by Shea, K. M.
The pair was silent until Friedrich tore his gaze from the sky and smiled at Cinderella. “I will let you run back to your market stand. Take care, Pet.”
“You as well, Friedrich,” Cinderella said.
Friedrich was the first to go, leaving Cinderella in the shadow of the mess hall.
Her relationship with the Colonel was complicated, not just because of the position Cinderella was in, but because of who they were. “It would never work,” she said.
Cinderella squared her shoulders and put her chin up. “It would never work, and he’s not wholly sincere,” she said before she turned on her heels. “I know perfectly well he’s a rogue. He cannot be serious. It just isn’t possible.”
Cinderella realized she sounded more like she was trying to convince herself than stating a fact.
It would be easier if he were joking, Cinderella thought before she angrily shook the topic from her head. “Sun Skips! That is what I should think of. I must speak to Pierre about their price, and ask how many we should harvest per day so as to not flood the market…”
“Studies and academics are vital to humanity. They allow limits to be pushed and countries to be changed,” Queen Freja said, standing on the front steps of the Trieux Royal Library—now the Erlauf Repository of Stories and Education—with her husband, three army officers, and two government officials.
“It is my hope all parts of Erlauf will flourish if its people are properly educated and given the opportunity to seek out knowledge,” Queen Freja said. Her voice was hard, like iron.
“Every person, whether he or she is a true scholar or a baker, should have access to books,” the queen continued.
Cinderella narrowed her eyes as she studied the foreign queen. She had seen her before—she was presented to Freja when she inherited her title from her father—but back then Cinderella saw her as the hardened woman who was slowly choking Trieux to death.
Cinderella took in the woman’s height and lean stature with new eyes. There was something about her face and the sharp angles of her cheekbones that seemed oddly familiar.
“She goes on, doesn’t she, Mademoiselle?” Vitore darkly muttered as the queen continued with her speech.
Cinderella shrugged. “It’s rare for her to do something good here. I am sure she must capitalize on the few chances she has,” Cinderella said, safely surrounded by Trieux market vendors.
The milkmaid whose stand was next to Aveyron’s in the market squawked, “Good? The library was already built and furnished. She’s just renamed it,” she said, brushing goat hair off her skirt.
“She is opening it to the public,” Cinderella said.
“For the moment,” Vitore grunted.
Cinderella shifted her attention to the queen’s consort—the Commander of all Erlauf armies. The man was so uninvolved in palace politics and court happenings that Cinderella didn’t even know his name. She did know he was the terror of the Erlauf Army. His title was not something worn casually. The man was a brilliant strategist and just as hard and unmoving as his wife.
He looked incredibly common. Cinderella wasn’t sure if she would be able to pick him out of a crowd if he wasn’t standing next to Queen Freja.
“Their sons must be like slabs of marble,” Cinderella said. Neither of the Erlauf princes had deigned to attend the opening ceremony.
Cinderella was not surprised.
“Is that a surprise considering who their parents are?” the acid tongued milkmaid asked.
“Hear, hear,” Vitore said.
When Cinderella looked at them with raised eyebrows they blinked innocently.
“What is it, Mademoiselle?” Vitore asked.
The milkmaid was not so shy. “Perhaps that Colonel of yours isn’t so bad,” she grudgingly said. “But you can’t tell me those Erlauf princes are as good as him.”
“No, I should think not,” Cinderella agreed.
“…Therefore, it is with great joy that I pronounce the Erlauf Repository of Stories and Education to be open and free to all. Let no one keep his fellow man from these halls, and let knowledge pour forth from its doors,” Queen Freja finished.
Cinderella clapped half-heartedly with her fellow market vendors. The pockets of Erlauf citizens cheered louder, a few even threw yellow Sun Skips—purchased earlier that morning from Aveyron’s market stall—on the library steps.
“Well, that’s done,” the milkmaid said.
“I would bet my eyeteeth before the week is out there will be some sort of book tax that all property owners who have owned their land for more than five years must pay,” Cinderella said.
“She is the rotten sort to do that, if you don’t mind me saying, Mademoiselle.”
“Not at all,” Cinderella sighed, fluffing her skirts.
“Shall we return to the stand, Mademoiselle?”
“Not yet. I want to have a look inside first,” Cinderella said, nodding towards the library. “You may go if you like, though. Don’t let me keep you.”
“As you wish, Madmoiselle.”
“I will go with you, Vitore. I don’t trust Chas with my goats, not for long, anyway. Last time they got into his stand and ate two lengths of rope,” the milkmaid said, referring to the ropemaker.
“Thank you,” Cinderella said before the pair disappeared in the push of the crowd.
The consort and his soldiers pushed back the crowds, opening up a pathway to the library. The first through the doors were Erlauf scholars—eager to get their hands on the priceless volumes the Trieux Nobles gathered over the ages.
After the scholars went Trieux commoners. The library was built and founded decades ago, but it was exclusive in the patronage it allowed, so the average citizen rarely got to see so much as a glimpse inside the decadent building. It was probably why they attended the ceremony—so they could poke their heads inside and gawk at what was once denied to them.
Cinderella sat on the lip of a large fountain—designed for watering horses—and waited for the crowds to depart.
The consort controlled his soldiers—spacing them out and sending a few into the shadows of the library—with several crisp gestures.
Cinderella noted with great interest that none of the Erlauf nobles who had relocated to Werra after the takeover attended the ceremony. Apparently they felt no need to pay homage to their rulers, or so Cinderella suspected as she watched Queen Freja stand alone in the shadows of the library.
The tall, stately woman bent over to pick up a Sun Skip. She brushed the yellow petals with her fingertips, and the hard lines of her face softened to an almost humane expression.
The monarch twirled the flower between her fingers as she returned her gaze to the crowds. People poured up the steps, pressing into the library, but the queen was safe, blocked off by soldiers and standing some feet down the front veranda.
As Cinderella watched, a little Trieux girl who wasn’t older than four popped between the stone railings that separated the library veranda from the small courtyard. A soldier moved to intercept the blonde-haired child, but the queen indicated he should remain where he was.
The Trieux girl popped a dirty thumb in her mouth as she stared up at Queen Freja with wide eyes, her pigtails bobbing in the breeze.
Queen Freja broke off half the stem of her Sun Skip and, to Cinderella’s surprise, crouched down and wove the flower into one of the little girl’s pigtails. When she was finished, Queen Freja smoothed the child’s hair and smiled.
The little girl returned the smile before she startled and turned around. “Mama,” she called before slipping back through the stone railings, having heard her parent call her name.
Queen Freja brushed off her hands and returned to resembling iron and flint when her consort approached her. The two briefly spoke before a squad of soldiers surrounded the queen and bore her away.
The courtyard emptied as everyone smashed inside the library, but Cinderella stood transfixed.
She realized as she sat there, gaping like a fish,
that she hadn’t ever seen the queen of Erlauf smile. With great stupefaction, Cinderella also realized when the queen smiled, she bore more than a slight resemblance to Friedrich.
Chapter 10
A week later, Cinderella walked the length of the dwindling Sun Skip field, reminiscing on Queen Freja’s smile.
The mystery of Freja and Friedrich’s resemblance was resolved. When Cinderella visited Friedrich the day after the ceremony, she asked about it. Friedrich reported with a wide smile, “You saw it, too? My family is deeply royal. Our lineage goes far, far back—,” Which, as he blathered on about pedigrees and long dead kings, Cinderella took to mean that there was barely any royal blood left in his family, and it was probably more that Queen Freja had mannish facial features.
But the queen’s conduct with the little girl intrigued Cinderella. She thought the queen would scorn any Trieux citizen—regardless of their age. But Freja was soft and almost motherly towards the little girl. Was she really as bad as Cinderella thought her to be?
“Mademoiselle?”
“Yes, Jeanne?”
Jeanne bit her lip. “There is a government official here.”
“He wishes to see me?”
“No, he says he needs nothing. But he’s wandering around and…I would not bother you, but Father is up in the hay fields today,” Jeanne said.
Cinderella frowned. “He’s just wandering around?”
“He said he is taking inventory of future Erlauf Crown assets.”
Anger stiffened Cinderella’s spine. “I will see to him. Where is he?”
“By the milking barn.”
“Thank you, Jeanne.”
“Mademoiselle,” Jeanne said. She curtsied, but Cinderella was already walking away, her gray eyes flashing like thunderclouds.
Cinderella found the greasy-looking fellow—some sort of undersecretary judging by his sweat-stained shirt. “Can I help you, Sir?”
The undersecretary counted the cows. “’fraid not,” he said.
“I think you fail to understand me, sir,” Cinderella said. “I am Duchess Lacreux. How can I help you, or if you need me to use common words, what are you doing?”
“Ah, sorry,” the undersecretary said, turning from the cows. “I’ve been sent to take inventory of your lands.”
“Are all lands being re-evaluated for tax purposes?”
“No.”
“Then why are you taking inventory?”
The undersecretary scratched his dry scalp. “The crown requested it so plans can be drawn for dividing up the lands and stock after Aveyron reverts to the Crown.”
What?
Cinderella forced her expression to remain pleasant. “Did the Crown not receive my first down payment against the fine two days ago?” Cinderella asked.
“No, it was received and recorded,” the undersecretary said. “But it is the Finance Department’s opinion that if it is all you were able to pay off over the first few months of summer, you have no possibility of paying the remaining balance by the end of the month. The queen has plans for Aveyron and wishes to move forward with them as soon as possible.”
That beast! Cinderella thought, taking back the few kind thoughts she had of Queen Freja. That pushy, greedy, flint-hearted witch!
“That may be so, but until the end of the month, Aveyron is mine,” Cinderella said, the controlled coolness of her voice making the undersecretary squirm. “If you have no legal purpose to loiter on my land, I must order you to take your leave. The queen may wait to measure and take inventory until Aveyron belongs to her.”
“Oh, but Her Majesty will be so very disappointed—.”
“Be gone,” Cinderella said, every inch of her body drawing up in nobility and attitude.
The force of her words, although softly spoken, sent the undersecretary scuttling. “As you wish, Lady,” he said before running from Aveyron.
Cinderella watched him go with shaking fists.
Gustav whistled in appreciation as he ducked out from his hiding spot in the barn. “Well said, Your Grace. Even in servants’ dress and dirt, you can issue a command like the Colonel himself. Your Grace?” he said when Cinderella did not acknowledge him and started for Werra.
She had to see Marie.
There was no one in Aveyron Cinderella could speak to. Jeanne was the closest thing she had to a companion, and the young woman made sure to hold Cinderella at an arm’s length.
The servants of Aveyron saw Cinderella go, but they did not stop her, or the three Erlauf soldiers who followed her in the shadows.
Cinderella’s ears were ringing by the time she reached Marie’s residential home. The maid opened the door and took one look at Cinderella before she ran off, calling, “Madame? Madame Marie!” leaving the door wide open.
Cinderella stepped inside, her eyes sweeping through the pleasant parlor situated near the entrance. Her shoulders shook with rage and despair, and she almost leaped out of her skin when Marie came around the corner and said, “Cinderella, what happened?”
Feeling lost, like the ground had dropped out under her feet, Cinderella shrugged. “I hate her, Marie.”
“Who?”
“That wretched queen,” Cinderella said before the tears started falling.
Marie sighed. “My darling friend,” she said before folding her arms around Cinderella in a warm embrace. “Your burden is difficult, and I am sorry for it.”
When Marie led Cinderella to a settee, the story came spilling from her lips in a rush of emotion as wild as the tears that splashed her face.
“She’s so unyielding. And it seems she takes pleasure in this,” Cinderella said after all was told. She wiped her eyes with the linen handkerchief Marie passed to her.
“She might. I can imagine she bears grudges against us for the damages and cost we have been to her country,” Marie said, fussing with Cinderella’s hair before gesturing to a servant.
The servant briefly disappeared, returning to the room with tea and cookies.
Cinderella groaned, a sound that worked its way up from deep in her heart. “She’s hateful.”
“She is,” Marie agreed, her tone tempered, but edged just as sharp as Cinderella’s.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Cinderella admitted. “I was hopeful they would accept a partial payment—perhaps half. But based on my interaction today, I don’t think it is a possibility.”
Marie nodded and served the tea.
“I will have to marry Julien. I summarized that much from our last meeting. Marcus is a sweet boy, and I like his parents better than Julien’s, but he’s terribly smitten with Julien’s sister. He deserves a chance at happiness,” Cinderella said.
Marie pressed her lips together.
“What?” Cinderella asked.
“What about Colonel Friedrich?”
“What about him?”
“Is he not an option?”
Cinderella drank her tea. “I don’t think so,” she said.
“Why not? Do you think he isn’t serious in his pursuit of you?”
“It’s not that,” Cinderella said, setting her teacup down. “I…I don’t want to bring him misery.”
“What do you mean?”
“He might l-love me, but what would happen if we were to marry? So far Erlauf has tolerated our friendship, but what penalty will he pay for marrying me? It could cost him his friends, his post, even his career. I can’t ask him to do that.”
“What if he wants to?” Marie asked. “I know everyone whispers he is a rogue, but, Cinderella, surely you must realize he follows you with the loyalty of a dog?”
Cinderella covered her face with her hands. “I know,” she whispered, her voice breaking.
“Do you love him?” Marie asked after several heartbeats of silence.
“I don’t know.”
“But you would prefer him over Julien?”
“Perhaps.”
Marie smiled sadly. “The problem is you are too noble. You should be self-
centered, just this once.”
Cinderella groaned as she pressed her fingers to her puffy eyes. “It’s too late in my life to start thinking of such things now,” Cinderella said with a half-smile when she lowered her hands. “I know what I should do.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I should run away to Loire. I could…join a traveling show or something.”
“I imagine folks would pay to see a noble who feeds pigs, massacres baskets, and runs a market stand,” Marie said.
“I could learn how to ride a trick horse,” Cinderella said.
“Of course.”
“It would be a fine income,” Cinderella insisted.
“Absolutely,” Marie said.
The two girls stared at each other for a moment before erupting into laughter.
“Y-you took years to learn to ride a horse, and now you want to learn trick rides?” Marie laughed.
“Perhaps I could teach a horse to do tricks?” Cinderella said. “Like a dog.”
“That may work better.”
“Or I could make terrible baskets for a living.”
“You know you’re always welcome to live with Armel and me,” Marie said.
Cinderella’s expression softened. “I know, and I thank you. But I am titled and seventeen. I cannot hide from my future forever.”
“I know, but I would be honored to be your safe haven,” Marie said.
“You already are,” Cinderella said.
“Excuse me, Madame,” a maid in a crisp, clean uniform said, bobbing to Marie and Cinderella. “There is a man at the door to see Duchess Lacreux.”
Marie frowned. “What?” she asked as she and Cinderella made their way towards the door.
Out on the front porch, holding the reins of a blood bay horse, was Colonel Friedrich. The Colonel was covered in dust, and the sweeping brim of his hat was cut and squashed. “Sorry, Pet. I would have been here sooner, but I was…indisposed,” he said. He pulled a leather glove off his hand with his teeth. He extended his gloveless hand to Cinderella, gently brushing her cheek bones with his fingers. “I’m filthy, sorry,” he winced.
Cinderella walked into Friedrich, pressing her face into his shoulder.
The collision made dust puff like a cloud, but Friedrich slid his arms around Cinderella after passing off the reins of his horse to Gustav.