Her father looked round the chamber and pulled on his tuft of beard. “Your cry was most convincing.”
“No one here, Lord Geoffrey,” said a guard.
“I thought I saw…” Petronilla’s brow wrinkled with confusion; she shook her head as if to clear it. “She looked like…”
“What, Petra? Looked like what?”
“A ghost,” she said. “A ghost, a dream…just one of my spells. I’m sorry, Father.” Now she regretted calling for the guards and, most of all, for her father. By the saints, none could know of this look-alike girl, Father least of all, leastways not till Petra could discover more. She cast the concealing drapes a furtive look.
Lord Geoffrey, noting her glance, strode to the bed and drew aside the drapes.
Petra stifled a gasp but let out a shriek. “Why? Why am I plagued so!”
“Calm yourself, Petra, my sweet,” Geoffrey said, turning from the bed and letting the curtain fall.
Lord Geoffrey, crown regent, kept his daughter under careful, constant control. “Guards, search the castle and the grounds, to be sure my daughter is under no threat.”
One of the guards shrugged, then went to kneel and peer beneath the bed, and narrowly avoided the kitchen tray Petronilla hurled onto the floor, scattering crockery and smashing glass. She was even more agitated than usual. Too much oil of henbane in her daily dose? Geoffrey wondered. She seized her ink pot and flung it against the wall. She began to scream and cry and tear her hair. Yes, Geoffrey thought, a bit too much henbane for his liking.
“Petra, stop,” Geoffrey said, his voice rising to be heard above her tantrum. He jerked his head, and one of the royal guards approached and stood at attention, head solicitously bowed.
Geoffrey drew the guard to the alcove and spoke into his ear so low that none but the guard could hear.
“A calming elixir for my daughter again this evening,” he said. “Make it so her sleep is deep.”
The guard nodded curtly. “Of course, my lord.” He reached into his tunic and withdrew a small clear vial of amber liquid.
Geoffrey squinted at the bottle. “Good. I’m afraid I expect another…incident.” He looked meaningfully at the rabbit hutch.
“I understand, my lord.”
From across the room Petra wailed, “I’ll never live to be queen, Father. I don’t want to!”
Geoffrey met Petra with the little bottle. “Drink this, my sweet.” Petra turned her head away.
“My elixirs help control your humors, Petra; you know that,” Geoffrey said soothingly. “The red one in the day, the amber one at night.”
“But, Father, they make me so muddle-headed I can’t think. Please, Father.”
“Petra,” he scolded, “without them…?” He used his old trick, the thing that scared her most, kept her in line. “Do you want to end up like the madwoman in the dungeon?” he asked.
Petra wilted. Father still occasionally dragged her down, down, down to that horrible place, and forced her—horrified, terrified…curious—to look at the old woman. Darting eyes sunk deep in a wizened face. Clawlike fingers clutching the bars of the cell. Wild gray hair a storm about her head. Do you want to end up like that? Petra always yielded to him, always trusted him in the end. She had to, for he alone knew what she really was. Madwoman. What she might do. She took the vial, tipped it back, and swallowed.
Geoffrey led Petra to her bed. “Tomorrow I travel to Minster City, to settle the wedding. You will wed Frederick de Vere, and I assure you, Petra,” he said, patting her hand, “you’ll be a fine queen. And I will always be here to guide you.” He eased her back against the heap of pillows.
“Yes, Father,” Petra murmured. “Thank you, Father.” Petra’s eyelids began to droop, and her mouth went slack. In moments she was asleep.
Bertram and Margaret could not remain hidden in the princess’s chamber all night. After what seemed an age, they crept out from under the bed, first peering from under the drapes, then cautiously rising. Margaret spied her horn comb among the rushes on the floor and picked it up. Then she stole one more look at Petronilla.
Petra’s eyes fluttered; she woke. Under influence of the elixir, she appeared not enraged, as before, but fearful. Her gaze fell first on Bertram.
“Are you…are you my death?” she asked.
Bertram almost laughed. “No, Princess, not I.”
When Margaret stepped closer, Petronilla’s eyes lit with recognition, and she reached out a hand and grasped Margaret’s arm. “And you? Are you a ghost?”
“No. Not a ghost,” Margaret said, “but a girl, bone and blood, like you. Very like you, as it happens.” She smiled, but Petronilla’s eyes had already closed; her hand fell away, and she was once again asleep.
Margaret and Bertram exchanged a look that held all of their questions. Was the princess insane? What of the elixirs this Lord Geoffrey administered? And how would they make their exit?
Bertram pulled his hat down low to darken his face, and indicated to Margaret that she pull up her hood. “There’s no way out but through,” he whispered. “Follow me, and stick to the shadows.”
Petronilla dreamed. Her mother lay dying. Her father wept fat tears, and then, voice thick, he said to Petra, You are my beloved daughter….In parte insana—you are sick in mind and heart. For why else…Your half-sister is dead: you pushed her from the castle wall.
In the dream, her father gave a tender smile. Only we two will know what you’ve done; we two, and God.
The face of the madwoman appeared, bony fingers beckoning.
Petra tried to wake; she tossed and turned. Her half-sister was alive; she had come home! Petra dropped back into sleep.
In the dream the girl appeared. The girl with her own face. The crippled girl, leg ruined, mayhap by a fall from great height.
I am Maggot.
Petronilla fell deeply asleep and dreamed no more.
In the morning, Petra was slow to wake. The splash of the chamber pot being emptied by her maidservant on the other side of the bed-curtain roused her, and she lay with her eyes closed, loath to break the spell of her dreams.
“I saw my sister last night, Emma!” she said. And just like that, Petra knew that what she’d dreamed was true. That face! The girl Margaret could be no other but her own half-sister, long thought dead. With every bone in her body, Petra believed it.
“Did you dream of her again? Another nightmare?” Emma said, her voice muffled by the curtain.
“Not at all—that’s not it at all!” Petra opened her eyes and stared up at the dark drapery of the canopy high overhead. Father was wrong; all this time, he’d been wrong! She had not killed her sister! And if she hadn’t killed her sister, then she wasn’t wicked and depraved, in parte insana. Mayhap Father was wrong about that, too.
And then Emma drew open the bed-curtain—and screamed.
Petra bolted up and saw her white rabbit, his neck at an unnatural angle, a trickle of blood running from his nose.
“Holy Father, it’s happened again,” whispered the maidservant, fear and revulsion in her eyes.
Petra pulled back in horror, and her hands flew to her mouth; she whimpered animal sounds. She touched the rabbit; the body was cold. She cried out and covered her head with her arms, and Emma took the dead rabbit away.
Petra curled into a tight ball. She was bad, still, after all. She must be insane, just as Father said! Sick, sick in the head, sick in the heart. She tossed her head side to side.
She had not killed her sister. But hadn’t she tried? Father had seen her do it, seen her push her sister from the wall. Not dead, thanks to God—but injured dreadfully.
She jumped from her bed and rushed to her dressing table, scrabbling through ribbons and pins and ornaments…there! The horn comb, the match of the crippled girl’s—the proof. It was her mother’s comb, the mate long lost until last night. She cupped it tightly in her hand till she could feel the teeth in her palm.
Somehow, her sister had known her. Some
way, she had come to her, a gift. Petra would not turn away from such a gift. She would not deny Margaret, and she would not deny herself.
But she must take care. The moment this Margaret heard the rumors—and surely there were rumors—about Petra’s true nature…a girl who would strangle the life out of her dear pets, who would push her own sister from the castle wall, a girl the doctors called in parte insana. If Margaret knew, she would hate her. If Petra presented her sister to the court, she’d surely find out, and their sisterhood would end—again—before it could begin.
No. If Petra wanted to know a sister’s love at last, then she had to keep Margaret’s very life a secret.
Emma returned to the chamber and placed a glass of amber liquid on the dressing table. “You can’t help it, lamb,” Emma said, smoothing back Petra’s hair. “You can’t help how you are.” She patted her hand. “Now drink this, and go back to bed,” she said. “Sleep is what you need.”
“I will.”
But Petra did not drink it. She would keep a clear head, no matter the cost. She would go out and find her sister, but with care, in secret. Petra would keep her nature a secret too. She would have to pretend she wasn’t insane.
The peddler’s cart bumped and rolled into Sackville Proper. Minka grumbled to Bilious, “I pray we find her here. My arse cannot stomach much more of this barrow you call home.” They’d traveled north from Bolingbroke for many days, inquiring in villages along the north-south road, and suffering many delays from bad roads and bad ale and bad temper.
They looked round and asked for a girl with a crooked leg.
“Oh, yes, yes, sure and I seen such a maid, or one near enough,” said the blacksmith by the forge. “She were ugly and worthless, she were.”
“I should say not!” Minka objected. She stalked away from the blacksmith stall and purchased a meat pie at a nearby vendor.
“Yet you yourself have pronounced her thusly,” Bilious observed.
“It is my place to say it, and not the right of that blighter,” she said, indicating the blacksmith with a toss of her head and biting into the pie.
The blacksmith heard her and pulled on his beard.
“For a share o’ that meat pie,” he called, eyeing the steaming pastry, “I will tell you what I know, which is a sight more than you know.”
Minka narrowed her eyes but strode back to him, split the pie in two, and gave him one piece.
“I prefer the greater half,” he said petulantly. His voice was loud and bold, but his eyes betrayed a fear of the big woman.
Minka frowned. Yielding, she swapped her larger piece for his smaller one, and they began to eat.
The blacksmith jabbed a thumb in a vague direction. “She went off that way not long ago. Gimping along with her, uh, with her crutch, she was,” he said, and took another bite.
Minka seethed. “My charge has no crutch, sir. As you well know,” she said, purposefully turning to glare at Bilious. She put out her hand to the smith. “And for that useless bit of information, I’ll thank you to return what’s left of my pie.”
The blacksmith opened his mouth, chock-full of chewed meat, and belched.
“Never mind, you blasted oaf,” Minka said, and strode away from the offender, moaning, “Bad luck is ever my lot!”
On they went, to the butcher and chandler and innkeeper. But no one had seen a not-so-hideous lame girl. Minka did see someone, though, huddled beneath a blanket behind the baker’s shop: a girl, covered in filth, with hollow cheeks and hungry eyes.
“What those eyes have seen I’d not care to,” Bilious remarked.
The girl swung a stout stick—not a crutch, but a weapon—in their direction. They jumped.
“Gack, what a stench!” Minka covered her mouth and nose. Bilious staggered two paces back as if slapped.
“You talk as if I ain’t got ears,” the girl said, causing them both to jump again, “but I do hear you!”
The girl shivered, appearing more human for her obvious suffering, and wiped the back of her hand across her dripping nose, smearing dirt and gunk across her cheek.
“Oh, more bad luck I run into!” moaned Minka.
“It’s the girl here who seems to’ve had a run of bad luck,” Bilious said. “What is your name?” he asked the girl, shooting Minka a warning look.
“I am called Urchin,” said the girl, rising from the ground in a cloud of vile odor.
“Mother of God,” Minka gasped, and pinched her nostrils shut. “Urchid?” she squeaked, with her nose plugged.
“Right,” said the girl, “named after my mum: Her Royalship the Lady Urchin, of Hemminy Haw-Haw.” Urchin tugged her stinking blanket daintily out to either side, tucked one foot behind her, and curtsied.
Bilious smiled at the girl; she tilted her head fetchingly and grinned, revealing a twinkle in her eye and horrid gray teeth. “I like your little fellow,” she said, pointing at the satchel slung at Bilious’s side, out of which Pip’s tiny russet-tufted face was peering.
“Ahem,” said Minka, elbowing Bilious in the ribs. “We’ll be on our way, then, as you are not who we seek, and we shall not pass another moment in your pungent company.”
“But, Minka,” Bilious began.
“Not another moment!” Minka said, glaring at Bilious, and she pulled at his sleeve with the force of an ox until he yielded. Pip ducked back inside his sack.
Urchin, interested in the pet squirrel, and having smelled meat pie on their breath, rolled up her flea-infested blanket, tossed her sack across her shoulder, and followed.
At first Minka and Bilious did not notice Urchin trailing them. She was downwind, and they were bickering loudly about what direction to travel next.
“We began by traveling east,” said Bilious, “and met a man who by his word indicated she had not traveled east, herself. I proposed north, and here we are, and here Margaret is not.”
“I suppose she traveled west or south instead of east or north,” Minka countered, “and so our time has been in vain, on top of which I have endured your company for the whole of it. But let’s away now south or west, for the sooner we find my Mags, and my mirror, the sooner the two of us shall be parted.”
“That day cannot come soon enough for me, madam,” said Bilious, “and the mirror does not belong to you, I might add.”
The pair of them bickered several more moments. Urchin made herself comfortable on a stump and sat and watched the proceedings. “Jollier than Punch and Judy puppets,” she murmured happily, and she scratched her skull to satisfy a profound itch.
“I say we carry on to the south,” said Minka, hands on hips, a bead of sweat dripping down her forehead.
“And go back the way we came, through Eastham?”
“Not to Eastham, then, but rather to Ipswich,” said Minka.
“I do poor business in Ipswich,” Bilious countered. “I have a ruthless competitor that has run me out in the past.”
“Our travels are not about you and your business, but about me and my business,” said Minka. “Did I not pay my passage?”
“A halfpenny, God have mercy, does not assure my service for all time, Minka,” Bilious said.
Several moments passed in such bickering before the wind shifted and they noticed Urchin upon her stump, beaming as if she had every right in the world to enjoy their sport.
Both Minka and Bilious stopped speaking and stared at her.
Urchin took advantage of the pause. “Spec-ta-cular sunset, eh?”
Both turned, beheld, nodded.
“How I longs to gaze into them beautiful colors, and have a full belly, and a clean blanket, and hop in a cart and go on and on, and on,” she said as she blissfully closed her crusted eyelids. “Why, then I could lie down, happy as pigs in clover, and die.” She cracked open one eye to judge their response, and quickly closed it.
Minka and Bilious glanced at each other. A smile tugged at the corner of Bilious’s mouth, and somewhat gently he elbowed Minka in the ribs. Minka for a momen
t imagined her own Maggie’s face upon the disgusting beggar before her, and softened. She harrumphed with grudging admiration.
“She’s a bold one,” Minka said at last. “West, then, into them beautiful colors of the sun.” She shrugged mightily. “We’ll make Kingston-upon-Hull before full dark. Why not?”
“Why not, indeed,” said Bilious. With that, Pip wiggled out of his bag and to the ground, and in two hops he had settled himself on the beggar’s shoulder.
Urchin opened both eyes wide, and grinned.
“But first,” said Minka, eyeing Urchin up and down, “a meal,” at which word Urchin brightened, “and a good scrubbing,” at which word Urchin disappeared inside her blanket.
“To the river!” Bilious said.
“No, not the river” came a muffled groan. Urchin peeked out from the blanket’s disgusting folds, with the squirrel’s face tilted pitifully beside hers. “I’m not able to swim, not a bit of it, and I am sore afraid of the water! It’ll pull me to the millrace, and I’ll be kilt!”
But Bilious and Minka would not be moved. They pushed Urchin to the riverbank, and Minka went to strip her of her awful clothing, while Bilious looked for soap in his cart.
“You’ll leave behind this horrid covering,” Minka muttered, pinching the blanket with the tiniest portion of one finger and thumb and dropping it on the bank. Then: “Ohhh!” Minka wailed. “First a squirrel, now a rat! A rat!”
Bilious called, “Well, beat it back, then, woman, and bathe the girl quick!”
Urchin held up a filthy hank of matted and twisted hair that did look much like a rat. “This?” she said. She clutched it in her scrawny arms as she would a pretty doll. “It’s for luck,” she said.
“For luck, is it?” Minka laughed unmerrily. “Bad luck is your lot, same as me. Pitch it away, I say. A more disgusting thing I’ve never seen, and me a nurse, years ago. Disgusting things is what made me quit the business!”
Urchin pressed the hank of braid to her cheek, causing Minka to grimace and turn away. “Ugh! You’ll toss it, or I’ll beat you with a stick!”
The Magic Mirror Page 10