“How are you, Boris?”
He straightened from the wares he was organizing and winked. “Doin’ well, with the party comin’ on. Bellebryn throws a good party, especially for its prince. Wait ‘til you see, yer grace.”
“Can’t wait!” I cried, clapping my hands in front of me and lying through my teeth.
“See you there, yer grace,” he called as I moved away.
“Save a dance for me, Boris,” I called back then I gave him a bright wave and brighter smile before I moved through the vast, black, wrought iron, silver crest encrusted gates and into the village.
As I strode the cobbled streets, I smiled and nodded my head as people smiled back. I returned greetings when they were offered to me. I extended them when I saw someone I knew or was given an opening. I touched little children’s heads when I passed them, grinning into (fake) beaming mothers’ faces.
Mostly, I chatted with Aggie, who chatted back, and I worried I wasn’t going to be able to find mascarpone cheese.
Then I went to the house with the blue door and knocked.
It was thrown open by a harassed-looking, wide-hipped woman who had a two year old, bawling toddler at her hip and a four year old, snot-faced child clutching her skirts.
She bobbed a curtsy and then looked in my eyes. “Oh, Princess Cora, I’m glad you’re here! Thank the gods you could make it on this, of all days.”
I tipped my head to the side and stated, “I never miss a day, Blanche, you know that.”
And I didn’t. When I’d heard Perdita talking with one of the maids about her cousin Blanche who had two children, a husband away at sea and a frail mother to look after, I’d cautiously offered my services to help out any way I could. Perdita had asked Blanche and then informed me those services were taken up.
So, every day, never missing one, I went to the house with the blue door so Blanche could do whatever she needed to do and I could look after her mother for a spell.
Her face broke into a smile and she muttered, “No, thank the gods yet again, you never do. Bless you. She’s upstairs, waiting for you.”
“Right, scurry on, you all!” I ordered, rumpling the four year old’s hair as he passed by. Then Aggie and I went into the house and I jogged up the wooden steps, circled the railing and entered the room where the old woman sat in her rocker, staring out at the sea but seeing, I knew, nothing. “Heya, Clarabelle,” I called softly and her sightless eyes came to me, her face wreathed in a genuine smile.
I was wrong. I didn’t just have Aggie and Tor. Clarabelle, I was pretty certain, also liked me.
“Chirp!” Aggie chirped his greeting.
“Hullo, my princess. Hullo, Aggie,” she called back, I moved into the room, grabbing the book as I passed it. I dragged a chair toward her, bent to kiss the paper-thin skin of her cheek then lifted my fingers for Aggie to hop onto.
He did, I transferred him to Clarabelle’s offered hand then she brought him toward her and stroked him as I sat.
“Do you want me to get right into it? We left it at a good part last time,” I reminded her.
“If you want, Cora, my dear. Or, we can chat. Are you well?” she replied.
“Very,” I somewhat lied.
There were things that were good (dinner at night with Tor, bedtime, again with Tor, waking up when Tor was there and sometimes I could lose myself in the fantasyland around me) and other things that were bad.
“And our prince?” she asked.
“Um… worried about his brother, I think,” I answered, having told her (although no one else knew and I swore her to secrecy) about Rosa, Dash and the evil Minerva.
“I daresay, he would be,” she murmured, her voice somehow strange, then her hand came out, searching, I extended mine, she caught it and squeezed it gently. “You sure you’re well?” she asked softly.
“I’m perfectly fine,” I outright lied. “Happy,” I kind of lied. “Life is good.”
She squeezed again and let me go with an, “If you say so, my dear.”
Hmm. It would seem I needed to be better with my act, even, maybe especially with an old, blind lady.
“So, shall I start reading? Blanche will be back with the kids before we know it, mayhem will ensue and you won’t know if the pirate was able to cow the fair maiden to his will.”
She smiled a gentle smile. “Well, I can’t miss that.”
I opened the book to its marked page and mumbled, “Certainly not.”
I heard her quiet chuckle and I reached out a hand and squeezed her knee.
Aggie chirped a, “Read, Cora!” (he liked this story too).
So I let my friend go and started to read out loud.
Chapter Sixteen
The Only Thing I Needed
Tor’s hand tightened in mine. We’d just walked in his front doors and I was pulling away.
“Where are you going?” he enquired.
“I have to do something,” I said quickly and he stared down at me.
“What?”
“Something!” I cried, getting desperate. Time was wasting.
He gave me an assessing look then he told me something I already knew.
“Hurry, love, you don’t have much time.”
I nodded, got up on tiptoe, curled my fingers around the back of his neck, pulled him down to me and touched my lips to his.
“I’ll be back,” I whispered, let him go and started to rush to the kitchens.
The fireworks were going to start at any minute and Tor and I were going to watch them on our balcony, a balcony that jutted out further than any of the others and a balcony, incidentally, that anyone from anywhere in the village and on the sea could see.
This filled me with dread, being somewhere where everyone could see me with Tor (and they’d be watching).
But I had to admit that the day had been pretty fantastic.
Boris was right. Bellebryn knew how to give a party. The streets were filled with music. The businesses and houses were decorated with colorful garlands and bunting. There were puppet booths set up, giving free shows. Children dashed around with faces made up with face paint and circling vibrant streamers behind them. There were belly dancers, snake charmers and men eating fire performing for coins all of whom seemed, by the looks of them, to have come from faraway lands. The air was thick with clashing aromas because there were stands selling everything from roasted, honey-coated nuts to sausages on sticks to big, steaming pans filled with paella to flamboyantly swirling lollipops.
Around every wind of the cobbled street (and, as was his duty during this huge street party thrown in his honor, Tor strolled down and up (and down and up again) the entire street, his hand in mine or his arm around my shoulders or waist), people were dancing, swinging around and even I’d been swept into the frolicking. Though I didn’t know the steps, I did the best I could do, laughed at myself because, I had to admit, it was kind of fun and I pretended the joyous looks thrown my way were real.
It was fabulous.
It would have been magnificent if I could have really joined in and believed that Tor’s people loved me as much as they pretended to or even a hint of how much they very obviously loved him.
And now it was almost over, I was exhausted and I hadn’t had time to present him with his cake. The fireworks were the showstopper, ending the festivities at midnight. I had fifteen minutes to give him his cake or he wouldn’t get it on his birthday.
And he had to get it on his birthday.
I pulled up my skirts and I ran to the kitchens, coming to a skidding halt by my cake (I had found all the ingredients in the village, including the red food dye, thank God).
It looked magnificent and someone had put small, blue candles in it. I’d talked to Perdita days ago about birthday candles and she’d informed me, looking confused but humoring me, that they didn’t do birthday cakes here, but birthday tarts and they didn’t do candles but sparklers. I gave in on the sparklers and even though some people used them in my world, I was disappointed. I had wanted to give Tor a piece of my world, which included, traditionally, candles.