Babette wasted no more time in conjecture. She launched herself down the hall as fast as her big legs and long dress would allow. In her rush, she almost knocked over Gleb, the dour Russian chief butler who chose to go about his duties rather than involve himself with the mishaps of those far above his station.
“Tend to your own affairs, oh queen of Prussian cows!” he snapped at her as she passed him.
Babette ignored the insult, focused as she was on her mission. Huffing and puffing, she ran down the stairs, chasing the disappearing Prince Christian. She heard him enter the Great Hall and she followed, bursting through the doors just as they almost closed, erupting into the room like Gaia herself, mother of all Titans. She ran up to the Prince and Freddie, almost breathless, and she shouted, “My lord! … God and my Lord, what has happened? … Is my precious girl—“
“Yes, Babette, yes … the princess is of … good health,” Freddie’s father said as he tried to catch his own breath, speaking over his daughter’s shoulder. “She’s just fearful of this castle. Something happened in her room. I know not. There was no time to uncover it.”
“Ah, of course, the ghosts of this place. I’ve seen them many times! Why only yesterday—“
Freddie sighed and whispered, “Babette” and her nanny said to Prince Christian, “May I take her, lord? I will care for her. I should have been there in the room to protect her. Please punish me if you must.”
“Nonsense! No one will punish you, or anyone else,” he said with a hint of irritation in his voice. “There has been way too much of that in this castle.” He said and gently handed the body of Freddie over to Babette who took her and held her close—no easy task for anyone given Freddie’s size. Over the past year she’d grown much closer to full womanhood and astonished everyone in the castle with her maturity.
Babette carried Freddie to a place of warmth while Prince Christian followed. She walked up to stand before an enormous and arching stone-cobbled fireplace now roaring with enough flame to melt iron. Still clutching her princess, she plopped down her ample fanny on a cushioned bench before the fire and soothed her precious charge. She knew just what to say. She knew just what to do. “What happened, my lapooshka? You scared the roosters out of me!”
Freddie shivered and struggled for sanity, opening her eyes and glancing about as if searching the dark corners of the Great Hall for monsters.
“Relax, girl, the demons are no more. You’re as tight as a drum,” Babette said, imagining more phrases of comfort from bygone days, rubbing Freddie’s shoulders as her father knelt down, facing his daughter, his hand reaching out to clutch hers. Her nanny knew that the two of them would give Freddie strength and a sense of protection, and she was right. Freddie was moved to reveal at least a shred of the nightmare vision:
“I saw machines … screaming, chasing me, but not me.”
“Not you?” Babette stroked the young woman’s forehead, her own face darkening with concern.
“I saw myself, older, and I was somewhere in the mountains, the Alps or … no, bigger, like the Himalayas. My name was Catherine. It was so strange …”
“And things were chasing you?” her father asked.” Who sent them to chase you?”
“I don’t know. I believe my death was close. It might have been my very last day.”
“Nonsense!” her father said, squeezing her hand tighter.
“And she said … a war was coming.”
Babette smiled. "Oh, poof and poop! A war is always coming, and besides, your name isn’t Catherine," she said while suddenly noticing her nephew Willie drawing closer out of the shadows, as if he strained to hear their words.
His presence made no sense. What in God's name was he doing there? He should have been in the castle kitchen busy at chores, not lurking around. He was a distraction she didn’t need, one that no one needed. Babette wished to chase him away, but felt herself growing more and more alarmed at Freddie‘s state of being. Had she been poisoned? Babette knew of potions that caused terrible daydreams and nightmares. As the ancient Romans once said, Whom a god wishes to destroy he first drives mad. The mere thought of Freddie losing her mind made Babette moan inwardly, but she would be strong for her, no matter what came.
“You are just under a spell, my lapooshka, a spell of this castle. You aren’t the only one to have visions and nightmares, you know. I myself once had a vision that the Ottoman sultan chased me through the castle halls on the back of a flying goat!”
Freddie managed a weak grin, and Babette stroked the girl’s forehead and rocked, watching the great fire as its light softened and calmed the room. Prince Christian stood up and gazed down upon his daughter, and with such love that Babette felt a tear in her eye. Soon enough though, above the fireplace crackle, the two of them heard another noise, as if someone new had entered the Great Hall. Was it a servant? Babette realized she had partaken too deeply of Freddie’s fear and now felt terrified herself, so much so she could not move. Bärenthoren Castle echoed with darkness and demons, things not of this world. She’d seen them on occasion, floating in the halls, scampering in the attics, and as the sound of the new thing came closer, only fear for the princess overcame her own.
She began to turn, breathing heavily, catching a fleeting glimpse of Prince Christian’s face darkening and Willie's face looking alarmed, his body retreating into the shadows. And as Babette’s head turned, she saw the source of alarm on Willie's face. A thing far worse than any imp or hell spawn:
Princess Johanna.
The woman raged with a voice loud enough to frighten away any lurking devils. “Damn you three times, girl!” she shouted at Freddie, ignoring her husband standing off to the side—a man growing angrier by the second. Her arm shot like a bolt from a crossbow across Babette’s shoulder to grab a fistful of Freddie’s hair and viciously yank her from Babette’s lap onto the stone floor. “I told you to dress properly hours ago! Damn you three times!"
Prince Christian said coldly, “No, damn you, Johanna.”
Freddie just sprawled, her eyes to the ceiling, helpless. Babette whimpered, her own eyes imploring Princess Johanna for mercy as Prince Christian knelt back down to attend to his abused, ghost-shocked daughter, and to protect her from any further harm.
“It’s no wonder the little mongrel disrespects me, Christian,” Johanna said. “Since your own tongue displays it so well for her benefit!”
“You reap what you sow, Johanna.”
“And you’ve sowed such a precious brat, have you not?” said Johanna. “Perhaps you might use one of your ridiculous mechanical contraptions to muzzle her!”
“PLEASE STOP!” Freddie yelled, her voice cracking.
Ignoring her, as well as her husband’s murderous glare, Princess Johanna clapped her hands once and smoothed her face to a stoic mask of stone. Having regained this measure of composure, she looked down and said to Freddie, "Today you will meet Empress Elizabeth. She has come many months on her trip with her nobles to make a grand tour of Europe, and I do NOT want you humiliating me like you have in the past.” She bent down, raising a hand as if to coldly slap Freddie. To the side, Prince Christian rose to his feet, one hand reaching around his waist and grasping at air, as though searching for a sword or pistol to draw.
“No, please ... I will do what you wish,” Freddie said, gazing up at her mother. At this moment, she wasn’t the tough as nails veteran of countless assaults. Now, she was only a vulnerable girl frightened by things that refused to follow the rules of the mundane world.
This unexpected response puzzled Princess Johanna. "You will do what I wish?" She straightened and her hand fell to her side. "What has befallen you, Freddie?" Her face began to look suspicious.
Babette saw her chance. She jumped from the bench and fell to her knees before the mistress of Bärenthoren Castle. “Please, oh wondrous angel, let me take this young woman to my quarters. I’ll bathe her and dress her for the Empress of Russia. She will be beautiful and proper, I promise. I swear it!
... She was just having a horrible dream. It's the castle, the ghosts of the castle. She just—”
"Enough prattle! Take the little mongrel then, and live to your word or you will be whipped and made to shovel the stables for a year.”
“No such thing shall ever take place,” Prince Christian said.
Babette smiled and whispered thank you, but Princess Johanna only sneered her famous sneer at her glaring husband, a sneer known far and wide from Paris to Moscow, and turned and walked from the Great Hall. Babette watched her leave, saw the firelight flicker across her flowing dark dress and imagined her ruling Hell itself, her temper commanding even Lucifer to do her bidding or be forced to shovel Hell's stables.
Prince Christian watched her also, his temper still simmering. He bent down to kiss his daughter on the forehead, whispered something loving to her, stood and turned without another word to follow his wife out of the Great Hall, his steps measured and strong. Babette knew he would confront Princess Johanna in a more secluded part of the castle and resume the conflict. Like the rest of the castle staff, she was surprised the two of them had lived so long without one poisoning or stabbing the other.
Regardless, now that things had calmed in the Great Hall, Babette wished to deal with Willie. She waited several seconds before taking action, for she feared the potential of a sudden and violent return by Princess Johanna—a trick not new to her. Her own princess appeared safe, but she did not wish that woman of powerful rage to burst back onto the scene while she scolded Willie for lurking against orders.
Babette helped Freddie from the floor and settled her gently onto the cushion-covered bench before the fire. Next, she strode into the shadows of the Hall, to a far corner where she last saw Willie. She called out to him in a harsh whisper. He did not respond. She stood in that corner of the Hall, turning around and around, whispering, "Willie, you scoundrel boy, where are you?"
But he could not be found.
She saw nothing of him, no trace, as if he’d simply melted away. Could he have slipped out the door after Princess Johanna left, or before? Who knows? Babette would settle things with him later. His ability to read caused all sorts of trouble for her because the writers, or philosophers, or whoever they were, put all sorts of bold ideas in his head. Indeed, they threatened the sanity of the castle!
Their voices must have encouraged Willie to trespass.
The words drove him, like spells ... Yes. That must be it! Like spells of the mind, none of which gave Willie the right to overstep his bounds. Such presumption could not be allowed to exist, not for him, not for anyone in Bärenthoren Castle who did not drink from the golden cup. If only his ability to read such nonsense about “freedom” and “rights” would come to an end. She agreed with the nobles of Europe in their belief that DEMONcracy was “the work of the accursed printing press,” and of course, “just a silly idea of ancient Greece.”
Babette knew little of Greece, of course, not being able to read herself, though considering what she’d heard she did not care for the place, not a bit.
* царица *
WILLIE SAT DEEP IN THE BOWELS OF THE CASTLE, in a small candle-lit room facing a grand old clock positioned square on a rough oaken table big enough for four people to eat comfortably—the clock trimmed around its face with ornate oak leaf of solid gold, as if created by skilled European craftsmen imitating ancient crowns that once sat on the heads of great kings.
He’d arrived at the room via a hallway within the castle walls, one unknown to the servants and nobles. Of course, Master Paganini knew of it. He knew everything, it seemed. So while the tirade of Princess Johanna continued, he opened a stone panel in the shadows and edged through, closing it behind him with a faint click. He felt ashamed to leave, for he hated the way Freddie was always mistreated by the Princess. He wished to protect her, and even imagined he might be falling in love with her, for he’d been keeping watch on her for many months and his affection grew daily. He prayed that one day he might take revenge on her behalf, perhaps spin Johanna through the air, head over heels around the castle halls before locking her in the Bärenthoren dungeon.
Upon speaking to the clock, telling it a tale of Fracas Machines chasing a helpless Czarina Catherine in the mountains near Saravastra, he reached up and pinched the hour hand, turning it forward one hour to 11. The clock made a musical noise—a few simple notes with a melodic tone that reminded Willie of a woman humming. Once the last note faded, a voice spoke from the clock. It sounded distant and small, neither male or female, and scratchy as fingernails clawing at bark. Despite the distance and interference though, it carried a tone of worry, and when Master Paganini, The Lord of Saravastra and World Maker Supreme worried, it made Willie anxious.
“The princess saw the death of her future self … are you certain?” the voice said.
“Yes.”
“It must be a plan to frighten her, to create suspicion. Part of a bigger plan to turn her away ... And perhaps it was not truly that day, but a version, a conjuring of possibility.”
“I believe it was truly that day, Master Paganini.”
“Then we must convince her otherwise, Zolo. Very soon now, she will begin to acquire her power of grand aria, and she will work with us to save the 20th century from Edison Godfellow’s world wars.”
“I know. I will help to mask the truth, I swear it,” he said with sadness in his voice.
“Is there something wrong? You sound depressed, young man.”
“I know the Princess von Anhalt serves a greater purpose as a future World Maker and Czarina, but at the same time I wish to protect her.”
“You will do what you must. I have seen your future, Zolo. You will fight for liberty around the world, in the Americas and beyond. That is your destiny.”
"I understand, but—"
"Does Babette still believe you are her nephew? You know how spells across time can dissipate."
"Yes, she does ... I need to say—"
The clock hummed again and went silent. His concern was not heard.
Zolo stood up from the table and looked around at the stone walls of the small room closing in on him. Did he really exist in a prison? And what was “destiny” but another form of prison sentence? To be subject only to The Fates was not what he wished. He desired to change destiny, just enough, for Freddie's sake, even if Master Paganini disapproved. Watching the beating she took from Princess Johanna only confirmed that wish. Besides, Master Paganini did not know everything. How could he? Freddie’s vision had shocked him, caught him by surprise. So perhaps destiny, the world-to-be, could be changed.
Freddie von Anhalt should live to be a great World Maker and Czarina for the ages, not die horribly at the hands of Fracas Machines.
Standing there, in that small, prison-like room, Zolo Bold vowed to do everything in his power to create a new destiny for her. They could be victorious, even prevent the grand utopian scheme of the demonic Edison Godfellow from taking place, and without the doom Master Paganini believed would inevitably overtake Freddie’s older self. Why should living as a slave to one being’s vision of destiny be acceptable, and besides, he didn't believe that Zolo Bold of the Kazakhs would ever make it to America to fight for liberty with heroes of revolution. It just seemed impossible. Master Paganini had told him, in a moment of haste, that his adult self would book passage to the New World, and that he would play an important role in the American Revolution, and later, help a man named Napoleon Bonaparte in France.
What an odd name!
Zolo wanted to believe it, more than anything, for having been raised by Master Paganini, he accepted that World Maker’s vision of a wise, spiritual democracy for Earth, a veritable utopia to be known as the Pan Buddhist Democratic Union. Besides, why would Paganini lie? He had been like a father and mentor for ten of Zolo's 16 years, raising him in Saravastra together with the Mothers of The Temple ever since that day his real mother Avizeh had vanished from his sight forever. Still, Zolo was supposed to be a grea
t spellcrafter in the future, though why would the heroes of America's new order take up with a common molder of matter and energy?
They made things happen with their beliefs and courage. Causes needed blood to nourish them. It would avail nothing if one day he forced entire British regiments to fire on each other.
That would be too easy, and history would suffer.
The world would suffer.
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Bleeding Walls and Woggers – The Cooking of Freddie - Anhalt World Storming
"THE ROYAL RHINOCEROS DANCE" SHE CALLED IT. Often she would compare the counts and barons, and other nobles to a herd of bloated rhinoceros—men or women, it made no difference. All of them so shallow and selfish. They never stopped croaking like mating frogs about their awfully boring lives and social position relative to the royal courts. They loved their French too, even though the French scoffed at them behind their backs. Fools, all of them! So intolerable. But now, on this day, Freddie welcomed the distraction as she walked through the main hall in Bärenthoren Castle (busy as a Sunday main street in Paris) towards the Great Hall where all present would jostle and puff and climb over themselves for a chance at fawning over Empress Elizabeth of Russia.
She would stoically endure the many flattery rituals because it all served as more distraction, for the apparitions of late had both depressed and disturbed her. Memories of the Vermeer girl, that horrible vision of her older self near death, those insane machines ... It must be as her darling Babette said, likely a witchery or curse of the castle seeking a hold on her mind. What other explanation could there be? She was not going mad. No. And if drugged she would still be seeing the visions, unless of course, the drug had ceased its work. If mad by other means, why would she be perfectly fine now?
War of the World Makers Page 3
