by John Moore
“Charming must have impressed that girl too.”
“No, they left before he did.”
Aurora frowned. Why was everyone going off to Alacia? “Well, the farther that woman is away from me, the better, as far as I’m concerned. If she wants to go picking around the ruins of the castle looking for relics and grails and things, let her. But if she tries to come back to Illyria, I’m going to teach her a lesson.”
“Grails?” said Ruby. “Did you say grails?”
“Esmerelda always claimed Daddy was hiding all sorts of magical stuff that she wanted. It was one of the things they fought about all the time. Prince Charming was also looking for a fertility grail,” she explained to Queen Ruby. “That’s how he found me.”
“Really,” said Ruby weakly.
“I must see that we get some extra intelligence from Alacia,” said Norville. “In the meantime, your Majesty, I should like to review the security arrangements for your reception this evening.”
“Of course,” said Aurora, drawing him down the hall. “Queen Ruby, have a nice day.”
“Um,” said Ruby. “Thank you.”
IN FACT, IT TOOK LONGER than Ann expected to catch up with Charming. It is usually treacherous riding at night, but it was a full moon, and a sure-footed horse and skilled rider could cover much ground. Charming was a skilled rider and took the fleetest horse in the stable. Ann was not so skilled and had to choose her mount essentially at random. On the first night, the Prince outdistanced her quickly. And although she had ridden back from Alacia with Charming, her memory of the roads was not perfect and in the following days she got sidetracked more than a few times. On such a diversion, Wendell passed her in the early hours of the morning. Even when back on track, she quickly lost hope of catching up with the furiously riding prince. She reassured herself, however, that she knew his final destination and kept her horse at a steady pace.
Wendell had no idea what Charming was up to. There had been a brief reception following the wedding, nothing fancy, just champagne and cake and a plethora of toasts from the castle’s inner circle; Wendell had ignored the champagne and concentrated on the cake. As the reception broke up; he descended from the second floor with a piece of cake in each hand and greeted Mandelbaum and Queen Ruby coming upstairs. Mandelbaum asked how Charming was getting on and Wendell said fine, why do you ask and Mandelbaum looked uncomfortable and said oh, never mind and the Wicked Queen was watching Wendell so sharply during this exchange that he decided to seek out Charming immediately. The Prince was not in his room and he was not downstairs and he was not even in the old Queen’s studio that Wendell wasn’t supposed to know about. One cannot, however, make as vociferous an exit as Charming made without alerting a whole bunch of the castle servants and Wendell soon got the idea that the Prince had been evicted from the castle without quite learning just why. He threw together an assortment of weapons and clothes, grabbed the second-fastest horse in the stables and took off.
A night watchman pointed him down the southern road. At dawn he reached a village that had been terrorized for the last fortnight by a large wolf. The villagers reported that Charming had ridden the beast down, dispatched it, and galloped off without even waiting to be thanked. The next day another set of villagers explained that a gryphon had been depleting the spring’s birth of lambs; the Prince had walked right up without a thought for his own safety, sliced the damned thing’s head off, then mounted his horse and departed without a word to anyone. Just over the border into Alacia he heard an even stranger tale. A band of outlaws had raided a trading village and were dividing up their loot when a wild young man, clothes torn, hair disheveled, eyes wide and staring, had walked fearlessly into their camp, pommeled their leader severely about the head with the hilt of his dagger, and told them all that he would be back to finish them off later. He was gone before any of the astounded mercenaries dared reach for their swords. It wasn’t until several hours had passed that they realized they had just encountered the legendary Prince Charming.
All this had Wendell very worried.
He caught up with Charming on the outskirts of Briar Rose Village. It was late in the afternoon. Charming was walking his horse and carrying the saddle. The horse was exhausted. Its flanks were soaked with sweat and it was blowing foam. Charming had taken off the halter, too, and was leading the horse with a hand in its mane.
The Prince did not look much better than his horse. His clothes were dirty and torn, and his hair was matted with sweat and blood. He was even more exhausted than the horse and, while he wasn’t foaming at the mouth, the sight would not have surprised Wendell. His boots were muddy and scuffed and his sword belt hung low on his hips, so the tip of the scabbard dragged in the dirt. He greeted Wendell with tired eyes. “Oh, hello, Wendell.”
“Never mind hello.” Wendell grabbed the Prince by the arm and led him to a nearby stream, where he dug a bar of soap out of his saddlebag, handed it to Charming, and pushed him in. “Why did you go off without telling me? You know you can’t get along without me.” He took Endeavor from the Prince, examined the blade disgustedly, and set it aside. “I was really worried.” He set out fresh clothes for the Prince. “What are we doing here anyway?”
“Going back to the castle.”
“What for?”
“Aurora forgot her toothbrush. We’re going back for it.”
“What?”
“Just kidding.”
“Boy, are you acting strange. So I guess Cynthia must have turned you down, huh?”
Charming was holding his head underwater while he scrubbed his hair. He looked up. “What?”
“I said you must be all upset because Cynthia turned you down.”
“Something like that.”
“You’ve been turned down plenty of times before and you didn’t get this weirded out. What made her so special?”
“Must have been the high heels. Spikes really turn me on.”
Wendell was about to object to this when Charming waded ashore. “Have we got anything to eat?”
“Bread. Pickles. Cheese. Wine. And cold chicken.”
“You’re a good kid, Wendell. I’ll see you get a royal citation for this.”
“What a thrill. So why are we going back to this castle? I thought you lost interest in that grail thing.”
“Well, Wendell, I just felt, for various reasons that I’ll tell you about later, that I had to get out of Illyria for a while. The thing with Cynthia isn’t going to play out, Dad is going to be on his honeymoon, Mandelbaum is preoccupied with Ruby…”
“I’ll say.”
“… and with one thing or another I just wasn’t going to get much done in town. So I thought I’d come back to Alacia, check out this story of Bear’s, ask some questions, straighten up a few loose ends I’d been meaning to get to. Does that sound reasonable?”
“No. Now tell me what’s really going on. Do we spend the night at that inn again?”
“Nope. I’ve already been there. I wanted to talk to those two wine stewards Bear found in the castle. But they couldn’t say for sure whether Aurora’s wedding took place.”
“That’s too bad,” said Wendell, who didn’t quite see the point of this.
“Yeah. But I did learn something pretty interesting. Esmerelda and Cynthia arrived here last night. I thought I made pretty good time, but somehow they passed me.”
“You got sidetracked on a few slay-and-rescue missions,” Wendell pointed out.
“Right.” The Prince was silent for a few minutes. “Pretty odd coincidence that Mandelbaum suddenly showed up the first time we were here. He’s hardly left the castle in years.”
“He came to help us out.”
“Uh huh. And he said the fertility grail wasn’t worth much either. Then Esmerelda learns that the wall of thorns is down and suddenly she takes off for Alacia.”
“Well, that’s lucky for you. You can make another play for Cynthia. What do you care if Esmerelda is here? She’s just an old lady. Y
ou hardly spoke to her.”
“I should have checked her out more carefully.” The Prince spoke thoughtfully and very slowly. “Bear says Esmerelda is the fairy Queen that put the curse on Aurora.”
“Oh,” said Wendell and then, “Wow!”
“The villagers of Briar Rose are very upset to see her back.”
“I can imagine.”
“I think I’ll pay her a visit.”
“At night? We’re going to visit an evil fairy in an enchanted chapel at night? That’s when all the evil sorcerers work their worst magic.”
“Well, then she’ll be awake. If we went by day, we’d wake her up. That would be impolite.”
“You won’t be able to see anything.”
“We have lanterns. It’s all below ground anyway.”
Wendell crossed his arms stubbornly. “Sire, with all due respect, this sounds like a pretty risky venture just for a crummy old relic. It’s not like there’s a maiden in there to be rescued. You always said we didn’t do quests.”
“We don’t. I’ve got a different angle on this one, Wendell. I’m going in alone.”
“Oh, come on. You know I always fight by your side.”
“Not this time.”
“My Lord and Prince is not going into some demon-infested cave without me.”
“Well, that’s something we need to talk about right now, Wendell. I may not be your Prince any longer. Now, listen carefully…”
THE SUN WAS SETTING when Ann reached the edge of the thorn hedge. She shivered. The fading light fell on the thorn branches and the shadows were twisted into gruesome patterns, the thorns themselves showing up like rows of pointed teeth on evil, grinning mouths. She tied up her horse and approached the gap where Bear and his men had chopped a passage through the hedge. Here the barricade looked far less formidable. The bushes had been chopped off low to the ground and the branches trampled into the dirt; broken and hacked-off limbs hung forlornly to the sides. The passage stretched off into the gloom, big enough for several men to walk abreast and high enough to lead a horse. It looked quite safe, but Ann remembered how quickly the thorns had grown back before.
She didn’t want to go through with this, really she didn’t, but she was certain that Charming had returned to the grail castle. Probably, he was inside the hedge right now. In a moment, she had convinced herself that Charming was inside the hedge, checking out the ruins of the castle. Suddenly the inside of the hedge seemed much more comforting than the outside. She looked at the setting sun. There was still enough light, she told herself, to run inside, look for the Prince, and still return to Briar Rose Inn if he wasn’t there. It would be a terrible shame to come all this way and miss him. She wanted to find him when he was still emotionally vulnerable, still on the rebound, so to speak. After he got the stupid grail, of course.
She gave her horse a final, reassuring pat on the nose and stepped into the passage. She hesitated after the first step, waiting for a thorny tendril to grab her from behind, but nothing happened. Taking a deep breath and hitching up her skirt, she started down the passage. Although gloomy, it grew no darker, with enough light filtering through the branches to let her see by. When she could see the light at the end of the passage she walked quickly and with more confidence, certain that she would see the Prince in a few minutes. She would be very glad to see him, she decided. She didn’t really care if he had the grail or not. She walked faster. Probably he would be glad to see her too, she thought. After the debacle in Illyria, he’d want someone to talk to and she could comfort him. She looked over her shoulder. The sun was setting faster than she expected. It was quite dark inside the thorn bushes. She quickened her pace… and stumbled.
When she lost her balance, Ann also lost her composure. The floor of the tunnel was littered with chopped-up thorn branches and they jabbed her hands as she tumbled down on them. “Ow!” She was back on her feet in an instant, but the thorns clung to her dress and she scratched her hands even more as she frantically tried to brush them off. It was not quite dark in the tunnel and Ann simply panicked. Her heart pounding, her breath coming in short gasps, she ran full tilt the last yards to the end of the tunnel, almost crying in fear at the thorny branches that plucked at her skin and hair.
Once she was outside she felt like a total idiot, of course. The sun had set and the murky twilight had turned into a clear, starlit night. A warm, clean breeze was blowing; the deep grass, soft beneath her feet, swayed gently and made comforting whispering noises. Ann sat down on the grass and let the rapid beating of her heart return to normal. “Great,” she told herself, “Just great. That was an impressive display of fortitude. Try to remember you’re too old to be afraid of the dark.” Gripping the twigs between her fingernails, she carefully pulled the remaining thorns away from her clothes. She inspected her arms. They were crossed with light scratches, some of which were beginning to form welts. Not the sort of look one went for when one was trying to attract a boy. Well, it couldn’t be helped now. She shrugged, stood up, and looked around.
The castle of the Sleeping Beauty looked different from the way she had last seen it. For one thing, it was now night. For another, it had burned to the ground. Even though it was largely built of stone, much of the masonry had fallen in when the timber pinnings had burned away. There were still the bases of the towers to be seen, though, some reaching as high as twenty feet, and the intact remains of some walls and stairs. But mostly it was just great piles of rubble, with the moon rising behind.
There was no sign of Charming.
She felt a sharp stab of apprehension. She had been sure he would return to Alacia, seeking evidence to discredit Aurora, and that his natural thirst for adventure would lead him to seek out the grail while he was here. But the ruins not only seemed deserted, the grass between the castle and the thorn hedge showed no sign of having been trodden by man nor beast, at least, not recently.
“Maybe I’ve misjudged him,” she thought. “Maybe he’s stretched out somewhere on the bank of a river, fishing pole in his lap, happy to be relieved of the responsibility of being Prince Charming.” On second thought, that didn’t seem likely. Well, it was too dark to go back through the hedge. She decided to take a closer look at the castle.
The moat was still intact, the icy clear stream still flowing. The drawbridge had burned part way through and fallen into the moat, but someone, Bear’s men probably, had found some charred beams to lay across the sunken part, so it was still passable. She crossed it and climbed to one of the higher piles of rubble from where she could survey the whole of the ruins in the rising moon.
Nothing conveys a feeling of loneliness and desolation more thoroughly than a burned-out ruin, except a burned-out ruin at night. The stark blackness of the charred beams, the tumbled, soot-covered stones, the broken pottery, the pools of oily rainwater, and here and there the fathomless pits and dark, yawning chasms where the castle structure had collapsed into several layers of basements and sub-basements, all combined to create an atmosphere of despair and mind-numbing weariness. Ann’s heart sank. A small animal scurried among the stones with a sinister rustle and she clutched at her skirt nervously. Her own decrepit castle seemed quite warm and comfortable now, her downtrodden peasants friendly and protective, and she wished quite seriously that she had never left home to pursue this stupid scheme.
Then, close to the center of the ruins, she saw the dim glow of a fire.
Her heart leapt. “It’s Charming! I knew it!” and she was about to call out when she caught herself. It might not be Charming. She remembered childhood tales of warlocks and witches. She also thought of ghosts, goblins, trolls, ogres, bandits, and one-armed maniacs with hooks for hands. She thought that she was a defenseless young girl alone at night. Finally she thought she had better take a closer look before she revealed herself.
It was a task easier said than done. When she climbed down from the mound of rubble, she lost sight of the fire’s glow. She was able to maintain a good idea of where the
center of the ruins was as she picked her way through the wreckage, but it was hard going to avoid falling into the sub-structure as she clambered about in the darkness. It took an hour of detours and false trails to approach the fire. There she found a small, flat clearing, with a small fire cheerfully burning in the center and an extremely pretty girl, dressed in black, sitting crosslegged on the ground training a flock of crows.
At least, that’s what it looked like. The girl held a six-inch length of polished wood in one hand, and the half dozen black birds that sat on the ground in front of her were watching it intently. She would move it to one side and they would all turn their heads. She would move it to the other side and they would turn their heads back. She would tap it on the ground and they would all take a little jump, fluttering their wings slightly. Finally she tossed the stick in the fire and all the birds formed a line and marched around the fire in a circle, bobbing their heads in unison. It was very strange, but also comical and Ann, hiding among the rocks, had to smile.
Eventually the little parade ended. The black birds dispersed, not flying, but hopping off into the darkness of the rocks surrounding the fire, except one of them, a large magpie, fluttered to the top of a pile of stone and stood there with its head cocked, watching the girl. She stood up, stretched, yawned, and then looked over at Ann and said, “Well, hi there. You can come out now.”
Ann came out, feeling a bit foolish. “Hello. I don’t think we were actually introduced, but your name is Cynthia, isn’t it? We met a few nights ago at the Castle Illyria.”
“Hi. Yes, I remember. You’re Ann, right? A princess? Princess Ann.”
“Um, yes.”
“Good, good. We’ve been expecting you. Nice night, huh? I guess you’re looking for Prince Charming. He’s not here yet. Awful cute, isn’t he?”
“What are you doing here?” said Ann, getting right to the point.
“Getting the grail, same as you. Oh, you mean with the birds? Just a little magic trick Esmerelda taught me. She knows a lot of stuff like that. Of course, she lost all her real power, but she still knows a lot of cute little spells and stuff.”