He had long spent his nights in the academy’s library, waiting until after dark when he could sift through the ancient tomes unobserved, researching his ability. He’d practiced in secret, only on insects and small animals up until now. Practicing felt almost like a formality, though. His gift came so easily to him, he was sure he could use it on any animal, large or small, and even on a human.
Roland met up with two of his friends, both fellow students at the School of Battle Magic. The two of them were also among the top of his class. He wouldn’t have suffered the presence of anyone less.
“Where have you been, Roland? We’re going to be late,” chided one of them, a boy named William.
“Don’t worry, the classes don’t truly start until we get there,” smirked Roland.
In spite of his words, Roland picked up his pace. He’d lost track of time as he often did when thinking of his gift. It was because of this quickened pace that he collided head on with a servant girl as he turned a corner. She’d been carrying a large sack full of what appeared to be food waste. A good portion of that food waste was now all over Roland’s clothes.
“How could you be so careless?” He growled.
“I…I’m so sorry,” the servant stammered.
Roland was angry. A simple apology was not going to do. She needed to learn to be more careful. He knew just the way to teach that lesson. “You are no better than a barnyard pig, spewing scraps everywhere.”
As he spoke, the servant girl’s face changed. Her nose morphed into the round, flat nose of a pig, and her ears grew until they were the broad pointed ears of a pig. She brought her hands up and her expression turned to one of horror as she felt her nose and realized what Roland had done to her.
Roland surveyed his handiwork with satisfaction. He’d been right. Using his gift on a human had been easy.
“Just be glad I didn’t also give you a curly tail,” he told the servant girl as he pushed past her.
As he did, he saw that Erysande, his instructor for Incendiary Magic, was standing at the end of the hall. She had probably seen the whole thing. It didn’t matter, Roland decided as he made his way to his next class. Everyone was going to find out soon enough. He glanced back at his friends who he suddenly realized hadn’t said a single word since the incident. Both of them looked at him with fear in their eyes.
***
Roland came to his senses with a start. It took him a few moments to get his bearings. The lake water lapping against his slimy skin and the wind blowing a melody through the reeds helped him remember where he was. In the next instant, the realization of what he had been and what he had done swept over him with such a terrible agony that he almost cried out in pain. More than anything he wanted to reach into the past and change what had happened on that day at Westhaven, but he knew it wasn’t possible. It was too late to change the past, and now it was too late to forget. This memory was the worst of all, worse than being changed into a frog, worse even than being abandoned by his father. Perhaps it wouldn’t have stung so much if the servant girl that he’d treated with such cruelty hadn’t been a familiar face, but as soon as he was able to look back at the memory with clarity he recognized her instantly.
The servant girl was Clara.
CHAPTER 8
Clara could tell that there was something wrong with Roland just by the dejected way he was moving. She definitely intended to find out what the problem was, but she decided to give him a chance to tell her what it was before she got confrontational. She smiled warmly. “Hello Roland.”
Roland froze. His mouth opened as though he had something to say, then closed again.
“Are you OK?”
“I deserve this,” he said softly, head hung low. “I deserve to be a frog, no, I would rather be a frog, than be the monster I had been before the curse.
Clara knew exactly what had brought this on. “You had another memory, didn’t you?”
“I remembered what I did to you.”
“Hmmm,” Clara said, “I wondered when you would.” It had been a long time since Clara had thought about that night. There’d been a time when she’d have been glad to hear about all the ways that Prince Roland had suffered, but that time had passed, and she’d made many mistakes of her own since then.
“You must hate me.” Roland couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eye.
“Don’t be ridiculous. It was a long time ago. I don’t hate you. What you did was vile, but you didn’t deserve to be cursed to live as a frog forever.”
“Do you forgive me?” Roland looked up at her and she thought that she could see pleading in his frog eyes.
Clara wasn’t sure if the truth would hurt him, but she decided to tell it anyways. “It’s hard to think of you as the Prince Roland who was cruel to me. You’re just so different now. Every now and then there’s a moment where I see him, in an overly confident remark or a biting jest, but for the most part he is gone and in his place there is you, the frog I consider my friend.”
She wasn’t quite sure when it had happened, when he’d gone from being the pathetic, whiney creature whose help she needed to achieve her goals, to being someone she considered a friend, but she knew that the words she spoke were true.
Roland didn’t speak for a while, and his frog features hid his feelings from her.
“Thank you, Clara,” he said at last.
“All is forgiven. I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
***
The princess and her suitor came back again that evening. Roland swam across the water to the far shore of the lake in order to spy on them. A frog as large as he was wasn’t completely inconspicuous swimming through the open water, but the princess and the boy were far too interested in each other to notice him.
Once he reached the shore, the reeds provided a convenient place for him to hide. With only his eyes above the water and the plants for cover, he was nearly invisible as he crept close enough to the couple to hear their conversation. Clara had told him to find out more about the boy. Unspoken in her request was the fact that she was too afraid to go back to the academy to ask around and find out for herself.
The boy was playing his lyre while the princess looked at him with adoring eyes. Both of them were wearing the uniforms of the School of the Arts, but the boy’s collar was dark green, indicating that he was in his fourth year at the school. Whatever it was he was studying, Roland hoped it wasn’t musicianship, since after four years at a school he ought to be better than he was.
Roland could remember the musicians that his father employed at his court and how deftly they could play. He could hear the music from his room in his father’s castle, and it was something he’d missed when he’d come to Westhaven. While it pleased him that he was able to recall this tidbit from his past, he also didn’t think it fair that he couldn’t relive this particular memory, instead of the traumatizing ones that he’d been forced to experience.
At last the plucking of strings stopped as the song thankfully came to an end.
“That was beautiful,” said Princess Adela. “What do you call that song?”
“That one is Adela’s Song,” said the boy.
The princess’ eyes lit up with joy. “You wrote it for me?”
The young man gave her a sly smile in return. He moved closer to the princess, but as his lips got close to hers, she pulled back and asked, “Would you play the one you played yesterday? I haven’t been able to stop thinking about how lovely it sounded.”
Roland almost gave himself away by laughing out loud at the young minstrel’s slight rebuff. Somehow he managed to keep himself composed. It was probably the due to the fact that the dreadful lyre was starting up again and instantly his spirits were dampened. Laughter was out of the question when that thing was going. Soon, however, the boy began to sing, and unlike his skill with his instrument, his voice wasn’t half bad.
The boy sang of love, and of all the things that he would do for his lady love. Roland tried his
best to dwell on feelings of disgust at the saccharine lyrics, but the more the boy sang the more Roland thought of Clara. Roland watched the princess gazing at the minstrel with adoring eyes. No one would ever look at a frog that way. Roland was sure of this.
Clara had already made it clear that she thought of him as a frog, not even a man, much less the prince he had been before his enchantment. At the time she had spoken the words, Roland had been so grateful to hear that she didn’t hold a grudge against him that he hadn’t had time to dwell on the downside of her confession. But as the song went on, the lower his heart sank. It wouldn’t always be this way, Roland promised himself. He’d be a prince again soon. In fact, his salvation was sitting right over there listening to a terrible song.
I’d scale a castle wall
to win your love so true.
There’s nothing at all
for you I would not do.
It really was quite a hideous and ridiculous song, Roland thought. In his next thought, however, he was wondering how Clara would react if he sang it to her. Not as a frog, of course, but after the curse was broken. Would it cast the same spell on her as it had on the princess? She would laugh at him, that’s what she would do, he concluded. Even as a human Roland couldn’t carry a tune, and he knew it.
The song ended and when the minstrel moved in for a kiss, once again the princess thwarted him. The boy didn’t seem to let it bother him, however, as he started right into another song.
Roland plunged his head under the water. As much as he enjoyed watching the boy get rebuffed by the princess, it didn’t make up for the terrible music. Roland decided he’d witnessed enough of that scene to last him a good while. He held his breath and swam underwater for as long as he was able. He had put a considerable distance between himself and the couple by the time he came up for air.
***
Clara was waiting at the camp when Roland came hopping back. She was surprised to see him so soon. He’d only been gone a few minutes.
“Well?” she said. “Did you find out the boy’s name?”
“Um, not exactly. She didn’t call him by name while I was there, not that it would have mattered. She was probably going to call him smoopsie pooh or puddin’ bear or something like that, anyway.”
“So what did you find out?”
“I found out that the boy has terrible taste in music, and the princess has terrible taste in suitors. The entire thing was difficult to watch.”
Clara sighed wearily. She knew she shouldn’t be surprised that Roland had accomplished exactly nothing. “Maybe you’d better brush up on your balladeering skills. That seems to be the trick.”
Roland groaned. “If that is the only way to her heart, I’m doomed.”
“She doesn’t have to love you, she just has to kiss you.”
It was Roland’s turn to sigh. “She won’t even kiss that minstrel boy. She certainly isn’t going to kiss me, love or not.” The sad look on Clara’s face caused Roland to add optimistically, “Perhaps if she came here alone, things would be different.”
Clara knew that Roland was right, and as scared as she was about going to back to Westhaven, it was what must be done. “I’ll see what I can do about that.”
“I didn’t mean for you to risk yourself by going to the academy. We can figure out something to do from right here. Perhaps a diversion of some sort, or maybe we can make him think that she’s being attacked by wolves and he will rush to her aid, leaving her unattended.”
Clara raised an eyebrow. “Attacked by wolves?”
“My plan is not yet fully formed.” Roland shrugged.
“Well, you keep working on it then.” Clara stifled a laugh. The fact that Roland considered her to be the one with all the bad plans never ceased to amuse her.
“I most certainly will.”
Roland began to hop away and Clara was surprised to note that she felt a tinge of disappointment and wished he would stay and talk a while longer. He was her only source of companionship and conversation, even if he was a frog. Furthermore, he’d been better company as of late, as he seemed to be making a special effort to be more agreeable.
Roland stopped suddenly and hopped back. Clara was glad for it, but she did her best not to let Roland know. She gave him her customary polite smile.
“You know,” he said, “perhaps it’s a bit early to go back to the lake. That minstrel boy might return to his playing and then I’d just need to leave all over again.”
“I guess you’d better stay here for a while,” Clara agreed. She didn’t fail to notice the look of joy that washed over Roland’s frog face when she said this.
Roland hopped back over until he was sitting beside her. “It occurs to me,” he said, “that you know quite a lot about me, but I know very little about you. I would like very much to know more about the girl who traveled so far to find me.”
Oh no, thought Clara. She wouldn’t have so easily agreed to his continued presence if she’d known this was going to be an interrogation. “What do you want to know?” she asked hesitantly.
“Everything!” said Roland much too eagerly. “I want to know your likes and dislikes, your habits and peculiarities, your hopes and your dreams.” Roland must have seen stricken look on her face because he quickly added, “Forgive me, I was just…trying out a line I was thinking I might use on the princess. Not a good idea, I think.”
If Clara didn’t know better she would think that Roland was starting to have feelings for her that went beyond friendship. But this was Prince Roland she was dealing with, and he was cursed, but not that cursed. Prince Roland would never be enchanted enough to think of her that way. “You need to be more specific, Roland.”
Roland sat silent for a moment, thinking to himself. “Alright,” he finally said, “more specific it is. How is it that you knew exactly where to find me?”
A truthful answer to that question would require revealing things to Roland that she preferred he never find out. On the other hand, he had an uncanny ability to know when she was lying. Before she could change her mind, she began telling Roland the truthful answer to his question. “The witch Eylsande has been keeping an ear to the ground for your whereabouts these past two years. When word reached her that an overly large frog was sometimes seen in the creek near Falbrook, she sent me to see if it was you.”
Roland looked at her, eyes wide. “She sent you? You work for the witch?”
“Well, considering I betrayed her by plotting her demise with you, I’m probably out of a job.” Clara smiled at her attempt to lighten the mood, but Roland still sat dumbfounded.
“She wasn’t always so bad,” Clara continued. “She fixed my face. After what you…what happened to me, I thought I was to live as an outcast for the rest of my life, but she fixed me.”
“I was planning to undo what I did,” Roland huffed. “I wouldn’t have left you a freak forever. Even before I was cursed, I wasn’t that bad.”
“In any case, I was grateful to her. So grateful, in fact, that I didn’t hesitate to say yes when she offered me a job as her assistant. I’d only been a serving girl before. To be the assistant to an instructor at Westhaven was quite a step up in station. Looking back now, I can see that she only offered me the job as a way of keeping me close and making sure I didn’t reveal her secret to anyone.”
“I guess all of this explains why the witch would recognize you across the courtyard. So,” he said, “why did the witch send you to find me? To make sure that I was but a mere husk of my former self?”
Clara took a deep breath. Roland hadn’t seemed to like her answer to his first question. He certainly wasn’t going to like her answer to this one. “She sent me to bring you back here to join her menagerie. It never sat well with her that she let you get away, and the further into darkness she fell, the more she wanted you found.”
“I see,” said Roland.
Clara searched Roland’s amphibious features to see how much more he was ready to hear. Even if she thought
he was ready to hear it, she wasn’t sure she could speak it. Roland looked back at her and she turned away, unable to meet his eyes.
As Erysande had fallen into darkness, she had followed right along with her. She had covered up the witch’s crimes and helped her plot new ones. If Roland knew half of what she’d done, he would never see her the same way again. The thought made her heart sink. She once would have thought it absurd that she should care about the opinion of a cursed frog, especially one who had been cursed for his misdeeds towards her.
“Perhaps that is enough questions for one evening,” Roland said.
Clara tried not to let her relief show too much on her face. She glanced down at Roland, hoping to see if she could find any indication of the damage that her revelations might have done to their friendship, but she found his frog features too difficult to read.
Then Roland did something that amazed her. He placed his little frog hand on top of her hand. For the first time Clara found that his touch was not accompanied by a wave of disgust.
“When we win, and we will win,” he said, “no one will remember that you used to work for the witch, they’ll only remember that it was you who brought her to justice.”
Somehow he had known the exact words she needed to hear. She swallowed hard to push back the tears that threatened to fall down her cheeks. For a brief moment he was no longer the cursed frog, nor was he a cruel prince. He was the noble protector she’d once imagined him to be when she’d been a serving girl and he had been the top of his class.
The illusion ended abruptly when Roland said, “I’m going to go catch some bugs. I’m hungry.”
Clara watched him hop away towards the dying light of the evening until he was out of sight. As she settled down for the night she doubled down on her resolve to go back to the academy tomorrow and see what she could do about convincing the princess to visit the lake alone. Roland needed her help and she needed redemption. She wouldn’t let her fear get in the way.
CHAPTER 9
A Kiss to Break the Spell Page 5