‘He’s just a boy,’ she said. ‘And he didn’t steal anything too terrible.’
‘How would you know?’
‘I . . . well, I knew him. Sort of.’ A flush crept up her face. ‘He sometimes brought me things. Coal when it was cold. He gave other people things too.’
‘I didn’t realise your mother’s marriage had taken her so low that you were relying on gifts from dishonest servants.’
‘I don’t think he thought he was doing any harm. He’s a good . . .’
‘Shut up.’ The prince’s face hardened as he cut her off, his mouth tightening into a thin line. He didn’t look so handsome anymore. ‘He stole from us. He will go to the Troll Road and you will sit beside me as he drops. And you will never say another word about him to me. Do you understand?’
‘But—’
‘You need to stop behaving like a commoner,’ he muttered, pulling a fresh shirt over his head. ‘And talking like one. Your voice – it’s very coarse. Concentrate on the elocution lessons and leave matters of royal justice to my father and I.’
His words stung. She hadn’t thought he could hurt her any more than his cooling affections had done, but seeing his avoidance of her writ large on his face and hearing his words made her want to weep all over again.
‘Why are you marrying me?’ she asked, quietly. ‘You don’t love me.’
‘I have to.’ He looked at her and she saw sadness in his eyes, and she wondered who exactly it was for. ‘The whole kingdom is expecting it. If I put you aside now I will look heartless and fickle.’
‘Maybe I should leave,’ Cinderella said. She found that, after all her childish dreams of living in the castle, the idea of returning to her old home wasn’t so terrible after all. Even with the cold and the meagre amounts of food.
‘You can’t. I’m the prince and you’re a commoner. How much more foolish would I look if you were to go?’
‘I thought you wanted me,’ she said, and a tear slipped down her cheek. She didn’t know what to do. How was this going to be any kind of life?
‘I don’t know what happened on those nights of the Bride Ball.’ The prince slumped into a chair as Cinderella sat on the edge of the bed and they looked at each other, this time as honest strangers rather than supposed lovebirds. ‘I wasn’t looking for love. I was done with beauty. I wanted to find a practical wife; someone my father would approve of. Someone who understood what being a queen would entail.’ He looked over at Cinderella. ‘My mother was a noble and she still finds it difficult.’
Cinderella thought once again of Rose, her cool head and warm heart and sense of distance from the world. Rose had never talked of boys or crushes or hung the prince’s picture on the wall.
‘And then there you were,’ he said, and shrugged. ‘And from the moment I saw you until the moment they found you, I was driven with a desire I’ve never known. I thought I loved you. I would have died for you. But then when you arrived here, it was all different.’
‘That . . .’ Cinderella struggled to find the right word, ‘. . . that passion we felt on the balcony, though, surely that’s still there?’
‘You’re like a perfect copy of that girl. I should want you. You’re beautiful. When I look at you I’m reminded of how I felt that night and yet none of it is there. I can’t make myself want you.’
Cinderella stared down at her shoes; blue satin to match her dress, but no magic in them to light a fire in this man she’d been so convinced was her destiny.
‘What will we do?’ she asked.
‘It will get better.’ He leaned forward and squeezed her hand. ‘You will want for nothing. You will have a good life.’ With each sentence Cinderella could feel the walls of the castle tightening around her. His voice hardened and he straightened up, as if only by touching her, he’d felt repulsed. ‘But you will behave like a queen and you will come to the Troll Road with me at dusk tomorrow.’ Cinderella felt her insides crumble. She couldn’t help Buttons. She had no power to.
Rose had no better luck with the king who wasn’t even interested in Rose’s point that perhaps he had been doing some good with the things he’d taken. A thief was a thief, and the earl was angry. The king would not take the side of a serving boy over a man he relied on for funds and bodies in times of battle. Buttons was going to the Troll Road and there would be a royal procession there to remind the people that although he was a generous king, his justice was also to be feared.
That night, Cinderella’s search was half-hearted. She looked through libraries and studies, filled with books on law and science, where the kings’ secretaries drafted new laws and old. She went down to the kitchens and wine cellars but people were still working there, the heart of the castle never really slept, but while she looked she figured that if there were something strange hidden here that her wicked fairy godmother – as she’d come to think of her – was so keen on having, it wouldn’t be kept in a place where all and sundry passed by. Her head and heart were filled with thoughts of poor Buttons, locked up in the dungeons with no chance of mercy. He had been so kind to her and others and yet none would step forward to save him. How could they if even Cinderella and Rose couldn’t get the king or the prince to intervene. The castle sank into slumber as three o’clock rolled around again and she crept through the narrow corridors at the back of the kitchens until she reached the small back door.
The huntsman was waiting, as he always was. Cinderella was surprised at how relieved she was to see him, and he listened as she blurted out Buttons’ fate. He didn’t speak until she was finished and then stared into the night, where somewhere an owl hooted.
‘The Troll Road,’ he said, thoughtfully.
‘He’ll never survive. No one ever does.’ Cinderella thought of all the gifts Buttons had brought. Gifts she’d taken so lightly, without seeing this eventual consequence in the cheeky young man’s future. She’d wanted his stories and the game he played for her and hadn’t paid attention to the risks he’d been taking. How stupid had she been? Her old life was only a few weeks gone at most, but it felt like a lifetime ago. ‘We need to help him.’ She looked at the strange man who’d become her nightly companion. ‘Surely you can help him? Could we break him out of the dungeons? Give him some money and food and send him to the forest? We’d need a distraction, of course, and maybe some more people to help, but if you have friends . . .’
‘The mouse,’ he said, cutting her off. His voice was low and his eyes thoughtful as the winter wind lifted his dark hair. ‘Get the mouse to him and tell him to keep it in his pocket until they drop him from the bridge.’
‘What mouse?’ Cinderella frowned. What was he talking about? ‘Can’t you do something?’
‘The mouse that’s been following you around. That mouse. And I am doing something.’ He leaned into the doorway, standing close to her. ‘You just have to trust me.’
And she found, much as it irked her, that she did.
Dusk was falling as Cinderella picked up the little mouse and tucked him into the bodice of her dress along with a purple silk handkerchief as Rose looked on horrified, leaning on her walking stick. ‘What on earth are you doing?’
‘I’m not entirely sure.’ The mouse wriggled against her breast and Cinderella loosened the ribbons at the front of her dress just in case he was suffocating. He was tickling, that was for sure. ‘I’m going to give it to Buttons. Apparently it might help him.’
Rose picked up her heavy fur coat and slid her arms inside. ‘You do know what a troll is, don’t you? I don’t think it’s going to be scared of a mouse. Who told you that anyway?’
‘A friend.’ She tried to be nonchalant but it didn’t work. Rose paused and then picked up Cinderella’s own pale fur and wrapped it around her shoulders.
‘Darling Cinderella, we don’t have any friends.’ She smiled. ‘But I hope whoever this person is, they know something we don’t.’
‘Me too.’ She looked out of the window to the procession gathering below. It was g
oing to be a fine affair, she thought. If only the purpose wasn’t so deadly. Beyond the castle walls she could see the route to the bridge lit up by great torches which sank the rest of the city into shade. The route would be lined by smiling people too, caught up in the excitement of seeing royalty and feeding the frenzy. Beautiful and terrifying, that’s how the lights looked to her. She wondered how poor Buttons was coping.
‘We need to go,’ Rose said, pulling open the bedroom door. ‘They’ll be waiting for you.’
Out in the courtyard Rose found their parents alongside Ivy and the Viscount in the throng and stood with them, and Cinderella was pleased to see that they looked sombre and clearly were not caught up in the excitement of it as so many others were. Side by side, her step-mother and Rose looked elegantly aloof, as she imagined all noble women should, and even her father had taken on an air of sophistication. His back was straighter too, now he had a newspaper to run again. She wondered how he’d report this?
She nodded and gave them a small smile and they smiled back and for the thousandth time she wished she’d realised how lucky she was to have her family at all instead of living in her fantasies about a dead mother and having a royal lover.
A hush fell across the gathering as chains creaked and cogs ground against each and as the prisoner was brought up in the lift from the dungeons so far below. Cinderella didn’t know if it was her imagination but the night seemed to fill with a stench of rot and damp as if the air coming up with the cage hadn’t been fresh in a long, long time. Ahead she could see her grey pony, a gift from her fiancé, waiting to be mounted, and as the torch bearers and servants pulled back, she found she was almost alone when the gate opened. Buttons stood there, squinting even though it was nearly dark, with a fearsome, chain-mailed guard on either side of him. They pushed him forward. His hands were tied in front of him and he stumbled but didn’t fall. The crowd jeered slightly.
‘Wait!’ Cinderella called, as they were about to haul him onto the back of a cart for the cold journey to his fate. All eyes turned to her. The prince, already on horseback, started to call something out to her, but the king grabbed his arm. To reprimand his bride-to-be in public would not be chivalrous.
She drew herself up tall and walked towards Buttons. As she reached him, she pulled the mouse and silk handkerchief from their spot, nestled against her thumping heart.
‘A king must be just, and justice must be served,’ she said, her voice ringing loud and clear across the impatient crowd in the courtyard, whinnying horses and stamping boots. ‘But a princess must be gentle and kind. And so, to honour my husband to be and his majesty the king, I offer this traitor a good luck token’ – she held her hand up for a moment and then thrust the contents into Buttons’ pocket – ‘and wish him a swift and painless end.’ She held Buttons’ gaze for a moment before whispering in a rush, ‘Keep it with you.’ He gave her the tiniest nod in reply.
The mouse delivered, Cinderella turned back to face the king and fell into a low curtsey, before walking towards her waiting pony.
‘Your gesture is most becoming of a royal princess,’ the king nodded at her. Even the prince gave her a half-smile. She reserved her own for a glance at Rose, standing at the castle wall to see the procession off, who beamed approvingly back. Cinderella was definitely getting better at the game.
She didn’t look at Buttons once during the procession through the streets, and pulled her fur-lined hood over her head so no one could see she didn’t share the excitement of the rest of the parade. People jeered as the cart went by and every now and then something rotten was thrown his way, hitting the poor, cold boy. Even though he was on his way to his death they seemed to want to punish him more. She scanned the crowds, lit up as they were by the high burning torches on the path, and wondered how many of them Buttons had helped with gifts of food or money when times were desperate. Perhaps they were the most aggressive in their shouting for fear that he might give up their names as the bridge grew closer.
Finally they reached the edge of the city and the bridge loomed ahead of them, the forest dark on the other side. Cinderella’s stomach twisted as she saw the thick stone rising up from the overgrown banks of the dead river below. Her father and step-mother had never brought them here as children and neither had she been one of those who’d come to play at being prisoners and trolls near its edge before getting shooed away by the soldiers who guarded it. The bridge was wider than she’d expected, maybe twenty feet across, and as soon as the heavily armoured bridge-keeper leaned over the side and lit the torches that hung there, a fearsome growling rumbled from underneath, so deep and angry she was sure the ground beneath her horse’s feet trembled with it.
They took Buttons down from the cart, and the royal procession watched in silence as he was delivered into the Bridge Guard’s hands. He looked tiny between them. The Bridge Guard were known for their size and fearsome, silent natures, and all that could be seen below their helmets were their beards. Cinderella thought they looked like armoured bears, and she shivered seeing her friend between them. Buttons did not look her way, but she was proud to see that he wasn’t crying nor begging for mercy. His eyes were defiant.
The troll roared again, knowing fresh meat was coming its way, and Cinderella flinched. What had the huntsman been thinking? How could a mouse be any use against such a creature.
The night was dark around them, dusk having been eaten up in the hour’s walk to the bridge, and as Buttons, his hands untied, walked into the middle of the bridge, Cinderella wished all the torches would fail so she wouldn’t have to watch.
‘You have been found guilty of theft and treason,’ the crier called out to him. ‘Do you have anything to say before the sentence is carried out?’
In the flickering light, Buttons simply smiled. It was his cheeky grin, the one she’d taken so much for granted in their friendship. A brave smile. He’d known what risks he was taking all along and it hadn’t stopped him. She hadn’t paid attention to his words of warning about castle life but now she understood. She’d only seen him as a boy, but he’d been far more grown up than she was.
‘I’ll be back for more silver,’ Buttons said. ‘There’s plenty to go round and people are hungry.’ He looked down at his feet. ‘Not as hungry as the troll sounds, mind you, but maybe I won’t be to his taste.’
‘Do it,’ the king growled, unimpressed by this lack of repentance from his subject.
Buttons pulled the handkerchief and the mouse out of his pocket and his smile fell as he looked down confused. Cinderella strained to see. Something was happening there – something was changing.
The largest of the Bridge Guard tugged at a heavy wooden lever at the edge of the bank, and it squealed at being forced out of winter’s grip and into use. The trapdoor opened and Buttons fell, vanishing from sight to the dead riverbed below. The troll roared. And then roared some more.
‘Please,’ Cinderella rested her hand on the prince’s arm. ‘Can we leave now?’ If she was forced to hear poor Buttons screaming then it would tear her heart apart.
‘Of course we’re leaving,’ the prince said, already turning his horse around. ‘We’re not barbaric.’ Cinderella looked into his perfectly beautiful face and wondered if he had any idea how ridiculous that sounded after what they’d just done.
9
‘A secret’
Dinner was waiting for them at the castle, but Cinderella couldn’t eat. Instead she pushed her food around her plate until it made a heap at one side that wasn’t fooling anyone, but unlike when she was a child and food was scarce, no one told her off or forced her to eat it. She wondered perhaps if it was simply that no one noticed. The prince and the king were talking and laughing and the queen just smiled occasionally and commented on the fine quality of the venison and how she hoped the weather would break soon and they could all get back to the hunt.
Cinderella’s insides churned as a servant took her plate away. She itched to see the huntsman and hear about his plan to
save Buttons. Had it even been possible? There were always rumours of people surviving taking the Troll Road and escaping to the forest, but as far as she knew none of them had ever returned to the city, so it was all just myth and legend. The huntsman wouldn’t come until three and that was four long hours away. Time that she should spend searching the castle for whatever it was the fairy godmother was so keen for her to find. She’d been through so many of the rooms she was sure she’d never find whatever it was, and what then? Would the fairy godmother transport her to the Troll Road for her uselessness? The way their bargain had turned out she wouldn’t be surprised. She looked across the mahogany table to the prince whose face was ever more handsome in the candlelight.
She also wanted to know where he disappeared to every night. Was it something as simple as a serving girl? Or one of the other ladies of the court? She wondered why she cared – for all her worry about his feelings towards her, she hadn’t really taken much time to think about how her feelings for him had changed. Had it ever been more than a childish crush? She’d fallen in love with a picture and a dream. The reality was different. Still, the image of his empty bedroom stuck in her mind and her curiosity was beginning to overwhelm her.
She’d follow him, she decided, as the apple pie arrived laced with Chantilly cream. The scent of sweet apples was like perfume in the air and her mouth suddenly watered. Following the prince and searching the castle weren’t necessarily different things – especially if he was going somewhere she hadn’t yet explored. She bit into the pie and the pastry melted on her tongue and cinnamon apple exploded sharply on her tongue. That’s what she’d do. She’d follow him.
After dinner, while the king and the prince drank brandy and discussed whatever it was men talked about when women weren’t present, Cinderella ran back to her room and breathlessly changed out of her stiff formal dress into a looser, lighter one that she could move quickly and quietly in. Barefoot, she made her way back to the drawing room and hid behind a thick curtain, peering through the gap at the double doors. She didn’t have to wait long before the prince came out, nodding a polite goodnight to his father and leaving the king to the fire and the quiet and his thoughts.