The Golden Princess and the Moon

by Anna Mendell

  Rosa could not remember a time when her mother had ever tucked her into bed and burst out crying. The queen held Rosa’s hand and smoothed back her hair until her sobs subsided. “My dear,” the queen said, “do you regret your engagement?”

  Rosa dried her eyes and shook her head. “No, it is not that,” she said. “The day has just been weary and long. I will feel better after I rest.”

  The queen remained at the princess’ bedside until finally Rosa whispered. “If you spoke with father, do you think he might call off the engagement?”

  After a long pause the queen spoke. “You father believes that your engagement will save you from the curse. I do not know if even my words could sway him.”

  Rosa gazed long and hard into her mother’s eyes. “What do you believe? Do you think that Edmund can break the curse?”

  “I do not know, my dear. I hope he can. But I have misgivings, since you heart is so full of doubt.”

  “No, there is no doubt,” Rosa said quickly. “You and father do not need to worry anymore. On the eve of my christening I will fall asleep, and Edmund will wake me on the morrow, and it will have been just like any other sleep.”

  The queen bent over and tenderly kissed her daughter on the forehead. “I will pray that it is so,” she said.

  THE weeks passed by, and a seething tumult of cooks, chambermaids, gardeners, and servants invaded the castle in preparations for the wedding festivities. It was only a few days away when, without warning, the queen fell ill.

  Rosa was at her mother’s sick bed day and night, and the king was with them too. Both watched in horror as the queen grew weaker and weaker.

  “Godmother, where are you?” Rosa cried to herself, but then she remembered that she had sent her away. She was not sure if her godmother had the power to heal her mother, but she could have used her strong arms of comfort now.

  Alice and Edwina stayed with Rosa to make sure that she ate and slept, though the princess never felt hungry and could only sleep fitfully for a few hours at a time. The court physician shook his head and declared that there was nothing he could do. Then, unexpectedly, the queen seemed to recover, falling into a peaceful slumber. The king and princess clasped hands in hope, but then a shadow trembled over the queen’s face, and she awoke.

  “Aurleon,” she cried, not seeing him.

  “I am here, my heart,” he said, reaching for her outstretched hand.

  “I had a dream,” she gasped. “Promise me…”

  “Anything, I promise you anything,” he said fervently.

  “Our Rosa, if she chooses not to marry Edmund, do not force it upon her. Promise me.”

  Rosa’s blood ran cold. Her father sobbed into his wife’s hand. “I promise, but you will stay with me and can see to it yourself.”

  The queen stretched her other hand out to her daughter. “Rosa, my love, how silly and meaningless were those years I spent trying not to love you because I knew you would be leaving me, and now I am the one to go first. Can you ever forgive me?”

  “Do not speak of leaving.” Rosa sobbed and kissed the queen’s hands over and over again. “If there is anything to forgive, I do it gladly. I love you so much.”

  The queen fell asleep, and then she died, both her hands clasped by her husband and daughter.

  THE kingdom went into mourning, the wedding preparations forgotten. The king was inconsolable and the princess could not spend time with her own grief as she was needed to comfort her father.

  Rosa was taking a rare moment alone in the garden, leaning against a tree whose leaves had just burst into the flames of autumn. The sky was a thin blanket of cloud, and its faint mist sprayed a thin layer of wetness against her skin.

  Someone settled beside her, and she knew it was Edmund. He did not say anything, but waited silently with her. She slowly opened her eyes and let in a wash of brightness. There was something she needed to say to Edmund, but she did not know how to start. When she turned to speak, she saw that she did not need to, that he had already read her words in her glance. It was so easy for him to understand hidden looks, to spy secrets.

  “You do not wish to be married,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “Why? Is it because it is so soon? I can wait. I will wait as long as you need.”

  “Are you willing to wait, Edmund?” She reached for his hand. “Are you willing to wait until after my sleep?”

  A veil fell over his face. “I do not understand. Why do you not wish to get married? Have you given up?”

  “No, Edmund, I have not given up. I have realized that we are trying to trick magic, to control it by our marriage, and we are sure to fail that way. My godmother tried to warn me, but I sent her away.”

  “Your godmother again,” he cried, rising. “Will you ever be free of those meddling faerie? You would rather depend on them than on yourself. It is not that you are afraid. You are no coward, Rosa…” And here his voice took on a pleading tone, “…It is just that you are too childlike, too trusting. Rosa, cannot you see it? What deeper love is there than between man and wife? You would be mine to claim by human and by faerie law. What curse could stand against that?”

  Rosa shook her head. “No, Edmund, you always try to control magic, and that is why it eludes you. Words and deeds are nothing if they do not come from the heart.”

  Edmund’s face drained to a ghastly shade of white, and his eyes burned. He gave a short laugh. “You have all the answers, don’t you, princess. None of this is your fault. It must be my love that is not strong enough. Very well, reject all those who wish to help you. Sleep eternally if you wish.”

  He spun away from her, but she sprang up to grab his hand. “Wait, don’t go away angry. It is not only my godmother, you see, but my mother as well. This was her last gift to me: my freedom. She saw that there was something wrong with our marriage, that it was built on fear and not on love. We must wait for the curse to be broken. It cannot hang over our heads, forcing our marriage. Edmund, if you love me and believe that you can wake me from my sleep, then you will. After that, we will know that we truly love one another. That is what my mother saw, and the gift she gave me with her dying breath. How can I reject her wish? Do you see now, can you understand?”

  “All I see is that you are choosing the wishes of a woman who abandoned you as a child. Whose last gift of love, as you call it, is to condemn you to the curse. You choose her over someone who loves you and wishes to save you. I see that you put your faith in everyone except for me. You are the one who doubts my love, who thinks me incapable of love, but it is your own love that falls too short. I take it back. You are a coward. Tell me plainly you do not love me. You would rather be cursed than marry me.”

  Rosa dropped Edmund’s hand. “If that is what you believe, then go. I will tell my father my decision on my own.”

  EDMUND leapt on his horse and rode long and deep into the woods, the pounding of his horse’s hoofs drowning out the raging in his head. In the dark of the wood, he finally dismounted, when unexpectedly his horse shied away, breaking from him in blind terror. Edmund muttered curses under his breath as he watched it gallop away back toward the castle. He turned and saw what had set his horse affright. A white snake slithered deep in the undergrowth. Edmund stared at it in fascination as it glided nearer and reared its head, so that he stared deeply into its strange, slitted eyes.

  Back in the garden, Rosa felt the chill in the air around her. It will be winter soon, she thought, and I will not be awake to see the spring.

  ERIK AND CYNRIC RETURNED from one of their morning hunts to find a large gathering in the great hall. The prince left the hunter’s side and ducked through the assembly until he was in view of his father. King Mark sat rigidly in his throne with a look on his face that Erik knew well enough to fear. The queen sat by his side as tall as a spear shaft, her lips drawn in a straight line, her eyes kindled embers. Before the king and queen stood a messenger in a livery Erik did not recognize, but he knew was the royal blu
e of the west.

  The king was speaking to the messenger in a voice smooth with suppressed anger. “If Lord Biron of Westhane refuses to pay fealty to his king, then let him answer for his treason with cold, hard steel… Lord Clovis!” he called.

  One of the lords of the hall stepped forward. He was a tall man, with a cruel set to his mouth, known as a ruthless man by friend and enemy alike.

  “Yes, my lord.” He bowed.

  “Take a contingent of soldiers and crush this rebellion before Westhane has time to draw the other western lords to his cause. Send me news as soon as it is over,” the king commanded.

  Lord Clovis stiffly inclined his head and strode out of the hall.

  When he was gone, the king barked, “Imprison the messenger. We cannot have him warning his treasonous lord.”

  “Your majesty, please hear me,” the messenger protested. “Lord Biron does not wish to start a rebellion, though he will defend the western lands to the last man. We cannot allow our lands to be ravaged and our people starved.”

  The king’s eyes flashed, and he signaled to the guards. They surrounded the messenger in a clatter of armor and bore him away. The king rose, spitting out further orders before he also strode out of the hall to oversee the dispatch of Lord Clovis’ troops. The rest of the lords of the hall dispersed, but Erik stayed behind.

  Erik felt solemn. There had been tenuous peace with the west ever since the king had married his mother, but now it seemed that the peace was over. Was a civil war about to break out that would pit his mother’s and father’s peoples against each other? Erik hoped that such tragedy would not come to pass, that the Lord of Westhane would acquiesce to the king’s demands when he saw the might of the Midlothian troops.

  The prince turned and saw that he was not alone. Cynric stood quietly in one of the shadowy alcoves lost in thought, an unreadable expression on his face. The huntsman looked up, noticed that the prince was watching him, and, with echoing footsteps, left the hall. Erik followed him out into the courtyard and through the main gate, catching up with him at the steep, rocky mountain path, where their paces fell together as they journeyed through the wood in silence.

  When they reached the hunter’s lodge, Cyrnic let him inside without a word. Erik sat on a wooden bench draped with a red fox skin pelt. More pelts were spread across the floor, and branching antlers hung from the walls, with the tree-forked antlers of a mighty stag adorning the fireplace. Cynric poured Erik and himself some wine.

  Finally Erik spoke. “Do you think there will be civil war?”

  Cynric shrugged. “It’s hard to tell. Until recently, the west was continuously starting uprisings that didn’t amount to much.”

  “Does the west hate my father that much?”

  Cynric gazed at the prince thoughtfully. Erik felt that a bond had been forged between them ever since they had encountered the great bear together in the wood, that they could speak their minds to each other without fear. The hunter must have felt the same, for he said, “There are many in the west who do not believe the Midlothian kings are the rightful heirs to the Lothian throne.”

  “They are waiting for the sleeping princess to wake and bring back the golden kingdom of Aurlia,” Erik whispered.

  Cynric stared at the prince. “Where did you hear of the old legends?” he asked in surprise.

  Erik evaded the question. “Do you believe that my father is a usurper?”

  Cynric cocked his eyebrow at the prince and laughed. “What makes a king a king? Powerful men battle over the throne, and the one left standing is the ruler.”

  “But that is no way to keep the throne. Whoever rules that way lives in fear that it will be stolen when someone else grows even more powerful. To keep that from happening, he oppresses the land.”

  Cynric studied the prince. “Sometimes I cannot make you out. You are not like your father or other Midlothians. I often wonder if it will be different when you are king.”

  “Now you don’t sound like a Midlothian.”

  Cynric laughed and then leaned over to ruffle the prince’s hair. “Me? I don’t call myself anything. The forest is my home.”

  BEFORE the week was out, a rider thundered across the castle drawbridge with a message for the king.

  “We were betrayed,” he cried. “The Lord of Westhane knew we were coming and ambushed us at the pass. Lord Clovis retreated, but lost over half of his men. He asks for reinforcements and awaits your orders.”

  Eric’s attention fastened on the king, who remained ominously silent and then waved the messenger aside. He turned his burning eyes to the queen and whispered, “Discover who betrayed me.”

  Queen Sigrid met the king’s eyes with an unflinching gaze, and her voice was smooth with a hint of laughter. “How would you have me do that, my king?”

  “I do not know how you accomplish many things, and I do not want to know. Just do it.”

  The king stormed out of the hall.

  THE next morning, Erik was in his room when he heard noises ringing from the courtyard through his bedroom window. Leaning out, he distinguished three guards escorting a prisoner.

  Erik gasped. The prisoner was Cynric.

  He flew down to the king’s war room, bursting through the door. The king was plotting out a route for his fighting men over a large map of Lothene with the queen and the other lords of the hall at his side. Everyone fell silent and fixed their gazes on the prince. The king’s brow darkened, but Erik was past caring.

  “Why is Cynric under arrest?” he asked.

  The king and queen exchanged glances. “Cynric is a spy and a traitor. We discovered that it was he who sent a messenger and warned the Lord of Westhane of our attack,” the king answered.

  “How do you know?” Erik asked with a sinking heart.

  The king’s face grew darker and even more forbidding.

  “Missives from Lord Clovis were found in his lodge. He admitted to sending a warning to the western lord under questioning.” This time it was the queen who spoke, her eyes never leaving the prince’s face.

  Erik shivered. “What will happen to him?” he asked in a small voice.

  “He will be executed as befits a traitor.” The king looked down at the map, effectively dismissing the prince. Erik could not move, so the queen rose to take his hand and then led him from the war room.

  “When?” Erik asked in a dull voice. His heart had turned to lead in the pit of his stomach.

  “Tomorrow.”

  Queen Sigrid regarded Erik, her eyes searing into his. “You cannot be seen to have sympathy with traitors. You must not forget who you are. You will stand beside the king at the execution and you will not turn away.”

  Erik bowed his head.

  IN the courtyard, the stark morning light was so bright Erik needed to shield his eyes. The executioner’s block loomed in the middle of the yard, bleak and foreboding. Kenelm called the guards to attention, and Cynric was escorted to the courtyard.

  The huntsman walked with his head held high, resolutely staring straight ahead as the Captain of the Guard read the sentence aloud. Erik could not tear his gaze from Cynric’s defiant form, and, for an instant, their eyes met, and they shared a look that seemed to say that this was not how the world was supposed to be, but then the hunter gazed at the king and his face grew hard.

  Cynric’s head was roughly thrust on the block, and the sun gleamed on the keen edge of the upraised axe. The axe fell swiftly. Erik turned his face away and heard five heavy strokes. At each stroke, his heart split in two. Then the crowd broke into wild cheers, and when Erik looked up, the executioner was holding Cynric’s severed head high up in the air. He scanned the crowd of men and women of the castle cheering over the death of one whom they so recently had called friend and saw the queen watching him, her lips curled in disdain.

  THE queen called Erik to her chamber that evening. “King Mark will leave tomorrow with his men to free the traitorous lord of his lands of Westhane. You will leave as well, but not
to battle. Instead you will depart for Castle Wallstone in the northeast to stay with your uncle, Lord Denis.”

  An ice-cold hand gripped Erik’s heart. His first thought was for Ninny Nanny. Would he no longer be able to visit her?

  “Why?” he burst out. “Wouldn’t it be better for me to stay here with you while the king is gone?”

  The queen shook her head. “No, I will be riding with the king. It does not suit me stay behind and wait. That strength, young prince, is something that you lack. You looked away at the traitor’s death.”

  Erik stared down at the floor. “He was my friend.”

  “He betrayed the king, you, and all of Lothene. The kingdom will be yours one day. If you show such softness, it will be wrenched from your weak grasp.”

  Erik felt miserable.

  The queen grabbed his chin, her nails digging into his flesh like sharp thorns. She stared at him long and hard, a small smile blossoming on her face, and Erik shuddered.

  “Fear not, young prince. I will always be here to look after you and Lothene. But go…” She released him. “Prepare for your departure.”

  ERIK ran madly into the woods, searching for Mnemosyne. Where was that blasted cat when he truly needed it? If he didn’t see Ninny Nanny today, then he would have to leave without saying goodbye. He gulped down the sob growing in his throat. He continued searching desperately for Ninny Nanny’s cottage on his own until it grew dark and he realized with a heavy heart that he would have to give up.

  Before dawn the next day, Erik was sitting astride his horse, blinking back sleep. Kenelm was at his side; the sword master was to travel with him to Castle Wallstone. Erik feared that Kenelm resented losing his post as Captain of the Guard to watch over him, but, if the stoic guardsman felt a grudge, he did not show it.

  Soldiers filed into the courtyard with gleaming helms and shields. King Mark rode at the head, mighty and strong. The queen rode beside him, the glow in her eyes rivaling the brightness of her armor as she blazed with the ancient fire of the warrior queens of the north. Gazing at them both made Erik instinctively sit taller on his horse.