The Rat Prince (10 page)

There was no looking glass to tell me if my efforts were successful, but when I turned around to face my rodent audience, they began to jump up and down and chirp like birds.

“Wish me good fortune!” I said to them.

They jiggled about and made more noise. It cheered me quite a bit, though I did feel keen disappointment at Blackie's absence. I thanked the rats and mice most profusely and hurried down the stairs.

One thing my rodent well-wishers had not thought of as they planned my wardrobe was shoes. (Understandable, since they themselves had no need of such things.) Thus, beneath the elegant skirts, I was barefoot as usual. I would have to take great care as I danced at the ball so as not to shock the company by flashing my toes!

My step slowed when I came to the final flight of stairs. I switched from a rapid trot to a regal sweep. At the base of the grand staircase, arrayed in their full finery and gaping at my entrance, were my wicked stepmother and two stepsisters.

I ignored Eustacia and even Jessamyn as I floated lightly toward them, focusing entirely upon the confusion and rising fury on the face of Lady Wilhemina.

I could not help myself. After all this time of suffering under Wilhemina's yoke, I felt entitled to let triumph warm my interior.

“Oh my very goodness!” Jessamyn broke the stunned silence, her voice full of delight and awe. “Where on earth did you get that pretty, pretty gown?”

“It belonged to an ancestress,” I said. “I found it in the attic.”

“Well, it's simply breathtaking,” she crowed. “How smitten Prince Geoffrey will be when he sees you!”

I fear this proved too much for Eustacia. A beastly howl tore from her throat.

I fell backward a step, shocked.

Never one to miss an opportunity, Wilhemina took advantage of my loss of balance by leaping forward. When I flung up an arm to ward off the expected blow, she instead reached under my elbow, hooked the long, bony fingers of both her hands into the top of my bodice, and yanked with all her might in opposite directions.

The delicate golden fabric parted with hardly a sound into two sagging pieces, which then slid off my shoulders and dropped to the marble floor.

And I stood naked but for my white muslin shift in the front hall of Lancastyr Manor.

Jessamyn gave a wail of horror. She did not stop wailing until her mother slapped her cheek. Not hard enough to raise a mark, mind you—for someone might have noticed that—but sufficient to make her daughter close her mouth and cover it with her fingers, stifling the cry she continued to make in her throat as tears streamed down her face.

Her scream had brought the few remaining servants running to the scene.

Thus it was that Mrs. Grigson, Cook, Pye, Wilhemina's lady's maid, and the chambermaid were all treated to the spectacle my stepmother's spite and my own pride had created.

Pye ran forward to fling his tattered waistcoat across my shoulders. I could not even thank him or warn him not to bring down the wrath of my stepmother on his head. I had not the power of speech.

I was further shocked when Cook herself, who made my life a misery every day, stammered out: “Poor Cinderella—I—” Then, apparently thinking better of showing any sympathy, she snapped her mouth shut and hurried away.

“Lady Rose!” Mrs. Grigson cried out. “My dear Lady Rose!” She rushed to put her arms about me, trying to shield me with her body. “You, there, don't stand about gawking!” she shouted at the other servants. “Get back belowstairs!”

Somehow the fact that Mrs. Grigson was endangering her position here at Lancastyr Manor managed to penetrate my daze. “No, Mrs. Grigson, no—”

Her cheeks red and her eyes bright, the housekeeper brushed aside what I had been about to say. “Yes, my lady, 'tis time.” She rounded on my stepmother. “You terrible woman. You've pushed until a body can stand it no longer. Torturing this innocent simply because you're jealous of her!”

Wilhemina advanced on Mrs. Grigson as if to do her a violence, but the sturdy older woman faced her down.

“I'm not like this sweet lamb, too well-mannered to strike back at a fishwife like you,” the housekeeper blazed. “Go ahead. Just try to manhandle me!”

“Leave this house,” my stepmother spat. “If you are not packed and gone by the time we return from the ball, I shall call the magistrates to eject you.”

“Aye, ma'am, I shall go. And I'm taking Lady Rose with me.”

“No!” The cry was from Jessamyn. “Do not take my sister away!”

Her mother rounded on her, grasped her shoulders, and shook her. “How dare you call her sister. Go join Lord Lancastyr in the coach, you bad, horrid child!”

I could see that Jessamyn was about to argue. This would never do. “Go, Jessamyn, dear, rest easy.” My voice was dull, as hopeless as I felt. “I won't leave. You have my word upon it.”

Jessamyn gave me one desperate look of sorrow tinged with relief, and pelted off down the outside staircase. Eustacia followed suit.

“My lady,” Mrs. Grigson said to me while they hastened off. “Let us flee this place together.”

How could I explain in front of Wilhemina that I needed to stay at Lancastyr Manor to make sure she did not murder my father? I could not burden Mrs. Grigson with that information either, for she could do nothing to help. No, it was best to let her continue thinking me a coward so that she could leave here without looking back. “My dear Mrs. Grigson … I cannot. You go, but I must remain.”

The rebellious light in Mrs. Grigson's faded blue eyes went out. She was disappointed in me. I wondered why fate decreed that when I tried to be strongest, I appeared weakest.

She cried, “My lady, how could you be so spiritless? I have given up my position and my future for naught! Where is the courage and daring of your noble ancestors?” She hurried down the back stairs in a distressed flutter of gray skirts, dragging Pye with her. I hoped she would take him along when she departed; he, too, had put himself in danger by being kind to me.

Now Wilhemina burst into high, mocking laughter. Without another word, she turned a scarlet-clad shoulder and headed out to the waiting coach.

Somehow, in the next instant I found myself running down the back service passage and into the kitchen garden. There, where thick brick walls protected the rows of vegetables, I could release my grief and shame without being seen or heard. So I fell to my knees in the dirt beside a melon vine, and sobbed.

Lady Wilhemina had won. She had won, and I was alone, and the long, illustrious history of the house of Lancastyr was fated to come to a wretched end, because I had failed. There would be no catching the ear of the prince or the king tonight. I would not find Sir Tompkin or Lord Bluehart.

In the lowering sunlight of the dying day, I could sense part of myself dying as well.

After the first storm of weeping, I reached into my shift pocket and tilted the comforting weight of the Lancastyr ring into my palm. I gripped it hard. “It was not too much to ask,” I lamented, tasting tears on my tongue. “I wish I could go to the ball.” My thumb sought the sapphire and began to rub back and forth over the Lancastyr coat of arms.

I don't know how long I grieved thus before I began to notice something happening to the Lancastyr ring. It grew cool under my fingers, when the soft gold should have warmed with the heat of my skin.

Strange, it was now giving off a wild fragrance, crisp and full of promise. What a contrast to the sluggish throb of rage and despair coursing through my veins!

I breathed in the fresh scent, feeling it revive me, as the sapphire signet continued to cool against my skin and became increasingly slippery. It moved, it wriggled. Then, in a gush, it melted into liquid. And instead of a ring there was water bubbling up in my palm, more and more of it, sparkling like fine champagne. I cupped my hands together to try to contain it, but in an instant the water brimmed over.

“Ah!” I cast it away and stood up, staring in wonder at a waterfall flowing in the air without touching the ground. The cascade hovered, shimmering with chiming laughter.

What was happening? I passed a trembling hand across my eyes.

Then the liquid took the shape of a woman who stepped down in front of me.

She glowed faintly blue, like the lavender edging our flower beds. Her thick purple-black hair fell to her ankles in lively waves. Enormous eyes, set slantwise in her face, seemed to scatter light of their own. Now they were sapphire, now aqua, now amethyst. So dazzled was I that I cannot tell you what dress she wore—or indeed if she wore one at all.

My ring—the Lancastyr ring—had changed into this?

How?

An image of a sleek black rat popped into my head. Blackie! He'd given me the ring. This was his doing!

I would have puzzled more over it had not the woman looked at me with those changing eyes, laughed like a song, and parted her lips to speak. Oh! What wisdom of the ages would this unearthly creature grant to me, a mere mortal?

“You asked to attend this evening's ball,” she said in a sweet little voice, completely unexpected in its childlike trill.

What?

She hadn't revealed the secrets of the cosmos. She'd said something else. Something about a ball. What ball?

It took all the power I could muster to speak.

“Great lady, who are you?”

She smiled, spun on tiptoe so her hair swirled around her, and said in that dulcet voice, “Do you jape at me, girl of the Lancastyrs? I adore jests and foolery! Yet your kind has always seemed so dreadfully serious to me. In fact, it's been hundreds of years since any of you have called upon me at all. What game do we play now?”

Play? I felt my jaw go slack. With great effort I gathered my wits and replied, “It is no game, my lady. I know you not. I am Rose de Lancastyr.” I curtsied with as much elegance as I could in the uneven soil of the garden, worrying about my unseemly attire.

With another melting laugh, she came forward and kissed the top of my head. “You are delightful! Full of silliness,” she said. “You must of course know who I am, if you summoned me. I shall grant your wish, the dearest wish of your heart. You shall attend this celebration tonight, since it is so important to you.”

From the spot where she touched me, joy rippled through my body. I wanted to give way and savor this new feeling, but instead I persisted: “I don't understand. Forgive me.”

“Ah.”

A tiny pucker visited her perfect brow. She put a long finger to my cheek, and while bubbling lightness spread through me from that point of communion, she tilted her head sideways and studied me intently for a few moments, as if she were listening to something.

“Ah,” she said again, yet it was a different sound, one of dawning comprehension, as though she'd taken possession of my thoughts through her fingertip. “I see. I understand. The ring was lost to the Lancastyrs for centuries. The rats of Lancastyr Manor stole it from your forebears. And very recently, a quite special rat has returned it!”

More laughter, and she danced away, casting her delicate wild fragrance hither and thither, stepping into the air and down to earth again.

“I know what to do, I know what to do!” she cried.

In a flash, she was before me again. I braced myself for more glorious strangeness.

“Dear Rose, also called Cinderella, I am Ashiira, your family's goddess. I have cared for your line since long before your ancestors took the name of Lancastyr, in the days of old Phoenicia. My power comes from the Great One who rules all. In antiquity, your family danced and sang for me and burned fragrant wood to please me, and in return I gave them the precious blue stone, which they could use to call upon me for aid. Yet I warned them to choose wisely before they used the stone, as I would grant their requests only once in each generation.”

Did I understand aright? This goddess would grant me a wish—but only one?

“Girl of the Lancastyrs,” Ashiira continued, “you have asked something of me and I shall grant your request. But this should be greatly amusing, for you have not chosen wisely! In fact, your wish was most frivolous!”

I felt my heart drop from the dizzy heights whence it had begun to climb. I hoped she did not mean what I thought she meant.

“But going to the ball was not my real wish!” I cried. “I wish to heal my father's mind, rescue my family from ruin, be rid of my stepmother, and see to it that the line of the Lancastyrs will continue unbroken.”

“But that is not what you said!” she exclaimed in high glee, twinkling like a firefly. “You wished to go to the ball at Castle Wendyn tonight. And so you shall! I read the entire story in your mind just now. Let me take care of your appearance first; then we'll be off to the stable yard to see how best to convey you to the celebrations.”

Before I could conceive of a way to halt the misunderstanding I had just set in motion, the fairy-goddess pointed at me again and uttered something in a lilting, unintelligible language.

I felt the magic gather about me, stirring the sky. A web of music, a mist of stars …

It began.

 

P
RINCE
C
HAR

We risked everything, my companions and I, in our headlong flight to save Rose. Rather than returning by our safe rat-routes through sewers, pipes, and walls, we ran through the streets, out in the open, keeping watch in case the Lancastyr coach passed us on the way back home.

My gallant band had been promised a dangerous action, and so it turned out to be. Need I remind you that most humans are hostile toward rats?

We evoked shrill screams and hasty flight from some, brutal attacks from others. Yet here was a chance for heroism, and my people rose to the occasion. An innkeeper almost crushed Corncob with a heavy keg. Truffle was able to save him with a clever rush-and-feint maneuver that drew the innkeeper's notice away and allowed Corncob to escape.