Chapter 26
We see a real upswing in visitors (one or two a day, rather than a week) once I leave the window displays in Sasha’s capable claws.
Sasha also discovers that Bel has written and published a compendium of essays, Meditations on Crosby’s Perorations, about his favorite epic poem and one of the more draining of his country’s contributions to literature, and suggests we order in some copies and then have him come in after hours and give a talk about it.
“He can sign copies,” Sasha adds. “I’m sure everyone would be thrilled to have a signature from a real prince. ”
“Have you read Crosby?” I ask. “It’s not an exciting book.
” As part of my education in statecraft, I had to memorize a section of the thing, so I’m certainly in a position to have an opinion.
I couldn’t finish the first volume of Crosby.
I couldn’t make it through so much as the first five pages of Bel’s Meditations on Crosby.
“Hen’s teeth,” she says, unconcerned. “No one will come to hear the poem or his opinions about it anyway. They’ll all just want to chat with him. Look how much business the inn has drummed up since all those princes started staying there.”
“Don’t folks get enough chat at the inn?
” The Inn of the Three Princes, as it has now been renamed, is still host to all three of my suitors.
Patience and Georgelle, the couple who run the place, have come in several times to tell me how pleased they are that I managed to get myself cursed in Little Pepperidge, and how having three princes hanging around has increased the town’s tourist footfall tenfold.
I decline to point out that, if they’re very lucky and I’m terribly unlucky, they might get four more princes in before I’m uncursed.
The thought fills me with dread, and that night I write Honey a long letter, asking her how her search is going. It’s all I can do to keep hope alive that she’ll be able to send a proper sorcerer along before my folks can talk any more princes into visiting.
My hopes are dashed the next morning.
I’m bent over my correspondence, ordering in more copies of Gaspard’s novels and looking into how much it would cost to buy ten—ten!
—copies of Bel’s commentary on Crosby. Too much, is the answer I’ve decided upon.
Royal monographs are printed to exacting standards and cost a fortune, and these would have to be shipped in from Five-Fold.
I can’t imagine anyone in Little Pepperidge would want to pay seventeen guilders for a copy of the Meditations, signed or not.
“Darling!” comes a voice, as the door to the shop crashes open. “I’ve come to break the curse!”
My hand stills over the paper. I know that voice.
Yenal. Crown prince of Corscan.
I glance around desperately. I’m alone.
It’s only midmorning. Sasha’s at school and clearly the pirate hasn’t noticed that another prince has rolled into town, since he’s nowhere to be seen.
Thank heavens for that, at least. It’s getting harder and harder to be around him, especially if I know I’m about to be unsuccessfully kissed.
Again. He smells too nice; he unbalances me too easily. It’s all simply too much.
“Hi, Yenal,” I say, getting to my feet.
“You’re running a bookshop,” he says, approaching. “What a delight!”
“Well,” I say. “To a degree.” Best to be measured in one’s responses to Yenal. He can be very enthusiastic.
“I run a small sheep farm on the grounds of my summer palace,” Yenal says, beaming at me. “It’s such a pleasure! Reminds one of the importance of humility in the face of one’s subjects!”
Yes, I’m well aware of Yenal’s sheep farm.
He keeps a flock of thirteen rare-breed Crombishire Blues in a specially constructed back garden adjacent to his favorite palace, and shears them himself.
He does not bathe them himself, though he insists on this occurrence regularly. He does, I hear, feed them. By hand.
While wearing a silk version of his country’s traditional peasant costume.
Today, however, he’s dressed in full regalia, including a scarlet cape of very fine velvet. I wonder, briefly, whether he could be parted from it; Sasha would surely make a lovely window display out of it.
“I shall not break the curse for you yet, my darling,” Yenal continues. I groan inwardly. “I’ve been on the road since receiving your parents’ desperate missive, and must partake of refreshment, and wash the dust from my boots, before we sanctify our tender union.”
His boots, it goes without saying, are entirely dust-free.
“Oh no, don’t,” I say, moving around the desk toward him. “That is, I mean, why wait? Let’s…” Get it over with. “Let’s keep this moment to ourselves.”
But Yenal has never kept anything to himself.
“My beloved Tanadelle,” he says, taking my hand and bowing over it to bestow upon my unwilling knuckles a dry kiss, “I would never kiss a woman while in such a state of deshabille. My trunks are being unloaded at that exquisite little inn as we speak; once I’ve eaten and bathed, I shall present myself to you properly.
” He pulls me against his chest, wraps his arms around me, and closes his eyes.
“I have waited so long for this moment, so many years,” he says, dreamily.
“I would never bring shame upon it by appearing before you, heart extended in my hand, freedom upon my lips, in only my second-best riding costume.”
I pat him on the chest and then begin extracting myself, gently, from his embrace. “Of course not, Yenny.”
“I knew you’d understand,” he says, his eyes shining as he looks down upon me. “Await me at the door; I shall return after luncheon!”
And, in a swirl of rich velvet, he turns about on his heel and strides out of the shop.
I collapse against the desk. At least no one was here to see that, I reassure myself. A small mercy, given what a show he clearly intends to put on during his next visit.
I gaze about the room. There’s not much space for onlookers, and Yenal tends to enjoy a retinue. Perhaps, if I leave the ground floor as cluttered and untidy as I can, it’ll keep some of the gawkers away.
I find myself uncharacteristically jittery for the rest of the afternoon.
The question, of course, is when Yenal will reappear, and with how many other people.
The other question, which I try not to ask, is where the pirate is.
Surely he knows by now that another prince has shown up; I’d have expected him to drop by and find himself a prime seat for the show hours ago.
It’s not that I necessarily want him here, but I seem to have become accustomed to it.
Perhaps, then, I do want him here. But that hardly bears thinking about.
It’s always possible he broke his curse somehow, and has left town for good.
Or simply moved on; surely Greater Pepperidge, for example, is more interesting for a pirate than Little Pepperidge, and not that much closer to any large bodies of water.
Nevertheless, I spend the afternoon in a state of high agitation. I have no customers to distract me.
After a great deal of deliberation, I opt not to move anything around on the ground floor to make more room—for onlookers, retinue, or anyone or anything else that might show up to see whatever it is that Yen has planned.
My fervent hope is that the cluttered floor and overflowing shelves will keep gawkers to a minimum.
I know my hopes are all for naught when people start filling the street outside at about midafternoon.
Just the time I’d been expecting the next stage in Yenny’s plan, whatever it is—that’d given him ample time to bathe, change, eat a lavish lunch, change again, and finalize whatever baroque preparations he’s working up.
It’s when Sasha saunters in, looking pleased, that I know I’m in real trouble.
“So,” she says, joining me behind the desk to watch so-called customers mill about without actually buying anything.
“So,” I say, keeping my voice neutral.
“Another prince,” she says, conversationally.
“Apparently,” I say.
“Quite a memorable one,” she says.
“Rather,” I agree.
“Fond of velvet.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
She turns and grins at me, showing all forty-two of her sharp teeth. “He seems delightful, Tandy.”
I groan and drop my forehead to the desk.
“Perfect for you,” she continues. “Really one of the people.”
“How often did he use that phrase?” I mutter, still staring at my forearms.
“Only twice that I heard, but I was only there long enough to eat a pie,” she says. “You are so screwed. The pirate show up yet?”
“No, thank the great spined sea serpent,” I say.
“The great spined sea serpent, eh?” she repeats, her voice a little insinuating.
“You hush.”
“I mean, I’m not saying anything, just repeating what you said.”
“It’s a common curse!”
“If you’re a sailor.”
“Ugh,” I say.
“Oh, look, here he comes.” I hear the bells over the door tinkle and wonder if I can just hide under the desk until everyone’s gone away.
“Prince or pirate?” I say, not daring to look.
“Oh, the pirate. I assume we’ll hear the prince long before he enters the store. He brought, uh, some people with him. Y’know, like, a whole retinue.”
“Ugh,” I say again.
“Gosh, if a quarter of the folks who are milling about in here right now bought something, we’d make some actual money today. Maybe you should start charging admission to these things. You’ve got, what, three more after this one?”
“I’d really prefer to have as few people around as possible,” I say. “For this bit, anyway.”
“Don’t be like that,” the pirate says, his voice making me shiver. I should have known he’d gotten close; the wild scent of salt and sea air is filling my senses. “I get the feeling that Little Pepperidge hasn’t seen this much action in, well—”
“Forever,” Sasha suggests.
“Would you deny the punters a glimpse of real, solid curse-breaking?”
I push myself up from the desk and face him, hoping my cheeks aren’t as pink as they feel. “I don’t know how many times I have to say it; it won’t work. No one is going to kiss me and break this curse, no matter who they are.”
He looks as he always does, absolutely and cheerfully unbothered by anything. He leans over the desk, getting much too close to me, and smiles, a slow-burning sort of smile that makes my traitorous heart speed up. “In a universe of infinite possibilities…” he begins.
Sasha rolls her eyes. “You two, honestly. Look, I hear something outside. You think he’s on his way?”
I groan. I can hear trumpets. Trumpets.