While Beauty Slept (17 page)

A few maids dashed past toward the Great Hall, their hands clutching precious goblets and bowls. Petra had described the feast preparations to me the day before: All the finest gold and silver serving pieces had been polished, the best crystal laid out, tapestries brought down from throughout the castle so every wall would be covered with color. The king and queen would sit at their table on the dais, with Rose in the royal cradle at their side. After dinner and the usual songs and poems in honor of the child, the highest-ranking guests would present their gifts. This procession was expected to take hours, by which time the crowd would be hungry again and supper would be served.

A hand tugged at my shoulder, and I turned to see Petra, eyeing me approvingly.

“What a lovely dress,” she said.

“The queen gave it to me, for the baptism.”

“You were at the cathedral?”

“In the back, crammed in a corner,” I said. “Hardly a place of honor.”

Petra glanced at the servants bustling past us. “I can’t talk now. I’m risking an earful for being late as it is. Shall I look for you here later?”

“I’m not sure. The queen may need me.” It was a convenient excuse, one I had used often to avoid servants’ gatherings.

“Surely she’ll allow you an hour or two of fun?” Petra asked. “All the girls will be dying to hear about the ceremony. And I hear that a certain huntsman will be singing.”

We exchanged smiles, mine tentative and hers mischievous. The young man who tended to the king’s hunting dogs was the subject of much conversation among the castle’s female servants. Grateful for the friendly overture, I told her I would try to come.

Petra grinned and turned to go. “I’ll be expecting you,” she said over her shoulder as she ran off.

When I arrived in the queen’s chambers upstairs, one of the maids told me she had already made her way to the Great Hall. I hurried back downstairs, weaving my way between extravagantly dressed ladies and gentlemen who sashayed along the hallways, preening for one another’s benefit. When I entered the hall, I saw the king and queen across the room, greeting guests I did not recognize but whose elaborate cloaks signaled their noble rank. Counts, lords, and princes from throughout the land would be in attendance, and the king was determined to dazzle them all.

I elbowed through the press of people in the hall until I caught Queen Lenore’s eye. I began to offer apologies for my late arrival, but she simply tilted her head to the side, indicating that I was to take my place. I pushed through the crowd until I reached the wall behind the dais, where I could watch the proceedings yet be within easy reach.

Suddenly the blast of trumpets rang out. Guests rushed to take their seats in a buzz of conversation and a rustle of skirts. The king rose from his chair. He was resplendent in his purple-and-gold robe, radiating happiness.

“Fair ladies and good gentlemen,” he began, “it is my honor to welcome you to this glorious celebration. On this day I present my daughter, Rose, to you as my heir, with all the rights such a title entails.”

I saw guests glance at one another, acknowledging the momentousness of the king’s break with tradition, and I remembered Millicent’s warning about forces arrayed against him. If any disloyal subjects lurked in this crowd, I saw no sign of them.

“The future of the kingdom has been a matter of great concern, to you as well as to my family,” the king continued. “Whatever fears may have been raised in the past, I trust that Rose’s arrival has eased them. Let her birth herald a new era of glory for us all.”

He raised his golden goblet, inlaid with a rainbow’s worth of jewels, and the guests stood and raised their glasses as well, a mass toast that exploded through the room. I tried to capture the sight in my mind, imagining I might one day tell Rose of this moment. Was it possible that a tiny child, and a girl at that, could preside over an era of peace? I wished it with all my heart.

After the toast, trays of food were brought in by an army of servants; I noticed that even the chambermaids and pages had been pressed into service. It was surely a mark of my favor with the queen that I had not been ordered to wait on the guests as well. She signaled to me a few times during the meal—once to fetch her a cool cloth, for the room was warm from the press of bodies, and the other to wipe a small puddle of wine that had spilled at her feet—but for the most part I stood aside and watched. By the time the jugglers and dancers arrived and attempted their entertainment in the narrow aisle that crossed the room, my face was flushed and my feet ached.

But there was still more to be endured: the endless parade of gifts. In order of rank, guests were escorted to the dais, where they presented gifts chosen for their power to impress the king and queen. The pile of jewels, furs, and gold grew, was carried away, and then grew again. I could see the hours wearing on the queen; she leaned sideways in her chair, her smile gracious as ever but her body slumped with fatigue.

The last of the gift givers, an elderly noblewoman whose back was bent in a permanent bow, shuffled toward the dais. The room’s previously lively spirit had dissipated through the course of the afternoon. Now guests yawned and whispered to one another, long since bored by the proceedings. The gown I had worn with such pride that morning was wrinkled and damp with sweat, and my precisely arranged curls had wilted. I yearned for nothing more than to collapse upon my pallet and sleep.

In my distracted haze, it took me some moments to realize that the mood of the room had shifted. It was the rustle of mumbling voices I noticed first, near the doorway. I rose to my tiptoes, peering about to discover the cause, but the crowd was too thick. I listened to the commotion gather and swell, as a ripple passes across a pond. And then a figure emerged from the press of courtiers, and I gasped.

Millicent did not appear a woman disgraced. She held herself as regally as any queen, her black cape swirling around her tall frame. She wore a gown of green and purple—the royal family’s colors—and her golden earrings flashed in the candlelight. I will never forget the sight of her as she marched, radiating strength. In that moment she was both beautiful and terrifying, and I felt myself succumb once again to her mysterious allure. Had she commanded me to bow before her, I would have, without question.

She stopped at the edge of the dais, directly in front of the king, and all sound ceased. She motioned toward the pile of riches at his feet.

“I fear I have arrived unpardonably late.” Her resonant voice rang throughout the silent room. “Have all the gifts been presented?”

Queen Lenore sat perfectly still; to the guests she might have appeared indifferent to Millicent’s arrival. Only I recognized the stiffening of her jaw and the way her hands clenched in her lap. The king’s cheeks flushed, and I saw the effort he made to control himself before speaking.

“Madam, the celebration is at an end.”

“I wish only to pay my respects,” Millicent said, lowering her head in supplication.

Queen Lenore reached out and laid her hand on her husband’s arm. He glanced at her, then nodded at Millicent, his eyes narrow with suspicion.

“Thank you,” Millicent said with an elaborate bow. “I do have a gift for both of you, but it is one you have already received.” She stretched her long, bony fingers toward the crib. “Your beautiful daughter.”

The king began to protest, and Millicent spoke quickly to silence his objections. “Ask dear Lenore. She will tell you how my efforts brought this miracle to pass.”

The king turned to his wife, but she stared straight ahead, watching, waiting, her body so still that it was as if she had forgotten to breathe.

“Yet did I receive your gratitude? No. Instead you chose to shame me, casting me off like a common beggar. You have taken everything: my home, my good name, my happiness. And so, good King Ranolf, I will take your happiness from you.”

Queen Lenore, as if sensing what was to come, reached toward the cradle and clutched Rose’s tiny fist.

“Your child, your wife, your beloved kingdom—you shall lose it all,” Millicent went on, her voice rising in triumph. “Not today and not tomorrow. No, I want you to clutch at your throne as you watch your power dissolve. I want you to live each day in fear, not knowing when the final blow will fall. I want you to see your child grow, loving her more with each passing year, until she is snatched away forever.”

Despite my revulsion I remained enthralled by her voice, her spellbinding presence. The entire court must have been so affected, for not one us of moved to stop her.

Millicent dropped her voice to a murmur and leaned in toward the king. “There are so many ways to take a life. An elixir poured in a goblet. A potion spread on a pillow. Perhaps a trace of poison on the tip of a spinning wheel. Lenore, you are fond of such womanly arts, are you not? Imagine your girl at the height of her youth and beauty, pricking her finger and falling dead before you. What would you do then?”

I can still hear her cackle. That chilling sound is lodged in my memory for eternity, Millicent’s revenge on me from beyond the grave. Queen Lenore cried out, and the sound roused the king from his horrified stupor. He leapt from his seat and made as if to attack Millicent himself in a battlefield rage. But she was prepared for such an onslaught. She sprang back, laughing, as the king tripped off the dais and tumbled to the floor.

“You will spend the rest of your life in fear,” she said with a terrible smile. “That, my dear Ranolf, is my gift to you.”

Then she disappeared. Later, through the years, people would say it happened by magic, that she vanished in a puff of smoke. Though I can swear there was no such scene, what I witnessed was barely more believable. One moment Millicent was standing at the center of the room; the next she had wrapped herself in her cape, turned, and lost herself in the crowd. The king shouted for his guards to go after her, and there was a roar of outrage and confusion as the knights pushed their way through the press of people, but to no avail. Millicent slipped out of the Great Hall without being seen.

She left behind a wake of shock and horror. Some guests huddled together and argued about what was to be done; others were struck dumb by what they had seen. Queen Lenore was shaking with sobs as she pulled Rose from the cradle and curled her body around the baby, as if to shelter her from Millicent’s hatred. Rose began to scream, finding no comfort in her mother’s embrace.

The sound roused me from my horrified stupor. I knelt before the queen, anxious to protect her from the frenzied scene.

“Come, madam,” I urged.

Gently, I pried Rose away from the queen’s arms and told the nurse to take her upstairs. The baby’s shrieks and the surrounding mayhem made me dizzy with confusion. Looking to the king for direction, I ushered Queen Lenore through a small doorway behind us that led to the Receiving Room, the chamber where she had cheerfully greeted visitors throughout her pregnancy, with a preening, proud Millicent by her side. As soon as we entered, King Ranolf waved to his guards and they pulled the door shut behind him, silencing the bedlam outside. The king reached for his wife’s hands, but she erupted with fury, pummeling her fists against her husband’s chest.

“What have you done?” she shrieked.

I had never seen her so unhinged, and the sight horrified me almost as much as had Millicent’s threats. King Ranolf gripped her elbows, and she sagged against him as her fury melted into despair. It was all I could do not to break down in tears myself.

“I begged you to invite Millicent,” Queen Lenore sobbed, pausing between words to catch her breath. “You refused, and this is the price we pay.”

“She is a madwoman! How dare she say Rose is her gift to us?”

“Because she is,” Queen Lenore said, her sobs subsiding into a moan. She did not meet her husband’s eyes.

“How can that be?” King Ranolf asked.

Behind us I heard a gentle rap at the door. Not wishing the king and queen to be bothered at such a time, I ran over and opened it a crack. To my surprise I saw Flora standing before me, a frail vision wrapped in an ivory cloak.

“Lenore. Ranolf. I must speak to them.”

I pulled the door just wide enough to admit her. She moved shyly, hesitantly, like a sheltered maiden of sixteen rather than a woman well past middle age. She held her hands before her with fingers intertwined, in an attitude of prayer, and seemed to float rather than walk in her trailing skirt. The edges were tattered and grimy, evidence of years of wear, and her wavy white hair had been shoddily pinned in a ramshackle mass that threatened to collapse with each movement of her head.

Queen Lenore cried out and pulled away from her husband’s arms.

“Help us!” she begged, falling at Flora’s feet. “We are doomed!”

Flora’s fingertips smoothed the queen’s hair. “I feared that Millicent would come,” she said slowly, her voice rusty from disuse. “You must believe I did my best to stop her. But it was not within my power.”

“What can we do?” Queen Lenore moaned.

“Take hold of yourself!” the king ordered. “I will not have you undone by my aunt’s wicked lies!”

“Ah, but what she said is true,” Queen Lenore repeated wearily, rising from her knees. “Without Millicent I never would have given you a child.”

“What do you mean?”

“The pilgrimage.” Queen Lenore’s voice was soft and hesitant, her eyes despondent. “It was Millicent’s idea that we seek the intercession of St. Agrelle at the convent named in her honor. It was only after we arrived that she told me the full story. The reason St. Agrelle herself made the journey there so many years ago.”

As the king waited for his wife to continue, Flora’s face fell. “No,” she whispered.

My stomach tightened with dread. What had Millicent done?

Flora turned to the king. “There have been stories, passed down from woman to woman. Claims that barren women bore children after visiting that hilltop. Some whispered that terrible sacrifices were made to a goddess there in ancient times, but I cannot believe that Millicent—”

“Black magic?” scoffed the king. “Nonsense!”