Palace of Mirrors (12 page)

“Th-thank you,” I say.

“Five blocks that way, and then turn right,” the man says with a wink.

I turn and flee, out the door, down the street, as fast as I can go. The blush spreads across my whole face, much faster than I am running.
How is it,
I wonder,
that he made me feel worse than when the palace guards made fun of me? That man was being nice!
I rethink my plan to give away shoes and feasts when I’m properly on my throne.
I’ll need to do something more subtle than charity, something that
doesn’t make people feel bad for being poor. . . .

Around me the streets are getting narrower; the windows in the shops are smaller and dirtier. The curlicues and fancy script have disappeared from all the signs; instead of
CHARLES J. STEWART, ESQUIRE, CLOTHIER
, these signs are more likely to read
BREAD HERE
, or
CANDLES
,
POTS
, or even the highly descriptive
JUNK
. Then, a little farther along, the signs don’t contain any words, just vaguely scrawled pictures. I stop in front of one of the picture signs, trying to figure out if it’s a shoe or a boat. A ragged boy behind me pokes me in the ribs.

“Don’t you be thinking about stealing from
him
,” he whispers. “That one’s a fast runner, and he’ll catch you, sure.”

“I wasn’t thinking about stealing,” I say indignantly. “I wouldn’t do that!”

My words ring out too loudly in the filthy street. Up and down the block people seem to freeze for a moment: slatterns in doorways, drunkards sitting on the curb, idlers leaned against walls. Then it’s as if they’ve all decided to ignore me, to leave me to my own fate, and they go back to their own slumping, sagging, and despairing. Even the ragged boy shrugs.

“Your loss,” he says.

I shiver, and then, to prove I’m not afraid, I push open the door of the shoe—or boat—shop. Even inside I’m at first not sure what it’s selling. A row of dark, dingy lumps line a single glass display case.

“Are those shoes?” I ask, pressing my face against the glass.

“Five gold coins apiece,” an old man says grumpily from behind the display case. “Take it or leave it.”

My eyes are adjusting a bit to the dim shop. I can see well enough now to tell that the shoes are all in tatters. A few look like they were chewed by wild dogs, others like they’ve been vomited on and never cleaned. Wearing these shoes into the castle would be worse than going barefoot.

“You’re kidding,” I tell the man. “Five gold pieces for those? That’s highway robbery!”

He shrugs, watching me with narrowed eyes.

“Cheapest prices in Cortona,” he says. “Like I said, take it or leave it.”

I open my mouth—ready to lecture him about taking advantage of poor people, I think. But before I can say anything, I hear screaming outside.

“No! Don’t take me! Please!”

I rush to the door to look out. It’s the ragged boy who warned me about stealing. He’s struggling to free himself from three large, burly men.

“I’m a messenger!” the boy yells. “Without me, my mam and my sisters won’t have any money! They’ll starve! Don’t—take—me—off—to—war!”

“They’re taking him to the war?” I mutter. I start to push out the door, ready to scold the burly men. The
ragged boy can’t be more than eight or ten. He’s not old enough to be a soldier. And if his mother and sisters would starve without him—

Suddenly I feel a hand clamp down on my shoulder with an iron grip.

“Stay out of it,” the store owner growls. “It’s none of your business.”

“But if they’re taking him off to war—that’s not right! He should have a choice!”

I try to tear myself away, but he’s holding onto me too tightly, his hands now gripping both of my arms. Outside the door the boy is kicking one of the burly men, but it’s like a mouse fighting back against a hawk. The man simply wraps his huge hand around the boy’s ankles, and the three of them carry the boy around the corner.

The store owner lets go of my arms.

“I don’t know where you’re from, girl, but people don’t have choices in Cortona,” he says bitterly. “They’ve had press gangs wandering the streets for years—when they ran out of men to send off to war, they started taking the boys. When everyone’s dead, maybe they’ll stop then.”

I was wrong about the words to that miserable song Harper was playing on the street corner. What the store owner just said—those would be the perfect words to that awful song.

Harper . . .

“They take . . . boys just . . . out on their own?” I say in
a shaky voice. “Any boy on the street . . . alone?”

“Aye,” the man says, shrugging. “They take whoever they want.”

Instantly, I shove my shoulder against the door. I fly out of that shop, my feet barely touching the pavement. Everything passes in a blur. The streets broaden, words begin appearing on signs, then curlicues and fancy loops.
It’d be a left turn this time, five blocks back to the fancy cobbler’s shop and then—how far to Harper’s corner?
I barrel through the crowded streets, ramming into solid, well-fed bodies and women in lovely, frilly dresses, and I don’t even stop to apologize. I don’t look at any face long enough to focus my eyes; I’m just looking for freckles and dirt. And listening—I’m straining my ears to hear the first strains of harp music, off in the distance.

Nothing.

Maybe Harper’s just between songs, taking a break to collect all the gold coins people want to pay him. . . .

I pass a shop window filled with hats, and something tickles my memory.
Ooh—Mabella, Liandra, Suzerina! Come away from those hats and listen! This one’s going to play a love song!
This is the millinery shop the three women were looking at when their friend called to them. So Harper will be on the very next corner. He will. He will. He—

Isn’t.

Harper is nowhere in sight.

  13  

Harper!” I scream, as if my voice has the power to conjure up people from thin air. I wish being the true princess meant having that power. I glance around frantically, because maybe Harper switched corners; maybe he thought he’d make more money on the other side of the street. The other corners are crowded with scurrying strangers. No matter how much I crane my neck or duck down low, I can’t catch any glimpse of a familiar freckled face or a carved wooden harp.

“Oh, Harper,” I moan. My thoughts come in disjointed, panicky bursts.
Got to get to Desmia NOW. . . . Stop the press gang that must have taken Harper. . . . As the true princess I ought to be able to do that, right? . . . Got to stop them before Harper gets to the battlefield. . . .

I step out into the street, thinking that might help me see. I gaze far down the block. Maybe whoever took
Harper isn’t far away; maybe if I can catch them I can just tell them that I’m the true princess and they’re not allowed to carry Harper off to war—I forbid it!

Strong hands grab at me, jerking me back from the street. A flash of black mane whips past my eyes.

“What are you doing?” someone yells. “Didn’t you see that horse about to trample you?”

I turn around and focus my eyes on freckles and splotches of dirt and messy, sand-colored hair. It’s Harper. I throw my arms around his shoulders and hug him close.

“I thought they’d taken you away—I thought you were gone forever—I thought I’d never find you again . . .,” I babble.

Harper pulls back a little, holding me far enough away that he can see my face. I think he’s trying to tell if I’ve gone totally crazy.

“You really are an idiot,” he says, but there’s a trace of fondness in his voice that makes it seem like it’s not an insult. “You said you’d be back in three hours, and it’s barely been two.”

I’m a little embarrassed. Three hours? Two? I’d completely forgotten about listening for the clocks and keeping track of time.

“But you were sitting right there playing music,” I say. “You didn’t tell me you were going anywhere else.”

Harper lets go of me. He looks down, kicks at the harp he’s holding at his side.

“I wasn’t making much money,” he says. “So I thought I’d just go sign us up for the competition before you got back. And then I found out why I wasn’t making any money. There are musicians all over the place. All of them playing better than me.” He sighs. “I’m a failure at my own fate.”

“No, no—I bet it’s just a matter of economics,” I say comfortingly. “The laws of supply and demand. Because of the music competition, there are probably hundreds of musicians in Cortona, all of them trying to get some last-minute practice. The city’s full of music, so nobody wants to pay for it.”

Harper shrugs.

“How much money did you make?” I ask.

Harper reaches into his pocket, pulls out a meager collection of coins.

“Pennies,” he says.

I don’t even bother to count the coins—it’s clearly not enough to buy so much as a fraction of a secondhand shoe that’s been covered in vomit and chewed by wild dogs.

“Guess I better start playing again,” Harper says hopelessly, as he drops the coins back into his pocket. “We got one of the last open slots in the competition. The only times left were at the very beginning or at the very end, weeks away, so . . . we play first thing tomorrow morning.”

My heart gives a little jump at this news. If we’re in the competition tomorrow, then I’ll get to talk to Desmia
tomorrow—my true fate, my real life, is only a day away. Everything I’ve been reading about and studying for and daydreaming over is about to begin.

Then I remember what made me rush to this corner so frantically.

“Harper—it’s not safe for you to be out here on the streets,” I say. “There are these people who wander around grabbing men and boys and carrying them off to war.” I think about how the ragged boy was carried away, and how the well-dressed man in the cobbler’s shop didn’t seem to be at any risk. “They take away poor men and boys,” I add.

“Yeah, I know,” Harper says sulkily. “They’re called press gangs.”

I stare at him in shock.

“You know about the press gangs?”

“The messengers from Cortona, the ones who come out to our village to tell us who’s died in the war—they told me about the press gangs.” Harper smiles, a little grimly. “At first I thought they were talking about people who roam around carrying flatirons, but it’s ‘press’ because they ‘impress’ people into the war.”

I’m a little stunned that Harper knew something about the kingdom that I, the true princess, was totally ignorant of. Then something else strikes me.

“But, Harper—you knew this, and you—you were still willing to come to Cortona with me? And to sit out here
alone, playing music, when at any moment some press gang could—”

“What? You think if you’d been sitting here with me while I was playing love songs, you could have protected me from a press gang? You—big, bad Cecilia?”

The words are teasing, but there’s a darker tone in his voice. And I
had
thought that. Almost. It wasn’t that I was big, bad Cecilia, but that I was the true princess, and a simple word from me should be able to stop any press gang.

If they believed me.

I’m still gasping at the risks Harper has taken—
is
taking—for me, without me even knowing it. Harper’s sitting down, pulling his harp onto his lap again, resignedly positioning his fingers on the strings.

“Harper,
no,
” I say, tugging on his arm, as if I’m strong enough to pick him up. “You can’t stay here. We’ve got to get you out of the city. Just in case a press gang shows up—”

“Cecilia, I
want
to be a soldier, remember?” he says brusquely.

Staring into his eyes I think,
He’s lying.
And it’s so weird to think that, because Harper’s been saying he wants to be a soldier for years, for as long as I can remember. I’ve always believed him before. Why should I doubt him now?

It’s different now. This time he’s lying.
I am so sure of
myself. I just don’t understand what’s changed.

“It’s not like I’m royalty or anything,” Harper adds, still in that harsh, unfamiliar voice. “It doesn’t matter what happens to me.”

I want to say,
Of course it does,
or
Don’t you know that you matter to
me
?
But couldn’t he tell that from the way I flung myself at him just a few moments ago?