Palace of Mirrors

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  I glance up at him in surprise.

  “No, no, Sir Stephen never said she’d die,” I say.

  “Sir Stephen—that’s the guy who always comes to visit your nanny?”

  “He’s visiting me, not Nanny. He teaches me about being royal. He’s a knight.”

  “A knight, huh? And he’s really told you that Desmia won’t die?”

  “Well, no,” I admit slowly. “He hasn’t said that she won’t die. But he’s never said that she will. There are guards and everything in the castle. I’m sure they’re trying to keep her as safe as possible.” I feel like my tongue is getting all knotted up, trying to explain. I can tell that it’s the middle of the night and I’ve had no sleep, because I’m having trouble thinking clearly. I resort to using the same explanation Sir Stephen has always used with me. “When . . . when the dark forces come back, they’ll be revealed if they even try to attack Desmia, and then they’ll be vanquished. And then I can take my throne, and Desmia can go . . . live her own life.”

  Harper has one eyebrow raised.

  “So the castle guards can protect Desmia, but they wouldn’t be able to protect you? They can make sure that she’s not killed, but they can’t make the same promise about you if you were living in the castle with that royal princess life you’re supposed to have?”

  There’s a bitter twist to his words that I don’t quite understand. Then I get it. I see that Harper, who’s had barely any education except harp lessons, is trying to trap me. This is like the logic proofs Sir Stephen has only begun to teach me: If A, then B; if B, then C; If A, then . . .

  “I think,” I say starchily, “that it’s a matter of odds.” Sir Stephen has taught me about odds and probability, too. “The odds are that Desmia will be safe—that I might have been safe too—in the castle, living openly as the princess. But no one wants to take any chances with my life, since I’m the last in the royal line, my parents’ only heir.”

  “But it’s okay to take chances with another girl’s life?” Harper asks. “Someone who doesn’t even have a stake in the outcome? If she dies in your place—oh well, too bad. She was only an orphan, anyhow.”

  I start to remind Harper that Desmia’s getting a much better life out of all of this—the silk dresses, the satin sheets, the sumptuous feasts—everything that ought to have been mine. Then I see the glint in his eye. It’s not fury he’s working from. It’s pain.

  “This is about your father, isn’t it?” I say. “Your father, who died for another man’s cause . . .”

  Harper is nodding, violently.

  “My father died for the king’s cause. If you’re the princess, my father died because your father sent him off to war!”

  I gape at Harper in the candlelight. I have honestly never put that together before. In the village people talk about the king and the war and everything else about the outside world like it’s all so distant and far away. When I picture my father the king, I imagine a stately man in royal robes hugging close his beloved child (me). I have never once pictured him sending soldiers off to war, off to certain death.

  But I know he did that. I don’t actually know if he ever hugged me.

  “I—I’m sorry,” I stammer. “I never . . . never thought about that.”

  Harper kicks at the matted straw.

  “Then I guess that’s proof,” he says bitterly. “You really are the princess. Or something royal. Royalty only think about themselves, about keeping power and building the royal treasury. They don’t think a thing about ordinary people. They don’t care if we live or die.”

  “Harper, you know I’m not like that,” I protest.

  I reach toward him without thinking. I’m not sure if I’m intending to hug him or pat his arm comfortingly or grab his shoulders and give him a good shake—or maybe even punch him. But he pulls back away from me, dodging my hands. He ends up on the other side of the cow, staring at me resentfully.

  “How could you?” he asks. “How could you let another girl take all the risks for you? How could you let someone die in your place?”

  “I told you, Desmia’s not going to die!” I say, but I choke on the words. This is something else I’ve always managed to gloss over. Or wanted to gloss over. Why else would I have spent so much time imagining the ceremony I’d have to thank her? “Anyhow, I didn’t arrange this. I was just a baby when they brought me here. I didn’t have a choice. I’m not responsible for Desmia’s life.”

  “What good is it to be princess, then?” Harper asks. “If you don’t have any control over anyone’s fate? Even your own?”

  “I will,” I say. “When I come out of hiding . . .” But even as I say these words, I doubt them. When I come out of hiding, I’ll have royal advisers. All the men who have been running the kingdom since my father died will just keep running it. “Well,” I add, “if I could, I’d end the war. And then wouldn’t you be mad at me? Because you’ve always wanted to be a soldier going off to war?”

  Harper stares at me from the other side of the cow.

  “I want to be a soldier because it’s something to do. Taking action. Better to do that—to do something—than spend my whole life playing music I hate, just so I don’t die.”

  I can’t see Harper’s face very well in the dim, flickering light. But I feel like I’m seeing him with something beyond vision. Harper’s been my best friend my whole life, but I’ve never known this much about him.

  “What would you do if you were me, then?” I ask in a ragged voice. “Go tell Desmia she doesn’t have to take any more risks for me? Take over as princess?”

  “Yes,” Harper whispers.

  I feel dizzy.

  “I really could end the war,” I say, suddenly awed at the possibility.

  “You could send all the soldiers home to their families,” Harper says. “The ones who are still alive, at least. You could open the royal treasury to feed the poor. You could pass any law you want.”

  “I could outlaw harps!” I say, giggling.

  “Why not?” Harper asks, grinning.

  Anything seems possible, suddenly, sitting there with Harper and the cow in the Suttons’ tiny shed. I feel like all my choices are spinning around my head, glittering like gold. I’m so glad I’ve told Harper my secret.

  And then I remember why I told him.

  “My enemies—I think they’ve already found out where I am,” I say. I tell him about Nanny’s strange behavior, about the cut in our door latch, about my own fears about the shadow on the path. “Sir Stephen will probably want me to hide somewhere else.”

  “And then, if your enemies find you there—”

  “I’d have to move again,” I say.

  The possibilities spinning around my head turn dark and dreary. I see a different life for myself: trudging from village to village, a homeless wanderer, always cowering in fear. I could use up my entire life like that. It’d be like Harper spending his whole life taking harp lessons, hating every moment of it.

  “Maybe . . .,” I say. “Maybe I should stop hiding.”

  “What?” Harper says.

  “I could do what you said you’d do. If my enemies could find me here, they could find me anywhere. So why not just go back to the castle, tell Desmia thanks for her service, but it’s no longer needed; she no longer has to risk her life for me. And then I would just . . . be the princess.”

  The candle flickers. Harper’s jaw drops.

  “Wouldn’t it be a little more complicated than that?” he asks. “More . . . dangerous?”

  “Well, sure, but . . . Harper, I’ve been studying for this my whole life. I know the Royal Code, the Principles of Governance. I know every single export Suala produces, and the ratio of iron ore to rock in the Gondogian mines. I’m ready!” My words ring with confidence. I am surprised at myself. I sit up straighter, no longer leaning on the cow. I inhale deeply, and it feels like the first free breath of my life.

  I expect Harper to argue with me, to try to talk me into being practical,
into being safe. But he’s sitting up straighter too, his face a mask of determination.

  “I’m going with you,” he says.

  8

  We make our plans with amazing speed. Maybe we’re afraid that if we don’t go right away, we’ll chicken out. Maybe we’ve both been waiting so long to leave the village, to begin our real lives, that we can’t stand to stay here a second longer than we have to. We talk at the same time, our words overlapping: Harper volunteers to bring leftover bread and an old canteen for water while I jump in to offer dried jerky from Nanny’s pantry. But we’re in complete agreement about everything, until I say, “And you should bring your harp, as our cover story along the way.”

  “What?” Harper explodes. “No—I am not taking the harp! That’s what I’m running away from!”

  “I’m not saying you have to play it. Or practice or anything. But people will wonder about two children out on their own. If you have the harp, we can tell everyone that you’re going to the capital to find work. And we can say I’m your sister or something, coming along to help out . . .”

  “We might as well say I’m going to that stupid music competition,” Harper grumbles.

  “Perfect!” I say. “That’s what you can put in your note to your mam.”

  “My note?” Harper sounds incredulous.

  “Well, yeah, you weren’t going to just run off and not tell your mother anything, were you?”

  I see by his face that he had intended to run off and not tell his mother anything.

  “Eelsy—Cecilia—my mother wants to go to that music competition with me,” he says. “She wants to sit there in the audience and listen to me play better than anyone else. She wants to be there when they put the gold medal around my neck, when the director of the castle musicians walks over and begs me to work for him. Except—none of that would ever happen. I’m not better than everyone else. When I play in public, my hands get all sweaty and my fingers slip and I forget to count time. . . . I’m not even good enough to be the village musician, and there’s no competition here except Herk the tailor playing his cowbells!”

  “Then write that she makes you nervous and that this is something that you have to do for yourself,” I say impatiently.

  I’m surprised that Harper stops arguing. A few moments later we blow out the candle and creep out of the shed, each of us giving Glissando/Grease a good-bye pat. I wait by the door of Harper’s cottage while he tiptoes in and changes clothes and gathers up his things. I don’t see the note he leaves for his mother, but when he emerges through the doorway, he’s got his harp strapped across his back.

  “You’re going to have to carry it some of the time too,” he growls at me. “It’s heavy. Danged harp!”

  “No problem,” I mutter.

  We escape the village without running into the watchman again, although I think I hear a faint echo of his voice from near the village store: “Four o’clock of the morning. All’s well. All’s well. . . .”

  I shiver and wrap Nanny’s shawl tighter around my shoulder. All isn’t well. We’ve got a dark path ahead of us, the beginning of a journey full of unknowns. For all I know, the path just between the village and Nanny’s house is lined with enemies. Maybe I won’t even make it that far. Maybe I won’t even get to tell her good-bye.

  A lump grows in my throat, and I realize that, for all my ideas about what to tell Harper’s mam, I haven’t thought of anything to write to Nanny. If I tell her where I’m really going, she’ll send Sir Stephen after me. She’s spent the last fourteen years of her life taking care of me, keeping me safe. How can I tell her that I don’t care about being safe anymore? That I’d rather sit on a throne and wear silks and satins than stay with her?

  Dear Nanny, I compose in my head. I believe that my enemies are closing in on us. I don’t want to endanger you, so I am leaving. . . .

  That sounds so noble and high-minded that I’m proud of myself. I didn’t know I had that in me. Maybe once I come out of hiding, I will be a better person. I will go down in history as Cecilia the Good. Generations from now people will talk about how kind and gentle I was, how saintly.

  Harper stops in front of me so suddenly that my face slams into his harp, the wires digging into my skin.

  “Ow!” I complain loudly. “Double dragon drat, Harper, give me some warning next time. Now I’m going to have bruises in stripes all over my face.”

  “Shh!” Harper says. “Listen!”

  Above the racket of the crickets and other noisy night insects, there’s a swell of sound coming from ahead of us, a keening. It’s even eerier than the village watchman’s “All’s well . . .” It’s sadder, too, because even though the sound is far away and I can’t make out any words, it’s clearly the wailing of someone who does not believe that anything’s well, someone whose world has just fallen to pieces.

  Then the wailing gets closer, and I can make out a word: “Ce-ciii-liiia . . .”

  “It’s Nanny!” I hiss at Harper, and take off running. “Maybe she’s hurt!”

  I promptly trip on a rock in the path and tumble to the ground. More bruises to go with the wire marks, I think. But I spring up right away, calling out, “Nanny! Over here!”

  Harper pulls me back.

  “Hush!” he cries. “What if she’s the bait in some trap? You need to be quiet!”

  I jerk away from him.

  “Nanny! I’m coming!” I yell.

  Now I can see the glow of a lamp up ahead on the path. I sprint forward, toward the glow. I can see it’s just Nanny, by herself, out searching in the dark. As soon as I draw near, she all but leaps at me, wrapping me in a hug.

  “Cecilia, child—I thought I’d lost you,” she murmurs into my hair. “I thought—”

  “I just had to go tell Harper something,” I tell her.

  Harper catches up with us just then. I’m amazed to see that he was clever enough to hide his harp and knapsack before stepping into the light. Nanny draws him into a hug too.

  “And you were kind enough to walk Cecilia home,” she marvels. “I’m so grateful.”

  Harper’s eyes goggle out at me. Both of us now have our heads smashed in against Nanny’s shoulders, the lamp clutched between us. Nanny gives no sign that she’s ever going to let go. Harper starts making faces at me, his expression clearly asking, What do we do now?

  I push away from the hug.

  “Nanny, I’m fine; everything’s fine. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

  “No, no—I think you saved us both,” she says dazedly.

  “What?”

  Nanny releases Harper from her hug and straightens her skirt. She smoothes back her hair.

  “I woke up, and you were gone,” she says. “I thought maybe you’d just stepped out to the privy, but I went to check, to see . . .” She says this matter-of-factly, as if I would expect her to be so paranoid. “It’s a ways from the cottage, you know. . . .”

  I wait, because it’s obvious that she has more to tell me than the distance to the privy.

  “I was almost there when I heard the muffled hoofbeats,” she says. She shoots a glance at Harper, as if she’s hesitant to tell this story in front of him. Then her eyes well up with tears and she clutches my hand and the words just burst out, as if she can’t stop herself. “They were trying to sneak up on us, being quiet—all these men on horseback. They circled the whole cottage before they made a single noise loud enough to wake anyone. And then they just attacked, screaming and hollering and climbing in through the window and the door. . . . It was like they just expected that door to give way for them. . . .”

  The cut door latch, I think. I remember what I suspected before—that someone had cut the latch ahead of time to prepare for a middle-of-the-night attack. To make sure we had no warning, no chance to escape. I shiver, thinking, If it hadn’t been for the wind blowing the door open, and my going to Harper’s . . . and then Nanny going out to look for me . . .

  “Oh, Cecilia,” Nanny wails, clutching my hand
tighter. “I think they wanted to kill us. They had their swords drawn, their knives unsheathed . . .”

  Her words dissolve into sobs, but she doesn’t loosen the iron grip on my hand.

  Harper steps closer, his arms out in a defensive pose.

  “Are they still there?” Harper hisses. “Still looking for Cecilia and you’re out here screaming her name?”

  He’s peering around in all directions at once, but there’s only darkness around us. He reaches for the lamp—to extinguish it, I think, so we won’t be so obvious—but Nanny swings it away from him.

  “They’re gone, I’m sure of it. I heard them riding away.”

  “But if someone comes back on foot . . .,” Harper argues.

  I can tell Harper is trying to think like a thief or a murderer, like my enemies. I lean over and blow out the lamp. In the sudden darkness Nanny begins sobbing harder.

  “We have to get her somewhere—somewhere safe—to calm her down,” I tell Harper. “Can we go to your mother’s?”

  I hope he understands that our little adventure, our trip to the capital, is off. I can’t leave Nanny like this, in hysterics. We’ll go back to Harper’s cottage, and he can destroy his note before his mother sees it, and then, I don’t know, Nanny and I will cower in hiding at the Suttons’ until Sir Stephen shows up and tells us what to do. I feel such a strange swirl of emotions thinking about this change in plans: relief and regret all mixed up together. What I don’t feel is fear. I think I’m too stunned for fear.

  But there were horsemen, hunting me. . . .

  “No!” Nanny screams. “We can’t go to the village—you can’t go to the village. You have to leave. You have to get to Sir . . . to Sir . . .” Her voice falters, and I know she’s remembered again that she shouldn’t reveal secrets in front of Harper.

  “Of course. We can go to our good friend who visits so often,” I say quickly, because there’s not time to explain that Harper already knows everything. Not that I’d want to explain that to Nanny anyhow. “Our friend will keep us safe.”

  “Yes!” Nanny says, relief in her tone. “I’ve got money. We’ll hire a carriage . . .”