by J A Armitage
“Thank you,” he said sincerely.
His handshake was firm and full of respect. We walked back to the palace together, the flowers still whistling in the sunshine.
Helping the duke win over the woman of my dreams lit a fire underneath me. If I could summon up the strength to do that, I could summon up the strength to do anything.
Maybe even magic.
I’d told Lilian before that I didn’t have magic. But if Hedley was to be believed, the gardens did.
After my work was done for the day, I went back to the library and pulled down a variety of tomes, most old and with strange writing on the embossed leather covers. I took them back to my bedroom, along with one of the dreary gray flowers, then lit a lamp and began to read.
If Reed was right, the problem in the gardens was contained. But “contained” wasn’t good enough. I had inherited these gardens from the best man I’d ever known, and they were the home of the love of my life. This problem needed to be solved.
So I read, and I read some more. And then, in the middle of an old disorganized spell book, right between a charm to remove freckles and a potion that could ease croup, I found it.
I read the directions three times until I was sure I had them right, and then I took the book and the flower out into the gardens. It was late, not so late that everyone in the palace was asleep but enough that the gardens were empty of everyone but the birds nesting in branches and the rabbits heading home to their burrows. I walked to a wide paved circle where I could set the poisoned flower down without fear of contamination and settled on the ground across from it with my lamp and book and the handful of herbs the spell required.
I laid out the torn herb leaves in the pattern diagrammed in the book. The rosemary leaves glistened in the flickering light, and the lemon balm surrounded me with a sharp citrus odor.
The book’s instructions were detailed, and I followed them to the best of my ability. I broke a rose’s bloom apart and scattered the petals across the diagrammed herbs. I closed my eyes and tried to raise magical energy within myself. I chanted the magic words and blew out the lamp at the exact moment required.
That should have completed the spell. I sat in silence for a few seconds, then counted slowly to thirty just in case the magic needed time to do its work. Then I re-lit the lamp. My heart pounded, and I held my breath as the little flame flickered back into life, and for a moment, I dared to believe I had what it took to revive my dying garden.
The gray, rotting flower sat limply amid the herbs and petals, staring balefully up at me.
Of course, the spell hadn’t done anything because I wasn’t a wizard.
Sticks and stones, I had to be desperate if I thought chanting ancient Florian at a blight-damaged flower was going to solve all my problems. I glanced around into the darkness, suddenly convinced that Jonquil or one of the others was out there bearing witness to my idiocy. But the garden was quiet and empty, the only ones privy to my secret the bushes rustling in the nighttime breeze.
I gathered the damaged bloom and all the detritus of my failed spell to throw in one of the burn barrels, then tucked the spell book under my arm. With any luck, I’d be able to get it back on its shelf in the library before anyone realized what I’d been up to.
Part of me wished I could confess the stupidity of my effort to someone.
No, not someone. Lilian. She would laugh—with me, not at me—and then she’d wrap her arm around my shoulder and tell me that, at least, I’d been willing to try, and wasn’t that all any of us could do anyway?
The truth was, though, that Lilian wasn’t the one I needed right now. I needed her mother.
Playing at witchcraft in the gardens and searching books for new information on tulip blight was all a grand waste of time, a distraction from the real problem at hand.
I marched into the palace and up the stairs. The corridor outside the queen’s chambers was dimly lit with soft lamps, and a guard stood outside the door.
He was my only obstacle. King Alder and Queen Rapunzel didn’t bother with much security inside their private apartments, and their only concession to the palace’s fussy Head of Security was to permit one guard apiece outside their apartments and Lilian’s. I vaguely recognized this guard, which seemed like a good sign. Perhaps he’d realize that Queen Rapunzel would want to see me.
“Good evening,” I said, a touch too brightly.
The guard nodded at me, neither friendly nor defensive.
“I was wondering if I might have a word with the queen.” I made my smile as warm as I could and tried to sound like this was a request I made every day.
The guard’s expression didn’t change.
“Her Majesty isn’t accepting visitors,” he said.
There was finality in his tone. I frowned at him and changed courses.
“Perhaps His Majesty is available, then?” I said. “I won’t take a moment.”
“His Majesty has retired for the evening.”
“I doubt that.”
The guard raised one eyebrow at me.
“King Alder doesn’t usually go to bed for another hour,” I said. Anyone who knew anything about the king knew that. “I just need to speak with him for a minute or two. It’s about the gardens. It’s urgent.”
“King Alder is not to be disturbed,” the guard said, as impassive as a brick wall.
I couldn’t speak to the combat-readiness of these guards, but if they were ever called upon to frustrate someone to death, it was hard to imagine a defensive force more ready for action.
I clenched my teeth in what was probably a vain effort to keep the irritation from my face.
“I am the head of Their Majesties’ gardens,” I said. “I would not attempt to disturb Their Majesties at this hour unless it was important.”
“Their Majesties are not to be disturbed,” the guard said again.
I’d never been the kind of man to solve my problems with my fists. They balled up at my sides anyway.
The guard glanced down, then back up at my eyes. His other eyebrow went up to join the first one.
“Perhaps you’d like to leave a message with me?” he said. His tone was cool and insufferable. I took a deep breath. He was just doing his job, the same as I tried to do mine.
“That would be helpful,” I said. “Would you please tell Their Majesties at the earliest opportunity that I require an audience urgently? They know where to find me.”
The guard nodded. Something about the nod made me doubt the message would make it anywhere in time to do any good.
Well, fine. If he wasn’t going to help me, I knew a princess who would.
Lilian’s apartments weren’t too far from her parents’. The room that had once served as her nursery, and then a schoolroom, was linked to the king and queen’s suites by a door decorated with a colorful painting of Lilian’s family tree. I remembered Queen Rapunzel coming through that door every week or two when I was a child, interrupting our lessons to share a fresh lemon tart or unique flower or clever trinket from a foreign guest. Our tutors had always allowed the interruptions—not just tolerated them as any tutor would have when their queen entered the room, but welcomed them as much as Lilian and I did. Queen Rapunzel had that effect on people.
The schoolroom had another door that connected with the corridor outside. There was no guard on this door because it was always kept locked.
Fortunately for me, I had a key. I’d used it to access our schoolroom years ago, and even after the schoolroom had been transformed into a sitting room full of books and embroidery hoops, no one had ever thought to take the key back. Lilian knew I had it, of course, but she seemed to be the only one.
I looked both ways down the corridor, then unlocked the door and slipped inside. The room was dark, but I knew my way around and managed to make my way through the moonlit conservatory and toward the formal parlor at the center of Lilian’s apartments. The parlor was where she entertained guests and visited with friends who weren’t close enough to be
allowed deeper into her space. It seemed like the best place to invite myself for a chat.
I paused outside the glass doors that led from the plant-filled conservatory into the parlor. A gauzy curtain prevented me from seeing too clearly inside, but it was clear the room was occupied. The lights were on, and Lilian’s voice sounded from within.
It wouldn’t do to interrupt if she had friends visiting. She wouldn’t mind if I traipsed in unannounced, but the other ladies of the court would have plenty to say, none of it flattering.
I hesitated and weighed waiting versus sneaking back out and coming to see her in the morning. Then someone else’s voice floated through the gauzy curtain, and I froze.
“I’ve had such a good time with you these past few days,” Duke Remington said. His blurry figure shifted on the sofa next to Lilian. “To tell the truth, I was a little worried before I came here. I wasn’t sure what to expect.”
“Neither was I,” Lilian said.
Her voice hit me like a punch to the stomach.
I should leave. I should back away quietly and leave them to this private moment.
I couldn’t move.
“I brought you something.” Duke Remington sounded almost shy. “I left it in your foyer before the maid showed me in.”
“Not another bracelet,” Lilian said, only half in earnest. “I can’t possibly accept another glittery trinket from you this week. What would people think?”
Duke Remington laughed softly. “Not a trinket,” he said. “Something far better.”
He stood and left the room, leaving Lilian on the sofa. Her figure was difficult to make out through the curtain, and yet I would have known it anywhere: her regal posture, the glint of her golden hair, the way she fidgeted while she waited as if she would rather be running through the gardens. One of her fluffy white dogs jumped onto the cushion next to her, and she picked it up and cooed at it.
The duke came back a moment later, the telltale bright pink of the flower I had given him in his hand.
Lilian gasped. “They’re beautiful.” She set the dog on the sofa and stood, drawn toward the flower like a moth toward lamplight. “Stars, are those peonies? They’re so bright!” She buried her nose in the bouquet and breathed in. If she had been reserved with Duke Remington before, that was over now. She took the flowers from him—they were in a vase, judging by the pale gold blur beneath the blooms—and rotated it to examine it from every angle. “Heavens, Garritt, where did you get this? I’ve never seen anything like it. And that fragrance! It’s not a Hollingsbrook, is it? I’ve heard those are especially pretty, but this is superb. And listen! It’s like music.”
“It’s called a pink pirouette,” the duke said, his smile audible in his voice. “And you’ll find the music isn’t its only trick. Place it on your windowsill tonight and look at it tomorrow morning.”
“Why?”
The duke leaned in toward her and lowered his voice. “That’s for you to find out, princess.”
She stared up at him, then laughed. “You’re such a tease!”
“Tease a lady? Never.”
She put the hand that wasn’t holding the flower on her hip. “You are, and I’d scold you for it if this flower weren’t so lovely. This color is unreal. It’s magical, isn’t it? It has to be.”
“It is,” Duke Remington acknowledged. “The flower is as enchanted as you are enchanting.” He bowed lightly.
Lilian laughed again. My heart felt like it would tear itself in two at the sound, half of it leaping at the sound of her joy and the other half sinking at the knowledge that I hadn’t been the one to make her bubble over like that.
“That’s an appalling line,” Lilian said in mock sternness. “And I’ve forgiven you for it already. I’d forgive just about anything for flowers like this. How can I thank you enough?”
Duke Remington hesitated. The silence between them was tangible and crackled with possibilities.
“You might permit me a kiss,” he said.
I bolted from the conservatory before I could learn her answer.
31st March
“This is a right mess and no mistake,” Hollis said. She dropped a newspaper in front of me. One corner landed in my coffee cup, and I fished it out and frowned up at her.
“I’m not sure I want to know.”
“You have to know,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “You’re Head Gardener, and I’m sure glad now that Hedley never considered me for the position.”
Hollis had never seriously wanted the job. She was a rose specialist and didn’t have much interest in anything else. She was one of the few gardeners who didn’t seem to want my head on a pike, which was probably why my stomach sank at the way she was scowling at me.
“What’s going on?” I said.
But the newspaper was already in my hands, the headline staring me in the face: DISEASE IN PALACE GARDENS SPREADS TO FARMLAND. I dove into the article, my sleepy brain working double to make sense of the words swimming in front of me.
The article started off bad and got rapidly worse. By the time I was finished reading, Hollis had already topped off my coffee. The handful of ladies’ maids and kitchen hands at the servants’ dining table watched me, either waiting to hear the news or my reaction to it.
I set the paper down with slow, measured movements and fixed Hollis with my gaze.
“Who talked to the press?”
She stared back, deadpan. “I’d give you three guesses, but that’s two more than you’d need.”
I jabbed a finger at the paper lying innocently on the table, with its nausea-inducing paragraphs about blight and damaged spring cabbages and artichokes grown gray with rot.
“Is this accurate?”
“As far as I can tell,” Hollis said. “I figured you’d want to send a few of us out to assess the situation. I’ve cleared my morning.”
“Thanks. Take Reed with you.”
I could trust Reed. And if things the newspaper had printed were true, I’d need someone I could rely on to give me the news without blabbing it to anyone else.
The sliced ham and fried eggs on my plate had lost their flavor. I shoved a few last bites into my mouth anyway, then escaped the dining room before the other servants had the chance to ask what was going on.
I was going to murder Jonquil, and then I was going to find a sorcerer who could bring him back to life just so I could murder him again.
The moment I stepped outside and into the gardens, I was accosted by a young man holding a notebook. A photographer hovered behind him, holding a camera with a large flashbulb up top.
“Excuse me, I’m looking for a representative of the palace gardens,” the man with the notebook said.
I stared at him. “Who let you in here?”
His eyes widened. “The palace gardens are open to the public every Sunday.”
“Not this close to the palace walls without a tour group, they’re not,” I growled. “You’re a long way from the public gardens.”
“I’m a reporter with The Daily Florian,” the young man said, his face too eager. “Are you the head gardener here? The ladies we just spoke to said he looked about like you. What do you have to say about the blight that’s been found on the palace grounds? Do you have anything to say about accusations that contamination from the palace gardens has led to crop failures in nearby farms?”
The photographer raised his camera. I put a hand in front of my face just as quickly.
“Put that down, or I’ll have you thrown out and charged with threatening the royal family’s safety,” I snapped.
The photographer lowered the camera and shrugged as if to say I couldn’t blame him for trying.
Only I could.
I really, really could.
“Who have you been talking to?” I said.
The journalist waved his hand. “Me, I haven’t talked to anybody yet,” he said. “The Floris Post is the one that broke the story. I’m just trying to get a word from an official palace represen
tative, not some unnamed source.” He scoffed, then hit me with a smarmy smile. “This is your chance to set the record straight. Tell the people what you know.”
“No comment,” I said.
His face fell. “Come on, there’s a whole horde of journalists lurking near the main palace doors, and you’re going to have to talk to one of them sooner or later. Why not me?”
I gaped at him and took off for the front of the palace with the two men following behind, the journalist still pleading his case.
The mass of people was worse than I’d imagined, at least a two dozen journalists and photographers all crowding one another for space while a couple of harried-looking tour guides aimlessly tried to round them up. The guards standing at the top of the palace steps surveyed the crowd and occasionally glanced at one another, but hadn’t decided yet to intervene.
I jogged up to one of the guides. “What happened here?”
She ran a hand through her dark hair. “They said they were coming to meet you to talk about the festival,” she said. “They had a press pass and everything.”
Press passes weren’t hard to get, but it was rare that this many people wanted one.
I took a deep breath. “I’ll address them,” I said. “Tell the guards to make sure these folks leave the palace grounds as soon as I’m done talking. I don’t want them going off to get quotes from my staff.”
She nodded, and I strode up the palace steps. It took a few minutes for the crowd to settle, but then they all started shouting questions. Flashbulbs went off, their lights mercifully diluted by the bright sunshine overhead.
I held up a hand and waited. Finally, they realized I wasn’t going to speak until they all shut up, and the chatter died down.
“It’s my understanding that you’re all here to ask about the blight that’s been found in the palace gardens,” I said loudly.
They started shouting again. No wonder Lilian hated speaking to the press if they were always like this. I waited for silence.
“There has been a case of blight on the palace grounds,” I finally said. “Every Florian knows disease and pests challenge every garden, and the palace properties are no exception. We’re handling the problem quickly and efficiently, as we always do. Claims this blight somehow spread from the palace grounds to nearby farms are entirely unfounded. The palace gardeners rarely leave the grounds this close to the annual Flower Festival, and members of my staff certainly haven’t been spending their limited free time in local cabbage patches.”
