The Silver Bowl (2 page)

Chapter 3

The Prince

“WE MUST BE SILENT AS GHOSTS,
Molly. And if one of them should come into the room, look down in a very respectful manner, and do not meet their eyes, for they don't wish to be reminded we are about.”

“Why? If I had a castle full of servants, I'd be glad to be reminded of it.”

“Well, they are not. We are as common as lice to them, and just as interesting.”

We'd made our way down the back stairs to the service area below, where the pantry and buttery are. Against the far wall stood two long tables, placed end to end. They were for setting down wine flagons, and trays of food, and all other such things that came
and went during the dinner service. Flanking the tables were a pair of doors that led into the great hall.

We went in and set down our logs on the hearth. Then Tobias went to work shoveling ashes into a bucket, while I looked around me in amazement.

“It's so grand,” I said. “Bigger than our church at home.”

“What did you expect? It's a king's hall.”

I studied one of the tapestries. It was a picture of a gentleman and a lady, dressed in beautiful clothes, in a garden filled with flowers. They appeared to be dancing. “How would you make a thing like that?” I asked.

“I don't know. Weave it, I guess.”

“How rich would you have to be to own—what is it?” I counted. “Fourteen tapestries?”

“Very rich. And they have plenty more of 'em, too, in the other rooms.”

“How many people do you suppose could they fit in here? For a meal, I mean, not just standing around.”

“
I don't know
, Molly. Stop asking questions. And keep your voice down.”

“Sorry.”

It was then that I noticed the little dog. It was so small and fluffy. I wondered if perhaps it wasn't a dog at all but some other kind of animal I'd never seen before. It had on a red collar and was scratching at a door on the side wall. It must have slipped out in search of whatever bits of food might be hidden amid the rushes on the floor; now it could not get back in.

I went over to the door, meaning to open it just a crack to let the dog go where it wanted. I heard Tobias gasp. When I turned, I saw terror on his face.

“No!” he whispered.

I pointed to the dog.

He shook his head violently. “That leads to the royal chambers!” He gestured frantically for me to come back to the fireplace.

I covered my mouth and winced at my mistake. I was just tiptoeing away when I heard voices. I couldn't help it; I stopped to listen.

“It's long past time you went,” a woman said. “Edmund left when he was eight. Why is this so hard for you to accept?”

“I don't want to go, that's all.”

This was spoken by a boy. I couldn't tell how old he was, but his voice had not yet changed.

“Well, you can't stay here. A castle may have one king and one heir—and you are neither. Only Matthias belongs here now. It's time you went out and became a man, and found your own place in the world, just as Edmund has done.”

“By being a common page, and serving at my cousin's table, and being ordered about like a servant?”

“Every man who wishes to become a knight must do the same.”

“But they are not princes of the blood.”

“Oh, Alaric, you would do well to be a little less fond of yourself.”

“But I don't even want to be a knight, Mother. I have no desire to ride around slashing people with my sword. And I'm not overfond of horses.”

“You'd rather sit around in the garden all day reading old history and Latin poetry?”

“Yes, Mother, that's exactly what I'd like. What's wrong with it?”

“Well, if you're that fond of books, you can go into the church. It's a respectable option. You could be a bishop.”

“I don't want to be a bishop. Not in the least.”

Tobias was creeping toward me now, his face like thunder. I waved him away and—sorry, but this is true—pressed my ear to the door.

“You are impossible!” said the lady.

Silence.

“You must go, Alaric. Your father says so, and I agree.”

“Then send me somewhere else. I will not have Reynard ordering me about. He's my own cousin, but just because he's so much older than me he acts like—”

“Alaric!” The woman was furious. “You are not his equal. Reynard is king of Austlind, and you are only a prince, and a third son at that. It is wholly appropriate for him to—”

“And I hate those disgusting bully sons of his too.”

“Oh, when will you grow up? I cannot talk to you anymore!”

“Fine!” came the reply, followed by hasty footsteps.

I was halfway back to the fireplace when the boy stormed out. He left the door open, and the dog scampered in. Moments later, the door slammed shut.

But I hardly noticed any of that; I was too busy gazing at the prince.

His hair was golden, and clean, and hung to his shoulders in shining curls. He was slender and richly dressed. And his face, though red with anger, was so beautiful that I was near to swooning—till he turned and glared daggers at me.

“Mind who you look at, wench,” he said, then tossed his head and strode out of the hall.

Tobias stood frozen till the prince was well out of hearing. Then he turned to me in a rage. “I cannot believe you,” he said. “Standing at the king's door, listening to a private conversation! Are you completely out of your mind?”

“Everybody does it,” I said. “How else can you know what goes on in your neighbors' houses?”

“You are not at home,” he said. “These are great folk, and their doings are none of your business. If they'd caught you with your ear to that door, you'd surely lose your place—and I'd lose mine for bringing you here.”

“I'm sorry,” I said.

He finished building the fire in stony silence, then swept the hearth clean. Finally he picked up the bucket of ashes and ushered me out of the hall.

“Well,” he said, his voice kinder now, “at least you got to see your prince.”

“I know.”

“And I'll wager you thought him the handsomest thing that ever you saw in your life.”

“I did. And if you stuck him, and stuffed him, and hung him on the wall, I'd be very glad to admire him. But in life he's an arrogant pig, and I didn't care for him at all.
‘Mind who you look at, wench.'
Foo!”

We were halfway up the stairs by then. Tobias stopped, and laid the ash bucket down, and took me by the arms. He was very angry.

“You aren't fit to be here,” he said.

“And you are?” I said. “Snot-nosed mouth-breather.”

“No. I'm humble and ignorant, same as you. But at least I respect those I serve and have sense enough to think before I speak. But you—I don't know what you are. Just stupid enough to be dangerous.”

“I wasn't serious
,
you goose.”

“You threatened the prince.”

“I did not!”

“Stick him and stuff him—”

“It was a joke!”

He gave me a hard look. “You don't joke about such things.”

Then he let go of my arms and, grabbing the ash bucket, stormed up the stairs. When he reached the landing, he turned and looked down to where I stood, leaning against the railing.

“You'll be lucky to last here a week,” he said.

He was wrong, as it turned out. I lasted there a good long time. And when I finally did leave, it wasn't because they'd sent me away.

Tobias had much to do with it. For his words stung me as Father's whippings never had, and I set out to prove him wrong. I let him chide me when it was needed, and I didn't pull faces or call him names when he did it. In time I learned how things were done in the king's service. And so I settled in there, and was accepted, and found my place at Dethemere Castle.

Chapter 4

Calamity

I SLEPT IN ONE OF
the basement storerooms, along with five other maids. The place was crowded with old furniture, and piles of lumber, and barrels of salted fish and meat, and bags of undressed wool. It stank in there of fish and sheep dung.

I shared a bed with Winifred, a sweet-natured, big-boned country lass who never left off talking. I believe, if such a thing were possible, that she was even more ignorant than I was.

Until I arrived, she'd had the bed all to herself because no one wished to bunk with her. She tossed about in her sleep something awful, poking me with her elbows, sometimes driving me off the bed and onto the floor. And in truth it might have been more peaceful just to sleep down there, for all that it was hard and cold. But I had a fear of rats running over me in the dark, and nibbling at my toes, and getting tangled in my hair. And so I kept to the bed and fought with Winifred for a few cramped inches of space.

Late one night, three years after I'd come to Dethemere, there came a soft knock on the storeroom door. No one heard it but me. I was already awake, Winifred having just rolled onto her back, flinging her right arm wide, thumping the back of my head, and so I sat up in bed and called, “Who is it?”

The door opened and there stood one of the kitchen lads, a candle in his hand.

“You're all to get up and dress,” he said. “You're wanted upstairs.”

“Why?” Hannah asked, awake now. She was the oldest, our mother hen. “Is something the matter?”

“There's been an accident,” he said, stepping into the room to give Hannah a light from his candle. “That's all I know.” Then he turned to go. “Be as quick as you can.”

I could hear the scuffling of his feet as he hurried down the hall, then a knock on another door and the sound of sleepy voices.

By the time we got to the kitchen, the great iron chandeliers that hung from the vaulted ceiling had been lowered, and lit, and raised again. Candles glimmered on worktables and the shutters were open wide, though the sun wouldn't be up for hours yet. Fires were already going in the grates, and pots had been set over them to boil.

In one corner a sleepy-eyed boy sat on a stool killing chickens. There was already a whole tub full. That many chickens meant a very big meal, not some common breakfast. We'd been called to prepare a feast, then, in the middle of the night.

We stood in a huddle, hugging ourselves in the cold, speculating in quiet voices as to what sort of accident it had been and who it was that had suffered it.

Tobias came in with a load of wood. I waved him over, but he only nodded and left to get more wood.

Finally one of the steward's men came upstairs to address us. He seemed impatient, as though speaking to the kitchen staff was a waste of his precious time. I noticed deep frown lines on the sides of his mouth.
That scowl must be his commonplace expression,
I thought.
Nothing to do with us.

“Everyone, please!” he shouted. “Give me your attention.” He spoke as highborn people do, confident and loud. When we had quieted down, he began.

“I have come to inform you that Prince Matthias is dead. They're bringing his body back now, and—”

We all forgot our manners then and started peppering him with questions. He raised his hands and bellowed for silence.

“A messenger has been sent to fetch Edmund, as he is now heir in his brother's stead. Noblemen from across the kingdom will be arriving soon to pay their respects to the prince. We must provide for them as is fitting. You have a great deal of work to do.”

Tobias was back now. He slipped into the crowd of servants and wormed his way through the packed bodies, heading in my direction.

“Sir, can you tell us something of how Prince Matthias died?” This from the cook.

The steward's man sighed but nodded assent. “All right,” he said, “but it will have to be brief. I have many things to attend to. The prince was hunting in the king's deer park, north of Storrow Palace. . . .”

He went on speaking, but I heard nothing more of what he said. For something strange came over me. It was like the time my sister was washing my hair and she pushed my face under the water, just to be mean. I could hardly see; the world around me became a blur of shapes; and the steward's voice was like the honking of a goose, a faraway sound with no meaning.

And then I found myself at the edge of a green wood, surrounded by horsemen and dogs. I could hear the horses stirring about and the hounds whimpering, eager to be off on the chase.

I saw it before they did—a beautiful stag with enormous antlers. It stepped daintily out of the brush and into the sunny clearing, then looked warily around and sniffed the air. Sensing the hunters, it froze for a heartbeat, then sprang forward, changed directions, and darted into the cover of the forest. The hunters spurred their mounts and hurried in hot pursuit.

Now here is the thing I must tell you: I'd never set eyes on a stag before; I knew nothing of hunting. There is no way I could have imagined all that—unless perhaps I was remembering it from that day in the king's great hall when I was seven and stood there in amazement, admiring the beautiful tapestries. One of them might have been a hunting scene. But no, I did not think that was it, for this was real as real. I could smell the forest, hear the thunder of hoofbeats, and the blast of hunting horns, and the yelping of the frenzied hounds. Where could that have come from?

I saw Matthias now, riding ahead of the others, his face aglow with excitement. I'd never seen him, either, but I recognized him all the same. I admired his fine features, his broad shoulders, his rich and beautiful clothes.

That was when I noticed the peculiar vine. It hung from a tree in the middle of the path shaped like a hangman's noose. I was sure it hadn't been there before; it had just appeared out of nowhere.

Matthias saw it too and tried to rein in his horse, but he couldn't stop in time. Nor could he turn to avoid it, because the path was so narrow. So he ducked, pressing his cheek against the horse's neck. He would go under it.

That should have saved him, but it didn't because—I swear this is true—the vine reached right down and scooped him up. And so the horse went on without him, while Matthias hung there . . .

I heard myself moan and felt someone's arm around me. I looked and saw it was Tobias. His face was grave, and there were tears in his eyes; but he didn't say a word, just shook his head at the sorrow of it and gave me a kind little squeeze. I nodded silently and covered my face with my hands.

“At least they're well stocked with sons.” The voice came from the back of the room. Everyone turned to see who would say such a thing. It was the pastry cook's boy.

“Shame!” came cries from all around.

“Shocking!”

“Shut your gob or I'll shut it for you!”

“I didn't mean no harm,” the boy protested. “It's just—you need a prince to inherit, now don't you? And so it's good they still have a couple of 'em left. That's all I meant.”

Somebody shoved him; he shoved back.

“Stop that this minute!” the steward's man roared. “You lot of lumpish swine!” He clapped his hands as though we really were pigs and he was shooing us away. “Now get to work, all of you. We must do honor to the prince and make everything splendid for his coming-home. Do you understand me?”

We did.

As it was still the middle of the night, there were no pots or dishes to wash. And so I was put to work plucking the chickens, along with Winifred and several of the kitchen lads. Tom, the poulterer's boy—the one we'd seen killing the chickens—was going to show us how.

“Can Tobias help, too?” I asked.

“Tobias?” Tom asked.

“The donkey boy,” said one of the lads, laughing. “He's your sweetheart, ain't he, little scullion?”

“And what do I want with a sweetheart, you maggot? I'm ten.”

The lads burst out laughing. “You'll find out soon enough,” one of them said. I felt a squeezing in my chest.

“The prince just died, you sour lumps of flesh, and you stand there making coarse jokes. You
are
a pack of swine!”

“Enough!” Tom said, disgusted with the lot of us, but he did call over to Tobias. “Donkey Boy,” he said. “If you're not needed elsewhere, come and help us here. And the rest of you”—he looked daggers at the lads—“show some decent respect.”

He led us to a cauldron of water then, already heated near to boiling. Beside it was the basket of birds, some of them still twitching. He gripped one of them by its big, gangly legs and plunged it into the water—a quick dip, just enough to help release the feathers but not so long that the chicken would start to cook. We all in turn did likewise, after which we carried our wet, scalded chickens over to a spot beside the window. There we sat on wooden stools and went to work pulling feathers.

It's a messy business, and smelly, too. But I was glad to have something to do. I thought that if I could only concentrate hard enough, I might drive that terrible image from my mind: the prince hanging from the nooselike vine, his body swaying, his head lolling, his red velvet cap with its beautiful plume lying upon the ground.

I shuddered, and Winifred noticed.

“It's awful, awful,” she said.

“I can't stop thinking about it.”

“Me neither.” She shook her head sadly. “They be cursed, you know—the royal family.”

“Hannah says that's a lot of nonsense,” I said. “Fairy tales.”

“No, it's not. Hannah just doesn't like us gossiping about it. She's such a little prig. But the girl that was here afore her—the one that died in the night—she told me all about it one time, and there's no question: they're cursed.”

“I've heard it spoken of, too,” Tobias said.

“All right.” I kept my voice low, turning away from the rowdy lads who still watched me with smirks on their faces. “Tell us what you know, then.”

Winifred paused, and pinched her lips, and leaned in even closer. She had her own way of telling stories. I was well accustomed to it.

“There was the old king, Mortimer, father of Godfrey, who's our king now; he was the first one cursed. He was desperate to have a son to be his heir; but years and years passed, and in all that time he only got one daughter, Gertrude.”

“That's not a curse, Winifred. Wives are barren sometimes.”

“Three of 'em in a row, Molls?”

“You didn't tell me that part.”

“Well, I am now. Three queens, side by side, buried in the chapel yard and only the one baby in all that time, and she of no use on account of being a girl.”

“My father would've been glad to have that problem,” I said bitterly. “He had children aplenty and didn't want a single one of us.”

“But your father ain't a king now, is he?”

“No.”

“Well, then. So Mortimer married for the fourth time, though by then he was very old—and sure enough, he got himself a son, quick as you please. That was Godfrey, of course.”

I was beginning to think Hannah was right; it was all nonsense. “So everything was fine. Really, I don't see how—”

“Then the queen died of childbed fever.”

“As women do
,
Winifred. All the time.”

“I'm not done, Molls. I've only just started. The next thing that happened, the nurse dropped poor little Godfrey smack on his poor little head, and broke his arm and his leg; and they thought for sure he'd die. Only he didn't. He's just lame, that's all.”

I looked over at Tobias. He was trying not to smile. “Nurses can be clumsy, Winifred,” I said, “same as anybody else. Next you'll say the clouds cursed him by covering the sun one day.”

She looked hurt. “I'll stop if you don't want to hear the rest.”

“I'm sorry. Wait just a second.” I tossed my plucked chicken into the basket and went to fetch another. When it was scalded, I brought it back, and took my place again, and smiled at her. “Now go ahead. I'll listen.”

“All right. The next thing that happened, King Mortimer died. Godfrey was hardly much more than a boy.” She looked to see if I would interrupt, point out that old people die with some regularity. But I said not a word.

“He was bit by a serpent, Molls. In winter. There was snow on the ground, icicles hangin' from the eaves.”

“That's unnatural, Winifred. I'll admit it.”

“It was devil-sent. Had to be. It was the curse.”

“All right,” I said. “Is that all?”

“No. Now Godfrey didn't have his father's curse; he's been blessed with many children. But look what's happened to them. First Princess Agnes died of the plague. Then poor Princess Elinor caught the pox, and her face was so disfigured that she goes about hiding behind a veil. And now Godfrey's heir, Prince Matthias, hung by a vine while hunting. That weren't natural neither. That vine was put there special to hook the prince.”

I stared at her, my mouth agape. The steward's man had told us about the vine, exactly as I had seen it. I must have heard him tell of it—through my fit, or my fog, or whatever it was—and imagined how it looked. It hadn't been a vision, then. Most likely just a lively imagination led on by the man's story. I felt a surge of relief.

“You see?” Winifred said.

“Yes.” I nodded in agreement. “I do.”

“But Winifred,” Tobias said, “this curse . . ?”

“What?”

“Well, how . . . how would someone go about doing that, putting a curse on a person? And why would he want to do it? And who . . ?”

Winifred sighed and gazed down at the chicken in her hands.

“Truly, Tobias,” she said, “I wish I knew.”