Part 19 (1/2)
”If we are to stay here forever, we will need some things,” Rose said evenly.
”You have been given clothing, and your old things were just returned to you,” Telinros said. Petunia noticed that his fists were clenched: he probably had not enjoyed losing to Poppy and Violet.
”I refuse to wear someone else's stockings,” Lily said with a snap in her voice that Petunia had never heard before. ”If I am to be your queen, I will not wear tatty old stockings and garters made to fit some common courtier with elephantine legs!”
Everyone gaped at her. Derivos actually let out a little bray of laughter.
”I don't know where your clothing comes from,” Lily went on, ”or how to get more, but if you provide us with yarn and needles we will make our own. And the best, sharpest needles to be had are taken from the branches of the silver trees across the lake!”
Petunia cringed and just behind her Daisy sucked in her breath loudly. Even Lily's face had gone rigid, and Petunia knew that her sister had gone too far. The princes would surely guess why they really wanted twigs from the silver wood, now that Lily had reminded them all of what had happened the last time someone had used the silver wood for knitting needles.
”Do you think we are fools?” asked Stavian.
”Princess Rose has made it clear before that she does not find us all that intelligent,” remarked the King Under Stone as he strolled into the room. ”Isn't that right, dear Rose?”
A chill went up Petunia's back. ”Dear Rose” had been the first king's way of addressing Rose. In the grayish light of the sitting room, Rionin looked even more like his father than he had in the ballroom. She nudged Poppy, whose hand was already hovering near her right leg. Petunia wondered if Poppy had cut a slit in her riding gown so that she could reach a pistol more easily. Poppy moved to the front so that she had a clear view of Rionin.
”What is it that our dear brides wish?” Rionin smiled at them with pointed teeth.
In the days since they had arrived in the Kingdom Under Stone, he had glutted himself on the power from their dancing. His hair shone silver, and his eyes blazed green. He reminded her of someone ... not his father, but someone else she couldn't quite put her finger on.
”They want to go to the silver wood to make knitting needles,” said Derivos.
”We need stockings that fit,” said Pansy, her voice little more than a squeak. She was holding Lily's hand.
”Naturally you do,” said the King Under Stone. ”And it would be wise to find something to occupy you during the days. Can't have you wandering about the palace, plotting mischief, now can we?” His cold eyes fixed on Poppy, and he snapped his long fingers.
In an instant Blathen had leaped at Poppy and wrestled her to the ground. Rose flung herself at him, hammering his back with her fists. Daisy kicked him in the side with her riding boot and shouted for him to let her twin go. Poppy was screaming obscenities and pulling at Blathen's ears so hard that Petunia, who was frozen in place, thought they might come right off.
”Got it,” Blathen panted, slithering away from his a.s.sailants.
He held up the heavy pistol, triumphant despite his scratched and bruised face. Rose helped Poppy to her feet, and to Petunia's increased horror, Poppy was sobbing.
”Never touch me again,” she choked out.
Blathen just leered at her.
The others circled around her, Daisy taking Poppy in her arms and rocking her. But Petunia couldn't keep her eyes off of Rionin, and Rionin was staring right back at her.
”Pet ... isn't that what they call you?”
”They do, but not you,” Petunia said, but her bravado was ruined by her shaking voice.
”Dear little Pet,” said the King Under Stone, smiling even wider. ”I think you would be the perfect choice to go and fetch some twigs from the wood. And your betrothed can accompany you.”
”I want Telinros or Derivos to come as well,” Kestilan said, looking uneasy.
”Take them both, if you are feeling cowardly. Although I fail to see how one little girl can do much harm,” the king retorted. Then he swept out of the room, and the sisters weren't the only ones who sighed with relief when he left.
Woodsman.
So this is Maude's forest,” Bishop Schelker said wonderingly.
”An inadvertent gift to her daughters,” Galen said.
They moved through the silent woods, the tree branches swaying over their heads in a breeze that could not be felt. Oliver had never seen anything like it. The trunks of the trees were softly gleaming, and the leaves were shaped like hearts, each one the length of his thumb. It looked like the work of a silversmith, but he could see where their roots were digging deep into the black soil.
Walter led them into the woods a little way so that they were hidden from the path that wound through it. He took a saw-edged knife from his belt and reached up, cupping a hand gently over a low-hanging branch. With a deep breath, he began to cut.
Oliver watched with a faintly sick feeling as Walter's knife rasped through the silver tree. Then he chose a thicker tree branch. He'd taken Karl's ax before sending his men, with Prince Frederick, to the grand d.u.c.h.ess's estate. Oliver hesitated, aiming the ax at it several times, before a nod from Galen gave him the encouragement he needed. He swung and took the branch off with one blow.
The crone gave an appreciative whistle.
”I've been taking out my frustrations on firewood since I was twelve,” Oliver told her. He braced his foot on the fallen branch and cut it in half with another blow.
”I don't know how inadvertent this was,” Bishop Schelker said, fingering some of the silver leaves.
”What do you mean?”
Oliver picked up the smaller part of the branch he had just severed and studied the end. The wood, if wood it was, was silver clear through and didn't have rings, so there was no way of telling how old it was. A few strange, soft fibers poked out of the cut, and the branch felt like neither metal nor wood, but a mixture of both.
”I didn't know what she was doing at night, of course,” the bishop said, ”nor why she was becoming more sorrowful even as her beautiful daughters were bringing such joy to Gregor.
”She told me that she was troubled by dreams. I knew she was holding back, but only now do I realize how much.” Schelker kicked at the sparkling black soil at their feet.
”In one of her dreams,” the bishop continued, ”she said that she planted the silver cross I had given her. The cross sprouted into a s.h.i.+ning forest that brought hope and protection to her children. She was expecting at the time ... Lilac, as I recall ... and I a.s.sumed that it was the fancy of a woman in her delicate condition.” He grimaced and snapped off a twig to add to the crown prince's growing pile. ”I a.s.sured her that her children were in no danger. I remember how sadly she looked at me, as if I had disappointed her. A few days later she stopped wearing the brooch. I thought she had put it away because I had upset her.”
”Lily always said that her mother had dropped the brooch returning from the Midnight Ball,” Heinrich said. ”But perhaps she decided that her dream was more than just a dream and planted it on purpose.”
”I rather suspect that she did,” Bishop Schelker said.
”Of course she did,” Walter grunted. He was stripping leaves from the branches and putting them in his bag. ”Maude believed in dreams, and magic, or we wouldn't be here.”
”Should we be watching for ... guards or anything?”
Oliver had been about to take a swing at another branch, but wondered if the noise they were making would attract unwanted attention. Everything was so still and silent without birds or insects or even a real wind that the sound of Walter picking leaves was making him twitch.
”There are no guards,” the crown prince said. ”There's the king, the princes, and the court, but they never venture across the lake.”
”Hurry and get a few more branches if you would, Oliver,” Walter Vogel said. ”Then we'll find a place to make our preparations.”
”How large is this wood?” Oliver asked.
He took a few steps farther into the thick of the trees. They had been taking leaves and cutting branches right beside a narrow path, and he worried that Grigori or someone else who used the same gate would notice. A few steps in he selected another branch and lopped it off near the trunk of the s.h.i.+ning tree.
”I don't know that anyone's ever explored it,” Walter said. ”Galen and the girls were too busy running to really take it all in the last time.” He gave a dry chuckle.