Princess of the Midnight Ball - Jessica Day George [69]
“The chain shrunk,” she said in a whisper.
“It’s supposed to,” he assured her.
With a wooden spoon she fished out the black wool, wrapped it in a towel to wring out some of the water, and then handed the wet thing to Galen.
He fingered the links carefully. They were thicker and harder, but smaller. He couldn’t poke a finger between the stitches anymore. In fact, the wool appeared solid: no stitches were in evidence. It was exactly as he had wished, even down to the sharp smell of the herbs it had been boiled with.
“My dear goodfrau, you are a gem,” Galen told her. He kissed her round cheek, stuck the chain in his bag, and went out the kitchen door into the garden.
He picked himself new sprigs of basil and nightshade, for what he hoped was the last time, and then he used some ivy to climb over the garden wall. He considered putting the cloak on again, but the streets at the back of the palace were deserted.
Making his way to his uncle’s house, he saw that there was mud spattered on the pink stucco, and the window boxes on the ground floor had been ripped off and thrown in the streets. It seemed that, unable to reach the palace itself, some of the protestors had taken out their ire on the head gardener of the King’s Folly.
The door was locked, and Galen had no key, so he knocked. It took a few moments for anyone to answer, but at last Uncle Reiner opened the door a crack, a suspicious look on his face. Seeing that Galen was alone, he grudgingly stood aside to let him in.
“Are you well, sir?” Galen asked. “And Tante Liesel and Ulrike?”
Reiner nodded.
“What of the other gardeners? Walter?”
“I sent word for Walter and the others to stay at home for the time being,” Reiner grunted. “I had hardly gotten two steps from the door this morning when a group of rabble-rousers swept by me. Have they broken into the palace?”
“They’re still outside the gates,” Galen said. “But I don’t know how long they’ll be content to simply stand there and shake their fists.”
Reiner shook his head, his face grim. “To think that it should have come to this,” he muttered. “Throwing mud and rocks at my house, shouting obscenities at the palace… disgraceful!”
Ulrike came down the stairs, and her face brightened when she saw Galen. “Oh, thank heavens!” She rushed over and gave him a hug. “Please say you’re back for good.”
“I’m afraid I’m just here to get some things, then I’ll be going back to the palace,” Galen said gently.
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Uncle Reiner huffed. “You have already humiliated me by getting yourself involved in this strangeness with the princesses, and I will let it go no further.
“You need to keep your head down and work at the tasks given you: hoeing the soil and caring for the king’s garden. Forget these princesses with their odd ways.”
“It isn’t the king’s garden, and they aren’t the princesses’ odd ways,” Galen said quietly. “They’re the queen’s. The garden was for her, and all this trouble”—Galen made a sweeping gesture with his arms—”is because of her as well.”
“We do not speak ill of the dead in this house, boy,” Uncle Reiner warned.
“She cursed her own daughters,” Galen retorted, his voice gaining heat. “Cursed them from the day they were born. I even wonder if the King Under Stone didn’t start the war so that he could gain a firmer hold on them.”
“What are you talking about?” Reiner’s face had gone from angry to confused, and Ulrike was staring with her mouth open.
Galen couldn’t stop, though. He hadn’t slept more than a pair of hours in the past few days, and all the things he had witnessed were coming together in his head. Besides which, the shouts and screams of the mob had taken him back to his days in the war.
“The war, the dancing, the rumors of witchcraft, it all comes down to this: the King Under Stone wants Rose and her sisters for his sons, and he doesn’t care how many mortals die to get them.” Galen stared over Uncle Reiner’s shoulder, his teeth gritted.
“Stop raving, boy,” Reiner said. “Go to your room and lie down, and when this all clears over, I