Travellers in Magic (6 page)

The princess said back, satisfied. It was clear now. A young woman in love with a handsome young man who persuades her to deliver a note. Perhaps there was no revolution at all, perhaps there was just this young man. There was no threat to the palace, she could be sure of that. She had done her duty. She could let the harpist go.

And yet—and yet there was something else, something that intrigued her. “How old are you, Alison?”

“Nineteen, my lady.”

“Nineteen,” the princess said. “How long have you been playing the harp?”

“Oh, all my life, lady,” Alison said, laughing. “I got my first harp as a child, for my sixth birthday.”

“But to play for the king—young women generally don't—”

“I've been playing for my supper since I was ten, my lady,” Alison said.

“Yes?” the princess said, hoping the girl would go on, unable to ask more questions.

“I'm from the north, my lady,” Alison said. She spoke flatly now, without emotion. “My house was burned by the king's armies when I was ten years old. I'm an orphan, my lady.”

“So—so am I!” the princess said, delighted to have something in common with her.

“I know, my lady,” Alison said.

The princess stopped. Of course Alison knew. No doubt the whole country knew. No doubt Alison had even sung songs about the orphan who had married a prince. When would she stop being so stupid?

And Alison—things had not gone as well for her. She was very plain, flat face, flat nose, her green northern eyes too wide and too far apart. Not even the revolutionary would be interested in her. “And then?” the princess said. “What happened then?”

“I dressed as a boy and made my way here,” Alison said. “To the capital.”

“A boy?” the princess said.

“Oh, yes,” Alison said. “I've done it—I've had to do it—many times since then, to travel. A boy or a man. It's not very difficult.”

“Listen,” the princess said suddenly, impulsively. “Could you—I mean, would you like to give me harp lessons? That's something a lady should know, isn't it? How to play the harp?”

Alison smiled for the first time. “Yes, my lady,” she said. “I would love to.”

Somehow the harp lessons were fit into the princess's schedule. The prince made no objection. Alison told her about her life, about the time she had sailed on a merchant ship because she had no money, the time she had played in an alehouse and spotted in the audience the man who had burned her house, the time she had lived in the woods and hunted to stay alive. Gradually the lessons on the harp stopped and the two women would talk instead. Alison learned to stop calling her “my lady.”

And gradually the princess began to tell Alison about herself. The prince's eyesight was failing, like the king's, and he was coming back from the hunt in worse and worse temper. She felt, she told Alison, as if she should know what to do, as if there were some court pleasure that would keep him occupied but she had never learned what it was. She could not confide in any of the ladies-in-waiting. When the prince was away she would remember how he had loved her, remember the look in his eyes when he had found her after all his searching, and she would try not to cry.

Alison continued to see the revolutionary and to tell the princess a little about his plans. The princess felt as if she should be telling the prince what she was learning, but somehow the bond between Alison and her had grown too strong. And she never really believed the revolutionary could be a threat. He had raised followers, he was living in the forest beyond the city, he still wanted her to join him and “the people.” She still would not go to him.

One evening the princess dressed and went down to dinner. The prince was already there, along with the king and the court. “Good evening, my lord,” she said. “How are you?”

“As if you care,” the prince said. He lifted his goblet and drank. “As if you care about anything but that damned harpist friend of yours.”

She sat, stunned. Around the table people were averting their eyes, pretending not to listen. She knew this would be the major piece of gossip among the ladies-in-waiting the next day. “How—how was the hunt, my lord?” she asked softly.

“You know damn well how the hunt was!” he said. “I can't see a damn thing. Never could. Never could even back when I thought you were the fairest in the land. The fairest. Hah!”

“My lord?” she said.

“You know what they say about you?” the prince said. “They laugh at you! They laugh at you and they make fun of your accent and they think I'm just about the funniest fellow since my great-great-great-grandfather, the one they had to lock away, for bringing you here. If only I had known! If only I had thought before bringing you here, instead of being seduced by a pretty face. My life is ruined. Ruined!”

“I'll leave, my lord,” she said with great dignity. “I wouldn't want to be the cause of your unhappiness.”

“No, no, that's all right,” he said. He took another sip of wine and patted her hand. “You stay. You stay and tell me all about what you did today. What did you and that harpist talk about, hm? Did you talk about me?”

“You? No, my lord.”

“No,” he said. “Well, what then? Plots, conspiracies? What do you talk about behind my back?”

For a moment she thought he had heard about the revolution and that they were lost. Her fingers twisted under the table. “I don't feel well,” the prince said suddenly. “I don't feel well at all.”

“Quick!” the princess said, motioning to one of the soldiers standing at the door. “The prince is unwell. Take him to his room.”

The prince lay back in his chair, gone very pale. Two soldiers came and escorted him out of the room. “Very good, my dear,” the king whispered to her. “Very good indeed. You handled that very well.”

And the princess thought that she had handled it well, too. She went to bed that night and slept till dawn, woke and bathed and dressed. It was only when one of the clerks came to see her about a minor problem, a dedication ceremony at one of the churches, that she began to cry.

“My lady?” the clerk said.

“Go away,” she said. “Oh, please, go away.”

She went to bed. She cancelled all her lessons and engagements, and she stayed in bed, crying. The prince came in to see her and said that he was very sorry, that he had been drinking and that he would never go hunting again but would stay and take care of her, but she told him to go away, and he moved into another room. She cried for her dead parents, for all the years she had spent sleeping on the hard floor and being taunted by her stepmother and stepsisters, for all the months locked away in a stone castle, her happy ending. And, after a while, after a month or so, she stopped.

She sat up in bed. Her first feeling was surprise, surprise that there were no more tears. Sun came in through the high windows. She stood up, pleased to feel the hard stone floor under her feet, and went to her closet. None of the maids was around, and she dressed herself carefully, feeling pleasure in the act of doing something for herself. Things weren't so bad, after all. There was nothing that she couldn't live with. She sat on the edge of the bed, looking at the room.

There was a broom in one of the corners that a careless maid had left. Without even thinking about what she was doing she took the broom and began to sweep, a slow, pleasant motion that drove all thoughts from her mind. It was good to be up again, good to be doing something besides lying in bed.…

A sudden movement at the door made her look up. One of the maids stood at the doorway, looking in. The maid turned and ran down the hallway. The princess wasn't sure, but the woman at the door had looked like the maid who had laughed at her on the first day of her honeymoon, that day long ago when she hadn't known what to expect.

Dinner that night was a disaster. Somehow everyone in the court had heard that she had swept her room like a common kitchen girl that morning. The gossips stood in the corner and laughed, glancing at her often from behind their fans. Once she even heard her old nickname, the one she had hated, spoken in whispers—Cinder Girl. She looked up sharply and saw Flora watching her coolly. She looked away quickly and tried not to cry.

After dinner she went straight to her room, speaking to no one. As she left the dining-room she saw the prince and Flora deep in conversation. Flora was laughing. She told her maid she wanted to see Alison in the morning and went to bed. She turned on the soft mattress all night trying to get comfortable, trying to forget the sound of Flora's laugh.

Alison came to her room the next day. “I'm glad to hear you're better,” she said.

“I wasn't really ill,” the princess said. “Just—I don't know—disappointed.”

Alison nodded sympathetically. “I know what that's like,” she said.

“I'm sorry,” the princess said, feeling stupid again. “You must have had much worse disappointments in your life—I mean—I'm sorry. If only I wouldn't complain so much.”

Alison nodded again.

“But why are people so cruel to each other?” the princess said. “That maid who laughed at me my first day here—why does she hate me?”

“She hates you because you didn't sack her,” Alison said. “That was your mistake. You should have gotten rid of her immediately.”

“Because—but why?” the princess said. “I don't understand.” But she did understand, or was beginning to. She had been a peasant long enough to know that an aristocrat who let you take advantage, an aristocrat who was easy, was someone to be hated. You hated him or her just because you could.

“Oh, God,” the princess said. “What a mess. Should I get rid of her now? She's got friends now, the Lady Flora—What do I do?”

“I don't know,” Alison said. “I've never been a princess.”

“I'm sorry,” the princess said. “I just said I wasn't going to complain. How's your revolutionary?”

Alison laughed. “Oh, he's fine,” she said. “I think he's gotten enough men to start the uprising.” She looked around exaggeratedly and laughed again. They had both long since decided to trust each other. “I'm staying there now, sometimes, though luckily I wasn't there when you sent me your message. He's hiding out in that abandoned fortress near the forest. But—I don't know—I think if he ever decides to go through with it I won't be there. It's time to travel again.”

“You won't?” the princess said. “But—I thought—”

“You thought I was a revolutionary too,” Alison said. “So did I. But I've watched him for a while now, and I think—well, I think he doesn't love the people so much as he loves himself. That if he does win a war he'll set himself up as king and start all over again. And I've had all the dealings I want with kings.”

“Oh,” the princess said. “I'm almost ready to think that's too bad.”

“My lady!” Alison said, laughing again. “You weren't going to join the revolutionaries, were you? He still asks about you, you know.”

“No,” the princess said. “Not after what you've told me. Still, it's a disappointment. Just one more disappointment. How do you live with it?”

“Oh, I don't know,” Alison said. “You just keep going, that's all. You do the best you can.”

After Alison left the princess went down to join her ladies-in-waiting to do embroidery. If everything ended in disappointment then one disappointment was just as good as another. If this was her fate, to sit and sew and wait for her husband to come home from the hunt, then so be it. It could be worse. It had been.

There was a hush when she came in the room, and she knew immediately that they had been talking about her. “Sit down, my lady,” someone said, and they moved to make a place for her. “I'm glad to see that you're feeling better.”

“Thank you,” she said.

The talk started up again, words weaving like thread. Stories were taken up, tapestries displayed, the whole panoply of names and dates and countries she had never learned. “And then I said to Lady Flora, I said—” one of the ladies said.

“Hush!” someone else said, with a meaningful look at the princess.

“Oh,” the first lady said, as if to say, It doesn't matter what you say in front of her, she won't be here much longer anyway. And a few minutes later the two had started up again, talking in low tones, and once again the princess heard the hated nickname, Cinder Girl.

Something snapped. The princess excused herself and stood up, pretending that her work was finished. She went upstairs to the prince's room and opened his closet, taking out an old vest, a pair of riding-breeches, a shirt that needed mending. She went back to her room and dressed in the prince's clothes, her heart pounding loudly. Then she opened the door and looked out.

The corridor became hazy. Something shimmered like water boiling. A woman dressed in blue the color of a summer evening formed out of the haze. “Good day, my lady,” the woman said in a low, beautiful voice.

“Hello, Godmother,” the princess said. “You're not going to stop me.”

“I don't want to stop you, my child,” the fairy godmother said. “I'm only here to make you happy. I guess you can't be very happy here—I should have seen that. But you wanted it so badly. What would you like now—the brave young revolutionary?”

“No, Godmother,” the princess said. “I don't want anything—I only want to be left alone. When I went to the ball you promised me I'd live happily ever after. Well, there's no such thing. Nothing lasts forever, not even a prince and a castle and all the jewels I could ever dream of. This time I want to make it on my own.”

“But where will you go?” the godmother asked. “What will you do?”

“I'm going to join Alison in the abandoned fort,” the princess said. She was calm now, despite the pounding of her heart. “I think I'd like to travel with her, learn to play a harp for my supper. That reminds me—I should probably take the jewels.” She overturned her jewel case and stashed the rings and necklaces and brooches in the vest pockets. “I wish these things had bigger pockets,” she said, almost to herself. “And after that,” she said to her godmother, “who knows?”