Gazing at the Distant Lights, part 4
Dec. 24th, 2008 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamcranverPart 1
Part 2
Part 3
The next day, the gang decided that with Greta’s singing ability, they could take her out with them to help with their work. It was a little strange, she thought, the idea of a princess willingly helping a gang of thieves, but she was curious to see just how it was they operated, and who it was they robbed, since they said they never stole from anyone who could spare it.
At first, she thought, it just seemed like busking with Chris and Darren that first day. She sang while Victoria and Alex played along and Ryland, Gabe, and Nate waited out in the crowd. She watched them closely, only turning her head occasionally to smile when a passerby dropped a coin in Victoria’s straw hat, but she couldn’t see them actually doing anything—they just looked like three more young men in the crowd, enjoying the show.
But then—then she saw Lord Ryan, from the duchy of Ross, and his manservant Brendon. Lord Ryan was nice enough, a very poetic and creative sort of fellow, and he must have been very rich from the way her father was always seating her next to him at banquets, but she’d always thought living with him would drive her insane, so she’d never encouraged the match. They knew each other well enough, though, that she feared Lord Ryan would recognize her, so she ducked her head, trying to hide behind her hair.
“Hey,” Victoria muttered out of the corner of her mouth, “Look. Gabe’s got his mark.” Greta peeked through her hair.
As Lord Ryan paused, smiling and tapping his feet to the music, Gabe sauntered through the crowd, looking as if he wanted a better view of the performance. Almost carelessly, as if he wasn’t quite watching where he was going, he brushed against Lord Ryan’s side.
“Oh, pardon me, milord,” he said, bowing with an exaggerated expression of apology.
Lord Ryan shrugged. “I’m all right.” Brendon frowned at Gabe, but he didn’t say anything, and Gabe vanished into the crowd again, as if too embarrassed to stand next to Lord Ryan anymore.
“Was that it?” Greta whispered, and Alex laughed.
“Just keep playing,” he said, plucking out the beginnings of a new song.
They only got two more “marks” before a tall, dark-skinned man whistled from a tavern on the corner, saying, “Hey, three guards, two blocks south.”
“Hey, thanks, Travis,” said Victoria, and she and Alex stood. Greta followed suit, excited but not a little frightened. “Now what?” she whispered. “Do we run?”
“Nope,” said Victoria, smiling and waving to the dispersing crowd of people. Greta could see Gabe and Nate and Ryland vanishing down the side streets. “We go around them, to the back door.”
They gathered up the coins they’d earned and walked quickly, but not too quickly, a few blocks north, until they hit the outer wall of the city. Then they turned and walked south again, walking along a path Greta recognized from two nights ago, when Gerard and Mikey had shown her the secret path out of the city. They ducked out the back way, the same door they’d used to go in, and found the path that led back to the cave. The other three were already there.
It was far past noon, now, probably three or four, judging by the sun, but…. “We only got three purses,” said Greta. “Is that bad?”
Ryland laughed and said, “Hell, a day when we get anything at all is a good day in my book.”
Victoria nodded. “Times are hard for everyone, even nobles, I guess. We don’t see as many of them out and shopping as we used to.”
They spent the rest of the day splashing their hot and tired limbs in the stream, getting the sweat out of their clothes and the sand out of their shoes. Nate and Gabe took off their shirts, revealing a badly scarred back and a brand on one arm that said “IDLER,” respectively, but neither of them seemed upset about it, so Greta didn’t comment, not wanting to spoil the fun of laughing together in the sun with her new friends.
Dinner that night was small, soup and a crusty bread that they found in the storeroom, and everyone was tired and pleased enough to go to bed shortly after nightfall. Everyone except Greta.
“I can’t believe I—oh, I didn’t know anything about anything, I probably would have been caught in a minute if had just been me, but still, those guards were after us, and we escaped!” She felt giddy with the triumph of it, and she smiled hugely at Victoria.
In the dim light of the wall torch in Victoria’s room, Victoria’s answering smile seemed all teeth, almost dark and secret even in its gentleness. “You were good,” she said. “Nate freaked out his first time—we would have understood if you had, but you kept it together pretty well.”
“Ohhh.” Greta thought her heart would burst with the pleasure of Victoria’s praise. “This is the most fun I’ve ever had in my life,” she said honestly. “With the music, and the daring escapes, and the food, and everything. I’m so glad—I’m so glad I did this.”
“Did what?” Victoria asked wryly. “Went out thieving with us?”
“No!” It was hard to explain in a way Victoria would understand; their lives had been so different. “Struck out on my own,” she said finally. “Went out to learn what the world is really like. If I hadn’t, I never would have met you.”
“Well,” said Victoria, “that would have been sad, I think. I know I wasn’t very kind to you that first night, but…I’m glad you’re here. You fit. With us, I mean.” She reached a quick hand out, running the backs of her knuckles against Greta’s cheek, and then pulled away again as if embarrassed. “We ought to go to bed,” she said. “We don’t want to be the last ones up in the morning.” She turned away.
But something bright and exciting and new was burning in Greta’s heart, now, and she couldn’t let it go now, not after feeling the strange rough softness of Victoria’s fingers on her face. “Victoria,” she said, a tremor of thrill running through her voice, and Victoria turned back.
She reached out, stroking Victoria’s cheek in turn. The skin was soft and ever-so-lightly fuzzy, like a peach, and she leaned in on her tiptoes for a kiss, half expecting Victoria to taste of peaches.
She didn’t—she tasted vaguely like the soup they’d eaten for dinner, but mostly just like spit, and like the inside of Greta’s own mouth tasted. But that was good, too, better than good, and she let her other hand reach out to stroke the shiny brown tendrils of Victoria’s hair while she deepened the kiss. My first kiss, she thought giddily. True love’s first kiss. That was nonsense, of course, but she wasn’t about to tamp down on her heart now.
Victoria pulled away, but not far, resting her forehead against Greta’s. “I didn’t think you wanted this,” she murmured, her mouth inches away. “Good girl like you.”
“Not so good,” Greta whispered, yearning to be kissing her again. Instead, because she knew there was more to this business, even if she’d only ever read about it, she reached out for Victoria’s hand and put it on her own breast.
“Oh,” breathed Victoria, moving her hand over Greta’s breast so lightly it scarcely felt like anything at all. “You want that? You want me?”
There was a slight, shaky emphasis on me, like Greta didn’t know who it was she was doing this with. She knew, and she felt the foolishness of it in her mind, but the rightness of it was stronger and everywhere and she said, “Yes, of course I do. I want you.”
Taking off their clothes was probably only the work of a moment, but it seemed to drag on forever, and Greta felt like she had a million limbs, and none of them were any good at pulling the pink dress over her head. She could hear Victoria laugh softly, say, “Hey, hey, let me help you with that,” and then Victoria’s hands were pulling off the dress, carefully unlacing Greta’s undershirt, and Greta could see every beautiful inch of her.
They somehow made it onto Victoria’s bed, and it was a miracle they didn’t dash their heads against the walls, thought Greta, because heaven knew she was too preoccupied with learning the contours of Victoria’s body to pay much attention to how close her own head was from the stone wall of the cave. Victoria’s skin was smooth, except where it wasn’t, where old raised scars or short stiff hairs met her fingertips, and she liked all of it.
Victoria must have liked what she saw, too, because she smiled, warm and soft, at Greta and said, “God, you’re so beautiful,” and kissed Greta’s breasts one by one, and then again, further down, making a line of kisses down her stomach. Greta’d been called beautiful before, by Patrick and Bob, by her suitors, even once by her father, but the words had never sunk into her heart like this and dug in, like they’d stay there forever.
“Do you want my fingers?” asked Victoria, and Greta couldn’t quite wrap her head around what Victoria meant, but anything she was offering, Greta wanted, so she nodded. Victoria sucked a finger into her mouth, like she’d hurt it, but then took it out again, and she rubbed it against Greta in the place between her legs that had always felt good before, but never as good as this.
“Yeah?” she said, and Greta nodded. And then there was—it was a pain, sort of, but a very strange pain, and she found she didn’t mind it, and after a while, it stopped being pain enough that she could feel Victoria’s finger in her, and then it was good, not pain at all. She had to kiss Victoria then, she had to, and she searched with her mouth for Victoria’s, constantly distracted by her collarbone and the underside of her jaw and the place on her upper cheeks where her eyelashes fluttered, long and dark.
And then there was more than one finger, and they were moving in and out, and Victoria’s thumb was still rubbing, and it was so strange and good and new that she couldn’t think about it anymore, she couldn’t take it, and then something made white lights flash behind Greta’s eyes, and her body flooded with warmth, and she couldn’t stop from sighing, or maybe crying out, because her voice no longer felt like a part of her at all.
“Oh, Greta,” Victoria said, kissing her, covering her mouth with warm wetness, “Oh.”
“Was that coming?” asked Greta, feeling as if she’d woken up from a very strange dream. “I’ve heard about it, and I thought…but that was different than it was before, with myself.” She wasn’t sure she was even making sense, but she hoped Victoria knew what she meant, anyway.
“I’m pretty sure that was coming,” said Victoria with a smile.
“Did you?”
“I didn’t, yet,” she said, “but I liked that. I loved that, what we just did.”
“If I….” Bizarrely enough, Greta could feel herself blushing, but after everything they’d just done, it was ridiculous to be embarrassed, so she pressed on. “If I did what you just did to me, would you like it?”
Victoria swallowed. “Yeah,” she said. “I would. A lot.”
“All right.” Hesitantly, because she was very much aware of how ignorant she was in such matters, she reached her hand down between Victoria’s legs, feeling for the bump. It was warm and slick, and Greta felt another thrill of pleasure run through her whole body, not as much as when she’d come, but the same kind of disorienting tremor. The bump was easy enough to find, and she rubbed in slow circles, thinking about how she liked it when she did things alone.
“Faster,” Victoria said breathlessly, and Greta sped up. Then, when Victoria seemed dazed and panting, she stuck one finger in, slowly, cautiously.
“Am I hurting you?” she asked.
“No. You’re not hurting me.” Victoria’s voice sounded more like a groan, but not a pained one. “More.”
Greta gently pulled out the first finger and put it back in again with another, and then when Victoria seemed to like that, she added a third and moved them in and out as Victoria had done. It was tight and felt like nothing she’d ever touched before, and the strangeness of it was good, too, as the strangeness of Victoria’s fingers had been.
Victoria’s breath was coming short and fast now, and she was crying out short little cries on the exhale. Greta didn’t want to wake up the guys, so she said, “Shh, shh,” kissing her on the mouth.
Victoria panted out, “Hurry, then, if you want me to be quiet,” so Greta quickened her pace. And then Victoria was tightening around her fingers, making a high-pitched noise between a sigh and a scream, and Greta wondered if she was seeing the lights.
It felt a little awkward, then, sitting there with her fingers still inside Victoria, so she pulled them out. They were sticky and wet, and she put one to her mouth to see how it tasted. “It’s kind of salty,” she said, and Victoria rolled her eyes.
“God,” she said, “You’re going to be the death of me.”
“I hope not,” said Greta, suddenly chilled, and Victoria laughed.
“You’re shivering. Come on, get under the covers.”
They had to get off the bed to pull back the covers, and Greta found it really was the cool air in the cave and not a twinge of fear making her shiver now. But then she was wrapped in Victoria’s arms, and she could feel Victoria’s breasts against her back, and the sheets were warm from what they had done on top of them, and Greta fell asleep in perfect comfort.
The men teased them when they appeared for breakfast in the morning, but Victoria just grinned and made rude gestures at them, so Greta figured it wouldn’t be a problem. She felt completely shameless, and it was wonderful. Victoria kissed her cheek and handed her a warm bowl of oatmeal with honey, and there was no place Greta would rather have been.
They went out again to work after breakfast, stopping by the Ways’ booth on the way from the back entrance to the center of town. “Hey, Ways,” said Gabe gaily, plucking a biscuit from the neatly arrayed rows.
Mikey’s face was tense, though, as he returned the greeting, and Gerard looked downright frightened. “It’s not a good day,” Mikey said. “You’d better go, and don’t come back for a couple of days at least.”
Alex frowned. “Why?”
“The king’s dead,” said Gerard with a gulp, and Greta felt her heart freeze in her chest. “They’re saying it’s a heart attack, I think, but everybody’s scared and the guards are everywhere.”
“Shit,” said Gabe. “So, what, are they crowning the princess? Is there gonna be a regent ruling for her, or is she getting married, or what?”
“Who knows?” Mikey shook his head. “I just pray to God the looters don’t get any ideas in their heads.”
“Yeah,” Ryland said, nodding. Nate looked terribly worried, and Ryland put an arm around his shoulders. “It’s okay,” he said. “We’ll go away for a day or two, and we’ll come back, and things are bound to be better. I mean, the princess, or the queen, or whatever, she can’t be any worse than the king was, right?”
“Don’t jinx us,” muttered Nate. “It can always get worse.”
Victoria gave Greta a reassuring smile, and said, “I have a couple of ideas for how we could spend our days off,” but the words barely registered. Her father was dead. She’d disliked him as long as she could remember, hated him for the last few days, but Greta’s father had been one of the immutable truths of her existence, and now she felt like a ship whose moorings had been cut, dropped into the deep sea in the midst of a storm. She had to go back. She wasn’t just the princess now, she was the queen, and she couldn’t make Amanda shoulder that burden for her. She couldn’t foist off her duties on someone else while she enjoyed herself. It wouldn’t be right.
“I have to go,” she said, and her voice sounded strange to her, like it belonged to somebody else.
“We all do,” Victoria said, frowning. “The sooner the better.”
“No, I mean….” She grabbed Victoria’s hand and gripped it tightly, looking her straight in the eyes, willing her to understand. “I have to leave now. I don’t think I’ll be back.”
Victoria looked disbelieving. “What? Where are you going?”
“Home,” said Greta, and Victoria dropped her hand. The look in her eyes hurt Greta’s heart. “Victoria,” she said, “Believe me, I want you--I want to stay with you. I just have things I need to do.”
They were all staring at her now, Gerard and Mikey just looking confused, the gang of pickpockets ranging in expression from frustrated to furious to understanding. But Victoria’s face was the worst.
Am I hurting you? Greta had asked the previous night. Victoria had said no, then, but she looked like she’d have a different answer, now, and Greta couldn’t stand it. She turned and ran.
It wasn’t hard to find the palace, not when it was the point to which all the swarming people in the city were flocking. Pushing her way through the crowd to the gates was a little harder, but she managed it, making it all the way to the two worried guards standing in front of the little gatehouse.
“I need to get in,” she said.
One of the guards, a man with bushy brown hair and stubbly cheeks, snorted. “Yeah, you and everybody else here. Believe me, when we know more about the king’s death, you’ll know.”
“It’s not that,” she said. “I’m the princess Greta Morgan Salpeter of the realm of Hush Sound, and I think they need me in there.”
The brown-haired guard stared at her incredulously. “Oh, yeah fucking right!”
“Look.” She pulled out the signet ring and prayed that the royal seal was something the palace guards would recognize.
The brown-haired guard started to wave her on dismissively, but his partner, a long-haired man with spectacles and a beard, frowned at the ring. “Hold on, Joe,” he said. To Greta, he added, “Can I look at this for a minute?”
“Of course.” Anything that would gain her entrance.
The second guard peered curiously at it for a long moment while the curious crowd started to cluster around Greta. Finally, he said, “Well. It’s the royal seal, all right. Whether she came by this legitimately or not, I think one of us ought to take her inside.”
Joe looked like he wanted to argue, but the other guard thrust the ring in his face, and he took it and studied it intensely. Finally, he said, “Okay, Andy. I’ll buy it. But I don’t think we should be leaving this post.” He peered nervously out at the crowd. “The people are getting pretty damned restless.”
Andy nodded. “Good point. Matt!” A figure dashed down from one of the guard towers and popped out of the gatehouse—unsurprisingly, a third guard. “So, uh, this might or might not be the princess,” said Andy. “Wanna take her inside?”
Matt’s eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped. He looked from Andy to Joe to Greta and then back at Andy. “Uh. Sure,” he said.
Matt cast her curious glances all the way there, but he didn’t say anything, so Greta felt more or less justified in ignoring him. If she let herself think about anything other than getting back to fulfill her duties, she would completely fall apart, she just knew it.
“So, um,” Matt said, and Greta realized with a start that she was standing outside a room in the palace, and within she could hear, among other voices, Amanda’s and Patrick’s. “Here’s where all the king’s advisors are, and the princess. Or…not the princess?” he shrugged. “So, I guess this is where you should be.”
“Thank you, Matt,” she said, and she strode in.
For a minute, everybody turned and stared at her without saying a thing. Amanda’s face was thoughtful, Patrick’s was pale and fierce-eyed, and Bob’s was relieved; everyone else looked more or less confused. Then Patrick and Bob descended on her.
“Oh, my God,” Patrick murmured into her hair, wrapping his arms tightly around her. “I’m going to kill you, I swear to God. They’re gonna execute me for treason, but I don’t even care. What the hell were you thinking?”
“You were supposed to be back the day before yesterday!” Bob said indignantly, trying to hug her around Patrick’s arms. “Jesus, I thought you’d been kidnapped or killed or something! Of course, you were probably just sitting around laughing about what a doofus I was, like usual, huh?”
“Kind of,” Greta said, trying to smile, but suddenly she was crying, and Bob was pressing a handkerchief into her hand, wiping tears away with his fingers.
“I was just kidding, about the kidnapping,” he said. “Oh, God, I’m such an idiot, did you actually get kidnapped?”
Greta shook her head without saying anything, and Amanda stood and walked over, peering curiously at her.
“Well, did you have a good time?” she asked. And then, with a frown, she added, “What’d you do with my dress?”
She and Victoria had been planning on washing it after work. It was still lying folded on Victoria’s floor. “I’ll pay you back for it,” she said shakily, and Amanda’s face softened.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said lightly. “I stole something like half a dozen dresses out of your closet, and at least three pairs of shoes.”
A voice Greta didn’t recognize said, “Um, what the hell?”
Patrick stepped back, keeping one arm around Greta. “Ah. Pete, this is Greta, Crown Princess of Hush Sound. Your Highness, this is Lord Peter of Wentz, your chamberlain, and a pain in my ass almost as big as you.”
“Wait, what?” Pete looked between Amanda and Greta. “If this is the princess, then who’s this?” He gestured at Amanda.
“Amanda Palmer,” said Amanda, striding confidently over to Pete to shake his hand. “Pleased to meet you.” Pete looked as if he’d been hit upside the head with a hammer; Amanda smiled, and Bob turned his head away from Greta for a moment to give Amanda a look of pure adoration.
Greta couldn’t let herself be too amused by all this, though; she had more important matters to discuss. “Patrick,” she said, “My father’s dead.”
Patrick bit his lip and nodded. “Yeah, he is,” he said, and he drew Greta back into a hug. “I’m so sorry.”
Greta wasn’t, not really, but she couldn’t stop crying, and it was another moment before she said, “And so I have to be the queen, don’t I?”
“Not right away,” Patrick said hastily. “I mean, yeah, they’ll want to crown you pretty quickly, but you’ve got a room full of advisers here who’ll help you every step of the way, and you know you’ve always got me, so you’ve got a while before you’re gonna have to make any of the hard decisions.”
“Okay,” said Greta, kissing his cheek and pulling away a little bit. “If I’m the queen, do I have to get married? Or can I choose who I want to marry?”
Patrick looked perplexed. “Honey, when you’re the queen, you can do whatever the hell you want. You can marry a horse, if you like. It’d be really strange, and I hope you don’t, but you could do it.”
All this sounded promising, but she had to be sure. “And if I wanted to maybe court a woman who’s been a thief for a while, but who’s kind and generous and plays a mean accordion, and if maybe after that, I wanted to marry her?”
“Whoa,” said Bob, and Patrick threw a hand over his eyes.
“Oh, Greta,” he said. But then he uncovered his eyes again and gave her a watery smile. “Your Highness, you can do whatever you want,” he said. “But now, I think maybe you’d better have a bath and change your clothes.”
Greta took a deep breath and thought about all the things she had to do. “Okay,” she said.
One month later
Victoria generally approved of the new queen; she’d lifted the ban on busking, she’d opened up the palace stores, which were ridiculously abundant, to the people suffering from the drought, and she’d dropped the taxes down to levels people could actually pay and still feed their families. The guards were less ever-present, the curfew had been removed, and hell, even the penalties for hunting without a permit had been abolished. On the whole, Victoria had few complaints. Still, when two guards from the palace showed up at the cave saying that the queen wanted to see them, she couldn’t help but think that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, and that they were in for a whole mess of hands-on witch-hunting, or rather, thief-hunting.
Gabe did his level best to sweet talk the guards into letting them go, but when the one with wild brown hair said, “Seriously, it’s nothing bad, she just wants to talk to you,” he let it go, raising his eyebrows in Victoria’s direction. It was strange, all right, there was no doubt about that.
For a moment, Victoria thought of Greta, and how she would probably have loved to see the queen. Then again, seeing the real queen might have upset her fairy-tale fantasies. The whole thing was damned stupid. She’d known Greta for less than a week; it was past time to let it go and face the future, even if that future wasn’t very long.
The palace was grand, grander than anything Victoria had ever seen. She’d only ever seen it from the outside, and that was years ago; she’d never seen the entrance hall, with its huge vaulted ceilings and tapestries, or the marble staircase, or the throne room, guarded by empty suits of armor and two real guards, who winked at them as they were led inside.
The throne room was beautiful, too, with shiny marble floors and bright stained-glass windows. No wonder the palace had cost so much to build. But of course the main attraction was up front, where the queen and her advisers sat, and Victoria peered over Ryland’s shoulder to see…
Greta.
“Oh, fuck me,” said Gabe, and one of the guards frowned at him. But Greta beamed, looking as sweet and innocent as she had ever looked, and stood up.
“Hello,” she said with a wave. “Did I or did I not tell you I was the princess?”
Alex gulped. “Oh my God, I think I’m going completely insane.” Nate nodded fervently, and Ryland rubbed his eyes, as if he couldn’t actually believe what he was seeing. Victoria, well. Victoria let the last sliver of hope curl up in her heart and die, because this was not the reunion she’d dreamed of, this was the queen, punishing them for making her carry water and steal money. She was going to throw them in prison, or execute them, and she would never, ever look at Victoria with longing in her eyes again, not here, where she could have any lord—or lady—in the land.
Greta laughed, a light tinkling sound, and said, “Relax, I didn’t call you here to scare you or punish you or anything. But really, you ought to see your faces!”
Victoria couldn’t even begin to imagine what her face looked like. Probably ghastly. She bowed deeply, more as a distraction or a disguise than as a show of respect. The boys followed suit. But when Victoria worked up the nerve to peer through her hair at Greta—at the queen—she didn’t look satisfied and regal, as Victoria had half expected. She looked almost hurt.
“I….” she started, and then stopped and swallowed and started again. “I’m really not going to hurt you. I owe you a lot, so much, and I just want to thank you for everything you did for me.” She paused. “Aren’t you going to say something? Any of you?”
Nate looked up, ignoring Ryland poking him in the shoulder, and said, “So, wait, you really were the princess? The whole time?”
The queen nodded. “Yeah.”
“Wow.” Nate sounded completely awed. “And I always just thought you were kind of weird. Sorry.”
The queen laughed, a short, bright sound. “Don’t worry about it. It wouldn’t have been nearly so fun if you’d actually treated me like the princess, and the whole thing was probably the most fun I’ve ever had in my life, so, you know, don’t feel bad about it or anything. If you do, because right now you’re actually probably mad at me.”
“Not especially,” said Gabe. “Wait ‘till I tell people I taught the queen dirty drinking songs.” He grinned, and Victoria could feel the mood in the room lighten.
“And I’ve been teaching them to all my friends here,” said the queen with a smile. “We could have a whole drinking song concert.” Her smile faded, and she sighed. “So, um, as you’ve probably guessed, I can’t really help you guys steal anymore. As fun as it was to tell Lord Ryan I helped steal his pocket money, it’s kind of frowned upon for a queen to condone and assist in acts of thievery or whatever. So, if you could stop stealing, it’d make my life a lot easier.”
Victoria could scarcely believe that this was the queen, not ordering, but nicely asking them not to steal. But then, with the handouts from the royal treasury and the lower taxes, they hadn’t even needed to steal much lately, so it wasn’t so surprising when Gabe said, “Well, if you’re gonna keep changing things up around here, I don’t see why not. I mean, I’m a talented guy, I’ve got other prospects. We can concentrate on our music.”
“Sure,” said Ryland, and he flicked the back of Gabe’s head with one finger. “You could use the practice.”
“It’d sure be nice to live somewhere that wasn’t a cave for a while,” said Alex thoughtfully, and Nate just smiled. He’d never been an enthusiastic thief to begin with, and Victoria thought he’d probably be happier if they could somehow make a living busking.
Greta smiled again, bigger than before. “That’s wonderful,” she said. “That’s, oh, it’ll be great to play with you again, sometime. If you want, you could come stay at the palace for a while. I mean, you were so hospitable to me, sharing your food and your home and everything, so maybe I could return the favor.”
“Uh, wow,” Alex said. “I….” He looked around at the others, and met Victoria’s eye. She nodded; even if things would never be the same again, staying in the palace would be the experience of a lifetime, and maybe she’d get to see Greta, if only as a friend. “We would love that,” Alex finished, and Greta clapped her hands together happily.
“This is seriously shaping up to be the best day ever,” she said. “Oh, hold on, if you wait a second, I could change out of this tent”—she gestured towards her huge, ceremonial gown—“and into some real person clothes, and I could give you the grand tour.”
“Fantastic,” said Ryland, raising his eyebrows, and the queen grinned.
“This is going to be great,” she said. “Oh, Victoria, could you come with me to my chambers? I still have your dress—I cleaned it for you, though. I’ve been waiting for a chance to give it to you.”
Victoria opened her mouth and found it painfully hard to speak around the lump in her throat. “That’d be wonderful, Your Highness,” she said. That was it. Greta would return the dress, Victoria’s first pathetic attempt at a gift, and it would all be over, as if it had never been.
She followed the queen out of the throne room, unable to meet the eyes of any of the courtiers or guards, or take in the splendor of the palace. Even the queen’s figure was swimming in front of her eyes. She just hoped she didn’t cry.
They didn’t go far, though, not nearly far enough to reach the queen’s chambers. Greta grabbed her hand and pulled, and suddenly they were standing in a little out-of-the-way nook, out of hearing distance from the guards at the throne room door.
“Victoria,” said the queen, and Victoria was shocked to hear the tremor in her voice. “I’m so sorry I had to leave—I kept thinking, ‘God, am I just like Elisa?’ but I’m not, because I swear to God, you’re the only one I want. It’s not like I wanted to leave, but my father died—somebody had to be queen, and I thought it might as well be me. I mean, Amanda could have done it, but it wouldn’t have been fair to her, not when there was so much work to be done. Please, please don’t be angry.”
Anger couldn’t possibly have been farther from Victoria’s mind. She couldn’t blame Greta for not telling her, when she had told all of them she was the princess again and again, and they’d only mocked and mistrusted her. She couldn’t blame her for leaving, either, because obviously the princess would have bigger and more important things to do after the king’s death than hang around with a gang of thieves or fool around with a girl. You’re the only one I want, Greta had said, but obviously the queen wouldn’t actually be having an affair with a peasant prostitute-turned-thief, and there wasn’t any point in getting her hopes up. “I’m not angry,” she managed to say. “Thank you for your kindness.”
But Greta’s face fell, and Victoria wished she had found anything else to say. “It’s not kindness,” Greta said. “It’s not even gratitude. I’ve had a million suitors, and I never felt anything for any of them like I felt for you. Honest. I’ve worked it out with my advisors, and they say I don’t have to marry for diplomacy or everything—I mean, it helps, especially if I want to expand the kingdom, but it’s not like there aren’t other ways of making treaties, and I think the kingdom’s big enough, don’t you?”
She bit her lower lip, apparently frustrated, and Victoria was frozen in place, trying to understand just what it was she was saying. “Yes,” she said, because Greta had asked, and she didn’t know what else she could say.
“Yeah,” said Greta softly. “So, if you ever forgive me--because I’m not expecting anything, and I’d never make you do anything you didn’t want to--they said I can court whoever I want, or marry whoever I want, and if you still want me….” She was smiling, but it wasn’t the confident smile of a queen. It was the scared smile of Greta, who didn’t know how to steal or how to fill a water bucket or how to fuck, but who was willing to try them all anyway, because her life was a fairy tale, but she wanted to make it real.
“I still want you,” said Victoria. And Greta smiled, the sweet, sunburned smile that had made Victoria’s heart first shake, and somehow, without even meaning to, Victoria was reaching out and pulling the queen—the queen—into a deep kiss.
Greta didn’t pull back, and for the first time in a long time, Victoria thought maybe life did have happy endings.
Part 2
Part 3
The next day, the gang decided that with Greta’s singing ability, they could take her out with them to help with their work. It was a little strange, she thought, the idea of a princess willingly helping a gang of thieves, but she was curious to see just how it was they operated, and who it was they robbed, since they said they never stole from anyone who could spare it.
At first, she thought, it just seemed like busking with Chris and Darren that first day. She sang while Victoria and Alex played along and Ryland, Gabe, and Nate waited out in the crowd. She watched them closely, only turning her head occasionally to smile when a passerby dropped a coin in Victoria’s straw hat, but she couldn’t see them actually doing anything—they just looked like three more young men in the crowd, enjoying the show.
But then—then she saw Lord Ryan, from the duchy of Ross, and his manservant Brendon. Lord Ryan was nice enough, a very poetic and creative sort of fellow, and he must have been very rich from the way her father was always seating her next to him at banquets, but she’d always thought living with him would drive her insane, so she’d never encouraged the match. They knew each other well enough, though, that she feared Lord Ryan would recognize her, so she ducked her head, trying to hide behind her hair.
“Hey,” Victoria muttered out of the corner of her mouth, “Look. Gabe’s got his mark.” Greta peeked through her hair.
As Lord Ryan paused, smiling and tapping his feet to the music, Gabe sauntered through the crowd, looking as if he wanted a better view of the performance. Almost carelessly, as if he wasn’t quite watching where he was going, he brushed against Lord Ryan’s side.
“Oh, pardon me, milord,” he said, bowing with an exaggerated expression of apology.
Lord Ryan shrugged. “I’m all right.” Brendon frowned at Gabe, but he didn’t say anything, and Gabe vanished into the crowd again, as if too embarrassed to stand next to Lord Ryan anymore.
“Was that it?” Greta whispered, and Alex laughed.
“Just keep playing,” he said, plucking out the beginnings of a new song.
They only got two more “marks” before a tall, dark-skinned man whistled from a tavern on the corner, saying, “Hey, three guards, two blocks south.”
“Hey, thanks, Travis,” said Victoria, and she and Alex stood. Greta followed suit, excited but not a little frightened. “Now what?” she whispered. “Do we run?”
“Nope,” said Victoria, smiling and waving to the dispersing crowd of people. Greta could see Gabe and Nate and Ryland vanishing down the side streets. “We go around them, to the back door.”
They gathered up the coins they’d earned and walked quickly, but not too quickly, a few blocks north, until they hit the outer wall of the city. Then they turned and walked south again, walking along a path Greta recognized from two nights ago, when Gerard and Mikey had shown her the secret path out of the city. They ducked out the back way, the same door they’d used to go in, and found the path that led back to the cave. The other three were already there.
It was far past noon, now, probably three or four, judging by the sun, but…. “We only got three purses,” said Greta. “Is that bad?”
Ryland laughed and said, “Hell, a day when we get anything at all is a good day in my book.”
Victoria nodded. “Times are hard for everyone, even nobles, I guess. We don’t see as many of them out and shopping as we used to.”
They spent the rest of the day splashing their hot and tired limbs in the stream, getting the sweat out of their clothes and the sand out of their shoes. Nate and Gabe took off their shirts, revealing a badly scarred back and a brand on one arm that said “IDLER,” respectively, but neither of them seemed upset about it, so Greta didn’t comment, not wanting to spoil the fun of laughing together in the sun with her new friends.
Dinner that night was small, soup and a crusty bread that they found in the storeroom, and everyone was tired and pleased enough to go to bed shortly after nightfall. Everyone except Greta.
“I can’t believe I—oh, I didn’t know anything about anything, I probably would have been caught in a minute if had just been me, but still, those guards were after us, and we escaped!” She felt giddy with the triumph of it, and she smiled hugely at Victoria.
In the dim light of the wall torch in Victoria’s room, Victoria’s answering smile seemed all teeth, almost dark and secret even in its gentleness. “You were good,” she said. “Nate freaked out his first time—we would have understood if you had, but you kept it together pretty well.”
“Ohhh.” Greta thought her heart would burst with the pleasure of Victoria’s praise. “This is the most fun I’ve ever had in my life,” she said honestly. “With the music, and the daring escapes, and the food, and everything. I’m so glad—I’m so glad I did this.”
“Did what?” Victoria asked wryly. “Went out thieving with us?”
“No!” It was hard to explain in a way Victoria would understand; their lives had been so different. “Struck out on my own,” she said finally. “Went out to learn what the world is really like. If I hadn’t, I never would have met you.”
“Well,” said Victoria, “that would have been sad, I think. I know I wasn’t very kind to you that first night, but…I’m glad you’re here. You fit. With us, I mean.” She reached a quick hand out, running the backs of her knuckles against Greta’s cheek, and then pulled away again as if embarrassed. “We ought to go to bed,” she said. “We don’t want to be the last ones up in the morning.” She turned away.
But something bright and exciting and new was burning in Greta’s heart, now, and she couldn’t let it go now, not after feeling the strange rough softness of Victoria’s fingers on her face. “Victoria,” she said, a tremor of thrill running through her voice, and Victoria turned back.
She reached out, stroking Victoria’s cheek in turn. The skin was soft and ever-so-lightly fuzzy, like a peach, and she leaned in on her tiptoes for a kiss, half expecting Victoria to taste of peaches.
She didn’t—she tasted vaguely like the soup they’d eaten for dinner, but mostly just like spit, and like the inside of Greta’s own mouth tasted. But that was good, too, better than good, and she let her other hand reach out to stroke the shiny brown tendrils of Victoria’s hair while she deepened the kiss. My first kiss, she thought giddily. True love’s first kiss. That was nonsense, of course, but she wasn’t about to tamp down on her heart now.
Victoria pulled away, but not far, resting her forehead against Greta’s. “I didn’t think you wanted this,” she murmured, her mouth inches away. “Good girl like you.”
“Not so good,” Greta whispered, yearning to be kissing her again. Instead, because she knew there was more to this business, even if she’d only ever read about it, she reached out for Victoria’s hand and put it on her own breast.
“Oh,” breathed Victoria, moving her hand over Greta’s breast so lightly it scarcely felt like anything at all. “You want that? You want me?”
There was a slight, shaky emphasis on me, like Greta didn’t know who it was she was doing this with. She knew, and she felt the foolishness of it in her mind, but the rightness of it was stronger and everywhere and she said, “Yes, of course I do. I want you.”
Taking off their clothes was probably only the work of a moment, but it seemed to drag on forever, and Greta felt like she had a million limbs, and none of them were any good at pulling the pink dress over her head. She could hear Victoria laugh softly, say, “Hey, hey, let me help you with that,” and then Victoria’s hands were pulling off the dress, carefully unlacing Greta’s undershirt, and Greta could see every beautiful inch of her.
They somehow made it onto Victoria’s bed, and it was a miracle they didn’t dash their heads against the walls, thought Greta, because heaven knew she was too preoccupied with learning the contours of Victoria’s body to pay much attention to how close her own head was from the stone wall of the cave. Victoria’s skin was smooth, except where it wasn’t, where old raised scars or short stiff hairs met her fingertips, and she liked all of it.
Victoria must have liked what she saw, too, because she smiled, warm and soft, at Greta and said, “God, you’re so beautiful,” and kissed Greta’s breasts one by one, and then again, further down, making a line of kisses down her stomach. Greta’d been called beautiful before, by Patrick and Bob, by her suitors, even once by her father, but the words had never sunk into her heart like this and dug in, like they’d stay there forever.
“Do you want my fingers?” asked Victoria, and Greta couldn’t quite wrap her head around what Victoria meant, but anything she was offering, Greta wanted, so she nodded. Victoria sucked a finger into her mouth, like she’d hurt it, but then took it out again, and she rubbed it against Greta in the place between her legs that had always felt good before, but never as good as this.
“Yeah?” she said, and Greta nodded. And then there was—it was a pain, sort of, but a very strange pain, and she found she didn’t mind it, and after a while, it stopped being pain enough that she could feel Victoria’s finger in her, and then it was good, not pain at all. She had to kiss Victoria then, she had to, and she searched with her mouth for Victoria’s, constantly distracted by her collarbone and the underside of her jaw and the place on her upper cheeks where her eyelashes fluttered, long and dark.
And then there was more than one finger, and they were moving in and out, and Victoria’s thumb was still rubbing, and it was so strange and good and new that she couldn’t think about it anymore, she couldn’t take it, and then something made white lights flash behind Greta’s eyes, and her body flooded with warmth, and she couldn’t stop from sighing, or maybe crying out, because her voice no longer felt like a part of her at all.
“Oh, Greta,” Victoria said, kissing her, covering her mouth with warm wetness, “Oh.”
“Was that coming?” asked Greta, feeling as if she’d woken up from a very strange dream. “I’ve heard about it, and I thought…but that was different than it was before, with myself.” She wasn’t sure she was even making sense, but she hoped Victoria knew what she meant, anyway.
“I’m pretty sure that was coming,” said Victoria with a smile.
“Did you?”
“I didn’t, yet,” she said, “but I liked that. I loved that, what we just did.”
“If I….” Bizarrely enough, Greta could feel herself blushing, but after everything they’d just done, it was ridiculous to be embarrassed, so she pressed on. “If I did what you just did to me, would you like it?”
Victoria swallowed. “Yeah,” she said. “I would. A lot.”
“All right.” Hesitantly, because she was very much aware of how ignorant she was in such matters, she reached her hand down between Victoria’s legs, feeling for the bump. It was warm and slick, and Greta felt another thrill of pleasure run through her whole body, not as much as when she’d come, but the same kind of disorienting tremor. The bump was easy enough to find, and she rubbed in slow circles, thinking about how she liked it when she did things alone.
“Faster,” Victoria said breathlessly, and Greta sped up. Then, when Victoria seemed dazed and panting, she stuck one finger in, slowly, cautiously.
“Am I hurting you?” she asked.
“No. You’re not hurting me.” Victoria’s voice sounded more like a groan, but not a pained one. “More.”
Greta gently pulled out the first finger and put it back in again with another, and then when Victoria seemed to like that, she added a third and moved them in and out as Victoria had done. It was tight and felt like nothing she’d ever touched before, and the strangeness of it was good, too, as the strangeness of Victoria’s fingers had been.
Victoria’s breath was coming short and fast now, and she was crying out short little cries on the exhale. Greta didn’t want to wake up the guys, so she said, “Shh, shh,” kissing her on the mouth.
Victoria panted out, “Hurry, then, if you want me to be quiet,” so Greta quickened her pace. And then Victoria was tightening around her fingers, making a high-pitched noise between a sigh and a scream, and Greta wondered if she was seeing the lights.
It felt a little awkward, then, sitting there with her fingers still inside Victoria, so she pulled them out. They were sticky and wet, and she put one to her mouth to see how it tasted. “It’s kind of salty,” she said, and Victoria rolled her eyes.
“God,” she said, “You’re going to be the death of me.”
“I hope not,” said Greta, suddenly chilled, and Victoria laughed.
“You’re shivering. Come on, get under the covers.”
They had to get off the bed to pull back the covers, and Greta found it really was the cool air in the cave and not a twinge of fear making her shiver now. But then she was wrapped in Victoria’s arms, and she could feel Victoria’s breasts against her back, and the sheets were warm from what they had done on top of them, and Greta fell asleep in perfect comfort.
The men teased them when they appeared for breakfast in the morning, but Victoria just grinned and made rude gestures at them, so Greta figured it wouldn’t be a problem. She felt completely shameless, and it was wonderful. Victoria kissed her cheek and handed her a warm bowl of oatmeal with honey, and there was no place Greta would rather have been.
They went out again to work after breakfast, stopping by the Ways’ booth on the way from the back entrance to the center of town. “Hey, Ways,” said Gabe gaily, plucking a biscuit from the neatly arrayed rows.
Mikey’s face was tense, though, as he returned the greeting, and Gerard looked downright frightened. “It’s not a good day,” Mikey said. “You’d better go, and don’t come back for a couple of days at least.”
Alex frowned. “Why?”
“The king’s dead,” said Gerard with a gulp, and Greta felt her heart freeze in her chest. “They’re saying it’s a heart attack, I think, but everybody’s scared and the guards are everywhere.”
“Shit,” said Gabe. “So, what, are they crowning the princess? Is there gonna be a regent ruling for her, or is she getting married, or what?”
“Who knows?” Mikey shook his head. “I just pray to God the looters don’t get any ideas in their heads.”
“Yeah,” Ryland said, nodding. Nate looked terribly worried, and Ryland put an arm around his shoulders. “It’s okay,” he said. “We’ll go away for a day or two, and we’ll come back, and things are bound to be better. I mean, the princess, or the queen, or whatever, she can’t be any worse than the king was, right?”
“Don’t jinx us,” muttered Nate. “It can always get worse.”
Victoria gave Greta a reassuring smile, and said, “I have a couple of ideas for how we could spend our days off,” but the words barely registered. Her father was dead. She’d disliked him as long as she could remember, hated him for the last few days, but Greta’s father had been one of the immutable truths of her existence, and now she felt like a ship whose moorings had been cut, dropped into the deep sea in the midst of a storm. She had to go back. She wasn’t just the princess now, she was the queen, and she couldn’t make Amanda shoulder that burden for her. She couldn’t foist off her duties on someone else while she enjoyed herself. It wouldn’t be right.
“I have to go,” she said, and her voice sounded strange to her, like it belonged to somebody else.
“We all do,” Victoria said, frowning. “The sooner the better.”
“No, I mean….” She grabbed Victoria’s hand and gripped it tightly, looking her straight in the eyes, willing her to understand. “I have to leave now. I don’t think I’ll be back.”
Victoria looked disbelieving. “What? Where are you going?”
“Home,” said Greta, and Victoria dropped her hand. The look in her eyes hurt Greta’s heart. “Victoria,” she said, “Believe me, I want you--I want to stay with you. I just have things I need to do.”
They were all staring at her now, Gerard and Mikey just looking confused, the gang of pickpockets ranging in expression from frustrated to furious to understanding. But Victoria’s face was the worst.
Am I hurting you? Greta had asked the previous night. Victoria had said no, then, but she looked like she’d have a different answer, now, and Greta couldn’t stand it. She turned and ran.
It wasn’t hard to find the palace, not when it was the point to which all the swarming people in the city were flocking. Pushing her way through the crowd to the gates was a little harder, but she managed it, making it all the way to the two worried guards standing in front of the little gatehouse.
“I need to get in,” she said.
One of the guards, a man with bushy brown hair and stubbly cheeks, snorted. “Yeah, you and everybody else here. Believe me, when we know more about the king’s death, you’ll know.”
“It’s not that,” she said. “I’m the princess Greta Morgan Salpeter of the realm of Hush Sound, and I think they need me in there.”
The brown-haired guard stared at her incredulously. “Oh, yeah fucking right!”
“Look.” She pulled out the signet ring and prayed that the royal seal was something the palace guards would recognize.
The brown-haired guard started to wave her on dismissively, but his partner, a long-haired man with spectacles and a beard, frowned at the ring. “Hold on, Joe,” he said. To Greta, he added, “Can I look at this for a minute?”
“Of course.” Anything that would gain her entrance.
The second guard peered curiously at it for a long moment while the curious crowd started to cluster around Greta. Finally, he said, “Well. It’s the royal seal, all right. Whether she came by this legitimately or not, I think one of us ought to take her inside.”
Joe looked like he wanted to argue, but the other guard thrust the ring in his face, and he took it and studied it intensely. Finally, he said, “Okay, Andy. I’ll buy it. But I don’t think we should be leaving this post.” He peered nervously out at the crowd. “The people are getting pretty damned restless.”
Andy nodded. “Good point. Matt!” A figure dashed down from one of the guard towers and popped out of the gatehouse—unsurprisingly, a third guard. “So, uh, this might or might not be the princess,” said Andy. “Wanna take her inside?”
Matt’s eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped. He looked from Andy to Joe to Greta and then back at Andy. “Uh. Sure,” he said.
Matt cast her curious glances all the way there, but he didn’t say anything, so Greta felt more or less justified in ignoring him. If she let herself think about anything other than getting back to fulfill her duties, she would completely fall apart, she just knew it.
“So, um,” Matt said, and Greta realized with a start that she was standing outside a room in the palace, and within she could hear, among other voices, Amanda’s and Patrick’s. “Here’s where all the king’s advisors are, and the princess. Or…not the princess?” he shrugged. “So, I guess this is where you should be.”
“Thank you, Matt,” she said, and she strode in.
For a minute, everybody turned and stared at her without saying a thing. Amanda’s face was thoughtful, Patrick’s was pale and fierce-eyed, and Bob’s was relieved; everyone else looked more or less confused. Then Patrick and Bob descended on her.
“Oh, my God,” Patrick murmured into her hair, wrapping his arms tightly around her. “I’m going to kill you, I swear to God. They’re gonna execute me for treason, but I don’t even care. What the hell were you thinking?”
“You were supposed to be back the day before yesterday!” Bob said indignantly, trying to hug her around Patrick’s arms. “Jesus, I thought you’d been kidnapped or killed or something! Of course, you were probably just sitting around laughing about what a doofus I was, like usual, huh?”
“Kind of,” Greta said, trying to smile, but suddenly she was crying, and Bob was pressing a handkerchief into her hand, wiping tears away with his fingers.
“I was just kidding, about the kidnapping,” he said. “Oh, God, I’m such an idiot, did you actually get kidnapped?”
Greta shook her head without saying anything, and Amanda stood and walked over, peering curiously at her.
“Well, did you have a good time?” she asked. And then, with a frown, she added, “What’d you do with my dress?”
She and Victoria had been planning on washing it after work. It was still lying folded on Victoria’s floor. “I’ll pay you back for it,” she said shakily, and Amanda’s face softened.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said lightly. “I stole something like half a dozen dresses out of your closet, and at least three pairs of shoes.”
A voice Greta didn’t recognize said, “Um, what the hell?”
Patrick stepped back, keeping one arm around Greta. “Ah. Pete, this is Greta, Crown Princess of Hush Sound. Your Highness, this is Lord Peter of Wentz, your chamberlain, and a pain in my ass almost as big as you.”
“Wait, what?” Pete looked between Amanda and Greta. “If this is the princess, then who’s this?” He gestured at Amanda.
“Amanda Palmer,” said Amanda, striding confidently over to Pete to shake his hand. “Pleased to meet you.” Pete looked as if he’d been hit upside the head with a hammer; Amanda smiled, and Bob turned his head away from Greta for a moment to give Amanda a look of pure adoration.
Greta couldn’t let herself be too amused by all this, though; she had more important matters to discuss. “Patrick,” she said, “My father’s dead.”
Patrick bit his lip and nodded. “Yeah, he is,” he said, and he drew Greta back into a hug. “I’m so sorry.”
Greta wasn’t, not really, but she couldn’t stop crying, and it was another moment before she said, “And so I have to be the queen, don’t I?”
“Not right away,” Patrick said hastily. “I mean, yeah, they’ll want to crown you pretty quickly, but you’ve got a room full of advisers here who’ll help you every step of the way, and you know you’ve always got me, so you’ve got a while before you’re gonna have to make any of the hard decisions.”
“Okay,” said Greta, kissing his cheek and pulling away a little bit. “If I’m the queen, do I have to get married? Or can I choose who I want to marry?”
Patrick looked perplexed. “Honey, when you’re the queen, you can do whatever the hell you want. You can marry a horse, if you like. It’d be really strange, and I hope you don’t, but you could do it.”
All this sounded promising, but she had to be sure. “And if I wanted to maybe court a woman who’s been a thief for a while, but who’s kind and generous and plays a mean accordion, and if maybe after that, I wanted to marry her?”
“Whoa,” said Bob, and Patrick threw a hand over his eyes.
“Oh, Greta,” he said. But then he uncovered his eyes again and gave her a watery smile. “Your Highness, you can do whatever you want,” he said. “But now, I think maybe you’d better have a bath and change your clothes.”
Greta took a deep breath and thought about all the things she had to do. “Okay,” she said.
One month later
Victoria generally approved of the new queen; she’d lifted the ban on busking, she’d opened up the palace stores, which were ridiculously abundant, to the people suffering from the drought, and she’d dropped the taxes down to levels people could actually pay and still feed their families. The guards were less ever-present, the curfew had been removed, and hell, even the penalties for hunting without a permit had been abolished. On the whole, Victoria had few complaints. Still, when two guards from the palace showed up at the cave saying that the queen wanted to see them, she couldn’t help but think that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, and that they were in for a whole mess of hands-on witch-hunting, or rather, thief-hunting.
Gabe did his level best to sweet talk the guards into letting them go, but when the one with wild brown hair said, “Seriously, it’s nothing bad, she just wants to talk to you,” he let it go, raising his eyebrows in Victoria’s direction. It was strange, all right, there was no doubt about that.
For a moment, Victoria thought of Greta, and how she would probably have loved to see the queen. Then again, seeing the real queen might have upset her fairy-tale fantasies. The whole thing was damned stupid. She’d known Greta for less than a week; it was past time to let it go and face the future, even if that future wasn’t very long.
The palace was grand, grander than anything Victoria had ever seen. She’d only ever seen it from the outside, and that was years ago; she’d never seen the entrance hall, with its huge vaulted ceilings and tapestries, or the marble staircase, or the throne room, guarded by empty suits of armor and two real guards, who winked at them as they were led inside.
The throne room was beautiful, too, with shiny marble floors and bright stained-glass windows. No wonder the palace had cost so much to build. But of course the main attraction was up front, where the queen and her advisers sat, and Victoria peered over Ryland’s shoulder to see…
Greta.
“Oh, fuck me,” said Gabe, and one of the guards frowned at him. But Greta beamed, looking as sweet and innocent as she had ever looked, and stood up.
“Hello,” she said with a wave. “Did I or did I not tell you I was the princess?”
Alex gulped. “Oh my God, I think I’m going completely insane.” Nate nodded fervently, and Ryland rubbed his eyes, as if he couldn’t actually believe what he was seeing. Victoria, well. Victoria let the last sliver of hope curl up in her heart and die, because this was not the reunion she’d dreamed of, this was the queen, punishing them for making her carry water and steal money. She was going to throw them in prison, or execute them, and she would never, ever look at Victoria with longing in her eyes again, not here, where she could have any lord—or lady—in the land.
Greta laughed, a light tinkling sound, and said, “Relax, I didn’t call you here to scare you or punish you or anything. But really, you ought to see your faces!”
Victoria couldn’t even begin to imagine what her face looked like. Probably ghastly. She bowed deeply, more as a distraction or a disguise than as a show of respect. The boys followed suit. But when Victoria worked up the nerve to peer through her hair at Greta—at the queen—she didn’t look satisfied and regal, as Victoria had half expected. She looked almost hurt.
“I….” she started, and then stopped and swallowed and started again. “I’m really not going to hurt you. I owe you a lot, so much, and I just want to thank you for everything you did for me.” She paused. “Aren’t you going to say something? Any of you?”
Nate looked up, ignoring Ryland poking him in the shoulder, and said, “So, wait, you really were the princess? The whole time?”
The queen nodded. “Yeah.”
“Wow.” Nate sounded completely awed. “And I always just thought you were kind of weird. Sorry.”
The queen laughed, a short, bright sound. “Don’t worry about it. It wouldn’t have been nearly so fun if you’d actually treated me like the princess, and the whole thing was probably the most fun I’ve ever had in my life, so, you know, don’t feel bad about it or anything. If you do, because right now you’re actually probably mad at me.”
“Not especially,” said Gabe. “Wait ‘till I tell people I taught the queen dirty drinking songs.” He grinned, and Victoria could feel the mood in the room lighten.
“And I’ve been teaching them to all my friends here,” said the queen with a smile. “We could have a whole drinking song concert.” Her smile faded, and she sighed. “So, um, as you’ve probably guessed, I can’t really help you guys steal anymore. As fun as it was to tell Lord Ryan I helped steal his pocket money, it’s kind of frowned upon for a queen to condone and assist in acts of thievery or whatever. So, if you could stop stealing, it’d make my life a lot easier.”
Victoria could scarcely believe that this was the queen, not ordering, but nicely asking them not to steal. But then, with the handouts from the royal treasury and the lower taxes, they hadn’t even needed to steal much lately, so it wasn’t so surprising when Gabe said, “Well, if you’re gonna keep changing things up around here, I don’t see why not. I mean, I’m a talented guy, I’ve got other prospects. We can concentrate on our music.”
“Sure,” said Ryland, and he flicked the back of Gabe’s head with one finger. “You could use the practice.”
“It’d sure be nice to live somewhere that wasn’t a cave for a while,” said Alex thoughtfully, and Nate just smiled. He’d never been an enthusiastic thief to begin with, and Victoria thought he’d probably be happier if they could somehow make a living busking.
Greta smiled again, bigger than before. “That’s wonderful,” she said. “That’s, oh, it’ll be great to play with you again, sometime. If you want, you could come stay at the palace for a while. I mean, you were so hospitable to me, sharing your food and your home and everything, so maybe I could return the favor.”
“Uh, wow,” Alex said. “I….” He looked around at the others, and met Victoria’s eye. She nodded; even if things would never be the same again, staying in the palace would be the experience of a lifetime, and maybe she’d get to see Greta, if only as a friend. “We would love that,” Alex finished, and Greta clapped her hands together happily.
“This is seriously shaping up to be the best day ever,” she said. “Oh, hold on, if you wait a second, I could change out of this tent”—she gestured towards her huge, ceremonial gown—“and into some real person clothes, and I could give you the grand tour.”
“Fantastic,” said Ryland, raising his eyebrows, and the queen grinned.
“This is going to be great,” she said. “Oh, Victoria, could you come with me to my chambers? I still have your dress—I cleaned it for you, though. I’ve been waiting for a chance to give it to you.”
Victoria opened her mouth and found it painfully hard to speak around the lump in her throat. “That’d be wonderful, Your Highness,” she said. That was it. Greta would return the dress, Victoria’s first pathetic attempt at a gift, and it would all be over, as if it had never been.
She followed the queen out of the throne room, unable to meet the eyes of any of the courtiers or guards, or take in the splendor of the palace. Even the queen’s figure was swimming in front of her eyes. She just hoped she didn’t cry.
They didn’t go far, though, not nearly far enough to reach the queen’s chambers. Greta grabbed her hand and pulled, and suddenly they were standing in a little out-of-the-way nook, out of hearing distance from the guards at the throne room door.
“Victoria,” said the queen, and Victoria was shocked to hear the tremor in her voice. “I’m so sorry I had to leave—I kept thinking, ‘God, am I just like Elisa?’ but I’m not, because I swear to God, you’re the only one I want. It’s not like I wanted to leave, but my father died—somebody had to be queen, and I thought it might as well be me. I mean, Amanda could have done it, but it wouldn’t have been fair to her, not when there was so much work to be done. Please, please don’t be angry.”
Anger couldn’t possibly have been farther from Victoria’s mind. She couldn’t blame Greta for not telling her, when she had told all of them she was the princess again and again, and they’d only mocked and mistrusted her. She couldn’t blame her for leaving, either, because obviously the princess would have bigger and more important things to do after the king’s death than hang around with a gang of thieves or fool around with a girl. You’re the only one I want, Greta had said, but obviously the queen wouldn’t actually be having an affair with a peasant prostitute-turned-thief, and there wasn’t any point in getting her hopes up. “I’m not angry,” she managed to say. “Thank you for your kindness.”
But Greta’s face fell, and Victoria wished she had found anything else to say. “It’s not kindness,” Greta said. “It’s not even gratitude. I’ve had a million suitors, and I never felt anything for any of them like I felt for you. Honest. I’ve worked it out with my advisors, and they say I don’t have to marry for diplomacy or everything—I mean, it helps, especially if I want to expand the kingdom, but it’s not like there aren’t other ways of making treaties, and I think the kingdom’s big enough, don’t you?”
She bit her lower lip, apparently frustrated, and Victoria was frozen in place, trying to understand just what it was she was saying. “Yes,” she said, because Greta had asked, and she didn’t know what else she could say.
“Yeah,” said Greta softly. “So, if you ever forgive me--because I’m not expecting anything, and I’d never make you do anything you didn’t want to--they said I can court whoever I want, or marry whoever I want, and if you still want me….” She was smiling, but it wasn’t the confident smile of a queen. It was the scared smile of Greta, who didn’t know how to steal or how to fill a water bucket or how to fuck, but who was willing to try them all anyway, because her life was a fairy tale, but she wanted to make it real.
“I still want you,” said Victoria. And Greta smiled, the sweet, sunburned smile that had made Victoria’s heart first shake, and somehow, without even meaning to, Victoria was reaching out and pulling the queen—the queen—into a deep kiss.
Greta didn’t pull back, and for the first time in a long time, Victoria thought maybe life did have happy endings.