“Thank you for coming, good frau,” said the bishop with a slight bow.
Oliver wondered if he were always so formal with his house keeper. She was still clutching the cloak, but now she was raking Oliver with her dark-eyed gaze.
“I didn’t know it was yours, good frau,” Oliver said, feeling dazed. “If the crown prince had told me that Bishop Schelker’s house keeper was such a resourceful—”
“His house keeper? His house keeper?” The old woman made a noise of disgust and flapped her hand at Bishop Schelker. “Hardly! Perhaps this boy isn’t as clever as he seems.”
“I believe he is quite clever enough,” the bishop said mildly. He turned to Oliver. “But no, the good frau is most assuredly not my house keeper.”
“Oh!” Oliver blushed. “I’m so sorry, good frau.”
She grabbed his jaw and studied his face closely. “Very handsome. But then, the princesses do have such fine taste in young men,” she said with a cackle of laughter. “I nearly kept Galen for myself, you know.” She winked saucily at Oliver, who felt his jaw sag in reply.
“I am more concerned about the moral character of their suitors,” Bishop Schelker said in a rather pained voice.
“You would be,” the old woman said rather rudely.
“Where is Herr Vogel, good frau?” Bishop Schelker changed the subject. “Did he not come with you?”
“He’s visiting his gardens,” she said, waving a gnarled hand at the window. She shoved the purple cloak up beneath her shawl, making her look like a hunchback. “Like my shawl, do you?” She turned around so that Oliver could admire it. It was blue, with ruffled edges. “One of the girls made it for me. I don’t know which one. All those foolish flower names are impossible to keep straight!” Another cackle of laughter.
“Walter Vogel, the gardener?” Oliver remembered the name his mother had given him, the name of the gardener she thought could help.
“Is there any other?” The old woman crowed.
“We had better arm ourselves and be going,” Bishop Schelker said. “Young Oliver will need the cloak until we are out of Bruch, good frau.”
“I will?” Oliver’s voice rose embarrassingly on the second word. His blood pounded at the bishop’s words: “until we are out of Bruch.”
“Yes, yes,” the old woman said. “He can have it when he needs it.”
“So, you mean that I will be going with you? To help? You trust me?” Oliver looked from the bishop to the old woman and back again. Galen had said Oliver would join them, but until that moment he had been afraid that Schelker or one of the others would decide to dismiss him.
“Here,” the bishop said by way of an answer. He handed Oliver one of the small bags. What ever it held crackled and released a scent of cooking herbs. “Wear it around your neck, under your shirt. And take a box of bullets; we’ll get you a pistol in a moment.”
Oliver slipped the cord of the little bag around his neck and took the pasteboard box of bullets before he could tuck the bag out of sight. Judging from the weight and the noise the box made, it did indeed contain bullets, which he assumed were silver as the crown prince had requested.
“It seems you passed muster, lad,” said a gentle voice as another person came into the room, making the small study rather crowded.
“You’re late, Walter,” the crone snapped.
The newcomer was an old man with a peg leg and the weathered face of someone who spent his days in the sun. “We need all the help that we can get,” he said.
“When we’re in the palace, we will have great need,” agreed the crone.
Captive
When Kestilan brought Petunia to the Palace Under Stone, she was taken to the very bedroom that she had dreamed about the night when she had tried to shoot Rionin in her sleep. She laid the bunch of yellow roses on the black-lacquered dressing table with shaking fingers. Kestilan left, to her relief, but then the ladies of the court came flooding into her room.
There were few servants in the Kingdom Under Stone, mostly silent musicians and footmen at the Midnight Balls, and the sisters had long suspected they were magical constructions: shadows brought to life. It was the courtiers, the immortal followers of the first King Under Stone who shared his exile, who had waited upon the sisters. The court ladies had taken away the princesses’ clothes that terrible night they had spent in the castle before Galen had helped them escape. And it was the court ladies who came now, screeching with triumphant laughter, and stripped Petunia of her clothing.
They dressed her in a midnight-blue gown laced with dull silver and put silver slippers on her feet. Then they scraped her curly hair up into a coiffure so rigid that she felt like she could lower her head and run one of them through like an angry bull. They gave her a necklace and earrings of sapphires that looked faded with age, set in tarnished silver, and then they gathered up her old clothes.
Petunia had no particular fondness for her riding habit, but when one white-faced gloating woman tried to fold up her scarlet cloak, Petunia snatched the heavy velvet out of her hands. The woman actually hissed at her, like a cat, but Petunia would not let go.
“I will kill you if you touch it again,” she snarled at the woman.
Her heart was racing, not just because she wanted to keep her cloak, but also because she didn’t want them to feel the heavy lump in the inside pocket. The pistol-shaped lump. They’d taken her silver dagger with clear distaste, but they had left her specially knitted garters, which seemed to irritate their fingers as they changed her stockings. So the garters had worked a bit, at least, even if they hadn’t prevented her from being brought here.
“There are some who would give a great deal to join us here,” the woman said with a sneer. She seemed to be the leader of the ladies, a tall creature with unnaturally red hair and eyes like chips of ice.
“Name one,” Petunia snapped.
“That maid,” the woman said. “Olga.”
Petunia’s head jerked at the news. She wasn’t all that surprised, just startled at having her suspicions confirmed.
“It will be so nice to have a maid again,” sighed one of the women, a shrill little creature who reminded Petunia of a rat.
“Olga is really that eager to leave the grand duchess and be a maid here?” Petunia could hardly credit such a thing. What sort of appeal did a world without sunlight have for Olga? Especially since she would be the only maid, with more than two dozen cruel mistresses to order her around.
“Well,” the tall leader of the ladies said in an artful voice, toying with the tattered lace of her sleeve. “She may have gotten the wrong impression about the offer. She may have thought she was to be a lady … even a princess.”
Screams of laughter pummeled Petunia’s ears, and she took an involuntary step back, bumping into one of the ladies behind. The woman growled and pushed her back, and Petunia stepped on the hem of her own gown and almost tripped. The leader watched Petunia right herself with hooded eyes.
“You’re very short, aren’t you?” She smirked at Petunia.
“And you’ve got a nose like a stoat,” Petunia replied. “But I can always have my gowns altered.”
“Dinner is in an hour,” one of the other women told her while their leader swelled with anger. “You will eat with the princes.” She gave Petunia a spiteful look, as though angry that Petunia should be so honored.
“And to night there will be a ball, of course,” their tall leader added, now that she had recovered herself.
“Am I expected to dance with all the princes?” Petunia couldn’t resist asking.
“You will dance with your betrothed,” the woman snapped.
“But he isn’t here,” Petunia said, blinking at her innocently.