Princess of the Midnight Ball

by Jessica Day George

  He saw her looking and smiled, and she raised her eyebrows, trying to ask what on earth a wool chain was for. He just smiled even broader and cast on the stitches for a new link. Nine.

  “Are you listening to me, girl!” Angier roared.

  Whipping around to focus on the bishop again, Rose saw some spittle fly from the bishop’s mouth and land on the back of Iris’s hand. Her younger sister quickly scrubbed at it with a handkerchief, a disgusted look on her face.

  “Thank you, Bishop Angier, for that rousing sermon,” King Gregor said, rising to his feet. Rose could see a vein in her father’s temple pulsing, as though he were on the verge of shouting back at the bishop. “I’m sure we all feel invigorated by your words.” He reached over and grabbed the bellpull, giving it a firm yank. “Let us ponder your message while we eat.” He sat back down and patted Rose’s hand.

  The meal was a silent one, but Rose didn’t know if her sisters were pondering the bishop’s words any more than she was. Violet, at least, was simmering with resentment, a fact that was clear for all to see. But Hyacinth was the one who worried Rose the most. She neither spoke nor ate, and her eyes looked glassy.

  Barely tasting her dinner, Rose wondered what would happen if she confessed to being a witch. Would they set Anne free, or would she still be accused of teaching Rose magic? If nothing else, it would lift the Interdict and clear the rest of her family, as long as she could convince them that she had acted alone. She would be excommunicated by the church, and likely imprisoned for life, but her father and her sisters would be free.

  The only flaw was that the other girls’ shoes would continue to wear out after she was gone. That, and what he might do if she was lost to the Midnight Ball and his eldest son.

  Rose shivered. She hoped that her mother, despite her foolish bargains, had been permitted into Heaven and was too busy singing, or whatever one did there, to see the mess she had made of things. The King Under Stone had manipulated Maude from the very beginning, using her to bear twelve brides for his stern, handsome sons and then dancing her into an early grave so that her daughters would be forced to take over the contract.

  Maude hadn’t suspected this, or at least, there was no indication of it in her journals. The only mention they could find of Under Stone at all was a single entry, after Orchid’s birth. Maude had wondered if the potion “he” had given her had gone bad, or if she hadn’t drunk it at the right time, when she bore daughter after daughter with no sign of a longed-for heir.

  Rose wished that there was some way she could help Galen. If only she could leave the door in the carpet open … but he was asleep and could not follow them even if it were possible. She thought of bringing him back some token from the underworld, but how would she make him understand what it was?

  Rose drew in a breath. A token. The sound of a branch snapping. The strange silver knitting needles that Galen had been using to make, of all things, a chain…. She stared across the table at him, flicking her eyes down to the chain where it lay on the table beside his plate and back up again. He caught her gaze and held it.

  After dinner, Lily asked Galen to play chess with her, but he began yawning as soon as they sat down to their game. A few minutes later he forfeited, begged Lily’s pardon, and stretched out on a sofa to “take a little rest.” Rose watched him carefully, but he seemed to be fast asleep.

  “Do you think he’s faking?” she asked Lily as they prepared for the Midnight Ball.

  “Impossible,” Lily said. “How could he be? The enchantment is too strong for anyone to resist.”

  Again Rose let Lily take the lamp and go first down the golden stairs, chivvying the other girls ahead of her into the darkness and waiting as long as possible to follow. The sofa Galen slept on faced the windows, though, so she couldn’t actually see him from her position in the middle of the floor. Her ears pricked up, a strange sensation, when she thought she heard a rustling noise. She took a step back from the stairs, craning to see over the back of the sofa.

  “What are you doing?” Iris reached up out of the darkness and grabbed the hem of Rose’s gown just as Rose started toward the sofa. “Come along, or we’ll be late!”

  Annoyed, Rose went down the stairs, looking over her shoulder all the way. She tripped twice and snagged her hem on the edge of a step as she went, but she didn’t care. She could have sworn that she heard booted feet crossing the room. But when the golden stair ascended behind them, there was no sign of Galen.

  Goblet

  Galen laughed silently to himself all the way down the golden steps. Clever Rose! She clearly suspected something. He had seen the look on her face at dinner, as though a light were dawning, and was disappointed when she didn’t pull him aside to question him. Still, it was better this way. He didn’t want to raise her hopes when he still had no idea how much help he could be.

  Galen paused to study the silver gate after the princesses had passed through. He noticed that, although there was no fence connected to the gate, there was still a definite boundary running as far as he could see in either direction. On the staircase side of the gate, the ground did not feel like dirt or pavement, it simply felt … like nothing. It was neither hard nor soft, neither rough nor smooth. It was simply nothing, and then, as sharply as though someone had drawn a line with a knife, the forest began, with its sparkling black dirt and silver trees.

  Nodding to himself, Galen stepped through the gate and let it swing shut behind him. Rose whirled around and squinted, but again Iris tugged at her and she had to follow.

  Through the silver forest they went, to the shore of the black lake. Again Galen hopped aboard the golden boat with Rose and her suitor, and again her suitor struggled to keep up. He kept shooting glances at Rose’s figure in the bow, however, and Galen wondered if he were trying to determine if she had gained weight or not.

  Galen thought Rose had never looked lovelier. Of course, he had seen her only once before her illness, and that time she had been dripping wet. But she was fully recovered now: her cheeks glowed with health rather than fever, and she no longer looked as gaunt as she had. She was wearing her red velvet gown, and over her elbows she had draped the white shawl he had made her. He thought it set off her gown and her golden-brown hair admirably.

  As soon as the bottom of the boat grated on the beach, Galen jumped out, and Rose’s dark escort nearly fell as he hauled it up the sand. He had overcompensated, clearly expecting the boat to be heavier. Galen, a little disappointed that his rival hadn’t fallen into the wet sand, sighed. Rose looked around, and he held his breath. Then her suitor captured her attention, and her arm, and they led the way toward the dark palace.

  Galen had to admit that they made a fine pair. Stately, attractive, beautifully dressed. Lily and Jonquil followed, then the rest in order of age. The haughty expressions and fine clothes of the suitors toward the end of the line seemed ridiculous to Galen, considering that they were squiring girls at least half their ages.

  Still, even Petunia wore a ballgown, though suitably high necked, and her hair was in loose curls rather than pinned up like her older sisters’. As Galen followed Petunia and her escort into the palace he shuddered, thinking about the king’s intent to marry the princesses to his hard-faced sons. Petunia would be perhaps fourteen or fifteen when she married her prince, and that was only if the king waited until their years of servitude were finished.

  The cold-eyed courtiers clapped, the princesses curtsied, and the ball began in earnest. Galen watched the dancing for a while, but then he felt thirsty. As a servant whisked by, Galen snatched a silver goblet from the man’s tray and quickly concealed it within his cape. Galen carried it over to one corner where he was partially hidden by a drape and drank thirstily. Then he put the goblet, which was of strange workmanship, into the pouch at his belt. Another souvenir for King Gregor, he thought.

  When Pansy begged to sit out a dance, Galen sat beside her once more. As though sensing his presence, she began looking around, even lifting
her pink skirts to stare under her chair.

  “Are you there, spirit?” she asked finally.

  “I am here,” Galen said in a hollow voice.

  “Why?”

  “I want to help you.”

  “Oh.”

  “Tell me, Princess, how did your mother find the King Under Stone?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did he come to her, or did she come here, to make their bargain?” Trying to talk in a ghostly voice strained Galen’s throat, and he wished for something more to drink.

  “She came here,” Pansy answered readily. “Rose says that’s how the silver forest got made. The first time Mother came, she dropped her brooch. It was a silver cross with laurel leaves around it that her godfather gave her. The next night it grew into a forest.” She grimaced. “I tried to grow a tree out of my garnet ring once, but it didn’t work,” she added.

  “I see.” Galen paused. A forest of silver that grew from a cross? No wonder the twigs he had taken felt powerful. His hands still tingled faintly from knitting with them. “Can the princes come through the gate any time they want? How do they get to the surface? Surely not by your golden staircase?”

  Pansy’s brow wrinkled. “No, the princes can only come at night. I don’t know how, though. They came to the garden one night, when Papa locked us in our rooms. But the next night, they could barely dance. They hate the forest. When Rose was sick she fainted, and Prince Illiken carried her to the gate. He looked ill, too, by the time we got to the stairs. Petunia threw up that night, and Lily had to carry her all the way from the boats. Petunia’s partner, Prince Kestilan, didn’t want to do it because she smelled nasty.” Pansy giggled.

  Galen laughed with her, choking it off when Rose and Lily and their suitors came over to the chairs. They all smiled vaguely at Pansy.

  “What’s so funny, Pan?” Rose smoothed Pansy’s tousled curls. “Who have you been talking to?”

  Galen leaned close to Pansy’s ear and whispered; “Sssh-hhh,” as quietly as he could.

  “No one,” Pansy said, slipping off her chair. “I know; I have to keep dancing.” And she went off to find her suitor in better spirits than Galen had ever seen her.

  “What’s gotten into her?” Lily mused.

  “I don’t know,” Rose said, thoughtful.

  She looked right at the spot where Galen was sitting, and he felt a chill run up his arms. Even though she was looking through him, he sensed that she knew he was there. He reached out a tentative finger and touched the back of her hand. Her fingers twitched, but she did not jump or cry out; instead a small smile curved her mouth.

  “We must dance,” Prince Illiken said, and he led her away.

  “One more night,” Galen whispered when they had gone away. “One more night, and then I will get you out of this place. And your sisters, too.”

  Galen watched the rest of the ball without speaking, although several times both Rose and Pansy tried to linger near the chairs where he sat. He rode in Lily’s boat as they went back across the lake, Galen’s added weight confusing her suitor and giving Rose’s Illiken an undeserved respite.

  Again, Galen slipped up the stairs before the princesses without making a sound. When Rose checked to see if he was sleeping, he was snoring peacefully, inhaling the scent of her perfume as she leaned over the back of the sofa.

  Governess

  Galen awoke feeling confident, but that began to fade soon after breakfast. He had made a chain out of the crone’s black wool that was long enough to wrap around the handles of the gate, but would it do the job? The crone’s cloak really did render him invisible, and he had knitted the black wool chain with the twigs of the silver trees, his hands tingling with dormant power. But was this the answer? Would it really stop the King Under Stone from getting what he wanted?

  Galen had made Rose’s shawl out of the crone’s white wool, thinking that it would somehow protect and comfort her, but it had no effect on Illiken when he danced with Rose. Now he worried that his instincts weren’t correct.

  Galen went out to the gardens that afternoon, looking for Walter, but he couldn’t find the old man. He was in need of advice but didn’t know where to go.

  Galen stood at the entrance of the hedge maze and stared up at the palace. The pink stucco was cheery, despite the lowering clouds and threat of snow. Galen shook his head over all the nights wasted patrolling the garden, when all along the princesses were using a secret passage in their own sitting room. He frowned. Who had set up the secret passage? The King Under Stone or Queen Maude? If the princesses knew, they couldn’t say.

  But there was someone else in the palace who might know.

  The Bretoner governess was being kept in one of garret rooms where the lowliest scullery maids slept. She had both a priest and a palace guard watching her door, and no one was allowed to speak to her without Bishop Angier present. Galen thought about using his letter from King Gregor to see her, but it gave him the freedom of the grounds only, not the palace, and certainly not the right to speak to a prisoner under Bishop Angier’s care.

  So he fastened on the cloak and went around to the back of the palace. The building was modern and square, and there were copper drainpipes at all the corners. Galen shimmied up the one at the western corner, closest to Anne’s room. When he was level with the garret windows, he reached across, catching a window frame with one foot and his hand. Heart thumping, afraid to look down, he let go of the drainpipe and half leaped onto the narrow window ledge.

  He strained at the window, which was latched from the inside, and saw a white face peering out, looking for the source of the small scraping noises he had made. The governess’s eyes were puffy from crying, and her graying hair was tangled.

  Galen unhooked the chain of the cloak, and the governess let out a small scream as he appeared right in front of her. He held a finger to his lips and smiled to show that he was friendly.

  “I want to help,” he mouthed broadly.

  She didn’t look entirely convinced, but she unlatched the window and opened it a crack. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Galen Werner, a gardener,” he told her. “Please let me in. I need to ask you some questions.”

  “I’ve been asked enough questions,” she said, and made as if to close the window again.

  “Please,” Galen begged. “I’m only trying to help.”

  She hesitated, then opened the window a little more. Galen grabbed the edge and slid it all the way open, tumbling forward into the room.

  The tiny chamber contained only a cot, a table, and a chair. There were no books or sewing to occupy the governess’s empty hours; there wasn’t even a basin to wash her face.

  “How did you— You just appeared—Who sent you?” Anne backed away from Galen, looking wary. But she kept her voice down, all the same, so that her guards would not hear them.

  “My name is Galen; I work in the garden. I’m trying to help the girls … the princesses,” Galen amended. “I followed them last night, using this.” He refastened the cloak and disappeared.

  Anne gasped and put her hands to her mouth, and Galen quickly took off the cloak.

  “A kindly old woman gave it to me,” he told her. “Along with the wool I used for this.” He pulled the black chain out of the pouch at his belt. “I want to seal the entrance to the underground realm where they dance at night. There is a gate the princesses must pass through….” His voice trailed off. The idea seemed so foolish now. “Do you know anything that would help?”

  Fingering the chain, Anne shook her head, and Galen’s heart sank. It was true: she was completely innocent of her charges’ midnight activities.

  But her next words turned Galen’s pity for her imprisonment to anger.

  “This feels so flimsy. I don’t know that it will be enough to hold Under Stone,” she said.

  “You know about the King Under Stone?” Galen barely kept his voice under control. “Why didn’t you tell someone? Why didn’t you help them?”


  “I only just discovered what Maude had done,” Anne told him hastily. She sat on her narrow cot and pulled the boiled wool blanket around her plump shoulders. “And I wasn’t about to tell that awful Bishop Angier.

  “I was Maude’s friend, her only confidant, for many years,” she continued, “yet she did not confide this in me. I knew that she’d done something, but I thought that she’d merely found some witch to provide her with a fertility charm. She visited them all, you know. Every midwife, wisewoman, white witch, fortuneteller … She drank horrible concoctions, ate nothing but boiled eggs one week, grapes another; had the maids wash her clothing in rainwater and dry it under the full moon….” Anne shook her head. “None of it worked. And then Maude stopped talking to me, stopped sharing her secrets with me, and Rose was born. Rose, and the rest of the girls. Twelve children in eleven years would wear anyone out, but I always felt in my heart that something more was weighing on poor Maude. And when she died, and the girls began to look exhausted all the time, when they wore out their shoes every third night, I knew that whatever Maude had done to have her daughters was still being paid for.

  “I searched the entire palace over and over again, even the rooms up here.” She gestured around at the bare cell. “I only just found the books, hours before Angier came. He caught me with them. I never had a chance to do more than glance at them.”

  “Which books?” Galen had to clear his throat before he could ask. He had been leaning forward, listening to her tumbled words, and had forgotten to swallow.