by Nina Clare
“Which one will be for Nel’s wedding ring?” I asked.
Beryl was still examining each one through her glass. I picked up a deep red stone and looked at it intently. “Where did this one come from?”
She glanced over.
“From the Mogo Valley. The stones are hidden in the hills. When the monsoon rains come, they wash over the hillsides, set them free, and carry them down to the valley floor where they settle into the river beds.”
I felt the familiar and faraway echo-song at the mention of distant hills and valleys whose riverbeds flowed with monsoon rains and jewels . . .
“This one, I think, Lapido,” said Beryl finally. She took the stone to him. “It has an unusual colouring.”
“Ah yes,” said Lapido, after he had studied it. “A beautiful colour—such a pink—with such a tint of orange—like a sunrise—like the fire of the sun as it rises up!” He turned back to his table. “You shall have a step cut, to let out your spark. Ah, the spark of the spinel!”
“And what stone will Nel’s prince have?” I asked.
“The drawer marked SPE.,” instructed Beryl.
I found the drawer.
“Spessartine,” she said, lifting the velvet cover from the stones. The cut stones lying on the black velvet were of many different shades of orange. She selected a deep-coloured one.
“Where is it from?”
“Nambibi. A hot, dry land where few people live, where few people have ever walked. To the east stretches a great desert—a sea of sand. To the south the Orange River flows down to the Great Sea.”
I listened to the music of the Orange River and the desert sea as I gazed into the colour of the spessartine. “It is like the colour of sunset,” I said finally.
“Sunrise for Nel, sunset for Spessartine,” replied Beryl. “A most perfect match.”
“Silence!” called Lapido.
Chapter Ten
It was the fourth evening of feasts—Amethyst’s.
Amethyst and her triplet sisters are as beautiful as Diamond, Almandine, and Nel. Many say they are even more beautiful. They have not the dark, glossy waves of our eldest sisters, but warm, soft, hazelnut curls that bounce charmingly about their necks in ringlets. And their eyes are not the dark chestnut brown of our father and our eldest sisters, but a deep mossy green ringed with long, dark lashes.
Amethyst was dressed in rich purple velvet, and had violets in her hair. Sapphire and Chalcedony, her triplets, were helping with the last arrangements to her gown and adjusting her crown so it sat straight and secure on her curly head. Everyone sighed in admiration of her loveliness.
“Oh, my heart is beating like a timbrel. I am so nervous!” Amethyst exclaimed, her hand pressed to her breast.
“As soon as you hear the musicians strike up, you will forget your nerves,” Sapphire reassured her.
Amethyst nodded in agreement.
“If I could just strum a ballad I would settle down,” she said. “That always calms me.”
“No time, dear,” said Beryl, appearing in our midst as Amethyst stretched a longing hand towards her lute.
The knock of the Master of the Banquet sounded at the door. Amethyst took a deep breath, then departed in all her splendour.
I watched just two rondels after supper, then I retired to Captain Heliotrope’s Projected and Actual Atlases.
I had hoped in vain that Beryl would forget about having a maid assigned to me, but the following morning there was a small, polite cough behind my curtained door. An equally small and worried-looking face peeked round at me.
“Excuse me, milady. I’ve brought your breakfast.”
I peered over my blankets. It was the girl I had seen in the library recently. She slipped round the curtain to appear in the doorway, carrying a tray.
“I am not awake yet,” I said irritably.
“I’m so sorry, milady.”
She remained standing in the doorway, looking uncertain. I sat up and rubbed my eyes.
“I was told to wait for you to give me orders, milady. Shall I help you dress, or arrange your hair?”
“Oh, I suppose so,” I said grumpily. “But I will breakfast first.” I pointed to the table near my bed to indicate where she should put the tray down.
“What is your name?” I asked, wrapping a bed shawl around my shoulders as I sat up.
“Rose, milady.”
“You do not have to call me milady every sentence. You may call me Princess, as everyone else does.”
“Yes, Princess.”
“How are you getting on with your maid?” Beryl enquired when I had escaped the post-ball chatter of my sisters and the pre-feast rush and bustle of the palace. I had slipped into the jewel house to see what new precious stones had arrived.
“She hovers around me,” I told her. “I do not like it. I never wanted a maid.”
“She does not know what her duties are,” said Beryl. “She is young and has no experience of being a ladies’ maid. You must train her.”
I squirmed on my stool in my discomfort. Lapido cast a dark look from across the chamber at my fidgeting, so I composed myself. Beryl was putting away a tray of purple stones.
“You have sorted the amethysts already?” I asked.
“I was here very early sorting them. Amethyst looks its best just after sunrise, when the light is soft.”
I could see Lapido was already marking out the piece of amethyst that had been chosen. “Good, good,” he murmured. “Strong hue. Deep tone. Excellent transparency. Exceptional distribution of colour—I will try something special.”
“What will you do, Lapido?” Beryl called.
“Lapido will try something new. A new cut—a cut designed by Lapido that has not been cut before—you will see!” He turned back to his work, still murmuring to his stone.
“Pass me the tray marked T.O.U.R., dear,” Beryl said.
When she lifted the velvet cover from the tray I found and placed before her, I gasped in pleasure. Though the spinels we had sorted yesterday were a rainbow of colours, these stones were yet more colourful—there was no colour or any shade or hue I could think of that was not there.”
“Tourmaline,” said Beryl. “For Prince Tom of Avaria.”
I recalled Amethyst’s excited talk of the prince she had met the night before and had become betrothed to that very morning. The prince who not only played the lute as well as she, but the dulcimer, the gemshorn, and the cornett.
“No stone has so many varieties of colour as the tourmaline,” Beryl told me as we admired them. “But this one is very rare.” She picked up a stone of deep green. “This has a good, strong colour. It will perfectly complement the amethyst.
***
The moon waxed gibbous and then began to diminish night by night as the remainder of my sisters’ feast nights came and passed as fast a two-step rondel.
Sapphire left our chamber in her gown of satin—the colour of a spring sky—with columbines in her hair, singing sweetly to herself to calm her nerves. She did not cease singing, so happy was she with her delightful betrothed: Prince Aventurine of Poska. Apparently he had the most wonderful tenor voice that harmonised beautifully with her sweet, clear contralto.
And the following evening, Chalcedony went down to her feast in dazzling splendour, wearing a gown the colour of sunshine, with yellow cosmos flowers pinned amongst her ringlets. The following morning, she was ecstatically betrothed to Prince Jasper of Svessenland. Already, in the course of their first meeting, they had managed to compose together some quatrains of a new harmony Chalcedony had been labouring to write the most perfect musical notations for since.
Emerald, Opal, and Heliodor are our third set of triplet siblings. They have the creamiest skin, the pinkest lips, eyes the colour of glowing amber, and hair of palest fawn falling straight and smooth as a waterfall down their slender backs. It has often been said they are even more beautiful than their six elder sisters.
They are the siblings I most liked to b
e with as we were growing up, for their gifts took them away from the study desks and music chambers of our eldest triplets, and outside into the palace grounds. Emerald was the best horsewoman in all the land. Opal had never once been beaten at the summer archery contests, while Heliodor could grow anything she put her green-fingered hands to, not that she would ever be caught with green fingers—fine leather gloves to protect her fair hands were a must. Heliodor had even, to the wonder of the palace gardeners, developed new varieties of herb-roberts and strawberries.
Emerald’s evening came first. She was like a goddess of spring in her green gown skillfully embroidered with leaves and golden flowers that glistened in the candlelight as she moved. Small evergreen leaves were woven into a wreath for her long, silky hair.
The next morning, she returned to us in raptures after learning she had been betrothed to Prince Hauyne of Humberland, who had no fewer than forty-four fine-bred stallions in his stables.
Opal wore a dress that drew gasps of admiration from us all. It shimmered with every colour of the rainbow as she turned and twirled before the looking glass. She was blissfully betrothed to Prince Prase of Foriana, who was the best archer in his kingdom, and was equally skilled in the arts of fencing, the use of the slingshot, the longbow, and the hurdler.
Heliodor was all-glorious in a golden gown and gillyflowers in her hair. She was euphorically betrothed to Prince Feldspar of Episola. She told us she knew he alone was the one for her when he happened to remove his gloves, revealing, much to his initial embarrassment, fingernails that despite much scrubbing were stained with ingrained earth. He confessed he had been unable to keep from secretly weeding the herb garden while residing at the manor house of Lord Grossular close by. And so it was that Lord Grossular’s unruly parsley bed helped set the seal of true love.
Finally, as the moon waned to a white crescent, there came the feast nights of our youngest triplets—Peridot, Cornelia, and Celestine. Each of them have the lovely golden hair and blue eyes of our mother.
Peridot is the eldest of the three. She wore green damask, and it was recounted that the remaining princes gasped in admiration when she entered the banquet hall, for they had not believed it possible there could be any further improvement in beauty on the nine princesses who had thus far eluded them as brides.
She was betrothed next day to Prince Rubellite of Ustra, who, from what she told us day and night, shared her love of art with full and equal ardour and had raptured through an entire Burgundian about the exact blend of ultramarine pigment with a hint of umber that would be required to capture the colour of her eyes.
Cornelia wore the softest shade of peach brocade, which illuminated her face with a most becoming glow. Her heart was won by Prince Ivor, of the kingdom of Northern Etally, when he recited her favourite love sonnet without flaw, and in the most silken of voices, or so she assured us.
And finally, there was Celestine.
Celestine wore a white dress, painstakingly beaded with tiny pearls, and white peony blossoms in her golden tresses. She was a vision of glowing moonlight and glimmering starlight—shimmering and dazzling—so delicate to behold that she did not seem earthly. Who could compare with her beauty? Who could look favourably on any other woman after seeing Celestine in all her glory? Who had to follow her the very next evening? Follow in the pearl-beaded, dance-slippered footsteps of the most radiant princess in all the known kingdoms? Follow on from her stunning conquest of the heart of Prince Malachite of Molovia, the heir to the wealthiest and most powerful of all the high kingdoms who shared her passion for all things literary? Who . . . ?
Me.
Chapter Eleven
“If I ’ave to crimp one more game pie or set one more custard tart, I’ll go mad!” I heard the plump pastry cook exclaim as I took a shortcut through the courtyard near the kitchens.
“I’ve plucked enough birds to stuff ten score mattresses these past days,” replied a young woman’s voice, that I recognised as one of the scullery maids. “I’ve got feathers in me ’air, feathers up me nose, feathers down me undies!”
“I’ve churned that much cream and butter these weeks, my arm’s fit to drop off!” complained a third woman. “I keep dreaming ’bout cows and cheeses!”
“Wish I had time to get enough sleep to dream ’bout anything,” grumbled the pastry cook. “I’ve never been so busy in all my days.”
“’T’will all be worth it to get the eldest princess wed and Old Poxy off the throne,” said an aged man’s voice. “While they’re lording it up and filling their paunches with their fine wheat flour and their plumped-up fowls, the rest o’ the kingdom’s grinding up acorns to make a scrap of barley flour go a morsel further.”
“The sooner Old Poxy’s gone, the better,” agreed the dairymaid.
“How do we know the new king will do us any good?” wondered the feather-plucking scullery maid aloud.
“He can’t be no worse,” said the old man. “When he sees the state of things, that the whole kingdom’s brewing for a rebellion, he’ll have to do something—and darned quickly. A mug or four o’ wine from the town square fountain and a currant bun on his wedding day ain’t going to hold off a mutiny for many moons.”
“The youngest princess has got to get herself a man first,” said the pastry cook. “Old Poxy made it law. They’ve all got to get themselves a betrothal afore the eldest can have a wedding. Most o’ the princes left this morning—who wants to marry a thirteenth child when there’s plenty of other royal maids in the kingdoms about?”
“And she ain’t as pretty as the others,” added the scullery girl.
“Too tall,” observed the man.
“Too sun-browned,” agreed the dairymaid. “Freckly as a farmer’s child.”
“Well, at least there’ll be a few less to bake for tonight,” said the pastry cook glumly.
My cheeks were burning. So, most of the princes had left that morning rather than have to partner with me at the ball that night. How could I not feel humiliated? I had hoped the curse of my unfortunate birth would not seem so significant to those from other kingdoms. But it would seem that was not so.
I was indeed most heavy in heart and soul as I made my way to the jewel house.
Beryl was sorting through milky-white and clear, glassy celestines. Even as she told me of how black-and-green striped malachite was mined from the sun-warmed lands of Guadongong—a land of rivers and volcanoes bordering the great South Chin-Chin Sea, I still felt heavyhearted. Not even the echo song of the waves of the Chin-Chin Sea could lift my spirits that morning.
***
Evening fell like a curtain of doom for me, and the long-dreaded process of beauty preparations began.
“You will not be able to each much at the banquet,” Diamond warned as a cluster of seamstresses approached with my newly made ball gown.
“I am never too nervous to eat,” I said stubbornly.
“It has nothing to do with nerves,” said Chalcedony.
“It is the corsetry,” Peridot explained. “The bodices are so tight you can hardly speak, let alone eat.” She rubbed her ribs as if she had not yet recovered from her own experience three nights earlier.
“I do hope our wedding gowns are not as tight,” worried Sapphire.
“It is the fashion from the high kingdoms,” said the Chief Royal Seamstress. “Extra-tight bodices give you a teeny-tiny waist.”
“I would rather be comfortable than fashionable,” I grumbled, warily eyeing the gown that was approaching.
“It won’t bite you, little sister!” said Opal with a laugh, seeing the look on my face.
Suddenly I was submerged in wave after wave of stiff underskirts as they were cast over my head in quick succession.
“Ouch!” I protested, as laces were pulled tight, but no one heard me, for the undergarments being pulled over my face muffled my voice.
“Breathe in,” ordered a seamstress. As I did, my bodice was pulled tight. It took three maids to thread and ti
e and pull and stretch my body into proportions of unnatural angles and shapes, such as I had never been squeezed into before.
“I cannot breathe!” I gasped.
“Nonsense,” said the chief seamstress. “And now for your beautiful gown.”
And on it went.
I was corded and laced and rearranged without mercy.
“There!” announced the chief seamstress as she spun me round by the shoulders to face the tall looking glass.
“Oh dear,” was all I could say.
I was a fluffy, lacey, fussy mound of frills.
“Could you not have made something simpler?” I moaned.
“We decided the frills would pretty you up,” said the senior seamstress while plucking at ribbons and straightening folds and pleats.
“You look . . . nice,” said Amethyst encouragingly but not convincingly.
“I look like the top of a syllabub!” I wailed.
“You do not,” said Nel.
But I could hear the doubt in her voice.
“Just wait until your hair is done,” reassured Cornelia.
My hair was already being tugged through combs with such force it made my eyes water.
“Loose, or piled on top?” I heard a hairdresser query.
“Loose,” replied another. “Piled up will make her look even taller.”
I never wore my hair loose; its wild mass got in my eyes and tickled my face. From earliest memory, I had always kept it plaited and out of my way. It was strange to see it now tumbling down about my shoulders.
Mine was not the glossy chestnut or soft hazelnut or wheaten gold of my sisters. Mine is not even any one colour. It is a common enough light brown with unsymmetrically distributed streaks of varying sun-bleached tones. It is most irregular hair. I have not the even waves or bouncing ringlets or perfect straightness of my sisters. It is neither quite straight nor neither quite wavy, but most disorderly in both movement and colour.
“In the north kingdoms, it is the fashion to pluck the hairline to give you a high, noble forehead,” one of the hairdressers informed us as she continued straightening my unruly locks into some kind of order. I just looked at her in disbelief.