“We’re keeping it for ransom,” said Bramble. “You can have it back when you set the tower.”
Lord Bradford bowed. “As you say,” he said.
“It’s ours until then.”
“Just so.”
“You can’t get it back until then.”
“As you say.”
“And—and—well—all right, then,” said Bramble.
Sick with embarrassment, Azalea picked up the potatoes while the younger girls crowded about Bramble, who showed them how a pocket watch wound and clicked open and shut. Not until everything had been tidied did Azalea realize Lord Bradford was no longer in the room.
Azalea flew out the tower door, through the hall to the entrance hall mezzanine. He was just leaving. Azalea, breathless, stopped at the top of the stairs and leaned against the banister.
“Sir,” she called out. “Lord Bradford.”
He turned. His eyes lit up, seeing Azalea.
“Thank you,” said Azalea.
Lord Bradford bowed deeply, removing his hat, which re-rumpled his hair. When he straightened, he was smiling, as crooked as his cravat, and Azalea couldn’t help but smile back.
CHAPTER 5
The funeral was the next day. The princesses huddled together beside the grave, as far away from the stone as they could without being disrespectful. The graveyard was filled to the brim with mourners, overflowing to the street, all in black suits, black veils and bonnets. Horses for the procession had been brushed with black dye; streetlamps swathed with black fabric. Everything, black.
Snow fell, stark pieces of white against the scene.
The King stood across the grave from them, with members of parliament. He kept his hands firmly to his sides and sucked in his cheeks, which he did when he was displeased. He did not look at the grave. He did not look at them. He looked at…nothing.
Prayers said, pine boughs, holly, and mistletoe placed on the grave, and the masses of people sifted out the rickety gate. A luncheon for family and parliament members would be held afterward, at a coffeehouse. The King left with the mourners, without a word. He hadn’t even cried. Azalea tried to keep her nails from digging into her palms. They still stung from yesterday.
The girls remained behind until the graveyard became empty and desolate. They stared at the weeping angel statue. Snow landed on their hair, bits of white against their heads of red, gold, and brown, melting to droplets in the silence.
“They’ll miss us,” said Azalea, after a while. “And we’ll eat with the King. He has to, if there are guests. That’s the rule.”
The girls kept silent, clutching their cloaks and shawls tightly around their shoulders, shivering.
“Miss Azalea.”
Azalea turned to see Fairweller, looking graver than usual. He motioned to a small path through the gravestones and trees, hat in hand.
“If you will walk with me?”
Azalea walked through the frozen twigs and frosted leaves with him, feeling the girls’ curious eyes follow her. She winced a little, thinking of all the endless teasing this would produce. Fairweller, handsome, young, disagreeable as hornets. He smelled like peppermints.
“The Delchastrian prime minister was here,” said Fairweller at length. The snow crunched beneath his feet. “At the funeral. Did you see him?”
Azalea recalled the bearded man with a monocle, and nodded.
“You know that Delchastire has, for some time, been pushing us to fulfill our alliance in their current skirmish, and that your father—and I, and the regiments—will be leaving for war soon?”
Azalea stopped abruptly. Her skirts upset the snow at the side of the path.
“He’s not leaving now?” she said.
Fairweller nodded, grave. “They gave him leave enough for your mother, but now he must tend to duty. The regiments may leave as soon as tomorrow, before the next storm sets in. I thought you should know before the papers do.”
Azalea was speechless. Mother had always been the one to tell her such things before, and smooth everything over. Hearing it from Fairweller added iciness to the wind. Azalea pulled her shawl closer.
“That’s so soon,” she said. “Surely he doesn’t have to leave yet? What about mourning?’
Fairweller gave a slight shake of his head. “Politics is notoriously unfeeling,” he said.
“But he’s the king! He doesn’t even have to go! The Delchastrian king won’t, surely!”
Fairweller reached above him and snapped an icy twig from its branch. He considered it in his gloved hands before speaking.
“There is an old magic,” he said slowly. “A deep one, made of promises. It hearkens back to the High King D’Eathe, and the first Captain General. Your father swore such an oath to Delchastire when we made this alliance. We all did. It cannot be taken lightly.”
“He swore an oath,” said Azalea, in an empty, hollow voice.
“As such, we must go. If it is any comfort, my lady, I do not believe it will be a long war. Less than a year, surely.”
Azalea leaned against the trunk of a frozen tree, trying for the umpteenth time not to cry. Fairweller’s gray eyes, colorless like the rest of him, considered her, and after a long moment, he bowed. He left through the iron gate a length away.
The bushes behind her rustled, not from the wind. Azalea stared at the snow-packed ground, and sighed.
“You can come out now,” she said.
Sisters emerged with hardly a sound from behind the tombstones and naked trees where they’d been hiding. They looked at Azalea with wide and frightened eyes. Clover clutched Lily to her chest. They remained quiet, all except eleven-year-old Eve, who scooped up snow, fashioned it into a snowball, and pelted Mother’s weeping angel statue. Piff.