The Princess and the Captain Read online

  Malva was choking with rage. How could the Archont give in so quickly?

  ‘When you’ve taught me so much!’ she told him. ‘It’s thanks to you that I discovered the joys of reading, writing, making up stories, thinking. You even gave me my longing to travel and a taste for freedom!’

  The Archont smiled sadly. ‘I am only a humble tutor. It was not I who taught you all those things, but the authors of the books you read. And books are not the same as life, Princess. You must give up your childish dreams. You must do your duty.’

  Malva felt betrayed and abandoned.

  ‘Trust your mother,’ the Archont told her gently. ‘I am sure she has chosen you a good husband. The Prince of Andemark is only thirty-three, and they say he’s an excellent dancer.’

  Malva couldn’t have cared less about the Prince of Andemark and his dancing steps. Every time she closed her eyes she saw herself shut up in a room waiting for the wedding night, and dreadful panic churned in her stomach.

  Once, when she was very small, she had watched the Parade of Gifts: envoys from all over the Known World had passed through the Citadel courtyard in procession. One of them had a huge reptile on a leash. ‘A female allicaitor that I caught in the Lands of Aremica,’ he announced. Then he produced a cage with a terrified hare crouching inside. The envoy had given the hare to the Coronador, saying, ‘Throw it in the air and watch!’ The Coronador had thrown the poor creature. With a snap of its teeth, the monstrous reptile had swallowed its prey.

  Alive.

  To the plaudits of the nobility.

  Malva felt she was in exactly the same situation: they wanted to throw her to a stranger who would crunch her up in an instant.

  In the end the Archont finally realised that she was prepared to do anything to avoid such a fate. One evening he admitted that he sympathised with her.

  ‘You’re so young, so beautiful … and so gifted. You’ve always had such an independent nature. I can see why you don’t want to spend your life as a puppet on the arm of a man who’s too old for you.’

  Malva had raised her amber eyes to him, brimming with tears. ‘Talk to my mother! Talk to my father!’ she begged. ‘Ask them to call this marriage off!’

  The Archont had shaken his head. His powers were great, but not great enough for that. Galnicia needed this alliance with Andemark, and the Coronador wasn’t going to change his mind.

  ‘Your father entrusted your education to me, but otherwise I’m powerless.’

  ‘Then what can I do?’ cried Malva in despair.

  ‘I don’t know,’ the Archont replied. ‘But be sure that whatever you decide, you can count on my help.’

  For some time Malva had thought the question over from every angle. At last it seemed to her that the only solution would be flight. It was certainly the only way she could escape this marriage, but she couldn’t bring herself to make the final decision. Paralysed by fear, she kept putting it off until tomorrow.

  Then came the day when the Coronador summoned her to the Council Chamber and made her burn her notebooks. That ultimate humiliation had suddenly swept aside her fears and scruples. As soon as she was out of the Chamber she had gone to find Philomena to tell her what she was going to do.

  ‘Very well,’ Philomena had murmured at once. ‘In that case I’m going with you.’

  And so the two of them, thanks to Malva’s friendship with the Archont, had planned their escape in meticulous detail.

  Malva swung the mirror away, because her reflection was beginning to upset her. As she did so the letter slipped down behind the dressing table, but she didn’t notice. She rose and went to the window to pull back the curtains.

  The moon had not yet risen. There was still a fine ribbon of clear twilit sky on the horizon beyond the orchards. Towards the east stood rolling hills, dipping to valleys here and there as the River Gdavir meandered on its way. I may never come back, Malva thought. I may never taste the fruits of that orchard or see summer in Galnicia again. She felt a lump in her throat, but quickly swallowed; it was much too soon to start feeling homesick.

  At that moment Philomena came back through the hidden door. Without a word she put down the bundle containing the disguise: cotton underwear, a coarsely woven skirt, a beige top with simple sleeves, a plain bonnet. Over it Malva threw a woollen cape that Philomena had stolen from a peasant woman at the cattle fair. The worn, shabby outfit would help her to pass unnoticed. The cape had a hood which came down over her eyes when she lowered her head.

  ‘What do I look like?’ asked Malva.

  ‘A girl of no importance,’ said Philomena, after solemnly inspecting her.

  The Princess smiled. From now on Malva, sole heir to the throne of Galnicia, was a girl of no importance.

  Philomena collected her royal garments, wrapped them around Malva’s locks of hair, and put everything into the bundle that she was carrying under her arm. It contained all their worldly goods: a change of clothing, a loaf of bread, some olives, a fair sum of money in gold pieces given to them by the Archont, and new notebooks. Malva was planning to write all her adventures in them.

  ‘Come on,’ said Malva, making for the entrance to the secret passage.

  Philomena followed, closing the door behind her. As darkness enveloped them, Malva suddenly realised that this time it wasn’t just a rehearsal.

  2

  An Urgent Summons

  The first houses in the Lower Town stood close to the surrounding wall that protected the gardens of the Citadel. They were tall, narrow, whitewashed buildings crowded close together. During the day, washing was spread out to dry on the flat stone roofs. Every evening, when the last rays of the sun shone over the horizon, women left their kitchens and went up to bring in the sheets and clothes that had been baking in the warmth. At that time of day they looked like a shadowy army moving on the rooftops.

  Ever since he came to live in the Lower Town, Orpheus had been fascinated by the washerwomen. Leaning on his elbows at his bedroom window, he listened to their laughter, their songs, their chirruping conversation. Sometimes arguments broke out. Insults flew from roof to roof, echoing down the empty alleyways. Sometimes the women lingered on the rooftops for a little while, motionless and mute, looking down from this vantage point on the Coronador’s basins of water and bamboo hedges.

  This evening Orpheus noticed that they had eyes only for the Citadel. No arguing, no songs; Orpheus heard only their exclamations of wonder.

  ‘Lanterns!’ said one woman. ‘Aren’t they beautiful?’

  ‘The fountains have been turned on,’ said another.

  ‘Listen!’ cried a third. ‘That sounds like music already!’

  ‘Oh, do you think the ball has begun?’ asked the youngest woman.

  ‘Don’t be so silly!’ replied the eldest. ‘This is just a rehearsal. The wedding is tomorrow.’

  ‘I’d love to be invited!’ sighed the first speaker.

  ‘We can watch it all from up here,’ her neighbour consoled her.

  ‘I do hope we’ll see the Princess!’ the youngest woman sighed again. ‘She’s so beautiful, so harmonious …’

  Orpheus couldn’t see the gardens from his own window, but the washerwomen’s gossip told him all he needed to know about preparations for the wedding. And unlike them, he would be there. The following evening he’d be able to look at the basins of water, the lanterns and the Princess at his leisure.

  Unless he decided to stay away … after all, he was only a substitute guest. It was his father, Captain Hannibal McBott, who had been officially invited. But when the Coronador heard that Hannibal was too unwell to go out, he had invited Orpheus instead.

  ‘A representative of the proud McBott line of seafaring men!’ said Orpheus out loud, remembering the Coronador’s precise words. He shrugged his shoulders, vexed. If I’m supposed to be representing seafaring men I ought to be a sailor myself, he thought.

  At that moment he heard laughter. Absorbed in his thoughts, he had forgotten th
e presence of the washerwomen. They had heard him muttering, and now they were looking down at him from their rooftops.

  ‘It’s our shy young beau!’ cried one of them teasingly.

  ‘How sad he looks this evening!’ commented another.

  ‘Dear me!’ said the third, giggling. ‘Do you think he’s gone mad, talking to himself like that?’

  They chuckled as they saw Orpheus blush. Before he had time to move away, the youngest boldly blew him a kiss, saying, ‘Come up and see us next time instead of spying on us from down there!’

  Heart thudding and forehead moist, Orpheus quickly closed his window. So they’d noticed him there evening after evening, without ever giving any sign of it! They’d even called him ‘our shy young beau’!

  He felt absolutely ridiculous.

  He was always at a complete loss anyway when a woman spoke to him. No doubt it was lack of practice, because he had never lived in female company. His mother had died soon after he was born, and after that the only woman his father would tolerate in the house was Berthilde, a dried-up old maidservant who spent her time grumbling and polishing the furniture.

  Orpheus had always both admired and feared the glances of girls. Their beauty cast him into dreadful confusion. However, nothing would have been easier than to silence this bevy of gossips: he’d only have to stay cool and composed, assume a swaggering pose, and tell them that he was going to the Citadel the next day as a distinguished guest. That would have shown them who they were dealing with. Instead of which he was still making them laugh! And that kiss! What an insult.

  Feeling injured, Orpheus left his bedroom in haste and went down to the sitting room on the ground floor of his house. It was a dark room, with its only window looking out on the other side of the road; he felt sure none of the washerwomen could see him from there.

  When he went over to his armchair he saw that once again Zeph had failed to obey him. The big dog was rolled up in a ball, obviously deaf to all threats.

  ‘Get off!’ growled Orpheus. ‘That’s my chair you’re in.’

  The St Bernard vaguely opened one eye.

  ‘On your rug!’ said Orpheus sternly. ‘Stay on your RUG!’

  The animal merely opened his other eye. In the end Orpheus had to pull him off the chair by his paws before he could sit there himself.

  The St Bernard really belonged to his father, and had accompanied him on all his voyages. But when the Captain fell ill he had given the dog to Orpheus. ‘Zephyr’s too old,’ Hannibal explained. ‘When I see him dragging his carcass about from room to room I get the impression he’s imitating me. It depresses me.’

  Orpheus could refuse his father nothing, so he had taken the depressing dog into his own house. However, he couldn’t get used to the ridiculous name of Zephyr. How could an old, semi-paralytic St Bernard be called after a soft, balmy west wind? In private Orpheus shortened it to Zeph. Anyway, Zeph was a contrary dog.

  At heart Orpheus was torn two ways: he liked Zeph’s company, but at the same time he deeply resented him. The old St Bernard had been a mariner himself! He had sailed all the seas of the Known World. His doggy eyes had rested on all that Orpheus dreamed of seeing: the wild countries and distant shores of the Orniant, the storms and hurricanes that rage at sea off the Lands of Aremica, the deceptive calm of the Sea of Ypree …

  ‘You don’t know your luck, you old mutt,’ he murmured. ‘The Coronador ought to have invited you to the Princess’s wedding. You’d represent the McBotts much better than me.’

  He sat back a little further in his armchair, mulling over his gloomy obsessions. As always at such times, he went over ancient history, in particular the day when his dreams had been shattered.

  It had happened thirteen years ago, when he was eleven. Every minute of that day, every word spoken then, was deeply engraved on his memory.

  At the time Orpheus had been a cheerful child, curious about everything and not in the least shy. He went down to the harbour to look at the boats every day. He felt in his element there, among the sailors and surrounded by that unmistakable odour of brown tobacco and wet rope. He went tirelessly from quay to quay, noting the names of the ships, their tonnage, their home ports and the names of their destinations.

  That day he had met the captain of a schooner who was looking for a cabin boy. With all the dignity of his eleven years, Orpheus had fixed his clear gaze on the captain. ‘Hire me!’ he had said. The man had looked back at him with a half-smile. Orpheus wasn’t very large or sturdy, but he had studied so many technical manuals and read so many books about the sea that he ended up winning the captain over.

  ‘Go and see your father and talk to him about it,’ the man had suggested. ‘We set sail in four days’ time!’

  Heart quivering with excitement, Orpheus had run along the alleys of the Lower Town, crossed the bridge over the Gdavir, and made straight as an arrow for the rising land of the Upper Town, facing the hill on which the Citadel was perched. The McBott house stood here at the foot of the Campanile.

  He had opened the door and rushed into his father’s study without even stopping to knock. It was at that precise moment that everything went wrong …

  Suddenly, back in the present, Zeph started to growl, breaking into Orpheus’s thoughts.

  ‘Quiet!’ he said.

  But the St Bernard bared his teeth, pricked up his ears and went on growling. Orpheus was about to give him a small kick when he heard a knock at his front door. Zeph uttered a hoarse bark.

  ‘Who’s there?’ asked Orpheus, going into the hall.

  ‘Message for Orpheus McBott,’ a voice piped outside.

  Orpheus opened the door and saw a little boy standing squarely in front of him, his bare feet in the dust of the alley.

  ‘Are you Orpheus?’ asked the lad.

  ‘What’s the message?’

  ‘A hundred galniks if you want to know.’

  Orpheus sighed, and searched his pockets for some loose change, which he handed the small messenger. The urchin’s dirty face lit up.

  ‘It’s your father who wants you,’ he said in an important tone. ‘He’s expecting you in the Upper Town this evening. It’s urgent.’

  Orpheus frowned.

  ‘That old lady told me to come and find you,’ the boy told him. ‘The one who always wears black and never smiles.’

  ‘Berthilde?’

  ‘That’s her. Told me she couldn’t leave the Captain for a minute because he’s very ill.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Orpheus in melancholy tones. ‘Right, you can go now.’

  ‘Yes, right, I have to get home,’ said the lad, looking worried. ‘It’s late. My mum and dad will scold me for being out after dark.’

  Orpheus raised his eyes to heaven and put his hand in his pocket again. He found two more twenty-galnik coins and threw them on the ground.

  ‘For your trouble!’ he said, closing his door once more.

  He heard the urchin laugh and then race away down the alley. At the back of the room, Zeph was still growling in a low tone, but he paid the dog no attention. This urgent summons boded no good.

  3

  Two Barrels of Rioro Wine

  Malva and Philomena went down the secret passage, counting under their breath. It was a hundred and twenty-eight paces to the kitchens. At that point the passage branched; they had to take the left-hand fork, then count a hundred and eighty-five paces to get past the laundry, and it was another two hundred and thirty before they finally reached the end of the tunnel.

  During their rehearsals Malva’s legs had carried her along without faltering, but now she found it difficult walking steadily. She was perspiring under her woollen cape.

  The closer they came to the kitchens, the more distinct were the sounds of voices and the chink of china. Malva could easily imagine the cheerful bustle and excitement around tables where the silver was waiting to be polished. She had sought the servants’ company so often when she was a little girl. She’d liked their wholehe
arted laughter and rough ways far better than the ingratiating hypocrisy of people of her own rank – much to the displeasure of the Coronada, who used to leave her shut up in front of the Altar of the Divinities for hours on end as a punishment.

  ‘Faster!’ whispered Philomena, nudging her mistress as she felt her hesitate.

  Malva set off along the left-hand passage, and went on through the dark until she could feel a draught filtering in from under the last door: the one that led to the stables and the open air.

  Here Philomena went ahead of her and pushed the door ajar. The smell of the horses immediately rose to their nostrils. The smell of freedom, thought Malva.

  A shaft of moonlight fell through the planks of the stable roof, making the metal rings of the harness for the horses shine. At the back of a box one horse was pawing the ground with his hoof. They could hear him snorting.

  Philomena led her mistress outside, and abruptly pushed her down behind a heap of straw. ‘It’s all right,’ she whispered. ‘The cart’s there, ready to leave. And the Archont is standing guard as we expected.’ She took Malva’s hands, looking steadily at her. ‘But are you sure you want to do this? You can still call the whole thing off.’

  The Princess put her hood back, uncovering her hedgehog haircut. ‘I absolutely refuse to go through with the wedding,’ she said firmly.

  ‘You’ll be giving up the throne too,’ Philomena pointed out.

  ‘I don’t want the throne.’

  ‘You’ll never live in Tranquillity and Harmony again,’ her maid said unsparingly.

  ‘I know.’

  With every word they spoke, Philomena squeezed her mistress’s hands more tightly. They had already repeated all this so often in the privacy of Malva’s bedroom. It was like a last prayer, or as if the two of them were swearing an oath.

  ‘You may never see your mother again,’ the chambermaid murmured.

  ‘The Coronada has never been a real mother to me.’

  ‘You may never see your father –’

  ‘The Coronador has never been anything to me but the Coronador.’