“I certainly don’t,” said Azalea. “And if you don’t either, maybe we should forget dancing and go back to the room.”
“Steady on,” said Bramble, two spots of pink on her cheeks. “I didn’t mean it like that. Probably every gentleman was creepy back then. I mean, let’s not be hasty or anything. Anyway, where else are we going to dance?”
“It’s more—than just—dancing,” said Clover. “We’re—doing exactly what the—the High King did to p-poor Mr. Keeper. Dancing and just—just leaving him there. It’s so unkind of us.”
A guilty solemness fell over them all as they realized Clover was right.
“Well,” said Bramble. “At least we have until Christmas.” She pulled aside the willow branches.
Keeper stood framed by the entrance of the pavilion, his face lined. Behind him, in the middle of the dance floor, stood a pure white maypole, twisted like a marshmallow candy stick. Twelve colored ribbons dangled from it, bright and sleek. It could have been Azalea’s imagination, but Keeper looked paler, and a touch older than he had that morning.
“Not a word to Mr. Keeper,” said Azalea quietly. “We know how it feels to be trapped.”
The girls gave the palace a full combing for the sugar teeth the next day. Rain pattered against the draped windows as they searched in the silver cabinet, turning up mismatched forks and spoons and an old shriveled potato. They sorted through the cabinets and even picked the lock to Mother’s room. All her powder boxes, dresses, and jewelry had been locked tightly away, her nightgown lay on her bed, and everything felt strange and muffled. The girls left the room, trying to swallow the choking emotion without smelling the white-cake and baby-ointment scent.
They searched through the portrait gallery, among the spindly sofas and tables, while the younger ones sat on the long red rug and ate bread and jam.
“What about this?” said Eve, at the end of the hall. She peered through a glass case on a pedestal, which held Harold the First’s silver sword. The same one the King had taken with him to war. He took it to parliament meetings as well, and when the occasion called for it, speeches. It was ceremonial.
Azalea, for the first time, looked at it closely through the glass. More of a rapier than a real sword, the sort gentlemen two hundred years ago would duel with, it was old, dented, unpolished, and the mottled dark gray masked curly carved ornamentation along the side. Azalea peered closer and saw the thin crack up the side. Her brow creased, thinking of the sickening clang it had made when she’d fallen against it at the port.
“It can’t be that,” said Bramble. “That’s not magic.”
“Wait,” said Azalea. “It was broken earlier this year. And it’s old enough. We might as well see.”
With Bramble’s help, Azalea lifted the case and set it gently on the ground. She pushed her sleeve back.
“Don’t touch it,” said Eve when Azalea reached for it. “Only the King can use the sword. It’s…legend, or something. I read it.”
“Lighten up, Primmy,” said Bramble.
The girls held their breath. Azalea slowly grasped the handle beneath the swirls.
She screamed.
The girls panicked and screamed, air-curdling screams.
“Ha—ha ha.” Azalea laughed and pulled her hand away. “Just kidding.”
The girls glared at her. Azalea thought that rather unfair. If Bramble had done the same thing, they all would have thought it a riot. She sighed.
“It’s just an old sword,” she said, replacing the glass. “Even if it was magic, we couldn’t get rid of it. It’s governmental property.”
The girls continued their search of the palace, progressing slower and slower as the day wore on, until they ended with a halfhearted search in the leather-and-wood-smelling library. The King was gone on R.B., and the younger girls played with the ladders underneath the iron mezzanine, rolling along the bookcase walls and hitting the end with a thump.
A commotion of cries and gasps brought Azalea to the King’s carved wood desk, the other girls following after. Eve gaped over the morning’s edition of the Herald, which Delphinium gripped tightly in her hands. Their eyes were wide.
“Is it Lady Aubrey’s column again?” said Azalea, a hint of a smile crossing her lips.
“Just look at this!” Delphinium cried. She had a shrill, cutting voice, and it rang across the walls of books. Azalea’s smile faded. She took the paper from Delphinium, open to the announcements section, and skimmed over the engagements and births and weddings. There, between two engagement posts, lay a large advertisement with an ink tick next to it. Azalea read.
ROYAL BUSINESS; STRICTLY
FOR THE YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO MEETS THE CRITERIA—
A RIDDLE TO SOLVE:
WHERE THE TWELVE PRINCESSES OF EATHESBURY
DANCE AT NIGHT
AS WELL AS LIMITED ACQUAINTANCE
WITH THE PRINCESS ROYALE
THREE DAYS’ STAY IN THE ROYAL PALACE
WILL BE GRANTED.
THE FOOD AND BOARD WILL BE FREE.
INQUIRIES TO BE SENT TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS
HAROLD WENTWORTH THE ELEVENTH OF EATHESBURY