Princess of the Midnight Ball

by Jessica Day George

  “Is he still asleep?” Rose whispered.

  “Yes,” Lily whispered back.

  Galen listened as they rustled about, helping each other undress and go into their separate bedrooms to catch a few precious hours of sleep. When they had left the sitting room, he took out his cape and refolded it so that it fit into the satchel better. Then he stretched and found a more comfortable position in the chair, to sleep a little bit himself. He had a lot to think about, but he was far too tired to reason it out now.

  “I don’t know how they can do it night after night,” he mumbled as he drifted off. “Poor Rose….”

  Needles

  A maid woke Galen, her eyes alight with a question. Galen paused, and then shook his head, assuming a sorrowful expression. She sighed and patted his arm. He went down the hall to the room set aside for him to freshen up before breakfast.

  Breakfast was another solemn affair, with Bishop Angier at one end of the table, a stern expression on his face, and King Gregor at the other, looking mournful. Dr. Kelling also joined then, his face anxious. All three men watched Galen carefully, looking for a sign of some small success, but Galen ate and chatted with the princesses as casually as he could. While he had been in his little room, dressing, he had come to a conclusion: he would not say a word until the third night was completed.

  The silver twigs gave him some proof of where he had been, but he didn’t know how to proceed from there. Galen suspected that merely telling the king where his daughters had been would do nothing to help them. The spell that was over them was powerful indeed, controlling them not only when they entered the underworld, but outside it as well. Otherwise they would have told their father by now. Galen’s hope was that, after three nights of following them, he would have learned enough to work out a plan that would free the princesses.

  “Galen, please come to my study,” King Gregor said wearily when breakfast was over.

  “I shall accompany you,” Angier said. He heaved his bulk upright and preceded the king and Galen across the hall and into the king’s private study. Dr. Kelling made as if to follow, but Angier dismissed him with a gesture. King Gregor began to protest, but the doctor shook his head.

  The king sat in the chair behind the desk and the bishop took the comfortable chair before it. Galen stood calmly between them. His soldier’s training proved valuable here as it had so many times before: he was nervous, he was uncertain what to do next, but he would never let it show. With an impassive face and ramrod-straight spine, Galen reported to the king and the bishop that, after entering the princesses’ chambers, he had sat and talked with them for a while. Then, sometime before midnight, he had fallen asleep and not woken until a little after dawn. The princesses had all been in their beds, very peacefully asleep, but their slippers were worn through once more.

  The king threw up his hands in despair. Had Galen been alone with the king, he would have been tempted to give the man some hint of hope, but he refused to do so in front of Angier. The bishop spoke Westfalian with a faint accent, and it had only been at breakfast that Galen had realized it was Analousian. Although as a man of the church he was supposedly above such politics, it still made Galen nervous. Galen bowed himself out of the study and went to find Walter.

  The peg-legged gardener was cleaning leaves out of a fountain shaped like a dejected-looking mermaid. The water had been drained, lest it freeze and crack the pipes, and now the empty marble bowl was a catchall for stray leaves and other debris.

  Walter greeted Galen with a nod. “How fare our princesses?” the old man inquired.

  “Not well,” Galen said bluntly. He pushed back the sleeves of his good jacket and bent down to help gather the leaves into a basket.

  Walter stopped and sat on the edge of the fountain. “The nightshade worked,” he stated.

  “It seems so,” Galen said, “Tell me: what do you know of a black palace far underground, guarded by a gate of silver set with pearls, surrounded by a forest of silver trees, and built on an island in the middle of a black lake?”

  Walter’s weathered face went white. “Foolish woman,” he breathed. “So she made a bargain with him.”

  “Rose and the others—” Then Galen stopped. “Then you know of it?” He stared at Walter, angry. “Why didn’t you help them?”

  Walter shook his head. “I didn’t know that Maude had gone so far. I knew that she had summoned help from some unseen source. But I didn’t know it was him.” Kicking his peg leg against the base of the fountain, Walter looked off into the distance. “Not him.”

  Galen ran his hand over his short hair. “So Queen Maude really …?”

  “Wanted children so badly that she made a pact with the King Under Stone?” Walter sucked his teeth. “So it seems. And I’ve no doubt that she meddled again, to make certain we won the war.”

  Galen rejected this, shaking his head. “But we fought hard for that war. It took twelve years—”

  “No one ever said that he plays fair,” Walter interrupted. “Creatures without honor—without souls—never do. Why should they? That’s something that Maude never could understand. Ask such a being for strong children, he promises you a dozen, and you strike the bargain. And bear a dozen girls. Ask him to end the war, and he agrees readily … then takes twelve years to get around to it.”

  Galen frowned. “But when the queen died, wouldn’t her bargain have become void?”

  “Not as far as he is concerned, it seems. If she’s not there to pay, then her daughters will.” Walter hesitated. “So they are dancing for him?”

  Galen nodded. “They danced from midnight to dawn with twelve tall young men. I believe they are his sons.”

  The older man gave a low whistle. “So that’s his game, is it?” he said thoughtfully, staring into the distance. “Perhaps he meant to have them all along.”

  “Walter,” Galen said, feeling almost hesitant about asking. “How do you know all this?”

  The old man looked at him. The news that the King Under Stone had a hold on the princesses had shaken him, and he looked immeasurably old suddenly. “I have not always been a gardener, Galen Werner,” he said drily.

  “Then tell me how to stop this.”

  “Alone? And with twelve sons to aid him?” Walter shook his head. “It will take time.”

  “We don’t have time,” Galen argued. “Rose… Little Pansy … They don’t have time, Walter.”

  “I did not think Maude had gone so deep,” Walter was muttering, to himself more than Galen. “And you say its every night now…. He must need them more, or is preparing for something. There aren’t enough of us left to put a tighter seal on his prison….”

  “Walter!” Galen shook the old man’s shoulder gently. He lifted his lapel and showed Walter the wilted sprig of nightshade. “I’m going to need more nightshade, at the least. There is a sleeping spell laid over anyone who comes into the princesses’ rooms at night,” Galen explained. “But it did not affect me as it had the princes.”

  “Ah!” Walter nodded sagely, his eyes coming into focus again. “So that’s how the princesses slip away from their minders.” He frowned. “But weren’t the girls suspicious? And how is it that you could follow them?”

  “They were suspicious at first,” Galen admitted. “But then I feigned sleep, and that satisfied them. As to how I was able to follow them … that’s a secret.”

  Walter nodded again. “It’s good to have secrets.”

  Together he and Galen gathered up the basket of leaves and set off for the gardener’s sheds. Galen dumped the leaves in the mulch pile and put the basket away. Then Walter beckoned, and Galen followed him to the herb garden.

  Walter picked another sprig of nightshade, to replace the wilted one. Then he broke off a sharply scented sprig of dried basil and gave it to Galen as well.

  “Nightshade will clear the enchantments from your eyes, and enable you to see the truth. And basil wards off evil,” he explained.

  “Thank you.” Galen
tossed his wilted nightshade aside and carefully pinned the new sprig in place. Then he put the more brittle basil in the breast pocket of his coat.

  As he fumbled with his clothes, the pouch at Galen’s belt swung forward and one of the silver twigs sticking out caught on his shirt. Cursing, Galen freed the twig and tried to get it to fit better in the little drawstring bag.

  “What are those?” Walter squinted at them.

  “A little something that I took from the forest of silver,” Galen replied. Checking to make certain that they were alone, he pulled the twigs out of the bag and showed them to Walter.

  Turning them over in his gnarled hands, Walter pursed his lips. “Interesting,” he said. “These weren’t part of his realm, at least not in the beginning.” He gave them back to Galen. “Interesting.”

  “How do you know what his realm is like?”

  Walter merely echoed the words he’d said to Galen earlier: “It’s good to have secrets.” Then he paused. “But I will say this: silver has power, and so do names.”

  “Names and silver…” Galen studied the twigs himself. They were long and straight, and the place where they had broken from the larger branch showed little silvery fibers that were some strange hybrid of metal and wood never before seen in the mortal world. “I should have broken off bigger pieces, to make arrows. Or a spear. Something more useful than just taking a souvenir to show King Gregor.” He snorted. “They’d make beautiful knitting needles, though.”

  “Keep them handy,” Walter said. “You never know what you’ll have need of, when you’re in the palace.”

  Something about Walter’s words rang in Galen’s ears. The phrasing reminded him of something, and he paused a moment to remember what, but Uncle Reiner came crunching down the gravel path just then. His face darkened when he saw Galen standing with Walter.

  “Shouldn’t you be inside?” he demanded. “They haven’t thrown you out, have they?”

  “No, indeed, Uncle,” Galen said respectfully. “I have just come to speak with Walter about something.” He slid the twigs into his pouch and pulled his coat closed over them.

  “Nothing here is of concern to you anymore,” Uncle Reiner said. “Be off with you.”

  Galen nodded politely to his uncle and Walter, and then he took himself off.

  Inside the palace, he discovered that the younger princesses were having their lessons with the priest who had accompanied Angier. The older girls were with their father, being questioned by the bishop himself. At loose ends, Galen sat down in his room to finish knitting his hat, but he couldn’t get the silver twigs out of his head. Studying them from every angle, he concluded that while they might be whittled down to make darts or something of the sort, they were otherwise useless. But whittling them down would change their shape in such a way that they might not be recognizable as twigs, and therefore unusable as evidence.

  “They’ll make fine knitting needles, just as they are,” Galen said aloud.

  He thought for a long time. He could not fight the twelve suitors alone. Besides being outnumbered, who knew what help their father might send. He couldn’t break the spell that bound the princesses…. He didn’t know what exactly it was, and he had no skill with magic besides. If he could just stop them from going to the ball… But then the King Under Stone would likely send someone to fetch them again. And this time, Galen doubted that Rionin and the other princes would let a rowan switch deter them.

  There had to be a way to fight them, or to stop them from coming aboveground ever again.

  As Galen’s mind turned the problem over and over, he remembered what Walter’s words had reminded him of: the crone.

  When you are in the palace, you will have great need.

  He broke the silver twigs in half so that there were four pieces, each about the length of his hand. He used his knife to pare away any jagged edges or splinters that might catch on the wool. Then he pulled out the black wool that the crone had given him.

  Black like iron …

  Galen began to knit.

  Second Night

  Rose’s day did not go well. She had a headache, and her cough had returned. As if to aggravate both problems, she was forced to spend the day in the council chamber, being alternately questioned and lectured by Bishop Angier. His voice made her head pound, and her throat was sore from trying to hold back the coughs.

  Having their country placed under Interdiction was a serious thing, and there had already been repercussions. Reports had been arriving all day, and they were not comforting. There had been riots in other cities when the archbishop’s edict was read. In Bruch, many people were packing to leave, hoping to immigrate to any neighboring land that would take them. Several grocers and livery stables had been robbed for supplies by those fleeing, and rocks had been thrown at the palace gates and even at the Orms’ distinctive pink house.

  Rose had hoped that her younger sisters would escape the bishop’s ranting since they had their lessons. And during that time they did, to some extent. But it seemed that the bishop had given his assistant quite stern advice about what the princesses ought to learn.

  “I thought I would die,” Poppy said dramatically, flinging herself across Rose’s bed. “As if it wasn’t bad enough that we had to have some pinch-faced priest teaching us instead of Anne, you should hear what he’s teaching! Mathematics: gone. Science: gone. History: religious history and lives of the saints only. Literature: more lives of the saints.” She put a pillow over her face and howled through the muffling feathers.

  “There is nothing wrong with a religious education,” Hyacinth reprimanded her, coming into the room.

  “There is when you are taught nothing but,” Violet argued. She was shredding the edges of her handkerchief. “There’s to be no more music,” she said in a soft voice. “None at all. Father Michel says … he says that we are not serious minded enough to learn even religious music.” She bit her lip, her eyes filling with tears. “He’s locked my pianoforte and taken the key.”

  “Oh, darling!” Rose put her arms around Violet, and the younger girl sobbed onto her shoulder.

  “He’s a nightmare,” Poppy said, taking the pillow off her face. “Horrible, odious man! And he’s Analousian, too, just like the bishop.” A calculating look crossed her face. “You don’t think Angier is just trying to humiliate us because they lost the war, do you?”

  Hyacinth drew herself up, shocked. “The archbishop would not have sent someone capable of such pettiness, Poppy,” she declared. “We have been charged with witchcraft; this has nothing to do with politics!”

  “I don’t care if it’s politics or not,” Violet wailed. “I can’t be cut off from my music!”

  Rose gave her an extra squeeze.

  “Don’t worry,” Petunia said cheerfully. “Galen will fix everything.”

  “Oh, he will, will he?” Rose gave a brittle laugh at Petunia’s firm statement.

  At the same time, though, she hoped in her heart that Petunia was right. She and Lily had searched for years for a way to escape the King Under Stone, reading their mother’s diaries over and over for clues, looking up any reference to Under Stone and his banishment that they could find. But the only books they could find about him were legends, and several of their mother’s diaries were missing. Rose suspected that the missing diaries were the ones that would have been the most useful, and she wondered if her mother had destroyed them or if Under Stone had found some way to confiscate them.

  The sisters had tested all the physical boundaries of his realm, even asking the dark princes to carry them through the forest when they were tired, to see how close to the gate they could get. They had asked as many questions of the courtiers and the dark princes as they dared, and they had found not a single weak spot. They had tried to tell their father, their governess, anyone who would listen, about the curse, but always their lips snapped shut, or they even found themselves spouting nonsense when they tried to talk about it.

  For a time they had
given up, hoping that they would be able to simply serve out their term below. But soon after the war ended, the King Under Stone had begun to refer to them as his sons’ brides, filling the girls with new horror. He was going to find a way to keep them there forever. Now Rose and her sisters needed help more than they ever had before, and Galen was so strong and sure that it seemed almost possible for him to “fix everything.” Rose hitched her white shawl a little higher on her shoulders and led Violet over to her dressing table. “Come now, dry your eyes. Let’s get ready for dinner.”

  But Bishop Angier had other plans. When the twelve sisters presented themselves in the dining room, modestly clad in high-waisted, high-necked frocks of somber hues, they found their father and Galen already seated at a table that bore a white cloth, a Bible, and nothing else.

  “Sit down,” Bishop Angier said.

  The princesses sat.

  For some two hours the bishop held forth with great animation on the subject of witchcraft and its evils. He also veered into the evil natures of all women, witches or not, and how their fathers and husbands should keep them under firm control. It was vastly different from one of Bishop Schelker’s sermons. The most disconcerting part was that Angier would fix his eyes firmly on the face of each sister in turn, and focus on her for minutes at a time. As he locked gazes with Rose for the second time, she found herself unable to look anywhere else, even unable to blink, until her eyes began to water and she was furious lest the bishop think he had moved her to tears. When he turned his attention to Lily again, she wiped surreptitiously at her eyes and dared to glance at Galen.

  Appearing completely unperturbed by the bishop, who was ignoring him in turn, Galen was knitting. Rose dropped her handkerchief to her lap and watched in fascination. He was using not two, but four knitting needles, all quite short and with points at both ends. She had glimpsed him knitting a sock once out in the garden with similar needles, but those needles had been wood and much narrower. These were thicker, of softly gleaming silver that reminded her of something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Even more fascinating was what he was knitting: he was making a chain out of black wool. She counted eight links so far, all neatly interlocked.