Grunting, they pushed the table aside and Maud bent down and drew back a corner of the rug, revealing a trap door. She grasped hold of the iron ring in her twisted hands and yanked.
“Down there,” Maud ordered. “Quickly! Quickly!”
With difficulty, they managed to get Garren and Egan down a short staircase. Maud came last, swinging the door shut behind her, and they were flung into darkness so impenetrable Mally couldn’t see the hand that she lifted before her eyes. There was a shuffling and then light flared. Maud was lighting lamps and candles that were placed in brackets against the walls. Mally stared about her in startled surprise.
They were in an underground room. It was well furnished, though dusty, with tables and bookcases and chairs.
“You,” Maud barked, looking at Mally, “hold this to his forehead.” She tossed a cloth to her and pointed at Garren, propped up against one wall.
Within seconds, Maud had given all of them jobs before climbing back up the stairs in search of herbs and bandages from her shop. Mally desperately wanted to know where Galen was. He had said he’d be right there … but that had been so long ago. What if he’d been caught? What if he was now in the dungeons like the others? What if he was … no, don’t think that. Galen is fine. He’ll be here. He’ll—
The trap door swung open and a pair of boots appeared on the top step. Everyone tensed, staring as the newcomer emerged.
“Galen!” Edwin cried, rushing forward and throwing himself into his brother’s arms. Mally grinned like a fool, taking in every inch of him. He was fine—not a scratch. He looked at her over Edwin’s head and smiled slightly. Her heart raced so fast it hurt.
“Edwin!” Olive Dunker had joined them, still in her dressing gown. She swept up her son in such a strangling grasp that Edwin gasped for breath. “Thank Lenzar!” she moaned. Then she pushed him from her, holding him tightly at arms length. Her eyes inspected him with frantic scrutiny. “You’re not hurt. You’re not hurt,” she repeated in dazed relief.
“Come, Olive,” Maud ordered. She clamped a gnarled hand over Olive’s elbow and pulled the pale woman through the only door in the room. Olive still hadn’t let Edwin go and dragged him with her. That’s when Mally noticed that a third person had descended the stairs, a tall, neatly shaved man with short, slicked-back, white hair. He carried a small briefcase with him. Without waiting, he hurried over to Egan and inspected the damage to his leg.
“It’s not that bad, Dr. Keaden,” Egan bit out, his eyes scrunched up in pain.
“It needs stitches,” Dr. Keaden replied. “Maud, did you—”
“I already cleaned it, William,” Maud replied, poking her head back through the open door. “He needs stitches. That big one against the wall should be coming ‘round soon, he mostly got knocked out,” she said. “The cuts are shallow.”
“Lucky for him,” said Dr. Keaden, turning his attention back to Egan.
“Mally, you’re bleeding.”
Mally looked up startled as Galen knelt down beside her, frowning at her right shoulder. She stared at it in surprise. She had no idea she’d been cut—when had that happened? Maybe when she’d climbed out of the window?
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s bleeding,” Galen repeated and before Mally could do anything, he’d grabbed hold of her arm and gently tugged her into the room where his mother, Edwin, and Maud sat.
“But I need to help—”
“Dr. Keaden will take care of them. He’s brilliant,” Galen replied. “And Lita and Daniel are in there. The only one seriously injured is Egan and if I know him, he won’t let some stitches slow him down.”
They had entered a very small room that seemed to be a storage area. Olive and Edwin were already sitting at a small table in the center. There were cabinets of dusty silverware, and a washing basin. Ropes of garlic, dried flowers, and herbs dangled above their heads. Along the walls were shelves filled with wines, pickled vegetables, containers of tea leaves, yarn and string. Maud had her stooped back to them, busy boiling a pot of water over the most minuscule fireplace Mally had ever seen.
“And how do you know him so well?” Olive demanded, eyes flashing at Galen.
Mally was taken aback not only by the harshness of her tone but the fury burning in her eyes. Edwin seemed to shrink in his chair, his eyes shifting from his mother to his brother tensely.
“The reason couldn’t possibly be that you joined an illegal group that I specifically forbade you from joining?” Olive continued, seeming to swell in anger.
Mally unconsciously took a step back.
Galen stared at his mother, his back stiff, before he abruptly turned from her and retrieved a damp clean cloth.
“It was my decision to make, Mother.”
“Your decision!” Olive exploded. “Your decision has not only risked your own life but mine and your bother’s! Were you thinking at all?”
Galen didn’t respond as he returned to Mally, pressing the cloth against the cut on her shoulder, making it sting. But Olive, in her old and faded dressing gown, looked wild with anger.
“Because of your decision we are all in danger!” she raged. “If Thomas were here—”
“He would be proud of his son.”
Everyone in the room turned to Maud, startled. She carefully poured tea into a large mug before splashing a healthy amount of whisky in it. Maud gazed sternly at Olive, while handing her the cup.
“Thomas never approved of the rebels,” Olive argued, though she took the mug without hesitation.
“Thomas never approved of the knights either,” Maud countered. Suddenly Mally felt such warmth for the frightening old woman that she wanted to grasp one of her gnarled hands in appreciation. Galen’s neck looked slightly warm, as if he was just as startled by—and thankful for—this unexpected aid as Mally was.
“But you lied to me.” Olive choked on the tears now glittering in her eyes as she turned to Galen. “How long have you …” She squeezed her eyes shut as if she couldn’t bear to name those who had endangered her sons.
“Nearly two years. Since Dad died,” Galen answered softly.
With those words, whatever restraint Olive was clinging to crumbled and the tears streamed down her round cheeks. Galen knelt beside his sobbing mother, taking one hand in his own.
“I’m so sorry,” Galen continued. “I couldn’t stand what happened to Dad … I had to do something. Please, please understand. I never wanted to upset you.”
“Like I said, Thomas would be proud,” Maud repeated firmly, approval glittering in her eyes. She nodded to Galen, picked up the tray of tea she had just finished pouring and limped back into the main room.
Mally shifted uncomfortably. This wasn’t something that she should be witnessing. She doubted any of them noticed when she quietly exited after Maud. While they had been talking, Dr. Keaden had stitched up Egan’s leg. Lita was in the process of trying to convince an ashen-faced Egan to drink some tea, and a fully conscious Garren was cursing and grumbling darkly under his breath. Mally wondered what had happened to the other rebels—if they were even still alive. Their capture was probably the greatest of Molick’s triumphs.
Dr. Keaden turned and glanced at Mally who still held the cloth to her shoulder. “One more patient,” he said cheerfully to Mally, giving an obvious stare to her shoulder.
“It’s nothing,” said Mally. “Just a scratch.”
“Scratch or not, it needs to be looked at,” the doctor replied.
Mally withdrew the cloth. To her consternation, he ripped her sleeve open to get a better look. He stiffened.
“Is it bad?” Mally asked nervously. She really hadn’t looked at it, and though it stung and throbbed she hadn’t thought it was worth fretting over.
Dr. Keaden exhaled shakily, which only increased Mally’s consternation. He hadn’t reacted this way to any of the other injuries—even Egan’s, which Mally hadn’t been able to look at for very long without her stomach turning.
�
��Let’s go up to Maud’s shop,” said Dr. Keaden. “I need some of the ingredients to make a paste.” And without even waiting for a reply, he had pulled her to the stairs and they soon stood in Maud’s kitchen. “Let me have another look at that.”
Mally sat at the table and Dr. Keaden pulled up a chair so closely that their knees bumped. His nose was inches away from her shoulder and Mally blushed uncomfortably. His brow was furrowed, his eyes shining with some emotion that Mally didn’t understand, and his mouth was in the thinnest of lines. Finally he looked up from her shoulder to her face.
“What is your name, my dear?” he asked quietly.
“Mally Biddle,” Mally answered, wishing he would move back some.
“Mally Biddle?” Dr. Keaden repeated slowly and carefully, his frown even more pronounced. Mally had the strange feeling that he didn’t believe her.
“Yes,” Mally replied a bit forcefully.
Dr. Keaden leaned back in his chair, expelling a caught breath. He entwined his fingers and stared hard at Mally as if debating with himself whether he should say the thing that was obviously on his mind.
“I don’t think that’s true, Miss Biddle,” the doctor finally murmured.
Mally blinked. It took a moment for her brain to process what he’d just said and then to realize he was serious.
“I’m sorry, but that is my name,” Mally replied, frowning in confusion and irritation.
“No. It’s not.”
The sharpness of those words took Mally completely by surprise. She stared at the doctor.
“You may think of yourself as Mally Biddle but you are most certainly not just Mally Biddle,” Dr. Keaden continued.
The only response Mally managed was to blink at him stupidly. Was the man crazy?
“You have a birthmark on your right shoulder,” Dr. Keaden stated, nodding to the shoulder that he had moments before been inspecting with such close scrutiny.
“So?” Mally asked slightly rudely. “People have birthmarks.”
“But no two are the same. Yours is quite distinctive. A paw print.”
Mally nodded, still not understanding what this had to do with anything. She had always been fond of her birthmark. It was so small that people didn’t tend to notice it, but it did have a rather attractive shape.
“I’ve only seen one other like it,” the doctor continued quietly. “It was located on the right shoulder of Princess Avona.”
“That’s interesting,” said Mally pleasantly, but crisply. She rose, wanting desperately to get back to Galen and Lita and far from this man.
“I was the one who oversaw the princess’s birth. I cleaned her. I remember the birthmark quite distinctly.”
“Well that was many years ago—”
“Seventeen in fact. Tell me, my dear, how old are you?”
Mally froze on her way to the trap door. Slowly, she turned on the spot. Ice seemed to be running down her back.
“You’ve made a mistake—”
“I haven’t made a mistake,” the doctor shook his head.
“How can you possibly remember a birthmark exactly after seventeen years?” Mally fumed, irritated by his calm countenance.
“You made quite the first impression—”
“That wasn’t me!” Mally yelled, removing the smile on his face quite effectively.
His smile might have been removed, but his persistence hadn’t.
“How did you manage to leave the castle?”
Mally wanted to strangle him!
“I am not the princess! I was raised in Blighten by my mother and father!”
Dr. Keaden met her gaze calmly.
“You may deny your identity as much as you wish, but your own skin tells the truth. You are Princess Avona.”
30 Back to Blighten
The silence that followed that shocking statement was as thick as tar. Dr. Keaden rose from his chair keeping his gaze locked on Mally’s stunned face. He moved past her to the trap door, opened it, and descended down the steps without another word. Mally stared for a long time at the stairwell, her heart racing, her mind filled with an odd ringing, before she slammed the trap door back down with such haste that it bounced back up. She spun around, her eyes not taking in any of the kitchen.
The princess? Princess Avona? Her? Ridiculous! Absurd! The man was insane! So what if they both had birthmarks—hers was probably a crooked swirl. It had been seventeen years, for God’s sake. No one would remember something as trivial as a birthmark in such detail for all that time!
But it was a horrible coincidence. Two birthmarks on two right shoulders on two seventeen-year-olds. Mally shut her eyes and grabbed her hair, twisting the curls painfully between her fingers. If that infernal ringing would just stop she could think! Her fingers stilled suddenly as she froze. What if he told them his suspicions? What would Galen or Lita think—oh, God, what would Ivan do? But surely he wouldn’t tell them? Somehow Mally didn’t really believe that.
Without even making a conscious decision, Mally had left the kitchen and was hastily weaving her way around the display tables in Maud’s shop. Just as she turned the knob on the door, a patch of moonlight illuminated the table before the window adorned with skulls and herbs. There sat the giant rat, his black eyes trained on her form. His tail was draped lazily over one of the skull’s jaws, his beetle black eyes glittering. Mally yanked the door open and fled.
She was lucky. Only twice did she have to dive for cover to keep from being seen by passing knights. It seemed that the knights weren’t satisfied with their capture—they knew a handful of rebels had escaped from their raid. Mally spotted many knights demanding entry from sleepy-eyed proprietors and roughly searching their homes and shops. She wondered why Maud’s had yet to be visited by the brutes.
Some twenty agonizingly tense minutes later, Mally cracked Bob Kettle’s stable door open. Contented, sleepy snorts came from the dark stalls as she hurried to Sam’s. The moment she had lifted the heavy iron latch with a clank, Sam arched his neck and snorted loudly.
“It’s me, Sam. It’s me!” Mally hissed, quickly running her hand down his long muzzle.
He immediately calmed down and pushed his nose more forcefully into her hand, his ears twitching contentedly. In a flash she had him saddled and out of the stall. How she would get out of the city without the knights noticing she had no idea. It was impossible to hide Sam. They would just have to go as fast as possible.
Sam’s giant hooves sounded like hammers on the cobblestone as they fled through the city. Quite a few candles flared into life through dark windows as they rushed by the shops and apartments, startling the sleepers awake. Distantly Mally thought she heard a shout, but she didn’t turn her head to look. As they neared the gate, Mally’s heart jumped into her throat. It was open! A large wagon led by bleary-eyed mules was being allowed entry. At the sound of Sam’s pounding hooves, the knights and wagon driver looked about, startled.
“Halt!” the knights yelled. Their shouts alerted those patrolling the towering outer walls. Five knights, drawing bows, ran above their heads to the gate. Mally simply bent lower over Sam’s neck and begged him to go faster.
Stupidly, or maybe bravely, the knights stood their ground, drawing their heavy swords. The wagon driver and mules on the other hand were not so dimwitted. Panicking when Sam didn’t slow, the wagon driver lashed out at his mules who screamed and screeched as if they were being murdered. The wagon lurched forward, forcing the knights to jump out of the way of the trampling mules. Never hesitating in his stride, Sam plowed into the chaos. The knight who had stood guard when Mally had first entered the city so long ago—Sir Strap—screamed in fright as Sam nearly ran him over. Strap leapt back so quickly that he tumbled over backwards like a barrel. Mally heard his cursing along with the mules’ screeching long after the city had been lost on the horizon.
It had been a long time since Sam had truly stretched his legs and he reveled in the run. Blighten was four hours away from Bosc and it was still
very dark. Mally wondered just how late it actually was, but she couldn’t risk stopping to ask at a passing inn or farm house. The knights didn’t allow people to just leave the city without their names being recorded—Molick enjoyed keeping his puppets’ strings accounted for.
Even in Mally’s fear of being followed, she slowed Sam to a canter. It wasn’t wise to burn him out. When dawn broke on the horizon, Mally’s stomach groaned and her eyes itched for sleep, but she straightened in the saddle and kept Sam moving.
What Dr. Keaden had proclaimed was absolutely absurd! She was not Princess Avona. But she knew that if she had stayed with Galen and the rest, the doctor would certainly have told them what he thought. She had failed to convince him that he was wrong. Mally couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to try to convince the others. Was their desire to be freed from this tyranny so great that they would have forced her to take a throne that was as much hers as Bob Kettle’s? No, she had had to leave … there was no other option. And if they followed her? Then she would have the proof that only a mother could give. She was not Princess Avona.
Shortly after dawn had begun to lighten the sky, grey clouds gathered and it started to rain. A cold, mournful rain that seeped through her servant clothes to her bones. Even Sam had lost his thrill for the journey. He now slowly walked down the muddy, sludgy roads where dirty half-melted snow had been pushed to either side. Mally shivered violently, wishing that she and Lita had thought to grab cloaks before they left the castle, but in all their excitement the thought had never entered their minds. A vision appeared in Mally’s brain of her mother in her warm kitchen, stirring a giant pot of soup with a large teapot steaming on the table. She sneezed and buried her numb fingers in Sam’s mane.
The rain continued on and Mally lost track of time. She followed the wooden signs alongside the road that pointed the way to Blighten. What had become of Ivan? Was he alive? Locked in the dungeons? Had Dr. Keaden told everyone his theories? Was Lita panicking at her hasty retreat? Was Galen searching the city for her? Something painful stung in Mally’s chest at the mental image of Galen … of Galen being told she had abandoned them. Would she ever see him again? With that thought, the pain in her chest nearly made her choke. Her eyes stung and a sob escaped her lips.
The Tale of Mally Biddle Page 28