Letitia Unbound

by Trevor Veale

  A delicate knock on the doors heralded the arrival of the queen’s lemon tea and morning paper. Mary D’Armoire swept in and briefly performed the curtsey that decorum required. Then she smiled her nervous smile and wished the queen good morning.

  “Did you bring any gingersnaps with my tea?” the queen asked, scrutinizing the tray she was holding. The countess blushed redder than a damask rose.

  “To be honest, ma’am, I thought you said you were cutting down on biscuits, as part of your diet.”

  “I said I was cutting down on chocolate digestives, not all biscuits!” Letitia replied. “You should have listened with both your ears!”

  Scanning the front page of the Bugle, Letitia frowned at the headline DAWNA DEFUSES RIOT. “She did nothing of the sort!” she told the countess. “The mob was already leaving when she arrived – the king had persuaded them to go. I know, because he told me himself.”

  Mary blinked in bewilderment and bowed herself out of the room. In her indignation, Letitia had forgotten to tell her to pull the drapes tight, so she was left squinting in the streak of sunlight. After a few sips of tea and some casual flicks of the Bugle’s pages, she stretched for the bellpull, rang for her maid and yawningly attended to het toilet.

  A hundred meters farther along the corridor, King Godfrey, who was an early riser, was sitting in his study with a cup of dark Colombian coffee answering his correspondence. He found the task irksome, as he now did all his royal duties although he had once enjoyed them. As a child he had been an emotional waif, never able to win his parents’ love, and to compensate he had embraced the calling he had been born to, with all its rigid traditions and ceremonies. Slowly his enthusiasm had crumbled over the years, and he had lately begun to think that Letitia had a point in wanting to retire.

  On a shelf in his oak-lined study he reached for one of the mildewed volumes of Mellorian traditional law. He hefted it to his desk and began peeling apart its pages. The old mahogany desk, its elegant legs scuffed and striated, now bore the weight of the tome as he pored over a chapter dealing with the rights of succession. His delving revealed the disturbing truth that Mellorian law, which was entirely based on precedent deriving from a series of ancient prophecies, did not allow the reigning king to abdicate without forfeiting the succession to his brother or brother-in-law – an unthinkable outcome, since Godfrey had no brothers, and his bother-in-law was King Slobodan of Slobodia, husband of his sister Latrina! In addition, the only way the Heir Apparent could succeed to the throne was upon the death of his father or upon the successful overthrow of an unlawful dissolution of the monarchy, such as an insurrection or foreign conquest, during which the previous monarch had been forcibly removed from his throne.

  As neither possibility was remotely palatable to Godfrey, he shut the musty volume and returned it to the shelf, vowing to keep silent about his findings – especially to his wife. He turned to the pile of correspondence his secretary had left for him. Mostly begging letters, it contained some emails which his secretary had printed out. These he dropped into the waste basket, reasoning that anyone fortunate enough to have an email account didn’t need his financial help. He began reading the letters and suddenly realized just how badly the economy was doing. Line after heartrending line revealed families in grinding poverty, despair reeking from every page. Parents begged for enough to feed their children for the few days it would take to sell all they had. Others begged for help in warding off the scourge of homelessness.

  Touched as he was by these tales of unremitting poverty, Godfrey began to wonder how people who were at famine’s door could afford writing paper, pens and stamps. Finally he resolved the dilemma of whom to favor with help by applying the formula dictated by tradition. He selected the handful of letters flagged to indicate that they came from Mellorians with seven generations of citizenship, and authorized the dispatch of a check of one hundred moons to each eligible supplicant. To the remaining petitioners the king’s secretary would send the following proforma reply:

  “The king has gratefully acknowledged your letter and would like to thank you for apprising him of your circumstances. However, the paucity of royal funds and the perilous state of the country’s economy do not permit the remittance of monetary relief at this time.

  Wishing you better luck for the future.”

  His gloomy task accomplished, he sipped his coffee and rang for his valet. It’s time for breakfast, he thought. He wanted to shake off the letters reeking of poverty and cast his mind over the list of breakfast fare on offer at the palace: six kinds of cereal, waffles, sausage, jam, scrambled eggs, French toast, bacon, ham, cream cheese and bagels, Brie, fruit, banana bread, five kinds of juice, tea and coffee. He felt his stomach growl.

  In the breakfast room he was assailed by Letitia who continued to complain about Dawna’s dangerously encroaching popularity, as witnessed by that morning’s report in the Bugle.

  “She’ll have to be kept in check,” she told him, “if somebody doesn’t put his foot down things will only get worse.”

  Godfrey chewed a piece of toast and marmalade with growing apprehension. That someone is supposed to be me, he thought. He had intended to go riding to exercise his chestnut cob, and now he feared he was being pressured into giving the princess a good talking-to. It was something he didn’t relish, particularly as he found nothing disturbing in the way Dawna was conducting herself. Underneath his prim façade, he was a passionate man, with equal parts of repression and desire. His self-imposed chastity, due more to age than lack of libido, did not affect his feelings for the princess, which were what really disturbed him.

  He expected to hear Letitia utter the words: “You’ll have to talk to her” at any moment. To deflect the moment, he flashed his wife a beguiling smile.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Maybe you were right to stay in bed tucked up with those travel brochures last winter. We should take a vacation this winter – you pick the spot.”

  She shot him a steel bolt of a glance. “Don’t change the subject – we were discussing Her High and Mightiness and what to do about her.” “Although,” she added, “I’ll definitely hold you to that offer.”

  Letitia swallowed her last bite of banana bread. “There’s nothing else for it – you’ll have to talk to her, Godfrey.”

  Godfrey’s smile drooped. There was no way out – he would have to bite the bullet. At that moment, however, Simpkins approached the royal pair and stood attentively in his black and gray morning suit while the king wiped his mouth with a napkin.

  “You Majesty,” he addressed the king, “a young man has arrived at the main gate and says he wishes to speak with you.”

  Godfrey looked at him with unmitigated relief. “Does he say what his business is?” he asked.

  “Only that he wants to make you a very important offer, sir – for a book.”

  Letitia sighed wearily. “If he’s a salesman,” she said to the butler, “tell him we’re not interested.”

  Godfrey, who was saying a series of silent hoorays, held up his hand before the butler could leave.

  “Just to be sure he doesn’t have something important to say, escort him to the library – I’ll see him in five minutes.”

  Simpkins bowed and departed. Letitia frowned warily. “This is just an excuse for you to put off giving Miss Muffet her talk, isn’t it?” she said. “Don’t think you can wiggle out of it that easily. I’m coming with you, and as soon as this interview is over you’re going to give Princess Perfect a talking-to.”

  Chapter 21

  A Wizard And A Painful Prophecy

  The visitor sat on a regency chair in the cool of the library, gazing at the rows and rows of shelves crammed with leather-bound tomes. He looked about eighteen, was thin and pale – almost scrawny, Letitia thought – and wore a sweatshirt and jeans. His pitch-dark, untidy hair framed a slender, almost schoolboyish face and he had bright green eyes under round, old-man’s glasses. Hughes, one of the underbutler
s, stood behind his chair, holding the young man’s rucksack.

  When King Godfrey and Queen Letitia entered the room, the young man rose and gave an awkward bow. Godfrey motioned for him to be seated, and led his wife to the sofa.

  “Now then,” Godfrey said. “I believe you have something to say to us.”

  “Yes indeed, Your Majesty,” the young man said, “I’d like to buy one of your books, please.”

  Godfrey smiled hesitantly while Letitia glowered in irritated silence. She was irritated with her husband for putting off his important task, and she wanted to get this young oddball out of the palace as quickly as possible.

  “Young man, you’ve come to the wrong place,” she said with barely-disguised impatience. “This is the seat of the Kingdom of Melloria, and all the books here belong to our kingdom. They are definitely not for sale. So if you wouldn’t mind –“

  “Hold your horses, My Dear,” Godfrey cut in, realizing that the longer he could keep this young man in the palace, the better his chances of being excused the dreaded talking-to. “Why don’t we hear this young man out first.” Turning to the youth, he said: “Tell me why you want one of our books?”

  “Um, because it’s a magic book,” the young man said, somewhat hesitantly. “It’ll show me the way to get where I want to go.”

  “And where’s that?” Godfrey asked.

  “The Magic Mountains,” he replied innocently.

  Both monarchs burst out laughing. “But we Mellorians don’t know if the Magic Mountains even exist,” Godfrey chuckled. “It’s a very ancient myth, not something we take seriously.”

  “That’s because you’re Muggles!” the young man blurted out.

  “Because we’re what?” Letitia suddenly leaned forward and scrutinized the young man’s face. She noticed that he had a very faint zigzag scar on his forehead.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude,” the young man said, blushing. “It was force of habit.”

  Letitia was now convinced she had seen or heard of the young man before. It was either some book she’d read or… “Tell us your name,” she said finally.

  The young man smiled a smile of wary acknowledgement. “The name’s Potter, Harry Potter,” he said.

  “I know you from somewhere, don’t I?” Letitia asked shrewdly.

  Harry Potter’s smile broadened. “You may have read about me or seen me in a movie – or eight,” he said with a stab at modesty.

  “Yes, and now I know you’re a phony!” Letitia cried triumphantly. “You didn’t say the name quite right, did you?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Harry looked completely nonplussed.

  “in the book I read – about a boy who finds a magic potion in his teacher’s desk, drinks it and finds he can now drive his father’s car, even in the dark, jump off tall places without fear and fight people bigger than himself – the boy’s name wasn’t Potter!” she said.

  “What on earth are you talking about?” Godfrey exclaimed, starting to feel a twinge of alarm.

  “The book, the book, it was the first of a series – it was called Barry Trotter and the Magic of Alcohol!” Letitia protested.

  Harry gave a derisive snort. “That sounds like a cheap knock-off to me!”

  “It was actually quite interesting,” Letitia maintained, “although the second book, Barry Trotter and the Magic of Ecstasy was a little less punchy. Turns out, the reason he has to keep taking these potions is to give him the courage to defeat his arch-enemy Foll-Dee-Roll. They’re written by somebody called Deepe Rolling.”

  By now, the young man was visibly shaking with laughter, while Godfrey looked from him to his wife with growing bemusement. “I wish somebody would tell me what’s going on,” he said.

  Harry gave the king a wry grin. “Clearly, you Mellorians are getting ripped off by some knock-off merchant!” he said. “My name’s definitely Harry Potter, and the woman who wrote about me – she’s Rowling, not Rolling. As for my enemy – Voldemort was his name, actually. Not that it matters now.”

  “Anyway,” the queen said, starting to feel embarrassed, “whether your name’s Trotter or Potter, we really don’t think we can be of assistance to you – there are no ‘magic’ books in the royal library. Our books are all sane and rational”

  “But you’re Muggles, you see – “Harry began, then backtracked as he realized his mistake. “I mean, the book I’m looking for probably won’t seem magical at all. It’ll seem very ordinary, like – a car manual!”

  Godfrey laughed lightly. “Our chauffeur has all the manuals he needs in his workshop. The books in this library –“ he glanced around at the tightly-packed shelves “ – are mostly on the subject of Mellorian history and tradition.” “By the way, Mr Potter,” he added, “you are welcome to take a look at any book in this library, as long as you replace it when you are finished.”

  Letitia glowered at Godfrey. She didn’t think it was appropriate to let this youth, of whom they knew nothing beyond his doubtful name, roam freely about the library looking at books.

  The young man got up and began scanning the shelves, walking close to one wall and then another, scrutinizing the leather spines of books. Letitia watched him, while Godfrey conversed with the Hughes, the underbutler. She noticed that every once in a while he would scratch his forehead as if his scar was prickling.

  “What have you got there?” Godfrey said to Hughes.

  “Young gentleman’s bag, Your Majesty,” the servant replied. “We had to search it for security, and Trashmountain found these things inside.”

  Harry spun around. “Trashmountain? Is that the big hairy lug who frisked me? He looked like Hagrid on a bad day!”

  Godfrey was intrigued by the contents of the rucksack that the servant laid out for him on the regency table. Quite an interesting collection, he thought, casting his eye over the quill pens, parchment, long black cloak and cherry wand. “I see you have a conjurer’s wand in your knapsack, Mr Potter. Do you do magic tricks?” he asked.

  Harry, who had now honed in on a book on the bottommost shelf, gave a short laugh.

  “Do I ever!”

  “I once wrote to the authoress of those books about you, Mr Trotter,” Letitia said to change the subject. “’Dear Deepe Rolling,’ I wrote to her, ‘how on earth do you manage to dream up such amazing fantasies?’” “Never did get a reply.”

  “This is the one!” the young man exclaimed. “I recognize it by the purple binding.”

  This piqued Godfrey’s interest. “I never knew we had any book with purple binding,” he said. “They’re nearly all in yellow and black – the national colors.”

  Harry stooped and pried the book out. He returned with it to his chair and laid it on the table, next to his things.

  “Yes, this is the one!” he said excitedly. “How much do you want for it?”

  Godfrey and Letitia laughed at once. Godfrey was willing to let the young man stay another hour or as long as it took for Letitia to forget about his impending talk with the princess, whereas Letitia was anxious for him to leave as soon as possible. They were on a collision course.

  “There really is no point you offering us money for this book, Mr Trotter, Letitia said. “As I said before, these books are not for sale.”

  “First off, my name’s Harry Potter,” Harry said, a tad irritated. “Second of all, this book means all the world to me..!“ He suddenly sank his head in his hands, to their surprise, and gave a loud, anguished sigh. Godfrey was quite moved by the young man’s emotional outburst and touched his knee lightly.

  “Now, now, Mr Potter, if there’s anything we can do to help you, we will. It’s just that these books represent Mellorian traditional culture and are very old, and we cannot part with them lightly.”

  “We cannot part with them at all!” Letitia corrected him.

  “Look,” Harry said, his eyes brimming with tears, “I know it’s hard for you Muggles to understand –“

  “That’s another thing that’s not qui
te right,” Letitia cut in on him. “In the Barry Trotter books, we non-wizards are called Muddles, not Muggles!”

  “I don’t care!” Harry cried, clearly overwrought. “Ruddy hell, it’s like having teeth pulled!” He looked from king to queen, searching for some light of comprehension. A glimmer of hope suddenly flashed across his brow.

  “If I tell you why I must have this book,” he said, “will you look into your hearts and see if you can find a way to say Yes?”

  “How long will this take?” Godfrey and Letitia said together, he hopefully, she doubtfully.

  “Not long, I promise you,” Harry began. “After leaving school last summer, I decided to take a year and go backpacking around the world with two friends of mine, visiting places where there’s wizardry, and the Magic Mountains is one of those places. We went to Greece to see the chimaeras, to Egypt to hang with the alchemists… bur going into the Magic Mountains will be the icing on the cake, the fulfillment of a life’s dream! In another nine months I’m going back to England to finish the rest of my life. I’m going to marry my girlfriend Ginny and have three kids – it’s all in the last book.”

  Letitia turned to Godfrey impatiently. “Well, have we heard enough? Shall we have Trash escort him to the front gates?”

  “Not quite…” Godfrey countered. “Let’s have a look at the book Mr Potter’s so keen on.” He dragged the heavy volume toward them. Opening it drew a cloud of dust from its antique pages. When the dust had settled, Godfrey peered at the strange cuneiform on each page he turned.

  “This is written in Old Mellorian, an extinct language,” he said. “You would need a scholar to decipher this script.”

  “We wizards have our own way of deciphering script,” Harry said.

  “Show us!” Letitia said impulsively.