by Liz Braswell
Some parts were harder to put into code than others; the library, for instance. He pulled out every book because Vanessa was known to spend entire afternoons there, especially in the sections on history, folklore, and magic. An hour going through all the floor-level shelves resulted in a whole page of middle C notes. Very suspicious, even to someone who didn’t know much about music. In a burst of inspiration Eric labeled the sheet Part for Upright Bass, Picked: Anticipating the Coming Storm. It was a bit more experimental than the sort of music he normally composed, but these were modern times, and the Mad Prince was nothing if not eager to try new things.
Progress was slow but steady. He had no doubt that soon he would find the king.
And then something so unimaginably horrific occurred that Eric couldn’t even gather his wits enough to escape it.
Chef Louis said to him:
“Eet has been a long time since the royal couple has dined en privé. Maybe a special dinner is required?”
The entire staff was in on this decision, reacting exactly like an extended family scared that Mom and Dad were drifting apart—what could they do to keep them together?
Grimsby and Carlotta, bless them, did their best to quell the whole thing. The maid yelled, the butler made Bretland-accented speeches of disapproval.
It didn’t matter. The dinner would be happening.
Part of Eric thought he deserved this. He had been avoiding Vanessa like a coward and not behaving like a true, brave prince. It was only a matter of time before he was forced to face the villain—he just hadn’t expected it to be at opposite ends of a long dining table with a white linen tablecloth and golden candelabra; a multicourse feast for two lonely people in a giant empty room that overlooked the sunset sea.
When Vanessa came into the dining room Eric stood up, as was only right. He looked at her—really tried to look at her. But whatever spell kept her appearing human was different from whatever hid the polyps. Her form remained. And it was a beautiful form; very curvy in the right places, maybe a little too skinny and waspish in the waist. Implausible. Her hair was radiant and her face was symmetrical and prettily composed. But what looked out of her eyes and tugged the corners of her lips wasn’t married to the flesh it wore and seemed hampered by its limitations.
Tonight, as befitted the “romantic” occasion, she wore a bloodred velvet gown and matching bolero to cover her shoulders. A fox was draped around her neck, behind which sparkled the chain of a golden necklace Eric didn’t remember seeing before. But besides the fur there was no other nod to the sickness she kept pretending to have. The weather was far too warm for velvet, really, but Vanessa never seemed to get hot or cold. And she never pretended to feel faint like other ladies.
That, at least, Eric could appreciate.
He wore a military-style dress jacket, royal blue, with a sash across the front indicating his brief service in the army that was required of all royal sons.
“Good evening, My Prince,” Vanessa whispered. They air-kissed, like cousins. He pulled her seat out for her. “Thank you,” she simpered, oozing down into it.
Chef Louis himself came out to present the first course, small golden cups of perfectly clear consommé.
“It should be good for your throat, eh, Princess?” he said before bowing out.
Eric was feeling annoyed and reckless. He gazed at the woman opposite him daintily sipping from a tiny mother-of-pearl spoon.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sick,” he observed. “Not the entire time we’ve been married.”
“Oh, it’s this ghastly summer weather. Cold one moment, hot the next. Plays havoc with the…nerves…oh, I don’t know, whatever it is the silly little things say about the weather,” Vanessa finished, too bored to bother completing the thought.
She pulled the fur from her neck and let it drop to the floor. Eric flinched when its taxidermied nose made a soft clack against the tiles. There was no reason to disrespect an animal you killed. It wasn’t a thing; once it had been a living being.
“You haven’t been…yourself lately, either,” she said, somewhere between a purr and a growl, letting the whispering part of her act die off as well. “It seems like you’ve been acting different since…well, almost exactly since the time I lost my voice.”
“Perhaps so. I do feel pretty good these days, actually,” Eric responded airily.
They finished their soup in silence, looking into each other’s eyes—but not like lovers.
Not at all.
Eventually a serving boy came in and cleared the bowls; they clattered against each other loudly in the vast room.
The next course was a magnificent chilled seafood salad on three tiers of silver dishes mounded with ice. Glittering diamonds of aspic decorated the rims.
Eric picked up a tiny three-pronged golden seafood fork, thinking about the trident in Ariel’s hair. She hadn’t worn it years ago, when they had first met. Maybe it was a sign of royalty.
“Don’t suppose your feeling good has anything to do with a pretty little mermaid, does it?” Vanessa asked casually.
Eric froze.
Vanessa smiled coyly down at her plate.
“Why, yes, as a matter of fact, it does,” he said as he speared a tiny pickled minnow and delicately eased it into his mouth.
It was extremely gratifying to see Vanessa’s eyes grow huge in childlike surprise.
“Yes, I definitely started feeling good when I managed to get Sarai to hit the high F over C in her final aria, ‘The Goodbye.’ Like this.”
And then the Mad Prince sang in a terrible falsetto.
Vanessa just sat and watched, unblinking. Through all seven minutes. No doubt people in the kitchens were listening in fascinated horror as well.
When he finished, Eric took a few pickled bladderwracks in his fingers and popped their air bladders thoughtfully. “It was a real triumph. Now I just need to get her to do it onstage.”
Vanessa narrowed her eyes.
He tried not to grin as he ate the seaweed. The princess slowly pulled out a piece of fish and cut it, thoroughly and assiduously.
A different serving boy came out with a basket of steaming hot bread and, in the Gaulic fashion, little tubs of sweet butter. Eric preferred olive oil, but along with all the other terrible things going on in the castle, Vanessa had embraced Gaulic culture with the tacky enthusiasm of a true nouveau riche.
“I do so love baguettes, my dear, sweet, Mad Prince. Don’t you?” she said with a sigh, picking up a piece and buttering it carefully. “You know, we don’t have them where I come from.”
“Really? Where you come from? What country on Earth doesn’t have some form of bread? Tell me. Please, I’d like to know.”
“Well, we don’t have a grand tradition of baking, in general,” she said, opening her mouth wider and wider. Then, all the while looking directly at Eric, she carefully pushed the entire slice in. She chewed, forcefully, largely, and expressively. He could see whole lumps of bread being pushed around her mouth and up against her cheeks.
The prince threw his own baguette back down on the plate in disgust.
She grinned, mouth still working.
“Your appetite is healthy, despite your cold,” he growled. “Healthy for a longshoreman. Where do you put it all? You never—seem—to—gain—a—pound.”
“Running the castle keeps one trim,” she answered modestly. “Military planning, offensive strategies, tactics, giving orders, keeping our little kingdom safe, you know. We could be attacked any time. From the land…from the sea…”
“Actually, Tirulia’s biggest problems are with those who leave the sea and come here to live….Hey, maybe I should write an opera about that.”
He gave her a bright smile.
“You’re so very clever,” Vanessa said softly. “Such a clever little musician. With your clever little operas. You’re giving everyone a free show at the end of the month, aren’t you? One wonders if you would even have time to devote yourself to the
kingdom or anything military—even if you had an interest in it.”
“No interest whatsoever. I’m just the Mad Prince, that’s all. Don’t mind me,” Eric said, saluting her with the butter knife. “Carry on with your little war games. It does seem to keep you occupied.”
“I will, then, thank you,” the princess said primly. “By the way, I have orders out to kill Ariel on sight if she shows up on castle grounds again, you know. Not just her father.”
Eric choked.
When he recovered Vanessa was smiling at him venomously.
Eric worked his jaw, trying to quell the rage that would have him across the room and throttling her if he didn’t stop it.
When the immediate anger subsided he felt a terrible emptiness, a sick, sinking feeling that drained his whole body. He sat back in his chair, feeling defeated.
“Do you really have tentacles?” he asked flatly.
“Yes,” she said wistfully, through her full mouth. “Really nice ones, too. Long and black. I miss them.”
The serving boy came in and pretended not to notice the exasperated, obviously not eating prince, and the princess who had to keep chewing ponderously because of the amount of food she still had in her cheek pockets. Off a silver platter the boy took two paper cones—Bretland style, of course—filled with perfectly deep-fried baby squid gleaming in a crispy golden batter. After carefully setting one down in front of each of them, the boy immediately withdrew, trying not to look over his shoulder. The mood in the room was palpably icy.
Vanessa looked at the cone with delight, and the moment she swallowed the bread—another large, loud, disgusting gesture that showed the bolus going down her throat in an Adam’s apple-y lump—she picked up a squid with her fingers and popped it into her mouth.
“How can you do that?” Eric burst out, unable to contain himself.
“Do what?” Vanessa asked innocently.
“Eat…something that looks like you. Something out of the sea. Can’t you talk to sea creatures?”
“Well,” Vanessa said thoughtfully. “There are seas, and there are seas. There are the seas that you know and fish out and dump your garbage into and generally destroy in your careless human way, and the seas you don’t know. Seas that hide secret treasures and kingdoms of merfolk and portals to the Old Gods. And there are seas beyond that…between the waves, between the stars…where some of the truly Elder Gods come from. What I’m trying to say is”—she leaned forward and popped another squid into her mouth—“these are very delicious.”
“Disgusting,” he muttered.
“Like you humans care,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Have you ever tasted latium shark?”
“No. Is it good?”
“No idea, because you idiots ate it into extinction. Along with several kinds of sea anemone—such beautiful fronds!—sweet-hake, and other fish whose names were literally also the names of food. We could have quite a long discussion about tuna and lobster and cod and shrimp if you cared. I don’t. But then again, I’m what all of you call an evil witch. ‘Evil’ indeed. Meanwhile you humans scuttle across the sea and land literally devouring everything even remotely edible. If only you knew—you’re not that different from the more apocalyptic Elder Gods. Not really.”
Eric slumped, all the fear, anxiety, anger, and energy draining out of him.
“What do you want?” he asked wearily.
“What?” Vanessa asked, surprised. A squid was poised halfway to her mouth.
“What. Do you want,” he repeated. “Why are you still here? If my…memory…and legend has it right, you really are a powerful witch under the sea. What do you want to be here for?”
“Hmmm,” Vanessa said thoughtfully, chewing on the squid. “Powerful witch under the sea. My, I do like the sound of that. I suppose I was. But…does legend have it? Or did a certain little ridiculous mermaid tell you?”
“You got all the revenge on her you wanted!” Eric said, smashing his fist down on the table. “You got rid of the King of the Sea, you stole his daughter’s voice, you kept her from getting the prince…me. Why stay here? Why not return to the ocean, where you’re a powerful witch? Why do you linger? Why stay married to…me?”
His last words sort of trailed off, like a weak wave returning from the shore to a vast sea, disappearing in the limitless water.
Vanessa laughed throatily and deeply. If Eric didn’t look directly at her he could easily imagine a much older, much larger woman, voice husky from years of cigars or hard living. But he did look at her, and the dissonance he experienced while viewing the weirdly innocent face was too much like a fever dream.
“Oh, dear, no,” she said, moving her face in a way that implied she was wiping tears of laughter, but her hands moved differently, still breaking the legs off baby squid. “I will say you have a certain…charm. And youth is always attractive. But, my love, you’re short at least eight tentacles. Maybe six, if I were generous and counted your legs. Also, I like my partners with a bit more…heft to their physiques.”
Eric was unsure if he was more horrified or relieved.
“It’s always the case, isn’t it? Men are pretty much the same the world around, regardless of their race,” Vanessa said, exasperated. “They always assume they have the complete, undivided attention of whatever female creature happens to be in the room.”
“All right, yes, I get it, this is a marriage of convenience, thank you. But why? Why are you here? If you don’t even like me? What is there keeping you here? You’re not even doing magic anymore, are you? I haven’t seen you conjure any spells or do any magic since we’ve been together, since the initial one you cast over me and my kingdom.”
Vanessa looked up at him sharply.
Huh, Eric thought, noticing her reaction. She hasn’t because she can’t. Maybe in human form she couldn’t do magic. He decided to file that thought away for later.
“Well,” she said. “You’re not quite the dumb, handsome prince you look like. Here’s the truth, then, if we are speaking plainly. I find I rather like you humans—I didn’t expect that at all! You’re so venal and shortsighted and power hungry and imaginative and…such a mess of wants and desires. And so short-lived! Hardly any of you has the wisdom that a century or two of living endows one with. Such fun to play with…And there’s so many more of you than merfolk. The possibilities are endless.”
She gave him a winning smile.
Doctor Faustus’s Mephistopheles has nothing on Vanessa, Eric thought. Toying with souls and bodies like it’s all a child’s game for her.
“And here’s the thing,” she said, changing her tone. She stabbed five mussels in a row with her knife and shoveled them into her mouth but continued to talk. Like the hungriest, most brutish old sailor in a pub after months at sea. “True, I was a powerful sea witch. But can anyone really have enough power? Even with Triton gone there are seven sisters defending his crown, and a mer army, and countless other soldiers, guardians, priests, and allies who would effectively keep me from running the show. Here? I am running the show. And all it took was a marriage! Not a drop of blood spilled. Or a person transmogrified.”
“Not a drop of blood spilled?” Eric demanded, leaning forward. “We lost twenty at the Siege of Arlendad and three in the attack north of the Veralean Mountains when you were trying to ‘send a message’ to Alamber. That’s twenty-three young men who will never give their mothers a grandchild, who will never see another spring, who will turn into dirt before they reach twenty!”
“My, you really are quite the poet,” Vanessa said, perhaps really impressed. “But those were the result of empire expansion. My ascension to power, in itself, was bloodless. Also, I don’t remember your being quite so eloquent on behalf of Tirulia’s young male population at the time I first proposed these ventures….”
“I was under your bloody spell!” Eric shouted, standing up.
“Dear, the staff,” Vanessa said primly. “Let’s not let the help know about our marital issues. They’re
all terrible gossips.”
Eric made a strangled cry and pounded his fists on the table.
“Just be a good boy and let mummy Vanessa run things. Soon Tirulia will be a power among powers, to rival Druvest or Etrulio. Then you’ll be grateful for what I’ve done. And what will you have had to do, to get all these new lands and resources? Nothing. It’s just me, sweetie. You go and write your plays and operas and let the people love you.
“Actually, we make quite a good team together, when you think about it. You’re the spiritual side of the operation. I’m the tactics. And the…body.”
Eric looked at her blackly.
And that was when the chef chose to come back in.
“How waz everything?” he asked, clasping his hands together.
Vanessa hurried to pick up her fox and wrap it around her neck. “Quite good,” she whispered.
“Oh! Zat is wonderful. I will attend to ze palate cleanser now….”
The idea of spending another half hour, another ten minutes, another course with Vanessa, made Eric sick.
As soon as the chef was gone Vanessa gave him a nastily patronizing smile. “Don’t fret, darling. I really do have Tirulia’s best interests at heart.”
“I highly doubt that you have Tirulia’s best interests anywhere near what passes for a heart on you.”
“Well, I suppose hearts are a mostly human condition, aren’t they? Especially yours. You’re so full of love and feeling for everyone around you. Your country, your little mermaid, your dumb dog, your butler….Say, speaking of hearts, his is rather old, isn’t it?”
Her words chilled Eric to his bones.
“Hate for anything to happen to it. A man at his age probably wouldn’t recover from an attack,” she said thoughtfully.
“I…I’m not sure how you could arrange that,” the prince stuttered. “Since we just established you don’t perform your witchery anymore.”
