Briar and Rose and Jack

by Katherine Coville

  “What do we do now?” asks Briar, her eyes still watering from the incense.

  Hilde sighs heavily. “Well, there are times, dearie, when there’s nothing to do with a problem but learn to live with it. I suppose this is one of those times.”

  Briar smiles. “So you’re going to keep him?”

  “Oh, no. You can never ‘keep’ an imp. They stay with you only if they want to, and they only want to if there is plenty of trouble for them to get into. I’m afraid there’s endless trouble for him to get into here. Oh, my spells and potions! This is not going to be pretty.”

  Briar chuckles. She feels a warm camaraderie with her godmother. Briar thinks that she herself has a lot of problems that she just has to learn to live with. Sometimes, when Bishop Simon is berating her or the other children are making fun of her or the adults are blaming or ignoring her, she imagines that she is back at her beautiful haven by the waterfall, listening to the celestial music, dancing and singing away her pain. Only Jack knows about it, because he had found her there once, and Mother Mudge, to whom she had artlessly confessed the whole thing after that first time. But they hadn’t heard the heavenly music. When she told them of the music, they looked at her the way people looked at old Mad Godwin as he went gibbering down the street. She has never told anyone else about it again, wanting it to be hers and hers only, safe and secret. But now she finds herself alone with Hilde, who has been her comfort and refuge all her life, and she longs to be really understood.

  “Do you want to know something?” she says haltingly.

  “Yes. What?” is the plain answer.

  Briar proceeds to pour her heart out, telling Hilde everything—from following the red fox through the deep forest to discovering the waterfall, up until her last magical afternoon dancing in the clearing, feeling as earthy as a drumbeat and as light as a hawk gliding on a warm updraft. Hilde’s face at first reflects her surprise, which is replaced shortly by the deep satisfaction and joy of finding some long-awaited treasure.

  “Ah. The gifts,” she says under her breath. “They’ve come to fruition, then, and all in secret. Lovely. Lovely.”

  “Gifts?” Briar asks, her hearing too acute for her own good.

  “Yes, dearie. This music you hear—it’s the music of the heavenly spheres. Only a few can hear it. It is a great gift. And the singing and dancing are gifts too. You are very blessed.” She does not mention that these were the gifts of the fairies, intended for her sister, for how could she explain that?

  “What does ‘fruition’ mean?”

  “Why, nothing, child. I was just mumbling to myself.” Hilde wonders then about the other gifts, the first gift, the gift of wit, rife with possibilities, and the last gift, of strength. “Why don’t you come over here,” she suggests slyly, “and help me move this chest under the window.”

  “I can do it all by myself!” Briar assures her, and proceeds to demonstrate the fact, bending to grab the sides of a small but heavy chest. She lifts it with powerful legs, her strength seemingly greater than that of a full-grown man rather than that of a twelve-year-old girl.

  “Oh, well done! Have you always been so strong?” Hilde asks.

  “I don’t know. I guess so. I always beat Rose up the stairs anyway. She gets tired.”

  “And how are you doing in your studies?” Though Briar’s intelligence is obvious to Hilde, she does not know how to account for the poor reports the queen gets of the girl’s progress in school. She and the queen have long suspected some questionable accounting on Bishop Simon’s part.

  Briar is quiet and thoughtful for a minute before she answers. “Bishop Simon thinks I’m a dimwit. Rose and I thought up this plan for me to pretend I’m not very smart so Bishop Simon won’t get mad when I give too many right answers.”

  “He punishes you for giving the right answers?” Hilde asks, her mind filling with things she would like to do to the old villain.

  “He used to. All the time. And for asking questions. Now I just nod to Rose when I know the answer. It’s our secret.”

  Hilde is beside herself with delight. Briar sees only that Hilde is happy with her, and it inspires such confidence that she wants to share that other thing, that terrible thing she has shoved down into a hidden corner of her mind and tried so hard to forget. Once again, she remembers the slime on the damp walls. And the peephole. And the secret. Ever since that night when she and Rose explored the hidden passageway and she listened in on the meeting of the king’s counselors, she has been afraid even to form the thought. But it comes to her now, hovering on the tip of her tongue. Rose is not the heir. Could she finally unburden herself and lay down her anguish in the lap of her trusted godmother? Did she know who the ‘true’ heir was? But the fearful admonition surfaced once again in her memory: it was death to speak of it. Perhaps if Hilde knew the truth, then her life would be in danger. Briar shuts her mind against the possibility. There is nothing else she can do or say, so she closes her lips and swallows hard.

  “So serious, you are,” says Hilde. “What troubles you, dearie?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Briar answers, her secret throbbing in her heart like a caged bird trying to get out. Rose is not the heir.

  Hilde, too, holds tightly to her secrets.You are the firstborn, blessed by the fairies.

  Only a fragile membrane of silence keeps them both from the truth, but it might as well be a stone wall. They harbor their secrets alone, side by side, as the evening light fades.

  “I better go.” Briar sighs. “It’s nearly suppertime. Do you need any more help?”

  “That’s all for now. I’ll just put away my breakable things. You go on. Thank you, dearie.”

  Hilde embraces the girl warmly, then watches her go, her own thoughts turning dark as she is reminded of the evil gray fairy and the spell she cast when Briar and Rose were infants. Hilde couldn’t even guess which girl had been touched by the gray fairy’s curse, having switched the two of them at the very moment the gray fairy pronounced it. Perhaps it would be both. Perhaps neither. Hilde only hopes and prays that it will not be Briar who is condemned to sleep until awakened by a kiss, for who would fall in love with her poor, misshapen face and kiss her? Hilde fears that King Warrick’s command to destroy all the spinning wheels in the kingdom will be of no avail when the time comes. If the evil fairy chose to, she could conjure a spinning wheel out of nothing! Or she could choose to recant her terrible spell and save both girls from harm. But how likely was that?

  * * *

  High in a black tower on a lonely hill, the gray fairy gazes into her crystal ball. At first she is calm, then she groans, then something like a growl emanates from deep in her throat as she conjures images of the past in the crystal ball. Her face is suffused with rage. Her eyes flash, wide and bloodshot. The small sparrows she has suspended upside down from each wrist flap and squawk pathetically as she moves her hands over the ball.

  The image that appears is a scene twelve years old, but ever fresh in the gray fairy’s mind, for she renews it nightly and will never let it fade. It is the scene of her public rejection and humiliation, and she has nursed it in her memory until its importance has grown to disastrous proportions. It is the scene of a great gathering of the nobility and every other important personage in the kingdom, all present to celebrate the birth of an heir to King Warrick and Queen Merewyn. The scene includes eight fairies of the kingdom: pink, green, white, blue, purple, yellow, red, and gold. But not gray. No, not gray. She, only she, was excluded. Only she was shunned. The insult still burns like acid, and her hatred flows continually from the wound. Reliving the episode again and again, she observes herself turning inward, sinking down to her own darkest side until her hatred finds a focus, a perfect target to take revenge upon them all: the beautiful, innocent babe, Princess Rose. What better way to hurt the king and queen and all who rejected her than to spoil their joy at the baby’s birth?

  She lets out another low growl. “And look what I did!” she gloats. “Well, wha
t did they expect? Those proper people? Their royal highnesses? Lords and ladies of the court?” Suddenly she lifts up her chin and laughs bitterly. “They’ll never forget me now, not as long as they live! I’m the most terrible, the most powerful, the most brilliant!” She picks up a black book with strange symbols on its cover, sets it on a table, and opens it up. She thumbs through it slowly, muttering to herself. “Those interfering fairies—that gold fairy who tried to undo my curse—I’ll get them if it takes all the dark arts to do it!” She closes the black book and sets it down carefully.

  “True love’s kiss!” she cackles. “The fools! Do they think I’ll let anyone get that close to her? Wait till they see all the havoc I will unleash! I shall rattle the very heavens! Ahahaha!” On and on the gray fairy raves, until sparks fly from her fingertips and ignite small fires in the straw spread on the floor. She stamps them out quickly, screaming with frenzied laughter.

  Abruptly her laughter ceases. Rubbing her hands over her crystal ball again, she summons a different image, a view of young Rose as the girl goes about her day. Rose is surrounded by adoration, beloved by the whole court. “Wonderful! Wonderful!” says the gray fairy. “Let them all adore you! The greater their adoration, the greater their suffering when you meet your doom!”

  The gray fairy follows Rose’s movements and listens in on her conversations as she meets up with her friends, then asks her father if she may have lessons with the new painter. Her wish granted, she goes to the kitchen and charms the cook out of a snack.

  “That’s right, pet,” the gray fairy snarls. “Make the most of your charms. Make them all love you, for it will make my revenge all the more brutal!” And she laughs her horrifying laugh until the air around the tower crackles with it and birds and beasts flee. The small birds suspended from her wrists have stopped fluttering, for they are dead.

  * * *

  Jack straightens up from his bent-over position and wipes his perspiring forehead with his sleeve. He claps his hands together to loosen the dirt on them and futilely tries to rub it off. He has weeded the whole croft garden and tended to all his other chores in preparation for his journey up the mountain. Now, with the sun high overhead, the time has come. Fixed in his resolve, he says a brief but firm goodbye to his mother, leaving her calling after him.

  Meanwhile, the saddlebags hidden away in the tack room have grown full as each of the Giant Killers has made their contributions to the provisions. Even Lady Arabella and Elizabeth and Jane have done their part, more to please Rose than for any other reason.

  At the appointed time, Briar and Rose sneak the bags out of the castle and make their way to their rendezvous with Jack and Lord Henry beyond the far field. Henry is holding tight to Baxter’s bridle, reluctant to give him up. Having taught Jack the finer points of saddling Baxter, he lectures the boy about things Jack already knows as to the proper care of a horse. Jack patiently nods in agreement. When the girls come up to them, there are some last-minute doubts.

  “You’re sure you really want to do this?” Briar asks.

  Jack, who has had nightmares of being chased by the giant, nevertheless puts on a brave smile. He claps her on the back, leaving a dirty handprint. “I’ll be fine,” he reassures her. “Just like you said. And so will Baxter,” he promises Henry. “I’ll just do a little lookin’ around and come right back.”

  Henry reluctantly hands Jack the reins, then fastens on the saddlebags. Jack leads the palfrey to the fence and climbs on his back. Baxter turns his head, as if to see who is riding him. Seemingly satisfied, he responds to the hitch of the reins and the pressure of Jack’s heels and his soft “Tchk-tchk,” and he trots off across the meadow.

  “He’d better bring my horse back,” Henry says, hands on his hips.

  Henry and the girls turn to go, but it is decided that they should not be seen returning together. So Rose and Briar wait for Henry to go on ahead of them while they travel home by a different route.

  * * *

  Master Nilson Olyver is a man of great talent. Gray of hair, lean of body, he has the penetrating stare of a man who could paint one’s soul as well as one’s likeness. He sits on a stool before a blank canvas in the anteroom that has become his studio, awaiting the arrival of the princess.

  Master Olyver was struck dumb at his first sight of Rose. Her sprightly personality, her perfect features, her glowing complexion, her bright blue eyes and silky golden hair have overwhelmed him with the urge to pick up a brush and start painting. When it was proposed to him that he take her on as a pupil, he humbly suggested that if Rose were to pose for him, there would be no charge for her lessons. In the end, the king, always eager to practice any economy that did not affect himself, was only too happy to grant his approval. Now, at the appointed hour, Rose, accompanied by Lady Beatrice as her chaperone, arrives in Master Olyver’s studio. He greets her formally with a bow.

  Rose responds, “My mama says that we must dispense with etiquette and you must treat me as you would any other student. So please call me Rose.”

  “Excellent, Rose,” says the artist. “This is my apprentice, Lanford Cole.” He points in the general direction of a sturdy young man who has a head full of unruly black hair and green eyes that seem to laugh at everything.

  “Call me Lan,” he says, smiling. Lan takes in the image of the lovely princess, who is expensively clothed and spotlessly clean. He thinks he has never seen anyone quite so beautiful, but he wonders how long that fine dress is going to stay immaculate. He imagines wryly how she will react to getting paint stains on those porcelain hands.

  “If you’ll please sit over here, my dear,” Master Olyver suggests. “I’d like to get started with your portrait while the light is good.”

  Rose, disappointed that the posing is going to come first, nevertheless does as the painting master says. She suffers his further directions patiently as he has her turn this way and that to find the very best angle. Although Rose seldom thinks of her own looks, she is aware that even at twelve, she is the center of attention in any room she enters. It is a power she has barely begun to exploit. Though sometimes she shyly wishes for anonymity, still she takes it for granted that she will usually get her own way with her bright smile and dazzling blue eyes. Most things come to her so easily, in fact, that it is surprising that she is not as yet spoiled. Perhaps her friendship with Briar, whose experience and expectations are so different from her own, serves to keep her sweet and natural. Or perhaps some of the pink fairy’s ill-fated gift of sweetness has come through after all.

  Rose endures the ordeal calmly while Master Olyver directs Lady Beatrice to arrange her hair and clothing just so. Every view of her is so sublime, the painter has trouble deciding on one, but at last he positions her with her face turned slightly to the side. The three-quarters view shows the perfection of all her features. Concentrating, he sits down in front of his blank canvas to work. First he makes a quick sketch. Then he blocks in large, simple shapes of harmonizing color, starting with the darks. Then on to the bright gold of her hair and the folds of her blue dress. An hour passes very quickly for Master Olyver and very slowly for Rose, who has several itches she’d like to scratch. Finally, Master Olyver says the word, and she is free.

  “Is it time for my art lesson now?” she asks, trying to hide her impatience.

  “Of course, of course, my dear,” the old painting master assures her. “But what are we going to do about that dress?”

  Lan, who has been waiting for this moment, pipes up. “You’d best wear this,” he says, picking up a large apron that is encrusted with splotches of every color of paint, and he waits with some amusement to see her reaction.

  Lady Beatrice looks on with disgust. “Haven’t you got a clean one?” she demands.

  Rose smiles eagerly, saying, “This one is just fine!” Taking it from his hands and putting it on, she turns her back to him and says, “Tie it up for me, would you?” as if she wore it every day. Lan, pleasantly surprised, reaches around her and aw
kwardly grabs the apron strings, fumbling them about and finally tying them.

  Master Olyver looks at her critically. “We must do something about the sleeves,” he says. When Rose puts her arms out, her voluminous oversleeves hang down, as is the fashion. The master approaches her and rolls one sleeve back as far as he can, Lan following suit with the other.

  “Ahem!” Lady Beatrice clears her throat in warning, unsure whether to object to the indignity or approve of the saving of Rose’s beautiful blue dress. Finally, she decides on the latter and sits down to do her needlework, one eye always on the proceedings.

  “Now,” says Master Olyver, “to begin at the beginning.”

  “Will you teach me how to make paint?” Rose asks eagerly.

  “It’s not an activity for fun, young lady. It’s a very delicate process. A drop too much beeswax, a dribble too much linseed oil, and the whole batch may be spoiled. Worse than that, some of the pigments are quite poisonous and must be handled with extreme caution. Lan has learned to mix many of them for me, but the more hazardous ones, like king’s yellow, I make for myself. This is where the paint is ground.” He leads her over to a broad table covered with jars of different sizes and shapes that are filled with powders, paints, and oils, all laid out in an orderly fashion, and a number of tools, pots, and other objects. In the middle of the table Rose sees a large marble slab, with a muller—a clublike stone instrument shaped like a rounded wedge—and some spatulas, and she yearns to get her hands on them.

  “I’ll have you mix some of the safer ones, just to know how it’s done. You must follow directions exactly. Lan, start her off with yellow ochre.”

  Lan proceeds with exaggerated patience to demonstrate the various stages of paint making to the enthusiastic Rose. First he gently heats the linseed oil over a flame, stirring in a few drops of beeswax to make the binder. Leaving that to cool, he picks up a jar of ochre pigment, measures some out on the slab, forming a little well in the middle, and sets Rose to work with a spatula, mixing dribbles of oil and a sprinkle of water to the powder. She continues for some time, until the pigment forms a crumbly paste. Then Lan judges it is ready to mix with the muller.