The Catswold Portal

And she came face-to-face with Briccha. The Scullery Mistress had slipped in by a side door. Briccha held Melissa’s arm with fingers like steel.

“I don’t know what you’re up to, young woman. The queen knows you have been snooping. I’m surprised she hasn’t thrown you out or locked you up.” Briccha’s pinching fingers were bruising her, the broad woman stared into her face, but then, surprisingly, she released her. “You will not come here again. If you do, you will be eternally sorry. Now go fetch the prince’s breakfast up to him. The regular girl is sick.”

Melissa moved away thankfully, amused that Briccha thought such threats would stop her. Briccha said behind her, “Don’t talk to Prince Wylles. And don’t wake him. Put the tray by his bed. Don’t wait for him to eat. He never eats.”

Free of Briccha, she hurried up the two flights. The hot porridge and bacon steaming on the tray smelled so delicious it was hard not to sample the good food. She’d had only bread for breakfast. She felt no conscience about eating the prince’s breakfast if he didn’t, but she didn’t want to get caught.

The upper hallway was lit by a jutting dormer window, with a pair of stone benches built into the recessed area, facing each other. She stepped into the deep bay, set the tray on a bench, and stood looking out through the glass.

She could see part of the kitchen gardens, and cages of doves and captive game birds awaiting slaughter for the palace table. The flutter of the birds behind the wire gave her a strange, excited urge. And there were cages of tiny birds, too, bright birds which were roasted with wine exclusively for the queen. She had heard Briccha call the birds Siddonie’s morsels of spite, and she wondered what that meant.

Idly she watched a dozen horses and ponies grazing the fenced meadow behind the palace. Most of the palace mounts were kept in the stables that were entered by an archway in the courtyard. Beyond the meadows, the far forest looked dense and cold. In that ancient woods bears still roamed, and small dragons. It was the kind of forest where one might uncover the bones of still larger creatures no longer known in the Netherworld, bones that, when touched, moldered into powder. The wildness of the old forest excited her, she felt a hot desire to rove free there. And she felt lonely suddenly, too, and didn’t know what she was lonely for.

She picked up the tray and went on. She knocked on the prince’s door, then knocked again. When the child didn’t answer, she slipped into the dim, curtained chamber.

The boy was asleep sprawled across wrinkled covers. She set the tray on the bedside table and brought a small spell-light to look at him.

His hair was dark, his face the same perfect oval as the queen’s. But the child’s face even in sleep was drawn with pain. Deep shadows stained his cheeks beneath his dark lashes. Everyone knew he was kept alive only by the queen’s spells. No one thought Siddonie protected him because of love; she kept the dying prince alive because without an heir her claim to the throne would weaken. As Melissa turned away she saw an image on the wall, and started, shocked.

She had never before seen a picture, except those that children drew before their parents forced them to stop such practices. Why would there be an image in Affandar Palace, when every effort was made to avoid images? The windows were spell-cast, and it was said that even the horse trough was covered with a wooden lid before Siddonie came to the stables.

The picture was rich with smeared colors forming hills and trees. It showed a boy standing before a wood, and surely it was the prince, though in the picture he was not as thin.

Maybe this image was a charm meant to make the prince well. Such was not an accepted practice, and she knew of no one in the kingdom who would dare make such an image, or who would know how. Yet as she touched its rough surface, a sense of recognition filled her—a strange shadow of memory. But when she tried to bring the memory clear, it faded, was gone.

She straightened the tray on the bedside table and refolded the napkin. She had turned away from the sick boy’s bed when suddenly the child spoke.

“What are you doing to my breakfast? What spell did you lay on my breakfast?”

She turned to look at him.

“Or were you eating it?”

“I’d thought of it,” she said, amused. “It seems a waste, if you only send it back. How can you get well if you don’t eat?”

He lifted an eyebrow. His pale face was regal in spite of the darkness under his eyes and his drawn look. A regal face, but emotionally empty, cold. His silk pajamas were rumpled and sweaty, and his dark hair was tangled. He said, “I don’t want to get well. I don’t like porridge and I detest pig meat. Throw it out.”