The Once Princess, Part 2

Part 1

He stood up and began to pace back and forth from the chair to the hearth, the firelight and shadows making his face look more gaunt than before. 

“I have received news, grave news, that has upended everything. Even now, I can hardly fathom what it means. For me, for our family, for the kingdom . . .” 

His voice faltered into silence, and I prompted, “News, Papa? Is it the Eidermans at the border? A rebel enclave?” I thought about the old stories I’d heard about the bloodthirsty traitors who had once plotted to overthrow my father and place their leader on the throne. I’d often imagined how I might respond when queen if such insurrection were to arise again.

“It—it is not recent news. It is something that happened long ago, but I was not aware of it.” Papa sighed and ran his fingers through his hair again and again, then he stopped pacing and faced me.

“Let me tell you a story, Pepper.” That was his pet name for me. “Fifteen years ago—that was when the Shrike was still in hiding.” I shivered at the rebel leader’s name. The plans he’d had for the kingdom, and especially my family, were common knowledge. Gruesome knowledge. “He was stronger than ever and had won over many to his side, even here in the palace. Not only servants but a few court officials as well.”

“The almoner, Baldric,” I whispered.

He flinched as if at a stab, and I felt guilty for mentioning the man who had been his friend. “Yes, he was one. When he was unmasked as a traitor, we also arrested several others whom we had trusted completely, including the nursemaid we had chosen to care for our first child. She was highly recommended by Trista’s own sister, so we had perfect faith in her. 

“How could we know the Shrike had poisoned her mind just a few months before she came to us? He must have known she would be entrusted with the care of a royal child, and he targeted her with his terrible lies.”

I shivered and tried to imagine being held as a baby by that fiendish traitor. She probably had fangs hidden behind a sweet red smile.

“We discovered the nursemaid’s treachery when the Shrike was captured, and they were both imprisoned. She sickened soon after and died. He was tried and executed in short order. Until a few days ago, I thought that was the end of the matter—whatever he had been planning, we had stopped it. There was never any widespread violence, the rebels never stormed the castle. We thought the danger was past. But now . . .” He buried his face in his hands and I thought he might have sobbed—but that was impossible for my strong, brave father. Nothing but the greatest misery could drive him to tears.

He resumed his pacing and picked up the threads of the story. “Before we captured him, the Shrike had planned a terrible, daring deed. Something that would shame the crown, strike at my very heart, and be the start of the war he had been working so hard to begin. 

“On the night the queen gave birth to our first child, the nursemaid was to steal the princess.”

I swallowed my breath and a dozen questions crowded my brain. A plot to kidnap me as a baby? How was it thwarted? Why was Papa only finding out about it now? 

“What happened, Papa?”

His face twisted in pain. “The plot succeeded. They stole our daughter. But they did more than that. There was a woman in the rebel ranks who gave birth to a girl the day before ours was born, and the Shrike convinced her and her husband to give up their child. The nursemaid took their babe and exchanged her with our newborn daughter.”

  The questions scattered like rats running from the light of a blinding torch. The child of two rebels? Exchanged? It was impossible, of course. A hoax, a riddle perhaps. But the look the king gave me was one of sorrow and apology. This story was true, somehow. 

“And y-you,” I tried to keep my voice from cracking. “You just discovered this? How? And how did they switch the babies back? And w-where is the other girl?”

He held up a hand. “Your mother, er, the queen had a hard labor. It lasted many hours, and the child was born just before dawn. As soon as the cord was cut, the nursemaid took her out of the room—only for a few minutes. The switch must have happened then. When she returned with the babe, it had been cleaned and dressed. Half-blind with sleeplessness, a room lit by candlelight—we had no reason to suspect it was not the child we had seen moments before.”

“But then what? What happened to the other baby?”

“The princess was given to the parents of the other child—rebels in league with the Shrike. He had his own plan, which we still know little about. What I have managed to learn is that it was meant to be short-lived. He would reveal the substitution on the day of the false princess’s christening. Perhaps he meant to disrupt the ceremony, disgrace the whole royal family, demand the throne in exchange for our true daughter’s life—I can only imagine what he might have done with our child in his hands.

“But we captured the Shrike just one week after your birth. As I said, he and the nursemaid were thrown in prison and his followers scattered, including the man and wife who were pretending the princess was their own. They were the basest of cowards. They must have been terrified at the possibility of anyone finding out what they had done and coming for the princess. So they . . . disposed of her.” Papa hid his face again for a moment and looked far older than I’d ever seen him. 

“The man wanted to throw her in a ditch to die, but the woman had a shred more pity. She left the babe on the steps of a church known for taking in foundlings. The abhorrent woman said we should thank her for her ‘kindness.’ Even the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.

“A kind holy man placed our child in a home where a newborn babe had just died. She assumed the name of the dead child and grew up as one of the family, the daughter of a poor baker.”

And for the first time, I realized. The other baby, the one that was not the princess, was me. The exchange had not been discovered. The babies had never been switched back. The infant dropped on the church steps was the one who should have been sitting in this chair, wearing my dress, talking to her father. So what was I?

“Of course we knew none of this, nothing, until two weeks ago. The woman—the rebel’s wife—did not confess her crime until on her deathbed. Only when she was certain of her own fate did she call in a holy man and tell the tale. Word made it quickly back to the palace, but by the time we sent soldiers to the house, the woman had died.”

I imagined a squalid hovel, the men in armor bearing our royal crest bursting through the door, and the haggard woman in the bed lying pale and cold, beyond mortal reach. My mother. 

“May I go to my room?”

He looked surprised. “Do you understand everything? Do you have any more questions?”

“I would like to go to my room.”

He inclined his head in a heavy nod, and I bolted out the door.