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However, Gilbrick had retained a combination of loincloth and swaddling that encompassed his hips and went halfway between hips and knees. Merrigan couldn't see much more than that in the few seconds it took for Aubrey to leap at the platform, catch hold of the edge, vault up, and fling his coat around his former employer's middle. He snatched up the fallen curtains and pulled them up around Gilbrick as the impact of their two bodies colliding sent the merchant to his knees.
"You're not wearing anything!" Aubrey shouted, before Gilbrick could recover enough to shout the rebuke visible on his face. "There are no clothes, no magical cloth! You're not wearing anything at all."
"He's not worthy of his place," one of the apprentices holding the now-empty framework cried. A second young man joined in, but no one else. They pointed at Aubrey and laughed, but their laughter choked off under the glares of the other two apprentices.
"They always disliked Aubrey," Gilda whispered.
"They're bigger fools than the others standing there," Merrigan whispered back.
"Mistress Mara, please, tell me the truth. Is my father—"
"He's wearing nothing but that diaper and the curtains Aubrey threw at him."
Gilda whimpered, but managed not to burst into tears again.
Other voices cried out from the crowd, insisting the clothes were glorious, and Aubrey was a fool for claiming nothing was there. They died out just as quickly as they had risen up.
"Do you see anything?" Aubrey shouted, turning to the children in the wagon.
"He's got nuttin' on but a diaper!" a boy cried out with glee. Several of his friends joined in, then others, until all the children had spoken.
Gilbrick's face went so pasty white, he seemed to glow in the encroaching darkness. Even the torches set up to illuminate the grand display faded under the onslaught of embarrassed, then cruel laughter that trickled across the wide courtyard, then grew stronger, until it was a crashing wave. Aubrey wrapped the curtains further around Gilbrick and gestured for the other apprentices. They surrounded their master and escorted him into the shelter of his warehouse.
Merrigan went with Gilda simply because the girl begged her. They were delayed for a while that seemed like forever, until the crowd left and the wagons full of orphans could leave. The two crept through the gathering gloom and darkness as the torches died and people fled the scene of mortal embarrassment with a speed that spoke of their own uneasy feelings. There was no one in the warehouse where Gilbrick had retreated, and another door hung open. They went to Gilbrick's house. Gilda's steps grew steadier and swifter as the two entered her house, went through the reception hall and headed for the stairs to Gilbrick's suite of rooms.
Only Edgar, the most senior of the warehouse managers remained, sitting in a corner with his head in his hands. Aubrey stood by a dressing screen, handing clothes over it to Gilbrick, who raged incoherently. Every once in a while, there would be a thud and his voice would break into heaving sobs, then quiet, then he would rage again.
"He's dismissed everyone," Edgar said. "Every single person who claimed they saw the cloth and then saw the clothes when they were being made. Only reason he didn't dismiss me is because I'm half-blind and he would have known I was lying if I said I saw them." He raised his head from his hands and managed a trembling, old-man smile. "You didn't see the clothes, did you, gal?"
Gilda shook her head. She hugged him, then turned to Aubrey, who watched her somberly. By this time, Gilbrick had taken all the clothes and his raging had slowed to mumbles. Merrigan suspected he was simply too furiously embarrassed to step out and face the few remaining in the room.
"Aubrey ..." Gilda finally dropped the cloak that had enfolded her. She wore the simplest, plainest gown Merrigan had ever seen on her. When she held out her hands, Aubrey caught hold of both of them and went to one knee in front of her. "You are a hero, my Aubrey. How can I ever express my gratitude—no, not gratitude. I adore you. I wish—well, we are ruined, our reputation is in tatters, but I wish I had an empire to give you, in thanks."
"If you are ruined, then you have nothing to be thankful for," Aubrey said, and pressed one of her hands against his cheek.
Merrigan thought she might be sick from the overwhelming sweetness filling the room.
Although, to be honest, she admitted a small part of her nausea might come from jealousy. When had anyone looked at her as Aubrey and Gilda looked at each other? When had anyone gone down on one knee to her like that, and risked everything he had, everything he was, to protect her?
"You alone were loyal enough to risk everything," Gilbrick said, coming out from behind the dressing screen with tottering steps. He looked gray, like old, cold porridge. "You spoke the truth, when everyone else was afraid to be honest. Including me. Aubrey, if I had an empire, I would offer it to you. By morning, news of my foolishness, my mortal shame, will have spread through the kingdom, and then through all the other kingdoms where I have done business, where I was admired, where I was considered wise ... and I will be ruined. All I can offer you is material wealth, and it is not enough to express my thanks."
Some people, Merrigan decided, came to nobility and a semblance of wisdom too late. Then they overdid it, to the point of foolishness again.
"Sir ..." Aubrey blushed slightly. He got up off his knee, but retained his hold on Gilda's hands. "Sir, I have little to offer your daughter other than a warehouse full of orphans I am trying to help raise, but we are rich in love."
"You are rich in the wisdom and honesty of children." Gilbrick tried to smile, but his mouth was so stiff it threatened to shatter. "I beg you, Aubrey, marry my daughter, and I pray your love will take care of her better than I have."
"Shouldn't someone ask Gilda if she wants to marry him?" Merrigan said, though she knew the answer. She had always hated the fables where the princess had no choice in accepting the prince.
"I have always loved Aubrey," Gilda declared. "Ever since we were children, and he gave me ..." Her face went white, and her eyes widened more than the eyes of the dogs serving Warden. She dug into the high neckline of her dress and pulled out the locket. "Aubrey?"
"Come with me, my love? If you remember—my father—" Aubrey barely waited for Gilda to nod. Retaining his grip on her hand, he fled the room, nearly pulling her off her feet.
"Where are they going?" Gilbrick murmured, tottering to the doorway. The clatter of their feet on the winding staircase revealed their progress, leaving the house.
"Sounds like out the front door," Edgar said.
"I imagine to see Aubrey's father, now that the curse has been broken," Merrigan said.
"The curse?" Gilbrick gasped and sagged against the doorframe. "The curse! But how?"
"Gilda told me there was something about making people see. I imagine that little ... debacle a while ago fit that requirement."
~~~~~
THE WEAVER AND HIS wife managed to escape during the uproar as the news of the clothes that weren't really there spread across the city. Hundreds of people who had loudly proclaimed the beauty of the cloth and the perfection of the design of the clothes were mocked, brutalized in public opinion for days afterward. Tales of fist fights and friendships irreparably destroyed, apprentices dismissed, businesses shattered, advocates fired, and even officials deposed from their positions ran rampant. Merrigan was heartily sick of the whole subject. For a while, she feared that anyone who made their living weaving cloth or making clothes would be gathered up like the worst criminals and ejected from the kingdom.
Still, it was easy to ignore the uproar in the rest of the city because the warehouse had turned into a wonderland, thanks to the generosity of Prince Aubrey.
The morning after the debacle of the invisible clothes, the warehouse occupants were awakened shortly after dawn when the massive doors opened with a loud bang. Even the most adventuresome of the children were slow to roll out of their bed shelves at the disturbance, because no one had gone to bed before midnight, after all the excitement. Nasius and the other adults called orders to the children to stay in their beds and asked the older ones to watch over the littlest ones, while they ran in their robes and slippers to see who had intruded.
Three dozen servants in royal livery spilled through the doors, carrying crates and bales of clothes and bedding, pillows, mattresses, books, toys, dishes, and swaddled cauldrons of hot food, fresh from the royal kitchens. Hot food such as the children had never seen in their lives. While the foster parents stood and stared, their mouths dropping open a little more with each new gift that appeared, a tall, handsome young man directed the distribution. He was evidently a prince, even without the thin gold band that sat at a rakish angle across his forehead. His square jaw and high cheekbones, green-blue eyes that glistened like jewels, the pure gold of his hair, the flawless complexion, the sternness of his mouth that seemed to be joyous at the same time, and the trumpet clarity of his voice. Anyone could tell he was pure royal blood, even without the rich clothes and the king's crest of a dragon coiled around a stack of books that adorned his surcoat. The foster parents bowed and curtseyed to him when the bounty had been put away and the royal servants left the warehouse again, and only the prince stayed behind. Merrigan stayed back, arms crossed over her chest, caught between laughter and delight and scorn, and she waited.
Some blindness obviously hasn't been cured, Bib remarked.
Honestly, didn't anyone remember what she had told them last night? They had discussed the entire revelation for what seemed like hours, before they could get the children to go to bed.
"Aubrey!" one of the littlest girls shrieked, when she had finally pushed her way through the crowd of children. Of course, they had disobeyed orders to stay out of sight and stood all around the kitchen area, silent with awe at the wonders given to them. The child giggled, her voice like bells chiming, and leaped at him. "My Aubrey!" She laughed as Aubrey lifted her up high, twirling her around, and then hugged her close.
After that, it was chaos as the children gathered around, wanting to touch him, hug him, tug on his royal clothes and make sure they were real. The hot food had started to cool by the time someone got enough sense to pull out the new dishes, enough for everyone, and serve up the food. Merrigan suspected no one even noticed, in the wonder of having sausages enough for everyone to have two each, and bowls full of a rich, fruity, hot cereal turned golden with honey, and bowls slopping over with cream, not milk that had to be mixed with water to make sure everyone could have a cup. There were muffins and a dozen different egg dishes and kippers and kidneys and sour, thick fruit soup and other dishes that Merrigan could barely remember from the days of more-than-enough in the palace of Avylyn. The children ate until some of them looked a little green from the surfeit of riches. Aubrey's rich new clothes were rather wrinkled and smeared with breakfast by the time everyone had had a chance to hug him and get close enough to look in his eyes and make sure that yes, even though he looked so different, he was still their beloved Aubrey.
Gilda and Aubrey married two moons later. Merrigan and Belinda and their girls had the honor of making the royal wedding garments, for them and most of the court. They barely had time to finish all the clothes, but no other seamstresses or tailors in the entire city would do. The orphan warehouse had the protection of the Crown Prince, and everyone wanted to patronize the place.
No word had come yet of the fate of the weaver and his wife, but Merrigan had the satisfaction of receiving several letters from Warden and Miles and Quincy. Every sea captain and every port master and the coastal patrol ships had been put on alert, to ensure they didn't cross over the ocean to continue their deceptive practices. She was also pleased to hear how her friends were faring as they settled down into marriage and their chosen lives. And she wept a little, when all of them asked, with every letter, when she would return and visit them. For some odd reason, they all credited her with them finding their happiness and their true loves.
~~~~~
THE DAY AFTER THE ROYAL wedding, Belinda woke up everyone with a mad dash to the garderobe, where she clung to the wooden seat and heaved and gagged for a good ten minutes before the convulsions of nausea stopped. Merrigan had Lily go to the kitchen, to verify her suspicions. Sure enough, the cooking crew had been at work for half an hour and the ingredients that had been soaking overnight were just starting to bubble in the enormous cauldrons. Breakfast that morning was peas porridge, although certainly a much higher quality peas porridge than the orphans had eaten in the past.
"I don't understand," she sighed, once Belinda had curled up in her shelf bed again, after changing into a fresh nightgown. The one she had worn to bed was soaked with sweat. "How could you smell it from the other side of the building? And how could you have such a bad reaction? We had peas porridge for breakfast four days ago. Gretchen spilled some on you when you helped feed her, and you didn't get sick."
"Princes," Belinda said, her voice reduced to a rasp like sand. "There are princes close enough to wake up the other half of the spell. When they get close enough to me, and I'm close to anything with peas, it sort of starts an avalanche of magic that just gets stronger as they follow it and get closer to me."
"What can stop it?" Merrigan had the awful feeling she knew.
"The ingredients of the triggered spell have to be separated," Bib said, his voice muffled under the covers of Merrigan's bed, which was end-to-end with Belinda's shelf bed. Their pillows were separated only by a slanting board that supported the shelving around them.
The three of them had been up late the night before, talking quietly, remembering other royal weddings they had attended or stories of royal weddings Bib had gleaned from history books. In the two moons since Belinda had come to the orphanage, they had become quite good friends. It was amazing all the things they had in common, their opinions on certain royal traditions, their frustration with magic spells and interfering enchanters and Fae, and the dictates of fashion.
"Separated as in ...?"
"I have to leave." Belinda's voice crackled, but she admirably held off the tears. "Actually, it would be more accurate to say I have to run. The problem is, at this time of the morning, anywhere I run, chances are good someone is cooking peas porridge. But the longer I stay here, the closer they could get, drawn by my reaction to the peas porridge, which reacts to them getting closer, which makes me sicker, which just makes the beacon drawing them closer even brighter, which—"
The panic blanching her face warned Merrigan in time, so she scuttled backwards and only got a heel in her chest when Belinda leaped from the bed and dashed for the garderobe again.
"Unfortunately, she's right," Bib said.
"How hard can it be for even a prince who celebrated too much last night to figure out that she's here?" Merrigan growled. "We should have thought of that—a royal wedding draws useless second and third and fourth sons like ..."
She scrambled for a fitting simile. Flies to honey did not suit. Flies to a corpse, however, did. Yet, hearing Belinda give one last loud, dry heave, she didn't want to say it. She liked Belinda more than any other princess she had ever met. The girl had gumption and a lot of common sense and a dry, sharp wit. The stories she had to tell about playing tricks on her younger sisters were hilarious. Especially the rather messy, embarrassing tricks.
This time, Belinda didn't have to change her nightgown when she stopped heaving. The girls were awake by this time and they surrounded her with sympathy and helped to bundle her back into bed. One offered to let Belinda sleep with her doll, another offered to run to the nearest bake shop—a long trip, even though she was one of the swiftest runners among all the orphans—to find her something for breakfast. By now, everyone knew peas made Belinda ill.
Everyone knew ...
"Oh!" Merrigan could barely keep back a stream of curses that wanted to fall from her lips. She didn't know whether to be grateful for the time on the ocean with Quincy's sailors, or not.
"I don't know," Belinda said, when the girls had gone off to breakfast and the three of them were alone again. Merrigan had just explained what had occurred to her. "How could we have kept something like this secret? Children are curious, and they talk, and everyone thinks I'm a child too, so they have to wonder why I don't have to eat the same things they do. But I don't think we're in that much trouble. To find out that someone who is allergic to peas porridge is here, those dolts chasing me would have to ask lots of questions. Those princes have to win a kingdom through marriage because they don't have the ambition or cleverness to earn a kingdom the old-fashioned way. Killing ogres and dragons. Performing twenty hard labors for a Fae queen. Digging a kingdom out of the bottom of the sea or something else that requires some guts and brains and sweat." She sighed.
"How long have they been chasing you, Princess?" Bib asked.
"Oh, let's see, I ran away when I was ... Oh." She lost a little of the color she had regained. "You're right. If they're still holding on in the chase after five years, they might have learned to do some hard work. Or at the very least, they're desperate enough to listen to gossip, or even talk to people. Anyone they meet on the street."
"How likely do they think you are to hide among orphans?" Merrigan asked.
"How many fables are there of groups of children under enchantments?" She shrugged. "I've hidden anywhere I could, disguised as any number of things. I was a goose girl, a miller's apprentice, a milkmaid, a gardener. I even took shelter among some friendly trolls for almost an entire year. You would think the smell would make me invulnerable to the scent of peas cooking. Those wretched princes found me when someone planted an entire field of peas over the trolls' underground lair. At harvest time, someone cooked freshly harvested peas and there was enough magic to make me ill. So ill, even the trolls didn't want me around." She let out a sigh that seemed to make her deflate among her blankets. "They won't stop until they find me. How many princesses can there be in this city?"
"The day after a royal wedding?" Bib chuckled. "You were in the palace, finishing up Gilda's dress. Didn't you glimpse the guest book?"
"I did." Merrigan shook her head. "It's pitiful, all the women who hold tight to the title of princess even though they're so many generations removed from the throne, a plague would have to wipe out half a city for them to have a chance to wear a crown."
"Look on the bright side, then. Those princes could be drawn off on a dozen wild goose chases, following all those paper-thin princesses as they head home."
"Many of them will be horribly disappointed because yet another royal wedding passed, and some prince didn't snatch them up. Although that's a thought. Some of them might have come here to find a royal bride, any royal bride, no matter how far from the throne. Five years is a long wait. They aren't getting any younger."
"Neither am I," Belinda said with a sigh. "You'd think Father would have the sense to give up on me and make one of my younger sisters the heir, more likely to attract a prince with the strength to take care of the kingdom. Bythia and Barbarina ..." She shuddered. "Even with all the magic those two learned, Father would never be persuaded to make one of them his heir. It's sad, really. A wicked enchantress in charge might just make our tiny little backwater kingdom a popular place to visit."
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, it makes perfect sense," Bib said. "The presence of evil magic tends to draw the darker sorts of magical beasts. Even if they don't immediately start to feast on farm animals and kidnap children to enslave, their presence would in turn draw adventurers and heroes. Along with them would come all the hangers-on, the support teams, the armorers and healers and minstrels looking for another heroic ballad to write to launch them into fame and a comfortable retirement. After them would come the admirers and hopeful dreamers and the boys who want to apprentice with heroes. It's somewhat of a trade guild all in itself, and profitable."
"Nonsense," Merrigan said with a sniff.
Still, she couldn't shake the thought, and the speculations that followed. Leffisand, she had to admit, had done some despicable things in his quest to consolidate his power and secure his throne. If he had continued in his course of evil deeds and schemes, would Carlion have eventually attracted magical monsters that attracted heroes to fight them? And in the wake of the heroes, bring in people who had to pay for inns to stay in and food to eat and new clothes and all that went with travelers and armor and battles?
The three talked for another hour, weighing options. The possibilities of the princes following a departing wedding guest. The chances they would realize their runaway princess stayed in Alliburton. And just how long until peas were again served in the orphanage. The effects on Belinda faded as soon as the children ate their breakfast. The question was if enough damage had been done to bring the hunter princes into this quarter of the city.
"We can't rely on your disguise to stay stable," Merrigan said, when Belinda had recovered enough to get washed up and dressed. "I don't think you should leave the orphanage for the next few days. Just in case."
"That's it," Bib said. His pages riffled back and forth, loudly enough to make Merrigan and Belinda flinch. "A disguise—no, not a disguise, but a decoy! We'll need to borrow one of Gilda's tiaras."
"What?" both princesses said in perfect, shocked unison.
"It's utterly brilliant," the book continued, ignoring the stunned looks the two exchanged over his pages.
For all his wisdom and the access to written knowledge, the book couldn't possibly understand. Tiaras and crowns were enchanted. They were stolen and recovered. They were inherited. They were not borrowed. It simply wasn't done.
"The spell is set to find a princess, am I correct?" Bib continued, oblivious to their reaction. "It's not tuned specifically to you, correct?"
"I don't think so. It's been so long since it latched onto me, but ..." Belinda's eyes got wide and a slow smile wiped away the disgusted twist that had held her mouth.
"What am I missing?" Merrigan demanded.
"We let those idiots find a princess. A real princess. Just not the one they're looking for. If I'm right, and the spell specifies a princess tangled in a spell, and not specifically Belinda," Bib continued, "then won't they simply ignore the spell when it keeps insisting that a princess is here, and they find one, right here at this sewing table, and she isn't Belinda?"
"Me?" Her voice squeaked alarmingly. A totally ridiculous wave of fear swept over her. "But I don't look like—I'm not—this isn't my face anymore. I'm—well, let's be honest, I'm a wrinkled, shriveled, white-haired, crooked old hag! With warts. What?" she snapped, when Belinda frowned thoughtfully.
"But Merrigan, you're not white-haired or crooked," Belinda protested. "You stand quite straight. And you have no warts. Isn't that odd? Bib, have you noticed ... well, maybe I was just distraught when I first arrived, but I could swear Merrigan isn't so ... so wrinkled anymore. And her hair is a lovely dark silver, streaked with sable. It's really hard to see under that cap she keeps it tucked up in all the time, but—"
"Stop talking about me as if I'm a dressmaker's mannequin."
"We need a mirror."
"We need a crown," Bib said. "That cap will come in handy. The moment that tracking spell brings one of those dunderheads stumbling in here, you stand up and give them some royal scorn. Whip your cap off, and show them your tiara. That spell will verify you speak the truth when you announce you're a princess. But since you're not their princess, well, they'll have to go away. The princess they want will be right there in the room with them, and they'll never notice."
"Announce I'm a princess." Merrigan's voice cracked. She shuddered. Maybe now she was getting sick. Was it possible for the tracking spell to have transferred from Belinda, or just widened its influence to affect her? "Do I have to tell them ... who I am?"
"Oh, Merrigan." Belinda wrapped her arms around her. The warmth and sympathy felt incredibly good. "Of course not. They don't deserve to know your name, and I understand completely. It's rather embarrassing, being under a curse. I can't understand why someone as wonderful as you would ever be put under a curse."
The laughter bubbling in Merrigan's throat had an acid taint. Just when she thought Belinda wasn't a featherhead, she had to say something idiotic. Her, Merrigan of Avylyn, the royal brat, the terror of the court? The princess who drove away increasingly desperate or masochistic suitors before she duped herself into believing Leffisand rescued her? Wonderful?
"No, of course not." Bib's glee faded, his tone turned thoughtful. "No, don't embarrass yourself, Mi'Lady. It should be enough for the deception to announce you're a princess. Slap them down with all the royal elegance you've been denied for so long. But first, we need a tiara. The simpler the better. What princess in exile, living in impecunious circumstances, would have more than just a circlet indicating her royal blood?"
"Hard to keep clean," Merrigan offered. Funny how hard it had been to breathe for a few moments. "Very difficult to keep on your head when you're fleeing ogres and bandits."
"That's the spirit." Belinda chuckled and squeezed Merrigan close.
Gilda and Aubrey had left on their wedding trip, but King Auberg was in the palace and more than delighted to help Merrigan. He had become something of a grandfather to the orphanage. He took such mischievous delight in coming to the warehouse in disguise, loaded down with treats for the children. Books for the studious ones. Tools for those headed for a trade. Wooden practice swords, bows and arrows for the boys who wanted to join the city guard or the army. Ribbons and trinkets for the girls who were old enough to sigh over such things.
"Merrigan of ... of Avylyn?" Auberg repeated, when she finished detailing her request. She had brought Bib with her to the palace for their private meeting. A talking magical book was always a guarantee that her story would be taken as truth. "Oh, my dear princess, I have indeed heard what has been happening with Carlion and Jardien and your father's kingdom, but ... the tales are that you ... well, there are several mad women wandering the mountains, claiming to be you. Rather vicious, foul-tempered women."
"Far too easy for people to believe those women are me, you mean." Her face felt warm enough, she imagined she glowed redder than the coals in the fireplace on the other side of the room. Merrigan was grateful for this private audience. She didn't want word to get back to anyone who knew her, even if it took years for the gossip to trickle across the continent.
"Mi'Lady," Bib said, his tones subdued, "if I may be so bold, you are no longer you. It takes a heavy grindstone to turn wheat into fine flour, but the results are admired by everyone. I imagine if flour could think, it would be delighted at ... well, perhaps that metaphor isn't quite working, but—"
"I know what you mean. Thank you, Bib. You have always been my truest friend." Merrigan shared a smile with King Auberg. "I'm not here for my benefit, Majesty, but for Princess Belinda. If we could verify the princes hunting her were indeed here for the wedding, and determine how many remain on the hunt, that would help us ever so much."
"Determine who is still here in Alliburton, to know how much threat remains." He nodded, a decisive movement that belied his thinning white hair and sagging jowls.
In the two moons since the curse broke, a general sense of haziness and distraction had lifted from the entire city. Merrigan had learned that the king hadn't really been distracted by the hunt to find and free his missing son. Rather, King Auberg had discerned early that the spell was thickest around the palace, and had prudently removed the heart of the government to another city. Whoever set the curse had wanted to cripple the kingdom, not just make the royal family suffer. The curse was flexible, set to discern where the most government activity was, and then settle around that physical location. King Auberg's ministers and officers and secretaries had to pick up everything and move to another city every ten moons or so. The rumors that the king was useless and letting others run the kingdom for him were partly to satisfy the enemy, and keep him from checking the progress of the curse. Now, the seat of the government was back in the palace. King Auberg was a man reborn, alert and decisive and fixing all that had unfortunately been allowed to lie neglected for years.
"Come with me, Princess." He stood and offered her his bent elbow, then shook his head. "Forgive me. How rude. If you don't mind, Sir Bib?" He scooped up the book from the stool next to Merrigan, and cradled it against his chest with one arm.
"You honor me, Majesty," Bib responded, as Auberg offered his elbow again to Merrigan.
Her face warmed with pleasure as she tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. He escorted her through the wide archway into the next room of the royal apartments. They stopped in front of a massive wardrobe, with three sets of doors. King Auberg bowed Merrigan into a chair, set Bib down next to her, then tugged a long chain from inside his shirt and unlocked the middle set of doors. This section of the wardrobe was all shelves full of carved wooden boxes. He brought down one long box, about eight inches tall, and set it on a footstool in front of Merrigan, then took a key from a hidden panel in the left door and unlocked the box. Inside were five tiaras, varying in grandeur and beauty.
"These belonged to my beloved wife," he explained, after bowing his head over the box and its contents for several moments. "I intend to give them to Gilda for her birthdays, and when she and Aubrey have their first child, but I believe my Rosamund would be pleased to donate one to the cause of defending a princess in distress." He beckoned for Merrigan to join him.
The crown they chose was a deceptively simple one, of pink gold woven into a wreath. Emerald dust spotted the leaves, and tiny flowers made of chips of sapphires and rubies peeked out from among the leaves, creating a rainbow shimmer when the light hit it just right. Auberg smiled with a hint of tears as he raised the circlet and nodded to Merrigan. She tugged off the cap that covered her braided hair, bowed her head, and her heart seemed to stutter in those few seconds before the delicate weight of the wreath rested on her head.
"Ah, yes," Auberg whispered. He rested a gentle hand on her shoulder and guided her a few steps to the right. Another key opened the right set of wardrobe doors, and Merrigan flinched as she was confronted with a full-length mirror. She tried to focus just on the circlet in her hair, but she couldn't help noticing ...
"Bib, you were right," she whispered. In awe, she touched her hair. Dark silver and sable had replaced the thin mass of snowy white. When she washed her hair, she tried not to look at it, doing everything by feel. Granted, there weren't any mirrors in the orphanage, and she hadn't missed them. Her braids had thickened from bodice laces to plump sausages. She wondered that she hadn't noticed the change when she brushed and braided her hair every morning and evening.
Merrigan knew she was wasting time, so she turned her gaze away, but not before she saw other changes in her appearance. Belinda was indeed right—she stood taller, straighter, and had fewer wrinkles. Her nose didn't look quite so much like a hawk's beak. Her jaws weren't nutcrackers. And no warts.
"They might just believe me," she said, her voice crackling a little, as she turned to face King Auberg. "When the princes track down Belinda. When I take my cap off and they see the crown, they just might believe me when I tell them I'm a princess."
"Of course they will. Because you are indeed a princess. A real princess." His smile went crooked and he patted her shoulder. "I daresay, more of a princess now than you ever were."
Merrigan didn't want to think too long or hard on just what he meant. Like so many other things she had thought about and learned since Clara cursed her, she knew she wouldn't like these new revelations about herself.
By this time, everyone in the city seemed to know Mistress Mara on sight, friend of Prince Aubrey and Princess Gilda. Merrigan's face and neck actually hurt from smiling and nodding greetings to everyone who called her by name on the long walk back to the orphanage. She wished she had accepted the carriage King Auberg had offered her, but she had decided to walk to attract as little attention as possible. That had been wasted effort.
"Look on the bright side," Belinda offered, when she and Merrigan and Bib were alone just before dinner. "You proved that it won't easily fall out of your hair." She lightly reached up to touch the circlet, still sitting securely among Merrigan's braids.
Merrigan wrinkled up her nose at her, and a moment later the two shared some giggles. Ordinarily, she wouldn't be quite so lighthearted about being responsible for the lovely old circlet, especially when it was very obvious it had deep sentimental value for King Auberg. However, Bib was the perfect guardian for the treasure when Merrigan wouldn't be wearing it. Just like other things he had hidden in his pages for safekeeping, the circlet would be safe, with no damage to it or his pages.
Their mirth buoyed them up against the depressing news that came the next afternoon, when a guardsman in palace livery delivered a thick packet of papers from the king. Of the fourteen princes who had been hunting Belinda, nine had come to the royal wedding. Two had targeted princesses who were the only siblings of unmarried kings, meaning they could inherit the throne. Both princesses were rather long in the tooth and hadn't been considered beauties even in their heyday. Belinda declared that served her unwanted suitors right. Seven lingered in Alliburton. King Auberg had assigned trustworthy men to keep track of the princes, and he promised to send daily reports on their activities.
Merrigan thought they were very well off, considering the circumstances. Forewarned was forearmed. Then Belinda picked up another piece of paper from the packet. This was a list of royalty currently without a throne. King Auberg's secretary who had compiled the information noted that while the princes, princesses, dukes and other assorted nobility were of no threat to the runaway princess, he thought it worthwhile to watch their activities until they left Alliburton.
"Oh, no, no, no," Belinda murmured, staring at several lines at the top of the list.
"What?" Merrigan thought she might have to tear the paper to get it out of the other princess's hand.
Belinda's eyes filled with tears. She handed Merrigan the paper, slumped back in her seat, covered her face with her hands, and trembled as the tears dripped through her fingers.
Merrigan read through the list. Thanks to interfering Fae and enchanters, evil wizards and other majjians, the list of royalty deprived of their thrones stayed relatively short. They won someone else's throne, regained their own kingdom, vanished, or they renounced their thrones altogether, to pursue a simple life. She read the list three times, her gaze skipping over a specific line.
Stop being such a ninny. For good measure, she clenched the fist not holding the paper, digging her nails into her palm.