Chapter 5
V.
When someone ambled into the empty chamber during the evening later that week, my body tensed up and I plotted an escape through the servant passageways.
I still could not fight without the fear of dire retaliation, but I planned on taking the threat of harm more seriously.
I had no desire to be trussed up again for another night.
“You’re Mikhail.”
I turned to the direction where the voice originated and found myself staring into a pockmarked mountain range, peaks and crags forming something akin to a face, large dark eyes the only waypoints around which I could determine other features like a nose and a beard.
“You’re Mikhail,” he repeated. “The prince.”
“I’m Mikhail. The chicken.”
The strange face formed a canyon only recognizable as a smile by the display of teeth. He clapped his fully-formed child-sized hands together. “Even better.”
“I fail to see how.”
“What use have most people for princes? They are dogs bred for aesthetics, not intelligence or purpose. Better to be a chicken.”
“Should I not prefer to be a dog then?”
“Never.” The little man’s canyon smile spread. “No one would think to chain a chicken.”
The corners of my mouth pulled upward — a surprise when I thought I might never have a reason to smile again. “Who are you that you are so insightful?”
The man bowed to me. “I am Drook.”
“It is my pleasure to meet you, Drook,” I intoned politely, unable to shed the niceties the way I had been stripped of everything else.
I almost offered my hand, but refrained as it was impolite to offer a gloved hand, and I had been threatened with dismemberment should I lack any component of my costume in the presence of another.
“Would that we could have met under other circumstances.”
“Other circumstances are not always better circumstances.”
I could not deny that observation.
“And we have met,” Drook said. “Before. When you were at court.”
Before, when I was a prince and he was but a lowly jester.
Before, when ladies flirted with me in an attempt to become my new princess, and nobles wanted to play cards for a chance at my fortune.
Before, when I had never spared him a moment to ask for his name as one polite individual to another.
Or that of any of the others who amused us.
I had the good graces to blush beneath the beak for my prior indifference and superiority. I was the lowliest one here now, and as my former peers had done, I fully expected that the jesters too would expel me for not truly belonging among them.
“I was never afforded a formal introduction,” I told him, gathering as much dignity as I could. “My apologies.”
“Unnecessary.” He buffed his nails on his coat lapel. “I like my reputation to precede me.”
“Indeed,” I assured him, thankful for his gracious excuse to explain my prior haughty incivility. “I heard you recite a poem about The Kind and Fair Protectors of Ilyichia the other day.”
His brow lifted, and so too did the corner of his mouth. “I composed it myself.”
“Masterfully done.”
“Thank you.”
He sat on the edge of the basket, settling in for conversation.
I asked, “Do you believe that The Kind and Fair give the tsarina magic to uphold the kingdom?”
“It’s what everyone says.”
“So you don’t believe it?”
“I think the belief in it is traditional and in this modern age, metaphorical.” He shrugged. “It’s good for art, but I don’t believe in actual magic.”
While I too did not believe in magic, his assessment relieved me. The tsarina already wielded so much power that I shivered to think she could have more to misuse.
“How do you account for the sightings of the firebird,” I persisted, “if you do not think the magic of The Kind and Fair is real?”
“Something else being mistaken for the bird of myth. Or maybe the Otherland creature is real and so too are The Kind and Fair. But magic usually goes partnered with roses, and I have never seen a rose, not even in Ilyichia. Still, I am open to being proven wrong.” He canted his head at me.
“You don’t believe in The Kind and Fair or magic either, except that you had to make it official. ”
“I am a convert to the Great Holy, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s the reason the tsarina punished you.”
“One of them.” I did not want to discuss it. “I don’t know that I believe in anything anymore. Or that I ever did. But I can still appreciate a well-told tale and a finely crafted poem. I need no titles or spiritual belief for that.”
“I don’t know much about the Great Holy, but....” He faltered. After a moment, he tried again. “If you lack spiritual conviction, why not recant?”
“Because that won’t fix anything. And, at this point, she may dictate what I do, what I wear, how I am treated, but I refuse to give her sovereignty over my soul. That, if nothing else, is mine alone.”
“Fair.” He folded his hands on his lap and glanced around the empty hall. “Would you prefer to be alone?”
“I am always alone now.”
“You don’t have to be.” Drook gestured towards the darkened end of the hall.
“If you ever want company of an evening, you should join us. We would have invited you sooner, but none of us thought that you would want to associate with us. And then we thought, maybe it was not that you did not want to, but that you might not know that you could.”
“I appreciate the invite, but I don’t think I can.”
“Why not?” Drook’s brows battered each other. “Are you indeed a chicken chained?”
“No.”
“Then I presume that it is only the confines of shame which bind you. Lose your shame and you are free.”
“Oh yes, why didn’t I think of just not being ashamed? The solution is so easy.”
“Humph.” Drook stared at me, unimpressed. “I didn’t say it was easy.”
“Any tips or tricks?”
“Breathe,” he said. “In. And out. And in again. And out again. You’ll get through it, even when you don’t want to.”
“If it is as you say and it is only shame that sees me trapped, then perhaps I will accept the invitation. Who offers company?”
“We offer company to each other and share meals together.”
“Who does?” I asked again.
“The tsarina’s jesters.”
For one brief moment, all the painful isolation and fear of forever being outcast vanished. I might have been shunned and shamed by my former peers, but the jesters offered me inclusion.
“The tsarina has disgraced me. Are you sure you would not mind having me there?”
“Of course not!” Drook’s eyes shone. “You are one of us now.”
“He’s agreed to join us!” Drook called out as he opened the door to his apartments. “I knew you would want to see him first though.”
Meticulously furnished with luxurious fabrics and gilt frameworks, the rooms presented as fine as any other courtier’s quarters in the palace.
A woman, dressed in a modest but fashionable frock, bent over an embroidery hoop, but as the announcement echoed through the room, she glanced up from her work.
And then I wasn’t certain it was a woman because I had never seen a person with such a wealth of facial hair, not just on cheeks and chin but forehead and nose as well.
“Thanks be to The Kind and Fair,” she said as she rose. “I’ve been telling Drook for weeks now that he needed to check on you.”
“Klessa has been worried about you from the start,” Drook explained.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you’re a prince,” Klessa said. “And you have no survival skills, not in our world. I’m surprised you’ve held up so well.”
“What choice have I?”
“You could be completely pathetic and nonsensical,” Drook suggested.
“Or worse,” Klessa offered, “a weeping blithering whiner who does nothing but wallow in self-pity.”
“Do not hold any false assumptions about me, lady. I have done a significant amount of wallowing.”
“But you’re not lost to it,” Klessa said as she stepped aside from the sitting area and gestured for me and Drook to find seats. “Although you are a mess.” She stopped me before I passed her. “Are those spit stains?”
“I have not been afforded a change of costume yet,” I said, trying not to begin a diatribe on how shamefully the tsarina treated me. “Just additions.”
“And is that blood on your face?” Klessa threw her hands up in the air. “Drook, I’m holding you personally responsible for his dreadful state.”
“I keep telling you,” Drook said, “if the tsarina is paying attention and thinks we do too much for him, she’s going to find a way to make him suffer for that too. She’s been watching too closely before now.”
“It’s true,” I agreed, coming to Drook’s defense. “I was a new toy for her before. But now, so long as I am in costume and ready with her kvass, she pays little attention to me.”
“Don’t defend my husband,” Klessa scolded me. “He should have checked on you weeks ago.”
“I was waiting until she got a new baboon or something for her menagerie,” Drook said.
“If only,” I agreed.
Klessa finally released me and pointed to a chair. In a tone that brooked no disagreement, she instructed, “Sit, and take off your hood and beak.”
“I’m not supposed to be in the company of anyone without them,” I explained as I sat.
“We aren’t anyone,” Drook said.
“No one,” I rephrased, avoiding Drook’s semantics, “is supposed to see me without them.”
“Perfect,” Klessa announced, “because we are no one! Now, take them off.”
I debated, glancing to the doorway and weighing the likelihood that anyone but the residents already here might come through. Eventually I relented, pulling back the hood and unfastening the straps to the mask.
“My wife lies,” Drook said while I was busy with the beak. “Klessa is a gentleman’s daughter.”
“Doesn’t matter though,” she said with a scoff. “The moment they saw that I had my father’s condition, the king gave me away as a present. I too am one step above the menagerie, and therefore, no one.”
I dropped the beak into my lap and looked up at the woman with the remarkably hairy face. “I’m so sorry.”