Garden Princess (3 page)

“Good news!” the queen announced to the king at supper that evening. “The dancing master tells me that Adela has nearly mastered the minuet.”

Hardly, thought Adela. She was a terrible dancer — always stepping on her teacher’s toes, always going left when he went right. She didn’t even like dancing.

“Given that she can already waltz, I think she’ll be ready for her grand ball any day now,” said Cecile.

Adela suppressed a groan. The grand ball was an idea her stepmother had been promoting for months. Her plan was to invite as many marriage prospects as possible so that Adela could, in Cecile’s words,
look them over.
“You’re seventeen and not getting any younger,” her stepmother had pointed out. “Your mother was sixteen when she married your father, and I was eighteen. You’re a lucky girl. I didn’t get to have a grand ball.”

By this Cecile meant that she had not been a princess; she was the daughter of a cloth merchant, and as a commoner, she couldn’t have expected such a thing as a grand ball. But Cecile
had
been lucky in her marriage, for she had caught the king’s eye when he was out riding one afternoon, a chance encounter that had led to the prize of a royal marriage proposal. “I’m as common as they come,” the queen was fond of saying, “but true love doesn’t care about such things.”

Common
would have been just fine with Adela. Only her stepmother had taken to her
un
common life with great relish. It was as if she had combed Dr. Sophus’s library for books about how to be a queen: how to talk down to servants, how to speak as an equal to dukes and duchesses, how to find a suitable husband for one’s stepdaughter. Adela was sure the idea for the grand ball could only have come out of a book.

“I don’t want to get married,” she had told Cecile.

“Of course you do!”

“No, I really —”

“Silly! Are you afraid no one will love you?”

“No, I —”

“Because you could be such a pretty girl, Adela! If you would only pay more attention to your hair and your skin, your clothing and how you carry yourself. All of these things
matter.
”

What Adela had wanted to say was that she didn’t want to get married
now.
That she had a thousand things she wanted to do before she even thought of getting married. She wanted to design elaborate and beautiful gardens. She wanted to travel to new places to learn new gardening methods, to collect plants she had never seen before, to bring them home and try to make them grow. But she’d had a hard time putting her dreams into words, especially to her stepmother.

“You can always garden,” Cecile had told her. “It’s a lovely hobby for a young woman.”

“It’s not a hobby!”

“Of course it’s a hobby!” Cecile seemed unable to fathom that others might not agree with her ideas. Arguing with her had yet to get Adela anywhere, though she frequently forgot and tried anyway. The best thing to do was smile back as if she agreed and make other plans in secret.

Or change the topic.

That was the best tactic to use now, Adela decided. She cleared her throat. “I was wondering if I might borrow the carriage this Saturday. There’s a party I’d like to attend. It’s being given by Lady Hortensia.”

She hadn’t expected her father or stepmother to recognize the name, so Cecile’s response startled her: “Lady Hortensia! Why, her garden party was all the talk at tea this afternoon.”

Adela hadn’t been at tea. She had come to lunch from her morning with Dr. Sophus still dressed in her gardening clothes, and her stepmother had insisted she use the time reserved for tea to have a bath and dress for her dancing lesson.

“Marguerite has also been invited,” said Cecile.

Marguerite was the queen’s younger sister and also one of her ladies-in-waiting. Marguerite was pretty, even more beautiful than Cecile. She was also, in Adela’s opinion, extremely boring. She seemed to have no other interests besides fashion and men, and her knowledge of flowers extended only to the bouquets she received from her many male admirers. Why would Lady Hortensia have asked
her
to the same garden party as Garth?

“How splendid that you’ve been invited as well!” said Cecile. “You and Marguerite can travel together. I had thought I might need to go — as chaperone, you know — but that won’t be necessary now. Just as well. I wouldn’t want Lady Hortensia to think I was inviting myself.”

“Indeed,” Adela murmured, tucking into her supper with renewed focus.

“You and Marguerite can spend the day together.”

Adela could imagine few things less appealing.

“And I can have the fun of helping you both get ready!” Cecile added.

Then again, maybe she could think of one thing.

In a walled yard in the center of Hortensia’s garden grew a rose tree, with roses so red they looked as if they might bleed if anyone dared to pluck them. But no one ever did, for the thorns on that tree were as sharp as dragon claws. Under the rose tree was a white marble couch, and it was here, lying on a bed of soft, velvet cushions, that Hortensia liked to spend her afternoons. She liked to sleep there, soothed into drowsiness by the soporific scent of her roses.

On the afternoon of the day after Garth and Marguerite received their invitations, however, Hortensia was wide awake, firing questions at the magpie standing on the grass beside her.

“So? You delivered all the invitations?”

“Yes,” said the magpie.

“And everyone is coming?”

“Yes.”

“Including this princess! Do you really mean to say that she has invited herself?”

“Yes.”

“Of all the presumption! If I had wanted her, I would have asked her! What does she look like?” Before the magpie could answer, Hortensia stopped him with a wave of her hand. “Never mind! If she were the least bit pretty, I would have heard of her. I’m sure she’s as plain as a turnip blossom. I don’t know what I’ll do with the wretched creature. I suppose I’ll have to start a kitchen garden.” She let out a noise of disgust, threw herself back against the cushions, and closed her eyes.

The conversation might have been finished, or it might not. The magpie had no way of knowing, and so he waited.

His name was Krazo. Or at least that was what Hortensia called him.
Krahhh-zo! Krahhh-zo!
she would say, mocking his raspy voice. He had been Hortensia’s servant for as long as he could remember. How long was that? It might have been ten years or a hundred; Krazo had no idea. What had he done before his life with Hortensia began? Where had he lived? Again, Krazo had no idea. His past was such a dim place that he never thought of it, not even in dreams. His mind was strongly connected to the present, to that suspenseful moment linked to the future by the question
What will happen next?

Hortensia was a demanding mistress, and Krazo was at her beck and call both night and day. It was primarily magic that bound him to her. She was a witch, and he must obey her commands or she would punish him. But there was also the fact that she glittered. Just now, for example, the magpie’s eyes were kept busy by the sparkle of her adornments. Her flame-colored dress was embroidered with gold threads and amber beads. A gold collar set with amethysts circled her neck, a string of pearls wound through her dark hair, and rings decorated every one of her fingers — diamonds and emeralds, and rubies as big as berries. Hortensia loved jewelry.

So did Krazo. He knew that Hortensia had great quantities of jewelry in her bedchamber. But that was nothing compared to the treasure buried beneath the rose tree.

Late one night, some years past, Krazo had seen Hortensia enter the garden alone. Curious, he had followed her to this very spot, where he had watched her take a silver box out of her sleeve. After unlocking the box with a small silver key from a chain around her neck, Hortensia had sat there in the moonlight, gazing upon its contents. Krazo had not been able to see what was inside the box, but he knew it must be treasure, for Hortensia had locked it back up and buried it, tamping down the soil so that no one would ever guess it was there.

If Krazo could have dug up the treasure, he would have done so. But magpies, even talking ones, have their limits, and one of those is an inability to dig holes. Not that this prevented him from thinking about it. He was thinking about the buried treasure now, in fact, when suddenly Hortensia gave a low chuckle. Krazo looked up to see a smile playing at her lips. “It occurs to me,” she murmured without opening her eyes, “that no matter how plain our princess is, she’ll be sure to come to the party wearing all sorts of pretty baubles. Royals never skimp on their jewelry.” Then she yawned, exhibiting a mouth full of perfect white teeth. She settled into her cushions. Presently she began to snore. Hortensia always snored when she slept, and it always jangled Krazo’s nerves. The magpie was sensitive to sounds, both good ones and bad, and so, relieved to escape this particularly dreadful one, he made his departure.

He flew off to his nest, thinking about the princess.

Or, to be exact, he was thinking about the jewels she would wear.

“What does one wear to a garden party?” was the first thing out of Marguerite’s mouth at the next day’s tea.

“Light colors,” said Cecile. “Pale green, very light pink — actually, you might think about wearing a gown of mine. What about that lemon-colored dress with the lace trim?”

So it begins, thought Adela, watching the two sisters lean toward each other.

“Oh, Cecile! Would you really let me?” Marguerite was so excited that she had to set down her cup and saucer.

“Of course, darling. We’ll just need to have the seamstress take the sides in a little. I declare you must have the tiniest waist in the kingdom.”

“What should Her Highness wear?” asked Marguerite. “Wouldn’t it be fun if we could dress in similar colors? You have that lovely peach-colored gown.”

Cecile shook her head. “I’m afraid it would never fit her,” she said, leaving unspoken the implication that Adela did
not
have the tiniest waist in the kingdom. Nor would she ever have a small waist, Cecile made clear with a hard look, if she continued taking pieces of cake from the tea tray. “Besides,” added Cecile as Adela took a strawberry instead, “the color would wash out her complexion. No, I think as far as Adela goes, we’ll have to settle for blue. You know what I mean, Marguerite — a nice forget-me-not blue.”

“Her Highness has a silk gown in forget-me-not blue!” Marguerite exclaimed.

“Exactly! Though I do hope the silk won’t be too heavy,” Cecile commented. “Then again, our choices are limited, seeing as there isn’t time to make anything new. Let’s just hope it still fits her — Adela has grown so in the past year! But I suppose that’s what a corset is for, isn’t it?”

It was daring bit of humor for the queen, mentioning underwear at tea. Marguerite tittered appreciatively, as did the other ladies-in-waiting sitting around the table. Adela forced a smile and helped herself to more cake after all.

By Saturday morning, she was so tired of listening to Marguerite and Cecile, and so irritated by all the party preparations, that she almost wished she had never agreed to go.

The blue silk gown did fit her, though just barely. Adela’s corset strings had to be pulled so tight, she could hardly breathe. Moreover, the skirt was too short, and there was no hem to let out. “You might try bending your knees a little,” Cecile advised when she came into Adela’s dressing room to view the results of their preparations.

“I might try not wearing these high-heeled shoes,” Adela shot back. Her patience was wearing thin.

“Yes, dear, I know they’re hard to walk in.” Cecile’s voice was indulgent. “But everyone looks at feet — they really do!”

“I should think they would want to look at the garden,” Adela murmured.

“What do you think of Her Highness’s hair, Cecile?” asked Marguerite, who had spent the last hour working with the hairdresser to achieve the creation that now topped Adela’s head.

“I’m afraid to turn my neck,” said Adela. “What if the pins come out?”

“I wonder if she should wear a tiara,” said Marguerite.

“I am
not
wearing a tiara!”