Kiss in Time 1 page

Chapter 1

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If I hear one more syllable about spindles, I shall surely die!

From my earliest memory, the subject has been worn to death in the castle, nay, in the entire kingdom. It is said that spindle, rather than Mama or Papa, was my first word in infancy, and I have little doubt that this is true, for ’tis the word which lights more frequently than any other upon my most unwilling ears.

“Talia, dearest, you must never touch a spindle,” Mother would say as she tucked me into bed at night.

“I will not, Mother.”

“Vous devez ne jamais toucher un axe,” my tutor would say during French lessons.

“I will not,” I told him in English.

“If ye spy a spindle, ye must leave it alone,” the downstairs 1

maid said as I left the castle, always with my governess, for I was never allowed a moment alone.

Every princeling, princess, or lesser noble who came to the castle to play was told of the restrictions upon spindles—

lest they have one secreted about their person somewhere, or lest they mistakenly believe I was normal. Each servant was searched at the door, and thread was purchased from outside the kingdom. Even peasants were forbidden to have spindles. It was quite inconvenient for all concerned.

It should be said that I am not certain I would know a spindle if I saw one. But it seems unlikely that I ever shall.

“Why must I avoid spindles?” I asked my mother, in my earliest memory.

“You simply must,” she replied, so as not to scare me, I suppose.

“But why?” I persisted.

She sighed. “Children should be seen, not heard.” I asked several times more before she excused herself, claiming a headache. As soon as she departed, I started in on my governess, Lady Brooke.

“Why am I never to touch a spindle?”

Lady Brooke looked aggrieved. It was frowned upon, she knew, to scold royal children. Father was a humane ruler who never resorted to beheading. Still, she had her job to consider, if not her neck.

“It is forbidden,” she said.

Well, I stomped my foot and whined and cried, and when that failed to produce the desired result, I said, “If 2

you do not answer, I will tell Father you slapped me.”

“You wicked, wicked girl! God above will punish you for such deceit!”

“No one punishes princesses.” My voice was calm. I was done with my screaming, now that I had discovered a better currency. “Not even God.”

“God cares not for rank and privilege. If you tell such an awful lie, you will surely be damned.”

“Then you must keep me from such a sin by telling me what I wish to know.” Even at four or five, I was precocious and determined.

Finally, sighing, she told me.

I had been a long-wished-for babe (this I knew, for it had been told to me almost as often as the spindle speech), and when I was born, my parents invited much of the kingdom to my christening, including several women rumored to have magical powers.

“You mean fairies?” I interrupted, knowing she would not speak the word. Lady Brooke was highly religious, which seemed to mean that she believed in witches, who used their magic for evil, but not fairies, who used their powers for good. Still, even at four, I knew about fairies.

Everyone did.

“There is no such a thing as fairies,” Lady Brooke said.

“But yes, people said they were fairies. Your father welcomed them, for he hoped they would bring you magical gifts. But there was one person your father did not invite: the witch Malvolia.”

Lady Brooke went on to describe, at great length and in exhausting detail, the beauty of the day, the height of the sun in the sky, and the importance of the christening service. I closed my eyes. But when she attempted to carry me into my bedchamber, I woke and demanded, “What of the spindle?”

“Oh! I thought you were asleep.”

I continued to demand to know of the spindle, which led to a lengthy recitation of the gifts I had received from the various guests. I struggled to remain attentive, but I perked up when she began to describe the fairies’ gifts.

“Violet gave the gift of beauty, and Xanthe gave the gift of grace, although surely such qualities cannot be given.”

I did not see why not. People often remarked upon my beauty and grace.

“Leila gave the gift of musical talent . . .” I noted, privately, that I was already quite skilled on the harpsichord.

“. . . while Celia gave the gift of intelligence. . . .” It went without saying. . . .

Lady Brooke continued. “Flavia was about to step forward to give the gift of obedience—which would have been much welcomed, if I do say so myself.” She winked at me, but the wink had a hint of annoyance which was not—I must say—appreciated.

“The spindle?” I reminded her, yawning.

“Just as Flavia was ready to step forward and offer her 4

much-desired gift of obedience, the door to the grand ban-quet hall was flung open. The witch Malvolia! The guards tried to stop her, but she brazened her way past them.

“‘I demand to see the child!’ she said.

“Your nurse tried to block her way. But quicker than the bat of an eyelash, the nurse was on the floor and Malvolia was standing over your bassinet.

“‘Ah.’ She seized you and held you up for all to see. ‘The accursed babe.’

“Your mother and father tried to soothe Malvolia with tales of invitations lost, but she repeated the word ‘accursed,’

several times, and then she made good the curse itself.

“‘Before her sixteenth birthday, the princess shall prick her finger on a spindle and die!’ she roared. And then, as quickly as she had arrived, she was gone. But the beautiful day was ruined, and rain fell freely from the sky.”

“And then what?” I asked, far from interested in the weather now that I understood I might die by touching a spindle. Why had no one told me?

“Flavia tried to save the situation with her gift. She said that since Malvolia’s powers were immense, she could not reverse her spell, but she sought to modify it a bit.

“‘The princess shall not die,’ she said. But as everyone was sighing in relief, she added, ‘Rather, the princess shall sleep. All Euphrasian citizens shall sleep also, protected from harm by this spell, and the kingdom shall be obscured from sight by a giant wood, unnoticed by the rest of the world and removed from maps and memory until . . .’ People 5

were becoming more nervous with each pronouncement.

‘. . . one day, the kingdom shall be rediscovered. The princess shall be awakened by her true love’s first kiss, and the kingdom shall awake and become visible to the world again.’”

“But that is stupid!” I burst out. “If the entire kingdom is asleep and forgotten, who will be left to kiss me?” Lady Brooke stopped speaking, and then she actually scratched her head, as persons in stories are said to do when they are trying to work some great puzzle. At the end of it, she said, “I do not know. Someone will. That is what Flavia said.”

But even at my tender age, I knew this was improb-able. Euphrasia was small, bounded on three sides by ocean and on the fourth by wilderness. The Belgians, our nearest neighbors, barely knew we existed, and if Euphrasia disappeared from sight and maps, the Belgians would forget us entirely. Other questions leaped to mind. How would we eat if we were all asleep? And wouldn’t we eventually die, like old people did? Indeed, the cure seemed worse than the original punishment.

But to each successive question, Lady Brooke merely said, “That is why you must never touch a spindle.” And it is nigh upon my sixteenth birthday, and I have never touched one yet.

Chapter 2

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Tomorrow is my sixteenth birthday. I do not suppose it necessary to explain the furor this has occasioned in the kingdom. ’Tis a heady occasion. Each year on my birthday, guests come from around the world to celebrate—and they bring gifts! Diamonds from Africa, crystal from Ireland, cheese from Switzerland. Of course, my sixteenth birthday is of special import. Rumor has it that a ship has sailed the world over, collecting items and persons for my pleasure.

They say it has even visited the British colony on the other side of the world. I believe it is called Virginia.

But more than guests, more even than presents, is the actual hope that this whole spindle business will end today.

Before her sixteenth birthday. That was what the witch Malvolia had said. So tomorrow Mother and Father will rejoice at having completed the Herculean task of keeping 7

their stupid daughter away from a common household object for sixteen years, and then I can live the ordinary life of an ordinary princess.

I am ready for it.

It is not merely spindle avoidance that has been my difficulty thus far. Rather, because of this, I have been effectively shut out from the world. Other young maid-ens of my station have traveled to France, India, and even the wilds of Virginia. But I have not been permitted to make the shortest trip to the nearest kingdom, lest one of the populace there wished to attack me with a spindle. In the castle, the very tapestries seem to mock me with their pictures of places I have never seen. I am barely allowed outside, and when I am, it is only under the boring chap-eronage of boring Lady Brooke or some other equally dull lady-in-waiting. I am fifteen years old, and I have never had a single friend. Who would want to be friends with an oddity who has never seen anything or done anything and is guarded night and day?

Likewise, a young princess my age would ordinarily have dozens of suitors questing for her hand. Her beauty would be the subject of song and story. Duels would be fought for her. She might even cause a war, if she were beautiful enough, and I am.

But though my beauty has been spoken of, raved of even, there has not been one single request for my hand.

Father says it is because I am young yet, but I know that to be a lie. The reason is the curse. Any sensible prince would 8

prefer a bride with freckles or a hooked nose over one like me, one who might fall into a coma at any instant.

There is a knock upon the door. Lady Brooke! “Your Highness, the gowns are ready for viewing,” she calls from outside.

The gowns! They have been prepared especially for tomorrow. It will be the grandest party ever. The guests will arrive at the palace door in carriages or at the harbor in ships. There will be a grand dinner tonight, and tomorrow a ball with an orchestra for dancing and a second orchestra for when the first tires. There will be fireworks and a midnight supper and magnums of a special bubbling wine made by Benedictine monks in France, then a week of lesser parties to follow. It will be a festival, a Festival of Talia. I will be at the center of it, of course, courted by every prince and raja, and before it is over, I will have fallen in love—

and I will be sixteen, cured of the curse.

“Your Highness?” Lady Brooke continues to knock.

The gowns—I need one for tonight and several for the ball tomorrow and a dozen or so more for the coming week—must be perfect. And then, perhaps Father will speak with the tailor who designed the loveliest one and have him create fifty or so more for my wedding trip around the globe.

Truth be told, it is the trip, rather than the wedding, which appeals to me. I care not for marriage at someone else’s whim. But it is my lot in life, and a cross I must bear to gain the wedding trip. I am more than ready to leave Euphrasia, 9

having been trapped here for almost sixteen years. And, of course, my husband shall be handsome, and a prince.

I fling the door open. “Well? Where are they?” Lady Brooke produces a map of the castle.

I take it from her. One has to admire her organization. I see now that Lady Brooke has marked out the rooms which will be used to house our numerous royal guests. Other rooms are marked with a star. “What is this?”

“On the occasion of your last birthday, you told your father that, upon the occasion of this birthday, you required

‘the most perfect gown in all the world.’ Your father took this request quite literally and sent out the call to tailors and seamstresses the world over. China’s entire haul of silk-worms has been put to this task. Children have been pulled from their cottages and huts to spin and sew and slave, all for the pleasure of Princess Talia of Euphrasia.”

“Very good, Lady Brooke.” I know she thinks I am silly and spoiled. Was I not gifted with intelligence? I also know this not to be the case. How can I be spoiled when I never get to do a single thing I want? I did not ask that children be pulled from their cribs to slave for me, but since they were, is it not only courteous to gaze upon their efforts and, hopefully, find a dress or two that will be acceptable?

I can already picture the gown in which I shall make my grand entrance at the ball. It will be green. “The map?”

“Yes, the map. Each tailor was asked to bring his twenty best creations, all in your exact measurements. Your father believed that you might be overwhelmed, gazing upon so 10

many gowns at once. Therefore, he decreed that they be placed in twenty-five separate rooms of the castle. In this way, you may wander about, choosing as you will.” Twenty gowns times twenty-five tailors! Five hundred gowns! I grow giddy.

“We had best get started,” I tell Lady Brooke.

We begin to walk down the stone hallway. The first rooms are on the floor above us, and as we climb the stairs, Lady Brooke says, “May I ask what you will do with the gowns which do not meet with your approval?” This is a trick question, I know, like all of Lady Brooke’s questions, designed to prove that I am a horrid brat. Why care I what Lady Brooke thinks? But I do, for much as I loathe her, she is my only companion, the closest thing I have to a friend. So I rack my brain for an acceptable answer. Give them to her? Surely not. The gowns were made to my exact measurements, and Lady Brooke, who has not been blessed with the gift of beauty, is an ungainly half a head taller than I, and stout.

“Give them to the poor?” I say. When she frowns, I think again. “Or, better yet, hold an auction and give the money collected to the poor. For food.” There! That should satisfy the old bat!

And perhaps it does. At least, she is quiet as we enter the first room. Quiet disapproval is the best I can expect from Lady Brooke.

Dresses line the walls, covering even the windows.

Twenty of them, in different fabrics, different shapes, but 11

every single one of them blue!

“Was it not communicated to the tailors that my eyes are green?” I ask Lady Brooke in a whisper loud enough for the tailor to hear. I want him to. Of all the stupidity!

He hears. “You want-a green dresses?” He has an accent of some sort, and when he moves closer, I see beads of sweat forming upon his forehead. Ew. I certainly hope that he has refrained from sweating over his work, which would make the fabric smell.

“Not all green,” I say. “But I would not have expected all blue.”

“Blue, it is the fashion this year,” the sweaty tailor says.

“I am a princess. I do not follow fashions—I make them.”

“I am certain one blue dress would be acceptable.” Lady Brooke tries to smooth things over with this peasant whilst glaring at me. “Talia, this man has come all the way from Italy. His designs are the finest in the world.”

“What?” I say, meaning, what does this have to do with me?

“I said . . . oh, never mind. Will you not look at the dresses now? Please?”

I look. The dresses are all ugly. Or maybe not ugly but boring, with boring ruffles. Boring, like everything else in my life. Still, I manage to smile so as not to call out another lecture from Lady Brooke. “Lovely, thank you.”

“You like?” He steps in my way.

Would not I have said if I liked? But I tell him, “I will 12

think upon it. This is the first room I have visited.” This seems to satisfy him. At least, he gets his sweatiness out of my way, and I am allowed to pass to the next room.

This room and indeed the two after it are little better. I find one dress, a pink one, which might be acceptable for a lesser event like Friday’s picnic, some event at which I would not mind looking like the dessert, but nothing at all to wear on the Most Important Night of My Life.

“Talia?” Lady Brooke says after the third room. “Perhaps if you gave more than a cursory glance—”

“Perhaps if they were not all so hideous!” I am devas-tated and hurt, and Lady Brooke does not understand. How could she? When she was young, she could go to shops and choose her own clothing, even make it if she liked. I will never be normal, but barring that, I would like to be abnor-mal in a lovely green dress without too many frills.

“Here is a green one,” Lady Brooke says in the next room.

I glower at it. The ruffles would reach my nose. “This would suit . . . my grandmother.”

“Could the ruffles be removed?” Lady Brooke asks the tailor.

“Could you create a gown that is not entirely hideous?” I add.

“Talia . . .”

“It is naught but the truth.”

“Pardonez moi, ” the tailor says. “The frock, I can fix it.”

“Non, merci,” I say, and flounce from the room.

In the next, I spy a lavender velvet with a heart-shaped neckline. I reach to touch the soft fabric.

“Beautiful, is it not?” Lady Brooke asks.

I pull my hand back. I am thoroughly sick of Lady Brooke and dresses and my life. I am certain she despises me as well and, suddenly, the company of even Malvolia herself seems preferable to that of the detestable Lady Brooke.

“Do you have anything better?”

“Talia, you are being terrible.”

“I am being truthful, and I would thank you to remember that you are in my father’s service.”

“I know it. Would that it were not the case, for I am ashamed to be in your presence when you are behaving like a horrible brat.”

She says it with a smile. The tailor, too, smiles stupidly.

I stare at him. “Are there any gowns which are less likely to make me want to vomit than this one?” The man continues to smile and nod.

“He speaks no English,” I say. “So what care you what I say to him?”

“I care because I am forced to listen to you. You have grown more and more insolent in recent weeks. I am ashamed of you.” She nods and smiles.

I feel something like tears springing to my eyes. Lady Brooke hates me, even though she is required to like me.

Probably everyone else hates me, too, and merely pretends 14

because of Father. But I hold the tears back. Princesses do not cry.

“Then why not leave me alone?” I ask, smiling as I was trained. “Why does no one ever leave me be for one single, solitary instant?”

“My orders—”

“Were your orders to yell at me and call me a brat?” I begin to pace back and forth like a caged animal. I am a caged animal. “Tomorrow I shall be sixteen. Peasant girls my age are married with two and three babes, and yet I am not permitted to walk down a hallway within my own castle without supervision.”

“The curse—”

“You do not even believe in the curse! And yet it has come true, not the spindle part, but the death. . . . I am living my death, little by little, each day. And when I am sixteen and the curse ends, I shall be given over to a husband of someone else’s choosing, who will tell me what to do and say and eat and wear for the rest of my life. I can only pray that it will be short, pray for the blessed independence of the grave. I will always be under someone’s orders.” I begin to cry, anyway, to sob. What difference does it make? “Can I not simply walk down a hallway on my own?” Through it all, the tailor smiles and nods.

Lady Brooke’s expression softens. “I suppose it would be all right. After all, the tailors have been thoroughly searched and the spindle regulations explained to them.”

“Of course they have.” I sigh.

Lady Brooke turns to the man and speaks to him in French.

“Thank you!” I sob. I point to the lavender gown and say, in French, “It is beautiful! I shall take that one, and that one as well.” I point to a charming scarlet satin with a neckline off the shoulders in the style of Queen Mary of England, a gown I had purposely ignored before, which now looks quite fetching.

“Very well.” Lady Brooke hands me the map. “Just point to what you want, and they will put it aside.” I nod and take the paper from her. I am free—at least for an hour!

Chapter 3

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Free of the encumbrance that is Lady Brooke, I fairly skip down the stone hallways. I would swing from the chandeliers, could I reach them, but I content myself with jumping up toward them. My life is no less horrible than before, but at least there is no dour Lady Brooke to remark upon its horribleness.

In short time, I have chosen five dresses, none blue, but none special enough for my grand entrance at my birthday ball. Although one is green, it does not match the exact shade of my eyes.

“It will look lovely on you,” says the tailor, who is from England.

Of course he thinks so. I know what he is about. Having his dress worn by a princess on an occasion of such import will increase his renown. For the rest of his life, he 17

might call himself “Tailor to Talia, Princess of Euphrasia.” But his apprentice says, “Indeed. It may not be the same shade as your remarkable eyes, but it will bring them out.” The tailor quickly shushes him, lest the boy disgrace them both by speaking so to a princess. But I turn toward him and smile. He is my age, no more, perhaps the tailor’s son. And—I find it difficult not to notice—he is handsome.

For a commoner. His eyes are the color of cornflowers.

“Do you think so?”

He looks down, blushing. “I meant no disrespect, Your Highness. But yes. It will look lovely on you, as any dress would.”

I wonder what it would be like to be a common girl, who could flirt with such a handsome tailor’s apprentice with impunity. Or, better yet, to be the apprentice himself, to be a boy, so young, yet traveling far from home. And to learn a trade such as making a dress. In all my life, I have never created anything, never done anything at all other than silly paintings of flowers for my art master, Signor Maratti. Father hung them in his bedchamber, where they would be seen by no one. Is it enough to be a princess, when being a princess means nothing?

I nod and turn reluctantly to the old tailor. “I shall wear it tonight for dinner. Many noblewomen will be in atten-dance, and if they compliment my gown, I will tell them your name.”

I start for the door. The tailor bows, but the boy does not move. He is staring at me, entranced by my beauty. I 18

get the shiveriest sensation across my arms. Of course he thinks I am beautiful, but I like that he sees me. I wonder if this is what it will be like when I meet my prince. Maybe it will not be so bad.

Five more rooms, then ten, and still the dress I desire has not been found. It seems a small task, certainly one the best tailors in the world should be able to accomplish. And yet they have not. I sigh. Perhaps I will wear the English tailor’s dress to the ball after all.

I reach the end of the hallway. I have never been in this part of the castle before. Amazing. These rooms have barely been used, but surely a child—a normal child—would explore every room at some time. But I had not been a normal child.

I spy a staircase in the shadows. This is not one of the stairways I am accustomed to using to reach the fourth floor, and when I check Lady Brooke’s map, I see that it was not included. How odd. I am seized with a sudden urge to run up its steps, even slide down the banister. But that is silly, and if I do that, I will be delayed. And then Lady Brooke will come looking for me. I turn back down the hall.

Suddenly, I hear a voice.

It was a lover and his lass,

With a hey, and a ho,

And a hey nonny no . . .

A lover.

In the spring time, the only pretty ring time . . .

A woman’s voice, singing. Entranced, almost, I start up the stair.

When birds do sing,

Hey ding a ding, ding!

Sweet lovers love the spring!

At the top of the stairs, there is an open door. I stop.

There is no tailor. I knew there would not be. But instead, there is an old woman sitting upon a bench. I see not what she is doing, for she is surrounded by dresses, so many dresses, much more than twenty. But that is not the remarkable thing.

Each and every dress is exactly the same shade of green as my eyes.

“Lovely!” The cry comes from me unbidden. I run into the room.

“Good afternoon, Your Highness.” The old woman attempts to rise from her chair with great effort. She begins to curtsy.

“Oh, please don’t!” I say. She is, after all, very old.

“Ah, but I must. You are a princess, and respect must be accorded certain positions. Those who do not take heed will pay the price.”

She is almost to the floor, and I wonder how long it will take her to right herself. Still, I say, “Very well.” I wish for a second—but only a second—that Lady Brooke were here so that she might see how I follow her directions about not arguing with my elders.

I step back and study the dresses. It seems there is every style and every fabric: satins, velvets, brocades of all designs, and a lighter fabric I have never seen before, which will float behind me like a cloud of butterflies.

Finally, the woman rises. “Do you like anything?” I had nearly forgotten she was there, so enchanted was I with the gowns.

I sigh. “Yes, I like everything! It is all perfect.” She laughs. “I am honored that you believe so. For you see, I am from Euphrasia. I have seen you all your life, Your Highness, and have flattered myself that I knew better than any foreigner the designs that would suit my own princess.”

“Indeed.” I try to recall if I have seen her before, perhaps in the crowds at a parade. But why would I have noticed an old woman who looks much like any other? Only her eyes are unusual. They are not glazed over with a film of white, like so many very old people’s are. Instead, they are lively, black and glittering like a crow’s.

“Have you a special favorite?” she asks.

“This one.” I start toward the lightweight dress. “I shall rival the fairies in this!”

“’Tis my favorite, too. Do you mind, Your Highness, if 21

I sit back down? I know it is not the correct way, but I am quite old, and my knees are not what they once were when I was a young woman like yourself, dancing at festivals.”

“Of course.” I am flooded with gratitude toward this stranger who knows what I want, who understands me as Mother and Father and wretched Lady Brooke do not. I approach the dress. The old woman has settled back onto her stool and has begun some sort of needlework. There is a contraption in her hand, something that looks like a top with which children play. It is nearly covered in wool that has been dyed a deep rose.

“What is that?” I ask her.

“Oh, ’tis my sewing. I make my own thread. Do you wish to try?”

Sewing? I step closer. The contraption is a wooden spike weighted at one end with a whorl of darker wood. A hook holds the thread in place, and when the thread is finished, it winds around the stick below the whorl, to be used for sewing. There is a quantity of unfinished wool at the top.

“Oh, I should not.”

“Of course not. I misspoke. ’Twould be unfitting for a young lady such as yourself to make dresses. You were born merely to wear them. Humble souls like myself were meant to create.”

I nod, approaching the dresses again.

“Only . . .”

“What is it?” I am touching the fabric, but I glance back at her.

“They say ’tis lucky. ’Twas handed down to me by my mother and her mother before her, and all who make thread with it are entitled to one wish.”

“A wish?” I know what Lady Brooke would say on the subject. Her thoughts on wishes are much like her thoughts on magic. Superstition is the opposite of God. Still, I say,

“Have you ever wished upon it?”

“Aye.” She nods. “I have indeed, when I was young. I wished for a long life.”

I stare at her. Her face is like crumpled silk, and her hair the color of paper.

“How long ago was that?”

“When I was your age, fifteen. So nigh upon two hundred years.”

I gasp, but the old woman holds my gaze.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 600