by Anna Mendell
“Ach! You stupid cat. I’m only trying to help,” the prince exclaimed.
He took off his tunic, wrapping it around his hand, and, with soothing noises, tried to calm the frightened animal. The cat was beyond soothing, however, so the prince finally held it down with his wrapped hand despite its hissing, spitting, and scratching, until he managed to cut it free.
The cat streaked out like lightning from the courtyard.
Erik turned and saw the other boys glowering at him. A tall broad chested boy called Selwyn gave him a particularly dark glare; he had been the one who had halted the others from throwing stones at the prince, and he acted as a ringleader for the other boys. Erik was sure it had been his idea to trap the cat.
No one spoke. Erik pulled his tunic back on and was about to walk out of the ring when Selwyn blocked his way.
“Want to have a fighting bout?” The boy grinned, but there was no friendliness in his eyes.
Erik’s heart sank. He should have known that he could not have saved the cat without a price. He could not refuse the challenge without being forever branded as a coward, and, when he accepted, cries for “Selwyn” echoed about the ring.
Only a few cheered for the prince.
The fight ended quickly. Erik was no match for the older boy, who was taller than he was and much broader. The prince was quick and managed to dodge the first strike, but he could not break Selwyn’s defense and only landed one blow before he was knocked flat on his face with a few clean strikes. Erik tried to get back up on his feet, but Selwyn landed another blow when the prince was on his knees. The boys all laughed and dispersed, leaving Erik curled up in a ball gasping for breath.
“What have we here?” said a voice from above.
Erik looked up and saw one of his father’s hunters, a man called Cynric, looming above him. The hunter was lean and nimble, with a brown, weather-beaten face and sharp, quick eyes.
Cynric pulled the prince up off the ground. “Hmm, let’s have a look at your split lip.” He took Erik to the gatehouse, where the castle physician stored supplies. “You’re going to have a nasty bruise over your eye as well,” he observed while tending to the prince’s cut. “Whom did you fight?”
“Selwyn”
The hunter whistled. “That was foolish. Who started it?”
Erik explained about the cat.
“Well, this should teach you to stay out of things that don’t concern you.”
Erik didn’t say anything. He was still glad that he had saved the cat.
“THE door is open, princeling.”
Erik pushed open the door to Ninny Nanny’s cottage and found the old woman pouring milk from an earthenware pitcher into two large mugs on the table.
“Sit ye down and refresh yourself.”
The prince slipped into his seat and sipped the frothy milk the old woman set before him. Ninny Nanny then hobbled to her chair by the fire and sighed in contentment as she stretched her weary bones.
She eyed the prince. “How did ye get that purple flower o’er your left eye?”
The prince explained about the cat and the bruises. “I just couldn’t watch them all ganging up on a small creature that couldn’t defend itself. The cat didn’t have a fair chance, and I am glad that I saved it.”
“I’m sure the cat’s glad as well. Come inside, Mnemosyne,” she called, “did ye hear? The prince is glad he saved ye!”
The prince had left the cottage door ajar, and through it slinked a large, grey cat.
“Why, it’s the same cat I saved this morning!” Erik exclaimed.
Ninny Nanny chuckled as Erik knelt beside the cat. Mnemosyne sniffed him and allowed the prince to stroke her this time. She soon had enough, however, and stalked in an aloof manner over to the fireside, where she stretched and settled herself down to groom her fur with a rough, pink tongue. Erik watched the cat in fascination.
“I didn’t know that it was your cat,” he said
“Mnemosyne is not really my cat. She travels around an’ sometimes condescends to sit by the fire an’ drink milk. In return she catches mice. But she goes where she pleases, an’ there are times when I don’t see a whisker or tail of hers for weeks.”
Erik tore his eyes away from the cat and pulled his legs up, so that his chin rested on his knees. “Ninny Nanny, tell me another story about the princess,” he said.
The old woman grinned, “And I thought that ye didn’t like her.”
“Oh, she’s not too bad. In fact, she can be rather nice. I feel sorry for her, now that she has to leave the Silver Wolf and her godmother behind.”
“She gets in trouble again at the castle.”
“Does she?” Erik rolled his eyes. “Surprise.”
But instead of beginning her story, Ninny Nanny picked up her knitting by the fire. The crackle of the flames and the click of the knitting needles formed a soothing rhythm. Mnemosyne yawned, and the prince felt his eyelids growing heavy.
“Would ye like to take a nap?” the old woman asked. “I’ll make sure an’ waken ye before it gets dark.”
The prince nodded. “I don’t know why, but I suddenly feel very sleepy.”
Erik almost fell asleep on his feet as Ninny Nanny led him to the heather.
“I bet you can talk to Mnemosyne and she answers back,” he mumbled before drifting off to sleep.
THE next thing he knew, Erik was surrounded by darkness, but with a white light behind the darkness like when he shut his eyes against the sunlight. Then the light faded, and it was as if night had fallen and there was nothing but the dark.
The prince looked down, or at least he thought he looked down. He was not sure if there was any up or down anymore. Then he realized that there must be some light, for he slowly made out an even darker shape looming before him in the blackness—a dark tower, tall and isolated, with no beginning discernible in the murky depths of the world of shadows below.
By fixing his gaze on the tower, Erik felt that he was descending until he was level with it. He found that he could see through its walls, which were transparent like a veil with gossamer threads as thin as a spider’s web. In the darkness and the stillness he could see a figure climbing up the tower’s winding steps. When he first saw the figure, it was blurred like a shadow among shadows, but, as he continued to gaze at the climbing form, it was as if his own eyes began to shed a light and he recognized the ascending figure. She was the sleeping maiden in the river from his dream.
Erik could tell that the beautiful maiden could not see in the darkness, since she held out her arms blindly before her, brushing her hands up against the walls of the tower. Her face was white and her mouth determined as she slowly climbed up the stairs. Then she stopped climbing. Her body grew rigid, her face crumbled as she sank down to her feet to bury her head against her knees. With a pang the prince saw that she was trembling and he reached out his arms to her. He found that he was flying through the air, swiftly traveling towards her, and he passed through the gossamer veil separating them and landed on the tower step above her crouching form.
“Are you frightened?” he asked. “Don’t cry.”
The maiden did not hear him and continued to lie huddled in the darkness. She looked so alone and helpless that Erik’s heart instantly reached out to her. He knelt down and kissed the top of her head, feeling her smooth hair against his lips. The beautiful maid did nothing for a moment, but she stopped shaking. Then she slowly raised her head and looked past the prince, and in her features was a new strength and resolve. She stood and continued her climb up the tower steps. Erik watched until her figure was absorbed by the shadows, and he feared what she would find at the top. But then the darkness swam over him, and the white light shone behind his eyelids.
The prince woke and found that Ninny Nanny was knitting in her usual place by the fire and that Mnemosyne was staring at him with her wide, yellow eyes. The cat blinked, stretched, and then began to purr as she rubbed herself against him. Erik stroked her behind the ears an
d then made his way back to Ninny Nanny’s hearth.
“Ninny Nanny, do you remember when I first dreamed of Princess Rosamund?” he asked.
“That I do, princeling. It was the day ye first came to my cottage.”
“I had another dream before that, one that I never told you about. I saw a maiden sleeping in a river, but when I touched the water, she disappeared.”
“Did ye, now?”
“She was very beautiful, Ninny Nanny,” the prince whispered.
“Was she?”
“I just dreamed about her again, but this time she wasn’t sleeping.”
“No? What was she doing, then?”
Erik told Ninny Nanny about the beautiful maiden climbing the dark tower and how she had seemed frightened.
“I know she is real,” he whispered. “I could not dream her up.”
“Your heart speaks truly, princeling.”
“What was at the top of the tower?” he asked.
“A curse.”
A moment’s pause.
“What sort of curse?”
“She falls asleep.”
The flames crackled, and a log shifted with a clunk in the fire.
“I will wake her,” he said at last.
“Will ye?”
“Yes! Tell me where she is.”
“She’s in a dark place in a dark tower in a dark wood, the Shadowood. There she sleeps as time passes by.”
The prince’s eyes grew wide when he heard the name of the cursed wood. He thought of the old women’s stories before the castle fire and of the fearsome things, magical things, that lived in the wood.
“How do I find the Shadowood?”
“Ye are too young to go looking for the sleeping maid, princeling, and, if ye found her, ye could not wake her.”
“Why not? I dream about her, don’t I?”
The old woman chuckled. “Yes, but ye are a young boy still and she is a grown woman. It will be a man, not a boy, that’ll waken her.”
Erik felt himself flush and stared down at the ground. Finally he asked, “No one else will wake her before I grow up?”
Ninny Nanny raised her eyebrows and then laughed. “Jealous are we? Nothing is certain. But ye dream of her, do ye not? That means something. Ye will know when to look for her when the time ripens.”
His face still burning, the prince stood up and said with an earnest gaze, “Promise me, that, when the time comes for me to look for the maiden, you will let me know.”
“I promise.”
The prince settled down on the ground again and stared gloomily into the fire.
“Would ye like me to tell ye a story of the princess to get your mind off the sleeping maid?” the old woman chuckled.
Erik grunted.
“Do ye not like the princess, now that ye are thinking about your sleeping maid?”
“Oh, it’s not that. But she’s only a story and she’s not really in trouble.”
“Is Rosa any more a story than the maiden ye dreamed of? Do ye think it’s an accident that ye dreamed of them together?”
Erik furrowed his brow. “Very well, Ninny Nanny, you win. Tell me another story.”
WHEN ROSA AWOKE, she blinked steadily at the bright stars on a field of blue above her. They were the stars of silver thread woven on the canopy above her bed in the castle. She rubbed her face against the cool softness of her silken cushions and then sat up and saw that she was back in her old room. Her playthings had even been gathered and neatly put away, evidence of Alice’s tidying.
Her godmother’s mirror glimmered beside her, so she tucked it under her pillow. Her first thought was of her parents. Perhaps she could surprise them in their chambers for breakfast.
She sprang out of bed and ran out of her room into the hall, but her plan was interrupted by Alice, who at that moment turned the corner at the far end of the hall and gave a loud shriek as she caught sight of the princess.
They ran toward each other and Rosa found herself enveloped in her nursemaid’s arms. Amid more shrieks and laughter, she realized how much she had missed her nursemaid. Servants gathered at the commotion and Rosa saw with chagrin that word would get down to her parents that she was back before she could surprise them.
“Oh well, never mind.” Rosa laughed. “I wish to see my father and mother now.”
Alice took a step back and narrowed her eyes, gazing up and down at the princess’ clothes. “You cannot see your parents looking like that! They would never forgive me.”
Rosa saw that she was still wearing her simple blue dress from the forest. “Don’t worry, Alice, they won’t mind what I’m wearing.”
“I insist, Rosa. You cannot wander about the castle in a peasant’s dress, and with such tangled hair! You look absolutely wild. No, it will not do.”
“Alice, this dress was a present from my godmother. Surely if she gave it to me, then it is right for me to wear it.”
“But at least your hair,” was her final, wailing protest.
Rosa sighed with impatience, but went back into her room and gave her hair three quick yanks with a comb and gathered it all into a ribbon. Then she scampered past Alice and ran all the way to her parent’s chambers, where she slid to a halt before the door.
The guard let her through and she burst upon her parents at the breakfast table.
“Well, if it is not my beautiful princess.” The king rose with outstretched arms.
“Father!” Rosa flew into his embrace.
Then the queen gave Rosa a light kiss on the forehead and then gestured for her to join them at their meal. The queen’s glittering eyes searched her daughter’s face. “Did you see or learn anything at your godmother’s house that made you… worried?”
“Oh, no! I had a wonderful time.”
The queen held her daughter’s gaze, and then gave her a quick smile and seemed satisfied to ask no further questions.
Rosa, however, could not contain herself, and excited, jumbled words tumbled from her mouth, and it wasn’t long before she had recounted all her adventures.
The princess’ tales were met by silence from both the king and queen. Their faces looked grave, and Rosa began to feel apprehensive.
“Such tales, Rosa…” the queen said at last, “…I am certain your godmother had more sense than to expose you to such perilous things. A silver wolf and dancing faerie rings indeed!”
“But it is true!” Rosa cried in astonishment. “I am not making it up.”
“So much the worse,” the king interrupted. “For if true, then you were in danger and, by the sound of it, nearly drowned. Is this what we are to expect from Faerie, then? Such negligent guardianship of our children?”
The queen continued, “I do not understand what your faerie godmother was thinking, forcing you to live in the wood, and in such a dress as well! How you could appear before us in such costume is a sure sign of the bad manners you have learned at her home. You will change as soon as you have finished your meal.”
“No, I will not!” Rosa cried. “This dress is from my godmother, and you cannot make me take it off.”
The queen arched her eyebrows and gave the king a significant glance. “I see that the princess has exchanged one manner of willfulness for another, and I am not sure if I did not prefer the former.”
“No,” said Rosa in confusion, “I will change my dress.”
“See that you do,” the queen replied.
Rosa miserably looked down at her plate.
“Well, let us have no more unpleasantness,” the king said. “You will not believe it, Rosa, but I found you a tutor while you were away.”
Rosa was startled out of her reverie by surprise. A few years ago, Queen Eleanor had taken it upon herself to teach Rosa her letters. The princess had learned quickly and, in fact, had pretended that reading was more difficult than it was so as to prolong the time she spent with her mother. But as soon as Rosa had mastered her letters, the queen stopped their lessons, and Rosa had stopped reading. Sinc
e then, a quick succession of tutors had found Rosa an impossible student and declared her “unteachable.” They had all been banished from the court, and since then she had not touched a book nor picked up a pen.
“Only a few days ago,” the king continued, “a learned scholar was passing through our court looking for a place to spend the winter months. He comes from far away, I cannot exactly recollect from where—and had to leave his previous post for some reason or another—I can’t rightly remember the details—but, upon hearing that you lacked a tutor, offered his services at once. I explained that you were not at the castle. You have no conception, Rosa, how inconvenient it has been to explain your absence to the court. One cannot say, ‘Yes, she was taken away by her faerie godmother.’ ‘Where?’ ‘Oh, somewhere or other.’ Seems very careless. We said you were visiting a relative, though we never settled on which one. But to continue… I explained that you were not presently with us, but he said he could wait. And look, within a few days you are returned to us. What a fortunate coincidence! Now you can learn something useful after that summer of play in the forest.”
Rosa gave a deep sigh.
After breakfast, Rosa returned to her room to change her clothes. She burrowed her face in her dress; it smelt of the forest and of hawthorns. She folded it neatly and placed it at the bottom of her chest, then Alice helped her into one of her elegantly embroidered gowns.
“It’s a bit short,” Agnes commented. “You’ve grown while you’ve been away. We will have to let it down.”
When her nursemaid had left, Rosa curled up into a little ball on her bed. Reaching under her pillow, she drew out her mirror and saw a sad girl looking back at her with large eyes bright with unshed tears. Rosa did not know if it was her normal reflection in the glass, or if the sadness was the sadness of her heart.
“They do not understand about the forest or my godmother,” she sighed, and slipped her mirror in a pouch tied about her waist.
