In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

“It’ll make me puke!”

“Anna can stew it up with herbs and make it all tasty. He found some flowers, too, a kind I’ve never seen before. Maybe you can dry them and press them to make something pretty.”

“I don’t want to. Papa let me fight with swords. I want to fight with swords!”

One of the guards made a noise halfway between a hiccup and a cough.

“I can so! I can so!”

“Blessing!”

She shut her eyes and to Antonia’s amazement did not burst into tears, as she would have done just two months ago. She struggled, that dusky face mobile in all its expressions, flashing quickly from thwarted anger through innocent bewilderment into a determination that showed itself by the way she jutted out her jaw.

“Your Highness, I have found you an apple.”

Antonia looked away, letting the branches ease back into place. It was bad enough to hear his voice. She could not bear to look at him as well.

“Thank you, Brother Heribert.”

“Properly spoken, brat,” said Berthold with a laugh. “We’ll teach you manners yet.”

“I hate you,” said Blessing in a tone that meant exactly the opposite. “Come, Brother Heribert,” she added grandly. “We’ll go up to Anna. We don’t need him anymore.”

“It’s time for your lessons,” he said in the voice that sounded like Heribert but not like him.

“I hate books!”

“You must learn. It is what he wanted.”

“Go on, brat. Learning is a weapon as sharp as steel.”

“You’ll come too, Berthold?” she asked plaintively.

“In a bit.”

Her sigh seemed loud enough to rattle the leaves. She tromped off. Antonia from her concealment saw the pair as they climbed the steps onto the long porch that looked over the enclosed garden. A trio of bored guards dogged their heels. One held the chain bound to Blessing’s left wrist, a necessary precaution after her first two escape attempts. On the third step Heribert paused and glanced back over the garden, and for an instant Antonia thought he looked right at her, although surely she was safely hidden in the bower.

“That child has a terrible liking for you, my lord,” said the older of the two guards attending Berthold. He spoke in Dariyan.

“Do you think so?” Berthold had taken to Dariyan so easily that it was likely he had some prior knowledge of the language, although nothing Antonia knew of the Villam clan suggested an earlier link to Aosta.

“Surely enough, for I’ve two daughters close to her in age and I know the look they gave those lads they took a liking to.”

“Poor thing,” said Berthold.

“Think you so?” asked the younger guard. “She is a brat. Princess Mathilda is a nobler child.”

“I pray you, Philo, I will not hear Princess Blessing spoken of in that way.” The tone was gentle enough to make the older guard chuckle and the younger one truckle.

“I beg pardon, my lord. I meant nothing disrespectful. Yet it’s her father killed our lord, the queen’s husband. His own father! Surely the stain of his patricide marks her somehow. She hasn’t the look of proper people. What if that’s the influence of the Enemy?”

“I’m no cleric to answer such troubling questions. Princess Mathilda is a fine young lady, indeed, as she must be with such royal parents. What say you we go find those pastries you were speaking about?”

“Is it the pastries you lads are wanting a closer look at, or the cook’s helpers?” said the elder, and the younger two chortled.

They walked away in good charity with each other. Queen Adelheid had no idea how thoroughly Lord Berthold had cozened his guards and what freedom they allowed him, none of which she had approved. He had the run of the castle, as long as he kept out of the way of those who would get his guards in trouble. Antonia watched the three men retreat down the length of the garden between the serried ranks of fruit trees only now leafing and budding as the warmth of spring tried to penetrate the clouds. There was a brilliance in the sky today that gave her hope that the sun would break through soon. If not now, when?

Berthold could have escaped a hundred times in the last three months, but he had not, because Blessing could not. Like Villam, he was loyal to Wendar and, despite Mathilda’s superior claims, it was obvious to Antonia that Berthold had made his choice. Adelheid might believe otherwise, but she had allowed herself to be blinded by his youthful charm.