Palace of Lies

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  How was it that the ancient history from fourteen years ago was haunting me even now?

  Because it isn’t finished, I thought. It won’t be finished as long as any of the other princesses or I keep the throne. And as long as the losers from the queen’s deceptions yearn to get their power back.

  “The queen’s physician was banished,” I said. “After he delivered the baby princess who died. The princess who truly would have deserved the throne, had she but lived.”

  I was annoyed that I had not thought to wonder about the fate of the queen’s physician. How could I have overlooked both major loose ends in the queen’s story: the serving girl and the physician? When my sister-princesses and I sent Lord Throckmorton and his henchmen to prison, why hadn’t the other girls or I asked, Hey, any of you know what country that physician was banished to? Any of you know any more angles to this story we need to keep track of?

  I knew the answer to that. None of us would have trusted anything Lord Throckmorton or his henchmen might have said. I didn’t even trust anything I’d heard from advisers we didn’t send to prison.

  I sighed.

  “No matter who that man said he was,” I told Janelia, “I’m almost certain he was in Lord Throckmorton’s employ.”

  And then I could see it clearly, how Lord Throckmorton would have planned things.

  “Lord Throckmorton wanted to keep you nearby,” I went on. “Just in case he ever needed to get rid of me. If I ever rebelled against his authority. He would have called you in and tricked you somehow into admitting that I really wasn’t the princess, that it was a lie all along. And somehow he would have worked it to come off that he still needed to be left in charge.”

  “I never would have betrayed you like that!” Janelia protested.

  “Not even if the choice was betray me, or betray Tog and Herk and all the other boys you were taking care of?” I asked.

  Janelia opened her mouth, shut it, opened it again. She looked like a helpless fish, caught on a hook.

  “I couldn’t have made that choice,” she whispered. “I would have . . . escaped. I would have made sure Tog and Herk and the others rescued me.”

  In spite of myself, I found myself admiring the fact that Janelia hadn’t instantly protested, Oh, naturally, Desmia, it’s you I care about the most! I’d throw all those beggar boys to the wolves before I’d do anything to harm a hair on your head!

  But hadn’t Janelia put Tog and Herk and the others at risk, rescuing me? Weren’t Tog and Herk at risk right now, traveling to Fridesia with me?

  I went back to trying to figure out Lord Throckmorton.

  “But if you ever came forward with your secret before Lord Throckmorton wanted it out, he could say, Look, that woman is just a liar and a thief. She must have stolen that silver vase and probably lots of other precious items from the palace,” I speculated. “His proof would be the argument, How else would she have gotten money to live on ever since?”

  Janelia had a puzzled squint on her face.

  “I guess . . . I guess what you’re saying might be true,” she said. “But that man was so nice—Lord Constantine, that was what he said to call him. He said he’d been looking for me for four years, but it was hard because he had to travel in disguise, and he couldn’t step foot into the palace without fear of discovery. He said the two of us had to watch out for each other, since we knew things other people would kill for. I thought . . . I thought it was God’s providence that Lord Constantine found me the very day I lost my job.”

  Lord Throckmorton’s scheming is more like it, I thought darkly.

  “Lord Constantine wanted me to leave Suala with him,” Janelia said. “He said our lives were in danger as long as we stayed in the kingdom. But I said I couldn’t leave you behind. I said I had to find a way to get back into the palace to you. He promised, as long as you were on the throne, he’d never reveal the truth about your background. He’d never do anything to harm you. And—he said he respected my decision so much that he’d arrange for me to have enough money to live on.”

  I saw Lord Throckmorton’s fingerprints all over that conversation. Of course Lord Throckmorton would want Janelia to stay close by the palace, in case he ever needed her testimony to discredit my claim to the throne. I shivered. My life had been in even more danger in the palace than I’d believed. If Lord Throckmorton had ever decided I was irredeemably recalcitrant, no doubt Janelia would have been brought in and tricked into revealing the truth. And her story would have been convincing, because it was the truth.

  And then this fake Lord Constantine would only need to show up with some other girl who he could say was the true princess he had been keeping safe, I thought.

  “But why did this Lord Constantine tell you to start taking in beggar boys?” I wondered out loud. “How did that connect?”

  Janelia flushed.

  “He didn’t tell me to do that,” she said. “That was my decision. I just had so much money . . . I think Lord Constantine’s notion of how much I needed to live on was very different from mine. Once I had all that money, I couldn’t stop thinking about the little boy babies left in the orphanage when I rescued the baby girls. I felt . . . responsible once I had money.”

  “Why?” I asked. “They weren’t your children! They weren’t your brothers and sisters!”

  “But once I had money, I could do something to help,” Janelia said. “That did make me responsible.”

  My mind was reeling.

  “So Tog and Herk and Terrence and all the other beggar boys I saw in your basement—you’re saying all of them were babies at the orphanage the same night you took the baby girls away? So they’re all fourteen?” I shook my head emphatically, thinking of how short and scrawny Herk looked. “Maybe the others are, but you cannot tell me Herk is fourteen!”

  “No, you’re right, he’s only ten,” Janelia admitted. “Almost eleven. But even as an infant, he followed Tog around like a puppy, and Tog refused to leave him behind. And then . . . well, you’ve seen Herk. How could anyone leave him behind?”

  I could think of dozens of people who would have stepped past Herk in the streets without giving him a second glance. In fact, the only people I could think of from the palace who would have noticed Herk were my sister-princesses. And I wasn’t sure about all of them.

  “So are Tog and Herk brothers, maybe?” I asked. “Is that why they were so tight?”

  “No, that’s impossible,” Janelia said. “Because Tog’s father died before he was born. In the war, just like ours. And I already told you how his mother died, when he was a baby.”

  I looked at her blankly.

  “Lena was Tog’s mother,” Janelia said.

  For a moment, the name made no impression on me. But then I recognized it: Lena was the servant girl who’d been killed bringing firewood for the king and queen. The one Janelia had mourned for fourteen years, believing Lena had died in her place. The one whose death I had shrugged off with the comment, It was her own fault, for tarrying on the stairs. And then Janelia had snapped, Don’t you dare ever tell Lena’s son that! And I had thought there was no chance of meeting some random servant’s child from fourteen years earlier.

  But the servant hadn’t been random, and neither had the child.

  “Is everything connected?” I asked, and it came out sounding like a complaint. “Is everyone?”

  Janelia smiled faintly.

  “Sometimes I think so,” she said. “Like . . . the fact I took in all those orphan boys, thinking I was helping them, but then they became my spies for helping you . . .”

  “And Herk and Tog rescued me from Madame Bisset,” I said. “And now they’re helping me get to Fridesia.”

  Janelia nodded.

  “And here’s another connection you might be able to figure out,” she said. “Every month for the past ten years, a packet of money mysteriously showed up on my doorstep on the first day of the month, just like Lord Constantine told me to expect. This month nothing came.�
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  “Because the truth about me was finally out!” I said. “And Lord Throckmorton and his henchmen were in prison. Isn’t this proof that the money was actually bribes to keep you silent?”

  Janelia frowned, clearly reluctant to agree.

  “And you said Lord Constantine left the country,” I argued. “There wouldn’t have been time for him to have heard the news and stopped sending money because of that!”

  “But . . . I guess I expected a letter, or some other explanation,” Janelia said slowly. “Even if it was really Lord Throckmorton sending the money, wouldn’t he have wanted to fake that? Even from prison?”

  “Why would he bother?” I asked. “He was totally defeated!”

  Footsteps sounded near the entry to the cave just then, and Janelia sprang up.

  “Tog and Herk are back!” she cried, running to the mouth of the cave.

  But as soon as I saw the two boys, I could tell they didn’t have good news.

  “Nobody needed baskets,” Tog said dejectedly, holding up the three I had been so proud of. “We couldn’t sell any of them.”

  “I guess we’re still too close to the river,” Janelia said. “Too close to the supply of reeds, so people can make their own.”

  “No—I think it was more that people just didn’t like us,” Herk said. “Those villagers were mean. As soon as we got close to the first house, the people were like—” He made his eyes narrow and creepy, and turned his head as if he were trying to watch Tog’s every move.

  “We’ll get food tomorrow,” Janelia said. “I’m sure of it.”

  I glanced back toward the mouth of the cave. I couldn’t have said if I was trying for one last “gradual” healing view of the daytime sky, or if I was hoping for a glimpse of the same beautiful starry sky I’d seen the night before with Tog. But I saw neither of those things. Instead, I saw a strange glow that reminded me uncomfortably of the fire at the palace.

  “What—” I began.

  Before I could even finish my question, I got my answer. An angry voice shouted from outside, “Beggars, begone! We want none of your type abroad in our land!”

  And then a crowd of men holding torches swarmed into the cave.

  23

  “Out! Out!” the men screamed. “Begone from here!”

  “Please!” Janelia begged. “Leave us alone! We wish you no harm! We only plan to sleep here for the night! We’ll be on our way by morning’s light!”

  “Of course—after you thieve from our village!” one of the men screamed back at her. “After you steal our sheep and swine and cattle!”

  “We won’t allow it!” another hollered, swinging his torch so close to Herk’s arm that I was surprised his sleeve didn’t catch on fire. Then the man began reaching for Tog.

  He’s reaching for Tog’s neck, I thought, mesmerized with horror. He’s planning to strangle him.

  Was this how Cecilia had felt seeing Lord Throckmorton prepare to strangle me? Before she stopped him?

  No, I thought. Cecilia would have seen me as a rival then, a rival who was about to be eliminated. And she still stopped him.

  Tog had rescued me and protected me from Madame Bisset and carried me toward Fridesia for the past two days. He’d been nothing but heroically kind.

  Save him! screamed through my mind.

  I wanted to scream it at Janelia and Herk, but other men already had a tight grip on them. Both of them were pinned against the wall. I was the only one still free, the only one not surrounded—maybe the men hadn’t even seen me in the darkness at the back of the cave. Maybe I had the element of surprise on my side.

  But I can’t walk! I wanted to protest. And I’m not near a big, heavy harp like Cecilia was when she decided to fight back against Lord Throckmorton. I don’t have anything to use as a weapon.

  I had the stretcher beneath me, but there was no way I could lift it by myself, let alone swing it at Tog’s attacker.

  My gaze fell on the pot of boiled rags Janelia had pulled off the fire. It was just a few paces away.

  Can I—?

  There was no time to think through a possible plan. The man’s hands were already around Tog’s neck.

  I rose up on my knees and shuffled forward, my skirt getting tangled around my legs. I almost fell, but my hands landed on the pot handles.

  No time to think, no time to practice. Only one chance to do this right. . . .

  I grunted, lifting the pot. And then I turned it sideways and threw it as hard as I could at Tog’s attacker.

  Two men dropped their torches in surprise, the flames whistling out as they plunged toward the ground. Other men screamed, “What manner of weapon is this?” when wet, slimy rags and a sloshing dribble of hot water hit them. The pot itself bounced uselessly on the floor of the cave. But someone else screamed, “Boiling oil! Is it boiling oil? Men, mind your flames!”

  That gave me another idea. I yanked the skirt of my dress out of the way and crawled on my knees toward the fire Janelia had built in the center of the cave. I grabbed the end of one of the half-burned logs and raised it over my head.

  “That was boiling oil!” I screamed. “Let us go or I’ll set you all afire!”

  I could barely hold the log aloft—I was in danger of dropping it and setting myself afire. A single moment of thought would have led any of the torch-bearing men to the conclusion that they were dripping with hot water, not oil. But I could see Tog, Herk, and Janelia all pulling away from the men who held them.

  That was when I realized my mistake.

  Tog, Herk, and Janelia now had a clear path to the mouth of the cave. They could run away. I had a fire and a cluster of angry men between me and any escape.

  And I couldn’t run. I couldn’t even walk. I was doing well to be upright on my knees.

  I waited for Tog, Herk, and Janelia to save themselves and abandon me. I waited for the angry men to figure out my mistakes and lies, and swarm around the fire to attack.

  That wasn’t what happened.

  Janelia shoved Herk out of the cave. Then, as if they’d had time to plan, she and Tog ran past the men and around the fire and grabbed me by the armpits.

  “Keep waving that log at them,” Tog muttered, as he and Janelia half carried, half dragged me past the fire and the men.

  Some of the men were starting to recover, starting to figure out that they were soaked with water, not oil. Still, Tog, Janelia, and I reached the mouth of the cave.

  “Now throw the log at them, and climb on my back!” Tog whispered in my ear.

  My “throw” was pathetic—I mostly just dropped the log. But at least it provided an obstacle right at the cave’s mouth, something the men had to avoid. Tog and Janelia paused just past the log, just long enough to hoist me onto Tog’s back.

  And then he was running out into the darkness. I clutched his shoulders and curved my legs around his waist. He held on, his hands pressed against the bare skin at the back of my knees.

  Indecent, whispered in my mind, some remnant of palace gossip echoing in my mind.

  But what is indecency when someone’s saving your life?

  I couldn’t see what lay ahead of us and had no idea how Tog could keep running so quickly, so blindly. I could hear Tog’s gulping, panting breaths. They echoed, and his footsteps echoed . . .

  No, I thought. I’m hearing Herk and Janelia beside him, running and panting too.

  That made me feel better and gave me the courage to look back over my shoulder.

  The torch-bearing men were chasing us.

  “Away from our village!” they screamed. “Never let us see you back in our village again! Or in this cave! Or anywhere nearby!”

  Tog, Janelia, and Herk scrambled over the rocky ground in the front of the cave. They kept stumbling and barely managing to stay upright. Tog had the worst of it, with me on his back throwing him off balance.

  “I see a path to the right,” I screamed, squinting into darkness, “where you won’t trip so much . . .”
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br />   Tog lurched in that direction, with Herk and Janelia at his side. But even the path was dark with shadows.

  I glanced over my shoulder again. The line of torches were several yards back.

  “They’re going to let us get away!” I called to Tog and Herk and Janelia just as Tog stumbled over some unseen rock and almost toppled over. “You can slow down and be a little more careful!”

  “Don’t . . . want to . . . test that,” Tog muttered back. He was breathing so hard now, almost gasping for air. “Don’t . . . want them to see . . . where we’re going. . . .”

  He kept running. So did Herk and Janelia.

  “We can hide and wait nearby and then go back for—” I began. I looked over my shoulder once more. The torches were farther away, but somehow they seemed brighter now, with two or three joined together.

  Oh. They were burning my stretcher.

  “Never mind,” I muttered. “I don’t think they’ll leave anything for us to go back to.”

  Tog, Herk, and Janelia kept running, their breathing ragged, theirs steps uneven. I was ready to drop with exhaustion, and all I was doing was clinging to Tog. But the others kept going.

  Then we crashed into woods that had seemed like only a dark smear on the horizon when we’d first left the cave. Branches swiped against my arms and legs. I ducked my head down behind Tog’s back.

  “I think . . . it’s safe . . . to stop . . . ,” Janelia panted.

  She and Herk collapsed to the ground. Tog took one last swerving step and almost fell over. I slid down off his back, twisting so I landed on my side, not my feet.

  For a long moment all four of us did nothing but lie in the midst of leaves and twigs. I turned my head so I could see back toward the cave. Either there were too many tree trunks and branches blocking my view, or the men with torches had extinguished their flames and gone back to their own nasty village.

  “We’re . . . all . . . still . . . alive,” Janelia whispered. “We . . . survived.”

  I had reigned over dozens of ceremonies commemorating war victories; I’d sat through hours of supposedly stirring military marches. But somehow this was the most victorious sound I’d ever heard: Janelia whispering, We’re all still alive.