That still didn’t explain why she insisted on having Duncan dust, since she was now to be in her room always, and Gardener said as much. Duncan knew it was his punishment for causing her injury, but he could hardly divulge that detail.
Exhaustion pounded on his brain when he went to bed that night. Too much had happened in the past twenty-four hours; with utmost gratitude for the straw mattress in the isolated little garden shed did he curl up and go directly to sleep.
Princess Alberta summoned him again bright and early the next morning. He resumed his task of dusting. She continued to jot notes in one book while she read from another. She was steadily making her way through the pile at her feet, he noticed. She released him at noon when he finally finished, after speaking no more than a half-dozen words to him over the course of the morning. Thankfully, Princess Bellinda had not appeared at all.
The following morning, though, when Duncan reported to the grand bedchamber as commanded, the youngest princess sat smiling by her sister.
“Bertie’s tired of reading books,” she said, “so we’ve summoned you to tell us some stories.”
He glanced dubiously between the pair. Princess Alberta arched her brows at him, a wordless inquiry of whether he had some complaint to make. “What kind of stories?” he asked reluctantly. “The only ones I know are a handful of old fairy tales.”
“I don’t want to hear that sort of rubbish,” said Alberta, to Duncan’s utmost relief.
“A bit too close to home,” Bellinda agreed with a nod. “I asked a couple of gardeners about you, Scurvyhead, and they said you only came to Midd last month. Surely you’ve heard some interesting stories while you’ve traveled.”
“Not really,” he replied, and he rubbed the back of his neck in a nervous manner.
“But there are all sorts of stories circulating right now,” she protested. “I heard one the other day about that fellow roaming the woods—”
“You’re not talking about that Goldilocks, are you?” Alberta scornfully interjected.
“His name is Goldmayne,” Bellinda retorted. “Sir Goldmayne—they say he’s a knight with a fine suit of armor and a magnificent steed, and that he saves innocent women and children from ruffians.”
“They also say that his hair is made of pure gold, which is why there are so many ruffians in the first place,” remarked Alberta dryly.
“Surely you’ve heard of him in your travels,” Bellinda said to Duncan.
His brain had stuttered to a halt upon the mention of his fantastical alter-ego. Did the princesses suspect…? But the open interest on Bellinda’s face contradicted that possibility, and Alberta’s scornful expression showed that she did not believe in the existence of Goldmayne at all.
“I have heard of him,” Duncan admitted hesitantly. He decided that it couldn’t hurt to mingle fact with fancy. “I think the rumors started up north, in Borealia. Some old lady up there traveled around telling stories about a boy with hair made of gold.” That was mostly speculation. Dame Groach had certainly spread tales of Duncan, though, for any number of treasure-hunters had trekked across the border in search of him. “He didn’t become a knight until the stories came to Meridiana, though. How true any of them are, I can’t say.”
“We don’t care if any of them are true,” Bellinda interjected. “It’s better if they’re not, in fact. We just want to hear something amusing. Tell us a story about Sir Goldmayne, Scurvyhead.”
Still he hesitated.
“Well, do something,” Alberta said abruptly. “I can stare at the wall and be just as amused as I am right now.”
He had never had an opportunity to speak about Goldmayne. Otis and Wildfire had concocted a number of tales that the blacksmith spread in his own little village, but Duncan had had no part in it. Every place he had been since, he had avoided the name Goldmayne like a plague. Only when he was away from towns and common folk did he actually play the knight. He’d had dozens of encounters with ruffians, but he’d never spoken of them. Thus, he found himself in a novel situation: he would get to relate some of his history of the past two years, things he had bottled up inside because there had been no one to tell.
An hour later, as he half-narrated, half-reenacted a fight between Goldmayne and a band of thugs, a startled voice interrupted from the doorway.
“What on earth is going on in here?”
Duncan froze mid-parry, embarrassed. On the threshold stood Princess Margaret, whose confused gaze shifted from him to her two sisters upon the couch.
“Come in, Mae,” Bellinda said, and she motioned eagerly. “Scurvyhead’s telling us stories of Sir Goldmayne!”
Next to her, Alberta’s expression had turned from mildly amused to snobbishly aloof. Duncan recalled that the two older sisters were not on the best of terms at the moment.
Margaret frowned. “I don’t have time to waste with stories.”
“Then what are you doing here?” Alberta asked impertinently.
She stiffened. “I came to visit my invalid sister, you ungrateful little pest.”
“If you have time to visit me, you have time to listen to a few silly stories told by a fool,” said Alberta. “Come in and sit down, Mae. Scurvyhead was just about to tell us how Goldilocks vanquished a whole horde of ogres.”
Duncan opened his mouth to protest, but her narrow-eyed glare in his direction put an end to that. She didn’t care if the stories were true or not, he recalled, so it didn’t matter if he simply made up something.
“Well, he had help from his horse on that occasion,” he said sheepishly.
“Scurvyhead said Goldmayne’s horse can talk!” Bellinda told Margaret with excitement. “What do you suppose a talking horse would say?”
“Probably something like, ‘Get off my back, you great fat lump,’” Margaret replied, but she entered the room nonetheless and took a prim seat in a chair next to her sisters.
“You might like horses better if they could talk,” said Bellinda.
To Duncan’s surprise, Margaret immediately answered, “No. I’d still hate them, I think. Talking doesn’t make them any less smelly.”
“Mae doesn’t like most animals,” Bellinda informed Duncan.
“Most animals are too cheerful for her,” Alberta added.
“I’d rather be known for being gloomy than for the things I hear about you,” the eldest retorted. Alberta smiled dangerously. “Which reminds me,” Margaret said, “Father’s had word from the Earl of Peltingham that his son is coming up for a visit next week. Could you please not run him off again, Alberta?”
“Which one is the Earl of Peltingham’s son?” Alberta asked Bellinda.
“Bulbous nose, sallow skin, under-hung jaw. Allergic to most pollens. Doesn’t like sweets.”
Alberta nodded thoughtfully.
“Why does any of that matter?” Margaret asked with growing alarm.
“Do you want to marry him?” Alberta queried in return.
“Of course not!”
The pair of younger girls exchanged a knowing glance.
“Don’t run him off again,” Margaret said firmly. “It’s rude!”
“I didn’t run him off last time,” Alberta replied with utter disdain. “He chose to leave of his own accord, and I had nothing to do with it. Scurvyhead, the ogres?”
Duncan’s presence had been forgotten for a moment, but three pairs of eyes honed in on him now. “Right,” he said, and he began to weave a tale of complete fancy. Wildfire would have been proud of him, he thought.
The next day, he received yet another summons. He was starting to think that perhaps he should just report to Princess Alberta’s room each morning for the duration of her quarantine there, for he certainly wasn’t accomplishing anything out in the garden.
Bellinda sat beside her sister again, an eager smile on her face. “We’re to go out to play together today, Scurvyhead,” she announced the minute she saw him.
His heart sank into his stomach.
“You see that
face he just made, Bertie?” Bellinda asked pettishly. “He doesn’t like me at all!”
It wasn’t that he didn’t like Princess Bellinda; he just didn’t know what to do with her. He opened his mouth to stammer some sort of denial, but Princess Alberta suddenly tore out the page she had been writing on and handed it to her sister.
“Here’s the list, Bella,” she said dismissively. Bellinda took it and began to read over its contents. In the meantime, Alberta turned her attention to the servant in front of her. “Since you can’t read, I have no other choice than to send my sister with you, against my better judgment.”
“I can memorize,” Duncan blurted. “If you tell me what you need, I can remember it.”
“He really doesn’t like me!” cried Princess Bellinda, offended.
Duncan nervously glanced her direction before returning his attention to Princess Alberta, who stared at him with narrowed eyes. After a tense moment, she deftly took the page back from her sister.
“Shall I test you?” she asked.
He bit his lower lip, but nodded all the same.
“Four pounds suet, preferably veal, but deer will work as well,” she read. “One bottle 100-proof grain alcohol. Two bottles red wine, one bottle white wine. One carat each of musk, ambergris, and civet. One pound each cinnamon, cloves, eucalyptus, and rosemary, fresh. One bottle vinegar, one quart honey, and one quart olive oil. Can you recite it back?”
He made a face. “I’d have to hear it more than once.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Alberta replied, and she handed the list back to Bellinda. “I don’t trust you to carry my money either, so Bella goes with you regardless.”
“Ha!” cried Bellinda. “I’ll go get changed!”
Alberta watched her scamper from the room before shifting her narrowed eyes back to Duncan. “Come here,” she commanded him.
He approached her with caution.
“Closer,” said Alberta when he stopped a few feet in front of her. He took two steps forward. “Closer,” she ordered in a tight voice.
Reluctantly he took that last step, so that he was directly above her. Before he could wonder at her strange request, her hand darted up to grasp the front of his shirt. She yanked him downward, almost to eye level and said in her most threatening whisper, “If you so much as touch a hair on my sister’s head—if you so much as think about touching a hair on my sister’s head—I will personally see that you are hanged, drawn and quartered, and that your head is placed wigless upon a pike at the top of the castle wall. Do you understand?”
Duncan nodded quickly. She shoved him away again. “Don’t think you’re getting special treatment—you are a slave, a lackey, and the only reason you get this privilege is because you already know that Bella and I wander around fetching strange things. Don’t let Bella dawdle in places she shouldn’t. Don’t let her chatter with people she shouldn’t. She knows where to go, but it’s beyond the castle walls, in Midd proper, and if she and you are discovered, you will be charged with kidnapping and treason and cast into the dungeons, and I won’t lift a finger to help you.”
“I understand,” said Duncan.
“You’d better,” Alberta replied. “And you’d better not breathe a word to any of the other servants, either.”
“I won’t,” he promised.
The slant-eyed glance she gave him said she didn’t believe him, but she voiced no such sentiment. “If I weren’t so bored out of my skull after only three days, I’d put off such errand-running,” she said instead. “Since I’m stuck here thanks to you and I can only stomach so much reading and story-telling, the least you can do is fetch me things with which I can amuse myself.”
“Yes, your Highness,” he murmured obediently.
She glanced up at him again but held her tongue. They remained in silence until Bellinda returned a few moments later, clad in a simple dress with a long cloak around her and her golden curls braided and bound in a knot at the back of her head. “I’m ready,” she announced.
“Leave separately, the two of you,” Alberta said, and she produced a small sack of coins for her sister. “Scurvyhead, you go first.”
“Where to?” he asked.
“Should we meet at the stables?” Bellinda suggested. “We should contrive a way to steal a horse so we don’t have to carry everything ourselves—Bertie and I usually go during suppertime, when no one’s really minding the stables, but since you’re a servant we can’t wait until then.”
“I have a horse,” said Duncan with budding relief. If Wildfire could come along, perhaps the horse could satisfy his own curiosity. Both Bellinda and Alberta arched their brows and stared at him. “He’s not much to look at, just a small grayish-white horse, but he can carry things well enough,” he added uncomfortably.
“So you do have some use after all,” said Alberta caustically. “Go saddle him up then, and if anyone asks what you’re doing, tell them I’ve sent you on a wild goose chase. Bella will meet you just beyond the stables.”
He was more than happy to obey. He hurried away from the castle to the stables and Wildfire’s stall. “I’m getting sent on errands with Princess Bellinda,” he whispered to the horse, who had been surprised to see him so early in the day, “and you’re to come with me.”
He had assumed that Wildfire would be game for the outing, but the horse seemed strangely reluctant.
“Come on,” Duncan encouraged as he pulled him from the stall.
True to Alberta’s word, Princess Bellinda waited beyond the stables. She had tied a handkerchief over her head to cover the knot of blonde curls, as though she was a common peasant. Her garb looked like that of a peasant, too, he realized.
“Oh! I forgot to bring ashes to smudge on my face!” she cried suddenly, and to his utmost astonishment, she stooped, grabbed a handful of dirt, and promptly rubbed it on her cheeks and forehead. “How’s that?”
She looked a little more like a commoner, but there was still no mistaking that Princess Bellinda stood before him.
“It’s fine,” Duncan said all the same, and he nervously looked away.
“Then let’s get to our errands,” she replied with a cheerful smile.
She made no motion to mount Wildfire, as he had assumed she would. Instead, she stealthily led him toward a side gate in the castle wall. She tipped a coin to the guard there with a knowing wink and passed through. Duncan frowned at the man as he went by, but the guard pretended not to see a thing. Obviously there was a long-standing arrangement there.
Beyond lay a narrow lane in the city of Midd. It was the same narrow lane to which Jimmy had led Duncan weeks ago when bringing him to the castle. He had not recognized the gate from the other side, because he had not used it since, but he surmised that the castle servants probably passed quite frequently that way when they wanted to get to and from the city. The handful of pedestrians on the street did not pay the least attention to the two figures that emerged now.
True to Princess Alberta’s words, Princess Bellinda knew where she was going. She only paused on occasion to make certain that Duncan was keeping up. He and Wildfire trailed behind her to their first stop, a tavern, where she commanded him to remain outside with the horse. She returned a few moments later with several bottles in her basket. Duncan helped her stow them away in Wildfire’s saddlebags before they moved onward.
“What’s Alberta want with all that booze?” the horse whispered the moment Bellinda disappeared into a small butcher’s shop a few doors down. “Has she become a drunk?”
“No,” said Duncan with certainty. He knew from experience how to recognize an alcoholic, and Alberta exhibited none of the signs. Besides, the alcohol she had requested had more uses than just drinking.
Bellinda returned with the suet, which she gladly loaded onto the white horse. “We have to go to the open-air bazaar now,” she said. “Honestly, I might have come myself, but Alberta wouldn’t even hear of it. It’s so much more fun with two people anyway.”
D
uncan followed her with a frown. The open-air bazaar was a collection of stalls occupied by traveling merchants. Here Bellinda procured the exotic and grossly expensive items that Alberta had wanted: musk, ambergris, and civet. They had cost a few gold coins each, and Bellinda made certain to tuck them away on her own person rather than giving them to the horse. They moved onward to get the honey and the olive oil.
“Is she going to bake something?” Wildfire whispered behind Bellinda’s back.
“Not likely,” Duncan replied.
“Ooh!” Bellinda cried suddenly. “We should probably pick up some more bottles too, while we’re out. Alberta says you can never have enough bottles.”
Duncan was inclined to disagree. He’d left more than enough bottles in the ravine up near the border between Borealia and Meridiana.
“Those look familiar,” Wildfire muttered in his ear when they stopped at a stall full of glassware. A twinge of shock twisted through Duncan as he laid his eyes upon a basket full of bottles that looked identical to the one he’d thrown at Dame Groach two years ago.
“You don’t suppose…” he began.
“They came from Borealia,” Wildfire replied. “It says so on the sign. It only makes sense that some enterprising soul would come along and make money off what we left behind. I’m surprised they don’t have a stall full of combs and another with bridles.”
Duncan glanced at him sharply but didn’t get the chance to reply. Bellinda had already paid for a set of the bottles and wanted Duncan’s help packing them away.
“Just the herbs and spices left,” said Bellinda. “There are a couple of stalls down this way.”
She paused at one and requested her items from the merchant there. Duncan listened idly as the man rattled off the price for each.
“That comes to four shillings, six pence,” he said. To Duncan’s surprise, Bellinda reached into her purse to pay the sum.
“You mean three,” he interrupted, a little angrily. The merchant started, and Bellinda looked up at him quizzically. “The prices you quoted,” Duncan clarified. “They only add up to three shillings, six pence. Do all merchants in Meridiana try to cheat their customers?”
Goldmayne: A Fairy Tale Page 17
