Born to Rule

by Kathryn Lasky

  Chapter 9

  THE DUCHESS OF BAGGLESNORT AND OTHER ANNOYANCES

  “So you see, Your Highnesses, you cannot entrust the delicate application of these powders to your maids.”

  The Duchess of Bagglesnort narrowed her eyes and surveyed the roomful of young princesses. “Prepare yourself for a shock.” She turned toward the door.

  A very elderly woman dressed all in black lace was carried in on a sedan chair. “Lift your veil, Countess Vinky,” the duchess said.

  Two withered hands shaking with age began to lift the veil. “Holy monk bones!” whispered Alicia. The gasps of fifteen princesses swirled through the air. The countess’s face was gray and shriveled, and one side drooped.

  “Speak!” commanded the duchess.

  The countess struggled to open her mouth, and when she did the words slid out one side in a slur. “The damage to my face is the result of a mixture of white lead and vinegar. I would strongly advise against using these ingredients.”

  Each girl in the room began to tremble, picturing her own face shriveled, scaly, and drooping to one side.

  “Thank you, Countess,” the duchess said. “Take her away.” She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture.

  Alicia looked at Kristen. “Mean!” She mouthed the word. Kristen nodded. Then they both heard Gundersnap whisper, “I do not like this duchess.”

  “Now, please notice my complexion.” The duchess gently touched her face with long, tapering fingers. “It is as clear and white as the finest china. My skin is like porcelain, as many of my suitors have said!” The duchess’s lips coiled up into a smug little smile that reminded Alicia of two worms snuggling. “A bit of talc, ground chalk, and egg whites. That is the secret recipe.”

  The duchess walked among the princesses, who sat at long tables as an assistant distributed the ingredients they were to pound and mix in their stone bowls. She stopped when she came to Kristen and put her hands to the princess’s face.

  “Oh, dear, I should have noticed this the first night at the banquet. A flame child.”

  “A what?” Kristen asked.

  “You flare, dear, you flare. You must use extra talc to calm down the coloring. My goodness, young lady, you’re turning redder and redder.”

  Kristen’s eyes were flashing now, and Alicia thought she actually might explode.

  “I am what I am,” Kristen said through gritted teeth.

  “I think she’s rather pretty, milady,” Princess Myrella said. “Brown hair, blond hair, black hair, that’s so ordinary.”

  Wrong thing to say, Myrella, Alicia thought. But it was too late. The Duchess of Bagglesnort wheeled around. “There is no such thing as ordinary hair, just ordinary princesses—like yourself, little one, oozing out of the Marsh Kingdoms. What a mistake it was to admit you to Camp Princess.”

  Gundersnap, Alicia, and Kristen were shocked beyond belief. They had never heard a royal person addressed so rudely. Poor little Myrella already had tears running down her face.

  Princess Kinna leaned over and put her arm around her. “Don’t worry, little princess. She’s like that. When she saw me with my dark cinnamon skin, she said all sorts of rude things. She loves having someone to pick on. Don’t pay any attention to her.” Then in a lower voice she whispered, “She is very ordinary herself. There are rumors that she bought her title.”

  “Really!” Myrella looked up with her deep-green eyes.

  Princess Kinna nodded and smiled.

  “Oh, dear, dear, dear!” The duchess had moved on and was making clicking sounds with her tongue. “What have we here!”

  “Vee have me, Princess Gundersnap, of the Empire of Slobodkonia.”

  “How oddly you speak! It is “we” with a W, not V. Your pasty complexion and those blemishes are bad enough without that accent. We must send you to the speech counselor.”

  Alicia and Kristen exchanged looks. How would they ever survive this class? If only it would stop raining, they might get to do something fun outdoors.

  But the makeup class went on and on and on. The princesses learned how to grind rouge from rose petals and red clay and to make their eyebrows darker with charcoal and lighter with paste. They were excited to learn a remedy for pimples, but it turned out to be so dreadful that no one had the nerve to try it. It consisted of squished snails mixed with salt and applied directly to the skin. They were also given instruction in the proper placement of beauty marks.

  “Not on the end of your nose, Princess Kristen!” the duchess roared. The princess simply smiled at her sweetly and said, “Look, Duchess, no hands!” She crossed her eyes and tried to take the beauty mark off with the tip of her tongue. The Duchess of Bagglesnort was not amused.

  “Look!” said Princess Kinna, pointing to the window. “It’s stopped raining and it’s summer again!”

  The golden leaves of autumn had once more turned the lush green of deep summer. Sunlight streamed into the room, and two butterflies with gold wings sported in spiraling flights outside a window. Carpets of wildflowers spread their gay colors across the grass.

  “Swimming!” someone cried out.

  The good news for Alicia was that makeup was over. The bad news was that it was time for the swim test. Some choice she had, Alicia thought—the Duchess of Bagglesnort or drowning!

  As they headed back from the Salon de Beauté, which Kristen had already renamed the Snorty’s Snotty Saloon, Alicia said, “I can’t bear that woman!”

  “Who, Snorty?” Kristen replied.

  “Acht, Snorty!” Gundersnap giggled. “I like that!”

  Alicia stopped on the landing and said, “I think the duchess is so mean.”

  “Me too,” said Kristen. “I don’t care if I am a flame child, or whatever she called me.”

  Alicia looked at her turretmates. “You both look vonderful!” she cried gleefully.

  “Vonderful! Vonderful!” the three princesses yelled as they ran down the steps and across a small balcony to the winding staircase that led to their rooms.

  Chapter 10

  TESTING ONE, TWO, THREE—GLUB!

  Inside the main salon of the South Turret, they found Lady Merry in a state of excitement.

  “My water wings!” exclaimed Lady Merry as Gilly and the other maids entered with baskets of beach towels, bathing garments, and bathing tiaras.

  “You shall all be taking your swim tests now. These are your bathing tunics,” Gilly said to the princesses. Each of the maids held up an official Camp Princess bathing costume. They were the oddest-looking garments the three princesses had ever seen. Made from cloth of gold, they were neither gown nor trousers.

  “Why in the name of Neptune do we have to wear bathing tiaras?” Kristen asked.

  “Camp rule,” Gilly replied crisply. “Rule eighteen, section six, article two, under Sports and Athletics, says, ‘All princesses must wear the regulation bathing tiaras. These are conveniently attached to a cap to protect the hair and they do have some flotation built in as well.’”

  Then Gilly added, “One must always appear royal, wet or dry. No exceptions—except with Frankie, the riding counselor. You’ll meet her next session. She’s out on a pony trek with some of the Third Years.”

  “Swimming should be an exception too. How are we supposed to swim with this contraption on our heads?” Kristen was absolutely fuming.

  “Now, now, Kristen.” Lady Merry was shaking a finger at Kristen, who was truly a bright-red flame child at the moment. “Let’s not make a royal stink out of this. Just be the royal good sport that I know you are and show us your mettle, dear. I hear that you are perfection itself in the water—fast and powerful.”

  “You can bet your water wings on that, Lady Merry!” Kristen said as she slammed the bathing tiara on her head and began to strip down right in the salon to put on her tunic. The maids turned white. Lady Merry rose out of her reinforced rocker in a near fit. Alicia and Gundersnap feared she might be having a stroke or heart attack!

  “Kristen, Kr
isten! Not here in our salon. Please, child, into your chamber to change!”

  “Oh, all right.” Kristen stomped off to her chamber with her dress half on and half off.

  “Come! Come quickly, Princesses,” Lady Merry said when the three girls emerged from their chambers dressed for their swim tests. “We must be off.”

  To “be off” was never a simple matter with a person of the amplitude of Lady Merry. A whiskered gentleman arrived with several young assistants. With their help, the generously proportioned lady climbed into an ornate sedan chair with curtains and a fringed canopy on top to provide shade.

  “Now I’m just going to slip into something more comfortable,” Lady Merry said as she lowered the curtains. Soon the sedan chair began to toss and buck like a ship caught in a sudden gale.

  “She’s changing into her bathing costume,” said an attendant as a large corset was flung through the curtains. Finally Lady Merry pulled back the curtain. She was sitting in the sedan chair in a brilliant crimson-and-purple polka-dot silk costume. “I wear both teams’ colors, please note.”

  The three princesses did note the colors as well as the size of the costume.

  “Ah, yes, it took two jousting tents to make this outfit. Ever so clever, isn’t it?” Lady Merry said.

  The princesses, along with several others and Lady Merry still in the sedan chair, made their way across the drawbridge. They headed down the grassy banks that surrounded the moat to a small crescent of beach, where Lady Gustavia, one of the waterfront counselors, sat in a tall stone chair. She wore a golden ruby-studded whistle around her neck to catch the attention of those swimmers who were not obeying the strict waterfront safety rules.

  The moat was fairly wide and encircled the entire castle. Some of the older princesses said it was really fun to swim under the drawbridge.

  “No dangerous fish?” Alicia asked a third-year princess named Eloise.

  “Oh, no, just lovely little sunfish mostly. They are quite friendly. They come up and tickle your toes.”

  “How deep is it?” asked Gundersnap nervously.

  “It’s over your head out in the middle. The shallow parts go pretty far out, so don’t worry.”

  “But the best part about the moat,” Princess Eloise continued, “is that it gives you great views of the castle. When you learn how to float on your back, there is nothing nicer than just floating along and looking up at all the lovely turrets and spires. You can smell all the good food cooking as you go by the kitchens and hear the blacksmith in his yard hammering away. On the far side of the moat, the one you can’t see from here, the banks are covered with daffodils in the spring. And look, the water is so blue. Just like your sapphires, Kristen. It reminds me of a sapphire ring.” Princess Eloise was known for being a very kind princess, and all the younger girls wanted to be just like her.

  “Brrr, it’s cold,” Alicia said as she stuck a dainty toe in.

  “Not really,” said Kristen. “Not nearly as cold as in the Isles of the Salt Tears. What about in Sloboland, Gunny?”

  “I don’t go swimming at home,” Gundersnap explained. “Mummy is afraid we might die before we get married. She has all our husbands picked out already, and she has to pay big money if we die.”

  Alicia was suddenly grateful that her own Belgravian royal family didn’t believe in arranged marriages. She hoped Gundersnap’s chosen husband would be a nice one.

  The three princesses now turned to watch the attendants in the launching of Lady von Schleppenspiel. Lady Merry created a rather large disturbance in the calm surface of the moat’s waters as she paddled out to the center. She then twirled about in her water wings and began waving at the princesses of the South Turret. “Good luck on your swim tests, Princesses!” She blew them kisses as she bobbled about in the clear water.

  The swim test would begin from the small sandy beach on which they now stood. Those who were already swimmers, such as Kristen and Myrella, were in the water about to begin their circuit of the moat. They were supposed to circle the castle clockwise, then swim under the drawbridge and back to the starting point.

  It seemed like no time since Kristen and Myrella had started, but suddenly they heard “A-ten level!” Lady Gussie shouted this as Kristen and Myrella raced under the drawbridge in the last stretch toward the beach.

  “Tie!” Myrella called out.

  A tie it was indeed. Myrella had almost beaten Kristen, but Kristen had pulled even at the very last second.

  “Let’s do it again,” Kristen said.

  “No, I want to do tricks,” Myrella replied as she clambered up on a rock in the middle of the moat. She dived off in a stunning upside-down twist. Ringlets of hair sprang out from her bathing tiara in a bright golden flurry.

  “One might think she had scales,” said a nasty voice behind them. Alicia turned to look. It was the Duchess of Bagglesnort. She smiled her rather grim smile and said, “But then again, what would one expect from a princess of the Marsh Kingdoms?”

  Alicia and Gundersnap exchanged looks.

  “Omigod, does she suck or what?” Kristen muttered.

  Alicia shivered in the sun at the test of bravery confronting her—the swim test. “If Kristen and Myrella are A-tens,” Alicia whispered to Gundersnap, “We’re probably Z-subzeros.”

  “I don’t see why we have to take a test. We told them we can’t swim. What’s there to test? How bad we are?” said the ever-practical Gundersnap.

  But the time was coming. The two princesses stood on the small beach with a dozen other princesses waiting their turns.

  And then Alicia and Gundersnap were called.

  “By the frosty breath of Saint Bertie, it’s really cold,” Alicia gasped as she waded in cautiously. Then she sent up a quick prayer to Saint Addie of Vernon, the patron saint of swimmers.

  “Not so cold when you have as much padding as I do,” Lady Merry said. “Come, come, miladies. Follow me. The water wings will support you.”

  “Lead them once around the moat, Lady Merry. We just want to see their form with the wings,” Lady Gussie called.

  Her teeth chattering, Alicia felt her feet leave the sand as the bottom of the moat slanted downward toward the middle, where the water would be over their heads. The water wings held her up! It was not quite as scary as she had imagined.

  “Now, stroke toward me, girls,” Lady Merry instructed.

  Lady Merry cut a large wake through the water. The waves she made lapped gently over the two princesses, but they managed to keep up. They circled around the castle, by the blacksmith’s shop where they heard the hammer and tongs as he fitted the shoes to horses, by the kitchen where the wonderful fragrance of plum tarts baking wafted out across the moat.

  As they swam, Alicia looked up and wondered where in this castle might an unfinished tapestry be. Aside from the turrets for the princesses, there were many more towers and spires than she would have ever guessed. They continued swimming and were soon passing under the drawbridge. It was all shadows and strange echoes.

  “Woo, woo!” Lady Merry called out, and the hollow sounds of the echoing drawbridge wrapped around the two princesses. “I’m a ghost!” Lady Merry giggled as if she were one of the campers. “I’m a ghost!”

  “Holy monk bones, is she trying to scare us?” Alicia paddled faster as she approached the beach where they had started. Lady Gussie waded out to greet them.

  “Bravo, Your Highnesses,” said Lady Gussie. “Now for the final test.”

  “What’s that?” Alicia asked.

  “Faces in the water,” Gussie replied.

  “No!” both princesses gasped.

  “Oh, yes!” Princess Myrella said. She was jumping up and down on the beach. “It’s fun. Just close your mouth and open your eyes. You’ll see the loveliest little fish.”

  Princess Alicia had no desire to see lovely little fish. She had no desire to get her face wet. All she could think of was getting water up her nose. The whole idea was appalling. Who would dare to go
first? She turned to Gundersnap, who was looking quite pale.

  “Acht! This is…scary!”

  Alicia was relieved to see that Gundersnap was scared too, but before she knew it, Gundersnap had plunged her head under the water. When she resurfaced, she was indeed spouting water from her nose, and her bathing tiara was perched at an odd angle.

  Gundersnap blinked, then sputtered. “I opened my eyes. I saw a fish that looked exactly like my mother! Totally ice!”

  “Oh, it must have been the prickly blowfish,” Lady Gussie offered.

  “Ja, ja. It was blown up like a balloon and had little stickers all over its scales.”

  “Very good, Princess Gundersnap,” said Lady Gussie. “Well, now we can put you in the advanced beginners class. Anyone who can put her head under can be a B-eight. Two more levels and you’ll be an intermediate, out of the moat, and ready for the lake.”

  Alicia stared at Gundersnap in amazement. How had she done it? B-8! If she didn’t do it, Alicia supposed she would be a B-flat! Left behind on the beach of the moat while her turretmates went off for lake swimming.

  The princess squished her eyes shut—she had no intention of seeing the blowfish that looked like the Empress Maria Theresa of All the Slobodks. She held her nose and stuck her head into the water. She was tempted to open one eye. But no. All they said was to get your face wet, not your eyeballs. She could still be a B-8 with her eyes shut. Her cheeks blew out. Air…I need air…is this long enough? Alicia thought as she burst through the water’s surface. She was sputtering and gasping, but she felt quite pleased with herself. Aunt Molly never did this! she thought. So ice!

  “Hooray! Hooray!” Myrella, Gundersnap, and Kristen were now clapping. Princess Alicia smiled. How curious, she thought. She had heard cheering crowds before. Whenever she and Mum and Pop and her sisters marched in a parade, the citizens of Belgravia would applaud them. But this was somehow different. She was now being cheered not simply for being a princess, but for being a wet princess—a princess who had accomplished something! How curious indeed. She felt a strange, wonderful new feeling of confidence.