A Necklace of Souls Page 5

  Now, though, I knew better. There is something about a true dream that captures you, drags you in, so while you sleep you feel more alive than when awake. It’s as though you feel your emotions through your skin.

  When I was a little girl, my father was the centre of my world. I suppose most children are like that. But my father was extra special. He wore a crown, for one thing. Most days he forgot to put it on and left it hanging over the end of his bed, and Mother would scold him and tell him he should be more careful with it and he’d laugh and say it was too heavy for everyday wear, and not very practical. He preferred a cap — it shaded his eyes from the sun and kept his head warm in the wet.

  My father rode mares or geldings, never stallions. He said the female of the species was calmer than the male, a statement I found surprising, given my mother, who never seemed particularly calm. Although he was a king, my father was not a very kingly person. My brothers used to laugh at him.

  Mother, on the other hand, was every inch a queen. When I was very small, I loved coming to visit her. Her dressing table was magnificent. It was a word I practised in my head, spelling out the syllables. Mag-ni-fi-cent. It made me think of magpies, because it started with the same syllable and because magpies like things that glitter. And the dressing table glittered. Creamy-gold marble, it was so highly polished that the bottles of mysterious scents and powders and potions slid easily across its surface. If Mother wasn’t there, I would pretend they were ice skaters, and slide them to and fro on the shiny surface. Once one fell off and shattered. It filled the room with an overpowering smell of musk and rose.

  Mother’s dresser, Ruth, had not been impressed. ‘You may be a princess, Lady Dana, but you certainly don’t act like one. Now pick up the glass, there’s a good girl, and we’ll try and clean this up before your mother gets back.’

  Ruth moved a branch of candles to give us more light and I ran my hand carefully across the stone floor, watching for the telltale shine of glass. ‘Why does Mother have so many things on her dressing table, Ruth?’

  Ruth snorted. ‘What a thing to ask!’

  ‘She’s beautiful the way she is. She doesn’t need all these bottles and creams.’

  ‘A queen can never be too beautiful.’

  I thought about that. ‘Why is it important to be pretty, then? Father doesn’t have all these bottles and jars. He just has a hairbrush.’

  ‘His Majesty is a man, Lady Dana. The rules are different for ladies.’

  ‘That’s not very fair.’

  ‘Don’t you want to be pretty, miss?’

  I shrugged. ‘Maybe. I’ve never really thought about it.’

  Carefully, we picked up all the glass. Ruth poured the pieces into a fold of paper.

  ‘Sit down here, Your Highness,’ she said, and pulled out my mother’s stool.

  I sat on Mother’s seat and stared at my face in the mirror. A chin. A nose. Two eyes. Yes, all present and correct. Yet, in some people this was beautiful, in others it was not. Why was that?

  Ruth’s hands were gentle on my hair and she turned my face so I saw first one cheek, then the other. ‘You have beautiful hair, Your Highness.’

  ‘I do?’

  ‘Look how it sparkles in the light.’

  My hair shone in the candlelight; leaf-red, chestnut-brown, colours of autumn.

  ‘It’s just red,’ I said, wishing it could be yellow-blonde like my father’s or raven-black like Mother’s. I think I was eight. It was the first time I looked at my reflection and wished I looked different.

  ‘Your skin is very delicate.’ She touched my face gently with her rough, work-hardened finger. ‘See.’

  When she took her finger away there was a mark where it had been.

  ‘Blue eyes, clear skin, auburn hair. You’ll be a beautiful woman, Your Highness.’ It might have been the light, but I thought she looked sad. I looked at myself in the mirror and stuck out my tongue. I didn’t want to be beautiful.

  Mother never noticed she’d lost her scent. There were so many other bottles on her shining table that she probably never missed the one I’d broken.

  I think my mother, Cyrilla, always felt an outsider. She was beautiful, with creamy skin, thick black hair and white, even teeth. She had a shapely figure and in company she was charming. She did this quite deliberately. Once, on her many attempts to civilize me, she said seriously: ‘Nothing makes a woman as attractive as entertaining conversation.’

  I was with her at her dressing table one evening. I was ten, too young to attend state occasions, but I could sit with her and watch her prepare. There was to be a state banquet — an ambassador was visiting. My mother practised her smiles in front of the glass: she knew how to make the dimples come and go, how to peep over her fan, how to squeeze her elbows together so her cleavage showed.

  I watched, shocked as only the very young can be, and she laughed at my expression. Even as she laughed, she watched herself in the mirror.

  ‘One day,’ she said, and I had a horrible feeling she was going to tell me that one day I’d enjoy this playing at smiling and making myself attractive. But she stopped, and didn’t finish what she was going to say.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘How did you learn all this?’

  My mother was sharp. You never had to explain things; she knew what I meant straight away. ‘I watched my stepmother.’

  ‘Your stepmother?’

  ‘When I was growing up.’ There was no smile on my mother’s face. ‘My mother died. When I was, oh, about your age, I suppose. Don’t look shocked, sweetie. People do die, you know. And Outside,’ — by that she meant what we all meant, outside the Kingdom — ‘people die frequently. After she died my father remarried. And I watched her.’

  ‘Did you want to be like her?’

  ‘No! Goodness, no. I didn’t want to be like her at all.’

  ‘Why did you watch her then?’

  My mother gripped her fan tightly, so tightly her knuckles turned white. ‘Because I wanted to be a winner.’

  ‘A winner?’

  ‘Outside,’ she said, and her voice was grim, ‘winners are people who have enough food. Who don’t get sick. Who are warm in winter. My stepmother had all that.’

  ‘Didn’t your mother? Didn’t you?’

  She looked at me as if I was very stupid. ‘Of course not. Outside, most people don’t.’

  This was hard to understand. I was never hungry. And the only time I was cold was when I’d forgotten to put on a coat.

  That was the first time I realized that there was a difference between Outside and us, here in the Kingdom. I wasn’t sure if I should feel guilty or happy for my fortune for having been lucky enough to live in the Rose.

  Hugging the shadow at the courtyard’s edge, I crept past the kitchens to the postern gate, set into the western wall. Now was the best hour for escape, when the courtyard was at its quietest, for the bread had been set for the bake and there were no apprentices bawling at one another and no scullery lads running errands and picking fights. And the collier was due.

  Nestled against the thick Castle walls, the laundry maids’ hut was, as usual, wreathed in white steam. Two of the girls stood outside in the shade, fanning their red faces with their caps. Who would want to be a laundry maid in midsummer? They waved to me and for a moment I felt a touch of guilt at my upcoming theft, mingled with fear. Fortunately, the sound of hooves distracted them and they turned away.

  The collier! He would deliver to the kitchens, then to the laundry. I should hurry, if I was to be ready in time. I ducked around the edge of the hut, over to the far side where the lines of drying clothes tossed in the wind. They smelt of soap and sunlight. There, white against the blue sky, were the sheets and the tablecloths, the linen of every day. And here were the uniforms: pages’ embossed jerkins, maids’ aprons and the hose and aprons of the sculler-lads. Dull green, spotted with grease despite the boiling water and the soap; th
ese were what I wanted.

  No-one about, just the crows, black spots that called and wheeled in circles; no-one to see me as I tweaked the hose and jerkins from the line. I needed a cap. Where were the caps? Here was one, brown and nondescript, it didn’t match the trews and top but no matter, if my plan worked no-one would worry about my clothes. No-one would even think twice about me.

  Behind the clotheslines were a rough wall and the guards’ practice quarters. And here, next to the archery target and the straw dummy, were the changing rooms. This week, being the week after the Festival, they were empty, because many of the guards were on leave.

  It took some time to change out of my dress, and the more I fretted, the more the laces twisted into knots and tangled tightly. Hurry, you fool! Someone might come and see me here, half dressed. Nurse seemed to think I was a parcel, the way she tied me so tightly into my clothes.

  Finally, I pulled the borrowed jerkin over my head. ‘Borrowed’ sounded better than ‘stolen’. The rough cloth scratched my arms and it took an age to puzzle my way through the ties on the hose, trying not to think of why the panels overlapped in such a strange way at the front. And then, with horror, I realized my mistake: no boots. No servant wore kid slippers. How could I get shoes? It’s not as though there would be footwear neatly drying on a line.

  I scrunched up my dress and shoved it under the wooden bench and tucked my hair into the horrible cap, shoving the braid up under the binding. Nurse would be appalled. From the laundry hut came the clatter of coal pouring down the chute into the coal cellar below, intermingling with swearing from the collier as he wrestled sacks from his cart.

  Did I hear a voice whisper ‘now’, or was it instinct that made me leap through the postern gate, across the empty corner of the courtyard, to the grimy cart, piled high with rough sacks?

  I clambered up onto the cart, and pulled the sacks over my head. The stony, damp smell of coal dust made me want to sneeze, but I pinched my nose and wriggled down into the nest of coarse sacking like an orphaned beggar boy.

  ‘Lazy sluts, never an offer of help,’ grumbled the collier.

  I held my breath, not difficult with the coal dust saturating my lungs, and burrowed deeper into my refuge, so all the world turned black. The horse snorted and backed across the cobbles, its hooves scratching on the stones. The collier climbed up onto the cart, and it shook as he settled himself onto the driver’s bench.

  ‘Washday wenches. All lah-di-dah and uppity. Come on there, get on.’

  The horse clattered, the cart bounced across the cobbles.

  ‘You there!’ A brisk voice. A guardsman’s voice.

  The cart stopped with a shudder. I’d been spotted! How stupid I would seem, when they pulled the sacking from me and exposed me to the light, all the Castle windows would be full of heads staring down, and there was nowhere out in this stony desert of courtyard to hide. But he continued, and forgetting the coal dust, I heaved a sigh of relief. I nearly choked.

  ‘Have you seen a strange female?’

  The collier hawked phlegm from his throat and spat on the cobblestones. ‘Ain’t seen no-one. Save your laundry maids. They’re not strange. They’re plenty rude enough, though, not lifting a finger to help. And here’s me with a bad back and all.’

  ‘You’ve not given anyone a lift up to the Castle this morning?’

  ‘I ain’t no courier,’ said the collier. ‘I’m a collier, me. I don’t take passengers.’

  ‘Can’t see a governess catching a lift with the likes of dead-head Dewi,’ said a younger voice. ‘Wouldn’t look good on her first day, turning up covered in coal, would it, Sarge? Besides, the gate house men would have seen her.’

  ‘Doesn’t hurt to ask, does it?’ said the sergeant. ‘Alright, off with you. But if you see a strange woman in the village, you could send word.’

  The collier hawked and spat again. ‘I ain’t no errand boy.’

  The wheels squeaked, and the horse’s hooves boomed hollowly as we trundled over the drawbridge.

  So the governess still hadn’t arrived and now, here was I, hidden and escaping. The day was looking bright. Figuratively speaking, of course, for I was still buried under grimy sacks.

  Through a gap in the sacks the roof of the gate house arched, black against white clouds. Stone gargoyles, deformed beasts with folded wings, leered down. The drawbridge spanning the water was drawn up by chains each night, leaving this gate house cut off, isolated from the Castle like an island of stone. This gave the evensong bell a peculiar echo: the clattering of chains.

  The sergeant was talking to the guards. ‘The king’s asked us to be on the lookout. He’s expecting something. A gift, he says.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Dunno. Something strange, probably. You know what royalty’s like. Peculiar, they are. Says he saw it in a dream. Says the Guardian told him.’

  There was a sharp intake of breath, and the sack covering my head trembled. ‘The Guardian? Ain’t heard from her for many a year.’

  The sergeant’s voice was troubled. ‘Aye. Don’t know what this means, Harry. Probably nothing good. And now there’s the new governess not come.’

  Harry chuckled. ‘She might have heard about the princess. Don’t last long, none of them.’

  His voice faded as the cart pitched forward down the steep gravel road. I burrowed deeper into the sacks, until I could press my eye to a knothole, and stared at the white stones of the road beneath me. Not much of a view, I suppose, but when one has dreamt of travelling this way, it was exhilarating to watch the gravel pass beneath me, to hear the rough creak of the wheels. I’m really here! I thought, chanting the thought in my head to the wheel’s squeaking. I didn’t care about the missing governess. She was bound to turn up sometime. Bad things always did.

  Faster and faster the wagon sped, bumping down the hill. Pebbles scattering against its wooden body sounded like rain. I tried to keep from biting my tongue. It was a good thing the cart held only sacks; I would have been crushed if there had been coal.

  The squealing increased to a shriek. The cart slowed. A jerk. The noise stopped and the wagon tipped. I rolled, landing in a sack-wrapped bundle against the sides of the cart.

  The collier grunted and muttered. I lay, wrapped in sacks, trying to keep still in the sudden silence as the man swore and slapped the wagon. ‘Damn wheelwright.’

  Then there was the jingle of a harness as the horse was unhitched, a grumble as the collier mounted. The hooves faded into distant pad-pads and, then, only the sigh of the breeze and chirping of birds. I struggled out of the sacks and clambered to my feet, rising from the lopsided cart like a dirty Venus.

  A ditch ran beside the road, thankfully empty of water, and the cart had tumbled into it. A cartwheel rested beside the wagon. Its pin was cracked through. I clambered down awkwardly. My nails were black with coal dust and there were black streaks in the creases of my wrist and elbows. Mother would not be pleased.

  7

  A Perpetual Fair

  There were dramas aplenty at the Castle, ranging from small to large. Sometimes, Will felt as though he was living in a perpetual fair.

  Today, a cook was scolding a kitchen maid for leaving milk to sour.

  ‘Master, ’twasn’t me. ’Twasn’t me,’ sobbed the girl.

  The cook was restrained by the butcher, his wooden ladle removed. The maid escaped under a bench. A chambermaid sidled in through a side door and asked to speak to the pastry cook. Prince Alden wanted extra pastries with his breakfast.

  ‘I can send bread, also, if the prince is hungry,’ said the pastry cook.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ whispered the chambermaid. ‘It’s not for him.’

  ‘Not for him? Then who is it for?’

  ‘Prince Alden has a visitor,’ whispered the red-faced maid.

  ‘Prince Alden has a visitor? In his bed chamber?’ The pastry cook’s loud voice echoed through the kitchen. All activity stopped.

  The cook
laughed, broke small pastries into two, to form the shape of a heart, and poured chocolate in the middle. A broken, blackened heart.

  ‘Here,’ he said loudly. ‘Take this to the prince’s visitor.’

  The kitchen erupted into laughter.

  There were people aplenty at the Castle too, each with roles and stations both unfamiliar and bizarre. The guardsmen, Will could understand. So, too, the farrier, and the farm staff who cared for the cattle and sheep of the Castle. But what of the falconers, the huntsmen, the armoury staff? All strange occupations, with their own rules and traditions. When he heard the men of the falconry discussing jesses and grommets, hoods and bells, it felt as though he was listening to a different language.

  To Will, used to the clamour and chatter of a village, it all felt strangely familiar and yet very different. The kitchens themselves were immense. A vast stone building that protruded from the walls of the Castle, the kitchens were on the opposite side of the keep to the royal chambers. This was deliberate, said the cooks, as it kept the risk of fire spreading, but very inconvenient; apprentices had to be fast on their feet when serving at state banquets.

  Three great fireplaces on the eastern walls, each large enough to roast an ox, were kept lit throughout the day. Tables and benches, arrayed at regular intervals, were scrubbed white at evening. Each table had its own purpose: one for preparing the bread, another for vegetables. One, marble-topped, was used for sweet pastries.

  A coal-fired burner on the north wall was used for boiling the cauldrons and pans and, wonder of wonders, water was piped through the wall into the stone sinks. Will never tired of standing and turning the metal tap. How amazing to have water when you wanted it, instead of labouring at a pump or pulling buckets from a well!

  The kitchens were home to near on fifty staff; a battalion of people ruled by the Head Cook, a portly woman with a wispy chin and a strict sense of discipline. Her word was law, and most of the staff lived in fear of her temper. Her captains were the Senior Cooks. She deferred to them in the matter of food crafting, but still roared at them if they wasted ingredients or left food to spoil.