The Rat Prince

by Bridget Hodder

  I felt sympathy and shame that this boy—the orphan of our former kitchen maid, who had been supported by my parents until my mother’s death—was now forced to work so hard at such a young age. If I ever succeeded in getting my stepmother out of Lancastyr Manor, I would see that Pye was allowed to enjoy a true childhood.

  Yet at the moment I could do nothing but watch his bent head and dragging steps as he walked away.

  I turned toward the table and leaned upon it, still trying to quiet my limbs, which always shook after Wilhemina struck me. I could not dwell in this moment any longer without giving rein to destructive anger, so I closed my eyes and forced myself to think of the happy days before Wilhemina came to Lancastyr Manor.

  Seventeen years had passed since my birth, and almost sixteen of them had been spent with a young mother who adored me, and with a father—twenty years older than her—who loved us both. In those days, Lancastyr Manor had rung with laughter and music and witty conversation at Mother’s balls and soirées and garden parties.

  With a sigh, I recalled curling up in the charmed circle of Mother’s arms as the two of us shared secrets in the rumpled luxury of her chamber. The memory gave me comfort, so I sought more comfort by remembering how safe I’d once felt while learning to read and write at the knee of my father, Barnaby de Lancastyr. Oh, the cries of pride and delight Papa had given when I wrote my first letters on parchment, in great swirls of violet ink! My parents had taught me how to love and to learn.

  But they had left out an important part of my schooling: what to do when your sweet mother dies in childbirth along with your baby brother. Nor had I been told how to cope when your father then loses his reason and, three months later, weds a wicked woman who threatens the Lancastyrs with ruin.

  I tensed again.

  Despite these gaps in my education, I was learning fast.

  The Rose of those idyllic days had been thrust aside to make way for a new girl named Cinderella.

  She was stubborn, watchful, desperate.

  But she was not yet defeated.

  I decided to look for my father and try once more to rouse him to action. He had a meandering, muddled mind, but upon occasion he took a brief turn for the better. Perhaps today would be one of his good days.

  I meant to find out, just as soon as I mixed up the lemon concoction for my stepsister.

  * * *

  Later, after slathering the lemon potion on an ungrateful Eustacia, I found my father in the library, in his favorite upholstered chair, with a huge book upon his lap. He looked so peaceful it seemed wrong to disturb him. But I knelt by his side on the purple-and-blue Persian carpet and clutched his arm, hoping my timing was right.

  “Papa, I know it’s difficult for you, but please listen,” I begged. “Things cannot continue as they are. I’ve written several times to your old friends Sir Tompkin and Lord Bluehart for help, but they haven’t replied.”

  He kept his gaze on the pages in front of him, and when he spoke his tone was quite ordinary. “Have you heard, Daughter, that beyond the edge of the seas, there are dragons big enough to swallow a man alive? See here, in this atlas—they are painted in the margins of the maps.” He gave a quizzical shake of his head and his curled white wig slipped a bit.

  I reached up to set it aright.

  “Oh. Thank you, my dear.” He looked at me now, but there was no recognition in his stare. “Who might you be? You seem familiar. Is your name Lady Jane?”

  A lump lodged in my throat. “I am your daughter, Rose. Lady Jane was my mother, your wife. I am told that I resemble her. She died a little over a year ago.”

  “No, no, girl, my wife is called Wilhemina,” he corrected, with a forlorn expression. “I could never forget that!”

  Who could?

  “Please try to remember,” I urged. “I am your only child.”

  “I thought I had others,” he said vaguely.

  When had so many lines appeared on my father’s brow? Fretful lines of vain attempts to capture memories that had slipped away, off the edge of the world, perhaps, to be swallowed by the dragons lurking there.

  I hoped they choked.

  “I’m quite sure I have at least one other daughter,” he continued.

  “Eustacia?” I provided the name of my haughty elder stepsister with some bitterness.

  “No, no … Let us consider, allow me to think…”

  But all thought scattered, for at this instant my stepmother swept into the library. Her color was high. “There you are, Cinderella, you headstrong, disrespectful girl. Back to the kitchens!”

  In as quiet and steady a voice as I could muster, I replied, “I have finished my given duties, and I simply desired to spend a moment with my father.”

  “I will endure no more of your disrespect. You will address me as my lady,” Wilhemina insisted, her eyes ablaze. “Say it, Cinderella.”

  At this, my father seemed to revive. He sat up straight. The atlas fell unheeded to the floor. “That’s it!” he roared.

  “What, Papa?” I clasped his hand in mine, hoping against hope.

  “Why, the name of my other daughter, of course,” he declared with a smile. “Cinderella!”

  No, no.

  “Girl,” he said to me then, “is something wrong with your cheek? It’s a bit pink.”

  My stepmother’s long mouth curved upward and she actually laughed, as if savoring her triumph. My father’s comment had underscored the fact that with his mind constantly a-wander, she could continue to abuse the inhabitants of this house as she pleased.

  “Get out,” she said to me, dropping a hand onto my father’s shoulder. “You’re upsetting him.”

  “This is an outrage,” I protested. “Papa, tell her she cannot send me away!”

  “Oh dear, oh dear!” he exclaimed, tears welling up. “What is happening? Who are you, young lady, and why do you worry me so?”

  Wilhemina said, with venom dripping from her tongue, “Cinderella, you simply must stop frightening Lord Lancastyr. You have more duties to perform. Eustacia and Jessamyn have laundry for you to collect and wash. And then, of course, there is the luncheon to prepare…”

  My father hunched his shoulders, looked from Wilhemina to me, and began to cry piteously, like a child.

  I could not prolong his pain or mine.

  Though it tore my heart to do so, I quit the room.

  * * *

  In direct disobedience of Wilhemina’s orders, I did not go to my stepsisters’ chambers to collect their soiled garments and bring them to the laundry, where I would scrub my palms raw cleaning them.

  At this moment, I could not.

  Instead, up the servants’ stairway I climbed, up and up and up, till the carpet ended and the wood of the steps became warped and splintered. At the very top of the stairs, a narrow corridor led to the small chamber where I now slept, one tiny part of the vast maze of attics in Lancastyr Manor. I sighed, pushed open my door, and threw myself upon my cot.

  There were fourteen good bedchambers in my ancestral manse, but Wilhemina had moved Eustacia into my former suite and exiled me to this bare chamber. I hasten to add, the servants of Lancastyr Manor had most comfortable quarters in which to sleep. This was never meant to be a bedroom at all, but a boxroom; it was chokingly hot in summer and freezing in winter. If Mrs. Grigson had not given me several blankets and provided me with a small rug against Wilhemina’s orders, I would have died of the cold in January of that first year.

  I tightened my lips against another wave of hurt. Why on earth had those so-called friends of my family, Sir Tompkin and Lord Bluehart, not intervened before now—or even visited us? And why had they ignored my repeated requests to meet with them? Perhaps my letters had given them cause to think I was a spoiled creature, jealous of a new stepmother. If only I could be granted just a few moments alone with them, to raise the question that had burned in my breast for a year, ever since the afternoon my father and I had met Wilhemina at the dressmaker’s, where we’d g
one to buy my mourning gown: How had her first husband died?

  In the dressmaker’s back parlor on that ill-starred day, two ladies had been gossiping behind their hands about a customer in the next room, a brass-faced widow who had just moved to Glassevale from the provinces. I overheard them saying that the circumstances of her husband’s death were suspicious.

  Later the same week, Wilhemina had appeared uninvited with her daughters at my mother’s funeral, sitting in the back pew and putting on pious airs to catch my father’s interest. Shocked whispers had floated through the quiet air of the church, whispers about her dark past and her bold behavior.

  Three months later, Papa—God help him!—had married her.

  I had repeated the gossip to him, but he would have none of it—further indication that his mind and wits were starting to slip.

  Stuck here in servitude, I could do nothing to discover the facts. Meanwhile, my stepmother had ordered the servants to place rat poison throughout Lancastyr Manor. If any of it were to “accidentally” end up in my father’s food or drink …

  No. I shuddered to think of it. That would never happen, not so long as I kept up my vigil in the kitchen.

  * * *

  I was still caught up in these useless musings when I heard the creak of my door opening.

  “Jessamyn!” I cried.

  This was the first time my nine-year-old stepsister had ever ventured into the attic. She stood there on the rough floorboards in her pretty lavender day gown, glancing about the room with a horrified expression on her round face.

  I hastened to enfold her in a hug. Her childish smell of powder and soap gave me strength somehow.

  “You shouldn’t have come up here, my dear,” I said. “Your mother would be livid if she found out!”

  She embraced me in return before declaring, “I was worried about you! I heard Mamma shouting in the library and I believed you must have fled to your chamber, so I crept up here ever so quietly. No one will miss me.” Her lively face troubled, she gestured at the bare walls and sagging cot. “I don’t like this awful place. You’re the one who should not be here, Rose.”

  How could anyone as unloving and unlovely as my stepmother have brought forth someone as adorable as Jessamyn? Her father must have been a good man. Surely he’d deserved better than Wilhemina.

  We sat down on my cot. It creaked, unsteady under our combined weight. With a hand so calloused by work I could hardly recognize it as my own, I smoothed back her brunette curls. Some of the fine hairs snagged on my rough skin. “Now then, Jessamyn, don’t worry about me. It’s not so terrible in the attic.”

  She wrinkled her nose.

  “How can you say that?” she asked, tears brimming in her brown eyes. “What could be good about a place like this?”

  I considered for a moment before I could summon a believable reply. “When I lie here, I can glance out my window and see the open sky, the sun in the morning and the stars at night.” I gestured toward the tiny cracked windowpanes. “The view frees my heart to dream beautiful things.”

  “What do you dream about?” She sniffled, cuddling her head against my shoulder.

  “Let me see,” I said, smiling. Then the thought arose unbidden: I dream of seeing your mother dragged from Lancastyr Manor in disgrace. My smile faded. That would not do!

  “Rose? Aren’t you going to tell me what you dream about?”

  I came up with a happy answer. “Every night, I have a vision of a handsome prince. He’s clever, and dangerous to his foes, but not dangerous to me. He has black hair and dark eyes, and his crown shines like the stars in the sky. He comes to me and holds out his long, sensitive fingers and says—”

  “Come away with me!” Jessamyn squealed.

  I gave an involuntary spurt of laughter. “Yes! That’s exactly what he says. How did you guess?”

  “I have dreams like that, too,” she said, solemn. “Does he marry you, your prince?”

  “Yes. He marries me and takes me to a big palace with lots of servants who are very kindly treated, and I never have to scrub floors, or wash sheets, or burn my fingers on hot pans ever again,” I said. “Though,” I added, mindful of reality, “we must solve our own difficulties in life, not wait for others to do it on our behalf.”

  “If you meet Prince Geoffrey at the ball, perhaps you will marry him and move to a big palace,” Jessamyn said, beaming.

  I felt a secret pang of longing and regret. Though once I had attended balls and parties, it had been ages since I’d mingled in society. “Oh, Sister, I am not going to the ball. You must know that already. Kitchen girls do not dance with princes.” The words caught involuntarily in my throat.

  Jessamyn gave a small frown. “You are not a kitchen girl. The king invited you; I saw your name upon the card.”

  I was sure Wilhemina had already dreamed up an excuse for my absence from the ball that would satisfy any questioners. Would it be a sick headache? Or perhaps a putrid sore throat? I could think of any number of excellent ailments. “Jessamyn, surely you’ve noticed that since your mother married my father, I have not left the grounds of Lancastyr Manor.”

  “Mamma told me you’re too sad to see anyone since your own mamma died. I heard her telling her friend Lady Harriet that your mother’s death had turned your mind, as it did your father’s. I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. Yet I’m very sorry you miss Lady Jane so much.”

  As she gave me a sympathetic kiss on the cheek, I tried not to grind my teeth. So that was Wilhemina’s explanation for my disappearance from society! How neat were the knots with which she had tied me!

  After a brief, uncomfortable silence, Jessamyn said with determined cheer, “The prince of my dreams doesn’t marry me.”

  “Oh?”

  “He just takes me away from Mamma. He gives me a fluffy white lapdog and bread and honey, as much of it as I like.”

  “When I become a princess, I’ll arrange that for you,” I assured her, with another smile to cover a sudden wave of despair. Then, thank goodness, I was distracted by a scrabbling sound. “Oh, look there!” I pointed. “It’s Blackie and his friend Frump-Bum.”

  “Eeeeeeeeeeeek!” Jessamyn screamed and clung to me. “Rats, rats, rats!”

  Had I truly become so removed from my old life that I’d forgotten how most people would react to the presence of rodents?

  Yes.

  “Don’t be afraid, Jessamyn! They aren’t ordinary rats!”

  She gasped, and almost choked me in her embrace. “They certainly look like them.”

  Poor Blackie and Frump-Bum stood stock-still on their hindquarters, as if assessing the danger from the mad creature on the cot. They were odd, these friendly rats. You’d think they’d have scurried away as fast as they could.

  “No,” I said. “They’re not rats, but pets. I play with them, and they with me. They are tame.”

  “Truly? How can that be?” By her tone, I could tell Jessamyn was not convinced.

  “My father used to say the rats of Lancastyr Manor have always been extraordinary beasts. In fact, when your mother makes me go without meals, they bring me leftovers from the table. Meat pasties, fruit, cakes, bread…”

  Jessamyn’s plump lips formed an O of astonishment, as Blackie and Frump-Bum continued to watch us.

  “There’s something else about my pets,” I said. “When your mother first sent me up here, I was very lonely. One night I was crying, and I heard a scuffling noise. I wondered what it could be.”

  “Was it the rats?”

  “It was Blackie. I was not afraid of him, even though my old nursemaid used to tell me stories about how rats would eat the faces of sleeping babies if you didn’t guard their cradles.”

  “Oh!” Jessamyn clearly hadn’t heard this old wives’ tale before. Her bottom lip started to tremble.

  “It’s not true, of course,” I hastily added. “Just an ignorant tale.” Though I was not quite sure.

  “Tell me more of what your father said about
the Lancastyr rats being special,” she said.

  “He’d heard about the rats as a boy, from his grandfather. Something about them being intelligent or long-lived … different in some way. I have forgotten exactly. My mother laughed when my father spoke of it, and he became embarrassed and did not raise the subject again. However, lately I wonder if there was truth in what he said.”

  Jessamyn gave an impatient bounce. The rats inched forward and stopped. “Why?”

  “Well, that night when I was so unhappy, Blackie padded right up to my bed and did the strangest thing.” I stopped, remembering.

  Jessamyn stared at me.

  I hesitated, then decided to tell the whole truth. “Why, he … he had something in his mouth. Something that glinted in the moonlight. He made a little noise, like nothing I’d ever heard from a rat, and then he sat up, took the object out of his mouth, and handed it over.”

  Yes, Blackie had “handed” it to me, though he did not exactly have hands.

  “What was it?”

  I reached under the bodice of my homespun dress, where I had hidden the thing in a pocket of my muslin shift. I pulled it out and cradled it in my palm so she could see, but not touch.

  “A ring!” she exclaimed.

  Yes. It was a large sapphire, set in heavy, soft, almost pink gold. Etched across the surface of the jewel was a coat of arms.

  “It has a carving on it,” my stepsister breathed in awe.

  “The seal of the Lancastyrs,” I said.

  Together, on the same impulse, Jessamyn and I raised our eyes to look over at the rats.

  They were nearer now.

  Blackie’s dark gaze on me was so intent, I would almost swear he understood what I’d said.

  “But where could the rat have gotten such a thing?” Jessamyn demanded. “Wait. You’re merely teasing me, aren’t you? Oh, Rose, how could you?”

  “I’m not teasing! Blackie gave me the ring. And every time I feel discouraged or tired or hungry, I touch it, and somehow it gives me the strength to carry on.”

  “Don’t let my mother see it,” Jessamyn said, in her wise little voice.