14. Chapter 14
14
BEATRICE
Panic nearly stopped my breath. How did I get to this place? By magic? Did Auntie Bella send me here? What happened to Win and the eggs?
One way or another, I was no longer in a cave. And whoever just entered the room believed I’d been napping. I might as well relax and go with the flow. But . . . a ball?
I can do this. As Princess Eddi’s companion, I’d faced any number of unique challenges.
“I’m awake.” Before I could reach for the bedcurtains, efficient hands swept them apart, and I gazed into the faces of two young women, possibly still in their teens. They wore starched white caps and aprons over equally stiff-looking black dresses. “I’m sorry . . . Have we met?” I inquired with a smile.
The round-cheeked girl with pale hair bobbed a curtsy. “No, someone else must have shown you to your room. I’m Hortense. Geneva and I are assigned to help you prepare.”
Geneva, who had glossy black curls, offered, “I can put your hair up. I’m good with hair. I helped unpack your luggage while you napped, so I know what you brought.” Both girls spoke the Common Language with no particular accent.
I nodded. “That’s . . . useful.” Although I hadn’t a clue what this dream luggage might contain.
Geneva hurried to open the window curtains, allowing afternoon light into the room. The chamber itself was elegantly ornate, yet it had a comfortable, welcoming atmosphere.
I glanced down to see that I wore embroidered white lounging pajamas that looked and felt like silk. “I would very much like to bathe before the ball. Do I have time?”
“Certainly, miss. I’ll run your bath,” Hortense said. “We’ll have to work fast, but you’ll be ready in time.”
I could have asked where in the world we were, but why bother? I followed the maid into a marvelous room of black-and-white tile, porcelain, and gleaming brass pipes, where Hortense ran hot water into a large tub on clawed feet. Bubbles mounded rapidly, and a lovely blend of vanilla and cinnamon perfumed the air. “I pressed and hung up your gown earlier and brought out your jewel case,” the maid informed me.
My gown? Jewels? Panic threatened to rise, but I shoved it back down. Whatever was going on here, my freaking out wouldn’t help anything. I could put on an act, and . . . maybe it was just a dream after all?
Grateful though I was for the maids’ help, I requested privacy while bathing and called them back only briefly for help with rinsing my hair, since it still felt soapy. Wrapped in a plushy towel, I bent over the tub while Geneva poured warm water over my long mane, then shooed her away again.
Intrigued by the array of antique cosmetics, I applied eye makeup—a bit more than usual--then a hint of blush to enhance my cheekbones, and a dab of lipstick. After donning slinky bits of black silk and lace that offered minimal coverage or support, I wrapped up in a luxurious dressing gown and returned to my bedchamber, where the maids waited.
I had always turned up my nose at being waited on hand-and-foot, but as I relaxed in a comfortable chair while Geneva styled my hair in an updo complete with finger curls, I realized I could get used to this lifestyle. Maybe it would feel like living in a museum, but the fabulous antiques and textiles surrounding us suited the room’s architecture.
Not until Hortense produced stockings, garters, shoes with pointed toes, and a gown like something from a museum did my doubts return. But the maids were so eager to please, like a pair of spaniel puppies, that I simply couldn’t refuse.
Once I was clad in the floor-length emerald gown with a black-lace overlay in a fabulous art-nouveau pattern, Geneva added a black-feathered headband to my coiffure. The rope of pearls she draped around my neck even looked genuine.
The maids stepped back to survey their work. “Golly!” Geneva sighed.
Hortense shook her head in disbelief. “Hand her a cigarette holder, and I’d take her for a cinema starlet!”
I smiled at this nonsense, yet they appeared earnest. “Take a look!” Geneva turned me to face the large mirror on the wardrobe door. After studying a reflection that looked almost nothing like me, I struck a pose, planting one hand on my cocked hip, lifting my chin, and arching one brow. But then I laughed, spoiling the bad-girl effect. The gown’s form-skimming cut emphasized my curves in all the right places. The emerald-green satin picked up ruddy lights in my hair, and my pale skin looked creamy.
“You’ll be the most beautiful woman at the ball,” Hortense gushed. “You’re . . . regal!”
I melted a little inside. “Thank you, dear girl.” Although five-foot-ten isn’t extraordinarily tall, I often felt like a beanpole. Possibly due to spending so much of my life around tiny, curvy Eddi. I loved the princess like a little sister, yet more than a hint of envy may have existed on my side. When she was around, I felt invisible. She often told me I deliberately scared men off, which was nonsense.
“The king will surely choose you as his bride.” Geneva heaved a dramatic sigh. “Maybe you’re his Fated Mate.”
That pulled me up short. “His what now?”
She quirked a brow. “I think he’ll ask to marry you. Isn’t that what you came here for, to win his heart?”
I could only stare.
“You could be right,” Hortense told Geneva. “She’s beautiful and sweet-natured. Now that we’ve got her dolled up, I think the king really might choose her.”
“Thank you . . . but . . .” I had to ask: “I’ve never even met your king. Doesn’t he personally know any eligible women he could marry?”
As in, was he repulsive or old or evil?
“Sure!” Geneva gave me a dismissive wave. “Everyone always thought he would marry the Lady Arabella—”
“They’ve been in love since they were children,” Hortense interrupted in her sweetly breathless way. “Or so everyone’s always said. But now they say she doesn’t want to marry him.” The maid appeared torn.
“I wouldn’t marry any of my cousins.” Revulsion tinged Geneva’s voice. “Why should she have to marry him just because of some prophecy?”
Hortense frowned. “They’re not first cousins,” she explained to me. “Just third or fourth or something. It’s too bad the king isn’t more charming.”
Ah, so he was a loser.
Then, after a pause, she added, “But he’s handsome and noble,” and stage-whispered, “Some of the manservants say he has magic.”
Geneva gave a pff of disdain. “Magic doesn’t run in the royal family. Nobody wants a mage king or queen. Royals have too much power as it is.”
That part sounded much like modern-day news.
Hortense shrugged, looking pouty. “What if our royal family does have magic and we just don’t know it? Maybe the King’s Fated Mate will be here tonight! The prophecy says they’ll save the world together.”
Something like ice-water trickled down my spine. After a pause, I chuckled. “Okay, you two had me going there for a minute. Fated mates and prophecies, indeed!”
Their serious expressions rattled me.
“I’ve heard tales—I mean, old folk tales and legends—but surely people don’t really . . .” My voice trailed off. The question wouldn’t come out right. I wasn’t entirely sure what to ask.
Most of what I knew about history I’d learned while tutoring Princess Eddi, but her history textbooks had focused on wars and their consequences, not matrimonial customs, and never on magic or the World Magic Council. For all I knew, bride-selection royal balls and Fated Mates had been de rigueur at one time.
“Has . . . has His Majesty been the king for long?” I asked for lack of a better question.
Both girls gave me incredulous stares. “You don’t know?”
“I don’t. I’m not from around here.”
They exchanged looks. “She does talk funny,” Geneva stage-whispered.
“His father, King Siegfried II, died suddenly one year ago,” Hortense explained, looking as if she didn’t quite believe my excuse. “The prince became King of Adelboden then, of course, but a proper mourning period had to be observed before his official crowning and the coronation ball. Now, the pressure is on for His Majesty to marry and produce an heir.”
Adelboden. The country where Faraway Castle was located. I knew little of its political history, but I was pretty sure Adelboden had been a republic for . . . well, as long as I’d been alive. At least, I thought so.
But what did it matter? All I wanted just then was to attend a ball while dressed up like a historical movie star. Snatching one more look at myself in the mirrors, I pursed my lips into a moue like I’d seen in photos from a century ago and nearly laughed at the result. Too funny!
I turned to the maids. “So, what happens next?”
Geneva glanced at the mantel clock and sprang into action. “Ooh! We’ve got to escort you to the Great Hall.”
Hortense dangled a little satin bag on a braided-silk rope from my wrist—it supposedly contained a handkerchief, a lipstick, and a peppermint drop. Then they hustled me into a carpeted hallway. Other guests walked ahead of us, and I relaxed a little since their clothing looked much like mine. Part of me still wanted to believe it was all a dream, but . . . I couldn’t. For one thing, whenever I thought a dream might not be real, the adventure or nightmare fizzled away, and I woke up. For another, nothing in this adventure was fuzzy around the edges. If anything, it seemed too vivid, almost larger than life. Just like my visit to Othniel’s garden had been so much better than anything in my own world. If I could have stayed in that time and place, maybe I wouldn’t constantly feel as if I were looking in on life from the outside.
My maids avoided crowds by taking me down a back stairway that was nonetheless beautiful, and we eventually entered a large hall where guests were supposed to wait for the royal family’s entrance. I rather enjoyed seeing the men in tuxedoes, and the women all sparkled and shimmered. Delightful!
“We’ve got to find a good position so the king will see Beatrice,” Geneva muttered, craning her neck to scan the crowd.
“But we’re supposed to help set up refreshments.” Hortense tugged at her friend’s sleeve.
Geneva’s eyes went wide. “Oh yeah, you’re right. But first, we make sure Beatrice knows her onions.” With that puzzling remark, she drew me into a corner, explained the order of events, then made me repeat it all back to her. Satisfied, she turned to Hortense and flatly stated, “She’ll do.”
“She’ll do amazingly,” Hortense responded in her babyish voice. “There isn’t a prettier lady in the place.” I knew she was exaggerating, yet my heart warmed. It was pleasant to feel glamorous and draw admiring attention for once in my life.
I wanted to hug them both, but remembering the proprieties, I thanked them sincerely, promised to tell them everything afterward, and hoped I could stay long enough for that to happen.
Once the maids vanished into the growing crowd, I scanned my end of the immense entry hall. I was positioned off to one side of a stunning staircase, almost in a hallway, but people began to pack close in the area and shuffle me aside. I tried to work my way to the back of the throng, but the wall of bodies was so dense that I couldn’t see any space to squeeze through.
Excitement suddenly rippled through the room, and a herald proclaimed, “His Majesty, King Siegfried III of Adelboden! Her Majesty Queen Charlotte, the Queen Mother!”
The crowd stilled in respect as more names were called. What use was there in being tall when no matter how I stretched my neck and balanced on my toes, I saw nothing worth seeing? Several women in front of me wore bunches of feathers on their heads, and the men with them were all impossibly tall and wide. Everyone strained to see the royals, so no one would give an inch. When I did finally glimpse people descending the stairs, I had no idea who was who. The men wore tuxedos, and their hair was gelled to their heads—hardly an attractive look. The women fairly dripped with jewels.
The crowd around me shifted, and I heard voices ordering a path through the throng. “Why didn’t they think of that sooner?” someone grumbled. As disgruntled people began to back away, shoving commenced. Shuffled around by other bystanders, I completely lost track of the stairway’s location.
Suddenly, everything went wrong so quickly that I could scarcely grasp what was happening. A large woman sidestepped into me. Someone else trod heavily on my foot, and when I staggered back, my heel caught on my hem. I fell with arms flailing, too startled to make a peep.
But a white-gloved hand gripped my black-gloved forearm, and another hand at my waist lifted me upright in one smooth motion. “Are you all right, miss?” a deep voice inquired in my ear.
Arabella
After a few days in the crypt, as many of us called our subterranean hideout, I had twiddled my last thumb and began to feel stir-crazy. People and events I hadn’t recalled in many decades began to haunt my dreams, and there was nowhere to run to escape them.
I was the closest thing to a big sister my cousin ever had. In retrospect, I wish I’d been more encouraging and supportive to him, but I suppose few teenaged girls appreciate being “voluntold” to watch over a little boy during every social function. Particularly not a subtle, far-too-canny-for-his-age child who managed to conceal his magic from his parents, his nannies, and everyone else connected with the palace. Except me.
I vividly remember the excitement on Niel’s face when he told me about meeting a little girl from the future in his favorite part of the palace gardens. As a know-it-all teenager, I’d told him he was too old to have imaginary girlfriends, but he insisted the girl could understand cinder-sprite language and she hadn’t run screaming from his lake-monster friend. I should have known that a lonely boy of his age would be unlikely to invent an imaginary girl as his friend, but I was missing Kapono at the time, so call it romantic projection.
For the most part I was oblivious to the rumors that always make the rounds and multiply in a royal court. But at my twenty-first birthday ball, an old schoolmate asked me outright if I were betrothed to the Crown Prince. I laughed in her face, told everyone he was like a little brother to me, and considered the idiotic notion put to rest.
Not until his coronation ball, years later, did that popular expectation resurrect as an annoyance.