Heartless

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  “The lady is not interested in such nonsense as yours!” said the vendor of the next stall over. He was a dwarf with a red face and slanting eyes that disappeared behind the folds of the most enormous grin Una had ever seen. “Step this way, damsel fair. Step this way and see what Malgril has to offer!”

  She obeyed, and he pulled back a cloth to reveal silver statues of intricate work – little animals set with jewels for eyes. “Lovely,” she said.

  “But wait,” said the dwarf. “Watch closely.”

  She smiled and looked again. The animal statues were of the most exquisite workmanship, the bodies engraved all over with delicate scrollwork. They were of creatures she did not know or beings she recognized only from stories: a cat with a woman’s head, a snake with wings, a centaur, and a gryphon.

  She blinked. Then she gasped.

  The little figures had moved. Or had she imagined it? She blinked again, and sure enough, the woman-cat’s tail twitched, the gryphon’s mouth opened, the centaur turned his head.

  “The scrollwork,” said the dwarf, “was wrought by my brother, the great Julnril himself. These are powerful charms, like those of the ancient golems. Do they please your ladyship? Would she hold one in her hand?” The dwarf picked up the winged snake and held it out to her, but when Una looked at it, blinking fast, it seemed to writhe in his fingers. She stepped back, smiling again but shaking her head.

  Felix’s voice caught her attention. “Are you sure these are my size?”

  “Standard size, my lord,” someone replied, and Una turned to see Felix sitting before a cobbler’s bench, shoving his foot into a boot made of old leather. It was a tough fit, and Felix made faces in his efforts to pull it on. The cobbler, rubbing his hands together, nodded and smiled and spoke encouragingly. With a final tug, Felix’s heel slid into place, and the prince stood up. “And these are seven-league boots, are they? They kind of pinch – ”

  “Don’t stamp your feet!” the cobbler cried, but too late.

  Una yelped. Her brother had vanished.

  Immediately the cobbler began ringing a bell and shouting at the top of his lungs, “Thief! Thief! Stop, thief!”

  The next instant, huge Sir Oeric appeared, shaking a fist at the cobbler. “You shouldn’t insist your customers try them on if you don’t want them to run off!”

  “He must pay! He must pay!” the cobbler insisted.

  “Give me a pair, and I’ll fetch him back.”

  “But, sir – ”

  “At once!”

  King Fidel was there by now with the guardsmen, along with a great hustle of people, all shouting. “Which way did he go?” “He’ll be halfway to the Red Desert by now!” “You certain he didn’t step toward the sea?” “Fool boy, won’t know enough to turn around and come back!”

  “I’ll get him for you, Your Majesty,” Sir Oeric declared, pulling on another pair of the cobbler’s special boots. Amazingly, they seemed to grow to fit his enormous feet. The next moment he vanished as well, and the yells of the market-goers doubled. The cobbler, grinning from ear to ear, was suddenly blessed with the best business he’d managed that day.

  Una watched it all, laughing to herself and feeling a bit jealous of the fun Felix was having. She turned back to the silver statues but found herself instead looking into a pair of huge white eyes in a face like gray stone.

  “My lady, would you have your fortune told?”

  The man before her was the ugliest she had ever seen, uglier even than massive Sir Oeric. He was small, smaller still because he huddled into himself, and when he smiled he also displayed rows of sharp fangs. But then again – and here she frowned, for surely her eyes were lying to her one way or the other – he was also beautiful. Like the silver statues that moved only when she blinked, so this shrunken man seemed to change his face for hairbreadth moments, as though a veil wafted over his features and then away again. In those moments, he was beautiful.

  He bowed to her. He was dressed in red robes, his head covered with a golden cap edged in intricate embroidery. With a sweep of a long sleeve, he indicated a tent, also red and worked with gold. Glittering beads hung over the opening, and all was dark inside.

  “My lady,” he said, “you are newly come of age; I read it in your eyes.

  Are you not curious to know what fates await you this day, this week, this month and year? Catch a glimpse perhaps of your future lover; see the smiles of your children? Torkom of Arpiar is no charlatan. Torkom of Arpiar knows the secrets, and he will tell you.”

  The ugliness faded more and more as he spoke, and his face grew ever more trustworthy. After all, had not Sir Oeric declared that the people of the market brought only goodwill? If she was going to trust him, a goblin, why should she not trust this beautiful being?

  She followed him into the tent. The beads shimmered like so many stars as the tall man held them back, and she stepped into a room full of warm, rosy light. Curtains of gauzy fabric, embroidered and beaded, hung suspended from the center bar, and she had to push them aside as she stepped deeper and deeper into the tent. It was bigger inside than she could have guessed from looking at the outside; curiously it seemed to grow as she went. But the rose-colored light was beautiful, and the smell all around was too sweet for her to feel afraid.

  At last Una pulled back a final drape, which felt like fine milkweed to her fingers, and found a low cushioned stool and a wooden box so dark that it looked black.

  The fortune-teller appeared beside her and, taking her hand, gently led her to the stool. “Sit, lady, sit,” he said. “Torkom will tell you your secrets. Trust him to know. Trust him to tell.”

  She trusted him. The sweet smell made it impossible not to. The perfume of the roses intoxicated her, though she did not recognize the scent. She allowed the man to seat her upon the cushioned stool. For a moment he remained bowed over her, holding her hand so close to his face she thought he might kiss it. But instead his large eyes inspected the ring on her finger.

  “Such a lovely piece,” he said. “Opals, yes?”

  Breathing in roses, Una nodded. “My mother gave it to me. Before she died. I wear it always.”

  “Ah!” Torkom’s smile grew. “Such a gift. A gift of the heart. Not one to part with too soon.”

  “I wear it always,” Una repeated and drew her hand from his grasp. She put both her hands in her lap, covering her ring.

  Torkom bowed himself away and knelt to open the dark wooden box.

  Fascinated, Una watched him put his hands inside and lift out a strange object. At first she thought it was a shield, for it was the right size and shape, wide at the top and narrowed to a point at the bottom. But it was subtly concave, and the outside was black and rough, a natural roughness like rock. The inside, however, gleamed gold, and the air shimmered around it as if with heat.

  Torkom, his teeth showing in what was almost a smile but might have been a grimace of pain, held the strange object out to Una. “Lady,” he said, his voice hissing. “Lady, if you dare, behold your future. Look inside.” He held the black shield out to her, and Una leaned forward.

  Hot air rising from the golden surface hit her face. Inside she saw her own reflection, wincing but curious. Nothing more.

  “Take it,” Torkom whispered. She could not see him through the haze of heat and the glare of gold, but his voice worked like magic in her ear. “Take it, lady.”

  She put out her hands and took hold of the shield.

  Heat seared up her fingers, through her arms, and wrapped about her head like a fiery vine. She gasped but could not take her eyes from the bright surface, which writhed suddenly like melted gold.

  A face took shape. Black eyes ringed with flames, bone-white skin, and teeth like a snake’s fangs. It looked at her, and she could not tear away her gaze. A voice flared in her mind, speaking not in words but in a language of heat and smoke that burned in her mind:

  Beloved of my enemy! I played for you, didn’t I? I played for you and won! Are you not the one
I seek?

  Una could not answer, could not break his gaze. The heat from the golden shield was like strong arms pulling her down, drawing her face closer and closer, and the fiery words rolled about her, a thunderstorm.

  Where are you? Where are you?

  Then another voice spoke.

  “Stop!”

  2

  Hands grabbed Una’s shoulders and pulled her to her feet, and the heat fell away from her like a shriveled cocoon. She dropped the shield; the vision shattered. Weakness filled her body, and she would have fallen, but strong arms held her up. She blinked several times before her vision cleared and she found herself looking up into the pale face of a strange man.

  He was glaring fiercely, but not at her.

  “How dare you?” His voice was quiet, but it rang in her head with both menace and authority.

  Una stepped back, uncertain of her feet. The stranger seemed unwilling to let her go, but she pushed his hands away. Her fingers burned in searing lines where she had touched the shield. She turned and saw the fortune-teller, ugly as sin, rubbing his hands together and smiling obsequiously.

  “Eshkhan!” The way the man said the word, Una wondered if it was a curse. “Eshkhan, I do but sell my wares.”

  “How dare you?” the stranger repeated. “You turn my market into a devil’s carnival.”

  “I do but sell my wares!” Torkom repeated. “I asked, and the lady agreed to glimpse her future.”

  The stranger said nothing but turned to Una. He was young, she realized, though older than she, and his earnest eyes frightened her. She drew back from him.

  “Lady,” he said, “come away, please. Touch nothing more in this den.”

  Her hands tingled. “I . . . I don’t see what business it is of yours, sir.” She spoke more sharply than she meant to, but the words spilled out like fire from her tongue. “How I deal with this gentleman is my own affair.”

  The stranger put out a hand to her. “Come away, lady,” he said. “Come out of this place.”

  She stared at him without seeing him. Her mind desperately tried to recall the vision she had just witnessed: the voice, the face. But it was gone like a dream, leaving behind only the heat. She tried to speak but could find no words, so she swept past the stranger, parting curtains with her arms, stepping into the labyrinth of embroidered drapes. Immediately she was lost, uncertain where to find the entrance, uncertain how to return.

  Someone grabbed her arm. She looked and saw Torkom’s gray claws.

  “My lady must pay,” he said. “My lady must pay for the vision.” He lifted her hand toward his face, licking his lips as he drew her fingers toward his mouth. Her ring gleamed in the rose-colored light, reflecting back into his white eyes. “Worth so much,” the fortune-teller said.

  “Worth so great a price – ”

  “Torkom.”

  The fortune-teller trembled at the stranger’s voice and dropped Una’s hand. “Courtesy of Arpiar,” he muttered. “First vision is free.”

  The stranger stood beside Una once more, a hand under her elbow. “If you dare lure another into your lair, Torkom, I will personally see you returned to Arpiar. And this time you will not leave it. You have my word. Now, pack up and get you from this market.”

  The ugly man bowed deeply, closing his great eyes, and once more muttered, “Eshkhan.” The next moment he was gone, and Una found that she stood just inside the beaded entrance.

  The stranger lifted the beads and allowed her to step out ahead of him. The sun was garishly bright after the rose glow of the tent, and Una put up a hand to shield her eyes. She drew a great breath, missing the scent of roses, and turned to the stranger, who emerged just behind her. In natural light, he seemed even paler, though his eyes were dark. His features were neither handsome nor ugly, merely ordinary. In truth, he was the most unnoticeable man Una could recall ever seeing. Though, a reasonable side of her added, she might have seen one without noticing.

  He met her gaze. “My lady – ”

  She held up a hand, once more aware of the burning line across her fingers. “My good man, you are possessed of a singularly impertinent nature that I find most . . . most . . . Dragon’s teeth! ” It was the most unladylike phrase she knew. Nurse would have exploded had she heard it, but Una was pleased to see surprise cross the stranger’s face. “You have no right putting your nose into my dealings. Do you have any idea who I am?”

  “You are not yourself,” he said quietly. “The incense of Arpiar and the vision – ”

  “My good man!” she interrupted again. “I am Princess Una of –Parumvir, and you will speak when you are given permission.”

  To her irritation, he smiled as though he was trying not to laugh. Then he bowed. “And I am the Prince of Farthestshore.”

  Of all the curses upon Una’s young life, the very worst, she believed, was her tendency to break out in red blotches across her face when flustered or embarrassed. Especially on her nose. This was enough in and of itself to make her believe in Faeries, bad ones, who were neglected on dinner party lists and showed up at christenings full of vengeance and cackling, “She shall burst forth in blotches, brilliant glowing ones, at the least provocation.”

  Una could feel the blotches developing now, little red flags signaling for all they were worth. “See! See, she’s gone and put her foot in her mouth again! Right in, heel and all!”

  Without a word she turned and marched back through the market the way she had come.

  The crowds had spread out once more, no longer clumping about the cobbler’s stall. This probably meant that Felix was safely back, the purloined boots restored to their proper owner, and the attraction dissipated. Una had no eyes now for vendors, no matter how determinedly they shouted, jostled, or cajoled; she made her way back to where her docile gray mare was tied, not far from the old gentleman selling unicorn fry.

  Her father and brother were both there – King Fidel giving a shamefaced Felix a scolding while the guards stood a few paces off, pretending not to hear, their heads tilted just enough to seem disinterested yet still able to pick up every word. One of them hid a laugh behind an unconvincing cough.

  Sir Oeric, also near, bowed to Una as she approached, but she did not acknowledge him. Instead she walked up to her father, ignoring Felix’s scowls, and said, “I’m ready to go home now.”

  “Una!” Fidel turned to her, relief on his face. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d rushed off seven leagues as well. What am I to do with you two?”

  “Take us home,” Una said. “I am done with this market. It’s a silly place full of silly people.”

  Fidel was nobody’s fool. He gave his daughter a critical once-over. “What have you been up to?”

  “Nothing, Father! I – ”

  “Do not be angry with your daughter, King Fidel,” a gentle voice said. “It was I who detained her.”

  Una closed her eyes and wished that the ground would open and swallow her up. The nature of the universe seemed to be against her, however, and no sudden chasms rifted the turf beneath her feet. Instead she had to listen to her father ask in a stern voice, “And who might you be, sir?”

  The stranger bowed. “Forgive me. I am Prince Aethelbald of Farthest–shore.”

  Prince Felix muttered, “Aethelbald? I don’t think we can forgive that.”

  Una shot him a quick glare, silently promising a dire future, but Felix made no effort to hide his mirth.

  Thankfully the Prince of Farthestshore did not seem to notice. “I had intended to introduce myself to you first, Your Majesty, but circumstances transpired otherwise. However, let me now humbly express my joy at once more finding myself in your fair kingdom.”

  Fidel stared. Una could not remember ever seeing her father, whom she imagined had been born a king complete with a beard and a gold crown on his head, at a loss for words. But as he regarded the strange prince, his expression implied that he was mentally considering and discarding any number of responses. At length he settl
ed on “You are lord and master of all these peoples, then?” He indicated the assortment of beings milling about on the market lawn.

  “I am their Prince,” he responded. “But many here do not call me master.”

  “Ah.”

  A pause followed – one of those pauses in which everyone feels the need to insert something profound, but no one can think of anything more profound than “So, yes. Anyway.” Una used the pause as an opportunity to sidle closer to her father, though this necessitated turning and facing the Prince of Farthestshore, which was no more comfortable, she found, than standing with him just behind her. She studied the toes of her shoes to avoid looking at him.

  “So, yes. Anyway,” Felix said, stepping forward and extending a hand to the other prince, who shook it warmly. “I’m Felix, crown prince and all that, heir to the throne, though Una’s older. Don’t let her fool you. She’ll pretend she’s all right with the royal succession being what it is, but you get her in the right mood and – ”

  “Felix!” Fidel and Una said, though in rather different tones. Felix let go of the other prince’s hand and backed away, still grinning.

  King Fidel stepped forward, determined to once more take charge of the situation. “I bid you welcome to Parumvir, Prince A . . . Apple – ”

  “Aethelbald.”

  “Prince Aethelbald. Should you wish to dine at my table this evening, your presence would be well received.”

  “Indeed,” said Prince Aethelbald, “such was my hope. Though I traveled with the market, my first desire was to pay my respects to you, Your Majesty, and most particularly to your daughter.”

  Una blinked.

  Her father said, “Pay your respects?”

  “Indeed, Your Majesty.”

  Fidel cleared his throat. There are many expressive ways a king may clear his throat; this one expressed keen interest. “Just how great would you say your kingdom is?”

  “How great can you imagine, King Fidel?”