Tales Of Arilland Part 10

A dog's faraway howl at the moonlight snapped her out of her shock, and she turned and fled.

This time the h.e.l.lion horde worked in her favor; they were all too eager to see her leave, and all too happy to mob the prince and slow his pursuit. Sunday heard her sisters' voices calling after her, but she did not stop for them. She did not stop for anyone, until she met Trix on the carriage way. He was sitting on the steps there, as if he had been waiting for her.

"Come," he told her. "I will run with you."

She didn't think to tell him it was no use, that the prince would no doubt have his horse saddled and overtake them, that he would release the hounds and they would nip at their heels until he arrived. She followed Trix through the fields and the scrub woods, until the baying and the hoofbeats were almost upon them.

They stopped beside a small pond.

"They will catch us," Sunday said to Trix.

"We will hide," said Trix.

"How?"

"You have to believe," he told her. "Just like when you write, or Mama speaks. If you believe we can hide, we will be hidden."

Sunday grabbed her brother's hands, closed her eyes, and believed with all her might. She believed so hard that when the prince slowed his horse by the pond, she believed he did not see a woman in a gold and silver dress and her wild brother, only a tree with gold and silver rosebuds on it and a rock beside it. She believed that he sat on the rock and buried his head in his hands, and that when his shoulders shook he was not laughing. She believed that he stood up, plucked a rose from the tree, and rode back off towards the palace. And when he was gone, she believed that Trix stood up and cracked his sore back, and that she ran beside him, half barefoot, all the way home and into her father's arms.

Sunday woke the next morning and put on her nicest gown, for though she had made peace with her family, she knew that she wouldn't be able to run from the prince.

Papa did not go out to the Wood that morning, and Mama limited her daughters' ch.o.r.es to tasks around the house. They would all be there for Sunday when Prince Rumbold came.

His carriage arrived shortly after breakfast.

The Woodcutters met him outside, under Trix's tree.

Prince Rumbold bowed to Papa. "Sir, I have come to heal the breach between our families."

Papa did not bow in return. "You have taken my son from me," he said. "You will not take my daughter as well."

"Forgive me, sir, but your son's refusal to return home had nothing to do with me."

"You killed him." Papa face turned red and hard. "Your murdering family cursed him and killed him."

Prince Rumbold did not back down. "The wolf killed him, sir. Not anyone from my family. When I returned his medallion to you, I hoped that the ill will would end there." He clasped his hands behind his back. "I see it did not."

"Now see here..." Papa's words were punctuated by spittle as his anger grew.

Mama laid a calm hand on Papa's breast and stepped toward the prince.

"Wolf?" The word barely had enough strength behind it to push its way from her reluctant mouth. "What wolf?"

"If you please, mum. I only know the story as I lived it, and even that can be tainted by the ever-changing memories of a young boy. Your son killed the dog my father gave me for my birthday, and for his penance, my fairy G.o.dmother cursed him to serve in the dog's place for a period of one year. In return, his fairy G.o.dmother placed a curse on me, that upon my eighteenth birthday I would live as an amphibian for the same period of time," he smiled at Sunday, "a period that was most happily shortened by a certain maiden and her kiss of true love."

"A year?" That certainly wasn't part of any of the stories and songs Sunday had ever heard. "Papa, is this true?"

"He was turned into a dog," said Papa, "and he never returned home."

"After a year, Jack returned to human form and was allowed to stay at the castle to recover. Knowing that I would one day share his fate, to some extent, I approached him. My desire for knowledge overrode my fear of him. He admired my youthful bravery, and we became friends."

"Lies!" shouted Papa. "Why should we believe any of this?"

"Because I know things about Jack that others could not know," said the prince, "things he would not have confided to anyone who was not a true friend. That medallion for instance."

Papa pulled the medallion from beneath his s.h.i.+rt almost unconsciously.

"Jack was born a sickly child, and it was thought that he would not survive his infancy. But on his nameday, his fairy G.o.dmother gifted him with that medallion, so that it might give him strength."

Papa's eyes were wide; his jaw clenched tightly.

"Surely that is something only a confidant would know. Certainly not someone who was your son's enemy."

Papa seemed eager to speak at that, but Mama's hand still remained firmly on his chest.

"A year," Mama encouraged Prince Rumbold to continue.

"Jack was released from my family's household fourteen years ago," said Prince Rumbold, "and he continued about his adventures and heroics, his flights of fancy and feats of unsurpa.s.sed bravery. His last valiant effort came about saving a young girl from a wolf...which he did. But not before the wolf claimed his prize. I myself sliced open the wolf's belly. The medallion was all that remained. And so I returned it to you, sir, explaining everything. You obviously received it."

Sunday imagined she looked much as her sisters did at the present moment mouth agape and brows furrowed in confusion.

But none of them could compare to the sheer stillness that Seven Woodcutter had become, her silence almost tangible in the air. Mama blinked, and then turned eyes of fire upon Papa. Sunday tried to imagine what thoughts raced behind those eyes. Her own husband had lied to her, and kept that lie safe for over a decade simply to dwell in his own petty hatred. The medallion that had returned to them after so long had indeed marked Jack's death...but that mark was the punctuation at the end of a life, a life she had never known he had. The songs written after Jack's disappearance were true. Her son had lived. And she had been the worse betrayed.

"You will not marry my daughter." Papa's command did not carry the strength of his previous rantings.

Mama's hand dropped from Papa's chest. "Yes." The one word dripped ice and cut like a razor. "Yes, he will. It has been said. The words have been spoken. And not even you can change that, Jack Woodcutter."

In Sunday's heart glimmered a spark of hope she had thought long dead.

Mama took her hand. "Sunday, do you love this man?"

Sunday loved him as a man and a frog and a prince; she loved him with all her heart as surely as she loved her own family.

"Yes, I do."

Mama placed Sunday's hand inside Rumbold's. "Then you have our blessing."

As if someone were moving his head, Papa nodded. Without another word, he turned and headed into the Wood. Mama led her daughters into the house. Prince Rumbold and Sunday found themselves alone in the yard. Trix rustled above them in his treehouse.

Sunday and her prince stared at each other for a very long time.

"I have something for you," he said finally.

"You do?"

He nodded. "You seemed to have misplaced a recurring theme." From behind his back he produced Sunday's silver and gold slipper from the night before. "I felt it was only proper to return it."

Sunday laughed, and with that laugh the birds sang and the sun shone and the flowers bloomed. Hope blossomed inside her, and she felt alive once again.

"I cannot promise you a happy ending," she admitted. A tendril of the magic beanstalk curled around her finger and a leaf opened up in her hand. "But I can promise you an interesting life."

"A man could not hope for a better future."

They smiled at each other.

"If I may be so bold, Miss Woodcutter..." he started.

"Please, call me Sunday."

"Sunday," he smiled again. "Do you think you could find it in your heart to kiss me?"

Sunday had wondered how long it would take before he got around to asking.

THE CURSED PRINCE.

The aggregate history of Rumbold, Crown Prince of Arilland F ate knows the destinies of soulmates; the G.o.ds whisper them in her ear and she keeps them close to her breast. But fey-bloods know the burning desire of all hopeless humans (and even some hapless fairies) to unlock Fate's diary, read all her intimate secrets, and carelessly meddle in the delicate matters of the heart. And so the Fairy Wells were created, and the Wells begat the Well-Wishers.

The recipe is simple enough for any school child to remember: toss gold into the well to wish for love, silver to keep it, and cold iron to dissolve it. Of course all of the stories involving that last one never work out the way the wisher means them to, and most often the outcome is not in the wisher's favor.

The children of Arilland learned all those stories at their mother's (or father's) knee, and took heed to always be wary of what they wished for. Fate might know a man's destiny, but how badly he screws up the path to get there is entirely up to him.

Rumbold did a better job of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up than Fate ever could.

She smelled like lavender. Or was it lilacs? Rumbold buried his nose deeper into the sleeve of his mother's gown as she told him the story of the Giant of Tinnyran for the hundred hundredth time. Violets? It was one of those flowers he knew, one of the light purple ones that dared defy winter and burst into spring every year against all odds and fell to pieces anytime he tried to touch it.

They're all the same, thought the young prince. She just smells purple.

He smiled into the sound of her voice as it echoed through her skin. It did not matter that she had told him a hundred hundred times about the giant and the boy who tricked him into giving him a ride on his shoulders. He could easily have heard it a hundred more. Every time she told the story it was new and exciting. Every time he was scared that the giant would squeeze the boy into paste or grind his bones and lick the boydust off his fingers. And every time the boy sat on the giant's shoulders and saw the whole world stretched out before him, Rumbold's eyes watered at the beauty of it too. But in that hundred hundred times, Rumbold never remembered a yellow-green dragon breathing the fire of the sun down upon them...

"Mother," he giggled. "That's not how it goes."

"If you know the story so well," Mother mock-scolded, "perhaps you should tell it to me instead."

"But I cannot," said Rumbold, "because...I have a very rare disease that makes me forget a story instantly after I hear it."

"Is that why you keep asking for the same story over and over?"

"I've heard it's an excellent story." His feigned sternness became giggles as she attacked him. She would not stop until he begged for mercy, and then she scooped him up into her springly purpleness and squeezed him tightly. Any tighter and Rumbold might turn to paste himself, or the two of them might be squeezed into the same skin, never to be separated.

Not that he would have minded. Laughter always filled the air around his mother. People smiled in her wake as she pa.s.sed them in the halls, as if they had suddenly been overcome with joy and couldn't help themselves. She was the epitome of fun and innocence and life, and she was so very, very beautiful.

So very, very unlike his father.

He had asked her many times before what it was that had made her fall in love with the stern, unfeeling, heartless king. "Oh, my solemn son," she laughed, "where's your sense of adventure?" And because she had laughed when she answered him he smiled and knew that whatever the reason it was a good reason, for his mother could not have imagined the world any other way. If she was happy, Rumbold was content. Happiness was her gift.

All fey have gifts.

The king liked to surround himself with fairies and fey-bloods. It was common knowledge that proximity to someone with fairy blood elongated one's lifespan, and while no one could remember exactly how old their handsome king was, they knew he had been around long enough to outlive one queen and marry another while still in his prime. Rumbold recalled the prevalence of dark-hair among the dignitaries at court, darker than his mother's long chestnut curls, but none of them with tresses as black as Velius...

"Am I fey?"

Soft fingers paused in their meandering trail across his furrowed brow and slid down his cheek. "My never-constant son. What makes you ask such a thing?"

"The boys at the training ground today said that Velius was fey."

"Velius. The duke's son."

Rumbold nodded. Velius was a duke's son, but n.o.body ever called him that.

"Well, they're right in any case," she answered. "It's too late an hour for me to go into, but yes. Your cousin has more wild fairy blood in him than anyone I've ever met." She looked away, and the lamplight turned her blue eyes golden. "Almost anyone," she added as an afterthought. "What does any of that have to do with you?"

"The other children say that I'm fey too, because I have dark hair."

Contagious as his mother's laugh usually was, it didn't make Rumbold feel instantly better. The enthusiastic kiss she placed on his forehead did. The pillow haloed her dark brown curls around her as she settled back down and took a deep breath. Rumbold knew that breath meant a story, so he closed his eyes and snuggled into her warm body again.

"Faerie is a land so large its size mirrors the human world-perhaps even surpa.s.ses it; no one knows for sure. Deep in the heart of Faerie lives the Fairy Queen. She is its only Queen, and has reigned over the land since the beginning of time. Her hair is as black as night, her skin as white as pearl, and her eyes are deep violet, as deep and rich as dragon's blood.

"She has no children because she cannot; in order to give life to another being of her own flesh, she would have to sacrifice so much of herself and her power that there would be nothing left. But it is said that those humans with the most fey blood in their hearts look very much like the Fairy Queen."

"And they have special powers?"

"Gifts. Some of them have gifts, yes."

Rumbold let her story wrap itself around him, painting him her shade of purple. What if he had dragon's blood in his veins? Could he do wonderful things? But Mother had not said the gifts were wonderful, only that they were beyond comprehension.

"But there are many fey-bloods inside and outside Faerie with skin as black as pitch or hair as white as snow, or both. There are some so good at what they do that you would never notice, and some so inept they can't make decent tea." Rumbold smiled at the thought of a fairy dropping a teakettle and having an army of salamanders scurry out of it and across the floor. "They come in all shapes and sizes, just like humans. And you, my dearest," she tapped him on the nose, "may have eyes and hair as brown as treestain, but you are as human as they come. Just like your father."