by Ella Ardent
“But you said he might not understand. Surely if it was explained to him that these two lives are reliant upon his good will...”
Marta gave me a severe glance. “You know little of monarchs, Ellie. Kings, even in their ignorance, do not appreciate corrections, especially from those beneath them.” She shook her head. “And nowhere is it writ that they possess good will.”
I felt helpless, more helpless than I had before she had shown me the birds. I wanted to protect them and to save them. I wanted to offer to take them, but I feared Bella would do them injury simply because I admired them. They began to sing, oblivious to Marta’s protection, and now the joyous sound made my tears fall.
“It is not fair,” I whispered fiercely.
“Nothing is fair, Ellie. Surely you of all people understand that.”
I looked up to find her watching me, her gaze knowing. I dared to utter the secret of my heart. I spoke before I could change my mind. “I want to run away, Marta, like you did. Tell me how.”
“No. It is perilous, too perilous. I would be obliged to stop you.”
“But you said that you fled...”
“I did, and so I know the risk better than any other.” Marta shook her head, her gaze rising to the birds. “But just as there is bad in good, there is good in bad. Come to see the birds whenever you like, Ellie, and I may be able to help you. Not in the way you expect, but in another way, one that will come with a price you might be willing to pay.”
“I will pay anything,” I said with heat.
Marta shook a finger at me. “Don’t make such promises. Always wait to hear the terms. Now, go before you are missed.”
“Thank you, Marta,” I said on the threshold, stealing another glimpse of the birds.
“Thank you, Ellie.” She smiled and I realized that she was both younger and prettier than I had realized.
I hastened to the butcher, filled with competing emotions. I was enraptured by the birds, fearful of their fate, hopeful that Marta told me no lie, dreading the task ahead of me.
Surely she had to be wrong. Surely such beauty had to persevere.
But I remembered my mother and feared that Marta was right.
“An invitation!” my stepmother crowed in triumph several days after Royce’s departure. I’d been to see the birds at Marta’s hut twice and was saddened that she appeared to have been right about their fate. One had already died and the other sang less and seemed weak. Marta said it was the female, and I could not decide whether it was a blessing or not that the small creature strained herself to sing a little bit for me. I feared she would die sooner because of her efforts to sing for me, so had stayed away, despite my desire to visit again.
I had a strange conviction that if Royce had been at home, they would have fared better, but he didn’t return and Marta gave little credence to that notion.
Bella waved the golden card over the dinner table just as I brought the soup. She had dressed for dinner, even in my father’s absence, and I wondered whether she anticipated his return. She is a beauty still, my stepmother, and her wavy auburn locks are her crowning glory. She wore emerald green satin on this night, embellished with gold, and looked as fine as any queen.
“To a party?” Blondina asked in a booming voice. The oldest of my stepsisters is as fair of hair as her name would imply, but her brows have a reddish tinge, perhaps courtesy of her mother. She is a veritable giant of a woman, large and generously proportioned, with a voice so loud that she can shake the timbers of the house with a cry of delight.
I think of her as the lesser of two evils. Blondina is clumsy and crude, often thoughtless, not particularly clever, but not malicious.
Her younger sister, Maligna, is her exact opposite. Small, sneaky, deliberate, clever, and very, very nasty. Maligna is so small that many find it hard to believe that they are full blood sisters. Her skin is more white than that of her mother, and her hair is so dark a red that it appears to be brown. Her eyes are dark, as well, her sharp little face always reminding me of ferrets or rodents. There is a slyness about Maligna that twists her features. She is cunning, her voice tends to be shrill, and when something wicked is done to me, I never doubt the culprit.
“Give it to me,” Maligna said and snatched the invitation out of her mother’s hand. She hunched over it, reading greedily, ignoring Blondina’s pleas for more detail.
I removed the lid from the soup tureen and steam rose in pale tendrils. I had made the soup and now I served it. I was left with every task because all the other servants had departed the house due to Bella’s harsh manner and excessive demands—and low pay. I served her soup first, when it was hottest, but she barely acknowledged me.
“To a celebration at the palace of the naming of his son as crown prince.” My stepmother claimed the invitation again and smacked her lips as she read it once more. “Three nights of frivolity, beginning first with a ball! The girls will need jewels.”
“I want a new dress!” Blondina cried.
Maligna cackled. “It won’t be that kind of ball.”
Blondina blinked and stared at her sister, who smiled coolly, then at her mother. “But what other kind of ball is there?”
“The kind of ball that celebrates the coming of age of the crown prince,” Maligna said, and my heart skipped at even this mention of Royce. “The kind of balls where he chooses a pet for the night.”
A pet. Oh, we all knew the kind of games they played at the palace. Wicked games with people as pawns for the pleasure of the royals. The notion of Royce having a pet made my knees weaken. I could still recall the firm grip of his hands around my waist that day, when he had lifted me to the cart, and the glimpse I’d had of his sparkling eyes. Even the memory made my blood run hot, and he’d had no interest in me.
To be his companion for a night would be a marvel. An experience no woman could forget.
Regardless of what he demanded.
I could not imagine it would be wicked, for Royce was one of the most kind and generous persons I knew. No, it would be a night of mutual pleasure, and a memory to be savored.
A reprieve.
“I don’t understand,” Blondina said slowly, and I was glad she didn’t, because I didn’t fully understand, either. There hadn’t been a coming of age ball within my memory.
“Masks, jewels, and shoes only,” Bella explained, pointing to the invitation. “All the maiden guests appear nude on the first night, for the prince’s pleasure.”
Blondina’s cheeks burned crimson. “Nude?”
“Of course, nude,” Maligna said with scorn. “We will flaunt all of our assets, which is why we need stupendous jewels.”
No jewel could be sufficiently marvelous to distract any eye from the sight of Blondina nude, I thought, but gave no outward sign of such disloyalty.
“But you said there were three nights of revels,” Blondina said.
“At the first, the prince will dance with and kiss each of the maidens present,” Bella said, speaking as if she attended such festivities all the time. “Only some of the maidens will be invited to the second night’s celebration.”
“And at the second ball, he will choose his pet for the night,” Maligna concluded.
Blondina nibbled her lip in her uncertainty. “Like a Marking.”
“Very much like,” Maligna agreed.
“With just as much honor for the families of the maidens so chosen,” Bella said. She tapped Blondina on the hand. “You will strive to be selected.”
“Yes, Mother. But what of the third night?” Blondina asked.
“The aristocrats will celebrate his investiture as crown prince, and the chosen maiden will attend as his mock-bride,” Maligna supplied.
Mock, indeed.
“Then she will return to the village, and the prince will train for the throne,” Bella said. “Eleanor, get the key to your father’s strongbox and we will review the possibilities after dinner,” she continued. “The girls will need fine cloaks, and new shoes, and
the horses will have to be groomed. You can clean the carriage so it is spotless. The girls can’t be expected to walk to the palace.”
I took a breath before I left the room to fetch the meat. “Who is invited?”
“The daughters of the house,” Maligna said, her tone condescending. “The maidens.”
“I wonder what jewels I will wear,” I said mildly.
Blondina laughed with such surprise that she spewed a chunk of bread into her soup. It splashed and the front of her dress was soiled. “Look what you made me do!” she cried, as if she would have the work of washing it out.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Bella said sternly to me. “You have chores to do.”
“I am a daughter of the house and a maiden,” I said. “Is that not so?”
I seldom appealed to Bella for anything. I knew she possessed neither kindness nor mercy. But rebellion had been seething within me since the slaughter of the pig. I tired of being cheated my due.
I wanted to see Royce again.
I wanted to see how happy he had to be.
I wanted one night’s reprieve, the one at which I could have another kiss from Royce. It wasn’t much but it might be enough.
“Am I not a daughter of the house and a maiden?” I repeated.
“Of course,” Bella said with care. Maligna snickered.
“Then do I not have a right to attend a palace ball, since the invitation is addressed to the daughters of the house who are maidens?”
“You should let her go,” Maligna whispered. “Imagine what they will do to her, when she smells like a pig and looks worse!”
The sisters laughed at the prospect and Bella smiled.
“Of course, you can go,” she said so smoothly that I didn’t trust her at all. “But you’ll have to finish your work before you can indulge in such frivolity.”
I saw then how she would try to trap me in this house on the night in question, but I was determined to have this chance. Our gazes locked and held over the table, and when she smirked, Maligna snickered again.
She had set the terms, assuming she would win.
I left to fetch the meat, resolved to best them both.
Somehow.
I already knew that my will was nothing compared to that of Bella.
It was not stupidity that made me underestimate her. It was hope.
The first snow had fallen by the day of the ball, and the air was crisp and cold. I like the snow. It makes the world look bright and clean, and the sunlight lifts my heart. Perhaps it was the weather that gave me such hope.
Never have I worked so hard from the time the invitation arrived until the day of the first ball—at least until that day itself. I was up before dawn, finishing the meals, doing the laundry, polishing gems for Blondina and Maligna. I scoured every pot and ensured that the kitchen was gleaming. I laid the fire on every hearth and tidied every room. My stepmother strolled through the house, checking all, seeking an oversight, and when she didn’t find one, I dared to believe I might win.
I should have known she had a plan.
In the afternoon, I heated water for my stepsisters to bathe. I brushed their hair and trimmed their toenails. I trimmed their body hair so that they were smooth and pink. I plucked the hairs from Blondina’s chin, and buffed the fingernails of both of them.
They dined lightly in their chamber, in their robes, chattering merrily about the evening ahead. I ran up and down, ensuring that no fault could be found, exhausting myself with their endless demands.
It was no accident that they thought of a thousand small things for me to do. It was a game and a cruel one, but on this night, I refused to accept defeat. I had bested Bella every day since the arrival of the invitation and I would not fail in the last moment.
I had a string of pearls that had been my mother’s. I had always liked them for they were unusual. Not the pale gleams favored by other collectors of pearls. There were silver-gray in color and irregularly shaped. My stepmother disdained them as imperfect, which was the only reason I was allowed to have them, but their imperfections gave them beauty to my view. I had fashioned a mask from scrap cloth and had scrubbed myself clean the night before. Though I had no shoes, I thought I would not be the only one. Many in the village had only boots or rough shoes, not the delicate confections that the cobbler had been commissioned to create for my stepsisters.
After dinner, I arranged my sisters’ hair and polished their new shoes, arranged their gems, rouged their nipples and cheeks, perfumed them, and tucked them into their fur-lined velvet cloaks. Blondina’s cloak was deep green lined with silver squirrel fur, while Maligna’s was wine red and lined with golden fox fur. They skipped down the stairs, chattering in their anticipation, to the front door where the coachman awaited in the livery I’d cleaned for him. The horses had been brushed to a gleam, the coachman’s buttons shone and the carriage was cleaner than when it had been newly made.
“Wait for me,” I said and made to unfasten the heavy plain dress I was wearing. The tie at the waist was knotted and my fingers were shaking in my agitation, which was why I didn’t succeed quickly enough.
Bella smiled with cold satisfaction, gesturing for her daughters to depart. “But your work isn’t done, Eleanor,” she said in a voice I didn’t trust and I looked up from the knot. “Those were the terms of our agreement.”
“It is done. I have laid the fires and cleaned the kitchen...”
“And you aren’t dressed for a ball.”
“I am! I have my mask...” Before I could finish, it was snatched from my fingers and cast into the fire laid to welcome guests to the house. I gasped and snatched after it, diverting my attention from my stepmother in a poor choice of moment. She seized the strand of my mother’s pearls visible at my neck and tugged it hard, breaking the silk and sending the gems scattering across the floor. I fell to my knees, desperately trying to find them all.
She laughed and turned the key in the lock of the front door. I heard the carriage leave. “The hearth in the kitchen is yet covered in soot, and I would like a hot bath in my chamber. I would prefer it to be scented with fresh rose and lavender. When that is done, you are free to go to the ball.” She smirked. “Though you will have to walk.”
“But it is winter,” I protested. “There are no fresh roses or lavender.”
“How unfortunate.” Bella turned to climb the stairs, and I knew she had deliberately planned not only an impossible challenge but left it late. Even if I managed to complete these tasks, there was no way for me to get to the palace. If I walked after doing these deeds, the festivities might be done before I arrived. “Be sure to use a brush on the hearth. I want it so clean by the morning that I could eat my porridge from it.”
I stared after her, loose pearls clutched in my fists and tears pricking at my eyes. I hated that she had done this to me, and I despised that feeling of helplessness. My mask was burning before my very eyes, and it seemed more than that thin disguise was lost to me forever.
Roses and lavender.
There was only one person who cultivated and preserved herbs with skill in the village, only one who might have such treasures in her possession.
Marta!
I had the impression that Marta was waiting for me.
She opened the door as I reached the gate to her garden, without a trace of surprise. Maybe she could see the future, as some claimed. In her hand was a rose the hue of blood, and three sprigs of lavender. The flowers had to have been preserved, but looked as if they had just been plucked from her garden.
“Oh!” I exhaled in relief and delight. “Thank you!”
“And this, as well,” she said, giving me another herb. I didn’t recognize it. “She will sleep well after her bath, thanks to its fumes.”
“It won’t hurt her?”
Marta frowned. “Are you truly concerned for her welfare?”
“If something happened, I would be blamed.”
“That I understand. Fear not. It won’t in
jure her.”
“What can I do about the hearth?” I realized only later that I expected Marta to already know all of the details—and indeed, it seemed she did.
She took my hand and placed something cold within it. Small. Like a river pebble. I opened my hand to look and saw that it was red and shone clear. It might have been a stone of a kind I’d never seen before. “Crush it and cast the powder at the hearth.”
“What is it?”
Marta’s smile turned sad. “It is good from bad.”
I realized then that the second bird was silent. I peered into the hut and from the light cast from the fire on the hearth, I saw that the gilded cage was empty. “Both of them now?”
She nodded. “I warned you that it would be so. Hasten back.”
I fingered the red pebble as I ran home and thought of the red mark on the breast of each bird. Did this pebble have anything to do with the birds?
I wasn’t sure whether to believe Marta, but I followed her instructions. When my stepmother was dozing in her bath—having recovered from her astonishment but not quickly enough to give me more tasks—I returned to the kitchen. I took the red pebble from my pocket and studied it. It did look like a heart, not the hearts we draw and paint, but the kind found within a small creature. It was brittle but not that hard.
I crushed it easily in my hand and cast the dust toward the hearth. The fine red powder swirled as it should not have done, spun into a tempest I hadn’t made. It spun across the bricks of the hearth, moving with such speed and fury that the soot was banished in the blink of an eye.
My mouth opened in astonishment when the red powder itself sparkled and disappeared.
The hearth was cleaner than when it had been built.
And Bella was snoring in her chamber above.
I was free! I seized my cup of loose pearls and raced back to Marta’s hut, triumphant and thrilled.
I was going to the palace ball. I didn’t dare to hope that I might be able to attend another, but one, even one would be a marvel.
Best of all, I would see Royce again.
