Janna stared open mouthed. She didn’t know what to do. Her mother was good with people when they were upset. What would…? Janna took a cloth, wet it in cool water, and held it to Cook’s face. The fernwoman jerked away, then turned her back on the girl.
“Get busy,” she said brusquely.
Janna looked at the mound of vegetables without moving. She was trembling when she finally sat down heavily in front of them.
“I can’t do this. Help me,” she whispered out loud.
The cold cloth was still in one of her hands. Automatically, she put it to her own face and drew a deep breath. Her trembling eased. He helped me before; he’ll help me now. She picked up the knife and started to cut a potato. The summons came a few minutes later.
“You’re wanted in the throne room,” growled a fernmen as he stuck his head into the kitchen from the hallway.
Janna stood slowly and walked out of the kitchen. Her emotions were under control now, and the cool cloth had hopefully taken away any telltale redness from her eyes. Her father’s very life depended on how well she played her part over the next few minutes.
Regrettably, playing a part was not something Janna was good at, and she knew it. She was far better at speaking bluntly and wearing every emotion she felt on her face. Her heart was one big aching prayer, but it was absolutely necessary to concentrate on what she was doing.
King Luff stood comfortably in the throne room explaining to the queen the names and needs of the various plants he had brought, as if he were chatting with one of his shepherds in Mount Pasture.
Janna took her cue from him and deliberately relaxed.
“Oh, Janna dear,” the Fern Queen said, waving her over. “Go examine the materials on the throne. I want to know which would be the most becoming on me.”
“How pretty,” Janna said in feigned delight over the satins, crepes, and silks.
They were all various shades of green, surely a limited selection for a peddler’s wares, but, on the other hand, considering the customer, it made perfect sense. Why would a peddler bring the Fern Queen anything but green?
Janna pretended to examine each piece of cloth critically, but the job of ignoring her father was taking every bit of her concentration. She had none left for choosing between materials. Desperately, she picked up the two closest pieces of cloth and silently held them out.
“Well?” the Fern Queen said, not satisfied with silence.
Janna could have screamed in exasperation but forced herself to say instead, “These two are perfect. They’re the best shades to flatter your skin tone and deepen the green of your eyes as well as set off your hair. Think how they’ll flutter when you walk or ride your horse.”
She was so wound up that once she got started she found it hard to stop. Fortunately, the Fern Queen never minded people talking on and on about her physical appearance.
“Yes,” the woman said in absorbed interest. “I see what you mean. Oh, this is such fun. Peddler, you must stay for the night. I cannot possibly make up my mind right away. You can tell me about the outside world. We are cut off down here in my little kingdom and always eager for news.”
The Fern Queen’s eyes flickered with something besides interest in the materials and plants spread out around her.
“It would be my pleasure, ma’am,” Luff said with his natural courtesy.
“Janna, show him to one of the guestrooms where he can freshen up before lunch.”
She started fingering the green ribbons, enthralled immediately by their different textures.
“This way, sir,” Janna said and led the way to the second floor, choosing the farthest, most private guestroom. She led King Luff inside, closed the door, and sprang into his arms.
“Janna, my little Pound Cake, how are you?” her father’s loving voice spoke above her.
It was several minutes before Janna could answer. She had known that she wanted to get away from the Fern Queen, but she hadn’t realized until then how much she’d missed her father and mother.
“How’s Mom?” she was finally able to ask.
“Berta’s been terribly worried about you,” said her father softly. “We both were. When you went missing and we had no idea where you were …”
He shook his head, unable to continue.
“The Maker took care of me. You wouldn’t believe some of the things he did.”
“I want to hear about them, every one of them, though we’d better not take the time now. Can you bring me some water?”
“Oh yeah, and Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t call me Pound Cake,” she said before grabbing the room’s green-speckled guest bowl and dashing into the hall.
At the end of every hallway, where the door opened into the servants’ staircase, stood a table with a large water pitcher. Carefully, Janna poured water into the bowl and carried it back to her father, along with a sage-green towel, but her mind was not on what she was doing.
As soon as she got back to the room, she said, “I’m sorry. I can’t believe I corrected you when this trouble we’re in is all my—”
“No,” interrupted her father as he splashed water on his face and hands. “It is not all your fault. Your mother and I share the blame. Of course, you don’t want Pound Cake for a nickname now that you’re older. We should have talked to you more about our eating habits—and about other things too, secret things,” he finished heavily.
“Oh, you mean the Fern Queen’s tunnel. I can’t believe I fell into it.”
“I am the one at fault there,” admitted Luff heavily, reaching for the towel. “The past two kings had spread rumors that the tunnel was a myth, and I decided to do the same thing. We’re a kingdom of shepherds, not adventurers, and I thought what people didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, but my silence proved disastrous in your case. I—”
Someone walked down the hall outside the room, and he broke off midsentence. They didn’t speak again until they heard the sound of a door opening and closing.
“How did you figure out where I was?” Janna asked.
As he dried his face and hands, her father explained.
“We searched for weeks, thinking you were hiding somewhere in Mount Pasture. Then Alland remembered arguing with you about the old tunnel. I told the truth about it, and we found the collapsed entrance. When we tried to dig through to the tunnel, dirt slid down the hill and filled every hole we made. We could only guess that you had fallen in, but it explained why there was no trace of you anywhere else. I insisted on coming in search of you. Now that I’ve found you, I don’t know exactly what I can do, but at least we’re together. At least I know you’re alive.”
Luff had to quit talking. He rubbed his eyes vigorously with the towel. Janna put her arms around him, and they held each other.
****
During the luncheon that followed, Janna tried to act normally but playing a role for so long was difficult. Thankfully, the Fern Queen didn’t notice. The queen’s interest was focused on her guest, who was describing all the kingdoms he had supposedly traveled through while peddling his wares.
Is he making it up as he goes, Janna wondered, or has he really been to those places? Maybe she didn’t know her father as well as she’d always thought she did. The Fern Queen had a special interest in the geography of the different kingdoms. Janna wrinkled her nose in disgust. Dreaming of new fern gardens. Ugh. What a little mind!
Things went smoothly until the end of the meal. Janna served, Luff talked, and the Fern Queen listened and cooed her pleasure. Then something happened. It was a small incident, but it jolted Janna out of her low opinion of the Fern Queen’s mental abilities.
Janna had put apple, blackberry, and peach tarts on a green-striped tray. Such things were supposed to be arranged artistically, but Janna was not very artistic at the best of times, and this was not the best of times. She’d dumped them haphazardly onto the tray and served them.
Now, there was only one ritual left. Janna was sta
nding at a corner of the dining room buffet pouring fragrant tea into delicate pale-green cups and arranging honey and cream on a matching tea tray when she happened to glance sideways into the mirror that ran along the back of the buffet. Over the course of the summer, Janna had perfected the art of moving her eyes without moving her head. The practice had often saved her from getting into trouble and had become a habit.
The buffet mirror revealed the Fern Queen studying the peddler’s profile as he talked about something outside the window. The queen turned from Luff to Janna and then back to Luff without noticing Janna’s sideways glance in the mirror. Then she smiled, and for one brief moment, the cruelty in her smile made her look as old as she really was.
Janna’s hands started shaking as she fumbled longer than was necessary with the tea things. She knows. Taking a deep breath, the nervous girl tried to convince herself that she was imagining things. Shrug it off, she ordered herself but couldn’t do it.
The Fern Queen knew who the peddler was. She knew. Janna became increasingly convinced of it. The queen was playing a game with King Luff to amuse herself. It was only a matter of time before she tired of the game and showed her true nature.
Chapter 12
Escape of the Grasshoppers
Somehow, Janna carried the tea tray to the table without spilling anything. As soon as possible, she left the room. In the kitchen, she was no longer under the Fern Queen’s direct scrutiny, which was a relief. However, the minutes were dragging by, and she had to get through a whole afternoon of them.
What’s she doing to my father? Do Alissa and Petten know what’s going on? What can we do? Questions whirled around and around in her mind until she felt dizzy.
Meanwhile, she washed, dried, and put away the luncheon dishes. Then, the evening meal, which was to be a grand one, had to be started. Janna did what she was told without speaking. Cook was withdrawn too but that was the fernwoman’s normal state. All in all, it was a very quiet afternoon in the kitchen. Janna felt like screaming.
What she wanted more than anything was for night to come so she could go upstairs for a long talk with Petten and Alissa. Together, they’d make a plan. They had to make a plan.
The afternoon slowly crawled to a close. Supper preparations were stepped up. Janna’s mouth thinned into ominous lines as she set the dining room table. The Fern Queen was picky about how her table was set. Every one of the silver knives, forks, and spoons had to be put exactly in place. The olive-green napkins had to be folded into the wavy shape that was preferred that week.
One of the crystal glasses narrowly escaped a flight out the window when it tilted slightly on the embroidered olive-green tablecloth, but it wasn’t until Janna reached the bonbon dishes that she lost control. The Fern Queen insisted on having the tiny bowls filled every night with green candies, one of Cook’s specialties. The bonbon dishes were festive, and Janna usually enjoyed filling them, snacking freely as she did so, but this afternoon she found a dried candy smear on the side of a dish.
Janna exploded into the kitchen, guilty dish in hand. “Who is responsible for this?” she shouted.
Cook took the little bowl and filled it with hot water. “Three minutes,” she said and continued to baste the chicken.
“Humph!” Janna unconsciously adopted one of Cook’s more favored words, though she put a lot more heat into it than the fernwoman ever did.
Cook didn’t respond, and Janna let the door bang as she stomped outside for wood. A week’s supply was always piled by the kitchen door. Keeping the stove’s fire going at a constant temperature was one of her many duties.
She fumed quietly throughout the process of bringing in two armloads of wood and dumping them into the woodbin next to the stove. That had to have taken three minutes, so she marched over to the bonbon dish and examined it. Ah ha, there was a trace of smear left. She dumped the water out preparing to complain again, but the small residue of smear disappeared with the water and no amount of intense scrutiny could find it.
Janna glared at Cook.
“I know I didn’t leave this dish smeared!”
When Cook ignored her, Janna said loudly, “It is very annoying.” When that didn’t elicit a response, she said, “Humph,” again, but she had lost some of her heat.
A few minutes later, she lost the rest of it, when a fernmen poked his head into the kitchen from the hallway.
“You’re wanted in the throne room,” he growled at Janna, then scowled at Cook and withdrew.
Cook ignored him. There was no love lost between Cook and the other fernpeople. The older fernwoman slept in a small chamber off the kitchen and never left those two rooms, except to tend her coffee plants. Nobody, but nobody, was allowed to step foot in her kitchen. Janna had been accepted into that private domain only because the Fern Queen wanted to punish Cook.
Maybe I am a punishment, Janna thought for the first time as she walked out of the room. A smear? I lost it over a smear?
Janna was used to being summoned to the throne room. Sometimes, the queen wanted the floor swept or furniture polished; sometimes she wanted something brought from her bedroom or taken to her bedroom; sometimes she wanted compliments on a new dress or hairstyle. Janna had learned to be prepared for anything.
As she entered the elegant room, she couldn’t resist glancing about. No one was in the room except for the Fern Queen.
The queen was watching her.
“He is not here,” she said with one of her loveliest smiles. “He is supervising the placement of those pretty little plants he brought me.”
Janna nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak. What was going to happen?
The Fern Queen’s smile faded slightly when the girl remained silent.
“I have decided to give you a pleasant surprise, Janna dear. I want you to sit at the table with us tonight and enjoy the nice meal you and Cook have prepared. I am sure everyone will enjoy your company.” She smiled sweetly as she emphasized the word “everyone.”
A scene from the week before darted into Janna’s mind.
One of the castle cats had been playing with two small grasshoppers. When one of the grasshoppers jumped, the cat had pounced on it but not killed it, not yet. No, the cat had let the grasshopper go and waited for it to jump again. Then she’d pounced, tail twitching in enjoyment—merely to release it once more. Skillfully, the cat had kept control of the two grasshoppers, though both were trying desperately to escape.
Janna had chased the cat away.
“Thank you,” she said through dry lips.
She must play the game. There was always a chance the grasshoppers would get away. They must try; always try until the last minute. The Maker was on their side. If only he would chase the nasty Fern Queen away.
“Go to your room and freshen up,” the queen commanded, eyeing her coolly. “Find one of my maidens and tell her I said to give you a different dress. That one is disgusting.”
A delicate eyebrow arched.
“I am surprised at you, dear, for not noticing the condition of your clothing. Now that I have pointed it out to you, do try to dress better—and you might, ah, wash more thoroughly too.”
Janna glared at the smiling woman in front of her. There were several responses she wanted to make, an impassioned “humph” being the mildest of them.
Once or twice a week over the summer months, she had bullied her way into the washroom on the fourth floor so that the three prisoners could bathe in warm water left over from the day’s wash. It hadn’t been easy making the effort on top of their long workdays, but they’d done it. On the whole, they’d stayed tolerably clean. The queen had shown no interest whatsoever in providing them with cleaner clothes or a better means to bathe themselves.
Janna controlled her anger. It helped that she had spent the last few weeks in daily contact with Cook, because she now had someone to copy. Putting on the expression a potted plant would wear, she nodded and left the room.
Usually leaving the Fern Queen
’s presence resulted in a huge sigh of relief, but this time, Janna ran up the stairs, trying to make her nerves relax their death grip on her muscles. The supper invitation meant she wouldn’t get a chance to talk with Petten before the meal. He didn’t get through with his work until after the Fern Queen’s supper had begun. Alissa sometimes had to work late too, but even if the golden princess was in the room when Janna got there, they would only have a few minutes.
CHOOSE A DRESS QUICKLY!
Janna reached the third floor and raced down the hall. Discarded clothes were in almost every upstairs closet. The Fern Queen would only wear an outfit a few weeks before considering it old and throwing it out of her room. Her maidens competed jealously over the prettiest ones. Fortunately, the queen preferred a loose, flowing style, which would make it easy for Janna to find something that fit, though the last few weeks of small daily meals had brought about more weight loss than she’d ever dreamed would happen. However, now wasn’t the time to be choosy about clothes.
The fernwoman on the third floor disagreed.
Janna had to try on a filmy gown first, then a heavier one. Both were formal evening gowns, and she was able to talk the fernwoman out of them, but the necessary arguments took several minutes. She was practically hopping in place before she convinced the fernwoman that a full-skirted dress with wide pockets was the best choice. The material was apple-green in color, which definitely brought out the green in Janna’s eyes, making her feel very fernpeoplish.
WHO CARES!
At last, she was free until the supper bell summoned her. Wondering who would ring the bell since it was normally her job, she raced up the remaining flight of stairs, hoping against hope that Alissa would be in the room.
Alissa was there, sitting on the bed.She started to exclaim over the new dress but stopped when she saw Janna’s face. Janna didn’t give her a chance to ask anything.
“My dad’s here in disguise. She knows who he is.”
“The peddler,” said her friend with quick understanding, a pucker of worry forming on her forehead.
Captives of the Fern Queen Page 9