But far from the palace, far enough away that even a wind-borne whisper could not make the journey, people spoke to each other more openly than they had ever dared when it was merely their own or their neighbors’ children that were threatened. “She is our princess—they—they could not.”
“They will not care for that: she is too beautiful.”
“But she is the only one.”
“They will not care.”
And the plans for the birthday grew more and more elaborate under the pressure of too much wild energy, from the love her people had for their only princess.
It was no secret among the royal three that a royal birthday party was for the pleasure of the people, and a nuisance to its subject. Alora and Gilvan had always arranged Linadel’s for her, even after she was old enough to take some reluctant interest in it, so that she need be harassed by no more than the day itself, and not by thinking about it for six months previous. But this year she took an active part in the plotting and planning, and took fewer long solitary walks than had been her habit for the last several years. Alora thought, rather sadly, with the front of her mind what she had often thought before: that Linadel was growing up too quickly, whether her parents would or nay; and was not aware that in the back of her mind she was relieved to have her only daughter readily under her eye so much of the time. But Gilvan understood, and thanked his daughter silently for it; and Linadel acknowledged his understanding by not meeting her father’s eyes.
The summer months passed, and the preoccupation with the coming birthday bode fair to turn it into a day the like of which nobody who had ever lived in any country could have recalled. There were almost no judicial cases to be considered, because everyone was too preoccupied either to get into mischief or to complain about their neighbors. Even the court counselors, ministers, and sundry assistants stumbled over their florid phrases and seemed to be thinking about something else; normally endless discussions of precedence and rule between those of opposite persuasions trailed off into vague nods and indefinite adjournments. The scrutiny that Princess Linadel was under spread to include her parents.
King Gilvan, who should have been well into middle age, was still tall and straight and handsome (as befitted Linadel’s father); and his devotion to his people was strong enough to force him into a vast and apparently stolid patience, which had not been in his nature at all to begin with; and yet in spite of this he was never bitter, and had retained the tendency of his young manhood to be humorous whenever he thought he could get away with it. Queen Alora was quick and kind, as she had been since she was a child, and grew only a little more finedrawn and fragile with age, and no less beautiful (as befitted Linadel’s mother), but much harder to read; because as she understood more and more about her people, she did not wish to distress them by allowing them to see how much she understood.
And Linadel was hourly more beautiful till even those who had seen her daily since she was a baby were struck by it as if they had never seen her before; although it seemed in latter days that only her father could make her laugh.
The week before the birthday was stretched, minute by minute, as tight as a girth on a straining horse. Even the marketplace was subdued, though usually the echoes of argument and abuse, conversation, flattery, and general cheerfulness flew over the entire town like a flock of birds. Usually it was noisier before a holiday, as everyone made last-minute adjustments in their fancy dress. The Queen had no sleep at all, for whenever she closed her eyes she saw nothing but blue flowers; saw them growing in across the palace windowsills, out of jars on her dressing table, in urns at the high table where they ate their formal meals; and once she saw the scarlet carpet that lay before the thrones in the audience room turn into a field of little blue flowers on stems so tall that they reached the knees of the King and Queen and Princess who sat high above the floor on a carnelian dais.
Gilvan wasn’t sleeping too well either, although dreams of blue flowers were not a part of his portion; but when he woke up and looked around, in starlight or moonlight, he could see the glint of the Queen’s open eyes as she lay motionless on the bed beside him. Sometimes if he spoke to her she would close her eyes to please him, and try to think of yellow chrysanthemums and white horses and crimson maple leaves until his breathing told her he was asleep again and she could open her eyes.
Linadel, who had originally thought that she was comforting everybody else and especially her mother, found that tension was contagious, and began spending many night hours kneeling on the windowseat and peering out over the broad sill of her bedroom window. It looked out over the vast palace gardens, and the river beyond, and the town beyond that, and behind it the forested hills; and there was a great deal of uninterrupted sky over them all. She looked up, mostly, because she did not want to be reminded of the life she led in those gardens, along that river, and with the people of the town—her people; so she picked out the constellations she had learned when she was a small child, and thought of the stories that went with them. But she was careful to be in bed, and at least apparently asleep, when a lady-in-waiting—whoever was due for the privilege this fortnight—came to wake her in the morning.
The day before the Princess’s Day was clear and fine, with a sky of that hard and infinite blue that guarantees good weather for a week following. The town houses were already draped in bouquets of flowers and bright-colored ribbons, and the parade route marked with banners worked with the royal crest, and with great baskets of flower petals—presently covered with tight-fitting lids—that the people who tomorrow would line the way could scatter in their Princess’s path. The last sign of preparation would be the royal bodyguards, already dressed in their finest uniforms and glittering with gold braid and the topazes of their office, coming round in pairs to unstrap the baskets.
Alora often went to her daughter’s room just before bedtime, and stayed to talk for a few minutes after the current lady-in-waiting in charge of evening preparations had been dismissed and Linadel was brushing and braiding her long smoky hair herself; but this night her mother lingered to tuck her in—which she hadn’t done since the eight-year-old Linadel had become sensitive about her dignity—and to sit on the foot of the bed. Neither of them said anything. The sky was blocked from Linadel’s sight as she lay back on her pillows, but she watched her mother looking out the window and wondered which Alora’s favorite stars were, and if they were the same as her own.