by Deva Fagan
When it came, the rustle of movement above nearly sent me out of my skin. Captain Ribisi had remained stationed below the window. He reached up as a cloud of misty white silk and ribbons descended from the window. The girl gave a mewling scream. I ground my teeth, holding fast to the pole as Captain Ribisi caught the girl and helped her down. I could see Leonato’s blond head. He lowered himself, then fell lightly to the raft.
Even braced against the tower, the raft rocked somewhat. I heard another scream, though this one was somewhat muffled. Wonderful. It couldn’t have been a sensible princess who would understand that rescue from dire peril demanded silence. “Shh!” I hissed to the girl. “Do you want them to know you’ve escaped?”
She turned around, and I saw with a sinking heart that she was all I had feared. Beautiful as a flower, fragile as the dawn. Fit to inspire a hundred minstrels. Her eyes were large, and one small white hand pressed to her lips in a childish gesture of embarrassment. “Oh!” she said. “But my prince will save me from any danger.” She turned adoring eyes upon Leonato, who even now had taken up his pole again and was helping Captain Ribisi direct the raft back to shore. The prince glanced up long enough to smile. He looked bewildered, but whether by love or confusion I could not tell.
I suppressed the desire to throttle the girl. My heart thrummed in my ears. Father’s life depended on my fortune coming true, and for that I needed a princess. This one not only looked the part, clearly she had fallen for Prince Leonato already. But what did he think of her?
I tried to concentrate on watching the barracks roof, but I was acutely aware of how beautiful the girl looked in her white nightgown, those long tresses loose, draping her in a shimmering, cornsilk cloak. Misery stabbed through me. How had I ever dreamed Leonato might feel anything for me? This was the sort of ethereal, lovely creature he deserved. She might not be particularly useful in a dangerous situation, but she was real and true. I was just a liar trying to save my father’s life.
I wrenched my eyes away from both Leonato and the girl, and turned to observe the approaching Collegium promontory. The scholars in the chamber above had fallen silent, or gone out, and the lamps had been darkened. But what was that? A dark shape on the balcony ahead, crouched beside the fluttering banner. I squinted, trying to make it out. Had it been there before? Was it a potted plant, or decorative statuary?
Then the darkness turned silvery. The moon emerged from the veiling clouds. I saw the shape clearly; a shaft of moonlight lit a slender curve of wood. Just barely I heard the twang, but I was already moving.
“Down!” I hissed, throwing myself at the princess, pulling her down to the raft. “Archer!”
She gave another scream as she collapsed. The shaft went keening through the air, to embed itself in the wood of the raft just past where I lay in a tangle with the princess. The raft changed course, as Leonato and Captain Ribisi began poling us away from the assailant.
“Stop whimpering,” I ordered the girl, tearing off my cloak and casting it over her. In that white gown she was as fair a target as the moon itself. She batted at my hands, and I received a sharp elbow in my ribs that seemed fairly deliberate. But I had more important concerns now.
A cry rose from the far side of the Perdutto, answered by another from atop the barracks. Another twang, but the second arrow splished harmlessly into the canal. Lights appeared along the barracks, bobbing in the hands of running guards.
“They’ve seen us,” Captain Ribisi said. “We must reach that covered walk. The Collegium isn’t safe with the archer there. Quickly, my prince.”
We were not far from the other side of the canal now, but I could see the line of lanterns trailing down, moving that way. More lights bobbed out across the canal, as guards in boats of their own began rowing after us. Another arrow hissed past, and Leonato grunted. “I’m all right,” he said, before I could even ask. “Just s-sliced my s-s-sleeve.”
Muffled wails came from under my cloak as the princess tried to push the dark wool off herself. “No, Princess, stay there, you’ll be seen,” I said, trying to prevent her from casting the entire cloak into the canal. As I leaned close, another hard elbow jabbed at me, this time catching my chin. The blow sent me reeling back.
I had one glimpse of the jeweled stars above before I crashed down into frigid water. It closed in around me with a horrible heavy pressure, slowing my frenzied flailing, pulling down, down, down on my sodden gown. I struggled, trying to claw for the edge of the raft. But my fingers felt only the empty cold water. My chest burned, until I opened my mouth to scream. Then a great rushing cold filled me, pushing into my throat, my nostrils, my ears. I could see no light at all.
Had the Saints finally come to claim me for my deceptions? A fitting end, slain by the very princess I had made up. If only my last sight didn’t have to be that beautiful, stupid, heedless princess.
The darkness became complete.
CHAPTER
11
IWOKE TO SOMEONE prodding my shoulder. The dagger wound from the Black Wood had mostly healed, but that spot was still somewhat sore, and I flinched. I blinked the crusty sleep from my eyes, grunting in surprise. The light in the room was dim, but still far too bright for night. And what was I doing in a room in any case? We had been on the canal, fleeing with the princess, when I had fallen into the water.
“Awake?” demanded someone near my head.
“Ouch!” I cried as my shoulder was poked again. I craned my neck to see the person seated beside my bed. By daylight, the princess was even more beautiful. She looked vaguely familiar, but perhaps that was because she resembled one of the carved Saints. Her skin was as translucent and fine as rose petals. Her eyes, to my surprise, were hazel, not blue. But in all other respects, she was exactly what I expected. Only the petulant pursing of her red lips and the crease between those delicately arched golden brows marred her full beauty.
“I’m awake,” I said, flinching as she prepared to jab me again. “Where am I? What happened?” I pushed myself up. This did not look like my room in the inn. It was a rougher, simpler chamber. Then the door opened to admit Leonato.
“You’re awake? Thank the S-s-saints,” he said, hastening to the bedside. His smile warmed me as much as the princess’s glower chilled.
“Oh, my prince, you should not be troubling yourself over the girl,” cooed the princess, leaning forward to interpose herself between Leonato and the bed. “You’ve been through such an ordeal, you must rest and recover your own strength.”
My initial irritation was lost in a stronger wave of fear. I looked him up and down for signs of illness or injury. “What ordeal? Are you hurt, Leonato?”
“Your Highness,” corrected the princess, but I did not even spare her a scowl.
“Princess Maridonna is most generous in her concern, but I’m fine, Fortunata. It’s you I was worried about, drinking down half the Royal Canal.”
“Oh, the girl’s well enough,” Maridonna said. “She’s from hearty peasant stock. Look at those red cheeks. Such folk are used to hardships.”
The redness in my cheeks had little to do with good health, but I bit down the furious words that threatened to burst out. After all, I needed the princess to make my fortune come true. I couldn’t afford to insult her. Unfortunately, I seemed to offend her simply by existing.
The door opened again. I stared in amazement at the figure standing there. Had my dunking somehow fevered my brain?
“Allessandra! What are you doing here?”
She smiled, a more open and true smile than any I had seen on her face. It softened the sharpness of her features, as did the cheerful rose scarf and nut-brown gown, so different from the severe brilliance of her costumes. “I might ask you the same, child. This is my house.”
I looked between Allessandra and Leonato. “How . . . ?”
“As I understand it, this lad fished you out of the canal half-drowned. I found him with my father and the lady here trying to revive you. So I took you all here, to
my house. You’ve had a good dunking but no lasting harm.”
“Your father?” I wondered if there was still canal water clogging my ears. I blinked as Captain Ribisi followed her into the room. His dour expression lightened as he looked at Allessandra. He hugged her gently to him, like a man cupping a flickering candle, fearful that he might extinguish it.
“Captain Ribisi is your father?” I turned my stunned eyes to Allessandra. “He’s the father who sold you to Ubaldo?”
Captain Ribisi tightened his grip on Allessandra. She patted his hand and spoke quickly. “No, it was a lie. It was all lies. Ubaldo deceived me into thinking that, to keep me with him. Just as my father was deceived—”
“Curse that man to the seven Hells,” Ribisi said, his face very red. “He stole her from me, and she was all that I had.”
“Shush, Father. It’s done and over.” Allessandra leaned into his embrace, tears glinting at the corners of her eyes. She brushed them away. “Now I’ve found you again. And as the Saints will it, I have the means to be of assistance to you.”
I sat back against the bolster, my thoughts whirling.
“The girl is tired, we should leave her in peace,” Maridonna said sweetly. She rose from her chair, holding out one slender hand so that Leonato was obligated to assist her. Once she had his hand, she clung to it, pulling him toward the door. “Should we not be making plans to leave the city? You must be crowned, my prince. And we must be married.”
That pulled my thoughts into sharp and painful clarity. “Married?”
“Yes, Leonato has told me all about the Edicts and your wonderful prophetic visions. They led him to me, to rescue me from this foul place.” Maridonna gazed up through a veil of golden lashes at Leonato, who looked a trifle flushed.
“So, you’ve tried on the slippers? They fit?” I asked. My heart beat loudly in my ears. I didn’t know what answer I hoped for.
“Yes, lovely things they are. I shall have a gown made to match, to wear for our wedding.” Maridonna sidled closer to Leonato, still keeping a firm hold of his hand. The prince watched me with an odd look I could not interpret, for all my experience in reading faces.
“Oh. Well,” I said, lamely. “Good. Then the fortune is fulfilled.”
“Nearly,” said Captain Ribisi. “But we’re still in Sirenza, and there are at least two enemies arrayed against us. The Bloody Captain’s guards, and that archer and whatever others he might be in league with.”
“We have to leave at once, before they discover us here.” I pushed down the blanket, then clutched it back up, realizing that I was garbed in nothing but a thin chemise.
“Here are your clothes,” Allessandra said, gently pulling away from Captain Ribisi and picking up a blue bundle from the corner of the room. “Washed and dried. Tomas has a nice platter of sausage and cabbage for dinner. Why don’t you all go and eat. Fortunata and I will join you shortly.”
Maridonna wasted no time in pulling Leonato out into the hall. “I’m glad you’re all right, Fortunata,” he said, pausing at the door.
“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for rescuing me.” But Leonato was already gone, and I was alone with Allessandra.
I felt as if I had fallen into a dark and lonely pit, and could not call for help. I tore my gaze from the closed door and turned to Allessandra. “Who’s Tomas?” There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but I started with the most recent.
“My husband.” She grinned at my surprise. “Yes, Allessandra the All-Knowing has become Allessandra Grappa, the candlemaker’s wife. Though it was a long road back. . . .” She dropped her eyes to the blue dress she still held.
“I’m glad you left,” I said. I remembered how furious I had been, but now that I saw her here, happy, peaceful, I could find no embers of that old anger.
She looked up, eyes wide and searching. “You forgive me for leaving you there, with him?”
“He had Papa’s gold chain,” I said. “I would have stayed anyway. You had to leave. I’m glad you did.”
“Thank you,” she said simply. “But I am going to do all that I can to aid you now. I’ve heard some of the story from my father and Prince Leonato. You have made a prophecy, I hear?”
“Yes, and if it doesn’t come true, Papa will be executed. He swore I had the True Sight,” I explained miserably. Then the words were tumbling out of me. It was a relief to share the tale with someone.
“Though I don’t know how it came to be that Grimelda really was there with the shoe and all, and that there truly was a princess here in Sirenza. I suppose the Saints have taken pity on me and Papa,” I finished.
“And the prince and my father suspect nothing?”
“Your father doesn’t believe in magic,” I said. “Not since you were taken from him.” My fears about the captain hung at the tip of my tongue, but I could not speak them. Allessandra was so happy. She had her father back, and more, she had her trust in him restored. I would not endanger that, not without proof.
“Well, the prince certainly has faith in you,” Allessandra said. One brow was raised, and her lips twitched. I didn’t see what was so funny about it.
“I’m just glad the silly slippers fit Maridonna, or whatever her name is,” I said, taking up my blue gown and shaking it out vigorously, before slipping it over my head.
“Fit isn’t quite the word.”
I struggled to get my arms into the sleeves of the gown, and thrust my head through the neck hole with such vigor I tore a seam somewhere under my arm. “What?”
“Oh, she can get her feet into them and shuffle around, certainly. But she had to pack the toes with strips from her chemise. She has such tiny little feet.” Allessandra extracted an ivory comb from her pocket. “Now turn around and let me fix this bedraggled mane of yours.”
“Did Leonato see?” I asked, wincing when she hit a tangle.
“No, I don’t think he or my father noticed a bit. Too busy with other things.”
“Her snow-white skin and ruby lips?”
“No, silly girl. I believe the prince was more concerned with you. He spent the greater part of the morning wearing out the floors of this room.”
I realized my mouth was open, but I found no words to fill it. Allessandra continued on blithely. “He’s a nice fellow, that prince. Not at all what I expect from a noble. Do you know he washed the porridge pot from breakfast? Imagine that. Not at all like the girl. A shame he’ll have to marry such a harpy. If you ask me, no kingdom is worth that.” She ran the comb through my hair one last time and set to braiding it.
“If my fortune doesn’t come true, Papa will be executed,” I said at last. “She’s a princess, she fits the slippers, well enough at least. He rescued her from dire peril. So he must marry her.”
“He must fulfill the prophecy, for certain,” Allessandra said. “It’s a cursed shame if he must marry her to do so. That’s not a happy ending.”
“This isn’t a fairy tale,” I said, jerking away as she tied off the braid. “There’s no real magic, why should there be any happily-ever-after?” I swallowed against the tightness in my throat, afraid I was going to burst into tears. I could get through this. I had to.
Allessandra regarded me solemnly for a moment, plucking my loose hairs from the teeth of her comb. “I’ve told enough lies in my life to recognize when something is true.”
I shook my head. “That’s ridiculous.” I turned toward the door. It was cruel of Alle to feed my hope. Better that it shrivel and die and take away this horrible ache in my breast.
Allessandra caught my arm. “Do you love him?”
I didn’t answer. I wasn’t even sure whether she meant my father or Leonato. It didn’t matter. I knew what I had to do. I took a deep breath. “You said you could help us escape the Bloody Captain’s soldiers. I don’t want to stay here any longer. We’re endangering you. We should make our plans and go.”
THE PLAN WAS SIMPLE, in theory. We would create a distraction and make for shore under cover of
night. Allessandra’s Tomas was a spare man with long brown hair and soft eyes. It gave me a queer twist in the chest to watch him showing us around his workshop, for he had that same bubbling enthusiasm Father once had for his craft. The candles Tomas created were as much works of art as any shoes my father made. He showed us how he dipped them in one color of wax after another, then carefully carved fillips and curls along the sides, curving them back or twisting them to display the rainbow of colors within. They were as beautifully elaborate as the palace of Doma, or Zia Rosa’s cakes. But Tomas had another craft, also elaborate, also involving light and color. He made fireworks.
This would be our means of diversion. When the southeastern sky was lit with color and crashing with the boom of the explosions, we would slip away to the northwest. Propitiously, the captain had commissioned a display of the best of Tomas’s stores for the next night, in celebration of Niccolo’s upcoming crowning as king of Sirenza. According to Tomas, the rockets and crackers and such were already in place, in a transport barge down in the south quarter. He need only sneak close enough to set them alight.
Leonato and I waited on the narrow walk along the canal, keeping watch as Tomas rummaged about in the barge, checking his craftings for moisture damage. Leonato stood at the corner where the walk turned to pass under an arch carved with birds. I could make out a thrum of low cooing from that direction; the gilded sign announced it was a dovecote. It was the only sound, other than the lapping of water and the occasional grumble from Tomas when he found a damp wick.
“Fortunata?”
“Yes?” I remained where I was, watching along the canal in the opposite direction.