“Was that really enough?” I sounded appalled. I couldn’t help it. “You hardly drank any!”
She nodded in a weary way. “The opening is painful and the taste is unpleasant after so many years of the same few things. Sometimes I think I’d rather starve, but that would bring too much pleasure in certain quarters.” She tilted her head to the left, in the direction I had come from and the direction in which the city lay.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “If there was anything I could do…”
She nodded that she understood （of course people would want to do things for her, they’d fight each other to be first in line） and made the namaste gesture again. Then she picked up one of the napkins and blotted away the trickle of blood. I’d heard of curses—the storybooks are full of them—but this was the first time I’d seen one in action.
“Follow his marks,” Falada said. “Don’t get lost or the night soldiers will have you. And Radar.” That must have been a hard one for her, because it came out Rayar, making me think of Dora’s ecstatic greeting to her. “The sundial is in the stadium plaza, at the rear of the palace. You may accomplish your purpose there if you’re quick and quiet. As for the gold you speak of, that is inside. Getting it would be far more dangerous.”
“Leah, did you once live in that palace?”
“Long ago,” Falada said.
“Are you…” I had to force myself to say it, although the answer seemed obvious to me. “Are you a princess?”
She bowed her head.
“She was.” Leah now referring to herself—through Falada—in the third person. “The littlest princess of them all, for there were four sisters who were older, and two brothers—princes, if you like. Her sisters are dead—Drusilla, Elena, Joylene, and Falada, my namesake. Robert is dead, for she saw his poor crushed body. Elden, who was always good to her, is dead. Her mother and father are also dead. Few of her family are left.”
I was silent, trying to comprehend the enormity of such tragedy. I had lost my mother, and that was bad enough.
“You must see my mistress’s uncle. He lives in the brick house near the Seafront Road. He will tell you more. Now my lady is very tired. She bids you good day and safe journey. You must stay the night with Dora.”
I got up. The blob of sun had almost reached the trees.
“My mistress wishes you good fortune. She says if you renew Adrian’s dog as you hope, you must bring her here so my mistress can watch her dance and run as she once did.”
“I’ll do that. Could I ask one more question?”
Leah nodded wearily and raised a hand—say on, but be brief.
I took the little leather shoes out of my pocket and showed them to Leah and then （feeling a bit foolish） to Falada, who showed absolutely zero interest. “Dora gave me these, but I don’t know what to do with them.”
Leah smiled with her eyes and stroked Falada’s nose.
“You may see travelers on your way back to Dora’s house. If they are barefooted, they have given broken or worn-out shoes for her to mend. You will see their bare feet and give them those tokens. Down the road this way…” She pointed away from the city. “… is a little store which is owned by Dora’s younger brother. If travelers have those tokens, he will give them new shoes.”
I considered this. “Dora repairs the broken ones.”
Leah nodded.
“Then the shoeless people go to her brother, the storekeeper.”
Leah nodded.
“When the broken shoes are renewed—like I hope to renew Radar—Dora takes them to her brother?”
Leah nodded.
“Does the brother sell them?”
Leah shook her head.
“Why not? Stores usually make a profit.”
“There is more to life than profit,” Falada said. “My mistress is very tired and must rest now.”
Leah took my hand and squeezed it. I don’t need to tell you how that made me feel.
She released it and clapped a single time. Falada ambled away. One of the gray farmhands came out of the barn and slapped the horse lightly on the flank. She walked toward the barn willingly enough, the gray man walking beside her.
When I looked around, the woman who’d brought the puree and the lemonade was there. She nodded to me and gestured toward the house and the road beyond. The audience—that’s what it had been, I had no doubt—was over.
“Goodbye, and thank you,” I said.