Princess of the Midnight Ball (23 page)

“Shut up,” the captain said, and smacked the back of Galen’s head with one hand.

Galen twisted in the grip of the captain’s single restraining hand and finally broke free. In one quick movement Galen whipped the invisibility cloak around himself and fastened the clasp. The captain gasped as Galen disappeared before his eyes, and Galen backed slowly away from the man, keeping to the carpeted center of the passageway so that his boots wouldn’t make any noise.

Ducking into the first room he came to, he tried to shut out the shouts of the captain as he roused the rest of the household guards. Finding himself in the music room, which overlooked the front gates, Galen hastened around the pianoforte to lean over a small sofa by the window. The regiment of soldiers standing in the courtyard had not moved, and now Galen could see beyond them to the gates. It looked like the whole city of Bruch stood there, shaking their fists and chanting, “Hang the witch!”

Galen turned away and went back into the corridor. The guard was farther down the hall, opening and closing doors, looking for Galen. Galen crept past him and went down the back stairs to the kitchens. In the shadows just outside the baize
kitchen door he pulled off his cloak and shoved it into his satchel.

Counting on the fact that the kitchen servants would be the last to know that he was under arrest, Galen strode in as though he hadn’t a care in the world. The head cook quickly beckoned him over to the stove in the far corner, where a large black pot bubbled merrily away.

“The chain shrunk,” she said in a whisper.

“It’s supposed to,” he assured her.

With a wooden spoon she fished out the black wool, wrapped it in a towel to wring out some of the water, and then handed the wet thing to Galen.

He fingered the links carefully. They were thicker and harder, but smaller. He couldn’t poke a finger between the stitches anymore. In fact, the wool appeared solid: no stitches were in evidence. It was exactly as he had wished, even down to the sharp smell of the herbs it had been boiled with.

“My dear goodfrau, you are a gem,” Galen told her. He kissed her round cheek, stuck the chain in his bag, and went out the kitchen door into the garden.

He picked himself new sprigs of basil and nightshade, for what he hoped was the last time, and then he used some ivy to climb over the garden wall. He considered putting the cloak on again, but the streets at the back of the palace were deserted.

Making his way to his uncle’s house, he saw that there was mud spattered on the pink stucco, and the window boxes on the ground floor had been ripped off and thrown in the streets.
It seemed that, unable to reach the palace itself, some of the protestors had taken out their ire on the head gardener of the King’s Folly.

The door was locked, and Galen had no key, so he knocked. It took a few moments for anyone to answer, but at last Uncle Reiner opened the door a crack, a suspicious look on his face. Seeing that Galen was alone, he grudgingly stood aside to let him in.

“Are you well, sir?” Galen asked. “And Tante Liesel and Ulrike?”

Reiner nodded.

“What of the other gardeners? Walter?”

“I sent word for Walter and the others to stay at home for the time being,” Reiner grunted. “I had hardly gotten two steps from the door this morning when a group of rabble-rousers swept by me. Have they broken into the palace?”

“They’re still outside the gates,” Galen said. “But I don’t know how long they’ll be content to simply stand there and shake their fists.”

Reiner shook his head, his face grim. “To think that it should have come to this,” he muttered. “Throwing mud and rocks at
my
house, shouting obscenities at the palace… disgraceful!”

Ulrike came down the stairs, and her face brightened when she saw Galen. “Oh, thank heavens!” She rushed over and gave him a hug. “Please say you’re back for good.”

“I’m afraid I’m just here to get some things, then I’ll be going back to the palace,” Galen said gently.

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Uncle Reiner huffed. “You
have already humiliated me by getting yourself involved in this strangeness with the princesses, and I will let it go no further.

“You need to keep your head down and work at the tasks given you: hoeing the soil and caring for the king’s garden. Forget these princesses with their odd ways.”

“It isn’t the king’s garden, and they aren’t the princesses’ odd ways,” Galen said quietly. “They’re the queen’s. The garden was for her, and all this trouble”—Galen made a sweeping gesture with his arms—”is because of her as well.”

“We do not speak ill of the dead in this house, boy,” Uncle Reiner warned.

“She cursed her own daughters,” Galen retorted, his voice gaining heat. “Cursed them from the day they were born. I even wonder if the King Under Stone didn’t
start
the war so that he could gain a firmer hold on them.”

“What are you talking about?” Reiner’s face had gone from angry to confused, and Ulrike was staring with her mouth open.

Galen couldn’t stop, though. He hadn’t slept more than a pair of hours in the past few days, and all the things he had witnessed were coming together in his head. Besides which, the shouts and screams of the mob had taken him back to his days in the war.

“The war, the dancing, the rumors of witchcraft, it all comes down to this: the King Under Stone wants Rose and her sisters for his sons, and he doesn’t care how many mortals die to get them.” Galen stared over Uncle Reiner’s shoulder, his teeth gritted.

“Stop raving, boy,” Reiner said. “Go to your room and lie
down, and when this all clears over, I’ll see about letting you work with me again. Go.”

Galen went, but he didn’t lie down. He changed out of his suit and back into his army uniform. On a heavy belt buckled over his blue soldier’s coat he wore a pair of pistols and a long knife. Another knife was concealed in his right boot. He emptied out his satchel and then repacked it with the silver needles, the goblet, and the bag of black sand. On top of that he put extra powder and shot for the pistols and his rifle.

He put on the satchel, making sure that it didn’t interfere with the pistols. Then he shouldered his rifle and swung the cape over it all. Invisible again, he went down the stairs and along the front hall. As he passed the sitting room, he could hear the rumble of Reiner’s voice and caught his own name.

“He’s gotten himself into trouble, Liesel,” Reiner was saying. “If he wasn’t family—”

“But he is,” came Tante Liesel’s fluting voice. “And we have to help him.”

“Who said he was in trouble? He’s just trying to help his friends.” That was Ulrike.

“You don’t understand,” Reiner said. “It’s Heinrich all over again. Galen and the eldest princess—”

But Galen didn’t wait to hear any more. There was nothing he could say that would convince Reiner that Rose was innocent, and that Galen was just trying to help her. The only thing to do was to stop this and free the princesses of their curse. Galen slipped out the front door and made his way down the street.

From the gardens, all at the palace appeared to be in order. There was no sign of the mob, or anyone else for that matter. Galen hoped to see Walter come stumping down one of the paths with a wheelbarrow, whistling a jaunty tune. But the old man appeared to have taken Reiner’s advice and stayed home.

Galen stowed his cape and went through the kitchen door, with a nod and a smile for the head cook, then up the stairs to the princesses’ sitting room. If the rug truly wouldn’t turn into a stair during the day, he was going to seek out Walter at his home.

There was a guard blocking the sitting room door.

Galen stuffed his hands in his pockets, hiding the pistols at his hips. “Mind if I go in and have a look around?”

“No one is allowed in,” the guard said, staring at Galen’s musket and uniform.

“The princesses haven’t returned, have they?” Galen didn’t
think this likely, but he wanted to know why someone was guarding an empty room.

“No, they have not,” the man said, and a touch of concern colored his voice. “Look, young gardener… or whatever you are: just be on your way. There’s nothing you can do here.”

“All right,” Galen said, showing reluctance. He went back out through the kitchens, and then to the south side of the palace. Putting on his cloak yet again, he carefully climbed the ivy trellis and made his way into the sitting room through an unlatched window.

Where he found Bishop Angier spreading out the princesses’ jewelry on the card table. The scraping of Galen’s boots on the windowsill, and the thump he made as he landed on the floor, made the bishop look up.

Directly at Galen.

“Ah, the soldier-turned-gardener. I should have known,” the bishop said.

Shocked, Galen froze.

Even more bizarre, the bishop drew a pistol from his robes and aimed it at Galen’s heart. “Please take it off.”

Seeing Galen’s consternation, Bishop Angier held up his left hand to display a large ring set with a deep purple stone. He smiled at Galen. “A witch-hunter’s tools are many and varied. For instance, amethyst enables me to see through enchantment. I haven’t bothered with it before now, though. The princesses seemed more stubborn than clever. But you, with your foolish grin and your endlessly clicking knitting needles, I knew that you could not possibly be as dim as you appear.”

“Oh,” Galen said. It was all he could think to say.

“Your cloak,” Angier reminded him. “I’d like to be able to look you in the eyes more comfortably.”

Galen took it off and draped it over one arm.

“Come along,” Angier said.

Galen went where he was ordered: down the hall, past the startled guard who Galen now realized was there to keep the bishop from being interrupted, and into the bishop’s rooms. Angier motioned Galen to a chair and then sat across from him, his pistol still at the ready.

The sitting room looked out on the front gardens, where the mob had been when Galen had left earlier. There was no sound of shouts now, however, and Galen strained to see outside without rising from his chair.

“You need have no fear of the mob,” Angier said, following Galen’s gaze. “I took care of them.”

Galen felt a lurch of distrust. “How?”

“I assured them that the witch would hang tomorrow morning, and that the Interdict would be lifted as soon as I was satisfied that there was no further taint on the royal house,” the bishop said coolly. “I promised to lead next Sunday’s first mass myself.” He smiled. “A week should give the king plenty of time to abdicate, don’t you think?”

“Abdicate?” Galen felt cold. “But the king is innocent! And so is Fraulein Anne!”

“Of course she is,” Angier said, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. “But we can’t very well hang dead Queen Maude, now, can we? And the king’s abdication will be a blow, I’m sure, but
the people will come to see the wisdom of it in time. The entire royal family is tainted by this witchcraft and vastly unfit to rule an otherwise godly nation like Westfalin.”

Galen’s thoughts roiled. Angier wasn’t lying: the bishop was going to execute Anne and put pressure on King Gregor until he gave up his throne. Galen swallowed the bile that rose in his throat, and concentrated on the pistol pointed at him. He had to get out of here, and soon. It was already past noon, and Galen had no idea what Rose was going through in the kingdom Under Stone.

“Your Excellency,” Galen said as calmly as he could. “Please, I only want to help the princesses.”

“Help? With your filthy magic cape? You are probably the one who is hiding them from me!”

Galen decided to lay his cards on the table. He needed the bishop to be on their side. “No, Your Excellency! I swear I don’t know any magic. I am only trying to save the princesses from the King Under Stone. I was given this cloak by one of the magicians who imprisoned him.”

“The King Under Stone!” Angier snorted. “A fairy tale used by nasty little witches to cover up their own evil machinations. There never was a King Under Stone, boy. It’s nothing but lies.”

“Then who did Maude make the bargain with?” Galen pointed at the diary on the table with his chin.

A mistake. The bishop swelled like a bullfrog.

“You’ve been trespassing with your little cape, I see,” he hissed. “Now, tell me where the princesses are!”

“I told you: they are in the prison-realm of the King Under Stone!”

“Liar!” Angier howled.

“You have the proof right there, in Queen Maude’s own diaries,” Galen said heatedly. “You must help me free them!”

“Abominations and lies!” Angier shook his head, jowls quivering. “You will hang for your witchcraft, boy, even if we can’t prove that you abducted those poor misguided young women.”

“I never would have hurt them,” Galen said hotly. “I’ve been trying to gather information so that I could help. I came here yesterday—” Galen stopped as the bishop looked beyond him.

“Thank you, Captain, we’re done,” Angier said, lowering the pistol.

Galen lurched to his feet, one hand on the pistol at his belt, spinning around to see … nothing. There was no one behind him.

“Stupid boy.” Angier laughed.