Wisdom's Kiss (49 page)

I, of course, could not reveal myself—were word to slip out that the poisoned princess was frolicking in Montagne we would quite have to forfeit this game—& so was left dancing in frustration behind a door while Tips & Trudy—& Escoffier!—rushed to save her. O, I near lost my mind as I waited! And then out rushed a stranger—handsome enough tho with evil in his eyes—whatever was Teddy thinking in losing her heart to him?!—grasping a sword!—with Tips hot on his heels shouting, "He flees! He flees!"

Well! I could not but think that this was a message to me—which indeed it was Tips assured me later he is so v. clever—& straightaway I decided—particularly since I could make no contribution otherwise—that it was up to me to pursue that fleeing scoundrel.

Dashing back up the staircase I hurled myself aboard the G d'Or & cast off driving that great lumbering orb toward the cliff that I might from above observe the fiend's escape & mark him much as an eagle gliding on high marks its prey—an image I quite relish I must say—& thus guide our soldiers to this evildoer.

So it was that I hovered over the switchback highway that descends Montagne's great cliff. Yet no fiend appeared & while I scanned the earth seeking him out I heard shouts—Tips & the villain above me engaged in desperate battle!
>
Hastily I scaled the orb that I might watch more closely & good it was I did so for the two men—grappling for a scrap of paper that could not but bode ill for my kingdom—at that very moment plunged off the platform to their doom!

Tips—how brave he is!—in falling aimed for the balloon while I tossed him a cable which saved him I think. The fiend fell on the other side his clawlike hands scratching at the balloon but he could make no purchase & with a scream of horror continued his descent after many awful seconds striking the ground far below. Splat. And good riddance to any man who treats my sister so. Tips on the other hand quite nimbly scaled the G d'Or—giving me a hasty kiss which I did not make a single attempt to spurn—& sent me back to the basket (tho I could not resist first setting alight that despicable parchment) that I might return him & myself unseen to the chateau.

Which I did & while hiding in the basket observed his hero's welcome tho he did not linger as every moment in that crowd increased the chances I would be revealed—& now we journey together without a chaperone! Which would make certain tongues wag I am sure yet we are both the soul of decorum for we are too exhausted to behave otherwise! Tips is understandably drained from his great battle & after a
little
nursing on my part (little being all the nursing of which I am capable) collapsed asleep—a condition in which I shall quite soon join him.

This has been such an extraordinary adventure—someday perhaps it might be possible to share it with the world—it would make a most remarkable novel or even a
play
—tho one would need great skill with a pen to manage that feat! But I cannot dwell upon storytelling at the moment—I am off to dreamland then anon to dazzle the empire (that is I hope I shall dazzle & not fall on my prat!) as Violet la Riene! (Is that not a brilliant pseudonym?
Rien
means "nothing" &
reine
means "queen"—a perfect description of me! And
violet
of course is a lovely flower and a lovely color too, but most importantly it is not a virtue. No one in the history of Montagne would ever say "Oh, Violet, for once can't you just behave violetly?")

O I am so happy I can scarcely bear it.

T
HE
S
TORY OF
F
ORTITUDE OF
B
ACIO
, C
OMMONLY
K
NOWN AS
T
RUDY, AS
T
OLD TO
H
ER
D
AUGHTER

Privately Printed and Circulated

LATER, Trudy would endeavor to recall her first impressions of Queen Temperance, to separate them from the insight and appreciation that she in the ensuing years developed. To be sure, their first encounter in the greenhouse—Temperance hysterical from embarrassment and grief, Trudy terrified for Tips's life—was not the most auspicious. Yet even then Trudy could see past the passion and tumult to know that Tips would probably survive and that Temperance was a precious soul indeed. They clung to each other through that epic battle, Trudy murmuring words of comfort, and as they listened to the death scream of that odious Farina spy, she whispered, "He is gone ... he is gone ... he is gone," as though it were an invocation, or a prayer, and it was not clear which man it was she prayed for.

Wisdom, and Nonna Ben more obliquely, had described Temperance as timid and shy, but such was not the young woman Trudy came to know. Even that first night, the young queen—while rightly cursing the duplicity of a man who would woo her with dogwoods—forbore from weeping over her own humiliation to query Trudy about Wisdom's wedding, the duchess's plot, and the whole of the Froglock experience. She had not received correspondence from Nonna Ben in four days and was desperate for the minutest scraps of information Trudy could provide. Escoffier sat with pricked ears as they puzzled out the chronology, so attentive that they could not but believe Nonna Ben was observing them through his eyes, and they took care to address the cat as if he
were
Ben, a courtesy to which he did not object in the least.

Together the two young women pored over Nonna Ben's latest missive (sent via the Globe d'Or and hand delivered by Trudy herself), describing Wisdom's display of magic to the emperor and his response, fragments of which Trudy had already heard aboard the balloon. Trudy listened in sympathetic horror as her new friend relayed the poisonous words that the duchess's agent had dripped in her ears, and she comforted her that no young woman could resist such sly manipulation. "It's perfectly shameful to tell someone you love her but she shouldn't be queen. If you truly loved someone, you'd tell the world she should be empress, even if she was only a featherbrained milkmaid! And someday someone will say that about you—although you're not a featherbrain, you know. Or a milkmaid."

Temperance laughed and said she knew
that
at least, and Escoffier lounging between them waved his tail contentedly as he purred.

Trudy even explained her sight, which she had never discussed with another soul except her mother and Tips (and, on that one awful occasion, Wisdom). Yet she sensed—she saw—that the queen would appreciate it. Indeed the queen did, though not without first expressing chagrin that yet another person had magic while she had none, and pressing Trudy for details on Mindwell's heritage, details Trudy was unable to provide.
So instead they discussed Tips and Wisdom, whether the two at that very moment might be floating through the vault of heaven, and what Ben must be up to in Froglock, though whatever it was—they reassured each other—she was doubtless safe as evinced by Escoffier's
phlegmatic demeanor
.

The mystery of Trudy's bloodline deepened the next morning when Temperance offered Trudy a tour and led her through the gardens and spaces of the magnificent Chateau de Montagne. Entering the Throne Room, Trudy without a moment of hesitation strode across the vast chamber to a humble old stool set in the shadows of the throne. Sitting herself upon it, she turned expectantly toward Temperance.

"What in heaven's name are you doing?" the queen asked, not without amusement.

"I—I'm sorry—" Trudy leapt up, blushing furiously. "It just came over me! I didn't—I'm so embarrassed..."

"Please, don't be! Do you know—well, how could you? That's the counselor's seat—the counselor to the throne. It's a terribly important position, and very few rulers are lucky enough—and you—oh, goodness! You went right over and plunked yourself—and with your sight—oh my, do you know what this means?"

Trudy could not answer, for her sight momentarily overwhelmed her, the joy matching in intensity the light that she'd observed from the Globe d'Or. She could see her own joy, yes, but the queen's as well, their two fates bound fast...
Standing there, Trudy looked at the queen before her and at the same time saw the queen in years and decades to come, the room swirling with visitors and diplomats not yet arrived—not yet even born—all turning toward her, toward Trudy, seeking her counsel. Seeking her
sight
.

Trudy's mind spun. If she accepted this position, she could remain here in this lovely chateau forever. She need never return to Bacio.

The queen continued to stammer. "Do you think you might ... want ... it? The position, I mean. And the seat as well—they rather go together, you see..."

"Yes, I do see," Trudy answered as last with a radiant smile. "Yes. I do."

***

That very afternoon, Trudy sent a letter to Eds informing him that, sadly, she would not be returning to the Duke's Arms, as she had accepted employment elsewhere; he must find himself a new kitchen wench. She included in the envelope a gold coin—her payment from Nonna Ben—knowing that currency was a language Eds spoke far better than words. Then she took up residence, with her bundle of clothes and earrings and Tips's letters, in a suite within Chateau de Montagne, counseling the queen whenever Temperance wished it. With time, the words "Lady Fortitude" did not make her wince, or glance behind her for the noblewoman to whom the other must be speaking. The queen assisted in this by declaring Trudy a peeress of the realm, complete with a gilded legal document that Trudy kept hidden in a drawer in her bedroom but admired sometimes at night, when she was certain no one could observe her.

Temperance unraveled as well the mystery of Trudy's lineage—unraveled it quite promptly, in fact, even before they had received the reassuring news that "Violet" and Tips had landed safely, if conspicuously, in the city of Rigorus, there awaiting the return of His Imperial Majesty and Circus Primus. Trudy this day was at her post in the Throne Room, doing her best to absorb the innumerable details and protocols of statecraft. A bearded gentleman entered bearing a parchment. Seeing him, Trudy found herself blind-sided with a swirl of emotions so powerful that she almost swooned.

Escoffier, settled in her lap, opened one and then both eyes to watch, though he did not deign to raise his head.

"Your Majesty." The bearded gentleman bowed to Temperance. "I have at last the information you seek. But it is"—here he glanced toward Trudy—" it is nuanced. Perhaps we could speak privately?"

No, they could not, returned the queen, for it was Trudy's duty and the queen's wish that she hear all, and moreover Lady Fortitude, if she should ever properly assist with Montagne's future, must without doubt learn her own past. And so the gentleman, with roundabout phrasing and unrolling of papers and as much consideration as he could muster, commenced to explain Lady Fortitude's genealogy.

His solicitude baffled Trudy, for she did not know this word
genealogy
...until she realized with a start that he meant her history. Her family.

Without warning, she began to cry. She would finally learn who she was, and Mina, and whence they hailed.

Temperance drew her close and offered a handkerchief, begging the gentleman to continue.

The story was a sad one (so the gentleman related), though in the main unexceptional: Lady Fortitude's mother—born and raised in Montagne, as her name suggested—was the lone child of a stern wool merchant, who on discovering her love for a lowly stone carver disowned her. Soon thereafter, the young man fell to his death, and Mina, obviously with child, fled Montagne forever. The wool merchant had since perished, as had the stone carver's parents, so Trudy to some extent was as orphaned as ever.

However—so the gentleman added—there was more to the tale. Mindwell's forebears had been wool merchants since the dawn of time, as stolid and unimaginative as the sheep who made their wealth.
But the stone carver...
Pierre Stein
was his name, and he came from a long line of artisans and artists who by rumor, scandal, and at least once by marriage (here the bearded gentleman pointed to an ancient name on that sinuous genealogy) had been connected to the royal family. Pierre Stein's maternal grandmother could grow herbs even in the dead of winter, and a great-great-great-uncle had been famous for his ability to predict the weather, indeed in this capacity serving the then-king of Montagne.

"Oh," said Trudy, having no idea how to respond to this information.

"Thank you, sir," Temperance interjected smoothly. "As always, you are a credit to your profession; the anecdotes in particular we enjoyed immensely. Might you leave us this parchment to study privately?"

But of course; the document was now the property of Lady Fortitude. With a bow to them both, the gentleman withdrew.

Temperance bent over the paper, tracing the generations. "Reason ... Beauregard ... Giorgio ... Compassion ... Compassion was a witch, you know. An
amazing
witch, from what they say." She looked up at Trudy with shining eyes. "Her son—"