Honest Eyes, Angel Voice

"Me no think this a good idea, Cinderelly," Jaq said, as he stood on top the dressing table, looking up at her. "Me no think so at all."

"I know, Jaq," Cinderella said softly. "But I have to do this. I don't have a choice."

"Sure you do, Cinderelly," Jaq said. "You can stay here, where safe and got prince and stuff."

Cinderella chuckled. "I'm not leaving for good, Jaq. I'll be back soon, by tomorrow evening at the latest."

"Then why going?"

"Because I can't just sit here while people laugh at me behind my back and newspapers print stories about me full of lies," Cinderella replied. "I need to know what I've done, I need to understand why people hate me. I need to understand."

"So what if none of them like Cinderelly?" Jaq demanded. "Cinderelly good and kind and pretty-pretty. Cinderelly better than any of them."

Cinderella smiled. "That's very sweet of you, Jaq." She kissed her finger, and pressed it against his furry cheek. "But I can't spend my whole life hiding from laughter or dislike. I won't. I want to be happy, and to do that I need to understand what it is I need to do to make other people like me, and to understand where all these horrible rumours came from."

"And you think this will help?" Jaq asked.

"I read a play recently," Cinderella said. "Where the king goes around his camp in disguise and finds out what all his soldiers really think."

Jaq looked towards the bay windows leading out onto the balcony. "This ain't no camp, Cinderelly. Who gonna be out at this time of night."

Cinderella looked out the window. Night's blanket still engulfed the world, a deep black that admitted of not even the faintest light of dawn. Jaq had a point, in that if she went out into the town at this late hour she was likely to find nothing more than a lot of closed up doors and people slumbering in their beds.

But, at the same time, she didn't have a lot of choice in the matter. She had asked Jaq and all her friends to help her find a way to sneak out of the palace and into the city bustling below, and after a couple of weeks their considered opinion had been that it could not be done. There was simply no way that she could get from her room, and she would have to start in her room in order to change into her disguise, all the way out through the gates or over the wall without being spotted. The palace was a living thing, Cinderella was finding, with a rhythm to its movements that was far different from the 'anything at any time' practice of her own servitude in her stepmother's house. While she, as a maid of all work, had never been able to plan much further ahead than the next demand of Anastasia or Drizella, the army of servants, functionaries and officials who served the palace moved to a schedule that only they understood, dancing to music only they could hear, moving throughout the palace like blood being pumped around a being by an invisible heart. There was no way that Cinderella could avoid them all, not least because she was still learning all the different routes throughout the labyrinthine seat of royalty, and in all likelihood she would never learn all of the backstairs shortcuts known to the staff.

But, though the palace never truly slept, it did doze off a bit. Though there were still some servants abroad even in the witching hour, there were far fewer than those who toiled during the day, and it had been easier for Cinderella to learn their movements and how to keep out of their way. By leaving at night, she was condemning herself to several hours in the cold, lonely dark, but she was at least assured of getting out of the palace in the first place.

And she had to leave. She could not leave things as they were. They had moved on from mere sniggers and hastily stifled laughter behind her back. Fresh newspaper stories had appeared about her supposed affair with her mysterious lover. Fresh candidates for the role had been identified - though thankfully there was still no mention of Lieutenant Kilpatrick - and there were parts of the palace that she could not go near because they had been posited as likely assignation spots. It seemed as though everyone in the palace, in the entire court, had read at least one article about her infidelity.

She could hear them whispering about her as she walked by. Sometimes she hid herself around corners so that she could hear the rest of what they were saying.

"Ingratitude is what I call it. Rank ingratitude and no mistake. To think that she was only a servant girl before the prince took pity on her and now she repays him like this."

"Oh, I know, and did you see how much leg she was showing? No respectable would wear a skirt that short, I can tell you."

"To think, we have a jezebel in the Queen's Tower. Did you ever think you'd live to see the day?"

That had been just one example of gossip between two washer women, but it was far from isolated. If it wasn't her dress - and none of her dresses were shorter than calf length anyway - that it was her neckline, or the fact that her arms or shoulders were bare to the world. It had gotten so bad that she had taken to wearing ballgowns with opera gloves around the palace, to try and answer her critics. Then she had heard them saying that she was dolled up that she must be meeting some lover somewhere, because why else would she be so fancily attired? It was driving Cinderella mad.

She looked for mockery in every tone, now. She looked for pity or contempt in every eye. At dinner only this evening the King had complimented her upon her appearance, and said something about what a pretty wife his son had taken, and Cinderella had been unable to work out if he was being sincere or if he was snidely referring to the allegations that she was cuckolding his son.

She had to get out. Even if she learned nothing new or useful, just being out of the palace for a day, unknown, anonymous, would be a blessed relief. And, with good fortune, she would learn something to improve her situation in the future.

Cinderella stood up, and examined herself critically. She was dressed in her maid's dress, the only thing she still owned that did not make her look, if not like a princess, then at least like a noble lady. This dress, at least, that was fraying at the hem, still made her look like a commoner. She put on a headscarf, covering all her hair but her bangs and tying it under her chin. There. No one would guess, seeing her now, that she was the wife of the Prince of Armorique.

That was Cinderella's hope, in any case.

Her gaze fell on the note she had written, sitting on top of the dressing table. It was for Eugene, telling him what she had done and making sure that he knew not to worry: she had neither run away nor been kidnapped. She promised to be back, and told him she loved him.

Cinderella had no doubt that he would be very upset with her when she got back, but she hoped that he would understand enough to forgive her. She hadn't to do this. She couldn't just leave things as they were.

"Goodbye, Jaq," she said. "I'll be alright. I'll be back soon, you'll see."

She turned to go, blowing out the single candle that had been keeping her room alight as she tiptoed down the stairs, past the quarters of her slumbering maids. A slight smile flitted across Cinderella's face. She was on her way.

She moved through the palace like a ghost, haunting halls dark and deserted. She evaded the few servants walking the empty corridors, carrying out small tasks in the unoccupied rooms. She knew, now, where they would be, and so she knew how to be where they would not be, and thus get past them. She moved through the halls and down the staircases, out of the palace proper and into the grounds through the french windows in the dining room. The garden was cold, cold enough to make Cinderella shiver a little, and the moonlight twinkled on the dew collecting on the grass.

It was so still, so quiet. She could easily have spent some time soaking up the quiet, still beauty of the gardens at night, the way that darkness transformed the place into something that was at the same time beautiful and a little fear-inducing, turning the shrubs and the trees to monsters with many arms, posed, waiting to strike.

But she did not have time. She had to keep going, had to get out of the palace, had to be in the town before dawn broke and cockerel crowed. Cinderella rushed through the gardens, her black slippers growing damp with dew, as the only sound besides her footsteps was the ornamental stream running by.

She did not head for the gate. It would be closed at this time of night, with no visitors expected, and day or night the gatehouse was always manned. But there was a way over the wall, a way that Jaq and Gus had found, the way - most likely - that whoever had set the stables on fire had used to get in or out. She ought to have told someone about it, and she would, after she had used it for her own purposes.

Cinderella crossed the gardens and reached the spot, a place obscured from view by the trees planted nearby, a place where weeds and vines had grown up the wall so thick that they could be climbed.

Cinderella grasped the vines tightly in her hands, feeling their roughness against her palms, and wished that she had thought to bring gloves as she began to climb.

Frederica Eugene de la Fontaine stood facing the window, looking out into the night beyond her rented chateau.

The room was dark, lit only by a single candle flame. Even that was too much light for the darkness she was admitting into her soul.

"Anton," she murmured. "Have you found a man?"

Anton stood in the doorway, looking intensely uncomfortable. "I...I continue to doubt the wisdom of this course."

"Is there more wisdom in going back home a failure?"

Anton was silent for a moment. "Perhaps not," he admitted. "But there is more honour in it."

"And what is honour, really?" Frederica murmured. "How will honour preserve me from my father's wrath? Eleanor had honour, but it did not stop her from betraying me."

"Before Toulon you would not have done this."

"Before Toulon I was not the laughingstock of my father's court," Frederica said. "I was his pride and joy, his finest spy and mistress of spies. Now I am his gravest disappointment."

"Highness-"

"Enough of this," Frederica said. "Have you found a man to do the deed?"

"I have, your highness."

"And?"

Anton frowned. "And what, highness?"

"How will it be done?" Frederica asked, her voice hoarse. "How will she die?"

"Do you really wish to know?"

"I have no choice, I must know," Frederica said. "If I do not know...I must know, or I am a coward. How will it be done?"

"By the knife," Anton said.

Frederica bowed her head. The knife. She could imagine the blade, sharp and glinting, cutting through that pretty neck. Blood on a pillow, staining that lovely hair. She shivered. I cannot fail. I cannot turn away. "Tell him to await my word."

"Not to simply do the deed?"

"When I command it, not before."

Anton blinked. "Stirrings of conscience, still?"

Frederica gave him a very cool gaze. "Thank you, Anton, that will be all."

She turned back to the window as he left her, his footfalls gradually fading away.

Give me strength to do what must be done.

And God forgive me.

In the streets of Rennes, Cinderella shivered. The night was cold, a little colder than she had expected, to tell the truth. She wished that she had brought a cloak.

She walked down what would be one of the main market streets when the sun came up and the morning arrived, but now it was nearly deserted. Only a handful of people huddled in doorways, swathed in blankets. Most of them were asleep, but those that were not regarded her keenly, with some hostility in their eyes, as though she were an intruder in their world.

"What you doing out here, dearie? You need somewhere warm to snuggle?"

"No, thank you," Cinderella said quickly, moving away. She wasn't sure yet whether she should keep moving or try and find somewhere to catch a few hours sleep. The first would be more tiring, but since she was without blanket or cloak or anything of the sort she might keep warmer if she kept moving. Besides, it might not be safe to fall asleep here like this.

She turned back, and looked at the poor people huddling for warmth in doorways. Did I know people lived like this? Did I care?

Perhaps I should have been grateful to Stepmother after all.

She turned away, and kept on walking, rubbing her hands for warmth. Why was it so cold? Wasn't it still summer?

Did people suffer this every night?

Had she really been fortunate all along, when she had counted herself so wretched?

Cinderella kept on walking, walking up and down the streets of the town as she waited for it to wake up. And as she walked, she sang, her voice echoing through silent, empty streets like the song of a ghost, singing amidst the ruins of her dead and empty home.

Oh, sing, sweet nightingale,

Sing, sweet nightingale,

Hi-i-i-i-i above me.

Sing sweet nightingale,

Si-i-i-ing swee-ee-eet,

Nightingale

Hi-i-i-i-i above

Jean Taurillion sat on the roof of a draper's shop on Eastgate Row, hugging his knees, watching the stars shining up above.

He liked the stars. He liked them almost as well as he liked stories about knights, and he loved such tales dearly.

He liked this time of night, as well. Everyone else was asleep, even if he was kept awake by troubles. So he could climb up onto some roof or other vantage point, leaving his gang huddled together for warmth, and watch the stars.

No one was depending on him. No one was expecting him to find money or food or anything else. He could just watch the stars, and not make any hard choices.

There were hard choices ahead, he feared. Talbot hadn't taken well to Jean beating him up and robbing him after that bit of nonsense at the palace, and seemed to have decided that the best way to get revenge was to sabotage Jean at every turn. As a result, pickings had been leaner than usual, and Jean had nearly been fingered by the constables more than once thanks to Talbot raising the alarm. Jean usually held that, as a code of honour, dodgers ought not to inform on one another, but he was strongly tempted at this point to dob Talbot in it and see how he liked it.

The fact that Olivier the Ox had joined the other side hadn't helped either. He had never been bright, but he had provided useful muscle that in a way that Thomas or Christophe couldn't match.

They were up against it, and no mistake. Marie and her flowers and ribbons were actually in danger of bringing in more than picking pockets. At this point, the gang might have to split up. Clearly, he wasn't able to provide for a family any more.

"I thought that things would get better," Jean murmured. "Instead they've gotten worse."

"Well what do you expect when you pin your hopes on a princess?" Angelique asked.

Jean looked at her. "I thought you were asleep."

"Everyone else thought you were asleep," Angelique pointed out. "What are you doing up here? Besides moping."

"Thinking," Jean said. "Watching the stars."

Angelique sat down beside him. "They are beautiful."

Jean nodded. Then he sighed. "What are we going to do?"

"Survive," Angelique said. "Like we always do."

"Always," Jean said. "But how, when-" He stopped.

"What?" Angelique asked.

"Listen," Jean whispered, straining his ears as a beautiful voice rose above the streets to fill the air.

Oh, sing, sweet nightingale,

Sing, sweet nightingale,

Hi-i-i-i-i above me.

It was the sweetest sound that he had ever heard. It was like wine to his soul. It was balm for his discontent. It was... it was beauty, given voice. He had never anything so lovely in all his life.

Sing sweet nightingale,

Si-i-i-ing swee-ee-eet,

Nightingale

Hi-i-i-i-i above

"It's angel," Jean whispered. "An angel is singing to us."

"It's just someone in the street," Angelique muttered.

"Shush," Jean said. "It's a sign."

"A sign of what?" Angelique demanded sceptically.

Jean grinned. "A sign that things will get better after all."

Serena could not have said what led her up to Princess Cinderella's room that night. It was, as the Greeks said, as if some god had put the idea into her mind. Regardless, her feet led her up the stairs, and into the royal bedchamber.

A bedchamber that was completely empty. As Serena looked around, the candle in her hand casting a pale light over the room, she noted that the bed did not appear to have been slept in.

She walked over to the dressing table, noticing a piece of paper sitting atop the white surface.

It was a letter, written in Cinderella's own inexperienced hand:

My dearest Eugene,

Do not be alarmed. No one has crept into my room to steal me away, nor have I grown so tired of you that I have fled in the middle of the night. I will return soon, I promise.

I have gone into town. I know that you told me it was too dangerous, I know that you didn't want me to go, but recent events have left me no choice.

I have to know more than I do. I have to know what the people really think, and why. I have to know what I can do to, if not love me, then at least make them stop hating me.

Don't worry. I have gone in disguise. No one will know who I am, still less that I am a princess. I will be perfectly safe.

I will be sometime today, by the time you read this note.

Please forgive me,

I love you.

Yours, in all things now and forever,

Cinderella

Serena smirked. So, the little fool had snuck off into the city streets, had she? Perfectly safe? What nonsense. If Serena was lucky some footpad would cut her throat in some backalley somewhere. Then she would be spared any further dealings with Lieutenant Kilpatrick.

A pity that she couldn't do anything to further that tragic fate along. Or could she?

Serena's smirk widened as she placed one corner of the letter to the candle light. She resisted the urge to chuckle as she watched the flames consume the princess' letter.

Cinderella walked through the bustling market in perfect anonymity, letting the hustle and bustle all around her fill up her soul and renew its spirits. It had been worth it: the sneaking around, the cold, the darkness. It had been worth it for this. Instead of laughter behind her back, she as surrounded by laughter all around as children played around her. Instead of cold stares, no one noticed her at all. Instead of mocking gossip, all around her was the buzz and chatter of everyday life: wares behind hawked, prices haggled down, marriages and births discussed, illnesses commiserated over.

It was not what she had come here for, but Cinderella allowed herself a moment to stand still and take it all in, smiling brightly as the world turned its malice away from her for a moment. Then she turned her mind to her actual purpose.

Her eyes rested on an inn on the edge of the market square. Outside, sitting on the wooden tables, a half dozen men and women were sitting outside, with their small dishes and their half-glasses of cognac, each of them engrossed in the news, occasionally looking up from their papers in order to pass comment on some item or other that interested them. Pipe smoke rose in the air from one or two of them.

That, Cinderella decided, would be an excellent place to start.

Jean nudged Angelique gently with his elbow. "Angelique, look."

Angelique followed his gaze. "It's a girl, so what?"

"It's the princess," Jean hissed.

"What?" Angelique said. "What are you talking about?"

"Not so loud," Jean muttered. "It's Princess Cinderella, look at her."

Angelique frowned, looking at the princess as she walked through the square, dressed like a peasant or a serving girl, moving through the crowds as though she hadn't a care in the world. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure, I saw her before she passed us by," Jean said. "I wonder what she's doing here."

"Something stupid," Angelique said.

"You don't know that."

"If it is her and she's all alone dressed like that, then she is stupid," Angelique said flatly. "The streets aren't safe."

"She might be okay so long as..." Jean's words trailed off. "Oh, no."

"What?"

"Talbot has spotted her," Jean said, gesturing to the alleyway opposite, where Talbot and Olivier stood. Talbot was staring intently at Cinderella for a moment. Then he turned to go. As he went, he caught a glimpse of Jean and Angelique. Talbot favoured them with a mocking bow, then disappeared into the tangle of tiny streets and backalleys.

"What do you suppose he's up to?" Angelique murmured.

"Nothing good," Jean said. "Go back to Taudis, get everyone together, and take them all to Moth Alley, in the Rookeries."

"The Rookeries?"

"Talbot knows where we are, so we have to go somewhere else, at least for now," Jean said. "Just make sure everyone gets there. I'll join you later."

"What are you going to do?"

Jean smiled. "Something brave."

"You mean something stupid."

"Can't it be both?"

"It could," Angelique said. "But knowing you it probably won't."

"Your Highness!" Anton burst through the door. "She has been seen!"

Frederica rose calmly to her feet. "Who has been seen?"

"Princess Cinderella."

Frederica smiled. "I've no doubt that she is seen by many people many times, she is royalty, after all."

"No, your highness, she has been seen in the streets," Anton said. "Alone, unguarded, unnoticed."

"Unnoticed?"

"She appears to be dressed as a servant."

Frederica hesitated. "Then how do you know this is not just a servant girl with blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair?"

"Because our agent amongst her maids tells me the princess is not in the palace. She has disappeared."

"And snuck in the streets disguised as a commoner," Frederica said. "A pretty plot for tales, but ill advised in real life. Still, quite brave of her all the same. Brave... but foolhardy."

"Your Highness," Anton whispered. "You do not have to do this."

Frederica looked away. "I want to thank you, Anton, for bringing me this news. You could have stayed silent."

"Please, your highness," Anton begged. "Make the right choice."

Frederica closed her eyes. "Send word to our agent. Eliminate her."

God forgive me for this, for my father never will if I do not.

Cinderella sat down, and began to unobtrusively listen to the conversation that the group of newspaper readers nearby was having.

"A new story on the princess, I see," one old man said. "They must be running out of things to fill the gazette."

"You don't believe it?" a middle aged woman asked.

"No," the old man said. "Why risk your neck like that, for another man. It is not as if she isn't married to a young, handsome man. Why bother with an affair?"

"You don't know women very well, do you?" another man asked, with laughter in his voice.

"Who can say why witches do anything," the woman said.

"You believe she's a witch, too?"

"She married the prince some how."

"I would marry her too, she is beautiful, even if she is a harlot," the old man said.

"I could believe anything of her," the woman replied. "And why shouldn't I? What has she done for any of us?"

Cinderella bowed her head. That last was uncomfortably true, or rather it was true that the answer was absolutely nothing. She had not done anything worthy of love, so in a way could it not be said that she deserved hatred? Or at least, apathy, that bred a willingness to believe the lies being said of her in the newspapers.

"She has not done anything to us, either," the old man said. "I cannot hate her for doing nothing."

"Nothing but acquiring jewels and dresses and pretty things," the woman said. "Why should she have so much more than we do?"

"Because she is a princess."

"By what right, she should be scrubbing my floors!"

Cinderella pursed her lips as a shadow fell over her. A young man, a few years younger than she was, sat down opposite her, looking at her with a mixture of eagerness and intensity. He was a little short, but broad shouldered, with a mess of unity dark hair falling down his head. He was wearing a tattered blue coat, dirty and ragged, patched up with bits and pieces of cloth of many colours, so that it some parts it was hard to tell that it had ever been blue at all.

"Yes," Cinderella murmured. "Can I help you?"

"No," the young man said. He leaned forward. "But I'm here to help you, princess."

Cinderella paled. "I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."

"I know," he said, quietly but firmly. "I recognised you. But don't worry, I'm on your side. My name is Jean, you have to come with me."

"Come with you where?" Cinderella asked.

"To your left," Jean said. "There are two men and a boy approaching."

Cinderella glanced to her left. There were two men coming towards her, wearing dark coats and hats that obscured their faces. With them was a boy, or perhaps another young man, smiling in anticipation.

"The two men are kidnappers," Jean said. "The Farley Brothers. They mean to take you, and hold you for ransom."

Cinderella felt a chill gripping her stomach. "Really?"

"Yes," Jean said. "And if you think the crowd will help you, they won't. Those two are very good at this. That's why I'm going to get you out of here."

"Why should I trust you?" Cinderella asked.

Jean said, "Do you think I'm the sort of person you shouldn't trust?"

Cinderella looked into his eyes. He had... noble eyes. They reminded her a little of Eugene. Strong, but compassionate. And above all, honest.

"No," she whispered.

"Then take my hand," Jean murmured, holding his own to her, palm upwards.

Cinderella placed her hand in his. His grip was firm, but at the same time gentle. It didn't hurt at all.

"Now, when I say run, run," Jean said.

The three men got closer.

"Run!" Jean yelled, leaping from his seat and making a dash for a dark, narrow alleyway, pulling Cinderella along in his wake.