Fifty Shades of Sleeping Beauty

by Lotte Harding

  Magnus, obviously discomforted, sat down and joined the rest of the family in an awkward toast. Serena was seething with rage but held her temper. The high table’s jollity evaporated for a while and they ate in silence, though after a while the royal family and two sisters began to converse once more. Bellatrix said nothing and none of the others were sure how to speak to her.

  “And now, it is the custom of bestowing gifts on Princess Talia,” King Roland announced. “We had thought we would begin with the sister of our beloved daughter, Lady Serena.” He began to sit down but the queen tugged on his sleeve and whispered in his ear. Red faced, the king stood up again and added: “I meant sisters, of course, if Lady Bellatrix would also be so kind.”

  Bellatrix gave a hard smile at this but nodded her head courteously. “I would be glad to, your Highness. You may have forgotten to give me a present, but I won’t hold a grudge. But please, Serena, you go first: that’s the way these things usually happen, isn’t it?”

  Ignoring the jibe, Serena turned her full attention to Isis, Magnus and little Talia. “A gift from a witch has to be something special, don’t you think? With a father and mother such as Talia has, I’m sure she will be the most beautiful woman in the land, the fairest of us all.” She stared hard at Bellatrix as she said this. “But my gift is to ensure this is the case, my gift to young Talia is a grace and beauty that will be irresistible to all. She will be indeed the fairest woman that all of Nysa has ever seen.”

  The crowd in the hall broke into spontaneous applause at this, and the king and queen smiled benevolently on Serena, as did Isis and Magnus. Even Talia, young as she was, seemed to recognise the joy in the room, gurgling in her mother’s arms as the applause continued for several minutes. Only Bellatrix scowled.

  When the clapping and cheering had ceased, however, she controlled her expression. “Just like you, sister, always thinking of the coarser things in life.” There were a few gasps at this and Serena frowned, wondering whether Bellatrix had gone mad. “No doubt you want to make the daughter more irresistible to men than the mother, so that if Isis was the nympho of the forest, Talia will be the whore of Nysa.”

  This led to cries of protest, but Bellatrix ignored them. “As you are all so bloody sex-obsessed,” she said loudly, “then I’ll make my gift an appropriate one. When this girl becomes a woman, her first orgasm will be her last.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Isis, shocked at the malevolence in Bellatrix’s face.

  “When your daughter cums, that’s the day she dies,” snarled the dark-haired witch.

  There were shouts of horror and disgust from the floor of the hall, and Isis stared in astonishment at her sister. King Roland stood and shook his fist at Bellatrix.

  “This is too much!” he roared. “You may once have saved the kingdom, but to threaten the royal family in any way is treason. Guards! Arrest this woman!”

  As the soldiers rushed towards the high table Bellatrix simply smirked at them and, lifting her hand, clicked her fingers. Instantly she was gone and there remained only a sulpherous smell at the table. Serena groaned.

  “Oh, your Highness, why did you have to go and do that?” Her head sank into her hands.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “If our sister had remained,” Serena said through gritted teeth, “we could perhaps have made her lift this curse she’s placed on your granddaughter.”

  “Then we’ll hunt throughout the land,” said Magnus, his face pale with fury. “We’ll leave no stone unturned till we find her.”

  Isis sighed. “It’s no good,” she said quietly. “Bellatrix was always the best at magic among us.” (Serena bridled slightly at this, but did not wish to argue with her sister.) “Nonetheless, there are three witches, and I have yet to give my daughter a gift.”

  She held up Talia and gazed into the young child’s face, which in turn regarded her with undiluted happiness.

  “When first you experience that joy which I have felt so many times, and all the people of Nysa, you will not die - not in the way that my sister meant. It will be what the poet’s call la petite mort, a little death of such pleasure that indeed you will barely be able to sustain it. I cannot revoke my sister’s curse completely, but it will not be your death, complete and final. Rather you’ll fall into a deep slumber, from which you’ll only wake when a prince with a love for you as great as that as Magnus for me comes to find you.”

  After that, few of the guests had the stomach to continue the feat, and so ended the strangest naming ceremony that Nysa had ever witnessed.

  Chapter Five

  For the next few weeks, there were hushed whispers around the court concerning the odd events of that day, although whenever any member of the royal family was seen all such gossip was quickly hushed up. Magnus, after an initial period of anger, recovered quickly from the insult that had been directed at his family, while the King and Queen dismissed it as little more than a breach of etiquette. Only Isis and Serena were troubled by the possible consequences of their sister’s words. As for Bellatrix, she was never seen again in the kingdom of Nysa from that day forth.

  Without her presence, so also the curse she’d lain on Talia was forgotten by most people over the next few years. As the young girl began to grow, however, it quickly became clear that Serena’s kinder blessing was coming true, although most people who were sceptical about magic put that down to common courtesy on the witch’s part which, serendipitously, had come to pass.

  As a toddler, the princess was a bonny child with strong, healthy limbs and a pleasant, cheerful disposition that made everyone who saw her smile. Even at that early age she was inquisitive, climbing and exploring wherever her small legs and hands would take her, but as she grew older so her auburn hair, even more lustrous than that of her mother’s, began to shine and her piercing green eyes would hold everyone’s attention. She was constantly laughing and always playing, never disobedient to her mother but not the kind of timid creature who was scared to say boo to a goose. As she watched her daughter grow, Isis seemed to forget the doom that lay on her daughter and enjoyed her company every day.

  Yet something in Nysa had changed. The land was nearly as fertile as it had once been and crops never failed, but they were not quite as abundant as they were before, a fact which the farmers blamed on the changing climate. The air was still balmy, and the country was a pleasant place to live, yet the rain fell more frequently and whereas there had never been anything other than the most pleasant fluffy white clouds in the sky before, sometimes the entire sky was overcast and dull. While Isis and Serena did their best to keep Nysa the same blessed kingdom it had always been, without their sister’s powerful magic the task was so much greater.

  There was also another shadow that fell across the land. One day, tired with a life of inactivity, King Roland decided to try his hand at the hunt one last time. Unfortunately for him, he had become rather stout in the intervening years and after mounting his horse with great difficulty it protested at the weight and bolted, throwing him into a trough. Although he treated the incident with great humour, he contracted a terrible chill which he couldn’t shake and the fall seemed to affect him more than it should have. Within a few days he was confined to his bed and, before the month was out, had passed away. Magnus and his mother were gravely saddened by the tragedy, but the person most upset was Talia, who had enjoyed to sit upon her grandfather’s knee and listen to his ribald jokes.

  Despite this tragedy, the people of Nysa remained an easygoing sort, and even the weather became a source of humour for them. Magnus became king and Isis his queen, and the kingdom continued on its own merry way.

  It was only one day while watching her daughter play with a stable hand that Isis began to consider whether the kingdom was too merry, its subjects too easygoing. The stable lad, a boy of some fourteen years, was fooling around in the courtyard with Princess Talia who had just entered her twelfth year. The lad was tall and strong for his age, the kind of
strapping fellow that, with a few more summers, would have very much appealed to Isis before her marriage. Talia herself was tall and willowy like her mother, and the natural colour of her cheeks and her slender, lithe limbs were making her a great beauty at court. Isis, like most Nysans, had not been one to stand on ceremony, but when she saw the looks that were being exchanged between the two youths, and the laughter that each echoed from the other, she suddenly turned pale.

  Later that evening, she told what she had seen to Magnus.

  “It’s nothing,” the king mumbled, wondering why his wife of all women should be concerned by a little tomfoolery.

  “It may be nothing now, but it will be something soon. I saw the way that young lad looked at her. Our daughter will be the most beautiful young woman in all Nysa – and she’s turning more and more into a woman every day.”

  “So? We should be glad of her blessings!”

  “Yes, a blessing from Serena, which despite her best intentions will one day become a curse.”

  “A curse? How on earth do you come to that conclusion?”

  “By the gods, Magnus! It’s clear I didn’t marry you for your brains. Think, man! How long is it before some young lad, even more handsome and strapping than the one I saw playing with Talia today, decides to try some other game? Her beauty will attract them like flies, and it won’t be long before my other sister’s curse becomes as true as Serena’s.”

  A few days later, messengers travelled the length and breadth of Nysa, issuing proclamations and posting bills in every town and village. It was decreed by the order of King Magnus and Queen Isis that the long and (not especially venerable) traditions of the country were to change. Henceforth, the custom of wearing immodest garments and engaging in ribald talk would be punishable by imprisonment, and from that day on every subject was to live a life of sobriety.

  As you can imagine, this new decree caused a great deal of grumbling, and yet by and large the people of Nysa did as they were ordered. The reason for simple: while no-one had named the witch Bellatrix for many years, the curse she had laid on Talia had become the stuff of legend. At the same time, Talia had indeed become the fairest woman in the entire kingdom, and there were plenty who reckoned that she would be the most beautiful that Nysa had ever known.

  And so, over the next half decade Nysa changed even more. It’s people who had been lively, loveable and given to laughter, transformed themselves into a sober and puritanical people. All mention of pleasures was forbidden, and though Magnus did not particularly pursue offenders very often the most heinous offences were indeed punished with imprisonment or exile. To protect the princess, every innuendo and smutty display was tracked down and stopped.

  This caused a great deal of work, and not a little heartache for the King. The fertile produce of Nysa had become synonymous with their love of pleasure, and much of its famous produce was henceforth banned because it infected daily speech with puns that, once a source of innocent delight, could now prove fatal in their consequences. It was forbidden to grow bananas or cucumbers, melons, cherries or peaches, and even plums – one of the queen’s favourite fruits which she would often wrap her lips around – were also dismissed, every plum tree in the country being ripped up and burnt. There was a whole conference among learned academics devoted to the subject of apples, which were considered risky by some: in the end the fruit was allowed to remain, but anyone caught referring to a bite of the apple was in danger of finding themselves locked up for the night.

  A vast quantity of great artworks and literary books were sealed away in the vaults of the court (for Magnus could not bring himself to burn them). The ancient artists and authors of Nysa had been a naughty lot, but there grew up a generation of writers and painters who devoted themselves to extolling the virtues of algebra and painting geometric shapes that would test the most licentious-minded to discover anything inappropriate in them.

  Within homes, kitchens adopted new practices so that chickens would be plucked under a cloth lest the women of the house be tempted by the sight of bare flesh, and the legs of chairs and tables were covered lest they remind viewers of a more human anatomy. The men and women of Nysa wore plain, dark clothes made of wool that covered every inch of their skin other than their hands and faces, despite the still warm weather, with hats or shawls to hide away the shimmering temptation that was hair.

  None were sadder about these changes than King Magnus and Queen Isis, but they were glad that the people endured them with so little complaint, such was the love that everyone bore their daughter. And yet the demands to lead by example placed a great strain on the marriage of this handsome man and his wife who, in the first years of their love had not been able to keep their hands off each other.

  “Talia’s been asking me about where she came from again,” said Isis to her husband with a sigh.

  “Why’s that a problem? I would have thought the answer was obvious: Nysa.”

  “No! Not the geographical location. I think we might have to dismiss that new governess – she has far too much interest in the subject of biology.”

  “Ah,” said Magnus, finally understanding. “That kind of question.”

  “Yes, that kind.” Isis began to wring her hands. Since she and Magnus had engaged in a life of abstinence, she was becoming increasingly irritable. “Do you know what I told her? That a stork brought her to the palace. A stork! She was eighteen years old last month, and it shames me that a daughter of mine should be so… ignorant.”

  At this she began to cry and Magnus came over to console her, placing a hand on her shoulder but she flinched away from him. “Please, don’t,” she said, although something about her pleading suggested that her desires were otherwise.

  “Isis, Isis,” said the king. “My dear and beautiful wife. I hate to see you this way and… and, gods damn it! I hate it that I can’t touch you anymore.”

  Isis took a step away from him, but the look of longing in her eyes was such that he followed her a pace or two, becoming bolder with each step. Though she was dressed in a long gown that swept the floor when she walked, with the bodice laced tightly up to her neck and her arms covered in dark sleeves, her hair hidden beneath a black bonnet, her green eyes and pale lips were the most beautiful things he had ever seen and he wished to kiss her more than anything.

  Now he was a few inches away from her, and he could see that she was trembling in his presence.

  “We have a lovely daughter, who would be the pride and joy of any parents if only we could appreciate that joy.”

  The queen nodded at this. “I know, I know,” she said weakly. Tentatively, Magnus placed a hand on her arm and this time she didn’t flinch.

  “If only we could appreciate what we have, and share our love for each other like we once did. I don’t need to see you. We can have the windows darkened and I promise I won’t look but… I miss you! I need you! I want you!”

  “I miss you,” Isis whispered, and her lips parted slightly.

  “If only we could be as we once were,” he continued softly, drawing her close to him. “Everything would be alright. We would be happy and our daughter would live a long and happy life.”

  It was the wrong thing to say and he cursed as he saw his wife’s expression, as cold as stone. Now she pulled away from him.

  “But if we don’t lead by example,” she said stiffly, “our daughter won’t have a long life. If we succumb to temptation, how can we expect her to resist it? And I tell you, Magnus, I’m determined more than anything that our daughter will have a very long life.” With this, she drew up the train of her dress and left the room.

  Magnus sighed. “Yes, she’ll probably have a long life, but I can’t see how it will be a happy one.”

  Chapter Six

  The king needn’t have worried about the happiness of his daughter. Although Talia may have been missing out on what he (and his wife) would have once considered a fundamental pleasure of life, her lot was indeed a very pleasant one. After all, if y
ou have never tasted the sweetest fruit, you won’t punish yourself with the memory of its flavour.

  In any case, Talia led a charmed life. Not simply the considerable graces that were attendant upon being a princess, with no cares of the sort that affected normal mortals, but because she herself was so gay that she spread good cheer wherever she went. While Nysa had become in many ways a very dour place, the princess saw very little of this. Her presence in a room would turn everyone’s frowns to smiles and wherever she went laughter was sure to follow. For the sake of anyone else, the impositions placed upon the subjects of the kingdom would have been intolerable – but everyone tolerated them because they were for the sake of Talia.

  Part of her charm lay in the fact that, as she transformed from a girl to a woman, she became even more beautiful if such a thing were possible. The blessings bestowed by Serena, which Isis had considered as much a curse, were not experienced as such by the young princess. Her hair was even redder than her mother’s, her eyes greener, and she lacked the careworn expression that often haunted Isis’s face. Her body was as slender as a sapling, filling out in ways that would have attracted the attentions of many a young (or not so young) man even more had she been allowed to dress in attire other than the stern, woollen garb her mother insisted upon.

  Because none dared draw attention to her beauty, the princess was also utterly unconscious of it – which in turn added to her inner grace. Although she had been offered everything that a young woman could want in terms of material needs, she was unspoilt, kind to everyone and loving in her own, innocent way.

  And that innocence was great indeed. Talia lived in a world where newborn babies were delivered by storks, where a kiss was nothing more than a peck on a parent’s cheek upon going to bed, and breasts were soft pillows where a bird could nestle down. Many a man in Nysa would groan and curse at the thought that the fauna of the kingdom had more intimacy with the young princess than they would ever know, but none of them dared nor wished to break the king’s law. What’s more, Talia never had to deal with the burden that affected many young royals of a marriageable age, in that any potential suitor – most of whom would have been very unsuitable to a young, beautiful woman – were fended off by her mother and father.