And we both laughed and laughed, for no other reason than that we were young and alive and no one had ever called us dumb as a doorpost.
Chapter 23
“Well this is cosy!” said Max, surveying the comfortable sitting room. I was reclining in a large armchair and was surrounded by small tables bearing cups of tea, pieces of fruit, bouquets of flowers and several piles of books.
“Your mother has been so kind,” I agreed. I had been released from the hospital suite a couple of days after the ball and I now spent my days in the queen’s personal sitting room.
“It’s been delightful to have the company,” said Queen Eleanor from her desk in the corner of the room.
“Well your gain is the court’s loss, mother,” said Max.
“That’s very impressive!” I said admiringly. “Have you been taking lessons from Rivers?”
“I thought it was quite a good one, actually,” said Max, laughing and dropping down into one of the other armchairs.
“That’s why I need you around, Alyssa, you keep me from getting on my dignity.”
We sat in friendly silence for a couple of minutes and then Max sighed. “Everything feels a bit flat now,” he said.
“Oh really?” I asked. “Missing the beautiful Princess Celeste?” My tone was teasing but inside I felt tense.
“Celeste?” asked Max with genuine surprise. “Hardly! I think Rivers is missing her, though.” He grinned reminiscently. “He finally found a woman as beautiful as he thinks he is himself and he doesn’t seem to be recovering from the experience.”
“Yes I know,” I said with my own rueful grin, “I was treated to a full twenty minutes on her charms yesterday. I fully expect that I’ll emerge from my sick room only to discover that he’s packed up and moved to Lanover.”
“You’ve been getting a lot of visitors have you?” asked Max in a would-be idle tone. “I suppose Felix comes a lot – and Nate, of course,” he added when he saw the curious look his mother was giving him.
“Oh yes, the boys have been lovely,” I said. “They brought these flowers and Helena brought the fruit. And Beth sits with me for at least half an hour each day. I feel very fortunate in my friends.”
“And your family?” he asked, even more nonchalantly.
“Harrison’s been up to visit three times,” I replied, “and my aunt has even been up once. She asked after you.”
With Queen Eleanor in the room I couldn’t elaborate but Max seemed to understand what I was trying to say. He gave me a curt nod and I smiled in relief.
We chatted idly for a few more minutes and then Max abruptly rose to leave.
“I’ll see you both at dinner,” he said and strode out of the room.
“Goodness,” said the queen mildly, “I don’t know what’s gotten into Max lately.”
“Alyssa! Alyssa!” cried Sophie, bouncing into the room. “Harry says you’d better get better quick because Starfire is pining away without you.”
“That’s very kind of him,” I said, “but do you want to try that sentence again?”
Sophie just rolled her eyes at me so Lily spoke up from behind her. “Harry hopes that you’re feeling better soon, Alyssa, Starfire is missing your daily rides.”
“Nicely put, Lily,” I congratulated her. She smiled but Sophie just sighed and plopped down on the floor.
“But that’s not what he said,” complained Sophie.
“I know,” I said with a sympathetic smile, “and I know it’s horribly boring, but the truth is people don’t like to hear a princess talking the same way a groom does.”
“That’s silly!” announced Sophie after a moment’s thought.
“Yes, it is a little silly,” I agreed. “But we’ve talked about this before. Being a princess isn’t just who you are – it’s also your job. You’re a diplomat whether you’re talking to a foreign delegation or to your own subjects. And it’s the job of diplomats to find the best and least offensive way of saying things.”
“But you don’t get offended whatever we say,” Sophie pointed out.
“No, I don’t – thank goodness!” I said. “But we have to practice it in here so that it becomes second nature to you out there.” I waved towards the door.
“Fine,” sighed Sophie. “I’ll do it better next time. And if I promise to try harder can we not lose something from our tower?”
My instinct was to agree but I stopped myself. I was pretty sure my illness was making me soft and I had seen the damage done by the indulgence of the princesses’ previous caretakers.
“Just something small,” I said instead. “Maybe that nice lamp I let you have last week. And not for what you said,” I added, “for the eye roll. Neither princesses nor diplomats roll their eyes.”
“But you roll your eyes sometimes,” said Lily with a cheeky twinkle.
“Yes,” I said with dignity, “but I am fortunate enough to be neither a princess nor a diplomat.”
A small noise, like a quickly stifled chuckle, reminded me that we had an audience. I wondered once again what the queen thought of the way I taught the princesses. The girls came to the sitting room every day after their afternoon ride and the queen had never so much as commented on one of my lessons.
“Will you tell us a story, Alyssa?” asked Sophie.
“I’m feeling a bit tired this afternoon,” I replied. “I had a lot of visitors this morning. Why don’t you play with your tower instead?”
The girls’ doll tower had been moved down to the sitting room several weeks ago.
“I don’t feel like the doll tower today,” said Lily. “Let’s play charades.”
“Alright,” I said, “but you and Sophie aren’t allowed to be on the same team – I’m sure you cheat somehow. The two of you can take turns doing the charades. I’ll guess for you and your mother can guess for Sophie.”
“Would you, mother?” asked Lily, turning hopefully towards the queen.
I knew I was taking a risk because the queen had refused to join in the girls’ games on all the previous afternoons. Lily and Sophie had given up asking. But I was determined to get to the bottom of the mystery behind their relationship.
For the first few days it had made me mad to hear the queen’s refusals and to see the rejection in the girls’ eyes. But then I’d started to surreptitiously observe the queen. She might refuse to join them but once they were engrossed in their activity she would watch them. And hunger was the best word I could find to describe the look in her eyes.
“Of course she will,” I said briskly before she could reply. “You can’t play charades with less than four people.”
“Thank you, mother!” cried Sophie, running over to embrace the queen.
The look of surprise on Eleanor’s face softened. “Certainly I’ll play, if you wish it,” she said.
“Thank you, mother,” echoed Lily but with a tone of reserve.
“Bring me some paper and a pen,” I requested. “And a hat to put the words into.” The two girls scurried to obey and called out silly suggestions as they did. The queen laughed, which only spurred the girls on to make more outrageous suggestions. Soon we were all laughing and I felt a warm glow of satisfaction. I was convinced that it was possible to remove whatever barrier stood between the queen and her daughters.
“Tell me, Woodcutter’s Daughter,” said the queen the next morning. “How do you come to know so much about being a princess?”
I had been reading a new letter from Princess Marie and it took me a moment to formulate an answer. “By observation, I suppose,” I replied. “I read a great many books at the Winter Castle and I’ve been watching the court for weeks now. And from watching you, of course.”
“Me?” asked the queen, confusing me with the surprise in her tone.
“Well, you’re not a princess now, of course,” I said, “but you used to be one.”
“Not really,” she said quietly. “I was a merchant’s daughter, you know. I was never raised to be a princess.�
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“Of course,” I said quietly, “I think everyone in Arcadia knows your story.”
“Do they?” she said, her voice vibrating with some deep emotion I couldn’t identify.
I looked at her in wonder, my confusion growing – where was this coming from?
I said nothing, unsure of myself, and after a moment she continued in a calmer voice. “Sometimes I think no one knows my real story. Henry has certainly never understood.”
“The king?” I asked, tentatively.
“I used to call him Harry back then, when I first knew him,” she said. “He was so handsome – not as handsome as Max, of course, but so charming.”
She smiled, but it was a sad smile.
“You met him at that famous series of balls,” I prompted. “And after the third ball, you left your shoe behind and he used it to find you. It must have felt like a dream.”
“It was,” she nodded. “Exactly like a dream. My life before the ball was so bleak and then he came...” She seemed to be searching for words.
“Love at first sight,” I supplied.
“No!” she said sharply. “There’s no such thing as love at first sight.”
I recoiled from the sharp edge to her words – it felt like sacrilege to hear her, of all people, speak this way.
“But… are you saying you don’t love King Henry?” I asked, my words the faintest whisper. “Are you saying it was all a lie?”
“No, no, I’m sure it was real,” she said, her words low and fast. “I loved him then. He was just a boy but I was so young myself. And I love him now,” her voice got lower still, “in spite of everything. I can’t help myself.”
“Then it was true love,” I said, relieved but confused.
“Then why doesn’t the kingdom prosper?” asked the queen, tears trembling behind her words. “His father died so soon after we were married and things have gotten worse since then. Now we have the problems with the harvests. And the attacks. My poor godmother did everything she could but I couldn’t make him love me. I wasn’t good enough.”
There were actual tears running down her cheeks now and I was aghast. The calm, collected queen I thought I knew was gone. In her place was a distraught woman on the verge of falling apart. I didn’t know what to do.
After several moments of silence, I stood up and took her my handkerchief. “I’m sure King Henry loves you,” I said. But I felt the inadequacy of my words even as I spoke them. The queen said nothing.
I thought about what she had shared. It was true that the kingdom wasn’t prospering. It was also true that a kingdom ruled by love was a place of peace and prosperity. That’s why godmothers worked so hard to ensure true love for princes and princesses. Everyone knew that.
But I found her claim that she wasn’t good enough hard to believe. She was as beautiful, gracious and kind hearted as all the stories claimed she was.
“What happened?” I asked at last.
“The problem with love at first sight,” she said, “is that it isn’t really love. Infatuation, perhaps, but not love. We were married so quickly. Harry didn’t really know me. No one at court knew me.” She seemed to have slipped into the past as she spoke and I wondered if she even remembered I was there.
“He knew that I was a merchant’s daughter, I admitted as much at the final ball. And he knew that my step-family mistreated me, he could see that when he came searching. But he didn’t know that I had lived most of my life as a servant. He expected me to know something about trade, economics, even diplomacy. Even if I only knew what I picked up at the dinner table. But I was never included at meals, not even the family ones, and certainly not at dinner parties. I knew nothing – nothing!”
“The first few weeks after we were married I was so happy.” Another tear slid down her cheek. “And then I began to see what a bad choice I was, how completely ill-equipped for court. And then suddenly I was queen but what did I know of ruling a kingdom? The best I could do for Harry was to stay out of the way. And I was proud – I can admit that now – I didn’t want him to know how ignorant I was. I tried asking questions but the answers only made me more confused. As if they were in a language I didn’t understand. I gave up after a while.”
“Sometimes, in those early years, I thought I hated him. He had promised to rescue me from all my suffering but here I was, suffering still. And somehow those few short weeks of happiness and hope made the loneliness harder to bear. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him how I felt – I told myself I shouldn’t have to. He should have seen how unhappy I was.”
“Sometimes I still blame him for not seeing it. And then I remember that he saw my inadequacy instead. Can I blame him for that when I was so very inadequate?”
Eleanor looked up at this question and saw me watching her. She tried to paste a smile onto her face but it wouldn’t stick. “So you can see,” she said, “why I have nothing to teach my daughters on how to be a princess.”
I stared at her in horror.
She was so much older than me, and a queen as well! It had never occurred to me that she could be so broken or her thinking so warped. I felt an almost physical pain at having my illusions shattered. I groped around for words but came up empty.
I wanted to cry at the sorrow in her life but even more at the unnecessary pain she had brought into her daughters’ lives. Was it always like this? I wondered. The pain passed down from generation to generation.
“Is this why you never spend time with Lily and Sophie?” I asked at last.
“My daughters will have a better chance of growing up to be true princesses without my interference,” she said sadly.
“Your majesty – Eleanor – Ella,” I said, kneeling down and gripping her hand. “Your daughters desperately love you,” I said. “Your absence hurts them. You saw how they were yesterday, when you joined in charades. Do you want them to feel the same loneliness you’ve felt all these years?”
A deep shudder went through her and she began to cry again. “You see,” she said, “you see how inadequate I am. I need mothering advice from a teenager.”
It was hard to think of an answer to this.
“Don’t think of it as mothering advice,” I offered. “Just think of it as an outsider’s perspective – it’s always easier for an outsider to look at things objectively.”
My handkerchief was completely soaked now and the queen pulled out her own. “I don’t know why I even told you all this. You’re practically a child yourself,” she said.
I also wasn’t sure why she had told me, unless it was the forced intimacy that comes from sharing a room all day every day for weeks.
“It sounds to me like you’ve needed someone to talk to for a very long time,” I said softly. “And it also seems like you need someone to tell you that you are a kind, gracious and wise queen.”
Eleanor looked up in surprise at my final comment.
“I don’t know what you were twenty years ago,” I continued, “but you’ve certainly grown into your role. Now you just need to tell yourself that every morning and every night for the next twenty years and maybe you’ll start to believe it.”
This suggestion earned a watery chuckle so I felt safe to go back to my own seat.
While Eleanor’s need had been desperate I had been able to put my own emotions aside. Now that she was somewhat stable, I could feel my composure starting to crack. I sat in my chair with my face turned to the wall and let the silent tears run down my face.
Chapter 24
“Her Royal Highness the Princess Ava Charlotte Anika Beatrix of Rangmere,” announced the herald.
I stifled a feeling of resentment that Princess Ava had arrived the day after Aldric had finally cleared me to return to my usual activities. The Rangmeren delegation had come on horseback and had arrived earlier than expected. I had been out riding with the princesses and so was once again seeing the princess for the first time at the welcome reception.
I had seen their horses, however, and had b
een very impressed by them. Starfire had been less impressed to find a strange horse in the stall next to hers but Harry had promised her some oats if she behaved.
Princess Ava entered and all thoughts of horses fell away.
Here, I thought, is the princess from my childhood tales.
Princess Ava was petite but not tiny and her figure was exquisite. Her features were refined – small nose, blue eyes, high cheekbones – and her golden hair fell in tight curls. Her complexion was roses and cream and the overall effect was one of the most traditional beauty.
Princess Celeste was more beautiful, I thought a little resentfully.
But if the queen is looking for a true princess, whispered a voice in the back of my mind, surely this is what she had in mind. I imagine Lily and Sophie will look something like this when they’re grown.
Princess Ava had reached the front of the dais and now made a graceful curtsey. The king addressed his welcome speech and she made her reply. Her voice was light and musical but something about the dulcet tones made a shiver run down my back.
I jolted to attention at the sensation and looked at her more closely. I saw nothing but the same beauty I had already noticed. There was nothing in her words or appearance to justify the feeling of mistrust.
After a few more moments of observation I was forced to admit to myself that I was no longer an unbiased observer. Rangmere was a large, strong kingdom and I didn’t want its relations with Arcadia to be tainted because I was jealous of its princess. I resolved not to say anything unless I heard or saw something duplicitous.
I scanned the rest of the delegation for signs of villainy but they looked like any other group of officials and courtiers. I laughed at myself. Even in fairy tales villains didn’t always look villainous.
When it was my turn to greet Princess Ava I gave a deep curtsey and looked straight into her eyes. Her beauty was disarming and again I doubted myself. But the longer I held her gaze, the more I sensed something lurking behind the blue of her eyes. They had a coldness I had never sensed from Lily, Sophie or Max.
The Princess Companion: A Retelling of The Princess and the Pea (The Four Kingdoms Book 1) Page 21