The Rat Prince

  “Aye, ma’am, I shall go. And I’m taking Lady Rose with me.”

  “No!” The cry was from Jessamyn. “Do not take my sister away!”

  Her mother rounded on her, grasped her shoulders, and shook her. “How dare you call her sister. Go join Lord Lancastyr in the coach, you bad, horrid child!”

  I could see that Jessamyn was about to argue. This would never do. “Go, Jessamyn, dear, rest easy.” My voice was dull, as hopeless as I felt. “I won’t leave. You have my word upon it.”

  Jessamyn gave me one desperate look of sorrow tinged with relief, and pelted off down the outside staircase. Eustacia followed suit.

  “My lady,” Mrs. Grigson said to me while they hastened off. “Let us flee this place together.”

  How could I explain in front of Wilhemina that I needed to stay at Lancastyr Manor to make sure she did not murder my father? I could not burden Mrs. Grigson with that information either, for she could do nothing to help. No, it was best to let her continue thinking me a coward so that she could leave here without looking back. “My dear Mrs. Grigson … I cannot. You go, but I must remain.”

  The rebellious light in Mrs. Grigson’s faded blue eyes went out. She was disappointed in me. I wondered why fate decreed that when I tried to be strongest, I appeared weakest.

  She cried, “My lady, how could you be so spiritless? I have given up my position and my future for naught! Where is the courage and daring of your noble ancestors?” She hurried down the back stairs in a distressed flutter of gray skirts, dragging Pye with her. I hoped she would take him along when she departed; he, too, had put himself in danger by being kind to me.

  Now Wilhemina burst into high, mocking laughter. Without another word, she turned a scarlet-clad shoulder and headed out to the waiting coach.

  Somehow, in the next instant I found myself running down the back service passage and into the kitchen garden. There, where thick brick walls protected the rows of vegetables, I could release my grief and shame without being seen or heard. So I fell to my knees in the dirt beside a melon vine, and sobbed.

  Lady Wilhemina had won. She had won, and I was alone, and the long, illustrious history of the house of Lancastyr was fated to come to a wretched end, because I had failed. There would be no catching the ear of the prince or the king tonight. I would not find Sir Tompkin or Lord Bluehart.

  In the lowering sunlight of the dying day, I could sense part of myself dying as well.

  After the first storm of weeping, I reached into my shift pocket and tilted the comforting weight of the Lancastyr ring into my palm. I gripped it hard. “It was not too much to ask,” I lamented, tasting tears on my tongue. “I wish I could go to the ball.” My thumb sought the sapphire and began to rub back and forth over the Lancastyr coat of arms.

  I don’t know how long I grieved thus before I began to notice something happening to the Lancastyr ring. It grew cool under my fingers, when the soft gold should have warmed with the heat of my skin.

  Strange, it was now giving off a wild fragrance, crisp and full of promise. What a contrast to the sluggish throb of rage and despair coursing through my veins!

  I breathed in the fresh scent, feeling it revive me, as the sapphire signet continued to cool against my skin and became increasingly slippery. It moved, it wriggled. Then, in a gush, it melted into liquid. And instead of a ring there was water bubbling up in my palm, more and more of it, sparkling like fine champagne. I cupped my hands together to try to contain it, but in an instant the water brimmed over.

  “Ah!” I cast it away and stood up, staring in wonder at a waterfall flowing in the air without touching the ground. The cascade hovered, shimmering with chiming laughter.

  What was happening? I passed a trembling hand across my eyes.

  Then the liquid took the shape of a woman who stepped down in front of me.

  She glowed faintly blue, like the lavender edging our flower beds. Her thick purple-black hair fell to her ankles in lively waves. Enormous eyes, set slantwise in her face, seemed to scatter light of their own. Now they were sapphire, now aqua, now amethyst. So dazzled was I that I cannot tell you what dress she wore—or indeed if she wore one at all.

  My ring—the Lancastyr ring—had changed into this?

  How?

  An image of a sleek black rat popped into my head. Blackie! He’d given me the ring. This was his doing!

  I would have puzzled more over it had not the woman looked at me with those changing eyes, laughed like a song, and parted her lips to speak. Oh! What wisdom of the ages would this unearthly creature grant to me, a mere mortal?

  “You asked to attend this evening’s ball,” she said in a sweet little voice, completely unexpected in its childlike trill.

  What?

  She hadn’t revealed the secrets of the cosmos. She’d said something else. Something about a ball. What ball?

  It took all the power I could muster to speak.

  “Great lady, who are you?”

  She smiled, spun on tiptoe so her hair swirled around her, and said in that dulcet voice, “Do you jape at me, girl of the Lancastyrs? I adore jests and foolery! Yet your kind has always seemed so dreadfully serious to me. In fact, it’s been hundreds of years since any of you have called upon me at all. What game do we play now?”

  Play? I felt my jaw go slack. With great effort I gathered my wits and replied, “It is no game, my lady. I know you not. I am Rose de Lancastyr.” I curtsied with as much elegance as I could in the uneven soil of the garden, worrying about my unseemly attire.

  With another melting laugh, she came forward and kissed the top of my head. “You are delightful! Full of silliness,” she said. “You must of course know who I am, if you summoned me. I shall grant your wish, the dearest wish of your heart. You shall attend this celebration tonight, since it is so important to you.”

  From the spot where she touched me, joy rippled through my body. I wanted to give way and savor this new feeling, but instead I persisted: “I don’t understand. Forgive me.”

  “Ah.”

  A tiny pucker visited her perfect brow. She put a long finger to my cheek, and while bubbling lightness spread through me from that point of communion, she tilted her head sideways and studied me intently for a few moments, as if she were listening to something.

  “Ah,” she said again, yet it was a different sound, one of dawning comprehension, as though she’d taken possession of my thoughts through her fingertip. “I see. I understand. The ring was lost to the Lancastyrs for centuries. The rats of Lancastyr Manor stole it from your forebears. And very recently, a quite special rat has returned it!”

  More laughter, and she danced away, casting her delicate wild fragrance hither and thither, stepping into the air and down to earth again.

  “I know what to do, I know what to do!” she cried.

  In a flash, she was before me again. I braced myself for more glorious strangeness.

  “Dear Rose, also called Cinderella, I am Ashiira, your family’s goddess. I have cared for your line since long before your ancestors took the name of Lancastyr, in the days of old Phoenicia. My power comes from the Great One who rules all. In antiquity, your family danced and sang for me and burned fragrant wood to please me, and in return I gave them the precious blue stone, which they could use to call upon me for aid. Yet I warned them to choose wisely before they used the stone, as I would grant their requests only once in each generation.”

  Did I understand aright? This goddess would grant me a wish—but only one?

  “Girl of the Lancastyrs,” Ashiira continued, “you have asked something of me and I shall grant your request. But this should be greatly amusing, for you have not chosen wisely! In fact, your wish was most frivolous!”

  I felt my heart drop from the dizzy heights whence it had begun to climb. I hoped she did not mean what I thought she meant.

  “But going to the ball was not my real wish!” I cried. “I wish to heal my father’s mind, rescue my family from ruin, be ri
d of my stepmother, and see to it that the line of the Lancastyrs will continue unbroken.”

  “But that is not what you said!” she exclaimed in high glee, twinkling like a firefly. “You wished to go to the ball at Castle Wendyn tonight. And so you shall! I read the entire story in your mind just now. Let me take care of your appearance first; then we’ll be off to the stable yard to see how best to convey you to the celebrations.”

  Before I could conceive of a way to halt the misunderstanding I had just set in motion, the fairy-goddess pointed at me again and uttered something in a lilting, unintelligible language.

  I felt the magic gather about me, stirring the sky. A web of music, a mist of stars …

  It began.

  PRINCE CHAR

  We risked everything, my companions and I, in our headlong flight to save Rose. Rather than returning by our safe rat-routes through sewers, pipes, and walls, we ran through the streets, out in the open, keeping watch in case the Lancastyr coach passed us on the way back home.

  My gallant band had been promised a dangerous action, and so it turned out to be. Need I remind you that most humans are hostile toward rats?

  We evoked shrill screams and hasty flight from some, brutal attacks from others. Yet here was a chance for heroism, and my people rose to the occasion. An innkeeper almost crushed Corncob with a heavy keg. Truffle was able to save him with a clever rush-and-feint maneuver that drew the innkeeper’s notice away and allowed Corncob to escape.

  After several more close shaves, we arrived unharmed at Lancastyr Manor. In the orange-and-purple glow of the sunset, we saw no carriage awaiting at the front of the grand house. My heart felt as though it might split asunder. We were too late. Somehow, we had missed them.

  Nevertheless, I swerved and headed for the stables, hoping that perhaps the ladies had tarried in their preparations and the coach had not yet been sent for. If it were still there, we might prevent them from leaving somehow. I had a wild notion of commanding my followers to spook the horses by leaping up and swinging from their tails. It might even have worked.

  In the event, we never had a chance to attempt it.

  When we rounded the curve of the drive, we were greeted most unexpectedly by the sight of Lady Rose standing on the neat white gravel. She was not wearing the gold gown the mice had tailored for her; instead, she was arrayed in a luminous greeny-blue creation apparently woven from moonbeams and clouds. It hugged her tiny waist and shifted around her long limbs, the way spray floats across a waterfall. At the same time, the dress gave off a cool, clear scent. Her hair was spangled with diamonds of blinding brilliance. And my gift of the magnificent deep green emeralds blazed around her arched neck.

  But all this finery was outshone by the light of her face.

  I could not tear my gaze from her.

  Then an unnatural female voice captured my attention. “Now, Rose de Lancastyr, you need a coach to take you to the ball, do you not?”

  I turned my head to look. The timbre of the voice was a child’s, but it had come from an uncanny woman who gave off a pulsing blue light.

  As I watched, this creature rolled a large green melon along the drive. (Not a pumpkin, mind you. It was a melon.) Then she pointed at it and uttered some words I could not understand.

  In eerie silence, the melon puffed and swirled. It changed in color and sprouted wheels. Before I could register what was taking place, the thing had become an enormous coach, golden and ornate. At my side as always, Swiss gave a shout of disbelief. Corncob and Beef One, Beef Two, and Beef Three scattered quickly, disappearing before I could find my voice to command them. Only the dauntless Truffle remained behind with Swiss and me.

  The strange blue woman—evidently a sorceress—laughed. Then she patted the melon-coach with a fluttering hand. “Such a wonderful conveyance to take you to the ball, my dear—is it not?” she warbled to Rose. “You will need horses to pull it, of course.”

  Rose did not appear to share the blue lady’s amusement. She was staring at the vehicle in stark amazement. It bore the Lancastyr coat of arms.

  While Swiss, Truffle, and I stood as still as could be, the terrifying bright gaze of the sorceress roved the yard until it lit upon a group of field mice, cowering behind a hay bale. She pointed at them and spoke a few unrecognizable words.

  Without a sound to herald the transformation, the mice began to grow: Their legs and necks stretched, and their tiny nervous mouse-expressions faded. Their useful whip-like tails became swatches of long hair, good only for swishing at flies. In a winking, they lost all semblance of their former selves.

  They were horses.

  Beside me, Swiss stifled a sound. Truffle gripped him with her tail, in warning or support.

  Then the changeable eyes of the sorceress began to move again, searching her surroundings as if she knew what she might find next.

  Us.

  “Flee!” I cried to my subjects. “Make haste and hide!”

  We turned to run toward the kitchen garden, but it was too late. The sorceress had spotted us.

  “A coachman and two footmen!” she said, giggling. “That’s what you need, Rose de Lancastyr. Ah, how very entertaining you mortals are.”

  I did not see the pointing finger of the blue lady, but I heard the terrible words. And then it happened.

  My body left the ground. I floated up in the air toward Rose. And I began to change.

  “Blackie! Not Blackie!” Rose shrieked.

  My sleek fur; my streamlined, compact, surefooted shape; my keen vision, my powerful snout, my brilliantly accurate whiskers; my ears so sharp, my teeth so strong—lost, all lost, dropping away from me in a rush of bereavement and bewilderment.

  I shot up and out, stretched and pulled and pushed until I stood tall, even taller than the two women before me.

  Nearby, Swiss had undergone the same transformation. His rat-body was gone, replaced with that of a human.

  We were dressed in lavishly embroidered silk tunics, the finest cashmere hose, and jeweled shoes. There was a belt of large precious sapphires slung about my hips, and both Swiss and I wore rings of gold and silver. The sorceress’s idea of proper attire for Rose’s footmen was magnificent beyond anything I’d ever beheld.

  Swiss blinked at me with light, anguished human eyes. He had a pointed chin and a face made to grin, with a broad nose and mouth. Just like the real Swiss. The rat-Swiss.

  “Your Highness!” he wailed.

  I tried to smell him, to check that he was unharmed, but could not. This thing called a nose hardly worked at all.

  I heard a sound of distress and whirled to see Truffle teetering on her new human legs. They were short and sturdy, more ratlike than mine, and her hair and eyebrows were gray with age. This was the cruelest change indeed: the sorceress had magicked a young female rat into an old human coachman.

  “Your Highness, what is happening?” Truffle patted herself gingerly. Shock spread across her face as her new human fingers encountered a superior coachman’s cloak. Then she appeared to realize there was something on her head. It was a tricorne hat. She took it off, held it at arm’s length, and gazed at it in dumb disbelief.

  Anger sparked in my heart. My subjects were being used as pawns in some heartless game of magic, and I hadn’t the power to stop it.

  Not yet.

  But it was my responsibility to take care of Swiss and Truffle.

  “Fear nothing, my brave companions,” I assured them in the human tongue. “I shall not leave you. I will get you out of this.”

  “Prince Char,” the blue lady called, coming close.

  I stiffened my new spine and sinews, instructing myself not to shy away from her.

  “What have you done?” I demanded. “Who are you and why have…”

  She leaned forward and lay her forehead against mine. “Prince Char, noblest of your kind, tonight you will guard Rose de Lancastyr. Say nothing and do nothing to dissuade her from attending this event, for it is there that she will meet, and
make, her fate.”

  But … Prince Geoffrey!

  I made as if to protest, to pour out my fears in human speech so that Rose could be warned, but to no avail. The sorceress had cast a spell upon me with her words, and my mouth remained shut. So I tried to force my human legs to take me to Rose, in order to carry her into the house and keep her there if necessary, but I could not move.

  “Rose de Lancastyr will attend the ball,” the blue lady declared, as if she knew my thoughts. “You shall not interfere. I, Ashiira, order it to be.”

  There was magic in her speech.

  Then she put her arms across my shoulders and chanted some more foreign words. Within her embrace, the panic and fury slowly seeped out of me and trickled away.

  “You have the form of a man,” she whispered. “It is now time to fully become one.”

  And I did.

  I reached toward the twilit sky with arms so long, I thought I might touch it. I took a deep breath and inhaled this new world, then exhaled the old one.

  Ahhh.

  A powerful tide of cool elation surged through me. In this new shape, I could do much. And I would do it. I would save my people from Geoffrey. I would rid them of Wilhemina. I would …

  “Do as I bid,” said Ashiira. “Protect Rose de Lancastyr.”

  “You need not cast a spell to make me do that,” I replied. “It’s what I’ve always intended. If you desire her safety, then why would you allow—”

  She hushed me with a finger to my lips. “Trust me,” she said. “I am the spirit of the ring you gave to Rose. The Lancastyrs are your humans. They are my humans, too.”

  So she was not a sorceress after all—she was the fabled goddess of the Lancastyrs! Why had this not occurred to me? This meant Lady Rose had used the ring, and I was the one responsible for tonight’s madness. I’d intended Rose to employ the ring as a fallback if other means failed. Yet I had not meant her to do so alone, without guidance, without consulting the red book I’d been so careful to give her.