Tournament of Ruses

by Kate Stradling

  She met Dorothea and Augustina in one of the busy dress shops. She had come with Mrs. Finch to pick up the last of her new wardrobe. They had come to order new dresses, alongside a score of other girls and their doting mamas. The seamstresses were in a tizzy as they ran around helping customers in the order that they came.

  “You got a jump on us all,” said Dorothea jealously as she regarded the stack of boxes next to Flora. “I wasn’t due any new dresses until next season, but now we all have to have them, of course.”

  “With this crowd it’ll be weeks before we see the finished products,” Augustina lamented. “You haven’t heard anything more from your father about the Prince’s timetable, have you?”

  “No,” said Flora apologetically. She was thankful that her father’s footman came at just that moment to load her boxes into her waiting carriage. “Good luck,” she told the pair as she pushed her way through the crush of women clamoring for the shop owners’ attention.

  It wasn’t just the young women, either. Every eligible female from fifteen to fifty seemed to be deep in preparation for the fake assessments. Flora had to forcibly remind herself that it wasn’t funny, and that it certainly wouldn’t be funny when the truth came out and they all turned accusing eyes upon her.

  But then, that might get her banished back to the countryside, and she could hardly complain about that, could she?

  Mrs. Finch was triumphant about the new wardrobe. She insisted that Flora play dress-up for her for the rest of the morning. Flora drew the line at walking out with a set of novels perched atop her head, despite the housekeeper’s cajoling of how much good practice it would be.

  She retreated to the dismal garden that afternoon, having promised Mrs. Finch that she was going to memorize some poetry as part of training for the cultural portion of the assessment. When Mrs. Finch protested the usefulness of that talent, Flora simply replied that one of the other girls had told her the Prince had a great love of poetry.

  Mrs. Finch looked suspicious, but she allowed the lie to slide. Flora slipped out the back door with a book of verse in hand. She abandoned it on a faded little bench just beyond the porch and took to wandering the yard.

  The weather was cold, and she had left her gloves in the house. She absently rubbed her hands together as she walked, surveying the icy ruin that spread out in front of her.

  Whichever lord had lived here before her family obviously hadn’t cared in the least for his garden. The place was a total wreck. Shrubbery had been torn up in some places and hacked away in others. Scraggly weeds poked up through the snow, evidence of past neglect. The worst offense in Flora’s eyes, though, was the pattern of holes that had been dug haphazardly across the whole miserable expanse. She had stumbled into a snow-filled one on her very first day at the house and was lucky to have avoided a sprained ankle. They held no discernable pattern, that she could tell, and if the previous owner had intended to plant something in them, he had left no signs of it in the greenhouse. She could pick them out quite easily now as telltale grooves in the snow; she took care to skirt around them as she wandered.

  Surely the other girls in the neighborhood would know the former occupant, but none of them had said a word to her about it. Flora’s father, too, had been mum on that point. She thought it was probably for the best. There was no need to bring the shadow of the former occupant’s misdeeds over Lord Dalton’s new appointment, after all.

  And yet, that former occupant had left such maddening tracks behind!

  Flora stooped to examine one of the rose bushes in the back half of the yard. Neither it nor its fellows had been properly groomed for winter. Spindly branches stood out against the snow, still bearing some brown, desiccated leaves. Whether the bush would survive the cold, she did not know. The outer stems were already very much dead, and the lower canes had not been banked with mulch as they should have been.

  She glanced back toward the house self-consciously. Her father planned to hire a private gardener come springtime and had instructed her not to bother with the ruin at present, but she had always found gardening to be such a calming activity. Gingerly she began to strip the dead leaves from the branches. It was a minor task, one that would likely make little difference to the plant’s survival, but it put Flora’s troubled mind at ease.

  Lulled by the mindlessness of this chore, she grew overly ambitious. She reached toward the interior of the bush, intent upon a cluster of withered leaves there, and instead firmly grasped one of the sharp, brittle thorns hidden beneath. It pierced her thumb.

  Flora jerked back her hand; the thorn came with it. Blood blossomed against her torn skin. With a hiss she yanked out the offending thorn and flicked it aside to inspect the damage. A small, jagged wound extended across the pad of her thumb, a speck of black in its midst. The tip of the thorn had broken off.

  “Of all the stupid luck,” she muttered. She gritted her teeth and, carefully, dug in a fingernail to extract the tiny, painful speck. A drop of blood pattered to the snowy ground.

  Flora grunted. “I guess this is the first of my blood, sweat, and tears that I have to give to you,” she said jokingly, as though the garden was a sentient creature. “I suspect you’ll take a lot more than this, but I wish you’d do it a little less painfully. I was only trying to help, late in the season as it is.”

  Talking to herself eased the pain in her thumb as she worked that little tip of thorn to the surface. It resisted her first attempts, but she was stubborn. She finally maneuvered it out with one fingernail, and a shake of her hand flipped it to the ground amid several more flecks of blood. Quickly she picked up a handful of snow to wash the area clean, to check that no other remnants remained. Satisfied on that score, she then hurried back indoors for a proper bandage.

  The book of verse remained unheeded on the bench.

  Chapter Five: Both Seen and Unseen

  I suppose that one of the benefits of having a completely destroyed garden is that you can plan it anew practically from scratch. I’ve decided that that’s my next project. It’s something to spend my time on in the next few weeks, anyway, and who knows but that the Eternal Prince holds garden-planning to be a most esteemed cultural trait?

  All right, I know that was perfectly ridiculous, and no, I have no intention of getting caught up in my own web of lies. I’m going to suffer the consequences for them soon enough.

  But, to be quite honest, I’m excited to plot the garden as I please. Dad told me when we very first moved that I could. I think it was his way of assuaging my injured soul when he dragged me away from my beloved country garden. He doesn’t want me to do any of the actual work, of course (just as he didn’t back home), but he’s left the particulars of its layout for my choosing.

  The garden back home has been plotted in the same pattern for generations. This one is so torn up that I can arrange it in practically any manner that I like. (I’m well aware that I don’t deserve such a treat, I assure you.) The rose bushes will stay, I think, if they survive. The holes in the ground absolutely must go. If only I knew whether they should be filled with dirt or with new plants. Decisions, decisions.

  A curious thing happened two weeks after the Daltons moved into their new home, and Flora was the only one to notice it: the weather seemed to get warmer. It was probably a fluke, she thought at first, for it was the middle of winter and they were sure to have several more snowstorms before the season wore through.

  In fact, they did have a snowstorm for a full day, and Flora was left cooped up in the house, drawing different layouts for the garden. The next morning when she went to inspect the damage done by the weather, though, she discovered something that astonished her: the snow in their backyard had actually melted in patches instead.

  “We’re partly sheltered by the forest,” her father told her when she returned inside to consult him on the matter. “It only stands to reason that we wouldn’t bear the full brunt of such a storm.” Then, he kissed her forehead and went on his way to his office in th
e palace.

  Flora returned outside. The holes in the ground were much more obvious now. They stood out as snow-filled divots amid stretches of scrubby brown grass. A couple holes back by the rose bushes had even lost their snow completely. She inspected these. The first was shallow; its interior was predictably wet, with a brown puddle at the bottom. Flora passed to the second, deeper hole.

  It stood nearest to the rosebush that had snagged her thumb. She stooped to peer at its muddy contents—or, what she thought at first was mud. It was a dark liquid, but it had a strange glimmer to it.

  Flora, gloveless as usual, reached forward curious fingers. She had worked in the garden before and was not afraid of a little dirt under her fingernails. As she neared the liquid, though, it seemed to reach up at her, as though pulled like the tide to the moon. She jerked back her hand before it could make contact, and the little pool flattened out.

  It wasn’t brown, she realized with a start. It was a deep, dark red, like blood.

  Her skin crawled at the thought. She stumbled backward and then scrambled for the house. Mrs. Finch was passing by as she staggered through the back door.

  “Come with me,” cried Flora, and she dragged the housekeeper out into the yard.

  “What on earth—?” Mrs. Finch inquired. “Flora, what’s gotten into you?”

  “The snow is melting, and there’s this pool in one of the holes that looks like blood,” Flora babbled. “Come look!”

  She wove the housekeeper between the snow-covered holes to the pair that stood bare. “There,” she said, pointing down at the deeper one. “Look at that!”

  Mrs. Finch peered down at the hole and then turned concerned eyes back on her. “It’s a hole, dear,” she said gently. “There seem to be a number of them in this garden, and I agree that they are quite untidy.”

  “No, not the hole,” Flora protested. “The puddle! Look at the puddle in the bottom—” Her voice died in her throat as she shifted her gaze into the loamy depths. There was nothing but mud. The strange liquid had vanished completely. “But it was just there!” Flora cried.

  Mrs. Finch was looking at her as though she was not quite right in the head. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right, Flora? I know you’ve been under a lot of stress lately, what with all of these preparations for the consorts’ tournament—”

  “The what?” Flora interrupted sharply. “Consorts’ tournament? Who’s calling it that?”

  “Oh, everyone, dear,” said Mrs. Finch kindly. “Perhaps we’ve been pushing you too hard. You know we all have high hopes for you in general, but everyone will still love you regardless of the outcome—”

  “I’m not under any stress about that!” she protested, even though it was a lie. Technically, while she wasn’t under stress about the Eternal Prince’s selection process, she was under a great deal of stress at being the origin of a pack of lies surrounding it. “Look, Mrs. Finch, I’m telling you I saw a puddle in that hole, and it looked like blood!”

  The housekeeper hummed as though she wanted to agree, if only to placate her. “There’s nothing there now,” she said in a too-forgiving voice. “Why don’t you come inside and get some rest. You can memorize your verses just as well indoors as outdoors, can’t you?”

  Flora opened her mouth to respond but then shut it again. A second glance at the hole showed it still to be empty. She had no proof that it had ever contained anything but mud. Perhaps Mrs. Finch had been right; perhaps she had simply been seeing things because of all the stress she was under.

  “All right,” she conceded wearily. “Let’s go back inside.”

  The housekeeper fondly patted her arm and led her indoors. She settled Flora in a comfy chair in the sitting room and even brought her a hot cup of tea and a plate of biscuits before she went on her way.

  The room was warm and tranquil and should have helped soothe Flora’s nerves. Try as she might, though, she could not banish the image of that bloody puddle from her mind. She sat for almost an hour, and her gaze kept straying to the window and the barren garden that lay beyond it.

  “I’m not crazy,” she finally muttered, and she threw off the knitted blanket Mrs. Finch had tucked around her. With renewed determination she stalked back out the door to the line of rosebushes and the pair of holes there.

  Within the deeper one lay a glimmering reddish puddle. Flora grunted angrily and immediately knelt in the mud for a closer look. The puddle seemed to sway toward her. This time, she boldly jabbed two fingers at the substance.

  It was oily to the touch. Flora retracted her hand and cautiously sniffed the drops that clung to her. They smelled of roses, heady and strong, and the sensation immediately reminded her of springtime back at her country garden. Suddenly homesick, she sat up and viciously wiped her fingers clean on her skirt.

  “Flora!” Mrs. Finch called from the house. She looked up and found that woman peering out the door.

  Flora waved vigorously. “Mrs. Finch, come quick! It’s back again!” She glanced at the hole to check that the puddle had not vanished a second time. It glimmered silently.

  “Flora, I thought you were resting,” said the housekeeper as she hurried out into the garden. “This is no time to be playing in the mud!” In one hand she brandished a folded sheet of paper. “Come inside quickly! You must go immediately!”

  Flora’s brows drew together. “What are you talking about?”

  “We’ve just received word! You must go to the palace immediately! Here! See for yourself!”

  Mrs. Finch thrust the folded page into her hands. Flora paled as she read its contents:

  Dear Miss Dalton,

  Your presence is requested at the Palace of Lenore, by order of the Eternal Prince. Please report to me at the soonest occasion convenient to you.

  Yours Sincerely,

  Mr. Roger Sterling, Secretary to the Prime Minister

  “What does it mean?” asked Mrs. Finch. “Is the tournament beginning?”

  “It doesn’t say anything about that,” said Flora quickly. She had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. If the Eternal Prince had discovered the source of all the rumors, then he was surely summoning her to the palace to reprimand her. She wondered if they put lords’ daughters in the stocks in the middle of winter, or if there was some other suitable punishment in store for her.

  She suddenly remembered the original cause that had brought her outside, though. “This isn’t important right now,” she said. “Mrs. Finch, look!” She pointed in triumph to the muddy hole.

  The housekeeper looked and seemed less than impressed. Flora’s eyes snapped back downward. The puddle was gone again.

  “It was just there!” she cried in outrage. “I touched it! It smelled like roses!”

  Mrs. Finch tried to appear sympathetic. “Flora, dear child, come inside and get changed. You’ve gotten mud all over your dress, kneeling down there like that.”

  “You think I’m crazy!” Flora accused.

  “I think you’re tired,” said the housekeeper diplomatically. “It’s too bad this message had to come today when you’re not in your usual spirits, but we’ll make the best of it. Come along. We’ll get one of your new dresses and have Mary put up your hair again. You need to look your best for the Eternal Prince.”

  “I’m supposed to see this Mr. Sterling,” Flora replied crossly. “It doesn’t say that I’m going to see the Eternal Prince.”

  “Of course you’re going to see him! He requested your presence! Now do come, quickly!”

  Flora spared one last, baleful glance toward the treacherous mudhole before she allowed the housekeeper to pull her to her feet and lead her back indoors. Once there she quickly washed her hands and changed her clothes. Then she sat very still for a good ten minutes while her maid, Mary, re-twisted her coils of dark hair into a becoming shape atop her head. Carefully her bonnet was positioned over the well-wrought hairstyle—Flora didn’t know why Mary and Mrs. Finch seemed to emphasize such particularity about her hair, sin
ce she most likely wouldn’t be removing the bonnet during her visit—and she donned her coat with increasing foreboding.

  “I’ll call for the carriage,” said Mrs. Finch, but as she raised her hands to the bell pull, Flora protested.

  “I can walk! It’s not very far away, and I think the fresh air would do my mind some good.”

  Mrs. Finch looked at her dubiously but did not protest. Doubtless she also thought a brisk walk in the cold winter air would benefit Flora. For her part, Flora would not have minded taking the carriage except that she thought she was probably headed to her doom and she preferred to spend her last fleeting moments before punishment or public humiliation out in the open rather than insulated within a stuffy box-on-wheels.

  It was shortly after noon when she set out. The palace was far too close to Lords’ Row for her comfort; she arrived at its gates in under ten minutes. A couple of young guards stood at sentry, and Flora thanked her lucky stars that she had thought to bring the summons with her, for she simply showed that to one of them and he pointed her in the right direction.

  She had never actually been to the palace before. Her father had wanted to bring her on the day of his confirmation to Parliament, but the meeting had been a closed one, with no public spectators allowed. He had spoken several times of showing her his office, too, but as yet that had not occurred. Thus Flora knew nothing about navigating the palace and had to rely upon the sentries that were stationed periodically along the way. They guided her to her destination, a cluster of offices on the third floor in what they called the administrative wing.

  She found Mr. Sterling at his desk in front of the Prime Minister’s office. He was a tidy man, middle-to-late thirties, with perfectly combed hair and a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles perched atop his very straight nose. He was writing a painstakingly neat memo in the same precise handwriting that graced Flora’s summons, but he looked up at her approach.