Just Ella (4 page)

“Princess,” he said.

His voice was low and deep, just as you would expect. Perfect, like everything else about him.

He sat down beside me, his left leg a scant inch from my skirt.

“Have you had a good day?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “And you?”

I hesitated. Had he heard about Lord Reston? Would I be violating some etiquette rule by bringing up his condition? I didn't know if Prince Charming realized that Lord Reston was tutoring me, or if Prince Charming even knew who Lord Reston was. No wonder I kept making so many gaffes—I never thought to ask the important questions until it was too late. Tonight, I decided, the less said the better.

“My day was fine, Your Majesty,” I murmured.

“Good,” he said.

The chaperon coughed behind us. The clock ticked. I saw the time on its face: 8:03. And already Prince Charming and I had run out of things to say.

I often wished, during these stiff meetings, that I could skip ahead in my life, past the glorious wedding, to maybe a year from now. Then, after many hours together without a chaperon, I could picture the prince and me cuddling cozily on these cushions instead of sitting stiffly an inch apart. We'd share our deepest thoughts and dreams, forgetting there was a castle or a kingdom or anything outside our love for each other. We'd call each other Charm and El, not “Majesty” and “Princess.”

So far I'd called Prince Charming “Charm” only in my mind.

Prince Charming gave me an innocent, adorable smile. He didn't
seem to realize that the chaperon made me feel awkward, or that the silence between us was uncomfortable and unnatural.

Charm and I hadn't talked much the night of the ball either, but then, we didn't need to. When we danced, he kept one hand on just the right spot on the small of my back, gently guiding me. His other hand held mine. We looked into each other's eyes, and it seemed like he already knew everything about me. He didn't let me dance with anyone else. He whispered in my ear, “You're the most beautiful girl here.”

Hey, I was as susceptible to flattery as the next girl.

Sometimes he still told me I was beautiful, but it wasn't like he was really paying attention.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked.

He jerked his head toward me, jolted by the urgency in my voice.

“The hunt,” he said, then looked puzzled. I may have surprised him into telling the truth.

“You went hunting today,” I said, trying to coax more out of him. “Did you catch much?”

The word
catch
sounded odd. Back home we used to talk about catching fish. That's what I was thinking of. But the deer and wild boars and other animals worthy of royalty's attention weren't “caught.” Should I have said “killed”? Were ladies allowed to say that? How could Prince Charming and I ever talk the way I wanted to—no holds barred, our thoughts as close as our bodies had been at the grand ball—if we couldn't even use the same words?

The prince smiled indulgently.

“Don't trouble your mind about that,” he said. “The kingdom is in fine shape. Why, we throw away food here at the castle that would be a feast in Suala.”

Suala was a neighboring kingdom. We had been at war with Suala for as long as I could remember, so maybe the prince was only showing bravado, the way street urchins brag about the number of maggots in the bread they steal. But still, I wondered. . . .

“Why?” I asked. “Why throw away food when some of your own subjects go hungry each night? Why, I myself know—”

The prince toyed with a ringlet that had escaped from the ribbon holding my hair in place. He wrapped and unwrapped my long blond curl around his fingers. I wished my hair had feeling. I wished he were touching my hand instead. I couldn't remember what I was going to say I knew.

The prince chuckled.

“So my princess worries about the poor,” he said. “If it pleases you, I'll order that our table scraps be set outside the palace gate each evening.”

“It's that easy?” I asked. “Just like that?”

The prince shrugged.

“Why not? It matters not to me.”

He smiled and I should have smiled back, given him the gratitude he deserved. But his last words stopped me.

Why didn't his own hungry subjects matter to him? What was wrong with this man?

The next morning, when the time came that I normally met with Lord Reston, I sat wondering if someone else would replace him or if—miracle of miracles—I'd actually have some time to myself. I was irritated that, once again, nobody had told me anything. The servants all knew my schedule—how else did the maids know exactly when to flounce in to make my bed, exactly when to make themselves scarce? But I, the supposed princess, never knew from one minute to the next what I was supposed to do or where I was supposed to be until someone hissed last-minute instructions to me. Probably the little servant girl, Mary, could have told me yesterday who was going to take over teaching whatever it was Lord Reston was supposed to be teaching me.

I had just decided that if I did have a free moment, I'd like to hunt Mary up to check on Lord Reston, when a strange knock sounded at my door. I say strange, because until that moment, I'd
never thought about the fact that every single person in the castle knocked in one of two ways. All the servants knocked once loudly, as if to guarantee they got my attention, and then once softly, as if to apologize that their humble selves were so disrespectful as to disturb royalty. Everyone else, all my instructors and the ladies-in-waiting and other nobility, knocked four times, emphatically, the knocks as good as saying, “I am important!” and “Acknowledge me at once!”

But this knock was like a half line of music:
Duuunhduh da da da.
Without thinking, I went to the door and gave the two answering knocks it seemed to demand.
Duh duh.
Then I pushed open the door.

A young man I'd never seen before stood in the corridor. He was perhaps a half decade older than me, tall, and much too thin for his frame and his clothes. The clothes also seemed too formal for his comfort somehow, although by castle standards they were practically slovenly: dark velvet breeches with worn knees, a wrinkled white shirt, a brown coat and waistcoat of obviously good wool, but poorly sewn. His dark curly hair could most charitably be called mussed; it reminded me of the way our village had looked after a windstorm toppled three houses and knocked down six trees.

The man's muddy brown eyes were as wide open and stunned-looking as if he'd just personally witnessed such a storm.

“Yes?” I said.

“Princess—I had no idea—I mean . . . I don't mean to be forward, but you're even more beautiful up close,” he stammered.

I sighed. I hated this reaction. About the time I passed my thirteenth summer, two years ago, men had begun looking at me strangely. The butcher's boy, whom I had previously considered a sensible fellow, followed me around for five days with an expression as addlepated as a cow off her feed. He got in the way when I tried to scrub every flagstone of our front path by hand, the way Lucille demanded. I finally had to tell him I'd pull every one of his fingernails out with my bare hands if he didn't leave me alone. (I wouldn't—and couldn't—have done it, of course, but he was too stupid and lovesick to know that.) That got rid of him, but I still hated to go to the butcher's because of him. Or I did, before I became a princess and didn't have to sort through animal entrails anymore.

Of course, if I'd bothered pondering it, I would have thought becoming a princess and wearing fancy dresses instead of rags—and having several maids whose sole purpose in life seemed to be making me beautiful—would have subjected me to more addlepated expressions than ever. But it hadn't. Maybe being the prince's betrothed was as good as wearing a sign that said; “Addle or pate over this girl, and the prince could have you beheaded.” Before this young man—or boy, really, he wasn't much more than a boy—every glance directed my way had been perfectly discreet and bland. But he was still gawking.

“Well,” I said, “thank you. But please, I beg you, don't let it bother you.”

He shut his gaping mouth and gave a little jerk and returned to what I guessed must be normal for him. He dipped into an awkward bow, almost laughably off balance, then swung back up sideways and introduced himself.

“I'm Jed Reston. I'm sure someone told you—I'm going to be teaching you because my father is . . . er, dang it, I'm not used to talking to princesses. What words am I allowed to use to tell you what happened to my father?”

I stepped aside to let him into the room.

“I'm not really a princess,” I said, forgetting myself. Then I quickly added, “I mean, I wasn't raised the way a princess would be raised in this kingdom. And I saw what happened to your father. How is he now?”

“Just fine. Thank you for your concern.” The words came out rapid-fire, like blasts from several cannons at once.

“No,
really,
” I said. “Tell me. I don't care what words you use.”

Jed grimaced.

“Still mostly paralyzed. But you can tell that underneath, he's furious at not being able to get up and walk and talk and act pompous. Oops. Dang it again. Dad's right. I never will learn to be diplomatic.”

He looked so nonplussed, I couldn't help laughing. After a second, he joined in.

“I suppose I shouldn't do that when Dad's not around
to defend himself—but he already knows I think he acts pompously. He says it's part of his job. Which I'm supposed to be doing now.”

I'd met Jed only moments earlier, but already I knew he could never carry off pomposity. He did seem serious, though, about doing his father's job. His eyes were scanning the room.

“Where do you study?” he asked.

I pointed to the pair of chairs where Lord Reston and I had sat only the day before. I was delighted that Jed sat down immediately without doing the elaborate cat-and-mouse dance all my other instructors followed: “Princess, may I help you to your seat?” (Deep bow.) “May it be your pleasure that your humble servant be seated as well?” (Deep bow again.) Madame Bisset had told me that if anyone failed to show me the proper respect of that ridiculous little routine (“ridiculous” being my term for it, not hers) I should feign a fainting spell and call for a guard to have the cretin removed. I had never bothered to ask how I could call for a guard while fainting. I hastened to my chair for fear that Jed might realize his error and attempt to correct it. In the past weeks, I'd been “Princess”-ed and “humble servant”-ed enough to last a lifetime.

Jed was busy taking a slender booklet out of his jacket.

“Can you read?” he asked.

“Of course,” I said, blushing indignantly, though there was no “of course” about it. Even in the palace—maybe especially in the palace—plenty of women
couldn't read. And since I was a commoner—if Jed knew what I really was—he couldn't assume I'd even seen an alphabet, let alone ever opened a book.

“My father taught me,” I said. “He collected old books, and sometimes I would help him appraise them. . . .” I was overcome with a flash of memory: my father and I, our heads bent close over an old book dusty and brittle with age, yet richly gilded, full of beautiful script and words that sang. The candlelight around us ebbed and flowed, and I felt like we were sitting in an ever-changing dome of light, while all around us was darkness. It was not one particular moment that I remembered, but dozens, for we had often looked at books together in the evenings before the Step-Evils arrived.

“Does he only buy books, or also sell?” Jed asked. “There are a few rare volumes of philosophy I've been looking for.”

In truth, my father had had to sell almost as much as he bought. That was how he supported us. But, of course, I couldn't say that if I was supposed to be a princess.

“My father is dead,” I blurted instead. The words brought back the pain I'd felt when I heard the news three years ago. I could still see Lucille clutching the letter and practically cackling, “The fool was trying to cross the Sualan border. For books!” And she'd rolled her eyes. Now I closed mine momentarily.

“I'm sorry,” Jed said with an air of deep sincerity.

“Thank you,” I said. I had not known what to do with condolences when the news was fresh, and I did not know now. I bent forward to look at the book in Jed's hand. It was
the first one I had seen since coming to the castle, so I felt genuine eagerness. “What would you have me read?”

He showed me the title:
The Book of Faith.

“My father has not showed you this?” he asked in puzzlement.

I shook my head.

“But he was instructing you in the official religion. He was to certify that you were a fit companion for the prince and would raise your offspring in the faith.”

I started laughing as I hadn't since coming to the castle. I probably hadn't even laughed like that since before the Step-Evils entered my life.

“Religion?” I asked incredulously. “I thought he was teaching me royal genealogy. All those dull, dead kings—”

I was laughing so hard, even Jed had to smile.

“Aye, to my father 'tis much the same thing,” he admitted.

My laughter turned into snorts, very nonroyal. I calmed myself.

“About the faith—,” Jed began.

I began giggling again and calmed myself only to start again. And again. I was a fountain of hilarity, shooting out bursts of laughter every time Jed tried to speak. At last he gave up and laughed too.

After that, my days fell into a happier pattern. I still struggled to stay awake during needlepoint lessons, and Madame Bisset still corrected my pronunciation and my posture and my manners about fifty thousand times for every five minutes I spent with her. I still longed to go outside. (Madame Bisset turned down my timid request for riding lessons with a horrified sniff and the words: “A princess would never be without her carriage.” Then she fainted.) And I still wished that Prince Charming and I could talk, even just once, without a chaperon there making us all stiff and formal and tongue-tied. But at least now, with Jed, I knew I had one person I could talk to in the castle.