Princess Of The Silver Woods Part 20

"It came from over there," Bishop Schelker said, pointing through the trees where they had last seen Petunia.

Out of habit, Oliver pulled his wolf mask over his face and fastened it. He grabbed his pistol, s.h.i.+fting it to his left hand. He hefted Karl's ax with his right. "I hope this doesn't ruin your plans too much," he said to the crown prince, and then he raced off through the woods.

Prize.

Petunia was having quite an enjoyable time pretending that Kestilan and Telinros didn't exist. Telinros was returning the favor, but it frustrated Kestilan and he kept trying to make conversation, or at the very least make her look at him.

She went a little way along the path that wound from the black sh.o.r.e through the silver wood. It was the same path that she and her sisters had always used, a path she hadn't walked in ten years.

"Petunia, come back here!" Kestilan called.

That decided her. She went along the path to its end, with the princes trailing behind. Kestilan continued to plead with her to turn back, but Telinros just looked angry when she peeked at him. She straightened her cloak and kept going.

At the end of the path she found the silver gate, set with pearls, that even after all these years was as familiar to her as her own bedposts. Wrapped around the gate was the chain of boiled wool links that Galen had used to seal it shut, the knot pinned by a silver knitting needle.

She reached out and fingered the scratchy, boiled wool of the chain. She remembered watching Galen knit it at dinner, the night before the old king had forced them to stay Under Stone. At the time she'd thought he was only amusing her and her sisters, the way he had earlier by giving Pansy a red yarn puffball when she was crying. It wasn't until later that she understood what he was doing, his calloused fingers working away with the yarn that was so much more than just wool.

Petunia's mouth went dry. She whirled, grateful that her sweeping cloak hid the chain from the two princes. Their faces were white and strained, as though it hurt them to be so close to the gate, and she felt a small surge of triumph even as she brushed past them, hurrying back along the path and hoping that they would follow. She snapped her fingers to speed them along.

The chain was knotted and pinned on the inside of the gate now.

Halfway down the path she noticed something else that she did not want the princes to see. Someone had chopped a branch off one of the trees. The scar on the trunk was plain to her eyes, glittering slightly. The s.h.i.+mmering black soil was swirled and scuffed as though several people had been there. She immediately went to the other side of the path and began testing the branches, moving with light steps.

"Don't go into the trees," Kestilan said.

"Stop her," Telinros ordered his brother.

Petunia looked back and saw them both standing at the edge of the path, their faces twisted with pain. Kestilan took one step off the path, between two arching silver trees, and hissed. He glared at Petunia.

"Come here."

"No," she said. "I'll come when I've finished gathering twigs."

"Gather them from the path," he snarled.

"No."

She kept walking deeper into the woods. She heard slow steps behind her: Kestilan braving the blessed silver. She hoped the pain was excruciating.

"Petunia, come back here!"

"No!"

"Haven't you learned not to wander into the woods?"

That brought her up short.

It was true that she was in the Kingdom Under Stone because she had been picking flowers that any sane person would have known signaled a trap. But how could she get into any more trouble? And now she was walking in her mother's silver wood, perhaps the safest place in this realm.

She went forward and came through the trees into a clearing. In the middle of the clearing was a beautiful little house, like an a.n.a.lousian chalet with a sloping roof and ornately carved wooden balconies. It was all in black, and there was none of the traditional paintings on the walls, but otherwise it looked precisely like a chalet from the southeastern mountains.

"Petunia! Come back at once!"

She stepped into the clearing with Kestilan's voice growing fainter behind her. Despite her reasoning, she still wished she had her pistol or a silver dagger or something. She gave the top of her bodice a little pat, feeling the matches there. At least she had them.

The door of the chalet swung open and someone strolled out onto the porch. Someone tall and slim, dressed in black, and Petunia froze, thinking it was Rionin. How had he gotten through the wood?

"My Petal! Welcome!"

It was Prince Grigori. Petunia felt as though a bucket of cold water had been dumped over her head, and she nearly did run right back to Kestilan then. But anger got the better of her.

"You! What are you doing here?" Petunia demanded. "What is all this?"

He gave her a broad smile of delight. "Have you come to see my grandmother? She has been pining to see you!"

"Your ... grandmother?" Petunia's knees went weak. The grand d.u.c.h.ess was here? In the prison of the Kingdom Under Stone?

"She came right after you did," Grigori said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. He came down the steps, holding out his hand. "I am sorry that I tricked you into coming here," he said. "But it was necessary. Here is where you belong, and so do my grandmother and I. In order to get us here, I had to send you first."

Petunia wanted to slap him. How could he bring the grand d.u.c.h.ess to this place? She would be trapped here in the middle of the woods forever!

"Your poor grandmother! Take me to her at once," Petunia ordered, even as her stomach tied itself in a knot. Escaping had just gotten even more complicated. She pushed past him and started up the steps.

Looking startled at her vehemence, but nevertheless pleased, Prince Grigori hurried forward to lead her into the chalet. It was all silver and black with violet upholstery, not unlike the Palace Under Stone, but without the seediness and rot that crept around the corners. Prince Grigori led her down the hall and knocked on a tall door inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

"Grandmother? Our Petunia is here," he called through the door.

"Bring her in, bring her in," came the grand d.u.c.h.ess's reply before Petunia could protest that she was not his Petunia.

Grigori opened the door on a beautifully appointed bedroom. The black furniture was draped in lacy white. There were white curtains over the windows, a white-canopied bed piled with white cus.h.i.+ons, and white lace shawls and antimaca.s.sars on every surface.

The grand d.u.c.h.ess, sitting up in a froth of lace and pillows on the bed, was also completely in white. She wore a white lace cap over her white hair, and a ruffled white bed jacket. She looked older, and yet strangely more alert than usual, and Petunia wondered wildly if this were the real grand d.u.c.h.ess. But who else could she be?

Petunia covered her distraction by dropping a curtsy. "Your Grace, it's such a surprise to see you here!"

"But why shouldn't I be here? Here is where I belong!" The grand d.u.c.h.ess smiled at her, and Petunia felt a chill run down her spine. The old lady fingered the coverlet with evident satisfaction.

"I- I don't understand," Petunia stammered. "This is the prison of the King Under Stone! None of us should be here."

"Prison? Only temporarily," the grand d.u.c.h.ess said as if it were no great matter. "My only regret is that I was not able to join my beloved years ago, to be his queen before he was cruelly murdered."

"What?" Petunia blinked stupidly at the grand d.u.c.h.ess. Was she really saying that the first King Under Stone would have been ... was her ... Petunia just shuddered, remembering that horrible, bone-white creature on his throne.

Petunia drew her cloak around herself and studied the old woman in the bed. Was this the grand d.u.c.h.ess or had Rionin found some woman of the court to disguise? But to what purpose?

"Now, my Petunia," the grand d.u.c.h.ess teased. "Why do you look at me so? Come here and sit on the bed with me, and Grigori will bring us something hot to drink."

"Have your eyes always been green?" Petunia could not remember.

"Of course they have! What other color would they have been? There have been sonnets written about my emerald green eyes! And they remain as sharp today as they were in my youth-I can see farther than many a young girl!" The grand d.u.c.h.ess laughed, showing two rows of very fine white teeth.

Had they always been so fine and white? Petunia could not remember that either, and could not shake the feeling that she was looking at something ... other ... something that did indeed belong here in the Kingdom Under Stone and not the world above.

"Come, sit here by me, my dear Petunia!" the grand d.u.c.h.ess urged her, patting a small s.p.a.ce on the cus.h.i.+on-covered bed beside her. "Let me explain it all to you. It's not quite as horrible as you've been led to believe."

Petunia didn't move.

"Oh, come now!" The grand d.u.c.h.ess laughed again. "Do you think I bite? Come here, girl, and let me talk to you comfortably!"

The Grand d.u.c.h.ess Volenskaya had shown her nothing but kindness in the past, Petunia reminded herself, had treated her as one of her own granddaughters, in fact. It was not the old lady's fault that her grandson was evil, and he had clearly tricked her into coming here, just as he had tricked Petunia.

Petunia crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed next to the grand d.u.c.h.ess, arranging her cloak around her.

"Don't you want to take the cloak off? You must be warm," the grand d.u.c.h.ess said, reaching one hand out for the ties of the cloak.

"No, thank you." Petunia drew back a little.

"Suit yourself, child," said the grand d.u.c.h.ess. "Now let me explain.

"When I was a very young girl, younger than you are now, my father shut my eight sisters and me in a high tower. He was afraid that we would be taken advantage of by fortune seekers, or fall in love with unsuitable men, and so he decided to lock us away until he could find worthy husbands for all of us. I spent ten years in that tower," the grand d.u.c.h.ess said, her tone bitter, "but toward the end of that time, something happened."

Despite herself, Petunia was leaning closer to the grand d.u.c.h.ess. So it was true, after all. This poor woman had been one of the Nine Daughters of Russaka, seduced by the King Under Stone during her captivity.

"A man began to appear to us," the grand d.u.c.h.ess continued. "He was made all of shadows, but he was kind and wonderful. He told us of his kingdom, and how he wanted to take us all away from that horrible tower. He taught us how to make a door in our tower to go to his palace to dance. We spent so many happy nights there." She sighed, smiling at the memory. "It was a gift from heaven, to be able to escape that small tower room!

"And soon I knew an ever greater joy, when I realized that I would be presenting my beloved king with a child. I thought that he would marry me then, and make me his queen. But to my anger, my sisters were all also with child! I determined to have my child first, but Tanya and Daniela's sons were born minutes before mine." Her lips twisted, bitterly, and Petunia recoiled a little at the expression. But the grand d.u.c.h.ess did not appear to notice.

"We had our children all in the same horrible night," the grand d.u.c.h.ess continued, "while a storm raged outside that kept any help from coming. We had a bell outside our window we could ring when we needed supplies or aid, and though we rang it through the night, the wind howled and none could hear it. When the storm cleared, all nine of us had had our babies, sons all. My parents arrived and looked on us in anguish, but before anyone could speak, a shadow covered the room, and my babe was taken from my arms."

"How dreadful," Petunia said, caught up in the story despite herself.

The grand d.u.c.h.ess patted her hand. "The worst was to come. We were no longer allowed to join our dear king in the Palace Under Stone, but told that our sons would be raised as princes, and in time we might see them all again.

"Our father married us to whatever fools he could find before the scandal spread. Which is how I ended up in Westfalin. A lovely country, to be sure," the grand d.u.c.h.ess said, giving Petunia's hand a squeeze. "But so far from my home, and so far from my true king ... though for that, everything in the sunlight world is." She chuckled a little at that. "And I was right: my king did favor me. He arranged for that silly little earldom to be broken up so that I might live in comfort on my estate, one of his last acts before he was murdered."

Petunia sat frozen. She didn't know which was worse: that this strange person sitting beside her might be a courtier impersonating the grand d.u.c.h.ess, or that these words might actually be coming from that respected grand dame.

"Oliver's estate ... the King Under Stone ..." Petunia could barely whisper the words.

"And then," the old woman continued as if Petunia hadn't spoken, "after a lifetime of waiting, I was contacted by my son! My firstborn, the son of my heart and soul!" The grand d.u.c.h.ess's eyes were s.h.i.+ning, and she was looking beyond Petunia now, savoring the memory. "He would come as a shadow to my bedroom window, nightly visits from my dear one after so many years! The sad news that my magnificent king had died was a great blow. But I was consoled when my son told me that his two oldest brothers were also dead, and now he is the King Under Stone!"

"Rionin is your son?" Petunia's entire body went numb.

The white hair, the green eyes ... Rionin looked so much like the grand d.u.c.h.ess. Why hadn't she seen it before?

"Yes," the grand d.u.c.h.ess said with great pride. "Though I have always called him Alexei." She sniffed. "It was his father who named him Rionin. A strange name, but I know that my king must have had his reasons for this. Perhaps in his language it had some n.o.ble meaning," she mused. "I must ask him."

"Rionin is your son," Petunia said again. The sensation was slowly and coldly trickling back into her body. "Could you not ... can't you tell him ... my sister Lily is already married!" Petunia clutched at the grand d.u.c.h.ess's hands desperately. "Please tell him! She doesn't want to marry him! None of us want to stay here and marry the princes! Can't you help us, please?" Tears stung her eyes.

The grand d.u.c.h.ess looked at Petunia and smiled, and Petunia felt relief wash over her. This was the grand d.u.c.h.ess, she was sure. And the grand d.u.c.h.ess would help them. The tears wobbled and fell from her lower lashes.

"Don't worry, my dear Petunia," she said. "I've been speaking to my son a great deal about you. Kestilan won't like it, of course, but I hardly care. His mother was some feather-brained Belgique countess. He's hardly worth your attention, child." Now the grand d.u.c.h.ess squeezed Petunia's hands in both of hers. "No, no, I will have you for my Grigori, the only one of my children or grandchildren who wasn't a disappointment to me, other than my Alexei! And Alexei has finally agreed ... that's why you are here, isn't it?"

"What?" Petunia pulled her hands free and leaped off the bed.

"Come now, Petunia, I've seen you and Grigori together, you will make a lovely couple. You will live here with me, but of course we shall go to the palace every night for the dancing! And we will have servants, not like those things at the palace. The maids from my estate, and Grigori's men."

"Why- No- How could you-" Petunia didn't even know what to say, but the grand d.u.c.h.ess just continued to look at her with her bright eyes and her wide smile.

"It will be wonderful, my Petunia. You may call me Grandmother, if you like."

Petunia backed toward the door, her hands behind her. When she felt the latch she fumbled it open.

"You are not my grandmother," she said. Then she turned and ran through the door.

She didn't get far. In the pa.s.sageway she ran straight into Grigori. He seized her arms, and she screamed and writhed out of his grip. She grabbed the pistol from his belt and stepped back just far enough to aim.

"My petal, what are you doing?"

Grigori s.n.a.t.c.hed at the pistol, fouling her shot in the narrow pa.s.sageway, and the bullet merely grazed his shoulder and embedded itself in the wall behind. He wrestled with her, and she managed one more shot, which went wild and shattered an ornate mirror on the wall near the door. He tore the pistol from her grip and wrapped his other arm around her waist, lifting her free of the ground and carrying her, writhing and screaming, back to his grandmother.

The grand d.u.c.h.ess cried out and rustled her swathes of lace, but Petunia didn't spare the old woman a look. She was more monstrous than Grigori or Rionin, as far as Petunia was concerned, and she never wanted to speak to the grand d.u.c.h.ess again.

Grigori threw Petunia onto the foot of the bed and kicked the door closed behind him. Petunia was on her feet again in an instant. She lunged at Grigori, who held the pistol high over her head with one hand and pushed her away with the other. He frowned at Petunia as though her behavior were completely irrational.

"Let me go, you monster!" Petunia spit at him, and a glob of saliva struck the middle of his chest.

He took out a handkerchief and dabbed at it, frowning even deeper. Behind her, Petunia heard the grand d.u.c.h.ess suck in a breath in disgust.

"Such unbecoming behavior, Petunia! And what makes you want to leave? You have already admitted you have no love for Kestilan!"

"I want out of this whole horrid place," Petunia said, panting. She tried for the pistol again.

"I admire your spirit, my petal," Grigori said, stepping away from her. "But this is ridiculous! I am your betrothed, and you must stop-"

There was a shout and a crash from the front of the house.

Petunia used the distraction to punch Grigori in the stomach, and when he doubled over, she s.n.a.t.c.hed the pistol from his hand. She c.o.c.ked the hammer but didn't know whom to aim at. Grigori? The grand d.u.c.h.ess? Or the new threat coming down the pa.s.sage?

The door burst open, slamming into Grigori, who was just straightening, and knocking him to the ground. Standing in the doorway was a man in a wolf mask holding an ax. Petunia made her decision, crossing to the bed and aiming her pistol at the grand d.u.c.h.ess, who began to wail and wring her hands.

"Oliver," Petunia ordered, cutting through the old woman's wails. "Take care of Grigori, I've got my eye on her."