“But I still don’t understand why part of Westfalin is in Analousia now,” Petunia said after a moment, though really that was the least of her questions.
“Because Gregor took a large portion of the Analousian plains to the north of here,” the dowager countess explained, ever patient. “The vineyards there are unparalleled; even after the battles that were fought in them. As a small concession to Philippe, Gregor gave him this little piece of forest, which straightens the border between our two lands and makes the road easier to access for the Analousians.”
Petunia’s head was spinning. “Oh” was all she could say. She thought about asking why Oliver and his mother didn’t go back to court and demand his rights as an earl now that he was grown and the mystery of the worn-out dancing slippers had been solved (not that the reason behind it had been made public). But she knew how easy it was to get used to things, and how much simpler it was to just continue doing them the way they had always been done. After all, she had danced nearly every night of her life from the time she could walk until she was almost seven years old. And she had liked it, even though she and her sisters were under a curse, because it was all she had ever known.
And when she was eleven and her father sent her halfway around the world to Russaka as some sort of genteel hostage, she hadn’t said a word, either. She had simply gone and smiled and pretended to understand what all the Russakan ladies were saying when they chucked her chin and patted her head as though she were a small dog. It was just too easy to do what you were accustomed to doing.
Not to mention the guilt she felt, knowing that it was at least partially her fault that Lady Emily hadn’t been able to get an audience with King Gregor in the first place. If she and her sisters had found some way to fight back earlier, to defeat the King Under Stone before the rumors of witchcraft and murder, then the kingdom wouldn’t have been in such a shambles after the war.
“Every year it grows harder and harder to stop,” the dowager countess said softly, once again interpreting Petunia’s thoughts. “We talk about it all the time. Or at least, I talk, and Oliver pretends to listen. I try to convince him to go to King Gregor and beg for clemency. But he could be hanged a hundred times over, earl or no earl, for what he has done.”
“If you let me go, I promise to talk to my father for you,” Petunia said, attempting to soothe the older woman. “I’m sure once he hears your reasons it …”
But Lady Emily was shaking her head. “Please don’t, Your Highness. It will only make matters worse if he hears it from you, after Oliver kidnapped you! No, I’ve told my son that this is the catalyst; he must come clean now. It would help if you would put in a good word for us when the time is right, but this is something that Oliver should do himself. After he delivers you safely home. Or wherever it was you were going,” she added.
“Best go there first, yes,” Petunia agreed. “The grand duchess must be frantic by now.”
“The grand duchess?” The dowager countess’s eyes widened. “The Grand Duchess Volenskaya? The Duke of Hrothenborg’s widow?”
“Yes, do you know her too?” Petunia had been wondering if she should ask the dowager countess more about her mother. Petunia barely remembered her mother and knew her mostly through the beautiful gardens that her father had made for his bride.
“By reputation only,” the dowager countess said. “But why, may I ask, are you traveling to her estate? Alone?”
“I met the grand duchess in Russaka a few years ago,” Petunia said. “Now that she is in residence in her Westfalian estate, she asked for me to visit.”
“I see,” the dowager countess said, her voice chill.
Petunia didn’t know what to do. The look on the older woman’s face was frightening her. Still, if the dowager countess had been friend of her mother’s, and she was so kind to Petunia now, surely it would not hurt to ask.
“My lady? Why don’t you like the grand duchess?”
“I don’t know her one way or the other, so cannot like or dislike her,” said Lady Emily stiffly. Then she softened a little. “It … simply … makes me nervous to see someone as young as you traveling alone.”
Petunia was almost certain that that wasn’t what the countess had been thinking.
Guide
Oliver was sitting on the cracked floor of the little chapel when his mother found him.
He often took refuge there. It was barely larger than an outhouse, having been built some seven centuries before to appease the handful of his ancestors’ court who had converted to what must have seemed to be an odd and fleeting new religion, with its single god and its stiffly worded prayers. When the Church had taken a firmer hold on Westfalin, a larger chapel had been built behind the old hall, and the little cubby with its rough altar had been abandoned.
Oliver still liked it, though. It was made of thick stones left over from the outer wall and was very quiet.
“Oliver? Are you in there?”
Oliver hadn’t bothered with a candle, so his mother couldn’t see him sitting cross-legged within, his back to the altar. He sighed heavily in answer, and she came in, blocking the feeble morning light so that Oliver couldn’t see her either.
“Did you spend the entire night here?”
He couldn’t tell from her voice if she was still angry with him, but he assumed that she was. He was still angry with himself.
“No, I slept in Simon’s room,” he said. “But I woke up before dawn and I didn’t want to bother him.”
Simon’s ankle was broken. By the time Karl had gotten Simon into bed and Karl’s wife, Ilsa, had come to look at the injury, the boy’s ankle was three times its normal size and livid with bruises. Ilsa had given him tincture of poppies to help with the pain before setting it, and he was sleeping like the dead still.
His little brother’s injury was on top of botching the robbery, causing the royal coach to crash, and kidnapping the youngest princess. Not Oliver’s finest hour.
If he were more religious, and if the little chapel was still a dedicated place for service, Oliver would have spent the entire night praying. But Oliver was sure that for his many crimes, God had long ago stopped listening to his prayers.
“Simon will be fine,” Lady Emily said softly.
“He should never have been with us,” Oliver replied. “I know you hated it. And now you have the perfect excuse to keep him here.”
“Which he will hate,” his mother said.
“I don’t care if he hates it,” Oliver said roughly. “When he’s healed, we’ll have to find some other excuse to keep him from coming. He was terrible at it, anyway. Maybe I should just tell him the truth. He can’t shoot worth a damn, and he won’t keep his mouth shut.” Oliver felt lower than ever, saying such things about his own brother, but they needed to be said. It was a savage feeling, like pressing a wound to feel the pain.
“Oliver, stop it,” his mother chided. “When Simon is recovered, I am going to have Herr Ohmsford train him to be the next steward. Poor Herr Ohmsford is getting on in years, and I don’t think he’s keeping careful enough accounts of what you bring in and how it’s distributed. I want to make sure everyone has enough, but just enough. There is no sense in getting yourself killed over gold we don’t need.”
“That would help,” Oliver admitted.
He had been trying to do the accounts himself of late, but he never seemed to have enough time. And Simon was excellent with sums and very meticulous for someone his age. He’d long ago finished his schooling, having far outstripped the tutelage of Fraulein Ohmsford, the old steward’s daughter, who was the nearest thing they had to a schoolteacher.