The Princess Curse

by Merrie Haskell

  There was laughter in the voice that followed me. “Have a good day. Reveka.”

  I didn’t turn around, even when he said my name. I don’t think I even broke my stride. But I did wish him luck breaking the curse—not because I wanted him to steal my dowry, but because I didn’t want him to end up in the tower asleep, or simply gone, like all the others.

  Chapter 10

  Marjit thought I was early enough that I should have a bath before the princesses arrived. She never could forgo an opportunity to scrub someone.

  I let her soap me and put me into the hot bath, but I stewed only a moment; it was really too warm at this time of year. The green-blue dolphin mosaic at the bottom of the cool plunge looked trapped beneath glass, and I shattered the smooth surface with a yelp. The sudden change in temperature made my skin prickle, but it cleared the dream and the conversation with Frumos from my mind.

  Marjit held out a big towel for me. “A bath every two days!” she said with mock wonder. “I don’t know, Reveka. You might just become a sybarite. Weren’t you raised in a convent?”

  Marjit’s teasing was always the price of getting such a good bath. So I just grinned and toweled myself. But my grin faded when Princess Otilia entered the bathing room. I froze. We’d lost track of time, and the princesses were here!

  Princess Otilia looked as surprised to see me as I was to see her—but Marjit’s expression was cool as fresh butter. “Oh, Mar—Marjit, I came early,” Otilia stuttered. “I thought you’d be alone.”

  I tried to curtsy, but the towel gaped, and it was not my most graceful moment ever. I backed away and put my clothes on while pretending to be invisible.

  “Did you . . .” Otilia hesitated, looking from me to Marjit. She seemed to decide I wasn’t a threat. “Did you have something for me?” she asked the bathwoman.

  Marjit raised her eyebrows. “Nothing but a nice bath, Your Highness,” she said.

  “Oh, well, I’ll come back for that,” Otilia said hastily, and retreated up the passageway.

  I dressed with speed, biting my tongue to keep from asking what all that was about. Not out of any respect for Otilia’s or Marjit’s privacy, mind you; but there are no secrets in a tiled room, and I didn’t want Otilia to overhear me on her way out.

  I silently raised my eyebrows at Marjit.

  Marjit waited until Otilia was probably out of earshot. “That one has never really taken to being a princess,” she said.

  I shrugged. “Who really could? They wear ridiculous hats, and overlong shoes, and dresses that collect all manner of dirt along the hem.”

  Marjit snorted. “I don’t think you’ve thought the matter through.”

  I ignored that and started preparing the bath herbs—hollyhock and mallow today—while waiting for Marjit to give me the gossip. She didn’t, though. How disappointing! I’d been told there were three things you could rely on at Castle Sylvian: sunrise, sunset, and Marjit’s gossip.

  Frumos was nowhere to be seen on my way back to the herbary, but I did spy Mihas trimming back the yew hedges. I’d rather have found Frumos, but on the other hand, I didn’t need more mysteries today.

  Didina and I worked steadily all morning, not saying much to each other. I attributed the silence to her sadness for her mother, but I wondered if something else was going on. She kept chewing mint. To settle her stomach?

  At midday, she asked Brother Cosmin if she could go sit with her mother, and he granted her request. I worked twice as hard in her absence so she didn’t have to feel she was making a hardship for us.

  I went to deliver my posies to the princesses, and ran into the Mihas boy again in the narrow courtyard outside their tower. Now he was trimming ivy from the tower walls. I tried to scoot past without acknowledging him, but he called my name and then stood there, staring at me with his mouth open. I grimaced at him, with what could be taken as either fierceness or regret, and scurried into the tower as though I didn’t have time for pleasantries. He was gone when I came back out.

  I headed to the kitchens, plagued with a growing knot in my stomach that just didn’t seem to want to go away.

  Didina never showed up to supper. I rushed through Cook’s fine dish of trout in garlic sauce and went to the western tower, hoping to find Didina visiting with her grandmother.

  But for the sleepers, Adina was alone, netting socks furiously as though winter were coming and no one had boots. She waved me in to sit with her, but I begged off.

  I double-checked the herbary, but Didina hadn’t returned.

  My stomach clenched with fear. I knew what was worrying me, what had been worrying me all afternoon.

  I pelted through the castle’s courtyards, crossing shadows that grew longer by the moment. I ran into the princesses’ maids leaving their tower but didn’t pause to talk to them. I slid to a stop inside the tower bedroom.

  Didina was standing in the middle of the room, searching high and low. Looking for a hiding place.

  “What are you doing?” I cried.

  She whirled around, clutching her chest. “By the cross! I thought— Reveka, what are you doing here?”

  “What am I doing here? What are you doing here?”

  “Shhhh!” She looked frantically around. “Come on, now, you need to leave. The princesses must be on their way back, and I must hide!”

  Footsteps sounded outside the door. Didina squeaked and shoved me under a bed. “Didina!” I whispered furiously while she slid behind a cluster of gowns hanging from pegs on the wall.

  “Shhhhh!”

  I held still, trying not to breathe. I heard footsteps, words. “This will be an utter disaster,” someone said in a low voice. From the refined accent, I thought it must be either Princess Maricara or Princess Tereza.

  “I can’t believe the effrontery,” another voice answered. “They send an emissary who is really no more than a merchant, and he wants to put us in iron shoes?”

  “And when our feet are bleeding raw, what will happen then?” another voice chimed in.

  “Papa will never agree to it.”

  “Papa will agree to it until he sees it has no effect. Then he’ll have the irons struck off. And then he’ll apologize—just like the last three times his meddling made us bleed.”

  “Ooooh, but what if I fall out of my boat?” The voice belonged to the princess wearing blue slippers. “I’ll sink directly to the bottom of the river, and that’ll be the end of us all! I can’t dance on the river bottom!”

  “We will do what we have to do.” I recognized Lacrimora. “We will wear whatever shoes Papa demands, and we will dance the dances that our lord demands, and there’s an end of it. Try not to fall out of your boats either way.”

  “Lacrimora is entirely right,” Blue Slippers said.

  “Lacrimora is always right,” Princess Maricara answered snidely.

  “We should just confess,” a smaller, quieter voice said. I thought it was Otilia. “We should just tell Prince Vasile everything.”

  “And what? Papa will buy us out of our bargain?” Maricara again.

  “Not my bargain,” a dark voice muttered.

  “Girls. Hush. It’s time,” Princess Maricara announced.

  At once, everyone fell silent, and footsteps moved to every corner of the room. “This bed’s clear,” Blue Slippers called.

  “And this one,” Maricara said.

  I began to panic. They were only three beds away from me.

  I heard the solid thumps of a heavy object hitting fabric. “The tapestries are clear,” Lacrimora said.

  “My bed’s clear,” two princesses chorused.

  “The dresses are—” Lacrimora began, and something thumped.

  But in addition to the thump, there was a cry.

  “Got one,” Lacrimora said softly.

  Footsteps thundered as half a dozen princesses ran across the room. Then came the sounds of a struggle, and Didina screamed.

  “Who is that?” Maricara asked.

  “It’s
. . . it’s the herbalist’s apprentice,” Otilia said, sounding near tears.

  “But that’s not Cabbage Girl,” Maricara said. Did they all call me that?

  “There are two apprentices,” Lacrimora told her. “This is the other one. What did you hear, Apprentice?”

  “N-nothing,” Didina said.

  “I don’t believe you,” Princess Maricara said.

  “She was right there,” Princess Blue Slippers said. “Not even under a bed.”

  “She heard enough,” Princess Tereza said. “Lacrimora, fetch the wine.”

  “No!” Otilia cried, but no one listened to her.

  I bit my thumbs, forcing myself to stay still and silent. There was no way I could fight all twelve princesses—or even eleven, assuming Otilia might be on our side. There were two farm-girl princesses whose names I didn’t even know but who each alone could beat me up.

  “Plug her nose,” Blue Slippers said, and there came a horrible gagging sound and the plash of liquid hitting the floor. I moaned into my hands, but no one heard me over Didina’s gulping and gasping.

  “She’ll sleep,” Lacrimora said with grim satisfaction.

  “Hurry up! We’re going to be late!” Blue Slippers said, and with an ungentle thud, they let Didina fall to the floor.

  The noise of stone grinding on stone, louder than any millstones, filled the chamber.

  “Come on, get up, dear,” Otilia said. “I’ll help you to my bed.” Didina murmured something unintelligible to her. “I know. I know. Shhh . . . but it’s better this way. You don’t want to become like us. You don’t want to lose your soul.”

  “Otilia!” Lacrimora’s voice was vicious. “Leave her.”

  “I’m so sorry, Didina,” Otilia whispered. “Sleep well. . . .”

  “Otilia!” Lacrimora spoke again. Otilia’s footsteps faded, stone ground against stone again, and the light disappeared from the room. I imagined I could hear, all the way across the castle, the words of the sleepers: “Don’t go!”

  “Gone,” Didina muttered. “All gone.” Her speech was slurred. “Don’t go. . . .”

  I waited about two seconds more before crawling out from under the bed. “Wake up,” I said sharply to Didina, and began pawing through my herb bag to find a stimulant. “What did the wine taste like?”

  “Oversweet, but bitter. Awful. There was . . .” She trailed off.

  I slapped her cheek, bringing her awake again. “Nepenthe!” she said. “For certain. Perhaps narcissus. Something stale and dark, like dirt. Or mold. Or heartbreak . . . if that has . . . flavor. . . .”

  “Didina!” I cried. I turned her on her side, sliding her half off the bed, and stuck my fingers down her throat. She vomited widely onto my shoes and the floor. I had to turn my head away to avoid vomiting myself.

  I slid her back onto the bed and went through my herb pouch again. I had nothing to counteract such powerful sleep agents, nothing at all. But back in the herbary—

  I ran to the door, but it had been barred from the other side, like it was every night. I kicked and screamed at the door, but no one came.

  I ran back to Didina, tried to rouse her.

  But she was asleep.

  Chapter 11

  I did not immediately have the presence of mind to investigate the poison the princesses had used, but after I’d sat vigil over Didina’s peacefully sleeping body for a time, it occurred to me to do so.

  I uncorked the wine jug they’d left on the table and sniffed it carefully. Didina had already identified nepenthe and narcissus. I wondered what would happen to me if I licked just a drop from the bottle’s lip: Would I fall immediately into the same magical sleep as Didina?

  I had to risk it. They’d poured a lot of this down Didina’s throat before it took effect. I wet my finger and dabbed it on my tongue. Immediately, I could taste sticklewort, possibly thorn apple. There was also a flavor like peaches . . . or maybe almonds . . . maybe cherry bark. But it was overpowered by the taste of mold and death. Didina had noticed it, too. Graveyard dirt? That seemed an appropriate additive for a witches’ brew. I knew of no counteragent.

  The tip of my tongue went numb. I spat repeatedly and scrubbed out my mouth with my sleeve and a handful of mint from my herb pouch.

  Rather than risk discovery and my own inconvenient poisoning, I slipped underneath a bed as far away from Didina’s vomit as I could get. The hour was late, and though I was terrified of discovery and mournful over my friend, I fell asleep.

  I dreamed. I shouldn’t have; I never was much of a dreamer. Certainly, I had nightmares when I was small, usually about Muma Pădurii boiling me up in soup because liars taste so good, but that’s standard fare for anyone who’s heard too many Mother of the Forest tales.

  In this dream, I stood on the far shore of a dark lake, looking up at a shadowed castle on a mountaintop. People were all around me, but none of them could see or hear me. And I knew, in the way you know things in dreams, that I was invisible because of my magic hat.

  I jerked awake, certain that I’d heard the princesses’ voices. But there was nothing and no one. The room was silent.

  I did not sleep again. I lay in misery and terror until the room lightened, and birds sang outside, and stones ground against stones.

  I had a good enough vantage point to see that a hole opened in the floor when this noise came. The air filled with the voices of quarreling princesses.

  Otilia crawled out of the hole and went immediately to Didina. She said dully, “Surpassingly good job, Lacrimora. Your skill with the potion improves every year.”

  “You know it’s not my choice,” Lacrimora hissed.

  “Disgusting. She’s covered in vomit,” Ruxandra said.

  “Show a little remorse! A little compassion!” Otilia cried. “If you lose those things, you may as well just marry him.”

  Silence, then—at least, no more speech. Bars and bolts thunked open, hinges creaked. Footsteps retreated, footsteps approached. I barely breathed.

  The princesses were gone, leaving only their maids in the empty room. “Go and fetch Mistress Adina,” Beti said to her comrades. “This poor lamb needs to be put to bed in the other tower.”

  The maids departed—one to fetch Adina, one to fetch water and a scrub brush—leaving me alone at last. I crawled out, cast a sad, scared look at Didina, and fled straight to the Princess Consort.

  I had to wait a long time in the hallway next to the dragon-kidnaps-a-maiden tapestry while a servant explained to the Princess Consort that the troublesome herbalist’s apprentice was begging for an audience. I noticed that the snag on the maiden’s cheek was gone, repaired by expert fingers. Now there was nothing to distract the viewer from the menacing zmeu looming over the maiden, his long red fingers reaching out to caress her, his spiny cheeks glistening with ichor.

  I wondered how she hadn’t figured out he was a zmeu before, maybe at their wedding ceremony. In the stories, you always know who the zmeu is; the storytellers always say he’s charming and friendly and looks like an ordinary man, but they also drop hints so broad that you can’t help but think the girl is stupid for not knowing.

  The servant came out, looking frazzled. “Go on, then,” she snapped. “Princess Daciana has little time, so make good use of it!”

  The Princess Consort was pacing anxiously before I even told her what I’d seen the night before. And once I’d finished, she looked ready to scream.

  “A hole in the floor!” Princess Daciana said, hitting fist to palm. “We’re so near! We knew they were leaving the tower at night, but they weren’t flying out on broomsticks or transforming themselves into birds or bats . . . so it had to be underground. It had to be a tunnel. That’s why we hired your father, to break into the princesses’ tunnel. Only our tunnels keep collapsing.”

  “Most Noble and Ser—”

  “Call me ‘Your Highness,’ or simply ‘Doamnă.’”

  “Your Highness,” I said, uncomfortable with doamnă, since it just meant �
��lady” and the Princess Consort was more than a lady. “My father has forbidden me to meddle with the curse, on account of what has happened to the others who have tried.”

  “Understandable,” Princess Daciana said. “Of course, it is not meddling with the curse proper to try yew or santolina on the sleepers. . . .”

  My eyes might have bugged out of my head with surprise at that—very attractive, I’m sure—but I couldn’t help it. “Who—how—why do you know this?” I asked.

  “This is my castle, is it not? I have the running of it. A proper chatelaine knows everything that goes on in her domain.”

  “Then—you know that Didina’s mother, she’s slipping away? She’ll die in a matter of weeks if—”

  The Princess interrupted. “Yes, of course, and the Duke of Styria, too.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Princess Maricara was once betrothed to the Duke of Styria. He succumbed to the sleep the night before their wedding. My spies tell me he is slipping away as well.”

  The Princess had spies? I was impressed. I wanted spies.

  She went on: “Should he round the corner alone . . .” She shook her head. “We will be at war. The Hungarians arranged that marriage between Maricara and the Duke, and they take it as a personal affront that it hasn’t worked out. The Hungarians have been looking for an excuse to roll over us, the better to harry Moldavia’s borders, I suppose.”

  To “roll over us”? Wouldn’t Pa’s defenses hold them up even a day? My stomach flopped.

  I’d lived in a country that had been “rolled over” before. The Turks had raided into Transylvania several times a year for my whole life. I dreaded war. Pa would take up soldiering again, probably, and then, in addition to the threat of bloody battles, there’d be the fear and the famine. . . .

  I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to answer the Princess, but I thought signaling comprehension was a good idea. “Oh. I hadn’t heard.”

  “No. You shouldn’t have. Don’t spread it around. We do not need to worry people unduly, and . . .” She darted an uneasy look at the solar door, like she was expecting someone unwelcome to come through it. “The Duke of Styria hasn’t died yet, so carry on, Reveka,” she said, sitting down and waving me a dismissal.