“I didn’t quite finish it yet,” Lillia admitted.
“Then go and do so. That’s a much better way to use your day than going down into the city with all its foul vapors and dirty people.” Her mother wrinkled her nose as though she could smell the filthy peasants at the fair all the way here in the Inner Keep.
Lillia saw that she had been outmaneuvered: her mother had gone immediately onto the attack while Lillia had still been hoping for a parley. “Yes, Ma’am.” Not that she was actually going to read about Saint Hildula, who must have been about the most tedious saint ever, but she knew there was no sense in continuing the conversation. Mother never changed her mind. Never.
“Run along now, darling,” her mother said. “I will see you at supper, I suppose. And say thank you to your grandfather for that book, since you like it so much. Go on, tell him.”
“Thank you for the book, Grandfather Osric.” Lillia hurried from the room before anyone asked her about the other books Osric had given her, all stories of very dutiful, very religious women. Her grandfather knew a lot about soldiers and armies, but Lillia thought he didn’t have many ideas about presents for young girls.
? ? ?
With her grandparents and Uncle Timo traveling in the north, the only person Lillia could think of who might be able to help her now was nice Lord Pasevalles, but she couldn’t find him anywhere. The grumpy old priest who worked for him said that he was in Erchester talking to some of the factors building her father’s library. But the guard captain said that Pasevalles had come back, and was now in the Chancelry with the master of the mint, talking about boring old money. Where he was didn’t matter so much to Lillia as the fact that he wasn’t anywhere she looked, and she had all but given up on the idea of getting to see the lovely bear dance when one of the Chancelry servants mentioned that the Lord Chancellor sometimes went back to the residence to check on the very ill woman who was being tended there.
Lillia hadn’t forgotten about the woman Pasevalles had brought into the castle, but Auntie Rhoner had worked hard to keep her away from the woman’s bedside until Lillia had given up trying to see her. Was that where the Lord Chancellor was now? Lillia was torn between fear of whatever disease the ill woman had and a sudden desire to see what she looked like. Was she bony and weeping, like some of the beggar women in Erchester? The princess stood, hopping from one foot to the other as she tried to decide. Everybody said she should leave it to another day, but tomorrow was St. Savennin’s Day, which meant the fair might soon be gone. That knowledge—and her curiosity, which never stayed quiet for long—finally pushed her up the stairs of the residence, past her family’s chambers and up to the third floor.
The guard who was almost certainly supposed to be on duty at the top of the stairs was instead talking to a maid; the girl was laughing so hard at something the guard had said that she had turned a rather deep shade of red. It was not very difficult for Lillia to walk past the couple without being noticed.
When she reached the hallway it became fairly obvious that the maid she had seen was supposed to be watching over the ill woman, because the door to one of the rooms was wide open and there was no one inside except for a slender female shape stretched on the bed, her body covered by a thin blanket. As she approached, Lillia saw that the woman was tied down, which made her stop just inside the doorway, suddenly frightened. The sick woman must have heard her, because her head slowly turned until she could see Lillia.
Something truly was wrong with the woman—something frightening. Lillia wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but it was more than just her tangled silvery hair and her hollow cheeks. Her eyes were strange, a bright, catlike yellow, and the shape of her face seemed wrong too.
Lillia gasped. She had never seen anyone like this. The woman only stared back, eyes not quite centered on Lillia’s, as if she were only half awake. Then the strange woman’s lips pursed, as if she would say something.
“P . . . p . . . p . . .” Nothing else came out of her, no word, only the soft popping noise. “Puh . . . puh . . .”
“Princess!” said someone behind her, startling Lillia so badly she squeaked and jumped. She turned around to find Brother Etan standing over her, his eyes wide, his face red and scary.
“I’m sorry!” she said. “I didn’t know! I’m sorry!”
“You don’t belong here, Princess,” he said, but he sounded more worried than angry. A moment later, the maid who had been out on the landing came hurrying up behind him, flustered and clearly very frightened.
“I didn’t mean to leave her! It’s only that Tobiah the guard asked me a question, and she was sleeping, so we went out of the room. . . .”
Etan was standing beside the ill woman now. He put his fingers against her neck, then moved his hand to her forehead. The woman had stopped trying to talk and instead followed Brother Etan’s hand with her wide, not-quite-human eyes. After a few moments, he turned his attention back to the maid.
“You.” His words were clipped and abrupt. “Go back to your mistress and tell her I want another maid here. She and I will talk about this later.”
“But I only—!”
He silenced her with a look. “Just go. I make no judgments, except that I want someone else here this morning.”
The maid turned, face red and eyes wet with tears, and hurried away.
“As for you, Princess Lillia,” Etan said, “I’m afraid this is not a good place for you to be, either.”
“Is that lady sick?”
“After a fashion. Who is watching you today?”
Lillia knew when she was being treated like a child. She stood straight. “No one. I don’t need someone to follow me around all the time. I’m not little.”
“That’s not . . .”
“She was trying to say something. She kept saying ‘puh, puh,’ but I don’t know what that means. Was she trying to say ‘princess’?”
“Possibly, but not likely, Highness. I doubt she knows who you are. At the moment, she doesn’t know much of anything. She has a bad fever. Now, I beg pardon, but away with you, Princess Lillia. A sickroom is no place for a healthy girl like you.”
“But I want to help!”
“The best help you can give me right now is to let me tend my patient.” He looked at Lillia’s face and his expression softened. “Perhaps you can help me another day, Princess. For right now, this woman needs rest and quiet. I’m going to leave too in just a moment.”
“Well . . .” Lillia considered. “I’ll go away if you tell me who she is. Why does she look like that? Is it ‘cause she’s ill?”
Brother Etan frowned, but Lillia could also see that she was going to get her way: She had a great deal of experience with the signs of defeated adulthood. “We don’t know for certain who she is, Princess,” the monk said, “but she is a Sitha.”
“A Zither?” Even saying it was fearful and exciting. “You mean she’s a real fairy?”
“Sitha. Yes. She was sent to our court as a messenger from her people. But someone attacked her.”
Lillia felt a sudden chill. “Really?”
“Not here inside the castle,” he said hurriedly. “A long way away. No one can hurt her here. And Lady Thelía and I are doing everything we can to make her better. So will you please let me get on with my task?”
Reluctantly, Lillia assented. “But I’ll be back,” she promised both Etan and the ill woman, who didn’t seem to hear her. “I’ll come back and help you take care of her.”
Brother Etan rolled his eyes when he didn’t think Lillia was looking, like that wouldn’t be such a good thing.
As she went back down the corridor, she was sad. Nothing in the castle would be anywhere near as interesting as the Zither-woman—suddenly even a dancing bear didn’t seem quite so fascinating. But she wasn’t going to be allowed to help make this odd guest feel better.
“Nothing ever goes right around here,” Lillia said, mostly to herself, but loud enough for anyone nearby to hear. “That is the horrible, unfair truth. Princesses don’t get to do anything good.”
As Etan was checking the Sitha-woman’s wounds, she opened her eyes wide again. She tried to sit up, but her bonds prevented it. “Puh . . .” she said. “Puh . . .”
“Don’t speak,” he told her. “You must rest.”
“Puh . . . poison!”
“Poison? What do you mean? I have given you nothing but good curatives, herbs to help your wounds . . .”
The maid sent as a replacement appeared in the doorway, but Etan waved her back into the hallway.
The Sitha-woman tried to say more, but could not. She licked her lips. He gave her water to drink. “I . . . feel it,” she said at last in a voice like the rattle of dry grass. This was the first time Etan had heard her speak since he had helped Pasevalles hold her down and tie her limbs. “It rushes through me. I do not think I can fight it off . . .”