“When they figure out he is gone, plenty will be said.”
“I suppose there will be no wedding now.” She ducked her head, embarrassed, watching her feet on the path. “Obviously,” she corrected herself. “Is my wrongdoing—was it wrong? Have I…” She did not finish her question.
I walked ahead of her. “I think you will find being a woman is nothing like being a girl. And that grace and justice are sometimes pursued by means less graceful and less just.”
Elin frowned. “Life cannot contain such a contradiction.”
“Oh, it can,” I started, but then hushed. I had the sense of déjà vu, and then I understood why. Up ahead, through the trees, I saw a coach. With royal insignia. And it was headed in the direction of our drive.
“Hurry,” I urged Elin.
Up to that point, I had gone through the night as if in a muted kind of stupor. I hadn’t fully marveled at the impact of what we had done. To change the course of a kingdom. To alter history. I realized I might die because of it. Would die, if I were found out.
I took the cart over from Elin and we broke into a run. Stayed along the embankment. The cart was horribly noisy, but so was a carriage, and the retinue that accompanied it. We stayed out of sight, slipping back across the road and through the hole in the hedge. I discarded the shovel in the middle of the laurel but kept the cart.
“We won’t have time to change,” Elin panted, beside me.
“We aren’t changing,” I told her, veering toward the cellar house. I scrambled inside and grabbed what I needed. Overturned the bushel of apples into the cart. Licked my thumb and used it to wipe the blood from Elin’s face.
“Chin up,” I told her. I could feel the mud drying on my hands. Itook hold of the cart once more. The apples jostled as I moved forward. “We’re going to meet the queen.”
Sigrid’s carriage was first in a long line that stretched down the driveway. She was already alighting from the coach with the help of two gloved footmen when Elin and I pushed our way through the trees. The queen’s dress barely fit through the opening of the carriage and the footmen had to reach in to squeeze the hoops of her skirts. She landed in the gravel, took a cautious step forward and looked around with distaste. Behind her, the guards and riders were dismounting. A few courtiers emerged from their own carriages, sniffing the air.
My daughters stood on the front steps, waiting to receive them. They wore the same gray and yellow fine dresses they’d donned to welcome the messenger just a few weeks before. Rosie’s hair had been swept into a net. Mathilde had borrowed my stomacher. I couldn’t see a trace of the fear they no doubt felt.
All of them turned and saw Elin and I simultaneously. Rosie’s eyes widened in alarm. Mathilde winced. But Sigrid’s lip curled—perhaps the closest thing to her real smile I had ever seen. I continued forward, the cart ahead of me. “Good morrow, Your Majesty,” I called.
Agatha reared her red head then, telling me—demanding—that I drop into supplication. Expressing shock at my mess. Little frissons of disgust and need. But I had had enough of Agatha. I could stand her in my head no longer. I did not sink into a curtsy for my back was already bent with effort to move the wheelbarrow. I called to Sigrid: “Can I please you with an apple?”
I was aware of the full line of guards and courtiers watching me. I paused, straightened, plucked another apple off the tree nearest to me, and tossed it into the cart.
“You’re covered in mire,” Sigrid observed.
“We were not expecting visitors.” I stepped around the wheelbarrow, revealing the extent of the mud on my skirts.
“You’ve kindled a fire.” The queen nodded toward the remnants of the night’s flames—a smoldering pile of ash on the lawn.
“A pyre,” I said, lightly. “For our house. Our roof fell in.” I waved a hand in the air, in the direction of the sky. “Quite a sight if you’d care to see from the rear. Lots of debris to rid ourselves of.”
The queen looked back and forth between Elin and I, and to the fire. Sigrid could not make sense of what was in front of her—the mud, the labor. She shook herself, as if she were a dog ridding water, and focused on Elin. “You cannot look like that.” The first word came out with venom.You—the one betrothed to the prince.You—the great Trojan horse.
“The last of the apples must be picked,” I told Sigrid.
“Industry is the forge where success is wrought,” Elin agreed, clasping her hands like a young girl.
Sigrid glanced back at her long line of courtiers, her guards. The velvet and the jewels looked incongruous in our scrabbly orchard. Following her gaze, I saw, on the back of his horse, Otto. He gave me an almost imperceptible shake of the head, and I looked away.
“We’ll go inside,” Sigrid announced.
I brushed my hands on my dress. “Girls!” I called to my daughters on the steps. “Tell the kitchens we have…” I eyed Sigrid with distaste. “A guest.”
In the entryway, my shoes squelched on the floor. Sigrid wasted no time; out of sight of her retinue, she declared: “She clearly cannot spend more time in this household.” To Elin, she added: “By gods, get ahold of yourself. Appearing before all of court like a pig in the mud.”
“You picked us,” I reminded her, leading the way into the great hall, Elin and Sigrid trailing behind me. “Unfortunately, we come with a bit of dirt under our nails.”
“A harvest cannot yield gold without a plowman’s furrow.” Elin settled on a chaise and primly arranged her dirty skirts around her.
Sigrid said: “A girl should not speak!”
