"You mean, if all the sordid tales you told about us had been true and if some of us weren't originally from your Kingdom, then what your soldiers did to us would've been all right?"
"Well—no, I didn't mean—I just—"
"Once this situation has been settled," Queen Emese said, "we're all going to sit down and have a long talk."
Ambrus nodded once, a quick jerk of his head before he retreated. "Yes ma'am."
*~*~*
"What do you mean she's gone?"
"Precisely what I said," Queen Emese told him. "She and your brother left at dawn. Do not fret," she said. "They will soon have almost a thousand strong fighters to defend them. And anyone back in your Kingdom who intends to side with your father will quickly change their minds once they realize the lie he told."
Janos knew she was right. The citizens had all adored Valeria; they'd even taken six months of mourning after her death rather than the traditional three. Realizing that the King—who had gone on and on about how miserable he was over her death, which he had personally witnessed—had lied to them to such a great extent? It would be the end of his rule.
Still, he barely heard most of Emese's reassurances; his mind kept tumbling over the words ‘she and your brother'.
Of course she'd taken Ambrus along.
"Are you all right?" Queen Emese asked. "Valeria said if your breathing became labored, there's an ointment you can—"
"I'm fine," he began, knowing even as he said it that the words wouldn't matter. They never had.
Usually because he'd been unintentionally lying whenever he said them, he admitted silently. Instead of arguing further, he simply said. "Thank you for the offer. When… when do we expect to get news from them?"
"I sent four of my fastest riders to act as messengers. We'll know what happened as soon as possible."
It would still be ten days, Janos thought. Five there and five back—maybe three back, depending on how fast those riders were. Eight days at the very least.
He could know what was happening right away, if only his body hadn't betrayed him. If he'd woken up early rather than collapsing from exhaustion and sleeping most of the day away.
"While you're waiting," she said, a smile coming over her face, "there's someone here to see you."
He turned, unsurprised but still pleased to see Roland hovering in the doorway. Then he had an awful thought. "How long have you been awake? Did you know—"
Roland shook his head. "I slept until after sunrise and then went out on patrol. I knew the soldiers were heading back home, but I didn't know your mother and brother were with them until about half an hour ago." Then he opened his hand, revealing a brown-edged rose petal.
Janos had seen the three rows of rose bushes at the outskirts of the village, or at least what was left of them. Most had been trampled, though a few plants had managed to survive.
The petal Janos held was a brilliant blue, long-used by sailors or other travelers to invite their friends or lovers along on their next journey. The rose simply meant, ‘come with me'.
"Are you—do you mean—"
"If we hurry, we should be able to catch up with them sometime tomorrow."
"I love you," Janos said, not even realizing the words were going to come out of his mouth until they were spoken. His first instinct was to freeze, babble some explanation, but instead he just scurried past Roland out the door, hoping that maybe the other man hadn't heard him—he wasn't laughing, so there was a good chance—or that if he had, he was just as eager to ignore it as Janos himself was.
They didn't speak of it as they packed for the journey—in fact, barely spoke at all. Only after they were almost an hour's ride from Roland's home did he ask, "Did you mean that?"
Janos glanced over at him, surprised. He'd been expecting Roland to perhaps make a teasing comment, or at the very least just continue to ignore that it had ever happened. But he actually sounded… nervous?
He'd planned on laughing it off if it was brought up, but was too thrown off by the uncertainty in Roland's expression to be able to do it.
"Yes," he admitted. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything, it just slipped out; I know you don't feel the same way and—"
"Do you, now?"
And now the easy confidence was back in his voice, the smile back on his face, and Janos pulled his horse to a halt, unable to believe what he'd just heard. "You… what?"
"If I had some red roses, I'd give them to you," Roland said, grinning as he maneuvered his own steed to a halt next to Old Snow. "Since I don't, suppose this'll have to do." And he reached over and caught hold of Janos's collar, pulling him closer for a kiss.
*~*~*
Six months later, Roland and Janos stood at the front of the massive throne room, facing each other. Bouquets of red roses and blue roses surrounded the altar. On the thrones at the very head of the room sat Queen Valeria and Queen Emese, wearing matching necklaces of pink-and-white roses. Ambrus and Abel stood on either side of them, casting each other pleased looks as their little brother said his vows. Mariska stood at the front of the crowd of well-wishers, a wreath of white roses in her hair and tears shining in her eyes.
King Lorand was still in the castle. He was simply several levels down in the dungeon. The practice of exiling had stopped—it had been one of the things agreed upon when Queen Emese had proposed that their lands be intertwined, and the great barricade had subsequently been torn down.
Janos finished his vows and smiled up at Roland expectantly. The two of them had already shared a kiss at the beginning of the ceremony—one at the start, their last kiss as single men, and now one at the end, their first one as husbands.
As much as he enjoyed the kisses today—and all of the many they'd shared since arriving back at the castle—much of the time Janos thought that his favorite kiss between them would always be that one in the forest, each still surprised that the other shared their feelings, the adrenalin coursing through them from the race to catch up with the soldiers.
He wondered if it would still be his favorite kiss one year from now, or ten, when he would have so many more to choose from.
"And what are you thinking about?" Roland whispered, smiling and curling a hand around the back of his neck.
"How glad I am that I kept that passage in the gardener's shed a secret."
"So am I," Roland said, and Janos tilted his chin up for another kiss.
"All right, wedding's done, enough of that adorable stuff," Abel said. "There are about twenty casks of wine in the dining hall that are begging to be drunk."
"Well then," Janos said. "It'd be a shame to keep them waiting."
"That it would," Ambrus said. "And I've got a sack of silver that says this is the year I'll finally outdrink you, Abel."
"I'm not sure whether to admire your optimism or laugh at your foolishness."
"What do you think?" Janos asked quietly, grinning as his brothers continued to mock-argue. "Do you want to join the competition?"
"I think I'll just referee this time," Roland said. "The plans I have for tonight definitely require me to be sober…"
Janos laughed and slid his arm around Roland's waist, pressing himself close to his side, and together they walked out of the throne room, surrounded by the laughter and conversation of their guests.
Sleeping Betty
Kodi Marshall
"That's the last straw, Meg—it's princess duty for you."
Meg's mouth fell open, for once at a loss for words. After a moment, she managed, "You wouldn't!"
Abbie smiled nastily, the deep lines of her face contorting in a way that was almost gruesome, and a feeling of dread settled in the pit of Meg's stomach. She would. And she was going to enjoy it. If it had been one of the other servants, Meg might have been able to talk her way out of it—but not with Abbie. Talking was how she'd gotten into this mess in the first place!
She turned to make a break for it, but Abbie grabbed her viciously by the arm and dragged her pas
t the other girls, up the steps and out of the kitchen before anyone else might have had a chance to say anything. Not that there was something any of them could say that would help right now. Meg thought about putting up a fight—she was taller, and had a fair amount of muscle from slinging around heavy iron saucepans and water-basins every day, while Abbie looked like nothing so much as a skinny bag of bones held together with sheer hate. But Abbie was the head maid, and Meg was only a lowly kitchen girl, and knocking her over would just get a her a punishment even worse than princess duty.
If only she hadn't been so stupid! All the maids knew better than to antagonize Abbie. Out of all the palace staff, it was sour-faced Abbie who had the least sense of humor and the least tolerance for any backtalk. Which, to her ears, meant anything that wasn't, "yes ma'am, right away ma'am".
"I'd dunk your head in the pot right now if I didn't think it'd spoil the stew!" most definitely qualified as backtalk.
This was hardly the first time Meg had gotten in trouble for her mouth. But she'd been lucky, and kept her temper mostly in check, and her occasional slip-ups hadn't been punished with anything too awful.
Abbie had been worse than usual today, and Meg hadn't been able to stop herself from yelling right back at her.
Abbie pulled her along, past the point where the plain stone of the servants' quarters gave way to the fancy wallpaper and carpet-covered floors of the palace proper. Meg tripped after her as they went through hall after hall, hurrying through what seemed like the entirety of the enormous palace, before finally coming to a stop in front of the entrance to the princess' tower.
It was a small, drab-looking wooden door set deep into the wall, almost invisible in the shadows. Now that was funny—everything else in this wing was just as outrageously lavish as the rest of the nobles' part of the palace, with elaborately-carved doors covered in gold leaf and surrounded by marble pillars or ridiculous displays of flowers. This little door looked like it led to an old and ill-maintained privy, not a royal's room. Though it wasn’t as if the princess cared.
"It's up through here," Abbie snapped, as though Meg couldn't figure that out herself. "You'll start immediately. There'll be a room for you up there. Your things will be sent up, and someone will bring you your meals. I don't want to see your face down here again, is that clear?"
"As long as you do me the same favor," Meg shot back. She probably shouldn't have, but the look on Abbie's face was almost worth it—it was a look Meg had come to know well, and which usually preceded her being forced to spend all night scrubbing out the massive kitchen fireplace as punishment for whatever she'd done this time. Talking back, usually. Abbie's kingdom might have only been a kitchen, but she ruled it as viciously as any evil storybook queen, with all the maids as her subjects. Nothing made her angrier than one of her "lessers" failing to be sufficiently cowed by the mighty power of being head maid.
Meg's satisfaction was short-lived. Abbie's scowl lessened, and her lips curled in a cruel, humorless smirk. "Say what you like. I won't have to put up with your constant insubordination anymore. It's going to be nice and quiet without you and your mouth around."
She took hold of the heavy iron handle and swung the door open, revealing a rickety-looking old staircase that spiraled upwards. Meg's heart sank even further. Under Abbie's glare, she trudged silently on through, still hoping that there might be some way out of this—perhaps she could put her mouth to good use for once and plea for leniency from the butler, or someone else higher up the servant chain who even Abbie wouldn't dare cross. But even as she thought it, she knew it wouldn't work. She barely knew any of the staff outside of the kitchen workers, and anyone who might've been able to pull rank had no reason to save a bad-tempered maid from a punishment she'd rightly gotten herself into. After all, Abbie did have authority to put any maid she liked—or disliked—onto princess duty, and Meg certainly had stepped out of bounds in sassing her, even if she didn't regret doing it.
For a moment, she seriously debated actually going through with knocking Abbie over and making a run for it.
But then, where would she go? It wasn't as though she'd be able to stay at the palace after that. It was true that there were always kitchens in need of maids, but word would get around—Abbie would make sure of that—and a girl who'd attacked her superior and run off wasn't likely to get hired by any other household, in the kitchen or otherwise. Maybe if she fled to a distant kingdom, far enough away from the grapevine of gossipy servants—
Now that was being overdramatic. Still, Meg didn't exactly want to be fired; she'd have to go back to the village she'd come from, and tell her parents that she'd lost the best job she was likely ever to get, all because she'd gotten too angry to stop herself from yelling at a horrible old woman when she should have known better. Her parents would be furious, and then disappointed, which would be so much worse than furious. And if no one else would hire her as a maid, there weren't many options left for a disgraced village girl. She'd probably end up getting pushed into the same plan her parents had been trying to press her into before she'd left for the palace: marrying the pig farmer's boy and popping out as many grandchildren as possible.
Eugh. Suddenly princess duty seemed like the lesser evil.
Well, she'd toughed out every punishment before. How long could Abbie keep her up there, really? Meg squared her shoulders, stepped forward, and, ignoring the feeling of Abbie's eyes boring into her back, began to climb.
The princess was kept in the tallest tower of the palace, an idea that had certainly been cooked up by someone who was terribly romantic, and who didn't have to climb the stairs. Meg hadn't been at the palace when the princess arrived, but she'd heard that at first there had been a grand room set aside on the first floor for her. After the first couple of years had proved fruitless, she'd been moved up to the tower. Stored away somewhere where she wouldn't be in the way, until they could figure out how to fix her.
Meg only knew the same stories as everyone else, but she couldn't help feeling a bit sorry for the poor thing, tucked away like a knick-knack nobody knew what to do with. Or she had felt sorry for her, up until she'd been the one stuck on princess duty. Now she felt sorry for herself.
She counted steps as she went, but gave up somewhere around two hundred. It felt like hours—maybe had been hours, she thought morosely—before the door to the tower room finally came into sight. It was as drab as the one that had been at the bottom of the stairs, not at all the sort of door anyone would expect to find a princess behind.
The knocker sounded like the bells of doom ringing as she thudded it against the wood. The door flew open at once. Behind it stood a short, plain little girl, her wide eyes huge in her small, pale face.
"Hello," Meg began, cautiously. "I've been assigned to the princess. I—"
"Oh! Thank the lord!" the girl shrieked, and she pulled Meg inside before she had a chance to say anything more. "I thought they'd never send another girl up, it's been years!"
Years?! Meg gaped, too shocked to respond. With the way it was held over the maids' heads, she'd been under the impression that girls were being sent up for princess duty every other day. The other girl didn't seem to have noticed her reaction, and in fact seemed to be vibrating in excitement.
"Here you are," she said, and pushed Meg towards a little doorway obscured by a thick curtain. "There's your room, then. The privy's just beyond, and that—" Now she pointed to another doorway across the hall that, like the first, was hung with a curtain. This one, however, was velvet, and richly embroidered in golden thread. "That's her room."
"I see," Meg said, a bit startled by the impromptu tour. Not even a proper greeting, or a how-do-you-do. "So what am I supposed to—"
"Dust every day," said the girl, "scrub if you have to, though it rarely needs it. Change the sheets twice a month, make sure no bugs get in, and don't touch her trunks, unless you're cleaning under them. And of course you have to... you know." Her big, pale eyes stared right into Meg's. "Watch
her. If anything happens, you're to pull the bellcord. Don't you pull it for anything else!"
"I expect you were especially good at the watching part," Meg said, before she could stop herself. Fortunately, the girl didn't seem to have understood. She just nodded and, lifting her skirt above her ankles, trotted right out the door.
Her departure was so sudden that it took Meg a moment to realize that she was really leaving. "Wait!" she cried, running to the door. “What if I need something? What else do I need to know? Are—aren't you at least going to take your things?!"
All she heard, as the girl barreled down the tower steps, was a gleeful shout of, "I'm free!"
Well, so much for that. Suddenly angry, Meg slammed the door shut, and rested her forehead against the wood. So much for her life!
"Stupid Abbie," she muttered, although would rather have—oh, what did it matter? No one was going to hear her! She threw her head back and screamed, "Stupid, wicked, horrible Abbie! I hate her! I hate her!"
She kicked the door once, twice, and then several more times, and although her foot hurt by the end of it, she felt a little better. Calmer, anyway.
"All right," she told herself—out loud, because she could. "Let's get this over with. Might as well see what I'm here for."
The velvet curtain was heavier than she expected, and the fabric snagged on her callused palms. She felt suddenly awkward, holding it in her hands. She was only a maid. What did she think she was doing, touching such a beautiful thing? She'd never even been up in the palace proper before today, past the kitchens and into the fancy halls that the higher-class servants used. Her hands had never touched such soft fabric before.
But she wasn’t here for a silly curtain. Pushing it aside, she ducked through and and stepped into the princess' room.
It was awfully cold, was her first thought. Meg's arms wrapped around herself at once, and she began to wish she'd at least been allowed to grab her shawl. Of course there would be a draft—she wouldn't have put it past Abbie to have somehow arranged that on purpose, just to torture her further.
Fairytales Slashed: Volume 8 Page 28