Annifer

Chapter 12: The Appealing

Next  morning when Poppy came in, I was already up.

"What's that horrible smell?" she shouted. Her eyes widened in horror when she saw the rubbish-stained yellow rag, slung over the back of my chair. "And what happened to your beautiful dress?" She held it at arm's length, her nose turned up in disgust.

"I can't tell you, Poppy," I replied. "The less you know the safer you and Daisy will be. Now help me with these." I was at my basin with a brush, trying to scrub the marks out of my favourite shoes. I could live without the dress but not without these.

When we we'd got the worst of the strawberry juice out of them, I pulled on a plain white, cotton dress and let Poppy brush my hair, leaving it loose over my shoulders. I swallowed a few mouthfuls of porridge. I needed to be downstairs early. Today was Saturday, the Day of Appealing. Citizens would line up in the Banqueting Hall, outside the Throne Room and at eight o'clock they would be allowed in one by one to present their appeal to the council who'd decide whether or not to grant it. I wanted to be first in line. I took the phial, the chalk and the prayers out from under my pillow and slipped them into my pocket. I stuffed my feet into my still-wet shoes, kissed my frowning maid goodbye and took off down the stairs.

Every fibre of my being thrummed with nervous anticipation as I rounded the corner into the Banqueting Hall. I saw I wouldn't be first in line after all. There were two people already there, waiting outside the Great Doors. One was an elderly man with a weathered face and a kind smile. He wore the kind of wide-brimmed cloth hat that the farmers of Frailing usually wore. The other was a middle-aged woman with the dark hair and complexion of Moonrun. They nodded their greetings and we started chatting. I was grateful to be listening to someone else's problems to take my mind off my own.The farmer told me he had two sons. The youngest had been arrested two and a half months ago for fighting in the street.

"Some drunkard insulted his mother." He picked at his smock's frayed cuffs as he spoke. "'E's been given three months in jail and since then there's just been me and me other son to work in the fields. Now me other son's broken 'is leg and I can't manage on me own." He shook his head.

He'd come to ask the council if they could let his youngest son out of jail to help him. After the harvest he could go back and serve the rest of his sentence. I assured him his request was perfectly reasonable and the council were bound to grant it.

The Moonrun lady was one of the servants who'd come to Frailing with my mother when she was married. She'd just received a letter telling her that her own mother was ill back in Moonrun. Her eyes filled with tears as she told me.

"I've come to ask if I can borrow a horse to go and visit her." I told her the castle stables had plenty of horses. I was sure they could spare one.

Very soon the Banqueting Hall was full of petitioners. The queue snaked around between the tables and out into the corridor. The council would have a long day.

At eight o'clock the guards swung open the Great Doors and we could see inside. I stared in disbelief. The council consisted of thirty members of the royal family, noblemen, scholars, leaders of the Frailing institutions and other important members of Frailing society. None of them were there. There was only Skarp, sitting at the head of the table in a velvet robe, twirling his beard and looking down his nose at the rabble outside.

"First one in," the guard announced and shoved the old man inside. He stumbled to the foot of the table where he removed his hat and bowed hesitantly.

"M . . . m . . . my Lord Skarp," he stammered. He twisted his hat nervously in his hands as he faltered out his case, eyes fixed on the ground. At the end of his speech, he raised his eyes pleadingly. Skarp's lip curled with contempt. He stared at the old man for several seconds, disdain pouring from him. The farmer shook like a leaf. I wanted to run to him, hold his hand, comfort him but I knew I had to stay put.

"Your son broke the law. If we made exceptions for every ruffian in the land we'd be overrun with filthy rogues. He stays in jail. Guards, take him out and send in the next." With a flick of the wrist, Skarp dismissed him.

As they hustled him away unceremoniously, he broke into hopeless sobs. They pushed the Moonrun woman in next. She curtsied and addressed Skarp as, 'Gracious Sir,' but her appeal met with the same response.

"The castle horses are for the use of the royal family and noblemen only," he hissed, as if he was talking to a naughty child. "They could be needed at any time. Anyway no servants can take time off now; they'll all be needed for the coronation. Next!" Again he flicked his wrist.

It didn't look hopeful for me but I'd promised myself I wouldn't give up. The guard grabbed me by the arm and pushed me inside. Heart in my mouth, I fell to my knees on the floor in front of the table. I kept my eyes down and tried to make myself as small as possible so he wouldn't see me as a threat and might even find a glimmer of sympathy for me inside his stone heart.

"My Lord Skarp, my brother is dangerously ill,' I rasped, my throat dry. 'I beseech you to allow me to go to his room and sit with him while he . . . I want to hold his hand until he . . ." I couldn't bring myself to say the word "dies". I folded my hands into prayer position and looked up at him imploringly, through eyelashes wet with desperate tears. I met Skarp's eyes and saw they were cold and hard, full of hatred.

"No one is allowed in the boy's room except the doctor. I gave the order."

Just at that moment Doctor Hosta entered the Throne Room. Skarp eyed him expectantly. "What news?"

"My Lord, Prince Kriston's condition is worsening . . ." He saw me kneeling there and faltered. "He . . . he won't last till nightfall." My stomach clenched in terror. The doctor took a step closer to Skarp and lowered his voice. "Lord Skarp, it can do no harm to allow his sister to sit with him at the end." These were his words but my heavy heart felt his meaning clearly: Even if she somehow manages to escape with him, he's no longer a threat to your plans to take the throne for your sister and her husband. "The people will admire you all the more for your graciousness in granting a request you could so easily refuse," he smiled an oily smile.

Skarp raised a pointed eyebrow and stroked his beard. His vanity won.

"Alright. The girl can have one hour in his room and no more. Take her there yourself but she goes in alone," he dipped a quill in ink, scribbled the dispensation on a piece of paper and handed it to Hosta. "Give that to the guard. As soon as the boy's dead, see she's shipped off to Crosstain to marry that Larnick boy."

"Your kindness is overwhelming, Lord Skarp," the doctor bowed obsequiously before helping me to my feet and leading me out by the elbow.

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