I thought about that piece of information. Something had put him to sleep. Would it go into effect if I wore the enchanted cloak and no one knew I was there?
The palace guards and the herald alike all looked at me like, Here comes another one. But I was announced to the king, nevertheless. I’d never had a private audience with him. I followed etiquette, bowing stiffly, but I didn’t let myself be intimidated by his castle, his guards, or the splendor of the throne room. I looked him straight in the eye. He was just a balding, paunchy man.
“William the Cobbler, your majesty,” the herald said.
“Ah yes.” The king stroked his beard, which was mostly white by now. “Here to try your luck, William? You understand that you will be whipped when—excuse me, if—you fail to discover what becomes of my daughter each night?”
“I understand.”
“You must bring me proof,” the king said. “Tonight, you may sleep on the floor of her room, accompanied by a guard.”
“Actually, I would rather sleep down the hall, if you don’t mind.”
“How are you going to figure out where she’s going? We always have guards in the hall. They have never seen or heard anything amiss. My daughter is locked in her room every night.”
“Please, your majesty, it is my request,” I said, almost speaking through my teeth.
“Very well.” He waved a hand. “That’s that, then.”
I was permitted to share dinner with the guards, and then given a blanket and pallet on the floor in a room down the hall from the princess’ room. I still had not seen a single glimpse of the princess herself.
I threw on the cloak and watched the guard lock the princess in her room. Then I returned to my pallet and pretended to sleep, checking my watch frequently. Midnight was still a couple of hours away, so I waited. I wanted the guards to relax.
Around eleven, I decided to make my move. The guard was looking pretty sleepy and bored by that time. Occasionally I kept hearing him burp, which told me he was drinking something. Few jobs were as excruciatingly dull as being a guard.
When I put on the cloak, I could still see myself, but my skin and clothes looked a little strange and washed out. That was comforting. I knew it was working. The guard didn’t even glance up.
I decided not to make an attempt to steal the key. It would be better if he opened the door to check on the princess himself. I crept over to the door and rattled the handle a little.
“Hmm?” He perked up, like he was hoping something would happen. “Princess?”
No answer from her. He took out the key and unlocked the latch, then opened the door just a little. Not enough for me to get through. “Princess?”
I could tell he was about to close it, so I quickly ducked down and shoved my way through the door, tumbling across the floor. My leg was aching, but I was in her room and he hadn’t seen me. He was looking at the door like it was somehow faulty. Then he looked at the sleeping princess. Finally, he shook his head and locked it shut again.
I slowly got to my feet. Now I was locked up with the princess.
I hadn’t expected her to be so tiny and vulnerable looking. Or so…pretty. She wasn’t a conventional beauty. She was very pale, and a little sickly, like she just didn’t get enough fresh air or exercise. But there was something about her delicate features, her small mouth slightly open in sleep, and her breath slowly rising and falling, that stirred a deeply protective instinct like I had never felt before.
I guess it wouldn’t hurt if my future bride was pleasant to my eyes, I told myself.
I was trying to be pragmatic.
It wasn’t really working.
Suddenly, I wanted to bend over and master that little mouth with my own. Yank off the covers and see what she had to offer all the way down. Her untouched delicacy was the most tempting thing I’d ever seen. I’d never felt like this about anyone before. I always supposed I’d marry a nice hearty peasant girl, a little like Jeannie, but just enough not like Jeannie.
Well, you couldn’t get much less like Jeannie than a tiny, fragile, pampered, pious princess.
But I couldn’t let this feeling change what I was doing. She was still the precious daughter of the man who had ruined the lives of so many good men. Maybe I would win her heart. Maybe I wouldn’t. Either way, I was going to make her mine.
Chapter Five
Evaline
After three nights of worn-out slippers, my father issued a decree. I knew it was coming, because he’d done the same for my sisters.
What I didn’t expect was that he’d offer my hand in marriage and his kingdom besides.
I already knew that my mother was planning to send me to the convent. My father had no intention of giving up his kingdom to just anyone, I was sure of that. This decree simply meant that he had given up on a solution and wanted to take his frustration out on some greedy young men.
The first one came right away. The man slept in my room with a trusted guard accompanying him. It was terribly awkward, but I didn’t worry. I knew they would fall asleep before midnight, because countless men had already tried, when my sisters’ shoes were wearing out.
When midnight came, the poor man was sitting there waiting and watching me.
I clenched the covers.
What if it didn’t work?
And then, I saw a sparkle of golden dust stream down upon his head. He slumped back down into an immediate snore. The guard met the same fate.
“Thank you, King,” I said cheekily, suppressing a laugh at the unflattering positions they had collapsed into, before my bed moved aside to reveal the stairs.
Of course, the next day, the poor man was whipped and left in shame. I didn’t dare plead his case. I knew Father would say that it would all end, as soon as I told him what had happened to my slippers.
The next day brought another man, but oddly enough, he didn’t ask to sleep in my room. Maybe he hoped to catch someone attempting to enter. So I never had a look at him.
That night, as I met the faery who gave me my dancing dress, I thought I heard footsteps behind me. I kept glancing back, but I didn’t see anyone.
“Did you hear anything?” I asked her.
“No, but the woods do make noises. Maybe it was a bird.”
In the grove of golden leaves, I heard a twig snap. I asked the faery who gave me my jewelry, and she shook her head.
“I don’t see anything. I’m sure it was nothing! The gateway to the revels closes behind you.”
And in the grove of diamond leaves, I heard a funny sort of rustle. By now, I had a deep sense of misgiving. “Help me look around,” I begged the dark-haired faery handmaiden. We walked all around the grove and poked the bushes with sticks.
“Here!” she laughed. “It’s just a weasel in the brush. I just gave him a fright.”
“Weasels don’t have footsteps,” I said.
“No one could have followed you, I’m sure,” she said.
As always, the king met me in his boat to cross the river. He settled me onto my bench. I was starting to get very accustomed to the nightly ritual. Comfortable, I thought, but then, that word didn’t seem right.
I was used to the king. I was attracted to him. But I wasn’t…comfortable.
I really just don’t know him at all, I thought. His body is growing familiar to me, but what goes on in his head?
“Your majesty,” I said. “You know, we’ve never talked about…” He was frowning. It made me nervous. “Our childhoods, or our dreams, or anything like that…”
“There is something strange about this boat tonight,” he said.
“Yes—I did notice that. It’s sort of lopsided…” But I wasn’t really thinking about the boat. I was thinking about him, and the momentous decision of whether or not to give him my mask.
“What did you eat?” He laughed before giving the oars a vigorous push.
He doesn’t want to answer, I thought.
Surely I couldn’t give him my mask if he wouldn’t a
nswer.
As soon as I told myself that, I immediately balked. Give up the revels? Stay in my drab little kingdom forever? Join a convent?
What happens down that wooded path? What would it feel like to be dominated completely by the king?
No, I told myself. Don’t think of that.
All that mattered right now was escaping to the dance. I knew one day I would have to choose, but I didn’t dare think of tomorrow.
Chapter Six
Will
I tucked the evidence in my pocket. Three leaves: one silver, one gold, and one like a sparkling sliver of diamond. They were like nothing in the earthly realm. Even a jeweler couldn’t have made them, because they had the impossibly fine detail of a real leaf, and besides that, they were somewhat flexible.
When I wasn’t gathering leaves, I watched the princess make her way through the forest, staying just a step behind her. As the witch promised, my leg didn’t bother me even a little in this realm, while I wore the cloak.
She shed her dowdy nightgown, baring a beautiful body, before sliding on a slip of a dress. Immediately, her footsteps were lighter. Golden ornaments were placed in her hair, and around her throat, wrists, and ankles. They reminded me a little of shackles, and my cock swelled upon seeing her that way. Finally a mask was placed on her face. Too bad. Her face was my favorite thing about her.
I drew closer as she approached a small boat. A faery man was waiting for her. I tensed immediately, seeing him extend a hand to the little princess.
A human girl shouldn’t be gallivanting around half-naked with faeries. The desires and motives of faeries rarely benefited humans. Didn’t she know that?
Then again, if the princess had lived such a sheltered life as people said, maybe she didn’t. Or maybe she didn’t care.
I could see why she liked it down here. Lights and music beckoned across the river. I’d bet money that she never saw anything so enchanting. Everyone said the queen didn’t even allow the princesses to attend formal dances, much less a dance out under the moonlight.
That was the thing about faeries, I supposed. They offered something so tempting that it was easy to fall under its spell. And maybe we humans shouldn’t be so quick to judge; how often did I see anything this enchanting myself?
I stepped in the boat just behind the princess. I was careful, but my weight shifted the small structure. The faery man glanced up like he could see me, but then he looked at her.
No, I didn’t like him. Not the way he looked at me, not the way he looked at her.
I’d met a lot of people in my life, and I knew the look of someone who was trying to find an angle they could work. A con man, that’s what faeries were at heart. Always looking for a way to get something out of somebody.
Of course, who wasn’t? I guess I was doing the same.
When the boat reached the shore, I could hear the music clearly. The faery musicians were so magnificent that even I forgot what I was here for, just for a minute. I missed my days in the music troupe. It was only six years ago, but it felt like an eternity.
“Do you need a drink first, my princess?” the faery man asked Princess Evaline.
She hesitated a moment. “I’d rather just dance, your majesty,” she said.
Your majesty? So, he was not just any faery man, but the king of the festivities.
He took her hands with a smile and swept her into the crowd of faery revelers. There were hundreds of them, each intriguing in his or her own way, but I was having a hard time determining if they were happy, or merely frenzied. Occasionally, some of their faces betrayed a certain strange fright.
I snuck into the forest behind the musicians and turned my cloak around.
As I settled the cloak on my shoulders, a shimmering silver light swept over me, and in its place, my own humble clothing changed into the garments of a faery noble: a dark green velvet doublet, black trousers and boots. Even my hands looked cleaner. I scoffed. A spoiled princess would be pleased, I supposed, to see a man whose hands had never known hard labor. But they still had callouses from holding tools.
I walked toward the dance. The musicians glanced at me. I wondered if they would say I was an impostor.
Women looked my way as I reached the edge of the clearing, but no one seemed shocked. People seemed to come and go in and out of the forest.
Of all the women dancing, the princess held my eyes. She looked at me, but she was with her faery man, and he didn’t look like he was much for sharing.
A lithe faery girl with eyes that were almost all black behind her mask of leaves sprung toward me on her toes. “You’re new here,” she said.
“I thought I’d see what goes on here.”
“See…and experience.” She grabbed both my hands. “Handsome strangers aren’t allowed to merely observe.”
“And aren’t you a bold lass?” I retorted, grabbing her back. In a faery sort of way, she was the type of girl I usually liked. Girls who could hold their own.
“Yes, and you’d better keep up!” Her feet were quick, her body in a state of constant motion. We marched and jigged and reeled around the clearing, and after a few, other girls wanted to dance with me too. But my eyes kept following the princess. No one enjoyed the dancing like the princess, I could tell. Every beat of the drum, every note of the flute—she felt it down to her bones. She understood music instinctively. Her feet were so light that they didn’t seem to quite touch the ground. Her dark hair, laced with the strings of golden beads, danced across her back and shoulders, and her small breasts bobbed up and down. At times she looked downright giddy.
I must have been dancing for an hour already, and she had spent the entire time in the arms of the king.
I checked my watch. Two hours? That hardly even seemed possible.
“Ooh…shiny,” said the faery girl who I had been dancing with, touching my pocket watch with a quick hand. She had short, wild golden hair like a dandelion.
I put the watch away and gave her a hard look. “I stole it from a human soldier.”
“You keep staring at that human girl,” she said. “You like messing about with humans, do you?”
“Who doesn’t?” I grinned.
“Good luck getting ahold of her. The king thinks he can convince her to give up her mask to him.”
“What happens then?”
“He gets to claim her.”
I felt a pang of desire at the very idea of claiming the little princess—lanced with jealousy at the idea of the king having her instead. I hadn’t even said one word to her yet. But I had a good feeling about her…and a bad feeling about him.
“He never lets her dance with anyone else?”
“Well, he would have to let her dance if she asked you. He can’t deny her unless she gives him permission. But he certainly won’t like it. He is the king, after all.” She smiled at me, trailing a finger down my jacket. “Why bother trying to get her mask, when there are so many girls here?”
“I just want one dance,” I said. I’d never cared much for kings, anyway.
When the next song ended, I strode over to the musicians, relishing the enchanted perfection of my own legs. It was making me feel cocky. Cockier than usual? I imagined Jeannie saying.
“I don’t suppose you could play me a tune?” I asked them. “Your music is so fine. I’d like to sing one, if you’re willing.”
“Of course,” said the old faery gent who played two different drums and sometimes a clacking instrument much like spoons. “What will ye have?”
Unfortunately I had no idea which songs might originate with faeries or be known in faery lands. I tried to think of one of the most compelling songs I used to sing around the fire near our camp tents. “Do you know ‘At the Edge of the River’?”
“No, but tell me the rhythm and the rest will come in as we get the hang of it. They’re good at that.”
I nodded. It was likely that they would know a similar song, if not the exact one, because music tended to acquire changes of
lyrics or slight variations but follow similar patterns across the region. “Tum, dum, dum-de-dum,” I told the drummer, tapping it on my leg. He started to pound the drum.
The faeries looked my way, and so did the princess. I had never been much for attention and didn’t care for all those eyes on me, but I knew this was not a moment I could falter. I had to grab the princess by her keen ears and her dancing feet, and make her wonder who I was—so much so that she would choose me over the prince.
Chapter Seven
Evaline
Who was this singer?
I had never seen him here before. All the men here were handsome, and he was no exception, but his expression was entirely different from the others.
He looked defiant. His brown eyes were very direct and he kept looking at me. At the same time, his low, rich voice had such feeling and charm that I was struggling to dance, because it distracted me from listening to him.
The maiden comes down to the river a-flowing
She says, o river, where are you going
The river says, maiden, I go to the sea
She says, will you carry a wish there for me?
The king tugged my feet along. I forced myself to pay attention to the dance, but my attention kept returning to the newcomer. He had the most beautiful voice I had ever heard, and I wanted to shut my eyes and listen to it, and nothing else.
When he finished the tune, many of the faeries clapped for him. “I’ve never heard that song before,” the king said, with a slight scoff.
“I like it,” I said. “Who is that man?”
“I’ve never seen him before either.”
“I want to ask him.” I broke away from the king. He was displeased, but he didn’t stop me. He couldn’t force me to do anything against my will.
I approached the faery singer, and despite that slight sense of anger in his eyes and the wrinkle in his brow, as if something weighed upon him, I also found him surprisingly approachable. There was a kindness to him, too, I thought. I had heard that in his voice.
These Wicked Revels Page 4
