by Nancy Chase
“Don’t be stupid, Emma,” the second maid said. “The plague doesn’t look anything like that. Maybe it’s leprosy.” They all backed away from her.
“No,” Catrin said. “It’s not that. It’s my nightmares. They are draining the life out of me.”
They all came closer again. “Do you suppose she’s possessed?”
“I know what it is!” Emma cried. “It’s the ghost of her mother visiting her dreams, the same way she’s been haunting the stables.”
“Is that it, Princess? What does she want? Why is she haunting us?”
The king burst into the room. “Didn’t I forbid you to fill her head with your ignorant babble? Get out, all of you! Catrin—Oh! Little Bird! Emma, go get the healer at once.”
“It’s not a sickness, Your Majesty,” the third maid said. “It’s the queen’s ghost that done it.”
“Ghost, my foot! I’ll get to the bottom of this. The grand ball is tomorrow night. Royal ships from all over the world are lined up in the harbor. I cannot call it off. I’ll send out a decree, announcing that it’s to be a costume ball. Masks and gloves can hide a multitude of disorders. Emma, make her look as lovely as you can. Catrin, all you have to do is smile and dance with a few princes. Can you do that for me?”
Catrin forced a smile. “Whatever you say, Papa.” Two more Magpies to be caught, and the wedding was less than two days away!
Finally Catrin managed to send Megan away, assuring her that all the herbal potions in the world would not help her as much as being left alone to rest. She fell into an exhausted sleep and did not wake until dawn.
When she opened the stable door in the early morning mist, she found herself face to face with the king. “You see, you see, yer Majesty, we weren’t lying to you, there she is, plain as plain!” the old horse keeper gabbled.
“Yes, I see,” the king whispered. “Her very form. Her very gown.”
Catrin held her breath, thankful for the dark veil over her face. Trying to keep her hand steady, she reached out for the horse’s reins. The king made a move to stop her, but the horse keeper said, “Best let her go, Your Majesty, or there’s no telling what she might do. Ghosts are funny that way.”
The king stepped back, and Catrin led the horse out into the courtyard. When she had mounted, she turned to look back at him. “Wait!” He stumbled after her. She loosed the horse’s reins and galloped away.
By the time she reached the forest clearing, a cold rain was falling. The tree trunks blackened, and wet leaves drooped from the branches. The Magpie’s soggy feathers dripped as it sullenly recited the sixth riddle:
“What arrow pierces deeper
Than any doctor’s skill?
What potion has the power
To cure the gravest ill?”
She listened in silence and, when he was done, rode away without saying a word. Soaked and shivering, she dismounted outside the old woman’s hut and pushed inside without bothering to knock.
“By thunder, child, you look half-drowned,” the crone said mildly, as if the sudden intrusion came as no surprise. “There’s a good fire on the hearth. Come in and warm yourself.”
Catrin stripped off her wet veil and draped it from a peg beside the hearth. “The sixth riddle is as bad as all the others.” Smoothing back her damp hair, she recited the Magpie’s words.
“Hmm.” The crone leaned forward to toss another stick on the fire, then resumed idly picking her teeth with a sliver of bone. “Tell me, how fares the king today?”
“He is much troubled,” Catrin replied, thinking of him standing forlorn in the rain beside the stable gate. “But the riddle—Will you tell me how to find the answer?”
“Why, what has a king to be troubled about? Surely a king can have whatever he likes?”
Catrin frowned. “You can’t have what’s in my sack, but I will give you whatever else you want.” The old woman just rocked back and forth on her stool, shaking her head a little. Catrin sighed, exasperated. “He thinks he’s seen a ghost.”
At that, the crone clapped her hands together and laughed out loud, a short, sharp laugh like the bark of a fox. She leaned forward until Catrin could feel her breath on her face.
“Give me your head,” she said.
So Catrin gave the old woman her head. When they separated, Catrin was a crone from head to toe. The old woman skipped across the room shaking her shining hair. “Wait!” Catrin said. “What about the riddle?”
“Get out of my way, old woman!” The crone who now looked like a princess pushed Catrin aside and burrowed for something in the mildewed trunk beside the hearth. “I don’t have time to talk to you. The king is giving a grand ball for me tonight, and I must go home and dress.” She pulled out a rose-colored gown with diamond trim. “I must look my best tonight, for I shall dance with a hundred princes before dawn.” She slipped out the door and, before Catrin could protest, mounted the white horse and galloped away toward the castle.
Everyone at the castle was overjoyed when their princess suddenly recovered from her mysterious illness and sent for Megan to arrange her hair and fetch her mask and jewels for the ball. She kissed the king and told him she would be happy to listen to all the stories told by the princes and choose her bridegroom that very night.
Silver curtains of rain blew in from the sea, cutting off all sight of the great ships that crowded the harbor from every corner of the world. Only here and there the red or blue banners hanging from the masts showed through the torrents: the banners of all the noblest, richest, and handsomest princes in the world. Soon enough, the princes themselves arrived. Hooded against the weather with their long cloaks flapping behind them, or sheltering beneath painted canopies carried by liveried servants, they flocked up the cobbled road in twos and threes, all laughing and boasting, on their way to meet the princess.
It took Catrin until dusk to hobble all the way home in the downpour. Mud dragged at the hem of her sodden skirts, and her shoes squelched at every step. The water ran into her eyes and dripped down her nose. She had left her veil hanging by the old woman’s hearth; it was no use to her now, for no one who knew her could possibly recognize her face. She seethed with rage at the crone’s betrayal, but she was also very frightened. If everyone believed that the crone was the princess, what would become of Catrin? And what about the last two riddles? Without the crone’s help, how could she recover the Best Story in the World? More than ever, the whole situation seemed like a nightmare from which she could not waken.
Torchlight shone from every window of the castle, and the giddy music of shawms and crumhorns brayed out into the dark. “Dance with a hundred princes before dawn, will she?” Catrin muttered. “Surely that is the next task, and she means to answer the riddle and catch the Magpie for herself!”
She wrung the rain from her clothing as best she could, took a deep breath, and limped into the great hall. Head down, she slipped past the guard at the door and he, assuming she was another servant come to help pour mead for the thirsty dancers, took no notice.
The ballroom buzzed with movement: swirling skirts and capes, bright costumes of scarlet, emerald, saffron, and blue. There were princes from every part of the world: tall, blue eyed ones with bronze helmets and ropes of yellow hair; swarthy, broad shouldered ones with cutlasses at their belts and flashing white teeth; pale, elegant ones with high cheekbones, up-tilted eyes, and black hair sleek as sealskins. Amid the lights and gaiety, no one paid any attention to her. The room was so crowded with dancers costumed as birds or beasts or mythical heroes and so full of haze from the hundreds of flickering torches that Catrin could not see the false princess or the king anywhere.
High on the balcony above the crowd, the musicians piped out a lively tune. The dancers circled this way and that, spiraled together toward the center, then spun outward again. Whirling past, a bronze-skinned prince with a mask like a stag’s head trod blindly on Catrin’s foot. “Pardon, old mother,” he began, then froze, staring at her mud-caked form. Some
one else bumped into him. Laughing questions were quickly silenced. Several people backed away, muttering something about the Drowned Woman, and making the sailors’ sign against bad luck. Others murmured about the queen’s ghost. More people stopped dancing, and more eyes turned upon her. She pressed her back to the wall, looking vainly around for help.
A figure pushed through the crowd, a prince with a mask all rayed like the sun and a cloth-of-gold cape fluttering behind him. He bowed low before her, his voice ringing through the assembled crowd. “Lady, you do us great honor to come here. May I be the first to bid you welcome?”
“Thank you,” she said uncertainly. “But—”
Behind the mask, a blue eye winked at her, a dazzling smile flashed. “Baldwin!” she exclaimed.
“Would you care to dance, my Lady?”
“Gladly.” She took his hand and let him lead her through the muttering crowd toward the center of the floor. “What are you doing here?” she whispered as soon as they could not be overheard.
“Just dance for now, Princess,” he murmured, “until these superstitious fools are convinced you’re not a phantom of some kind.”
She tried to laugh, but her throat was too tight. “Do I look that terrible?”
“You are always beautiful to me, Princess.” He guided her among the circling dancers, who glanced sideways at her and shrank away at first, but the musicians kept playing and other, less superstitious revelers filled in the gaps. “You are here to answer the next riddle?”
“Yes, I have to dance with a hundred princes before dawn. But how can I do that, when they’re all afraid of me?”
“Not all of us, Princess.”
“Not you, no. But don’t you see, this doesn’t count. It has to be princes....” She broke off and stared at him. “Baldwin, do you mean to say that you’re a prince?”
He bowed jauntily in assent. “Only ninety nine more to go!”
Catrin didn’t laugh. She squeezed his hand. “If you’re a prince, then that means the king, the one whose banner you carried, the one who fell in battle—King Ranald Rising Sun—he was your father? Oh, Baldwin, you never told me. I’m so sorry.”
He managed a small smile. “Come, Princess, the next dance is beginning, and here is another prince come to dance with you.”
A tall young man in a silver cat mask and purple robes stepped out of the crowd. “Lady, you are welcome here. The very music sings more sweetly for your presence.”
“Hugh!”
“Princess. Shall we dance?”
She took his hand, and the other dancers closed in around them. After a few steps, she remembered what Baldwin had said. “Hugh, is it true? You are a prince too?”
“It is true.”
“Then your father, who locked you away in the tower, he was a king?”
“Yes.” He would say no more.
When the music stopped again and Hugh stepped aside, George, crowned with a wreath of fruit and flowers, was there to greet her. “It is good to see you again,” he said simply. He held out his strong, sun-browned arm and guided her into the opening steps of the next dance. The crowded onlookers whispered eager questions to one another, each wanting to know the identity of the great lady with whom so many princes sought to dance.
Next came little Barnabas, spry as a squirrel in his jester’s cap and bells, then Ambrose wearing a sly-looking fox mask. “I suppose you’re a prince too?” she asked him. “You are all princes?”
“We are.”
“Then why do you wander the wild forests, and why does George till the soil? Why does Barnabas sit alone by the lake and weave? Where are all your kingdoms? Where are your fathers who should have raised you up and set you on their thrones?” she asked. “Why are all your stories so sad?”
Ambrose shrugged. “Kings are kings. It is a costly business, and they pay with what coins they have. Sometimes those coins are the destinies of their sons and daughters.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Perhaps not. But would I have fulfilled my destiny living in a stone castle far from the forest’s green glades? Would George have rested easy upon a throne? Don’t you see, Princess? The very things that hurt and hindered us are the things that made us strong. We are still here, long after those kings are dead and forgotten. You, too, are like us, though you don’t yet see it. You must accept your strength. You have paid dearly for it.”
“But look at me! The crone took everything I had, and then betrayed me. I’m not even me anymore. I’m not strong. I am old and wrinkled and ugly.”
He shook his head and smiled. “You are beautiful, Princess, and more powerful than you know.” He placed her hand in the hand of the next prince as the music began again.
The strange prince hesitated, but Catrin held her chin high and thought of what Ambrose had said. Although she felt lost and wretched, her true friends saw beauty in her. Her troubles had made her stronger. A little light came into her eyes, and she stood a little straighter.
“That is a marvelously well-wrought costume, Lady,” the prince said. He bowed low and led her into the dance.
In this way, the night passed. The princes no longer hesitated to take her hand, but bowed and complimented her as if she were a lady of great importance. She smiled graciously but said nothing. After a while their voices and faces all blended together into a blur of sound and color. Her feet ached, and her head swam. By the time she danced with the ninety-ninth prince, she was staggering with exhaustion. She did not notice the first gray light of dawn brightening the eastern windows until the king stepped up to the dais and motioned the musicians to silence.
“My lords and ladies,” he boomed. “This is a joyous night for me, and for all the kingdom. For tonight, my beloved daughter Catrin has chosen a husband who will one day take my place on the throne as king of this realm.” Cheers rang out so that he had to shout to be heard. “Musicians! Play one last dance for your future king and queen!”
At the other end of the hall, the crowd parted. All heads turned as the false princess glided out onto the floor arm-in-arm with the one-hundredth prince. She smiled up at him as if there were no one else around, and he smiled back.
Catrin shoved her way to the front of the applauding crowd. If this was the last dance, the one-hundredth prince must dance with her, not the false old woman who looked like her. She had just mustered the courage to speak when the prince turned slightly. His mask had the feathers and hooked beak of an Osprey, but his costume was that of a sailor. Terror gripped her heart. Without conscious volition, she stepped forward and yanked off his mask. He was tall and handsome, with hair dark as thunder and eyes like the sea. Her breath froze in her throat.
“Geoffrey! I thought you were dead.”
“I beg your pardon, Lady? Have we met?”
“Geoffrey, it’s me, Catrin!” She cast his mask to the floor. “This woman is not the princess, she is a witch who has cast a spell on me. You must believe me! Look, I still have the pouch you made for me. It kept my book safe even through the wreck. Remember? I found your rose that night.”
“Catrin?” Geoffrey glanced from her to the radiant girl at his side, and back again.
“Stand aside, witch,” the false princess hissed. “Let me dance with my husband-to-be.”
“I won’t stand aside,” Catrin said. “Geoffrey, tell her you know me!”
Geoffrey took a single, tentative step in Catrin’s direction. “Princess?”
Eyes brimming with tears, Catrin reached out for him with both hands. “Yes, Geoffrey. It’s me.”
As he swept her up into his arms, Catrin closed her eyes and willed herself to be young and beautiful again, transformed by the magic of his touch. She leaned into his chest and tangled her fingers in his hair. But something didn’t feel right. When she opened her eyes, she was still old and frightened and ugly.
Her father stormed toward them through the crowd. The false princess ran to him, weeping, and grasped his arm.
Geoffrey’s e
yes searched Catrin’s for signs of the girl he had known. “I believe you,” he said finally. “I don’t know why, but I do. Catrin!” His arms closed around her again, and he kissed her deeply upon the lips. Up on the balcony, a musician with a lute began to sing:
“What arrow pierces deeper
Than any doctor’s skill?
What potion has the power
To cure the gravest ill?”
Catrin wrenched herself free from Geoffrey’s embrace. Panting a little, she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and stumbled backward.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “It’s all right, Catrin. I love you. We’ll get married tomorrow and find a way out of this mess together.”
A great pain tore through her chest. “No. There isn’t going to be any tomorrow.”
“What?”
“Don’t you remember what you told me on the ship? You said I was a princess and you were a sailor, and there was nothing we could do to change that. What are you doing here in my father’s castle pretending to be a prince? You’re not Geoffrey!”
“Does that matter?” Still clothed in Geoffrey’s form, the sixth Magpie held out his arms to her, and that was the hardest riddle of all.
“Yes,” she said. “It matters. I thought nothing could be mightier than Death, but I was wrong. I think you must be Love. I would do anything for you, give up anything. Anything but this one last thing.” Catrin, who never laughed and never cried, felt tears rolling down her cheeks as she spoke the riddle:
“The arrows of Loss pierce deeper
Than any doctor’s skill.
Love’s healing power is mighty,
But there’s another greater still.”
She reached out her hand, and he too became a Magpie. She placed him, with all the others, in the sack that the real Geoffrey had made and pulled the purse-strings tight. She was standing in the middle of the dance floor weeping when her father touched her arm.
“Eleanor? Oh! Your arm is solid; you’re not a ghost? Eleanor, is that you, truly, returned after all these years?”