Nettled, I quieted, and we fell back into silence as we entered and crossed the checkered gallery. Without breaking a single rule of propriety—he opened doors, pointed out a rolled carpet we would need to step over, and walked on the path side when we exited the castle—Otto managed to be disagreeable. As we got closer and closer to the castle wall, I was increasingly ready to bid him adieu.
At the gate within the gate, he offered me his hand to step through. I pretended not to see. We both looked down as I stepped over the threshold and saw, simultaneously, the worn leather of my shoe. Mismatched and out of place with the fine cloth of my gown. Otto cleared his throat.
I colored. Nothing, I thought to myself, escaped the man’s attention. If I had failed in my errand, my pride could suffer it no longer. I could not get away from the residue of Sigrid’s venom and her taciturn myrmidon quickly enough.
When I was on the other side of the gate, he called again: “Lady Tremaine.”
I turned back, without taking trouble to hide my irritation. The counselor had to stoop to fit his head through the opening.
“The queen welcomes all your daughters at the ball.”
I nodded, doing my best to keep my own countenance as expressionless as his. It was a victory, and I should have felt triumphant—but I had not expected success to taste so bitter.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I asked Alice to hurry us home, as quickly as Arno could manage. We flew over the ruts and the bumps. “Were you successful?” she asked, raising her voice over the rattle of the chaise.
“In a way,” I acknowledged.
The panels creaked and the chains shook and the horse’s feet pounded on the stones beneath us. “What?” Alice shouted.
“In a way,” I cried, raising my voice.
“Speak louder!”
“Never mind, then!” Unable to engage in conversation, I was left to peer into the trees and make sense of the day.
I had been humiliated. Of that, I was sure.
That had been the bargain I had come to drive. All self, allme,me,me,I,I,I, bent in supplication to my greater purpose.
And in that, I had been successful: The girls would go to the ball.
But I didn’t feel relief. No sooner had I achieved what I’d wanted than I’d realized how much more there was to want: It was like summiting a hilltop to see, from a new vantage point at the top, an entire mountain range ahead. When I’d first heard the rumors, I wasn’t afraidof not being invited to the royal ball; I was afraid of one existing. For if it existed, we must go. And if we went, we must succeed. And if we were successful, my daughters would be married and move away from me forever. My own desires contradicted each other. And Sigrid’s many derisions had left me feeling sour.
But I had accomplished what I came for: The girls would go to the ball.
Everything would require management to a precise degree. We would need dresses, and not ones easily refashioned from those we owned. New gloves. Introduction cards. A refresher on deportment and etiquette for interacting with the royal family. And transportation— a carriage was a potent symbol of status. It would not do to arrive in a rented hackney.
I wished, pointlessly, and for the hundredth time these many years, that we might have been able to use some of Elin’s dowry for Elin’s share. It seemed only fair: Rosie and Mathilde would need the dresses and the frills and every appearance of being proper ladies, for they had nothing else to recommend them. Elin was the daughter of titled nobility and came with an inheritance. And, I reminded myself, she hardly contributed to the work in the house. It was unfair indeed that all our hard-earned pennies—made from Rosie’s embroidery and the fruits of all but Elin’s labor—had to be equally shared when their circumstances were anything but equal. There were not yet any scrimpings from her ashes.
I slumped down in my seat, exhausted already.
“All’s well, m’lady?” Alice called, frowning in concern.
Whether fortune awaited or disaster loomed, the wind would only take my words. So I said nothing at all.
When we neared our gate, Alice stuck an elbow into my side. I looked up to see: A man sat at the helm of a refitted hackney coach, half blocking the road in front of our iron arches. His carriage was piledhigh with all manner of goods and instruments. Different-sized tabors and citoles and shawms. Inside the carriage compartment, I could see a gourd-shaped hurdy-gurdy and a rebec swinging from hooks that had been screwed into the roof. This entire mountain of chaos was pulled by a sole horse, and it was a marvel it moved at all, for the animal’s black bangs entirely blocked its view. Unlike the man himself, who was regarding me with amusement.
“My lady!” he called, grinning widely. He had a normal-sized body—softening out in the middle—but delicate, tiny hands, which he used to twist the end of a short, pointed beard. Above, a pair of brown eyes were marked by smile lines, which deepened as we approached. I could see his every tooth, including the space where one was missing in the back. The rest were bright and white against his sun-worn skin.
I climbed down from our chaise and frowned at the jongleur. “You cannot stop right here.” Each year the itinerant minstrel came and each year I tried to send him away, with decreasing conviction. I directed Alice to maneuver around his cart and take our own horse up the drive. And, when she and Arno were safely past, I turned back to the man, hands on my hips. “Hello, Moussa.”
He laughed. “You are all dressed up. Are you having a party?”
“I’m quite serious,” I told him. “You’re half blocking the road. You might be seen. I am not running an inn!”
“And I haven’t asked you for your charity,” the man said, still smiling.
