The Rat Prince (2 page)

“Your Highness,” Swiss cautioned. “Let's go!”

I paid him no heed. This joyful petting might have continued for some time, had not Lady Wilhemina suddenly burst through the arched stone doorway.

We all froze.

Rose's skin suddenly became less the color of cream and more like the greenish tinge of skimmed milk. The only things moving on Swiss were his shivering whiskers.

I imagined I probably looked just as frightened as Swiss, though in reality what I felt was fury. For Wilhemina was our sworn rat-enemy; since her arrival the year before she had been waging a harrowing campaign against my people and me. We had lost several of our number—good rats and true—to her sly poisoning tactics.

“Cinderella!” she yelled.

The girl jerked her hand back and slammed the cupboard shut, plunging Swiss and me into safe darkness.

“Time to flee!” Swiss whispered. “Your Highness, what are you doing?”

“Peeking through the crack, of course. What does it look like I'm doing? Dancing the minuet?”

“But, my prince, if that woman finds us here we are surely doomed.”

“Ha. If she dares lay a finger on me, I shall bite it off,” I answered.

He jostled me a bit with his shoulder. “It is my responsibility to warn you when I think you're in danger.”

“Be easy, Swiss. Wilhemina is not aware of our presence.”

“And you call me your royal councillor,” he grumbled. “When have you ever taken my advice?”

I ignored Swiss in favor of witnessing the scene unfolding in the kitchen.

Wilhemina towered over her stepdaughter. Her gown of robin's-egg blue silk rustled like the stealthy stir of a predator in the bushes. The elegance of her dress made Rose's tattered brown garment look even more shapeless than it had a moment before. The woman was doused in some sort of exotic perfume, drowning out the more pleasant scents in the room.

Swiss commented, “You must admit the stepmother's eyes are most alluring—small, dark, set close together. If you consider them along with her prominent nose, she appears almost ratlike.”

“Very well, I admit it,” I said with reluctance. “She's somewhat attractive. But her character is base.”

“Lazy wench!” Wilhemina snarled at Rose. “Why is Eustacia still awaiting her bleaching potion? I told you to make it almost half an hour ago!”

Rose replied, “Do you not recall that you asked me to tend to the needs of my other sister, Jessamyn, first? I have only now come from her chambers.”

Ah yes, Jessamyn—the younger, nicer stepsister.

“She is
Miss
Jessamyn to you, and no sister of yours!” Wilhemina shrieked and slapped her.

My tail stiffened, then slashed once behind me, like a whip.

One of the first things my mother had taught me in the days before I rose to rulership was how to control my temper. To plan my deeds, rather than react in the heat of the moment. So I did not spring into foolhardy action. I merely added the incident to the long list of things Wilhemina would someday regret.

“She will pay for that slap,” I vowed. “When she least expects it, the woman will pay. I shall crunch her bones and suck out their marrow.”

“Er, perhaps you should calm yourself, Prince Char,” Swiss said, and sidled away from me.

Rose raised her hand to her cheek but kept her gaze toward the floor. Her tone was careful when she said, “There was no need to strike me. I've always done your bidding.”

“Don't dare to argue with me, Cin-der-el-la!” Wilhemina snapped. The woman pronounced the syllables of the nickname slowly, insultingly.

“I apologize, ma'am,” Rose said. There was no resentment in her voice, only the clear, harmonious tones of a well-bred young lady.

I was disappointed, as usual, in her response. No rat would have humbled herself thus before such a shrew.

But the girl's humility did not satisfy Wilhemina, who gave Rose a cold once-over with her eyes narrowed to slits. “Cinders in your hair, bare feet, dirty hands … Who would think that folk once compared your beauty to your mother's? Though of course I never met the woman. Perhaps they called her Lady Jane the Lovely out of mockery rather than admiration.”

Rose's fingers clutched a handful of her skirt till her knuckles whitened. “Your concern for my mother's reputation is most kind,” she said. “I'm sure you've seen the portrait of her in the long gallery in the east wing of the manor. It is a good likeness.” Then slowly, gracefully, Rose sank into a curtsy. She arched her long neck and stretched her arms behind her like a swan holding up its wings. I'd never seen a human female ever look quite so magnificently animal.

A curtsy that deep was meant to be performed only before royalty. Girls of the noble houses learned it before being presented for their debut at Castle Wendyn when they turned fifteen. We rats knew—in fact, the whole of Lancastyr Manor knew—that unlike Rose and her parents, Wilhemina and her daughters were not of noble blood and had never met the king or queen. This chewed away at Wilhemina's gut in much the way we rats would like to have done.

“My, my,” said Swiss. “Now that is a curtsy.”

Wilhemina's furious intake of breath betrayed that she, too, understood how her stepdaughter's gesture had shifted the balance of power between them back to Rose. She loomed up as if to strike the girl once more but halted when Rose finally raised her eyes, revealing a blaze of contempt so searing that even I was shocked by it.

Wilhemina sputtered briefly in the face of such intensity. Then she seemed to recover herself. “Carry out my orders, wench. And in case you were stupid enough to be wondering, you will certainly not be going to the ball day after tomorrow.” She turned to quit the room and spat over her shoulder as she went: “You shall regret your disrespect. I swear it.”

Rose held the curtsy and waited until Wilhemina was gone before she whispered, “Not as much as you shall regret yours.”

Then at last, I understood.

Rose de Lancastyr was not a lackwit at all.

Like me, she was biding her time.

 

C
INDERELLA

When my stepmother left the kitchen, I rose from my curtsy and counted to ten before allowing my wobbly knees to give way. I kept myself from falling by catching the smooth warm wood of a table behind me with the heels of my hands. Then I felt a surge of rage in my breast. For a moment I let myself imagine revenge upon Wilhemina, picturing ways of making her suffer for the things she'd done to me, my father, and the pride of my family lineage.

Suddenly Pye appeared, panting as if he'd been running up and down stairs. “Lady Cinderella, I was looking for you all over the manor. You seem overset—is something wrong?”

After taking a few deep, shuddering breaths, I was able to reply. “Thank you for your concern, dear Pye. I am quite well.”

“But your cheek…” He reached out a hand.

“Never mind me, Pye. I will be fine. You should return to your duties, or Cook will scold.” I stood taller, placed a hand lightly upon his shoulder, and steered him toward the scullery.

I felt sympathy and shame that this boy—the orphan of our former kitchen maid, who had been supported by my parents until my mother's death—was now forced to work so hard at such a young age. If I ever succeeded in getting my stepmother out of Lancastyr Manor, I would see that Pye was allowed to enjoy a true childhood.

Yet at the moment I could do nothing but watch his bent head and dragging steps as he walked away.

I turned toward the table and leaned upon it, still trying to quiet my limbs, which always shook after Wilhemina struck me. I could not dwell in this moment any longer without giving rein to destructive anger, so I closed my eyes and forced myself to think of the happy days before Wilhemina came to Lancastyr Manor.

Seventeen years had passed since my birth, and almost sixteen of them had been spent with a young mother who adored me, and with a father—twenty years older than her—who loved us both. In those days, Lancastyr Manor had rung with laughter and music and witty conversation at Mother's balls and soirées and garden parties.

With a sigh, I recalled curling up in the charmed circle of Mother's arms as the two of us shared secrets in the rumpled luxury of her chamber. The memory gave me comfort, so I sought more comfort by remembering how safe I'd once felt while learning to read and write at the knee of my father, Barnaby de Lancastyr. Oh, the cries of pride and delight Papa had given when I wrote my first letters on parchment, in great swirls of violet ink! My parents had taught me how to love and to learn.

But they had left out an important part of my schooling: what to do when your sweet mother dies in childbirth along with your baby brother. Nor had I been told how to cope when your father then loses his reason and, three months later, weds a wicked woman who threatens the Lancastyrs with ruin.

I tensed again.

Despite these gaps in my education, I was learning fast.

The Rose of those idyllic days had been thrust aside to make way for a new girl named Cinderella.

She was stubborn, watchful, desperate.

But she was not yet defeated.

I decided to look for my father and try once more to rouse him to action. He had a meandering, muddled mind, but upon occasion he took a brief turn for the better. Perhaps today would be one of his good days.

I meant to find out, just as soon as I mixed up the lemon concoction for my stepsister.

*   *   *

Later, after slathering the lemon potion on an ungrateful Eustacia, I found my father in the library, in his favorite upholstered chair, with a huge book upon his lap. He looked so peaceful it seemed wrong to disturb him. But I knelt by his side on the purple-and-blue Persian carpet and clutched his arm, hoping my timing was right.

“Papa, I know it's difficult for you, but please listen,” I begged. “Things cannot continue as they are. I've written several times to your old friends Sir Tompkin and Lord Bluehart for help, but they haven't replied.”

He kept his gaze on the pages in front of him, and when he spoke his tone was quite ordinary. “Have you heard, Daughter, that beyond the edge of the seas, there are dragons big enough to swallow a man alive? See here, in this atlas—they are painted in the margins of the maps.” He gave a quizzical shake of his head and his curled white wig slipped a bit.

I reached up to set it aright.

“Oh. Thank you, my dear.” He looked at me now, but there was no recognition in his stare. “Who might you be? You seem familiar. Is your name Lady Jane?”

A lump lodged in my throat. “I am your daughter, Rose. Lady Jane was my mother, your wife. I am told that I resemble her. She died a little over a year ago.”

“No, no, girl, my wife is called Wilhemina,” he corrected, with a forlorn expression. “I could never forget that!”

Who could?

“Please try to remember,” I urged. “I am your only child.”

“I thought I had others,” he said vaguely.

When had so many lines appeared on my father's brow? Fretful lines of vain attempts to capture memories that had slipped away, off the edge of the world, perhaps, to be swallowed by the dragons lurking there.

I hoped they choked.

“I'm quite sure I have at least one other daughter,” he continued.

“Eustacia?” I provided the name of my haughty elder stepsister with some bitterness.

“No, no … Let us consider, allow me to think…”

But all thought scattered, for at this instant my stepmother swept into the library. Her color was high. “There you are, Cinderella, you headstrong, disrespectful girl. Back to the kitchens!”

In as quiet and steady a voice as I could muster, I replied, “I have finished my given duties, and I simply desired to spend a moment with my father.”

“I will endure no more of your disrespect. You will address me as
my lady
,” Wilhemina insisted, her eyes ablaze. “Say it, Cinderella.”

At this, my father seemed to revive. He sat up straight. The atlas fell unheeded to the floor. “That's it!” he roared.

“What, Papa?” I clasped his hand in mine, hoping against hope.

“Why, the name of my other daughter, of course,” he declared with a smile. “Cinderella!”

No, no.

“Girl,” he said to me then, “is something wrong with your cheek? It's a bit pink.”

My stepmother's long mouth curved upward and she actually laughed, as if savoring her triumph. My father's comment had underscored the fact that with his mind constantly a-wander, she could continue to abuse the inhabitants of this house as she pleased.

“Get out,” she said to me, dropping a hand onto my father's shoulder. “You're upsetting him.”

“This is an outrage,” I protested. “Papa, tell her she cannot send me away!”

“Oh dear, oh dear!” he exclaimed, tears welling up. “What is happening? Who are you, young lady, and why do you worry me so?”

Wilhemina said, with venom dripping from her tongue, “Cinderella, you simply must stop frightening Lord Lancastyr. You have more duties to perform. Eustacia and Jessamyn have laundry for you to collect and wash. And then, of course, there is the luncheon to prepare…”

My father hunched his shoulders, looked from Wilhemina to me, and began to cry piteously, like a child.

I could not prolong his pain or mine.

Though it tore my heart to do so, I quit the room.

*   *   *

In direct disobedience of Wilhemina's orders, I did not go to my stepsisters' chambers to collect their soiled garments and bring them to the laundry, where I would scrub my palms raw cleaning them.

At this moment, I
could
not.

Instead, up the servants' stairway I climbed, up and up and up, till the carpet ended and the wood of the steps became warped and splintered. At the very top of the stairs, a narrow corridor led to the small chamber where I now slept, one tiny part of the vast maze of attics in Lancastyr Manor. I sighed, pushed open my door, and threw myself upon my cot.