The Kingdom's Most Useless Princess

Chapter 3: The Proper Form for Accusing a Princess

Elara had perhaps two seconds.

In that time she folded the paper once, then twice, and slid it into her left sleeve. Celestine saw it and said nothing.

That was the first time Elara understood that her sister was willing to lie by silence in front of their brother.

It was not a comforting discovery.

The door opened.

Prince Adrian came in without knocking, still wearing the dark blue uniform of the Northern Command. The dust of the square clung to his boots. Two guards stood behind him, and neither would meet Elara's eyes.

"Celestine," he said. "You are not permitted here."

"I am aware of your order."

"Then you are also aware that you are breaking it."

"I am aware that it is unlawful," Celestine said. "Those are two different awarenesses."

Adrian looked at her for a long moment.

Elara had seen him face cavalry charges with less visible effort.

"Leave us," he said to the guards.

They withdrew. The door closed.

For a while nobody spoke. Adrian walked to the window and looked down at the courtyard, where soldiers were already saddling horses in tight, silent rows.

"The northern garrison has not been recalled," he said. "The commander is holding the fortress gates but will not raise the banner again without a written order from the council. The council cannot agree on who is allowed to give one."

"That sounds like a council," Elara said.

"Do not."

"I was agreeing with you."

"You were not."

"I was agreeing with you in a way that also made a point."

He turned around. His face was tired in a way that made her stop. She had been prepared for anger. She had not been prepared for him to look like a man who had not yet been allowed to grieve.

"Father is dead," Adrian said quietly. "A man I trusted has told the whole square that he was murdered. The northern fortress has been surrendered on a document I cannot disprove. And my sister, who has never taken anything seriously, stood on the execution platform and made a joke about lunch."

"The execution was already postponed," Elara said. "I only suggested a reason."

"Elara."

"It was a good reason."

"It was ridiculous."

"People remembered it. People will repeat it. By tomorrow the city will be saying the princess delayed an execution for catering reasons, and nobody will be asking why Cassian was so calm."

Adrian stopped.

It was a very small stop. A soldier would not have noticed it. His sister did.

"You noticed that he was calm," he said slowly.

"He smiled. He joked. He gave me a time limit." She kept her voice light. "A man who thinks he is about to die usually does not manage all three."

"He may have been mad."

"He may have been."

"But you do not think so."

"I think," Elara said carefully, "that I would like to ask him a few questions before somebody sharpens the axe again."

Adrian rubbed his forehead.

"The council will not permit it."

"Then the council must be asked differently."

"By whom?"

"By someone who looks like they are not asking."

Celestine made a soft sound that might have been a cough.

Adrian looked from one sister to the other, and Elara felt him weigh the situation the way he weighed a battlefield. She had always disliked how often he was right when he did that.

"You are both hiding something," he said.

Neither of them answered.

"I am not asking you to confess it. I am telling you that I know." He folded his arms. "I have commanded soldiers for eleven years. I know what it looks like when two people stand too neatly."

"We are royal," Elara said. "We stand neatly by training."

"You have never stood neatly in your life."

"That is unfair. I stood neatly at Father's coronation anniversary."

"You were asleep."

"Standing."

Celestine closed her eyes briefly.

Adrian's mouth moved. It was not quite a smile, but it was near enough to the border that Elara felt something tight in her chest loosen. For half a moment they were siblings in a room again, not pieces on a board.

Then he glanced at her sleeve.

It was a casual glance. Nothing in his face changed.

Elara kept her arm exactly where it was.

"What is that?" Adrian asked.

"My arm."

"In your sleeve."

"Also my arm. It extends."

"Elara."

"If you must know, I was cold."

"It is the warmest room in the east wing."

"I have poor circulation."

"You have never complained about it."

"I was waiting for a political crisis."

Adrian stepped forward.

At that moment a sharp knock sounded at the door. It was not a knock of urgency. It was a knock of someone who had practised knocking until it was correct.

"Enter," Adrian said, without turning.

The door opened, and Master Oren Bell came in with a stack of papers pressed against his chest like a shield.

"Your Highness," he said. "Princess Celestine. Princess Elara." He bowed to each in order of rank, then, after a pause, bowed again to the room in general, in case he had missed something. "I apologise for the interruption. I have been instructed to deliver a record."

"Instructed by whom?" Adrian asked.

"By the Lord Chancellor."

"On what matter?"

"On a matter of archive access." Oren looked at the papers rather than at any of them. "I regret to say that the form was filed correctly."

Elara tilted her head.

"I am relieved to hear you regret that," she said. "Most people do not."

Oren flinched, then recovered. "Princess, it is my duty to inform you that your name appears in the restricted royal archives."

The room did not change, exactly. But Celestine's hands went still.

"Restricted," Adrian repeated.

"The lower vault. Level three. Where the founding documents are kept."

"I have never been in the lower vault," Elara said.

"The log states otherwise."

"Then the log is mistaken."

"The log is written in the ordinary hand of the archive clerk, countersigned, and stamped." Oren held out a sheet of paper. His fingers were neat and cold. "I have checked it three times."

"Of course you have."

"It records that you entered at the second bell past midnight, on the night of the king's death. And that your entry was authorised by me."

He said it in a flat, dry voice. For the first time since she had known him, Elara thought that Master Oren Bell sounded frightened.

Adrian took the page and read it. He read it slowly, and she watched the red climb into his neck.

"You authorised this," he said to Oren.

"I did not."

"Your signature is here."

"My signature is here," Oren agreed. "I did not write it."

"Then who did?"

"I do not know, Your Highness." He drew himself up, and some stubborn administrative pride showed beneath the fear. "But I can tell you that the signature is a very good one. The loop on the final letter is correct. The pressure is correct. Even the slight smudge I make when I am tired is correct."

"You are telling me," Adrian said, "that someone has copied your handwriting with all your defects."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I should like very much to know."

Elara stared at him.

It was the first reasonable thing Oren had ever said to her.

It was also, she realised, the second time in one day that someone had perfectly copied something that should have had a flaw.

She said nothing.

Adrian's grip on the page tightened. He looked at Elara, and she saw the effort it cost him to ask the next question as a brother rather than a commander.

"Were you in the vault?"

"No."

"Do you swear it?"

"On Father's grave."

"Do not say that carelessly."

"I am not. I was asleep in my room at the second bell. Ask my maid. Ask the guard on the corridor. Ask the cat."

"You do not have a cat."

"I do. It is not officially mine."

Adrian let out a long breath.

"The Lord Chancellor is convening the council in one hour," Oren said into the silence. "He has asked that Princess Elara be present to answer questions regarding the record."

"As a witness?" Celestine asked sharply.

Oren's eyes dropped to his papers. "As a person of interest."

"That phrase has no legal definition."

"No, Princess. That is what concerns me."

The room was very quiet.

Elara looked at the page in her brother's hand, at her own name written in a clerk's tidy script, at the stamp that had never touched her life. Then she looked at Oren, who was holding his documents so tightly his knuckles had gone pale.

Something about him bothered her.

It was not what he had said. It was what he had not complained about. In a week of correspondence, Oren Bell had objected to chairs, staircases, and the wrong shade of ink. Yet now, accused of forging his own signature, he had made no demand for a formal inquiry.

He had not even asked for the form.

"Master Oren," she said pleasantly.

"Yes, Princess?"

"Who else has the key to the lower vault?"

He hesitated.

It was the shortest hesitation she had ever seen, and she found it more interesting than any answer.

"Six people," he said. "The Lord Chancellor. The seal-keeper. Two senior archivists. His late Majesty." A pause. "And Princess Celestine."

Adrian turned slowly.

Celestine's expression did not move. She simply stood there, straight-backed, with a stillness that was too complete to be natural.

"Celestine," Adrian said, "is that true?"

"The key was issued to me for research."

"You did not tell me."

"You did not ask."

"I am asking now."

"I have not used it in six months."

"Is that true?"

Elara watched her sister's face.

It would have been easy for Celestine to say yes. It would have been the sensible answer, the legal answer, the one that closed the matter.

Instead, her eyes moved, just once, to Elara's sleeve.

And then Celestine said, very carefully, "I believe it is."

Elara felt the folded paper press against her arm like a second pulse.

I believe it is.

Not yes.

Not no.

It was the answer of someone who had just realised that the truth she was certain of might not be the truth at all.

Adrian saw it too.

"We will discuss this later," he said.

"There will not be a later," Celestine murmured, so softly that only Elara heard.

Oren cleared his throat. "Your Highnesses. The council."

Adrian handed back the page. "We will come."

"I was instructed to escort the princess."

"I will escort her."

"The Lord Chancellor was specific."

"So am I."

For the first time that day, Oren Bell did not argue.

He bowed. He turned. And as he reached the door, Elara noticed the thing she had missed earlier, the thing that made her stomach turn cold.

The stack of papers pressed against his chest was held in his left hand.

Oren Bell was right-handed.

He had been right-handed all week. He wrote with his right, signed with his right, and snapped the pages of his ledger with his right.

Yet the signature on the vault log, the one he claimed was a perfect copy of his own, had been written with a firm, confident slant that leaned unmistakably to the left.

She had not seen it until that moment. Now she could not stop seeing it.

The signature was not his.

And it was not a forger's copy of his.

It was something else entirely.

She was still working out what when Adrian offered his arm, in the stiff, formal way he used when he was afraid of what he might say.

"Come," he said. "Whatever we are walking into, I would prefer that you do not make a joke about it."

Elara took his arm.

The paper in her sleeve felt heavier than a sword.

"I make no promises," she said.

And together, they went to face the council.