by Anna Mendell
The sea woman and the princess swam together to the shore, where the princess found the Golden Piper waiting for her, wrapped in a cloak of dusk, his radiance dimmed. He took her by the hand, and they walked under the stars back to the summer palace. The palace doors opened before him as he led her up to her room and stopped before her door.
“Soon, princess, you and I will listen to the stars and sing with them together.”
THE NEXT MORNING Rosa lay in bed, her head full of the Grey Lady’s story. I wonder if I can discover something more about King Auryn and his descendants, she thought. After all, they are my ancestors, surely there must be records of them here in the palace. Alice came in then, momentarily interrupting her musings on kings and their sons with the enticing smells of freshly baked bread and strawberries. After breakfast, though, her determination resumed, and Rosa wandered down to the library to see if she could discover anything there about the Golden Kings.
The library was bright and open, with high ceilings and tall windows that let in the morning light. Bookshelves lined all the walls, so Rosa started her search at the shelf nearest the door, looking for titles that might bear a clue to the Golden Kings. The only books she found had unenlightening titles like The botanical classification of herbal remedies and their properties and Of plant life, toxins and curatives. She moved to the next shelf, where she came across a book full of cooking recipes. She remembered Edwina with a sigh.
Moving on again, she was startled to find Edmund sitting in a corner near the window, watching her. He had a manuscript tucked under his arm. Rosa hesitated, but then decided to ignore him, not knowing if he would wish her to speak to him or not. Her eyes were skimming over the title, The folly of tyrants and the prideful fall of great princes due to vice, when she was startled by a voice near her ear.
“What book are you looking for?”
Rosa glanced up.
“Do tell,” Edmund said with a half grin. “I will help you look for it if you wish.”
While unsure whether to trust this new and friendly mood, Rosa decided she did want to make up with him.
“Do you know the history of King Auryn and the Golden Kings? I want to find a book about them.”
Edmund looked surprised. “King Auryn? I thought his stories were all myths and old wives’ tales. My father says it’s all nonsense. But still…” he fell silent.
Rosa wrinkled her nose at him and started investigating the next shelf.
“…still, I think I know where you can find something about him.” He grabbed her hand and pulled an astonished Rosa to the rear of the library, stopping before a dusty, curtained shelf.
Rosa saw that the curtain had recently been disturbed, and, as Edmund pulled it back, he explained, “It’s to protect the old books and manuscripts from the sun, though I also think it’s because no one reads these books anymore and the librarian finds them embarrassing. There is a lot here which my father would call ‘nonsense.’” The last he said with a sarcastic laugh. “But I think I have come across your king here once or twice. And if you wait a moment…” He ran his hand over the top of the shelf and pulled out a leather-bound volume. “I think you can find your answers here.” Then he chuckled to himself. “But the book will do you no good.”
He handed her the book with a mysterious air. It had a red binding and the simple title, “The historie of the golden kings by Galfridus de Osney,” inscribed on the cover in the old tongue. Rosa opened the book and exclaimed over the brilliant picture on the first page. There was the Golden King Auryn, with his gleaming crown and the standard of the Gryphon fluttering behind him; on both sides were two birds, the heron and the kingfisher, and the opposite page was inscribed by hand, and the capital T was painted vermilion and embossed with twisted silver branches that bore golden fruit.
She translated the first sentence aloud. “Thus begin the records of the mighty deeds of King Auryn and his line down to the present day…” And then laughed at the shocked expression on Edmund’s face.
“You can read the old tongue?” he exclaimed.
The princess nodded. “Yes, I had the best of tutors. Why don’t we take the book out into the light, where we can read it more closely.”
“I have a better idea,” Edmund said. “Let’s take it outside where no one can disturb us.”
Rosa thrilled at the idea of their keeping a secret. She nodded and tucked the book under her arm. They left the palace through the double library doors, and Edmund led her in the opposite direction from the seashore toward the outpost before the narrow bridge of land that connected to the mainland. She was surprised to see that Edmund merely nodded to the guards, and they let them through.
“I hope you don’t mind if we walk a bit in the forest,” he said.
Rosa peered at him and then saw he was being serious. She laughed, “You of all people should know that I don’t mind getting my dress dirty.”
Edmund grinned at her. They found a perfect little mound of grass next to a large oak tree to sit under, and then Rosa opened the book and began to read aloud. The Historie began when Auryn was already crowned king and made no mention of the glass mountain or the faerie lord. Instead it recounted many of Auryn’s adventures as he journeyed far beyond his kingdom and into the faerie realm. She skimmed many chapters concerning King Eirwyn, not least because they contained long, boring lists of laws founded by the wise king.
“I’ll come back to them later,” she promised.
Edmund gave a short, disbelieving laugh.
The hours passed until they reached a detailed description of the great battle between Lyr and Annwyr. Edmund seemed particularly fascinated by the Leaden Staff.
“Prince Annwyr used the staff foolishly. He depended on it too much and let it control him. That is why it sapped him of strength and he lost the battle,” he said.
Rosa widened her eyes. “Is there any way to use the staff that isn’t foolish? It was made to control faerie kind. They are our friends!”
Edmund leaned against the oak tree and peered down at Rosa over his nose. “You are so serious, Princess. I was only speaking hypothetically. But not everyone trusts Faerie as much as you do.”
“Well, you should,” Rosa retorted. “You belong to the line of the Golden Kings as well.”
He was about to respond, when they were interrupted by the sharp sound of crushed leaves and the whinny of a horse. Both Rosa and Edmund looked behind them and saw Prince Stefan approaching them on horseback.
The princess’ uncle checked his horse, and both father and son shared a look. Stefan doffed his hat to the princess and then spurred his horse to a light canter deeper into the woods.
At the moment Rosa had first caught sight of her Uncle Stefan, her eyes had darted toward the ground, and she had shuffled a little closer to Edmund. She did not know how to look at her uncle knowing what she did about him from her earlier vision. Now that he was gone, Edmund glanced down at her curiously. “You really don’t like my father, do you?”
Rosa didn’t know how to answer.
“Well, that is all right. I don’t care for him much myself,” he laughed, and his laughter had a bitter edge to it. “Come on, let’s go back.”
It was early evening and they walked through the forest and back to the palace in silence. When they reached the garden door, Edmund said, “You know, I think it is pretty amazing how much you have changed since you came back from wherever it was you were with your godmother. You were hard to deal with before, but you have grown a lot.”
Rosa felt herself blushing. How nice it was for someone to notice that she was trying to be different!
They were approaching the palace door now, and Edmund said, “I would like to hear more about your godparents someday.”
Rosa brightened. “I would love to tell you all about them. They are so wonderful and have done so much for me!”
At that moment, Alice burst in on them from the garden door. “I thought I heard the two of you! Rosa, where have you been?
I was worried sick over you. How could you leave me without a word? I had to send your Uncle Stefan out looking for you, but he hasn’t yet returned.”
“Oh, I am sorry Alice.” Rosa wrapped her arms around her nursemaid. “I should have known you would miss me. I will let you know next time I go beyond the outpost.” She kissed her nursemaid on the cheek.
Alice sniffed. “Oh, I suppose it is all right. Just don’t do it again. Now come inside, and I will get you ready for supper. Oh, Rosa, your dress is dirty!”
The nursemaid dragged the princess indoors amidst further scolding. Rosa flashed Edmund a bright smile before she was dragged up the stairs.
Rosa felt quite content when she curled under the covers that night, the final blue pearl tucked safely in the silver pouch round her neck, humming softly with the waves outside. The last thing she saw before she drifted off to sleep was the full moon outside her window.
The next thing she knew, she was back at the castle at a great celebration in the banquet hall. Both her mother and father were at the feast, clad in the royal sapphire, their golden crowns gleaming on their heads. Toasts were given, and the air was full of music and laughter. Noblemen and women were garbed in fur and velvet, with glittering eyes and youthful faces. Rosa laughed along with everyone, infected by the excitement.
Then there was a wrong note, sharp and discordant in the music, and Rosa realized that the laughter no longer sounded joyful. She closely examined the faces before her. Their smiles did not reach their eyes, and they were no longer youthful, but rapidly aging right before her eyes. Rosa stood up, frightened, and searched for her parents. Catching sight of them, she saw that they looked as young as before, but their laughter also rang hollow. The sumptuous feast had been reduced to ash, but they did not notice. Rosa saw that the ash was choking them, but they continued to laugh their hollow laughter and they continued to eat and choke.
A wizened old man emerged from the shadows, bearing a chalice filled with clear water. Rosa knew he was from the world outside, for she smelled the sunbaked earth and the forest trees on him. He humbly knelt before the king and offered him the clear water.
“Drink,” Rosa begged. “Wash away all the ash.”
The king stood up enraged, dashing the chalice from the old man’s hands, so that it clattered against the flagstones, spilling all of its precious contents.
“How dare you bring mud and filth before me! Guards, take the old man away and put him to death.”
Rosa cried out in protest, but found that she was no longer in the banquet hall, but was instead in the blue and gold throne room. The room was empty except for her and her father. He was seated on his throne and looked magnificent and strong with his red-gold beard and his long, royal robes. The princess stood in awe before the kingliness of her father as she had never done before, but then her heart cried out for the old man, and she fell on her knees before him, begging him to spare the old man’s life. But the king could not hear her, and a transformation took hold of the room. The walls lengthened and stretched, and the bright colors diminished to muddy browns and greys. Her father was seated on a throne of lead, and both he and the throne had grown with the room, tall and forbidding. Rosa’s tears fell heedlessly as she clasped his knees, but the king’s heart had withered, and he had turned to stone.
Rosa woke with a cry to see the sun shining brightly outside her window. The images from her dream were still fresh in her mind and did not fade in the morning light. Alice entered the princess’ bedchamber anxiously, and Rosa threw back her coverlet and clung to her nursemaid.
“What is the matter, child?” Alice crooned, rocking the young girl in her arms and smoothing her golden hair.
“I had a terrible nightmare,” Rosa said, burying herself further into her nursemaid’s arms.
“There, there, my little one, it was only a dream,” Alice reassured her.
THE memory of her nightmare troubled Rosa throughout the day. She wandered to the music room to see if she could find Neirin to confide in, but he was nowhere to be found. She reflected that she rarely saw him now, except during their music lessons, and even then his mind seemed far away. Her harp strings would call him back to himself momentarily, but then he would gaze beyond her, listening for a sound she could never play. Despite his distance, or maybe because of it, she felt that he would understand the terribleness of her dream and why she was afraid for her father.
Wandering out into the garden, she sat beneath a fir tree and watched the branches swaying in the soft breeze. Rosa closed her eyes. “If only Edwina were here,” she sighed. Her eyes fluttered open as someone sank down beside her against the fir tree.
“You are looking thoughtful, everything all right?” Edmund asked.
Rosa felt an impulse to confide her dream to Edmund. He would tell her it was nonsense, and it would be nonsense, a terror dispelled by laughter and sunlight. She recounted her nightmare, shivering at the end, as she described her father turned into stone. She waited for him to laugh at her fears, but instead he was silent.
“You don’t think there is anything to my dream, do you?” she asked anxiously.
He slowly shook his head. “I do not know. It is a strange dream, almost powerful; and I wouldn’t dismiss the dreams of the faerie-gifted lightly.”
“Oh! But it was a terrible dream. It mustn’t come true!”
They both fell into silence, Rosa pulling at the grass at her feet. “One of my godmothers told me that my father has lost all his faerie gifts.”
“Did she truly say that? Then this may indeed be a serious warning,” he said.
Rosa gazed into his eyes, frightened. “Then what must I do?”
“Well,” he said slowly, “we could try to understand your dream better. That way we could try to prevent it.”
“Yes, I see that. But how am I to understand it? The dream is a riddle.”
“Come with me, princess,” he said.
Edmund led her to the library, back to the shelf where they had found The historie of the golden kings. “I’ve come across a book about dreams here,” he said, as he pulled out an old, tattered book, small enough to fit in one’s pocket, entitled, A guide to discerning oracles, dreams, and portents. He handed it to Rosa. She opened it and skimmed pages full of charts and symbols she did not understand.
“I don’t see how this can help me,” she said.
“Let me show you,” Edmund said, and he could not suppress the eagerness in his voice. “There were obvious symbols in your dream, a chalice, water, an old man, and did you say ash and stone? Well, water obviously represents life, or possibly rebirth. So to sum up: an old man was offering your father life in a chalice. But what does the old man represent, or the chalice? If we look at the symbols in here…” Edmund flipped through the book. “Ah, here we have ‘man,’ subdivided into ‘infant,’ ‘youth,’ and ‘old age.’ And look! An old man can mean many things: approaching death, weakness, wisdom, and so forth. So now we have someone weak, but possibly wise, offering your father life. Now let us put more of the symbols together…”
Rosa put both hands up to her head. “No, stop,” she exclaimed. “This is too much. I can’t understand how strange symbols in an old book will help save my father.”
Edmund sighed with exasperation. “I thought you of all people would understand. But never mind. I see this is too much for you.” He stuffed the book back on the shelf, though his hand still hovered over it, and he seemed to be considering something. He removed the book again and gave it to the Rosa.
“While this seems confusing now, perhaps you can look at it later. Or…” and here he looked at Rosa intently, “do you think you could ask your faerie godparents about it?”
“I don’t see why not,” she said with hesitation, “though somehow I feel that they would find the book needlessly complicated, or perhaps too simple.” She laughed. “They always seem to want me to work out things for myself.”
“And that is exactly what you are doing,” Edmund
retorted. “But it’s good that you feel like you can ask them questions. That means that they must give you answers.”
“Er… sometimes.”
“Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind showing them something else?”
She lifted her eyebrows questioningly as Edmund bent over the bottom shelf, yanked out a heavy volume, and then, reaching his arm through the open space, pulled out a hidden, aged scroll, unrolling it on the ground.
“This manuscript is very old,” he explained, “older than the Historie and the book I just gave you. It’s in the old tongue, and I can’t make it out. Do you think you or your faerie godparents could tell me what it’s for?”
Rosa unrolled the manuscript on the ground and knelt down beside it, brushing her fingers over its cracked edges, inhaling the scent of aged parchment.
“This will take me a minute to work out,” she said, as she pored over it line by line. “Hmm… there are many words here that I also don’t understand… but this appears to be a summoning spell for faerie kind. This word here means ‘calling,’ but a very special kind of calling, like calling forth from another country or realm. The words ‘heart’ and ‘blood’ help make up the single word.”
“Just who exactly was your tutor?” Edmund asked.
Rosa smiled and returned to the manuscript. “But it says that only those with faerie blood in their veins can use this summons.”
“Only those with faerie blood?” Edmund asked sharply. “Does it say anything of faerie blood by marriage?”
Rosa glanced up with surprise. “What do you mean?”
“If you were married to someone with faerie blood, would you be able to summon the faerie?”
Rosa thought of Iseult. Did Edmund find this scroll among his father’s belongings and hide it in the library?
“Where did you get this?” she asked him softly.
“On second thought, perhaps it would not be best to give this manuscript to your godparents after all.” Edmund grabbed the parchment from her hands and rolled it back up. “Look, I have something else you could show them.” He yanked another book from the shelf. “There is a spell here that requires mixtures and ingredients that I’ve never heard of. If you asked them about it, but didn’t mention me, they might tell you where to find them.”
