Princess of the Midnight Ball - Jessica Day George [57]
Appearing completely unperturbed by the bishop, who was ignoring him in turn, Galen was knitting. Rose dropped her handkerchief to her lap and watched in fascination. He was using not two, but four knitting needles, all quite short and with points at both ends. She had glimpsed him knitting a sock once out in the garden with similar needles, but those needles had been wood and much narrower. These were thicker, of softly gleaming silver that reminded her of something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Even more fascinating was what he was knitting: he was making a chain out of black wool. She counted eight links so far, all neatly interlocked.
He saw her looking and smiled, and she raised her eyebrows, trying to ask what on earth a wool chain was for. He just smiled even broader and cast on the stitches for a new link. Nine.
“Are you listening to me, girl!” Angier roared.
Whipping around to focus on the bishop again, Rose saw some spittle fly from the bishop’s mouth and land on the back of Iris’s hand. Her younger sister quickly scrubbed at it with a handkerchief, a disgusted look on her face.
“Thank you, Bishop Angier, for that rousing sermon,” King Gregor said, rising to his feet. Rose could see a vein in her father’s temple pulsing, as though he were on the verge of shouting back at the bishop. “I’m sure we all feel invigorated by your words.” He reached over and grabbed the bellpull, giving it a firm yank. “Let us ponder your message while we eat.” He sat back down and patted Rose’s hand.
The meal was a silent one, but Rose didn’t know if her sisters were pondering the bishop’s words any more than she was. Violet, at least, was simmering with resentment, a fact that was clear for all to see. But Hyacinth was the one who worried Rose the most. She neither spoke nor ate, and her eyes looked glassy.
Barely tasting her dinner, Rose wondered what would happen if she confessed to being a witch. Would they set Anne free, or would she still be accused of teaching Rose magic? If nothing else, it would lift the Interdict and clear the rest of her family, as long as she could convince them that she had acted alone. She would be excommunicated by the church, and likely imprisoned for life, but her father and her sisters would be free.
The only flaw was that the other girls’ shoes would continue to wear out after she was gone. That, and what he might do if she was lost to the Midnight Ball and his eldest son.
Rose shivered. She hoped that her mother, despite her foolish bargains, had been permitted into Heaven and was too busy singing, or whatever one did there, to see the mess she had made of things. The King Under Stone had manipulated Maude from the very beginning, using her to bear twelve brides for his stern, handsome sons and then dancing her into an early grave so that her daughters would be forced to take over the contract.
Maude hadn’t suspected this, or at least, there was no indication of it in her journals. The only mention they could find of Under Stone at all was a single entry, after Orchid’s birth. Maude had wondered if the potion “he” had given her had gone bad, or if she hadn’t drunk it at the right time, when she bore daughter after daughter with no sign of a longed-for heir.
Rose wished that there was some way she could help Galen. If only she could leave the door in the carpet open … but he was asleep and could not follow them even if it were possible. She thought of bringing him back some token from the underworld, but how would she make him understand what it was?
Rose drew in a breath. A token. The sound of a branch snapping. The strange silver knitting needles that Galen had been using to make, of all things, a chain…. She stared across the table at him, flicking her eyes down to the chain where it lay on the table beside his plate and back