“My lord!”
The old retainer turned around, and Anne said to him, “I wasn’t able to provide you with a candy sculpture for your granddaughter’s wedding. So I will make a piece of sugar candy for you.”
One thought spontaneously overflowed from her chest: I want to bring people joy.
The Earl of Downing had been left deeply hurt and fearful after fighting in the kingdom’s civil war. Afterward, because he wanted to protect that hard-won peace, he saw danger lurking everywhere and was always ready to fight it, even now. He tried to eliminate people who made him nervous, like Challe and Reginald.
Fifteen years had passed since the civil war ended, but those shades of sorrow were probably still wrapped tightly around the earl’s heart.
And in that case, Anne wanted to invite happiness into that heart full of sorrow. If the earl was going to retreat from the center stage of politics, she wanted to offer a prayer that, after he stepped down, he could finally find some peace.
The Earl of Downing smiled at her, looking somehow relieved.
“I’ll take you up on that, Halford. Make a beautiful sugar candy sculpture for me.”
Anne nodded deliberately, then offered him a curtsy.
“Yes. I shall make one for you, my lord, the man who protected our kingdom for so long.”
The old retainer walked away with powerful steps. He was a guardian who had continued protecting his kingdom even into old age.
Hugh’s injuries were less serious than they looked. In the old doctor’s opinion, the surface wounds would heal perfectly in about two weeks. The most worrisome injury seemed to be the sprain to his right ankle, but even that would apparently recover completely within a month, without any lingering effects.
After the Earl of Downing withdrew, Hugh stayed at the doctor’s house in Balkram. Salim, Kat, Benjamin, and even Keith all wound up accompanying him, making the place quite lively.
The doctor was very generous, allowing all of Hugh’s companions to stay while he treated him.
Ostensibly, Hugh was there to heal his injuries. But it was obvious what he actually wanted was to continue negotiations with Reginald. This was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.
But Reginald never came out of his assigned sickroom, citing his own injuries. Whenever Hugh tried to go in, he refused to negotiate, saying he didn’t feel well or that his wound was hurting. And yet he still managed to write a letter to the Fairy Merchants Guild instructing them to come and retrieve him.
Reginald was probably trying to avoid a face-to-face meeting with the Silver Sugar Viscount before other members of the Fairy Merchants Guild came to get him. He likely didn’t intend to negotiate at all.
Even Hugh was scowling about it. He needed to get Reginald to come to the bargaining table, but it wasn’t something he could force.
On the afternoon of the fourth day after the Earl of Downing’s departure, a letter came for Reginald. Anne had been bringing him his meals three times a day, and she took the letter to him when she went to clear the dishes from his lunch.
Reginald took it and immediately opened the envelope. Then he smiled with satisfaction.
“Hey, princess. Thanks for lookin’ after me. They’re comin’ here to get me tomorrow. Tell the Silver Sugar Viscount for me. Tell ’im we’re going straight to Lewiston to start negotiating with the kingdom.”
“Got it.”
Anne nodded, then she sat down on the stool beside the bed, still holding Reginald’s tray.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “Go give my message to the Viscount.”
“Before that, I have to talk to you.”
Anne shifted her gaze to the small table beside the bed. Sitting there was the small sugar candy statue of the fairy that Anne had made.
Hugh entrusted me with the negotiations, and I failed. But if I can just give it one more try…
Reginald wasn’t interested in meeting with Hugh. But maybe because he thought of Anne as nothing more than a maid, he had been allowing her to take care of his meals. Anne was the only one there who could speak to him.
“Won’t you agree to talk things over with the Silver Sugar Viscount? He gambled his own standing just to negotiate with you.”
“And I’m grateful I narrowly escaped death because of it. But that’s one thing, and this is another. It doesn’t matter one lick to us fairy merchants whether or not you all can make good sugar candy.”
“But it does matter. After all, happiness did find you in the end.”
“You call getting my guts slashed open and almost dying ‘happiness’?”
“But you didn’t die. You defied the royal family, and you didn’t die. What’s more, you secured the right to negotiate your tax rate.”
“That was lucky, I guess. But are you trying to say the sugar candy did that?”
Anne gently picked up the statue of the fairy with its pale, gentle coloring and held it out in front of his eyes.
Reginald grimaced.
“Her face. Can’t you remember it?” asked Anne.
“What’s this all of a sudden? I told you I forgot. So what? What are you trying to say?”
Reginald sounded irritated, but Anne didn’t let up. She kept staring straight at him.
“Amy was good at getting children to stop crying.”
The moment she said that, Reginald’s face went blank.
“But she was clumsy,” Anne continued. “And she was weak. She couldn’t cook or clean. She wasn’t very useful as a worker fairy. But if nothing else, she was good at comforting children…”
“Wait!” Reginald looked almost angry; there was doubt and suspicion in his eyes. “Why do you know her name?”
“A fairy by the name of Amy was sold to this household.”
The night they’d brought Reginald to the doctor’s house, the old doctor had related the story to Anne, nostalgically talking at length about the fairy named Amy who had lived there.
“Apparently, the doctor was also annoyed by her clumsiness and ineptitude for housework. But she was good at getting children to stop crying and a great help with young patients, so he let her stay here for the rest of her life. He said the whole time Amy was here, she worried about the little boy she had looked after before she’d been sold.”
The candy sculpture of the fairy in Anne’s hand had a gentle coloring, from the white on the curves of her lap to her perfectly straight, delicate, pale-pink hair.
“That boy’s parents had been executed for treason, and he had been left alone with only his grandmother. She said he lived in Northern Blow. A child and an old woman had no way to make money, and what they had soon ran out…so Amy asked the old woman to sell her to get some money. But apparently, she refused. She said there was no way she could sell Amy, because her grandson wouldn’t understand. But at the same time, they were almost broke. After giving it some thought, Amy decided to pretend to steal from them. She arranged for the boy to catch her. He got angry and sold her.”
“There’s no way that’s what happened,” Reginald groaned. “You can’t claim his Amy and my Amy were the same fairy.”
“The doctor saw this candy statue and said it looked exactly like her.”
“Even though it has no face?”
“That’s right. Its gentle color and presence were exactly like hers, he said. But maybe the doctor was making too much out of nothing. Maybe they were different fairies who just happened to have the same name and similar colorings. You don’t know what her face looked like, after all. But”—Anne stood up and placed the candy sculpture in Reginald’s lap—“the doctor said the Amy who lived here had blue eyes the color of the spring sky.”
Reginald looked startled and peered down at the candy sculpture.
“What color were Amy’s eyes? Can you remember?”