Iron Hearted Violet (21 page)

Surely the girl couldn’t be… but no, thought I. She couldn’t be
Violet
.

I nearly gave voice to that possibility. And would have, had it not been for the King, white-faced and shaking, who uttered this: “The attempts at manipulation and impersonation are not, I believe, unconnected. I do not know the author of this plot, but I fear that it might be the brainchild of our enemy to the north. Therefore, any person claiming to be the Princess is to be immediately jailed and will remain there until this conflict is over. We can only assume that they are spies or worse. Anyone caught mentioning the imprisoned impostors shall also be imprisoned and questioned. If this is an attempt to rattle us and shake our
resolve, it will fail. We will prevail. I will not see my people enslaved to the Mountain King.”

Any concern I had, any inclination toward expressing my theory, died right there. I could not, I decided, risk imprisonment. I was terribly afraid of rats. And so I was silent.

Despite the fact that Violet’s new form was impossibly lithe and narrow, the guards found her difficult to carry due to the mounds of hair cascading from her poor scalp. Indeed, as they spirited her away down the hall and toward that terrible stairway that led to the lower reaches of the castle, her hair grew—it both lengthened and thickened into a great, snaking heap of fragrant black waves. It curled around the feet of the hurrying guards, winding prettily up their legs.

“A little help here,” panted one guard, and three more
guards hurried over, each one taking up an armload of hair. By the time they reached the prison wing, the weight of hair required six strong men just to keep it off the ground.

“I don’t know why you’re bothering locking me up,” Violet said. “It’s not like I can move anyway.”

“Hush, cursed child,” said the guard holding her left arm. “You’ll wait with the rats until you tell us what you’ve done with our Violet.”

Our Violet
, the girl thought.
When was the last time someone has called me that?
She also noted with some fascination the way the guard’s voice seemed to break at the edges of her name.

The contempt, the
sneering
that she had heard so much before she disappeared into the mirror, was gone. Only worry remained.
Why?
she wondered.
What changed?

“But sir,” she began, “I
am—”

“Quiet!” the guard barked. “That’s
enough
.”

They opened the door with a loud creak, the sound of which stirred the other prisoners from their stupor or sleep.

“Let me out of here!” shouted one girl.

“I demand to be set free!” shouted another.

“I am the Princess Violet,” an old woman shouted. “Take me to my father at
once
!”

“You’re not the Princess,” a man said. “
I
am!”

“No,
I
am,” a boy shouted.

“Liars!” shouted yet another girl. “It’s me! I’m the Princess!”

“You see,” said the guard holding Violet’s middle. “You have lots of friends.” His voice was bitter, grief ground to anger in his heart.

“You don’t understand,” Violet said, her words choking in her swollen throat, her wide eyes flowing with tears. “I
am
the Princess. I made a wish. I wanted to be a
real
princess.
Real
princesses are beautiful.”

“
Violet
was beautiful,” the guard holding her left arm said as he carelessly dropped her onto the hard stone floor. He made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a hiccup and a sob. “
Is
, I mean. Is beautiful. You are—well, I don’t even know
what
you are.” The guards filed out, slamming the door behind them, leaving Violet splayed upon the heap of her hair. They stood in the hallway, the backs of their heads framed by the barred opening at the top of the door.

“I am the Princess,” Violet said, struggling to her knees. “A
real
princess.”

“NO!” shouted a girl down the hall. “
I
am the Princess.”

“NO! I am!”

“See.” One of the guards pressed his face between the bars, his expression distorted into a mocking leer. “You’ll have to come up with a more creative ruse. Seems everyone’s the Princess Violet these days.”

Violet teetered on her too-small feet, her balance thrown more and more askew by the weight of her hair. “But… I don’t understand.”

“Of course you do,
Princess.
You are in league with the enemy. You prey upon our fear and our grief. You are the worst kind of coward.”

“No,” Violet faltered, sinking to the floor. “My name is Violet. My mother’s name is Rose. My father’s name is Randall. I was born here in this castle in the winter. My mother said that a violet bloomed in the snow.”

“Enough,” the guard said, slamming the keys against the bars with a cold, hard clank.

“I am Princess Violet!” she shouted.

“NO!” came a voice from down the hall. “I am the Princess!”

“NO, I am,” shouted the girl across the hall.

“NO, I am,” shouted one of the younger guards.

“
Liars!
” Violet shouted. But the guards set their backs on her and marched away into the gloom.

Violet covered her beautiful, cursed face with her hands, sank back on the growing pile of her hair, and wept.

It was no easy feat to drag a boy of Demetrius’s size from the smoky haze of the battlefield into the tunnels. Despite the small stature typical of their kind, Auntie, Nod, and Moth possessed gifts of strength reminiscent of the insect world and were able to carry loads that exceeded their weight. Still, once inside the tunnel, the awkward sway of his bulk, his splayed limbs, and his lolling head all proved to be devilishly difficult.

“Does it really have to be
him
, Auntie?” Moth panted
and heaved. “Couldn’t we have chosen someone smaller? A baby, perhaps?”

“Fancy bringing a baby into a place like this,” Auntie said with a flutter of one hand, as though she wanted nothing better than to give Moth a smack but was prevented from doing so because he was on the other side of the unconscious boy. “There wouldn’t be much of a point to it, in any case. So far we’ve found but two children who can hear us. A fat lot of good it would do to bring an unaware child into the bottom of the castle. It would only wet itself and call for its mother.”

“The boy’s been no use so far. The girl, neither.”

“And yet we try, dear.” Auntie sniffed, saying the word
dear
as though it actually meant
idiot
.

It took nearly an hour for the three of them to push, pull, and heave the boy into a small anteroom with a domed ceiling high enough for him to sit up. Auntie, Nod, and Moth dropped his limbs onto the ground and fell against the sloped stone walls, breathing heavily.

“Now what?” Moth said, rubbing his knees. “I won’t lie, Auntie. These old bones aren’t what they used to be. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to haul the big’un any farther, if you know what I mean.”

“Fortunately for your
bones
, Moth, we will pull no farther,” Auntie said, raising herself to her feet and fixing a hard look at him. Far be it from her to actually
mention
the fact that though he was, truly, both old and feeble, back when he was nothing more than a little bobbin, crawling about on the shoulders of his remaining relatives, Auntie had already lived through five hundred and twenty summers. At
least
. The females of her clan were known for their longevity, but none held on to life more tenaciously than Auntie herself. Her joints cracked loudly, as though to make that point as she approached the unconscious boy. Moth simply grunted.

Auntie crawled up onto the boy, first examining the knot on his forehead—like a hard blue egg—and then peeking under his eyelids and into his mouth and listening at the nostrils.

“Nod, dear,” she said absently, “could you please hand me my bag?”

“Will he be all right, Auntie?” Nod asked, handing the satchel up to the old woman crouching on the mountainous boy. “I hit him terribly hard.”

“Not to worry, my child. The boy inherited his hard head from his grandfather. I once watched that man suffer
a kick from the most enormous horse I’d ever seen. Right between the eyes. He simply shook it off and continued working. This boy will be just fine. Now where is that pigsradish?” She fumbled through the endless pockets inside the satchel, grumbling all the while. Finally she pulled out a twisted little root, about the size of an earthworm. Clutching the boy’s shirt for balance, she held the root under his nose, curled it under her long fingers, and crushed it, allowing it to drip its juices onto the skin between his nostrils and his lip.

The boy snorted, shuddered, coughed, and screamed. Auntie tried to smile, but Demetrius screamed louder, sitting up so quickly that he sent Auntie flying sideways. He hit his head on the stony ceiling with a crack.

“
Ow!
” he moaned.

“
This
is what we’ve put our hopes in, Auntie,” Moth said, shaking his head. “Pardon me if I’m not whooping and hollering and dancing a jig.”

“
Enough
, Moth,” Auntie said, getting to her feet. “I’ve had
quite
enough.”

“It’s you,” Demetrius said, shifting away from the small people on the ground and gingerly bringing his hands to
his injured head. There was a lump on the back of his skull the size of a walnut. “Why can’t you leave me alone?”

“Oh, come now,” Moth said. “You and your little friend have been gallivanting through our corridors, mucking things up, leaving behind your terrible big’un stink—not to mention the crumbs from your stolen sweets—and who do you think cleaned up after your mannerless selves? Old Moth here, that’s who.” The old man glared.

Auntie shook her head. “He’s not angry, dear,” she said, giving Moth a hard look. “Just ornery. He’s been very worried about that lump on your head.”

“No, I haven’t,” Moth said.

“What happened? And what happened to my head?” The lump on the back of his head hurt to touch, but he let his fingers rest on it anyway. He could feel a few crusts of dried blood on one side.

“Oh, that was Nod. He’s stronger than he looks, and the shovel was heavy.”

“Shovel?” Demetrius said. “He hit me on the head with a
shovel
? What’s the matter with you—”

“Oh, now, now,” Auntie soothed. “We only did what we needed to do. You’ll see.”

And in truth, Demetrius believed her. While their initial appearance was shocking, he was no longer shocked. And the feelings written on their faces were plain enough. Worry. Panic. Fear. And the boy was moved.

“What is this place?” Demetrius said, rubbing his head. “And how did you get me here?”

“We are inside the castle. Deep inside. And we must go deeper still,” Auntie said, walking closer to the boy—not so close as to touch him or frighten him, but close enough that he might know that she meant him no harm. “We need your help, child, and quickly, for the situation has gone quite out of control.”

“All thanks to Nod,” Moth said, dolefully seeking in his pockets for his pipe and, finding none, biting at his thumb instead.