by Nina Clare
I paused at the end of the stairway. There were two doors leading to Uncle’s chambers. One door, the one I now stood before, was for senior manservants and the Most Honourable Secretary. Uncle no longer had a Most Honourable Secretary, however, for he was dishonourably dismissed in a fit of Uncle’s rage—along with all the senior royal counsellors—for refusing to support Uncle in making it a law that disagreeing with the king could be a crime punishable by banishment or death.
The second door was a secret door to Uncle’s most private chambers, which no one but Uncle himself could enter. So who was the young figure dressed as a lowly servant I had just glimpsed entering through that very hidden, most forbidden entrance?
The secret door was disguised as a full-length portrait of Prince Zircon III, known as Zircon the Innocent. I only knew the door was there because I had seen Uncle pass through it one day when I had explored the palace as an invisible child.
Prince Zircon III should have been the seventeenth king of Cataluna, but just days before his coronation his younger brother, Prince Onyx, had him killed by a mercenary so he could steal the crown. The wicked scheme was exposed shortly after poor Zircon’s demise and Prince Onyx fled the kingdom. His name was blotted out of all records, and his portraits burned. Onyx the Dark Prince lived on now only in whispered stories.
After those terrible days the third brother, much younger, took the throne at only eight years of age. This was our father—King Abalone the Kind.
The Dark Prince left behind an infant son when he fled for his life, and that son was Uncle—Prince Obsidian, now our Honorary Temporal King by Crown Proxy.
I stood before the portrait of poor Grandfather Zircon, who looked down on me with his serious blue-grey eyes (the colour I inherited), looked on me as if he could see me, even in my invisible cloak, and pitied me. Poor, nameless thirteenth granddaughter.
Should I pass through the forbidden door and satisfy my curiosity? I had never dared to venture beyond it before, not even cloaked in invisibility. I wrestled in my mind as I stood there. Why would one of the servant boys be going into Uncle’s most private chambers? I knew Uncle was downstairs amongst the royal guests, so what could that person be doing in there? Had he any idea what danger he would be in if discovered? How had he even learned of the secret entrance? Who had showed him?
My curiosity overwhelmed me. I pushed hard on Prince Zircon’s painted tunic and the door swung inward on silent, well-oiled hinges.
Behind the secret door was a well-lit hall lined with torches held in golden sconces, shaped like pairs of hands. Each was individually cast, each different, each very realistic.
I entered a hexagonal hall. There were doors in four of the six walls. On the wall opposite me hung a full-length portrait of Uncle as a young man. As I crossed the room and reached the doors, I heard one of them close with a click. It had clearly come from the door to my left. And so I followed.
I entered a study. Bookshelves filled with books and parchment scrolls lined the walls. There was an elaborate writing table paired with an even-more-elaborate chair. The room was lit by more hand-shaped sconces bearing torches. I looked round, wondering where the servant boy was. I could see no other door out of this chamber, so where had he gone?
I crossed to the far side, which was shadowy, the torchlight not quite reaching into its corners. In the darkest corner I found a very narrow, wooden staircase climbing steeply up to the plasterwork ceiling. It led to a shallow balcony that ran round the top of the chamber, enabling the topmost books and scrolls to be reached. As I stared up at the dark stairs, I was sure I could see the faintest gleam of light at the top.
I climbed carefully, lifting my trailing gown. Step by step I climbed. On the topmost step, I reached out a hand towards the bookcase before me, just where a gleam of light was coming from between two thick books.
I pushed on the books and the bookcase opened inward. Another secret door! I peeked cautiously round, fearing someone could be behind it. My heart thumped, for I did not know what I would find. I felt a heavy with uneasiness, as if there were something malignant in the very atmosphere of whatever lay beyond the door.
Behind the door was another hallway, narrow with bare floorboards, lit by a single torch. I could make out a door at the end of the hall; it was ajar, and light came through the crack. It was not an ordinary light, it was a shimmering, misty kind of light. A little like the shimmering of the invisible cloak I wore, yet not quite the same—more substantial, more like a thin cloud or a semitransparent fog. It was a curious shade of green—like the colour of the stagnant pools in the palace woodlands.
I was about to step into the hallway to investigate when a low voice made me jump and almost cry out in startled fear.
“Get back down those stairs, young lady! Now!”
Only one person called me “young lady” when I was in trouble: Beryl. I whirled back towards the doorway and strained to see down the dark stairway. No shadowy room could disguise the unmistakable form of Beryl, standing hands on hips at the bottom of the stairs, glaring at me.
“You can see me?” I whispered.
“Down!” she said, not loudly, but in the tone no one disobeyed.
I climbed back down the narrow steps, holding my skirts up so as not to trip over them. At the bottom, Beryl grasped my wrist and pulled me out of the chamber and into the hexagonal hall. We paused as we heard someone muttering—a growling, complaining muttering I recognised only too well. It was Uncle, and he was coming down the hall towards us. Beryl whisked off my cloak and rearranged it to cover us both. We vanished just as Uncle appeared.
“Such foolery,” he mumbled as he approached. “Foolish dancing and foolish lovemaking. Simpering and whimpering.” He growled again. “Let them make fools of themselves; they won’t make a fool of me. Let them carry on with their blasted weddings, their prancing and preening—let them choke on their feastings. They have no idea!”
Uncle passed by so close I could smell the wine on his breath as he coughed and muttered. He turned into the study chamber and slammed the door behind him.
Just before Beryl hurried me back down the hall, something caught my attention. My eyes fell on the inscription on the bottom of the frame of the great portrait hanging on the wall. I suddenly realised the full-length portrait was not of Uncle as a young man after all, though it was very like him. The young man whose small, jet-black eyes followed my alarmed movement, whose moustached lip curled back into a mocking smile—this young man’s name was proudly enamelled on the bottom of the gilt frame: Prince Onyx. It was a surviving, and illegal, portrait of Uncle’s exiled father—the Dark Prince.
Chapter Eight
“How were you able to see me?”
“Young lady, there is nothing I do not see concerning you and your sisters.”
“But I was invisible! All these years, when I was wearing my cloak—you could see me?”
“It was not your cloak, and never has been. And, yes, I have known all along you had it. I was hoping you would come clean and own up.”
My head drooped. I felt ashamed. How could I think Beryl would not notice I had taken her cloak? How could I have been so deceitful to her all those years?
“I am sorry, Beryl,” I said. And I meant it. And Beryl knew I meant it, for she always knew everything about me.
“Well. It is all done with now,” said Beryl in a softer voice. “But no more of it. You put yourself in great danger tonight.”
“Why? What is going on in Uncle’s chambers? What was that strange light coming from above his study? And who was the boy I followed up there?”
“It is not for you to enquire.” The invisible cloak was now tucked away under Beryl’s apron. I felt a sharp pang of loss as I realised I would no longer have it to put on whenever I chose.
“Oh, Beryl! Can I borrow it, just sometimes?” I pleaded, feeling bereft of something precious.
“No. It is too dangerous. And I have need of it.”
I knew fro
m her tone of voice there was no use trying to persuade her. The beloved cloak was gone.
“I am returning to watch over Almandine. I will not miss any more of her special night,” said Beryl. “You go up to bed.” And with that, she left me.
I sat glumly on the end of my bed. How dull life now seemed without the cloak that had been part of my life for so long. What would I do without it? I liked being invisible—I loved being invisible. And now I had to be just like everyone else and be looked at like everyone else, whether I liked it or not. How would I bear it?
The following morning, I had barely a moment to myself to wonder about all I had seen the night before. The palace was busier than ever with feast preparations. That night we would host feast number three—Spinel’s banquet.
I could of course not listen in on Uncle and the chancellor’s meeting that morning; I would have to wait to hear the news in the same manner as everyone else. Almandine was soon called down, just as Diamond had been. She was asked if she had any preference as to her future husband. She declared she had particularly liked a young man by the name of Laz. Prince Lazuli of Latvaland was quickly deemed an acceptable choice, and so Almandine was declared betrothed.
I escaped from all the romantic fervor and domestic fever into the jewel house, where I knew I would find quietness.
“Go away—we are busy!” rasped out Lapido as I crept in.
I perched on a stool close to Beryl. She was sorting red stones into groups. Some were deep red, some so dark they were almost black, and some so light they were pink.
“Almandines,” Beryl told me. She selected one of a pure, deep red colour. “This is the one!” she declared, carrying it to Lapido.
He took it and examined it carefully, his bushy white eyebrows twitching up and down as he squinted and frowned in concentration.
“Hmm . . . yes,” he murmured. “Good colour. Not too dark. Not too dark. It will not let all the light pass through easily. Good lustre. Good transparency. Yes, this is the one. The almandine.”
He held it up for me to see. I made sure my expression was one of great respect.
“Highly refractive and enduring,” he declared. “It is the iron within that makes such a red. Such a red—a colour for royalty!” He turned back to his worktable.
“Find me the drawer labeled L.L. requested Beryl, holding out a narrow key. I found the right drawer in the wall of great chests and brought it to her. She removed the velvet cover to reveal rows of polished stones shaped like pebbles of differing sizes—stones that could have fallen from the midsummer sky, they were so vivid blue.
“Lapis lazuli,” said Beryl, selecting an oval stone with a flat base. She passed it to me and I held it up to the light to admire. The blue was so rich, such an intense colour. It held flecks of gold and white that glittered like tiny stars in the firmament.
“It is known as the ‘stone of heaven,’ and is mined from the mountains of Agastan, far away in the east.”
The words “mountains” and “far away” quivered like music in my ears, like the echo of something both familiar and unknown, a faraway echo calling to me, calling something I knew but could not quite remember. A harmonious echo, perhaps the “music of the spheres” singing to me, as Spinel, who is gifted in cosmology, would say.
“Silence!” called Lapido, his chisel raised.
But the singing echo hummed through me. The more silence there was, the more space it had to sing. I gazed, entranced, into the gloriously blue lapis lazuli and forgot all my troubles while the echo song lingered.
But too soon, I remembered reality. I recalled that there were only ten more nights. Just ten more nights before I would have to secure myself a husband. And then my life would change forever. And if I should fail to find a suitor, I knew my poor sisters would never have the heart to sing again.
Chapter Nine
Spinel’s feast night had come.
She was beautiful. Her taffeta gown shimmered with soft orange and pink hues as the candle and lamplight illumined it. In her dark chestnut hair was woven a wreath of orange calendula flowers.
“You will have a wonderful evening, Nel,” Diamond and Almandine reassured their youngest triplet.
“Remember, you are as the earth,” said Almandine.
“And they are as the planets,” said Diamond. “Circling around you, for you are the most important person at the banquet table.”
“So there is no need for nervousness,” said Almandine.
Nel nodded and pulled herself up straight, putting back her slender shoulders. “Your turn next,” she said with a still-apprehensive smile to a wide-eyed Amethyst.
The knock at the door came. With a final kiss of blessing from Beryl, Nel sailed away elegantly, as only a true princess can.
I watched two saltarellos and a Burgundian after supper, and then I wandered listlessly out to the Lavender Courtyard for some evening air before bed.
I leaned on the wrought-iron balustrade and looked out onto the gardens below, which were faintly lit by the risen moon and a lamp behind me, on the terrace wall.
I ran my hand over a lavender bush and breathed the scent in deeply, but it failed to uplift me that evening. I was most unhappy. Unhappy because I could not wander invisibly around the ballroom that evening; despondent that I could no longer roam as I chose unseen in my cloak—in Beryl’s cloak. I felt I could not walk through life well at all without my wonderful invisibility. I was annoyed Beryl had taken it away, though I knew I had no right to be.
She could at least have let me keep it until I had to leave when I was married, I thought crossly.
I plucked a stem of lavender. And why did she not trust me enough to tell me what was going on in Uncle’s secret chambers? I shredded the lavender into fragrant pieces. I was considered old enough to be married off to some prince—the last princess left to choose for the leftover suitors. I was certain I was doomed to marry the least attractive of the lot. That is, if any would even remain to attend my banquet night. After all, I was the least of my sisters in looks and status—a cursed thirteenth daughter without even a real name. Yet Beryl did not trust me with knowing anything important. I threw the lavender stalk over the balustrade and stomped up to my bedchamber.
Nel returned joyously after speaking with Uncle and the Lord High Chancellor the following morning.
“It is all settled!” she announced. “The wonderful prince I told you about—Prince Spessartine of Geldland—he is my betrothed!” Everyone congratulated her effusively and the air became thick and syrupy with prince-and-wedding talk, so I slipped away. I wanted to find Beryl. I wanted to speak to her before she began her work in the jewel house that morning.
I found her as she was crossing the inner courtyard to the work chambers. I flung myself in her path.
“Oh, Beryl! Please let me borrow the cloak—please! I need it!”
Beryl stepped back to look at me, as if to measure my thoughts, and then she slowly shook her head.
“I am sorry, dear, but it is for the best. It is time you stopped hiding from people. It is time to put away your childish games.”
“But I like hiding! I like being invisible!” I knew just how childish I sounded, but I could not stop myself.
“You are a princess, my dear. Your destiny is not to live half your life unseen.”
“But I did not ask to be born a princess,” I argued even more childishly. “It was not as if anyone wanted me, I am a . . . a . . . mistake!”
“That is not true,” Beryl said firmly. “You are much wanted, and you were born into great privilege. It is time to face up to your responsibilities.”
“My responsibilities? You mean, I suppose, like getting married to a man I will never love, and probably not even like. Then go to live in some kingdom where I do not know anyone and will never be able to do anything I want to do or see my sisters or you ever again!” The tears fell as I spoke.
I felt Beryl’s big, warm hands around my shoulders, pulling me to her and st
roking my head as I wept bitterly.
“There, there, my dear. You should not speak such unkind things about your future. Words are very powerful. They can put you in the way of great blessings, and of curses also. Speak only good things to yourself.”
“There are no good things to say!” I burbled into her shoulder.
“Of course there are. I will speak them for you. You will live a life filled with wonder that comes around unexpected turns. You will let your light and beauty shine and be seen to inspire many. There is no need to hide away and be invisible anymore.”
I sniffed loudly while Beryl continued stroking my hair. It was impossible not to feel better when Beryl was stroking your hair; just the very touch of her hands was healing.
“You shall have your own ladies’ maid, dear,” she said. “You should have had one when you came of age a year ago.”
I lifted my head from her shoulder. “I did not want one,” I sniffed. “And I still do not want one.”
“It is right you should have one at your age.”
“I do not want someone fussing over me and following me,” I said crossly, wiping my nose on my sleeve.
“It is time,” insisted Beryl, holding out a clean handkerchief. “One day, you will have many servants of your own to manage. You need to learn how. There are some nice girls working in the palace who would be suitable. I will see to it.”
I blew my nose into the handkerchief.
“Go and rinse your face, dear. You are all red and blotchy. Then come and help me sort out the jewels Nel’s suitor has given for her bridal gift.”
I did as I was told and then wandered, heavyhearted, to the jewel house.
“We are busy!” growled Lapido without looking up at me.
“I will be quiet,” I promised.
Beryl had begun sorting through the chest of stones on her worktable. She directed me to arrange them by colour: red, orange, yellow, pink, purple, blue. A rainbow of uncut stones lay on the table when I had finished.