The Cracked Slipper

by Stephanie Alexander

  Ezra Oliver turned in her direction, as if she’d shouted the words rather than thought them. He joined her on the first bench, a slight man with a broad, flat nose and a receding chin. He wore a dark gray tunic and the flattened square hat of First Covey. He smiled at her. His teeth were yellow, but at one hundred and five years of age she had to credit him for having teeth at all.

  Eleanor had read about Ezra Oliver for years. Her mind spun with questions for him, from his thoughts on Carthean-Svelyan relations to the latest trends in dragon husbandry. Oliver, however, seemed inclined toward conversation of the matrimonial sort.

  “LowAutumn the seventh, in the year Desmarais Three Hundred and Three,” he said, as if Eleanor had forgotten her own birthday. He sounded like he had a clothespin attached to his nose. “Your star patron is the Virgin. Blue Hydrangeas. Prince Gregory’s is the Lion. Yellow roses.”

  “That sounds lovely—”

  “Speculative rubbish, surely, but it is tradition. Your father is dead, so King Casper will escort you down the aisle.”

  His abruptness startled Eleanor, but she’d been known to forego pleasantries herself. She reciprocated. “I’d prefer Rosemary of Afar Creek Abbey, if possible.”

  “A witch? I’m sorry, Mistress Brice, but it won’t do for a woman to give you away.”

  Eleanor smiled. “I’ve known her as long as I would have known my father, had HighGod not called him on.”

  Oliver looked up from his notes. “She was your tutor, was she not?”

  “Yes, since before I can remember. After my father’s death my stepmother claimed she could no longer afford to pay Rosemary. Rosemary didn’t care about payment, but Mother Imogene banned her from my father’s house anyway.”

  “How did she come to send you to Second Sunday, if you’d not seen her in years?”

  Eleanor began talking, and for the first time since her arrival at Eclatant the whole story came out. How she’d hidden in her room for two weeks after her father’s death, with only Chou Chou for company. How Mother Imogene banged on the door and cursed her and finally called Rosemary to the Brice House in the hope of avoiding a battering ram. Rosemary had knelt before Eleanor and promised to hide lessons for her each month in a hollow tree by the front gate. Books, essay, questions to make her think. She made Eleanor swear she’d keep up with it on her own. Make her poor departed mother proud.

  She told Eleanor she must stay in the Brice House, never leave, for no matter how bad it seemed within those walls it would be much worse out on the streets. Eleanor could still hear Rosemary’s voice whispering in her ear as she clutched at the witch’s neck.

  Eighty years of bright girls…eighty years of lost potential…I cannot deliver you from your pain…it is not possible, no matter how we both wish it…but I can deliver you from the ignorance of propriety…I will give you what I could not give your mother…

  “I begged Rosemary to take me with her, but she couldn’t. Still, she didn’t forget me. She never missed a month,” Eleanor said. “Not in eight years. The lessons…her letters…everything to me.”

  Oliver’s expression did not change as Eleanor rambled on. He didn’t interrupt her, or change the subject. Eleanor trailed off and he spoke. “The witches are known for their dedication to desperate cases.”

  Eleanor nodded. “The sick…the poor of the city—”

  “But still, this Rosemary went beyond the call of duty, magical or not. It’s unusual. I’m sure you know witches and magicians don’t have husbands and wives and children. We live for our talents and our work. Yet she treated you more like—“ He seemed to have difficulty understanding his own speculations. “—family. A…how would you say it? A loved one.”

  “She told me the elder witches warn the youngsters of the dangers of loving ordinary people.”

  Oliver nodded. “Young magicians hear the same message. It is difficult to watch the ones you love grow up and grow old while you stay the same.”

  “Rosemary called it good advice, but said she’d always had trouble following it. I think she loves all her students.”

  “Interesting. And then she appeared at your father’s house and conjured you off to the ball? Gown, slippers, the lot?”

  “Yes. She was so nervous that night. I would almost have said afraid. The magic taxed her. She’s a teacher, not a true conjurer. The spell wore of at midnight. I panicked and fled.”

  “I didn’t believe it myself when you asked to try the glass slipper. But the fit…and Gregory had no trouble recognizing you, rags and dirt and all. I’ve never seen His Highness so adamant about anything.”

  “Don’t forget goat hair and pumpkin guts, Mister Oliver,” said Eleanor. Her own bravado amazed her. “I was a sorry sight, even by servants’ standards.”

  The magician chuckled. “You silenced the High Council’s grumbling with that cracked slipper. No one could doubt your honesty.” He shook his head. “A former chambermaid with a broken shoe. An odd start…now, your stepmother. She’ll be included by name in the proclamation—”

  “That won’t be necessary. We’ve never gotten on, you see.”

  “That was easily surmised. An old grudge?”

  Eleanor took a moment, her mind reaching back over years of grudges for the first one. “I’m not certain, sir. She never took to me…from the time my father married her, a few months before he died…you see, when she arrived at the house, with her daughters and her groom—”

  “Her groom? You mean a pageboy?”

  “No. It was a groom, a proper grown man. Close to my father’s age. Odd, I suppose, since she had no horses of her own and we had only my father’s riding horse, High Noon…but he left our service within weeks. Anyway, when Imogene first arrived she ignored me. After my father’s death, she let her true feelings be known.”

  “Brave child, to continue studying with Rosemary, even at the risk of Mrs. Brice’s rage.”

  “She would have raged had I remained ignorant or not. “ Eleanor touched Oliver’s arm. “I want to do well here, Mister Oliver. I’ve worked hard, for years. Every night. Rosemary left no topic untouched. I hope I can put my learning to good use. Help my husband…and my kingdom. However I may be needed.”

  Oliver stared at her hand on his sleeve. She blushed and returned it to her lap.

  He cleared his throat and returned to business. “I’ll keep that in mind, Mistress Brice. Perhaps we can be of mutual assistance. Now, as I was saying, King Casper will escort you down the aisle…”

  That afternoon Eleanor attended a baby viewing in the Grand Ballroom. She’d wondered why the event would necessitate such space, but the child in question was a new cousin of Eliza’s husband. Apparently every respectable female person in Maliana had been honored with an invitation to coo over the latest Harper offspring. Eleanor met at least a twenty new Harpers and Smithwicks, as well as several Smithwick-Harpers and a Harper-Smithwick.

  She spent the first half hour wandering aimlessly with Chou Chou on her shoulder. Her neck stiffened as she gazed at the vaulted ceiling, covered in paintings of men and women, unicorns and dragons, stars and clouds and the sun and moon. Thick golden pillars lined the exterior, and at least fifty candelabras hung from the ceiling on thick brass chains. Larger-than-life oil paintings of famous citizens of the realm adorned the walls, not just royalty but magicians and even several well-known witches. She read the engraved descriptions at the corner of each painting and smiled as she connected the somber faces with her history lessons.

  She stopped several times to watch the apprentice magicians, who were amusing the guest with magical delights ranging from sputtering fireballs to live butterfly displays. At each corner of the long, rectangular room an enchanted fountain hovered just above the heads of the tallest ladies. Each sprayed up gouts of water, but somehow never a drop landed on a delicately coiffed head. The walls of the ballroom, made of Fire-iron and interspersed with large rectangular windows, set off the swirl of pastel gowns. Eleanor felt as if she were insid
e a spectacular garden.

  “You should converse with someone other than me, darling,” Chou said in her ear. “One can only admire the décor for so long.”

  “You know me too well, Chou.” She didn’t see Anne Iris or Eliza, although it was difficult to discern who was who, as most every person appeared to be presenting Eleanor with her back.

  She decided to visit with the new baby, as he could hardly find fault with her. As she crossed the ballroom a familiar trilling laughter, the last sound Eleanor wanted to hear, rang out over the chatter and bubbling fountains.

  “HighGod in a tree,” said Chou. “What is she doing here?”

  A troupe of exquisitely garbed young women stood around Sylvia Easton like flowers following the sun. Sylvia wore an ivory gown that matched her milky complexion, from her lovely face to her ample cleavage. Tiny as Sylvia was, for a moment Eleanor could see no one but her stepsister in the cavernous ballroom.

  Eleanor must have stood out herself, a lone woman of substantial height with a glaringly red parrot perched on her shoulder. Sylvia glided toward Eleanor as if the marble floor had turned to ice. She slipped her arm through Eleanor’s. “Sister,” she said. “Where have you been hiding?”

  “I’m going to pay my respects to the child.”

  “Go home!” hissed Chou, with no hint of his usual jocularity.

  “Master Parrot, we must learn to be civil with one another. You shall be seeing more of me.”

  Eleanor smiled, determined to keep her dignity. After the disastrous joust she refused to give the women additional ingredients for their stew of speculation. “Shall you come to court, sister?”

  Sylvia returned Eleanor’s benevolent expression. “I shall. Once I’m married I’m sure we will see each other daily!”

  “How thrilling!” said Eleanor, with a face like softened butter.

  “Thrilling!” repeated Chou, his feathers standing on end. They poked Eleanor’s ear. “Positively exhilarating!”

  “And who shall you marry?” Eleanor asked.

  Sylvia sighed. “Mother has not yet told me his name. She’s still handling the particulars, but she promises I’ll be pleased.” For a moment Sylvia’s grin faltered. She shook her hair and set her shoulders. “He’ll be a catch of course. Perhaps Brian Smithwick. Or maybe Mister Dorian Finley. He’s soon to return to court. I’ve heard he’s the most handsome man in Cartheigh.”

  “I’ve heard the same,” said Eleanor.

  Sylvia had somehow steered Eleanor toward a knot of women young enough to be beautiful but old enough to be condescending. The worst kind, in Eleanor’s experience.

  “Lady Pellerbee told me the most interesting story about her new draperies,” said Sylvia. “It seems her seamstress edged them with yellow beads instead of gold. Can you believe it?”

  The women watched Eleanor as if her opinion of curtains would directly determine her suitability to mother the next heir to the throne. “I have no interest in draperies, Lady Pellerbee,” she said, “so I can add nothing to this conversation.”

  Eleanor detached her arm from Sylvia’s. She curtsied and went in search of the tiny guest of honor.

  “Not the most tactful exit,” said Chou.

  The party dragged on for another two hours. Eleanor watched Sylvia as she made the rounds of each cluster of women. She chatted with ladies ancient and unmarried and everyone in between. The guests finally dispersed when the baby began shrieking in exhaustion. Eleanor had a wild urge to join him. She retired to her chamber with Chou Chou and a gnawing hope for a visit from Gregory.

  Every day increased her irritation at how little time she spent with her fiancé. She had been at Eclatant for nearly two weeks, and could count on her fingers the number of hours she had been in his company. When she did see him, they were usually surrounded by at least fifty people. He would pop into her chambers to check on her and kiss her cheek, but then he was off. Sometimes it was a meeting with his father or an ambassador or some such person, but more often it was a pheasant shoot, or a long ride, or unicorn training. As the wedding drew closer, and the weight of her new position bore down on her, she longed for just one evening alone with him. Perhaps he could offer some advice, or just some reassurance. She’d have to corner him soon, for according to Anne Iris, once his friend Mister Finley returned to Eclatant she’d be lucky to see him at all.

  CHAPTER 4

  How Hot and Cold He Blows

  Dorian Finley’s relative handsomeness was somewhat debatable, for such a trait is subject to personal caprice. While most ladies of his acquaintance showed their opinions to be decidedly thus, Dorian found women to be an inanely changeable lot. He supposed some found his temperament wanting. He was, however, universally acknowledged as the Cartheigh’s most skilled swordsman. He’d likely passed more hours of his life with a sword in his hand than he had with a fork. Such skills had served him well through seven years in the Carthean army, but they did him no good in ministering to babies.

  These tiny Fire-iron scissors were defeating him. He turned his newborn niece’s pink hands this way and that, but he couldn’t find a good angle. Her fingernails were obscenely tiny.

  He looked up at his sister. “I can’t, Anne Clara. My hands are too big. I’m afraid she’ll never hold a quill if I keep this up.”

  Anne Clara laughed, and Dorian smiled at the sound. A week after giving birth to her twin girls she was still pale, but the past two days he’d seen hints of a return to her usual sunny practicality. She managed the new babies and her toddler son like a kinder, gentler version of the mine bosses Dorian served with in North Country. Dorian was glad he had come home, and did not regret missing the hullabaloo of the Second Sunday Ball. After a frightening delivery the safety of both Anne Clara and the babies had hung in a tender balance for five interminable days, but now it seemed all would be well.

  He crossed the room with the baby cradled in his arms. She was so floppy he feared he might drop her, but then she seemed so fragile he also feared he might squash her. He handed her off to his dark haired sister in the tall four-poster bed. Once in her mother’s plump arms she started to squirm and squeak. Dorian walked to the window while Anne Clara adjusted herself to nurse. He heard her whispering nonsense words to her daughter as she coaxed her into position. He looked out over Lake Brandling. His sister’s house faced the town of Harper’s Crossing, and he could see the town dock and the steeple of Holy Triumph Chapel. The view from his childhood home, Floodgate Manor, was nothing but thick trees. The perspective on this side of the lake differed, but the smells and sounds were the same. A fishy tang in the air. The gabble of the lakegulls.

  The Lake District was always a relief after the dry heat of Maliana and the constant drip of the North Country. Still, after four months at Eclatant and over three weeks in Harper’s Crossing, Dorian itched to head north. Something about the barren landscape radiating around the Dragon Mines like ripples on a muddy pond always stirred a sense of longing in him. He’d spent the better part of the last seven years traipsing over the mountains and scribbling poetry in a series of ever more tattered ledgers. He knew it was rubbish, but it never stopped him. For years he’d been searching for a word to rhyme with damp. He’d tried umpteen variations around camp, but it always sounded too trite.

  He watched the skiffs on the lake, blue and yellow and red sails like mobile lake lilies. Boat…moat, he thought. There could be a poem in there somewhere. Oar…shore…whore?

  “…often wonder what you’re thinking. When you go all silent and staring,” Anne Clara was saying.

  Paddles and hookers, sister, said a sniggering voice in Dorian’s mind. Sculling and strumpets.

  It was a reply for Gregory, or one of his sergeants, not Anne Clara. He’d overextended this visit, no doubt. Best be heading back to Maliana before such a response slipped his tongue. Anne Clara might faint from shock, and the witches would not approve of post-birth swooning.

  A knock on Anne Clara’s bedroom door saved them both.
Once Dorian saw she was covered he opened it. Anne Clara’s butler handed him a note on thick green paper.

  “Another message from Gregory?” Anne Clara asked.

  Dorian nodded. The army had called him away from Eclatant many times over the course of his six-year friendship with Gregory. Dorian never had one note of correspondence, but these past two weeks Gregory’s missives came in a deluge.

  He unfolded the note. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Has he actually set a date?” asked Anne Clara.

  Dorian nodded again. “In one week. I thought he would come to his senses. Change his mind. You know how hot and cold he blows.”

  He sat in a lacy pink and lavender chair beside the bed and absently rocked his other baby niece’s cradle with his foot. His brow wrinkled. “I can’t get my mind around the idea of Gregory as anyone’s husband.”

  Anne Clara reached over her daughter’s covered head. She tried to grab a note on the carved Fire-iron table next to the bed but she couldn’t reach it. She pointed and Dorian gave it to her.

  “I’ve had letters from Maliana as well,” she said. “This just arrived. Cousin Abigail says everyone is up in arms about this girl. Eleanor Brice. I would think she’d get some sympathy. It sounds like she’s had a hard row.”

  “Sympathy?” Dorian asked. “One would think, but every family of quality in this kingdom has been imagining their daughter or cousin or favorite aunt as Gregory’s bride since the day he was born. They’ll never forgive some girl who has actually had her hands in a chamber pot for stealing him.”

  “Poor thing.”

  “She’d better be a quick study, for her own good.”

  “It sounds like she is. I have it here she’s highly educated.” Anne Clara explained Eleanor Brice’s unique educational history.

  Dorian felt a twinge of interest. “Gregory never mentioned that part. He described her hair, her skin, her odd eyes, even her…” He remembered his company and cleared his throat. “Anyway, he never mentioned her education.”