by John Moore
“Was that it? Anyway, we went down into the well-house.”
“What well-house?”
“See, that moat is spring-fed, and where the spring comes out of the ground, there’s this old well-house. The foundations of the castle are sort of built out of it.”
Ann spoke up suddenly. “How old?”
“Old old, missy. Real old. Ancient.”
“Go on.”
“See, what I think is that castle was built on the ruins of another, older castle. You get down into the ruins, down in the dungeons and stuff, and it goes down maybe three or four different levels and stuff, there’s all sorts of passages and little rooms and fallen down brick, things like that. We couldn’t get into most of it, it was all blocked off with debris and stuff, but you could tell that a lot of it was real old, much older than the rest of the castle, and I don’t think anyone had been down there for an extra special long time.”
“Interesting.”
“But here’s the good part,” said the Bear triumphantly. “We go into this well-house, see, basically because it’s the only thing we can get into with no trouble. And on the wall there’s all these pictures carved in of religious symbols, crosses and such. And in about ten different places, there’s a picture of a grail!”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. It’s some sort of drinking goblet, at least. Anyway, I remembered you said you were looking for a grail there, so I thought I’d pass the information on to you.”
“Well, I appreciate this, Bear, but to tell the truth, that quest has sort of been wrapped up.”
“Oh. So you won’t be coming back our way soon?”
“Probably not. Why don’t you go after the grail yourself? It might be worth something.”
“It makes sense,” murmured Ann to herself, “A well-house as a chapel. The grail was a fertility symbol. Water symbolizes life, birth, also baptism, symbolic birth.”
Bear shrugged. “I thought about taking it. But there was rubble to clear away and the boys aren’t much interested in old relics. Neither am I, for that matter. And I don’t like to mess with magic stuff.”
“Very wise.”
“I’ll take on any man alive in a fair fight or even an unfair one. But this sorcery stuff is out of my league.”
“I know what you mean.”
“But the village is on edge, you see. We had a nice stable situation till you penetrated that castle. Now they want to know just what happened there and what the situation is going to be between Illyria and Alacia.”
“I’m really not into political stuff.”
“Well, you stirred things up. You ought to see it through.” Charming gave him an irritated look. Bear spread his hands. “Not that I’d presume to tell you what to do, your Highness.”
The Prince shook his head. “No, you may have a point, Bear. Let me discuss it with the Minister of Intelligence and see if he can shed some light on the subject.”
“Fair enough.”
They rose and Charming clapped the big man on the shoulder. “For a tough guy, Bear, you’re pretty darned diplomatic. And it looks like you’re developing some village loyalty, too.”
Bear scratched his beard. “Well, your Highness, I guess I just figured that sooner or later, a man ought to make some friends.”
“Good thinking. Thanks for the news, Bear.”
“And thanks for the sword,” chimed in Wendell.
“You’re welcome.”
“And don’t forget to stop by the exchequer for your reward.” Bear grinned. “I won’t.”
When the hairy man left, Ann said, “Well, he certainly changed his tone.”
“He’s a smart man,” said Charming. “He found that he couldn’t intimidate us, so he stopped trying to be intimidating.”
“Are you going to go back?”
“I’ll think it over later. I’ve got other things to do tonight.”
“My goodness. After all that’s happened today, are you still thinking about that girl who lost a shoe. Why don’t you just send it to her? Have a messenger deliver it.”
“Er, it’s good publicity to invite her over. Public relations and all that. It was Norville’s idea, actually. She’s coming with her godmother. Makes for a nice, wholesome, family scene.”
“I forgot,” said Ann. “You have to think about your image. After all, you’re Prince Charming.”
“Darn right.”
“WE’VE DECIDED TO CONTINUE with the story that we’re already married,” Aurora told Ann. “The story has gone out and people seem to be accepting it all right. Why invite public comment by changing it now? So Garrison and I will be married in a small private ceremony this evening. It’s kind of a relief, really. After the last fiasco, I’ve kind of lost my taste for big weddings.”
“I can imagine. Besides, why should you needlessly expose your child to the taint of illegitimacy?”
“Exactly. Anyway, Ann, I do hope you’ll stand up with me at the ceremony. You’ve been so kind ever since we met and I do feel like you’re my friend, indeed, my only friend left in the world. I would be so happy if you would be my maid of honor.” Aurora said this with complete sincerity, totally forgetful of the fact that only a few hours before, the two girls had been snapping at each other like rabid turtles.
“Oh, Aurora, how utterly sweet of you to ask me,” said Ann, equally sincere and forgetful. “Why, of course I’ll be your maid of honor. You’re such a dear, dear friend; why, I almost feel like we are sisters.”
Aurora hugged her. “Oh, Ann, I feel exactly the same way.”
“Sheeesh,” said Wendell.
The dinner guests were assembling in the sitting room that led to the dining room. Wendell went over to see Count Norville, who was nervously tugging at his cravat, and Prince Charming, who was attired in his finest silks, his hair brushed to a brilliant lustre. “We have rather limited intelligence on Alacia,” Norville told the Prince. “They pay their taxes to us and never cause any trouble, so there was no need to station an agent there. Of course, now that they’ll be properly under our rule, they’ll become part of the information network, but it takes time to get these things set up.”
“I understand,” said Charming.
“Now if you’re looking for a new adventure, Sire, I have the case of a rather pretty girl who was kidnapped by a brigand. She’s not royalty, but she comes from a wealthy merchant family…”
“Was she really kidnapped or did she run off?”
“Possibly the latter. But the key is that her family thinks she was kidnapped and, if she was returned, they would owe a debt of gratitude to the King.”
“Not interested. Damn it, Norville, where is she? She’s late.”
“She is not late,” said Norville. “It is only slightly past the hour.”
“Do you think she’ll like me?”
“She liked you at the ball. Very obviously so.”
“Do you think she’ll still like me?”
“I can only hope that if she does, she will be less demonstrative in her affections.”
“Yes, well I hope you’re wrong. And the really great thing about this girl, Norville, is that I never rescued her from anything, never saved her life, never helped her out of a tight spot. She doesn’t owe me a thing. Which means when she started rubbing her thighs against me at the ball, she was doing it purely out of…”
“Lust,” finished Norville.
“Yeah. Isn’t that great?”
“No. And I am compelled to point out, Prince Charming, that none of the young ladies that you have rescued owe you a thing either. One does not expect favors simply for doing one’s duty.”
“But you just said,” pointed out Wendell, “that this merchant family would owe a debt of gratitude to the King if Prince Charming brought their daughter back.”
“Ermmmm, so I did. A good point, lad. But a political favor is not the same as a personal favor. And being a hero does not excuse one from acting within the boundaries of commo
n decency.”
“Miss Cynthia and Madam Esmerelda,” announced a footman. All heads turned. And stayed that way.
Beauty is, as a well-known poet of a later century would say, in the eye of the beholder. Women have different standards of beauty than men. Women think of beauty in the classical sense; they find it in the finely chiseled features of Greek statues, in the effortlessly flawless lines of face and form, the regal bearing, the upturned chin. Their feminine ideal is the ice goddess, ultimately desirable but totally unattainable.
When men say beauty, they mean sexy.
Ann was beautiful.
Aurora was beautiful.
Cynthia was sexy.
Her hair was flaming red and long. In thick, soft waves it stretched to her waist and beyond, brushing up against the lush curves of her bottom, curves were that accented by the tight black silk she wore. The dress was strapless and showed the tops of her high firm breasts, with a deep V of cleavage. It dropped low in the back to emphasize the delicate curve of her spine. Her waist was narrow and her long slim legs were made to appear even longer and slimmer by the black silk stockings and the four inch heels she wore. Her eyes were as green as the first buds of spring and her lips were full, moist, and pouting. She looked at no one but Prince Charming and to him she gave a smile that was a seductive as a siren’s call.
“What did I tell you?” said Charming. “Isn’t she something?”
“She looks okay,” said Wendell.
CYNTHIA WAS SO EXCITED she thought her heart was going to burst. “Even if this doesn’t work, it will all have been worth it,” she thought. “If I never see him again, I will be happy for the rest of my life. If I never live another day, I will die in esctasy.” She was here, right in Castle Illyria itself, by special invitation, to meet Prince Charming. It was all happening exactly as her godmother had predicted.
Just thinking about her godmother made Cynthia tingle all over. Esmerelda was so very, very special. It wasn’t just that she could do magic, she was magic. She had that magical quality — charm, charisma, whatever you want to call it — that just made Cynthia fall in love with her the first time she appeared, and when she held Cynthia close and comforted her, all the girl’s problems seemed to melt away and the world seemed suffused with a warm, golden haze.
She sometimes thought that things might have been different if she was an orphan. Well, technically, of course, she was an orphan, both her parents were dead, but she didn’t mean that kind of orphan. She meant children who had been abandoned, foundlings, those who had lost their parents at a very young age and couldn’t remember them at all. Such children, she knew, all shared the same dream. That someday their real parents would come back for them and they would be beautiful and rich and loving and take them away to live happily ever after somewhere else.
Cynthia had been deprived of the comfort of such illusions. Her father had hung about till she was eight years old, plenty long enough to make it clear that Cynthia’s mother had died giving birth to Cynthia; she was definitely dead, no mistake about it, and she wasn’t coming back. He was mightily bitter about the situation, not just blaming the woman for dying, but for dying without giving him any sons. He had eventually remarried and was planning to start a new family, a male dynasty if at all possible, but a week later he was kicked in the head by a horse and that was that. Cynthia’s new stepmother thereby found herself with another new mouth to feed and no payoff. She determined to make up the difference in labor, Cynthia’s labor and the girl instantly found herself demoted to the role of household slave. As if that were not bad enough, within a few years it became obvious that Cynthia was going to grow up prettier than her stepsisters. Much, much prettier. And if the jealousy of a woman is an ugly thing to behold, the jealousy of two teenage girls is positively fearsome.
So there was Cynthia, a beautiful girl trapped in perpetual servitude, long miserable years ahead of her, and not even much chance of escaping via a good marriage, since there was no way her stepsisters were going to let her out of the house until she was an old maid or at least until the two of them were married first, which was pretty much the same thing.
And then the night of the ball, when Cynthia was alone in the house weeping on the hearth (she wept a lot in those days, chronic depression, y’know); the room had suddenly filled with tiny, sparkling, colored lights and she heard the words that would forever change her life:
“Stick with me, kid, and you’re going all the way to the top.”
Now she walked slowly forward, her eyes fixed on the Prince, putting a gentle sway to her hips as she moved, just the way Esmerelda had taught her. She held her shoulders back, which had the effect of lifting her breasts and thrusting them forward, projecting a carefully calculated amount of cleavage. “The way to a man’s heart starts below the waist, kid,” Esmerelda had said. She also provided clothes and some of them, Cynthia had to admit, were real show stoppers.
She continued to walk toward the Prince, fixing her gaze on his cool blue eyes. (“Keep looking into his eyes, my dear. Deep inside, all these macho types are hopeless romantics.”) When she came up to the Prince, she didn’t stop to curtsy, but slowly lifted her hands. Charming held out his arms and she folded herself into them, never taking her eyes off his face, pressing the full length of her luscious body against him, her lips only inches from his. “Oh, my prince,” she whispered
“Oh, my lady,” whispered Charming back.
“Oh, my stomach,” muttered Ann.
“Shush,” said Aurora. She was staring past Cinderella with eyes as cold and fixed as rigor mortis.
“Since I lost you at the ball that night, I felt like a man wandering in the desert, without water or succor,” said the Prince. “There was no life around me, only shifting desolate sands and a wind that constantly moaned your name. Now it is like an oasis has suddenly opened before me and the water of love flows from deep hidden springs.”
“Since I left you at the ball,” whispered Cynthia. “the sun had not risen for me and the dark nights surrounded me like wolves and prowled and snapped at my doors, and the chill wind sent icy fingers into my chest to seize my heart in a cold and unrelenting grip. Now the warm winds of springtime blow where before there was only a frozen field.”
She was able to go on in this vein for quite a while because her Godmother had written plenty of this stuff out beforehand and made her memorize it. Charming was able to come back with some impressively romantic lines himself, pretty good, she thought, if he was really ad-libbing. The only part she didn’t like was having to be so close to him. It made her feel sort of crawly when a boy actually touched her. She had told Esmerelda this the night after the ball.
“I know, dear,” the fairy godmother said. “Men are such loathsome creatures. But it’s very important that you tolerate it, that you continue to pretend that you enjoy and even encourage his caresses. It’s the cornerstone of our whole plan.”
“But when I go to bed with him, won’t he be disgusted with me the next morning? Everyone says that’s what they do.”
“Some men are like that,” Esmerelda admitted. “But not Charming. He has too much decency. You must understand, you are dealing with a man who has everything he wants, almost. You’ll be giving him the one thing he wants above all else, the only thing that no other girl in the kingdom will offer him. His ingrained sense of honor will compel him to offer you his hand in marriage.”
Cynthia nodded. She trusted her godmother in everything. “And remember, darling. Once the two of you are married and we are safely ensconced in the castle,” Esmerelda leaned forward, “you will never have to let him touch you again.”
The advice reassured the girl and now, as Esmerelda observed them across the dinner table, she was quite pleased at Cynthia’s performance. The girl was just a natural actress; the bit when she reached across the Prince for the salt and let her breasts brush against him really made his eyeballs spin. He was falling for her like a stone in water.
Esm
erelda glanced down the rest of the table, plotting her next move. The page, now, he would be worth talking to. She’d have to keep him occupied after dinner, maybe with a few magic tricks, to keep him away from his master. The Count was a buffoon, but a moralistic buffoon could be dangerous to the plan. She’d have to distract him, too, so the Prince could get away with Cynthia and make his play. The rest of the guests were of no consequence. The King was fortunately too busy to attend the dinner. The visiting dignitaries and palace flunkies would not cause any interference and the two visiting princesses, while attractive enough in a wholesome girl-next-door way, were clearly no competition for Cynthia. They might as well give up and go home to wherever they came from.
Esmerelda sipped her wine and smiled at Norville. “So tell me, Count, what do you think of the political situation?”
At the other end of the table, Aurora was stabbing viciously at the piece of fish on her plate. “That slut!” she hissed. “That whore! That bitch! I’ll kill her if she tries anything!”
Ann affected cool amusement. “Will you calm down? Don’t get so excited. What do you care if the Prince loses his head over some brassy bimbo like Cynthia?”
“Cynthia! Who cares about Cynthia? I’m talking about the godmother. That’s the same fairy queen who put the spell on me!”
This statement served very well as a conversation stopper. Ann swiveled her head around and Queen Ruby and Mandelbaum, sitting next to her, leaned forward to get a good look at Esmerelda.
“She’s a fairy? Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. You don’t forget a woman who once asked you to, um… never mind.”
“What?”
“Well, let me put it this way. You wouldn’t hire her to guard the cherry orchard, if you know what I mean.”
“What?” said Ann.
“Forget it. Look, this woman’s a schemer, a user, and a manipulator of the first order. She always had an angle on everything in Alacia. She couldn’t put anything over on Daddy, though. She kept trying to wangle some sort of political appointment out of him and eventually they had a big fight and she cursed us all.”