierrette, Martine, Claudien, Gielle. She even sketched out some of the design elements of their garments, the embroidery details around their cuffs or on their tail covers in the winter tapestries. But nothing was revealed.

  Deciding to take another avenue, Delphine spent the next few days questioning the regular staff of the château, becoming a well-intentioned but often overfriendly visitor to the kitchens and the other servants’ areas. Did they know anything about a mouse with silver whiskers visiting the château a hundred years ago? What about stories of a human-size needle, carried by a guest? Had their ancestors worked at the château, and if so, had they ever told tales of such things? She frequented the wings where the family who owned the château now lived and questioned them, too, as much as she dared. She feared to take advantage of the kindness that Princess Petits-Oiseaux had extended her, but she was desperate to unravel the mystery.

  Sadly, no matter whom she asked or where she looked, there were absolutely no clues of any kind. Nobody had ever heard any old tales from the previous generations of a silver-whiskered mouse visiting the château, carrying one of the Threaded’s needles.

  Delphine’s growing disappointment did not go unnoticed. One day, Princess Petits-Oiseaux summoned her back to her chambers. Taking in Delphine’s drooping whiskers and melancholy eyes, she announced brightly, “My little seamstress! I can’t tell you how pleased I am to have you here. I was just trying on the gown I had planned to wear for the Winterberry Ball, and it simply doesn’t flatter me one bit. Ysabeau, please have it removed.” She nodded to her pawmaid, who swiftly collected the mass of tulle hanging in Princess Petits-Oiseaux’s dressing room.