Secondhand Charm (4 page)

Chapter 8

I wandered away from her stall, deep in thought. All that hocus pocus about choosing the charm you needed was nonsense. Wasn’t it? Love, luck—every gullible fool wanted love or luck. It was nothing more than coincidence that I’d just had a snakebite, and a tiny one at that.

I found Prissy helping her mother at the handicrafts table, and gave her my present.

“It’s a love charm.” I slipped it over her head. “Think of Matthew Dunwoody every time you put it on.”

“That butcher’s son,” she fumed. “Thinks he looks so grand for the
dancing girls
in his new leather breeches.”

“Well, does he?”

Prissy scowled. “Thanks for the necklace. I see you got yourself one too.” She gave me a meaningful look. “Who’s the lucky fellow?”

“Hah. I only bought one because it was pretty.”

Matthew Dunwoody passed by, deep in conversation with Roger Thomas, the carpenter’s son, when both stopped at the sight of us.

“Good morning, Evie,” Matthew said. “Don’t you look rosy today!”

Priscilla pressed her lips together tightly. “Good morning, Roger,” she said, deliberately ignoring Matthew. “A fair day we have for our feast.”

“Not as fair as the pretty girls who’ve joined the celebration,” Roger said, bowing. Chiefly in my direction.

Praise be, they left. I tried to compose my face. Poor Priscilla was having a harder time.

She folded her arms across her chest. “What came over
them
?”

It was a reasonable question. I’d never had such attention from village lads before. Neither Priscilla nor I had ever been written in on the list of Bonniest Girls in Town. In matters of spelling and arithmetic we were the undisputed champions, but regarding beauty … 

“Pay no attention,” I said. “They probably spent the morning at the Galloping Goose.”

The athletic games wound to a close, and everyone headed for the makeshift pavilion erected in honor of Saint Bronwyn’s Day. Sister Claire herded us there for the school exhibition, but first I bought a pair of crocheted infant’s trousers for baby Brom. It would give me an excuse to stop by Hannah Croft’s later and see how he was getting on.

I lined up with the other students and watched the village settle uncomfortably onto the benches under the pavilion. I felt embarrassed, holding the town captive while we students recited our lessons. After the exhilaration of the contests and games, we were bound to be a disappointment. But they sat politely.

Grandfather sat in the very front row, looking smart in his red checkered shirt and brown trousers. King Leopold himself sat and listened to the recitations. I wondered why he was so interested in our small village school. I confess I watched him more than I watched Sister Claire.

The littlest ones sang the well-known geography song. “Fairest Pylander, home and native soil; Rovary, south, where the whalers toil; Merlia, west, on the breast of the sea; Danelind, north, where the hunters be.” They followed it with a children’s psalm, then bobbed and curtsied to their mothers and received smiles from the king for their charms.

Having the king present for recitation day was such a startling novelty that when my turn came I nearly faltered and called the behemoth a dragon. It was a great relief to finally sit down.

Then Sister Claire rose.

“Good people of Maundley,” she said, “permit me now to announce the winner of the top academic prize at my school.”

I bit the insides of my cheeks. Let my face show nothing!
Don’t hope for this prize, Evelyn. Be good enough to wish it for Priscilla.
But I couldn’t entirely master myself. Oh, how I wanted to end my education with that prize. I was ashamed of how badly I wanted it. I caught myself clutching my good luck charm.

“This year’s winner is,” Sister Claire said, with maddening delay, “Priscilla Hornby!”

Oh.

I turned and embraced Priscilla and kissed her. Truly, I was glad for her success, but more truly, I needed to do something to mask my disappointment.

Sister Claire clapped along with the rest of Maundley. She watched us both.

What did it matter anyway? Top prize or no top prize. What difference could that possibly make to how the sun rose and set?

Sister Claire held up her hands. She looked like she was about to do something unplanned—which for her was most unusual. “I want to add that this year’s decision was especially difficult.” An anxious look flickered across Mrs. Hornby’s face. “Allow me, please, to designate Evelyn Pomeroy with an honorable mention.”

And now Priscilla embraced me, over the fresh wave of applause, and I wondered how to keep my face still. Somehow this was worse, to be singled out as the runner-up. If I couldn’t win, I would rather have remained obscure.

The king strode to the platform where we stood with Sister Claire and bowed to her, which made her cheeks flush. The women present gasped at this gallantry. With his elbows cocked at his sides, his embroidered waistcoat, and a green cape flowing over his shoulders, he could even make a nun blush. Why did it irk me that he had seen me take second place?

“We are most impressed with the achievements of your students here in Maundley,” he said, resting a hand on Priscilla’s shoulder. She looked like she might faint. “Not every village we visit prizes their schools, nor their young scholars, this well.”

Sister Claire, that modest soul, lowered her eyes but could not conceal her smile.

“We had occasion to witness last night the quick thinking and resource of one of these young ladies,” the king said, and then it was my turn to blush.

“Your families have fostered your studies, have they not?” the king asked us. We nodded.

“Are either of you betrothed, at your young ages?”

Priscilla’s mouth opened. She shook her head. My face grew
very
warm. What could this mean? From the corner of my eye I saw Rosie Willis, arm in arm with her beau, and seated behind them, Aidan Moreau, watching me.

“We are convinced that a village lacking schools lacks hope, and a kingdom without learning cannot thrive,” the king said. “This blessed sister is to be commended. We are pleased to announce a scholarship for your top prize winner at the Royal University in Chalcedon.”

Priscilla’s eyes opened wide, and not altogether with delight. I closed mine quickly. University? Priscilla?
Please, do not let me envy my dear friend.

Mayor Snow leaped to his feet and applauded. “Such an honor for Maundley!” he cried.

King Leopold stroked his chin, then turned to me suddenly. “Maundley’s school,” he said, “is clearly superior to most like it in the provinces. Therefore, to win an honorable mention here is akin to taking the top prize elsewhere. You are to be congratulated, young lady.”

My head filled with buzzing. Somehow I remembered to curtsy, bowing low.

When I rose, the king took my hand. “Would you also like to attend University?”

It took me a moment to hear and understand.

Had my soul and body had come unhinged?

I forgot how to speak. I glanced at Grandfather, whose face was a mask.

“Yes, please. Your Majesty,” my voice said, before my brain could intervene. “I would.”

Priscilla’s eyes were wide. She reached for my hand and squeezed it.

His eyes twinkled. “Then so you shall.”

I wanted to scream, I wanted to laugh, I wanted to throw my arms around the king’s neck and kiss his chestnut-bearded cheek. Perhaps the good luck charm restrained me from doing those things.

The good luck charm … ?

Oh, my.

Chapter 9

All of Maundley, or so it seemed, turned out to wave good-bye to Aidan, Priscilla, her maiden aunt Charlotte Jessop, and me on Tuesday next, as we waited for the coach for Fallardston. Aidan would accompany us back, but Miss Jessop was our official chaperone.

The coachman reined his horses, and a couple climbed down from the coach and entered the Galloping Goose. Aidan lashed our parcels to the carriage, alongside the daily post.

I wasn’t looking forward to long days in a hot coach, but Grandfather insisted I not go by ship up the coastline to Chalcedon from Fallardston. “There are storms at sea, and you can’t swim,” was his objection. Even Widow Moreau backed him on that one. She hated the sea. I could humor him. It was the least I could do for him, since he was letting me go.

There were tearful adieus from Widow Moreau, Sister Claire, and Letty and Hannah Croft, who came with baby Brom. How could I leave them behind? Others I didn’t mind leaving so much. Matthew Dunwoody and Roger Thomas and several of their mates were there. They had dropped by so often, both to congratulate me on my scholarship and urge me not to take it, that Grandfather began hollering if they came more than twice a day. I couldn’t go outdoors without tripping over nosegays of flowers, and I couldn’t walk to town without them arguing over holding my basket. Even Rosie Willis’s beau winked at me once.

And those weren’t the only strange doings this last week. My chickens had gone from laying one egg a day, if the mood suited them, to three and even four. Grandfather’s final kettle of pickles, which I’d helped him bottle, filled twice as many jars as it ought to have. And the raccoon that had troubled my kitchen garden these last three seasons packed up and moved to greener pastures. I’d taken to blaming all these events, in jest, on my gypsy charms.

The crowd of lads swirled around me until Aidan shouldered his way through with a heavy trunk and they were forced to step back.

And then I had to take my leave of Grandfather.

I felt I hadn’t stopped saying good-bye to him since Saint Bronwyn’s Day. Now that the time had come to part, I felt spent, with neither words nor emotions left to convey. He planted a whiskery kiss on my cheek, then retreated into the crowd. I wished I’d done better, but it was too late to rush after him now. Good-byes had to end somewhere. I climbed into the dark coach.

Priscilla’s maiden aunt was already there. No one seemed desperate to delay her.

Charlotte Jessop was soft of body and hard of jaw. A pewter-colored cap was pinned to her steely hair, which was pulled tightly off her forehead. She sat against a window fanning her face.

I sat and observed the grimy windows and the dank smell of mildew and spilled luncheons. Stiff, cracked leather seats were nothing like the king’s plush carriages.

Outside Prissy clung to her mother’s and father’s necks. At last the coachman bawled that he would leave without her, and her father managed to stuff her into the carriage. Just when we thought we were all comfortable, another body appeared in the door. It was the man we’d seen exiting the coach, followed by his companion. Now we’d be six, wedged like twin calves at an udder. Miss Jessop joined us on our side, while the man and woman sat by Aidan.

The door closed. Release levers squealed. Horses stamped. And then the coach moved forward, tossing me back against my seat. I craned my neck for one last glimpse of Grandfather. He seemed small and pale amid the throng of less abandoned people.

Then the coach turned around a bend in the road, and he was gone.

And the impossible moment I’d thought of ever since Saint Bronwyn’s Day was finally here. We were on our way to Chalcedon.

I heard a hiccup beside me. Priscilla fumbled for a handkerchief to wipe her eyes. Poor girl. It was hard for her to leave her parents. Aidan looked away, but Miss Jessop was less tactful.

“What’s the matter with you?” she snapped. “It’ll be a right miserable journey if you can’t so much as ride to the signpost for Maundley without wailing like a sick baby.”

Prissy’s cheeks flushed with shame. She kept her eyes lowered but glanced toward our fellow passengers. They took no notice of her embarrassment. They seemed intent on sleep.

The man was wiry and lean of build, with a close-shorn scalp. Crawling up from under his ill-fitting collar were a host of dark markings working up his throat and around his jaw. Tattoos! I knew it was only pigment, but their effect was chilling.

His wrists were also decorated with tattoos, but his hands startled me. Instead of healthy brown flesh, his hands were mottled, waxy white and gray, with slick, shiny ropelike scars. Burns. He looked like he’d fallen hands-first into raging coals.

I began thinking of all I’d read about the treatment of burns, until I looked at his face again. His lips had that same scarred gloss to them, and very little beard grew around his mouth.

It was then that I realized, with an awkward start, that his lady companion was not asleep, but watching me as I studied her scarred man. Her dark-lidded eyes smoldered with mockery. She made a flicking gesture in my direction with her finger and thumb, as if I were an insect. Her fingers were long and thin, with sharp nails and tightly bound muscles under pallid skin.

It would be a cruel day, trapped in this close carriage, bouncing wretchedly over every bump, that woman’s hateful stare burning me. We wouldn’t reach Fallardston until late afternoon, where we’d lodge at an inn, then cross the Ladon River by ferry and continue on to Chalcedon by another coach. I fingered my little pouch of money. It was all I had for food and passage, tied to a rawhide thong around my neck with my gypsy charms. My pendant with the king’s seal, which granted me admittance to University, I’d pinned to the inside of my dress.

Charlotte Jessop spent the morning complaining Priscilla was crowding her. Priscilla practically sat in my lap to avoid her. We all felt relieved when Miss Jessop’s chin drooped onto her breastbone and she began to snore.

I offered an apple to Priscilla and tossed one to Aidan. Faster than a frog catching bugs, the strange woman snatched the apple in midair and bit into it. Stunned, I handed Aidan another and wondered if people in the jostling city would be as rude as she.

The coach driver opened a hatch to tell us we’d reach Fallardston in an hour.

The sun beat mercilessly upon our carriage. I was becoming intimately aware of certain smells—Miss Jessop’s sweat mixed with powder, the tattooed man’s scent of ash and lamp oil. His companion smelled like my stolen apple. Sweat ran down my ribs. Oh, to jump in a cool river and swim! Much I knew what that would feel like, but it was heavenly to imagine.

I flexed my feet and wiggled my legs. Circulation in my toes was shutting down for good.

Abruptly, the horses neighed, and stopped. Miss Jessop woke with a snort, and Priscilla, Aidan, and I exchanged glances. Surely we weren’t in Fallardston yet?

Voices yelled. The horses shrilled. The coachmen shouted them on. But we didn’t move.

“Mercy!” Miss Jessop began to whimper. “I do believe we’re—”

“Highwaymen,” Aidan hissed. “Everyone down!”

I folded Priscilla’s body down on my lap, then lay myself on top of her, my heart racing.

Aidan must be wrong.

Musket shots pierced the stillness, discordant in the autumn sunshine. They echoed in my skull.

This can’t be happening.

Miss Jessop whimpered. Oh, let there be some normal explanation!

So this is what terror feels like.

Like hearts pounding. And mad, blind fear.

So much for my gypsy luck.

Another shot, and we felt a thump. It was the coachman, tumbling down onto the road.

The scarred man pushed his side door open and dragged his lady after him.

“Shall we try to go too?” I whispered to Aidan.

“Take Priscilla,” he began, then stopped.

A dark shape appeared in the door.

The highwayman.