Wisdom's Kiss (51 page)

Your enchanted grandmother,
Ben

Postscriptum: Teddy darling, if you manage to discover any other spies, please lock them up for my return; I shall turn them into frogs.

8 TH EDITION

Printed in the Capital City of Rigorus
by Hazelnut & Filbert, Publishers to the Crown

ROGER OF FARINA

True to his word, the duke remained faithful to Wisdom, spending part of each day with his insensate bride, who lay preserved in a coffin of glass. While not abandoning outright his rule of Farina, he made no effort to conceal his disinterest in affairs of state, particularly taxation and military conquest, and often spoke of the lessons he had garnered from Wisdom's Kiss.
The situation degenerated to such a degree that Wilhelmina secretly offered the throne to her youngest son,
Hrothgar
, then a soldier on the northern frontier and recently married himself to Colonel Ivan von Umlaut. Hrothgar did not answer Wilhelmina's proposition (he once boasted that the secret to happiness lay in never opening his mother's mail), and Roger remained duke.
The dowager duchess died soon thereafter, of sepsis from an untreated
dog bite
, and was posthumously dubbed Wilhelmina the
0gress
by her many victims. Thus unfettered, Roger erected on the palace grounds a memorial to Wisdom that soon became a pilgrimage site for local sweethearts. It is today the most popular shrine to love in all of Lax. He later took to collecting china figurines, and in response porcelain manufacturers developed a line of princesses-in-repose commonly known as Rogerware. Following Roger's death without issue in Year 47 of the reign of Rüdiger IV, the Farina courts rejected the claims of Hrothgar's adopted children as a violation of the ducal line, and so the duchy passed via Wisdom to the Kingdom of Montagne. The princess, after twenty years of unconsciousness, returned to life soon after and retired to Chateau de Montagne with a friend. Roger's figurine collection formed the seminal installation of the Farina Museum of Fine Art.

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FELIS EL GATO

Impresario Extraordinaire ♦ Soldier of Fortune
Mercenary of Stage & Empire

LORD OF THE LEGENDARY
FIST OF GOD
Famed Throughout the Courts and Countries of the World
&
The Great Sultanate
*
THE BOOTED MAESTRO
*

WRITTEN IN HIS OWN HAND~ALL TRUTHS VERIFIED~ALL BOASTS REAL

A Most Marvelous Entertainment. Not to Be Missed!

***

VIOLET
, inspired on that fateful Montagne morning to maneuver the Globe d'Or that she might rescue her new companion Tomas, soon became so adept at its operation that she eschewed the brazier altogether and managed the Globe d'Or by some other fashion, the details of which remain vague to me, but then, I am an artist, not a technician. With such skill she grew into one of the most valued members of Circus Primus, and her onstage pairing with Tomas soon blossomed into offstage romance. Together they dazzled audiences in countries fourscore or more. Yet even the glow of circus spotlights dims with time; then came word that Roger, Duke of Farina, had passed, this news inexplicably dealing Violet a devastating blow. She died soon thereafter, and in his grief Tomas quit the circus to withdraw to Montagne, where I am told he reunited with the miraculously revived Princess Wisdom...

I myself, the modest recipient of awards past counting—a knighthood, a barony sans manorial rights, three honorary university degrees, and a carpet of alleged magical properties—after a glorious and acclaimed career retired to an expansive country estate, where I now enjoy myself immeasurably. Recently an itinerant storyteller paid a visit to my abode, and for several days I delighted him with my adventures.
Curiously, he begged in particular for stories of a
cat
belonging to an elderly queen of Montagne. Though I barely remembered the beast, I endeavored as best I could to elaborate on my few recollections of the beast's insignificant contribution—vastly different from my own critical role in that epic!—to the great drama of
Wisdom's Kiss
. I chuckled anew at his battle of wits with that ferocious little dog of Duchess Wilhelmina, and at the cat's assistance in Tomas's defeat of the fiendish gardener.

At last my visitor confessed the truth: he was no wandering raconteur but rather a professional scholar of
fairy stories,
and having heard many versions of this
cat tale
—and of my own saga I am proud to admit, for it is a saga well worth gleaning—had recently, in different villages in several lands, been presented with an amalgam of the two. I begged that he relate this new account, and though reluctant at last he agreed. It was, I grant, delightful in its own simple way, if lacking the grand drama and scope of my life, though as he pointed out, my countless exploits could scarce fit between the pages of a picture book meant for children! And, while my name in that tale has been altered, I am perspicacious enough to recognize that the pseudonym is both more sensible and more fantastic, as are the details—
an honest
miller's son,
his
two greedy brothers, the love of a princess,
the acquisition of a
prosperous country
ruled by an
ogre
who is conquered by
cunnin
g,
and above all a
wise feline
advisor.
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So it is that while this tome you now read shall be the definitive history of my life, I have a second biography as well, one that shines in the reflected glory of my own penning. In honor of that slight but pleasing fairy tale, I humbly sign these memoirs in that name.

With cheerful thoughts of my readers' wholesale satisfaction at this tale.

Your humble servant,
Puss in Boots

ABDICATION (ab•duh•KAY•shun) [From Latin
ab-,
"away" +
dicare,
"proclaim"] The formal renouncement of one's royal position; monarchal resignation. Often forced upon an unwilling ruler after a loss or a scandal, abdication has historically been rare—too rare, given the incompetence of so many kings. The word today also describes any failure of duty: "Mrs. Franklin abdicated her maternal obligations by leaving her infants in the care of a golden retriever."
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ACUMEN (ACK•you•men) [From Latin
acuere,
"to sharpen"] Shrewdness; good judgment. Someone savvy with plants has horticultural acumen.
Acuere
is also the root of
acute,
as in "severe, critical, or sharp."
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ARBOREAL (ar•BOR•e•al) [From Latin
arbor,
"tree"]
Arboreal
literally means "tree-ish" and refers mostly to animals, such as arboreal frogs.
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DÉCOLLETAGE (day•CULL•taj) [From French
de
+
collet,
"decollar"] Decolletage describes the low neckline of a woman's dress and, implicitly, the skin that said neckline reveals. A proper-sounding word for a fairly improper subject.
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DOPPELSCHLÄFERIN (dopp•ul•SHLAY•fer•in; rhymes with "topple SLAY fair in")
Doppelgänger,
German for "double goer," describes someone's real or fictitious double: "Jason fancied himself Sherlock Holmes's doppelgänger as he set out to solve the theft." The mock term Doppelschläferin, or "double female sleeper," derives from this literary term.
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