by JL Merrow
The graceful princess wore a velvet gown of deep crimson that clung to her shapely figure like a lover. Adrien blushed to think of this, and all of a sudden felt drab and plain in her father’s clothes. At once she knew why men would go to ridiculous lengths to please the princess; for no sooner had she set eyes upon the lady than Adrien knew she too would travel to the ends of the earth to bring back whatever her Highness might desire.
“Well, man? Speak!” the king commanded in a voice that spoke of too much rich food that disturbed his slumbers and too little success in swaying his wilful daughter.
Adrien collected her scattered thoughts and spoke with barely a tremor in her voice. “Sire, I bring for your daughter a marvellous instrument. It will make the moon appear so close, she might reach out and touch it.”
The princess rose to her feet and, with dainty steps, approached Adrien, who remembered to bow low before her. She was a head shorter than Adrien and looked up from underneath thick black lashes with eyes as deep as forest pools.
“Good sir,” she said, in a voice so like the song of the nightingale that Adrien could scarce discern her words, so full of wonder was she at its sound. “I would see this wondrous instrument of yours.” And here the princess gave a teasing smile that only Adrien could see, and Adrien felt she had never blushed so much in all her life, she who had always prided herself on being so calm and sensible. “But it will not be dark again before tonight,” the princess continued, “and so there is no moon yet to see. Will you come to my tower this evening to show me this wonder?”
The king harrumphed a little at this. “Daughter, I do not think it proper that you should receive a man into your chambers after dark.”
But the princess spun upon her lively feet and smiled brightly at him. “Dear Father, I give you my word; there will be a woman with me at all times.”
And so, with this assurance she would be properly chaperoned, the king gave his consent.
* * * *
Adrien left the throne room and found Felix and his Ned once more in the guardroom.
“Well, boy? How went it?” Ned demanded in his gruff tones.
“I am to see her tonight,” Adrien replied, her thoughts still with the exotic beauty who had won her love with but a glance.
“Ah!” cried Ned, as the other guards laughed. “I know that look! She’s stolen your heart, lad, isn’t that the truth of it?”
Adrien sat at the long wooden table and accepted the cup of ale passed to her by a brawny, calloused hand. “I do believe she has, though I’d have sworn before it was not for the taking.” She took a long draught of ale to ease the dryness of her throat.
Ned clapped a hand upon her shoulder. “It’s a rare man who’s not affected by her dark loveliness, true enough,” he told her, with a glance back at Felix that said plain as day that he was one of those rare men and he knew his Felix to be another.
“But how came she by such exotic looks?” Adrien wondered. “For the king, her father, is as fair as our good Brother here.”
“The queen, God rest her, came from the far East, from the hot lands of Araby. And though the king’s three sons all favour their father to more or less degree, the princess is a paler image of her mother. You’re not the first man to be bowled over by her warm beauty,” Ned sighed, “and I’ll warrant you won’t be the last.”
Aye, thought Adrien to herself, but surely I must be the first woman to be so captivated? For she had never heard of two women loving one another as a wife loves her husband. But then, she reasoned, neither had she heard of two men so in love as Ned and Felix plainly were. And if this was how the good Lord made her, who was she to argue with it? For this must be the answer she had sought: no man would do for her not because she was too ready to find fault, but because she was never meant to love a man.
She felt sore troubled, though, for what chance was there that the princess would love her in return?
Knowing it for the false friend it was, Adrien set down her cup of ale. She spent the time before dark polishing her boots and her belt-buckle and putting on her father’s best shirt. When darkness fell, she made her way to the princess’s tower, feeling as though fairies danced in her stomach. When she knocked upon the heavy, ornate door, the princess opened it herself and bade Adrien enter with that same musical voice.
“Come and sit by the fire,” she urged with a graceful wave of her slender hand.
Adrien stepped into the princess’s chamber, her eyes wide in spite of herself. The room was larger, it seemed to her, than the whole of her father’s little cottage. Rich tapestries adorned the walls, their vibrant colours depicting scenes of hunting and of soft-featured, gentle knights who knelt at the feet of fair maidens. In the centre of the room stood a high bed, hung with crimson silk and velvet, with a fur coverlet. Beside it lay a rug of the softest, thickest sheepskin Adrien had yet seen. The fireplace was not large, but flames danced merrily within, and the room was filled with the sweet scent of burning apple wood. Two chairs of blackened oak upholstered in red velvet sat invitingly to either side.
“Come, sit,” the princess entreated once more, and Adrien felt she could do naught but obey.
The princess served Adrien spiced wine with her own fair hands as if Adrien were the princess and she but a servant, and then she sat upon the other chair, which was large enough it could have seated ten of her.
“Your Highness,” Adrien began, taking out the telescope from its case. “Here is the instrument I spoke of this morning.”
The princess smiled, her small, white teeth more beautiful than the pearls strung loosely around her graceful neck. “Yes!” she cried, clapping her hands together, almost as if she had until now forgotten the purpose of Adrien’s visit. “Yes, tell me of it, I pray. How came you by this marvel—was it your own hand that fashioned this device?”
“No, Highness. Its maker is a man far more skilled and learned than I. He told me ‘twas the people of Araby who first thought of such creations,” she added, thinking it might please the princess to be reminded of her mother’s kin.
And so it proved: “Ah,” the princess breathed, her eyes shining. “My mother told me such tales of her land, when I was a child. Of its strange creatures, its wondrous cities, and its great learning. She promised she would take me there, when I was older.” The princess sighed, and Adrien’s heart ached for her sadness.
“I never knew my mother, Highness, for she died soon after I was born. And my father died not many weeks past. But those we loved live on in us, I think,” Adrien said.
The princess nodded. “You are right, and I count myself lucky that I have my memories of my mother. But why,” she continued, “did this learned man not bring the telescope to me himself?” She slanted her head to one side as she looked at Adrien. “Does he love another, and fear he might be forced to take me as his wife?”
Adrien’s breath caught, to hear the princess come so close to truth. “He means no disrespect to you, Highness, but there’s no woman on this earth he would ever wish to marry,” she said, hoping the wilful princess would not take offence.
“Ah,” the princess said, a soft smile upon her lips. “Then I would not wish to marry him. For a marriage without love is like a priest without faith: an empty shell who fools the world but who cannot fool himself.”
Adrien wondered to find the princess, whom she had once thought vain and spoiled, secretly so wise. And she loved her all the more for it, though she felt her heart must break with hopeless longing.
“But come,” the princess continued, once more all liveliness and child-like delight, “you must show me this wondrous device, and teach me how it works.”
So they rose and went to the balcony, and Adrien showed the princess how to put the telescope to her eye and turn the barrel to focus the lenses inside. But the princess’s fingers, otherwise so nimble, seemed extraordinarily clumsy in operating the device, and again and again she would entreat Adrien’s help. Adrien found herself at last with her arms e
ither side of that swan-like neck and her hands enclosing the princess’s darker ones upon the telescope. She felt almost overcome by their closeness and by the scent of sweet cinnamon and nutmeg rising from that soft, dusky skin. Every part of her that touched the princess felt as though it were on fire, and she longed for that sensuous burning to spread across every inch of her.
“Why, good sir, I feel that you are trembling,” the princess whispered, and letting go of the telescope, she turned herself about in Adrien’s arms. “Would you think me very bad, Adrien, if I told you I don’t care a fig for the dusty old moon? I simply felt I must give my father some excuse for my refusal to wed any of the young men who sought my hand. I read in a book my mother once gave me of a princess who longed for the moon, so I borrowed her story and made an impossible demand of my suitors, for I thought I should never find anyone whom I might wish to marry.” She took Adrien’s face in her gentle hands. “But now, I think I am proven wrong. Even before I saw you,” she continued, “word had reached me of the brave young man who’d saved his companion from brigands by the strength of his arms. So whilst I had no thought of loving you, I was curious to see such a heroic young man. And when I did see you, I knew at once you were the one I should marry.”
Adrien’s heart pounded so hard, she feared its vibrations might shatter the glass of the telescope. She wanted nothing more than to press the princess to her yearning body and kiss her with all the passion that consumed her—for she had already noticed that, despite the lady’s promise to her father, they were alone—but she could not bear to deceive the woman she loved. “Your Highness, I am sorry: we can never be wed,” she confessed, though each word sliced deep into her heart.
And as the princess’s face fell, Adrien’s heart fell with it and shattered on the cold stone floor. Wresting herself free of the princess’s grasp, she fled the tower, leaving her poor, broken heart behind her.
* * * *
Unable to face her friends in the guardroom, Adrien took refuge in the stables. There she sat upon a bale of straw, miserable and alone, until a gentle snuffling alerted her that Ferkel had found her hiding place. “Oh, Ferkel!” she cried, as he leapt into her arms. “If only this were a story from one of my mother’s books! Then you’d turn out to be my fairy hogmother and somehow you’d find a way for me to be with the princess! Oh, but she will hate me when she learns I’m no man. There’s no help for me, no help at all.” And she cried a little, but being strong in spirit, she soon dried her tears and made her way back to the guardroom.
Her friends greeted her with solemn faces. Felix rose and drew her into an embrace, looking close to tears himself. “Oh, Adrien, it grieves me that it’s come to this! I blame myself fully, for the telescope was my idea, mine alone. I should be the one to suffer now, not you.”
“Why Felix, what do you mean?” Adrien asked him, in confusion. For how could he know what she suffered and why?
“He means, young Adrien, that I have orders to throw you into the dungeons,” Ned told her with sorrow in his tone. “For the king learned that you refused his daughter and flew into a fearful rage at the sight of her tears. He will not rest until you are clapped in chains.”
“Then you must do your duty, Ned,” Adrien replied fearlessly—for truthfully, any place was like a dungeon to her now. “Take me there, chain me if you must. I will not resist.”
“I will not,” Ned told her, his dark, bushy brows menacingly lowered. “I’ll take you by a secret way I know out of the castle and lend you a stout horse that will carry you far from here.”
“Ned, you are a good man, and I’ll not see you fail in your duty to your king,” Adrien said, her jaw set firm. “Take me to your dungeons; I’ll not run away and leave you in trouble.”
So he led her to the dungeons, and in deference to his orders had her put in chains, but he made sure they were the lightest at his disposal. And he gave orders that she be well-supplied with food and ale, although in truth she had no appetite. Adrien went meekly into her cell, relieved to find it neither so damp nor so rat-infested as she had feared. Dark, indeed, it would have been, had not the kindly Ned left her a lantern whose light flickered and cast strange, yet not unfriendly, shadows upon the walls. But although her physical needs were well catered for, Adrien felt sorely her lack of companionship to lift her spirits.
As the night drew on, Adrien doused her lantern and lay down upon the wooden bunk to try to rest, but it was not until a snuffling pink shape wound its way through the prison bars and jumped up beside her that she was able to sleep.
* * * *
The next day, Adrien awoke to a great sound of commotion. Her tiny cell had no window, only a grating in the ceiling that opened to the sky and gave her no view but of the clouds above. She heard people bustling through the courtyard and sharp cries ringing in the air, but she tried in vain to discern their purpose, and at length decided she must wait for the arrival of her gaoler to discover the news.
She had grown sore impatient by the time Ned opened the door of her dungeon. Beside him in the gloom she could make out the shape of a slender figure in a monk’s hood.
“What news, good Ned?” she asked, accepting the hunk of bread and mug of ale he gave her. “For I can hear the castle is in uproar, but I know not why.”
“They are preparing for your wedding,” the gruff soldier said, whilst Felix stood silent. “For the king has declared he’ll see you wed, or he’ll see you dead, and that before the day is out!”
“A pretty pickle indeed,” Adrien cried despairingly. “Good Ned, good Felix, does no one see I’d marry her right gladly if only I could!”
“And why can you not?” Felix asked her, his face still hidden by his hood, and there was a strange note in his voice that made him sound quite unlike himself.
“Oh, Felix! I have deceived you all, and the princess whom I love most of all! For I’m not the man everyone takes me for—in truth, I’m not a man at all.”
At that, the monk threw back his hood—and was revealed to be none other than the princess. “You silly thing!” Selene cried, smiling and weeping at the same time. “I knew you for a woman from the first moment I saw you! I can’t believe all these men thought you one of them!”
She rushed forward into the cell to take Adrien’s hands as Ned shuffled his feet in the doorway and muttered something neither of them heard. “Adrien, my heart,” Selene whispered, wrapping slender arms around her, “did you not wonder why, of all my suitors, it was you I chose? I cannot love a man, and so I despaired of ever marrying, but when you came to see me I knew my prayers had not been in vain. For you are everything I could want in a woman: strong, fearless, and capable. When you said we could not be together, my heart sickened and was like to die. But if ‘tis true you love me, then you may bring it back to life. So tell me, my love, is it possible that you could love a silly, flighty goose like myself?”
“Oh, Princess!” Adrien exclaimed, her heart so full she feared it might burst with happiness. “The only impossibility is that I could ever cease loving you!”
“Then,” Selene said softly, “I fear I must remind you my father’s proclamation was quite clear. Whosoever gives the princess what she desires most shall wed her, and what I desire most is you. And I don’t give a fig for those who say one woman cannot marry another—for in truth, who’s to stop us when only your friends know your secret? So, my darling Adrien, will you marry me?”
Adrien took Selene’s lovely face in both her hands. “With all my heart,” she vowed, and kissed her.
Selene sighed deeply. “Good Sergeant,” she said to Ned, whose face appeared a redder hue than before, “will you leave us? Lock us in if you must, but I do not think my Adrien will try to escape,” she finished, giving a smile not even Ned could resist.
“No, Highness, I do not think she will,” he said, and the lightness in his tone proclaimed he bore Adrien no ill will for her deception. “Shall I be off and tell the king he has a willing bridegroom for his daugh
ter?”
“That would be most kind of you, Sergeant,” Selene said gravely, only her eyes showing her mirth. “And perhaps you might leave me the keys to these chains?”
Ned nodded his great head and passed her the keys before departing.
“And now, dear Adrien, I have you completely at my mercy,” Selene breathed, taking Adrien’s chained hands once more in her own.
“Indeed you do, Highness,” Adrien smiled, finding herself well content to be in such a situation.
“Hush!” the princess chided her. “You must call me by my name. Remember, we are to be wed this day.”
“Selene, then,” Adrien said, the sound of it musical even in her rough country accent. “And I could never forget that we are to be wed—indeed, my love, I can think of nothing else.”
“Can you not?” Selene whispered, pressing herself close to Adrien. “For my part, dear heart, I find my thoughts straying to our wedding night.”
They kissed, and Adrien felt as though her body were on fire. Her breasts tingled where they pressed against Selene’s, and there was a throbbing between her legs she’d never known before. Selene’s mouth was hot and spicy, and her darting tongue teased at Adrien’s lips with a promise of yet sweeter pleasure to come. Adrien’s breathing quickened, and her chest heaved as Selene broke the kiss at last. “My own dear one,” Selene breathed. “But I have not yet freed you!” So saying, she took the key that Ned had given her and unlocked the chains that still bound Adrien’s hands. “There! You are free now, my love!”
Adrien smiled and took her princess in her arms once more. “Is it treason to gainsay a princess?” she asked. “For I fear you are wrong, my lovely Selene. Those iron chains about my wrists may be gone, but there are chains around my heart that will never be loosened.”
They kissed once again, and as passion flared between them, hands crept to the soft curves of hips and breasts. Adrien began to wonder aloud if they would ever make it to their wedding. The princess laughed, the sound like sleigh bells at Christmas, and then they kissed some more. Adrien began to yearn for the night to come, when she might at last bare her lady’s dark form and worship every inch of her, from those perfect dusky breasts down to her playful little toes.
