The Piano Girl - Part Two (Counterfeit Princess Series) Read online

  With my arm hooked in Leeson’s, we walked home. I couldn’t help but admire my future husband for his kindness with the farmer, with Leeson, and with me.

  ΦΦΦ

  Wron, Cragdon, and I sat in Leeson and Elza’s warm little home while twenty or more guards surrounded the smithy for our protection. We drank coffee from chipped earthenware mugs while Elza hummed and baked a batch of sourdough rolls over the fire.

  “Their cook made me eat cabbage soup for lunch,” I told Elza while she puttered about the room. “It is her mother’s belief that cabbage cures everything.”

  “It is also her own belief.” Wron wrapped his arm around the top knob of his chair and stretched his boots toward the fire.

  Leeson sorted his pocketful of dixels in tidy rows on the table. “Prince Wron…” He cleared his throat. “Elza and I, we would, uh . . . we would like to… to buy Dory’s freedom.” The lean, elderly man rubbed at his eyes. “She is like our own child.”

  Their cupboards were almost bare, and they were willing to give away so much for my freedom. Bottled tears burned my throat.

  “I’m sorry, Leeson, but Dory’s penance cannot be bought.” Wron tilted his head and looked softly at the dear man. “She is very important to Yonder, especially at this time.”

  Brows gathered, Leeson looked at me, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

  “Thank you for trying.” I reached to pat his trembling hand.

  “May Dory visid once a week, for dinner, dhen?” Elza asked.

  “Yes, once a week.” Wron nodded.

  “Can she sday donighd for supper?” Elza asked. “I will bake an onion.”

  Wron smiled and glanced to my eyes. “I do not want you walking home alone.”

  “I will walk her to the gate,” Leeson said.

  “And I will play for Queen Eunice this evening.”

  “Yes, let’s hope that pacifies her.” Wron rose from his seat. “Leeson and Elza, Dory’s beautiful piano music has captured my mother’s heart. Pray she is not too disappointed this afternoon.”

  His words were like honey to my soul. If happiness could heal swamp pox, my complexion would have been radiant.

  “Leeson, if you could hear her play”—it was Cragdon who spoke—“you would understand why her music has won the people’s hearts.”

  That was very kind of Cragdon. I thanked him with a smile.

  Wron cleared his throat. “Thank you for coffee, Elza and Leeson.” The men rose from the table and said their good-byes. After the door was bolted behind them, Leeson bolted the side door as well.

  “Whad will we do widh dee money?” Elza’s voice trembled.

  “You will grow fat and sleepy in front of the fire.” I beamed, hugging Elza’s rounded shoulders. “You will have coffee, cream, and honey. You will want for nothing.”

  She sniffled into my shoulder. “We and our neighbors have wanded for so long.”

  “We will buy onions and coffee for our neighbors,” Leeson said. He set his arms about our shoulders and kissed the top of Elza’s head.

  “Dhad is whad we will do, my husband.”

  I listened to the ways of Yonder. Elza had just had the last word, but it was in agreement with her husband. When in accord, perhaps it was acceptable in Yonder for a woman to have the last word.

  ΦΦΦ

  Elza’s onions were baked whole over the fire in a seasoned broth. Right before serving, they were doused with more liquid. A large onion in a shallow broth with sourdough bread was our meal. Thankfully, I was also fond of onion and found it sweet and baked to the perfect crunch.

  “Dell me id is good.”

  “It is very good.” I patted the dear elderly woman’s hand. In the reflection of Elza’s spoon, I glimpsed her smile.

  After dinner, we sat in front of the fire and drank coffee. Leeson fell asleep. I nearly fell asleep also, but remembered Eunice. “Elza, I must go. The Queen is waiting for me.”

  Elza patted her lap. “Kneel before me. I wand do see your face.”

  “Oh, Elza.” I cringed. “I cannot bear to even glance in the mirror. I am so awful to look at.”

  “Come here.” She patted her knees.

  Remembering the creature in the mirror, I knelt down in front of her and searched Elza’s slim brown eyes. Her chest rose slightly as she scanned my forehead, my cheeks, and lastly my chin.

  “If id is all righd widh dee Queen, you will come on Mondays. We will have onion soup each dime. Id will make you beaudiful again. You wand do be well for Prince Wron, don’d you?”

  “How did you know?” I breathed.

  “Your words are sdrong.” She kissed her fingertips and flung the kiss into the air. “Bud your body drembles.”

  “I don’t know why,” I sighed.

  “He may be a prince, bud he is only a man.”

  I laid my cheek to Elza’s knee and closed my eyes.

  “In dee old coundry, my grandmodher said, ‘Onion cures everyding.’ We will see.”

  ΦΦΦ

  With my hood over my head, I walked through the cobbled streets of the village. At first I walked with my head down, and then I remembered the auction and the mother’s comment to her daughter about my posture. Instead of slouching, I walked with the perfect posture that my mother had instilled in me.

  Passersby nodded or greeted me with a surprised “Hello.”

  “Good day,” I said.

  “It is a lovely day,” an elderly man said, looking to the sky.

  Never in Blue Sky had I been allowed to walk the streets alone. I found the experience exhilarating. The people were kind and unexpectedly friendly.

  I veered off the main road and jogged across the street to peer in the mercantile window at their shoes. The same two pairs sat on display. My future kingdom needed lessons in fashion.

  In the reflection of the glass, a group gathered behind me.

  I turned into a thick barricade of coats. Hands grabbed at me, covered my eyes, pulled at my clothes, reached down into my pockets. I tried to scream. I twisted and kicked in an effort to escape. Finally, my voice escaped in a mangled cry, and my attackers were gone.

  I lay below the mercantile window, trampled and alone.

  One of the shop assistants joined me and then two men who had witnessed the scene from across the street. “Are you all right?” they asked.

  “Yes.” I sat up and slowly moved my fingers and then my toes. “Nothing is broken.”

  “Did they steal your money?” one man asked. “From the auction?”

  “No.” I patted at my clothes. All my pockets were pulled inside out.

  I did not make eye contact with anyone until I reached the gatehouse. There, I acknowledged one of the guards by name. “Hello, Plano. It is I, the Swamp Woman, returning to piano duty.” My voice sounded forced, shaky, but I managed a smile.

  Once I was allowed inside the gates, I felt reassured by the ten-foot-thick walls of the fortress. Fifty paces ahead, Prince Wron strode toward me. I would not tell him what had happened. He’d been right; I’d needed an escort. I felt my pockets to make sure they’d been pushed back in.

  He stopped abruptly in front of me. “You told me Leeson would accompany you!”

  “He was asleep.”

  “You are not to walk alone. Yonder is a good place, but it is not perfect.”

  I wondered if my hair or my pockets showed his country’s imperfection.

  “I will never walk home alone again, My Lord.” Perhaps it was my meekness, for he rolled a kink out of his neck and did not lecture me further.

  ΦΦΦ

  In the doorway to the Great Hall, Rhoda was seated on the leather couch. Eunice stood over her swinging a pendulum-like instrument back and forth. I paused in the wide-arched doorway, entranced.

  “Now repeat it again, Rhoda, what do you say?”

  The giant woman’s teacup-sized eyes watched the pendulum, back and forth. Back and forth. “I will ignore my cravings. I will not give in to temptation. I w
ill not think about—”

  I retreated to the corridor and, leaning back against the stone wall, stilled myself to breathe. They were hypnotizing the giant to behave. My roommate did indeed crave human flesh. She was a people eater!

  I waited a few minutes, and then, steeling myself, strode into the Great Hall.

  Rhoda was nowhere to be seen. Eunice had returned to her knitting. She pointed the tips of her long needles toward The Beast. “According to Wron, you’ve had a busy day. Tomorrow we’ll do our herbs while the men are away.”

  “Thank you, Queen Eunice,” I said as I sat down upon the bench.

  “Wron said that since he will not sell you, he arranged with Leeson for you to visit once a week. I’m so glad you’re not for sale.”

  The setting sun shone directly in my eyes. I bowed my head. “One cannot sell what one does not own.”

  “You are so full of wit, Dory.” Eunice laughed. “Today, when you were not here, I realized that our home is quite dreary without your music. Please play.”

  I sat down upon the bench. Tonight when I hoped to sleep, I did not want to dwell on the mobbing or Rhoda. Determined to get them both out of my system, I drove my hands deep into the keys, six and eight notes at a time. I purged myself of the mobbing, the chaos, the shock and my distress, and lastly, the proof that my roommate indeed had a serious problem of the flesh.

  “Dory, your playing is so akin to my day,” Eunice said with awe. “It has been a very disturbing one, and you have brought closure to it.”

  “What’s happened?” I turned from the piano to regard her.

  Pale cheeked, she peered up from her handiwork. “Each year, I try to knit the same color blanket for the new babies in the kingdom. Last year’s new mothers received a lovely pastel green, and this year’s color is lavender. I’ve just been informed that the shopkeeper can no longer purchase this lovely lavender.” She lifted the skein off her lap. “Of course, I bought all he had. But it may not be enough. Last year, thirty-nine babies were born in Yonder.”

  “I’m certain the mothers treasure your gift and thoughtfulness, Your Highness.”

  “Thank you, Dory.” She smiled. “How was your day?”

  “Eventful.” I was thankful for the catharsis of The Beast.

  “I know. Wron said that the craftsmanship of the saddle he bought at auction is unmatched, and that it is indeed the Blue Sky insignia.” She paused from her knitting to regard me. “And that you told him Alia is musically inclined. What does she play?”

  Oh, the webs we weave.

  “Alia plays piano, Queen Eunice.”

  Her needles dropped to her lap. “Are you a counterfeit?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

  “No, I am not.”

  Waving a hand, she’d surely dropped a stitch. “No, of course you aren’t, child. Your father died in Shepherd’s Field.” She bit her lower lip, considering me. “I’m sorry, Dory.” Her chest inflated at her tactlessness. “Please end on something lovely.” She flitted a hand toward The Beast.

  I agreed with her; now that I had the trampling out of my system, I wanted to reflect on something lovely, and I knew just the one: the auction when Wron had raised my hand to the crowd. From there, my memory traveled to coffee at Leeson and Elza’s. His kindness to the elderly couple and to me—the Swamp Woman—was a quality beyond what I’d dared to imagine in my future husband. As I often did when I played something new, I began one note at a time. It sounded rather sweet, almost poetic. Then I added a handful of chords, and the melody moved gently along.

  Wron’s kind ways made me want to get well. I finished with a sweet refrain.

  Eunice left her knitting to stand beside me. “You must tell me the name of this piece, so I may request it again.” She set a soft, smooth hand upon my shoulder.

  “The piece is new. You may name it.”

  “Ohh . . .” She sounded pleased. “We will call it ‘Lavender,’ because it’s lovely and there’s not enough of it.”

  Chapter Four

  That night, I was still awake when Rhoda’s knees crunched to the cold, hard floor. She bowed her head to pray. “Thank you for the wonderful dinner; it was the best. Thank you for Needa. Help her to not complain. Thank you for Dory. Help her to heal. Though she is already beautiful, help her to be beautiful on the outside, too.” She mumbled a few indecipherable prayers, but I was touched by what I’d heard.

  Dear Rhoda. Even though she might someday eat me as dinner, my roommate had a kind heart. She worked from sunrise until moonlight, and never complained. “If I were ever queen, Rhoda,” I said, “I would get you more help in the kitchen, so you could have at least one day off each week.”

  “Queen Eunice would not be happy to hear you talk like that, Dory. So do not talk like that.”

  Surprised by the force of emotion in her voice, I paused to weigh my words. “I was just trying to say that you are so good to all of us that you deserve a day off.”

  “Do not talk that way, ever again.” Rhoda inhaled deeply and sighed. If there had been a lit candle in the room, it would have been extinguished in the gush of air.

  “Why, Rhoda?” I did not understand her vehemence.

  “I do not want you to be abandoned in the hills.”

  “That is an awful thought,” I whispered. Would Father ever come?

  Rhoda turned to her side facing me, and tucked her hands beneath her round cheek. “Dory, are you still itchy?”

  “This morning I was not as itchy, so I felt brave enough to look in the mirror. Oh, Rhoda, it was such a disappointment.”

  “Tomorrow, I will be your mirror.” She yawned.

  “Rhoda . . .” I told myself to be brave. “I have a question to ask about giants.”

  In the moonlight, she nodded.

  “If a man were to get off his horse in the middle of the Giants’ Snare when the giants were not in hibernation…” Adrenaline pulsed through my limbs. “Is there any chance, any way that he could possibly survive?”

  A pensive silence followed. “Was your father a very, very fast runner?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “That is too bad.” She yawned.

  As I feared, Rhoda fell asleep first, and on her back. Using the same lifting stance as Wron, I leaned over and tried to leverage her to her side. Though I tried, I could not budge her. I wrapped a blanket around me and passed Wron in the hallway on his way to my room, a hand cupped around a tallow candle.

  We paused to acknowledge each other.

  “Why did you wait so long?” he asked. “I can’t sleep through Rhoda’s snoring either.”

  “In the future, you have my permission to knock on our door.”

  “Thank you, Queen Dory.”

  Someday he would remember tonight and smile.

  He set the candle on the nightstand and bent to one knee near Rhoda’s side. “Tell me more about Alia. How spoiled is she?”

  I waited for a snore to pass. “Um, well . . .” I sat down near the foot of my bed, the blanket wrapped about me. He was going to make me think. “At her sixteenth birthday party, there were sixteen different cakes.” I paused. “At her fifteenth, there were fifteen.”

  “It is unheard of. She must be fat.”

  “No, the cakes were for the guests, not just for her.” I laughed.

  “And her personality?” With his back to me, he took his time in turning Rhoda. “What do you dislike about her?”

  I thought about how vain I used to be. How I could not pass a mirror without admiring myself. I now dreaded my reflection.

  “She’s never known hunger or any true discomfort.” At least it used to be true.

  “She does sound spoiled.”

  “She is.” It was easy to be honest in third person.

  “Yet you feel there is hope for her?” Using his legs, he rolled Rhoda onto her side. “I hear it in your tone.”

  “I suppose I do.”

  “Did she confide in you?” He slowly moved to retrieve th
e candle.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me this, then . . . has she ever been kissed?”

  I deliberately waited for a snore to begin and pass. “Not of her own free will. At a ball, there was a horrid man, Dell—King Lorenzo’s son.” I paused, timing myself with Rhoda. “He told her that he had just seen the first open rose of summer out in the courtyard. And, because it was her birthday, she deemed it a very good sign and followed him outside to see it,” I said quickly.

  “What happened?”

  I glanced at Rhoda to make sure she was indeed sleeping, and not pretending, as my sister Wren would have done at a time like this.

  “There was no open rose. Dell grabbed Alia and . . .” I found myself feeling nauseous at the memory. “Her first kiss was not by choice.”

  “Then she cannot consider it a first kiss.”

  “Thank God!” I smiled.

  “To be considered a first kiss, it should have been a mutual decision.” He briefly chuckled. “Good night, Dory.”

  “Good night, Prince . . .” I sighed.

  ΦΦΦ

  Rhoda nudged me awake. The early morning sky was twilight blue. “Do not look in the mirror today, Dory.” Stretching, she lumbered about the room.

  It was not what my heart wanted to hear.

  While Rhoda cooked breakfast, I made toast and set the table. Holding three platters, I served Eunice, then Walter, and lastly, I slid the white, oval-shaped plate with sliced ham and poached eggs in front of Wron.

  “Several spots are gone.” Wron pointed to his cheek.

  “Oh, did you hear that, Rhoda?” Queen Eunice said loudly toward the kitchen. “Several of Dory’s spots are gone.”

  I hurried to the gilded mirror above the dark walnut buffet and turned my face from side to side. On my right cheek lay a clear patch of skin, the size of a dixel. It was the cheek I’d been lying on in our dimly lit room. Rhoda had not clearly seen my complexion. I recalled every specific meal of the prior day… porridge, Elza’s baked onion, Rhoda’s—

  “Is my cabbage soup!” Rhoda joined me at the mirror.