‘I wish I had a book in which to lose myself,’ she said, dipping a pastry into a glass of molten chocolate. From the corner of her eye, she caught the glance Pirlipata and Dellara exchanged.
Pirlipata was first to speak. ‘I once was particularly fond of the tale of the first armoured princess, Ithye. She is the star I look to and I hope one day to be worthy of gaining a place amidst her constellation of protectors.’
Marietta thought back to her dinner with the captain and how he’d spoken of the stars. ‘Why are the stars important to you? What is your relationship with them?’
‘We believe that the spirits of our loved ones join the constellations when we pass from this world,’ Dellara said. ‘All the tales of our world are bound up in our stars. We’re taught them from the day we’re born and they’re the last thought the day we die. Our fates are written in the stars.’
Pirlipata inclined her head. ‘Each of us possess a starname, too. A secret name no one knows as long as we live, save those we choose to entwine our lives with forevermore. Our starnames become known once we have ascended into the skies. They are who we shall become in our final place, resting in the skies.’
‘Who selects your starname?’ Marietta asked.
‘We do,’ Dellara said. ‘We are responsible for gifting ourselves with a name once we truly understand who we are. It’s an empowering act, stepping into your own identity, forging a deeper empathy with yourself.’
‘I like that,’ Marietta said, wishing they had an equivalency in her world. Though Everwood had become her prison, she had seen how Claren was treated no differently for whom he chose to spend a night with. How Pirlipata wasn’t judged on the basis of her skin colour. Yes, Everwood was her prison, but Frederick and Geoffrey and Harriet couldn’t escape theirs, thanks to social convention. She set her half-eaten pastry down. The tray swam in melted chocolate and frozen cream. ‘Do tell me more about these armoured princesses.’
‘In Crackatuck, we have a long tradition of armoured princesses.’ Pirlipata slid her golden cape down her shoulders, revealing her arms, as sculpted with muscle as the Farnese Hercules. ‘The future belongs to us and so we must be willing and able to protect it, our swords and minds both sharpened blades. All rulers are educated at university and trained in the art of sword fighting. My armour was red. As fiery as the sunsets that ripple across our land and the last colour you see before the all-encompassing darkness.’
Marietta pictured Pirlipata encased in red, her dark hair around her head like a halo topping her armour. ‘Where is it located presently?’
‘King Gelum is in possession of it. When the day comes for me to reclaim it, he will pay for each day I have been without it. For each day I have been clothed in gold rather than red.’
Dellara’s eyes darkened to a maw. ‘Red for the blood we’ll spill in the streets, red for the rebellion,’ she chanted beneath her breath.
‘So there is a rebellion,’ Marietta said. ‘Am I to retain a hope that they will set us free?’
The shadows whispered into Dellara’s sclera. ‘Being exposed for a member of the rebellion costs those brave individuals their lives in the bloodiest of executions. It is a habit of mine to hold an ear to the palace gossip, yet no one seems to be aware of either their true numbers nor where they are based. It’s a rebellion mired in secrecy and fear and anger. I’ve heard tell that the sole sign of a rebeller is a curl of scarlet satin they carry secreted about their person.’ She shrugged and reached for a pastry. ‘I’m not certain whether there is any truth to that though.’
Marietta silently thought back to the red curl that had fallen from inside the captain’s tunic which he’d passed off as a token of affection. She vowed to discover what he was hiding. Perhaps it could be the very thing that would help her escape this palace.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The king’s party meandered their way into the heart of Everwood, where a large space was cleared beside the frozen lake. Sugar swans glided upon the ice, enchanted to serenade the spectators that stood in regimented rows. The soldiers of the King’s Army maintained the perimeter as the Faceless Guards undertook surrounding and protecting the king himself. Marietta’s heartbeat was as delicate as hoarfrost. She turned her gaze to the distant firs, signalling the boundary of the Endless Forest.
‘Don’t,’ Captain Legat said softly.
Marietta bestowed on him her coolest look. Pirlipata and Dellara remained in their suite. To flee into the forest, residence of creeping shadows and wild horrors, while they remained imprisoned would be both reckless and unthinkable. When the king had proclaimed she would dance at his annual Festival of Light celebration in the centre of Everwood, Marietta had been struck by temptation, that she couldn’t deny, but she was decided she would return to the palace. When she found a way out, it would not be by herself or for herself.
She walked at the captain’s side. He was dressed in full livery, including a fur-lined hat, dark against his hair, and his sword at his hip. The king’s most trusted soldier. Underneath her furred cape, Marietta wore a thousand glittering snowflakes, sewn together to form a gown as delicate as Chantilly lace, light as gossamer and the pale blue of a frosted morning. Her pointe shoes and cape were a fairy tale of Prussian blue. A single question burned the tip of her tongue but she would not ask it of the captain yet. She required a moment alone with him.
They followed King Gelum to an opulent throne, crafted from sugarplums. Bewitched sugar mice squeaked on servers’ trays and a snowberry crème fountain had been erected beside him. A handful of well-attired guests dipped ice goblets into its stream and sipped, surveying the décor from their brioche tier of seating.
It was beautiful. And then Marietta looked deeper. On her welcome to the palace, she had been so overawed by the finery and indulgence that it had blinded her to the truth that lay like thorns beneath the snow. She would not make the same mistake again.
Her hoarfrost-heart splintered. The audience were clothed in ragged dresses, an insufficient barrier to the bitter temperature. Evidence of sickness was plain on many faces. As was their hatred and contempt for the king’s party.
‘Cease that at once,’ Captain Legat said under his breath.
Marietta snapped round to glare at him. Her anger faded upon seeing him address a small child. The boy turned imploring eyes to the captain, his hands filled with water from a nearby fountain. He couldn’t have been more than four or five years of age and was accompanied by an older sister.
‘What on earth is the matter with you?’ Marietta hissed at the captain. ‘He’s just playing.’
Captain Legat disregarded her. He slipped something from his pocket and handed it to the girl. ‘Use these until they run out. Melt the snow from the Endless Forest, it’s safer. Send an adult. Do not cross that boundary yourselves, do you understand me?’
She nodded and grabbed her little brother’s hand, tugging him past a globe of lit-ice and away. As they flashed by the enchanted lantern, a hard lump formed in Marietta’s throat. The girl’s face was shot through with silver, her irises and hair half-leached of colour. ‘What was wrong with her?’ she asked quietly.
The captain was grave. ‘The mineral sickness. Melting enchantments are overpriced and the townspeople poor. The water that runs through these public fountains is tantamount to poison.’
Marietta grasped his wrist. ‘Why then was the boy attempting to drink from it?’
‘Some feel they have no choice; to thirst is a terrible thing. And many children have not had the luxury of education these days.’
‘Yet Everwood possesses riches surely? I’ve witnessed the king’s many entertainments and tonight is no exception—’ Marietta halted her thoughts as the captain stiffened. She let her fingers slip from his wrist.
‘Not here,’ he said shortly.
King Gelum’s voice boomed out, announcing her performance.
Marietta stared at the captain. ‘I cannot dance for these people,’ she whispered. ‘This is a
travesty.’
Captain Legat turned his gaze on her. ‘You can and you must. For if you do not then you shall suffer also.’
‘There are children suffering.’ She felt half-frozen with shock at witnessing the extent of the king’s neglect. His cruelty cut deeper than she had known; he had been allowed to carve through his people with the might of the throne behind him. For there was no other governing force to hold him accountable.
Yet it seemed the captain no longer deigned to converse with her.
As the music began, Marietta danced in doll-like bourrée steps to a music-box melody, the atmosphere hardened like a caramel glaze. Travelling on the diagonal, she performed a series of petit piqué battements, her legs whipping the air as if it was cream, her arms soft in port de bras. As she slowed into a glissade, a gliding transition, King Gelum pronounced, ‘I declare the Festival of Light begun! Let us celebrate the darkest point of winter and recognise that our days of light are forthcoming.’ He held his arms high.
The night erupted in illuminance. Swathes of ivory chiffon billowed overheard, sprinkled with light. Fir trees strung with glass baubles flickered alight. A luminescent powdered sugar-snow began to softly fall. Marietta drew her glissade out, slowing to watch an iridescent mouse run across the ink-black pool of the sky. She stretched out into an elongated arabesque.
A curl of scarlet dropped onto the ice.
Marietta held her arabesque.
The caramel glaze of tension shattered.
A lone scream of defiance, rage and desperation led the charge. King Gelum’s military procession snapped to attention, barricading the king as the citizens of Everwood surged in his direction. A chant formed. Red for the blood we’ll spill in the streets, red for the rebellion.
Marietta ran. Trapped between the king and the growing crowd, and clad in her shimmering gown of snowflakes, she was indistinguishable from the king’s party of revellers. She threw a longing glance in the other direction, at that silent wall of firs in the distance that held her freedom, before dashing behind a gingerbread stand selling molten chocolate. Shouts and cries and clashes.
When she looked out, she saw a rally of townspeople taking on the soldiers as the captain drew his sword. She heard King Gelum instructing him to deal with the dissenters before the Faceless Guards marched the king back to his sleigh. She watched the captain rush about, issuing orders and organising the king’s retinue of faceless guards to escort the king back to the palace. Then King Gelum’s royal sleigh rushed away, its mouse-carved runners spraying snow in its hurry. Several sleighs of faceless guards followed, the air thick with the sound of moose hooves pounding the snow. Marietta’s breath caught. The rebellion held a mighty task before them; the king’s defence was near impenetrable.
‘Allow me to return you to the sleigh.’ Captain Legat appeared at her side as if he’d stepped out from the night itself.
‘I had wondered why you had reacted in such a strong manner last week, when you unceremoniously bade me leave your study.’ Marietta addressed her words forwards, watching the glimmer of the Festival of Light play out against the chaos in the streets. She felt the captain stiffen at her side. ‘It failed to make any sense to me. At the time I dismissed it as my own confusion owing to my state of mind. Now, though, I understand.’
‘Then perhaps you might enlighten me as to what you are referring to.’
Marietta turned to him. ‘Red for the blood you’ll spill in the streets, red for the rebellion you belong to.’
Captain Legat’s fingers tightened on his sword hilt. His butterscotch eyes hardened.
‘Such an innocent thing, a curl of ribbon. Doubtless no one would consider it twice. One of the countries in my world once associated revolutionaries with a red Phrygian cap. Once it is uncovered it takes on more importance, of course. Becomes a powerful symbol.’
The captain gave a dry laugh. ‘Someone has been filling your head with fantasies.’
‘Indeed?’ In an emboldened move, Marietta reached for the captain’s jacket pocket.
He caught her hand in his and whisked them around. Her back cold against the frozen gingerbread wall, he released her hand.
‘I saw the ribbon dropped onto the ice before the protest erupted,’ she said a little breathlessly. ‘You cannot pretend it means nothing. I know.’
He stood before her, close enough to keep her pressed against the gingerbread. ‘I possess it as a ruse. As captain of the King’s Army, it is in my purview to ascertain and deal with any threats to the king’s rule.’
Marietta looked up at him. ‘You’re lying, Captain Legat.’
‘And you have no idea what you are stumbling into, wanderer.’ His voice was veined with anger. Yet it was the deepest pools of anger than ran with denial.
‘Why do you insist on calling me by this moniker? You have never once addressed me with my name.’
The captain’s face revealed nothing. ‘Ought I to have? I do not know you, neither do we hold a friendship.’
Marietta’s thoughts were a map of consternation. She surveyed the captain. Lifted an eyebrow. ‘Are you in the habit of gifting your mother’s cake to veritable strangers?’
‘Are you under the delusion that I hold some degree of affection towards you? I can assure you that I do not.’
Marietta’s laugh was hollow. The captain’s gaze dipped to her mouth for a second. ‘Nor would I desire you to,’ she told him.
‘Very well,’ he said curtly. ‘You may see yourself to the sleigh. I must attend to an urgent matter but another soldier shall escort you back.’
‘Fine.’ She turned on her heel and strode away.
The commotion had intensified. Under the bewitching night sky, unrest poured across the frozen lake. Marietta glanced back at the captain just in time to see him slip away. As she kept eyes on him, she watched him double back and alter his direction. She took a deep breath and followed him.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Captain Legat’s path circumnavigated the frozen lake. Marietta took care to keep from sight as he twined past a glass wall of a mountain and entered a narrow alley. It was a maze, constructed from sugar, between a pair of ice cliffs that teetered up to brush the stars. Studded with alcoves and delicate sugar-stairs, signs heralded all manner of sumptuous delicacies crafted within. Marietta’s heart beat faster as she took it all in, illuminated by strings of tiny ice-lanterns above. Chocolate truffles imbued with the finest liquor that promised euphoria with a single bite. Petits fours laced with beautifying charms. Caramel buttercream birds granted with flight. This, then, was Sugar Alley.
Captain Legat removed his hat and ascended a staircase. Marietta glanced over her shoulder. At the opposing end of Sugar Alley, she thought she caught a swoop of silver hair yet no sooner had she fixed on it, it had already vanished. She shook any fearful contemplations from her head and followed the captain.
‘You oughtn’t to have risked yourself for such a foolhardy visit,’ a woman said, the curves of her accent deep and caring.
‘It was imperative I see you,’ Captain Legat replied. ‘The protest has erupted. I needed to ensure your safety.’
Marietta, on the other side of the door buried within a sugar wall, hesitated. It seemed she had inadvertently pursued the captain to a lovers’ tryst. Her breath caught in her throat.
She turned to leave.
‘You must take greater care. If the king knew of your role in the rebellion—’
Marietta paused. It seemed the captain’s paramour knew his secrets. She attempted to listen closer but the sugar step crunched beneath her ballet slipper.
The door whipped open. The warm honeyed glow of the interior framed Captain Legat.
‘Of all the foolhardiness—’
‘I apologise,’ Marietta said. ‘I held no notion of what I was intruding upon.’ She lowered her eyes.
After a harsh sigh, the captain pulled her inside and shut the door. ‘You had better not speak a word of this to anyone, do I make myself un
derstood?’ His golden eyes shone hard with fury.
Marietta inclined her head. ‘I shall be the height of discretion.’
‘Allow me to introduce you to Robess.’ The captain met Marietta’s eyes. ‘The leader of the rebellion.’
An older woman radiating authority, Robess scrutinised Marietta in much the same manner as Madame Belinskaya observed her turnout. She was tall and wore her silver hair pinned up in a bun, and was adorned in a matching silver jacquard suit. The quaint sugar-room felt too small for her all-consuming presence. Her steel gaze flicked to Captain Legat as she murmured, ‘The wanderer?’
Marietta retained a check on her surprise. ‘You have heard mention of me?’
‘My son keeps me informed on all the occurrences at the palace,’ Robess said.
Marietta’s surprise deepened. She noted the sculpted cheekbones Captain Legat had inherited from his mother, the smooth sureness of their composure, their height.
‘I shall leave you be,’ Robess said, departing through a smaller second door. ‘I imagine you possess much to discuss.’ Her composure melted a little, revealing a mischievous twinkle.
Captain Legat cleared his throat but Marietta was too distracted to discern his mother’s words. Her exit had afforded a glimpse of what lay through the second door: a printing press. With a sherbet’s-fizz of realisation she knew she’d infiltrated the rebellion’s headquarters.
‘I knew you belonged to the rebellion,’ she said quietly. ‘Though I well understand why you did not share the fact with me.’
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