The Thirteenth Princess (3 page)

I was in their midst, and it was like heaven. They all wanted to brush my mop of red curls and admire my green eyes, so unlike theirs. When I asked if I could stay, they all said, “Of course you must stay!” in a single voice, then set to arguing about whom I would sleep with.

Aurelia stopped the discussion in her imperious way. “I'm the oldest, so she will sleep with me,”
she proclaimed. “Next time, she can sleep with you, Alanna, and the next time after that with Ariadne. We'll take turns in order of age.”

“Why does Alanna get her before me? We're the same age!” complained Ariadne.

“You were born four minutes later,” Aurelia reminded her. “Don't worry, you'll have your turn. Now,” she said to me, “Nurse comes in to check us at midnight exactly, so you must hide under the bed till then. When she leaves, you can climb up with me. And you, Anisa, you must be the one who wakes Zita early, so she can get back downstairs without getting caught.”

Anisa was pleased with her assignment and assured us all that she wouldn't sleep late. I crept under Aurelia's bed, as it was near midnight, and lay there without moving as Nurse walked through the room between the beds, checking to be sure each girl was sleeping soundly. I had to bite my cheeks to keep from giggling as I heard the various breathy sighs and snores my sisters put forth to convince Nurse they were deeply asleep. As soon as the door clicked behind her, I sprang out, brushing dust from my hair, and clambered into Aurelia's bed. It was heavenly; the feather mattress lofty and soft, the bedding silky smooth and scented with lavender. As Aurelia sang quietly to me, I dropped off to sleep and dreamed of the ballroom, alive again with dancers, swaying and
stepping to the song my beautiful sister sang.

Just before dawn, as the first rooster crowed, Anisa shook me awake gently. She led me, stumbling with sleep, into the dumbwaiter and lowered me down to the pantry. By the time I reached the bottom I was awake, and I carefully replaced the potato sacks to be sure our secret would stay safe. I crept into my bed in the servants' quarters, tiptoeing to be sure not to wake the maids who shared my space, and crawled onto my rough mattress to snatch another few moments of sleep before the chores of the day began.

I
couldn't spend every night with the princesses, of course. We would have been found out, or expired from lack of sleep. I limited myself to one night a week, Sunday night, when the castle darkened early and people slept off the revels of their weekend trips into the nearby town.

All week I waited for Sunday night. I submitted meekly to my morning bath, knowing that in the evening my sisters would admire my clean hair and rosy skin, scrubbed with Cook's rough soap. I sat quietly through prayers, sneaking a look upward through my
clasped hands to where my sisters sat in the chapel mezzanine. They looked like angels up there to me; sometimes a shaft of sunlight would pierce the stained-glass window high on the wall above them and scatter vivid blues and reds and golds over them. I helped without complaining as Cook prepared Sunday dinner, always a heavy, many-coursed repast that would have Cook sweaty and grumbling by the time the pudding was made. Sometimes the Sunday hours moved so slowly that I would swear every clock in the castle was broken, but at last nine o'clock would chime, and we would all head to our beds.

After the first few visits, I moved my nightly sleeping quarters to a tiny room at the end of the hallway—no more than a closet, really. But it was private, and I didn't have to worry about disturbing the three maids when I crept out to the dumbwaiter or back in at dawn. Cook narrowed her eyes at me when I told her I was moving, but I explained that Salina, the upstairs maid, had complained of my snoring, and I didn't like to think that I was keeping the others awake.

“Snoring!” Cook said. “A dose of castor oil might help that.”

“Oh no,” I protested. “It's the damp. Everyone snores—even you snore!”

This offended Cook and took her mind off castor
oil and off me. “Well, I never,” she said, rolling out the dough for dumplings so fiercely that I was sure she imagined me under her rolling pin, flattened into compliance. “Me, snore? I sleep as quiet as a baby, I'll have you know.”

“No, you're right,” I backtracked quickly. “It's not you I was thinking of. It's Chiara. She snores terribly!” Chiara and Cook were often at war over the dispensation of keys to the pantries or the problem of dust from the flour bins. So Cook liked this.

“Like a lion roaring!” Cook agreed, chuckling, and no more was said of my new sleeping quarters.

Each Sunday night I crept down to the kitchen and into the dumbwaiter, usually clutching pieces of pie and tart that I had managed to hide away during the week, and tugged on the ropes as a signal. My sisters would haul on the ropes as I rose upward, past the staterooms, dark and silent, and then past the servants' quarters, where I could hear giggling or snores as the dumbwaiter creaked on its journey. At last I would arrive in the closet of my sisters' room, and they would pull me out of my cramped elevator, laughing and hugging me, and the fun would begin.

Some nights, my sisters would read to me or tell me stories they made up or had heard themselves. Alanna loved to read, especially stories about other princesses,
and I learned the stories about Snow White and Rose Red, and Sleeping Beauty, and the terrible twisted dwarf Rumpelstiltskin, who tortured the queen to get her firstborn child. I especially loved Rapunzel, with her golden hair that I imagined was like Aurelia's, long and shining and straight. The tale of Beauty and her Beast, though, bewildered me. “Why did she go to the Beast?” I asked Alanna.

“To save her father,” Alanna replied, showing me the illustration. In it, Beauty hugged her father as the Beast loomed over them both. “They love each other.”

A father who loved his daughter…a daughter who loved her father. I could not understand this. Alanna, seeing my distress, put that story away, and we never read it again.

One Sunday night, Alima, the most musical of my sisters, decided I should learn to sing. All my sisters could play and sing to some extent, but Alima was brilliant on the lute and the pianoforte, and her voice was as clear and lovely as I imagined an angel's would be. The lesson was a disaster. I couldn't sing at all—I sounded like a frog in distress when I tried. My sisters collapsed in laughter, and though I was a little hurt, I could not help joining in.

“We shall teach you to dance instead!” Asenka pledged. Dancing was Asenka's specialty. The princesses
paired off and showed me the popular dances—the allemande, and the gavotte, and the lavolta and ländler. They took turns squiring me up and down the room, and winced only a little when I trod on their feet or stumbled so that they barked their shins on the bed frames. Then Asenka danced the zambra for us, and we sat hypnotized by the swaying and twisting of her graceful body with its fall of silver hair.

A few weeks later Aurelia decided that I, like my sisters, must have pierced ears.

“She
is
a princess, really,” she said, “and all princesses have pierced ears. That way, she can wear our earrings.”

“You mean…you want to put holes in my ears?” I asked fearfully.

“I'll do it with a needle. It doesn't hurt,” Aurelia said. “Look, I've had them since I was a baby. We all have.” She pulled back her hair and showed me the sapphire drops that hung from her delicate ears.

“Well, if you got them when you were a baby, you don't remember whether it hurt, do you? It probably hurt horribly!” I was torn. I wanted to be like my sisters…but I didn't want them to stick needles through my ears.

Althea, looking worried, said, “We have to be sure her ears don't get infected. Hold the needle over the
candle flame.” Aurelia produced a long, evil-looking needle and held it over the flame until it grew so hot that she dropped it.

“There,” she said, picking it up and blowing on it. “Come here, Zita.”

Nervously, I came to her.

“Are you ready?” she asked. I nodded and closed my eyes. A moment later I felt a searing pain and screamed aloud, unable to help myself.

“Hush!” Aurelia cried. “Do you want Nurse to come in and find you?” Tears filled my eyes, but I shook my head fiercely.

“Do the other ear,” I whispered. I was rewarded by a look of respect from Aurelia, and she quickly pierced the other ear and threaded small gold hoops through both.

“Clean them every day,” Althea told me as the others crowded around me, admiring the earrings and wiping the tears from my face. “And be sure no one sees them!”

Aurelia pulled my hair back from my face so she could see the earrings. “They look so elegant,” she said proudly. “Now you're a real princess, just like us.”

I was a real princess only until Monday dawned, of course. Mondays were terrible for me that spring and summer. Sunday night was over, and for another whole
week I was consigned to be a servant, watching my sisters from afar and longing to be with them. We waved to each other as we passed in hallways or on the land bridge, and sometimes they would pass me notes in clever ways. Once I found a piece of paper folded in the remains of a meat pie as I cleared the table. It was from Althea, the most kindhearted of my sisters, and read,

A message like that could make me happy for days, and my sisters saw the results and tried to lift my spirits with little notes and gifts as often as they dared. I lived from Sunday to Sunday.

In July we were discovered. It was late in the evening, and Nurse had made her rounds. We had settled in to sleep—it was my night with Adena, one of my favorite bedmates. She was very slender, for one thing, so the two of us could fit easily into a bed made only for one, and her bedding was always scented with sandalwood, which gave me wonderful dreams. I had fallen into a
lovely dream of a snow-white horse that I rode through a meadow, when the sudden jerk of Adena's body beside me woke me. Standing over the bed stood Nurse, and my sleep-glazed eyes saw her in a way I never had before. Her familiar face looked just the same, wrinkled as an old apple and just as sweet, and her hair was in her nighttime braids, which hung down to her waist in gray ropes. But her eyes were dark and sharp, the eyes of a much younger woman, and the way they looked at me frightened me. I whimpered and turned my head from her piercing stare, but when I looked back, she was the old Nurse with her kindly, brown-eyed gaze, and she smiled at me indulgently.

“I came back to find the comb I left behind, and look what I find instead. So little Zita is with her sisters!” she said, holding the candle so it wouldn't drip on me. She laughed at the sight of me, and my sisters laughed nervously with her.

“You won't tell, will you, Nurse?” wheedled Allegra. “It's just on Sundays, and we do love her so! It isn't fair that Father won't let her be with us.”

Nurse pursed her lips. “No, dearies, it isn't fair at all. I think it's just lovely that you're all together like this. I won't tell, my pets—but you must be discreet. Don't let anyone know!”

We all shook our heads seriously. This would make
our Sundays so much easier—no more hiding from Nurse at the nightly checks, and no need to worry if she intercepted a smile or wave that passed between us, or even a note. I breathed a sigh of relief that Nurse hadn't been angry, ignoring the look she had given me at first. I'd been half asleep—perhaps it had even been part of my dream.

Nurse gave us each a nighttime drink of chocolate, and we gulped it down and laid our heads on the feather pillows. Then she tucked us in—even me, and I thrilled to the feel of her hands smoothing the quilt above me, just as if I were a real princess.

“Good night, dearies,” Nurse said, and we echoed, “Good night!” back in unison. As the door closed, Adena hugged me.

“I was afraid she'd be mad,” she whispered. “I thought she might make you go—or tell Father!”

I shivered at the thought. We all feared our father for his unpredictability and sudden rages, but my fear was different from my sisters'. They knew that he loved them, in his way. I had seen him gaze proudly at them as they rode with unusual grace or spoke a French phrase with perfect inflection. I had heard him gruffly compliment them when they looked especially lovely, with their hair in a becoming style or wearing a newly made dress.

I knew that other fathers loved their daughters as well. The maids Salina, Bethea, and Dagman often told tales of their fathers, men strong enough to swing young children onto their shoulders, protective enough to threaten a drunken suitor, loving enough to scratch out a dowry to ensure a good marriage. But my father turned away when he saw me, a scowl twisting his face. Despite what Cook had said to the contrary, I thought that he hated me and blamed me for my mother's death. It made me ache inside.

In my desire to please Father, I learned to bake. He loved sweets, and when he bit into a honey cake I had made one evening, his mouth pulled into the closest thing to a smile that he could manage.

“Cook!” he roared, sending the serving girls scurrying to the kitchen. I watched from behind the door as Cook rushed into the dining room, dipping low in an awkward curtsy and wiping her hands surreptitiously on her floury apron.

“Your Majesty,” she managed. I laughed to myself to see her unnerved.

“This cake…,” Father said, gesturing with his fork. “It is unusually good.”

Cook reddened with pleasure, but then she remembered who had actually made it. I could see the battle taking place within her as she tried to decide whether to
tell. But her heart was big and true, and she sighed and said, “It was Zita's recipe, and her making.”

The silence was immediate as my sisters, their tutor, and several of Father's councilors who sat at the long table stared down at their plates, pretending sudden fascination with the leftovers from their meal. Father deliberately took another bite, chewed slowly, and swallowed.

“Tell Zita it is very fine,” he said finally, wiping his mouth with his linen napkin.

I clasped my hands together in glee as Cook curtsied again and backed from the room, almost falling over in her desire to be gone.

After that I experimented with tarts and pies, cakes and cookies, always trying to create a sweet that would bring that half smile again to Father's face. I watched from the doorway as he tasted each of my confections, and I imagined that his enjoyment was a compliment to me that he could not find the words to express.

On my twelfth birthday, which happily fell on a September Sunday, my sisters gave me an exquisite gift. It was a deep-green velvet coverlet for my bed. The silk embroidery, which they had done themselves, showed our own palace over the lake. The details were astonishing—a fish poked its head up from the silky blue water; a horseman clopped across the bridge;
willows bent low from the shore; and in a window high above the lake, a face showed. It was my face, surrounded by unmistakable red silk curls, smiling. The window was that of my sisters' bedroom.

“Oh, how beautiful!” I gasped, looking at the embroidered picture. “It's me in the window! I've never seen anything so wonderful!”

My sisters smiled proudly, and I peered more closely at my own face, tiny on the coverlet.

“What is that behind me?” I asked. There was a darkness there, behind the embroidered figure.

“Amina spilled some chocolate while we were working,” Alanna said.

“I did not! That is just not so!” Amina protested. “The threads just…seem darker there. Nothing was spilled.”

I looked again. It seemed there was a figure, nebulous and indistinct, behind me in the window.

“Maybe one of you pricked your finger, and it's blood,” I suggested. “But it hardly shows. The embroidery is perfect. I shall use it every night.” I hugged the coverlet to me, knowing that I would have to hide it beneath the rough blanket that covered my bed so that none of the servants would see it.