The Last Princess Page 13

  Some time later, I felt Polly’s cool hand on my forehead. “It’s okay, Eliza,” she murmured.

  “Polly, you’ve been the best friend in the world.” I forced the words through my locked mouth. “I love you so much.” I closed my eyes, content with my last good-bye.

  25

  I COULDN’T SLEEP. SHAKEN FROM CHILLS AND FEVER, I LAY IN bed, my eyes open but unseeing. The streaks of gray light at the bottom of the window meant I had survived to see another day.

  A loud pounding resounded through the house.

  Polly was lying next to me, her arm draped over my waist. She shot up and looked around the room. Her mother, who had nodded off in an armchair in the corner, snapped awake in panic.

  “Who would be at the door at this time of night?” she said fearfully.

  She moved the curtain back from the window, pushing it open to peer outside. “Hello? Who’s there?” she called out into the night. “Hello?” There was no reply, only the sound of horses’ hooves echoing down the stone path, becoming fainter and fainter.

  “I’d better go downstairs and look,” George said. His voice sounded tired, beaten down.

  “I’ll come with you,” Polly offered, but I squeezed her hand in mine. I wanted her to stay. I was afraid to be alone, to die alone. Polly understood and lay back down beside me.

  A few minutes later, George burst back in. “Someone’s left this package outside the door,” he said breathlessly, holding it out in front of him.

  “What is it?” Clara asked, taking the candle from my bedside table to examine the package. It was a small bundle, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. I could hear the rustling of paper being unwrapped, then silence as she held the contents up to the flickering candlelight. I opened my eyes, straining to see. In her hands she held what looked like a glass vial.

  “What does it say, Mum?” Polly asked eagerly.

  “Penicillin… take three times a day for four weeks.”

  “Medicine?” Polly asked excitedly. “It’s medicine! One of the townspeople must have found some.”

  “Did they leave a note?” Clara asked.

  Polly looked inside the package. “No.”

  Clara looked puzzled. “Maybe it was Mr. Seabrook? He was trying to find some this morning.”

  “Let’s not worry right now about where it came from,” George said urgently. “We need to hurry and crush the pills so we can mix them in milk. Otherwise she won’t be able to swallow them.”

  Polly sat down beside me, lifting me upright as her dad spoon-fed the bitter-tasting milk into my mouth. After days without eating, even the milk felt hard to swallow. Polly saw me struggling and paused to dribble some water in my mouth, which helped a little.

  “Antibiotics have a short shelf life,” George said as he poured more milk into the spoon. “Let’s just pray it’s not too late for the medicine to work.”

  At first, the doctor checked on me three times a day, giving me the pills at dawn, noon, and evening. Every time he took my temperature, a smile formed on his otherwise stern face. The tremors abated and so did the sweats, and eventually the muscles in my mouth loosened so I could speak again. The red lines of infection spreading to my heart slowly receded until the only evidence left of them were faint scars along my arms and back.

  When my fever had been gone for a week straight, the doctor started coming every other day to make sure I was eating. He said I had lost close to a quarter of my body weight. My muscles were still so weak that I wasn’t allowed to walk alone in case I fell.

  Polly was constantly at my side. She brought me trays of food, porridge with honey that her father had gathered from the honeybee hive, and cream from their dairy cow. At lunch she’d make a broth with whatever she could find, a carrot or potato, and serve it with a small dish of blackberries. I still didn’t have much of an appetite but I forced myself to eat for Polly’s sake. She looked happy every time I returned an empty dish to her. And slowly, in bits and pieces, I began to tell Polly what had happened since I had said good-bye to her last summer. I had yet to tell her about Wesley—those memories were still too painful. I wondered if I ever would.

  “It’s the worst feeling in the world, Polly,” I said. I was feeling much better physically, but I couldn’t stop replaying that night in the Tower. “I was so close to them—our hands touched through the bars of the cell—but then I had to leave them. Sometimes I think I should have just stayed. Then at least we would all have been killed together….”

  “No, Eliza!” Polly said fiercely. “Stop talking like that. You tried your best to save them, and we’re going to try again.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” I began, shaking my head, but she cut me off.

  “Resistance forces have been gathering here for a while. They’re not enormous, but their numbers are growing every day. Not everyone believes what Cornelius Hollister says.” Polly paused, and her voice grew small. “The night his troops burned down our house, he was here, pouring gasoline right alongside them. Luckily we’d been warned by the village watchman and escaped before they arrived.”

  “And they haven’t been back since?” I asked.

  “No—not yet, anyway.”

  “Well, I’m sure they’ll come back soon, especially if they find out I’m here.”

  Polly nodded. “That’s why we have to make sure they don’t find out.”

  “Do the Resistance troops have guns? Ammunition?”

  Polly shook her head. “We have a little, but we need more. Ammunition is low. But the important thing is that people are banding together. The blacksmith in town is making swords and bludgeons based on old medieval models… people are trying whatever they can.”

  “The New Guard have guns and sevils, stores of ammunition, warhorses and uniforms,” I said weakly. “I don’t know how we’ll stand a chance against them.” Her face fell. I didn’t want to destroy her hopes, but she needed to know what the Resistance forces were up against. “Our biggest problem is the sheer size of the army. You know he raids districts and takes prisoners, but he also forces the men and women to fight for him. If they refuse he sends them to the Death Camps, where they work until they’re no longer useful. And then…” I thought back to what I’d seen that awful night and shuddered. “They’re forced to dig their own graves and then executed.”

  Polly looked terrified. “You need to rest,” she said quickly. “All this talk of Death Camps isn’t helping you get better.”

  I leaned back onto the pillows as she tiptoed quietly out the door. She was right; I needed to focus on regaining my strength. The early evening light filtered through the windowpanes, laying a lavender shadow across the bed. I knew I should be grateful that I was alive, but there was such a feeling of heaviness inside me now. So many things had gone wrong; everything I had tried to do had failed. I stared up at the cracked ceiling. When I was younger I would gaze at the snaking lines and imagine a rabbit, a moon, houses, trees. But now I only saw cracks.

  26

  IT HAD BEEN A FEW WEEKS SINCE WE RECEIVED THE MYSTERIOUS donation of penicillin and I was finally starting to feel like myself. In some ways, it seemed like this was just another summer: Polly and I spent the days together while I tried to regain my strength. We took walks around the grounds and read by the fire at night. But all my waking thoughts kept returning to Mary and Jamie imprisoned in the Tower. I hoped they were still alive and not in pain.

  One morning we came downstairs to find Clara and George at the breakfast table, drinking their morning tea and eating warmed-up pieces of brown bread spread with a few mashed raspberries. Clara was chopping a mixture of tired-looking carrots and potatoes, tossing them into a large pot for a stew. “How can we expect the troops to survive on this?” she asked in dismay.

  George shook his head, not even bothering to look up from the antique hunting rifle he was attempting to repair. It used to hang on the wall of my father’s office as decoration; seeing it now filled me with a deep sadness. I missed h
im so much.

  I sat down by the fire while Polly put on water for tea. I looked around, taking in the stacks of dishes, the empty sacks of flour and sugar, the barren cupboards. The kitchen had always been my favorite part of the castle. It was so cozy; no matter the time of year, there was always a fire roaring down here. I used to think that if the castle were a body, the kitchen would be its heart.

  “How are you feeling today?” Clara asked me carefully.

  “Better, I think.” The fire felt nice against my back. I rolled my shoulders and stretched my neck. My muscles were still weak, but they no longer ached.

  Clara looked up, catching her husband’s eye, and nodded to him.

  “Eliza,” George said, laying down the pin and wrench he used to repair the rifle. “We need to talk to you.”

  “We’ve been waiting till you were feeling better,” Clara interrupted. Her eyes shifted hesitantly to her husband and then back to me. “It breaks my heart to say this, but we don’t think it’s safe for you to be here with us anymore. We’ve been looking for a family for you to stay with, where we think you’ll be safe.”

  “A family to stay with?” I repeated, feeling a heavy pit in my stomach.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Keats in Wales. They’re old friends of your father’s—you may remember them from when you were little. They used to visit your family in London.”

  “I’m leaving? You’re sending me to Wales?” I looked from Clara to George. “Please,” I begged. “This is my home. It’s all I have left from my past.”

  Clara shook her head. “Eliza, I know this is hard, but it’s the best way to keep you safe right now. If Cornelius Hollister captures you and kills you, the Windsor line will be dead, and then he’ll declare himself king. We can’t let that happen.”

  My heart skipped a beat as I realized what she was implying. “Are you saying…” I swallowed. “Are Mary and Jamie already dead?”

  “No, no—we haven’t had any news. Until we hear the worst, we need to assume the best. I’m sure they’re still alive. But we need to keep you safe.” Clara smiled and squeezed my shoulders in support, but I knew she was telling me what I wanted to hear rather than the truth. “General Wallace is going to escort you to Wales with troops from the Resistance forces as extra protection.”

  “I can’t just run away and hide,” I protested, as a tear slid down my nose and onto the wooden table. “I’ve already lost so much. This place is my only link to the past.”

  “You have your life!” George exclaimed. “And that’s what we are trying to protect.” He paused, speaking more gently now. “Your father was a good man. He treated us well—like family. I promised him I would do whatever I could to protect you, and that’s what I’m doing now.”

  Clara reached for my hand. “It’s not safe for you to stay here anymore, Eliza, and it’s not safe for us to harbor you. They will come back, looking for you.”

  I nodded; of course she was right. If the New Guard found me here, Polly and her family would certainly be killed. I couldn’t let them risk their lives for me. “When do I have to leave?”

  A silence fell between Clara and George as they looked at each other. Finally George said, “General Wallace will take you tonight after dusk. We think it’s safest if you travel in the dark.”

  “Tonight,” I repeated dully. “Okay. You’re right, it’s for the best.”

  Polly put her arm around me, but it only made me feel worse. I forced myself to drink the tea and finish my piece of toasted bread, thinking how hard it would be to say good-bye to her again. Would I ever be able to come back to the places I knew and the people I loved? Or would I be in exile forever?

  When I finished, I stood up and carried my mug to the bucket of washing water. “I’m going upstairs to pack up some things for the journey.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Polly said, getting up from the table.

  “I think I just want to be alone for a while, if that’s okay.”

  As I headed up the stairs, I found myself thinking of when Mary and I were younger and used to pick dandelions on the hill. We would blow the seeds into the wind and watch them float away. I thought of my family, disappearing like the seeds. Now I would be the next to go.

  The stone floors echoed beneath me as I took one last walk through the castle, saying my silent good-bye to each of the rooms. I said good-bye to the eggshell-blue living room with the marble mantelpiece where we used to hang our Christmas stockings. I said good-bye to the nursery, where we first realized just how sick Jamie would always be. I said good-bye to the dark wood-paneled gentlemen’s smoking room, and the formal ballroom, and the ladies’ tea room with its white molding that always made me think of a wedding cake. And finally, I made my way to my father’s study.

  As I opened the door, the dust was visible in shafts of sunlight that fell through the windows onto the thick oriental rugs on the floor. My father’s desk sat in its usual place, the chair pushed back as though he had only recently gotten up to leave.

  My father had loved antiques. A collection of small racing cars, a leather camera next to a sealed box of film rolls, a collection of old cassette tapes and mobile phones and a collection of metal toy soldiers. Mary and I used to make fun of him, rolling our eyes and calling him old-fashioned.

  The smell in the room was a mixture of old stone, tobacco, and wood, a scent I would forever associate with my father. My eyes burned. I had never been here without him. I wondered if he was watching over me now, if he knew how much I missed him and needed him.

  I kissed the wall of his office and made my way up the stairs. There was still a lingering draft, drifting down the hallways.

  “Eliza?” Polly stood in the doorway of my bedroom. I wasn’t even packing, just staring aimlessly out the window. “The sun came out,” she said uncertainly. “Do you want to go outside? It might make you feel better.”

  I touched the window ledge, looking down at the chipping paint. “All right.”

  Outside, the sun warmed the muddy lanes. We walked slowly, without speaking, down a path that used to be a car road. We passed the remains of the apple orchard, with its trees that stood bare and empty, their branches outlined against the sky like skeletons. Even though there hadn’t been apples since before the Seventeen Days, their scent lingered like a stubborn ghost.

  “Polly,” I breathed, stopping in my tracks. Growing in a patch of dirt by the side of the road was a sapling. I bent down, examining the new growth more closely. A delicate, smooth trunk, sprouting two thin branches, where small almond-shaped leaves were forming.

  Polly crouched down beside me with a look of amazement on her face. I felt tears spring into my eyes. Tears of hope.

  After the Seventeen Days, so many plant species had died out for good. It hit my mother the hardest—she’d always had a special love for green, growing things. The day she died, during our picnic in the garden, she had said, “I hope that someday, during your lifetime, green leaves come back to the world.” It was one of the last things she ever said to me.

  I smiled for a moment, happy that my mother had gotten her wish. But then I thought of Mary and Jamie and my smile vanished. They would probably never get to see the new leaves. As if sensing my thoughts, Polly reached out and grabbed my hand, squeezing it.

  Just then we heard a strange sound in the distance. It was like the rumble of car tires, except no one here had any oil to drive a car. Polly and I froze, staring at each other in fear.

  The rumbling grew louder, closer. It wasn’t a truck, I realized, as a group of horses rounded the bend up ahead. It was a squadron of Hollister’s soldiers.

  We stared in disbelief at the seemingly endless trail of men and women in uniform, sevils at their sides, riding up the winding country roads. They looked like a giant green snake, moving together in perfect unison. These weren’t the new recruits I’d seen at the training camp—this was a real army, with horses, new weapons, and clean uniforms. The color in Polly’s face drained.

&nbs
p; “They’ll crush the Resistance forces in one second flat,” she said, still staring ahead, her expression a mixture of fear and awe.

  Before I knew what was happening, Polly jumped in front of me and pushed me backward into a briar patch. I stumbled into the bushes, the twigs and close-knit branches making it nearly impossible to move. I thought Polly would jump in after me, but she just stood by the side of the road, looking forward as though nothing had happened. Three of the riders had broken off from the rest and were headed toward us.

  “Polly, come here,” I whispered, but she gestured for me to be quiet. The horses were approaching. I sank back into the hollow space beneath the lowest branches, squeezing them so tightly my knuckles turned white. Please don’t hurt her, please don’t hurt her, I prayed. Maybe they would ride right past her, thinking she was just a village girl on her way home.

  The sound of the horses grew slower, and I knew the soldiers weren’t going to ride on past. I couldn’t see their faces, only the muscular legs of the warhorses as they stomped their spiked metal hooves. Polly stood still. I could only see her thin legs and the back of her shorts, and her hand shaking nervously, holding a bunch of twigs behind her back.

  “Do you live here?” I heard one of the riders ask.

  “Yes,” Polly replied meekly. “I live up the road in Balmoral. I was just gathering sticks for the cooking fire.”

  “Speak loudly and clearly when we address you, girl!” a second soldier snapped. “Do you have any information on Princess Eliza’s whereabouts?”

  Polly was silent.

  “Answer us now!” the angry soldier shouted, raising his sevil. Quickly and without warning, he swung it, slapping her across the face with the flat of the blade. Polly fell backward from the force of the blow and landed on the ground a few feet in front of me. She sat there, pressing her hand to her face and staring up at them, still saying nothing.