“I wouldn’t fall asleep,” I boasted. “If you left me in there overnight, I’d figure it all out and save all the shoes.”
“No, Reveka!” Pa threw up his hands. “No one cares about the shoes! That’s not why people call it a curse. Did you not understand what Marjit said? They never waken.”
“She meant they never waken through the night and see what happens to the shoes . . . right?”
“No!” Pa closed his eyes, sucking in a deep breath before opening them again, whirling me around, and steering me toward the castle. “Come along.”
Pa marched me double time between the front gate’s dragon carvings and up to the western tower, which was shorter and wider than the eastern tower that served as the princesses’ bedroom. Pa pushed me through a squeaky little oak door into a room.
The room was full. Row upon row of men and women, lying head-to-foot on straw pallets, spread before me. On the other side of the room, by a tiny hearth, an old woman sat in a rockered chair, netting socks. She looked up when we entered. She did not smile.
The room smelled of silence and stone—like a cathedral after the incense smoke has drifted away. It didn’t smell as if dozens of people crowded into one space together.
I stared at the bodies lying on the pallets, each one abnormally still, with none of the snoring and scratching and farting normal people do when they sleep.
They fall asleep and never waken.
Pa tried to pull me back out of the room, but I shrugged away to kneel beside one of the bodies—a girl with alabaster skin and straight brown brows. I reached to touch her but paused, hesitant, noticing that I couldn’t really see her chest move. “Is she alive?” I asked the old woman.
The woman set aside her netting and leaned forward. “You are the herb-husband’s new apprentice, yes? As well as the gardener’s daughter,” she said, her voice as cracked as her face. “So you’ve finally come to see the dead-alive?”
I didn’t know how to answer that tactfully, so I asked, “They never waken? No matter what?”
“Stick them with pins and they don’t jump. Thunder and handclaps alike never disturb their dreams. Neither does fire or water awaken them.”
I put aside my horror to think like an herbalist. “Have you tried rubbing their limbs with oil of rosemary? What effect has pepper blown into their nostrils?”
“I try the rosemary every week, and ground black pepper rouses them not at all.” The woman looked expectant and eager, like she was curious to know what I would ask next.
Normally, I’d have been gratified to be taken seriously, but it worried me. Things were in a dreadful state indeed if people hoped for miracles from an apprentice herbalist.
I avoided her eager eyes by examining the girl more closely. She might have possessed all of thirteen years, just like me. “Do they ever . . . die on you?”
“I feed them nourishing soups,” the old woman said. “Drip, drip, drip it down their throats, then massage their necks until they swallow. I swaddle them like babies and change their wrappings regularly. That is what I can manage, and it is enough for most of them. But in spite of all that, some do go around the corner alone. I never can predict which ones will go—young or old, newly fallen or asleep for years. . . .”
I shivered. The girl’s sleeping face was untroubled, and her breathing so slow I could barely hear it with my ear practically pressed to her nose. She looked like a saint’s corpse, dead but incorrupt. As though she would never rot. As though she would exist, always, just like this.
“How did this happen?” I whispered.
“They dared to look upon the princesses,” the old woman said, “when the princesses were not wanting to be looked upon.”
I didn’t say anything. Neither did anyone else for a long time. Then Pa stirred behind me. “Reveka. Brother Cosmin will be wanting you.”
“Yes, Pa,” I said, rising to my feet. But before I followed him out the door into the living castle, I paused. “Stăpână,” I said respectfully, “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
“I am Adina. And this is my daughter, Alina.” She gestured to the woman at the end of the row closest to her. “And that’s Iulia.” She pointed to the girl I’d been examining.
I asked, very politely, “Stăpână Adina, would it be all right if I brought some herbs to try to wake . . . them?”
“Try your best,” Adina said indifferently, taking up her netting again. She didn’t seem interested in me anymore, now that I had one foot out the door. I wondered how many people promised to come—and didn’t.
Pa let me catch up with him outside. “Those people back there, Reveka? Those are the ones who don’t disappear,” he said.
“Disappear?”
“Some go into the princesses’ tower and never return.”
“What, are they eating people?”
Pa raised an eyebrow. “They leave no bones if they do. But—now do you see, Reva? Do you see the curse for what it is? Why you should leave it alone? Why you should not treat it as a lark, and why you should not play games with your herbs?”
“Yes, Pa, I see,” I said. It wasn’t a lie. I did see. I saw exactly why it was that I had to try even harder to break the curse of Castle Sylvian and win my dowry.
Chapter 3
When we had arrived at Castle Sylvian three weeks before—having walked all the way from Moldavia—I’d been disappointed to discover that the resident herb master already had an apprentice. But Brother Cosmin took me on anyway. At first I’d been pleased, but then I realized he did so because I was already well trained in herbalism by the convent, and he could lie abed longer if he had me do half his work.
The other half of his work had already settled on the shoulders of his first apprentice, Didina. When my pa had said that Brother Cosmin would be wanting me that morning, he was mistaken. It was Didina who would want me. Brother Cosmin went back to bed after the audience with the Princess Consort.
I am being truthful here, and not bad-mouthing Brother Cosmin out of dislike or something—but of his vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty, it was hard to tell which he took least seriously. He was a goodish man, a bad monk, and a middling herbalist—he thought betony was the best cure for everything.
“Where have you been?” Didina asked, frazzled. She was fourteen, a year older than me, though she’d been learning her art less long. “I’ve not seen Brother Cosmin all morning.”
I hurried in, past Brother Cosmin’s shelf of wondrous books (seven herbals, four of them press printed!), and settled down at my worktable. “Princess Daciana had a question about an ingredient in the princesses’ bath herbs this morning.”
“A question—why? What did you put in?”
“Wild cabbage.”
She obviously didn’t see the significance. “That’s a terrible bath herb,” she told me, and went back to powdering betony for Brother Cosmin.
I sighed. Betony is a fine plant. Some people call betony heal-all, but to me, it represents the lazy kind of healing, like the barbers who think that opening up a vein is good for every disorder, even for wounded soldiers gushing blood.
The whole of betony, from root to flower, is medicinal, and it is good for fevers, spasms, peeing more, peeing less, high blood, bad stomachs, worms, flatulence, excessive bleeding, and even wounds. But betony works much better paired with a second, complementary herb, and it’s not suitable for everything, nor is it always the best cure.
But I was determined to behave, so I resolved not to take up the betony conversation with either Didina or Brother Cosmin again for at least a week. I owed the monk for showing up in the solar at all, even though he hadn’t actually spoken in my defense—and frankly, I had worried that perhaps my diatribes against the excessive use of the plant were what had gotten me summoned by the Princess in the first place.
I worked hard the rest of the day. I took dried rose petals to the laundresses to layer in with the clean clothing. I made up hair rinse of rosemary and nettles for
half the castle. I helped Didina powder wormwood to deter mice, pennyroyal to repel fleas. I made a batch of sore-leg ointment for Brother Cosmin’s donkey, who was getting on in years.
When Brother Cosmin finally showed up, he directed me to make up sachets of southernwood and tansy to keep moths at bay. I gathered day’s-eyes, lemon balm, and santolina for the footmen to mix with sweet rushes for the floor of the great hall, and savory, rosemary, rue, and roses for the aromatic posies the princesses carried every evening.
After this, the monk spent some time teaching us to work with clover root and cherry bark to make a remedy for coughs.
When he stepped out for the privy, Didina said, “Brother Cosmin told me why you put the wild cabbage in the bathwater, Reveka. You’d best stay away from the princesses.”
I set my jaw mutinously and continued pounding apart the threads of a clover root with my pestle.
“You don’t know how many people have been lost,” she continued. “It’s not worth it.”
“The dowry’s not worth it?” I asked. “Because it seems worth it—not to have to marry some clod who’ll make you bear too many babies, or not to live alone and have no one to care for you in your old age. . . .”
“Some clod—? What do you want a dowry for, if not to get married?”
“I want to join a convent, of course.”
“Oh.” Didina measured out the cherry bark she’d just powdered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had a spiritual calling.”
I was ashamed to admit that I didn’t, so I skipped answering that. “I want to be the herbalist for an entire abbey,” I told Didina. “I want to have my own herbary. My own apprentices.” To write a great herbal, I thought, but I didn’t tell her that. It seemed more like a dream than a real plan.
She squinted at the powder she had made. “That takes a lot of money, you know. Only rich women join that kind of abbey.”
“I know,” I said, and pounded harder at my clover root. I’d known since I was a small child that the nuns weren’t going to take me without a dowry, and I’d barely dared dream of my own herbary—a whitewashed room filled with northern sunlight and tall drying cabinets, where I reigned as mistress and none gainsaid my method for preparing pomanders. Or made too much of betony.
Before there was this dowry to try for, I’d always figured I’d have to find a husband. I didn’t think it would be too hard—I wasn’t entirely homely, by all accounts, and even if I were, plenty of homely women get homely husbands and make homely babies.
But then what? What about my husband? What would he be—a cabinetmaker, a blacksmith, a cobbler? The problem with marrying a craftsman is that the commerce becomes the wife’s problem. And where did that fit in with my herbs? Nor could I see marrying a farming man, beholden to some estate, any more than I could see marrying a soldier—my own ma’s sad life bounced that notion right out of my head.
No. The convent was the best choice for me. A place where I would have all the time I was supposed to be devoutly praying to think about herbs. I didn’t really care for all the silence and singing and obedience—but my own herbary!
Brother Cosmin came back then and asked us questions about the properties of cherry bark, and we stopped talking.
In short order, I assembled the evening’s posies and went to deliver them to the princesses’ door.
I arrived at the same time as Florin, the youngest of the cobbler boys. The castle employed seven cobblers, total: six to make two new pairs of slippers every day for the princesses, and one to make shoes for the rest of us. Florin was the newest apprentice to his master, like me, and like me, he was the one who had to venture off to the princesses’ tower. No one who could possibly avoid it went to the princesses’ tower. Ever.
I looked at Florin over my fragrant tray of flowers and herbs; he looked at me over his box of slippers.
“Do you ever think that maybe if we didn’t replace their posies and slippers every night, they wouldn’t do whatever it is that they do?” I asked.
Florin, who was just a bit older than me but had lived at the castle since he was born, shook his head. “They tried that,” he said. “They tried everything. For a week, Prince Vasile refused them any slippers. The princesses made holes in their feet instead of their shoes. It was a week of blood and blisters and hobbling about.”
“Why not move them out of the castle altogether?”
“Because! Earthquakes! Wind! Terrible storms! Every time they try something, we spend a month clearing the debris and patching up the castle foundations.”
“Well,” I said, “maybe they shouldn’t let them go to bed at night?”
Florin shook his head. “The curse is strong. The curse wants the princesses in the castle, in this tower, every night, no exceptions.”
“Maybe separate them—”
“No.” Florin rolled his eyes. “The castle’s been cursed for six years. They tried everything you’ve thought up—twice—and eighty more things besides.”
“What about—”
Florin wheeled about impatiently. “Listen. You’re what, thirteen? You aren’t going to break the curse. Nobody is going to break the curse, and nothing good comes to them that try. A piece of advice, apprentice to apprentice: The curse don’t hurt them that don’t mess with it. So you? Don’t mess with it, and grow up to be a journeyman herbalist. Now. Knock.” He jerked his chin toward the tower door.
I was annoyed, but I knocked. Beti, the princesses’ maid, opened up to take Florin’s box of shoes. Florin escaped swiftly, clearly having no intention of waiting for me.
Usually a second maid would have taken my flowers, but tonight she was not in attendance. I tried to place the tray of flowers on top of Florin’s box, but Beti grimaced. “Bring in the tray—I haven’t got six hands, you know!” So I followed her into the eastern tower.
The princesses stood about in varying states of undress, preparing for the evening’s meal and entertainment in their father’s hall. In any other boudoir of twelve princesses, there would have been chatter and laughter. But all here was silence and strain, even though the princesses wore the most beautiful gowns of velvets, damasks, and silks—nothing at all like my sturdy woolen skirts and apron.
I set down the tray of flowers and turned to leave, but Beti asked, “Can’t you stay?”
“What for?” I whispered.
“Help them with their flowers? You know all about flowers, right?”
I started to say that I didn’t think they’d want me, because I wanted to go down and get my supper, but then I realized that there was no better time to investigate the curse further. What luck! And I’d almost thrown that luck away for sour soup and roasted carp!
Chapter 4
“Sure, I’ll help the princesses with their flowers,” I said. Beti flashed me her teeth in gratitude and dashed off to assist Princess Viorica with her lacings.
Several of the princesses glared at me, doubtless because of the cabbage issue. I shied from them and approached Princess Otilia with a posy, since she was the only princess who had ever bothered to learn my name. She stopped plucking fine hairs from her forehead and reached for the flowers.
“Reveka, the posies look lovely,” Otilia said, burying her nose in a spray. “And they smell even better. What wonderful roses!”
“Mm, indeed, Highness.” I plopped a curtsy at her, not certain if I should point out that I didn’t have anything to do with growing roses, just the picking of them. “And, um, how can I help you?”
Otilia showed me how to smooth her hair back tightly and bind it with pins. We covered the knot of hair with a tall, cone-shaped cap. A veil attached to the hat with wire antennae and fluttered about her head. She told me this was called a butterfly hennin, and I could see why, with the veil spread above her head like wings.
When I stepped back to admire my work, I felt about as fine as a hill cottager, though I wore my second-best apron and my nut-dyed cowl was new. The linen of Otilia’s veil practically glowed in
contrast to her dark hair, and she was almost beautiful.
Otilia smiled at me. It didn’t seem a happy smile, and it made her seem older than I had thought she was.
“How long have you been at the castle, Princess?” I asked, speaking softly since Lacrimora and Maricara were glaring at me periodically.
“It will be seven years this autumn. We came when I was twelve. I’m the youngest.” She spoke wistfully, and her eyes were dark and moist. In a voice pitched so her sisters couldn’t hear, she said, “I miss my other life. You have no idea how lucky you are, Reveka.”
I frowned. I wasn’t cursed, of course, but what did she know about my life? My mother had refused to follow my father once she was pregnant, because Pa was soldiering for Vlad Ţepeş then, who was not known for treating women very well, even his soldiers’ women, even pregnant ones. She had died shortly after giving birth to me, leaving me in a convent. My first eight years there were utterly miserable. The Abbess had marked me as a liar and a troublemaker from birth. All the nuns scorned me, except Sister Anica, the herbalist, who chose me to be her student. She appreciated that I was clever and a fast learner.
I never even met Pa until after he left Vlad Ţepeş’s army to join the Hungarian Black Legion, when I was nine or so; he stayed in the abbey’s guest hostel for a night, saw me for half an hour, and let the Abbess convince him that I was a liar on the path of sin. He didn’t come to collect me until he gave up soldiering a couple of years later, at which point he dragged me away from Sister Anica to follow him around while he gardened for various nobles all over the region.
That first year I hated him. He treated me like the liar the Abbess had told him I was, and he watched me hawkishly for the slightest untruth. He made me find my own willow twigs when he switched me for lying, and I would cry as I cut the twigs, thinking of Sister Anica. It went that way until we came to our uneasy truce: I promised I would never lie to him, and he promised to trust my vow and assume I told the truth. I think we were both hard-pressed to keep our pact, but so far we’d never caught each other breaking it.
The Princess Curse Page 2