The Sleeping Beauty

by Mercedes Lackey

  He hadn’t been in those rooms long enough to get over the shock of them when one of the servants turned up with a big pile of clothing for him. Another shock. All his life, he had had two sets of clothing, the one he was wearing and the one he had just cleaned. Now he had…well, a great deal, and someone was always whisking away what he took off to clean it for him!

  He did like the clothing; it was much like his own, without the armor, and was very practical. The stuff of which it was made was certainly the finest leather and linen he had ever set eyes on. The leather was so soft to the touch it felt like the finest swansdown, and the linen was like warm water on the skin. He’d seen other men here, who were not servants and not Guards, wearing much the same sort of thing, so he knew he was not being mocked subtly. It seemed to be the clothing of choice for a sober sort of man. Well, that was all right. He supposed he could be considered a sober sort of man. He would not have wanted all the nonsense and folderol that the other fellow, Leopold, was wearing.

  He did know good table manners, however. He’d picked that up fairly soon after passing out of the Clan-lands and into a real Kingdom. And he also knew how to manage polite conversation—which was pretty much talking about nothing, when you came down to it.

  But he could manage that. The way he managed, even if he didn’t understand half of what the other person was on about, was that he simply looked grave, paid close attention, and when their intonation and body language told him they were asking for his confirmation of something they already believed, he nodded gravely, and said either “yes” or “no” as fit the question. And when they looked at him for a simple comment he would nod again, and say “indeed.”

  So he had himself a bath—his people were fastidious about baths; they bathed all the time, even in winter, or they’d have been eaten alive by lice and fleas. He was very partial to a good steam bath with an ice-water plunge after. He put on the clothing and went out into the hall, then followed the sound of people until he came to where everyone was gathered—gathered to await dinner, he finally understood. People at this court seemed to wait a great deal. But then, they seemed to have very little to do.

  Within hours he was reasonably popular. The bird said they found him a good conversationalist, which meant, he supposed, that they liked the way he listened and agreed with them. The young women found him fascinating. Maybe it was because all their young men were so spindly. But the few times anyone flattered him, or tried, about his strength, he simply looked somber and said, “Size and strength are not the answer to everything. Cleverness can overcome strength nearly every time. A small clever man can almost always best a strong, dim one.” Or, “I cannot take great credit for having a strong father and a sturdy mother.”

  As a result, he got fewer black looks from the young Eltarian men than he might have, and a reputation for commendable modesty.

  He also made no attempt to follow up on the interest of any of the young ladies, and devoted himself as much as possible to making friends with their elders. The black looks rapidly diminished to nothing.

  Not that this was from anything other than self-interest in his part. He certainly did not need any smoldering resentment here, and while the young ladies were attractive, he very much doubted any of their fathers would be interested in acquiring a penniless northlander as a son-in-law, however heroic he might be. At any rate, there was only one young woman he was interested in, and that was the Princess. What with that Godmother about, she could be counted on to have rings of magic fire at her disposal. And she might even be persuaded to put on a breastplate for the purpose of being awakened. So far this was the most promising alternative to his Maiden of Doom he’d encountered yet. Provided that she was reasonably interested in having a penniless northlander as a husband, she was certainly comely, definitely practical and had a commendable fighting spirit. These were all good things in anyone, woman or man. Now, since her father was apparently away, trying to stave off a war, if Siegfried could just manage to find out if the Princess found him sufficiently interesting, he had a number of options to think about. The most promising, and the one that made the best use of his talents, was to go off to join her father, and challenge the champion of the other side to single combat. He’d lost count of the number of champions he’d defeated in single combat. The only times he’d lost was when he hadn’t listened to the bird, and he’d wound up fighting on the wrong side. The bird liked his chances this time.

  It was possible that the father might not care for penniless northlanders, but if that penniless northlander saved his kingdom for him, from everything Siegfried could tell, he was pretty much obligated to offer the Princess in marriage.

  So that was good.

  Leopold, on the other hand, was seemingly in his element, which was more than worrisome. He was equally popular with the young ladies and young men, he dressed the way they did, spoke the way they did and knew how to keep them entertained. In the two days after they all arrived, while the Princess was incommunicado, and all that they saw was that dreadful black-clad glacier of a Queen, he fitted himself right into the very center of things. If there was a big group of people laughing about something, you could be sure he was at the heart of it, telling an amusing tale. He was always in the middle of games—generally not winning most of them, but Siegfried had the shrewd notion that this was on purpose. Siegfried worried that when the Princess finally did appear, Leopold would be far more attractive to her than he himself was. He certainly wasn’t going to force himself on her as a suitor. That was not fair. And if she did favor Leopold over him, it would complicate things immensely.

  Of course, as luck would have it, when she did finally recover from her ordeal and make her appearance, there was no chance for either of them to put themselves forward before everything went straight through the ice and into the frozen river.

  Because the very first either of them saw her, it was standing next to Queen Crow while the woman delivered the news that the King was dead, and that she and the Princess were now the rulers.

  To say that the people of the court reacted like a flock of spooked sheep was to give less credit to sheep than sheep deserved.

  At first, Siegfried couldn’t understand why they were acting as if the world-snake had let go of its tail and was about to come eat them all. Granted, it was very sad that the King was dead, and he felt very sorry for the Princess, but there was no need to carry on as if you had just seen the Fedris-Wolf and Vallahalia was in flames.

  Then the bird explained it all, and their reaction made sense. Quite a lot of sense, provided you were senseless to begin with.

  And cowardly.

  And you regarded the King as if you were toddling babes, and he was father who kept the Fedris-Wolf away.

  On the other hand…from what the bird said, he really had kept a metaphorical Fedris-Wolf away.

  Still, they acted, well…rather stupidly. Despite the fact that Queen Glacier had a very sound plan—and having hostages to prevent other people from acting stupidly was always a good plan, as his people knew very well—once the court had been dismissed, a good half of the people in it reacted with varying degrees of panic. A few actually rushed off, declaring wildly that the only sensible thing was to flee and fling themselves on the mercy of one side or another. Now, since in Siegfried’s experience such mercy was generally nonexistent, and since a would-be conqueror could as easily—and with far more profit—declare them to be agents of the enemy, take all their valuables and fling them into a pit, this showed very poor planning on their part. He did try to remonstrate with as many of them as he could, out of sheer pity—for some of them had rather nice daughters and not-so-terrible sons who had not made fun of him to his knowledge. Some of them listened and managed to calm themselves and their families down. Others did not. One declared hysterically that he was going to disguise himself and his family as gypsies in order to escape. Siegfried attempted to explain that gypsies were not much welcome in any kingdom, and that in all events, su
ch a disguise would be quickly penetrated, but the fellow was in no mood to listen to him. He ran off declaring he was going straight to a gypsy camp and buying himself a wagon before anyone else got such a good idea.

  Siegfried had to console himself with the knowledge that he had tried, he really had, and with any luck the fellow would not get more than a day away from the city without discovering that he did not know how to manage a wagon, or drive a team, did not know how to make a camp, and no one in his family knew how to cook over an open fire, or indeed, knew how to cook at all. That did not even begin to cover all the difficulties of passing a wealthy, well-born family off as gypsies.

  At least some gypsy family would certainly find themselves much the richer out of this. And, being gypsies, they stood a very good chance of slipping across the border with every penny intact.

  Still, he did manage to talk sense into some. As he spoke, reasonably, calmly, as he would to a bunch of terrified children, some of his calm communicated itself to them. “The news cannot yet have reached your enemies,” he said. “And when it does, it will still take them some time before they can move their armies. Have any of you ever been with an army?”

  He looked around, took in the soft hands, the arms that had never actually borne arms. Oh there were plenty of people who had at this court, but they were not here, among the ones that were panicking. So, no. They didn’t even have to shake their heads. No, of course, they had not.

  He racked his brains for a practical comparison. Wait…he recalled some of the young ladies lamenting that they were going to go to a “summer home” soon. That implied moving, twice a year. That would do. “Well, think about how it is when you need to move your whole family. Yes?” He saw brows furrowing as they tried to imagine how rounding up the family, servants and all was anything like moving an army. “An army is like that, only a thousand times bigger. A much more complicated thing to get going in one direction.”

  “But disciplined!” said one man, voice breaking pitifully. “All the generals have to do is issue orders, and things get done without any arguing!” Siegfried looked at his rabbity face. No wonder he had been sitting in a chair despairing, instead of panicking and trying to flee. It sounded as if he already knew he couldn’t get his family to agree on anything regarding an escape until it would be too late.

  “Yes, but they need to be fed. They need to get their provisions together. Yes?” His expression prompted reluctant agreement. “Then they need to get their equipment. Armies need arrows, bowstrings, spare bows, spears, spearheads. They need horseshoes and horseshoe nails, spare reins, spare wagon wheels. They need blacksmiths and farriers and those people need supplies. Then they need to be sure of their supply lines, because they certainly cannot take everything they need with them, and they certainly cannot live off their own land because their own people will object to that. So getting them moving takes time.” And he pointed out, carefully, that the Queen’s messages had not yet had a chance to reach their intended hands, much less produce Prince-hostages. “Prepare to flee if you must,” he told them calmly. “But I intend to remain. I expect we will be seeing more Princes soon, and the more that arrive here, the more difficult it will be to attack us without getting other Kingdoms declaring war.”

  His calm, he thought, did some good at least, even if his arguments weren’t all that convincing. Eventually, the remaining people dispersed to meet up with their families and retainers and decide what to do.

  He had sent the bird off to his rooms as soon as all the panic began; he did not want someone to swat her accidentally, and although he could have used her advice, he was a little uneasy about the notion of people watching him talk to her. They couldn’t understand animal speech, and it might make them less inclined to trust his sanity. As soon as he was alone, and the Palace had settled for an uneasy night, he went to see if the bird was still awake. She was, though very sleepy. Still, she fluffed all her feathers and got herself alert willingly enough for him.

  “I didn’t even have to sing ‘Doom!’” she observed. “They were already singing it for themselves. Which is a bit silly, really. There isn’t any sign of Doom. But tell me what else happened.”

  He told her everything he had learned since he had sent her back here. It was not much, but he was a careful fellow and had learned that the more the bird knew, the better her answers were.

  She listened just as carefully as he laid out what he had gathered up, and he wished that the Godmother was still around so that he could ask her questions, too, but about the bird. Or perhaps, if he just asked the bird directly, she would answer them. Not her name, though; he wouldn’t ask that. He always called her just “Bird,” and she had never offered a name, which only made sense. Names were Power, and she was a tiny, relatively helpless thing and very magical. Giving away her name would give power over her. Perhaps she’d tell it to him one day, but only when she was ready.

  Those questions were going to have to wait for now; there were much more pressing concerns to worry about.

  The bird bowed her head, and her little eyes grew very bright with the intensity of her concentration. “So,” he said, “do you think you and I should leave?” She had told him to leave other situations before this, when it was clear there was nothing that he could do to make them any better. He always had—although, granted, those had generally been times when the troubled situation did not involve war or potential invasion, merely political or emotional conflict. He was not good with those sorts of things. Among his people, a diplomat was someone who talked to his opponent before hitting him with an axe, rather than afterward.

  This time she surprised him. “Before I say anything, what do you want to do?” she asked.

  He furrowed his brow. “I think…I should stay. I know this makes no sense. I should leave. I’d have no difficulty getting into another country quickly enough. I am good at skulking and hiding, I know more than enough to avoid any trouble on the border, and I wouldn’t be going by road anyway. But I want to stay. The little Princess is brave, and deserves help, and while I am only one, maybe I can help simply by being calm while others are throwing their hands in the air and bleating.” Then he shrugged. “Besides. I am a Hero. It is the sort of thing that a Hero does. And if it all goes into the frozen river, I can fling her over my shoulder and escape with her. Perhaps once we were safe she’d agree to have a nap in a ring of fire so I can wake her up.”

  “Well put,” the bird said. “I wanted to see if you were still thinking like a Hero, and you are.” She fluttered her wings and gave a trill of approval. “There will probably be a great many things you can do to make things better. You can certainly make things better if you stay, and better still if you agree to take part in the trials for the Princess’s hand.”

  He felt immensely cheered at that. “I’m glad to hear that. I’m rather good at trials, and I like the Princess…” He felt his ears growing a little warm, and he stopped himself there before he said anything else.

  The bird nodded. “Here are the reasons. You are a foreigner, and if anyone would have a reason to flee and no reason to stay, it would be a foreigner. If you stay and are calm, people will take heart from that. As for the trials, well, as you said, you are a Hero, and this is nothing new to you. And I know The Tradition. That will be a tremendous help to you. I will tell you this, as well—if anyone can save this Kingdom, it will be that Princess and her Godmother. I cannot tell you what the chances are, because all the signs are jumbled, but if anyone can do this, they can.” The bird laughed. “In fact I expect that there will be a fine lot of candidates for the trials here by tomorrow. This sort of thing is fairly stiff with The Tradition, and there is so much magic wound up now that getting them here will be the easy part, and the Queen will have bought herself some time.”

  Somewhat to Siegfried’s surprise, and to the utter shock of the rest of the Court, the Princes that the Queen had invited started arriving at the first light of dawn. It had to be magic: there was no other w
ay they could have traversed even Eltaria, much less the vast distances that they had, in so short a period of time. Immediately, people began talking about the intervention of Godmothers in order to bring the Princes here. Several Godmothers, not just their own.

  The bird had said that they would be here, but the first arrival at dawn came as a surprise to Siegfried, because he had never known anyone in these lands of wealth or birth to be up that early unless they were on a battlefield. He was, of course, and the servants were. Otherwise during his few days here he had had the entire Palace to himself until nearly midmorning.

  And yet, before the sun was even on the horizon, a chariot—a chariot!—pulled by a pair of briskly trotting, snow-white mules, came rolling up to the front courtyard. Attracted by the unexpected sound of hooves and wheels, Siegfried hurried there in time to see the vehicle turn into the courtyard and pull to a halt in front of the big bronze front door.

  It was driven by a queenly woman in a columnar, ivy-green gown, entirely unlike anything the women wore here. He didn’t get more than a glimpse of her, though, because the chariot wasn’t even at a full stop when a young man in half armor with a bow on his back and a sword at his side leapt out of it. The woman blew a motherly kiss at him; he smiled, put his hand on his heart and bowed to her. With a wave of her hand, the woman slapped the reins on the backs of the mules, who cantered off in a cloud of dust.

  And it appeared that the young man was expected, for the great door opened; the chief servant of this place—the bird called him a “majordomo”—appeared, greeted him gravely and ushered him inside.

  He was the first of a procession of Princes. They arrived alone, afoot and threadbare, with no clear idea of how they had gotten here, but knowing that there was a Princess to be won. They arrived mounted, in shining armor without a speck of dust on it. They arrived with entire entourages and their own pavilions. There were fops that had never cut their own fingernails, and seasoned fighters bearing weapons with worn hilts and scabbards. There were ugly Princes, and Princes so handsome that they made Leopold look ordinary. There was even a frog that said he was a Prince, but he got turned back—or so the bird told Siegfried—since he really didn’t qualify yet. When Siegfried found out about the poor frog, he trudged a mile down the road looking for the creature, but it had disappeared. He just hoped it had found somewhere else to go and had not been eaten by something.