The Knave of Diamonds: Royal Pains, #6

By Roberta Olsen Major

Twins Jillian and Julian have been Prince Jacot's best friends all their lives. They have laughed at his antics, helped him out of scrapes, and wondered if he would ever really grow up. When the Queen of Coalveign becomes deathly ill, Jacot must look to his strengths, and rely on his friends, as he embarks on a dangerous journey to save his mother's life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9781597052276

Book preview

What They Are Saying About The Writing Of

Roberta Olsen Major

...a galloping romp of hilarity on a quest of pure enjoyment. Roberta Olsen Major delights her readers with wit, puns, and good old silliness... filled with the perfect combination of chivalry and joviality... Life, love and the pursuit of laughter reign...

—Joyce Handzo,

In the Library Reviews,

October 10, 2003

...takes ‘happily ever after’ a hop, skip and a jump farther, leading the child in us all on a merry romp through ‘what if’.

—Pam Ripling,

author of LOCKER SHOCK!

Royal Pains: Book Six

The Knave Of Diamonds

Roberta Olsen Major

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A Wings ePress, Inc.

Young Adult Novel

Edited by: Lorraine Stephens

Copy Edited by: Leslie Hodges

Senior Editor: Robbin Major

Executive Editor: Lorraine Stephens

Cover Artist: Pat Casey

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All rights reserved

Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Wings ePress Books

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Copyright © 2007 by Roberta Olsen Major

ISBN:  978-1-59705-227-6

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Published In the United States Of America

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Wings ePress Inc.

3000 N. Rock Road

Newton, KS  67114

Dedication

For Geordan, living proof that a mine of coal can yield beautiful diamonds—when enough pressure is applied

One

A hill full

A hole full

Yet you cannot catch

A bowl full

My mother taught me not to listen in on the business of others, to mind my manners, to behave with the decorum expected of the daughter of the king’s best friend.

Unfortunately, the lessons didn’t stick.

Neither did my mother.

I never gossiped about what I overheard, but for more than fifteen years I inhaled the conversations of others like a fresh breeze blowing briskly through the kingdom of Coalveign.

This was not so difficult as it might seem. My twin, Julian, and I had free rein of the castle; our Grandam Dobb was the queen’s most loyal subject, and Prince Jacot was our best friend in all the world.

I never tired of watching Prince Jacot. From the time we three were babies in nappies my attention was drawn to the prince. Looking at my twin’s face was no more exciting than looking at my own—feature for feature we matched: the same coppery red hair, the same brown eyes, the same splatter of freckles across the bridges of our long noses. Even the same small gap between our two front teeth.

But to look at Jacot was always an adventure. Yes, his brown curls were glossy and his dark eyes bright with mischief, but it was more than an attractive arrangement of features. When he was angry, it was with the roll of expressive eyes. When teasing, there was the hint of a dimple in one cheek. When he was thoughtful, a slight crease between his thick eyebrows. When he looked at his mother, a softening, his affection for her relaxing everything within him for just one brief moment, before catching fire with interest in the world’s mysteries again.

The castle itself was as full of holes as a poor man’s stockings—passages and tunnels, hidey-holes and peeping cubbies. I knew them all, and used them without shame.

And this is what I learned.

Two

A diller a dollar

A ten o’clock scholar

I knelt on a shelf built into the wall and peered through a peephole into the castle library. On the other side of the wall was a portrait of King Philbert the Seventh. I was pretty sure no one but me knew there was a small hole where his left pupil ought to have been; it was through this small hole that I sometimes listened in on the lessons and studies of the future king of Coalveign.

Your Highness.

Jacot, Prince of Coalveign, ignored the nasal voice of his tutor. With a series of quick folds, he transformed the square of parchment in his hands into a graceful swan. With a flick of one nail-bitten finger, Jacot launched the swan off the heavy oaken table. It hit Millwood Slag between the eyes.

Oops, Jacot said with a grin.

Your Highness, Slag repeated, this time through clenched teeth, your sums, if you please. The tutor slapped another square of parchment down on the table in front of the prince.

Master Slag, I’m sorry to say that I really don’t please, Jacot said. Not when it comes to sums. He was up out of his chair, heading for the door.

Am I to tell Queen Zirconia you chose to abandon your duties? Slag asked, baring his yellowing teeth at the back of the departing prince.

Jacot laughed. Adding little numbers on scraps of parchment is the sum of my duties? And he was gone.

With the tip of one slipper-shod foot, Millwood Slag crushed the parchment swan into the flagstone.

This made me mad. It was a lovely swan.

Millwood Slag is a boob, I thought. I told myself if I’d been in the library I would have stuffed that crumpled swan right up one of the tutor’s huge hairy nostrils—but there was a reason I lurked in tunnels and secret passageways. For a red-head, I didn’t have much gumption.

I sighed as I climbed down from the shelf behind the portrait.

Jacot was good at a lot of things, but being diplomatic with his tutor wasn’t one of them.

But Master Slag doesn’t make it easy, I thought fiercely.

~ * ~

If I stretched to my tiptoes, I could see into the queen’s day chamber through a crack just above her looking glass.

She rarely looked into the glass these days; she didn’t like what she saw.

I flinched when I heard Grandam’s voice.

Majesty, your son’s tutor would like a word with you.

Again? Queen Zirconia arched a weary eyebrow at my grandmother.

Grandam Dobb’s lips pruned up into a disapproving pucker. Never you mind, Majesty. Slag has nothing better to do than nit-pick his betters. Maybe if he spent some of that idle time cleaning his teeth, or giving that shaggy head of his a good trimming... Shall I tell him you’re indisposed?

No. The queen’s voice was level, but there was a hint of pain in her dark eyes. No, we mustn’t use that word, Polly. Not yet. Not until I truly am.

Which will be just this side of never, Majesty, Grandam said stoutly. She gave the white apron spanning her ample waist a brisk shake. You’ve got a son to see settled, future grandchildren to dandle on your royal knees.

The queen closed her eyes and Grandam Dobb fell silent.

At last Zirconia drew a deep breath. Send in Master Slag, Polly. I’m ready to see him.

Nasty creature, Grandam muttered as she left the queen’s day chamber, bothering our beautiful queen with his tattles and tale-telling, and our Jacot a good lad with a stout heart and a proper twinkle in his brown eyes. Not everyone is cut of scholar’s cloth...

The queen’s pale lips curved, her smile fond.

My Grandam Dobb was a fixture in the castle long before Queen Zirconia came to the kingdom of Coalveign as a new bride. She bullied King Merrit all through his childhood as freely as she’d bullied her own son, and wept over both of them when they died together in the mines ten years ago. She was Queen Zirconia’s most loyal subject, and the one to whom all the other servants came when they craved a few moments with the royal ear. It was Polly Dobb who decided who was worthy of the queen’s fast-shrinking time, and no dragon could have guarded this treasure of Coalveign more fiercely.

Slag, as Grandam Dobb had said more times than I could count, no more deserved these frequent audiences with the queen than the rodent he so closely resembled, but the queen was adamant where the education of her son was concerned.

Like Julian and me, Jacot was a tender sprout of five when King Merrit died, and, though destiny hung heavy as a storm cloud over his brown curls, it didn’t seem to keep him from mischief.

When he snitched tarts meant for the queen’s tea, the royal cook was up in arms, but Zirconia simply shook her head, a rueful smile on her lips. A growing boy needed to eat, didn’t he?

When he pulled the lever to the sluice gate and flooded the dungeons, the castle steward was outraged, but Zirconia merely handed her son a wooden pail and instructed him to commence bailing.

There were scrapes and escapades, pranks and distractions, but Zirconia knew better than anyone that Jacot had no malice in him. He was prince of the impromptu, a spur-of-the-moment monarch-in-training, with a heart as big as Matrinko Mountain and an imagination for mischief to match it.

Zirconia pressed her fingers to her aching forehead.

I could guess what she was thinking. She had murmured it aloud many times within my hearing.

She was thinking that it wasn’t that Jacot was a simpleton. No, he was brighter than most, and this was not a mother’s bias, for we all saw it. He was lively and quick, always three mental steps ahead of everyone else in the kingdom. No wonder he could never sit still for the dusty lessons of Millwood Slag. Why, he could think rings around that tiresome man!

Your Majesty. The tutor’s unctuous voice brought Queen Zirconia’s head up, her best maternal monarch face in place, no sign of the pain occupying her head.

Master Slag. She nodded carefully. You have come to report on my son’s progress?

His progress right out the library door, Your Majesty, Slag said, then heaved a sigh that was far too dramatic to have any basis in honesty. Prince Jacot would rather be jumping over a candlestick than using its light by which to learn.

Zirconia couldn’t keep her lips from twitching.

I had to stifle my own giggle.

Slag, probably thinking it was due to his attempt at wit, smiled an ingratiating smile. "He would rather stick his thumb into a pie to see what is inside, than go through the scholarly process of deduction. He would rather be a jack-a-dandy in search of candy than a studious prince in search of wisdom. He would rather fetch a pail of water with those low-born Dobb twins