‘If you’re going to be like that, might I remind you, you can leave at any time.’
I laughed despite myself.He was ridiculous; this whole situation was ridiculous.Comforting me on the anniversary of a murder he committed, joking about my abduction.But, God, it was so difficult to hate him.
‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ I rose from the bed, my finger strangely cold from where he no longer lingered.‘It’s not the end of the year yet.’I paused as the words settled, then spun slowly, turning back to him.‘Raleigh,’ I asked.‘Whatisthe significance of the endof the year?’I’d asked it before, and his answer remained as clear in my head as it had the first time he’d said it.
‘The new century,’ he said lightly.‘And the end of fifteen years since I returned to the valley.I’ve told you this, haven’t I?’
He had, but I’d never dwelled on it.Now I found it very hard to think of anything else.It had already been fifteen years since we found my mother’s body.Fifteen years since he ordered the construction of the dam.Was he granting me extra time?Or were the scant months we had left so insignificant to an immortal lifespan, he hadn’t considered them?
‘Of course,’ I said.‘I must have forgotten.’
And as hard as it was to hate him, I didn’t dare correct him.
Enrique insisted I accompany him to Triz the following day.I returned every so often, whenever Father Leon wrote to tell me he’d uncovered new information through his research into the Linford family.If the markets were on, Enrique would join me, often with a bundle of letters he claimed were too sensitive to send from the castle.I couldn’t tell whether Raleigh had asked him to keep watch over me or if he really did just want to select his apples himself, but I enjoyed his company on the long ride.This time, though, I tried to protest when he woke me at dawn.It was a distraction I didn’t need and time away I didn’t have, not when I’d already missed a day of research.The first nibbles of winter had begun to pierce the valley.All around the castle the trees were beginning to turn, their scarlet leaves dripping onto the hills.Rostenburg was named for the way the hills seemed to rust in the autumn.Even its crest featured the beech leaves that gave the valley its colour.It was the only spectacle we could truly boast about.
It had once been my favourite time of year, but I could no longer muster any pleasure in watching leaves rot.Winter was approaching, and I was no closer to finding a cure.
‘Read in the cathedral, then,’ Enrique said.‘You need a change of scenery.’
He was right.By the time we reached the first of Triz’s many stairways, the gnawing desperation I’d been feeling had faded to an ache.I left Enrique at the market and sought out Father Leon at the cathedral.He greeted me like a puppy and asked me to wait while he hunted down the latest artefact he’d found while searching the reliquary.It was a golden frame that folded like a book, with two miniature portraits inside.The first was of a young boy, who could have been any young boy for all the skill the artist had in recreating facial features, while the other was something vaguely baby shaped, with the scowling face of an adult man.
‘This is hideous,’ I told him.
The priest looked delighted.‘Isn’t it just?That one’—he gestured to the infant—‘is your betrothed.’
I laughed.I desperately wanted to take it home with me so I could tease Raleigh with it, but if I asked to keep it, Father Leon almost certainly would have said yes, and the cathedral’s treasury was a much safer place to store three-hundred-year-old art than the ever-shifting halls of Castle Rostenburg.I studied the image closely, searing it into my memory.Even those with the means rarely commissioned portraits of their infant children in those days.Raleigh’s parents must have loved him dearly.I wondered if he could remember them well, all these centuries later.
‘Who is the other boy?’I asked, tracing my thumb over the frame.
‘I believe it’s Prince Leopold, his older brother.’
An older brother.I never knew he had one.It felt strange to picture the Linfords long lost, to imagine the castle filled with life.Raleigh had a family once, with siblings and parents who loved him.Somehow it made our castle feel even emptier.
‘What happened to him?’I dreaded the answer.Raleigh held his family’s titles.For a second son, that could only mean one thing.
‘Seems he was thrown off a horse,’ the priest said, with all the brevity of a scholar discussing a curious historical footnote.He realised his mistake when he saw my concerned expression.‘Quite a number of years after this, mind you.He was in his thirties.’
His thirties.He lived longer than Raleigh, then, in a way.I wondered what the age difference was between them.If Leopold died in his thirties, Raleigh must have been in his late twenties at the time, which is where he remained.So Raleigh couldn’t have found out he would inherit his father’s title long before he changed.No wonder he was such a negligent ruler.He was never raised to rule.
Father Leon talked me into strolling through the market with him before I subjected myself to anything so dreary as research, mostly because he had a craving for a particular cheese and insisted I must try it for myself.The markets were exactly as I remembered from when I was a child: a bustling hub of activity with hawkers from every village in Rostenburg.It wasn’t at all the ghost town my father had described.Maybe there were slightly fewer stands than before, but there were no signs of starvation.
Leon found his cheesemonger and insisted on sampling all the wares despite the fact that he had tasted them all before.I lingered to one side, waiting for him to make a decision, until the merchant’s wife turned to me.‘Anything for you, Your Serene Highness?’
It took me a moment to realise why her words caught me off guard.‘Oh, no, I’m not … Please just call me Clara.’
The woman’s smile told me she was absolutely not going to do that, but there was no malice in it.‘I can’t tell you how happy we were to hear of your engagement.’She carved a large slab froman oozing goat’s cheese and began to wrap it.I was glad she was distracted so she couldn’t see the confusion I struggled to hide.‘I don’t think any of us could have dreamed of a better match,’ she continued.‘Here, this is for you.’She handed me the cheese, despite my protests, and wouldn’t accept payment until Father Leon plucked the coin from my hands, dropped it in his own purse and said he’d consider it a donation to the church, which satisfied everyone except me.
‘I can’t take this,’ I said to him when he ushered me away.‘I have plenty to eat up at the castle.’
‘Times may be harder than usual, but no one’s starving.We can spare you a piece of cheese.God knows your father has spared enough for us over the years.’He seemed to remember he wasn’t supposed to use the Lord’s name in vain and lazily crossed himself.
The words rang in my head.‘What do you mean?’
‘When the drought started,’ Leon said, as though I should know what he was talking about.‘Times were a little tough for a while there, but the prince delivered us enough aid to get by, and then your father brought all that surplus food from Orlfen to bridge the rest of the gap.Oh, you should see your face.Yes, I know he charged a lot for it, but he helped us more than you can imagine.Orlfen is incredibly lucky to have your father at its helm.’
‘Father came here to buy,’ I said.My body felt far away, my voice further still.
‘Well, he’d take a few things home, but mostly he was selling.Saving for your dowry, I heard.Clearly it paid off.’
