Princess of the Midnight Ball Read online

  Princess

  of the

  Midnight

  Ball

  Jessica Day George

  For Jenn

  Finally

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Soldier

  Bruch

  Princess

  Ill

  Plan

  Gardener

  Solution

  Spania

  La Belge

  Hothouse

  Dancer

  Spy

  Breton

  Shawl

  Interdict

  Suitor

  First night

  Twigs

  Needles

  Second night

  Goblest

  Governess

  Third night

  Sand

  Riot

  Angier

  Prisoner

  Warrior

  Black Wool Chain

  Truth

  Spring

  Pronunciation guide

  Acknowledgments

  Also by the Author

  Imprint

  Prologue

  Because he had once been human, the King Under Stone sometimes found himself plagued by human emotions. He was experiencing one now, as he faced the mortal woman before him, but it took a moment for him to give it a name. After a pause he labeled it “triumph.”

  “Do you understand our bargain?” The king had a voice like a steel blade breaking on stone.

  “I do.” The human queen’s voice was steady. “Twelve years will I dance for you here below, and in return Westfalin shall be victorious.”

  “Let us not forget the years you still owe me,” the king said. “Our first bargain is not yet fulfilled.”

  “I know.” She bowed her head in weariness. There were dark circles beneath her eyes and gray in her hair though she was a young woman still.

  The King Under Stone stretched out his long white hand and lifted her chin. “What a pity your daughters do not join you at our little fetes,” he said. “Such lovely girls, I am sure. And my twelve sons are pining for companionship.” Again the feeling of triumph: the idea of these mortal girls dancing with his sons. There had always been the little problem, as his sons grew older, of where to find them brides.

  Beautiful brides who could walk in the sun.

  And then this mortal queen had come to him, begging for aid in bearing children with her fat, foolish husband. She had borne seven daughters so far, and once she had borne a dozen, Under Stone had decided that he would find a way to bring the girls below to meet their future husbands.

  A look of horror spread across the queen’s face at his suggestion. “My d-daughters are s-sweet, honorable girls,” she stuttered. “And young. Too young to be married!”

  “Ah, but my sons are young, and their dear mothers were all sweet, honorable women, just like yourself and your little daughters! And my princes do long for companions of their own kind.” Each of Under Stone’s sons had been born to a mortal woman, and he wanted their wives to be mortal as well. The King Under Stone brushed back a stray curl of the queen’s hair.

  She drew back. “Are we finished? I must go… the children… my husband….”

  “Yes, yes.” He waved a long hand. “Our bargain is made. You may go.”

  She turned and hurried away. Away from the black palace on the shadowy shore. A silent figure, cloaked and hooded, rowed her across the sunless lake in a silver filagree boat and escorted her to the gate that led to the sunlight world.

  The King Under Stone smiled as he watched Queen Maude hurry away. She would be back. She had to come back, every week. But that was not what made him smile. She had concealed her condition for quite some time, but as she settled into the boat it became apparent that the human queen was expecting her eighth child, precisely on schedule.

  “Another precious little princess for her and her darling Gregor,” Under Stone said, the cold semblance of human feeling just barely tingeing his voice. “And another beautiful bride for one of my sons.”

  Soldier

  Exhausted almost beyond the point of thought, Galen nevertheless kept moving forward, alone in the middle of the dusty road. In his head he sang the marching song of his old regiment, but his feet stumbled more than they marched.

  Left, left, left, left, left my wife and children too! Did I do right, right, right, right, right?

  He laughed a little to himself. He was not quite nineteen years old, and he had spent most of his life on the battlefield. He had no wife or children to leave, only filthy tents, bad food, and death. Before him lay the endless road, dust, thirst, and life. Or so he hoped.

  He drank the last swig of water from his canteen, hung it back on his belt, and stumbled on. The wind bit through his worn soldier’s coat; winter was coming.

  All around him were fields that had lain fallow for years. In one, turnips that some hopeful family had planted had rotted in the earth with no one to harvest them. In another, the weeds were as tall as Galen. A cow and her calf were feasting there, and Galen veered from his path, taking a step toward them. They looked abandoned, so no one would mind if he filled his canteen with milk. But when he took a second step in their direction, the cow lowed with alarm and trotted away, her calf at her heels. She had been running wild for too long to suffer being milked.

  With a sigh, Galen continued on. Every so often he came across other soldiers heading home. He would share a meager meal and camp with them overnight, walking for a while the next morning in the familiar company of other exhausted fighting men in blue tunics. But Galen never stayed with these other soldiers for long, something that they found very odd. It was said that in the heat of battle strangers became brothers and the bond was not severed by death or distance. Galen had never felt that way, though. He had seen his first battle when he was seven years old, had helped his mother care for the wounded and watched her wash enemy blood out of his father’s uniform afterward. To Galen, war was a disease, something to be avoided, not something he wanted to talk about with other afflicted men over the campfire.

  Sometimes women or men too old to join the fight would offer him a ride in their cart. They often wanted to know if he had met their son or husband during the war. It was rare that he had: the army was vast, and Galen’s regiment had been from the city of Isen, far from these fields and forests.

  Galen told people what he could, making light of the conditions the soldiers had lived in and celebrating with them over the end of the war. Westfalin had defeated the Analousians at last, but it was a grim victory. After twelve years at war, the country was deeply in debt to her allies, and many soldiers would not be returning home. Or, like Galen, they no longer had a home to return to.

  The son of a soldier and an army laundress, Galen had been born in a cottage that looked out on the training grounds where his father marched in drills all day long. When he was six, the Analousians had attacked, and Galen’s father’s regiment had been sent to the front lines. His mother, the daughter of a soldier herself, had packed up Galen and his baby sister and joined the supply train. She had scrubbed blue tunics and darned gray socks right up until the day the lung sickness—a gift of the damp and cold—had claimed her life. Galen’s little sister, Ilsa, had also suffered from lung sickness. She had recovered, but her breath often came short, and so she had ridden on the supply wagons during the marches. She was killed when the wagon she was riding slipped off a steep mountain road in the rain and fell into the river below.

  By that time Galen was twelve. He had been working with the soldiers since his eighth birthday: fetching powder and shot, reload
ing rifles and pistols, carrying messages from the generals to the field marshals. He could shoot a rifle or pistol, use a bayonet, peel potatoes, splint a broken leg, shine boots, wash shirts, and knit his own socks. He could also spit six feet with great accuracy, swear like the best of the sergeants, and scream insults at the Analousians in their own tongue. His father had been very proud.

  Galen’s father made sergeant, and then lost his life to an Analousian bullet one morning when Galen was fifteen. Galen had buried him in the common grave dug after that battle, shouldered his father’s weapons, and marched away to the next skirmish. He didn’t know it, but just a week later, he shot the man who had killed his father, putting a bullet neatly into the same place his father had been shot—an inch to the left of the heart.

  Those days were past, God be praised, and Galen hoped to never kill another man. He was headed north and east, away from Analousia and toward the heart of Westfalin. He hoped to find his mother’s family in the capital city of Bruch. With so many men lost in battle, Galen prayed that there might be a place for him at his aunt’s house, and in the family business as well. He couldn’t quite remember what his mother had said it was, but he thought that his uncle did something with trees. It seemed strange that he would find much work as a woodcutter in the heart of the city, but Galen wasn’t picky. He needed work, and food, and a place to rest his weary bones.

  “Oh, my weary, weary bones!”

  Galen stopped trudging with a start as someone echoed his thought. On the side of the road, a bundle of rags rearranged itself into a very old woman in a tattered dress and shawl. She stared up at Galen with bright blue eyes, her back bent and humped.

  “Hello there, young soldier!”

  “Hello there, goodfrau,” he replied.

  “I don’t suppose you have anything for an old woman to eat?” She smacked her lips, revealing very few teeth.

  With a groan Galen took off his pack and laid it on the ground. He groaned even louder as he lowered himself to sit next to the old woman. “Let’s see, shall we?”

  He didn’t feel, as some other soldiers did, that the rest of the country owed him something. They had fought a war, true, but it was their job. The civilians had continued their jobs as well. Seamstresses had sewed, blacksmiths shod horses and made nails, those farmers not pressed into service had continued to farm. And Galen’s parents had instilled in him a deep respect for women and his elders, and the ancient creature before him was both.

  He rummaged in his pack. “I’ve drunk the last of my water, but I do have a swallow of wine here in this skin,” he said, laying it before them. “I have three hard biscuits, a wedge of old cheese, and a packet of dried meat. I also have some late berries I picked this morning.” He felt a pang at offering these up: he had been saving them as a special treat. But he would feel even worse if he denied this old woman something that might give her pleasure as well.

  “Not enough teeth for the dried meat, or the biscuits,” she said, grinning to reveal even more gaps than Galen had noticed before. “But I wouldn’t mind a little cheese and wine, just like the fancy folks in the palace feast on.”

  Galen had two of the hard biscuits, and wished afterward that he had not. He had no water, and the old woman swallowed the wine in one gulp. Then she ate the cheese with much eye rolling and lip smacking, until he found himself smiling at her gusto.

  Arching one eyebrow, the crone looked at the berries. “Care to share, dearie?”

  “Of course.” Galen pushed them closer to her. She took a handful and slipped them into her mouth one at a time, savoring them as she had the cheese and wine. Glad that she had not taken the entire bag for herself, Galen scooped up his portion and ate them with equal pleasure.

  “Returning from the war, are you?” Now that her hunger was sated, the old woman looked Galen over.

  “Yes, goodfrau,” he said shortly. He didn’t want to know the name of the grandson, or great-grandson, who had been lost to an Analousian bullet.

  He rewrapped the remaining biscuit, folded the cheese cloth and the berry bag, and stowed everything neatly in his pack. He put the wineskin on top, hoping to beg a swallow or two at the next farmhouse. “I was on the front lines.” Galen wasn’t sure why he added this, but it was his one source of pride. He had been to the front lines, and he had survived.

  “Ah.” The crone shook her head sadly. “A bad business, that. Worse than it needed to be, you know.” She laid a finger alongside her crooked nose, winking.

  Galen shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  She just sucked her teeth and nodded wisely. “Just you remember: when you make a deal with them as lives below, there’s always a hidden price.” She nodded again.

  “I see,” Galen said in confusion. “Thank you.” He didn’t see. In fact, he thought the crone was quite senile, but it was hardly any of his concern. “I’d best keep on while there’s still daylight,” he said, standing up and shouldering his pack.

  “Indeed, indeed, for the nights are cold,” the old woman said, clambering to her feet as well. She shivered and wrapped her thin shawl about her shoulders. “The days are cold, too.”

  Galen didn’t hesitate. He unwrapped one of the scarves around his neck and offered it to her. It was blue wool, and very warm. “Here, granny, take this.”

  “I could not deprive you, poor soldier,” she said even as she reached for it.

  “I’ve another,” he said kindly. “Plus wool and needles, should I wish to make more.”

  Holding the scarf up to the weak sunlight, the crone admired the tight knitting. “Make this yourself, did you?”

  “Aye. There’s time enough between battles to knit a dozen scarves and a hundred stockings, as well I know.” He gave a little bark of laughter.

  “I thought soldiers spent their idle time dicing and wenching.” She gave a surprisingly girlish giggle.

  “Dicing and wenching is all very well, but it doesn’t do you much good when there are holes in your socks and snow falling through the holes in your tent,” he said grimly. Then he shook off the memory. “Wear it in good health.”

  Galen wished that he had a shawl to give her, for the one she wore had great snags in it. But the only shawl he had ever knit had been given to a general’s daughter with soft brown eyes.

  “You have been very kind to an old woman,” she said, “very kind.” She wrapped the scarf around her neck with the ends hanging down to protect her thin chest. “It is only fitting that I repay your kindness.”

  He shook his head, bemused. What could she possibly give him? “That’s not necessary, goodfrau,” he assured her as her gnarled fingers fumbled under her shawl.

  “Oh, but it is,” she said. “In this cruel world kindness should always be repaid. So many people passed by me today and yesterday, without a gentle word or a morsel of food. And you have a look about you that I like.”

  She tugged at something behind her back, and his mouth gaped open. He had taken her for a hunchback, but now she pulled a bundle of cloth out of the back of her dress and held it up.

  It was a short cloak, not unlike something an Analousian officer might wear. But instead of the green of the Analousian uniform, this was a dull purple color. It had a high, stiff collar and a gold chain to fasten it. The crone shook it, and Galen saw that it was lined with a pale gray silk.

  “You should wear this yourself to keep warm,” he said.

  The crone cackled. “What, and be run over by a farm wagon? It’s madness to travel in such a thing!”

  Galen pursed his lips. The poor old woman really was quite out of her head. He wondered if he should help her to the next village. Surely someone would recognize her; she couldn’t have wandered far, at her age.

  She leaned forward and said in a loud whisper, “It’s an invisibility cloak, boy. Try it.”

  He looked around helplessly, but there was neither cottage nor barn to be seen in any direction. “I really shouldn’t—Perhaps we should find your family.”


  “Try it!” She shrieked like an angry crow and flapped the cloak at him. “Try it!”

  He held up his hands in surrender. “All right.” He took the cloak from her gingerly and threw it about his shoulders. It caught on his pack and he pulled it free impatiently. “There! How do I look?” He held out his arms. As nearly as he could tell, he was not invisible.

  Rolling her eyes, the crone shook her head. “You must fasten it.”

  Not wanting to upset her again, Galen took the dangling end of the chain and fastened it to the gold clasp on the collar. He made to flourish the edges of the cape for dramatic effect but gave a yell instead. He couldn’t see his arms. Looking down, he couldn’t see any part of himself at all: only two footprints in the dust.

  The old woman clapped her hands in delight. “Wonderful! It fits like a dream!”

  “I’m invisible,” Galen said wonderingly. He walked in a circle, watching his footprints in the dust.

  “So you are, but listen to me, boy. It’s dangerous being invisible.” For the first time she sounded truly lucid, following his footprints with her eyes. “You can be trampled by horses or countless other things. This cloak is not to be used lightly, but only in times of real need.”

  Galen unfastened the cloak and watched his body ripple into view. With great reluctance he tried to hand the cloak back to the old woman. “I couldn’t take something like this from you, goodfrau,” he said respectfully. “This is a magical treasure of some kind. You should guard it carefully, or find a magician or some such to sell it to. You could buy yourself a new dress, a cottage even, with the money from something like that.”

  The crone slapped him before he could duck. “The cloak is not for sale, no matter if I starve to death. It’s to be given to the one who needs it most. And that’s you, soldier.”

  He shook his head to clear away the sting from her slap. “But I have no need for it,” he said, trying again to give it back. “I’m just a soldier, as you say, or at least I was. I don’t have a home or a sweetheart or even work.”

  Pushing his hands away, the old woman cocked her head to one side. “You’ll need this, and more.” Again she rummaged among her rags, and this time pulled forth a large ball of white wool and a smaller one of black. “The black is coarse, but strong,” she said. “The white is soft, but warm and strong in its own way. One can bind, the other protect. Black like an iron chain, white like a swan floating on the water.” She pressed them into his hands, and he nearly dropped the wool and the cloak. “Black like iron, white like a swan,” she repeated, staring meaningfully into his face.