Princess of the Silver Woods (Twelve Dancing Princesses) (6 page)

“Really?” Petunia peered through the thick trunks but couldn’t make out a wall.

“It’s made of a brownish gray stone,” Oliver said. “It’s fairly hard to see from here.”

“Are the grounds quite large?”

“Very,” Oliver said, and his voice was strained.

Petunia gave him a quick look. She was hit, suddenly, with how hard this must be for him. He had been disinherited through no fault of his own; he had lived most of his life in the forest, responsible for the survival of dozens of people; and now, because of her, he had to see his old home again, the home that had been given to someone else.

“If it’s only a few minutes walk, I can go alone,” Petunia said. She gave him a quick smile. “I’m not trying to be rude, but won’t it be better for you if you’re not seen? I can tell them that I got lost and made my own way here.”

“That
would
be better,” Oliver admitted. “But are you sure that you can find the way?”

She raised one eyebrow.

“Yes, all right,” he said with a laugh. “I’m sure that you’re capable of following a road! Well then, just follow it around this bend; the wall comes right up alongside the road. The gates are perhaps a mile along, you can’t miss them.” He swept a low bow. “And so, princess, this lowly earl will bid you farewell!”

Petunia felt another stab of pity for Oliver, and guilt over her own behavior. She gave him a proper curtsy, as befit an earl.

“Thank you for all your help,” she told him.

“The pleasure, I assure you, was mine,” he said, and bowed again. This time Petunia couldn’t detect any irony in the gesture.

“Please give my best to your mother,” she said. “And convey my wishes for a speedy recovery to your brother.” She gave him a small smile, and then turned, feeling self-conscious, and continued on up the road.

After a moment, she looked over her shoulder, pretending to fuss with the way her basket hung over her elbow. Oliver was gone, and the road was empty.

Hidden

Oliver faded back into the forest, putting on his mask out of habit. He kept to the side opposite the estate wall, staring at Petunia. If the princess couldn’t find the gates to the estate from that point, she really was more helpless than a babe, but still he watched. Oliver knew that if he didn’t report back to his mother that he had seen her safely through the gates, he would never be forgiven.

Besides which, his mother wasn’t the only person who wanted to make sure she was safe.

He could feel the knot of tension between his shoulder blades beginning to unravel. She was almost there. Now he could relax and just go back to the old hall and be what he was: a disgraced earl with nothing more pressing on his mind than whether to rob the very next traveler on the main road or wait a few days.

Oliver sidled through the trees. There was a crash and a roar of sound from the direction of the still-hidden gates. Oliver
saw Petunia freeze in the middle of the road, her right hand reaching into her basket for her pistol. Why didn’t she move? Oliver knew exactly what that sound was, but she just stood there with her head cocked in curiosity.

Oliver didn’t hesitate for another second. He ran for the princess. She still hadn’t moved when he reached her, dragging her to the opposite side of the road. They tripped over each other’s feet and fell against the leaf-strewn bank. She screamed, but Oliver wasn’t sure if it was because of him or because of the pack of hunters who were bearing down on them. Had he not hauled her out of the way, the superb black stallion at the front would have run her down.

“Out of the way,” the black horse’s rider shouted, brandishing his whip. It snapped out and nearly struck Oliver’s cheek, which was fortunately still covered by his mask.

“Watch yourself!” Oliver shouted back.

Oliver could feel Petunia trembling with shock. He scrambled to his feet and helped her up. Her cloak was covered with leaf mold, and the hood had fallen back to show all her masses of curls. Her eyes were extremely wide, and her face was very white. Oliver could see that she realized now just how close she had come to dying under the hooves of that horse.

Knowing that the sight of his wolf mask was only adding to her fright, Oliver reached up to unfasten it, but Petunia put out a hand to stop him. She darted a look over her shoulder at the rider, who was now bringing the black horse around, whip still raised.

“Gypsies, are you? Stay out of the road,” the rider said in faintly accented Westfalian. He was very tall and had dark hair beneath a black hat. Petunia was staring up at him.

“Run,” she said, her voice soft.

“What?” Oliver leaned in closer.

Petunia turned and pushed his chest, nearly sending him onto his rump with surprise. “Run!”

“You there!” The rider was standing in his stirrups, his whip coming down to point at Oliver. “Why are you wearing that mask?”

“Your Highness,” called out one of the other men. “It’s the princess! The Wolves have kidnapped the princess!”

“Run, you fool,” snapped Petunia, and then she lunged forward and caught the black horse’s reins just as its rider spurred it toward Oliver.

Oliver didn’t want to run, but he was no fool, regardless of what Petunia thought. He spun and ran through the forest as though all the hounds of hell were after him. Which, to a certain extent, they were.

“Prince Grigori,” Petunia called out. “Stop!”

Oliver felt sick. This was Prince Grigori, the beloved grandson of the Grand Duchess Volenskaya? He and his black horse were no strangers to Oliver, though he had never known the man’s name. This man was the leader of the hunters who had been tracking Oliver and his men for months, hounding them at every turn.

If the Russakan prince was hunting for human wolves in Westfalin, then Oliver had no doubt that Grigori had the
blessing of King Gregor and probably King Phillippe of Analousia as well. Oliver and his men crossed the border with impunity and had robbed travelers from many lands. But even knowing his own crimes, Oliver had hoped that the men hunting them were vigilantes who had simply lost a purse or two to the bandits. That way Oliver had no qualms about evading them or taking stronger action if the hunters came too close to the old hall. But if they had royal support, any retaliation would be treason as well as murder.

Oliver was on the wrong side of the road now, with the wall of the estate preventing him from fading into the forest, and the hunters were almost outpacing him. He would have to take to the trees or go over the wall and hide on the grounds for a time.

When he thought the trees were thick enough to conceal him, he stopped and listened until he heard the horses go past. Oliver located a sturdy elm that had branches that hung over the wall of the estate and swung himself up. He sat in the crook of one of the larger branches and listened some more, pushing back his hood so that he could hear better. They were definitely on foot now; the underbrush was too thick for a mounted search.

Oliver leaned along the branch as far as he could, looking through the dry, rattling leaves that still clung to the winter branches. There was no snow on the yellowed lawns of the estate, and the bareness of the bushes and trees provided little concealment. It had been a terrible winter: bitter cold yet with little snow.

Still, if he made a break back through the trees he would have to cross the road at some point, and he felt certain that Grigori would catch him. So instead Oliver quickly shed his mask and cloak and bundled it into another crook of the tree’s branches. It looked rather like a large, mossy nest. Then he slithered out to the end of the branch, which bent under his weight and dropped him down on the grounds of the estate, hidden from Grigori and his men by the high wall.

Straightening his leather jerkin, he did his best to look like a gardener off on some serious task, and strode along one of the winding gravel paths where he had played as a small child. If memory served, there were several outbuildings on the grounds. One of them was bound to be empty, and he could hide for a time before slipping back over the fence and on his way.

He came around a large juniper bush and nearly bumped into two men with a wheelbarrow full of dead branches. Oliver froze for a moment, but the men just nodded and continued on. Oliver managed to fight down the urge to flee, and nodded back. As he passed them, forcing himself to walk with purpose, he heard one of the men say, “Another new one. I wonder which of us got the ax this time.”

To Oliver’s immense relief, another turn of the path brought him to the hothouses. In his childhood the last one in the row had been a treasure trove of old potting tables and other discarded paraphernalia. Peering through the old, dingy glass he saw that it was not being put to any better use now. He unlatched the door and hurried inside.

Nothing had changed. Oliver could have navigated the rickety tables and cracked urns with his eyes closed. The floor at the front was remarkably clean, but that was the only improvement. He found the old bench just where he had left it. It was stone, badly chipped, and covered in a thick layer of old burlap sacks. Oliver shoved them to the floor, coughing at the resulting cloud of dust, and settled himself on the bench. He braced his feet on the edge of one of the tables and tried to rest. It would be far easier to leave in the dark. The hunters were rarely out then, afraid of running into four-legged wolves or having a horse put a foot wrong.

It was late afternoon, and the sky was already beginning to darken, so he knew he wouldn’t have long to wait. But as the purple-gray twilight took over the weak winter day, Oliver fell asleep.

When he awoke it was completely dark. The darkness was strange and thick, and Oliver thought he heard someone whispering. He sat up very slowly and peered into the blackness. The door opened, and Oliver made himself as still as possible. Every urn in the hothouse rattled, as though there was an earthquake, but Oliver felt nothing. There was a howl of laughter and the hothouse door slammed shut, leaving Oliver feeling distinctly alone. But if he was alone now, what had been in the hothouse with him a moment before?

Cursing, he stumbled through the darkness. Once he reached the door, he slipped through, pausing only for a
moment to listen for someone outside. Shadows seemed to wind through the hedges, shadows that had nothing to do with the moonlight and the pattern of darkness cast by the trees and shrubs. Oliver followed in the wake of the weird shadows, across the lawns, to the great estate house itself.

It was very late, and all the windows were dark. Oliver found himself praying silently that someone would light a lamp or a candle, even if the light exposed him. What were those things crawling across the lawn? With a mounting sense of horror, he saw the dark shapes reach the house.

With a terrible laugh, the shadow creatures pulled themselves up the wall to a window on the second floor that was open despite the cold. Oliver hid behind a fountain. The room they had just entered had been his childhood bedroom. Whose was it now? He prayed again, this time that the room had not been given to Petunia.

His question was answered a few moments later when a young woman’s voice cried out, the sound carrying clearly through the open window. She screamed out denials, she screamed out insults, and over and over again she reviled someone called “Kestilan.”

“Oh, ye gods, Petunia,” Oliver whispered from his concealment. “What is all this?”

Oliver didn’t know what to do. There were … things crawling up the wall of the manor house. He was armed, but what would he be shooting at? Shadows moving on the wall? And what if he fired through the window and hit Petunia?

Something rushed by him, cackling, and Oliver swung at
it. His arm went cold where it passed through the shadow, but there was nothing of substance to meet his fist. The attempted punch did not go unnoticed, however, and the shadow creature turned and hovered in front of Oliver.

“Stay away from her,” Oliver said, trying to sound dangerous and not terrified.

Another cackling laugh. The shadow reached out and put its hand into Oliver’s chest. A sheath of ice instantly covered his heart, and then the shadow squeezed. Oliver gasped as intense pain flared in his chest, streaking through his entire body. He tried to step back but found that he couldn’t move so much as an eyelid.