Born to Rule

what she was doing. Who’d care if she wore the gown backward? No one would see her.
    By the time she had pulled on her purple boots, she was sweating. She grabbed her snowshoes and a candle. Just before she was about to slip out of her chamber, she turned to the songbird and said, “I’ll find you a mate, I promise.” Then she turned, pulled up the hood of her cloak, and tiptoed out of her bedchamber and across the floor of the parlor, holding her snowshoes in one hand and a candle in the other.

Chapter 16
    CHIMES IN A SNOWY NIGHT

    From the South Turret, Alicia descended several flights of stairs. She passed a guard fast asleep at his post. She was walking quickly through the Portrait Gallery when she started to look at the paintings of queens and empresses who had attended Camp Princess.
    The guard might be asleep, but not her mum! She could have sworn the eyes in the portrait of Flora Mathilda Elinora, once a princess and now Queen of All the Belgravias, were following her.
    By the time she reached the Great Hall, her candle was flickering. There was only a minute left in the wick, maybe less.
    Alicia raced across the Great Hall and pulled open the wooden door to the courtyard. As she stepped out into the cold air, the gleaming carpet of snow seemed to dare her to cross. She couldn’t leave footprints. She would have to edge around the courtyard to the blacksmith’s shop at a far corner. There was a gate that could be opened from the inside. This led to a passageway to the banks of the moat. During her swim classes, she had passed right by the door of this passageway. She could see it when she was swimming.
    Cautiously she began her journey around the square of snow in the courtyard. Finally she reached the blacksmith’s shop. She went through the gate and then began to thread her way down the winding passageway to the moat. Once there she strapped on her snowshoes. In the blink of an eye, she was across the frozen moat and moving over the snowy field.
    The new snowshoes were fast. Soon she was hearing the sound of the chimes. Now, where to begin? Alicia wondered. Where would a small songbird be on a cold, snowy night?
    She entered the forest. She wondered if she should just wait and let the birds come to her. If she held herself very still against the tree where she now stood, maybe they would think she was just another part of the tree, just an odd branch to perch on. A very odd one with earmuffs!
    The shadows of the branches cast a dark, lacy design on the moon-bright snow. A bell from above fell with a muffled thud into the whiteness at her feet. Alicia saw that the hood of the bell was as thin and delicate as a leaf, yet it had not shattered. What a strange and magical place this was!
    As she continued to stand by the tree, Alicia’s vision grew sharper. She could make out the tiniest knotholes in a small tree a few feet away. Might a female weeb be roosting in one of these holes that was no wider than an egg? She peered at the tree. There were two knotholes side by side that looked almost like eyes—rather baggy eyes, at that. Then she noticed a kind of knob between the eyes that could have been a nose.
    The bark of the tree moved! Alicia caught her breath as a figure stepped forward. Her heart skipped a beat or two. What in the world?
    “Not in the world, my dear. In the Forest of Chimes. That is all. All one needs, some might say.”
    Standing before her was a woman, a very old woman, garbed in a tunic of bark and leaves. She was wearing a cloak made of moss, and her long, white hair was caught up in a net of spiderwebs. A spider or two hung about her ears. On her shoulder perched a peregrine, a large bird with a black hood of feathers. Would this crone help her find a female weeb?
    “There is much to be done, girl, beyond finding you a songbird.”
    On the bones of Saint George’s dragon, how does this crone—Alicia’s thoughts were interrupted by the words of the old woman.
    “Now, now, girl, don’t be swearing on poor old Saint George’s beast and don’t be calling me a crone. So, you wonder how I know what you are thinking? It’s my gift, girl, my gift. With some it’s harder to read the mind than others. But you’re clear, girl. Clear as the clapper in the tree bells that chime. You’re true. That is why you were chosen.”
    “Chosen? Chosen for what?”
    The ancient woman stepped forward. She smelled like pine trees. She was very short—she only came up to Alicia’s chin.