Of the royal family he saw very little: Princess Bellinda ventured out into the gardens every day, but she was usually accompanied by a cluster of twittering courtesans. Duncan tried to remain as unobtrusive as he could, but she always made certain to call a friendly hello to him. Since she did this with every other servant she encountered, he did not take it personally.
He caught a glimpse of Princess Alberta on several occasions as she strode to and from the stables for her morning ride, but he took even more care not to draw attention to himself with her than he did with Princess Bellinda. Everything about Alberta was intense, from the scowl she constantly wore, to the pace of her footsteps across the castle grounds. The servants tended to scatter when they saw her coming. Those who failed to get out of her way suffered an impatient snap of her riding crop. Many whispered under their breaths that she was a villain, and she certainly had the demeanor of one.
Of Princess Margaret, he saw nothing at all. She rarely ventured outside, it seemed. Instead, all of her spare time was taken by her father, King Edwin, who kept her at court to observe the art of governing, as she would one day inherit that responsibility.
In those first three weeks of Duncan’s employment, the only event of any note at all was the advent of yet another royal suitor, a prince from one of Meridiana’s principalities. He came to try his luck with Princess Margaret’s affections. He left again after five days, head over heels in love with Princess Bellinda instead and in thorough despair because he could not pursue her until both her older sisters were married. Duncan was tending to Wildfire in the stables as the noble entourage prepared to depart. He overheard the prince lament his sorrows to a servant.
“Margaret’s a difficult enough case, but she’ll marry one day out of duty, if for nothing else,” he said. “It’s that foul-tempered Alberta that’s the problem! My sweet Bellinda is destined to grow old alone, all because no one will ever want to marry such a termagant as her sister!”
“What’s a termagant?” Duncan whispered to Wildfire, who listened with great interest to the prince’s complaint.
“An ill-tempered woman,” the horse replied in the same quiet tones.
Duncan thought it was an apt description for the moody girl. Alberta couldn’t have had more enemies if she were trying to acquire them.
Her antics were none of Duncan’s concern, though. He was determined not to get entangled with any of the castle business, because he fully intended to move along to more rural scenery when autumn came. Three weeks into his employment, however, that determination was very nicely undone.
“Someone has been stealing lemons,” Gardener announced sternly, and Cook stood behind him with crossed arms and a surly glare.
The ten under-gardeners had gathered for their morning instructions. They glanced at one another in confusion and turned their attention back to their master.
“The thief probably thinks he can get away with it because he only takes one or two at a time,” Gardener continued, and his suspicious gaze lingered on Duncan before moving further up the line of underlings, “but we’ve kept careful watch over that lemon tree. It was brought to our greenhouse by the special request of Princess Alberta herself two years ago, and this is the first year it has borne fruit.”
“I have the fate of every last lemon already planned,” Cook added belligerently. “As it is, I’m going to have to buy extras from the traveling bazaar if I want to keep all of those plans, and lemons are extremely expensive.”
Duncan understood that the exotic fruit was difficult to come by in this climate—that was the reason the tree had to be cultivated in the greenhouse—but he couldn’t tell if Gardener and Cook were trying to make an accusation toward someone.
One of the other under-gardeners decided to hurry the conversation along. “What would you like us to do?” he asked. “I’m sure none of us has been stealing lemons. I know I wouldn’t have the first clue what to do with one.”
Everyone else murmured their agreement. For his part, Duncan had seen the tree, but he knew nothing more about the fruit than that it was extremely sour.
“We’re going to set up a watch tonight,” Gardener replied. “One of you gets to stay in the greenhouse and wait for the thief to appear.”
His underlings exchanged apprehensive glances, but they needn’t have worried. Somehow, Duncan already knew what was coming his way before Gardener even spoke the words.
“Scurvyhead, you’ll take the watch tonight. Report to the third greenhouse at sunset. You can bring a blanket, but don’t plan to sleep. And if even one lemon is missing in the morning, you’ll be flogged and thrown from the castle grounds, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” said Duncan. He knew that the other under-gardeners were looking at him with pity, but he did not break eye contact with Gardener.
“Good,” the man replied, and then he proceeded to make assignments for that day’s work.
Duncan related his bad fortune to Wildfire that afternoon, but the horse was hardly sympathetic.
“All you have to do is make sure there’s the same number of lemons tomorrow morning as there is tonight. You’re good with numbers.”
“It’s not a matter of being good with numbers,” Duncan retorted. “What if someone breaks in, snatches a lemon, and then runs off before I can catch him?”
“You don’t even know that he’s going to break in tonight,” said Wildfire. “Just survive the night, and the duty will pass to someone else tomorrow.”
“Where will we go if I were to lose my job?” he asked then. He enjoyed his work at the castle, but he wasn’t attached to it by any means. He expected that Wildfire was even less so.
The horse surprised him. “Don’t lose your job and we won’t have to figure that out,” he replied bluntly. Since Wildfire always decided where they went, Duncan concluded that he must want to stay in Midd for some unfathomable reason.
Accordingly, at sunset he reported to the greenhouse, determined not to allow any thieves to steal any lemons in the shadowed hours to come.
Though it was now summertime, the nights were still cool. The greenhouse was dark and damp, but it retained the heat of the day better than Duncan’s little garden shed. The clammy air made him instinctively want to bundle up, though. As the evening bled into night, the lights beyond the clouded glass extinguished one by one. Duncan watched each vanish in turn and felt more and more isolated. The rest of the castle was going to sleep, and he was awake, alone.
His eyes adjusted as the darkness deepened. Faint starlight above shone through the glass roof and allowed him just to discern the silhouettes of the trees and plants that filled the place. He didn’t understand Gardener’s insistence that he remain awake in the dark. Surely a candle or lantern within the greenhouse would ward off any would-be thieves better than someone hidden among the shadows. But then, Duncan supposed, both Gardener and Cook wanted to catch the thief, not ward him off. The castle was already stingy with its candles and lantern oil. It was no skin off their noses to ask that he sit in darkness.
An hour passed, and nothing happened. According to Gardener, the thief had struck every few nights over the past couple of weeks, but there really was no telling that he would choose tonight for his next raid. Duncan resigned himself to a long, boring wait with nothing but the chirping of crickets for company.
Just as he made this determination, a flash of light caught his attention beyond the glass of the far wall. It disappeared as quickly as it had come. He watched with apprehension, wondering what could have made that pale streak. It was like something out of a story, a trail of fairy-light or some other supernatural occurrence.
“I’ve had enough of fairies and fairy tales,” he muttered, and his logical mind sought for a more reasonable explanation. He received his answer as light blazed in the greenhouse door’s window. The knob twisted. Duncan retreated behind a table full of rhododendrons as a shadowed figure stealthily entered. The thief had come, bearing a hooded lantern in one hand. Onl
y a pale beam of light shone from its depths to illuminate the intruder’s path and nothing more. It must have briefly pointed in the greenhouse’s direction to have created that quick flash outside, Duncan realized.
The thief directed his steps toward the lemon tree, well-acquainted with the layout of the greenhouse. Stealthily, Duncan crept forward, determined not to let him get away with any ill-gotten spoils.
A gloved hand carefully reached into the lantern’s light to pluck an illuminated lemon from the tree’s branch. Duncan darted forward to catch the treacherous wrist.
“Thief!” he hissed.
A gasp met his ears, followed by a grunt and a hooded lantern to his side. The thief wrenched away and bolted back for the door, but Duncan lunged after him. They collided and slammed to the ground. The lantern tumbled away across the floor, and a very un-masculine shriek pierced the night air.
“Ouch! You fool, I’ll have your head for this!”
Duncan recoiled from the figure he had just tackled. He had assumed the thief was a man, but the voice was undoubtedly that of a woman. Worse, he’d heard her voice before. As dread pooled in his stomach, he scrambled after the overturned lantern and snatched away its hood.
Pale light flooded the area and allowed Duncan’s eyes to confirm his suspicion. Before him upon the floor, disheveled and ferociously irate, sat none other than Princess Alberta of Meridiana.
Sheer self-preservation brought him to his hands and knees. He pressed his forehead into the ground as he cried, “Forgive me, your Highness! I did not know it was you!”
If Alberta intended to make a reply, it was cut short when the greenhouse door flew open and a new figure entered.
“Bertie? The lantern! What on earth are you doing?” Princess Bellinda surveyed the scene before her, her expression aghast.
“Quiet, Bella, and get inside. You there, hood that lantern immediately! You want to call the castle guard down on us all?”
Duncan obeyed the order, acutely aware of himself and the two princesses in this dark greenhouse. He had just tackled Princess Alberta to the ground. He was as good as dead.
“What’s Scurvyhead doing here?” Bellinda asked curiously.
“Scurvyhead?” Alberta repeated sharply.
“That’s what everyone calls him. It’s why he wears that awful wig, because his scurvy is so bad. What’s he doing here?”
At the moment, he was willing the ground to open up and swallow him whole. The lantern’s hood had been replaced, its single beam of light directed at the two girls. If only Princess Bellinda hadn’t recognized him, he might have slunk off into the shadows to make his escape. Wildfire would understand why they had to leave the castle in the dead of night, surely.
“What are you doing here?” Alberta asked, her voice imperious. “It’s after hours and all the servants are supposed to be in bed.”
He decided that he could only rely on her sense of mercy, if she even had one. “Someone’s been stealing lemons,” he said miserably. “Gardener set me here to watch and said that if any were missing come morning I’d be flogged and thrown from the castle grounds. I’m sorry, your Highness, I truly am. I thought you were the thief.”
The two girls exchanged a perturbed glance.
“They’re counting the lemons?” Bellinda asked in a whisper.
“It’s my tree,” Alberta retorted through clenched teeth. “I can pick the fruit whenever I want!”
Duncan’s wide eyes shifted between the pair. “Y-you mean… you are the thief?”
“It’s not stealing if the tree belongs to me!” Alberta cried fiercely.
“B-but… why do you come at night? If you came during the day, you could take all the lemons you wanted and no one would make a fuss!”
She snapped her mouth shut and looked away. Duncan couldn’t tell if she was angry or embarrassed, or both combined.
Bellinda answered the question for her. “If she comes during the day, people would ask what she wants the lemons for,” she said delicately.
He was only becoming more confused. What did Princess Alberta want with lemons, anyway? They were too sour to eat off the tree, and Cook was the only one who knew how to prepare them.
Alberta wasn’t about to satisfy his curiosity, either. “This is idiotic,” she snapped. “Bella, let’s go.” As she arose from the ground, though, she hissed in pain and caught herself on a nearby table.
“What’s wrong?” Bellinda asked in concern.
“It’s fine!” her sister snapped.
“It’s not fine! You’re white as a sheet!”
“I twisted my ankle when that cretin tackled me, all right? It hurts to put any weight on it.”
“I told you those boots were too big when you bought them!”
Duncan’s eyes strayed down to glimpse a pair of men’s boots peeking out from beneath Princess Alberta’s skirt. They were thick-soled and muddy.
“I suppose I should have waited for the cobbler to fit them to my feet,” Alberta sarcastically replied.
“Better than twisting your ankle in loose boots!”
“It’s fine,” she insisted. “Just give me a moment to get used to it, and I’ll be fine.”
Bellinda’s mouth set in a firm line. It was a far cry from the gentle expressions she usually wore. “You’re not going to walk on it. You, Scurvyhead, give me the lantern and carry my sister back to her room.”
An indignant protest erupted from Alberta’s mouth.
“It’s his fault you’ve twisted your ankle, so that’s the least he can do to make up for it,” Bellinda snapped. “And it’s your fault he was stationed here to watch for burglars in the first place, so you’re going to let him. I should be asleep getting my beauty rest, not running around playing lookout while you collect your ingredients!”
“I made you what you are, so I’ll thank you not to sneer at me,” Alberta retorted, and she tweaked a lock of her sister’s flaxen hair to drive home her point.
Bellinda yelped. “Ouch! I know that! But you can barely stand! Either he carries you, or I call for one of the guards to do it! At least he already knows you’re burglarizing the greenhouse.”
“It’s not burglary!”
“Do you want me to call the guards or not?”
Alberta pursed her lips and looked away, displeased with both options presented to her.
“Scurvyhead, give me the lantern,” Bellinda commanded, and for a moment she seemed more like the stringent Princess Alberta than did Alberta herself.
With such an imperious order issued, Duncan immediately skipped forward to comply. Gingerly he handed over the lantern to Princess Bellinda’s care.
“Thank you,” she said. “Now pick up my sister.”
He didn’t dare disobey. “Sorry,” he said to Princess Alberta.
“Just get this over with,” she muttered.
But yet, there was the whole problem of how to carry her. Duncan had never done anything so bold before. Was he to hoist her onto his back like a child? Surely he was not meant to throw her over one shoulder like a sack of wheat.
“Go on,” said Bellinda cheerfully. “Sweep her off her feet.”
And that was the third possible method. Duncan thanked his lucky stars that it was mostly dark, because he could feel the blush that rose to his face.
“Sorry,” he said again to Alberta, and then he did as he was told. She obliged his efforts by putting her arms about his neck, but she kept her gaze pointedly fixed over his shoulder. He imagined that she was quite seething with rage.
Princess Bellinda led the way from the greenhouse. She paused just outside the door to pick up a basket she’d dropped there, and then she continued up the way toward the castle proper. Duncan followed in awkward silence.
They traversed not through the main doors, but through a hidden servants’ entrance that led into narrow, pitch-black halls. Once safely inside, Bellinda slipped the hood from the lantern and trotted merrily forward.
“Does this mean we’re go
ing to have to go out again tomorrow?” she chattered to her sister. “We didn’t get even half the things on your list.”
“Be quiet, Bella,” Alberta said harshly.
“You needn’t be cross,” her sister replied. “What’s done is done. If you stew over it, you’re going to get wrinkles between your eyebrows, just like Great Uncle Albert has.”
“Be quiet, Bella,” Alberta said again, more forcefully this time.
Bellinda had the good sense to comply.
Their chosen path climbed two flights of stairs. Duncan was grateful that Princess Alberta was not heavy. He had enough trouble seeing from one step to the next the way the lantern light bounced around in Bellinda’s grip. He could only imagine what horrors would have befallen him if he missed a step and dropped his royal cargo. Blissfully, he reached the top of the stairs without incident. Bellinda cautiously peered out a doorway, then swung it open wide and beckoned him to follow.
They were in a main corridor of the castle now. Duncan resisted the urge to look around at the stately décor as he followed Princess Bellinda’s light footsteps.
“Here we are,” she said, and she swung open a final door. “Put her on the bed, Scurvyhead. And don’t just plop her down. Make sure she’s comfortable.”
An irritated noise sounded in Alberta’s throat as he carried her to the high canopied bed that sat against the far wall. He didn’t know if the sound was directed at him or at Bellinda, but he thought it best to complete his mission and retreat as quickly as possible. Thus, gently, he set his burden down upon her bed and, after a humble bow, turned toward the door.
“Wait,” Alberta said in a tight, impatient voice.
Duncan’s eyes slid to where Princess Bellinda was lighting a candle from the flame within the lamp. She seemed just as surprised that her sister demanded the servant to stay.
“You’re not going to punish him, are you, Bertie?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Alberta said curtly. Then, she suddenly hissed in pain.
Goldmayne: A Fairy Tale Page 14
