Just Ella (14 page)

“Oh, would he do that? That would be so wonderful. It doesn't have to be much—just a crust of bread. I won't get too fat, I promise. But I have to eat something. Oh, all I think about is food—”

“Here's your gruel, then,” Madame Bisset said.

This time Madame Bisset herself passed the bowl through the bars. I made myself grab at it clumsily, feigning an eagerness only a starving person could have for that lukewarm, weevil-studded mess. My acting was too effective: This time I was the one who spilled it all over the floor.

I immediately fell to my knees and pretended to lick it up, right there in front of Madame Bisset.

“Mmm, mmm.” I faked ecstasy at the taste of food. “Isn't there more? Please?”

“You are disgusting,” Madame Bisset snapped.

But she finally sounded satisfied.

Two hours later I discovered my pretense had worked too well. The prince showed up.

“Oh, Ella,” he declared with what was probably supposed to be a horrified tone, but only came out sounding wooden. “Is this where you've been? I didn't know—Oh, my beloved—”

I decided the supposed Prince of Charm was in desperate need of acting classes. But how in the world was I supposed to respond?

“Prince?” I said tentatively, buying time.

“It's those advisers of mine,” he said. I think he may have been reading his words off a slip of paper in his hand. “They were angry at you. But I couldn't think of anything but you. I've searched the whole castle for you. I love you. I've missed you.”

I stifled the urge to tell him I'd seen children display more genuine emotion over pet fleas they killed five minutes later. It probably wasn't in my best interest to speak of killing.

“You know, you are the prince. All you had to do was threaten to get rid of your advisers if they wouldn't tell you where I was,” I said, flirting with insubordination in spite of myself.

The prince blinked. I don't think that line was in his script.

“I've come to rescue you,” he said uncertainly.

Oh no! I couldn't leave the dungeon now!

“Come with me,” the prince added. He raised a key to my door.

Thinking fast, I threw myself at the prince's feet—or as near as I could, with the dungeon door between us.

“But Sire,” I wailed. “I wronged you. I deserve to stay here an entire week, to do penance for my sin.”

I think “penance” was too complicated a word for the prince—after all, it does have two syllables. He stood there looking confused.

“Return for me in two days,” I begged him. “Then I can go with you a pure woman, worthy of your love.” I practically choked on the words. But, hey, my acting was no more appalling than the prince's.

“Well . . . ,” the prince started doubtfully.

Down the hall I heard a growl.

“Who there?” Quog bellowed. “She mine!”

In the flickers of the lamplight, I saw the prince draw his sword.

“Begone!” he warned.

Quog stamped closer.

“Mine!” he repeated.

The prince ran his sword through Quog's chest.

“Argh!” Quog groaned. He fell heavily to the ground. Then he was silent.

The prince looked back at me, blood on his hands.

“I slew that creature for love of you,” he mumbled.

I shrank back against the wall of my cell, weeping. I had no affection for Quog, of course, but what I had witnessed still horrified me. It was all so cold and heartless and without reason. Did the prince—or, more likely, his advisers—think I would be won over by watching him murder Quog? Did they understand me so poorly? What kind of people had I been living with?

“Darling,” the prince said.

I sobbed harder.

“Now . . .” I could barely speak. “Now . . . I . . . am . . . truly . . . unworthy. Return in . . . three days.”

“Oh, all right,” the prince said, seeming suddenly impatient with the whole charade. “Bye.”

He turned to go, kicking Quog's body aside without a second glance. I watched the circle of his lamplight recede down the hall with him. Even that dim glow picked up the glints of gold in his hair. I now knew the real Prince Charming to be, at best, an insensitive dullard, or perhaps even a callous monster only barely better than Quog himself. But I still felt a pang for the ideal I'd thought I'd loved, the perfect male I'd made up in my mind with the image of the prince's face.

I lay down on my plank bed and tried to forget what I'd seen. In three hours I would begin to dig. And then I could leave everything behind.

I dozed fitfully, only deep enough in sleep to dream. I saw Quog and the prince's bloody hands again and again. I think I cried out once or twice, but no one came to comfort me. I dreamed that Quog rose again and came and stood over my bed. Then Quog became the prince, reaching for me. I turned to him, forgetting my revulsion, forgetting everything but that beautiful face and handsome body. But as soon as I touched his hand, he turned into Quog.

I screamed myself awake.

Shaking, I sat up and wondered if I dared scramble over to the tunnel and make my escape. I wasn't concerned about anyone coming to investigate my screams. But what if someone came back for Quog's body? I made myself tiptoe over to the door and peek out. Staring into the darkness, I tried to make out a lump on the floor where Quog had fallen, or a trail of blood, but I couldn't make out anything, either way.

I went back and looked up at the window, trying
to evaluate how late it was. I was squinting into more darkness when I heard a blessed sound: the donging of the palace clock. Trembling, I counted carefully, as if everything depended on my accuracy. One, two, three . . . ten, eleven, twelve. I laughed, almost giddy.

It was time.

With a practiced air, I slid down the crap hole for the last time and shimmied into my tunnel. Preferring speed over style, I'd made it barely wide enough, so I had to perform a complicated dance maneuvering around the shovel and the bag of food Mary had brought me. The bag had grown light over the past two days, and I wished I could wait and restock it. I also hated the thought of leaving without saying good-bye and thanking Mary. But nothing could make me stay a minute longer in the castle than I had to.

Frantic with anticipation, I thrust my shovel again and again into the roof of my tunnel, not pausing even to brush away the clods of dirt that rained down on me. I got dirt in my eyes and kept shoveling. I got a splinter in my hand and ignored it. Then finally I felt something different brush my face with the falling soil. Something soft.

Grass.

Without thinking I jumped up, my head bursting through what remained of my tunnel's ceiling. The cool night air felt like a caress against my face. I had to stifle a shriek of glee.

I was out.

Caution overtook me after a second; I crouched and looked carefully around. There were lanterns at intervals along the castle wall behind me, but I saw no guards. I reached back into my tunnel and grabbed my food bag. When I noticed the shovel—my best friend for five days, now nearly forgotten—I picked it up to take along too, just in case it could incriminate Mary. I liked the notion of leaving people wondering how I'd gotten out. Let them think I'd dug through the crap hole with my fingernails. I grinned, remembering how the prim ladies-in-waiting always reacted in horror if anyone broke a fingernail during needlepoint. I wanted my hands to be more useful than that. I wanted my life to be more useful than that.

But just what was I going to do with it now?

If I'd been Jed, I probably could have stood there by my tunnel for hours pondering the point of my life. But I didn't have that luxury. I was out of the dungeon, but certainly not out of danger. Trying to stay in darkness as much as possible, I crept along the castle wall to the boulevard that faced it. But the boulevard was wide and open and lit by ever-burning torches. I found an alley instead.

As I inched my way through the shadows—stepping on a cat's tail once, knocking over garbage pails twice—I tried to formulate a plan. The first thing I had to do was get rid of my dress. Though a bit soiled by a week in the dungeon, it was still clearly a royal thing, made with shimmery gold thread and fitted as no common clothes were. Anyone who saw me in it would notice. But a girl running around naked would stand out even more.

I prayed for the sight of a clothesline, with even a peasant tunic hanging on it. But then I stepped in a puddle up to my ankles, bringing
back an awareness of weather that I'd totally forgotten in the castle. Puddles meant it had rained, which meant no self-respecting peasant would have laundry hanging out.

And anyhow, I would have felt bad about stealing something that may have been some poor woman's only belonging. It wasn't like I could have left her my dress in trade.

I had to go to Lucille's.

Even as I adjusted my course—turning down one alley after another, trying to head for the edge of the city that surrounded the castle—I marveled that I was thinking of the house I'd grown up in as Lucille's now, not as mine. I'd lived in the castle only two months. Was that all it took for me to relinquish my home? Of course, I'd left without a backward glance when the prince was at my side and I thought he was the man of my dreams. But now . . . I considered my emotions the way someone with a pulled tooth might explore the hole with his tongue. It was true. My fervor was gone. Home wasn't home anymore.

I slipped into the countryside beyond the city, and reflected that it was good I wasn't longing for home anymore. My old house would be the least safe place for me to stay. Once morning came and they started looking for me, I'd never be able to go home again.

This thought did cause me a pang, but I only walked faster. I was following the same path I'd taken the night of the ball, but that had been in early spring, and now it was the height of summer. The leaves that were only beginning to bud then were now full-fledged and luxurious. As I
ducked under a low branch, one leaf came off against my shoulder. Whimsically I picked it up, planning to tuck it into my bag as a memento. But it was dry and prematurely dead. Shivering, I dropped it. I took it as a sign, almost. What if my life were abbreviated like that leaf's? Surely my time in the castle wouldn't be all the spring and summer I ever got.

I reached the outskirts of my old village, trying not to remember how carefree and happy I'd felt leaving it two months earlier. A confused cock crowed as I entered the main square, and I hid behind a barrel by the store. But nobody stirred, and after a moment, I continued on my way.

Even in the moonlight, my old house looked untended. The garden in the front was overgrown with weeds, and a few shingles had fallen from the roof. I laughed to myself as I eased the gate open. So, Lucille couldn't take care of it without me. I wondered if she would ever put Corimunde and Griselda to work on it, or if she'd have to break down and hire help.

I went around to the back, for fear of being spotted from the street. I picked the lock on the door with a hairpin, feeling grateful that I'd learned how to do that one hot summer day when I was eight and bored.

The door creaked a bit upon opening, but I didn't worry. Corimunde and Griselda were sound sleepers, and Lucille's room was far away, at the front of the house. I tiptoed up the back stairs and into Corimunde's room. I heard her soft snore and was reassured as I searched through
her wardrobe. She was slightly less huge than Griselda, and therefore the better one to take a dress from. In the dark I chose at random, and hoped I'd picked nothing that displayed Corimunde's penchant for fabrics with gargantuan, splashy flowers.

Back in her doorway, the garment clutched in my hand, I hesitated. I thought of going up to the attic and retrieving my mother's wedding dress, just for sentiment's sake. But for me, that dress would always be connected with the night of the ball, and that was no longer a pleasant memory. Instead, I turned down the hall to my father's old study. After he died, Lucille had ordered me again and again to remove and box up the hundreds of books that lined the walls, and again and again I had refused. That was one battle I had won. I couldn't entirely prevent Lucille from disposing of my father's most treasured possessions, but I certainly wasn't going to help.

I didn't dare light a lamp in the study, but there was enough moonlight to show that the bookshelves were still full. Thank goodness for Lucille's laziness. I ran my fingers along the spines of the books, almost weeping with relief. I grabbed a book at random and hugged it to my chest. How I'd missed books at the castle.

I resisted the urge to start sweeping books into my bag—I had to be selective. I picked ten books, then narrowed the choice to six. Books were heavy, and I was going to have a long way to walk, if I acted upon the idea that had begun flitting around my brain.

Three of the books I chose were entirely pragmatic: an atlas, a physician's textbook, and a volume on plant and animal husbandry.
Two were entirely frivolous: a collection of poems I had practically memorized anyway, and a book of stories my father had read to me before I learned to read to myself. The sixth book was philosophy.

With these volumes snugly packed in my bag, I looked around one last time, then crept out of the room and down the stairs. I stopped once more in the pantry and took as much food as I could carry. They owed me, I reminded myself. And pickings might be slim where I was going.

In the dark of the pantry I also slipped my royal gown off and pulled Corimunde's dress over my shoulders. It was enormous; I had to rip a swath off the bottom to belt it around my waist. I could alter it later. I went into the parlor and dug a needle and thread out of a sewing basket that probably hadn't been touched since I'd left with the prince.

Shoving my old gown into my already bulging pack, I considered leaving a note for Lucille and the Step-Evils, to warn them that the royal idiots would be looking for me. But they'd find out soon enough. I didn't owe Lucille any explanations. And it wasn't like the Step-Evils would be in danger. Even at their cruelest, I didn't think the so-called Charmings would punish Lucille for my desertion. No, I decided, I shouldn't take the time.