by Jon Jacks
How could the king fail to agree to such a remarkably generous offer?
And yet his joy instantly turned to dismay when the Hazel Witch produced from beneath her dark cloak a potion that had obviously already been prepared long ago.
‘Please don’t be offended,’ he pleaded, ‘but I fear I require the most special of your concoctions: for I fear that her heart might already be turned against me, maybe too damaged to be in anyway recoverable. She must regard me as being no better than those wealthy men she fled, who wanted her as nothing more than a plaything they could discard once they’d had their fill of her!’
‘My dear,’ the Hazel Witch said concernedly as soon as she saw the poor man’s consternation, ‘you must trust me on this: this is the most perfect blend of the blood of cherries, of the dew distributed by the moon when she has waxed to her fullest. Its whole purpose is to mend a broken heart of the very kind you have described; indeed, it would work on no other heart but hers – for as you are obviously aware, her heart is of the most special and unique kind!’
She pressed the potion into the king’s hands.
‘There should be no need to warn you, I hope,’ she said, her gaze probing in its intensity, ‘that when she drinks, you must make sure that it is you and no one else who stands close by her!’
*
Is there any tale involving a love potion that doesn’t relate its foolish misapplication, resulting in – at best – hilarious consequences?
If there is, I certainly haven’t heard of it, let alone told it.
The rules have not been followed, the tales warn us, and so chaos ensues.
Well, happily our king is not in any way foolish.
As I hope you have begun to realise by now, he is a ruler whose heart is definitely in the right place!
No?
You disagree with that?
Ah, I see; you believe he shouldn’t have resorted to using the subterfuge of a love potion!
But hadn’t we already agreed that ‘love’ means so many different things to so many different people?
So, please, could we now continue with our tale?
*
No one had ever seen a king and queen so much in love with each other.
They complemented each other completely, for the king allowed his queen to have equal influence in the ruling of their realm.
She was not only considerate and kind, but also supremely wise.
This was the Principle of Queens: that everyone should be treated justly and fairly. Which, of course, the rich and powerful saw as being neither just nor fair.
And so when it was announced that the queen was soon to give birth to an heir, the vast majority of her subjects rejoiced.
One such subject, who was particularly ecstatic at the news, didn’t bother with the usual procedure of attending the clerk, who would show her through to the official, who would show her through to the lower magistrate, who…
She preferred, rather, to suddenly appear out of nowhere before the king, the queen, and her parents.
Although initially startled, everyone but the queen (who, of course, had never been given any inkling of the Hazel Witch’s involvement in her life) greeted her as if she were the most kind-hearted person they had ever known.
Indeed, neither the queen nor her king were aware of the pact that had been made with the witch by her parents.
Similarly, neither the queen nor her parents knew of the transaction agreed by the king to win her love.
‘I believe,’ the Hazel Witch declared brightly, glancing around the room with a jubilant glow in her eyes, ‘that it is time for me to collect my agreed payment!’
The only one shocked by this announcement was the queen, for both the king and her parents assumed the witch must be talking only to them: although the heart of the queen’s father sank, for he now naturally feared that the deal his wife had made must somehow involve the new child.
The queen knew enough of the Hazel Witch’s dealings to immediately comprehend the meaning behind the demand for payment: her parents must have originally been childless, while her king…of course, now she understood where that strange concoction had come from.
The witch looked towards them all.
‘The agreed fee was an apple of my choosing, correct?’
The queen and her king where startled to see the queen mother nod in agreement.
The queen and her parents where similarly startled to see that the king also nodded in agreement.
The witch glared at the king.
‘Of the king,’ she growled, ‘I demand your Adam’s apple!’
She glowered at the queen’s parents.
‘Of you, I demand the apple of your eye!’ she snarled, pointing towards Queen Cherish.
She was, of course, demanding the deaths of both the king and queen!
‘Obviously,’ the Hazel Witch exclaimed in delight, relishing the horrified faces she saw gathered about her, ‘an “apple” means so many different things to so many different people.’
*
If not the very first Principle of Kings, it is an important rule that a good king must be prepared to forfeit his own life rather than jeopardise his realm or his people.
The Hazel Witch was far too powerful for the king to refuse her demands.
‘I accept,’ the king declared with all the pride he could muster: yet even as he spoke, he drew closer to his queen, tenderly taking her hand and adding, ‘Regarding my wife, however, I would beg you to consider some other form of payment, no matter how outrageous it might seem.’
‘I accept no such thing!’ the queen stated adamantly. ‘Don’t presume, witch, that just because I’m nurturing our child I’m made foolish by cares and considerations! Our deaths don’t benefit you in any way: they are merely demands placed upon the bargaining table, there for you to trade and achieve what you really seek!’
The witch stared back at the queen, smiling, impressed by the intelligence and forthrightness of her creation.
Truly, all this was turning out far better than she could have ever hoped.
‘Why, what I want is what a great many mothers secretly end up wishing was theirs; the beauty of their daughter!’
‘I accept!’ the queen snapped proudly.
Both the king and her parents leapt forward to protest; but it was all too late.
The witch was already taking on all the beauty of the queen.
While the poor queen was withering away, like the shrivelling of a once glorious cheery tree.
*
The rapidly ageing queen might have more readily accepted her condition if she had at least been allowed to keep her child.
Unfortunately, it was increasingly obvious that the witch desired even this attribute of the queen.
Her belly was waxing to its fullest, the child due quite soon.
She caressed the almost semi-spherical roundness of her middle, delighting in the joy of being a mother.
‘Ah, a new heir for my realm,’ she purred mischievously, scornfully looking down on the distraught king, on the wailing parents who would soon have a daughter older than themselves. ‘For which of your subjects would now accept this crone as their beloved queen; when here I am in all my glorious beauty, for everyone to see!’
‘For the good of our child, My Lord,’ the once wondrous queen wheezed, glancing tiredly at her weeping husband, ‘you must do as she says and take her in my stead.’
‘In your stead?’
The now marvellously beautiful eyes of the witch widened, first in surprise then in amusement.
‘Oh, but obviously you don’t understand, my dear! A queen doesn’t need a king to rule! The king still has his own payment to make!’
From beneath her dark cloak she produced the very finest of daggers; and, stepping forward, handed it to the king.
*
As the dagger was handed to the king, the rapidly ageing queen took it instead from the witch’s hand.
‘Not yet,’ s
he croaked defiantly. ‘Isn’t it the Principle of Queens that everyone should be treated justly and fairly?’
The new queen smirked even as she nodded in agreement.
‘Although I would add,’ she sneered, ‘that “justly and fairly” means so many different things to so many different people.’
Ignoring her, the old queen shuffled as quickly as she could towards a nearby cabinet. Opening one of its many doors, she withdrew a small bottle of blood-toned liquid; a love potion, and one of the most effective ever devised.
‘Before I truly became queen, the king asked me to take a drink of this,’ the now elderly queen said, returning to the witch and pressing the bottle into her hands. ‘Perhaps you might like to do the same?’
The witch looked at the bottle in her hands, her beautiful face beaming with growing amusement.
‘My dear,’ she chuckled, ‘do you really think me so foolish that you could trick me into taking some silly love potion?’
‘No,’ the gnarled queen replied, taking the witch a little by surprise, ‘but then, my husband didn’t believe he should trick me either. He confessed his love for me, but said he would rather I loved someone else than that I became his falsely held prisoner. And even if I hadn’t loved him before, I knew then that I had no choice but to love him!’
With a gentle nod of her head, she indicated the bottle in the witch’s delicately beautiful hands.
‘It’s still all there: it was unnecessary. My husband has no debt to pay.’
‘But rules are rules, my dear!’ the undeterred witch declared. ‘According to my version of all these principles, his debt can hardly be negated by his neglect to follow the instructions!’
‘Then you give me no further choice,’ the crone responded.
And taking the dagger she had been handed earlier, she plunged it deeply into her heart.
*
Had she lived, she would have looked so much like a woman constantly on the verge of dying.
Now, with her heart deliberately severed into two pieces, she collapsed upon the floor.
‘No, no! Not yet!’ the witch complained miserably. ‘The transference of all your beauty isn’t complete! There’s still–’
She clutched at her heart.
‘No!’ she shrieked. ‘Not your death! I don’t want to take in–’
Her heart, like that of her daughter, like that of the one she was now indelibly linked to, had split.
She crumpled to the ground, the bottle of love potion slipping from her loosening fingers, crashing to and shattering on the floor near to the fallen queen.
*
The spilt lotion was no ordinary concoction, of course.
It was formed from the most perfect blend of the blood of cherries, of the dew distributed by the moon when she has waxed to her fullest; its whole purpose to mend a broken heart of the most special and unique kind.
Indeed, it would work on no other heart.
*
Just as the heart had grown from a cherry seed, and the child had grown around the heart, the queen recovered not only her life but also all of the beauty the witch had briefly stolen but no longer required.
You may wonder, though, what happened to her own child; indeed, you might even be wondering what kind of a heart she might have been born with.
Well I can tell you (and by revealing this, I hope I am not giving away too much too early) it was the very strongest, the very dearest, of hearts.
It was the most perfect blend of the blood of cherries, of the dew distributed by the moon when she has waxed to her fullest.
And the Principle of Princesses?
To no longer abide by rules developed to keep us subservient.
*
Chapter 27
As Crystine finished her tale, the fool appeared thoughtful for a moment.
‘They each innocently made agreements that were deliberately misinterpreted: is that what you’re saying?’
‘Well, speaking personally,’ Crystine admitted, ‘the tale means something wholly different to me; but yes, that is what I’d hope you’d take from it. I’m saying, I suppose, that at the very least you’ve got to give your queen a chance to explain herself.’
‘Of course,’ the fool replied, as if this was all self-evident.
‘So; which way is it towards the April Queen’s palace?’
‘I don’t suppose you happen to have two mirrors upon you, do you?’ the fool asked curiously.
*
Crystine didn’t even have one mirror on her, let alone two.
In a next village they came to, they had to ask around for the large mirrors the fool declared would be more suited to his purpose. They were rare, and therefore expensive.
Four more pearls vanished from the fool’s increasingly sorely treated jerkin.
Taking Crystine and the two mirrors off to a quieter, more deserted part of the small hamlet, the fool began to look around at the barns and sheds surrounding them, shaking his head disappointedly every time until, at last, his face brightened.
‘Yes, yes; this is more like it!’ he exclaimed excitedly, thankfully yet carefully placing the largest of the two mirrors upright on top of a wrecked cart that had been leant against a rotting wood wall.
They were in a narrow corridor running between two apparently long-abandoned barns. Directly opposite the mirror he’d already positioned, he stacked a number of other discarded farm implements, creating a support of sorts for the second mirror to stand upon.
‘Now,’ he said proudly, taking Crystine’s hand and leading her into the space between the two mirrors, ‘it’s time to see my love once more!’
He indicated that he wanted her, like him, to stare into one of the mirrors.
Naturally, Crystine could now see her own image, along with that of the fool, reflected time and time again, repeated it was said an infinite number of times.
An infinite number of Crystines.
An infinite number of fools.
Multiple images, all stacked one against the other, such that they could have been nothing more than a pack of cards, all constantly reshuffling a little each time either she or the fool moved even slightly.
‘So,’ the fool said cheerfully, even though his expression was one of serious concentration, ‘we want to be there, see?’
He pointed off to the right, trying to draw Crystine’s attention to just one particular pair lying deeply amongst all the others.
‘Fifty fifth image along, got that?’
‘What do you mean?’ Crystine demanded, being totally perplexed. ‘How am I supp–’
She stumbled on her feet a little as the ground seemed to abruptly shift slightly beneath her.
She had the strangest sensation that she was being whisked along through a crowd, a crowd of Crystine and fool clones; or as if she were once again a card in a pack, one being shuffled through so many other similar cards, such that that card was being deftly manipulated until it was placed higher up the deck.
She glanced to her left, now experiencing the weird sensation that she was looking back to a place where she’d been standing only a moment before, a place fifty five places back from where she was now.
Impossible, of course,
‘Ah, here we are!’ the fool announced merrily.
Crystine looked away from the multiple images caught within the mirrors.
They were no longer in the narrow confines running between two dilapidated barns.
They were standing in a resplendent hall of brightly illuminated mirrors, the sheer sheets of glass looming over everything as if they had been formed from a cathedral’s vast waterfall of windows.
*
Chapter 28
Seeing herself repeated endlessly within these glorious mirrors, Crystine briefly felt that a part of her was somewhere hanging over the very edges of the world, or even residing somewhere in a far corner of the heavens.
Everything sparkled, giving the impression that she was living amongst t
he glittering stars.
A third person walked into the midst of the multiple images, the whole thing made disconcerting because Crystine was momentarily confused, wondering where the real third person had intruded into their world; a wild card slipped in amongst the pack, a knave who lived within every one of an infinity of universes.
The fool turned to talk to this man, and at last Crystine realised that he was there with them in the hall.
A servant, dressed in the kind of livery that anyone could have mistaken for the garb of a court card.
The fool took him aside, talked to him a while, then returned with an expression that signalled he wasn’t sure whether to be happy or sad.
‘She – the queen I mean – is apparently busy; but he’ll inform her that we wish to see her as soon as he can. Oh, he did recognise me, by the way. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be so easy to get him to announce that we’re here.’
‘So, do we wait here?’ Crystine asked, not exactly finding that an altogether unpleasant proposition.
She was entranced by the otherworldly gorgeousness of the palace. When the Hag Queen had described the mirrored halls of the Queen of The Fall, her imagination had obviously failed to do it justice even if it were only half the size of the April Queen’s palace.
She finished her question half-heartedly.
‘Or do we have to leave and find someplace else where we can wait?’
‘How about we do both?’ the fool said, so elatedly he was almost grabbing Crystine by the hands and launching her into a whirl of dancing. ‘We stay here, but we also go someplace else for a while?’