by Julie Berry
I stumbled backward until the wooden bench tripped me, and sat heavily upon it, smacking the back of my head against the rock. Numbness engulfed my skull. Numbness was welcome.
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Chapter 18
I huddled on the wooden bench all through the scant hours that remained, rubbing my prickly arms and legs and rocking on my hips. I am alive now, I told myself. I must savor it, even in this cold, rat-infested place, for I, Lucinda Chapdelaine, am alive. I am not dead. Yet.
Only the people I'd loved were dead. Papa, proud and clever Papa, snuffed out in his prime; and Mama, whose laughing eyes saw into my thoughts; and Uncle Ernest, poor old browbeaten Uncle Ernest, who saved me tidbits of dinner when Aunt was in a rage.
All those I'd loved were gone. If Prince Gregor had cared for me, even for a moment, he was wise to abandon it, for caring for me could bring nothing but ill luck.
Gregor. He was a bitter taste in my mouth, the sourness left after sugar ferments on the tongue. They were
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wrong, those who babbled that it was better to have loved and lost. I wished I'd never seen him.
Didn't I?
What had I done to end up like this? It was Beryl who dropped that accursed gem into my lap. Aunt who made me carry it back. Peter who stole it from me, and Beryl once more who sent me to retrieve it.
The sky through the bars of my window turned from black to pewter gray. I am not dead.
I am not to blame.
If I was not to blame, then why was I in prison?
No one robbed the prince but I. No one plotted to do it but I. I chose it, I planned it, and I did it. No one else can claim that distinction but me! I ceased my rocking and digested this information. It was strangely exhilarating. I was to blame. I was audacious! Determined! Resourceful! I did an unspeakable thing, myself, alone!
I jumped up off my bench, heedless of the damp chill of the flagstone floor. I was a marvel of ingenuity and nerve. If I'd been one yesterday, surely I could be one now. I did it! They're going to hang me for it. But first they'll have to make me hold still long enough to tie the rope. And I've got talents they don't know of. Maybe those talents can save me.
I climbed onto the bench and stood on tiptoe to see if
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the window held any possibilities. Its iron bars were closely spaced and crisscrossed into a grate. I was able to poke my fingers through--there was no glass--but they didn't budge a bit. There was no wooden casement, only bars sunk deep into the mortar and rocks on every side. Undaunted, I grasped every bar and tried with all my strength to rattle it, to find some give to it, like a child examining her mouth for a loose baby tooth.
Sure as Gibraltar, all of them.
Another way, then. I hopped down and hurried to the door. The silvery sky afforded me enough glow to see the knob. I rattled it, finding more satisfaction as it made a splendid racket.
"Shut up!" came a croak from across the way.
That wouldn't do. No sense in alerting the whole prison to my plan. Time was fading. I crawled on hands and knees around my cell, combing across the floor with my fingers, in search of something that might help--a fragment of stone or metal, maybe, that could be used to aggravate the lock. But the floors held only dirt. No success.
I went back to the window and clutched the bars once more. So sweet, that moment's elation, letting me believe that with pluck alone I might steer events my way. It ebbed as quickly as it had come, leaving me full of nausea and dread.
Something warm and wet seized my fingers. I nearly fell backward off the bench.
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"Meh-heh-heh," said a voice.
"Dog!"
He nuzzled my fingers affectionately, only biting them once or twice. He bit something on the ground and shoved it through the bars at me. It fell with a soggy plop on my upturned face and bounced onto the bench below me. I stooped to pick it up. It was an apple, spongy and wrinkly, that he'd found goodness knew where, dripping with his saliva.
Bless his loyal heart. He'd brought me my last meal. I ate it.
"Thank you, Dog," I said between bites. "However did you find me?" "Meh-heh," he said.
"I don't suppose you could fetch me a file, or some other bit of metal, could you? Something to pick a lock?"
"Meh-heh-heh."
My words buzzed in my head. Something to pick a lock.
"Dog," I cried, "where's Peter? Can you bring me Peter?" I begged a goat to bring me a rescuer. Desperate times leave no room for dignity.
"Peter, Dog," I cajoled. "Find Peter."
In answer, he leaned the whole wiry, hairy weight of his body against the grate, crushing my fingers between the cold metal and his warm hide. 164
"I love you, too, Dog," I said, and let my tears fall. We both knew Peter wouldn't come.
We stayed there for a while, watching the sky grow lighter. Surely they'd be coming soon. Dawn was practically here. Nothing but a miracle could save me now. If they must kill me, couldn't they do it now and spare me the dread of waiting? That would be just like one of Coxley's tricks, to promise execution at daybreak, then delay to prolong the torment.
Stirrings of morning were beginning to sound in the corridor. A voice called an insult to a cellmate. Another voice answered. From farther away came a voice telling the prisoners to shut their mouths.
I could begin to make out the cobblestones of the street, and the shuttered shops across the way. My time was short.
"Go, Dog," I said, shoving him with my fingers as best I could. "Hurry and go, before Coxley roasts you for dinner."
He shoved back at me and refused to budge. I prodded him harder, using my nails. "Go, you stubborn goat, for your own good! You can't help me now." Footsteps and jingling keys sounded in the corridor. My bowels turned to water. They were coming. Fear? From where I stood fear seemed a luxury. I yanked my fingers free and hissed to Dog to go away, then turned. The keys rattled in the lock. I saw Cuthbert, the
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constable who'd arrested me and brought me here, through the hole in my door. My breath came in gasps. Steady!
He opened the door and entered, holding a finger over his mouth, signaling me to be quiet. I wrapped my arms tightly around myself. He approached me and bent to whisper in my ear. His damp breath made me cringe.
"You want to live?"
I couldn't stop myself from nodding.
"Come with me, then, quiet as a fish, unless you're wondering how hanging feels."
Cuthbert, helping me escape? Was this a trick? Did I dare question this chance?
I rose. He headed toward the door with a glance over his shoulder. I followed from a distance, my heart thumping. If he did intend to spare my life, what did he have in mind? Whatever it was, I could face it when it came. I followed him through corridor after corridor, around labyrinthine turns and twists. As far as I could tell, we avoided the entrance hall entirely. Here in the depths of the great building the darkness pressed heavily upon me. The sleeping, muttering sounds of prisoners faded until the only sound was Cuthbert's boots on the stone.
The hallway ended with a wooden door. Cuthbert pulled a key from his pocket. "She's out there, waiting for you," he said, wrestling with the stubborn lock. 166
"Who is?"
He eyed me sideways, as though I were a simpleton. "Your lady friend, the one that's bought your freedom."
Beryl. I began to tremble. How had she known? I wasn't alone after all. She'd saved me.
Cuthbert rattled the doorknob, and my anxiety rose. To be this close to freedom--hallelujah!--and still be impeded by a rusty lock was excruciating. "Bought my freedom, you say?" I asked. "From Coxley, you mean? A pardon?" He snorted. "You daft? Nobody buys a pardon from Coxley. Not little folk like you or me, leastways. No," he made the reluctant bolt spring back with a satisfying click. "She bought it from me." He jingled the coins in his pocket and showed his teeth. "Here's where I get the rest."
I shuddered. Thank heaven for a corrupt, underpaid con
stabulary. He pulled the door open. Even the pale light of dawn was startling after the darkness. We were at a small door in the rear of the building, which abutted a narrow alleyway. The packed-dirt ground lay covered in frost, and a cold wind swept through the doorway.
"Get on with you, before I change my mind," he said. "She's waiting for you." I stepped forward. The windowless bulk of the Hall of Justice loomed above, and on the other side, only a few feet away, another wall of stone rose, the rear of a building I did not know.
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A hooded form appeared from behind some tall dustbins and handed Cuthbert a small sack. He seized it, shook a few coins into his palm, nodded, then slammed the door violently, leaving me face-to-face with Beryl. Except, it wasn't Beryl. The shape was wrong. She threw back her cloak. It was Aunt.
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Chapter 19
Her eyes were full of spite.
"You!" I said.
Was I going mad? Had they already executed me, and this was my delirium on the doorstep of hell?
"I'm sure we're both equally glad to see each other," she said. She seized my hand and slapped something into it. It pricked my palm.
"There," she said, turning to leave, "that settles things. I've done with you." She took off down the alleyway.
In my hand lay my rose-red bracelet, unrepaired, but clean. Sweet love of heaven.
I leaped after her and seized her arm.
She shook me off like I was a contagion.
I scurried to the other side of her so that I blocked her escape. I had to know.
"Why, Aunt?"
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She scowled and made as if trying to get by me, but she didn't use all her force, as I knew too well. I planted myself firmly.
"I want to know why."
She looked up at the high bulk of the buildings on either side of us. Away from Uncle's shop, neither of us seemed to know what to do with each other. "Them constables are going to be out here searching for you in a minute;' she said. "You'd best run and ask no questions if you want to live." She hurried off, disappearing down a connecting alley. I chased after her. She crossed a street, then darted into another alley. I caught her there and tugged her sleeve.
"Leave me be," she snapped.
"Where'd you get that gold?"
She stopped trying to get away. "You know where." Beryl's gold, which she took from me last night. Unbelievable.
"But why did you do it?"
She glared at me. "You've been a pestilence and a vexation from the day Ernest brought you home. A spoiled little minx. A wedge in my marriage. A drain on my budget." Her bloodshot eyes burned. "I'll not have you as the ruination of my peace as well!"
I blinked. "I, the ruination of your peace?"
"Let me by," she said, almost pleading.
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"Not until I understand," I said. "Why did you part with the gold when you hate me so?"
Aunt let out a long, troubled breath. She seemed to shrink as she did so. When she spoke, her voice was small, as if coming from far away.
"Last night Ernest came to me in a dream." She sniffled. "He said I'd betrayed my own." Her eyes flashed. "I don't call you my own."
She stood glowering at me, her chin quivering. Then, wonder of wonders, her face screwed up with--what? Grief? Remorse? Could it be possible? "But Ernest called you his own," she said. "I thought I owed him this." She raked her sleeve across her eyes. My voice broke on my words. "Thank you." I knew I was speaking to Uncle, too.
She wouldn't look at me. For a moment her profile was that of a wide-eyed little girl with thick, dark curls. She started briskly down the alleyway. "Aunt!" I cried.
She stopped and turned, scowling back at me.
I swallowed my nervousness. I hadn't exactly planned what to say, nor even considered whether or not I ought to say it.
"Well?" she said.
"Thank you," I said again, this time with more feeling. "And... I'm sorry." She seemed taken aback. "For all that you've suffered. Not from me, but... Yes, from me, and
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from everything." I swallowed hard. "Things have been hard for you, and I know it. I'm just sorry about it, is all."
Aunt's face contorted into a grimace of bewildered disgust. She shook her head as if shaking me off like cobwebs, turned away, and disappeared down the alley.
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Chapter 20
Aunt ran one way, and I, the other. Already I'd lingered too long near the Hall of Justice.
The sky grew lighter. Pale morning sun without warmth filtered down through the rooftops onto the dingy streets in this part of town.
My stomach rumbled, and my head ached. A sleepless night left me physically spent. To Beryl's, I supposed, I'd go, to admit defeat and beg a change of clothes before fleeing the country.
I paused for a moment's rest in another alley, sliding down the side of a building and sitting on the ground. Hardly any sunlight penetrated here. The darkness made me feel safer.
Clattering footsteps made me jump in terror. Before I could see who was coming, wet rubbery lips explored my face and a meh-heh-heh erupted in my ear. I wrapped my
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arms around Dog's neck and kissed his wiry cheek. He settled down beside me and let me pet him, lending me his precious warmth.
Street traffic increased in the stretch of road I could see at the mouth of the alley. Milk trucks and vegetable carts pulled by tired old horses passed in either direction. Hawkers' voices rose on the morning air. Walkers hurried by on their way to work or to market. Did they know how lucky they were to be about on the streets, with a warm coat and a belly full of breakfast and no constables to molest them?
In only minutes, I knew, my flight would be known, and Coxley would send his men to scour the surrounding areas for me. Would Cuthbert invent a story? How close would it come to the truth? Close enough to catch me? He had his gold now.
I knelt down, rubbing my hands in the dirt. I smeared it over my face, rubbing dirt into my hair and fouling it up with tangles. I tore at my clothing, ripping off any bits of lace or ribbon, so it looked tattered and spent. A disguise, of sorts. Half the city had seen me dance with the prince then be arrested. Or so it had seemed last night.
I fled the alley.
Every moment I expected to hear a shout, a whistle, a commotion signaling that someone had sounded the alarm. All I heard were surprised noises from people as I breezed by them. "What's your hurry?"
"Where's the fire?" and such.
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Perhaps I was attracting too much attention this way. I slowed until I reached a corner, ducked around it, and sped up again, only to collide head-on with someone.
He fell backward. I landed on top of him, smacking my forehead sharply against his jaw. It stung so badly I was sure the skin had cracked open. I winced in pain, afraid to open my eyes and see who I'd toppled. I tried to climb over him and stand up. Dog trod on him too.
The man seized both my wrists, and I collapsed bodily on top of him once more. "Well, you're a mess," his voice said. "Fancy meeting you this morning." Oh no.
I forced my eyes open. I shut them again.
It was Peter, grinning like a monkey.
I wrenched my hands loose from the hold he had on me and climbed to my feet, taking no pains to avoid stepping on him, and continued on my way. I'd not talk to that scoundrel for all the money in the world.
In a moment he was at my side, jogging comfortably and brushing the dirt off his jacket. I pressed on, determined to avoid him. But he was about as easy to lose as a barnacle.
"You've mussed up my hat," he said after a while.
"Blast your hat."
"And where are we off to?" he asked, sounding as though a picnic were planned. 175
"'We' aren't off to anyplace," I said. "I am off to wherever you're not." "That's odd," he said. "I was on my way to find you." Oh, indeed. "Ha." "Was so," he said. "Though I certainly didn't expect to find you like this." I glared at him.
He colored. "That is to say, er, you're looking well! Compared to... ahem." "Compared to a corpse?" I snapped. "Forget it, Peter. Just forget it. And go away."
He closed his mouth for a blessed moment or two, but he didn't go away. I halted and grabbed his sleeve. "What do you mean, you were 'looking for me'?"
He swallowed. From the looks of it, an entire potato. "I didn't want you to be alone out there," he said. "And afterward I was going to make sure you had, er, the right sort of burial." He jingled the contents of his pocket and grinned awkwardly. "Figured--seeing as now you're a customer--you had that coming to you. Was going to have them put satin in your coffin. Blue, I thought, would suit you."
A blue satin coffin.
Once, he'd amused me--in a maddening sort of way--with his audacity and wit. No more.
"Your loyalty to your customers is touching," I said. "I
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should have known you'd only treat me decent if I was dead."
He looked stung. I was glad of it. I marched on. He didn't follow. At first.
The sun was full up now. I ignored Peter and took stock of where I was. The road sloped gradually uphill, as so many thoroughfares in St. Sebastien did, toward the palace, which stood sentinel over the highest part of the city. Beyond it to the north lay the river, and then my parents' home, and after that the open countryside and the road that would take me, after several weeks' journey, out of Laurenz and into Hilarion, where perhaps I could begin a new life.
North. That's where I'd go.
Peter caught hold of my sleeve. Dog wedged himself protectively between me and Peter.
"How'd you get out, anyway?" he asked, admiration in his voice. "Did you escape?" He whistled. "What an adventure, eh?"
"Leave me alone."
The palace. Its towers of brown stone rose like stacks of buttered toast. I was so hungry I could have bitten it. "Let me buy you breakfast," Peter said. Peter, part with cash? My hollow belly squirmed. But I'd not be beholden to him.
"No."
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Peter blocked my path. "Why're you so sour? I'm just trying to help." It was a mistake, listening to him. He only made me furious. I could have ground my teeth to powder.
"You, help?" Here came the tears again. I squashed them back down furiously. He shall not, he shall not see me cry!