Her forlorn glance though brief, did not go unnoticed to Jack. He had seen such a look with his own mother, trying to raise him after his father died. He knew that behind this very well honed façade, the princess was lonely, depressed even.
Since Ella already mentioned she knew about the beanstalk, Jack decided he would wait a bit to tell her about what he knew of it. After all, the beanstalk and the dead giant weren’t going anywhere at least for a night, he figured. And besides, he thought, who am I to deny a beautiful princess her royal invitation to a private dinner?
“Then it would be my pleasure to accompany you to dinner, my Princess,” Jack said with a huge grin, trying out his best overly dramatic impression and an exaggerated bow that almost sent him off balance. Ella burst out into laughter. And laughing was something Ella had not done for a long time.
“It’s settled then! Funny, this morning, I was accused of being the downfall of all of Marchenton; this day has turned around considerably. Oh,” Ella suddenly realized. “What was the matter that you had come here to discuss?”
“Nothing that can’t wait ’til later,” Jack replied.
Then Henry returned with a small pouch full of several gold coins.
“Henry,” Ella said happily. “Good news! Mr. Spriggins will be staying for dinner. And, since it would be too late for him to travel back home, please have a guest room prepared for his stay.”
***
Ella insisted that Jack from Cornish be treated to a proper bath, with Jack taking up the offer from a royal valet for a shave and haircut. Ella chose a fresh change of clothes for him and she took Jack’s worn and dirty tunic and pants to the wash basins herself and instructed one of her staff, Catherine, how best to remove the red clay stains. Then Ella went to her suite to prepare for her dinner with Jack.
In a flash of inspiration, she went to the back of her closet, and dragged out a small leather wrapped trunk. In it were all of her belongings from her time before she had married. The small trunk was only half full as she did not have many possessions, from the many years she had lived with her stepmother. But she did have her dress. She pulled out the plain looking, brown and white peasant’s gown that she used to wear. It was nicer than the grey smock she would usually wear to clean the fireplace with. The peasant dress had been a “generous gift” from her stepmother and was to only be worn on special occasions, when she had to be seen serving guests for parties at her stepmother’s house.
Tonight, in honor of her guest, Ella would not be a princess in formal dress; she would simply be Ella, the girl from Cornish.
***
Dinner lasted for hours as the two sat close together at the large table. Jack had explained about the beanstalk and how he was responsible for it and told all he could recall about the giants. They talked well into the night, about the beanstalk but about other things they knew about growing up in Cornish. It was only when the sky began to brighten did Jack and Cinderella realize just how long they had been talking. The two decided to continue their conversation and watch the sunrise on the balcony, neither one wanting to be the one to end their time together.
“It was nice in the beginning, but you know what I miss? Doing things,” Ella said, trying not to let a yawn escape. “Now as a princess, I’m waited on hand and foot. But living with my stepmother, I honestly enjoyed doing most of that work. I learned how to do a lot of things because I had to; I became good at it. Those chores and maintaining the household; it was a challenge, there was purpose, there was control. In a way, there was a certain power of accomplishment. I liked that. I gave that up, to wear a pretty dress and do nothing all day.”
“Yes but you are married to a prince. And you’ll be a queen someday,” said Jack silently, not wanting to move as Cinderella shifted closer to him. “What about the prince?” Jack asked.
“Phillip? He met me at one of his festivals- danced with me every night; wanted to marry me that same week! I suppose I was just a beautiful trophy he had to have in his castle. If I wasn’t at that ball that night he could easily have found someone else. He’s nice and he cares but after the first year or so…” her voice trailed off as she recalled that time quietly to herself for a pause. “There isn’t much we really had in common, and we certainly never talked the night away like you and I,” She sighed and rested her head on his arm. “I haven’t talked or laughed this much in ages. I don’t want the night to end.”
“Well, you and I grew up in Cornish,” Jack nodded. “ I’d hardly think the prince would be familiar with breaking the ice in the water troughs for the pigs in the winter and stepping in frozen pig dung to do it.”
“Exactly! I hated that!” Ella giggled at the recollection. “And I mucked stalls for my stepmother and her daughters’ horses. Phillip won’t even pick his own horses hooves after a ride. Sure, he was trained to but he doesn’t have to. He grew up in this castle. I grew up in Cornish. I lived in the attic and slept on a straw bed.”
“Hey at least you had an attic,” Jack interjected with a self-depreciating laugh. “This balcony is bigger than my house.”
“See, you and I understand each other,” Ella laughed. “He always had servants clean out the ashes from his fireplace. It was my job to clean out the ashes from a fireplace; two very different worlds. My father had some money but that was before my mom died and my dad remarried. I was young when that happened. I still remember her though,” Ella smiled as she recalled her childhood memories of her mother. “But now my marriage to Phillip is little more than a business arrangement, the station of a princess to a prince. It’s not like a traditional marriage. A prince must have a princess to be eligible to take the throne. Ever since his mother, the queen died last year. He hasn’t been the same. I’ve been the furthest thing from his mind. I could go back to Cornish and he’d never know it.”
Then Ella paused for a moment, a thought had occurred.
“That’s it! We’ll both go to Cornish,” Ella suggested happily, as she tried to stifle a yawn. “Phillip and the king are on their way there to inspect the beanstalk, and you were going to go back anyway. I’ll escort you there myself. Then you can meet with them and tell them what you told me. It is a few days ride from here, and they would take you more seriously if I were with you,” she said. Then Ella added as a softly spoken afterthought “and that means I would get a few days more to spend with you, Jack.”
“I would like that,” Jack admitted. “You are too kind, Ella. I feel like I’ve known you for years, though I’ve only spent a day with you” Jack whispered, but Ella did not reply, she had fallen asleep on Jack’s shoulder.
***
The royal carriage looked quite out of place as it pulled up the muddied road in Cornish near Jack’s small, peasant farmhouse. From the carriage, Ella and Jack could see a small gathering of royal assistants mulling about at the base of the huge beanstalk. Standing off to the side of them were Prince Phillip and King Marchen, both dressed in royal hunting attire.
As the carriage came to a stop, Jack noticed that both the king and the prince were staring and then talked to each other. Ella paid little attention as she craned her neck in the carriage window to view the beanstalk.
“It disappears into the clouds,” she marveled.
Jack sat across from her, and quickly leaned over, tapping her on her knee.
“They are coming over here,” he said nervously. Phillip and the king both walked towards the carriage each of them leading their horse by the reins. Ella squeezed Jack’s hand in reassurance. “It’s okay, just tell them what you told me,” she said.
Phillip pulled open the carriage door.
“This is no place for a princess, Ella,” Prince Phillip chastised her, as he held out his hand to assist her while she stepped down from the carriage.
“What? I grew up in this part of this kingdom. The home you found me in before we married is no more than a day’s ride west of here!” Ella said.
“Well then you should see the sights on the way back
home,” Phillip’s gaze fell to Jack still sitting inside the carriage. Jack offered a mawkish wave in return.
“You have a villager in the royal carriage, Ella?” the prince exclaimed, looking at Princess Ella incredulously.
Ella shrugged her shoulders.
“Villagers aren’t allowed to ride in the royal carriage!” Phillip turned to face Jack in the carriage.
Jack extended a handshake, and began to introduce himself. “I’m Jack Spriggins, sir—”
But the prince simply ordered him out of the carriage.
“Phillip!” Ella protested. “This is Jack. He lives here and knows all about the beanstalk and what’s up there!” She said hurriedly.
Jack awkwardly knelt in front of the king. “It is an honor, sir.” He said trying to bow his head and gaze at the king at the same time.
“Get up, boy,” the king grumbled. “You are not honoring your king by kneeling in mud.”
“Ella, you are to go to the castle and wait for our return. The carriage will have to be cleaned. That’s royal velvet on those seats in there, they get dirty very easily. Please don’t pick up any more travelers on the way back home,” said the Prince.
“I brought him here!” Ella argued back. “Are you not interested in what Jack has to say?”
“He’s just a villager,” Phillip started to say. “He has no business in these matters.”
As Phillip and Ella argued, Jack began to explain quickly, and nervously, to the king about the beanstalk and the giant. Jack repeatedly had to retell parts of his story several times, as the king had trouble hearing the lad over Phillip and Ella’s bickering.
“The body of a giant is not too far from here—” Jack said raising his voice finally.
The King, trying to hear Jack, grew annoyed.
“Enough of this!” King Marchen interrupted. “Ella, you will return to the castle immediately. That is my wish.”
The king shoved his foot in the stirrup and pulled himself up on his cream colored horse, settling into the saddle. “And you Jack,” he said sternly, “will show us this giant you speak of.” He ordered one of his aides to bring up a spare saddled horse.
***
King Marchen and Prince Phillip followed Jack through two miles of winding game trails.
“It’s not that far from the beanstalk as the crow flies, but it’s difficult to get to on foot or horseback.” Jack explained as they traversed through forest and field, crossing brooks until they came upon a rise and were immediately struck by a gut wrenching, foul odor. Without thinking, Jack reacted to the pungent stench of decay and quickly pulled a perfumed scarf from his saddle bag, wrapping it around his head so it covered his nose and mouth. Only then did he realize it was the scarf that the princess had given him when they left the castle. Her bodily scent and perfume were momentarily distracting. But the smell of rotting flesh was overwhelming without it and Jack hoped the king and the prince would not recognize the scarf. So far, they had not.
The horses began to buck and snort, refusing to push farther down the trail.
“They are not going to go any closer,” said Jack. “We’ll have to go by foot, but it’s not much further.”
The three men dismounted the horses and tied them to a tree at the bottom of the embankment. In the distance, a section of the dark grey sky was black with hundreds of circling birds.
“The smell is horrendous,” the king remarked as the trio walked on. The prince ripped cloth from his cloak for himself and the king to cover their faces with as well.
The trail winded through the brush and trees across a small rise to the forest’s edge, beyond that was a large expanse of grassy, boggy marshland. Standing at the rise, the king and the prince took in a gruesome sight. Sunken into the marshy field was the recent remains of a large human. He was immense; much larger than any typical person.
“I’d say he was about fifty feet tall,” said Jack. “He fell from the top of the beanstalk or somewhere in the clouds... it’s been here about three weeks, now.”
The body lay in the marsh, twisted and broken in an unnatural position. Large, broken tree trunks that littered the marshland had impaled the fallen giant in multiple places. The impact from the fall had shattered many bones, giant slivers of white bone protruded from massive fractures from the impact; the grey, rotted flesh of the giant’s abdomen had split open, a putrid pile of innards in an oily slick floated into the brackish waters. A great cloud of flies buzzed and insects covered the body; it was a feast for crows and other carrion eating birds that picked at the fleshy wounds and the hollowed eye sockets.
Nearby in the marsh, the king noticed something. A twenty foot tall crudely made metal sword rested against a grove of trees, blade first into the marsh. On the blade in rough carving was a name. “Cormoran” the king read aloud.
“The body will eventually sink down into the bog,” the prince reasoned, unaware of what the king was looking at. “And it’s in a pretty remote area, not readily accessible.”
The king gestured. “That’s not what I’m worried about. This one had a weapon,” he nodded in the direction of the sword. “Were there more of these giants up there, boy?” The king asked Jack.
“Yes, sir, a lot,” Jack replied.
“Well, congratulations, my lad,” said the king grimly. “You’ve slayed Cormoran, your first giant.”
Phillip turned quickly at a rustle in the brush, and saw Ella emerging from behind a tree. Looking down at the giant’s remains for the first time, Ella let slip an audible gasp as she covered her mouth with her hands in shock. She had never seen a giant before and was completely taken back by the size, but the stench and decomposition of such a horrific death was more than she had ever wanted to encounter. Overcome with dry heaving, Ella suddenly felt dizzy and balanced herself against the tree, quickly bending over as her dry heaves gave way to vomiting.
“Ella!” Phillip shouted, not hiding his anger at her sudden appearance.
But King Marchen was already walking toward her. “How dare you disobey the orders of your king! I told you to return home immediately and you follow us instead?” Ella turned away and was sobbing, but the king snatched her arm and turned her to face the gruesome scene.
“Take a good look! Since the orders of the king aren’t good enough for a princess, then tell me what you see here!” he bellowed. “Is the princess asking herself if this is just a one-time occurrence? Perhaps this giant is just a scout? Do you see the threat of invasion that I see? A giant with a weapon—do you have any idea what an army of these giants could do to our kingdom? How many are there? How are we to protect against that, tell me, Princess? What if there are more of them?”
“I don’t know,” Ella managed to answer as she sobbed through her tears. “You are hurting me,” She tried unsuccessfully to twist her arm free from the king’s grip.
“As a king I have to be concerned about how to defend my kingdom from a threat of invasion! As a Princess you only need to be concerned about what to wear to the next royal ball!” King Marchen’s harsh words cut through her to the bone. “I might consider basing a garrison force at the beanstalk, or try to figure out if I should send scouts, diplomats or an army to see where this giant came from, But what do I know? I’m only a king and not as smart as a princess who can disregard any order!”
“I’m sorry,” Ella sputtered as she cried, completely mortified to have Jack bear witness to such embarrassment.
Angrily, the King shoved Ella away from him. “Actually, I’m glad you saw this,” he said as he turned away from her. “Perhaps next time you’ll be more inclined to listen!”
Phillip said nothing and did not move to console his princess. Ella looked at him through blurry tears, her blue eyes silently pleading with him. Instead, Phillip looked away uncomfortably and went to speak briefly with the king. Ella realized that Phillip would side his opinion with his father.
“Jack, escort the princess back to her carriage,” Phillip ordered, his tone was low
and full of disappointment with Ella, but perhaps a little bit was directed at himself.
Jack nodded and quietly began to walk back as Ella collected herself through her tears.
“We’ll treat this for what it is, a possible threat to the kingdom,” the King remarked aloud still in ear shot of Ella. “There could be more of them coming at any time.”
“Agreed,” Phillip said. “We’ll need to invoke conscription for an army if it comes to that, I’ll personally organize it.”
“And yet, this may help to rally the kingdom, Phillip, a way to for us all to focus on something together, so that we don’t wallow in the loss of the queen. If we can conquer this beanstalk and its overcast days, perhaps we can bring in a new time of light and discovery. It would be good for us all. ”
In three days, should you wish to kiss her to end the spell, the glass will part like the receding tide—if your love is true.”
“And you don’t think it is?” the prince shot back defensively.
“It is not up to me, Phillip. It is up to you...and Cinderella.”
CHAPTER 29
WHAT TUNNEL?
Marchenton, Present Day.
Patience was quite young when the queen died but she could recall the grand spectacle of the viewing of the queen’s body in a week-long tribute. Queen Marchen rested in a golden coffin lined with silk and seed pearls, dressed in her most lavish gown. Royal Guards stood at attention in the audience hall, as throngs of people from all over the kingdom filed through in solemn respect. A warm glow softened the room as hundreds of candles reflected the array of golden decor. She recalled how the frenzied staff of the castle had no time to mourn as they constantly tended to their duties, serving delegates and ambassadors that poured in from dozens of kingdoms both nearby and far, far away.
Shards Of The Glass Slipper: Queen Alice Page 4
