Princess Of The Silver Woods Part 15

Oliver was nervous about knocking on the door of Bishop Schelker's modest home next to the palace. But he should have reckoned that the bishop, having been so long the advisor and confidante of the royal family, would have seen stranger sights than a wanted fugitive appearing out of thin air on his doorstep one morning.

"Come in," the bishop said as soon as he saw Oliver. He took Oliver's arm and pulled him into the cottage.

The bishop locked the door before he ushered Oliver into a small study. The windows faced the palace, and the bishop quickly closed the curtains. Then he breathed a large sigh and sat down behind his desk.

"Please have a seat," he said, indicating a comfortable chair across from his desk. "I would offer you something ... but my house keeper is in the kitchen just now, and I don't think she should see you."

"That's all right," Oliver croaked, sinking down into the chair.

He'd been walking for three days without stopping for more than a few minutes, and he was exhausted. Almost too exhausted to eat, though he wouldn't turn down a drink. His throat was so dry his thanks had come out as a croak. He'd thought about stealing a horse, but the only horses to be stolen in the forest had been the grand d.u.c.h.ess's, and the risk of being captured was too great. What food he'd had had run out that morning, and once he'd reached the gates of Bruch, he'd rushed straight to the bishop's house without even stopping at a public well to drink.

The bishop noticed his dusty-sounding voice and poured him a gla.s.s of water from a decanter on the desk. "That I can help with," he said with a small smile. "It's what else you need that worries me."

Oliver downed the water before answering. "Well, Your Grace," he said when he could speak clearly. "I can a.s.sure you that I'm not here on my own behalf, to beg you to pet.i.tion the king for my release."

Bishop Schelker looked at him with amus.e.m.e.nt. "The question of your release is rather moot, since you can come and go as you please with that particular item." His gaze sharpened on the dull purple cloak, which Oliver had laid over the arm of his chair. "Which belongs to Crown Prince Galen, if I'm not mistaken."

"Yes, Your Grace," Oliver said. "I wear it at his insistence, I promise."

The bishop relaxed. "I'm inclined to believe you. It's the sort of thing Galen would do. I suppose you were instructed to stay out of harm's way while Kelling and I soothed the king?"

"Yes, Your Grace."

"And yet you are here."

"Yes, Your Grace," Oliver said again. "Prince Galen sent me. He needs help."

The bishop sat forward. "What sort of help?"

Oliver rolled the gla.s.s between his hands, not sure why he was ner vous. The bishop hadn't been surprised by his sudden appearance. He had readily believed Galen would loan Oliver the invisibility cloak. This seemed like one thing too many to ask a man of the Church to believe, however.

But it was for Petunia ...

"Galen said that it's time, and that you were to come with me. He also needs all the silver bullets you have. Also daggers. And there is a list of herbs...." Oliver trailed off.

The bishop was looking at him with his face completely blank. Not confused, not alarmed, just blank. Oliver wondered if the bishop had any idea what he was saying. Oliver didn't know where to find the herbs, let alone bullets made from silver, so he'd been hoping that the bishop would understand everything that the crown prince had asked for. But the way the bishop was looking at Oliver made him wonder if he was about to ring for help in restraining a madman.

"Anything else?" Bishop Schelker's voice was as carefully blank as his face.

"He said that you were to ... summon ... the others."

"The others?"

"The others," Oliver said firmly.

"Why are you doing this?" The bishop folded his hands on the desk blotter and looked at Oliver. "The palace is right there. His Majesty has just returned from the fortress, which calmed him only slightly. If I choose to raise the alarm, you will be executed tomorrow morning. Why did you come all this way to carry this very cryptic message? One which, might I add, Galen could have sent in a letter."

"I-I- Well, you see-" Oliver stammered for a moment. He looked at the bishop's earnest face. He remembered that the bishop had been the one to take his side that day in the council room. Oliver's heart tried to pound its way out of his ribcage, but he ignored it. "I'm in love with Petunia," he announced. "And I want to help her."

Bishop Schelker got to his feet. Oliver scrambled to follow, and his tired legs nearly buckled and dumped him on the floor. He steadied himself on the edge of the bishop's desk, but Schelker didn't seem to notice.

The bishop took a key from his pocket and opened a cabinet behind his desk. Oliver wondered if he was going to pull out a weapon or perhaps restraints. Instead the older man took out several small knitted bags on long cords, some dried herbs, and a stack of pasteboard boxes and laid them carefully on the desk.

Schelker leaned his hands on either side of the strange pile he had made and looked sternly at Oliver for a long time. Oliver sank back down in his seat, tired and uncomfortable and not sure which was worse.

"I have known Petunia a long time," the bishop said. "All her life, in fact. I have known all the princesses since birth. They are as close to me as my own daughters would have been, had I married.

"I was a young priest when Queen Maude came from Breton with her bevy of attendants, of which your mother was one." He merely nodded at Oliver's surprise. "Lady Emily Ellsworth, a lovely girl. They were beautiful, and rather silly, and everyone loved them, myself included. We Westfalians can be a grim people, but they brought life and joy to the court. I was there when your father and mother defied their parents and eloped.

"I would have helped your mother after your father's death, if she had only come to me. We were all devastated by the loss of Maude, and by the effects of the war. But still, if she had come to me I would have tried."

"I'm ... sorry," Oliver said.

He didn't really know what he was. Confused, mostly. But anger and anxiety warred inside him as well. What was the bishop getting at?

"It isn't your fault," said Bishop Schelker, as though surprised that Oliver would feel the need to apologize. "We each make our own choices. That's what I'm trying to say. Your parents chose their path, and Gregor has chosen his. And you, born an earl, trapped by the choices of others, chose not to flee, not to give up, but to take care of your people the only way you could. But now you are making new choices, to confess of your crimes, though apparently not to take the punishment for them-"

Oliver started to protest, but the bishop held up a hand to stop him.

"I understand why," Schelker said. "Of course I do! What man can say he wants to be executed? And you wish to protect a beautiful princess, with whom you have fallen in love. But do you understand how dire the situation is? Her life and the lives of her sisters are hanging in the balance. You yourself risk death if you choose this path."

"I don't care," Oliver said. He stood up and faced the bishop. "I don't care! I love Petunia, and this is what I'm choosing, right here and now."

"I like this boy, Michael," said a voice from behind Oliver. "He knows when to hold his tongue and when to speak. A valuable quality in the young."

Oliver lurched to his feet and spun around. The bishop's house keeper was standing in the doorway of the study. She was dressed in a ragged blue gown with a blue shawl around her thin shoulders and looked like she was nearly a hundred years old. She smiled toothlessly at Oliver, but then her sharp eyes saw the purple cape on the chair.

"My cloak!" She stepped around Oliver with much greater speed than he would have given her credit for and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the cloak, inspecting it with narrow eyes. "Still in good condition, I see, despite having been who-knows-where."

Oliver's fingers itched to s.n.a.t.c.h the cloak back from the old woman, but he didn't want to antagonize her. If she sent word to the palace, Oliver would be dead by noon.

"Thank you for coming, good frau," said the bishop with a slight bow.

Oliver wondered if he were always so formal with his house keeper. She was still clutching the cloak, but now she was raking Oliver with her dark-eyed gaze.

"I didn't know it was yours, good frau," Oliver said, feeling dazed. "If the crown prince had told me that Bishop Schelker's house keeper was such a resourceful-"

"His house keeper? His house keeper?" The old woman made a noise of disgust and flapped her hand at Bishop Schelker. "Hardly! Perhaps this boy isn't as clever as he seems."

"I believe he is quite clever enough," the bishop said mildly. He turned to Oliver. "But no, the good frau is most a.s.suredly not my house keeper."

"Oh!" Oliver blushed. "I'm so sorry, good frau."

She grabbed his jaw and studied his face closely. "Very handsome. But then, the princesses do have such fine taste in young men," she said with a cackle of laughter. "I nearly kept Galen for myself, you know." She winked saucily at Oliver, who felt his jaw sag in reply.

"I am more concerned about the moral character of their suitors," Bishop Schelker said in a rather pained voice.

"You would be," the old woman said rather rudely.

"Where is Herr Vogel, good frau?" Bishop Schelker changed the subject. "Did he not come with you?"

"He's visiting his gardens," she said, waving a gnarled hand at the window. She shoved the purple cloak up beneath her shawl, making her look like a hunchback. "Like my shawl, do you?" She turned around so that Oliver could admire it. It was blue, with ruffled edges. "One of the girls made it for me. I don't know which one. All those foolish flower names are impossible to keep straight!" Another cackle of laughter.

"Walter Vogel, the gardener?" Oliver remembered the name his mother had given him, the name of the gardener she thought could help.

"Is there any other?" The old woman crowed.

"We had better arm ourselves and be going," Bishop Schelker said. "Young Oliver will need the cloak until we are out of Bruch, good frau."

"I will?" Oliver's voice rose embarra.s.singly on the second word. His blood pounded at the bishop's words: "until we are out of Bruch."

"Yes, yes," the old woman said. "He can have it when he needs it."

"So, you mean that I will be going with you? To help? You trust me?" Oliver looked from the bishop to the old woman and back again. Galen had said Oliver would join them, but until that moment he had been afraid that Schelker or one of the others would decide to dismiss him.

"Here," the bishop said by way of an answer. He handed Oliver one of the small bags. What ever it held crackled and released a scent of cooking herbs. "Wear it around your neck, under your shirt. And take a box of bullets; we'll get you a pistol in a moment."

Oliver slipped the cord of the little bag around his neck and took the pasteboard box of bullets before he could tuck the bag out of sight. Judging from the weight and the noise the box made, it did indeed contain bullets, which he a.s.sumed were silver as the crown prince had requested.

"It seems you pa.s.sed muster, lad," said a gentle voice as another person came into the room, making the small study rather crowded.

"You're late, Walter," the crone snapped.

The newcomer was an old man with a peg leg and the weathered face of someone who spent his days in the sun. "We need all the help that we can get," he said.

"When we're in the palace, we will have great need," agreed the crone.

Captive.

When Kestilan brought Petunia to the Palace Under Stone, she was taken to the very bedroom that she had dreamed about the night when she had tried to shoot Rionin in her sleep. She laid the bunch of yellow roses on the black-lacquered dressing table with shaking fingers. Kestilan left, to her relief, but then the ladies of the court came flooding into her room.

There were few servants in the Kingdom Under Stone, mostly silent musicians and footmen at the Midnight b.a.l.l.s, and the sisters had long suspected they were magical constructions: shadows brought to life. It was the courtiers, the immortal followers of the first King Under Stone who shared his exile, who had waited upon the sisters. The court ladies had taken away the princesses' clothes that terrible night they had spent in the castle before Galen had helped them escape. And it was the court ladies who came now, screeching with triumphant laughter, and stripped Petunia of her clothing.

They dressed her in a midnight-blue gown laced with dull silver and put silver slippers on her feet. Then they sc.r.a.ped her curly hair up into a coiffure so rigid that she felt like she could lower her head and run one of them through like an angry bull. They gave her a necklace and earrings of sapphires that looked faded with age, set in tarnished silver, and then they gathered up her old clothes.

Petunia had no particular fondness for her riding habit, but when one white-faced gloating woman tried to fold up her scarlet cloak, Petunia s.n.a.t.c.hed the heavy velvet out of her hands. The woman actually hissed at her, like a cat, but Petunia would not let go.

"I will kill you if you touch it again," she snarled at the woman.

Her heart was racing, not just because she wanted to keep her cloak, but also because she didn't want them to feel the heavy lump in the inside pocket. The pistol-shaped lump. They'd taken her silver dagger with clear distaste, but they had left her specially knitted garters, which seemed to irritate their fingers as they changed her stockings. So the garters had worked a bit, at least, even if they hadn't prevented her from being brought here.

"There are some who would give a great deal to join us here," the woman said with a sneer. She seemed to be the leader of the ladies, a tall creature with unnaturally red hair and eyes like chips of ice.

"Name one," Petunia snapped.

"That maid," the woman said. "Olga."

Petunia's head jerked at the news. She wasn't all that surprised, just startled at having her suspicions confirmed.

"It will be so nice to have a maid again," sighed one of the women, a shrill little creature who reminded Petunia of a rat.

"Olga is really that eager to leave the grand d.u.c.h.ess and be a maid here?" Petunia could hardly credit such a thing. What sort of appeal did a world without sunlight have for Olga? Especially since she would be the only maid, with more than two dozen cruel mistresses to order her around.

"Well," the tall leader of the ladies said in an artful voice, toying with the tattered lace of her sleeve. "She may have gotten the wrong impression about the offer. She may have thought she was to be a lady ... even a princess."

Screams of laughter pummeled Petunia's ears, and she took an involuntary step back, b.u.mping into one of the ladies behind. The woman growled and pushed her back, and Petunia stepped on the hem of her own gown and almost tripped. The leader watched Petunia right herself with hooded eyes.

"You're very short, aren't you?" She smirked at Petunia.

"And you've got a nose like a stoat," Petunia replied. "But I can always have my gowns altered."

"Dinner is in an hour," one of the other women told her while their leader swelled with anger. "You will eat with the princes." She gave Petunia a spiteful look, as though angry that Petunia should be so honored.

"And to night there will be a ball, of course," their tall leader added, now that she had recovered herself.

"Am I expected to dance with all the princes?" Petunia couldn't resist asking.

"You will dance with your betrothed," the woman snapped.

"But he isn't here," Petunia said, blinking at her innocently.

She knew that the ruse would mean little to Kestilan, since Rionin was not even deterred by Lily's marriage to Heinrich. But she wanted to give them something to chew on. Kestilan wasn't the only man interested in her, after all. There was Oliver, and Prince Grigori ...

Prince Grigori, who had clearly led them into the forest for the sole purpose of sending Petunia to the Kingdom Under Stone. She had been right: he was in league with Rionin. But what had he been promised to make him do such a thing? Petunia had been certain that he truly liked her; why would he give her up to Kestilan? And why not capture Lily instead?

"This betrothed of yours, what is his name?" The freakishly tall lady asked.

Petunia opened her mouth to say Oliver's name, and a face flashed before her eyes. Prince Alfred, their horsey-looking second cousin, who had come to solve the mystery of their worn-out slippers when she was just a little girl. Come to solve the mystery and died for his efforts, so that the first King Under Stone could show the sisters the power of his displeasure. Alfred's face, blurred by time, was followed by other blurry images: a Belgique prince who had tried to spy on Rose while she was ill, a foppish Spanian with more luggage than all twelve sisters put together. All dead now, because of the King Under Stone. And, to be honest, because of Petunia and her sisters.

"I'm not going to tell you," Petunia said, not caring if she sounded childish. "The king will probably try to kill him."

"Probably?" The women all shrieked with laughter as their tall leader leaned over Petunia. "There is no 'probably' about it. You and all your sisters need to be taught a lesson about where you belong, and whom you belong to." The woman's long nose was almost touching Petunia's now.

"I don't belong to anyone," Petunia said, gripping her cloak in both hands and resisting the urge to pull out her pistol and shoot the woman. "But if I do marry Kestilan, I shall order you flogged in the middle of the ballroom as a wedding gift."

"Marrying one of the princes does not give you the right ..."

"Are you completely sure of that?" Petunia raised one eyebrow at the woman. "I can hardly see the king objecting. Rionin strikes me as one who would enjoy that sort of thing."

The woman's face paled under her heavy powder, and Petunia knew she had struck a nerve. Petunia smiled at the woman, who was the one to take a step back this time.