by Kirsty Logan
Now, you and I both know that this is only a story, and in reality the empress always calls the tigers to feast on the hapless adventurer. But this visitor is not like the others, and so perhaps the story that only the empress knows will come true. If all goes to her plan, she will have her freedom.
Ah – the empress and the traveller have made it to the dining hall, and we must rejoin them. If you were walking these halls you may have found yourself marvelling at the arched ceilings, or the gilt along each window-ledge, or the wondrous icy sheen of the tiled floor. You may have even found yourself swooning at the rich scents of cardamom and coconut milk from the dining room – or was that from the empress’s perfumed throat?
But not the traveller. She is reminding herself about her blade, and how important it is to keep it close, and so she barely notices the glory of the palace or of her companion. She can scent her destiny on the air. Every step she has ever taken has led her here. To the palace. To the empress.
You may as well eat, says the empress, and then you may as well sleep.
For tomorrow, you see, she plans to walk out of the palace and leave the traveller in her place. But the traveller knows nothing of this. She lifts her golden spoon and prepares to feast.
INTERIM
The traveller keeps her hand on her dagger all night, but the tigers do not come. They do not come the following night, or the one after that.
Each night the traveller and the empress lay awake, fighting their own battles – one for a palace, the other for freedom – but each morning the dawn creeps in. They spend their days together, wandering the length of the entrance hall and discussing the meanings behind the stories painted on the walls. Every evening, after the sun slips into the forest, they surround themselves with flickering lamps and dip their hands into bowls of delicacies, their fingertips sugared and salted, their tongues numb with flavour. And then when they cannot speak for yawning they retire to their rooms, sure that tomorrow will be the day that it all ends.
And so the days became weeks, and the weeks became months – and still the tigers do not come, and still the empress does not leave. The empress and the traveller enjoy this life, and if they could choose they would wish it to continue. But they do not have that choice. Stories always have an ending.
THE EMPRESS
In the first few weeks of the traveller’s company, the empress tries to catch her reflection in the oil-pearled surface of her bathing water, terrified that her glamour is fading. But she can never see herself clearly. The only way she can know how she looks is to check the response on the traveller’s face – but the width of that smile never changes. So perhaps the empress has not changed either. If her false glamour is all anyone can see, who can say that is not her true face? The traveller is beautiful too, with her earth-brown eyes and muscles hard as cashew nuts. She will be a most comely phantom, the empress tells herself, and the tigers will be glad to have a new queen.
One night, sitting cross-legged on cushions with the lamps painting the traveller’s skin in licks of honey, the empress hears a sound like a heavy curtain pulled back, and knows it is the sound of fate. She has been a beast for so long, and she is tired of trickery and glamour. She wants only this: to rest, to breathe, to live as if it were a choice. The traveller fills the silence.
The tigers, the traveller says. They have not come.
The empress puts down her cup and places her hand on the peak of the traveller’s knee.
No, the empress says.
If I cannot fight the tigers, then I cannot win. The story cannot end.
The empress sighs and gets to her feet, standing tall so that her face is in shadow. She feels a chill around her shoulders and arms, as if the lamplight is a circle of warmth and everything outside it is frozen.
And so I cannot lose? asks the empress.
You may be wondering why the traveller did not try to end the story. Why she did not call for the tigers herself, whip out her machete and paint the walls with blood. But I have not been entirely honest with you about the traveller’s reasons for her journey.
You see, the traveller knows the old story, the one she had seen in her picture books and heard at the fireside. She has been in love with the palace since she was a child, but now she loves the empress too. Most importantly of all, she knows that stories are what you make of them.
I know the story, the traveller says. You must trick me, because I am a woman like you, and that means I can be tricked. Then I take your place in the palace and you are free to leave.
The empress does not know what role the traveller is now playing, so she keeps quiet, her face in the shadows.
But what if I agree to stay? asks the traveller.
Then you would become –
A beast?
They both glance up in expectation of the tigers’ distant roar, but no sound comes. The tigers are not there. Perhaps they were never there.
I will stay, says the traveller, if you do.
Impossible! says the empress. Don’t you see? There can never be two beauties. There must always be a beast.
But the traveller’s mind is made up. She had decided before she even set foot in the forest that this would be her ending. She knows that there are more reasons to go than stars in the sky, and only one reason to stay – but the empress gleams so brightly, and who can see the stars when the sun is out?
She takes the empress’s hands in her own, leaning forward so that their mouths touch. They stay like that for a long time, until she has swallowed all of the empress’s objections, all her arguments and trickeries. There remains nothing but the closeness of strange and familiar skin. As dawn begins to slip its soft fingers through the windows, the traveller pulls away and takes the empress into her arms.
And so, she says, we will both be beasts.
THE COMPANIONS
To the empress the night passed faster than a blink. Yet her muscles ache from being held so still and she can feel the gift of the traveller’s lips against her own. She wants this to be their story – the press of mouth on mouth, the touch of skin – but she has never heard of such a thing. A story does not exist if no one has ever told it. Stories have authority; they cannot just be created from nothing.
You still wish to stay? she asks.
The traveller nods.
Go outside and look again, continues the empress. Then tell me you would stay.
They link hands and walk the length of the palace. The traveller pauses in the great hall, savouring the last time she will see the beauty of the storytelling tiles or feel the coolness of the air.
I will look, she says. But I know that I will stay.
She steps outside, into the deep cool of the shadows, and looks back at the palace. It still stretches to the sky, up up up as far as she can see. The windows still gleam green-blue-pink-orange.
She steps back inside. The air feels fresh and smells of summer rain. The ceiling gleams sun-white and the storytelling tiles are as bright as ever. The only thing that has changed is the expression on the empress’s face.
She stands in the centre of the hall, gazing at the palace in wonder. She knows that she sees the palace as the traveller does, and that this is its true form. All around the entrance hall, each tile tells her a story of someone who had lived in the palace before. She sees each one clearly; each with its own beginning, middle, and end. They all left for the same reason that she wishes to stay.
I remember, she whispers.
Outside the palace, the forest sinks to the ground, smoothing out into soft emerald fields. The moat uncurls into a sparkling river, busy with fish. And there, ready to travel down the river to anywhere in the world, is a boat just big enough for two.
Once upon a time there was an empress, trapped as a ghost in the ruins of a jewelled palace, cursed to find another soul to take her place. At least, that’s what the empr
ess heard. But, as it turned out, stories can have any ending you like.
Author’s Note
Thanks to Mama and Papa Logan for always believing in me, and to Ross for the motivation of sibling rivalry.
Thanks to Annie Bennett for being my inspiration.
Thanks to Helen Sedgwick and Katy McAulay for workshops, wine, and not laughing at my terrible early drafts.
Thanks to Susie McConnell for four years of love and support.
Thanks to Aly Barr, Gavin Wallace and Emma Turnbull for always introducing me as a writer first and intern second.
Thanks to Cathryn Summerhayes for the badass agent powers.
Thanks to Chris, Jen and Tabitha from Salt for making this book so beautiful.
Thanks to Caitrin Armstrong at the Scottish Book Trust, Adele Patrick and Sue John at the Glasgow Women’s Library, Joe Melia at the Bristol Prize, Judy Moir, Roxane Gay, Zoë Strachan, Louise Welsh, and everyone else who has helped and supported me over the years. Big kisses.