by Liz Braswell
“What?” the bird asked, confused.
“I like you, Jona,” she said, scruffing the bird under her neck. The gull closed her eyes and leaned into it.
“ARIEL! You’re SINGING!”
An explosion of grey and white feathers landed on the beach next to them. As soon as he recovered himself, Scuttle threw his wings around her in a gull-y embrace.
“I am,” she said, stroking his head.
“Oh, it’s so good to hear you,” Scuttle said with a sigh. “It does my old heart…It’s just the best.”
Ariel smiled. There was something specifically beautiful about what he had said: It’s so good to hear you. He didn’t say anything about her singing, just that it was good to hear her voice. He was genuinely pleased just that she had her voice back—whatever she chose to do with it.
This is a friend.
And…wait a second…she didn’t have to just think these thoughts anymore.
“Scuttle,” she said aloud. “It does my heart good to talk to you.”
“You’re so queenly now, listen to you. So noble and regal and genteel and all. So does this change the Big Plan?” Scuttle asked, elbowing her with his wing and giving a conspiratorial wink. “You’re still gonna look for your father, right?”
“Of course. But now…I’ve effectively…alerted…Ursula to my presence. I’m a fool. I should have waited before destroying Ursula’s necklace.”
She shook her head and sighed, picking up the leather band that had held the nautilus. Now a golden bail and a bit of shell were all that was left. For reasons she couldn’t put into words—either aloud or in her head—she wrapped the strap around itself twice and slipped it onto her wrist. Maybe it would remind her to not be so rash in the future.
“I dunno, Ariel,” Scuttle said. “What else would you have done? Left it there? Your voice? That would take the will of a mountain or something. You couldn’t just leave it there with Ursula. No one could have.”
“No, I don’t…suppose I could have. I don’t know.”
“Did you manage to look around at all?” Jona asked. “Maybe get a hint of where she might be hiding him?”
“Only a little. He’s probably in her bedroom…or was in her bedroom. I didn’t see any bottle or anything immediately like what you described when I was there, and now that she knows I’m back she’ll probably hide him someplace else. At least I have an ally in the castle. Maybe even two! There’s a little maid who didn’t reveal me to Ursula—and also Carlotta, who was so nice to me the last time I was human. She’s aware that something happened the day Eric and Vanessa were wed. She also told me that a lot has happened as a result of that day. Ramifications—bad ones—for people besides me and my father.”
“Oh yeah? With Ursula as Vanessa, running the kingdom?” Scuttle asked. “I mean, you hear things as a bird, you know. But it’s hard to tell when humans are happy or unhappy. Especially when you’re just trying to pick through their garbage.”
“What I don’t understand is why Ursula would stay. Married to Eric, I mean. And here.” She indicated all the Dry World with her hands. “What does she want? I thought her only desire was to beat me and get revenge on my father. She did that. This isn’t her home….”
Scuttle shrugged. “I don’t know, Ariel. She’s evil, right? Who knows why she does anything? To make more evil, maybe? Or maybe she just likes it here. Whatever is going on in her crazy head, we gotta take her down, that’s what we gotta do. We’ll eighty-six her, get your dad back, get the prince, and everyone lives happily ever after.”
“I don’t know about all of that,” Ariel said with a smile. “I don’t think I can be responsible for everyone’s happily ever after.” Even my own. Get the prince? It was an intriguing thought, but one for later. Duty first. “…I think it would be difficult to, um, ‘eighty-six’ a princess and a sea witch, especially now that I’ve lost the element of surprise. Let’s focus on getting my father back, and then see what else we can do afterward.”
“You don’t want the prince anymore?” Jona asked curiously.
Ariel looked at her in surprise. Had the bird read her mind? “Excuse me?”
“The character of you really seemed to pine after the character of him in Eric’s opera, La Sirenetta,” Jona said with a shrug. “And Great-Grandfather always told the story of the two of you, and you gave your voice away to win him….”
“It was a long time ago. I was young, he was handsome and exotic. I don’t think—in reality—there’s much of a possibility of a long-term relationship between a mermaid and a human.”
It was so much easier to speak quickly first and then decide later if it was truth or lies. She was already losing the thoughtfulness that came with being silent. Ariel scolded herself mentally.
“Better ease off,” Scuttle said to his great-grandgull in what he probably thought was a helpful whisper. “She seems a little touchy. Still an open wound.”
Ariel took a deep breath and stood up. “Well, I don’t think I can go back to the castle right now. Everyone saw me rush out.”
“What will you do?” Jona asked.
“While I’m waiting for things to die down a bit, I’ll go see for myself what mess Ursula’s rule over Tirulia has created. If Carlotta is right, it makes my task even more urgent. I can’t have humans dying because of a princess I—however inadvertently—gave them. I need to go to town, where the people are, and listen to what they are saying.”
“Absotively,” Scuttle said. “Having a sea witch for a princess has got to have some bad, you know, reiterations.”
“Repercussions, I think you mean, Great-Grandfather,” Jona corrected politely. She stretched her wings. “I should go alert Flounder of your status change—regarding your voice.”
“Thank you, Jona,” Ariel said warmly. “Please tell him to meet me in this cove four tides from now for an update. And make sure he fully understands not to tell anyone else at all yet.”
“Anyone?” Scuttle asked, surprised. “Not even old crabby-claws?”
“Especially not Sebastian. Not yet. I already feel bad enough getting my voice back—and not my father. I can’t bear the thought of explaining that to him right now. Also, if everyone knows that I can talk again, it’s just more pressure—to get me back, to have me stay and rule. It would be hard to escape and look for Father a second time.”
“But you wouldn’t be telling everyone, just Sebastian,” Scuttle pointed out.
“Once Sebastian knows, the entire kingdom will hear about it within hours,” Ariel said with a wan smile. “He’s as bad as a guppy with gossip.”
He made his way back from rehearsal to the castle with the uncomfortable feeling that he was hiding something.
It was not unlike the time he had caught his first really sizable branzino. The old fishermen on the docks had cheered when the eight-year-old princeling ran home as fast as his little legs could carry him, holding his prize aloft.
But then, realizing he had a catch of serious merit, Eric was suddenly convinced that his mother and father, the king and queen, would yell at him for such plebeian pursuits and forbid him from cooking and eating the dinner he had gotten for himself like a real man.
He hid the fish under his shirt.
The branzino (known commonly as the wolf fish) had extra-sharp fins and spines and scales, all of which cut into the boy’s flesh as it struggled.
Little Eric arrived at the castle desperate and bleeding. He went straight to the kitchens, where he collapsed into a puddle of tears, cursing his own weakness.
(The king and queen, as any parent could guess, were delighted with the skill and determination their son had shown. They gave Eric a really solid lecture on the importance of knowing what common people did to earn their dinner, for he would be ruling a kingdom of fisherfolk someday. Then the cook oversaw the bandaged, once-again cheerful Eric as he fried up the fish himself. It was presented to the royal family on a golden platter, and everyone lived happily ever after that day.
)
This was also not unlike the time when, as a young teen, he had fallen in love with a stray puppy that did not at all fit the royal image of a hunting hound. This, too, he stuffed under his shirt and carried home. Guilty and tortured, he snuck Max into his bed and fed him the best bits of purloined steak from dinner.
He was of course found out.
“It’s not a Sarenna imperial wolf mastiff,” his father had said with a sigh. “We kings of Tirulia have always had those. For centuries.”
“At least it’s not a fish this time,” the queen had pointed out lightly.
But little Eric and older Eric and even now oldest Eric never had a truly terrible secret. Those two were the worst ones he could come up with when trying to compare what he felt now to something similar in his life.
What was it, exactly, he was hiding this time? It wasn’t tangible, like a fish or a puppy.
Clarity?
Was that a terrible secret? Why did he feel the need to hide it?
He tried to mimic the way he usually walked home, but all the Erics—little, older, and present Eric—were terrible liars. It was just one of the many reasons the prince refused to be in his own shows, even in a bit part. He knew his limits.
He looked up quickly, guiltily, askance, expecting things to appear different. More colorful. More detailed. More truthful. More meaningful.
But all the houses he passed looked the same; the flowers and plants were the same colors as the day before.
Yep, that grain storehouse is still the same. Same dry rot around the windows, same moldering timbers….
Wait a moment, that looks really bad. I’ll bet it smells terrible up close. Isn’t that where we keep the surplus grain? In case of blight or disaster? Good heavens, is it leaking? That could ruin everything. Why is that being allowed? I’d better look into that….
Oh, look, it’s that girl from the market who sells the sea beans. What’s she doing here? I used to know her mother….What was her name? Lucretia.
My word—look at that enormous guarded wagon driving up to the castle, with so many soldiers around it! What on earth are they delivering? I want to say…munitions? Yes! That’s it.
Wait—munitions? But why? I can’t quite…Why do we need…? This is all so bizarre.
Then it hit him.
There hadn’t been a physical change to himself or his sight; the veil or whatever it was, the charm, had been lifted from inside his head. It was like an old net, full of slime and dead shellfish and falling apart and utterly useless, had enshrouded his brain, and had just now been extracted by some clever doctor. He could think for the first time in years. He could react to the things around him. Generate opinions. Hold on to thoughts. He had changed, not his eyes.
That was reassuring, and having figured that out made him feel a bit better and more in control. He strode confidently into the castle. Grimsby was waiting just inside and in one fluid, habituated movement helped the prince spin out of his academic robe and into a very neatly tailored day jacket, dove grey with long tails.
“Thanks, Grims,” Eric said, continuing on to the lesser luncheon room and fluffing up his cravat. All he wanted to do was grab his old manservant—out of sight of the guards—and grill him about the past. He was the only one in the castle Eric could trust. But that would look odd, and until he got the lay of the land, he preferred to play along like still-bespelled Eric.
Princess Vanessa was already seated at the delicate golden table where they would dine together after meeting with the Metalworkers’ Guild. Thank goodness he didn’t have to greet her and take her arm and lead her in. He had very, very mixed feelings right now, but all the ones around her induced nausea.
“Good afternoon, Princess,” Eric said politely. She extended a gloved hand and he perfunctorily kissed the back of it, extending his lips so that only the furthest, tippiest bit, the part that often got chapped at sea, barely brushed the smooth fabric.
He noticed—and was unsure if this was the result of his new state of being—her dress: she wore an unusually demure pale blue day dress with less bustle than usual and understated lace ruffs at the wrists. Also a giant woolly muffler wrapped around her neck and shoulders. Oh, it matched, of course; it was a beautiful, expensive shade of blue and was fringed with the sort of exotic imported feathers that had long skinny shafts and little bouncing dots of color at the top that flashed in gold and iridescence. They obscured most of Vanessa’s face.
More luck, Eric thought.
“Bit of a nasty cold,” she whispered huskily. One delicate gloved hand went to her throat.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, settling down into his own seat. Parched from the dry air in the practice hall, he picked up a carafe and began to pour himself a glass of cava.
Then he stopped. Did he really want to be foggy headed? At all? After this…awakening?
He reached for the crystal decanter of water instead.
Vanessa watched him silently.
The suited and dour captains of the Metalworkers’ Guild stood before them, the symbol of their station gleaming here and there on their persons: silvery cane handles, the shining tips of their boots, simple rings, sashes with obscure buckles on them.
“If we may, Your Highness…” A short and stocky man stepped forward. He had a luxurious, well-trimmed beard, and if it weren’t for his modern tricorn hat, he would have looked exactly like a character out of one of Eric’s fairy tale books, one of the fair folk who actually dug the precious metals out of deep mines. “We don’t want to delay your lunch any further.”
“Very considerate,” Vanessa hissed. Without her normal, lilting tone, it sounded exactly as snarky and sarcastic as she probably meant. The man’s bushy eyebrows shot up, but of course he said nothing about it.
“T-to put it plainly,” he stuttered, “we…of course…support any and all military actions as planned and carried out by you, of course….It does keep us busy, after all. All the musket barrels…and mechanisms…and cannons…No shortage of work!”
Eric frowned. How much work did Tirulia’s metalworkers have, precisely, involved in the crafts of war? The only reason there were fortifications in the city at all were because Roman governors and then medieval kings had liked the surroundings for their vacations by the sea.
“The problem is supplies. Your…strategies have unfortunately angered some of our trading partners. And the pass in the north is now unsafe for shipping, especially cargo that could be seen as military.”
“I thought our mountains had some of the finest mines in the world,” Vanessa whispered, asking the question before Eric could pose it himself. His father had first shown him the location of the mines and quarries on a parchment map when he was a lad. The ink in which mountains were sketched, in little upside-down vees, was a dull black for iron and metallic orange for copper. That had fascinated young Eric—although he had wanted to put a dragon in there as well.
“What, Your Highness?” the man said, leaning closer. “I’m sorry, your voice…”
“MINES,” she croaked. “FINE MINES. WITH COPPER.”
“Absolutely, Princess,” the man said. His eyes had darted briefly, questioningly, to the prince before resettling on her.
Eric started to feel relief at this close call of being noticed, then realized something: no one paid attention to him anymore. No one had in years. And that “relief” that he now seemed to be accustomed to? What was that? Wasn’t he crown prince? Shouldn’t he be dealing with the head of the guild and all his boring business himself? That was his duty!
The man was still talking.
“…And if we didn’t have to make bronze or pewter, or things out of tin, we would be set. Steel has its uses, but there are other things to be made besides weapons, and those other things need other metals.”
“What things are those?” Vanessa hissed. Maybe if she were speaking normally, with her large eyes and eyelashes aimed at the men, it would have come out as Teach me—I’m an innocent young girl
who relishes your older-man wisdom. But there was a strange cognitive disconnect because of the husky whisper: almost like she was a much older woman poorly play-acting the role of young ingénue.
While Eric was pondering this, he also was puzzled by what she said. What things are made of metal? Didn’t she have eyes? Didn’t she live in the castle and use the objects within it?
“Well…Your Highness…” the man said awkwardly, looking around for support. “Most people in the kingdom, even wealthy folks like myself, tend not to eat off golden spoons and forks.” He indicated the royal couple’s place setting with a tip of his head. “Or burn candles in silver candelabra. Pewter, bronze, and tin make all the tools and useful things for the rest of us—they have for thousands of years. And since we don’t have tin in our mountains, we must trade for it. And we can’t right now.”
“Well, then,” Vanessa whispered thoughtfully. “We must go to the place it is found and take it for ourselves.”
The man blinked at her. “Bretland?”
She looked at him slyly out the corner of her eyes, gauging his reaction. Eric watched her tawdry performance, horrified and yet fascinated.
“You want us to…invade the Allied Kingdoms of Bretland?” the man asked again.
“Never say never,” the princess purred.
“Excuse me? I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear Your Highness.”
“I said, ‘Never say never.’”
“Beg pardon?”
Eric wanted to leap up and announce that this ridiculous meeting was over. That Vanessa should not even suggest the—incredibly stupid, unheard-of—idea of military aggression against one of the world’s greatest powers to a civilian, much less without discussing it with him first.
But…
While he wasn’t a very skilled chess player, his mother had told him that the most important thing in gamesmanship was this: you could never be completely sure of other person, so never make a move until you were sure of yourself.
And he wasn’t. Not yet. Not until he had some time to think and figure things out.
“I think this merits more discussion,” he said aloud. Which was perhaps more than he had said in a while, but so wishy-washy no one could accuse him of acting forthrightly with thought and opinion. Vanessa did shoot him a quick sidelong glance, but that was all. “Your concerns about tin and, I assume, aluminum, will be taken into consideration. Thank you for your time, gentlemen.”
