Like a ghost, a disembodied voice began to speak. The captain of the guard’s voice was low and rasping. “And we took them to dungeons and let them starve first… Then we … “
The voice droned on, telling Petra and Neel of horrible things: torture, murder, large graves, and missing limbs. Petra wanted nothing more than to dash the black dust from her hand and scrub it clean. Nausea and a sense of despair welled up in the back of her throat. Her eyes stung with unshed tears and she wanted to make the voice stop. But she kept her hand still.
“…until they stopped. Tomorrow night we will seize the clock-maker. Fiala Broshek will remove his eyes and put a spell on them. She says the prince wants them for his collection, to lock up in his Cabinet of Wonders … “
Petra flung the dust to the ground. She began scraping earth over it. Neel watched her, his face inscrutable. Petra didn’t try to guess his thoughts. She didn’t want to. After she had made a small mound over the dust she rubbed her hands with dirt. She sat there, shaken.
Neel stood up first. He turned around, walked a few paces, and stopped. He spat. Then he kept walking.
Petra followed him, but at a distance. She let him disappear into the trees ahead of her. Without having said anything, they understood that they both wanted to be alone.
Petra …
She said nothing to the spider. She did not want to listen to any more voices.
You cannot change what happened, he said. But now you know where Master Kronos’s eyes are. And you can do something about that.
Petra didn’t know what she would have said to this, if indeed she would have replied at all. A rustle of leaves interrupted their one-sided conversation. She spun around.
“Well, well, gadje, what brings you back to our neck of the woods?”
It was Emil. He looked at ease, one arm slinging a brace of rabbits over his shoulder, the other loosely hanging by his side.
“You speak Czech,” she said warily.
“I do. I understand it, too. And from what I understand, what you just planted there”—he nodded back into the trees, which hid the grave of the captain’s secrets—“is a sickness. Even now, the ants in that bit of earth are tunneling far away from it. Not a blade of grass will ever grow there. And what I wonder is, who is this girl who brings her poison among my people and buries it in our earth?”
“This land does not belong to you,” Petra said.
“I don’t care if it doesn’t.”
Petra started to turn away when Emil trapped her wrist with his free hand. The rabbits still hung nonchalantly over his shoulder. If it weren’t for the fact that Petra’s hand was seized in a viselike grip, anyone watching this scene would have thought that Emil was completely relaxed. “What I do care about,” he said, “is Neel. And his mother. And his sister. Now, I may be just an ignorant Gypsy”—he smiled, his teeth shining like a blade against the blackness of his beard—“but I think that you have invited Neel to play with your poison. You are involving him with something. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t like it.”
She twisted in his grip and felt her wrist burn. “Neel’s his own person.”
“Neel is a child! You are a child!” He shook her. “The funny thing is, even children can get people hurt.”
“I’m not going to hurt anybody!”
But her next action probably didn’t make Emil believe very strongly in what she had just said. She kicked him hard in the shins. Gasping in pain, he loosened his hold on her and she pulled herself away. He started to stumble toward her. She scooped up dirt and flung it in his eyes. Petra ran, leaving him limping, cursing, and rubbing at his face.
She left the Lovari almost immediately after she reached the campsite. She said nothing of her encounter with Emil to Neel, but she didn’t want to be around when the man returned. Since Neel would be spending the night with the Lovari and she would have to walk back to the castle alone, she said she wanted to leave before it got dark.
Neel nodded. “Turn up at the stables the morning of the party,” he said. “We have to plan.”
But as Petra walked up the hill, she decided she would not meet Neel on the day of the birthday celebration. She would search for the Cabinet of Wonders by herself. Not because Emil had frightened her, but because what he had said was right.
20
The Prince’s Birthday
PETRA GREETED HALLOWEEN with a jumpy heart. She found it difficult that day to concentrate in the Dye Works, where she and Iris were mixing edible dyes for the kitchen to brighten up the desserts for the feast. Iris wasn’t terribly pleased about doing anything that might make Mistress Hild’s efforts look good. But overall she was cheerful, for she had personally given the prince his rodolfinium robes several days ago, and had received nothing but praise in return. So when Petra produced a dye that was a sick green instead of peony pink, Iris simply chuckled. “You’re too excited, aren’t you, poor lamb? You and half the castle! The festivities are already under way, even as we sit in my laboratory. And I should say that you’ve never seen fireworks, have you?”
“What are fireworks, Iris?”
“Oh, you shall see.”
Not one of the servants would be set free from his duties until the evening. Throughout the day, Prince Rodolfo and his guests would be in the garden, basking in its artificial warmth and bright flowers. They were being entertained by theatrical performances, as well as acrobatics (Petra heard that a high wire had been rigged fifty feet off the ground) and musical arrangements. They would then sit down to an elaborate fourteen-course dinner. After dessert at midnight, the nobles would return to the garden to see the fireworks, whatever that was. The servants were allowed to watch the procession of the nobles and the fireworks from the castle yard. When the court returned to the castle for a masked ball that would last until dawn, the servants would treat themselves to a delicious meal of roasted pig, with several barrels of ale to share. It was during the masked ball and the servants’ dinner that Petra hoped to find the prince’s Cabinet of Wonders.
Iris preferred to work rather than attend the performances in the garden. But she would join the court later for dinner, the procession, and the dance.
“Aren’t you worried that you’ll have an acid attack?” asked Petra.
“I think I shall be too happy for that. Unless, of course” —her expression darkened—“I’m seated next to nincompoops at dinner. Which is highly likely, given that the court holds so many of them. And I’m sure no one will ask me to dance. I’ll have to drink punch in a corner and hope that some young lord with pins for brains starts a fight. That would at least keep me from going stark-raving mad with boredom. But, well, there’s no help for it.” Her face cleared. “I’ve been ordered to be present,” she said proudly. “Prince Rodolfo especially wishes me to see the reaction to his new robes.”