The Princess of Cortova (14 page)

24

Fire

ESTELLA PUT AWAY THE
chess set and prepared the table for the princess’s midday meal. As always, there was a bowl of fruit from the palace orchards. The main course was squab, poached with figs. And the wine, brought to the table in an antique ceramic flagon, had been well watered and chilled, the way her mistress liked it.

The flagon came with a matching cup, but Estella had decided to take a chance and put out the fancy new goblet instead. It was too formal for a simple afternoon meal eaten alone in the garden, and the princess would probably scold her. But it was such a
very pretty
thing, and a gift from the lady’s suitor (the handsome one, not the pudgy boy with the strange, pale-colored eyes). It seemed positively criminal to have such a treasure and not to use it. If Estella had been given such a beautiful cup (and by such a beautiful man)—why, she’d use it every chance she got. She’d rinse her teeth with it in the mornings!

As it happened, the princess didn’t scold her. She just laughed, muttering something about bringing out the gold platters, too, while she was at it, then waved Estella away. The slave smiled with satisfaction, having gotten her way for once. Then she went to stand with Giulia against the far wall, as they always did when the princess dined, or entertained guests, or played chess—always at a discreet distance, where they would be beyond notice yet near enough to be ready at hand should anything be needed.

Estella thought the princess seemed distracted. She got that way sometimes—moodylike—but far more often of late. She was even ignoring Leondas, who was trying very hard to get her attention. Probably thinking about her suitors, Estella decided, that must be it—though what there was to think about, she couldn’t imagine. The choice was obvious.

Giulia leaned over and whispered into her ear, “Do you smell something?”

Estella sniffed. “Smoke from the kitchen,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

Estella shrugged.

They continued to stand as they were, backs to the wall, hands clasped in front. The princess continued to pick at her food and ignore the cat, who now rose up on his hind legs and pawed at his mistress’s elbow. How she could fail to notice these attentions was impossible to imagine—and yet she did. She had that look on her face she sometimes got when she was working out a move on the chessboard, as if her mind was completely engaged to the exclusion of everything else.

The garden was uncommonly quiet all of a sudden. Even the birds that nested in the vines had fallen still. In the eerie silence they could hear only the unending, faraway rush of waves on the shore far below—and a strange, crackling sound.

“You’re wrong,” whispered Giulia. “It’s not the kitchen at all. It smells different—sharplike—and it’s getting stronger.”

Estella sniffed and nodded. “What do you suppose?”

“Don’t know. But we ought to mention it, don’t you think?”

“Yes. You do it.”

So Giulia stepped forward and waited to be acknowledged by her mistress.

“What is it, Giulia?” the princess finally said.

“Please excuse the interruption, my lady, but I’m smelling smoke; and I thought I should call it to your attention.”

Elizabetta sniffed the air, then sniffed again.

“Yes, I smell it too,” she said, rising quickly from her chair. “Send Estella to see what she can find out and have her report back to me. You go and wake Claudia. I need her right away.”

Giulia hurried to the servants’ quarters and knocked sharply on Claudia’s door. When no answer came, she went in uninvited. Claudia was her superior, a freedwoman, not a slave, so normally she wouldn’t have dared to do such a thing. But this was an emergency—and Giulia was secretly glad to have an excuse to wake her up.

“Beg your pardon,” she said, “but Mistress wants you. It seems there’s a fire somewhere about.”

The old woman came to life as Lazarus rose from the dead. Without uttering a single word or even bothering to put on her sandals, she sprinted toward the princess’s rooms like a girl of eighteen. Then Giulia hurried off to join the search for the source of the smoke. As she rounded the corner to the hallway that led to the entry gate, she ran headlong into Estella, on her way back. One glance down the hallway was enough to tell Giulia just how bad it was. The palace was old and the beams were dry. What had started small was now spreading, and spreading fast.

“All right,” the princess said. “Here’s what I want you to do. Rouse the sweeper and the slaves from the cook-room, then all of you leave right away. You’ll have to use the service door. Then raise the alarm, and don’t stop shouting till you get some help. This fire will destroy the palace if it isn’t put out quickly, and many lives could be lost. Do you understand?”

“Yes, my lady. But what about you?”

“Claudia and I will follow in a moment. Oh, for heaven’s sake, Leondas, leave me be! Will one of you please take the cat?”

“Of course, my lady.”

“Well, don’t just stand there. Hurry!”

As soon as they had gone, the princess took Claudia’s hand and found that it was trembling. “I’m sorry, my dear, but I need you to help me move the bed again.”

“Oh, my lady—there isn’t time!”

“We’ll do it quickly.”

“Your document is safe where it is, and we need to get out while we can. Truly, my lady, it isn’t worth dying for!”

“It’s worth everything to me. And if you won’t help—”

“Of course I will.”

“Then let’s go.”

They ran into the sleeping chamber and tugged at the heavy bedframe. But, as before, it shifted only a little at a time. Hard as they pulled, it was taking too long. The roar of the fire was much louder now; they could hear the crash of roof beams collapsing. The blaze was spreading with astonishing speed.

“Stop! Now!” Claudia shouted, grabbing her mistress’s arm. “This is madness. You cannot be queen of Cortova if you’re dead. It may already be too late. But if we can’t get out of the compound, we can at least go into the atrium, where there’s nothing but sky over our heads.”

Claudia had used the word
madness
as a figure of speech, but now she saw that Elizabetta was quite literally lost to reason; she seemed not to comprehend anything at all and was making no effort to move.

“My lady,” she said, her voice stern, “I will die with you gladly if it comes to that. But I promised your mother I’d look after you. And I intend to keep that promise if I have to knock you senseless and drag you out myself!”

Just then the wall on the other side of the room cracked apart, showering chunks of plaster onto the floor. Flames darted through the openings and quickly reached the ceiling.

“Now!” Claudia shouted, pulling the princess roughly away from the bed. Elizabetta didn’t resist, just followed blindly with a shuffling gait—unbearably slow. Already the fire had reached the doorframe. They had only seconds now. And so, just as the ceiling came down with a sickening crash and a shower of sparks, Claudia shoved her mistress out.

She pushed with such force that the princess went flying like an arrow loosed from a bow—out onto the covered porch, where the roof was now ablaze—one lurching, stumbling step after another, till she reached the safety of the garden, tripped on the brick edging of a flower bed, and fell, striking her head on the stone of the path.

And there she lay, insensible, as walls caved in, and beams fell, and everything around her was destroyed.

25

A Very Private Place

THE GUESTS STOOD OUTSIDE
their villas gazing in horror at the boiling cloud of black smoke that rose like a violent patch of storm in an otherwise perfect summer sky, and below it, hot and bright, the dancing flames. They were strangely silent for such a crowd of people; but really, anything worth saying was already understood.

Alaric stood apart, heavily protected by his men. His meeting with Gonzalo had been mercifully short, but it could so easily have been otherwise—his third miraculous escape in a little more than a week. Either the king of Westria lived a charmed life, or the fates were determined to kill him but were making a mess of it.

Once Alaric’s safety had been assured, Tobias and a contingent of knights had gone to offer their help. But the gate to the inner wall was locked, and the guards were away fighting the fire, so they’d come back again. It was a terrible shame—so many willing hands outside with no way to get in.

Tobias and Molly now stood watching in silence with the others. He had his arm around her and was gripping a little too tight, as if he thought he could press the trembling right out of her. Finally she pulled away and looked up at him. She said, “Tobias?” But there was no sound; she was just mouthing the word. So he leaned down, and she whispered in his ear.

“Tobias,” she said again, “there’s something I need to tell you.”

As she seemed so secretive about it, he asked if it was a private matter, and she nodded. When he asked how private, she said, “Very.”

“All right then,” he said. “Follow me.”

Tobias and the lesser knights had been assigned to a former barracks, which at some point in the distant past had been turned into a guesthouse. Unlike the other villas, it was long and narrow, not built in a square around a central atrium. Upon entering, Molly and Tobias crossed a hall punctuated by the doors to the sleeping chambers, then came into a large common room where the men spent their leisure time. It was empty now, showing signs of hasty departure: cards abandoned in midgame lying face down on a table; cups of wine that had been set aside unfinished; cloaks and even weapons that had been left behind.

Tobias led her across this room and through a service pantry in the rear, and opened the back door, revealing a long terrace that extended the entire length of the barracks and overlooked the sea. At one end it abutted a watchtower; at the other it was protected by a wall, so the space was completely enclosed.

“I come out here sometimes when I want to be alone,” he said, pulling the door shut behind them. “No one else seems to like it—too windy, I guess. So it’s just me and the occasional slave pitching slops over the cliff.”

With a gentle hand he guided her along the terrace till they were far enough from the door that anyone who might have been listening couldn’t have heard a thing.

“All right,” he said. “Tell me.” But Molly didn’t answer. She seemed more interested in looking at the terrace, and not in a curious or admiring way. Something about it seemed to alarm her. “What is it?” he said. “What’s the matter?”

“I’ve been here before.”

“Surely not.”

“I saw it in a vision. Twice. The cat was right there, on that railing. Then he jumped off and walked down that strip of grass.”

“How odd. What do you think it means?”

“I have no idea. But I don’t much like it.”

“Shall we go somewhere else to talk?”

“No. I’ll just be quick.”

She took a deep breath. He waited.

“You know I was playing chess with the princess just minutes before the fire started.”

“Yes. And everything was normal when you left?”

“There was certainly no fire, and I didn’t smell any smoke. But there
was
something odd. I ran into Prince Castor as I was on my way out. He’d been spying on us; and when he saw that I was coming, he ran away. Only, I caught up with him.”

“And?”

“He turned on me with this horrible, malevolent look that was positively frightening. Then he stood in front of me, like this, to keep me from leaving. There’s something very wrong with that child.”

Tobias nodded. One couldn’t help but notice how spoiled and immature he was.

“He had his hands behind his back, and at first I assumed he was hiding something he’d stolen from his sister. But now I think it must have been a flint and steel. Tobias, I believe Castor set the fire.”

He was genuinely shocked. “That’s a very heavy and dangerous accusation. I beg you not to repeat it to anyone else. It’s Cortova’s private business. You really don’t want to get involved.”

“But what about the princess? She might have died in there.”

“If so, then it would be a terrible tragedy—but still none of your business.”

She broke away from Tobias then and went to lean on the railing. Suddenly she recoiled and backed away.

“It
is
rather alarming,” Tobias said. “Such a long way down.”

“Yes,” she said, shuddering. “It makes me allover cold with dread.”

“Then come over here.”

He found a spot that was clear of bird droppings and blown debris. There they sat with their backs against the wall. Molly wrapped her arms around her knees to keep her skirts from flying up. Tobias sat in exactly the same way. They were like a pair of bookends, except that everything about Tobias was larger and longer.

“All right,” he said, “let’s suppose you’re right. Why would Castor do such a thing? He stands to inherit that palace someday. Why would he burn it down?”

“I doubt he’s capable of thinking that far ahead, and he probably didn’t know it would spread so fast. But he had to be aware that it would put his sister in grave danger. I think that was his intention.”

“Do you mean to say he was trying to kill her?”

She paused. Finally, “Yes, I do. And he was quite gleeful about it. When I got to the gate and turned around, he grinned at me like, ‘Ha-ha, I’m going to get you! Just you wait and see!’ I felt I was being threatened.”

When she saw the alarm cross Tobias’s face, she said, “What?” But he was already wrapping his arms around her, holding her close. She could hear his heaving breath.

“For pity’s sake, Tobias,
what
?”

Now he was stroking her hair and still not saying anything, and it was making her wild with fear. She was just about to scream when he released her, and she saw there were actually tears brimming in his eyes.

“What?” she said again, but softly this time, because she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

“He set the fire, and he’s going to blame it on you.”

She was stunned. How was it she hadn’t thought of that?

“It started right after you left. He’ll say he saw you going out, and . . . who knows what lies he’ll dream up: you were cackling with glee; you were carrying a torch. . . .”

“But why would anyone believe such a thing? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Oh, Molly—why do you think?”

After that they sat in silence, thinking parallel thoughts.

“What’s the chance,” he said, “that we could go directly to the stables, and collect our horses, and get out of here right now—before he has a chance to accuse you?”

“No, Tobias. Forget it. It would be like an admission of guilt if I ran away like that, and Gonzalo would send an army thundering after us.”

“He’ll have to put the fire out first. That should give us some time.”

“Not enough.”

“Then, is there anything
else
you can do?” He said it slowly and meaningfully, and she understood what he meant: Could she somehow use her Gift to—what? Turn back time so she could stop the fire before it happened? Strike Prince Castor dumb so he couldn’t spread false tales? Float up in the air and fly back to Westria?

“It doesn’t work that way,” she said. “I wish—”

But she never got to say what it was she wished, because just then the door to the guesthouse opened and a swarm of soldiers poured out. They wore the black and gold of the army of Cortova, and their swords were already drawn.

They’d come for her with astonishing haste.

Molly and Tobias put up a fight, but no amount of screaming, kicking, and biting could save them in the end. Two men carried Molly away, like workmen hauling off a carpet, leaving Tobias prostrate on the terrace with five more holding him down.

After a while Tobias realized that struggling wasn’t just a waste of effort, it was actually making things worse. So he stopped, lay as motionless as he could, and waited. Finally, when the soldiers seemed to have calmed down a bit, he said in his most reasonable voice, “I don’t understand what just happened. Why have you taken the lady away?”

“She’s under arrest by order of the king,” said one of the guards.

“On what charge?”

“Arson. And murder.”

“But she never—”

“Keep your mouth shut, boy, or we’ll arrest you as well.”

The fact that he wasn’t
already
arrested came as a pleasant surprise. It meant that if he behaved himself, eventually they’d let him go. Then somehow he’d find a way to set Molly free.

But for now he lay unmoving, his cheek pressed hard against stone, a large man sitting heavily on his back, and nothing to look at but a lot of hobnailed boots and the pointy ends of swords. And beyond all that, a railing, and the sea.