Chapter Eighteen

“Fetch the small blue bottle from my bedside table, in the drawer on the left side,” the Queen said to Charlotte, gesturing toward a door on the other side of the room. Charlotte was too stunned to move for a moment. She was being asked to run an errand in the Queen’s own room?

“Go on!” The old woman added, spurring Charlotte at last into action. She returned with the bottle, secured the door again, and hurried to begin administering the medicine to Julien’s future bride.

The girl on the chaise stirred, and out of the corner of her eye, Charlotte noticed that Thomas had stopped eating and was still staring. Julien’s betrothed was a remarkable beauty, to be sure, with full lips painted red and her hair in perfect ringlets to her waist. Her gown was of pure white, and even Charlotte thought the woman looked much like an artistic depiction of an angel.

“Wake up, child, listen to me!” The Queen addressed the maid now, and she slowly opened her eyes and sighed.

“Your Majesty?”

“He is injured, yet your betrothed lives!”

Upon hearing the news a second time the girl had a completely different, unexpected reaction; she laughed.

She laughed, and clasped her hands to her mouth in joy that seemed oddly inappropriate considering the news she’d just been given.

Instead of immediately expressing her relief, praising God for the miracle, or even inquiring as to the condition of the Prince, the maid spoke instead a sentence that made Charlotte’s stomach turn. “I am saved!”

“I beg your pardon?” Charlotte stood taller beside the chaise and balled her hand into a fist around the bottle of medication she’d administered.

“Now I will not have to marry the Duke! I am saved!”

“That is fine news, indeed,” Thomas said, using a napkin to wipe his hands before rising and moving toward the three women. “No one should have to marry any man capable of such evil.”

“You have no idea,” the girl shook her head. “The things he has said to me make me sick to the point of wishing for death to take me before we were wed; and now I am free!”

“And you are pleased the Prince will recover,” Charlotte prompted, causing embarrassment to dawn upon the maid’s features.

“Of course. He will be quite well, I am sure?”

“He will live,” Charlotte replied, and Thomas decided it was time to intervene. He knew Charlotte’s limits, and he also knew her feelings for the Prince were clear. If she began speaking the way he certain she was close to doing, her feelings toward this young maid would be clear, as well.

“I am Thomas Vallery, My Lady. I am the one who found the Prince at the edge of the forest, in a stream and barely alive. This is Charlotte. She nursed the Prince’s wounds as her father treated them, and he has been in their care all this time. But while we are here we have taken the names of second cousins of the Queen, to enable us to gain entry into the palace. So I am to be known as Michel and she as Isabel.”

She nodded her understanding. “I am called many things, mostly by the town criers who like to inject mystery and fiction into daily life to try and make the people believe in magic.”

“You are not rightfully called Ella?” Charlotte asked.

“I am rightfully called Renee, but no one ever uses my name. I am ‘My Lady’ and ‘the future queen’… merely a title now. I am also known as the Prince’s betrothed, ’Ella’, to go with the whole ‘cinder-maid’ story manufactured by the Court. Along with the myth of fairy godmothers and magic coaches.” She shrugged. “There was nothing magical or destined to be about our union. It was fully arranged, in advance.”

Charlotte turned away and set the bottle down on the table beside her. She addressed the Queen, anxious to change the subject.

“If we are to move about the palace to accomplish our tasks, we will require clothing finer than anything we could procure in our village. Is there any way you might be able to loan us something to use?”

“Tristan’s room has been sealed off, by my order, since the reports came in stating that…” The Queen paused, clearing her throat before continuing. “There are more than enough clothes in there for our friend Michel to choose from. Something as plain as possible that will draw no suspicion. For you, my dear, you appear to be about the size of… well… close to the size of…” She looked at Renee and then at Charlotte again and noted Renee was much thinner, and less ample of bosom, than Charlotte. “I believe the Lady Agnes may have a dress we can somehow belt or otherwise adjust to make work for you. Her closet is in the room adjacent to mine.”

“In the meantime?”

“I think it necessary that you two get at least a few hours rest. Then, when the last of the servants have settled in for the night, you can instruct me as to what we must do.”

“Begging your pardon, Your Majesty, I fear we have no time for sleep,” Charlotte replied. “The longer we remain in the castle, the greater our risk of discovery. We must begin immediately.”

The Queen frowned. “Very well. By the time you have finished explaining your plans to me and how I may assist you, the servants will have mostly retired. You should have the ability to move through the palace with greater freedom. Still, you will need someone to show you the back ways around. She turned to the maid on the chaise. “Renee, will you assist them? By this point, with all your association with the servants,” the Queen shook her head, “which I have not approved of, but must be grateful for now, you know your way around all the back halls of this place. You must be their guide.”

“I will change into something less cumbersome, and also make my way into Lady Agnes’s room and fetch a dress for our guest, as Lady Agnes is surely snoring away by now in such deep sleep she will never hear.”

“Then go and hurry back, girl. With all care and haste.” The Queen unlocked the door and Renee, with a long, last look back at everyone in the room, finally slipped into the hall and was gone.

“There are a few items we will need from the Prince’s room,” Charlotte said, “not just clothing for Thomas, but you must tell me if there is anything left in there bearing the royal seal? So Julien may give orders and prove his identity if need be?”

“The King’s ring. It was to be given to Tristan upon his coronation.” The Queen spoke slowly, tempering her emotions once more. “It was returned with his body, and I have hidden it among Tristan’s things. I have not been in that room since they told me he had perished.” She looked at the floor, and Charlotte dared approach her.

“Grieve no more for your son, Your Majesty. As sure as I am standing here, I promise you, he lives. He will walk the halls of this palace again, if we can but accomplish our tasks.”

“We should begin,” Thomas interjected, finally finishing up his food and bringing a pear from the platter of fruit before him toward Charlotte. “At least eat this, will you please? So we are not using smelling salts to revive you, next?”

She nodded and quickly devoured the fruit as Thomas and the Queen spoke softly to each other in the opposite corner of the room. She thought about this girl, Renee, who was destined to wed the man she suddenly thought of as her Julien. Her heart sank as she remembered he was not hers, not truly, though he swore his heart was.

He was Tristan David Julien Georges, and he belonged to the whole of the kingdom, as well as Renee. He belonged, it seemed, to everyone but her.

Concentrating on trying to push aside her own heartache, it took hearing a few repetitions of her assumed name for Charlotte to turn toward the Queen.

“This will open the door to Tristan’s chambers, for I had a special lock made and I wear the key.” She gestured to a chain, one of many hanging around her neck, indicating a small golden key upon it. “You may go in and take what you need. Here.” She lit a candle and handed it to Thomas. “I will lead you there but I… I am not sure I will be able to enter. You will find the ring where I told you to look for it, the rest is up to you.”

“I understand, Your Majesty,” Thomas replied. “Come on then, Charlotte, let’s get this over with.”

The Queen led them down a small back hallway, down the stairs one level until they reached a plain, unadorned door with a chain and lock upon the handle. “This is the only way in,” she said softly, “I had all of the other doors sealed.”

She took the chain from around her neck and then lowered it over Charlotte’s head. “Return this to me when all is done. When you exit, lock the door and return to my chambers.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Charlotte took the key from the chain and held it out toward Thomas with shaking hands. “Here, you do it. I cannot.”

Thomas sighed and handed her the candle. “Hold this.”

He worked the key in the lock as quietly as possible. The chains rattled and he worried they would draw attention from the servants sleeping in quarters nearby. Fortunately, they were locked inside the darkened room before anyone discovered what they’d done.

“We need more light.” Thomas took the candle back from Charlotte and proceeded to light several more on stands around the room and upon the bedside table. “Charlotte, take one. Start looking for the items Julien requested. I will find the ring and gather the clothing.”

Charlotte appeared frozen where she was, unable to believe she was now standing in the Prince’s room. She saw his grand bed with four tall posts embellished with fabric and tassels. The pillows, where his head had rested so many nights… and then she caught sight of a portrait of him upon the wall and nearly dropped her candle.

She was so used to looking at him as he appeared now, to see him in this image as he had appeared before was a shock to her senses. He had been truly and undoubtedly a beautiful man by any definition: fit and strong, with a chiseled jawline and piercing blue eyes. His dark curls fell just over an artfully arched brow and the corner of his lip turned up into just the hint of a smile; an expression that seemed to say he held a secret in his heart that he alone knew.

She couldn’t take her eyes from the portrait, and she thought about the Prince’s fear that the people would not accept him as he was now. She knew they, too, loved him more than he realized, and she could barely imagine the joy that would resonate through the land when the news he lived came to light.

“Do you miss him?” Thomas asked, breaking the silence of the room’s tomb-like atmosphere.

“Do I miss him?” She repeated the senseless question. “Sooner you should ask, sir, if the stars would mourn the moon.”

Thomas’s gaze fell to the floor. “You are in love with him, then.”

She did not answer, and Thomas sighed. He knew there was no time for this now. “I must find the box with the correct ring.” He began rifling through a large trunk filled with books at the bottom of the Prince’s bed. “Your help, Charlotte, would be most appreciated.”

“What can I do first?” she asked, sadly unsure of herself. “I have forgotten what I am meant to do here… help me, Thomas, please. I am at a loss.”

“First, find me something to wear. Then gather the clothing he asked us to bring back for him and place it in something fit for travel, should you find it. If not, just bundle it as best you can and we will inquire of the Queen for something to use.”

Charlotte nodded and moved toward a mahogany wardrobe that stood tall against the opposite wall. She set down the candle and began searching for clothing that may fit Thomas, knowing it would be a stretch as Thomas was broader of shoulder than Julien, though not by much. She did her best in choosing, as well as in bringing the items of clothing Julien had specifically asked for, and returned to Thomas’s side.

“I found the ring. At least, I hope this is it.” He held the item up to Charlotte and she examined it in the light of the nearest stand of candles.

“This signet is right, and it appears to match the description Julien gave. The Queen can confirm.”

“Then we should be on our way.” Thomas began extinguishing candles one after another before finally picking up the one they’d brought with them. “Hurry, Charlotte.”

When he turned, he saw that Charlotte had moved over to the bed and, unable to resist, ran her hand along the edge of the velvet coverlet. He ached, feeling a dagger in his chest where his heart should be beating. Bravely, he continued going on about his duties.

“We MUST go!” he whispered sharply, and finally she followed him to the back door. He secured it with the Queen’s key, and the pair made haste on the way back to their previous location.