Page 29
“S omething?” Although Pasqueta was older than me, I used my firm, encouraging, elder-sister voice.
“It was dark. Even in the palace, the corridors are full of shadows at night. Here and there, a night candle is lit, but”—she shivered—“the restless ghost of Prince Escalus the elder walks.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“Last night, I did.”
Elder, you said I was the only one. Where are you? “This ghost was in Nonna Ursula’s bedchamber?”
“I saw a dark cloaked form slip from her sitting room and drift toward the tower.” Pasqueta kept shivering, little quivers of remembered terror. “He wore the old prince’s cloak. The one from the portrait! I saw it. I knew it!”
“What did you do?”
She blushed, such a rapid change from her previous pale complexion I was afraid she’d keel over from the change. “I ran in the other direction, back the way I came.”
“And?”
“I’m so ashamed. I splashed half the posset out of the cup.”
My gaze fell to her flexing hands; livid blisters had risen and discolored her skin.
The worse was yet to come. “I left Princess Ursula alone while I worked up my nerve to creep back. I’m such a coward. When my princess said she’d hold a séance, I knew she would rouse the spirits, and she did. She did!”
Although Elder had found a way of defusing my trembling fear of ghosts—his caustic sentiments made him seem less a phantom from beyond and more an in-law to be avoided—yet I could still comprehend her overwhelming fright. “You didn’t confess to Friar Laurence because . . . ?”
“Old Maria was right to sound the warning against me. I failed in my duty to my beloved mistress.” Her eyes, wretched with guilt, overflowed and she wept in true remorse.
I patted her shoulder, and when she’d gained control, I grasped her wrist. “A ghost is a spirit without a body. Without flesh, it cannot pick up a weapon. It cannot beat an old woman senseless.”
“But you don’t know what a ghost can do . . .”
I stared, impressing on her my true knowledge.
“You’ve seen a ghost?” Her voice grew hoarse. “You’ve seen the spirit of the murdered prince?”
“Have you not heard such claims?”
“The palace gossip claims it’s so, but to me, you seem so . . . normal.”
Fooled her! “Do you understand what I’m saying? If the figure you saw is a ghost, he couldn’t have hurt Nonna Ursula. Plus, Prince Escalus the elder truly loves and admires his mother.”
Pasqueta scooted her chair back from mine.
I continued, “If the villain who attacked the dowager princess is a man—”
“But the window!” She pointed. “He escaped out the window!”
“Perhaps not. Perhaps he came in the window and left through the door. If he found the right place to hide, he might still be within the palace.”
“ ‘Within the palace’?” She clutched at her chest.
I didn’t know whether she feared the ghost or the intruder more. Or me, because she continued to scoot backward. “We’re all in danger!” She stood in a rush.
I still gripped her wrist. “We have guards. Tommaso stands by the window, and two of the palace men are outside the outer door. We’re safe.”
Pasqueta’s gaze swung from Tommaso, who watched and listened, toward the sitting room and back again. “I dare not stay!”
My opinion of her started a steep downward slide. “You’d leave Princess Ursula in her time of need?”
“No. No, I don’t mean that.” Pasqueta wrung her hands. “But a man in the palace. And a ghost. The guards can stop a man, if that’s what it was, but they can’t stop a ghost!”
She had me there. So I added, “Old Maria will be glad to know she’s won the competition as the most loyal of Princess Ursula’s serving maids.”
Pasqueta looked at Old Maria.
Old Maria stared back at her, and although she couldn’t know what we’d been discussing, her malevolent gaze gave her opinion of her rival.
“Where will you go?” I asked.
“I can’t leave here. I have nowhere to go and . . . and Princess Ursula saved me. I’m loyal to her.” Pasqueta took a long breath. “I’ll be brave. I’ll protect her, no matter the horrors waiting around every corner.”
“You’ve helped by telling me about the man’s figure you saw. It was a man?”
She looked startled at the idea a woman could be so perfidious. “Of course!” When I studied her, she said, “I saw him come out of the door. He was tall.” With her hand, she indicated a height above her head.
“What else did you observe?”
Her eyes drooped as she tried to recall. “He’d pulled the hood up on his cloak, so I didn’t see his hair. He wore gloves. I heard boots on the floor.”
So definitely not a ghost. “How did he move? Did he walk in fury? Was he running away?”
Her eyes popped wide. “He moaned. That’s why I thought he was a ghost. He put his hand to his face and moaned like someone facing an eternity of damnation.”
“If he fears eternity, he’s a man.” Remembering the bag containing Yorick’s skull, I asked, “Was he carrying anything?”
“Not that I remember or saw.”
“Did you or Old Maria remove the”—how to describe it?—“bag from the table and put it away for the princess?”
“I didn’t. Old Maria is ruthless in her pursuit of tidiness. I’m sure she did.”
I nodded. “Pasqueta, thank you, you’ve helped so much. Now . . . trust no one. Tell no one. If you do, you could be in danger.”
Pasqueta crept away, weeping in fear and sorrow, and I returned to my care of Nonna Ursula, updating her with the newest information.
Justice must be served for Elder . . . and for her.
When Friar Laurence returned, he dismissed me and Tommaso, commanding we find food and drink.
I rose from my chair to find the cook had prepared an unappetizing spread for me, and if I hadn’t been so weary at heart, I would have gone up and created such a havoc in the palace kitchens they would have trembled before me.
Instead I pushed the plate toward Tommaso—that child of the streets didn’t disdain food, no matter how unappetizing—and climbed the stairs to the tower where I’d first met Prince Escalus the elder. Where had he been? What had he seen?
Where was his son and my papà?
But when I arrived, I saw not Elder floating slightly above the floor, but rather Lysander of the house of Gorgeous standing on a ladder, next to the column that held the city’s night candle, and muttering like a madman.
May I remind you, gentle reader, it was four stories to the ground.
Table of Contents
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- Page 29 (Reading here)
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