The Tangled Forest

by Marion Grace Woolley

  “I’m going to be just like him someday,” he said. “I just need to grow a bit taller.”

  It was true. If the staff of the royal household were anything like my own, all the men had to be of a certain height, their hair clipped the same way, their features as uniform as their coats. Looking at Benjie, I doubted he’d ever make the cut. He was only fifteen, but already half a foot shorter than the other lads his age. His hair was unruly, its curls often snagging strands of hay when we rose in the morning. One of his front teeth was slightly further forward than the other, but not snaggletoothed like Tovenaar. He was also immensely talkative, which was a quality no master liked in a servant, especially at the dinner table. If he was told to stop talking, that energy ran down his leg, causing his heel to tap against the floor.

  “I’m going to ask to deliver the trays,” he said. “On the night of the ball, I’m going to carry your cakes over there and catch me a glimpse of the queen. Want to help me?”

  “Maybe,” I replied.

  “Of course you do. It might be your only chance. If she doesn’t find someone to marry, she might go back into hiding, perhaps forever.”

  I smiled and poured rum over a bowl full of glazed cherries.

  “There’ll be no one sneaking in to see the queen,” Carradice’s voice came clear and sharp. “This is a royal ball, not the village fete. There’ll be no goose-necking at the guests.” Though we all knew she would be the first to the window.

  *

  When the night of the ball finally did arrive, the kitchen was in chaos. The tiles were sticky with sweat, people coughed on clouds of flour, and sauces burnt to the bottom of pans as frantic cooks ran to and fro, stirring a dozen dishes.

  “Drizzle, don’t pour!” Carradice shouted over my shoulder, as I added melted chocolate to a mountain of profiteroles.

  The first guests began to arrive just before sunset. From the kitchen, all we could hear were the sound of their horses and the carriage wheels crunching white shells about the fountain. Those who came to collect dishes, the butlers and maids, told of sumptuous costumes of silk and velvet, women who looked like angels in their splendour, and men to rival gods.

  “Finish those pans and we’ll go take a look,” Benjie said. “No one will miss us for a few minutes.”

  “You go,” I replied, scrubbing slower.

  “What’s wrong, don’t you want to see the queen and all her fine guests?”

  I shrugged, and he went without me. As soap bubbles burst at the tips of my fingers, I fell to melancholy thoughts. All those moon-dances at my father’s palace, how very much I had hated them. Once upon a time, I had glutted myself on finery, and it made it hard to smile upon it now. Yet it also made me think of my father and how very far I was from home.

  By midnight, I was one of the last cooks left. All of the others had gone to watch the dancing, peering in from dark corridors, their hard work earning them a place in the shadows.

  I wiped my hands dry on a cloth and went to the stables. Pulling my donkey skin about me, I decided to join my fellows. What would it hurt to take a look? Even if I hadn’t the courage to approach her, it would be good to know what the queen looked like.

  “You came!” Benjie said, huddled beside a serving door.

  “Which one is she?”

  “You can’t see for all the dancers. Wait until the music stops.”

  Fiddle and lute and drum played out a simple beat, whilst women in colourful dresses hopped and skipped about their men. I felt as though I recognised the tune, but as I had never been allowed to dance, I did not know the steps.

  “There,” Benjie said, pointing.

  As the music came to an end, the women twirled to curtsies and the men bowed. Over the heads of the women, I glimpsed a marble dais with a golden throne. Seated upon it was a woman in a dress the colour of oil on water, as though a peacock had melted down her: midnight blue, lake green and plum. As I raised my eyes to her face, I gasped.

  “A good joke, isn’t it?” Benjie said.

  “No one has seen her face in all this time.”

  “And no one ever will.” He laughed.

  The queen’s face was covered by a perfect oval of black gauze.

  “But, why?”

  “Perhaps she’s ugly,” Benjie said. “Maybe she mourned so much her eyes are all puffy and red. Maybe she thinks it’ll frighten off a prince.”

  “It does look as though she’s mourning.”

  “Or maybe it’s for the mystery,” a girl said at my side. “Everyone wants to see what they’re not allowed to.”

  Her words rang true. As Benjie left to refresh the treacle tarts, I took a step forward, then another. I drifted through the door as in a dream. All this time, I had been afraid to look upon the Queen of the Eastern Kingdom, and now I couldn’t. The mystery snagged at my feet, pulling me forth. The girl next to me placed her hand on my shoulder, but it slid off as I continued.

  So many dancers whirled and reeled, so many tall men sipping champagne, and elegant women laughing like birdsong.

  I brushed between them and began to learn: poverty is not invisible.

  My donkey skin hid me from people’s memories when I walked the streets, just as I had never seen the mothers in the gutters with their sickly babes. Yet here, surrounded by wealth, my presence screamed out loud. Eyes began to turn towards me. Muttered words of disgust followed. Dignity did its best to step aside, lest my stinking skin infect their potpourri lace.

  I hesitated, glancing to the musicians with their gilded instruments, willing them not to stop playing. The weight of my donkey skin seemed to double, pulling me down.

  “Who let that in?” I heard a man ask behind, his voice thick with derision.

  When I looked back to the dais, my heart stopped.

  The queen’s head had turned towards me. She must have noticed the disturbance from her lofty position, and wondered what had caused it. The black oval of her face swallowed me like night, and I fled.

  10

  The next morning, Carradice pulled me aside.

  “I heard what you did last night,” she said, her soft features set hard. “If I ever hear such a thing again, that’ll be the last of you my boy. I don’t care how sweet the cakes you bake. I won’t have anyone calling my kitchen into disrepute.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “You’d better be.” Her frown unfolded and she squeezed my shoulder, leaving a flour print. “She was something, though, wasn’t she? What a spectacle.”

  I nodded my agreement and went to check whether the cherries had soaked up the rum.

  It was almost noon when the guards arrived.

  Two of them, dressed in tunics of blue and red. One carrying a tall pike that looked as though it could skewer me like meat.

  “Where is the one they call Donkeyskin?” the first guard asked, his voice sharp as a whip.

  My friends looked between themselves, but none said a word. Even Carradice remained with her hands on her hips. It was their eyes that gave me away. As determined as they were to stay silent, each one glanced towards me then away.

  “You. Are you the one who wears the donkey skin?”

  The guard stepped forward, and I nodded.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Carradice asked, coming to my side.

  “Substandard,” the guard said, turning to her.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The muffins she baked for the ball. They’re inedible. Far too much salt. The queen tasted one and it almost killed her.”

  “Poppycock. This here’s our finest baker. I’ve tasted every batch he’s made and there wasn’t a thing wrong with it.”

  “Are you questioning the queen’s sense of taste?” the guard asked, nailing Carradice to the floor with his gaze.

  “No,” she said, quietly.

  “The queen has sent me with one of the offending muffins. As punishment, he must eat it whole.”

  Th
e guard reached into a pouch on his leather belt and removed a squashed cake wrapped in calico cloth. He held it towards me and I took it, peeling the fabric aside.

  “You must eat it all,” he told me.

  My cheeks burnt with shame as I put a tiny crumb in my mouth, everyone in the kitchen silently watching. As the dough melted on my tongue, the sweetness of sugar and cinnamon caused it to water, but not a grain of salt. I glanced up.

  “All of it,” the guard repeated.

  I crammed the rest of the cake into my mouth. One bite, two bites, three—

  My teeth crunched on something solid.

  I glanced up again as I continued to chew. The guard was staring directly at me and I stared back.

  “How does it taste?” he asked me.

  “Salty,” I replied through muffled mouth. I pretended to swallow, whilst tucking the object beneath my tongue. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened. Perhaps I accidentally knocked the salt pot into the batter.”

  “See that it never happens again,” he replied.

  The two men turned and left.

  There was no cake left for Carradice to taste, but she knew that something was wrong. As the rest of my friends set about their daily work, she once again placed her hand on my shoulder.

  “It wasn’t salty, was it?”

  “No,” I replied, folding my tongue awkwardly around the object.

  “It was punishment. Public humiliation for last night’s little adventure. Don’t worry about it. Blue-bloods have short memories. There’s always some other intrigue to move on to. But that’s why you have to watch yourself. You don’t want to go catching their attention.”

  I nodded.

  “I need a moment.”

  “Of course,” she said kindly. “Take a little break.”

  In the stable, I spat out the object into my hand and held it up to the light.

  “What’s that?” a voice came.

  I hadn’t even noticed Benjie half-buried beneath the hay. He woke at daybreak to bake the bread, then sometimes took a nap whilst it rose.

  “Nothing,” I said, hastily tucking the ring into my pocket, but not hastily enough.

  He took my hand and pulled it back out.

  “Let me see.” He turned it in a shaft of light and whistled. “Where’d you get this?”

  “It was given to me by a guard.”

  “Really? You lucky thing.”

  “Why, what is it?”

  “It’s a royal signet. All the aristocracy have ‘em. But, see here?” He angled it so that the silver stag was facing. “This is the signet of the queen herself.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It was given to you directly?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I guess you’re in favour. Must have caught her eye last night.”

  “Shouldn’t I be punished?”

  Benjie shrugged. “Who knows what they think. My father served for twenty years and said he never could tell if they meant what they said or not.”

  The more I learned of life at the palace, the more guilt I felt.

  “What do you think it means?” A strange look came over Benji’s face and he looked away. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “No, tell me.”

  “You’d be mad at me.”

  “I won’t.”

  He sighed and looked back. “I want you to know that I’m sorry, before I say anything. It’s not my place, and I shouldn’t have, and if I could take it back I would.”

  “Take what back?”

  Squirming like a hoked worm, he glanced over at my sack of clothes.

  “I looked inside. I know I shouldn’t have. I weren’t trying to steal anything, honest. I was just curious. But,” he hesitated, “you’re not a fella, are you?”

  “No. I’m not.”

  “And you’re not poor, either?”

  “Once upon a time I had money, but not anymore.”

  “Where did you get the dresses?”

  “Which ones?” I asked, knowing full well.

  “The ones that look like someone took the sky down from above and sewed it together with starlight.”

  “Oh, those.” A thought drifted across my mind. “Did you try them on?”

  “Just one. It was a little big.”

  I laughed. “Well, they were made for me by a witch.”

  “They’re beautiful.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You should wear one.”

  “I’d get flour all over it.”

  “No, I mean to the ball.” I laughed again, but the laugh died when I saw how serious he looked. “I’m not joking. The queen gave you that ring, didn’t she? You should probably return it. Besides, if you walk in there in a dress instead of donkey skin, they’d think you belonged.”

  “What about my hair?”

  “That’s easily fixed. I know a wigmaker down Ashmorten Street.”

  “You do?”

  He blushed and looked away.

  “I’ll get you something pretty enough to match the dress. I can help you change after we finish tonight. No one in the kitchen will recognise you once you’re all tidied up. No one in the palace, for that matter. You can turn back into a pumpkin come morning.”

  I sighed and shook my head. It was a ridiculous idea. I couldn’t just walk into a ball uninvited, wearing a dress more beautiful than daybreak. They’d either arrest me or call me a sorcerer. But then, what choice did I have? I enjoyed working in the kitchen, but it was hard, and all the friends I’d made couldn’t bring me closer to home. If I wanted to save my father and my own kingdom, something had to change. I would have to speak with the queen eventually. Would there ever be another opportunity?

  I turned the ring over and over.

  “All right,” I said. “We meet here at midnight.”

  *

  When the last pot was scrubbed and everyone else had left to watch at the windows, I untied my apron and went to the stable.

  Benjie was there waiting for me, a round cardboard box before him.

  “How’s this?” he asked, removing the lid and lifting out a beautiful, golden wig. Strands glittered in the lamplight, filigree butterfly wings flapping between raindrop pearls.

  “It’s perfect,” I said.

  We pulled the dress from the sack and it lit up the room. A thousand sanguine sunrises trapped between its threads, the clouds as soft and white as the first time I saw it.

  “I can’t do this,” I said. “There are so many people.”

  “I’ll go,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to attend a royal ball.”

  “What if they don’t let me in?”

  “Looking like this?”

  “What if they ask who I am?”

  “Don’t say anything. Just show them the ring.”

  “This is a terrible idea.”

  I made him turn away as I unbound my breasts. It felt strange to see them again. Benjie helped lace up the back of my dress and pin the wig to my head. I almost wept to reach up and feel real hair there again.

  “You look dazzling,” he said as I turned.

  “You won’t tell anyone else, will you? That I’m a girl.”

  “Secret’s safe with me. Don’t tell anyone I tried on your dress.”

  “You can keep it, if I come out of this alive.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  If you have ever walked into a place you don’t belong, you will know how your innards turn to water.

  As I ascended the steps of the palace, I was afraid I might flow down them like a river. Everybody stopped to stare at my dress, mesmerised by its shifting light. This was my moment, my now or never. I held the hem in front of me and stepped through the clouds into the main room.

  This time, the music did stop. Only momentarily, as the players caught their breath and continued. Nobody asked whether I should be there, for I looked like an empress.

  As the crowd drew back
to let me pass, I became painfully aware that I knew no one. There were no friendly faces to approach for a dance, no comforting corner I could hide myself in. I wished for my donkey skin more than I could say.

  This time, the queen was dressed in silks of opal. Whereas mine radiated light, hers caught the candles and twisted them in perfect pinks, blues and greens. Her face was covered with an oval of white, which turned to take me in.

  Slowly, she rose from her throne. One slippered foot before the other, she descended to earth.

  Hush spread, and the instruments once again fell silent as she came to stand before me. She raised one hand, fingers splayed like a fan. I lifted my own, holding level with hers, an inch apart.

  A sweet refrain struck up on the strings and we began to dance. Slowly, carefully, two royal daughters drifting in a sea of jewels. I knew that she looked right at me, though I could not see her eyes behind her vail.

  One by one, the others in the room found their feet, swirling about us like thistledown in the breeze.

  “Your majesty,” I said, my voice low. “I believe you sent me a ring.”

  Her head inclined slightly as I lifted my other hand, her silver signet on my finger.

  We parted to turn and return. Each footfall as silent as her lips.

  “Please, I beg an audience with you.”

  “What would you ask of me?” Her voice was like the ocean through a shell, that faint echo of strength. The veil over her face fluttered with each word.

  “I have come a long way, and worked long hours simply for a chance to speak with you. I need your help.”

  “Who are you, that I should offer my help?”

  We parted again and returned.

  That is when I saw him.

  There, behind the dais, Tovenaar stood, draped in black. His hunched form and unsightly tooth brought back all the horror of my former life. He was staring straight at me, the light of my dress attracting him like a moth. Our eyes met and he stepped forward.

  “I must go,” I said, picking up my skirt to flee.