But . . . what does Desmia deserve?
I’m thinking about Desmia differently now. The way she creeps up here to deliver our food—like she’s afraid of us, even though we’re locked away—that makes me view everything else I know about her differently too. I don’t know why, but I am sure that she’s the one delivering the food. And I’m pretty sure, somehow, that she hasn’t told anyone else that we’re here. Otherwise I think there’d be curious maids wandering up here to look at us, to laugh at the sight of a princess in rags. Or there’d be advisers and ministers and judges, full of opinions about what Desmia should do to me—or what I should do to her.
Perhaps Desmia, with her pale yellow silks and pale pink satins, her delicate, dainty waves, is not just well-mannered and adorably doll-like. Perhaps she is also timid and unsure. Perhaps she doesn’t trust her advisers and ministers and judges. Perhaps she doesn’t even trust her maids.
I think about how Desmia darted into the secret passageway, about how she was so desperate to make sure that we wouldn’t be heard. I think about how she ran ahead of us. She was afraid. I’m sure of it.
But what is she afraid of? Is it something that I should be afraid of too?
Harper has his music to keep him busy. I have no books, no quill pens, no pots to scrub, no eggs to gather, no cow to fetch from the meadow. I have nothing to do but think and wonder.
As the days pass, I do more and more of my thinking and wondering while looking out on the courtyard, far below the tower. I especially can’t stop myself from watching during Desmia’s noon waving show each day. It is truly frightening to lean out far enough to see Desmia on her balcony. And, anyhow, her routine is as unvarying as the paleness of her dresses. So usually I just lean out once to see the color of her dress—pale peach one day, pale lavender the next—and then focus my attention on the crowd below. I’m too far away to see individual faces, but I can pick up on patterns. I’m sure that the group of people in top hats and tails must be contestants in the music contest. I think that the cluster of women in matching skirts and aprons must be milkmaids from the same village, all on the outing of a lifetime to see Cortona and Princess Desmia. I wonder at a cluster of men in a foreign military uniform—not the spiffy blue and gold of the Sualan army, but a dignified gray with scarlet trim. They stand in a huddle throughout Desmia’s waving and then seem to be escorted into the castle immediately afterward. Their plumed hats make them easy to spot. Then I realize that they’re actually surrounding a small delegation of officials without plumes, without uniforms, but nattily dressed, in fabrics that shimmer in the sun.
I can’t quite see well enough—I can’t quite tell—but . . . is one of those officials a girl?
I watch for days, but no one from that unusual group returns.
I’m so intent on watching for the soldiers or officials to come back that I almost miss noticing two women who come into the courtyard late one afternoon a few days later. They are easily overlooked, just an old woman in a peasant kerchief leaning on a younger woman’s arm as they hobble across the stones. But there’s something familiar in the way the old woman stops and stands and looks around every so often, something familiar about how the younger woman seems so weighed down, even when she’s standing alone.
I know who they are.
“Harper!” I screech. “I see Nanny and your mam!”
“What? Where?” Harper drops his harp and jumps up to look out the window beside me. “Mam! It’s me! I’m up here!”
I wave my arms—not daintily, like Desmia, but extravagantly, desperately, stretching out so far that I rip the armpit of my dress, matching the rip at the back.
“Nanny! Oh, please, Nanny! Come and save me!”
They don’t look up.
A man in a cloak appears behind the two women, his gait arthritic but sprightly.
“Sir Stephen!” I holler. “Get us out of here! Tell Desmia the truth! No—tell the palace officials. . . .”
The wind whips my words back at me. Below me the birds, at least, hear us and begin screeching their usual mocking chorus: “Bawk! Watch out!” “Bawk! Be careful!” “Bawk! I’m the true princess!” But even their squawks and squeals don’t carry down to the courtyard. No one tilts back their head to gaze in our direction.
“Oh, please! Oh, please! Nanny! Can’t you hear me? Sir Stephen?”
I am sobbing now, every bit as hysterical as I was that first day.
“Please!” I scream.
“Eelsy,” Harper says softly, pulling me back in through the window so I don’t fall. “They can’t hear us. They’re leaving now.”
And they are. I watch as they turn around and hobble out of sight, around the corner of a row of shops.
“No!” I wail, heartbroken.
“Shh,” Harper mumbles. “It’s okay.”
He’s pulling me close to his chest, comfortingly. This is a new thing—who knew Harper could be so tender? But I don’t feel like being comforted right now. I push back against him, breaking his grasp on my shoulders.
“How can you be so calm?” I fume. “Don’t you even care that they’re leaving us? Don’t you want to be rescued?”
Harper looks at me. His sandy hair still sticks up, and his freckles have only faded a little during our time trapped inside, in this tower. But he looks older somehow. Older even than he did a few weeks ago, when we set off from our village.
“I think you’ve always expected more from your life than I do,” he says, finally.
“What do you mean? That it’s okay just to give up? Why did you bother shouting at all if you knew they couldn’t hear?” I demand. I am so mad at Harper—mad at him, mad at Nanny, mad at Sir Stephen, mad at Harper’s mam. . . . Why didn’t a single one of them look up even once? Why couldn’t a single one of them listen harder?
“Look, I want to be rescued just as much as you do,” Harper says sharply. “But . . .” He swallows hard. “What if them trying to rescue us just puts them in danger, too?”
I gasp and step back, my knees weak. I have to put my hand out and hold on to the stone wall to keep from falling down. I’m suddenly dizzy, a delayed reaction to Harper’s having to pull me back from the window, when I was in danger of tumbling down to the ground. No—I correct myself—it’s not that danger I’m dizzy from. I’m dizzy because Harper’s right. If his mam and Nanny and Sir Stephen had heard us, it might have been like we were luring them to their deaths. They would have done anything they could to rescue us. They would have been foolhardy. They would have taken risks. They love us that much.
“You’re right,” I whisper. “I didn’t think.”
Hours later, after we’ve eaten our evening meal and it’s gotten dark and Harper has slipped off into sleep, my heart still pounds unnaturally fast every time I think about Nanny and Sir Stephen and Harper’s mam in the courtyard. I try to convince myself that it wasn’t them, that my eyes were playing tricks on me. Because if they’re here in Cortona, they are looking for us. If they aren’t in danger now, they will be soon.
“Please,” I whisper. I’m talking to God now. I’m pleading for my safety, and Harper’s, and Harper’s mam’s, and Nanny’s, and Sir Stephen’s. And maybe even Desmia’s, too, even though she’s the one who’s imprisoned us.
I’ve barely even begun my prayer when I hear footsteps. And then there’s the soft glow of a lantern shining in through the bars, making long stripes of shadow and light across the tower floor. This has never happened before. I poke Harper in the ribs, whisper, “Wake up!” and then spring toward the door. Talk about prayers being answered.
“Harper, we’re being rescued!” I hiss. “We are! We are!”
I press my face up against the bars, watching for Sir Stephen’s regal frame to round the last curve of the spiral stairs, or maybe Nanny’s hunched-over hobble, or even Harper’s mam, stepping briskly for once.
And then the figure holding the lantern aloft rounds the corner, and I take a step back from the door.
2
0
It’s a girl I’ve never seen before. Even in the dim lantern light I can tell that she’s not a maid. She’s too jaw-droppingly beautiful, too beautifully dressed. And just from the way she walks and stands, it seems like she’s her own person, like she’s not used to taking orders from other people. Still, I can tell she’s not a minister or an adviser or a judge, either, because, well, she’s a girl.
“Hello,” she says cautiously. Then she turns partway around and addresses someone behind her on the steps, out of my view. “Desmia, they’re not screaming or shouting or anything. It’s safe to come out.”
If I scrunch over to the side, I can see just the tip of Desmia’s nose and the peak of her crown as she inches forward.
“But . . . the smell,” Desmia whispers.
The first girl sighs, and flashes me an apologetic glance.
“You know,” she says, “you lock someone up in a tower for a while without any soap or water, that’s bound to happen. Especially at the height of summer.”
Is it the height of summer now? I wonder. Exactly how long has Desmia kept us locked up? Two weeks? More?
I turn my head to the side and sniff my armpit surreptitiously. I guess I do smell bad. I remember suddenly how awful my stained, ripped dress looked even before Desmia trapped us in the tower.
“Please,” I say, being careful not to scream or shout or do anything else that might scare off Desmia and this girl. “I don’t know what Desmia told you about us, but—”
“Wait,” the girl says, holding up her hand to stop me. “I’m sure you’re dying to tell me your side of the story. I’ll listen, I promise. But before you start, you should probably know who you’re telling it to. I’m Ella Brown.”
She moves our food basket and jug of lemonade to the side and then reaches her hand in through the bars to politely shake first my hand, then Harper’s. It’s almost as if we’ve just encountered each other at a fancy ball, rather than on opposite sides of prison bars.
“Are you—are you a princess too?” Harper stammers. I look over at him, and his eyes are wide and awestruck. I did mention that this Ella Brown is beautiful, didn’t I? That’s an understatement. She looks the way I always wanted to look when I used to peer into the pond, trying to see if I looked like my royal ancestors. She’s got thick blond hair that sweeps halfway down her back, and blue eyes that sparkle with intelligence, and white, even teeth. And even though she’s wearing a fairly simple dress—dark green cotton, in contrast to Desmia’s pale, pale blue satin—it shows off her figure amazingly.
“Don’t forget to blink,” I mutter to Harper.
Ella laughs.
“I am definitely not a princess,” she says. “I tried it for a little while—believe me, it wasn’t my style.”
“Oh,” Harper says, and he sounds so disappointed that I want to jab him in the ribs with my elbow. How come he had such trouble believing that I was a princess, but now can’t accept that this Ella isn’t one?
Ella looks over at me, and I don’t know, maybe it’s just an optical illusion in the dim light, but it seems like she’s rolling her eyes at me, making fun of Harper a little. It’s as if she’s saying, Why can’t people see that there’s a lot more to a girl than what she looks like?
But maybe I just want to believe that Ella’s thinking that, considering what I look like right now.
“Anyhow,” Ella says, “you should probably know that I’m not Sualan. I’m from Fridesia.”
Harper and I both gasp at that. Fridesia is the country we’re at war with right now, the country we’ve been at war with forever, it seems. The country Harper’s father died fighting.
Ella is our enemy.
Boldly, Harper steps forward, clutches the bars in the door, and glares at Desmia.
“So you imprison us, loyal Sualan citizens, and yet allow her to freely roam the castle?” he asks.
“I—I—,” Desmia stammers, all but hiding behind Ella.
Ella holds up her hand, as if trying to soothe Harper’s anger.
“Now, now,” she says. “I am here on a mission of peace. I bear you no ill will, no enmity. I’m part of a delegation attempting to negotiate an end to the war.”
I almost blurt out, Hey! No fair! That’s what I was going to do as princess! But, amazingly, Desmia steps out from behind Ella and speaks.
“It’s because of Ella’s fiancé,” she says. “He’s the head of the delegation. He’s been here for months. And Ella”—Desmia glances at the other girl, admiringly—“she missed him so much she came to help.”
I remember the cluster of foreign gray military uniforms I saw a few days ago, my suspicion that there’d been a girl in their midst. I’d probably seen Ella arriving. I glance back at Ella, and her eyes have gone dreamy.
Oh, I think, that one is in love. To travel so far into enemy territory—she’d need courage as well as devotion. My journey was nothing compared with hers.
I understand the wistful tone in Desmia’s voice. This is romantic.
Ella seems to shake herself out of the dreaminess.
“So I was talking to Desmia at dinner tonight,” Ella says. “And she told me she faced an, ah, dilemma, apart from the war—”
“She’s trapped us here unfairly!” I accuse. “She doesn’t know the truth, and I guess she’s afraid to ask anyone—”
At the same time Harper’s trying to explain, “We’ve done nothing wrong! It’s a misunderstanding! We just—”
“Please! One at a time!” Ella begs. “I’ll listen to everything you say, but take turns!”
We do. Harper lets me talk first, but he keeps adding commentary: “Think of it from Cecilia’s viewpoint,” he pleads. “She’s grown up always being told she was the true princess, so of course that’s what she believes. . . .” And, “Really, we mean no harm to Desmia. . . .” And then, “To tell the truth, I personally don’t care if Cecilia ever gets to sit on the throne; it’s just, she’s my friend, and—”
“Some kind of friend you are!” I mutter. He’s ruined my whole story. I’m so mad that if Ella and Desmia stepped away for a minute, I’d punch him.
Ella tilts her head, looking from Harper to me.
“Why do you want to be princess?” she asks.
“It’s not about what I want,” I say. “I am the princess. It’s my . . . my fate. My destiny. Sir Stephen and the other knights were so brave in saving me after my parents were killed. I . . .” I look down. “I owe them. I owe my country.”
“But you didn’t do what Sir Stephen wanted you to do,” Ella says gently.
“Because I can think for myself,” I say. I glare at Harper. My fury gives me courage. “Sir Stephen and Nanny still want to protect me, like a little child. I was scared coming to Cortona. I’ve been terrified since Desmia locked us in this tower. But what good is it to be the princess if I don’t ever do anything about it? If I care more about staying safe than about helping my kingdom? Suala doesn’t need a princess who’s just a doll that waves!”
Harper gasps beside me.
“She doesn’t mean that,” he says. “Not the way it sounds.”
“Yes, I do!” I say.
Harper turns three shades paler. He peers around behind Desmia, as if he’s expecting to see an executioner lurking in the shadows, waiting his turn.
Truly, I don’t want to be that kind of princess—the kind that gets executed. But I don’t regret anything that I’ve said. I’ve never felt so much like the true princess as I do right now, standing up for myself.
“Hmm,” Ella says. “This is all very interesting.”
Her voice is so mild that I’m sure there’s no executioner waiting for us. But then she turns to Desmia.
“Desmia,” she says. “Would you like to explain your side of the story now?”
Desmia shakes her head. “I think they should see for themselves,” she says in a small voice. “So they’ll believe me.”
“You want them to see what you showed me?” Ella asks doubtf
ully. “Wouldn’t it be safer just to—”
“No,” Desmia says.
Ella frowns.
“How do you plan to accomplish this?” Ella asks.
“We’ll tie them up,” Desmia says. “Wrists and ankles. And use gags and blindfolds, maybe, until we get there?”
“You expect them to walk down those secret stairways with blindfolds over their eyes and ropes around their ankles?” Ella asks in disbelief. “I thought you said you didn’t want to kill them.”
I shoot Harper a gloating look, as if to say, See? Even if you’d let me tell my story the way I wanted to, she wasn’t planning to kill us!
“Then just bind their wrists and gag their mouths until we’re there?” Desmia revises herself.
“You don’t think we could trust them?” Ella asks. “Without tying them up at all?”
Desmia shakes her head. I can’t say I blame her.
Ella shrugs and turns back to Harper and me.
“We’re taking you to the castle dungeon,” she says. “Through the secret passageways—Desmia said you used those before. I know you have little reason to trust me or Desmia, but it’s dangerous for all four of us if anyone hears us. I promise you, we do not intend to leave you in the dungeon. I know about dungeons—I would never do that to anyone.”
The way she says that, I believe her. But how could this beautiful girl ever have been in a dungeon? I’m tempted to ask her about her story—how does someone “try” being a princess for a while and then give it up? But then a new thought seizes me.
“You’re taking us to the dungeons. . . . You haven’t captured Sir Stephen, have you?” I ask, suddenly horrified. “Or Nanny? Please, please, don’t hurt them, don’t—”
I’m prepared to beg harder for their lives than I would for my own. But Ella reaches through the bars and grabs my hands—I guess I’m flailing them about—and orders, “Stop! It’s not anyone you know! It’s—”