| |
Aug. 15, 356 M.E.
Alice Sigor smelled the ash first. Not the warm, wintery smell of thick oak logs on the hearth, but the sharper scent of paper and parchment burning—lots of it. Glancing out the dormer window of the little third-floor apartment she shared with her mother, she could see a thick cloud of white smoke rising from the kitchen chimneys and standing out clearly against the darkening sky over Lake Newlin.
Looking down at the courtyard, Alice saw two soldiers at the front gate watching the smoke. They were dressed not in the blue and white livery of Cousin Aldrick, the Duke of Newshire, but in the black livery of Cousin Broderick, the usurper who had stolen the crown from Alice’s brother. One of the soldiers pointed at the smoke and said something. The other shrugged. They put their heads together, and then one of them headed quickly off through the park—not running, exactly, but moving with purpose.
Curious to find out what was going on, Alice checked the hallway outside the little apartment and then tiptoed downstairs. If anyone asked, she could say she wanted to take a walk on the beach, even if it looked as if there would be a storm any minute. Alice’s mother, Queen Rohesia, had gone out for a walk half an hour ago, and Alice could say she was going out to join her.
When she got down to the big public parlors, however, she found there was no one around. The paintings and tapestries looked down on empty rooms, and the suits of armor guarded a deserted corridor. Then she heard voices, and at the far end of the long hallway, she saw two footmen hurry out of a room carrying boxes and take them down the stairs.
Intrigued now, she followed the men out of the main palace building to the kitchens, half obscured by the heavy smoke pouring from the chimneys. Technically, Alice wasn’t supposed to go to the kitchens, but she had been in there a few times to see what the cooks were making, and no one had ever stopped her before. The month before, when she had turned 9, the cooks had let her come in and help bake a cake, which almost made up for not being allowed a party.
When she glanced in the kitchen now, however, she saw Cousin Aldrick and his private secretary standing in a circle of knights and servants bearing stacks of papers. Aldrick pawed frantically through the stacks, and every few seconds, he would pull out a letter or scroll or journal and shove it into the waiting hands of his secretary, who would then turn and toss it into the blazing hearth behind them.
“Anything that mentions the Earl of Stansted, blast him to the Void,” Duke Aldrick was saying. “For fuck’s sake, can someone help me look, or do I have to do absolutely everything around here?”
Alice didn’t really like Cousin Aldrick, and she didn’t think he liked her very much, either. But he was their host, and he was family, too. She stepped through the door, ready to volunteer, only to be intercepted by Aldrick’s wife, Duchess Rachel.
Rachel was a tall blonde woman, and in a certain light, some people said she looked like Alice’s mother. Alice had never been able to see a resemblance, though.
“What are you doing here?” the duchess demanded. She had a small sheaf of paper in her hands, twisting it nervously this way and that.
Before Alice could explain, Rachel looked back into the kitchen and called out, “Rohesia, come here and see to your child, will you?”
A moment later, the queen appeared beside Rachel in the doorway with a worried smile. “Did you need something, dear?”
“I saw the smoke,” Alice said, “and I thought maybe I could help.”
“I think we’ve had quite enough help from your family,” said Rachel bitterly, turning to glare at Alice’s mother.
The queen pursed her lips and drew in a long breath through her nose. She looked as if she could barely stop herself from speaking her mind. She looked that way a lot when she talked to Cousin Rachel.
“I could have burned the message,” the queen finally said. “I didn’t have to show it to you and Aldrick. I could have kept it to myself.”
“I wish you really would learn to mind your own business,” snapped Rachel. “We would all be much better off.”
Without another word, Queen Rohesia took Alice’s hand and led her away from the kitchen. They went back into the main palace and into a small side parlor, where the queen shut and locked the door. Then she knelt, started a fire in the little hearth, and drew a small scroll from a pocket of her dress.
“What’s going on?” Alice asked, sitting beside her mother on the thick Sahasran carpet.
“Do you know how Jennifer’s father was still fighting the Gramirens out west?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Jennifer” was Jennifer Stansted, only child and heir of the Earl of Stansted. She was also Alice’s best friend, and until the fall of Leornian, they had been inseparable companions. Then the usurper, Cousin Broderick, had sent Jennifer to live under guard at her father’s empty castle, while Alice and her mother had been forced to come here and live with Cousin Aldrick and Cousin Rachel.
“Well....” Alice’s mother’s face turned pale. “Well, Jennifer’s father lost. Cousin Broderick’s son finally defeated him. So the earl had to make a run for it. And apparently he managed to rescue Jennifer from the castle, and—”
“Are they coming here?” Alice cried.
“No, dear. That would be far too dangerous. They’ve gone north to the Empire.” The queen held up the little scroll before tossing it into the flames. “The earl had barely enough time to send me a message. So, I told Aldrick what had happened, and now he is burning anything that ever showed he was supporting Jennifer’s father in fighting the Gramirens.”
“I thought Cousin Aldrick didn’t do much of anything,” said Alice.
She could tell her mother was fighting not to laugh.
When the queen regained her composure, she said, “Cousin Aldrick never did enough to truly help. But he still did enough that he would be in a lot of trouble if Cousin Broderick should ever find out. That’s a lesson to us all, I suppose.”
Alice nodded like she understood, though she didn’t, really.
“We’re going upstairs now,” the queen went on. “I know sometimes when we get letters from...,” she looked around, then lowered her voice to a whisper. “When we get letters from your sister, I know sometimes you keep them. I’m sorry, but we should get rid of those, too, in case Cousin Broderick’s men search our rooms.”
“What? We...we have to...burn Elwyn’s letters?” Alice’s lip quivered, and she dug her fingernails into her palms, forcing herself not to cry.
“I’m afraid so. Hurry up, now.”
Really, she had known this day was coming for a while. They weren’t supposed to keep the letters they sometimes got from her sister and brother and Uncle Lawrence far away in Sahasra Deva. Alice’s mother was very careful about disposing of them. But sometimes, Alice managed to keep the bits from Elwyn, even though she knew she shouldn’t.
They got up to their little apartment, and Alice took the precious scraps of letters from under her mattress. Her mother looked them over for a minute, sighed, and then tossed them into the hearth, where she had started another fire. Alice watched, jaw tensed, as the lively tales of life in Briddobad went up in smoke. There went the story of the last Solstice party and the little sketch of Elwyn’s dress. There went Elwyn’s report of Edwin’s success in hunting grouse and pheasants. There went the precious closing words: “Love and kisses, Elwyn.”
Elwyn was beautiful and glamorous, and everyone in Myrcia knew who she was. The servants told Alice that you could buy portraits of Elwyn in the Marreth Market here in Rawdon. People talked about her prowess as a hunter, and they said things like, “If only she were a man, she’d be the best general Myrcia has ever had.” They said she was brilliant and sharp-tongued, as well, and she, “didn’t suffer fools gladly.” Which made perfect sense to Alice, because who wanted to suffer fools at all, let alone gladly?
Alice felt very proud to be her sister—even if they were only half-sisters—and she felt very lucky to be one of the few people in the world who got “love and kisses” from such a living legend.
The fire burned itself out, and Alice’s mother stirred the ashes with the iron poker. Then she went to the window and looked out. Alice joined her there, and they saw a knight in black Gramiren livery ride up and dismount by the front steps. Half a dozen ordinary soldiers, led by a barrel-chested sergeant with a big halberd, followed along behind him on foot. A gust of wind rippled through the knight’s cape, and the first drops of rain fell from the heavy clouds overhead.
“I think I had better go down to be with Cousin Aldrick and Cousin Rachel,” said the queen. “They are, I regret to say, the sort of people who get flustered and sometimes say more than they ought.”
“Should I come, too?” asked Alice. “I promise I won’t say more than I ought.”
Her mother smiled. “I’m sure you wouldn’t. But I’d rather keep you out of this. Go down to the library and read. If anyone asks, tell them you have been there since breakfast.”
Alice immediately agreed to do so, and set off down the back stairs. Generally, she tried to be truthful, but living here in Rawdon had taught her that sometimes strict honesty did more harm than good. Like whenever she referred to her brother as “King Edwin” or “his majesty” around Cousin Aldrick or Cousin Rachel. They would get very annoyed and tell her to stop being “naughty.”
Or then there was the time when some of the court ladies visiting the palace had been talking about the false queen, Cousin Muriel, and had said she was “the most beautiful woman in Myrcia.” Alice, without thinking, had objected and said that everyone knew Elwyn was the most beautiful woman in Myrcia, even if she wasn’t in Myrcia anymore. Alice’s mother had almost choked on a teacake, and Cousin Rachel had sent Alice to bed without any supper for three nights in a row.
Getting punished didn’t change the truth—Edwin was still the rightful king, and Elwyn was still more beautiful than Cousin Muriel. But getting punished had taught Alice the importance of knowing when to shut up.
She got down to the library without anyone seeing her, but she could hear voices down the long hallway. Cousin Aldrick was offering someone a drink in a jolly sort of tone, and Cousin Rachel was laughing a bit too much. Alice shut the door and got the stepstool from the closet. Then she went down the long rows of books in their gilded covers until she found the section of romances. Cousin Rachel had scolded her once for trying to read these books, saying they were, “For grownups only.”
That had only made Alice more determined to read them, because she assumed they had something to do with sex. Somewhat disappointingly, there was very little sex at all. But she did find that she enjoyed the books a great deal. People in the stories sat around in fine parlors—much like the ones here at the palace—and they had clever, witty conversations with interesting people. No one told them to “go upstairs” or complained that they were “constantly underfoot.” Hardly anyone got called “naughty,” except as a compliment. They could leave whenever they wanted, and they took carriage rides and went hunting and picnicking. They went to balls and feasts and had tea at their friends’ houses.
It was exactly the kind of life that Alice imagined Elwyn living in Briddobad. In her mind, the heroine of each book always spoke in Elwyn’s voice. And the heroine always looked like Elwyn, too—slim and beautiful and impossibly elegant. If the author dared describe the heroine as having red or blonde hair, Alice would simply ignore that and continue imagining her with Elwyn’s thick, dark locks.
Alice had always wanted thick, dark hair—hair the color of the ancient bookshelves in the library. Hair the color of deep shade in the woods. Hair the color of the fortified wine in the decanters in her father’s study, back when he was still alive. Alice didn’t have hair that color, though. Her hair was lighter—the color of wet sand that got everywhere when she went swimming.
Outside, the storm began to howl in earnest. She wouldn’t be going swimming today; that was for sure.
One side of the library had no shelves at all, but was instead a long bank of glass doors leading directly onto the beach. Thunder rattled the glass, and rain washed over the doors, and flashes of lightning exploded over the lake. Alice dragged a chair closer to the doors and settled in there, reading about the adventures of the beautiful heroine who looked exactly like Elwyn.
Someone gave a tiny, polite little cough, and Alice nearly dropped the book.
“Sorry, but aren’t you scared, sitting there by the windows?”
It took Alice a moment to find the source of the voice—a small figure wrapped in a blanket and resting on throw pillows under one of the big reading tables. The blanket shifted and fell back, revealing the face of Alice’s Cousin Lily, the daughter of Cousin Aldrick and Cousin Rachel. She was a year younger than Alice, but although they lived in the same palace, they hardly ever saw each other.
“I don’t like storms,” Lily added.
“It’s not so bad,” said Alice with a shrug. “Why are you under the table?”
“That’s what I do when I get scared.” Lily wrapped the blankets tighter around herself.
“When I get scared,” said Alice, in a superior sort of tone, “I try to think what my friend Jennifer would do, or what my sister would do, and then I do that.”
Lily’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, your sister! Yes, she’s very brave, isn’t she? I’ve heard all sorts of stories about her.”
“Which stories?”
“Well, I heard she guided your brother Edwin over—”
“King Edwin,” Alice corrected her.
“Sorry, yes. King Edwin. I heard your sister guided him over the mountains to Sahasra Deva after Leornian fell. And she defended him from bandits and wild animals. And now she’s building an army to come back and depose Cousin Broderick.”
Alice had never heard that Elwyn had been forced to defend Edwin from wild animals. And when they had gone to Sahasra Deva, Edwin and Elwyn had been guided by Uncle Lawrence and Cousin Robert Tynsdale and the famous hillichmagnar Caedmon Aldred. And Alice was pretty sure it was Uncle Lawrence who was trying to win allies and build a new army. But Alice was willing to forgive the inaccuracies, since they sounded like the sorts of things that Elwyn would have done if she had been given the chance.
“I bet you’ll grow up to be like her,” said Lily, smiling shyly.
“Um...maybe.” A lot of the time, Alice didn’t feel particularly pretty or elegant. And she wasn’t nearly as good at hunting and shooting and riding as Elwyn.
There was a knock at the door, and the big, barrel-chested Gramiren sergeant looked in. He bowed politely and apologized in a gravelly voice. “Sorry, my ladies, but I’m supposed to search this room. Could you step outside for a few minutes?”
The two girls went out into the hall. Alice was pretty sure that if Elwyn were there, she would have had some clever retort for the sergeant, but Alice couldn’t think of anything to say except, “Yes, sergeant. Of course.”
“Let’s go upstairs,” said Lily, tugging at Alice’s arm. “I like to play up in the attic sometimes. I wanted to show you before, but....” She blushed. “But anyway, it’s lots of fun. Let’s go.”
They went up to the musty old attic, full of trunks and crates and piles of ancient linens. Cracked vases stood next to tarnished half-suits of armor and crepe bunting from festivals and parties long ago. Overhead, the thunder rolled and the rain hammered against the roof, but Lily did not look scared now.
At first, they were content to enjoy the attic as it was. They climbed over the crates and looked in the trunks and tried on moth-eaten old robes and dresses. Then they pretended they were hiding from the Gramiren soldiers down below. Finally, Lily patted a huge pile of crates and said, “These are the Losianbeorg mountains, and we’re running away to Sahasra Deva after Leornian fell.”
Only one of them could pretend to be Elwyn, unfortunately. Lily graciously ceded that honor to Alice, on the reasonable grounds that, “She’s your sister, after all.”
So, Lily played Edwin and hid behind some trunks while Alice fought off the advancing hordes of the usurper’s cavalry. But she was overwhelmed and about to die, when Lily came out and said, “Look here, my dear fellows. I’m your king.” And then they surrendered in their imaginary masses and proclaimed Edwin the true king.
That was fun for a while. They switched roles, and Alice gave what she thought was a very moving impromptu speech as Edwin, in which she declared the civil war over and promised amnesty for everyone, even Cousin Broderick and Cousin Muriel, although they would forfeit their titles and have to work as servants for the rest of their lives.
But except for the big speech at the end, there wasn’t much for the girl playing Edwin to do. Lily, recognizing the problem, asked Alice, “Does Elwyn have a loyal lady’s maid or a best friend that one of us could be?”
Alice thought hard. The funny thing was that, although Elwyn always had a small group of people who were friendly with her, none of them were really her “best friend.” After a minute, though, Alice remembered a name.
“There was this one lady who spent a lot of time with Elwyn for a while, back during the siege. Her name was Melanie...Smith? No, Stark? No, Searle? Melanie Searle—that was it!”
For a few minutes they fought the imaginary legions of the enemy side by side as Princess Elwyn and her brave lieutenant, Lady Melanie Searle. They would get wounded and die in each other’s arms and then miraculously revive thanks to a magysk spell from Lord Caedmon Aldred, the court sorcerer. This was much more exciting, but after a while, even this game wore thin.
After yet another stunning resurrection and victory, Alice sat down on a low black trunk with a gilded lock to dust off her dress.
Lily came over and nudged the trunk with her foot. “Do you know what’s in here?”
“No, what?”
“I heard my mother tell one of her friends once. There are letters in here from your mother to my father.”
Alice frowned. “What would my mother be writing to your father about? When did she write these letters?”
“I’m not sure,” said Lily. “My mother said she wanted to burn them, but she didn’t have the key.”
Naturally, the girls tried to open the trunk. They attempted to pick the lock with hairpins. They hammered at the lid with bits of ancient armor. They tried to pry off the hinges with an iron poker they borrowed from an upper parlor. Nothing worked. Exhausted, they collapsed on the creaking old dusty floor.
“Would you like to go to the nursery?” Lily said. “I’m getting bored of the attic.”
Alice immediately forgot all about the letters. This was too good a chance to pass up. The palace nursery was a large, airy room full of bright toys and books. Maps of the Trahernian lands and maps of the stars, painted in brilliant colors, lined two huge walls. Alice had seen it exactly once—on her first day at Rawdon. Cousin Rachel had hinted very strongly that the nursery was for her children, only. There might be room for four children and two nurses and three rocking horses and a dozen porcelain dolls and a gilded toy elephant that could make a trumpeting sound and blow water from its trunk. But there was no room in the nursery for an Alice—Rachel had made that abundantly clear.
Now, however, she was going there at the express invitation of Lily. And Lily’s parents were probably still busy with the Gramiren soldiers.
In the nursery, Lily was immediately swarmed by her brothers. First came Bertram, age 6—the eldest and heir to the duchy. Then came Earnest, who was barely 4 and was sucking something sticky off his fingers as he approached. Cameron, who had been born earlier that year, would probably have come over as well, but he was in the arms of his nurse.
The nurse didn’t look very happy to see Alice, but Alice chose to ignore the woman. Bertram wanted help in setting up his toy soldiers, and she eagerly joined in. She had a lot of experience with toy soldiers, because her brother, Edwin, had owned quite a large collection of them.
Edwin’s soldiers were painted in a vast and wild array of colors, representing the uniforms of knights and officers from across Myrcia and the entire Trahernian region. Bertram and Earnest, on the other hand, only seemed to have soldiers in the blue and white livery of their father, Cousin Aldrick.
Of course, that meant they were also the same colors as Alice’s family, since she and the boys and Lily were all part of the great Sigor dynasty. Alice and Lily described some of the imaginary battles they had been fighting in the attic, and the boys liked the idea of a desperate last stand against the enemy, too. Bertram didn’t especially like the idea of putting the army under the command of “Cousin Elwyn,” though.
“Everyone knows boys go out and fight,” he said. “Girls stay in the castle where they’re safe.”
Alice would have liked to argue with him, but she remembered the last day of the siege, and how she and Jennifer and Elwyn had all watched the Sigor army crumble from the towers of the Bocburg. And she remembered watching from the window as Elwyn and Edwin sailed away from the castle dock. And Elwyn had kissed poor Sir Alfred Estnor goodbye—the man she was going to marry. But then Sir Alfred had gone back to the battle and had been killed, and there was nothing Elwyn could have done about it.
With a shudder, Alice turned from the lines of toy soldiers. “I think...maybe I’d like to play something else.”
Bertram started to object again, but there came a gasp and a strangled cry from the hallway door. Alice turned to see Cousin Rachel gaping at them all. Her face was livid, and her hands were clenched into fists at her side.
“What...what in the Void are you doing in here?” she demanded.
“We’re playing,” said Lily nervously.
“What possessed you to put out those soldiers like that?” Cousin Rachel said. “Those soldiers in those uniforms on this day? What were you thinking?” She started toward the children, then turned and shut the door before coming back and shoveling the little lead figurines into the toy chest with both hands.
She stopped and pointed an accusing finger at Alice. “You put them up to this, didn’t you?”
“I...I, well, we were...um...,” Alice stammered.
“We were up in the attic,” said Lily, “and we were having adventures up there, so when we came down here, Bertram had his soldiers, so we thought—”
At that moment, the door opened, and Alice’s mother stepped into the nursery. “Is something the matter, Rachel?” she asked in a calm, soothing voice.
“Your daughter thought it would be amusing to pretend she’s leading a Sigor army,” said Cousin Rachel. “On today, of all days. With those people still in my husband’s study!”
“We were pretending to be Elwyn,” Lily continued. “Well, Alice was Elwyn, and I was Lady Melanie Searle, but sometimes we switched.”
Alice’s mother ran a hand over her eyes, and her cheeks turned pink.
Cousin Rachel went over to her, and in a low voice she must have thought the children couldn’t hear, she said, “How do you like that, Rohesia? Do you wonder now why I think your daughter is a bad influence? Don’t think the rumors haven’t made it out here to Rawdon. We’ve all heard the stories, too.”
The queen took a deep breath, then said, “There are any number of innocent explanations, Rachel. I don’t see any reason to assume the worst of the girls.”
“Certainly not Lily,” said Rachel. “At least not as long as she stays clear of...unfortunate influences.”
“The person you’re referring to is in Briddobad,” said the queen. “At this distance, I can’t imagine what kind of influence she might have on Lily.”
“Oh, I’m not just talking about her,” said Rachel. “The lesser can only follow the example set by the greater. I know other people around here who have behaved scandalously, and I’d rather that Lily didn’t take after them, either. Certain women—I’m sure you know who I’m talking about—like to lead men on and then break their betrothals. And they’re a little too free with their favors around court, so their children might not know their fathers, if you know what I mean.”
The queen came and took Alice’s hand, then led her to the door. “If you are in that sort of a mood today, your grace, then we shall no longer trespass on your time.”
On the way back up to their apartment, Alice could feel her mother trembling with fury at her side.
“I’m sorry,” Alice said. “You told me to stay in the library, but then a soldier came. And I know I should have waited until he was done, but then Lily wanted to play, so I went off with her. I’m sorry.”
Her mother turned to look at her with an expression of faint surprise, as if she had forgotten Alice was there, even though they were still holding hands.
“Oh. Well, that’s entirely understandable. I wish you and Lily were able to play together more often.”
“I do, too. But Cousin Rachel doesn’t want me to.”
The queen paused in the hallway to look out a long window at the rainy courtyard. Shaking her head, she said softly, “I wish I knew what to say to her.”
“To Cousin Rachel, you mean? About me?”
“About so many things,” sighed her mother.
“I wish Elwyn were here,” said Alice. “She would know what to say to Cousin Rachel.”
“Oh, yes, she would,” said her mother, smiling. “And I’m inclined to believe Cousin Rachel would almost deserve it.”