The Threads of Magic by Alison Croggon (best ereader for pdf and epub .txt) 📕

“Make sure you’re quick,” said Oswald. “My passion is impatient.”

GEORGETTE’S COURAGE BEGAN TO FAIL THE moment she crossed the Furrier’s Bridge. As a child she had often ventured into the streets by the Old Palace with Oni and the other servant children, but that was a long time ago. At Clarel Palace, she had been far more strictly confined. On the rare occasions that she went beyond into the city streets, she was either carried in a sedan by four strong men or traveled in one of the palace carriages. And she never went anywhere without an escort of guards.

She hadn’t realized that the city was so hard to find your way around in. She exited the narrow bridge, which was lined with dilapidated and grimy shops that sold animal skins and smelled terrible, and set off confidently down the wide street that ran before her, sure that it was heading in the right direction. But then it turned and twisted, and somehow she found herself at a dead end, being eyed speculatively by an old man in rags who was sitting on a doorstep. She beat a hasty retreat, doing her best to look as if she weren’t lost, and tried another street. This grew narrower and narrower and at last dived into a dim alley, which she was reluctant to enter.

The witches had said there was trouble brewing, but Georgette couldn’t see any sign of it. If anything, the streets seemed emptier than usual. Either people were exaggerating, or she was in the wrong place. She thought of asking for directions, but the few people she saw seemed sinister and she walked past them quickly. She doubled back again and saw some Midsummer Festival ribbons on a corner lamppost. She peeked down the road: it was lined with midsummer stalls, although again the street was empty. And then she began to hear a faint roar, as if there were a crowd in the distance. She bent her steps that way, guiding herself by the sound.

Georgette didn’t want to admit it, but she was beginning to feel that she had made a mistake. What had she been thinking? How would she find the leaders of the rebellion? And even if she did, would anyone really believe that she was Princess Georgette? She was dressed like a street boy, a commoner, and most of being a princess is looking like one. And by now she was thoroughly lost. She didn’t think she could find her way back to the Undercroft even if she wanted to.

At the end of the street, she ran into her first patrol of soldiers. About half a dozen men in armor were leading an old woman away in chains, but she wasn’t going quietly. She was scolding one of the soldiers, a scrawny young man with pimples, at the top of her voice. Several spectators were hooting in derision, shouting at the soldiers to let her go.

“What would your ma say, Inias? She would be ashamed of you. Ashamed! Arresting one of her oldest friends.”

The soldier, whose ears were bright red, muttered that they were just following orders.

“Following orders!” retorted the woman in chains. “That’s a puny excuse. I helped bring you into the world, boy. It was a difficult birth too, and were you worth the trouble? I saved your mother’s life, and yours too. And this is the thanks I get?” She lifted her chained hands and shook them at him. “You’re a disgrace!” She turned around to the other soldiers. “All of you. You’re disgraceful!”

More people were gathering, standing out of range of the weapons and heckling. Georgette, lingering despite herself, could see that the soldiers were growing afraid of the crowd. And she knew that frightened soldiers were dangerous.

“Shut up, woman, or you’ll get the back of my hand,” one of them said.

“Go on,” said the old woman. “Hit an old woman who barely reaches your chest, you mangy cowardly weasel.”

“Yeah, do that,” said a burly man with a red face in the crowd. “Proud, are you?”

“Put down your arms!” Georgette hadn’t intended to say anything at all. She couldn’t believe that it was her voice speaking, but it was: her princess voice, trained in commanding inferiors, crisp and authoritative. “And unchain that woman! At once!”

Everyone turned around and stared at her. She raised her chin. “I am Princess Georgette of Clarel Palace,” she said, as arrogantly as she could. “And I do not countenance this behavior.”

The soldiers stared at her and hesitated.

“That’s not a princess,” said one. “It’s just some kid.”

“She sounds posh, though,” said one of the bystanders.

“He’s wearing trews,” said another.

Georgette took off her cap with a flourish and shook out her golden ringlets. “Of course I’m your princess,” she said. Now that she was committed to this, she thought, she had no choice but to play it to the end. “I am going among my people in disguise to see the hardship they endure. I find much injustice.” She turned a stern glance on the soldiers. “And those who commit injustice will pay for it.”

The soldiers looked flummoxed. A couple of people started cheering, and then the cheering was picked up by others. More and more people were gathering around the soldiers, and Georgette could see that some of them were armed.

“You heard the lady,” someone said. “Didn’t you say you were following orders?”

“Those who do not obey will feel the wrath of the palace,” said Georgette fiercely.

The issue wavered in the balance for a few moments. At last the man called Inias jerkily unlocked the chains around the old woman’s wrists with a muttered apology and pushed her into the crowd. Then, without a word, the soldiers turned and marched away, taking their tattered dignity with them.

The crowd whistled and hooted at their retreat. A couple of burly men hoisted Georgette onto their shoulders, and she punched up in victory, her golden hair gleaming in the sunshine. Everyone started