The Ordinary Princess (7 page)

It was almost four o‘clock by the time they reached the city, and the Ordinary Princess was very tired and footsore. It had been much farther than she had thought when she looked at its walls and roofs from the edge of the forest, which may have been partly because she found that roads are not nearly as comfortable to bare feet as moss, so that one has to go more slowly.

She stopped by a little stone bridge over the river that ran through the town, to bathe her tired and dusty feet and decide what she had better do. “I think I shall try and get work at the castle,” thought the Ordinary Princess, wiggling her toes in the nice cool water. She smiled to herself and tweaked Mr. Pemberthy’s bushy tail. “It will be a change to work in a castle instead of living in one,” she said.

Then she dried her toes on the long grass by the bridge and marched off down the road to the castle. Perhaps the old Fairy Crustacea’s wish that luck would go with her had something to do with it. But strange as it may seem, when she knocked at the back door of the castle and asked for work, she was taken in at once, in spite of that dreadfully ragged gown. For as luck would have it, the fourteenth assistant kitchen maid had tripped over the kitchen cat that very morning and twisted her ankle. So the Ordinary Princess got the job at two pfennigs a week, plus her keep and the loan of a spare apron.

“How many pfennigs would it take to buy a new frock?” she asked the thirteenth assistant kitchen maid.

“About a hundred,” said the thirteenth assistant kitchen maid. “But it depends on the frock.”

So that is how Her Serene and Royal Highness, Amethyst Alexandra Augusta Araminta Adelaide Aurelia Anne, Princess of Phantasmorania, became an ordinary kitchen maid in the royal castle of Amber.

 

 

 

She was soon to find out that a great deal of work was expected in return for two pfennigs a week and her keep.

From early dawn until late at night she was busy scampering up and down the huge castle kitchens, washing dishes, peeling potatoes, fetching and carrying for the royal cooks, filling pails of water, and a hundred other things.

At night she slept in a narrow rickety bed in a very small attic room at the tip-top of the castle. The bed was very hard and the mattress full of lumps, but she was always so tired that she did not care.

Whenever she could snatch a moment from her work, she would run up the twelve long flights of stairs that led to her attic, to take a handful of crumbs and scraps to Mr. Pemberthy and Peter Aurelious.

Mr. Pemberthy and Peter Aurelious spent most of their time sunning themselves on the castle roofs or making trips down to the gardens. But wherever they were, the minute they heard the Ordinary Princess’s soft whistle they would hurry back to the attic windowsill.

Every second week the Ordinary Princess was allowed Thursday afternoon off, and then all three of them would spend a glorious time together in the forest. And every Saturday night the Ordinary Princess would put two pfennigs into a cardboard box with a hole in the lid that she kept under her bed.

“When the box is full,” she told Mr. Pemberthy and Peter Aurelious, “I shall take it down to the town and buy myself a new frock, and then we can all go back to the forest and live there for always. Or at least,” she added, “until I need a new one.”

Peter Aurelious put his head on one side and said,
“Qwa!”
and Mr. Pemberthy fluffed up his tail and made a little chattering noise, quite as though they both understood what it was all about. Which perhaps they did.

On the whole, the Ordinary Princess—who was now an ordinary kitchen maid—enjoyed life as much as ever. For when you have spent most of your life surrounded by ladies-in-waiting and polite courtiers who all expect you to do nothing but play the harp nicely and do a little elegant embroidery, even peeling potatoes has its charms. And there is nothing that gives you a feeling of such proud satisfaction as drawing a weekly wage that you have earned all by yourself. Even if it is only two pfennigs!

Every now and again the Ordinary Princess would send a letter to her parents, to tell them that she was quite safe and well and happy, so that they would not worry about her too much. But she was very careful to give no address, and as no one used postmarks in those days, she was never discovered.

 

 

The Ordinary Princess had been an ordinary kitchen maid for several weeks before she caught so much as a glimpse of the castle’s owner, King Algernon of Ambergeldar. But though she had not seen him, she had heard a great deal about him from the other seventeen assistant kitchen maids.

It seemed that he was young and gallant and handsome and that his mother had died when he was only a baby, and his father had been killed out hunting when he was ten years old, so he had been a king since that early age.

The kitchen maids, the scullery maids, and the housemaids, the scullions, pages, cooks, and serving maids were never tired of talking about him, and to hear them one would suppose him to be the most marvelous person in the world.

“But they can’t fool
me,”
said the Ordinary Princess to Mr. Pemberthy and Peter Aurelious. “I know
all
about kings and princes. They may seem very wonderful to kitchen maids, but believe me, when you get to know them, you’d be surprised how stiff and stodgy and tiresome they are.”

She spoke so snappishly that Mr. Pemberthy looked quite startled and dropped an acorn.

“Algernon,
indeed!” said the Ordinary Princess in tones of immense scorn.

“Qwa!”
agreed Peter Aurelious.

The cardboard box with the hole in the lid contained the sum of twelve pfennigs when the whole castle was thrown into a bustle of excitement. It seemed that Queen Hedwig of Plumblossomburg was to pay a friendly visit to her nephew, Algernon of Ambergeldar, and great plans were made to receive and entertain her.

“Friendly visit my foot!” said the thirteenth assistant kitchen maid, whose name was Ethelinda. She was sitting on the steps of the kitchen yard in the sun, helping the Ordinary Princess to shell peas.

“You mark my words,” said the thirteenth assistant kitchen maid darkly, “it’s that there Persephone!”

“What do you mean?” asked the Ordinary Princess. “And who is Persephone?”

“The Princess Persephone, that’s who! Queen Hedwig’s daughter. You see, it’s this way,” explained Ethelinda, only too willing to stop shelling peas and gossip instead. “Queen Hedwig, who’s coming to visit here, is the King’s aunt. And her daughter, that there Persephone who is the King’s cousin, is coming with her.
Now you mark my words,”
repeated Ethelinda impressively, “she’s bringing that girl of hers along in ‘opes, as you might say.”

“In what?” asked the Ordinary Princess, puzzled.

“H-o-p-e-s, ‘opes,” said the thirteenth assistant kitchen maid, who tended to forget her aitches when excited. “She’d not ’arf like to see her daughter Queen of Ambergeldar.”

“Oh, I see,” said the Ordinary Princess. “That kind of hopes. I know those!”

“That’s it,” said Ethelinda, absentmindedly eating raw peas. “It’s policy. Or that’s what I think they call it. Something like that.” She smiled rather condescendingly at the Ordinary Princess and added, “Of course
you
wouldn’t understand. Not having been long in royal circles, as you might say. But let me tell you, dear, the Fuss there is over princes and kings and princesses and such-like getting married you wouldn’t ‘ardly believe.”

The Ordinary Princess only just stopped herself from saying, “Oh, wouldn’t I!” She got as far as “Oh” and stopped there.

“Fuss ain’t the word for it,” continued the thirteenth assistant kitchen maid, her mouth full of peas. “Why, the princesses that have come here on ‘friendly visits’ would fill this here yard twice over and still leave some outside. It’s them councillors if you ask me,” said Ethelinda wisely. “They’re always at him to get married. Badgering, I calls it. Plain
badgering.
That Prime Minister is always inviting princesses to stay at the castle. Gives us a lot of extra work it does. But he hasn’t fallen in love with any of ’em yet!—the King, I mean.”

The thirteenth assistant kitchen maid gazed across the kitchen yard and sighed sentimentally. “I suppose he will one day,” she said sadly. “Not that no one would be good enough for ‘im. Coo!” sighed the thirteenth assistant kitchen maid, “don’t I just wish I was a princess!”

 

 

On the first night of Queen Hedwig’s visit there was to be a magnificent ball in her honor, and the Ordinary Princess and all the other castle servants were hard at work before the sun rose that day.

The Queen was bringing with her a retinue of more than a hundred knights and courtiers and ladies-in-waiting with their servants, pages, and men-at-arms. Every room in the castle was full, while the overflow camped in tents of damask in the castle gardens, so that the lawns looked like a gaily colored fairground.

The Ordinary Princess had managed to escape from the kitchen for a few minutes when no one was looking, and from a corner of the castle battlements she had seen the royal visitors ride in procession through the great gateway. Soldiers presented arms, drums rattled, cannon boomed, and banners and pennants fluttered in the breeze.

Queen Hedwig rode on a white horse with glittering trappings, and four knights in armor held a golden canopy over her head. The Ordinary Princess thought she looked very proud and bossy and disagreeable.

Behind her, carried in a jeweled chair, came the Princess Persephone. She was as beautiful as the evening star, but she bowed and smiled in a rather bored sort of way—like a mechanical doll, thought the Ordinary Princess—while the people cheered and threw rose petals into her lap.

The Ordinary Princess would have liked to wait and see some more, but she was afraid to stay longer in case one of the cooks should notice that she had gone. So she slipped away and went back to the very sticky and tiresome job of stoning cherries.

That night, when the big yellow moon rose over the treetops and shone down upon Amber Castle, nobody noticed it at all. For the castle and its gardens and park, and all the city, was illuminated in honor of Queen Hedwig’s visit, and there was such a blaze of light that the moonlight seemed faint and wan.

In the state rooms of the castle thousands upon thousands of sweet-scented wax candles glowed from golden candlesticks, or glittered from chandeliers, while out in the gardens hundreds of gaily colored lanterns swayed among the branches of the trees and hung like strings of jewels along the clipped yew hedges. It really was the most entrancing sight. But lovelier and more splendid than the colored lights or the glittering crystal chandeliers were the noble guests in their wonderful satins and brocades, all stitched with gold and silver thread and winking with jewels, as they walked to and fro in the lantern-lit garden.

The Ordinary Princess hung out of her attic window at an extremely dangerous angle and admired it all very much.

She had really only stolen up for a few minutes to bring some almonds for Mr. Pemberthy and a handful of cake crumbs for Peter Aurelious. But the sound of music and the buzz of voices from the garden below had brought her to the window, and there she had lingered, quite entranced by the lovely sight.

Not that she had much use for state balls as a general rule, having already danced at too many, dressed up in stiff and scratchy gold-encrusted gowns and wearing her heavy for-very-best-occasions crown. But tonight she thought it would have been fun to wander in that lantern-decked garden or to dance to the fiddles across the shining ballroom floor. For high as her attic was, she could hear the music plainly, and the musicians were playing a tune that she knew well: