Mirror, Mirror Page 7

  “I am spinning, child, can you not see?” said the old woman in response, not recognizing the princess. The woman had not left her tower room for a long, long time, and did not know that spinning had been banned from the kingdom.

  “May I try?” the princess asked after she had watched the old woman at her work for awhile longer.

  The old woman agreed, and made room for the princess. She tried to show the girl how to hold the thread and make the spinning wheel move, but the princess was eager to test her skill and did not listen carefully. The task was so unfamiliar however that the result was as near to inevitable as such things can be, and the princess pricked her finger on the spindle of the spinning wheel. As soon as she had done this, she fell to the floor, asleep.

  The old woman sought help in great alarm, and the King and Queen were soon found and summoned back to the castle. When they were told the news, they grieved deeply. The King gave orders for the princess to be carried to her own room, and had her bed spread with the finest fabrics. A veil of the softest, most translucent silk was draped over the princess at the very last, to protect her during her long sleep.

  A messenger was sent for the faerie who had altered the curse, and she soon arrived in a chariot carried by a hundred birds. She spoke to the King and Queen for many hours, at the end of which the royal couple sadly bid goodbye to their sleeping daughter and left the castle forever. Once they were gone, the good faerie set to work putting the castle to sleep.

  She cast her spell loosely but widely, and every person, every animal, and every thing in the castle was soon fast asleep. The dogs and horses in the yard, the guards at their posts, the servants in the hall, even the fire in the kitchen dozed deeply. It had been decided that the princess must not be left alone when she finally awoke, and the entire castle was to be there to bear her company. The King and Queen had wanted to stay as well, that they might one day see their daughter awaken, but being a King and Queen they were not able to abandon their people and kingdom.

  The good faerie then left the castle and went outside. She began whispering to the trees and flowers and bushes, and the longer she spoke to them the taller and wider they became. Vines and thorns sprouted, and twisted together as they grew. Soon a great, tangled barrier had grown tightly around the castle, protecting it from man and beast alike.

  Though everything within the castle remained unchanged, time began to pass outside of it. The tangled barrier grew even taller and stronger, and the legend of the hidden castle and the sleeping princess grew as well. Over the years, many knights and princes tried to penetrate the thorny wall, but none succeeded, and more than one died in the attempt.

  One day a prince was hunting in the area and came across the great wall of vines and thorns. He asked his guides what was behind the barrier, and was told that legend claimed a castle was hidden there, in which the beautiful princess Rosamund lay in an enchanted sleep until she could be awakened by true love‘s kiss. The prince no more than heard this than he became consumed by a need to find this princess, for he knew that it was his destiny to do so.

  The good faerie, who still had a practical mind, had hedged her bets when it came to the princess’ rescue, and had for years been sending dreams to the prince. Ever since he was six years old therefore, he had been dreaming of the same princess - sometimes the dreams would be of the girl as she was when growing up, so that he felt as if he truly knew her, and others were of a dark and brooding castle, through which his dream-self had to find his way to her side. Always, the dreams ended with the princess being just out of reach, and the prince knowing that someday he would find her.

  The prince had been in love with the princess in his dreams for as long as he could remember. Now, upon hearing the tale of the sleeping princess, he was filled with excitement, and leapt from his horse. Drawing his sword, he approached the tangled barrier, prepared to begin hacking away at it. The good faerie had trained the barrier well however, and it recognized him. Before he could make a single strike, the branches began pulling back and away, leaving a clear trail for him to follow.

  The prince’s guides implored him not to go. They had heard the stories of the many men who had been killed by this barrier, and to them this path seemed to be but a trick. The prince ignored their pleas, ordered them to wait where they were, and began walking down the path.

  The branches and vines and thorns continued to draw back as he approached, and in time he reached a narrow arch. He passed through the arch, and beheld a little jewel of a castle. The prince crossed the yard eagerly, past the sleeping dogs and horses, and pounded on the front door. The only answer was an echo from deep within the castle, and remembering the story he had been told of the sleeping castle, he opened the door himself and went inside.

  Within the castle all was dark and gloomy, for the tangled barrier let very little light through the windows. Moving carefully through the hall, the prince saw servants in old-fashioned clothing slumped over in chairs and in corners, and in one room he even saw a fire whose flames had been halted mid-leap. The air was heavy and musty, and his boots were soon covered in dust as he made his way further into the castle. As he reached the wide staircase he suddenly stopped.

  He recognized where he was, recognized it from the dream that had haunted him since childhood. All at once the prince knew exactly where he was supposed to be going, and rushed up the stairs and along the halls that he had so often traversed in his dream. He stopped outside of a door, his heart pounding, then put out a shaking hand to open it.

  The room within was dark, like the rest of the castle, but some magic had kept it clean. The air smelled of wild roses, and there was no dust on the floors, but the prince did not notice these things. All of his attention was focused on the center of the room, where a young woman’s figure lay shrouded on the bed. Still trembling slightly, the prince moved forward. Very slowly, he drew the veil off of the sleeping princess. Her beauty, thus revealed, was so great that he could not stop himself from leaning down and kissing her.

  As he drew back, the princess’ eyes opened. She yawned and stretched deeply, then seemed to notice the prince for the first time. Though startled at first, she smiled upon him warmly, for she had been having the most wonderful dreams - it seemed like for years - about a prince who would one day come for her. The dreams had started with a young boy, and had followed him all through the years as he grew up, and she felt as if she had known him all her life. The good faerie had been thorough indeed.

  The prince and the princess talked for a long time, then they left the room hand in hand. All around them the castle was waking up again, from the kitchen fire to the dogs outside. The prince and princess went downstairs to the chapel, where they were secretly married by the castle chaplain. For a time they lived very happily indeed - but their story was not over yet.

  “I told you, things are complicated just now,” the prince protested, taking the tunics that his wife had pulled out of his luggage and restoring them to their place.

  “Complicated?” retorted his wife, as she seized a stack of handkerchiefs from the pile in the trunk and shoving them into a drawer of the bureau behind her. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Randolph sighed, and took hold of his wife’s shoulders. “You know the situation,” he said gently. “This is just not a good time to tell them.”

  Rosamund pulled away from his grasp and snatched a pair of boots out of the trunk. She turned away, hugging the boots to her chest.

  With her back to him, Randolph could not see if she was crying, but he did see her shoulders shaking a little - though with rage or sorrow he did not know. He gave her a moment, then said with a touch of humor, “And hindering the packing isn’t going to change the fact that I still need to leave this afternoon.”

  A curious kind of wail broke from Rosamund’s lips as she struggled with amusement and annoyance. She turned around and pushed the boots into her husband’s arms. “Fine then,” she said with a defiant sniff. “Pack.”
<
br />   Randolph did so, quickly restoring the boots and handkerchiefs to the trunk, keeping a wary eye on his wife as he did so. She had started pacing around the room, and he was fairly certain that the discussion was not yet over.

  This premonition was proven correct a few moments later, when Rosamund tossed an accusatory comment over her shoulder.

  “Oh, and the second footman has disappeared. No doubt he too grew tired of your ridiculous orders that no one is to leave the castle grounds,” she said.

  “Is it so wrong to want to keep you all to myself for awhile?” asked Randolph in a wheedling voice, still keeping an eye on her perambulations.

  Rosamund’s movements came to an abrupt halt at his words. “Awhile?” she exclaimed. “It’s been five years!”

  “Yes, but -” began Randolph before he was cut off.

  “Five years, Randolph,” his wife went on. “Five years of never leaving the castle grounds. Five years of listening to your excuses about how it’s not quite the right time to tell them. Five years of watching you pack and ride off, not to return for weeks. I tell you, I‘m sick of it!”

  Once again Randolph tried to cut in, but once again he was overridden.

  “I don’t care how complicated it is, Randolph,” Rosamund said, regathering her composure and speaking firmly. “Five years is too long to wait. You have to tell them, and soon.”

  “Darling, please,” Randolph finally managed to say, crossing the room and wrapping his arms around his wife. He met her eyes squarely, and spoke sincerely. “I told you, my father is ill. Very ill, from all I hear. I know that you’re impatient. I know that you’ve been saintly, waiting all this time, and I cannot thank you enough. But do you really think that now is the best time to tell my father, my ailing father, that not only did I marry without his permission, but that I did so five years ago? That I not only have a wife, but two children, of whom he knows nothing?”

  He rocked her back and forth in his arms gently. “He’d have apoplexy. You don’t want my father to have apoplexy, do you?” he said coaxingly.

  Rosamund looked away, but didn‘t struggle in his arms. “Of course not,” she said. “But you should have told him ages ago.”

  “I probably should have,” agreed Randolph, continuing to rock her. “But the fact is that I didn’t, and this isn’t the time to do so.”

  Rosamund let her head rest against his shoulder and sighed. Randolph tightened his hold a little, and let several moments slip by before speaking again. “When he’s recovered, I’ll tell him. I promise,” he said. Rosamund made a muffled sound that he took to be reluctant consent.

  “And in the meantime, you will stay within the castle grounds, won’t you? And make sure the children do too? After all,” Randolph added in a cheerful voice. “We don’t want somebody spotting you and sending word to my father.”

  “What about the man who left?” Rosamund asked unenthusiastically.

  “Well, what’s done is done. We’ll just have to hope he keeps his mouth shut. I say we just forget about him. Besides, do we really need a second footman here?”

  Rosamund smiled reluctantly. “No, not really,” she answered. Randolph planted a quick kiss on her lips, then hugged her tightly before letting her go and resuming his packing.

  Half an hour later he was on his horse, making his sedate way down the gravel drive leading to the edge of the castle grounds. He had bidden his wife and children a fond farewell, with no tears or unpleasant scenes, for which he was grateful. The children, twin four-year-olds, were too accustomed to his frequent departures to put up any kind of fuss, but Rosamund was becoming less and less resigned to his leaving each time he did so.

  Randolph looked back for a moment as he reached the edge of the castle grounds. A narrow archway had been cut out of the thorny bushes, vines and knotted trees that surrounded the castle like a wall. From outside, he knew that the tangled barrier looked as impassable and unrewarding as it did five years ago, when he had first found it. But within, the rampant growth had been hacked away to restore the wide, stately gardens and lawns. Roses climbed the inside of the barrier wall, and in the center of it all stood the elegant little castle built so many years ago by Rosamund’s ancestors.

  It was his favorite place in the world. It was the place where he could be himself, and where he could spend time with the people he loved most. Sometimes he couldn’t understand why Rosamund wanted to leave it so badly.

  Randolph had taken great pains to keep the place a secret, once the spell had been lifted and the castle and its denizens had awoken. Supplies were brought in every week by his most trusted servants, and all those who lived in the castle were forbidden to go beyond the tangled barrier. Randolph was not a tyrant, nor did he consider his orders to be unreasonable on this point.

  He knew all too well what the reaction would be if word of what had happened leaked out. And it would most certainly leak out if anyone left the castle grounds, there was no doubt of that. Randolph was equally certain that as soon as rumors of the restoration of the legendary enchanted castle arrived at the first tiny, insignificant village, it would reach his father’s ears in no time at all. It was bound to do so.

  It wouldn’t matter that the land surrounding the hidden castle belonged to a neighboring king and not to his father. It wouldn’t matter that peasants and kings don’t regularly get together to exchange gossip. As soon as anyone heard what had happened, anyone in three kingdoms, or five, or ten, his father would hear about it. Because of this conviction, Randolph was far more worried about the disappearing footman than he had let his wife know.

  His father, King Aldrich the Unbending, was dead set against magic. He hated it with every fiber of his being, and had banned all forms of it from his land. He had even convinced his neighbor, King Felix, who now ruled the kingdom that Rosamund’s parents had once held, to enact the same decrees as part of a so-called mutual protection treaty. The wise-women, the spell-casters, even the fairies, had all been sent into exile, and every object said to hold an enchantment had been destroyed.

  If Aldrich learned that his son had a wife who had been under a spell for a hundred years, who had furthermore been kept hidden from him in a castle filled with similarly ensorcelled people for the past five years, and that he had two grandchildren by this magic-tainted woman, he truly would have apoplexy. Even if Randolph had told him immediately after marrying Rosamund, and before the king’s health had begun to fail, Aldrich the Unbending still would have had apoplexy, Randolph was certain of it. What he wasn’t certain of was what the apoplectic Aldrich might have done next, and that fear had kept him silent for the past five years.

  Exile was the most likely fate. He didn’t think that the king would have put Rosamund to the axe, let alone the children, but the anti-magic laws gave him the right to do so. Regardless, the prince was not going to risk losing his wife and children to either exile or death, and so he would continue to hide them. He just had to find a way to persuade Rosamund to remain hidden. He had never been able to bring himself to tell her just how unwelcome she would be to her father-in-law, but if she continued to insist on an end to what she called her imprisonment, then he would have to do so.

  Randolph sighed and turned his gaze from the pleasant view behind him towards the road ahead. He urged his horse into a trot, and resigned himself to the rigors of rapid traveling. The day was already well advanced, and he had to be back at his father’s palace before nightfall.

  * * *

  Many hours later, Randolph arrived at the palace, dirty, tired, and famished. He dismounted, handed the reins over to a waiting ostler, and made an ineffectual attempt to get the worst of the dust off his clothes before going inside. The massive wooden doors swung open to admit him, and he entered his childhood home.

  He had not even finished shedding his coat into the hands of the waiting footman before half a dozen people swarmed him. Though he was warmly welcomed, the prince was also immediately barraged with bad news: his father had taken
a turn for the worse, the general in charge of the northern army had died in the last battle, leaving his troops in complete disarray, and his stepmother wanted to see him.

  Randolph made quick work of the people surrounding him, sending some scurrying to prepare his room and find something for him to eat, and sending others out with messages - summoning the doctor, putting the military adjunct off until tomorrow, and putting his stepmother off indefinitely. He then ran lightly up the wide, impressive staircase, taking the steps two and three at a time, then striding rapidly down the carpeted hallway until he reached his own room.

  Knowing how his father would react to the sight of his son in his current travel-stained condition, Randolph quickly stripped off his riding clothes and washed himself. Pulling a set of the formal court-clothes that he hated but his father insisted upon out of the wardrobe, he dressed for his role as prince. By the time he had finished, his food arrived, and he ate ravenously, protecting his clothing with a large napkin tucked into his collar.

  He began walking towards his father’s room before he had even finished his meal, carrying the last piece of honey-smothered bread with him. He swallowed the last of his food as he turned the corner into the king’s hallway, and when he reached the door to his father’s room he stopped and snatched the napkin from his collar. He tossed it to the floor outside the door, then steadied himself and went inside.

  The room was dark, and very still. Randolph crept forward, trying to be as quiet as possible. He reached the side of the bed, and gingerly sat down on a chair that had been placed there. His father lay in the bed, wheezing a little in his sleep. Randolph just watched him for a moment, wondering when his forceful, dominant father had dwindled into this old, frail-looking being. Then his father’s eyes snapped open and fastened on his son, and for a moment he didn’t look frail at all.

  “Well, boy,” the king said, trying to pull himself up into a sitting position but failing. “You’ve finally come.”