by Jack Heckel
Before he could finish, Rapunzel lunged at him with a shriek. Her long tapered nails reached toward Charming’s face like talons. No one moved, except for Will. He was suddenly standing in the middle of the melee, lifting Lady Rapunzel off the floor. Struggling with the twisting woman, Will managed to grunt out, “Perhaps . . . if we . . . adjourned . . . to a private chamber . . . all the parties . . . could just—please, that was me—calm themselves . . .”
Prince Charming rose to his feet, the rapidly reddening handkerchief still at his nose, and advanced on Will and Rapunzel. His face white with anger, the Prince roared at the woman, “I AM PRINCE CHARMING! That you could ever have imagined that I would consider you as anything more than a trifle, given your family, is delusional.”
This sent the lady into a frenzy of lashing fists and feet as she sought to break Will’s grip on her. With an enormous effort, Will wrapped Rapunzel up with one arm and put his other hand against Charming’s chest to keep him away. “This is not helping, Prince,” he grunted. “Please, both of you, try and control yourselves. We are at the King’s ball, let us have some—ouch—decorum. Perhaps, if you could leave while we calm the lady, Prince Charming, that would—please, Lady Rapunzel—be the best.”
The Prince seemed to swell with anger at this suggestion. “You are dismissing me?” Then he knocked Will’s arm aside and said in a dangerously low voice, “You dare to speak to me of decorum? You are barely off the farm and now would command me beneath my own roof? What right do you have to be here, and to lay claim to the crown? What is your lineage? You may have slain the dragon and returned the Princess, but you and your family are common, and low, and no matter the title, you will never be anything else!”
The room was alive with shocked murmurs. Lady Rapunzel gasped and stopped struggling. Will handed her to the Prince’s squire, who had popped out of the crowd like a magician’s trick. Will straightened himself to his true height, which was a half-head taller than the Prince. The only time Liz had seen her brother look this angry was when he’d faced down the townsfolk of Prosper. “Prince Charming,” Will said in a voice that made Liz cringe, “I have shown restraint till now out of respect for the King, but you will not speak about me and my family in that manner. It is time that you leave. NOW!”
The two men stood less than an arm’s length apart, each seething with anger. A ring of nobility had formed around them, but at the edge it began to part and, as Liz could see, the guards were clearing a path through the throng. Then the King’s herald boomed, “MAKE WAY! MAKE WAY FOR THE KING!” Perhaps he could stop this madness.
At the announcement, Will turned and took a step back, accidentally knocking into the Prince with the side of his shoulder.
Everything seemed to slow.
The Prince grabbed Will roughly and spun him back. Both men snarled in rage. Will lunged forward and the Prince reared back his fist to strike. With a loud scream of “NO!” Liz grabbed the Prince’s arm, hoping to stop the fight before it could begin.
The Prince, who was focused entirely on evading Will, flung his arm back to shake Liz off. Her feet slipped out from under her. One of the glass slippers shot out along the polished stone floor and into the crowd. There was a terrific tearing noise, and she fell back onto the ground. The fall did not hurt, but weighted down by the awkward bulk of the dress, Elizabeth found it impossible to rise again. Worse still, the wide hoops that made up the foundation of the garment suspended her skirts in the air, exposing the layers upon layers of lacy undergarments beneath. A stunned silence fell like a shroud on the gathered nobles. Only a moment, a heartbeat, passed before she felt hands, gentle and practiced, help her back to her feet.
Liz tried to compose herself, but even as her breathing calmed, she felt a draft across her midsection, and looking down saw that there was a wide tear along the side of the dress from her shoulder nearly to her waist revealing the sheer shift and laced corset beneath. Everyone was staring. She was flush with embarrassment, and felt tears burning her cheeks. Everything was ruined. Among the nobles at the edge of the circle, she saw the King, ashen faced. She could not let him see her like this. She pulled off the other glass slipper and ran.
She ran out of the ballroom. She heard the King, Will, and even Prince Charming all shout her name as one, but she didn’t care. Every eye in the ball was on her as she raced up the broad marble steps to the entry hall. Clutching the little shoe tightly against her breast, she ran through the castle halls. She ran and ran until she found her room. Locking the door behind her, Liz threw herself on the bed, and did the only thing she could do. Cry.
Chapter 7
Weaving a Tangled Web
THE MORNING AFTER the ball dawned gloriously. The sun rose above the distant mountains, sending waves of golden light spilling along the soft green folded hills that cascaded down from the eastern end of the castle. Birds nesting in the flowering vines that clung to the tower walls burst into song at first light.
On this beautiful morning, Will Pickett found himself sitting in bed, half awake and terribly hungover, his sister pacing back and forth across his room, doing what she did best, lecturing him about his behavior. That she had been crying all night was evident from her puffy eyes and the hoarseness of her voice; and given everything that had happened, Will couldn’t blame her, which was also why he hadn’t thrown her out . . . yet. Will wrapped his pillow around his aching head, hoping it would defend him against the constant hammering of his sister’s voice, but she ripped the pillow out of his hands and shouted—really shouted.
“WILLIAM PICKETT! You may not mind being thrown into the dungeon, or having your head removed from your body, but I didn’t spend the last ten years of my life keeping you alive to see you die because you were too much of a fool to listen.”
A wave of pain and nausea rippled through his body. “Come off of it, Liz. No one’s going to die. And, please, quit shouting! I’ll listen. If you quit shouting, I’ll listen. I promise.”
She tapped her foot hard on the ground, and he turned his head to stare at it until she stopped. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, all right, I won’t shout, though I daresay you deserve it.”
He opened his mouth to point out that it was the King, not he, that had insisted that the Lord Protector attend three separate after-ball fêtes; nor was it he that had initiated the dozens of toasts he had been forced to answer. But all that came out was a dry croak, so he cleared his throat and whispered.
“Okay, explain to me again why it is that we have to run away when the whole kingdom is celebrating us, and toasting us, and dancing with us.” Despite his throbbing skull, Will smiled at the memory of his night with the Princess, that golden hair, those crystal blue eyes, her soft body.
Liz rolled her eyes. “You’re thinking about the Princess again, aren’t you? What would your girlfriend, Gretel, say? Didn’t you promise her your undying affection not more than a month ago?”
He swallowed some life back into his voice. “Gretel? Gretel is really just a friend. Besides, she would understand that a fellow in my position—”
“Your position? Your position? You’re as bad as the Prince.”
Will didn’t want a sermon on fidelity. “Is that what this is all about, Liz? The Prince? Is that why you want us to run?” Her lips thinned dangerously, but his head hurt too much to care anymore. “Look, I know what he said about me, about us. Last night was bad. You were embarrassed, and if I knew how to duel, I would.”
Her voice, cold as a winter frost, cut him off, “No, you would not, William Jack Pickett.” He winced at the use of his full name. That was never a good sign. “But let me answer your question. We have to leave because people have been celebrating YOU, and toasting YOU, and dancing with YOU, and offering YOU the CROWN, because they think YOU killed the dragon. What the Prince said to you at the ball was vile and hateful, but it was also true. We are nobodies, from a poor family, and we h
ave done nothing to deserve our place in this castle.”
Will could feel the heat rise in his face. He sat up a little straighter, which seemed to put more strength into his voice. “You’re the one that is always reminding me that we are the descendants of lords and ladies. And what about the Princess? I did rescue the Princess. Does that count for nothing?”
Liz sat down on the edge of the bed, the pillow clutched tightly in her hands, and spoke softly. “Yes, we are, and, yes, you did, and you deserve something for that—but you didn’t fight a dragon, you didn’t kill the dragon. Will, don’t you see, they think you’re a great warrior, a hero.”
“I never said I was. All I said was—”
“Don’t play that game with me, William,” she said sharply. “Don’t think for a moment I haven’t thought the same excuses a hundred times. ‘We never said he killed the dragon, people only assumed it.’ ‘All I said was that his pitchfork killed the dragon, that’s different.’ ‘We haven’t lied, only not told the whole truth.’ ”
He felt a little sick as she counted off on her fingers each of the justifications he’d been clinging to for the last few weeks. He had to admit, spoken aloud they sounded pathetic.
Tears welled in Liz’s eyes, though she held them back as she spoke. “The fact is that we’ve been lying. Your scarecrow killed the dragon, and he only managed that because you were too lazy to put your pitchfork away. We’re the swindlers, Will. We’ve been the ones bending and twisting the truth to convince the King that we can spin gold from straw. He sees you as his son, Will, but even if he didn’t, what we are doing isn’t right.”
Liz sighed and set the pillow back on the bed next to him. Standing, she walked slowly across the room to where he had hung the tapestry from the dragon’s tower. Leaning close, she studied the stitched serpent and then turned back to him.
“Even if you care nothing for the King, think of the people of this kingdom. In their eyes, you are the Lord Protector—their protector. What does either of us know about protecting anybody? Apart from the little wooden toys Father used to make you as a boy, you’ve never held a sword. What happens if the people really need you to defend them from some new terror? Will you abandon your post, or will you keep this precious lie even if it means dying?”
She moved to the door and put her hand on the latch. “Back in our field in Prosper, you told me that you could not and would not leave the Princess to rot away in her prison. You were right, Will. You were right to go after her, and I was wrong. I admire you for making me do the right thing. Let me return the favor. I’m not going to tell you what to do. You are a grown man, and you need to make your own decisions. But we are farmers, Will, and like it or not, that’s all we know how to do. If you care at all for the people of this kingdom, if you care at all for the King, then you’ll go to him and tell him what really happened in that field—that the dragon died and that we did the best we could. But more importantly, that you did everything you could to make sure the Princess was safe and returned to him. I think the King will understand.”
He didn’t move, didn’t speak, as the door opened and then closed behind her. The sun rose higher in the sky, the sounds of horses and people joined and eventually drowned out the singing of the birds, and Will found himself still sitting in his bed, staring at the tapestry and thinking about the dragon and the lady stitched there.
Where was the Princess’s knight in shining armor? Did he exist, had he ever existed? Did she even care at this point?
PRINCESS GWENDOLYN WATCHED unseen from a deep alcove as Lady Elizabeth walked slowly down the hall away from her brother’s chamber. She replayed the siblings’ overheard conversation in her head again and again, the breakfast tray, originally meant for the Lord Protector, forgotten beside her. How long she stood in that dark corner she did not know, but the toast and tea were cold, and the eggs a congealed, inedible mass when finally she whispered, “It was all a lie, like everything else.”
She felt the hope she had been trying to build around him crumble into dust. He wasn’t true or trustworthy. No one in this accursed kingdom had even tried to save her. Absent a scarecrow, she would still be abandoned and forgotten, a discarded doll.
She sank to the stone floor and noticed in a detached way that her body was shaking and tears were rolling down her cheeks in little lines. She put out her tongue to taste the bitter saltiness. Is this sorrow also a lie? No, it is real. Even if her body still lay in the narrow stone bed atop the tower, and all the rest was illusion, the sorrow was with her as it always had been.
In times past, I ruled the courts. I bestowed favor with a glance and stripped status with a toss of my head. Now that I am a legend, the Princess rescued, I could use my beauty and my gifts to set things right. But I can’t set everything to right.
“I wish things could be different,” she whispered.
An answering whisper rode an icy current of air down the passage to her. “Rosslyn.”
“NO!” She gripped the chain around her neck and twisted until the metal bit into the flesh of her neck. “Never again . . . no more wishes.”
“Betrayed.” She muttered the word to herself like a prayer. “Every time, I am betrayed.”
The shadows lurking in the corners of the alcove, like children sensing a story, came away from the wall to crowd around her. Gwendolyn looked about at their half-formed faces and grimaced.
“My first wish was for true love,” she whispered weakly. She felt the gold chain bite more deeply into her neck and vaguely wondered how long it would take her to faint. “Then I wished to be a real fairy-tale princess, one that everyone would remember.” She could see that the shadows were enjoying her story, because laughing smiles in flickering patterns of light and dark kept appearing and disappearing on their faces. “And then I wished to be rescued, and to return to the world of the living. But ever am I betrayed. Rupert never loved me. My legend was purchased at the cost of my life. Even William Pickett was a lie, and he has brought me here but has left me alone and only half awake”—she paused and looked at her audience—“and surrounded by shadows.”
A dull burning ache spread across her neck. With a start, she remembered the necklace and released the pressure. A sensation like cold fingers raced across her scalp and she shivered at the feeling.
“Still, I suppose it is good to be awake,” she said. The shadows looked at her doubtfully.
“Perhaps,” she said looking past them and out into the sunlit hallway, “perhaps the problem is wishing. Wishes, like hope, are for the weak.” She tilted her head to one side and ran a hand through her long hair, wondering where that phrase had come from. Two of the shadows slipped behind her and began weaving the strands into a filigree of braids. She shivered at their cold touch, but did not protest. When she next spoke, it was to them. “The dragon whispered that to me in my sleep.”
While the shadows braided her hair and played at her feet, Gwendolyn reflected that, though cruel, at least the dragon had always been honest. “Oh yes, very honest. The dragon was always sure to tell me of important happenings. Rupert’s marriage, the birth of the Prince, the death of my parents, the anniversary of my capture.” She looked down at the necklace in her hands and a sudden inspiration struck her. “The dragon told me other things too, about history, magic, power . . . and fairy gold.”
She could hear the beast’s deep voice like the rumble of distant thunder in her memory. “The key is your lock, little princess. Fairies are not of this world, and their magics, though powerful, need a focus. They bind themselves to this world with their weaving. It is an ancient magic, but remember this, little princess, remember my words and you shall have the power to work your will on the world and make them pay for our imprisonment.”
Gwendolyn sat there for a moment, staring at the chain in her hand while a plan spun itself in her mind like a web. Then her vision flickered. She shook he
r head and looked about at the empty alcove and the unused breakfast tray beside her. The shadows shrank away, leaving a half-dozen dark splotches on the floor.
Why am I sitting here alone in the dark? I don’t need King Rupert, or Prince Charming or Lord William. I have my own power!
She was distantly aware of a deep sorrow lurking somewhere nearby, but that was the past. All she felt was a pleasant detached certainty, a certainty of action that made her stand and stride without a backward glance at the shadow-children returning now, watching her from the darkened alcove until she was out of sight.
As she made her way back toward her quarters, she considered the sudden change the morning had wrought. Last night she had made the decision to tie her fate to Lord William’s, to offer herself to him as wife and lover, and trust, hope, and . . . wish, she spit like a curse—yes, wish—she repeated with a silent snarl—wish and hope that he could fulfill the happily-ever-after she and her sister had been deprived of: to be Queen of Castle White.
This time would be different. This time, Gwendolyn Mostfair would not wait patiently and contentedly accept what was given. This time she would not put her faith in another and feel the sting of betrayal. No, this time she would seize her happily-ever-after. It would take preparation, but the dragon had taught her all she needed to know. The only problem was time.
Weaving the magic would take time, and to be a queen she needed a king. With Prince Charming disgraced, that left Lord William, which meant he had to be the Lord Protector until she became queen. But if Lady Elizabeth got her way, the two would likely be dead, imprisoned, or on the run by the end of the day. The long and short of it was that Lord William could not be allowed to confess to the King. She could not stop him seeking an audience, so the King would have to be removed. She stopped at the entrance to her chamber and said slowly, “But how?”