There was a clap of sound, like wings, or thunder, then a blare of trumpets.
For some reason, I seemed to be very closely surrounded by a circle of young ladies of the King's court, all dressed alike, and all having the appearance of being much astonished and pleased about something.
I had no leisure to investigate this mystery at present, however. The noise had evidently startled the Prince and Smeatt from hiding. They stumbled out from behind the arras, blinking in the fading light.
The Prince, I saw, was now embracing an attractive young female dressed in ivory, who was clinging as tight to him as does a cockleburr to a lamb's wool.
I pushed aside the excitable young women. I sped to the side of the Prince and his female companion, took hold of her hair and pulled. She shrieked and fell back a pace.
"Unhand that Prince, thou hussy," I commanded sternly.
"But I do not want to, Alexandria," protested the hussy.
"Never mind what you want, young woman," I said. "What should concern you is what you will get if you do not immediately step away from that Prince." 1 took a firmer grip on her hair. She shrieked again.
Bang! The doors to the banqueting room swung wide. A horse and rider burst into our company, galloped through the crowd, and then came to an abrupt halt at our feet. The rider, who had been clinging precariously to the animal's back without benefit of saddle or bridle, immediately slid over its neck and landed in an undignified heap on the floor.
"Bucephalus!" cried the Prince in a joyful voice.
With an air of having successfully completed an unwelcome task, the horse shook itself all over. It then ambled over to the Prince and began to chew affectionately on his hair.
"O Bucephalus, I never thought to see thee in this world again!" said the Prince, embracing his equine friend.
The rider staggered to a standing position, muttering ominously and sending malevolent glances in the direction of the horse Bucephalus. She proved to be a diminutive crone with two tombstone teeth and a nose and a chin so long and curved that they nearly met in the middle. My Fairy Godmother, in fact. I regarded her with a certain lack of warmth.
"Shame on you, Alexandria Aurora Fortunato, to treat your ssissster sso!"
"I beg your pardon, madam?" I inquired politely, as is ever my way.
"And look at what you have done to this unfortunate Baronessss. Do you not know better than to ssslip unknown sssubsstances into other people's drinksss? Are you not ashamed of yoursself?"
"No, indeed, by my oath," I said, holding my chin up high. "She told me that potion was from you, but I did not believe her. She had no reason to wish me well."
The entire court, which had been transfixed by the recent events, looked from the hag to me; to the Prince, Smeatt, and the hussy; then to the circle of ladies in white; then to the Baroness and at last to the King.
At this he recovered the power of speech, of which he had seemed momentarily bereft. He let off an impressive string of curses, with which I will not sully your ears, and ended by demanding to know what the "old bag" thought she was doing bursting in upon his wedding like this.
Immediately the crone was all servile, bootlicking smiles.
"Why," she said, rubbing her hands together in a toadying sort of way, "I have come to bring you good luck, O graciousss King. Do you not know that charity to the poor is a blessssing upon the rich? Essspecially on the occasion of your marriage, your Excellencssy." And she held out her skinny hand and whined, "Invite me to your wedding feasst, O King, and you will live to see many days of plenty."
The King drew back his head and wrinkled his nose as though he smelled something unfresh, which mayhap he did. He crooked his index finger at the guard.
"Take this old witch out and give her a good ducking in the moat," he commanded. "If she be not dead at the end of it, you may let her go."
The hag nodded her head several times, appearing to be well satisfied with this reply. "Thank you, sire. 'Tis a great comfort to have my predictions so neatly vindicated. 'Twould have been mossst inconvenient had you after all bid me come to the feassst. The ssstory sssimply would not have turned out right, and I should have been put into the mossst frightful temper."
She lifted her hands up high and commenced tramping around in a circle, mumbling under her breath as she did so. The King appeared alarmed and the guard hesitated. When she had completed her third revolution she stamped her foot, flung her arms out in the King's direction, and shrieked in a quavering falsetto: "T-z-z-z-zap!"
The King was gone. Instead a gigantic, ungainly black bird with an ugly raw pink neck perched on the King's vacant chair. There was such a stench of death about it that all who stood near drew back in horror, clutching scented hankies to their noses. Several ladies swooned, but were restored to their senses by the mere entry into the room of a servant bearing the leeches, pickled toad, and goat-dung wine meant for the Baroness, so effective are these remedies on the afflicted.
The hag gave a self-satisfied chortle upon seeing the results of her incantations and said gleefully, looking about her, "That was good sssport, was it not? Well, what shall we do next?"
All those present immediately tried to arrange their facial muscles into expressions suggesting extreme compassion for the poor and did their best to remember the last time they had given a penny-piece to a beggar.
Ah! That is right. The Baronessss!"
The hag skipped over to the recumbent Baroness, who appeared very ill indeed. The old lady bent over her, held out a withered hand, and whistled, "Ssspit it out!"
The Baroness did so. Once relieved of the potion, she improved dramatically. She sat up and no longer moaned but stared steadily into the eyes of the crone, who seemed displeased with her.
"Use my name to further your plotsss, will you? Well do I remember you, Madam Baronessss, from years ago! Piggy, they called you, because of your greedy ssspirit. Very well. Y'always wanted to marry that cruel-hearted ssso-called King over there"—she gestured at the giant Vulture perched on the King's carved chair—"and ssso you shall." She began her mumbling, foot-stomping dance once again.
The Baroness did not stir until after the final "T-z-z-ap!" when she stretched out her enormous black wings and flew to join the King on his chair. At first, he did not appear to wish to make way for her, but she screamed and pecked at him with her bloodstained beak and at length he shifted and gave her room to stand beside him.
"And now be off with you! Guard! Open that door!"
The guard, thoroughly intimidated by this time, hurried to do the hag's bidding. The great birds hoisted themselves up into the air and ponderously winged their way out of the Castle of Roseboom.
The hag nodded again, vigorously. "Time those two did a bit of good in their lives. Devouring decomposing corpssses may not ssseem like a good deed to mossst of usss, but it'sss all in Nature's Plan, all in the Cycle of Life. Why, I have longed to turn those two into Vultures for years."
"Then why did you not do so?" I demanded rather tartly. "It seems to me that we could have been spared a great deal of grief if you had done so some years back."
"Because, little Missstressss Sssuperior," hissed the old woman, turning back to me, "you had to go and fetch the crown jewels of Gilboa back before that could happen, did you not? I have a persssonal life too, you know. You can't expect me to do everything. My daughter-in-law is forever after me to mind the grandchildren, but have I a moment to call my own? I do not."
"The crown jewels of Gilboa?" I said blankly, my hand rising to rest on the glowing ruby necklace around my throat.
The hag cackled. "Yesssss! The very ones you are wearing at this moment. You didn't know that that was what you were doing, did you? Never fret your little head, your sssisssters knew only too well. And now is the moment for your comeuppance, Missstressss Alexandria. Ernessstina Chrissstiana Fortunato, come forward and claim your inheritance!"
One of the young women in white (not the hussy, who had prudently withdrawn to seve
ral feet away from the Prince but was however sending a volley of languishing looks in his direction) came up to where we stood. She was a handsome young woman in the late twenties. She looked first at the hag and then at me. She smiled, hesitantly, and reached out a hand and touched mine.
"Hail, sister," she said.
"Give her the jewels," ordered the hag, baring her two tremendous teeth in a smile.
"The—?"
"The jewels! She's the rightful Queen of all Gilboa, ssso jusst you hand over the jewels!"
"I beg your pardon!"
"She's your sssissster, Dadgummit! The oldessst daughter of your mother and father! And the resst of these females are likewise your ssisssters."
I scratched my head under the crown and considered this. "Have you some sort of legal proof?" I asked at length. "An entry in a parish registry, for example? Because I am the sole daughter of my parents that I know of, and I have never seen any of these women before in my life."
"O, but that is jussst what y'have done, Goossse Girl! Look around you. Where are your Geessse, pray tell?"
This in fact had been bothering me for some time. I had been made most uneasy with all these references to sisters, and 1 had several times looked around me for my Geese. Where indeed were they?
"I know not," I admitted. I further observed that there were twelve young ladies in white, provided you included the hussy, wearing white gowns and golden crowns with ivory and gold daisies on them, which were identical to, though much larger than, those belonging to my Geese.
To settle this matter, I turned to the Prince. "What, my lord, have you done with Little Echo?"
The Prince (or rather the King of Dorloo, for I kept forgetting to call him by his proper title) shook his head.
"I do not know, Mistress Alexandria. One moment I held Little Echo in my arms, a fine plump Goose. The next thing I knew, I found myself in intimate contact with that"—he pointed at the hussy, who simpered—"young woman. About this ... lady's subsequent behavior I may say no more." And he folded his arms and sealed his lips chivalrously.
This seemed conclusive. For where else could Little Echo have gone? And by my vertu, I must confess that there was a look of Little Echo about the hussy's eyes, and in the way she held her head slightly cocked on her long neck.
She approached now, meeting my eyes. "If you do not believe that I am Little Echo, sister, then gaze upon this!" And she pulled the fabric of her already sufficiently plunging neckline even lower, exposing a fresh scar on her left breast. "Here also you will see the wounds I have suffered in our search for our birthright," and she drew back the material of her left sleeve, showing another, though older, scar.
I nodded. "You are indeed Little Echo," I admitted. "And therefore I must believe that these other ladies are also my former fowl. But why must they be my sisters as well?"
CHAPTER TWENTY
Happily Ever After More or Less
ALL IS WELL THAT ENDS WELL.
—JOHN HEYWOOD, PROVERBS
"I can tell you that, Alexandria," said the woman whom the hag had named Ernestina. "I am eldest, and remember it best. Indeed, I was of about your age when the Baron of Dwelly and Zeh rebelled against our father, the King of Gilboa, and most treacherously slew him as he dined in friendship at the castle of his Barony.
"The Baron of Dwelly and Zeh had long been promised to Griselda, the Baroness of Breakabeen, and they were allies in this, as in many other evil deeds. When our father lay weltering in his blood on the floor of the Castle of Zeh, the Baron instructed the Baroness to lure my mother with all of her twelve daughters to the Castle of Breakabeen under the pretext that our father had fallen gravely ill.
"When we arrived at the castle, we were immediately taken prisoner and handed over to a soldier for prompt execution. That soldier"—she shifted her gaze to the man standing next the Prince—"was Private Smeatt, at that time in the Baroness's employ. What she promised him in return for our deaths I cannot say, but as he is now in the royal army, I can only assume that some small degree of promotion was considered sufficient recompense for the deed."
Far from being embarrassed by this attention, Smeatt expanded like a rose in bloom. He removed his hat and bowed deeply to the company at large, smiling ingratiatingly all the while.
"Our mother bought our lives and safe conduct over the border from Smeatt," continued Ernestina, "with the crown jewels of Gilboa, jewels so precious to this land that it can never be happy, peaceful, or prosperous unless they adorn our Queen. How our dear Fairy Godmother obtained possession of the crown I cannot say—"
"He traded it for three bottles of rum and a sssackful of tobacco, two days after he got it, that's how," interrupted the hag. '"Twas not of a convenient shape to carry about, ssso he was pleased to see the back of it. I was pretending to be an old sssailor man at the time."
"—But we did hear that he fell into the hands of the Ogresses of Owlsville Valley, and had in turn to buy his own life with the necklace."
Ernestina paused for breath.
"But—pardon my mentioning it, but how did you become Geese? And how do I come into this story?" I asked.
Ernestina sighed. "I fear that we daughters were much to blame for that circumstance, at least as much as was our mother. As for you, Alexandria, why, our mother was with child when our father was killed, and that child was you.
"You see, when once Smeatt had seen us over the border into Dorloo, we were free—free to starve. We soon found the abandoned farmhouse which later became our home, so we were not without shelter. But our mother was a Queen and we were royal children. We did not know how to coax food from the soil and we were accustomed to luxury. Our mother, as I have said, was heavy with child and found work of any kind difficult.
"We children wept continually and quarreled amongst ourselves, crying for sweetcakes and wine. Our mother the Queen, made cross by her thirteenth confinement, finally called out in great vexation, Thou art naught but a lot of silly, quarrelsome Geese, my children!' And then, when yet one more daughter moaned and tugged on her garments, demanding sugar tarts to still the hunger pains, the Queen cried: 'O, how I do wish that thou wert a gaggle of geese, which might be satisfied with a sip of water and a sup of grass, for I do not see how I shall feed all of thee else.'"
Ernestina bowed her head. "I was but young, I know, yet I should have helped her more with the little ones. In a twinkling we twelve became white Geese. Our mother got her wish; born some months later, you were the only child left to her care. And Geese we have remained ever since."
I eyed the hag severely. "Had you aught to do with this?"
"Nay, I had not," she replied, much vexed. "I have had enough toil with your family without sssetting up more difficulties in my way. That horssse, for insstance." She glared at the horse. "Tis true and I'll not deny that the beasst came and fetched me in the nick of time, but was it sstrictly necesssary to pound my bones to a jelly in the processss?"
No one replied to this query, so she resumed.
"One must be careful what one asksss for in this world, that is all. There are more ears lissstening than you think, essspecially on the edge of the wildwood. And sssome who lisssten have a queer sssense of humor. More than that I do not wish to ssay," and she closed her mouth with a snap.
I persisted. "But why was it necessary to find the crown jewels? Why could you not have changed the Geese back into Princesses?"
My Fairy Godmother turned purple with rage. "Do you think it is easy to alter sssomeone elssse's ssspell? The only way is to add a condition that is ssso difficult to meet that it will sssatisssfy the requirementsss of the ssspell. Ssso I sssaid that the daughters of the Houssse of Fortunato should remain domessstic poultry all their days until and unlesss one of their blood wore the crown jewels of Gilboa again."
"I see," I said, thinking it out. "But—"
The old hag rolled her eyes.
I continued. "The Baroness, then, wished to prevent me from telling the King my name, becau
se it was that of the real ruling house of Gilboa. So she pretended to free the Prince and arranged for my death, as she hoped, before witnesses. That way no one would know just how suitable a wife I was for King Claudio."
The hag nodded. "True enough. Had Claudio known who you were he would have watched over your health and safety like a broody mother hen. You would have given him the one thing he lacked: legitimacy. And long life was not in the plans that the Baroness had made for you."
"I suppose she would have suggested that I took my own life rather than marry the King," I brooded. '"Twas one way out, I will confess, but it had little appeal for me."
The crowd was growing weary of this lengthy analysis of events which did not directly affect them. They stared pointedly at their empty goblets and shuffled their feet.
Taking her cue, the hag said, "Now, are you sssatisfied that this is your eldessst sssissster Ernessstina? For if you are, you mussst yield up the jewels to her."
"O, very well," I said, and grudgingly unfastened the necklace, uncrowned my head, and slipped the ring from my finger. I did not mind the ring and the necklace, for I had never regarded them as mine, but 'twas my crown, and I loved it.
Ernestina handed me her gold and ivory coronet and donned the regalia I had put off.
"Behold the Queen of Gilboa," cried the hag. "Do you, people of Gilboa, accept Ernessstina Chrissstiana Fortunato as your lawful Queen?"
An elderly, stooped man came forward, and said, "Madam, I was once counselor to Good King Alfred of Gilboa, foully murdered by the Baron of Dwelly and Zeh. I recognize my King's features and those of his virtuous Queen in the faces of these young women. I likewise recognize these as being the crown jewels of Gilboa. Hail, Queen Ernestina!"
"Hail, Queen Ernestina!" All the court took up the cry, and escorted Queen Ernestina to her throne room amongst a great tumult of jubilation. A few who had been close in the counsels of Claudio the Cruel slunk off and were never seen again, but the vast majority of those present were quite content to have a new mistress. They stamped their feet and shouted out, "Huzzah! Huzzah! Hooray!" until the very walls shook.
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