But just what was I going to do with it now?
25
If I’d been Jed, I probably could have stood there by my tunnel for hours pondering the point of my life. But I didn’t have that luxury. I was out of the dungeon, but certainly not out of danger. Trying to stay in darkness as much as possible, I crept along the castle wall to the boulevard that faced it. But the boulevard was wide and open and lit by ever-burning torches. I found an alley instead.
As I inched my way through the shadows—stepping on a cat’s tail once, knocking over garbage pails twice—I tried to formulate a plan. The first thing I had to do was get rid of my dress. Though a bit soiled by a week in the dungeon, it was still clearly a royal thing, made with shimmery gold thread and fitted as no common clothes were. Anyone who saw me in it would notice. But a girl running around naked would stand out even more.
I prayed for the sight of a clothesline, with even a peasant tunic hanging on it. But then I stepped in a puddle up to my ankles, bringing back an awareness of weather that I’d totally forgotten in the castle. Puddles meant it had rained, which meant no self-respecting peasant would have laundry hanging out.
And anyhow, I would have felt bad about stealing something that may have been some poor woman’s only belonging. It wasn’t like I could have left her my dress in trade.
I had to go to Lucille’s.
Even as I adjusted my course—turning down one alley after another, trying to head for the edge of the city that surrounded the castle—I marveled that I was thinking of the house I’d grown up in as Lucille’s now, not as mine. I’d lived in the castle only two months. Was that all it took for me to relinquish my home? Of course, I’d left without a backward glance when the prince was at my side and I thought he was the man of my dreams. But now . . . I considered my emotions the way someone with a pulled tooth might explore the hole with his tongue. It was true. My fervor was gone. Home wasn’t home anymore.
I slipped into the countryside beyond the city, and reflected that it was good I wasn’t longing for home anymore. My old house would be the least safe place for me to stay. Once morning came and they started looking for me, I’d never be able to go home again.
This thought did cause me a pang, but I only walked faster. I was following the same path I’d taken the night of the ball, but that had been in early spring, and now it was the height of summer. The leaves that were only beginning to bud then were now full-fledged and luxurious. As I ducked under a low branch, one leaf came off against my shoulder. Whimsically I picked it up, planning to tuck it into my bag as a memento. But it was dry and prematurely dead. Shivering, I dropped it. I took it as a sign, almost. What if my life were abbreviated like that leaf’s? Surely my time in the castle wouldn’t be all the spring and summer I ever got.
I reached the outskirts of my old village, trying not to remember how carefree and happy I’d felt leaving it two months earlier. A confused cock crowed as I entered the main square, and I hid behind a barrel by the store. But nobody stirred, and after a moment, I continued on my way.
Even in the moonlight, my old house looked untended. The garden in the front was overgrown with weeds, and a few shingles had fallen from the roof. I laughed to myself as I eased the gate open. So, Lucille couldn’t take care of it without me. I wondered if she would ever put Corimunde and Griselda to work on it, or if she’d have to break down and hire help.
I went around to the back, for fear of being spotted from the street. I picked the lock on the door with a hairpin, feeling grateful that I’d learned how to do that one hot summer day when I was eight and bored.
The door creaked a bit upon opening, but I didn’t worry. Corimunde and Griselda were sound sleepers, and Lucille’s room was far away, at the front of the house. I tiptoed up the back stairs and into Corimunde’s room. I heard her soft snore and was reassured as I searched through her wardrobe. She was slightly less huge than Griselda, and therefore the better one to take a dress from. In the dark I chose at random, and hoped I’d picked nothing that displayed Corimunde’s penchant for fabrics with gargantuan, splashy flowers.
Back in her doorway, the garment clutched in my hand, I hesitated. I thought of going up to the attic and retrieving my mother’s wedding dress, just for sentiment’s sake. But for me, that dress would always be connected with the night of the ball, and that was no longer a pleasant memory. Instead, I turned down the hall to my father’s old study. After he died, Lucille had ordered me again and again to remove and box up the hundreds of books that lined the walls, and again and again I had refused. That was one battle I had won. I couldn’t entirely prevent Lucille from disposing of my father’s most treasured possessions, but I certainly wasn’t going to help.
I didn’t dare light a lamp in the study, but there was enough moonlight to show that the bookshelves were still full. Thank goodness for Lucille’s laziness. I ran my fingers along the spines of the books, almost weeping with relief. I grabbed a book at random and hugged it to my chest. How I’d missed books at the castle.
I resisted the urge to start sweeping books into my bag—I had to be selective. I picked ten books, then narrowed the choice to six. Books were heavy, and I was going to have a long way to walk, if I acted upon the idea that had begun flitting around my brain.
Three of the books I chose were entirely pragmatic: an atlas, a physician’s textbook, and a volume on plant and animal husbandry. Two were entirely frivolous: a collection of poems I had practically memorized anyway, and a book of stories my father had read to me before I learned to read to myself. The sixth book was philosophy.
With these volumes snugly packed in my bag, I looked around one last time, then crept out of the room and down the stairs. I stopped once more in the pantry and took as much food as I could carry. They owed me, I reminded myself. And pickings might be slim where I was going.
In the dark of the pantry I also slipped my royal gown off and pulled Corimunde’s dress over my shoulders. It was enormous; I had to rip a swath off the bottom to belt it around my waist. I could alter it later. I went into the parlor and dug a needle and thread out of a sewing basket that probably hadn’t been touched since I’d left with the prince.
Shoving my old gown into my already bulging pack, I considered leaving a note for Lucille and the Step-Evils, to warn them that the royal idiots would be looking for me. But they’d find out soon enough. I didn’t owe Lucille any explanations. And it wasn’t like the Step-Evils would be in danger. Even at their cruelest, I didn’t think the so-called Charmings would punish Lucille for my desertion. No, I decided, I shouldn’t take the time.
I shouldered my pack and stepped out the back door, pulling it shut behind me. But the latch jammed, probably because of my picking the lock. I didn’t feel particularly guilty about that, and I could easily have walked away. But something made me want to shut the door good and tight on Lucille and the Step-Evils. I let my pack slide to the ground and swung the door open again, to jimmy the knob from the inside.
That’s when I heard the footsteps.
“So,” Lucille jeered. “The princess has returned.”
26
I whirled around in a panic.
“You never wake up at night,” I protested.
Lucille smirked.
“So how many nights did you spend sneaking out to visit paramours? I was right—you never were anything but a piece of gutter trash. And now that prince has used you and cast you aside, just as I predicted. At least my real daughters listen to their mother.”
“I ran away,” I said. “I—”
Lucille looked me up and down, her glittering eyes taking in the dirt on my face and in my hair. I held my breath, fearing she’d comment upon Corimunde’s dress, but evidently it was too dark for her to notice. And she was too caught up in her mockery of my morals.
“Even you’re not a big enough fool to run away from a prince,” she sneered. “You’ll have to come up with a cleverer story than that. But it matters not. Everyone will
know what happened. You’ll be the talk of the village tomorrow.” She sighed, with a pretense of compassion. “Well, only a saint would take you back, under these circumstances, but I have been looking for a servant. . . . You may begin by fetching me my stomach elixir. That’s what I came down here for in the first place. Something at supper didn’t agree with me.”
My jaw dropped. She wasn’t even curious. I almost felt sorry for her. Her life was so small. If I told her everything, she wouldn’t be able to grasp it.
“And then,” Lucille continued, “you may scrub the kitchen floor. I want it clean by morning.”
“I am not your servant. I will never be your servant again. I hope you and Corimunde and Griselda die in your own filth,” I said.
And then I turned and ran, stooping to grab my bag as I zoomed by.
“Stop! Wait! Is that something of mine you’re taking? Thief! Help, thief!”
I ran faster, the bag thumping against my back. Lucille made no attempt to follow me—I knew she wouldn’t—but she screamed louder. “Stop! Thief! Help! Runaway servant!” I prayed that the neighbors were all sleeping soundly or, at least, wouldn’t feel like rousing themselves for Lucille. That was a fairly safe bet.
I crashed through the back gate and into the woods beyond. I stepped into the creek that ran through our village and listened, my heart pounding. Lucille’s shouts were distant now, and there were no answering bellows. I heard mostly crickets.
Trembling, I pulled my royal gown from my bag and let it slide into the water. It caught on a rock, but then slithered forward, shimmering gold in the moonlight. The color reminded me of Prince Charming’s hair. I tried not to think about how happy I’d expected to be, ever after, with everything shining around me. I watched the dress until it floated out of sight.
“Go far north,” I whispered. “Cover for me.” It suddenly struck me that north was the way to Domulia, the country the palace officials pretended I was from. Maybe someone had actually believed the story and would look in that direction first. If they found the dress, it might buy me enough time to get where I was really going.
I turned and began walking south, toward the Sualan border.
27
That first night was the hardest. I knew I had to cover far more territory than they’d expect me to, and I’d already wasted half the night. At first I fretted, “Will Jed really take me in at the refugee camp?” But after a few miles, my mind shut off, and all I could do was concentrate on walking—convincing exhausted muscles they would survive another step. And another. And another . . .
I stepped out of the creek when it turned westward, four miles south of my village. After hours in the water, my feet were numb, but surely the water had covered my tracks. I worried about the muddy footprints I left along the creek and stopped to wash them out behind me. Then I skulked along fence rows and forests until I saw the first glow of dawn on the horizon. I was on the edge of another village then, much too close for my taste. I could hear cocks beginning to crow, horses neighing in their stalls. I circled wide, stumbling through wheat fields. All I wanted to do was lie down and sleep. Did I dare hide in the wheat? It wasn’t harvesttime yet, and why else would anyone investigate the field? I looked behind me at the trail of bent wheat plants. Oops. I found a path where I could leave no tracks and ran along it.
Finally, just as the sun appeared, I came to a ramshackle barn that obviously had been abandoned years before. I shoved my way in, praying for soft hay. There was none, only a row of barrels. I rolled one over on its side and crawled into it, pulling my dress around my feet.
I fell asleep instantly and didn’t wake until dusk.
I followed that pattern—traveling by night, sleeping by day—for so many days, I lost count. I slept in haystacks, corncribs, caves, and once, when no better option showed up, on a tree limb. That choice almost proved disastrous, because I started rolling off the limb whenever I nodded off. I didn’t get much sleep that day, and was stumbly and stupid the following night. But mostly I slept well. My body didn’t protest the reversal of day and night at all, probably because I’d been working by night in the dungeon, as well.
By the third night, I began waking long before dusk, which allowed me to work on the second part of my plan: studying the medical and agricultural books. In my mind I played over and over again the scene of me arriving at Jed’s refugee camp. I wouldn’t beg. I would state my case calmly and clearly: “It is a risk to you to have me here, but I can be very useful too. I can treat the wounded people; I can teach them how to grow more food. And nobody will recognize me now.”
I was sure of that. I left burrs in my hair and dirt on my face, like camouflage. And Corimunde’s dress—which did, indeed, sport roses the size of cabbages—quickly grew so ragged and dirty, the pattern was barely visible.
Nobody saw me. I saw nobody, except at a great distance, in the dark. And then I always hid or got off the path to avoid them. By day I sometimes heard voices. I always woke in a panic, fearing they belonged to the king’s soldiers, come to find me. But each time I was wrong, and I fell back to sleep listening to children playing games, women gossiping as they picked elderberries, men boasting as they scythed hay. The voices made me feel lonelier still. I had been an outsider at the castle, I had been an outsider with the Step-Evils; even as a child, happy with my father, I had known we were different from all the other families. Would I ever find where I belonged?
Sometimes, walking through the night, I thought back on the choices I’d made and where they’d led me, and somehow I did not regret any of them. Promising to marry the prince had turned out to be a bad idea, but life in the castle had certainly been an experience. I’d met Mary, who was the truest friend I could ever hope for, and I’d met Jed, who . . .
I didn’t let myself examine my feelings for Jed. All I could hope for was that he’d save my skin. Whenever I started thinking about him, I forced myself to concentrate on reviewing medical treatments. “How do you treat snakebite?” I quizzed myself. “What’s the best way to set a broken arm?”
But as the days passed, I longed to have someone to talk to about my life: past, present, and ever after. At first I thought of Mary, who always listened so devotedly, but listening wasn’t all I wanted. I wanted advice. I wanted someone older and wiser. More and more, I wished that, before Lucille had caught me that night I escaped from the castle, I’d had the sense to go next door and talk to my former neighbor, Mrs. Branson, who in the midst of taking care of her brood had given me all the mothering I’d ever gotten. “What is love, anyway?” I wanted to ask. I’d obviously been wrong about what I felt for Prince Charming, since it had soured so soon. Would I recognize real love if I ever found it? Did I even want it? It seemed easier to go through life the way my father had between my mother’s death and Lucille’s arrival: devoted to knowledge, not emotion. (How do you treat snakebite? What’s the best way to set a broken arm?) But didn’t I want my life to be something more than easy?
You’d think, with all the time I had to ponder everything, I’d have come up with some answers. But all I accomplished was to walk by night, sleep by day, and learn medicine and agriculture.
And then came the day I heard soldiers.
28
At sunup that day, I had chosen a hiding place in a meadow along the road. I knew it wasn’t the safest spot, but nothing else was available, and the grass was so tall, it didn’t look like anyone ever scythed it. I’d just hoped no one picked that day for the first cutting.
Judging by the position of the sun, it was just after noon when I woke to the tramping of feet.
“Company, halt!” Dozens of feet pounded the ground at once. “Fall out!”
Their sounds weren’t so organized after that. The soldiers seemed to be stomping all over the place. I froze as I heard some of them scrambling up the bank near me.
“. . . thought they’d march us straight to Suala all this morning—”
“This probably is Suala now. We probably lo
st half the territory while we were away.”
So these soldiers weren’t looking for me. They were simply on their way to fight Suala. But why were they climbing toward me?
Pssss. I heard the sound of several bladders being relieved at once. Oh. I was safe as long as I didn’t get wet.
I hoped the soldiers would go back to the road when they were done, but they didn’t. They flopped down on the ground nearby and began ordering people around.
“See, I told you there’d be peasants around here,” one muttered. Then he shouted, “Peasant, bring us a feast.”
“F-feast?” a trembling voice replied. “We have no feast, only common food, and not much of that. You soldiers have taken it all—”
“Feed us or else!”
I don’t know what the soldier did—drew a sword? grabbed the peasant by the neck?—but the peasant immediately began stammering, “Yes, sir. Yes, sir.”
The soldiers laughed.
In a short while, I began to smell the irresistible aroma of cooking meat. Since I’d been living on stale bread, hard cheese, and the odds and ends of fruit I could pick up along the way, my mouth began watering almost unbearably. It was torture to listen to the soldiers smacking their lips and chewing and belching. Finally, though, I heard one proclaim, “Aye, peasant, I knew that you could find a way to feed us. Fine vittles, I must say.”
Just Ella Page 11