Princess Ben (9 page)

But, I realized, frowning to myself, last night climbing the stairs I had felt naught save stone. And, too, why did the cloak display no frosting of dust? It looked spotless, though discovered in a passageway caked with filth. Perhaps some magical force had placed it there.

I shivered, then chided my cowardice: any force that so provided for me should be considered more ally than adversary. With a firm jaw and only slightly tremulous fingers, wrapped in my new wool armor, I passed again through the wall and up the stairs.

My suspicions of a magical presence increased when I reached the room itself. There lay the spell book, my footprints before it. But the pages had changed! In lieu of the Elemental Spells was an even more disquieting series of images, topped by an immense and unreadable title.

Disappointment coursed through me. The pages, solid as stone, would not turn, hard as I tried; I would gladly have tossed the book out the window, but the volume proved as immovable as its leaves. What good be this spell, whatever it was? Pleased at least to remember the words for elemental
fire, I lit the candelabra that I might examine the tome more closely. The illustrations made no sense. A girl under pursuit drops to the ground and perishes, for a ghost steps from her body. Her pursuers gather about the corpse as the ghost slips away unnoticed. Later the ghost reappears and steps, as one would descend a staircase, into the corpse, which then returns to life. Inserted between these larger images were diagrams of hand gestures and phonetic phrasing of spells.

A body returned to life was black magic; that much I knew. Perhaps the presence in this wizard room was not so benevolent after all. Even the heavy Gothic script of the title unnerved me. Wondering what path of villainy I might even now be treading, I sounded the name out, struggling with the foreign pronunciation: "Die Doppelschläferin." Beneath this, I could espy, smaller but in the same heavy text, "The Sleeping Double."

Ah, the body in the sketches
slept,
not perished. Still, I saw no point to the exercise. Why go to the trouble of such a complicated spell solely to nap?

At this moment, I heard a sound from below that froze my blood: the turn of the lock in my cell's door. I flew for the stairs, but too late; already feet trod the floor below. A girl cried out "Dear heavens, she's gone!" and raced away.

I rushed down, tossing my cloak aside as I leapt through the portal and into bed. Quick as I was, I barely pulled the blankets to my chin before the door crashed open and Queen Sophia strode in, a panicked handmaid behind her.

"Your Majesty," I said, attempting to sound both sleepy and unwinded.

"What is the meaning of this?" snapped the queen. "Where were you?"

"In bed, Your Majesty"—this as innocently as I could manage.

Sophia spun on her handmaid. "Is this sport on your part, to toy with us?"

Relieved though I was that the queen had an alternate target, I could not but feel for the girl. She did not deserve punishment for my transgression.

"Your Majesty," I interjected, "I beg your leave. I must inadvertently have hidden myself in the bedclothes. Surely your maid overlooked me in the shadows of this room. So soundly did I sleep that doubtless I did not hear her cry."

The queen glowered, as I had never spoken so solicitously, or so well. Perhaps Lady Beatrix's insipid phrases were making some impact after all.

"I apologize with all my heart, Your Majesty, if I caused even the slightest discomfort.

"We appreciate your humility, the queen said at last, unable to find fault with my penitence, and doubtless swayed by my flattery. "Perhaps your time here serves you well after all."

"I cannot but believe it, my queen. And I promise henceforth always to sleep in a manner that best reveals me to others.

This time I must have gone too far; I could scarce contain a guffaw at my phrasing.

The queen, however, accepted all groveling at face value. She nodded and turned to depart.

My success emboldened me. "Your Majesty, if you please—why did your maid this night come in? Is there some crisis?

The surprise on the queen's face mingled with another emotion I could not identify. Had she been any other, I would describe it as embarrassment. "No crisis exists. We only ... we had concern for your comfort.

Ordinarily I would have brushed this off as blatant fabrication. But the distress the answer gave her indicated, hard as this might be to accept, that the woman spoke true.

I settled in my bed as the queen sealed me in once more. The snap of the bolt, I must say, was softer than I had ever heard.

Though I longed to ascend at once to my secret enclave, I lingered, having no desire to be twice caught missing. Why on this of all nights would the queen concern herself with my comfort? Why, I now mused, had Lady Beatrix permitted me to sleep through dance lessons? Why had I received larger portions at dinner, and unprecedented recognition from the castle staff generally, all this day?

My first thought brought my heart to my throat—given the terrors, excitement, and turmoil of the past day, I marveled my heart still beat at all. They knew of my magical powers and sought to appease me!

I quickly rejected this, however. My "powers were yet so paltry as to be laughable. Lighting candles, producing a mouthful of water ... these hardly ranked as sorcery. Moreover, I knew the queen; if she had any inkling of my activities, she would have removed me at once from my cell.

The truth, when it arrived, stunned me with its obviousness. So preoccupied was I with my magical ventures that I had forgotten completely, to the point of overlooking even the stiffness in my hands, my battle with Sophia the evening
before. Twice she had put all her strength into breaking me, and twice I had withstood her. She, Beatrix, and all their ilk might consider me as dumb as a dumpling, but weak I was not, and clearly they strained to avoid another confrontation.

Thus I learned that with enemies it does not require magic alone to shift the balance of power.

This is not to say, mind you, that magic does not provide assistance. If earlier I only suspected a mysterious propitious force aiding my training, I now knew it as incontrovertible fact. The girl in the wizard room's spell had avoided her pursuers by splitting herself in twain, the sleeping portion serving as distraction while the more active half went about her business. I had not pursuers per se, but I suffered myriad prying and suspicious opponents. I had escaped the queen's wrath once; I might not be so fortunate again. I, too, required a sleeping double to remain in the cell while I occupied myself without distraction above. I determined to spend all night, if need be, mastering the Doppelschläferin.

As it emerged, facility—I could not claim mastery—was more the work of three fortnights than one night alone, taking me deep into autumn. The words of the spell proved nigh impossible to memorize, and for the first time I cursed my
ineptitude with foreign tongues. Memorization I considered imperative, however, for the spell was initiated in the prone position, and, enthusiastic as I might be, I could not bring myself to recline on that carpet of droppings and dust. Instead I would strain to pack as much as I could into my small brain, hurry down the stairs while I yet retained the information, arrange myself on my humble bed to match the illustrations, and then mutter out gibberish. As the nights progressed, I took to lingering longer and longer on the pallet, ostensibly awaiting results but more often than not dozing. On more than one occasion I returned upstairs to find the book sealed shut, and I confess that my resentment was more than overcome by my relief at now being permitted to sleep. I could not help but notice that in this regard the book, inanimate though it was, cared more for my welfare than any human in the castle.

Eventually I did produce a reasonable Doppelschläferin. My first attempt left me screaming in fright, for the figure I had created lacked arms and legs, and most resembled a dismembered corpse. Lucky I am that my room lay out of earshot of the queen, else this narrative would end now. Upon composing myself I returned to the book and with great effort managed to negate, or rather to complete, the
spell, for the objective is only the temporary separation of a body from its double. This experience taught me a powerful lesson, and never again did I attempt a spell without first learning how to undo my work.

A Doppelschläferin, should one not be familiar with this particular magic, is the visual embodiment of its creator. The double remains prone in a sleeplike state and, to the best of my efforts anyway, cannot be woken. Furthermore, as I learned to my great embarrassment, the double retains its maker's clothing. On first completing the spell successfully, I found myself standing as bare and shivering as a newborn child in the middle of my cell. (The illustrations had discreetly overlooked this detail.) With time and much practice, I was able to retain at least a thin camisole and petticoat, quite reassuring to my modest nature, and it caused no end of frustration to Hildebert that I insisted each night on wearing them under my nightdress. Similarly, in order to rejoin my double I had to strip down to this semi-exposed state. One night, exhausted from study, I attempted to step into the Doppelschläferin while still in my heavy cloak, and the cloying, choking sensation it produced in my rejoined body was so nightmarish that I never again failed to undress.

Unfortunately, however long my Doppelschläferin slept,
I never woke from my division rested. Indeed, the remerging of my two bodies produced a confusion of effects I could never predict. I might awaken with spotless hands; at other times they were filthy as ever. At breakfast one morning Lady Beatrix shrieked over a spider in my hair that had doubtless been on me, or rather on the conscious part of me, since midnight. Needless to say, I resented such discrepancies and would strive to make my two selves as similar as possible before recombining, scouring my hands, feet, and face at the conclusion of every magical session.

This task turned out to be much easier than I would have thought. My cell's only furnishing beyond the bed and chamber pot was a stone washbasin built into the wall. The point I had never understood, as the cell contained no tap or cistern, and no servant ever hauled wash water up that staircase. Once I learned the Doppelschläferin with more or less proficiency, however, the book returned to the Elemental Spells, and I set myself anew to this familiar subject. Soon enough I could produce great handfuls of water that quickly filled my basin.

My satisfaction swelled still further with my next discovery: I could produce a small handful of flame even underwater, the surface bubbling and steaming as if I had magicked
myself a miniature fumarole. As October, and then November, settled over the castle, sending winter chill into my exposed tower, this trick proved essential, and the production of my own hot wash water gave me more pride than I had known in all my life. Working away with two bits of cloth—one to plug the basin, the larger to scrub away all evidence of the wizard room—I felt as independent as a veritable mountain man.

***

Doubtless a thoughtful reader might at some point wonder how my days passed between these momentous nocturnal events. What of war, the threat of Drachensbett, my father, and Xavier the Elder? To be sure, war had not yet transpired, though the people of Montagne (myself excepted) yet hummed with preparations as a hive of bees prepares for winter. Drachensbett continued to deny any role in the killings of King Ferdinand and my mother. The king's absurd belief in the presence of dragons atop Ancienne determined even his military strategy, for he appeared willing to sacrifice the immediate capture of Montagne in hopes that our grateful citizenry would at last agree to this fairy tale. Yet even I, the most gullible consumer of fiction in the two nations and
perhaps the sole practitioner of actual magic, could not consent to this patent and insulting deceit.

Lord Frederick, our kingdom's esteemed ambassador, had departed Chateau de Montagne in early summer that he might work abroad to avert warfare, though I am ashamed to report I had little concept of the lord's work. Diplomatic correspondence I never saw; its contents were certainly not discussed at dinner. Whether this stemmed from the queen's inherent reticence, her insistence on forever practicing the art of useless conversation, or her suspicion that neither of her companions had the intelligence to manage a dialogue on politics, I could not say. I knew only that war, for whatever reason, had not yet commenced.

My political naivete was not helped, to be sure, by the fact that my activities during day-lit hours elapsed in a stupor of either napping or yearning to nap. In searching for a technique to manage my chronic exhaustion, I discovered a singularly brilliant tactic: abject passivity. Whereas before I had objected to Sophia and Beatrix's demands, ignored their edicts, and confronted them at every turn, I now gave way as does a cloud of mist, and more luck would they have had building a house of fog than engaging me in conflict. This solution required almost no energy on my part and furthermore, I was delighted to see, drove the two women quite mad.

At dinner the queen would glower at me as I nodded, half asleep, over the aspic.

"We notice you are not speaking, Benevolence."

"No, Your Majesty"—this in a quiet voice, my eyes cast downward.

"Do you not agree that conversation is the foundation of a proper meal?"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

She waited for me to continue as I worked my fork into the gluelike blancmange.

"Have you anything to contribute, Benevolence?"

"No, Your Majesty."

"Perhaps you can inform us what you learned today in your lessons."

"I fear I cannot, Your Majesty."

"Did you learn nothing of substance whatsoever?"

"I cannot recall, Your Majesty."

The color high on her cheeks, the queen would surrender, turning to Beatrix for social intercourse. I noticed the
wine flowed ever more freely as these dinners progressed, the queen attempting to drown her frustration with her stupefied niece.