by C. E. Murphy
Morning came early, and I awakened stiff and uncomfortable from sleeping on a rug. I groaned as I rolled over, and thought I heard a worried buzz from the invisible servants. "I wonder if you could have put me in bed," I said to their fussing.
The inaudible hum intensified. I creaked laughter and sat up. "I take it you couldn't, or thought you shouldn't. Well, if there's a next time, although I hope there isn't, you may. If you can."
Hairs stood up on my nape as they hummed at one another, or perhaps at me. Maybe they really couldn't lift a sleeping person from the floor. Maybe the only person in the palace who could was the Beast. My stomach turned over with nerves, and I concluded that invisible servants carrying me around were one thing but a Beast was something else entirely. "All right," I whispered. "Leave me on the floor, then. I'll try to get to bed next time, instead."
The inaudible hum faded, letting me relax. The clinking of china and glassware told me that a meal had appeared somewhere in the room, so I climbed to my feet and went to indulge, again, in crisp bacon. We hadn't had bacon at all since leaving the city, and it had never been this good. Enchanted bacon was a more prosaic use of magic than I had ever imagined, but one I entirely approved of.
I left my bedroom more apprehensively than I had the previous morning, as if the castle might aggressively besiege me with visions again. If, in fact, they had been visions at all: I had certainly known the story I'd been part of. It was the Queen's War, the one that had defined our country and staved off invasion so very long ago. I had been Queen Irindala in it, with the weight of a sword comfortable in my hand. No story I'd ever heard had told of the burying of the king's bones, though, or the blood sacrifice to build our kingdom's borders. But then, enchantment belonged to faeries or witches, and was considered suspect within our realm. Even if the queen was known to have witchy associates—and she was, else she would never have lived such an improbable span—she would not have been likely to confess to casting a spell, even to protect our borders.
My feet had taken me not to the breakfast room, but outside the palace. I looked up at it now, myself a small and solitary thing standing in the snow before its great edifice, and wondered at how long it had been there. It seemed that it must have stood since the Queen's youth, at least; it was as if the palace carried living memories of that time. And it had that library full of ancient, rescued books. Maybe the palace—or some version of it, at least—had been here always, collecting memories and stories that would otherwise be lost. Perhaps I could find my way into a corridor that would tell me of Boudicca, or one that would know the tale of the physician Al Shifa.
Maybe, a small and quiet part of me thought, maybe I could find a room that would let me know my long-dead mother, although Father still carried her memories with him, so perhaps they weren't lost enough for the palace's enchantments.
I was outside anyway, so I went past the frozen pools toward the gardens where so much trouble had begun. There were other fresh footprints in the snow: the Beast had come this way since the end of the storm. I put my foot into one of his prints and puffed a steamy breath of awe into the cold air. He'd been walking on all fours, which changed the shape of what pressed into the snow, but my foot still fit tidily into one of his paw prints. If he'd been walking upright I'd have been able to put both feet, heel to toe, into the print, and probably had room to spare.
The rose garden looked more gnarled than I remembered it from only a few days ago, but I hadn't been paying the closest attention, by the end of it all. I wandered its paths, rubbing my palm in memory of the prickles I'd taken, and did not pick any roses. After a while I went back to the library, where tea and scones with strawberry jam awaited me, and I wondered aloud if perhaps a book or two on perfumery might be found.
By the time I'd settled by the fire with my scones, a tidy stack of books and scrolls had arrived on the nearest table. I chose a scroll and unrolled it, then screwed my eyes shut as the text on it danced and swam. A second look rendered it perfectly readable, and I made a note to myself that I should probably always open a book and glance away briefly before trying to read it. Then I laughed. "How easily we adapt to enchantment, hm?"
The under-the-skin hum buzzed at that, and I smiled, this time apologetically. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make light of your situation." The scroll held a recipe for a perfume called khemet, made with cinnamon and myrrh and sweet wine, though the properties of the wine weren't described beyond its sweetness. I said, half to myself and half to the palace, "I don't suppose any of this particular sweet wine is lingering in the cellars," and put the scroll aside to examine others.
Nearly all of them contained recipes I didn't know, but many of those required ingredients I was confident of finding in the kitchen or on the grounds, come the thaw. I found myself talking to the library about them, explaining what I knew about how the scents combined, or the differences in practicality for a wax-based perfume versus a liquid one. I whiled away the afternoon in that pursuit, narrowing the scents I wanted to create—first, at least—down from dozens to three. I sighed contentedly and stacked the unneeded books together, thanking the servants as the books returned to their shelves one by one, and gathered the three I wanted to bring back to my room.
The khemet recipe scroll, which I thought I'd put away, wobbled at the edge of the table. Beside it stood a bottle no taller than my hand, so old that embedded dust had pitted the glass. My head snapped up and I looked around the room in astonishment, as if I could lay eyes on the servant who had delivered the little bottle. There was no one there, of course, so I picked the bottle up, gently tilting it to watch the wine inside shift. "Stars of earth and heaven. Thank you. How did you…thank you!"
My treasures clutched carefully in my arms, I left the library with a sense of satisfied servants in my wake.
I was late to dinner, and came down smelling of a peculiar enough array of herbs and spices that the Beast's nose twitched, though he didn't say anything. Dinner didn't taste quite right, either, with strong scents still clinging to my hands, even though I'd washed them with soap and then with lemon water. Eventually, as if testing uncertain waters, the Beast said, "You've found a way to entertain yourself?" and unleashed two or three hours of enthusiastic lecture on the topic of perfume-making. To his credit, he retained the appearance of interest, and it was only when my own stomach rumbled with a consideration of dessert that I realized the Beast had probably not eaten at all.
When the demand was put to him, he only shrugged. "I can eat later. It's been a long time since I've had anyone to converse with. Or," he amended, with what might have been the hint of a smile, "to converse at me."
"You should still eat," I said firmly, aware I sounded like Opal fussing over the boys when they were ill. "I'll look away, or pretend not to watch, but if I'm going to be here forever it's ridiculous for you to not have dinner with me."
The Beast gave me a measured look. "You are adapting very well."
"I believe I may be in some sort of denial." That was true enough: I couldn't really imagine remaining at the Beast's palace forever. Thinking about it, though, made it seem too real, so I added, more lightly, "Also, there are books. I've missed reading, the past year. Apple pie, perhaps?"
To my relief, the Beast responded with precisely the right amount of solemn pedantry: "I have never read an apple pie."
I smiled. "To eat. As an experimental meal shared. No one expects pie to be eaten tidily; it's too delicious."
The Beast, playing the role of pedant perfectly, said, "Ah," with only the gravest hint of humor, as if my explanation had been entirely necessary. I giggled beneath his continued, "I haven't had apple pie in…a very long time. My tastes run more toward the carnivorous. And I haven't had dinner."
"I might submit, Master Beast, that you are quite old enough to decide that once in a while, dessert might come before dinner." He cast a glance at me, and I, following with uncomfortably great precision where his thoughts ran, threw my palm off to stave off h
is words. "No. I am not dessert, and I won't sleep with you."
That time there was no doubt that the curl of his lip indicated humor, as a low rumble of laughter rolled from his chest. "Then I suppose I'll have to try some apple pie."
Unexpectedly delighted, I clapped my hands together and said, "May we please have some apple pie?" to the room, which developed a sense of bustling off to do a job. "Can you feel it when they talk to each other? That buzz that settles under the skin?"
The Beast quirked an eyebrow and shook his head. "You do?"
"Obviously, or I wouldn't have asked. I wonder if you've gotten used to it, or if you're too magical yourself to notice."
"Perhaps," the Beast suggested dryly, "they don't talk to each other around me."
"Do you talk to them?"
His startled look was sufficient answer to the question. I said, "Well then," as if the problem was obvious, and by then an exceptionally large apple pie, easily two feet across, had arrived as the centerpiece on the table. A plate of ordinary proportions sat at my place, and a considerably bigger one had been placed where the Beast usually sat. "I don't think I can eat even one slice of that. Perhaps I could take a…dollop, and the rest can be yours to do with as you see fit."
"Thrust my face into, and slobber, perhaps," the Beast said, still dryly.
I looked up at him, genuinely curious. "Is that the best you can do?"
"It's not unlike what I usually do," he admitted. "I haven't tried eating like a civilized being for a long time."
"Since the last time you had apple pie, perhaps. Well, would you like to give it a try?"
"…not with an audience."
That seemed eminently fair. I nodded. "Maybe I'll just have a bit of pie, then, and leave you to your own devices."
The Beast turned his head away from me a little, as though I'd landed a blow I hadn't even meant to throw. "Why," he said again, "would you be kind to me?"
"I don't know," I also said again, and got myself some pie. It was delicious, full of cinnamon and cloves, and there was a custard to pour over the top. I ate my piece, thinking about his question, and finally said, "I suppose behaving nicely is as much for my own benefit as yours. Probably more. I could be angry and afraid," and even saying those words lit their fire inside of me, so I took a breath, trying to ease their burn. "But there's clearly very little I could do to harm you, which means feeding my anger is more likely to make me miserable than you. So I suppose I'm trying to let it go by being nice. It helps that aside from our first meeting, and the fact that you coerced me into staying…" I had to breathe again, trying to shake off the memory of fear and the still-vivid fury that those admissions acknowledged before I continued. "Aside from that, you've been…quite pleasant yourself."
"Aside from that," the Beast echoed. "As if those things could be pushed aside."
"Did you come here of your own volition?"
The Beast cast me a startled glance. "No."
"Would you leave if you could?"
"I would."
"Then you and I aren't so different, except I see my captor every day and I think you don't. I don't even know which is worse. As long as I see you every day, there might be a chance I could talk you into letting me go. If whomever put you here is long gone, you don't even have that chance. So if I'm kind, maybe it's because I hope it'll awaken a sympathetic kindness in you, and you'll release me."
"Rather than be angry, and hope your rudeness will drive me to send you away?"
"You're a Beast," I said with a degree of scathing that would do Pearl proud. "If I fight, your nature will make mastering me your prize, and no master ever wants to release his prize. Prizes are things, and things don't have feelings that matter. If I have any hope of getting out of here, it's in making you see me as a person. An equal. Someone worthy of respect. Maybe you won't. Maybe you can't. But making myself into a monster to earn that respect means you win anyway, so I'll be kind where I can be."
The Beast watched me through all of that speech, and when it ended, said, "It's possible I've never respected anyone as much as I do you, in this moment. You're very wise, for one so young."
"But you're still not going to let me go."
"No."
"Fine. Enjoy your pie, Beast." I stalked from the dining hall, and managed not to cry until I was safely in my own rooms.
I only saw the Beast at the evening meal for the next several days. All he did, each evening, was ask me if I would sleep with him, and once denied, disappeared again. I told myself it was less offensive to be left alone than to be visited by a captor who had no intention of letting me go. That was true, but it was also lonelier. I worked on my perfumes—the khemet one took a month to brew, so I found other recipes and mixed them until my room was overwhelmed with scent—and I went out to glare at the gardens, and I talked to servants whom I could neither see nor understand, assuming the hair-raising subliminal muttering was indeed them.
As such, the days were difficult to track. I had been there a week before I thought to begin a calendar, and even that only came to mind because my blood began to flow. It made a way to mark the days, though, so I used it as the beginning of my calendar, and noted the phase of the moon—new, the sky hanging empty—to help remember the details of time's passage. It helped keep track of the perfume brews, too, so those three things became my points of reference: the moon, the blood, and the perfume.
The khemet was almost done when I arose one morning to go on my daily tromp around the gardens, and found a steady, drenching rain falling. All the snow was gone, and the earth, between blades of dead, yellow grass, looked saturated unto mud.
I had no doubt galoshes and oilskins would appear if I asked for them, or even if I simply rooted around in the wardrobe for a while, but the prospect of going out into the rain was too depressing. At home, Opal and Flint, especially, would be pleased by its offering the first hint of spring, and at the softening of the ground. They wouldn't yet be planting seeds, but they might turn the earth over, helping it to thaw, while Pearl muttered curses about dirty feet and hard labor. Or perhaps they were only awaiting spring because it could offer—with the goods the Beast had sent with Father—the chance to return to the city, and begin a more luxurious life all over again.
My heart faltered at the thought. It was one thing to be captive in a castle at the heart of an enchanted forest that my family lived in, no matter the distance. Somehow it was something else entirely to not even share the forest's borders with them. Distressed and trying to shake it off, I wrapped myself in a warm cloak and went for a walk inside the palace, which was large enough to exercise horses in, never mind one young woman. I wasn't looking where I was going; escape from my own thoughts, not exploration, was my purpose.
So it took longer than it might have otherwise to realize that the parquet beneath my feet had turned to smooth road, and then that I had sometime recently stopped walking, and now rode astride a familiar charger. I patted the creature's neck, feeling callouses from a sword marring my palm, and looked ahead to see the great gates of my city rising before me. The road became cobblestones, and I rode home at the head of my army, the triumphant warrior queen returning. I had gone to war bearing my husband's standard; now I carried my own, a blazing sun, crowned and crossed behind by a sword and a needle, so that no one might mistake my symbol for a man's. Among the crowds were thousands of women waving needlework, an honor that delighted me; I raised my blade and named it the Needle, for them, and their roars of pride carried me all the way to the palace.
At its gates I could—or did, at least, whether I should or not—shed the persona of queen, and instead became the mother I had missed being for three full years. The same woman, clad in gold this time instead of green, but still with her beloved roses embroidered at the hem, came forth with her sweet, wicked smile. With her walked a little boy whose eyes were large and round with awe. I slipped from my horse and knelt, my arms open, and he did not run to me. Instead he clung to the gold woman's
skirts, and a whisper of sympathy rippled behind me as my soldiers saw what happened.
I ought to have known: a good leader doesn't fight a losing battle in public, not if she can help it. But I hadn't thought it through; I had forgotten that a mother's longing over a three-year campaign would not be reflected in the heart of a child who had barely been off the breast when his mother left. Nell was my sweet boy's mother, for all that he knew or cared, and I would damage us all if I tried to change that in an instant. So I stood, still smiling, hoping that smile's cost didn't show, and embraced Nell as she came to me. The little boy in her skirts watched me, and when Nell made as if to encourage him to hug me, I shook my head just a little. One rejection in front of the troops was enough. More than enough.
Nell, who was wise, lifted him onto her hip, and stood beside me so he was between us both, and we turned to face my army, crying, "Your prince!"
The roar of approval made my son gasp, then hide his face in Nell's shoulder, and, finally, peek out and smile, to the chortling delight of the army. When the tales of that day came to me in later years, they were told the way I had hoped it would go: that the little prince had run to me, and we faced our troops together, with Nell, my strong right hand, at our side. It made a better story, but I knew it was only that, and so that night, as soon as I had a moment alone with her, I said to my Nell, "I owe you a debt that can never be repaid. He loves you," and Nell, smiling, said, "I love him too."
It wanted to be a festering wound, that my son went to Nell for comfort and laughter. I wouldn't let it: I could not hate she who had held the kingdom for me for so long, nor could I blame him for not knowing a mother who had left him behind. Nell, generous of heart, saw my struggle, and guided him toward me, little by little. "What does it cost you," I asked late one night, and she only shrugged, stroking my hair.