Princess Ben (10 page)

This situation became more problematic upon the return of Lord Frederick in October. Given his rank and post, it was to be expected that the lord would join us at dinner, and his presence at the table enlivened the meal to a degree I did not anticipate, having no experience with a charming and solicitous guest. Lady Beatrix now arrived each night looking quite feverish, an effect not solely attributed to her volumes of rouge. Even Sophia brightened, and sat the lord by her right to converse all the better with him. I was relegated to the queen's left, and Lady Beatrix to Lord Frederick's other side, so at times as I gazed across the table, the poor man had the appearance of a wizened gray flower trapped between two relentless butterflies.

Rarely did I look up, however, for always it seemed that Lord Frederick had his gentle eyes upon me.

"How fare you these days, my princess?" he asked one night. "Do your studies please you?"

"Yes, my lord," I answered.

"Are you sleeping well?"

"Oh, yes, my lord. My room is quite comfortable," I added hastily, for I had no interest now in being removed from my cell.

Lord Frederick pondered my words. "You are certainly not the boisterous child I once knew," he said at last.

Having no response, I simply nodded and returned to my meal.

Lady Beatrix took advantage of the ensuing silence to question Lord Frederick for the sixth time—perhaps he might this time be able to recall—on whether women's sleeves, in the courts he had visited, were flocked or flounced.

This topic held even less interest for me than it did Lord Frederick, and I paid not a whit of attention to his response, returning again to my own thoughts. Reality for me began and ended in the wizard room above my cell.

***

Elemental fire, as I mentioned earlier, was my first and best skill, and I developed it to the point that I could produce a flame with just one hand, which swelled my head to a ridiculous degree. The earth spell held no interest, as I could not see the point. Yes, I manufactured a fist-size rock, and with
struggle crumbled it, but to what end? Far more interesting was elemental air, and the book's promise that I might employ it someday to fly. Working diligently, I mastered it enough to send eddies of dust about the room.

Then, climbing to my wizard room one night, I caught sight of an object I had never before noticed, an article that set me nearly swooning in delight: a broom! (Well might one wonder at my myopia, for the wizard room was not five paces across. Yet this little garret had more hidden crannies and shadowy corners than all the rest of the castle combined, and unseen forces besides.) Delighted, I reached for it, anticipating a thrill of some sort. All that my fingers encountered, however, was the thick grime that clung to the broom as it did to every surface of that chamber.

Now I espied a mop and bucket, several petrified rags draped over the bucket's side. I spun about: the book lay tightly closed. At once I remembered our aphorism that the true cook holds the spoon. Such was the room's power, wielding the spoon as it did, that I could almost sense its bray of laughter:
Ha, Princess!
it seemed to say.
If you want to learn to use that broom,you'd best begin by setting your hand to sweeping!

And so, with greatest reluctance, I did. I must say that
when Queen Sophia banished me to that barren cell with the intent of instilling humility, she could not have dreamt I would spend my nights scrubbing the floor like a charwoman. Indeed, my opinion of charwomen rose immeasurably as the weeks passed, for cleaning that little room proved no minor feat. My first sweeping so filled the air with dust that I coughed for days, and I soon learned that sweeping has no effect if one does not dust, and that dusting has no effect if one does not wash, and washing has no effect if one does not scrub, and scrubbing, worst of all, has no effect if one's cleaning articles are as filthy as the floor itself.

At times I wondered whether there was space in all the world for the volumes of grit and droppings and bits of lint that this room seemed so intent on releasing. I was forever finding a hidden shelf coated in soot, or a dark cabinet with a skull-shaped lock that leered so unnervingly that I feared to turn my back. Countless buckets of wash water I emptied into my cell's basin, trekking back upstairs each time. But I persevered, if only because I sensed that the book would not reopen until its wizard room gleamed, and I discovered, however worn the maxim that hard work softens the heart, that it did do wonders for my mood.

My weeks of cleaning produced other unanticipated
rewards. One night I set to work dusting the mirror that hung beside the stairs, and then, ever diligent, polished the glass until it gleamed. I studied my reflection in the light of the candles (which, no matter how long the marvelous things burned, never shrank in size). "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" I asked with grinning impertinence. Certainly not me. My plump, dust-streaked cheeks shone red from my labors, and cobwebs adorned my tousled hair.

My reflection, of course, stared back. My curiosity grew. What purpose, exactly, did this mirror serve? "Are you enchanted?" I asked the glass. No response came. I shrugged and smiled at my grimy reflection. "You're very dirty."

"Yes, you are," my reflection answered promptly.

Needless to say, this gave me such a fright that in my panic I overturned the bucket. Re-mopping took some time. Finally I returned to the mirror.

"How did you do that?" I demanded.

My reflection mouthed my words dumbly in the manner of reflections everywhere.

"You are very ... complicated!" I spat out.

"I agree, I am complicated," said my reflection.

I shall not inflict upon my readers the remainder of this
burdensome conversation. After much frustration, not excepting my desire to toss the wretched thing on the floor and jump up and down upon it, I determined that this particular mirror only agreed to the truth. That is to say, if I stated a fact that was true, the mirror would confirm it. And if anyone reading this believes it to be the silliest attribute a magical mirror could possibly have, I shall not labor to convince him otherwise.

When, after Herculean effort, I established this, I could not hold my tongue: "You are so
stupid.
'"

My reflection did not react. As I considered it, this was actually a positive sign. After all, I was accusing both the mirror—which obviously was not stupid, for it had magical powers as most mirrors do not—and myself as embodied in my reflection. Imagine if my reflection had agreed that indeed I was stupid; what a blow that would have been. The mirror knew, therefore, that I had some innate intelligence.

My opinion of it warmed. I attempted to think of other truths. "Queen Sophia hates me."

Again, my reflection did not react. This, too, I found noteworthy, for not once had the queen indicated otherwise.

I tried again. "Lady Beatrix wears too much paint upon her face."

My reflection broke into such peals of laughter that she had to wipe tears from her eyes. I needed no further confirmation of that truth.

I returned to my foremost enemy. Perhaps I had not phrased the statement clearly enough. "Queen Sophia does not care for me."

My reflection rolled her eyes. "You require magic to verify
that?
"

I giggled. The magic mirror had wit, it seemed, atop its oblique perspicacity. Perhaps it might be used for matters weightier than facial powder. I could—I could determine, once and for all, the fate of my father!

I spun back toward the glass. "My father is..." Is
what
exactly? I wondered. Alive? What if I stated this and the mirror did not answer? Would that mean he was ... dead? Or that the mirror for some inscrutable reason elected not to respond? Perhaps I should say instead, much as I loathed the words, that my father was dead. But what if the mirror agreed? How dreadful it would be to learn this in such a manner. And—here was the core of the problem
—what would become of me then?
What if I could not keep this secret? Observe how delightfully the queen treated me when she
believed my father might yet live. I could not begin to imagine my fate should I be orphaned and truly at her mercy.

I ultimately decided to hold my tongue and settle instead for the comfort of ignorance. Not knowing the truth, I retained hope, and that hope I held like a smooth warm stone against my heart.

As December passed, I required every grain of that hope, for my circumstances grew ever more oppressive. For reasons I could not begin to fathom, the queen became increasingly preoccupied with what she termed my
carriage,
and which everyone else delicately referred to as my girth. To be blunt, it was substantial. In the weeks following discovery of the wizard room, I had given little attention to food. As winter settled in earnest upon the castle, however, and the icy draughts about my ankles brought back memories of hot soups and steaming meat pies, my thoughts returned to these creature comforts. I missed my parents so acutely that I sobbed, for the hunger in my belly only exacerbated the hunger in my heart. It was not simply food I missed: it was my mother s food, her warm kitchen and quick kisses as she bustled about her labors. If my father returned—no,
when
he returned, for I must continue to believe—I vowed that
he and I would banquet thrice daily while Sophia survived on dry bread and water. So famished was I, considering this scenario, that even the promise of stale crusts had me licking my lips.

Lady Beatrix harped endlessly about gluttony's effect on my marriage prospects. While the topic had always been a prong in her pitchfork, it now grew into a veritable pike. With every morsel I consumed, I was informed that princes most love slender young ladies. As I was as interested in a prince's love as in sticking my fish fork into my ear, I reacted to this by cleaning my plate ever more thoroughly. Queen Sophia could no longer chide me too bluntly, or beat me, with Lord Frederick at the table, and my portions were not quite so minute as they had once been. Nonetheless, hunger hovered always at my shoulder.

One night, preparing my Doppelschläferin spell, I lay upon my pallet wishing—not for the first time—that instead of water and bits of rock I could produce something of substance. A raspberry torte, say, with a pitcher of fresh cider, or a demitasse of melted chocolate such as my mother had permitted me on special occasions. I was growing weary of my wizard room. The spell book refused to open though I
had swept and scrubbed every obscure nook and corner. I had puffed and huffed elemental air up and down the broom and garnered only a fit of sneezing in return. Yet I had naught else to entertain me, and by now my body would not sleep, so accustomed was it to these nocturnal escapades. With a sigh, I stepped out of my Doppelschläferin and through the wall. Donning my black wool cloak, I turned—

To this day I struggle to recall my memories of the roomlet at the base of the wizard room stairs. I had stepped into it countless times: a dozen or more instances each night while learning the Doppelschläferin spell, and at least as many when emptying my wash bucket. Yet I cannot remember, try as I might, ever once paying notice to the wall opposite the staircase. Was it solid? Did moonlight filtering through the portal touch it even once? I cannot say. And yet before my eyes, as clear as if it had been there always, was now a staircase
down.

I shivered, and reflexively glanced about. But for moonlight and dust, I stood alone.

Clearly I was expected to descend; that much I could deduce. With a deep sigh to steady my nerves, I snapped myself a handful of flame and stepped downward.

Immediately my bare feet met masonry rubble and dust. The stairs had not been used in generations, a suspicion reinforced by the chattering disgust with which the castle mice greeted my presence in their private realm. My light provided scant illumination, and, cautious though I was, I could not refrain from stumbling at the first landing I encountered. Regaining my composure, I crept forward again—and screeched in horror as cold fingers brushed my cheeks!

I batted about blindly, inadvertently quenching my light, as hands touched my hair and cloak. I beat them away, then crouched, ready for further attack. As the minutes passed with no sign of another's presence, I gathered courage enough to snap a small flame. The vision before my eyes set me gaping anew, but this time in awe, for I had entered a nugget of gold. The ceiling glittered. Mounted to walls both before and behind me was a shining Montagne hedgehog. The two other sides of this small chamber—a magical room, surely—each contained a door, almost akin to a closet, or hallway—

I began to giggle in relief, and mortification. To my death I shall be stunned that prior to this moment I had not inferred even half the truth. I was in the queen's ex-room, the passage that connected her privy chambers to the castle's main corridor! No fingers had touched me; 'twas only a
magic portal, and the same sensation of cool silk I experienced whenever I passed through the portal in my cell.

Testing this theory, I reached for the nearest wall. My hand slipped through easily. I turned to the opposite wall and was thrilled to witness the same outcome. I chortled aloud as my mind raced to set in place each factor in this marvelous equation. Of course! The castle had not been erected by
giants.
It was rather the work of wizards who built such singularly deep walls so as to maintain secret passageways in the walls' midst. This explained the ex-rooms as well. By bisecting the thick interior walls, the ex-rooms provided innumerable portals between secret passageways and public space. Furthermore (and here I confess that my heart near stopped beating, so delicious this realization), I now at last understood the long-standing tradition of keeping the ex-room doors closed. This privacy would allow a magical person—
such as myself!
—to travel about the castle shielded from human eyes.

The sound of footsteps roused me from my contemplations, and I lunged through the closest portal. Not a moment too soon, for a manservant entered the ex-room with a lantern and a bouquet, as Sophia expected fresh flowers every morn. Methodically he passed through the ex-room
into her privy chambers, shutting each door behind him, while I secretly observed, near hugging myself with delight at this most amazing turn of events.