Princess Of The Silver Woods Part 19

"If we are to stay here forever, we will need some things," Rose said evenly.

"You have been given clothing, and your old things were just returned to you," Telinros said. Petunia noticed that his fists were clenched: he probably had not enjoyed losing to Poppy and Violet.

"I refuse to wear someone else's stockings," Lily said with a snap in her voice that Petunia had never heard before. "If I am to be your queen, I will not wear tatty old stockings and garters made to fit some common courtier with elephantine legs!"

Everyone gaped at her. Derivos actually let out a little bray of laughter.

"I don't know where your clothing comes from," Lily went on, "or how to get more, but if you provide us with yarn and needles we will make our own. And the best, sharpest needles to be had are taken from the branches of the silver trees across the lake!"

Petunia cringed and just behind her Daisy sucked in her breath loudly. Even Lily's face had gone rigid, and Petunia knew that her sister had gone too far. The princes would surely guess why they really wanted twigs from the silver wood, now that Lily had reminded them all of what had happened the last time someone had used the silver wood for knitting needles.

"Do you think we are fools?" asked Stavian.

"Princess Rose has made it clear before that she does not find us all that intelligent," remarked the King Under Stone as he strolled into the room. "Isn't that right, dear Rose?"

A chill went up Petunia's back. "Dear Rose" had been the first king's way of addressing Rose. In the grayish light of the sitting room, Rionin looked even more like his father than he had in the ballroom. She nudged Poppy, whose hand was already hovering near her right leg. Petunia wondered if Poppy had cut a slit in her riding gown so that she could reach a pistol more easily. Poppy moved to the front so that she had a clear view of Rionin.

"What is it that our dear brides wish?" Rionin smiled at them with pointed teeth.

In the days since they had arrived in the Kingdom Under Stone, he had glutted himself on the power from their dancing. His hair shone silver, and his eyes blazed green. He reminded her of someone ... not his father, but someone else she couldn't quite put her finger on.

"They want to go to the silver wood to make knitting needles," said Derivos.

"We need stockings that fit," said Pansy, her voice little more than a squeak. She was holding Lily's hand.

"Naturally you do," said the King Under Stone. "And it would be wise to find something to occupy you during the days. Can't have you wandering about the palace, plotting mischief, now can we?" His cold eyes fixed on Poppy, and he snapped his long fingers.

In an instant Blathen had leaped at Poppy and wrestled her to the ground. Rose flung herself at him, hammering his back with her fists. Daisy kicked him in the side with her riding boot and shouted for him to let her twin go. Poppy was screaming obscenities and pulling at Blathen's ears so hard that Petunia, who was frozen in place, thought they might come right off.

"Got it," Blathen panted, slithering away from his a.s.sailants.

He held up the heavy pistol, triumphant despite his scratched and bruised face. Rose helped Poppy to her feet, and to Petunia's increased horror, Poppy was sobbing.

"Never touch me again," she choked out.

Blathen just leered at her.

The others circled around her, Daisy taking Poppy in her arms and rocking her. But Petunia couldn't keep her eyes off of Rionin, and Rionin was staring right back at her.

"Pet ... isn't that what they call you?"

"They do, but not you," Petunia said, but her bravado was ruined by her shaking voice.

"Dear little Pet," said the King Under Stone, smiling even wider. "I think you would be the perfect choice to go and fetch some twigs from the wood. And your betrothed can accompany you."

"I want Telinros or Derivos to come as well," Kestilan said, looking uneasy.

"Take them both, if you are feeling cowardly. Although I fail to see how one little girl can do much harm," the king retorted. Then he swept out of the room, and the sisters weren't the only ones who sighed with relief when he left.

Woodsman.

So this is Maude's forest," Bishop Schelker said wonderingly.

"An inadvertent gift to her daughters," Galen said.

They moved through the silent woods, the tree branches swaying over their heads in a breeze that could not be felt. Oliver had never seen anything like it. The trunks of the trees were softly gleaming, and the leaves were shaped like hearts, each one the length of his thumb. It looked like the work of a silversmith, but he could see where their roots were digging deep into the black soil.

Walter led them into the woods a little way so that they were hidden from the path that wound through it. He took a saw-edged knife from his belt and reached up, cupping a hand gently over a low-hanging branch. With a deep breath, he began to cut.

Oliver watched with a faintly sick feeling as Walter's knife rasped through the silver tree. Then he chose a thicker tree branch. He'd taken Karl's ax before sending his men, with Prince Frederick, to the grand d.u.c.h.ess's estate. Oliver hesitated, aiming the ax at it several times, before a nod from Galen gave him the encouragement he needed. He swung and took the branch off with one blow.

The crone gave an appreciative whistle.

"I've been taking out my frustrations on firewood since I was twelve," Oliver told her. He braced his foot on the fallen branch and cut it in half with another blow.

"I don't know how inadvertent this was," Bishop Schelker said, fingering some of the silver leaves.

"What do you mean?"

Oliver picked up the smaller part of the branch he had just severed and studied the end. The wood, if wood it was, was silver clear through and didn't have rings, so there was no way of telling how old it was. A few strange, soft fibers poked out of the cut, and the branch felt like neither metal nor wood, but a mixture of both.

"I didn't know what she was doing at night, of course," the bishop said, "nor why she was becoming more sorrowful even as her beautiful daughters were bringing such joy to Gregor.

"She told me that she was troubled by dreams. I knew she was holding back, but only now do I realize how much." Schelker kicked at the sparkling black soil at their feet.

"In one of her dreams," the bishop continued, "she said that she planted the silver cross I had given her. The cross sprouted into a shining forest that brought hope and protection to her children. She was expecting at the time ... Lilac, as I recall ... and I a.s.sumed that it was the fancy of a woman in her delicate condition." He grimaced and snapped off a twig to add to the crown prince's growing pile. "I a.s.sured her that her children were in no danger. I remember how sadly she looked at me, as if I had disappointed her. A few days later she stopped wearing the brooch. I thought she had put it away because I had upset her."

"Lily always said that her mother had dropped the brooch returning from the Midnight Ball," Heinrich said. "But perhaps she decided that her dream was more than just a dream and planted it on purpose."

"I rather suspect that she did," Bishop Schelker said.

"Of course she did," Walter grunted. He was stripping leaves from the branches and putting them in his bag. "Maude believed in dreams, and magic, or we wouldn't be here."

"Should we be watching for ... guards or anything?"

Oliver had been about to take a swing at another branch, but wondered if the noise they were making would attract unwanted attention. Everything was so still and silent without birds or insects or even a real wind that the sound of Walter picking leaves was making him twitch.

"There are no guards," the crown prince said. "There's the king, the princes, and the court, but they never venture across the lake."

"Hurry and get a few more branches if you would, Oliver," Walter Vogel said. "Then we'll find a place to make our preparations."

"How large is this wood?" Oliver asked.

He took a few steps farther into the thick of the trees. They had been taking leaves and cutting branches right beside a narrow path, and he worried that Grigori or someone else who used the same gate would notice. A few steps in he selected another branch and lopped it off near the trunk of the shining tree.

"I don't know that anyone's ever explored it," Walter said. "Galen and the girls were too busy running to really take it all in the last time." He gave a dry chuckle.

"Running and shooting," the crown prince said.

"Aren't we glad that I taught Lily to shoot?" Heinrich was gathering up handfuls of black dirt to fill small leather bags.

"Not a day goes by that I don't give thanks for that," his cousin said fervently.

"And then you taught the other princesses to shoot afterward?" Oliver dragged the branch he had cut back to the path.

"Yes, after what happened the king was quite adamant that they all learn," Galen said. "That's why I'm surprised that you, er, abducted Petunia. Wasn't she armed?"

"Yes, she was," Oliver said, smiling to himself. "The first time I saw her, she had a pistol aimed directly at my face. But I jumped down out of a tree later and caught her off guard," he explained.

The others laughed at that, which rea.s.sured Oliver. If they could laugh, if Walter Vogel could hum as he gathered up the twigs, then Oliver felt that this might all turn out all right.

When they had gathered the wood, leaves, and soil that they needed, they continued down the path until they came to a lake of black water. Rising from an island at the center was a palace, ragged and menacing against the dull-gray nothingness that formed the sky. Oliver felt p.r.i.c.kles of ice go down his spine.

"Stay in the trees," Walter Vogel cautioned. "They can see us from the palace. We'll need to move just around here a ways, to find a place to work."

Reluctantly, Oliver pulled back into the trees with his armload of silver wood. He tripped several times trying to crane his neck and keep the palace in sight. It didn't seem to have any windows, only a single large door, but still he wished for a glimpse of Petunia. Was she all right? Had they hurt her?

"They are well," Heinrich said quietly, walking along beside Oliver. "It's thin consolation, but the princes do want their brides unharmed."

Oliver cringed. Their brides. And Petunia had been six when they'd first stolen her away to make her a bride. Now she was barely sixteen, and he still could not fathom it. She might show a bold face to the world, but she was still so very vulnerable.

A flash of red caught the corner of Oliver's eye. He turned his head toward the palace once again, thinking that he had only conjured the color out of his memories.

But no.

Someone in a red cloak was emerging from the palace doors, a tall figure in black on either side. Oliver knew it was Petunia in the red cloak. It had to be. The smallness of the figure, the sweep of the cloak ... he would know her no matter the distance.

"That's Pet," breathed Heinrich, standing close by Oliver. "But where are they taking her?" Every line in the prince's body was taut.

There was a row of small boats beached on the sh.o.r.e. One of the tall black figures helped Petunia into the bow of a boat, and then sat in the middle seat with a hand on each oar. The other tall figure pushed the boat out and leaped into the stern. The rower pulled them toward the wooded sh.o.r.e with firm strokes, and Oliver and the others drew back into the trees.

"We have to move farther away," said Galen in a barely audible whisper. "We can't risk them seeing us now."

"But we could rescue her," Oliver insisted in a harsh whisper of his own.

"She doesn't need rescuing right this very moment," Galen said, taking Oliver's upper arm in a tight grip. "And if we killed those two and took Petunia with us, the king would soon miss his brothers, and he would come looking for them. We would never be able to get the other girls out then."

The other girls. Beautiful, queenly Rose. Poppy with her mischievous smile. She and Princess Daisy were to be married in the spring. Oliver had seen Princes Ricard and Christian in Bruch. He had seen the way they smiled at their princesses. Did they know what had happened, or were they still going about their ordinary duties, oblivious to the danger their brides were in? Oliver swallowed, his throat dry. Suddenly, getting all twelve princesses safely out of the black palace seemed insurmountable.

He watched Petunia climb out of the boat without any a.s.sistance, his eyes searching her for any sign of pain or fear. She moved easily, but her hood hid her face. The swirls of silver embroidery around the edges of the hood matched the silver of the trees, and the scarlet velvet stood out against the black soil. When she started toward the trees with her escort, Oliver allowed himself to be drawn back into the thick of the woods.

They found a small clear s.p.a.ce some ways away, and Walter Vogel set them each to a task. Oliver's was to cut the silver twigs to a certain length, and then to notch them in a pattern that looked like a line of fence posts.

"Well! What did you think they were?" The crone whacked him over the head with one gnarled hand. "New fence posts to hold them all in, the awful old things."

Oliver used great restraint to avoid sidling away from the crone. He didn't care if she was a revered sorceress; his head smarted where she had hit him. But he supposed being several centuries old would make your moods unpredictable.

The two princes busied themselves with the small bags of soil and the leaves, and Bishop Schelker cut marks into the ends of the larger branches that Oliver had chopped. Their preparations weren't taking very long, and Oliver was hopeful that they would be able to finish refreshing Under Stone's prison before nightfall. Then he supposed they would just have to worry about actually fetching the princesses, and they could finally leave.

And it seemed that Walter and Galen had a plan to get the princesses out of the palace as well.

"We'll need to sneak inside the palace, and there's only one invisibility cloak," Galen said when they had finished preparing the wood and soil. "Although I do have this." He reached into the satchel that Bishop Schelker had brought and removed a lightweight shawl of gray wool. "Which should work just as well."

"It's not as stylish as my cloak," sniffed the good frau.

"I wouldn't think to upstage your fine cloak," said Galen with a little bow.

"I stole that off a Romisch cavalry officer when I was a young la.s.s," she told Galen with a twinkle in her eye. "Of course, it had no magic then. I just liked the color."

"It was always a very good color on you," Walter Vogel said.

Oliver thought about asking them how long they had known each other, but decided he didn't want any of the details that the good frau might actually offer about their relationship.

"Two of us will be invisible," Galen continued. "But unfortunately only two of us. Another reason why I sent Frederick to the estate with Oliver's men: he would have tried to come with us, and there isn't a third cloak.

"We'll try to get in at the end of the ball and bring the girls out when everyone is dispersing for the night," Galen went on. "Someone will need to wait by the gate to make certain they all get through, and then we'll close the prison."

"I want to go into the palace," Oliver said.

At the same time, Heinrich reached for the gray shawl.

But Galen was shaking his head. He pulled the gray shawl away from his cousin. "I'm sorry, Heinrich. I'm giving the cloak to Oliver, and taking this myself."

"But Lily," began Heinrich.

"Heinrich, how fast can you run?" Galen looked as if asking the question pained him, but his eyes never wavered from his cousin's face.

"d.a.m.n a.n.a.lousians," Heinrich said, and let go of the shawl. He pounded the thigh of his bad leg with a fist and winced.

"Heinrich, after you help to place the new fence posts, you'll wait at the gate," Galen said. "And get all the girls out. And yourself."

"I thought you needed my help with the spell," Heinrich protested.

"We could use you," Walter Vogel admitted. "But we can also do it without you."

"And I would rather that you made sure that Rose didn't try to come back," Galen said. "It will be easier for me knowing that you and the girls are all safe. And alive."

Oliver looked down at his hands. He knew there was a chance he wouldn't survive this. Especially if he helped to seal the Kingdom Under Stone. That had been another reason why Prince Frederick had been sent away, for some of their husbands would need to survive this. But if Petunia and her sisters could be free, it would be worth it, Oliver decided.

To his surprise, the good frau put one hand over his in a comforting gesture. He looked at her, but just as she opened her nearly toothless mouth to speak, there was the sound of shouts and then the crack of a pistol firing.

"That wasn't the palace," Heinrich said, struggling to his feet.