Once Upon a Dream (20 page)

No one heard, and the fiddlers played on.

Like a coach gradually accelerating on a downhill stretch, their strings plucked and thumped slowly at first…and then began to build speed.

The dancers followed suit, no longer attempting intricate steps but just circling round and round.

“Rose!” Phillip called, but she was swept up in the dance, her hair a golden smear, her smile a flicker that was there and then gone. Soon he could barely see the inner circle at all.

The musicians played faster. Their bows snapped back and forth across their fiddles like they were trying to saw them in half.

The dancers spun in circles so swift they became two blurry bangles of cloth and braids and feet and dust.

The adults put their joined hands together in the air and rushed into the center toward the children and Rose.

Phillip put his hand on his sword.

The music reached a fever pitch, the fiddlers pulling like their fingers would fall off. The notes sounded insane.

Phillip started to step forward…

…and then the music stopped. Just like that.

Everyone on the sides clapped madly. Both rings of dancers swayed, separated, and collapsed, all exhausted. They stumbled back to rest or have a drink.

The fiddlers shook their hands out and started again, a slow folk melody, to give everyone—including themselves—a chance to recover.

Aurora Rose’s cheeks were ruddy and her smile was wild. She laughed when she saw the slow changes on Phillip’s face: suspicion, then confusion, then grudging delight.

“I told you it didn’t feel like a trap!”

“Neither did the last two,” Phillip repeated, rolling his eyes. He started to hand her drink back, but she took both it and his own mug and set them down on a barrel, then grabbed his hand and led him out to the dance floor.

A reel was just beginning; a row of men and a row of women were curtsying and bowing to their partners across the way. The prince and princess tacked themselves onto the ends. If she had any doubts about the son of a king being able to perform a country dance, her fears quickly evaporated. Phillip gave her a not-too-courtly bow and immediately began the correct steps in perfect synchronicity with the boys and men around him.

She picked up her skirts and danced up to him as all the ladies danced up to—but did not touch—their partners. All they could do was look into each other’s eyes, daring the other one to look away. The prince and princess’s faces were less than a blush apart as she switched her feet in a series of tiny moves. She felt the heat from the drink spread back up through her body and flush her lips and cheeks…

…and then she was spinning back into her own line again, dizzy and giddy.

The lines moved, and they switched partners and clapped above their heads. Soon Aurora Rose was face-to-face with a short, bearded woodsman who had a cloth cap and surprisingly graceful feet. He was gentlemanly and had a serious expression, devoted to the dance…but gave her a wink when it was time to move on.

The music broke for a moment when a small child ran straight down the middle, crying and looking for his mother. The princess immediately took him by his little hand and walked him around until they found her. The mother—unconcerned; it was a small village, with no real place to get lost—gave her thanks, but the boy kept staring back at the princess, awed at his royal rescue.

Everyone laughed and the dance restarted, and Aurora Rose was back with Phillip.

When it was time for him to swing her around, he put his full hand on her waist, thumb curving around her back so he had her entirely. She could feel the heat from his palm through the rich cloth and found herself swaying so he was supporting more of her weight than he really needed to. As if she would fall if he let go.

When he put his other hand on her waist to lift her up for the ladies’ jump, he whispered in her ear. She didn’t understand what he said at first, too focused on his lips just touching her ear, his warm breath on her cheek.

“Your dress.”

She looked down when her whirling brain finally translated it.

She no longer wore the meringue-like light blue ridiculous thing. It was instead a strange mix of her outfit when she had lived in the forest and what she had escaped the Thorn Castle in. An old brownish skirt and black corset top—but with a golden shirt that flowed under the corset and over her hips like a tunic. The skirts were all ripped and in tatters.

And her shoes were once again gone.

She shrugged.

“It’s
my
dream, isn’t it?” she said, whispering in his ear.

Phillip raised an eyebrow, thinking about this.

And then the moment was over and they were returning to their lines.

After that dance ended a circle dance began, which was a little disappointing; she wanted to be close to Phillip again. But a dance was a dance, and she was having fun, so she joined in that one anyway—and the one after that, and the one after that. Phillip bowed out after a couple, his constitution for such diversions not as hearty as hers. He toasted her from the sidelines and was polite but not encouraging to the local girls who flirted madly despite his reticence.

Finally, he was forced to retreat to a quieter area where the horses were tied up and carts and wagons were parked for the evening.

The princess eventually took a break, collapsing next to Phillip on a pile of hay, leaning her hot and exhausted body next to him.

“Rose…” Phillip began.

“I know, I know, we need to go,” she sighed, slugging down the last of his wine.

“Well, I don’t know….” He cast a worried look at the sky. It was now fully dark and the stars were out. The bonfire blazed bright orange and red against the sky, smoke hazing the heavens. “Maybe we should spend the night here. It seems
safe
. I worry about another direct attack from M—”

He stopped what he was saying when a funny-looking man approached them. He had been hidden inside the prettiest of the covered wagons: peeling paint decorated the sides in a landscape of mountains against a blue sky. Once-brightly-colored pennants still flapped bravely.

The man was certainly not a local; his dress was just a trifle too fine and too untouched by the dirt a farmer or woodsman’s life involved. His face was different, too, with a pointier nose and light blue eyes. He wore a multicolored cap that he touched when he sat down across from them.

“A fine night for a village dance,” said he.

“Aye,” Phillip said. “It is indeed. You don’t seem like you’re
from
this village, though.”

“You don’t neither,” the man retorted, but toasted with his mug—a slightly dented metal one. “People say you’re from that castle over there. The one where the witch keeps everyone prisoner.”

“Yes,” the princess said. “We escaped. We’re going to go get help.”

“And where are
you
from?” Phillip pressed.

“All over, my lad! All over! I’m Ozrey the traveling merchant,” the man said, getting up and giving a little bow. “Peddler of delights and displayer of fantastic finds. People come from all over when they hear I’m in town, to take a gander at my wondrous wares.”

“Really,” Phillip said. He didn’t
quite
say it in disbelief, but Aurora Rose gave him a small kick anyway.

“Oh, I can see you’re a sophisticated gentleman,” Ozrey said with smile. “You’ve a sword of steel and have probably all sorts of boy toys at home. But
I’ve
been to the east and beyond, lad. I’ve been to Alexandria and Shanghai and Persia. I’ve traded with those who have been to R’lyeh and Carcosa. Tell me, have you ever seen anything such as
this
?”

Like a magician, he pulled out of nowhere a delicate wire bird cage, tiny and bell-shaped. But on the golden perch inside wasn’t a real bird at all—it was a metal one, shiny and faceted like a gem. It had bright emeralds for eyes and a beak carved out of onyx.

“Amazing,” Phillip said in wonder, putting his head close for a better look.

“Oh, that’s nothing. Get a listen to
this
.” Ozrey pressed a stud on the side of the cage and, suddenly, the bird came alive. It cocked its head and flapped its wings. Then it opened its beak and let out a pretty little trill just like a real bird.

“It’s wonderful!” the princess breathed.

“She can sing real songs, too,” Ozrey said with a proud smile. “Not like you and me know, not the songs from around this great country, but songs nonetheless. Quite the companion on the long dusty roads.”

He sighed, setting it down on the hay bale in front of him so the prince and princess could continue to admire it.

“That was from one of my trips long ago, to the east. Don’t do that so much anymore. Mainly I come through these parts a couple times a year on regular rounds. Sell the good folks things they can’t get here. Knives. Pots. The usual housewares. Pretty cloth from the city. And I pick up the things they can’t get in the cities—mushrooms, wild herbs, the usual. Thought I’d stay for the party, but I’ll be on my way tomorrow.”

“Really?” Aurora Rose asked excitedly, finally drawing her eyes away from the bird and looking meaningfully at Phillip. “Maybe we can travel with you, for safety. You can hide us in your wagon.”

Ozrey looked away, down at his drink, then over their heads toward the woods.

“Er, not that you wouldn’t make pleasant enough company…but I’m afraid I’ve no desire to get the attention of that evil fairy back in there.”

Phillip frowned.

“You
know
she will find out who helped you,” the man protested. “Her spies are everywhere. I’m a coward, yes, but I survived through more kingdomly squabbles and troubled times than many in my profession.”

“We’re not asking you to take us all the way through the woods,” the prince said. “Just…part of the way. To the crossroads after the granite escarpment. We can part there.”

“We can pay you,” the princess added. “Um…somehow.”

Ozrey started getting twitchy.

“If I
was
to take you, I couldn’t take payment, now could I,” he said, thinking desperately. “Not for helping the two of you out on your…
noble quest.
It would have to just be a good deed. Unless it gets me killed. In which case it was a stupid, stupid deed.”

“It’s a
good
deed,” the princess suggested.

The man finally shook his head and stood up. “Well, I’ll leave it to the fates like I always do. That way I don’t make the decision myself. I can give myself up to what the gods will.”

“How’s that?” Phillip demanded.

“Well…can you sing, pretty bird?” the man asked, cocking his head at the princess.

“Yes…but…”

“So we’ll have a singing contest!” Ozrey declared. “You against my own pretty bird here. You win, I’ll take you wherever you want, as far as you want.
I
win, I’ll take your man’s pretty sword and hilt there.”

Phillip put his hand protectively on his belt.

“We’ll have no way to defend ourselves!”

“If you think a sword will defend yourself from Maleficent, you’ve already lost,” Ozrey observed wryly.

Phillip shuffled his legs in exasperation but didn’t contradict him.

“I’ll wind her up once. Whoever sings longer without repeating a song wins. Is it a deal?”

Phillip looked at Aurora Rose.

The princess tried very hard not to roll her eyes—a habit she had picked up from the otherwise expressionless Lianna. The contest was a cinch.
Singing
was her thing: folk songs, religious songs, foreign songs, whatever the fairies taught her, whatever her music tutor or the minstrel did. Even her own made-up songs to while away the hours in the woods or her concerts in the castle.

In fact, this was very much like one of her performances. Just with higher stakes.

“Absolutely,” she said.

“I’ll even have the little wonder go first,” Ozrey said, inserting a silver key into the thing’s neck and winding. “Sort of gives you a head start.”

The bird tipped back and forth once or twice on its perch, almost like a real one. But its movements were jerky and sudden, and its eyes didn’t move, nor did it cock its head suspiciously at its audience, the way a real one might have. The carved-gem beak opened, and it began to sing.

The music that emerged was beautiful and perfect and unworldly, like tiny bits of metal or glass tinkling on a stone floor in surprising order. The notes were a little strange to the princess’s ears, but she absorbed the new sounds eagerly—to try them herself later. It was a happy little tune. Just the sort of thing you would imagine a pretty windup toy would play.

And all too soon, it was over.

“Your turn, young miss,” Ozrey said with a little bow.

For now the princess wouldn’t show off; she would just concentrate on winning.

Without thinking she sang,
“Douce—douce dame jolie….”
The last words from the minstrel before Maleficent’s guards had hauled him away. In memory of him, she sang the whole thing through, which he didn’t have a chance to.

She felt rather than saw Phillip watching her, enchanted.

When she finished, even Ozrey touched his cap again.

“That was amazing, miss, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“Rose, I’ve heard you sing before, but…” Phillip was at a loss for words. “Your voice is so sweet! Like an angel, or something perfect and pure…”

She blushed.

“All right, birdie’s turn,” Ozrey said.

It sang again. Another happy, spritely tune.

The princess sang again. A comic—but not too bawdy—ballad to match its tone.

The bird sang again.

Its tunes grew more complicated; sometimes it sang two notes at once to make a little chorus with itself.

The princess wasn’t concerned in the slightest. She had a repertoire of hundreds of ballads, canticles, and rounds to choose from.

Slowly its songs began to change…from the simple country airs to tunes that were sweeter and sadder. It held its notes and trilled in minor keys.

When it sang, the princess listened, enraptured.

At the same time, she was impatient for it to end so she could begin her own response. It was almost like she didn’t even care about the contest anymore.