Page 6 of The Thirteenth Child
My brother pointed to the painted mark above the shop’s door.
“The Divided Ones’ eyes,” he intoned with as much solemnity as a nine-year-old boy could muster. “They’ll want to make sure the gods see all their good works.”
I peered up at the disjointed eyes. They pointed in opposite directions, as if keeping the entire square under their watchful gaze. Their unblinking stare set my flesh to shivers, even in the heat.
“I hope I can get even one coin this year,” I fretted. “Mama will give me such a lashing if I come back with nothing again.”
“She won’t,” Bertie said, as if it was a given. He’d brought home two coins last time. “Besides, it’s your birthday.”
I snorted. In all the haste to leave the house that morning, not a single person had stopped to wish me happy returns. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“No one can be mad at someone on their birthday,” he reasoned blithely. “Yesterday I accidentally knocked over the last of the milk.” He shrugged. “Nothing happened. It was my birthday.”
“Of course something happened, you great idiot,” I muttered, straining my neck to peer down the street as a wave of cheering grew.A spangled carriage was turning the corner, sparkling in the midday sun. “I went without milk!”
“Did you?”
I could hear the surprise in his voice. Had he really not noticed? His obliviousness pinched at me.
Mama and Papa often told my brothers and sisters the story of my godfather and the terrible fix he’d put them all in. My siblings were never bothered when dinner was a portion short and I went without. They didn’t tighten ranks to make space for me in their beds. It was all right if my hand-me-downs were too long, too big, and worn to the point of falling apart. I wasn’t supposed to have stayed with them for as long as I had, so how could I possibly ask for anything more?
The carriage fully rounded the corner, a dazzling show of gilded wheels and stately black satin cushions. The family sigil, a charging bull, was emblazoned in sharp relief across the horses’ ceremonial bridles, giving the midnight-colored stallions the odd appearance of having two faces. Chips of rubies winked in the bulls’ eyes, and I marveled that a single horse could be adorned with furnishings costlier than my family would see in our lives.
“Should we head up that way, to get closer?” I asked, fretting. I picked at a hangnail, anxious. Both Mama and Papa were in such foul moods this morning; I could not afford to fail this year.
Bertie shook his head. “They’re going to stop here,” he insisted. “I can feel it. The eyes are too big to be ignored.”
Sure enough, the carriage continued past the crowds at the beginning of the street, its passengers rolling by with a series of tired waves and half-formed smiles. Rouxbouillet was one of their final stops of the pilgrimage. I couldn’t begin to imagine how exhausted they all must be.
“It’s the prince and princess!” I exclaimed, spotting the two smaller figures pressed to the windows. “And the queen?”
Bertie shook his head. “A governess, or great-aunt, or someone, I reckon. The queen goes with the king to the temples. They have to be sure to make nice with all the priests and prophets and whoever.” He waved his hand with a roll of his eyes, as if he couldn’t be bothered to keep all of the religions’ hierarchies in order.
My family wasn’t particularly devoted to any of the Exalted. Time was money, according to my mother, and she said we had little enough of either to squander in a temple four times a week. She did drag us into town for the festivals and feast days, though, never wanting to miss the opportunity for a free meal or monetary blessing.
“Look at that!” Bertie went on, pointing at the carriage as it slowed to a halt in front of us. “I told you!”
Once the horses had settled into comfortable stances, the footman hurried down from his perch and opened the coach’s door.
The older woman stepped out first and made broad sweeping gestures with her hands, driving back the clamoring throng as she tried to make space enough for the royal children to emerge. Heavy bracelets clustered with onyx gems clacked around her wrist, and her flaxen dress was as bright as the noon sun. This was no governess.
“Come on, then,” she said to the pair still inside, and after the sounds of a quick squabble, Princess Bellatrice came out.
I’d never seen her this close before and was surprised to find she was so young, probably eleven or twelve, like my sisters Jeanne and Annette. She wore an enormous hoop skirt and jacket in the pale green of new celery shoots. It was edged in swags of pink rosettes and dozens of yards of chiffon ribbon. Her hair was jet-black and left long and loose, a shimmering curtain reaching down her back.
She gave the crowds a worried glance before opening her bagof coins and was instantly swarmed by a dozen children and some adults, all reaching out their hands, ostensibly for a blessing, though everyone knew it was the coins we’d gathered for.
“Leopold!” the older woman hissed, rapping her knuckles against the coach’s side.
The prince slunk out with his jacket unbuttoned and askew, heaving the most forlorn sigh I’d ever heard. His suit was made to look just like one of a highly decorated military captain, with a sash, fringed epaulettes, embroidered bands, and more medals than he could possibly hope to be awarded in this life or the next. His hair was lighter than his sister’s, a burnished gold, and his blue eyes gazed over the assembled without interest.
“I don’t want that,” he said, chiding the older woman as she tried to hand him a black velvet bag.
“Leopold,” she snapped, her voice dark with warning.
“I don’t want that,” he said flatly. “You’re fifth in line, Aunt Manon. You can’tmakeme do that.”
Crown Prince or not, the boy found himself yanked to the side with a force so sudden, I winced in knowing commiseration. I couldn’t hear exactly how his aunt berated him, but when she loosened her grip, he buttoned his suit jacket and begrudgingly began giving out coins.
