I Followed the Moon and Found My Match

I heard the rifles fire before I reached the courtyard gate. The sound rolled across the palace grounds and struck the stone walls hard enough to make the windows shiver. My hand tightened around the basket I carried. Inside it were folded sheets, clean bandages, and the key to the laundry cellar. I had brought those things because I had spent the morning telling myself I was going to fetch Princess Mara's body. I had not yet managed to make myself do it. A soldier opened the gate. Beyond him, the firing wall stood pale beneath a winter sky. The princess was on the ground, her dark coat spread around her, one sleeve soaked almost black. A canvas cover lay beside her but had not been pulled over her. The captain of the guard noticed me. "Miss Bell. You shouldn't be here." "I know." I did not move. The captain looked toward the body. "The Crown has ordered her kept where she fell until the inquiry is complete." "There won't be an inquiry. There was a trial." "There was a verdict." The distinction came out of his mouth like a door being shut. For twenty-three years, I had learned to accept closed doors. I had grown up in the women's household of Queen Adeline's court, first as a laundress's daughter and then as a companion to royal girls who needed someone quiet at their elbows. I knew how to stand behind a chair, how to carry a message without appearing to hear it, and how to leave a room without making anyone notice I had been there. Mara had noticed me anyway. She had been the ninth princess, which meant she was ninth in a line that had never expected her to matter. She had a sharp laugh, a habit of climbing out of windows, and a way of asking questions that made other people look down at their shoes. When I was sixteen and my mother was dying, Mara had brought broth to our room herself. When I thanked her, she had said, "You're not furniture, Cora. Don't let them treat you like it." Now she lay beneath the firing wall, and everyone around her had become very busy looking elsewhere. "I'm asking permission to take her," I said. The captain gave me a tired look. "You can't." "Then tell me who can." "No one until the Crown releases her." "And when will that be?" He glanced at the palace. "When the Queen signs the order." Queen Adeline had not appeared at the trial. She had sent a sealed declaration in her name, and Lord Chancellor Rusk had read it aloud. Mara had plotted to deliver military maps to the Republic of Teren. Mara had conspired against the royal family. Mara had forfeited every right of a princess, including the right to be buried as one. I had been in the courtroom. I had heard the verdict. I had also heard Mara call the charges false. The captain followed my gaze to the canvas. "Go back inside, Miss Bell." I set down the basket. The guard nearest the gate shifted his grip on his rifle. I moved toward him, slowly enough not to give him an excuse to raise it. Then I held out the key. "My mother worked in the laundry for thirty years," I said. "She washed the palace linen and never stole so much as a silver button. I'm not asking you to forgive the princess. I'm asking you to let me cover her." The captain did not answer. I stepped past him. No one stopped me. Perhaps they thought I had been too obedient for too long to understand what I was doing. Perhaps they thought a woman with a basket could not be dangerous. I knelt beside Mara. Her face was turned toward the wall. I reached for her shoulder, then stopped when I saw the blood beneath her cheek. I could not make myself touch her. "I'm sorry," I whispered. Then I pulled the canvas over her and took the first rifle from the nearest soldier's hands. He caught my wrist. The captain's voice snapped across the yard. "Let her." The soldier released me. I had never carried a weapon. I held it like a shovel, the barrel pointed at the ground, and walked beside the covered body through the gate. Every step took me farther from the only life I knew. I expected the palace bell to ring. I expected someone to drag me back. No bell sounded. At the servants' entrance, I asked the steward for a cart. He stared at the shape beneath the canvas. "You'll lose your position." "I already know." "The Queen won't permit this." "Then she can tell me herself." He gave me a cart. I pushed Mara through the service passage while cooks and footmen flattened themselves against the walls. At the laundry cellar, I found my old room still standing. I laid her on the narrow table where my mother had once folded sheets. Only then did I see the small, wet crescent on the cuff of Mara's coat. Not blood. Blue ink. I leaned closer. A single word had been written there in a hand I knew. "Bell."