The Orphan's Secret

by R. J. Francis

  “I wouldn’t count on that happening.”

  “I have to see him again,” she said. “I can’t think of anything else. I mean, I’ve been attracted to boys I’ve met at market, but there’s something different about this one.”

  “This one’s special?”

  “Will you help me find him?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  They rinsed themselves clean under the frigid waterfalls, then went back to the house. Elaina donned the expensive leather parka and left early. She had some very crabby cows to milk one more time.

  CHAPTER SIX

  With a flickering oil lamp as company, Nastasha pored over a medical text. The chief physician, one of her independent study mentors, had given her just a week to master the dusty tome. The subject was hematology: the study of blood and blood diseases.

  She scribbled notes in her study journal. Her mother was still socializing at dinner; her father was at the western post, busy with the investigation into the attack.

  She’d just finished listing out the tests that made up a standard lipid panel when someone knocked at the door. Setting down her pen, she glanced in her hand mirror to make sure she looked her best.

  Her callers were Thalia and Erika, seven-year-old twin girls, the royal family’s new part-time attendants. The girls weren’t really servants—their parents were officials—but they had taken on the duty to earn extra credit in their etiquette class. They wore identical white dresses decorated with black satin piping. Each wore her long blond hair in a single braid. Nastasha could never tell who was whom between them until she observed their behavior.

  “Good evening,” they said in unison, curtseying.

  “Good evening,” answered Nastasha to each of them.

  “Message from the prince!” said the one on the left, standing straight and tall.

  “His Royal Highness has summoned you to the library,” said the one on the right.

  “He would like you to meet him at your earliest convenience in the seating area in the corner,” said the one on the left.

  “Next to the amphibian books,” whispered the one on the right to her sister. She punctuated her reminder with an elbow jab.

  “In the seating area in the corner next to the amphibian books.” Nastasha now knew the girl on the left was Thalia, the earnest yet forgetful sister. Erika, the playful sister, released a giggle, then was silent.

  “If you please,” said Nastasha, “tell His Royal Highness that I shall be there soon.”

  “Yes, Miss Nastasha,” they said in unison, curtseying again. “Good evening.” They walked off in step, giggling.

  Nastasha went back into her room and waited a few minutes. She didn’t want to seem too eager to meet with Jaimin in a dark corner of the library. It was a longstanding rumor that her relationship with the prince amounted to more than friendship. She understood how people might come to this conclusion, but she didn’t want to fan the flames of gossip. She was careful not to wait too long, though, in case Jaimin had something important to tell her.

  The library was in the southwest corner of the academy, off of the second floor corridor. Its three-story-tall windows overlooked the courtyard. When Nastasha arrived, a red-orange sunset was in its final stages, casting spooky red patterns on the book stacks, the upper walls, and part of the open-beamed ceiling. The librarian was kindling the lamps.

  The lighting in the ornithology and herpetology section was always poor. At the end of an aisle, Nastasha encountered Arin, one of the youngest royal guards, whose stiff uniform made him look out of place in the safety of the academy. He greeted her with a nod and a smile, and then quickly diverted his gaze to the ceiling beams. Jaimin was seated in the corner in a burgundy upholstered chair. She curtseyed before sitting down next to him—in case anyone was watching.

  “How’s your foot?” she whispered.

  “Oh, it’s much better,” Jaimin replied. “It’s still bruised, but it’s not really bothering me. What have you heard?”

  One of Nastasha’s many talents was her ability to distill useful tidbits from the din of castle conversation. To do this, she relied on her own observation and on her extensive network of informants. It didn’t hurt that her father was loose-lipped at home with the kingdom’s secrets, as were the high-status parents of her friends and classmates. She also was a precocious researcher.

  “Word of the attack has spread,” she told him, “but everyone seems to realize the importance of keeping the news confined to the court. It’s strange: nobody’s mentioning that you were hit, or even that you were in the hunting party at all. All the talk is about Victor and Cory.”

  “That’s lucky.”

  Nastasha indicated the junior guard with her eyes. “Do you think he can hear us?”

  “No. He’s too far away.”

  She moved closer to Jaimin just in case. The prince changed the subject. “Nastasha, there’s something I need to ask you for, and I don’t expect you to agree, but I have to ask anyway.”

  At once she was confused. What could he could ask for that she wouldn’t be happy to at least try to give him? “What is it?”

  “Well, I met a girl yesterday.” He studied her response.

  “Go on…” She studied him back. Jaimin interacted with many girls over the course of an average day, but Nastasha immediately knew the female in question wasn’t just some mildly interesting person he had chanced upon in the courtyard or in the king’s market.

  “I just…met a girl.”

  “I see.” Jaimin shared his deepest thoughts with Nastasha on hundreds of topics, but he’d never really spoken to her openly about girls. She knew only through rumor about his short-lived “relationships” with Mandra and Ashlyn when he was fourteen. She’d expected the topic would come up one day, but that day was so many years overdue, she’d let her guard down.

  Years back, she’d played through hundreds of scenarios in her mind, trying to steel herself against every possible circumstance involving Jaimin and another female. In vivid late-night visualizations she’d relinquished him to each young lady in the royal court.

  “Tell me about her,” she said. What would he start with? How the girl looked? How she moved? How she spoke? How well-born she was?

  When he began by describing Elaina’s face in as much detail as he could remember, Nastasha knew this was a worst-case scenario.

  Jaimin rarely described people in any detail, but with words he painted an intricate portrait of the girl he’d met, describing her “slightly almond-shaped” eyes with irises a deep brown, her skin clear as the finest paper, her cheeks a healthy pink, and her voice soothing, without once going into the circumstances of their meeting. He paused to make sure he had thoroughly scoured his memory.

  Nastasha knew everyone who was anyone, and even after asking Jaimin further questions she couldn’t match this girl’s description with anyone she’d ever encountered. Then she found out why.

  “She lives on a farm southwest of the city,” he said.

  “Jaimin!”

  “What?”

  “A farm?”

  “A farm.”

  She sighed. “Don’t make me say it,” she said, “because one of us has to.”

  “Am I missing something?”

  “Come on, Jaimin.”

  He threw up his hands, clueless.

  “Okay,” she said, “we both know the girls you’re supposed to be interested in are either princesses, or daughters of officials, or…”

  “Like you,” he interrupted.

  “Like me.” She ignored the implications. “Or at least if they aren’t in the court they should be from some prominent, educated family in the city.”

  “Not from a farm?”

  She paused to compose her argument. “Do you know how long it would take to instruct her on the etiquette she’d need to know just to live within the castle walls, let alone the diplomatic and management skills required of a queen?”

  “I never said I wa
s interested in her.”

  “Oh, stop it. I can see it on your face. You’re in love.”

  Jaimin’s eyebrows shot up. “Two minutes, Nastasha! That’s how long I saw her, maybe less. Can someone fall in love in two minutes? You come on, now.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It might happen.” But he had a point. Maybe her reaction was premature.

  “I have her cloak.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she snapped. “She’s given you a gift?”

  Jaimin shook his head. “Wow. Okay, before you analyze this to pieces, let me explain how we met. It was after the attack—after I was shot in the foot. I thought I could make it to the western post, but I was wrong. I blacked out right in front of the girl’s farm. The first thing I remember when I woke was her pulling me into her yard. She draped her cloak over me, and then she went into the house to get me some water, and to get her family to help.”

  Nastasha calmed down a notch. “Did she recognize you as the prince?”

  “She didn’t seem to.”

  “That’s fortunate.”

  “Arin came by, and I left with him before the girl returned. Apparently, she tried to follow me, and she ran into Devon, who wiped the poor girl’s mind clean with his horrible tactics.”

  Nastasha rubbed her forehead beneath her headband. “So now she doesn’t remember anything?”

  “Most likely not.”

  “But you do—and you can’t get her out of your mind.”

  “I still have her cloak,” explained the prince, “and I think the least I can do is return it to her. It’s probably the only one she has.”

  Nastasha doubted this was his motivation, but maybe things weren’t falling apart after all. “All right, Jaimin, I agree. You tell me where she lives, and I’d be happy to return her cloak.”

  Jaimin drummed his fingers on the armrest and looked pained. “I’d rather bring it to her myself,” he said.

  She glared. “You’d rather…? You’re not allowed out of the castle! Your father won’t allow it.” In a less severe voice she added, “I shan’t allow it.”

  “My father doesn’t have to know,” he whispered.

  “What do you plan to do, sneak out?”

  “Yes!”

  She nearly hit him.

  “And I’d like you to help me do it.”

  “Now you’re mocking me.”

  “No, I mean it.”

  “I can’t possibly help you sneak out,” she said.

  “Nastasha, you’re brilliant. If anyone can find a way to get me out undetected, it’s you.”

  “I shall not help you disobey the king’s orders and risk your life. Why did you even ask me? It’s such a foolish idea. Especially since I’m perfectly willing to do this errand on your behalf.”

  Jaimin sighed. After a tense silence, he said, “You’re right. It’s too dangerous.”

  “You’re just not thinking clearly. It’s normal. Often after people survive a close brush with death, they feel they can get away with anything.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’ve heard that too.”

  Nastasha looked upon the prince with deep affection. “Promise me you’ll stay in the castle.”

  “I won’t go against your wishes. I promise.”

  “Where’s the cloak? I should get going before they close the drawbridge.”

  Jaimin shook his head. “I’ll just keep it a while longer.”

  “She needs it back.” Nastasha glanced up at the windows. It was nearly dark outside. “I’m sure she’s freezing without it.”

  “You’re so selfless.”

  “Hardly,” she said.

  “Well, guess what? One of these days you’re going to fall in love and forget all about me.”

  Jaimin had crossed a line. “Don’t you say that, Jaimin. Don’t you even say that.”

  She checked to make sure Arin wasn’t watching, and then she knelt in front of the prince, held his cheeks in her hands, and kissed a young man on the lips for the first time in her life. She lingered only long enough to make sure he wasn’t upset, then she got up and hurried off. Jaimin sat stunned in his comfortable chair.

  Slam! Nastasha clapped her textbook shut, and gave up on studying for the night. Half an hour had gone by since she had returned from the library, and she’d re-read the same paragraph about inherited disorders eight times.

  She couldn’t believe she’d gone and kissed him. She’d altered the game and planted a stake in the ground, but so had he.

  Farm girl! What’s he thinking? She was probably a delightful human being, Nastasha thought, but Jaimin deserved far more than a… well, a peasant, no matter how pleasant she happened to be.

  He deserves me, she thought. I know what he needs.

  She had to admit Jaimin was right about one thing: she could help him escape the castle if she put her mind to it. But why in the world would she want to?

  She leaned back in her chair, and it soon dawned on her why helping Jaimin escape might not be such a bad idea after all. If the prince were to try to escape without her help, he’d get caught for sure. The king would be irate, and Jaimin would be restricted to his room—banned from attending classes, banned from spending time with her…

  But if she were to get him out undetected, he could disguise himself as a commoner and return the cloak to its owner, who, in all likelihood, wouldn’t recognize him anyway. The girl would thank him for having returned the garment—not remembering how she lost it in the first place—and that would be that.

  Anyone intent on harming the royal family would never expect the prince to be slinking around in the city’s shadows unguarded.

  And once the cloak was off Jaimin’s mind, perhaps the girl would be as well.

  In an audacious, reckless, ill-considered initiative, completely uncharacteristic of her usual behavior, Nastasha decided to help the prince sneak out.

  She had no clue how she was going to do it, but she knew the best place to come up with a plan: the Royal Archives.

  The entrance to the archives was concealed behind a tapestry in the castle’s second subbasement. Nastasha knew that in order to get to the precious depository she would have to traverse the first subbasement, where the kitchen staff lived. Over the next hour, the chefs, cooks, servers, bussers, wine stewards, and all their supervisors and support people would return to their quarters after having wrapped up their dinner chores. If Nastasha were spotted alone anywhere on the lower levels, she would have to have a good cover story, or else the gossip would fly. The brass-trimmed glass box she held—an ornate toy a foreign general had once gifted her—was part of her scheme.

  When she descended the stone staircase into the subbasement, she knew from the sounds of laughter and loud conversation that she could rule out making it down the hall undetected. Six women she recognized as servers were hanging around the doorway to one of the dormitories, using cryptic slang and crude metaphors to describe how certain ministers preferred to eat their sausages. One of them noticed Nastasha, and must have uttered a code word, because the other five at once stopped laughing and snapped to attention. They knew Nastasha was one of the few people in the court savvy enough to decode their disgraceful banter.

  “Good evening, Miss,” said the one who had first made eye contact, curtseying. “Is there anything you need?”

  “Good evening, ladies,” Nastasha said. “I’ve just come down to do some field research for a science assignment.” She held up the strange box she carried. Inside the glass cube was a brass apparatus resembling a miniature scale, with some knobs, counterweights, and other arcane attachments that quivered and spun. The women were intrigued.

  “Well there’s not much to research down here,” called another, older woman, from inside the dormitory. “Just us and our humble things.”

  “Actually,” explained Nastasha, “I’m headed to the wine cellar to measure the amount of moisture in the air.”

  The women were clearly perplexed, so Nastasha elaborate
d: “With this device, I can tell the precise percentage of water vapor in the room’s air. I’ve taken nine samples from other spots in the castle and recorded my observations. The cellar is the last place on my list.”

  “Well, it’s locked,” said the woman who had spoken first. “Frances is in charge of the key, but she’s still upstairs with the chef.” One of the women said something Nastasha couldn’t hear, and another giggled.

  “I suppose I shall have to come back in a few hours, then.” Nastasha frowned, feigning disappointment.

  The servers weren’t keen on behaving themselves for the rest of the night just because Nastasha might return. The one who had curtseyed said, “Well, Miss, I think I know where Frances keeps her keys. If I can find them, I’d be happy to take you down there.”

  “Oh, would you? That would be so helpful!” Nastasha had traded juicy information with several of these servers in the past, but they were reluctant to chat with her in a group setting. After a few awkward minutes, the server who had volunteered to escort her came back with a ring of large, brass keys.

  “My name is Bitsy, Miss. At your service.” The woman led Nastasha down the stairs to the second subbasement.

  “I appreciate your doing this for me,” Nastasha said. “I must get this assignment finished this evening.”

  When Bitsy opened the heavy double doors to the cellar, she and Nastasha got a pungent whiff of wine-soaked oak. Nastasha lit a candle. They passed rows and rows of wine barrels, wineskins hanging like sides of beef, floor-to-ceiling shelves with bottles in assorted sizes and colors, and wooden filing towers stuffed to overflowing with inventory records.

  Nastasha stationed her curious brass box on a wine-stained table and took several sheets of paper and her favorite pen out of her backpack. She sat down and began watching the weird device.

  “If you don’t mind, Miss,” said Bitsy, “what’s that thing called?”

  “Oh, it’s a pseudo-hygrometer!” Nastasha said, cheerfully. “In a few minutes, this part here will start to spin, which will cause this knob to turn. When the knob stops I shall read the angle made by this line to this other little line—there. Then I shall know how much water is in the air.”