The Last Princess Page 12

  I tucked myself under Caligula, her giant body rising and falling with each breath. The crunching sound of footsteps was only a few yards away.

  “I smell a horse,” a man said.

  “I smell human.” The second man’s voice was ragged, deeper than the first.

  I lay still, barely breathing. If I was quiet enough, maybe they would move on.

  The footsteps drew closer. I felt Caligula’s heartbeat begin to race, but she remained still, sensing my fear.

  I heard them move farther away and risked looking up from behind Caligula, trying to determine where they were. Without making a sound, I rolled onto my side.

  There was silence in the woods. I let out a breath of relief.

  “This is my kill!” the gravelly voice suddenly shouted above me. I looked up to see a man standing over me, holding up an axe. I screamed, frozen with fear, unable to take my eyes from the gleaming blade.

  Just as he began to lower the axe, Caligula jumped up, letting out a giant roar, so loud it could have come from a pride of lions.

  “What the hell?” The man stumbled back in fear, dropping the axe to the ground. Caligula charged at him, throwing him forcefully back against a tree with her head. His neck jerked at an unnatural angle and his limp body fell to the ground. I watched, stunned. I had never seen a warhorse in full attack mode before.

  From out of the darkness, the second man lunged at me.

  His wild eyes flashed as he opened his mouth, revealing a set of metal nails drilled into his gums instead of teeth. Nails for chewing human flesh. I reached out for the fallen axe and hurled it into his body without thinking twice.

  The blade caught him in his side, and his filthy body slumped heavily against mine. A puddle of warm blood oozed from his chest onto my shoulder. I pushed him off me and stood for a moment in shock, staring at his body.

  “Caligula,” I called, taking an unsteady step forward. There was no sign of her. I slumped back against the tree, lacking the strength even to think of where to go from here.

  Then I heard her hooves, racing through the trees in my direction. “Good girl,” I murmured as she approached.

  I climbed up onto Caligula’s back, knowing there would be no more sleep for me tonight, and we flew off.

  23

  WE REACHED A SMALL, QUIET VILLAGE JUST AS THE SKY BEGAN to turn a lighter shade of gray. I pulled back gently on Caligula’s mane, slowing her to a walk as I took in the row of small shops: a bakery, a tailor, a general store. A white wooden church with its bell tower pointed toward the sky like praying hands. The town was an oasis, seemingly untouched by Cornelius Hollister’s destruction.

  The streets were silent, the windows of the thatch-roofed houses dark. With the villagers still asleep, I felt safe leading Caligula up to a well on a hill overlooking the village center. I lowered the bucket and pulled up a pail of fresh water. I was thirsty, but I let Caligula drink first. She had been running for hours and her coat was damp with sweat.

  When she finished, I drew a second bucket of water for myself, drinking greedily. It tasted so pure. I sank to the ground, my legs shaky from the effort of riding for so many hours. The wounds on my back throbbed and red marks ran up my arms. I twisted around, pulling up my shirt to try to see the source of the pain, and gasped. A deep gash ran the length of my spine. Remembering Wesley’s instructions to clean any wound before it grew infected, I dipped the pail once more and let the cool water rinse my cuts. It would need more care, but I knew that Polly’s mother would have an ointment if I could just make it to Balmoral.

  I thought back to the first time I met Polly. Mary and I had been walking down the lane, looking for blackberries, when we saw a thin, grubby-looking girl coming toward us. In her arms were two overflowing baskets full of the plump berries.

  “Where did you get those?” Mary asked, and I could tell she was worried the girl had left nothing behind for us.

  “I found them,” Polly replied with an infectious smile, revealing a gap between her two front teeth. She had straight reddish-brown hair, round green eyes, and a splattering of freckles across her nose.

  “Well, my father owns all these lands, so technically they belong to us,” Mary said, using her most clipped upper-class voice.

  The girl’s face fell as she stared sadly at the baskets in her arms. “My mum was going to make jam.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said quickly, with a sharp look at Mary. “You can keep them, if you just show us where you found them.”

  She led us to a secret place. We followed her under the branches of low-growing apple trees, wading through an ice-cold stream, until Polly pulled back the thorny branches to reveal a grove of perfectly ripe blackberries.

  We spent the afternoon picking them, tasting a few here and there. Then we followed her back to her cottage, where her mother showed us how to make the berries into jam. From then on, we spent the rest of our summers together, and during the school year we kept in touch by sending each other weekly letters and occasionally small packages. Those memories seemed a million years away.

  Watery sunlight spilled through a crack in the clouds, illuminating the town below and rousing me from my memory. One by one the windows of the houses lit up with lanterns. Two men pushed a cart of goods toward the market square. As comforting as it felt to be in a village untouched by Hollister, I was losing strength, and my scrape needed to be treated. “Ready, Caligula?”

  She looked up from the empty bucket and walked toward me. I tried to climb onto her back but couldn’t even pull myself up. I upended the empty water bucket and used it as a step to help me hoist myself up. As I moved, the pain in my back spread to my chest and ribs. I tried to push it from my mind.

  Caligula trotted slowly and steadily up the road leading out of the village and into the hills, past barren fields and skeletal trees. I heard the sounds of birds all around us, but they weren’t the same birds I had grown up with. Mockingbirds, blue jays, and sparrows were long gone. The streets had been littered with their bodies for months after the Seventeen Days. Only the carrion birds survived: the crows and pigeons and vultures.

  We continued on for hours, each bump in the road sending hot pain through my back. Finally, I recognized a bend in the road. We were just a mile or two away. Soon I would see the square stone house with dark green shutters where Polly and her family lived. I pictured their dogs, lounging on the steps in the front yard, where her mother planted roses and daffodils.

  “It’s just up here!” I called out, and Caligula, catching my enthusiasm, hurried forward. My eyes searched the hillside eagerly, but all that remained in the place where Polly’s house had been was the square foundation, charred black by flames, and the ash-covered brick chimney.

  I was too stunned to cry, too stunned to feel anything except a hollowing emptiness. I knew the truth instantly. The New Guard had come here looking for me and had killed Polly and her family. Three more people, people I had loved dearly, had lost their lives because of me.

  Balmoral Castle still stood up ahead, its walls scorched and covered in soot.

  Memories flooded my mind: Mary and me as children, rushing outside in our summer dresses to greet our mother and father. Playing a game of tag in the cavernous hallways. Fishing in the stream with Polly and her father. I closed my eyes, trying to block them out. How could our lives have turned out this way? How could they have changed so suddenly?

  I needed to see the stables even though I dreaded what I would find there. I braced myself for the worst but somehow found the strength to urge Caligula forward, walking through the high grass, past the length of the castle, then down a narrower muddy lane to the stables. I looked through the stable windows as we passed. There were no horses inside, and the fields were empty too. Were they stolen, or had they been lucky enough to run away?

  “Jasper,” I called, trying unsuccessfully to whistle. I took a breath and tried again, looking out into the fields and willing Jasper to appear, cantering toward my call. I
stared until the grass and sky blurred together. There was no Jasper. There was no Polly.

  There was nothing left.

  I dismounted heavily and let Caligula graze in the field. “You’re free now,” I whispered. She lifted her head, her wide eyes meeting mine, and nudged me lightly with her nose. “No one will ever put a spiked bit in your mouth again. These fields are all yours. You can run forever.” I pressed my forehead to hers. “I hope you have a better life here.”

  My hand fell from her neck and I turned away from her to walk slowly toward the castle. The muddy trail turned into a slate path, which ended in the wide steps leading to the double wooden doors of the front entrance. The doors were closed.

  Looking back one last time, I saw that Caligula had followed and was watching me from the path.

  “Go!” I was surprised to feel that my face was wet with tears. I waved my hand in the air, but she just stood there, staring at me.

  The air inside the stone hallway was freezing cold. Shards of broken glass covered the floor, sparkling like ice in the dim light that filtered in through the windows. The grand chandelier that had hung in the castle entranceway for centuries lay on the marble floor, shattered into a million pieces. The royal portraits on the walls had been slashed at the throat, my ancestors beheaded. The vases, the art, the mirrors, the paintings—all shattered and destroyed. At least the beautiful old staircase was still standing, though it, too, was scarred with burn marks.

  I wanted to check the whole house to see if anything remained, but I was shaking and feverish. A wave of heat would blaze through me, only to leave me feeling ice cold. My limbs felt heavy as I gripped the banister, pulling myself painfully up the stairs. It felt like someone was raking a weapon down my back, and I thought of what the girls had done to Vashti.

  I gripped the charred railing to steady myself. All I wanted was to lie down in my room, on my bed. That was the single thought occupying my fevered brain. And so I kept going, step by step. The floor seemed to be rising and falling, disorienting me. I felt like a ship on rough seas.

  By the time I made it to my doorway, I was on all fours. The wardrobe had been pushed over, the dark wood splintered on the carpet, and the bedsheets had been flung to the floor. But Bella’s round dog bed was in the corner, still indented with her shape, and my own four-poster bed was mostly intact. Even after everything that had happened, this room felt like home. Unlike my mother and father, who were nothing but memories now, this space, this house, would go on, outliving all of us. Maybe someday another girl would wear my dresses and open the jewelry box I’d had since I was six and see the ballerina inside turn.

  My head suddenly felt too heavy to hold up. I leaned back and let it hit the wooden floor as I lay there, staring at my bed, wishing I had the energy to walk to it. In the light from the upper windows, I could see the wounds along my arm more clearly. Streaks of red bubbled like a blister, spreading in a line. Infection. I closed my eyes as I drifted into a fitful sleep, full of fiery nightmares.

  I woke up, and in my delirious state, I thought I heard voices in the hallway, the sound of footsteps. The door of the room creaked open. I didn’t know how Cornelius Hollister had found me already, but in that moment I welcomed death. I lay there, unable to move, my eyes closed.

  “Eliza, is that you?”

  My eyes opened and took in the face of the person standing over me. The long straight hair, the smattering of freckles, the round, green eyes wide with surprise.

  “Polly,” I breathed.

  24

  I FLOATED IN AND OUT OF CONSCIOUSNESS, HOT WITH FEVER. Someone had carried me to my bed and was feeding me spoonfuls of water. At first I thought Polly and I were dancing in the rain, sticking out our tongues to catch the fat droplets. Then I saw her face hovering above me, frowning with concern, and I remembered.

  There was a woman, too, with a soft voice and gentle hands. She held my head on her lap, trying to feed me broth, but I was unable to swallow. A man came, dressed in a dark coat and carrying a small case of medicines. He sat down on the bed beside me and took my temperature under my arm, the way my mother had when I was a girl.

  “One hundred and six.” His voice was grave. “We need an antibiotic to fight the infection.”

  “Should we move her?” Polly asked, her voice full of worry.

  “She’s too ill to move,” the doctor said.

  A group gathered around him talking in low, solemn voices. With the New Guard taking over the pharmacies and hospitals, the doctor was unable to get the medicine he needed for my condition. I saw Polly run from the room, and then I blacked out.

  The delirium was a welcome escape. My mind flooded with my happiest memories, so vivid I could actually hear my mother’s voice and smell the scent of her rose oil. I felt Bella’s soft fur, the cold wet touch of her nose. But when the trembling came back, so did the nightmares: Mary, a skeleton behind bars, Jamie dying alone on a prison cot, the stillness in my father’s eyes as he bled to death on the ballroom floor.

  I woke up screaming.

  “Eliza, it’s all right,” Polly was saying as she held a damp cloth to my forehead. The room came into focus and I lay back down on the pillow, the sound of my heart pounding in my ears.

  “What did the doctor say?” I asked.

  When she didn’t answer, I knew they hadn’t found any antibiotics. “We’re doing everything we can. I went to the market this morning.” I could tell by the tone of Polly’s voice that she was beginning to cry. “Mr. Seabrook, the old chemist, said he might know where to get some. I’ll go back tomorrow morning. Mum’s in the village knocking on doors, asking if anyone has any left over in their medicine cabinets.”

  I nodded, but even the slightest movement hurt my head. No one would have any medicine left over. “Hollister’s taken over the hospitals?”

  “Yes.” Polly nodded solemnly. “There were even some of his soldiers in the market square this morning. One of them was following me.”

  “We can’t fight them,” I managed, my voice breaking. “They have guns and ammunition….” Then the shivers began again and I lay back down, unable to force a word between my chattering teeth.

  Polly looked at me, fighting to conceal her worry, her small nose wrinkling up like it always did before she cried. She pulled the covers to my chin and lay down next to me, wrapping her arms around me to keep me warm.

  The door creaked open and the doctor appeared. “She needs to rest, Polly,” he gently rebuked her, and she sat up and moved away.

  He walked toward me, carrying the amber-colored bottle of medicine that stopped my shivers and made me sleep. I felt his hands holding my jaw open and pouring the astringent syrup down my throat. A heaviness spread over me like a blanket. I tried desperately to call Polly’s name, but blackness overcame me.

  When I woke up, Polly’s parents and the doctor were sitting on chairs at my bedside. Clara held my hand in hers, squeezing softly like my mother used to. She smiled sadly at me, her eyes red from crying.

  “How do you feel, Eliza?” the doctor asked.

  I tried to answer, but I could barely open my mouth. I panicked and looked from the doctor to Clara, then to George, who sat with his hands clasped in front of him, staring down at the floor.

  “Tetanus causes your jaw to lock,” the doctor explained when I tried again to speak.

  “I’m so sorry, Eliza,” Clara said, leaning close to me. “We can’t find any medicine. We’ve looked everywhere and asked everyone. George rode out for days to all the surrounding towns and villages, but no one has any left.” Tears welled up in her eyes as she spoke. I knew without her saying another word that they had all come to tell me I was dying.

  “The infection has spread,” the doctor said.

  I would have laughed if I’d been able to open my jaw. I had leapt from the roof of the Steel Tower, fended off sewer snakes, crawled through a tunnel chased by fire, and ridden more than three hundred miles bareback. And yet it was a rusty metal trapd
oor infected with tetanus that would be the death of me.

  “Bury me next to my mum,” I tried to say. I wanted to be wrapped in muslin and placed in the ground next to my mother. I imagined our bones touching in the dirt, as close as we would come to holding hands again.

  I closed my eyes, bracing myself for another round of shivers. The sleeping syrup the doctor had given me eased the pain, but it left me unable to eat, and I could feel my bones against the mattress. A ray of sunlight shone through the eyelet curtains that had been in my room since I was a child.

  “Maybe she’s thirsty,” Clara said as she settled behind me on the bed, resting my head in her arms. She spoon-fed me, alternating between water and chamomile tea. I felt the tea drip down my throat into my empty stomach.

  “It’s a beautiful day,” I said as clearly as possible, but my words were garbled and sounded like mumbles. Clara understood me.

  “It is a beautiful day,” she agreed.

  Clara left the window ajar as they left the room, allowing the cool air to seep in. It almost smelled like the ocean, damp from the dew but crisped by the sun. I breathed it in slowly through my nose. I had been breathing the air my whole life, but only now did I appreciate how sweet it was. Perhaps it was the delirium, but I could even make out the faint aroma of flowers. It made me think of the pattern of roses on the sofa in Wesley’s cottage, where we had sat and kissed in the dancing firelight. As suddenly as that image flashed in my mind, I tried to push it away; I did not want to spend my last few hours thinking about him.

  I drifted off, half-dreaming, half-praying for Mary and Jamie. I hoped their death at Hollister’s hands would be as painless and swift as possible. I prayed that Polly and her family would never suffer for having helped me. And even now I prayed that someone would kill Hollister, or that a giant sunball would fall on him and his army, burning them all. I couldn’t die peacefully knowing that he was still alive.