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
“What?” Azalea cried.
Bramble took the paper from Azalea’s hands and read it herself. Confusion, then anger, passed over her. The younger girls whined to see what the fuss was.
“Oh, we shall see about this!” said Bramble, brandishing the paper. She marched out of the library, the girls running after. As if on cue, the entrance hall door opened, and the King stepped through. He was dripping wet from the rain. He hardly had his umbrella closed before the girls flanked him.
“What,” said Bramble, brandishing the paper in his face, “what, sir, is this?”
The King frowned, looking mildly surprised and chagrined.
“Oh,” he said. “So you have found it.”
“Of course we found it!” said Delphinium. They followed him, a swarm of bees, as he methodically removed his soaking overcoat and hat. “A ‘riddle to solve’? Balderdash!”
“How could you?”
“Now the whole country knows we dance at night!”
“If you are willing to tell me where you go,” said the King crisply, “I will be happy to rescind the advertisement. As such, however, perhaps you will think twice before you make an oath like that again.”
“But sir,” said Eve. “Don’t you already know where we go? Why turn it into R.B.?”
The King sighed and set his soaking umbrella against the hound umbrella stand.
“Because, Miss Evening Primrose,” said the King, “even I will admit we must get certain things accomplished in mourning.”
…acquaintance with the Princess Royale…
Azalea leaned against the heavy library door, hand on her stomach, trying to swallow a sick feeling. A Yuletide parlor game came to mind, one in which the gentlemen would step on slips of paper. They danced the gorlitza with whichever lady’s name was written upon it. This was worse, though; this was marriage arranging, not just a game.
Other memories came, too; the King handing Azalea the invitation and saying, The question is, how to become acquainted with gentlemen while in mourning. Years ago, when Azalea had discovered that the crown princess of Delchastire was betrothed to a prince nearly forty years her senior, Azalea had fussed with the article so much it had turned her fingers black with ink.