by Ana Mardoll
Claude hesitated as they bent to sweep the hair clippings up with their hands. "Well, someone wouldn't be my True Love if they were discouraged by my hairstyle, right?" they pointed out, though they could hear the doubt in their voice. Claude had no experience with romantic love, but if it resembled the bards' songs of famous love affairs, they couldn't imagine hair getting in the way of someone's feelings.
Valéry considered this. "No, I suppose not." A pause ensued as Claude tidied up and Val thought his thoughts; Valéry wasn't someone who could be rushed when he was thinking. "Claude?"
They didn't look up, giving him space. "Hmm?"
"You don't have a True Love yet, do you?" He bit his lip while Claude hesitated and shook their head. "I didn't think so. Do you think you will in time for the curse?"
Claude didn't say anything for a moment, leaning back on their heels to take a deep breath. "Val, I don't know," they admitted, their voice low. "But please don't repeat this to anyone, not even Séra."
"I won't!" He bristled at the warning. "I'm not a baby, Claude. Anyway, we're brothers and brothers keep each other's secrets. Everyone knows that!"
Their face split in a grin. "Good point. We are and we do; brothers don't ever tell on each other."
He met their smile with one of his own, relaxing in his seat. "You're trying, though. Right? No one wants to sleep forever and people are worried. Séra says the whole thing is giving Maman white hairs."
Claude's breath caught in their throat and they nodded reflexively, a thoughtless automatic agreement. "Of course I'm trying. We still have time, Val. That's why the ball is so important to everyone. I'll fall in love and whoever it is will break the curse. We won't sleep more than a week at the most; you'll see." They forced a smile but it felt like the rictus grin of a skeleton. "It'll be like a relaxing vacation."
Valéry hopped down from his stool with an easy laugh, avoiding the last few strands of hair which littered the bedroom floor. "A week or so would be fine, I guess. Any longer would be awful; think how weird it would be to wake up when all that time had passed. Remember not to tell on me when Maman sees your hair!"
Claude wondered if there were anything more torturous than a ball no one wished to attend. A short list of activities presented themselves, of course, several involving angry wild animals, but she was fairly certain no one would expect her to enjoy those, nor would canapés be served to her in the process.
She felt sorry for herself, but the larger share of her pity was reserved for her mother. Queen Osanne sat at the head of the room alongside King Juste in perfect regal dignity. Every line of her expression was controlled with iron discipline, but Claude could sense her disappointment. To have spent weeks and a hefty portion of the castle treasury arranging this ball, only to achieve this anticlimax must pain her.
Prince Régis was having a lovely time, to be sure, but not with Princess Claude. He'd spent the evening in the arms of Lady Éliane: twenty-two to his eighteen, devastatingly charming, and bearer of her family's ambition to be lifted from the lower ranks of impoverished gentry. Claude watched her dazzling smile in the candlelight and felt no ill will. Osanne must be furious, since despite being ostensibly a celebration of Séraphine's tenth birthday, the matchmaking intentions behind the ball were transparently obvious and for the good of the whole kingdom. But Claude was not annoyed; she wished Lady Éliane the best of luck.
Nor was the outlook any rosier with Yves. The young duke had ensconced himself in the company of half a dozen other boys his age, lounging together against the eastern wall of the ballroom. They were drinking, laughing, talking, and catching up after having been apart from each other since the last celebration—and doing everything in their power to ignore the pointed looks of their mothers who motioned in vain for them to join the dancing. Claude watched the group as she moved about the room, envying them. She liked the idea of boys she could spend time with, unburdened by the need to fall in love before it became too late.
Of the short list of hopefuls, Léandre had been the only one who came close to pleasing her. The two of them danced together five times, a number which would verge on scandalous for any other young woman in the kingdom. As her seventeenth birthday loomed in a few short months, people were growing desperate; if a pretty earl from the unfashionable end of the kingdom could charm the cursed princess with his soft gray eyes and flowing hair, then so be it. By their fourth dance, Queen Osanne watched with hope in her motherly gaze; during the fifth, Claude fancied that her mother was holding her breath.
Did she love Léandre? Claude couldn't be sure, but she didn't think so. Love was supposed to be a special thing, a magical feeling you knew in your heart. She'd waited all her life for it to strike, the way lightning struck trees during summer storms, but hadn't ever felt anything like it. She didn't feel it now. Léandre was beautiful, his hands were warm on her back, and his conversation was witty, polite, and respectful. He came from a good family who knew their place in the swirl of courtly politics, and if she were to marry him both he and they would be loyal to her till death. He would make an excellent prince consort.
Moreover, Claude liked him. She saw how hard he worked to make this work, the effort put into seeming effortless. He was an artist in his own way, sculpting himself for her and her parents and their people, creating beauty with the raw materials nature had given him. She wanted very much to be his friend, to steal away from the prying eyes of the court and just talk to him as an equal. Would they have anything in common, he and she? Claude imagined they might. They both lived public lives struggling to please their families and serve the common good. She wondered, too, whether he liked to paint.
But what she felt wasn't love; it wasn't romantic. She could like him, she could trust him, she could imagine doing her royal duty and marrying him, but she couldn't force herself to love him. And if she couldn't love him then Claude doubted she could make herself love anyone, for she wasn't likely to find a more attractive and amiable candidate than the young earl. After their fifth dance she excused herself and retreated to her rooms, telling Maman she needed to use the toilet. Queen Osanne was too pleased to object.
Claude wandered up the tower steps, taking her time and trying to erase the ball from her mind. It was all so much pressure: eyes watching her from every corner, waiting for her to find the right person, holding a collective breath for proof that she wasn't broken, that they wouldn't sleep for eternity because of a perceived flaw in her nature. Claude didn't feel broken; she liked the way she was. She didn't need romance to paint a sunset or dance a jig or sculpt a delicate rose from solid stone. People spoke of being completed by love, but Claude already felt complete. She was complete on girl-days, and he was complete on boy-days, and they were complete on the in-between days. Claude's life was full enough without True Love.
Yet that was a problem for everyone else.
She pressed open the door to her suite of rooms and was surprised to hear a rhythmic whispering noise, like the brush of silk against stone but over and over in a loop. Stepping silently on the balls of her dancing slippers, Claude followed the noise to the receiving chamber just outside her bedroom. There, in one of the chairs lining the curved tower walls, sat a little old serving woman doing something with her hands. Claude wasn't sure what she was about, more concerned with the presence of the woman than with her activity.
"Grand-mère?" Claude pitched her voice low and courteous, not wanting to startle the woman. She didn't recognize her, which meant the woman was not one of her or Séraphine's attendants. She might be one of her mother's vast army of attendants, but it seemed more likely that she was one of the ground-floor servants. Either way she should not be here in Claude's chambers, and certainly not alone.
"Yes, dear?" The woman flashed a toothy grin but kept her eyes on her work. A little bowl sat on her skirt between her knees. A long wooden stick, fat and round at the bottom and thin and pointed at the tip, like a child's spinning top, rested with the fat end in the bowl and spun
around; the old woman's fingers kept the stick rotating with quick, constant movements at the pointed tip. All the while, she fed the stick from a cloud of wool in her other hand, creating spun thread that wound round the spinning wood. "Can I help you, child?"
Claude blinked at her, surprised at not being recognized. The old woman was clearly very confused. Servants were not supposed to wander into the crown princess' rooms, but she seemed harmless and was surely hurting no one by being here. Claude could leave her to work until the attendants came up after the ball. They would know who the woman was and where she ought to be sent for care. She peered at the stick in the woman's hands, intrigued by the rapid little movements of her fingers at the tip; the woman's hands moved so fast Claude could barely follow them. "What do you have there, grand-mère?"
"This?" The elderly woman laughed as though she'd asked a silly question, and perhaps she had; there was so much from which Claude was sheltered as a princess. "I'm spinning, dear. Yarn from wool."
"Spinning?" Claude recoiled, taking a step back and hearing her gown swish against the floor. The word had been drilled into her with horror almost from birth, a thing to be avoided at all costs. Yet she had seen drawings of the device she must always avoid, and this was no spinning wheel, nor was today her seventeenth birthday. The woman continued her work, oblivious to Claude's panic, and the fear in her pounding heart subsided until she felt faintly foolish. This woman and her little tool were no threat.
She stepped closer, feeling ashamed of her reaction. "Is it a new way of making yarn?" She'd never been able to immerse herself in yarn-crafts, frustrated by the lack of ready materials; she could, at a pinch, mix her own paints and plasters, but yarn had to be imported through complicated arrangements with foreign merchants.
"Eh?" The woman blinked at her and frowned, her fingers continuing to work. "I don't know if you would call it a new way; it's how my mother taught me, and her mother before. Would you like me to teach you, child?"
Claude hesitated. They were expecting her back downstairs at the ball, so she couldn't stay long, but she could spare a few moments. She reached for the little spinning stick, her smile rueful. "Yes, please, grand-mère, teach me. Oh!"
The tip of the stick spun to a fast blur, encouraged by the last twist of the old woman's fingers before she withdrew. Claude's hand was outstretched to take her place and she felt the bite of the spinning point. Blood welled up at the spot where her finger had been pricked and she saw a brief splash of red as the spinning stick flung three crimson drops across her floor, her painting, and her ballgown.
She leaped to her feet, stumbling back in panic, but already the world was spinning as rapidly as the little stick. A sound rose up around her, like the beating of a thousand wings, and she glimpsed a profusion of colors more wild and vibrant than her paints could ever capture. Faraway, as though in a dream, she heard a voice she must have known as a baby but had never heard again until this day.
"Before the sun sets on her seventeenth birthday, she will prick her finger with a spindle and she shall die."
Sunlight, bright and invasive, struck his eyes and he groaned. What time was it? It was rare for his attendants to let him sleep so late; usually he was up and dressed long before dawn. The cheery yellow light staining his bed and squeezing through the cracks of his eyes felt more like mid-morning. Was he ill?
Claude opened his eyes with some effort, bringing his hand up to his face to rub away the night-grit, but he stopped when he saw his sleeve. He was still wearing his gown from the ball. He lay in bed wearing an expensive gown that ought never to be worn in those conditions. Already he could feel the delicate fabric groaning as he used his elbows to push himself into a sitting position; if he moved any more, the lace in his sleeves would tear. Why wasn't he wearing his nightclothes? Where were his attendants?
Blood on stone, a tiny drip of dark red that none of his paints could ever perfectly capture, brought memories flooding back. A sharp little spindle spinning in a cup instead of on a wheel, and an elderly woman who wasn't what she seemed. But what did that mean? He waited, holding his breath to detect movement. The castle below his tower was impossibly still, a silence he'd not known even in the dead of night. His eyes darted around the room, but no one lurked in the corners or hid behind his easels. If he was awake, there ought to be a True Love who had performed the awakening, yet his room was empty. Who had kissed him?
Sun crept over the bedsheets, the deafening silence undisturbed except for the occasional flutter of wings as birds went about their business outside. Apparently nothing was going to happen unless Claude made it happen. Running his hand through his short hair, he hauled himself out of bed and then hesitated; he didn't want to traipse all over the castle in crushed velvet and thin dancing shoes. With some difficulty without his attendants, he stripped off his clothes and donned his best riding habit.
Feeling more like himself, and more comfortable in his boyish habit than in the frilly ballgown, he made his way down the tower steps. Here and there on the landings he found servants sprawled on the floor or sunk against the walls in sleep. The slow rise and fall of their chests as they barely breathed unsettled him. None of this made sense. If he was awake, everyone else should be too. Where was his True Love?
Hurrying past the trail of servants, he rushed to the feasting hall where the ball had been held. Claude's eyes widened when he entered the room. Everyone sat at their place, slumped over the table in sleep or leaning against the wall where they'd been standing. Séraphine lay in a nest of purple velvet and lace in the center of the dance floor, sleeping next to the boy who'd been her partner. Valéry had sunk under one of the tables, the pastry treat he'd been in the process of stealing still near his hand. King Juste and Queen Osanne sat in their matching thrones, leaning back against the plush fabric as they slept.
This was all horribly wrong. Claude was supposed to sleep, and the kingdom with her— him— her—
He stopped, his breathing turning shallow as his brain tried to sort through the tangle. What had the fairy from the eastern woods said? The words spoken over Claude's cradle had been drilled into him almost from birth. 'She shall fall into a deep sleep, and the kingdom with her.' Claude had fallen into a deep sleep on the evening of the ball, a girl-day. She had fallen asleep and the kingdom with her. Today, however many days later, Claude was a boy. This was one of his boy-days and he was awake.
That was it, then. He felt the blood drain from his face and he leaned against the wall before he could faint. There was no True Love to be found wandering the castle halls, because no one had kissed him awake. He had awoken because of a flaw in the curse, a mistake in wording. Instead of sleeping in stasis forever while awaiting a True Love, everyone else would sleep while he grew old looking for an answer to this problem. Would they sleep on forever after his death or would they die with him? He blinked as a new idea presented itself, harsh in the morning light: if he killed himself, would they then wake?
No, he couldn't think like that. There must be a solution he hadn't yet thought of.
Claude looked around the hall, running a hand up the back of his neck as he considered his options. Every eligible noble bachelor in the kingdom was here, which was an unexpected problem; the plan had been to send the most promising candidates out of the country for Claude's seventeenth birthday. After all, they couldn't kiss Claude awake if they were asleep themselves. He looked for Léandre and saw him slumped against the far wall beside his family; waiting for Claude to return, no doubt. Claude swallowed a lump in his throat.
Was it wrong to kiss someone while they slept? He hadn't thought much about it when he'd expected to be on the receiving end. But now that the situation was reversed, Claude felt distinctly uncomfortable at the idea of kissing a boy without his permission. Yet if the alternative was leaving everyone to languish in eternal sleep, he felt Léandre would understand. At the very least, if this worked and woke everyone then Claude would explain and apologize. If it didn't, well, he wo
uld cross that bridge when he came to it.
He took a deep breath and stepped over to the clump of bodies, picking his way around the sleepers on the floor. The silence was beginning to get to him; more than once he looked over his shoulder to confirm that no one had moved. Kneeling on the floor beside the young earl, Claude closed his eyes and prayed. Let this work. Let me love him. I'll marry him and we'll have all the babies Maman could want; just let this work. He puckered his lips and leaned over, brushing them against Léandre's mouth. Holding his breath, he waited.
Nothing stirred.
He pressed his fist into his mouth, stifling back a cry. He couldn't break down; sobbing would help no one. But if Léandre wasn't his True Love, who else was left to try? Claude felt even less for Régis and Yves; there was no point in working around the room kissing boys he knew for a fact he didn't love. Who was left? His eyes darted about the room, seeking a miracle or a sign of movement, and settled on the occupants of the thrones at the head of the hall: King Juste and Queen Osanne. Papa and Maman.
Claude knew without the slightest question that he loved them. Whatever his feelings about romantic love, whatever made him different from the star-crossed lovers in the bards' tales, he loved his family with all his being. Rising, he strode over to the thrones and stooped without hesitation to press a kiss to Maman's lips, the same kiss he'd given her every night of his life before his attendants bundled him off to bed: a kiss containing all the love he held in his heart for her. A kiss of truest, deepest, bestest love.
He waited with tears in his eyes for her to move. She slept on.
Kneeling beside her throne, Claude struggled to steady his breathing and remain calm. What had been the exact words of the curse? He closed his eyes and let his lips move through rote memory. 'Her sleep will last until she is awakened by true love's kiss, and then all shall be restored.' Claude wasn't a she, and moreover he wasn't asleep and therefore couldn't be awakened. His problem wasn't that he didn't love Maman, but rather one of gender and sleeping arrangements: things over which he had no control. Claude felt a silent scream bubble in his throat. Was this his doom: to live out his life alone in a silent castle, everything around him unmoving?