I’m thinking that I would like to lure this matron into the rat-infested alley I just left, just to see if she herself can maintain perfect grammar, diction, and gratitude under such trying circumstances.
Ella clears her throat.
“I would have thought this beggar might be located elsewhere,” she says, grimacing slightly. Almost imperceptibly she twitches her head toward the palace and wrinkles her brow curiously.
Code language and facial expressions, I think. That’s all we’re going to be able to use.
“Are you implying that our beggars are too forward?” the matron asks, offense creeping into her voice. “What do you do in Fridesia, cage them up so they’re out of sight?”
Ella turns toward the matron.
“Oh, no,” she says, forcing her eyes into a wide expression of mock guilelessness. “In Fridesia we have so many beggars that one can barely walk two paces without having to step over a ragamuffin like this one. I’ve been admiring the fact that Suala’s indigents are so rare as to be practically nonexistent.”
She glances my way, as if to ask, Am I laying it on too thick?
I frown, because this could take forever.
“Believe me,” I say, “I was exactly where I belonged, earlier this morning. But then”—How can I say this?—“I, uh, had good cause to come this way. I, um, wanted to sing Suala’s praises to you, but . . .” Suddenly, I’m inspired. “How can I sing without a harp? And Harper?”
I’m proud of myself for being able to ask so directly, without giving anything away.
“There was a fine harper at the palace,” Ella says, her face as serene as if she’s doing no more than musing on all the pleasant music she’s heard since arriving in Suala.
I glance at the matron, who doesn’t look suspicious yet.
“Is the harper still there?” I ask, and somehow I can’t keep the urgency out of my voice. You’d think that I would be good at pretending after all my years of practice, but I sound so worried that even people on the other side of the platform turn and stare at me with great concern.
“Aye, at the music competition—,” Ella begins, which makes me wonder if she understands what I’m trying to say at all. The matron beside her interrupts before I have a chance to clarify.
“That’s enough! Beggar, begone!” she orders. “We’ll not have you troubling our visitor with your nonsense.”
“Oh, please,” I say. I think to humbly bow my head. “I have to—”
Ella gasps before I can say another word.
“You have to get treatment for that gash on your head!” she exclaims. “How is it that you’re even conscious?”
The matron gasps too.
“That’s blood?” she shrieks, horrified. “Not just dirt?”
She faints dead away, her body crumpling onto the platform.
Ella stands up and taps one of her guards on the shoulder.
“You, carry Lady Throckmorton back into the palace. Make sure you keep her in a dark room for at least an hour, do you hear me?” She turns to another guard. “And you, make sure there’s a needle and thread and candle waiting in my quarters. And you”—she’s addressing a third guard now—“carry this child into the palace so I can take a good look at her injury.”
“You, miss?” the guard says doubtfully, even as the other two scramble to obey. “You’ll take a look at it?”
“Yes.” Ella’s reply is firm. She may not be a princess, but even Sir Stephen would be impressed with her tone of command.
Not that I plan to obey her.
“I am not going to the palace!” I say, stamping my foot. “Not when the harper is outside.”
“Didn’t you hear me? The harper is in the palace, watching the music competition,” Ella practically shouts back at me. We are barely pretending now, but I hear a man nearby whisper, “Those are some serious music lovers.”
“The harper is watching for a most unusual act,” Ella adds. “Two ladies and a gentleman . . .”
I reel backward, woozy in my despair. Why can’t Ella understand? What do I care about acts in the music competition? Two ladies and a gentleman? So what?
Oh. Two ladies and a gentleman: Nanny, Harper’s mam, and Sir Stephen.
“Take me to the palace, then,” I whisper, and the guard scoops me up in his arms.
26
I don’t like being carried. For one thing, the guard holds me at arm’s length, as if he’s terrified that touching me will give him fleas or some other vermin. This makes me feel like I’m constantly in danger of being dropped. For another thing, as long as the guard’s holding me, I can’t say anything to Ella.
She’s walking at a dignified pace behind us, surrounded by a cortège of the other guards. I can hear her proclaiming loudly, “Sualans are so merciful, that they would allow a beggar child to be treated for her wounds at the palace. Desmia truly is a munificent princess. . . .”
Is she out of her mind? I wonder. Calling attention to how weird this is? But then, over the guard’s shoulder Ella winks at me, and I remember another one of Sir Stephen’s maxims: “Praise people in advance for doing what you want them to do, even if you don’t truly expect them to do it, and sometimes they’ll surprise you.” I can’t remember if that’s from Ten Guidelines for Forcing Subordinates to Rise to the Occasion or Twelve Rules for Controlling a Dicey Situation, but in this case, it seems to be working. We’re almost at the palace.
Everything goes dark, but that’s only because we’ve stepped from the bright sunlight into the dimness of the palace entryway. This is a different entrance from the one Harper and I used for the music competition, and when my eyes adjust, I am thunderstruck by the gilt that seems to cover every square inch of the ceiling, the mirrors that hang from every wall, and the throngs of elegantly dressed people standing around chatting.
And yet down in the basement there were knights being tortured, I think, and that helps keep me from being quite so dazed.
“We shall take her to my quarters,” Ella whispers to the guard, and then goes back to loudly praising Suala’s mercy and Desmia’s compassion for the poor.
Maybe I black out for a few minutes, because I don’t really keep track of all the stairways the guard ascends, all the corridors he walks through. He’s not making much effort to be gentle with me, so I have to squeeze my eyes shut and grit my teeth to keep from screaming from the pain of being jostled. My head truly throbs now, in a way I hadn’t noticed when I was climbing stairs and walking through sludge and rats.
“Almost there,” Ella whispers.
We enter a doorway surrounded by more uniformed men, and then the guard unceremoniously dumps me on the floor.
“Ahhh,” I moan.
“You’re dismissed,” Ella says sharply to the guard. “You can wait outside with the others.”
As soon as he’s out the door, I scramble up, ignoring my throbbing head.
“Thanks, Ella, for bringing me back into the palace. I’ve got to go find Harper and warn him—”
I weave to the side. Ella grabs me by the shoulders, either to steady me or stop me.
“You’re not going anywhere until I clean that wound, and I’m pretty sure you’ll need stitches—how in the world did you do this?” she asks. Now that there’s no one else listening, her voice is full of fear and concern. “Did—did someone attack you?”
I shake my head, which isn’t such a smart move. Now it really hurts.
Gently, Ella helps me back down to the floor. She lifts a shallow bowl of water down beside us and begins dabbing at my wound with a wet cloth.
“I was just clumsy, that’s all,” I manage to say. It’s a strain to talk, but I have to tell her about Harper. “Don’t worry about me. It’s Harper . . . I heard Lord Throckmorton say that they’re following Sir Stephen, and watching him, and using him as bait in a trap, and if Harper goes to talk to him, then they’ll catch him, too. . . .”
I start to struggle away from Ella again. I’m not really sure, but I th
ink I’m trying to crawl toward the door.
Ella puts the cloth down and holds me firmly in place. She leans her face toward mine, as if she’s not sure that I’ll be able to listen otherwise.
“Look,” she says, “Harper is fine. Understand? I saw him right before I left the palace. He told me he’d seen his mother and Nanny and Sir Stephen come in through the entrance for the music contestants, and he asked someone, and they said that that act would go on at two. So Harper’s just waiting in the competition theater—there’s a huge audience there now, so he blends in. He won’t try to talk to Sir Stephen or anyone else until after they perform, and we’ve got plenty of time left to get word to him before that. So he’s safe. Safer than you with this gash in the back of your head and . . .” For the first time she seems to fully take in the rest of my appearance: the muck covering my shoes and ankles, the cobwebs trailing from my hair and dress, the bloody cuts on my hands. “Where have you been?”
“I got lost in the secret stairways and had to go out through the palace torture chamber, which is even nastier than the palace dungeon. And, oh, I had to walk through some rats, and . . .” Vaguely, I remember that I need to tell her about the knights and ask her opinion of what they told me. But I’m still worried about Harper. “Are you sure we can’t just run down to the theater and warn Harper? Then, I promise, you can do whatever you want to my head.”
Ella keeps one hand on my shoulder, steadying me, but she picks up her cloth and begins scrubbing away my blood again.
“This will go a lot faster if I don’t have to argue with you the whole time,” she says. She frowns. “Did you happen to notice the guards outside my doorway?”
“Uh, yeah,” I say.
“And did you see that there were some in gray Fridesian uniforms and some in blue Sualan uniforms?”
“If you say so,” I mumble. But I’m not really thinking about the guards. It’s hard to think at all when she seems to be digging that cloth deep into my brain.
“And so didn’t it occur to you that that means I have soldiers from both sides watching me, and keeping track of my whereabouts, and reporting back to someone about everything I do?”
She puts the cloth down for a second, and I can think a little more clearly.
“Okay, I get it that you don’t want the Sualan soldiers telling Lord Throckmorton anything,” I say. “But—your own men? Are you worried that they’ll tell Jed?”
This bothers me, somehow. Last night, when I saw her eyes light up at the mention of her fiancé, I’d wanted to believe that their relationship was the perfect, true romance, just like in a fairy tale.
Her fiancé having spies watching her doesn’t seem very fairy-tale-ish. Or romantic. In fact it sounds horrid.
“Oh, no, it’s not Jed I’m worried about,” Ella says, picking up the cloth again. “I already told him about you and Desmia and Harper and the alleged princesses in the dungeon. It’s the rest of the peace delegation I’m worried about. This is such a delicate process, and really, I think Jed is the only one who believes peace is possible. . . .”
I remember again that I need to tell Ella that I now know more about the alleged princesses in the dungeon and their knight-tutors. And to tell her that right this very minute the knights might be rescuing the princesses from the dungeon. But it’s just a dim thought. I don’t quite have the presence of mind to explain, not with all that pain. My thoughts skitter back to Jed and Ella, and I think about what it would be like to have a fiancé, whose needs you’d always have to consider. And I think about how Ella, in many ways, is even more restricted in the palace than I am.
“All right,” Ella says, with one last dab of the cloth. “Now the wound is clean, at least. But I do think you need a couple of stitches.”
She stands up and goes to a table near her bed. I’ve barely looked around—her room is not nearly as grand as Desmia’s. The fireplace is even smaller than the one in Nanny’s cottage.
Then I stop evaluating the décor, because Ella is coming toward me with a needle.
“Um, Ella?” I say. “I appreciate you wanting to take care of me and all, but don’t you think you should have a doctor do this?”
“I’ll warrant I’ve sewn up more wounds in the past year than the palace doctor,” Ella says, a little stiffly, as if she’s offended. “And splinted more broken bones, and treated more fevers . . .”
I stare at her, wondering if this is her idea of a joke.
She sighs.
“I know, it’s hard to believe when I’m dressed like this”—she waves her arms, indicating the glowing rose-colored dress, the perfectly coiffed golden curls—“but I’ve been working the past year as the medical officer in a refugee camp near the worst battlefield of the Sualan War. And that’s why I agree so strongly with Jed that it’s time to end the war. I’m planning to train to be a doctor when the war is over, but I promise you, I already know quite enough to sew a few stitches in your head.”
I’m quiet for a few minutes, absorbing this. I’ve never in my life met anyone like Ella.
“I never thought I’d be anything but a princess,” I say in a small voice. “And then queen, of course . . .”
“But even as princess or queen, you wouldn’t have just sat on the throne all day doing nothing, right?” Ella says, as she scoots behind me, and I brace for more pain. “I heard you say Suala didn’t need just a doll that waves. Even without being a princess, can’t you still do a lot?”
“I’m still thinking about that,” I mutter.
Ella takes the first stitch, and it’s not too bad, just a gentle tugging at my scalp.
“Would I sound too much like Lady Throckmorton if I told you that Fridesian medical practices are far ahead of Sualan medical practices?” she asks jokingly.
“Lady Throckmorton—is she Lord Throckmorton’s wife?”
“Oh, yes,” Ella says. “And she’s just as haughty and self-centered and unpleasant as her husband.”
I grimace, but that seems to pull at the skin at the back of my head.
“She’s the one who was on the platform with you, right?” I ask, mostly so I don’t have to think about the pain and the needle touching my skin. “She’s the one they were going to have show you around Cortona?”
“Scary, huh?” Ella says. “We’re just lucky Lady Throckmorton turned out to be a fainter. She never would have let me bring you here. I hope the guards really do make her stay in her room for an hour.”
“Will that give us enough time to warn Harper?” I ask.
Ella pats my back.
“Yes, yes, we have plenty of time to get to your precious Harper!” I can’t see her face, but I have the feeling she’s rolling her eyes.
“I just want to make sure,” I say, feeling a little insulted.
Ella giggles.
“I do understand,” she says. “Believe me, I’d be the same way if it were Jed.”
“Jed’s your fiancé. Harper’s just my friend,” I say.
“Just a friend, huh?” Ella teases. “And that’s why he carried you all the way from the dungeon to Desmia’s room last night? That’s why you walked through sewage and rats for him today?”
I hadn’t thought to wonder about who carried me to Desmia’s room. I blush.
“Wouldn’t you do those things for a friend?” I ask.
Ella seems to be considering this. For a few seconds I don’t feel the tug of any more stitches.
“Before I came to Suala, I really only had one other friend besides Jed,” Ella says wistfully. “And she was the one who did kind, brave things for me. That’s why I’ve thought . . . maybe it should be my turn now. With you and Desmia . . .” I hear the snip of scissors behind me. Ella wraps a swath of clean cloth about my head, covering my injury. “There. You’re all done. Normally I’d tell a patient with a head wound to rest quietly, but under the circumstances, if I made you rest, you’d probably pop your stitches worrying about Harper. So. How do you propose we go about getting down there to
warn him?”
I’m trying to come up with a good answer, when suddenly I see some of the stones near the fireplace seem to jump out. Then they jerk back. I’m wondering if there is something to all of Ella’s “head wound” talk, after all—am I hallucinating?
Ella leaps up immediately and rushes over to the wall. She’s tugging on the stones, which are apparently part of a door. They come away entirely from the rest of the wall. And then—though I know this isn’t actually possible—it really does seem as though twenty-two people tumble out onto the floor of Ella’s room all at once.
Eleven knights.
And eleven would-be princesses.
27
Oh, yeah,” I say weakly to Ella. “I knew there was something else I wanted to tell you . . .”
I’m not sure she’s listening. She’s standing over the jumble of ancient knights and alleged princesses, clutching her face in dumbfounded astonishment.
“Uh—uh,” she gasps. It seems she’s lost the power to form a coherent word.
“I forgot to tell you,” I say. “The knights were in the torture chamber. I set them free. And then they must have rescued the girls from the dungeon.”
“You set them free,” Ella repeats in disbelief. She gulps and turns toward me, her hands slipping down toward her jaw. The incredulity on her face seems to be melting away into panic. “Did you think about what Lord Throckmorton and his cronies will do? When they find out their prisoners are missing?”
I don’t admit that I didn’t think that far ahead. I want to tell her how wrong we were, thinking we had time for caution and stealth. If my thoughts weren’t so scrambled, I could give her all my chess analogies, explaining how we can’t fool around with opening gambits while our opponents are ready for endgame. But all I say to defend myself is, “Look at those knights. They were dying. I had to set them free.”
Ella glances at the knights piled up at her feet. Out of the dark torture chamber they look even more fragile, even more skeletal, even closer to death. The light seems to shine straight through their skin. It’s like looking at baby birds fallen from their nests.
Palace of Mirrors Page 16
