Текст книги "Princess of the Silver Woods"
Автор книги: Jessica Day George
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Prayer
At dinner, Petunia could not stop thinking about how much Prince Grigori looked like the princes Under Stone. She had never thought about it before, but with his pale skin and black hair, he could easily be one of them. But did that mean that he was part of some larger plot? Was he helping the princes? How could she find out? She caught herself staring at him, eyes narrowed, and tried to concentrate on the food instead.
“Pet is always a bit out of sorts in the winter,” Pansy suddenly said, in a lighthearted tone that made everyone turn their attention to her. “It’s because she’s so devoted to Mother’s gardens, you know. Anytime she can’t be out digging in the dirt she becomes restless.” Then she blushed. “Not that she likes being dirty, or rooting around in the mud,” she clarified.
“Really, Petunia? I knew that you were fond of gardens, but I didn’t know that you liked gardening itself!” Prince Grigori smiled at her, and Petunia gritted her teeth over the indulgent look on his face. He probably thought she liked picking flowers for table arrangements or some other ladylike pursuit.
“Yes,” she said, slicing a sprout in half with unnecessary vigor. “I have been working with my father and our head gardener for several years in the hot houses, perfecting my father’s hybrid roses. We’re trying to create a yellow rose that blushes pink in the center.”
To her satisfaction, this did appear to impress the prince.
“You are creating new roses?”
She liked that he did not seem surprised that she was the one creating the roses, but more that such a thing was possible. She nodded her head graciously at him.
“Yes, we are. It’s quite exciting, really.”
Orchid made a face. “It’s really not, unless you’re also obsessed with roses,” she said.
Petunia glared at her.
“It’s quite complicated,” Rose put in. “And I do think my father is a little disappointed that the only one of us with a gift for gardening is Petunia. I think he hoped for three or four who would enjoy talking about grafting and cross-pollination.”
“I have never heard either of those terms,” Prince Grigori admitted.
“Then you should certainly have Petunia take you to the hot houses tomorrow afternoon and explain them,” Pansy said with an excessive amount of enthusiasm. “And Galen and Heinrich should go with you; they’ve both worked in the gardens as well.”
Petunia finally saw what Pansy was doing and tried to kick her under the table but it was too wide. Pansy’s voice was so bright it sounded strained. Petunia dropped her knife with a clatter.
“Clumsy!” she exclaimed, and snatched it up again. “I would be delighted to have a tour of the hot houses tomorrow, Grigori. But don’t worry, I shan’t think less of you if you aren’t interested.” She gave a tinkling laugh that was just as false as Pansy’s bright tones, then quickly changed the topic. “Violet, would you like to play for us after dinner? The grand duchess’s pianoforte is very fine.”
“It is of Romansch make,” the grand duchess said, as Violet and her husband, Frederick, exchanged eager looks. “My granddaughter Nastasya plays, but since she went back to Russaka, there has been no one to play for me.”
“I would be thrilled to play,” Violet said, and squeezed her husband’s hand.
“I would love to play a duet with you,” Frederick said, giving Violet a smoldering look.
“Oo-ooh,” said Poppy, and winked at them.
“Poppy!” Daisy poked her twin in the side.
“And perhaps you could play for us while we have a little dancing?” the grand duchess asked. “There are not enough gentlemen to go around, but then, dear Petunia does not dance.”
Petunia looked down at her plate and sighed.
“Petunia loves to dance,” Lilac told the grand duchess. “For quite some time, she was the only one of us who did.”
“But did your father not send a letter, Petunia, when you were at court stating that you were not to dance?” The grand duchess’s green eyes studied Petunia’s still-red face.
“Petunia had been ill, we all had, but the effects hadn’t lingered,” Hyacinth said quickly. “Our father was rather overprotective of us, the way that fathers can be.”
“I certainly know how overprotective fathers can be,” the grand duchess said, her voice dry. “So if that is all it is, I would love to see Petunia dance with my Grigori later.”
Just when she thought her blush couldn’t get any hotter, Petunia felt her face absolutely burning. And it didn’t help that she could not stop thinking of Oliver lying underneath her bed upstairs. Suddenly her made-over gown felt awkward, and the lace at the décolletage was scratching her.
“Are you all right?” Heinrich murmured.
“I’ll be fine,” Petunia said under her breath. She smiled brightly down the table at the grand duchess, who was also watching her. “Shall we have the dancing now, Your Grace?”
“Of course, dear Petunia,” the grand duchess said with a chuckle. She rose and led the way into the drawing room.
Dancing with Prince Grigori was somewhat difficult. He was so tall that she had to either crane her neck to see his face or converse with his coat buttons. It was easier to dance with Galen or Heinrich, who were tall but not freakishly so. Heinrich, despite the old injury to his leg, was a steady, reliable partner, and Galen was quite skilled. Violet’s Frederick was the shortest gentleman present, but he liked to add little flourishes when he danced.
Daisy took a turn at the pianoforte twice, to let Violet dance with her husband, and Petunia even gave in to the grand duchess’s urging and played a valse, the only dance music she knew.
“Now look at my Petunia,” the grand duchess said. “She dances, plays music, gardens, and knits! Such an accomplished girl on top of all her beauty!”
Petunia didn’t have to fake an embarrassed smile, fanning herself to cover her warm cheeks—would the blushing never stop this eve ning? Looking at Iris’s face, Petunia could see that she was preparing some biting comment and frowned at her sister.
The grand duchess held out a slender hand, elegantly gloved in gray silk. “Dear Petunia, please help me to my room. I will retire for the night.”
“Of course, Your Grace,” Petunia said at once.
They all made their bows and curtsies, and then Petunia took the fine-boned hand and helped the grand dame to rise. They went out of the drawing room and past the stairs to the long hallway that led past the ballroom and the portrait gallery to the grand duchess’s apartments. As she rang for the grand duchess’s maid, Petunia tried to assume a casual air.
“Do you spend a great deal of time looking out at the gardens?” she asked as the grand duchess sank down on a sofa near the windows.
Petunia couldn’t help but notice that, while the curtains were open, the windows were not. She was sure that the windows of her own bedchamber were wide open, letting in the icy air. And Kestilan.
“Not during the winter,” the grand duchess said with a chuckle. “At least, not during the Westfalian winter. So bleak! Russakan winters, you remember, are a fantasia of snow and ice. But this?” She shrugged one silk-covered shoulder at the window. “I don’t know why my maid hasn’t drawn the curtains to night.”
There was a faint scratch at the door, and her maid entered. The woman gave a dismayed shriek when she saw her mistress sitting before the uncovered windows and rushed to release the heavy velvet curtains from their embroidered ties.
“Still and all,” the grand duchess said, ignoring her fussing maid, “these old bones do wish for a place where there is no snow or ice. Where there are only gentle winds to stir the branches of the trees and the sand along the shore of the lake.”
“What lake it that?” Petunia asked, frowning. She had a sudden image of the black lake in the silver wood, but cast it aside. “Is that where you lived as a child?”
“Nowhere I’ve been,” the grand duchess said, shaking her head. “Just a place I wish existed.”
“Oh,” Petunia said. Again she rejected a vision of the Kingdom Under Stone. The maid was now making motions about removing her mistress’s gloves and jewels. “Well, good night, Your Grace.”
“Good night, my dear Petunia,” said the grand duchess. Her green eyes fixed sharply on the maid at last. “Good heavens, Ilenya, have you always been this incompetent?”
Petunia, forgotten, backed away. The grand duchess’s sharp tone and the flash in her green eyes made Petunia feel distinctly uncomfortable, but she couldn’t think why. They reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t recall who. Grigori’s eyes were brown.
Petunia hurried up to her own bedchamber, where Pansy was already being undressed by Olga. Thinking that Oliver probably had not eaten all day, Petunia rang the bell and ordered the footman to bring a plate of something. The entire time, she was intensely aware of Oliver lying under her bed as Olga helped her and Pansy undress. Petunia forced herself to nibble one of the small sandwiches the footman brought, and Pansy took another, then they both protested loudly at the idea of having the plate taken away, though neither of them was touching the rest of the food. Petunia wondered how she would get the food to Oliver, or talk to him, if Olga insisted on sitting in the room, sewing all night, as she sometimes did.
Inspiration struck as Pansy knelt by the side of the bed to say her prayers. Petunia was not much for praying, personally, though she had had religious instruction by Bishop Schelker alongside her sisters. Still, she knelt beside Pansy and ignored her sister’s startled look.
“I’m so tired, I think I will pray aloud to night so that I don’t drift off,” Petunia announced.
“All right, but don’t take too long about it,” Pansy grumbled as she climbed into bed.
Petunia ignored Pansy and Olga, who was hovering nearby, and bowed her head over her folded hands. She took a moment to order her thoughts, and then plunged in.
“Dear God,” she said loudly. “Please protect my sisters and their husbands and their husbands-to-be. Please bless my father, and Dr. Kelling, and Bishop Schelker. Please watch over all of us here at the estate, especially the grand duchess, because she is innocent and frail. Please watch over Prince Grigori, that he will not be tempted to do evil, and Olga, that she will also be good.” Petunia shifted on her knees, feeling Olga’s eyes boring into the back of her head. “Please guide Galen and Heinrich in their studies, since they do not know where to direct their attention at this time, and please help them find a way to guard us all from our nightmares. Amen.”
“Forgive me, Your Highness, but Westfalian prayers seem very odd,” Olga said, helping Petunia into bed.
“I would imagine that they do,” was all Petunia answered. She could see by Pansy’s face that her sister had understood the purpose of her prayer.
“If I may ask, Your Highness, what are the princes studying?” The maid’s brow was creased with confusion. “I thought that they were past the age of school.”
“They’re studying magic,” Pansy said, before Petunia could think of an evasion.
She looked at the maid quickly to see how Olga reacted. Olga snorted and rolled her eyes, as though Pansy were just being silly.
“Now could you please turn out the light?” Pansy snapped. “And don’t you dare take those sandwiches, I might want one later!”
Pansy rolled over and went to sleep, but Petunia stayed awake long after Olga left, and long after Oliver crawled out from under the bed, grabbed some sandwiches, and slipped out the door. She hoped that he was going to Galen and Rose’s room, and she hoped, too, that he hadn’t known she was awake when he had leaned over her and kissed her hair. She wanted to savor that touch forever.
Conspirator
Oliver had never had someone pray to him before. It had been slightly amusing until he realized that if Petunia was frightened enough of her maid to use such a ruse, Oliver really should be on his guard. When they first met, Petunia had pointed a pistol directly at his face without wavering for an instant, yet she was being terrorized by this Olga.
Did the King Under Stone have human servants outside of his kingdom who were helping him? If he did, this maid was certainly suspect. Oliver’s experience with servants was limited, but it seemed to him that a good lady’s maid wouldn’t order her mistress around in quite the way that Olga did with Petunia and Pansy.
Once he was sure that the maid was gone and the princesses were asleep, Oliver rolled out from under the bed. He found the plate of sandwiches and shoved one in his mouth whole, wrapping two more in a napkin and stowing them in a pocket.
Chewing and swallowing quickly, he leaned over Petunia and kissed her inky curls. He just couldn’t help himself. His eyes had grown accustomed to the dark after a long day spent under the bed, so he could see her white face nestled in the blackness of her hair. He was sure she would wake if he touched her face, so he was careful only to press his lips to her soft hair, breathing in its scent of flowers and cinnamon, before he slipped out of the room.
He made his way down the hall, not sure where to find Galen or Heinrich. His every nerve was on edge—even though he was invisible—in case he stumbled upon Grigori. He listened at each of the doors, hearing nothing, until at the fourth door there was the sound of a woman crying and a man’s voice speaking in soothing tones. He hated to interrupt such a scene but didn’t know what else to do, so he softly knocked.
The voices went silent, then the man called out, asking who was there. It was Prince Heinrich, and some of Oliver’s tension drained away.
“It’s Oliver,” he said, as loudly as he dared.
The door was opened immediately, and Heinrich peered out into the corridor. Seeing nothing, he stepped back, opening the door wider. Oliver slipped in, tapping the prince on the shoulder so that Heinrich would know where he was. The prince quickly shut the door and locked it.
Distinctly uncomfortable, Oliver undid the cloak and watched his body reappear. Princess Lily was sitting up in the bed in her nightgown, her eyes red from crying and her face pale and thin. Her hair, a rich dark brown, was loose and fell nearly to the bedclothes.
“I’m so sorry to disturb you,” Oliver said, staring at his boots. “But I have information, and I needed to give it to you right away. I told Petun—Princess Petunia—but she hasn’t been able to speak to any of you privately, so I thought I would come myself.”
“You’d better fetch Rose and Galen,” Lily said to her husband.
Heinrich left so silently he might as well have been invisible.
“If you don’t mind, I’m going to put my dressing gown on,” Lily said.
“No, I don’t—oh!” Oliver quickly turned his back to the princess.
He heard her slip out of the bed and the rustle of her putting on a dressing gown. There was a flapping noise as she put on slippers as well.
“Thank you,” she said.
Oliver turned around to find her in a lavender silk dressing gown. She expertly braided her long hair and tied a ribbon around the end, smiling at him as he watched in a sort of dazed fascination.
“Petunia’s hair is too curly to braid,” she said conversationally.
Oliver wasn’t sure why, but that was what finally made him blush. Not barging in on her and her husband during a private moment. Not seeing her in her nightgown, but her mentioning Petunia’s hair.
The hair he had just kissed.
He made a noncommittal noise and almost collapsed with relief when the door opened a heartbeat later to admit Heinrich and the crown prince and princess. Galen was still dressed, though he was wearing a plain dark suit and not evening clothes. Seeing him, Oliver realized that Heinrich was dressed in much the same unobtrusive manner.
Rose was in a dark-red dressing gown with Far Eastern embroidery. She gave Oliver a warm smile without a hint of self-consciousness as she sat on the bed. Lily sat beside her, and they all looked expectantly at Oliver, who cleared his throat.
“I came to make sure that Princess Petunia and the rest of you were all right,” he began, wondering how much of an idiot he was going to feel like before this was all through. “I went to the hothouse I told you about before, the one that I saw the shadows coming from, and I looked around to see if I could find anything.”
“I take it that you did,” Galen said, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Oliver said, encouraged. “At first I didn’t think there was anything to find, but then I noticed that the floor was swept clean from the table in the middle to the door, but it didn’t look like anyone had been in the hot house since I was there two weeks ago. When I looked closer, I saw that someone had written on the floor with wax, but I couldn’t decipher the writing.”
The two princes exchanged looks.
“Do you … want me to show you?” Oliver offered, wondering if they were now about to thank him and then send him away. He wasn’t going to leave Petunia, not while he still felt a pounding in his head that told him she was in danger.
“Yes,” Galen said. “Just let me get something to light our way and we’ll go.” He took some of the tall white candles from a candelabrum on top of the desk and put them in a bag slung over his shoulder. “We’d better go out the window,” he said.
“Do you want to wear the invisibility cloak?” Oliver held it out to him.
“Oh, no, but you had better,” Galen said, clapping Oliver on the shoulder. “If Heinrich and I are seen, we’re still invited guests. But you’re supposed to be in Bruch.”
“Have you been here all day, then?” Rose asked, getting up.
“Um, yes,” Oliver said, praying that she wouldn’t ask him where he’d been hiding.
“Are you hungry? Do you want us to find you something to eat?”
“Oh, no,” Oliver said. “I have a couple of sandwiches … I brought with me.” He patted his bulging pocket.
“That’s very clever of you,” Rose said. She had an amused expression on her face, though, that made Oliver wonder if she suspected where they had come from.
He bowed to the two princesses and put on the cloak, glad that they couldn’t see his face anymore. Galen had turned out all but one small lamp and was pulling back the curtains so that they could go out the window.
“Here we go,” Heinrich said with a groan.
When all three had reached the ground, they set off across the lawns, Heinrich moving surprisingly quickly despite his limp. Oliver almost had to trot to keep up with them, the rustling he made crossing the winter-dead lawns telling the princes where he was. When they reached the little glass– paned house at the end, the one that Oliver was starting to think of as the Shadow House, he was panting, and Heinrich was rubbing his left thigh as though it pained him.
“Were you badly injured, in the war?” Oliver couldn’t help but ask.
“An Analousian bullet lodged in the bone,” Heinrich said. “But it’s mostly stiff these days.”
“We’ll need to do this swiftly,” Galen warned them both, handing out candles. “Anyone looking will see the lights through the glass walls, and they’ll come to investigate at once. It will be a bit hard to explain what we’re doing.” He laughed.
As soon as they were all inside, Oliver tossed aside the cloak while Heinrich took matches out of his pocket and lit their candles. Oliver immediately squatted down and showed them the wax writing on the floor. It was easier to see by candlelight, to Oliver’s relief. He’d been afraid that it would be too dark. Or worse, that he’d been imagining it all along.
“Here, hold this.”
The crown prince handed his candle to Oliver. He got down until his nose was nearly touching the tiles, while Oliver and Heinrich held the candles high. Galen moved across the floor like a crab, studying the writing.
“Can you read it?” Oliver finally asked.
“In a way,” Galen said. “It’s not so much writing as a combination of words and symbols that form a powerful spell.”
“What—what kind of spell?”
“Is it a summoning spell?” The shadows made Heinrich’s face look hard and old.
“Worse,” the crown prince said shortly.
“It’s a gateway.” “A gateway to what?” Oliver’s voice shook when he said it, but he wasn’t ashamed.
“A gateway to the Kingdom Under Stone,” Galen said. “Or at least, a gateway out of it.”
“We can’t use it to get there?”
Heinrich sounded disappointed, and Oliver wondered if he was a little bit mad. Who would want to go to the Kingdom Under Stone?
“No, I think it can only bring the princes out, and not in their real forms,” Galen said. Oliver thought he saw him sniff at the wax.
“Where—what—where is the Kingdom Under Stone?” Oliver wasn’t sure how to ask the question, or what question he wanted to ask.
“The Kingdom Under Stone is the prison where Wolfram von Aue and his followers were exiled,” the crown prince explained. “He was too powerful to be killed at the time, so he was locked into a place between worlds. I was fortunate that he had expended so much energy building his palace and stretching his bonds in order to father his sons. I was able to kill him with blessed silver inscribed with his real name, something that wouldn’t have worked two hundred years earlier.”
“I see,” Oliver said, though he wasn’t sure that he did. “So, his sons can only appear as shadows here in the … real world?”
“Yes. Although they’re not really shadows, they’re … well, they’re not really shadows,” Galen said with a small laugh.
“Could one have killed me?”
The crown prince looked up at Oliver, all traces of laughter gone. “Yes.”
He took a clasp knife from his pocket and unfolded it. Grimacing at the sound it made, he began to scrape away the wax writing. “The princes were born here, but the king whisked them away moments later, otherwise they would have died when the sun rose. At night, though, if they can create a gate, they can reach our world in their shadowy forms.”
“Why would you want to go to their kingdom, Your Highness?” Oliver looked at Heinrich, who also took out a knife and squatted down.
“To kill them,” Heinrich said, his voice flat.
“Barring that,” Galen said, pointing to a tile for his cousin to scratch at. “To seal them in their prison for good and all.”
“Is that possible?”
“I did it once before,” Galen said. “But my lock is breaking, or so I assume, judging by what’s happening to my wife and her sisters. These shared nightmares,” he went on, shaking his head, “they shouldn’t be possible. And now a gateway, to allow the princes to leave … it’s only a matter of time until they can make a gateway to draw the girls in. We must reseal the prison.”
“I don’t want to reseal their prison,” Heinrich said, beginning on another tile. “I want to kill them.”
“Heinrich, you know that killing them may not be the best option,” Galen said in a quiet voice.
“Fine then,” Heinrich said. “I won’t kill all of them. Just enough to make it easier to contain the rest.”
“I want to help you,” Oliver said.
“Why?” Galen looked up at him. “Because of Petunia?”
Oliver was relieved that the prince didn’t seem to be skeptical about his conviction. He simply looked like he wanted to know, and so did Heinrich, when Oliver dared to look at the other prince. Oliver was very aware that Heinrich had known his father. Had known him better than Oliver had, in fact.
“Because of her,” Oliver said at last. “Even though I have only met her twice, really … I just …”
“I risked my life to save Rose after only speaking with her twice,” Galen said with a small smile.
Encouraged, Oliver went on. “But also because of my family. If it hadn’t been for the King Under Stone and the trouble he caused with the worn-out dancing slippers, I would have been able to claim my title and take care of my people without resorting to banditry.”
Both princes nodded as though this made perfect sense. And then the crown prince added fuel to Oliver’s ire by saying, “And you have the King Under Stone to thank for the Analousian War as well. We don’t know if he actually started it, but he kept it going for twelve years in order to further entrap Queen Maude.”
Oliver stared at him, aghast. “Do you mean,” and his voice was barely a whisper, “that the King Under Stone was responsible for my father’s death?”
“And my father’s,” Galen said. “And my mother’s, and my little sister’s.” He looked down at the tiles. “I think that’s enough to prevent this gateway from working. Whoever did it will have to scrape all the tiles clean and start over.”
Heinrich blew out his candle. After a moment Oliver blew out the ones in his hands as well. In the dark he felt something soft shoved into his arms.
“Take the cloak, lad,” Galen said. “I hope you’ve got more sandwiches in your pockets. I’m sending you to Bruch.”
“You are?” Oliver felt numb. They were sending him away from Petunia, away from the heart of the crisis? And what was he supposed to do, try to plead his case to King Gregor again?
“I need you to find Bishop Schelker,” Galen said, to Oliver’s surprise. “Tell him we need him. It’s time.”
“You have the spell ready?” Heinrich’s brow creased. “I thought you and the others were still working on it.”
Galen sighed. “We have something,” he said. “There’s no way to test it, of course. I can find a thousand excuses to read more books, spend another de cade exploring more complex magic. But this,” he gestured at the markings on the floor, “tells me that we’ve run out of time.”
“And Schelker will know to bring the others?” Heinrich asked.
“Of course,” his cousin replied. To answer Oliver’s questioning look, he added, “The good bishop is a dab hand at magic, but we’re going to need all the help we can get. There are others with a stake in this who will be coming.
“And make sure the bishop arms you as well,” Galen continued. “Bishop Schelker is also a dab hand at blessing silver daggers and bullets. Lily and Poppy are good with guns—all the girls are—but we can always use one more.”
