The pupils all called out guesses. "Maybe a notice that you forgot to pay yer rent!" called Fred.
"No, part of my salary for being schoolmaster is the room where I live," the schoolmaster explained.
"Announcement of a traveling circus comin' around?" suggested Nell hopefully, for there had been one once, and she remembered all of it: the ringmaster in a bright red costume with gold buttons, a monkey wearing a hat, and a white dog that danced.
"Usually," the schoolmaster reminded them, fingering the rolled message, "a traveling circus is announced by jesters who come cartwheeling through the village the day before, selling tickets."
"Maybe it's an order to witness a whipping!" was Mick's hope, for he was interested in violence, always, so long as he was not on the receiving end. There had not been a public whipping in a long time, not since the day a very bad-tempered village woman had smashed all of her neighbor's best pots in a fit of anger after an argument about who made the best stew. It hadn't been much of a whipping, either, just a few taps to remind her to hold her temper in check.
The little orphan, Liz, scratched her mosquito bite, smeared now with lotion that the princess had provided. She leaned forward and tried to peer at the mysterious paper. Then she closed her eyes tight and held her breath, the ritual for making a wish. "Oh, I do hope a circus," she whispered. "I never once seen one."
"It's an invitation," the princess said under her breath. She watched while the schoolmaster unrolled the message.
The Birthday Ball
Birthday Banquet and Ball!
For the Princess Patricia Priscilla!
***
Saturday Night at the Castle
Food • gifts • Music • Suitors
Villagers Welcome!
(Please Bathe)
The schoolmaster held it up so that the children could see, and they called out the words.
"What's a suitor, sir?"
The schoolmaster explained the concept of suitors, and they all wrinkled their noses.
"What's gifts?" asked Liz.
So he explained gifts. None of the pupils had ever received a gift. Their eyes grew wide. "Blimey," said Nell. "They gives you sumpthin'? And you don't got to work for it?"
"I expect it will be just a small gift," the princess said. "I mean, because we're poor miserable peasants and all. Perhaps just a small candy, or a toy?"
"A candy? A toy?" the children shouted.
"What's a toy?" asked little Liz.
"When's Saturday?" asked Ben, who could never remember such things.
"Day after tomorrow!" everyone cried out in delight. "Day after tomorrow!"
***
The princess lingered after school was dismissed for the day. She had begun to dread returning to the lonely castle, and so she volunteered to sweep the floor and arrange the books and papers in order. Tidying things, she glanced surreptitiously at the schoolmaster, who sat at his desk, correcting the spelling tests they had done that morning.
He looked up at her. "Will you be attending the Birthday Ball, Pat?" he asked.
She sighed. She knew that Saturday would mean the end of her schoolhouse life, the end of her days posing as a peasant.
"Yes, sir," she said. "And you, sir?" she asked. "Will you be going, and getting a gift? Blimey, I suppose you never got no gift before, sir." She made the observation slyly, knowing that the schoolmaster was really not a common peasant at all, because the chambermaid had told her of the high origins of Herr Gutmann. She wondered if he would confess to her now who he was.
But he did not. "No," he replied. "There have been no gifts in my life."
She teased him a bit. "Aw, sir, surely your ma gave you sumpthin'? A play horsie carved of wood?"
His look was sad. "My ma died when I was just a small boy," he told her.
"Oh, sir! A pity, that! Was she killed like my ma, by a—what was it, then? A wild dog?"
"You once said a boar, Pat, and that it was your pa who died."
"Oh! I did indeed, and it was that, a boar killed my pa. I forgot for a minute. A boar killed my pa, and my ma does laundry, and that's the truth."
"My mother died after giving birth to my sister," the schoolmaster said, "and my little sister is gone as well—my pa sent her away—so I have lost them both."
"Blimey, that was cruel of yer pa!"
"I no longer think of him as Pa. He disowned me when I went off to become a teacher. Too uppity, he said. Putting on airs, he called it."
"But, sir!" She caught herself. She had almost revealed that she knew of his noble origins. Something stopped her. He looked too sad.
"I'm finished here, sir. I'll be off now."
He nodded, looking down again at the spelling papers. She hoped that her careful misspellings looked real and that he—for one more day, until the ball, which she so dreaded—would continue to think her an uneducated girl, a humble peasant in need of his teaching.
Outside the schoolhouse, the princess called to her waiting pet. She had been feeding Delicious extra sardines so that the cat would not sadden the orphan by eating birds. Now she could see, as Delicious woke up and rolled over, in response to her call, that the additional rations were having an effect. The cat was developing quite a tummy.
"Your size is ambitious, Delicious," she said, but her mind was really elsewhere and the fun of her own wordplay was diminished. She walked slowly back to the castle, the cat at her heels, thinking about how the village world would be lost to her after the ball. Briefly, too, she thought with despair about the impending arrival of the suitors.
13. The Kitchen
The huge kitchen and its anterooms were alive with bustle and noise. There was no music now, except for the quiet sounds from a pantry corner where the three serving girls, exempted from their regular duties, were working on the song they'd been commanded to prepare for the ball. Today it was the clank of kettles and the clatter of plates, the thunk of knives, the roar of the cooking fires, and the hurried footsteps of the many servants, all of it orchestrated by the barked commands of the cook.
"You! Pulley Boy!" she shouted.
"Yes, Cook?" The boy looked in from the hallway where he always positioned himself near the pulley door. He was a tall boy with curly hair and bright blue eyes.