Excitement shot up Vittorio’s spine and he leaned forward. “You know him?”
“I might.”
“Dante!” Vittorio was half up, reaching for his brother to give him a shake, when the ruffians in the shadows stepped into the light.
“Watch your step, Vitto. This is my kingdom. My people. My rules.”
Dante’s stupid notion of being the Trash King had amused Vittorio at first, but he’d grown increasingly annoyed as Dante gained power. Although Vittorio had the whole navy to call on, Dante still seemed to hear gossip that he didn’t.
Vittorio regained his seat and gritted his teeth to hold back his anger. “Just tell me what you know and I’ll pay you for the information.”
“I don’t want coin,” Dante retorted with an ironic flick of his eyebrows. “I have plenty of coin. People pay handsomely for my mechanical creations, even if many are made from trash.
“What do you want?” Vittorio snapped.
“I want a deed, Vitto, legally drawn up and witnessed, so that when you become king, I have sovereignty over the three-mile strip of coast south from the docks.”
“You want to own South Spit Marshes and the trash barges,” Vittorio clarified with a frown. “Why?”
“I’m the Trash King. I want legal sovereignty over my kingdom.”
Vittorio squeezed his eyes closed, lurching between the desire to laugh hysterically and scream. “You have no rights over any of Malverne Isle. I’m Gregorio’s eldest son. I’m heir.”
“If you die and disappear in the trash, dear brother, I’ll be the only son,” Dante said with lethal calm. “Much as you want it to be otherwise, neither of us is heir. Our father abdicated all rights to the throne and we’re not legally his sons anyway.”
They stared at each other in the dancing lamp light, silently sharing the painful truth in a rare moment of honesty. Dante might be willing to settle for what he had, but Vittorio would not accept the unfair hand life had dealt him. His mother had once been betrothed to Gregorio and should have become queen. He would be the legitimate heir if his father hadn’t abdicated to become a blasted monk. Dante had a different attitude because his mother was only a seamstress, so he would never have been in line for the throne.
“I have no wish to live on the top of Nob Hill,” Dante declared. “My kingdom here suits me well enough.”
Despite the brisk wind, sweat crept across Vittorio’s back and prickled under his arms. Why not give Dante the marsh and trash barges in exchange for information to secure the throne. The marsh was only wasteland. He glanced at his hand to check it was clean and then rubbed his face. “Very well. I’ll have a deed drawn up and sent across. Now tell me where I can find the illusive Master Turk.”
“Why do you want him?” Dante asked.
“Dante! I’m losing patience.”
His infuriating brother leaned back with a grin and crossed his arms. The mishmash of cheap jewels and doodads sparkled on the front of his jacket.
“That’s none of your business,” Vittorio snapped.
Dante crossed his legs. “Then maybe I can’t help you, Vitto.”
“I’ve agreed to your demand; what else do you want?”
“An answer,” Dante said.
“All right! He has something of mine.”
“Something valuable?”
“Priceless,” Vittorio bit out.
Dante’s grin spread. “Perhaps I should ask him to give this priceless thing to me.”
Vittorio narrowed his eyes and glanced around; then he beckoned his brother closer. “This must stay between the two of us. Understand?”
“Indubitably.”
“He has Princess Melbaline.”
Dante roared with laughter and collapsed back in his chair. Vittorio resisted the urge to throttle him, certain that within a few minutes of him leaving, everyone on the barge would be having a good laugh at his expense. Once Dante calmed down, he stared at Vittorio, shaking his head. “Let me guess. You think he’s about to steal your thunder as well as your princess by marrying her to acquire the throne?”
“Boy, you’re sharp witted,” Vittorio retorted.
“I doubt Turk has a wedding planned.”
“Why?”
“Because, Right Honorable Royal Victualler, sir, Master Turk is a monk.”
Vittorio froze, pain stabbing his chest. Although his father obviously hated him, he had not expected the spymaster’s meddling to be his father’s work. But of course Gregorio wouldn’t want his son stepping into the royal shoes he’d kicked off, or his own dishonor would be revealed. Vittorio’s mind skated back over all the members of the Shining Brotherhood he knew in an effort to identify which one was Master Turk. “Tell me what you know about the man,” he demanded of Dante.
“When you bring me the deed.”
Vittorio surged to his feet. “This is important. I need to know before our father does something to wreck my plans.”
Dante shrugged. “Then you’d better hurry up and bring me my deed, Vitto.”
Chapter Twelve
Most men can’t find the nose on their face ’less a woman tells them where to look.
—Gwinnie
Melba hitched up her skirt and ran up the stairs to the third floor of Turk’s palace to be alone. She burst through the double doors into the disused ballroom and stood panting, a whirlpool of pain and confusion swirling inside her, making her sick and dizzy. Turk had decided to take her to the Royal Palace without asking her what she wanted to do. Was this what he’d intended for her all along?
“I’m not a princess,” she shouted, her voice echoing around the huge empty room where Madam Quatro had given her dancing lessons. Turk’s words repeated in her head: The royal Ferilli family has six toes on each foot. She looked down and counted her bare toes. Could she really be a missing princess? The idea surged through her mind like the autumn floods, washing away all her beliefs about herself.
Turk was clever. He wouldn’t make a mistake about something as serious as her being a princess. For a few seconds she closed her eyes and listened to the silence in the room. The faint reassuring chatter of her flutterbys crept back into her mind. Pulling herself together, she opened her eyes again. The dim light coming in through the windows painted the polished wooden floor with a satin glow and made white spooks out of the dust-sheet–covered furniture.
She closed the door and walked to the window, her bare feet squeaking on the floor in the way that had so annoyed Madam Quatro. If she really was a princess, she would summon the old bag to the Palace, scare the Earthlights out of her, and make sure she never hit any of her pupils again.
Melba pulled off a dust sheet and dragged around a chair to face the window so she could look out over the inner circle. She plopped down on the seat, drew her knees up, and hugged them.
Nob Hill rose in the center of the island. The white spires and crenellated battlements of the Royal Palace clung improbably to the gray rocky slopes, lights twinkling like stars in the many small windows. Even if she’d been born a princess, she did not belong in the Palace now. Why had Turk told on her?
She buried her face in her silk skirt and rocked back and forth in misery. The door clicked open and her breath caught, hoping it was Turk. “What you doing here, girl?” Gwinnie asked. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Don’t you want me to undo your dress?”
Gwinnie bustled over, her lace underskirts swishing as she came. Melba raised her head and stared blankly out of the window. “Turk said I’m the lost princess and I’ve gotta go to the Royal Palace,” she said.
“I know who you are. Knew the first time I saw them feet of yours,” Gwinnie said. “I used to work in the Palace. All them Ferillis has twelve toes.”
Melba turned to look at Gwinnie as if seeing her for the first time. “You worked in the Palace?”
“Well I ain’t always been Turk’s housekeeper. I had a life doing other stuff first.” Gwinnie ripped a dust sheet off another chair and positioned it b
eside Melba’s. She plumped down with a huge sigh. Her skirts billowed, puffing out the smell of stale sweat and musty lace. Now that she was clean, Melba noticed how bad other people smelled. She curled sideways in the chair so she could see Gwinnie.
“I was a cook in the kitchens,” Gwinnie said, “’til they tossed me out on the street ’cause I caught the scab.”
“Oh. Sorry,” Melba said, feeling strangely responsible now she knew the king was her pa. “Did you know me ma?”
“I saw her often enough but she never talked to the likes o’ me. Hoity-toity stuck-up piece o’ skirt that one. Thought she were better than us island folk. I remember you when you was a nipper. Queen Juliana took it mighty hard when you was stolen. When you wasn’t found, she packed up and went back to her family on the mainland. I felt sorry for your pa. King Santo ain’t a bad sort.”
“Why didn’t they find me if I were only in the third circle with old Maddox?”
Gwinnie pursed her lips and shrugged. “They had the bluejackets searching all over, but most men can’t find the nose on their face ’less a woman tells them where to look.”
“Do you think old Maddox stole me?”
“’Course not, lass. He just got lumbered with looking after you.”
Melba remembered what Turk had told her weeks ago. Someone had paid old Maddox to take her on. But why? She glanced out of the window at the twinkling spires of the Royal Palace. “Turk says I gotta go back, but I don’t want to.”
“King Santo will want you back.”
“Not me ma?”
Gwinnie pulled in a long breath and let it out slowly. “I heard your ma returned to the Earth, lass.” Melba had told herself she didn’t care about her ma because the woman hadn’t wanted her. Now she knew Queen Juliana had wanted her. But she didn’t like the idea of a ma who was hoity-toity and stuck-up.
“Tell me more about me pa.”
“King Santo were the younger son. He should never ’ave been king. Weren’t trained for it or nothing, but he got lumbered with it. When the old king died, Santo’s brother Gregorio told the family they could shove the throne where the sun don’t shine and he joined the Shining Brotherhood. Santo were the same age as you when he became king. Poor boy didn’t have no clue what to do.”
Melba frowned to herself. Why would a man rather be a monk than a king? It didn’t make any sense. “What’s it like inside the Palace?”
“You won’t need to thieve no more, girl, that’s for sure. But you’ll need to watch your back. Those nobs are as vicious as the cutthroats in the outer circle, ’cept they use their tongues to slash you instead of a blade.”
Gwinnie fell silent and they stared up at the fairy-tale spires of the Royal Palace together. Melba wanted to meet her father, but she didn’t want to go to the Palace alone. She wanted Turk to come with her.
“You wanting your dress undone then, girl? I ain’t got all night. I want to be off to me bed.”
Melba dutifully turned her back and Gwinnie unhooked her. Then the old woman heaved herself out of the chair with a groan, bustled back across the room, and went out, slamming the door behind her.
The seed of an idea grew inside Melba and she hugged herself with excitement. If she and Turk got married, he could come to the Palace with her. They would be together and have everything they wanted. He could take all the books and stuff from his library so he could keep studying and help her with her learning. She couldn’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work. Turk had told her he would miss her and he wanted to be with her. Didn’t that mean he wanted to marry her? Why hadn’t he thought of this solution?
Melba jumped up, holding the sagging shoulders of her dress and hurried back to the ground floor with the Flower Jinns fluttering around her head. She sensed Turk’s warm solid presence in the library. She opened the library door and peered inside the unlit room. “Turk?”
A rustle came from the chair by the window. “I’m here, Melba,” he whispered, climbing slowly to his feet. “I’m sorry I upset you.” The glimmer of light from the Royal Palace silhouetted him and showed he still wore the tatty bluejacket’s uniform he’d had on earlier.
The flutterbys settled in a row on a chair back, glowing softly in the darkness. She walked across to Turk and halted just close enough to touch him. “Melba, your dress is unfastened,” he said.
“I know. Gwinnie had to do it now ’cause she wanted to go to bed, but I ain’t ready for bed yet. I’ve something to ask you.” She swallowed, gathering her courage. She reached for his hand, lifted it, and kissed his knuckles, breathing in the lemon-spice smell of his skin. Then she pressed the back of his hand against her cheek. “I want to be with you, Turk. And I’ve had a really good idea how we can be together and me still go to the Palace. Marry me, Turk.”
He gulped, pulled back his hand, and turned away. Her stomach lurched sickly as though she’d missed her step on the skyways. This wasn’t how she’d expected him to react.
For long moments she stood helplessly listening to the sound of his ragged breathing, not sure what to say. Then he turned partway toward her and scrubbed a hand across his face. “I’m honored you’ve asked me, but I’m not the husband the king will want for you. I’m a nobody.”
Was that all he was worried about? With a sigh of relief, she stepped forward and ran her fingers lightly up and down his back, needing to touch him and instinctively reassuring him. “Turk, I don’t want to marry a prince. I want you. If we marry before I go to the Palace there ain’t nothing me pa can do about it ’cause it’ll be a done deal.”
He dropped his head forward with a soft groan, and she let her hand fall back to her side. “I thought it were a good idea,” she offered tentatively.
“It is,” he said in a strange choked voice as if his neck cloth was too tight. “A very good idea. It just isn’t possible.”
Frustration welled inside her. He was dismissing the idea without even considering it. Why did he have to be so defeatist? “I don’t see why not. If you cared about me you’d want to come with me.”
“I do care about you, Melba, but it’s not that simple.”
“Yes it is! You either want to be with me or you don’t.”
“You don’t understand my situation, Melba.”
“Tell me then!”
He pressed his fingers to his temples and grunted with frustration. “Not now. Not like this.”
“Don’t bother then.” She understood. The nice things he’d said to her had been empty words. She’d made a fool of herself. She turned and tore up the stairs, hardly able to breathe through the tears of humiliation clogging her nose and throat. She couldn’t stay here now. And she didn’t want to go to the Palace alone. What should she do? The only person who always had an answer to everything was Master Maddox. He would help her.
With tears running down her cheeks, she shucked off her dress at the top of the stairs, leaving the pool of blue silk on the carpet. Then she dashed down the hall to Turk’s bedroom in her underwear. His bedroom door crashed back against the wall as she burst through. She stripped out of her underdress and frilly drawers, then yanked open his wardrobe door, grabbed her brown suit, and pulled it on. She stuffed her feet into the suede skyways boots and ran to her own bedroom.
At her dressing table, she emptied out the small crystal bottles from the beautification box, shepherded her three flutterby Flower Jinns inside the box so nobody would see them, and locked it. The starlight stone Turk had given her lay amid the crystal bottles, sparkling in the gaslight, but she left it. She didn’t want to be pledged to Turk any more. Lastly, she pulled on the brown cap in front of the mirror and checked that her hair was tucked out of sight.
Turk had told her Master Maddox was in the infirmary attached to the Chapel of the Great Earth Jinn in the second circle. Melba took the stairs up to Turk’s roof garden and left via the small gate onto the palace roofs. Her tread was light, but jumping over the streets had become more difficult since she put on weight. Holding the box
containing the flutterbys hindered her further, but she didn’t know how to make them stay behind and she couldn’t let them fly free and attract unwanted attention.
When she reached the huge stately monastery buildings, she hid behind a chimney on the row houses opposite and peered over the wall into the monastery grounds. Gaslights on tall posts glowed at intervals along the network of paths crossing the extensive gardens. The infirmary was set on the southeastern corner of the compound by the chapel.
Running down a sloping roof, she jumped into an alley behind a milliner’s shop. The streets of the second circle were silent at night, unlike in the outer circles where taverns and brothels stayed open all hours.
She crept across the cobbled road to the front of the chapel. She knew it would be open because Master Maddox had told her that the Great Earth Jinn never sleeps, so his house is always open.
She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and sniffed, then turned a black metal handle and cracked open the chapel door to peep inside. When she was sure it was empty, she slipped in and glanced around. The building was circular, the high vaulted ceiling rising to a point above the center. Placed around the walls were small personal altars where devotees could pray. White candles burned on the flat altar stones and golden hemp mats lay on the ground. The central floor area was a detailed mosaic depicting the interlinked circles of an Earth Blessing.
Melba often asked the Great Earth Jinn for help, but she had never prayed at an altar before. She chose the one nearest the door in case she had to scarper quick, and kneeled on the golden hemp mat. She placed the box containing her Flower Jinns on the altar so they could connect with the Great Earth Jinn as well, then she leaned forward and pressed her forehead against the altar stone. Would the Great Earth Jinn be angry that a girl had come inside his chapel, or was the men-only rule just one made up by the Shining Brotherhood?
After a few moments of listening to the deep silence, she lifted her head and whispered the prayer carved into the wall above the altar. “Great Earth Jinn, birther of all life, please hear my plea.” She squeezed her eyes closed, pressed her forehead against the altar stone, and prayed with all her heart for Turk to change his mind and marry her. Then she asked the Great Earth Jinn to help Master Maddox recover and to make her father like her. She finished by reading the end of the prayer from the stone. “With faith, trust, and truth, I thank you, Great Earth Jinn, for hearing my plea.”
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