“I’ll be along later,” replied the frog at once, as if he recognized her embarrassment; as if he were a poor relation who yet had a sense of his own worth.
She hesitated a moment longer, wondering to how many people she would have to explain her talking frog, and added, “I dine alone with my father at eight.” Prince Inthur never took his meals with his father and sister any more; he ate with Aliyander or alone, miserably, in his room, if Aliyander chose to overlook him. Then she raised the grey necklace to clasp it round her throat, and remembered that it was, after all, her talking frog’s pool that had put out the ill light of Aliyander’s work. She smiled once more at the frog, a little guiltily, for she believed one should be kind to one’s poor relations; and she said, “You’ll be my talisman.”
She turned and walked quickly away, back toward the palace, and the Hall, and Aliyander.
PART TWO
BUT SHE MADE a serious mistake, for she walked swiftly back to the Hall, and blithely through the door, with her head up and her eyes sparkling with happiness and release; she met Aliyander’s black eyes too quickly, and smiled without thinking. It was only then she realized what her thoughtlessness had done, when she saw his eyes move swiftly from her face to the jewels at her throat, and then as he saw her smile his own face twisted with a rage so intense it seemed for a moment that his sallow skin would turn black with it. And even her little brother, the Crown Prince, looked at his hero a little strangely, and said, “Is anything wrong?”
Aliyander did not answer. He turned on his heel and left, going toward the door opposite that which the Princess had entered; the door that led into the rest of the palace. Everyone seemed to be holding his or her breath while the quiet footfalls retreated, for there was no other noise; even the air had stopped moving through the windows. Then there was the sound of the heavy door opening, and closing, and Aliyander was gone.
The courtiers blinked and looked at one another. The Crown Prince looked as if he might cry: his master had left him behind. The King turned to his daughter with the closing of that far door, and he saw first her white frightened face; and then his gaze dropped to the round stones of her necklace, and there, for several moments, it remained.
No one of the courtiers looked at her directly; but when she caught their sidelong looks, there was blankness in their eyes, not understanding. None addressed a word to her, although all had seen that she, somehow, was the cause of Aliyander’s anger. But then, for months now it had been considered bad luck to discuss anything that Aliyander did.
Inthur, the Crown Prince, still loved his father and sister in spite of the cloud that Aliyander had cast over his mind; and little did he know how awkward Aliyander found that simple and indestructible love. But now Inthur saw his sister standing alone in the doorway to the garden, her face as white as her dress, and as a little gust of wind blew her skirts around her, and her fair hair across her face, she gasped and gave a shudder, and one hand touched her necklace. With Aliyander absent, even the cloud on Inthur lifted a little, although he himself did not know this, for he never thought about himself. Instead he ran the several steps to where his sister stood, and threw his arms around her; he looked up into her face and said, “Don’t worry, Rana dear, he’s never angry long.” His boy’s gaze passed over the necklace without a pause.
She nodded down at him and tried to smile, but her eyes filled with tears; and with a little brother’s horror of tears, particularly sister’s tears, he let go of her at once and said quickly, with the air of one who changes the subject from one proved dangerous, “What did you do?”
She blinked back her tears, recognizing the dismay on Inthur’s face; he would not know that it was his hug that had brought them, and the look on his face when he tried to comfort her: just as he had used to look before Aliyander came. Now he rarely glanced at either his father or his sister except vaguely, as if half asleep, or with his thoughts far away. “I don’t know,” she said, with a fair attempt at calmness, “but perhaps it is not important.”
He patted her hand as if he were her uncle, and said, “That’s all right. You just apologize to him when you see him next, and it’ll be over.”
She smiled wanly as she remembered that her own brother belonged to Aliyander now and she could not trust him. Then the King came up beside them, and when her eyes met his she read knowledge in them: of what Aliyander had seen, in her face and round her neck; and a reflection of her own fear. He said nothing to her.
The rest of the day passed slowly, for while they did not see Aliyander again, the weight of his absence was almost as great as his presence would have been. The Crown Prince grew cross and fretful, and glowered at everyone; the courtiers seemed nervous, and whispered among themselves, looking often over their shoulders as if for the ghosts of their great-grandmothers. Even those who came from the city, or the far-flung towns beyond, to kneel before the King and crave a favor seemed more to crouch and plead, as if for mercy; and their faces were never happy when they went away, whatever the King had granted them.
Rana felt as grey as Aliyander’s jewels.
The sun set at last, and its final rays touched the faces in the Hall with the first color most of them had had all day; and as servants came in to light the candles everyone looked paler and more uncomfortable than ever.
One of Aliyander’s personal servants approached the throne soon after the candles were lit; the King sat with his children in smaller chairs at his feet. The man offered the Crown Prince a folded slip of paper; his obeisance to the King first was a gesture so cursory as to be insulting, but the King made no move to reprimand him. The Hall was as still as it had been that morning when Aliyander had left it; and the sound of Inthur’s impatient opening of the note crackled loudly. He leaped to his feet and said joyfully, “I’m to dine with him!” and with a dreadful look of triumph round the Hall, and then at his father and sister—Rana closed her eyes—he ran off, the servant following with the dignity of a nobleman.
It seemed a sign. The King stood up wearily and clapped his hands once; and the courtiers made their bows and began to drift away, to quarters in the palace, or to grand houses outside in the city. Rana followed her father to the door that led to the rest of the palace, where the Crown Prince had just disappeared; and there the King turned and said, “I will see you at eight, my child?” And Rana’s eyes again filled with tears at the question in his voice, behind his words. She only nodded, afraid to speak, and he turned away. “We dine alone,” he said, and left her.