Princess of the Silver Woods (Twelve Dancing Princesses) Page 9

  And then, just when he was expecting his lunch tray, King Gregor sent for him.

  Oliver was taken to the same room where he had first met the king, with its long, dark table and the high-backed chairs full of scowling men. The king was at the head of the table, a broad-shouldered man with wiry gray hair and wild eyebrows at his left, a gentle-faced priest at his right. The men along each side of the table were all uniformly older, grim, and dressed in black. This made the pair sitting at the end of the table all the more striking.

  Opposite King Gregor at the foot of the table was a young man with unfashionably short hair and a pair of silver knitting needles in his hands. By his side in a cushioned chair sat the only woman in the room. She was gravely beautiful, with golden brown hair held up with garnet-studded combs, a gleaming gold watch pinned to the bosom of her green gown. She was untangling a skein of gray yarn with her slender fingers, and Oliver thought that together the two of them looked remarkably like a woodcut he had seen of the Destinies. If the older man seated on the woman’s other side had been holding a knife, with which the Destinies sever the thread of a man’s life, it would have completed the picture. He was toying with a pen, to Oliver’s relief.

  Oliver bowed to the king. “Your Majesty,” he murmured. Then he turned and bowed to the pair at the other end of the table. “Crown Prince Galen, Crown Princess Rose.”

  “Smart lad,” grunted the man with the eyebrows at the king’s side. “I’ll give him that.”

  “If you’re that smart, why did you turn yourself in, hey?” King Gregor barked.

  “Because it was time,” Oliver said.

  “Time to stop stealing from the innocent … time to stop stealing the innocent themselves?” King Gregor’s face was red. “If you did indeed abduct my youngest daughter—and why you would boast about it if you hadn’t, I don’t know—she hasn’t said a word about it, nor has the Grand Duchess Volenskaya von Hrothenborg, who is hosting Petunia at her estate!”

  “My estate, if it please Your Majesty,” Oliver said, cutting across the bluster. He could see how his mother had quailed at the thought of facing the king.

  Gregor thumped the table with his fist. “Still pretending to be an earl?”

  “I am an earl,” Oliver said. “The Earl of Saxeborg-Rohlstein. My father was Caspar Gerhard Saxony, the twenty-fifth earl of Saxeborg-Rohlstein. My mother is the Dowager Countess Emily Ellsworth Saxony, once lady-in-waiting to Queen Maude, may her soul rest in peace. My father died in service to the crown, leading a regiment in the war with Analousia. When my mother brought me to Bruch to be confirmed in my title, she found that my earldom had been divided up and given to others, and Bretoners like herself were being accused of witchcraft.”

  This statement was followed by the sharpest silence Oliver had ever experienced.

  “Your Majesty, I believe that Heinrich might be some help in this matter,” said Prince Galen after the longest minute of Oliver’s life.

  “Heinrich? What would he know about it?” King Gregor looked at his oldest son-in-law in distraction, rubbing at his chin as though trying to scrub the clean-shaven skin right off.

  “The captain of Heinrich’s regiment was the Earl Caspar Saxony,” Galen said. He took the neatly wound yarn from Rose’s hands with a smile and began wrapping it around one of his knitting needles.

  “My father was the captain of the Eagle regiment,” said Oliver. His mother had told him that often and with great pride.

  The king raised one eyebrow, and Oliver saw a sudden similarity to Poppy in the expression and the set of his jaw. “Fetch the boy,” the king snapped at one of the guards.

  What boy? Oliver wondered.

  “To the victor go the spoils, they say,” King Gregor went on after one of the guards had left. “I drew up the border to take whatever spoils I could when the war ended. Which is why I can’t believe I would give Analousia half an earldom.”

  “I’m afraid you did, Your Majesty,” said one of the ministers.

  Everyone in the room turned to stare at the man, who shuffled through some papers on the table in front of him. He absently stuck a pen behind his ear, leaving streak of black ink on his gray hair.

  “Here it is,” he announced. “The earldom of SaxeborgRohlstein was declared defunct, according to this. There are no heirs listed. All dwellings within its borders were declared empty. ‘Estate abandoned, land to be divided,’ it says in your own handwriting, sire. And here is your signature.” He held up the paper for the king’s inspection.

  King Gregor snatched it from his hands and studied it. “That’s my hand, all right,” he said after a moment. “But I don’t remember writing this. Why would I say it was abandoned?” He looked around the room, but no one answered. “I’d been to that estate, with Maude, just before the war. It was a fine place!”

  Oliver wanted to snatch the paper from the king’s hands and throw it on the fire, as though that would do any good. He caught the crown prince looking at him and glared. The crown prince raised his eyebrows and the fingers of one hand, as though urging Oliver to be calm.

  The old minister had more papers to hand to the king. “And here is a copy of the deed giving the estate and surrounding farms to the grand duke as a reward for his service during the war, along with the title of Duke of Hrothenborg.”

  “Blustering fool,” the king said, almost to himself. “Made a terrible duke. Does anyone remember what Hrothenborg did to deserve that?” He looked around. “Anyone?”

  It seemed that no one did.

  “This is highly irregular,” the king remarked, striding around the room. “I’m starting to suspect that it falls into your area of expertise, Galen,” he said to the crown prince.

  Oliver wondered what the crown prince’s area of expertise was, and saw he wasn’t the only one. He saw one of the ministers mouth, “Knitting?” to his fellow, who smirked.

  The man with the impressive eyebrows did not look puzzled but was looking over the papers with great concern. “This isn’t good, Gregor,” he said in a gravelly voice.

  “No, it isn’t, Hans,” the king retorted. “I would like to—”

  “Prince Heinrich,” announced the guard at the door, and Oliver’s question was answered as the “boy” King Gregor had sent for entered the room.

  He was actually a man in his late twenties who walked with a pronounced limp. He looked a great deal like Galen but slightly shorter and more weather-beaten. And, Oliver supposed, to someone like King Gregor, just a boy.

  Oliver himself must appear to be a squalling infant, then.

  Heinrich bowed and nodded all around, and then his gaze fixed on Oliver. “Yes, Your Majesty?” he said to his father-in-law without moving his eyes from Oliver.

  He was married to Lily, the second oldest princess, Oliver remembered. Also, Oliver thought that Heinrich was Galen’s cousin or some other relation, and looking at them made that obvious. He wondered that the two oldest princesses had been allowed to marry commoners—Galen would be the future king! What had they done to deserve such rewards?

  “Heinrich,” King Gregor said. “What was the name of your captain in the war?”

  “The Earl of Saxeborg-Rohlstein, Caspar Saxony, sire,” Heinrich said promptly.

  “Ever talk about his family?” The man was all but shouting at Heinrich, who looked as though it were nothing out of the ordinary.

  “Oh, yes. His wife was foreign, I believe.” Heinrich tilted his head, studying the ceiling as he thought. “I don’t remember her name,” he went on after a moment. “But he always spoke of her with great affection. He had a young son, and then a daughter? Perhaps the youngest was another son …” Heinrich shook his head. “I’m sorry, I just don’t remember much.”

  “Does this young man bear any resemblance?” King Gregor asked gruffly.

  Heinrich stared intently at Oliver, then nodded. “I marked it as soon as I entered, yes.”

  “Very well,” King Gregor said. “You can stay or go.”
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  “I believe I will go,” Heinrich said deferentially. “Lily is not feeling well.”

  “Still?” A cloud passed over the king’s face. “Hans,” he said to the man with the eyebrows. “You could do more good with Lily than here, I’ll wager.”

  “Most likely,” said the other man. He handed the papers to Crown Princess Rose before following Heinrich out of the room.

  “So,” King Gregor barked at Oliver when the door had closed behind them. “You’re an earl. Now I have to find out if I can hang an earl for banditry, or just keep you in prison for the rest of your life.”

  Fugitive

  Two days passed in silence. Oliver wondered if this was to be his punishment: to spend the rest of his life in the attic of the palace, alone, reading the same two books over and over.

  The books were mildly interesting, but he still could not figure out why Princess Poppy had sent them. There were surely plenty of novels and books of poetry in the palace library, so Oliver was convinced that the princess had sent him these particular books for a reason, and he was determined to find it.

  And really, what else was there for him to do?

  One book was a history of Westfalin, beginning before it was Westfalin. Prior to the late fourth century, it had been nothing but a collection of walled cities. Then Ranulf, ruler of the largest city, had united them to fight the Rhwamanes in the south. After the Rhwamanes were defeated, he had declared himself king.

  Oliver felt his eyes glazing over, then something jolted him, and he read one of the passages over again. Ranulf the Second, grandson of the first king, had been closely tied to a sorcerer named Wolfram von Aue. Later, Wolfram von Aue became known as the King Under Stone. The author of the book noted this with some distaste, as though reporting the rumors of magic and evildoing made him less of a historian.

  Tossing that book onto the bed, Oliver scrabbled for the other. This was a slightly more whimsical work on the legends of Westfalin; there was sure to be more about the King Under Stone.

  At last he found what he was looking for. This author not only believed that Under Stone had really done all that the rumors claimed, but was quite obviously afraid of the sorcerer king. The book asserted, as Oliver’s mother had, that the Nine Daughters of Russaka had borne the king’s sons, and it listed three other noblewomen who had done the same.

  “He has at least twelve sons?” Oliver whistled. “And where do they all live? That is a lot of mouths to feed, assuming they eat and …”

  Petunia. Poppy and Daisy. Rose. Lily, Lilac, Orchid, Violet, Hyacinth, Jonquil, Pansy, Iris. Twelve princesses, and the King Under Stone had twelve sons. Would these sons want brides to keep them company in their father’s prison? The author didn’t know much about the prison, saying only that it was all too appropriate that Wolfram von Aue was called the King Under Stone, which wasn’t much help.

  Oliver went to the door and banged on it until the guard opened up.

  “I need to speak to Princess Poppy at once,” Oliver said.

  “No,” the man said and started to close the door again.

  “It’s very important,” Oliver protested.

  The guard shook his head. “You couldn’t even if it was allowed,” he said. “Her Highness has gone visiting.”

  “When will she be back? Could I speak to Crown Princess Rose? Or Crown Prince Galen? Princess Pansy?” Oliver tried to wedge himself through the half-closed door.

  “They’ve all gone,” the man said, pushing him back into the room. “They’re visiting the youngest princess in the south.”

  “At the Grand Duchess Volenskaya’s?” Oliver felt the color drain from his face.

  “Yes,” the man said, and closed the door.

  “Bloody hell,” Oliver whispered, and slumped onto his narrow bed.

  It was a trap. The Grand Duchess Volenskaya was one of the Nine Daughters of Russaka, and she was part of some plot against the princesses, Oliver was sure of it. A plot that had originated with the King Under Stone.

  Oliver put his hands over his face. What was he thinking? If the King Under Stone was real, then he was long dead. Perhaps the grand duchess and her sisters had had some secret lover who braved the walls of their tower, but that hardly meant the old woman was evil.

  Oliver lay back on the bed, his hands still over his face. He needed to stop worrying about Petunia and start worrying about himself and his people. Particularly if his thoughts of Petunia were going to turn increasingly fantastical. If she was in any danger, she could take care of herself, and she was soon to be surrounded by her eleven sisters and her brothers-in-law. He’d known the princess for less than twenty-four hours; it was not his place to rescue her.

  What he needed to know, much more urgently, was if his men were all right. Oliver had known that he wouldn’t be coming back from Bruch, but at the time it had seemed like the right thing to do. It had filled him with a righteous sense of courage. Now that courage was fading, and he wanted to get out of here, to take his men home to their families and see his mother and brother.

  And he wanted to make certain that Petunia was all right.

  He leaped to his feet and started pacing. Thoughts of Petunia clearly could not be brushed aside. She was not all right, and the legends were true. He knew it. He’d seen it in the garden that night. Poppy had tried to give him clues. But there was nothing he could do, trapped in this room.

  He went to the door again and pounded.

  “What?” The guard looked irritated.

  “I need to speak to the king at once.”

  “The king’s done with you now, my lad,” the guard told Oliver, then snapped his mouth shut as if he’d said too much.

  Oliver felt like cold water had been poured over his head. “He’s done with me?”

  “You’re to be sentenced in the morning,” the guard muttered, and he patted Oliver on the shoulder, which was more unsettling than his words. “It’s to be execution. But not hanging,” he hastened to add. “Firing squad, as befits an earl.” He seemed to think this would comfort Oliver.

  “And my men?” Oliver could barely choke out the question.

  “Hanging,” the guard said, his eyes full of sympathy.

  “When?”

  “Soon. The king will want to do it while the princesses are gone. It would upset them.”

  “Yes,” said Oliver. “I suppose it would.”

  He went to lie down again. What else was there to do?

  “Do you … want anything?” the guard asked. “Something to eat? Or … to see a priest, maybe?” Having told Oliver that he would be dead before the end of the week seemed to have made the guard uncomfortable.

  “No, thank you,” Oliver said. Then he sat up again. “Wait! Could I speak to one of the gardeners?”

  “One of the gardeners?” The guard stared.

  “Yes, a gardener named Walter Vogel.”

  The guard shook his head. “I’m sorry, Walter’s been gone for years.”

  “Oh.” There went his mother’s last piece of advice, Oliver thought. And just as well: what could a gardener do to change the mind of a king?

  “Well, if you think of anything else—” the guard began.

  A commotion at the end of the passage caught the man’s attention. “Sorry,” he said to Oliver, before closing the door.

  “It’s all right,” Oliver said to the empty room.

  “Is it really?” The voice came from near the window.

  Oliver was on his feet in an instant, groping at his waist for a pistol, a knife … But there was nothing on his belt and nothing by the window, either. Who, or what, had spoken?

  “What are you?” he demanded.

  “Just a man,” said the voice quietly.

  And then Prince Heinrich was standing in front of the window, one hand holding the collar of a dull purple cavalry cape that looked incongruous with his blue suit.

  “I want to help you,” he said.

  “How … how did you do that?” Oliver stamme
red.

  “It’s this,” Heinrich said.

  Oliver flinched as the commoner-turned-prince reached up and fastened the cape, disappearing from view. He reappeared again, opening the cape with a wry smile.

  “It’s not mine,” he said, sounding apologetic. “Galen let me borrow it.”

  “Oh,” was all Oliver could think to say.

  “I want to help you,” Heinrich said again. “Help you escape, that is.”

  Oliver stared at him in astonishment. “You want to help me? But the king is about to sentence me to death! The king—your father-in-law!” Oliver made an effort to keep his voice down. “And what about my men? They have families who need them.”

  “They’re being freed right now,” Heinrich said, looking more embarrassed … then Oliver realized it wasn’t embarrassment: the prince looked guilty.

  “They are? But why? Why are you doing this?”

  Oliver wondered if this was some sort of test. If he stayed in his room with the door unlocked and the guard gone, would the king reward his honesty?

  “Your father saved my life,” Heinrich said, and in that instant the guilt was gone, replaced by a ferocity that caused Oliver to take a small step back. “He was one of the greatest men I have ever known. He died for me, for all of us in the Eagle Regiment. I will not let his son die for something he could not control.”

  “I could have—” Oliver began.

  Heinrich was shaking his head. “It’s not your fault that your estate was taken from you. Or that you had to turn to banditry to support your people.”

  “But it was still banditry,” Oliver said, though he wasn’t really sure why he was arguing with someone who wanted to help him.

  Heinrich’s gaze was far away now, seeing other rooms or perhaps a battlefield.

  “My father-in-law is not a cruel man,” Heinrich said. “Though he is sometimes too hasty. In a few days he will regret executing you and then it will be too late. But if you are not here to be executed …”

  “Won’t that just make him even angrier?”