Perilous Princesses

by Susan Bianculli

  He pounded some more but finally stopped. I stayed hidden. A shadow crossed the floor of the kitchen, and I realized he was peering in the windows. I held very still, hardly daring to breathe. The shadow disappeared but I didn’t move for a good hour or more. I only came out when my muscles protested their cramped position. I snuck over to each of the windows of the house and peeked out, breathing a sigh of relief when I didn’t see anyone anywhere outside. I went back to work and managed to make a decent dent in the household chores before the little men came home to the dinner I had ready on the table.

  Halfway through the meal, Garrin asked me between bites, “Anything unusual happen today?”

  “Ummmm…”

  He raised a red eyebrow kindly at me, and for some reason that was enough for the floodgates to open. They all listened, astonished, as I put down my fork and knife and poured out my story from the time my mother died right up to the time I knocked on their door, and then broke down sobbing. They gathered around trying to soothe me, and eventually I was able to stop crying.

  “Don’t worry, Princess Deneige. Our bargain will still hold. And what’s more, we will make sure that you’ll be protected from your stepmother,” Garrin assured me as the others chimed in, agreeing.

  At that moment a pounding started up on the door again. I put my hands to my mouth, eyes wide, as I heard the huntsman’s voice order angrily, “Open in the name of the Queen!”

  “Quick, under the table,” whispered Hanz to me, and I scurried under it as most of the little men seated themselves again to help hide me. Only Garrin went to answer the door.

  “Have you seen a young runaway serving girl?” the huntsman demanded as soon as the door was open.

  Garrin just looked at him. “Why should I tell you?”

  “I am the Queen’s personal servitor, and I order you to tell me if you have seen a young, black-haired runaway servant!”

  The leader of the little men frowned. “How do I know that you are who you say you are? Have you any proof?”

  The huntsman towered over Garrin threateningly. “I am bigger and stronger than you are, little man, so tell me what I want to know or you’ll feel my wrath.”

  I was instantly afraid. I didn’t want Garrin or any of the others getting hurt on my account, but I also knew what would happen if I revealed myself. I saw the huntsman raise a fist aggressively in the air. That decided me.

  “Stop!” I shrieked. “Don’t kill him!” I scrambled out from under the table between Frantz and Berg’s chairs. Though I knew it would mean my death, I also knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if any of the little men sacrificed their lives for mine.

  “Ah-ha! There you are!” he said triumphantly. He glanced at Garrin. “And for harboring a wanted runaway, you little men will be taken into custody!”

  “You mean ‘harboring a princess’, don’t you?” Garrin said dryly.

  The huntsman scowled, realizing I had told them everything and had been believed. He pushed forward to grab me, but Garrin stuck his foot out and the huntsman went crashing to the wooden floor. Immediately all the little men leapt up from their seats and dog-piled on him, pinning him down.

  “Get off me,” he bellowed, struggling against their weight.

  “Princess! In the washroom down the hall there is a white cabinet. Get the purple ceramic jar out and bring it back here! Hurry!” Garrin commanded.

  I ran to bring back the requested jar, and Garrin rubbed some of the orange goop inside it on the back of the huntsman’s neck. His struggles immediately started getting weaker, and within a couple of minutes he was snoring on the floor. The little men got off him, and Garrin bent down to whisper something in his ear. Then he stood to answer the silent questions written on my face.

  “This is a jar of magic ointment that was given to us in barter for some of our ore. That’s how we’ve gotten all of the magical tools we have. He will wake with the memory of what I whispered: that he found you and killed you. That will spare you from being hunted again.” Garrin smiled.

  I couldn’t help but smile back as Jarmann, Kort, Frantz, and Hanz picked up the sleeping huntsman and took him to dump him far away in the woods.

  * * *

  A year passed, and I lived very happily with the seven little men. All the training that my parents had given me really paid off during this time. I cooked, and cleaned, and sewed while they worked their mine and brought in supplies. One crisp fall day, not long after my sixteenth birthday, I was out in the woods about a mile from the house gathering berries to make a berry pie. A crunching of underbrush startled me, and an old woman came out from behind a bush with a basket of apples over her arm.

  “Oh, dearie! I am a poor apple peddler that has lost her way in the woods. Can you show me how to get to the road again?”

  There was no road for several miles from the bushes’ location. She would have had to force her way through some pretty rough terrain to get to where we were. This made me suspicious.

  “Actually, I’m not sure,” I lied. “And I don’t want to get lost myself, so I will have to wish you luck on your own. I’m sorry.”

  The old woman frowned, then tried again. “Oh, but dearie, I am such an old bag of bones. It would be sweet of you to help me. I’ll even give you an apple from my basket as payment?”

  She reached in and then held out the most delicious looking apple I’d ever seen. Apples were my favorite, and apple trees didn’t grow in those woods. Plus it had been some time since the little men had brought any apples home from the closest village’s market day. My mouth watered.

  “Go on, take it!” she urged, but something about her face made me think about Elspeth for the first time in months. I looked closer at the old woman. It was my stepmother in disguise!

  “No!” I screamed, and dropped my burlap berry bag as I fled into the woods.

  “You won’t escape me, Deneige! I too have magic now! That’s how I knew you’d enchanted my huntsman and that you were still alive! But I’ll change that!” she yelled angrily, throwing away her basket to chase me.

  I ran as hard as I could towards the center of the forest where the foothills leading to the mine was located, knowing the little men would help me. I dashed up the steep path beside the deep-pooled waterfall with her right behind me and screaming that she was going to make me die.

  Then the fact that she hadn’t even shown me a weapon before I started running caught up with my brain. I screeched to a halt and whirled around to face her, suddenly angry at myself; angry at her; angry at the whole situation.

  “What in the world is the matter with you!?” I yelled.

  Elspeth stopped short three feet away, confusion replacing the maniacal anger on her face for a moment.

  “Why are you even here? You’ve driven me from the castle, and from my father, to live deep in the forest away from people. Nobody outside of this forest even knows I’m still alive! Can’t you be content with that? Why do you even care? Why do you have to kill me now?” I shouted at her.

  “Because as long as you are alive, you are the fairest of them all! And that’s not fair!” she yelled back, stamping her foot in a temper tantrum.

  My mouth dropped open. “What?” I finally managed to gasp.

  “I want to be the fairest of them all! I want everyone to look at me, and be awed at my beauty, and do anything I ask of them just because I am beautiful!”

  “You know that you are considered lovely by everyone. And you’ve been the Queen for four years. You have both beauty and power,” I said, no longer shouting. “People already do anything you ask because of both of those things. And even if I was more beautiful, what does it matter? There are no villagers, castle servants, guardsmen, or anyone like that out here to see me and compare me to you. Why would they even do that, anyway?”

  Elspeth opened her mouth, and then closed it. I pressed on.

  “Is beauty really the be-all and end-all for you? Looks fade, you know. My father, when he was young, was a
very handsome man. Or so the portrait of him in the Great Hall shows. He is still good-looking, but he doesn’t look the way he used to anymore. What people care about from him, and will remember him for, is that he has been a just and fair ruler. Wouldn’t it be better for you to become known for something like kindness, or being a really good falcon hunter, or a great embroiderer, or something else that lasts beyond looks?” I asked.

  She cocked her head to the side, then said in a cold voice, “You do have a point. Yes, you live out here where no one sees you. But someone may come into the forest, or you might leave it. Even if you swore to me that wouldn’t happen, still I will know that you live and are more beautiful than me.”

  I was stunned that she completely dismissed all the rest of my arguments. Was she really that single-minded? Elspeth advanced towards me, fingers shaping themselves into claws as if she was already anticipating them wrapped around my neck. I saw, however, that there was still no weapon in either hand.

  “Do you really expect me to let you kill me without a fight?” I asked, falling into a copy of a defensive position I’d seen guardsmen do in the castle practice yard.

  “Yes!”

  She rushed at me, and we grappled there on the path beside the waterfall. She maneuvered me closer and closer to the edge, and I understood that she was going to try and push me over it. I tried to stop it from happening, but her magic made her stronger than me. The nearer we got to the edge, the more the ground grew slick under our boots. I was frantic. I didn’t want to die! Elspeth’s boots suddenly shot out from under her and she slipped halfway over the cliff, her legs dangling above the waterfall’s gorge. I dug my feet into the ground and leaned back, not wanting her to take me with her if she fell. Elspeth growled and gripped frantically at my sleeves, but the shoulder lacings that fastened my sleeves to my blouse ripped through the fabric and she fell out of sight with a scream. I collapsed to my knees to catch my breath before I was brave enough to look over the edge. I discovered she’d fallen only about fifteen feet, still holding my sleeves, down onto a rock outcropping below. But she wasn’t moving. Just then the little men came running down the path.

  “Princess!” “What are you doing here?” “Are you all right?” “Jarmann told us he heard screaming while on guard duty!” they shouted in worried tones as they crowded around me.

  I told them what had happened, and then I started crying. All the stress of running for my life, and loathing of my stepmother, and fear of being killed caught up with me. Half of them stayed to comfort me and let me cry myself out, and the other half climbed down to check on Elspeth.

  “She’ll be fine,” Garrin called up to me after looking her over. “She’s just knocked out cold.”

  It was kind of weird, but I was relieved she wasn’t dead. She may have wanted to kill me, but she was my father’s wife after all. And I didn’t want him to be lonely. But I also didn’t want to have her continuing to try and kill me once she woke up. A brilliant idea popped into my head at that, which stopped my crying.

  “Hey, Garrin? I know she’s unconscious right now, but is there a way to keep her unconscious for a little while longer?” I called down to him.

  Garrin looked at me with raised eyebrows but unquestioningly took out a dagger from his leg sheath and carefully hit Elspeth on the lower back part of the skull with its pommel.

  I jumped to my feet. “Wait here. I’ll be back in about half an hour!” I said gaily to the little men, who all stared at me in astonishment.

  I raced to the cottage, got from the medicine cabinet the jar of magical orange goop that had been used on the huntsman, and raced back again.

  “Here! Catch!” I said, tossing the ceramic container down to Garrin.

  The little men all smiled, now understanding. Garrin opened the jar, swiped the ointment across the back of Elspeth’s neck and said something in her ear before pocketing the container again. I knew that he’d whispered pretty much the same thing that he’d told the huntsman: that she’d caught me and killed me. That, plus the ripped sleeves from my blouse left behind as a kind of proof, would put an end to her looking for me.

  “That’s that, Snow,” Garrin said, as he and the rest of the little men gathered around me. “Let’s go home, where you are welcome to stay forever if you wish.”

  I sighed with relief. I knew I could never go back to the castle and my father now, but at least I would always have a secure home

  * * *

  Susan Bianculli wears the titles “Mother” and “Wife” most proudly. Another is “Author” for The Mist Gate Crossings series, as well as several short stories in several other anthologies. Check out susanbianculli.wix.com/home for more information.

  Olivia’s youngest cousin Kat paced her chamber as the other princesses arrived. Kat held a scroll in her hand. Olivia, her sister Lisette, and Kat’s sister Melinda looked at each other. Seeing Kat excited about something she’d read was new. In fact Olivia couldn’t remember another time when she’d seen Kat read.

  “What …?” Melinda started to ask her younger sister.

  Kat waved the scroll at the other three. “I found it. Our next adventure! And a way to help the farmers.”

  “What farmers?” Lisette asked.

  “All the farmers! Their crops are failing. Don’t you pay attention?” Kat’s face was scarlet, almost matching her dark red curls. Her quick temper helped with her swordplay and gave her power her five feet of height belied, but passion could make her unintelligible too.

  Melinda captured Kat’s flailing arm and said gently, “Kat, slowly, tell us about the farmers.”

  Kat looked to Olivia.

  “Yesterday we may have overheard Father and the Council talking about crops failing.” Olivia plucked her dagger out of its sheath and ran a finger along the edge of her blade as if testing to see if it might need sharpening.

  “By overheard, you mean you and Kat spied on the Council Chamber from that hidden passage you found?” Lisette tugged the dagger out of Olivia’s hand and stared at her younger sister.

  “Gathering information,” Olivia said holding out her hand for her dagger. She did not know where Kat had gone after they’d left the secret passage. Apparently from the scroll she was waving about, her unpredictable cousin had headed to the castle library.

  Kat shook the scroll again. “Come on, people. This is our chance to not just sit around talking about how great we were defeating trolls two months ago. We have a new chance to do something at least as great.” She held up the parchment again. “AND it involves dragons!”

  A shiver raced down Olivia’s back. She remembered the word becoming echoing in her head and the feeling in her body when they had battled the trolls. Her arms had felt like they were becoming wings at the same time they were still her arms … and her breath … she could swear she’d breathed fire. But no one had said a thing about her or about seeing a dragon. All the talk around the castle had been about four mysterious knights who had defeated the Trolls at the tournament.

  “Dragons and crops?” Melinda asked. She was the best archer of the four princesses, who after their success at being more than just pretty musicians and artists, now called themselves The Perilous Princesses.

  It had started six months ago, when the four cousins were working on embroidery and complaining about how bored they were and how interesting their bro-thers’ lives were. Since they were little, their brothers had trained to be knights who could go out and kill monsters while the princesses were only supposed to faint. For years the princesses had secretly practiced what they had seen their brothers learn.

  Now they needed more. Olivia had come up with a plan and had gone to her father and pled with him for dagger throwing lessons. King George had sighed. “Of course you aren’t like your sister or your cousins. You won’t leave me be until I say yes. So, yes.”

  It wasn’t the first time he’d complained that she would never be a kind of perfect lady princess like her sister, and Olivia had counted on it. T
hat day King George arranged for the Weapons Master to instruct Olivia.

  At that first lesson, she convinced the Weapons Master to train all four princesses to handle many kinds of weapons. Olivia was best with a dagger: throwing, stabbing. Kat was a scary good swords-woman. Gentle tall Melinda pulled back her golden curls and shot a bow and arrow like she was born to it. Lisette, Olivia’s frills and lace older sister, turned out to be pretty good at everything, but mostly so fast on her feet Olivia bet Lisette could beat their oldest brother Ian in a race.

  After training for four months, the princesses decided to participate in the annual All-Kingdoms Tournament. They’d each designed armor. Kat wore a plain silver she felt was sleek and right for a swords-woman. Melinda and Lisette both chose gold, not a surprise for such feminine princesses. Olivia couldn’t say why, but she had to have a burnished black. When she first put it on, it felt like a second skin instead of bulky heavy metal.

  On the day of the tournament, Lisette had fussed over a missing feather for her helmet, making them late for the tournament games. Olivia had finally plucked her own feather out and handed it to her sister. But their lateness meant the contests were almost over, and most of the knights were resting either from exhaustion or wounds.

  And then the Trolls attacked. The princesses were the ones who stood and fought.

  Once the Trolls were defeated, the princesses escaped before anyone could discover their real identities. Four teenaged princesses were supposed to be in the stands waving tokens for the knights they supported, not cutting down Trolls. Even if the king had been pleased, their mothers would have found a way to prevent them from ever being in that kind of danger again.

  They were so happy with themselves that the next day they formed The Perilous Princesses. Every day when they were supposed to be painting pictures or doing embroidery, they met and took weapons lessons. Until today nothing had happened that excited the foursome. There’d been no reason to get out their armor once again and fight.