The Piano Girl - Part Two (Counterfeit Princess Series)

by Sherri Schoenborn Murray

  “No.” She shook her head. “A girl gnome wears a green cap until she is married. Then I will wear a brown one.”

  We returned to the carriage. Needa sighed anxiously. “It is rare that the woman finds the man. Usually it is the male gnome who goes searching for his bride. To find a gnome that is not one’s kin can be difficult.”

  After several miles of traversing over a bumpy dirt road, Ivan found the red barn. Needa stood on my shoulders and scanned the countryside for a grove of oak trees.

  “Set me on the ground! No, I am not thinking; carry me to that tree.” Needa pointed to an oak that stood amongst many others. I held her on my shoulder while I hiked through knee-high grass toward the canopy of the gnarled oak.

  “Not this oak, that oak.” Needa pointed to another nearby tree. Leaves crunched underfoot. “Yes, I think it is. Yes, I’m almost positive. Set me down.”

  In her wedding gown, Needa sprinted to the trunk. She stumbled over a twig and somersaulted. From her seated position, she righted her cap and stared ahead at the runic markings scratched into the side of the trunk.

  “This is my birthday tree!” Needa rose to her feet and stretched her arms wide, hugging an expanse of the trunk. “I was eighty-nine when I was captured. Eleven years ago. Get the letters and read here, Dory. Tonight, you will attend my wedding under this tree.” Needa held on to her green cap, and disappeared down a rabbit-sized hole.

  I returned to the horses and informed Ivan that Needa had found her birth tree. He smiled and pointed to our gear, indicating that he’d set up camp.

  “I will read.” I pointed to Needa’s tree.

  I returned to the oak, shook out the blanket, and sat with my back against the trunk. Before I opened the cylinder, I look heavenward through the tree’s gnarled limbs and dark green foliage.

  “Thank you, God. Help Needa to find a good husband. Amen.”

  The writings were in French, my second language. I’d argued with my mother when I was young that I would never have a practical use for French, and now I was grateful for her insistence. As one often does with a second language, I translated the words into English in my mind.

  My sweet Claire,

  I mourn that I was not there to comfort you in the loss of our child and to hold you both in my arms during the final hours before she died. Though our suffering is great, we will persevere. God willing, we will have another child.

  I love you.

  Felix

  I stared into the branches. Perhaps the letters were too personal for me to read. Too painful. Why had he never told me that he’d lost a daughter? I wiped the tears from my cheeks.

  Night had fallen, and with it the day’s warmth. I wrapped the blanket round about me. The stars twinkled through the leaves like a million diamonds.

  Needa emerged from the rabbit hole, holding the hand of a gnome-sized man. “Dory! Dory! Meet Lehto.” The gnome beside her wore a pointed red cap and a long, brown beard.

  “Lehto Cauvern.” He bowed.

  “Cauvern!” Needa frowned, crossing her arms. “I’m your cousin, Needa Tikka.” With a lift of her skirt, Needa disappeared into the rabbit hole, a heartbroken Lehto following close behind.

  It grew late, and I fell asleep waiting for Needa to return.

  Finally, she emerged from the rabbit hole and sat sidesaddle upon my knee. She bobbed a bit to further wake me. I stretched and yawned. Needa waited for my yawn to end and watched me blink until my foggy eyes cleared.

  “Do you approve of Lehto?” she asked.

  Groggy, I nodded. “He seemed taken with you.”

  “I am related to everyone here. If they are not my cousin, they are my uncle or brother. There are two eligible cousins, but one will not leave the glen. Lehto said he will follow me to the ends of the earth.”

  “And what do you think about Lehto?” I picked Needa up in my hand to study my wee friend’s face.

  “He is a gnome”—she held out both hands—“and he is my size.”

  ΦΦΦ

  At midnight under Needa’s birthday tree, in front of their family and their friends, Needa and Lehto pledged their eternal love for one another. For the next few days, they honeymooned while Ivan and I stayed in the glen.

  After the third day, Ivan pointed to the horses and to his wrist to remind me of the time.

  “Yes, Ivan, I agree, it’s time to leave.”

  Needa bawled and Lehto held her as they waved good-bye to loved ones they most likely would never see again.

  Across the carriage from me, on top of the handbag, Lehto sat with his arm around Needa. “You will love our little home in the kitchen,” Needa said.

  “In the kitchen?” Lehto laughed and slapped the patched knee of his trousers. “I will make a new home for us in the root of a tree, where forest gnomes ought to live.”

  “Once you see our little place, you will change your mind, Lehto.” Needa crossed her arms. “And if you don’t, I will change it for you.”

  “We will live in the trunk of a tree,” Lehto said firmly.

  “I live in a castle within a castle. I will not trade that for a tree!”

  “You knew when you married me that I was a forest gnome!”

  Their arguing grew louder. I rose and reached my hand out the window and tugged on the back of Ivan’s coat. Slowing the horses, he glanced over his shoulder at me.

  “They’re fighting.” I picked Lehto up by the back of his collar and handed him to Ivan. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” I said.

  I looked across the carriage at Needa. “Perhaps your courtship was a bit rushed.”

  Needa wiped her tears on the sleeve of one of my shirts before crawling deeper inside my handbag. “He wants to live under a tree, and he hasn’t even seen my little place.”

  “Give him time.”

  Ivan drove well past noon. He was finally forced to stop when the wooden wheel on the carriage made its last turn. It hit a rock just right and turned into a triangle. I tucked Needa into my pocket and stepped out of the carriage.

  While Ivan studied the wheel, a ruffed grouse flew out of the brush and took flight. I picked up Ivan’s shotgun off of the carriage seat and proceeded to load it. I tapped him on the shoulder. “I will shoot us something for lunch.”

  “Wait!” a small, muffled voice yelled. Lehto poked his head out of Ivan’s coat pocket. “Where’s Needa?”

  “Tell him,” Needa said from within my pocket, “that I feel hurt. He hasn’t even seen my beautiful little place.”

  “Did you hear that, Lehto?” I asked.

  He scrunched up his long, pointed nose. “Tell her—”

  Ivan pushed the gnome deep into his pocket, crushing his red hat. Using his hands, Ivan motioned that he would release the carriage from the horses. He pointed to himself and then to me, and then he pointed to the horses.

  “We will ride home without the carriage?” I asked.

  Ivan nodded.

  In the curve of the dirt road up ahead, one man walked, while two men rode on horseback behind him. I set the gun on the carriage seat and tossed my hair over my shoulder as I bent down to help Ivan unlatch the carriage hitch. As the men drew nearer, I sensed that one of them was watching me.

  I glanced over my shoulder. The man on foot stared at me with narrowed eyes in a gaunt face. “Swamp Woman,” he mumbled under his breath.

  With angst in my heart, I recognized the uncle of the counterfeit princess. They were the gypsies that King Walter had banished to the mountains. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand. Surely, they had passed. I glanced over my shoulder.

  The counterfeit uncle stood in the middle of the road, pointing his gun in our direction. Two shots exploded above our heads, and then both of our horses fell in anguish to the ground. While the madman reloaded his double-barreled gun, his companions rode off. I grabbed the shotgun off the carriage seat.

  “You get to walk home like we did.” He sneered, pointing his gun at me. Near my hip, I cocke
d Ivan’s gun. Before I had time to lift the barrel, he pulled the trigger. A searing pain struck me below my collarbone, and I was driven backward to the ground.

  Little white fluffy clouds dotted the sky. I rolled my chin toward my chest. The madman’s gun was now pointed at Ivan.

  Though Ivan’s gun lay in my hand, I could no longer lift my arm.

  Needa slipped out of my coat pocket.

  The madman tried to pull the trigger, but the gun jammed. He cocked the gun again. Needa scurried down my leg and lifted the barrel of Ivan’s gun onto my knee.

  “Bend your knee,” she yelled back at me. Wrapping her body around the barrel, Needa clutched the fabric of my skirt. The crosshair was aligned perfectly on the uncle. Deadening my mind to the pain, I pulled the trigger.

  Shot in the center of his chest, he fell backward. The shot echoed through the pastoral countryside. Limbs sprawled and lifeless, the man lay in the center of the road.

  “Needa!” Lehto climbed down the side of Ivan’s pants before dropping to the ground. They scrambled to one another and sobbed in each other’s arms.

  I propped myself on my left elbow and stared down the road toward Yonder. Blood trickled down my white shirt.

  No one knew. No one knew that I, Dory, the piano girl, was their future queen.

  I’d die here and be given a peasant’s burial, and no one would ever know.

  ΦΦΦ

  Ivan knelt down and picked me up. He carried me through the brush and up the hillside toward what appeared to be a rock ledge. It was a cave. He tucked me up inside. If it rained, I would not get wet.

  “Ivan, in case I die, there’s something I must tell you.” I searched his sweat-beaded face.

  He shook his head.

  “I am Princess Alia. I am your future queen.” A tear slid out the corner of my eye and dribbled into my ear.

  Wide-eyed, he shook his head again. As he hurried down the slope, he picked up Lehto, and then the large man crashed through the brush. Yonder was at least a day and a half by horse, perhaps three days by foot. I might die by the time they reached home.

  Needa climbed a nearby alder tree and, scooting out on a spindly branch, landed herself beside me on the ledge. She sat in the folds of my skirt and wept into her hands. The reality that I could die before I married Wron and sealed my country’s fate added to my suffering.

  “Can you read French?” I whispered.

  “No,” Needa said.

  “Tell me about Lehto and how much you love him.” I closed my eyes to the pain that ripped through my right shoulder.

  Needa climbed up my other shoulder and sniffled as she smoothed my hair away from my sweat-tinged face. “He is kind. I will let him build a home beneath a tree, if he must. It is the male gnome who presents the female gnome with a home. He had a lovely little home back in Swallow’s Glen. It was so tidy and cheerful.”

  Propped up against the hard rock, I stared at the road below. It began to rain.

  Needa plucked a leaf off the nearby alder tree and caught rainwater in its folds. She returned up my good shoulder and poured the water into my mouth, and then she laid the wet leaf on my forehead.

  “You have a fever, Dory.” Again she caught rainwater with the leaf and poured it into my mouth. Sometime later, Needa lay in the folds of my skirt and slept.

  Chapter Twelve

  Before dessert, King Ulrich read the front page of Yonder Times. Rhoda plunked a plate of blueberry kuchen between him and the paper.

  “It’s been a while since you’ve made your peach pie.”

  “I will soon make peach pie when Prince Wron marries,” Rhoda said. “Oh, that reminds me, we’re having problems with Knot.”

  Walter lowered the paper to look at her. “Knot?”

  “Yes, he loves my peach pie,” she said, and then, remembering her place, bit her lower lip. “Yesterday Knot threw his dinner plate across the cell and demanded to see Prince Wron or you.”

  “Why did you not tell me?”

  “I walked up the stairs, saw the pile of dishes, and immediately forgot.” She grimaced.

  “I’ll go speak with him.” Walter carefully folded the paper. He’d only recently been thinking about granting his old friend his freedom. He missed him.

  As he approached Knot’s cell, his breath caught in his throat. For decades, Knot had worn a fine uniform, and now his bony shoulders protruded through filthy rags.

  “Are you well, Knot?” Walter asked.

  “Surviving.” Knot’s wild hair plumed several inches away from his gaunt face. “You, Walter, have put on weight.”

  Walter nodded. Even his shoes felt tight.

  “Where is Dory? She hasn’t visited for over a week.”

  “She left for Evland to help Needa find a husband. Is something—”

  “Why wasn’t I told?” Knot gripped the bars.

  “The servants were ordered not to speak about it.” Walter rocked back and forth. “Rhoda said you wanted to see me.”

  With his hands behind his head, Knot paced back and forth across his cell. “Those counterfeits you imprisoned last week were from Evland. The gypsies.”

  A large knot cinched in Walter’s chest.

  “One of the men was deranged. He was determined to have revenge, not so much on you, but on the Swamp Woman.”

  “Are you positive they’re from Evland?” Walter asked.

  “Yes. He was in Dory’s old cell.” Knot nodded across the corridor. “I’m absolutely positive. How long will it take for the vagabonds to walk out of the mountains?”

  “If they are lucky, a week on foot. Give or take a day.”

  “And when will Dory return?”

  “We expect them to return in two, three days.”

  “Their paths may cross.”

  Walter breathed uneasily. “Thank you, Knot. You will receive three extra-large meals each day for the duration of your stay. And I want you to start doing push-ups.”

  Knot’s smile filled half of his lean face. “When you have time, bring a hot cup of coffee, and I’ll tell you more about the girl.”

  Walter waved before he hurried toward the stairs.

  “Walter, it’s very important that you find her. Very.”

  ΦΦΦ

  Prince Wron stood amongst his men. What is going on? His father stood atop a whiskey barrel in the midst of a battalion of fifty men and beckoned for silence.

  “An unexpected crisis has been brought to my attention. You are to ride through the night toward Evland. You are not to stop or sleep. Once you find Ivan, Dory, and our gnome, Needa, then you may set up camp and rest.”

  His father paused and found Wron’s face amongst the crowd. “I have just been informed that the gypsies whom we abandoned in the mountains are from Evland. One of the gypsies is very intent on revenge, not in regards to me, but toward Dory. She is from Blue Sky and informed us that the gypsies were counterfeits.”

  No. Wron closed his eyes. “Dear God, keep her safe. Keep Dory safe.”

  Soldiers talked amongst themselves before his father continued. “I pray that their paths have not and will not cross. I pray that all of you will return safely to us. Now, leave together at once.”

  As Wron rode, he realized that if Dory was harmed, it was his fault. They had involved her in identifying the counterfeits. The gypsies should have received a harsher punishment, but there were women involved. Women always received a lighter penalty. He cringed. They should have taken Dory aside and asked her opinion in private. She’d become the target of the gypsies’ blame.

  The armed battalion rode hard into the wee hours of the morning. The men were hungry and tired, but Wron commanded them to push on. Midmorning, they dismounted for a short break. They stretched and ate sliced ham on Rhoda’s buttered bread.

  Wron had one foot in his stirrup, about to remount, when he saw movement up ahead in the distance. An apparently exhausted man was running more with his shoulders than with his feet. The height and breadth of the man rese
mbled Ivan. Wron mounted his horse and rode toward him.

  Ivan stopped and panted with his hands to his knees. Wron slid off his horse and stared into the exhausted man’s eyes. Time ticked slowly by as he waited for Ivan to motion, to point behind himself, to mumble. Instead, Ivan pulled a gnome out of his hip pocket. The little man had brown hair, a brown beard, a wide belt cinched around his middle, and a red pointed hat.

  “Are you Prince Wron?” the gnome asked.

  Dry mouthed, Wron nodded.

  “I’m Lehto, Needa’s husband. They’re back there.” Lehto pointed in the direction from which they’d run. “Ten, twenty miles. A man shot our horses, and then he shot the woman, Dory. He went to shoot Ivan; but before he could, my Needa raised Dory’s gun and Dory pulled the trigger.”

  “She’s alive?” Wron whispered.

  Lehto set a hand over his heart. “I don’t know.”

  Wron rallied his men. He got Ivan on another horse to lead the way. Wron rode in shock. Dory’s trip to Evland had turned into a nightmare. It was his fault. Somehow, he should have prevented her exile, prevented their separation. Please, God, let her live. After many miles, the battle scene came into view. A man lay dead in the middle of the road. Flies buzzed around the horses. Ivan slid off his horse and waved for Wron to follow.

  Wron gave orders to his men. “Four of you keep watch while the others set up camp. Prepare a meal and rest.” He followed Ivan through the brush and up a rocky embankment. Is she alive? God, let her be alive!

  Ivan stayed behind as Wron climbed the last ledge. Dory lay asleep with her head propped against the cave wall. Her pale face was moist with sweat. Her shirt was soaked with blood. He gripped her wrist and found a weak pulse. She was alive, for now.

  Needa unrolled herself from Dory’s skirts, hugged his arm, and began to weep.

  “Did the bullet pass through?” he asked.

  Needa shook her head.

  He turned to Ivan. “Lehto . . .” He waited for the red-capped man to emerge from Ivan’s pocket. “Tell my men that we need to get the bullet out.”