Palace of Lies (22 page)

“I wanted to end the war,” I told Tog. “I stood up to Lord Throckmorton about that. Even before Cecilia and the other princesses came to power. That was how everything started to change.”

“I know,” Tog said. And then he surprised me by falling to one knee before me, and kissing my hand. “In the name of my dead father, I thank you.”

I blushed. I had had dozens of courtiers kiss my hand before, but somehow this was different. Somehow, even after he let go of my hand, I could still feel the touch of his fingers, the mark of his lips. I was glad that Janelia spoke next, so I didn't have to react.

“In the name of our dead father, I thank you too,” Janelia said.

“And I don't know how my father died or who he was—I don't know anything about my mother, either—but I thank you too,” Herk said, putting on a comical expression. “Just in case.”

I appreciated him clowning around, because then I didn't have to admit that I hadn't known what I was doing, stopping the war. I mostly wanted to stop it just because Lord Throckmorton wanted it to go on and on.

“The war won't start again, will it?” Herk asked, balancing on a burned log. “Even if no one from Suala shows up to sign the treaty?”

“Don't worry—Cecilia will be there,” I said.

“And you,” Tog added. “We're going to get you there in time.”

I walked a little faster.

There was no actual borderline for us to cross. We weren't on any road, so of course there were no border guards. But we knew we were in Fridesia when we came across a crude sign that pointed only to Fridesian cities.

“We're in enemy territory,” I whispered, staring at the
sign. “I never thought I'd step foot in enemy territory.”

“It's not enemy territory anymore,” Tog said.

“But, maybe, just in case, we shouldn't tell anyone who we are,” Janelia said, glancing around. The territory around us was just as eerily empty and dead as the land we'd left behind in Suala. “And maybe try to talk with more of a Fridesian accent?”

“Loik dees?” Herk attempted. He sounded ridiculous.

“Ella always said we Sualans sounded like we were holding marbles under our tongues,” I said. “So maybe we should just try to talk with our tongues flat on the bottom of our mouths as much as possible. Like this?”

“Oh, that was good!” Janelia said. “You sounded totally different. We're just lucky Fridesians and Sualans speak the same language. I heard they used to be part of the same country a long time ago, and that's why we can understand each other.”

“I never knew that,” I said.

I thought about the Sualan history I'd learned at the palace—I'd had to memorize the names of every king and queen for sixteen generations. But of course, while Suala was at war with Fridesia, it probably would have been treason for my governess to claim even a long-past connection between Suala and Fridesia.

The empty landscape around me was starting to give me the panicky empty-sky feeling again. I quickly fastened my gaze on Janelia and Tog, walking in front of me.

“Look—everything's green ahead of us,” Tog said, as if he knew I needed help. “And isn't that the strangest tree you've ever seen?”

He pointed to an apple tree that grew at a diagonal slant from the ground.

“Do you suppose the ground tilted after the tree started growing?” Herk asked. “Or was it struck by lightning? Or are all the trees in Fridesia like this?”

I stopped in my tracks.

“Those are . . . those are apples on that tree, right?” I asked.

“Uh . . . yeah,” Tog said, as if he wanted to make fun of me but thought I sounded a little too serious to be mocked.

“And is that a path beside it?” I continued.

“Maybe it used to be,” Janelia concluded, gazing at a trail beyond the tree. It was overgrown with new grasses.

“Then I know this tree!” I exclaimed. I could feel a smile breaking over my face, stretching my sunburned skin. “This is the marker for the camp Ella and Jed built for the refugees from the war.” I grabbed the others' hands and pulled them toward the overgrown trail. “Come on! If we're lucky, they might even be there right now!”

A moment ago, my legs
had ached and my feet had throbbed and I would have said I wasn't capable of walking any faster than a slog. But now I ran down the overgrown trail, pulling the others along with me.

“What—?” Herk began.

“Could you—?” Janelia added.

“Explain?” Tog finished.

I laughed and told them everything even as I ran.

“I didn't even think of this as a possibility before!” I cried. “See, this is what Jed cared about most when Ella met him—taking care of war refugees. And she told him, well, the best way to take care of them would be to end the war. And then they won't be refugees. And—”

I paused long enough to leap over a gully in the path. I landed on my sore foot and didn't even waver.

“And I know Jed and Ella were going to stop at the refugee camp on their way back from Suala, before they went to the Fridesian capital for their wedding and the treaty ceremony,”
I went on. “I didn't know how long they were going to stay before moving on, but maybe, maybe . . .”

Maybe all of this can be over today!
I thought.
If Ella and Jed are here, I can tell them everything that happened, and they'll know what to do. They'll find out what really happened to my sister-princesses, and they'll take care of rescuing them for me. Ella and Jed will take care of everything!

I rounded a corner and caught my first glimpse of a long, low building ahead. No—there was a row of buildings, neatly tended and surrounded by tidy gardens. A little farther on, I could see a gate and, behind the gate, a small building with a carefully lettered sign that said,
OFFICE
.

I ran faster, closing the distance. With the others right behind me, I burst through the office door.

“Ella? Jed?” I called eagerly.

A plump, middle-aged woman turned around and dropped a stack of towels.

“Oh, no,” she moaned. “It's started again, hasn't it? Oh, you poor, poor dears.” She picked up four towels and held them out to me and the others. “Well, don't you worry. You're safe now. We'll get you fixed right up. You can wash up, first thing.”

She reached out and brushed a smudge of dirt from Herk's cheek.

“What's started up again?” I asked in bewilderment. “You mean the war? No, the ceasefire is still in effect. I think. We just—”

Could it be—did the woman think
we
were refugees? I remembered that that had happened to Ella when she first arrived at the refugee camp. But Ella had said she looked awful then. I looked down at myself, at my sunburned skin, my ragged dress, my holey shoes with the bandages sticking out.

Maybe I looked worse than Ella ever had.

I shook my head, and tried to think how to explain. This must be Mrs. Smeal, a camp worker Ella had told me about. Ella had said Mrs. Smeal could be really nice if you stayed on her good side.

“We just had a long trip,” I said, trying to smile in a respectable, not desperate way. It was hard to do through the sunburn. I also reminded myself to keep my tongue flat and sound more like a Fridesian than a Sualan. “We were so eager to see Ella and Jed we, um, didn't stop to wash up or change out of our, um, traveling clothes.”

Mrs. Smeal frowned disapprovingly.

“Well, Ella and Jed aren't here,” she said. “And they might have warned me that they were going to invite company to drop by! I'm not happy with those two right now. Not even giving me the pleasure of attending their wedding!”

She sniffed.

Janelia had never even met Ella and Jed, but I wasn't surprised that she stepped forward to try to smooth over Mrs. Smeal's anger.

“Oh, I'm sure they
wanted
to invite you,” Janelia said. “They
probably thought of it as a kindness, not asking you to travel all the way from here to the capital just for the ceremony.”

Mrs. Smeal sniffed again.

“You think I wasn't invited?” she asked. “
That's
not the reason. Of course they invited me. But then—” She leaned in as if she was about to impart some shocking gossip, and she wanted to see our reactions close up. Her eyes glittered. “They went and canceled the wedding! They're not getting married after all!”

I jerked back from Mrs. Smeal
as if the woman had punched me. It certainly felt like someone had knocked the air out of my lungs. Or like the earth had suddenly tilted wrong on its axis.

“Ella and Jed love each other!” I protested. If I couldn't count on that, what could I count on?

“Well, now, that's what I thought too,” Mrs. Smeal said. She patted my arm, almost as if she were viewing me once again as some devastated refugee. Or a comrade in sorrow. Maybe the glitter in Mrs. Smeal's eyes was unshed tears, not gossipy glee. “You just never know sometimes. Those two are both so headstrong—when they get something into their minds, they're like dogs holding on to bones. Two stubborn people like that really shouldn't marry each other, I guess. Nobody ever gives in.”

Jed and Ella are the type who never give in,
I thought.
Or give up.

I remembered the hours of peace negotiations with Jed, the way Ella had stuck by my side when I whispered to her about secret princesses locked in the dungeon. I remembered the way Jed and Ella looked into each other's eyes.

And that's why they wouldn't call off their wedding. Unless . . .

Unless something else was going on.

I had prickles at the back of my neck, as if my skin understood better than I did that the news I'd just heard was tragic.

I looked helplessly toward Janelia and Herk and Tog.

“But . . . Ella and Jed are still in Fridesia, right?” Janelia asked. “Back at the capital?”

“So far as I know,” Mrs. Smeal said. “They left here a week ago and all the plans were set. Everything
seemed
fine. Then new supplies arrived yesterday, and the wagon driver brought me this.”

Mrs. Smeal picked an embossed card from the desk in front of her and held it out to us. The script was as fancy as anything from back at the palace:

We regret to inform you that the intended nuptials between Jedediah Reston and Ella Brown shall not take place as previously planned. Pray do not inquire further as to details, as this is a painful time for us both. And we pray that you will not be insulted if we do not contact you again for many a month, as we require a period of silence and introspection as we recover.

It didn't sound like Ella or Jed. The handwriting didn't look like Ella's or Jed's either, but perhaps it had been copied out by a scribe.

“As long as I've worked with them, and I don't even get the courtesy of an explanation?” Mrs. Smeal complained. “Just a ‘leave us alone, please, so we can suffer in silence'?”

I handed the card back to her.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I suppose we should just be on our way, then. We've got a long walk ahead of us, all the way to the capital.”

Somehow my legs and feet had gone back to aching even worse than before. I remembered Ella describing her walk from the Fridesian capital to the refugee camp, and it had taken her weeks. We probably had more time ahead of us on the road than we'd already spent walking from the Sualan capital.

“Could we at least have something to eat first?” Herk said plaintively behind me. I turned and saw that he had his face pressed against the window. He was staring out at the hundreds of bean pods hanging from the plants outside.

“We could work for you, in payment,” Tog added quickly.

Mrs. Smeal frowned.

“You think I would have sent you off hungry?” she asked incredulously. “And—so filthy? What kind of an establishment do you think we're running? The four of you are going to wash up, and then you're going to have a big meal while I have some of our girls who are training to be laundresses tend to your clothes. . . .”

She touched the sleeve of my dress and pulled her hand back as if it pained her.

“Er, no,” Mrs. Smeal decided. “I'm not sure those clothes would hold up to being pounded against the rocks in the river. It may be the dirt actually holding them together. So we'll give you new clothes instead.”

“We couldn't possibly accept all that,” Janelia said. She had her fists clenched, as if it was a struggle to say the polite thing. “We have nothing to pay you with.”

She, too, looked longingly toward the garden outside.

“Enh, with the war stopped, it's been a little slow around here,” Mrs. Smeal said. “A lot of our refugees moved back to their homes as soon as they could. And the supplies we got yesterday were more than we needed. Some of the food is just going to rot if nobody eats it.”

“That would be
awful
!” Herk said, and even Mrs. Smeal laughed at the way he said it.

“Right, right, just what I thought.” Mrs. Smeal nodded as if she and Herk were sharing a secret. “We might even have to send some of it along with you when you get back on the road.”

Mrs. Smeal was
good
. I'd had fourteen years of experience sifting lies from truth, and even I couldn't tell if Mrs. Smeal really did have a lot of extra food or if she was making that up to get us to accept it.

Or was I just out of practice with my lie detection after two weeks away from Suala's palace?

Mrs. Smeal put her arm around Herk's shoulders, as if she planned to lead him off to some elaborate feast. Then she froze.

“Oh, I should have thought . . . ,” she began.

She raised her face toward the same window Herk had peered through, and she must have seen something, because she instantly went dashing for the door.