A Solicitation of Fairies
by Meredith L. Patterson
Originally appeared in Fortean Bureau, August and September 2003 (in two parts)
Once upon a time, in a kingdom where fairies were still a serious matter, there lived a King and Queen who had just had their first child. The girl was the very textbook definition of a firstborn princess, with golden curls, bright blue eyes, chubby cheeks and all of the other requisite princessly attributes. Upon seeing her for the first time, cleaned up and no longer squalling, her doting parents named her Chantinelle, and set to making preparations for the christening celebration.
Now, the Queen of this country was still quite young, and although in her girlhood she had attended the best finishing schools on all the Continent, she had never quite learned the sort of organizational skills she might have studied had she instead gone to secretarial school or taken an associate's course in accounting. As Queen, however, it fell to her to make the preparations for the christening feast, from arranging the decorations for the feast-hall, to planning a menu that would suit all her guests' discriminating palates, to hiring out a chamber orchestra to provide the very finest in Baroque accompaniment, to making up a guest list and addressing all the invitations by hand. For this was before the days of high-speed raised-ink printing, and in those times a true lady could show her worth by the quality of her handwriting.
So the poor Queen sat at her filigreed escritoire in the royal study, wearing down nib after nib on her goose-quill pen and occasionally chafing her dainty wrists to relieve their soreness. From time to time, as she inscribed yet another "His Majesty, Richard d'Armagnac, and the Queen Lisette cordially invite..." on yet another snow-white embossed card, her gaze would turn to her guest list to discern whose name she would have to spell correctly next, and she would invent excuses to avoid having to write up yet another matching invitation and place card. "Oh, we cannot have Monsieur Ballantine du Champs-Froids et du Maurier," she would cry, taking up a second quill and dipping it into a well of red ink. "He so despises the Comte d'Autrefois, and we must not have any squabbling at such an important public affair, please, dear Richard?"
"Mmhmm, indeed, chèrie," the King would say, sipping from a lead-crystal glass of brandy in his doe-leather armchair and quite engrossed in the latest economic reports from the wine country. "As you will." And so the Queen would touch her red-tipped quill to the name of M. du Champs-Froids et du Maurier, or whomever else she had deemed not quite up to snuff, and draw a single straight line through it, then dry her nib on the blotter and return to her postal duties.
At last the appointed day arrived, and both the King and Queen were quite pleased at the way the event had turned out. The little Princess slept straight through the baptism itself, awakening only to coo and sigh when the bishop marked her forehead with holy water. Once the cathedral portion of the festivities had concluded, all present adjourned, via phaeton, landau and pony-trap, to the throne room in the Palace. Princess Chantinelle, fresh and rested, lay in a satin-covered bassinet next to her parents' thrones, giggling in a most princessly fashion at the guests who approached Their Majesties to proffer gaudily wrapped presents. As the evening wore on, the piles of packages rose higher and higher, the cooks brought out platter after platter of delicacies liberally doused with heavy cream sauces, and the porters refilled King Richard's brandy glass again and again. "All in all," observed Queen Lisette, "such a delightfully successful occasion."
Suddenly, at the rear of the hall, a great gust of wind extinguished all the nearby candles and blew the whipped cream straight off a dish of trifle, into the face of the Marquise Hélène des Cuisses-Graisses, who had picked that unfortunate moment to return from powdering her pudgy nose. A flash of green light followed, forcing the onlookers to shield their eyes and squint out from between their fingers. It left behind a cloud of thick, tarragon-scented smoke in a particularly bilious shade of olive, out from the centre of which stalked a tall, narrow-waisted, impossibly pointy-eared figure.
She — for the creature's tightly-corseted bosom marked her as nothing but — wore a gown crafted of the finest damask, tulle and taffeta, reflecting shadowy emerald from some witchlight glowing behind her. The fabric rippled like water as the woman pointed a spidery, accusing finger at Queen Lisette, thundering, "What offense have I done thee, o Queen, that thou desir'st not my presence at thy child's naming-day?"
Her words echoed through the hall, reverberating off cornice and egg-and-dart-molding, so that even the most enlightened man of science could not help but realise that there was some magic at work. You see, it happened that one of the names which the young Queen had red-lined out, in her innocent desire to avoid calluses and carpal-tunnel syndrome, was that of the Right Terrible Dame Lucilla Avarissael baen Sidhe––otherwise known as the Wicked Fairy Verdina.
Queen Lisette rose from her seat so quickly as to make poor King Richard's head swim. He bypassed his goblet and reached straight for the brandy snifter as she reached her pretty hands out in greeting.
"Dear, sweet Fairy," she wheedled, "how good of you to grace us with your attendance! We had thought that surely, a personage of your rank and stature would have far more pressing engagements than — and it's such a frightfully long way to travel from — "
The Queen, you see, had never received especially high marks in elocution, and it was showing now.
"A thin-blooded excuse for an excuse," snapped Verdina, striding forward with a rustle of damask, the green smoke dissipating about her ankles. "Thou didst offer thine other guests the opportunity to rêpond, s'il vous plait — thine oversight wounds me deeply." She swept directly through the throng of dancers and diners, and stepped right up onto the gift-laden dais where the King and Queen sat with their child.
"My — my apologies, dear Fairy," stammered the Queen, not daring to get herself caught in any further half-baked attempts to provide an explanation. She took a half-step backward, sending the nearest stack of presents crashing to the floor.
"How nice," Verdina returned, trailing a jade-lacquered fingernail across the white satin of Princess Chantinelle's bassinette. "I see that thy guests, at least, are well-inclined toward courtesy." She smiled in the manner of a hungry eel, and touched her painted nails to her bosom. "But where is my own etiquette? I, too, have brought an offering for thy child."
Several guests, having paid particular attention as children to their nurses' fairy-tales, chose this moment to make quiet, hasty exits, preferring the chore of having to write letters of apology for their ill-mannered departures to whatever mischief the Wicked Fairy had planned, just in case her fit of pique were sufficient to warrant taking it out on the entire assembly and not just the Princess.
Verdina reached into the bassinette again, letting Chantinelle's fingers grip the talon of her index finger. "I gift thee with a brief childhood, Princess Chantinelle. Should thy feet ever touch the earth, in that instant, thou shalt die!" In a flicker of green light, the Wicked Fairy Verdina disappeared, leaving Chantinelle's baby hands grasping at empty air. A faint cackle echoed through the rapidly emptying throne room.
Queen Lisette collapsed into her throne, wrapping her arms around an embroidered cushion and sobbing into it so as to keep the few remaining guests from seeing her nose swell up. "There, there, dear," said King Richard, and retrieved the crystal goblet he had abandoned. He slipped one arm around her shoulders and pulled her up, then put the glass to her lips and made her down a sip of brandy. "That will brace you nicely." He continued administering the liquor until the Queen's bawling subsided into sniffles, then put a finger under her dainty chin and raised her eyes to look at him. "Since when does a month-old baby go walking about? We have time, chèrie, we have time." He downed the rest of the drink in one swallow, then blinked repeatedly, trying to focus on the empty chamber. "Wasn't there a party here a moment ago?"
Time indeed they had, but not much of it, for in a few months the little Princess would begin to crawl, and if at that time her feet touched the earth, that would be the end. So the King and Queen sent out a proclamation, offering a ten-thousand-gold-livres' reward for anyone — man, woman, or child — who could devise a means, magical or scientific, of keeping the Wicked Fairy Verdina's curse from coming to bear. Couriers bore the message to every town crier in the kingdom and every foreign court on the Continent, and every local newspaper and gentleman's magazine carried the announcement on their front pages.
The response was overwhelming. Within a matter of days, the gates to the capital city were crowded with academicians, herb-wives, natural philosophers, alchemists, logicians, astrologers, engineers, and every other manner of scientist or magical practitioner, each championing some means of breaking or putting off the Wicked Fairy Verdina's famous curse.
In the meantime, the King and Queen endeavoured to make certain the baby's feet could not come near the earth. The royal tailors designed a sort of padded knapsack for Princess Chantinelle's nurse to wear strapped to her front and shoulders, so that the nurse could carry her with less effort and not be tempted, in a thoughtless moment, to put the baby down. The royal carpenters built an immense elevated play-pen, the deep bed and high bannisters of which were made of sturdy oak polished to a mirror shine, so that as the princess grew older and more inclined to attempt to learn to walk, she might do so on solid planks of wood raised three feet off the ground.
Still, all the court knew these measures were purely stopgaps. Princess Chantinelle could not spend her life in an open-topped wooden box, and thus far, none of the learned men and women who had come seeking the reward had concocted a sure-fire means of circumventing the curse. The herb-wives' lore encompassed curses involving spindles, the scent of flax, and the conspicuous absence of gravity, but none of them had encountered a curse like this before, so they could do nothing to reverse it.
The astrologers drew complicated charts based on the stars' positions at the time of the princess' birth, and, working together, formulated a sigil that could be inscribed in gold leaf on a slice of pure diamond three inches in diameter, then hung about the princess' neck to protect her from all magical ailments. They disagreed, however, as to whether "death" constituted a strictly magical ailment, so after some consideration, the King and Queen graciously declined the astrologers' very financially reasonable offer to produce this protective bauble.
Everyone thought the problem was solved when one of the alchemists suggested that the princess partake of the Philosopher's Stone, which would grant her immortality and thereby prevent the curse from ever taking effect; but when the delighted King and Queen inquired as to where they might obtain this miraculous substance, the man had to admit that neither he nor any other alchemist knew how to produce it, and he went away empty-handed.
Nor did the academics meet with much more success. As a thing of magic, the Wicked Fairy's curse inevitably defied all rigors of logic and natural philosophy. This, of course, did not prevent the assembled scholars from establishing an ad-hoc Academy right there on the Palace grounds, and engaging in hours of disputation on each intellectual's particular discipline; but by the time the Palace bursar realized how much expense they added up in parchment, ink, and blotter-paper and kicked them all out, they had gotten no closer to the root of the problem.
The engineers, however, repaired to the Palace stables and carpentry-yard. Although they tore through an astonishing amount of wood, metal and rubber to do it, they managed to produce a full-scale working model of a three-wheeled, pedal-powered contraption upon which the princess could sit without her feet touching the ground. By pressing her feet to the pedals one after another, she could convey herself from place to place quite easily, so long as the terrain was smooth and flat and did not involve stairs.
It was hardly an ideal solution, but it was a solution, and not an especially costly one at that. Relieved, the King and Queen immediately commissioned a team of engineers to build a series of these three-wheeled vehicles, from toddler- to adult-sized, so that the growing princess might not find herself forced to ride about on a vehicle that was too large or too small. A second team set about redesigning the palace interior to accommodate a system of very large dumb-waiters, in order for the princess to navigate from one floor to another without being carried — but less than a week into their efforts, something even more peculiar occurred.
One of the Queen's footmen, an intrepid young fellow by the name of Rémy, had shortly after the princess' birth taken an extended leave of absence to his mother's home on the southwestern coast. While there, through skillful maneuvering, he obtained an invitation to a grand soirée at the Plaza Hôtel, where — as, upon returning to the capital, he breathlessly told the King's chamberlain mere minutes before the royal audience chamber was scheduled to open for the day — he met someone who could remedy the princess' situation without fail, and who was at that very minute waiting outside in a chartered coach!
The chamberlain sighed, crumpled his carefully prepared schedule into a ball and sent an attendant to inform the morning's assembled petitioners that there would be just a slight delay before His Highness could hear their requests. "Show him in," he told Rémy, then betook himself to the royals' quarters to summon them downstairs.
When the King and Queen descended into the throne room, however, they found waiting with Rémy not a man, but a short, stocky woman, wearing a tailored, fawn-coloured ankle-length skirt, a chocolate-toned jacket with mutton-chop shoulders, and a flat round straw hat atop her puffy honey-golden hair. A dusky pink parasol hung, furled, by its crooked handle over her left wrist; in her other hand she held a lumpy embroidered valise. It would have been easy to mistake her for a vacationing spinster from across the Channel, but for one thing: her long, sharply pointed ears, exactly like those of the Wicked Fairy Verdina.
"May I present, Your Majesties," said Rémy with a bow, "Madame Thessalia Astutrices Benvenatrix daoine Sidhe, onetime Solicitor General to the Court of His Most August Highness Oberon of — "
"Oh pish," said the woman, placing a bird-fragile hand on Rémy's arm. He broke off, and she stepped forward and dropped a curtsy. "Such a dear boy, I know he wants to do right by your Majesties, but there's no call for it, really. Why don't the two of you call me Miss Thessaly Jenkins, and we'll set ourselves to business straight away."
King Richard and Queen Lisette cast sidewise glances at one another, and the Queen put a nervous hand to her lips.
"Pardon me," said the King, resting one elbow on the arm of his throne, "but — ahem — what business are you speaking of?" For he was every barleycorn a King, and no one would dare correct his grammar in public.
Miss Thessaly Jenkins let out a fluttery laugh. "Oh dearie me — you mean to say your poor footman never explained that part? I'm a fairy, sweetings. A fairy solicitor, to be completely precise. Dear Rémy told me all about your precious daughter's predicament, and I should be a poor solicitor indeed if I couldn't determine some way around whatever manner of curse is worrying the poor poppet."
"Some way around it?" inquired the Queen, who, as the reader may have already surmised, could sometimes be a little slow on the uptake.
"But of course, ducks," cried Miss Thessaly Jenkins, clapping her little hands together. "After all, a curse is nothing but a magically binding statement, quite the same way you might enter into a contract that's legally binding. If some part of the curse is badly phrased, why, you can use that to your advantage, just as you might exploit a legal loophole in a contract you've signed."
King Richard lurched forward in his throne. "But how can Verdina be forced to abide by what you determine?"
"You have your earthly laws, dearie, and we have our own. They constrain us just as tightly as any laws you place on your people, and sometimes tighter. And of those rules, the absolute most inescapable is the one which states that we must stand by the precise wording of all our spells, curses and bindings. We haven't got your 'spirit of the law' to protect us; we must be letter perfect in all that we speak and write."
"But Verdina said quite plainly that should Chantinelle ever set foot to earth, it would be the end of her!" cried Queen Lisette, wringing her hands just as her finishing-school instructors had taught her.
At that, Miss Thessaly Jenkins' face broke into a triumphant grin, and she clapped her hands again. "Is that what she said, did she?" She sprung open the clasp of the little enameled reticule at her waist, and brought out a pinch of fine glittering sand, which she cast into the air. Miss Thessaly Jenkins cupped her hands to catch it as it fell, and there appeared between her palms a minute, glowing, winged person.
"What on earth is that?" asked Queen Lisette. She had to squint her eyes and shade them with one hand to get a good look at the creature, for it moved awfully quickly and beat its tiny wings for all it was worth.
"Why, this is a Summons," said Miss Thessaly Jenkins. "I shall have to serve it something, and it will go inform the Wicked Fairy that she has something to answer for. Is there by chance any tea, and perhaps a small cake or two?"
King Richard's chamberlain sent to the kitchens for some small, highly sugared cakes and a cup of tea, which arrived presently on a silver tray. The Summons dove head-first into the cup, which drained down to the dregs in a matter of seconds. It then leapt out of the teacup and onto the pile of cakes, worrying the stack into a mound of glazed crumbs. Once the Summons had sufficiently sugar-rushed and caffeinated itself for its journey, it leapt to Miss Thessaly Jenkins' shoulder and, if one could discern the motion through the brilliant glow, placed its tiny hands behind its back to await instructions. Miss Jenkins curved a hand around her mouth and whispered something to the Summons. It listened, bounced into the air, and zipped out the doorway almost faster than the eye could see.
"There, now, she ought to be along shortly," Miss Thessaly Jenkins announced, and dusted some stray crumbs off her kid gloves.
"What?" gasped Queen Lisette. "You can't mean that awful Fairy is coming here?"
"I can't see why not," returned Miss Thessaly Jenkins. "I should like to settle this outside the Fairy courts if at all possible. Fairy justices can be dreadfully long about rendering their decisions, and the curse would still be in effect while they deliberated. It would be such a shame if your poor poppet were to touch foot to earth sometime during the proceedings, then have the curse rendered null and void only a scant decade later."
King Richard gulped a larger-than-usual mouthful of brandy at the phrase "only a decade later," and didn't interrupt.
"Besides, if that were to happen, Verdina would win by default, and I have a vested interest in not seeing that happen. I quite pride myself on my record of successful mediations." She touched the knot of her ascot and smiled proudly. "In the meantime, shall we entertain ourselves with a game of bridge or canasta?"
"I — I suppose we can do that," Queen Lisette said, and motioned to the chamberlain. He slipped out of the room, and returned shortly with a deck of cards and six footmen bearing four chairs and a square filigreed table between them. The King and Queen took North and South, and Miss Thessaly Jenkins and Rémy took East and West, and had they not had to give King Richard a quick rules refresher, they might even have finished the rubber before the Wicked Fairy Verdina stormed through the doors of the throne room, looking even more piqued than before.
"Impudence!" she seethed, brandishing a slender black wand like a conductor's baton. "What sorcerer dared impress a Fairy creature into summoning me away from my — "
"Oh, pish-tosh," cut in Miss Thessaly Jenkins, stamping one of her brass-buttoned shoes beneath the table. "They no more summoned you than a rat summons the piper. I did it."
"I ought to have known," said Verdina, through her teeth.
"But of course," said Miss Thessaly Jenkins. "You have heard of the reward, haven't you?"
"What a niggling little trollop thou art," sneered Verdina. "I suppose thou wouldst pursue a plague-cart all the way to the charnel house, promising to take up their cases with Death herself." And in fact that would come to pass one day, though no one knew it at the time; but that is another story and will be told elsewhere.
Miss Thessaly Jenkins folded her hands before her and arose, leaving Rémy and Their Royal Highnesses with only a card table between themselves and the Wicked Fairy. "Better to hone one's skills among mortals than to draft a poorly worded curse, wouldn't you say, dearie? This one you've given little Chantinelle is just frightful. I dare say the Court would be quick to disbar you if they heard tell of such a pitiful showing." She took up her parasol from where she had left it during the card game, unscrewed the hooked handle, and tipped it on its end. A golden rod, topped with a seven-pointed star, slid into her hand.
"Insolent whelp!" Verdina stalked up to Miss Thessaly Jenkins, towering a good eighteen inches over her. "I'll have thee know that my wand I won under Plutus himself — none before him have negotiated so craftily!"
"And none since," observed Miss Thessaly Jenkins. "You know what they say, dearie — practice makes perfect. And I practiced two centuries with Laufgraben, Klezmer and Fay before establishing my own firm. So I hardly think either of our qualifications are in question."
Verdina tapped her wand against one of her impossibly long fingernails. "Perhaps thou'rt well-qualified to thy workaday practice," she scoffed. "But what service doth thy petty liens and petitions give thee against one who hath cursed Kings and peasants into oblivion, from here to the ends of the Continent?"
Miss Thessaly Jenkins smiled, lips pursed. The star at the tip of her wand sparkled. "Why, for one thing, a grand familiarity with all the law-dictionaries of all the lands. Which means Fairyland as well, dearie."
Verdina tossed her head back and laughed. "Much good may it do thee! How dost thou propose to re-define the ground?"
"Ah-ah-ah, ducks," said Miss Thessaly Jenkins, the tip of her wand glinting in time. "That's not what I heard. My clients inform me that you distinctly said, 'should her feet ever touch the earth.'"
Verdina's already green-tinged face grew even greener.
"Did I perhaps hear them incorrectly?"
Verdina gritted her teeth and glared.
"Do speak up, dearie. What was it you told them? Your exact words, now." For, you see, fairies are quite forbidden to lie, but many of them have become extremely skilled at bending the truth this way and that.
Verdina diverted her gaze toward a mousehole in one of the rear corners of the throne room. "I meant that should the princess ever alight upon the — "
"Objection!" crowed Miss Thessaly Jenkins. "The Court shan't care a farthing what you meant, and nor do I. Shall we settle this here and keep mum about it, or must we take this before all and sundry?"
Verdina crossed her arms, wand dangling between two fingers, and said in a sing-song mutter, "Should thy feet, ever touch the earth, in that instant, thou shalt die."
"Righto, then," said Miss Thessaly Jenkins. "And isn't it true that mortals are often given to walking upon carpet — or parquet flooring — or cobblestones — or linoleum — or aught else which is not properly earth?"
Verdina nodded, almost imperceptibly.
"And isn't it true that mortals often go about wearing stockings — or sandals — or rubber boots — or other things which come between their feet and whatever they might be walking upon?"
Again Verdina gave a reluctant nod.
"Then are we correct in saying that so far as Princess Chantinelle treads upon anything worked by mortal hands, she shall be safe from the effects of the curse?"
The knuckles of Verdina's pale, clenched fists had gone as white as paper. "I ought to put a plague on both your houses," she muttered.
"Ah-ah-ah," twittered Miss Thessaly Jenkins. "Paragraph two thousand three hundred and eighty-four point seven of the Uniform Code of Fairy Justice: no curse shall be laid absent an unprovoked slight. Now, I understand perfectly if you feel slighted, dearie, but you've brought it upon yourself, really you have. I mean, honestly, can you put forth any valid objection?"
Verdina pursed her lips, let out an exasperated sigh through her nose, and let her hands drop to her sides. "Not at this time. But we do not forgo our right of appeal."
"Of course not, dearie." Miss Thessaly Jenkins turned to King Richard and Queen Lisette. "Might we have the use of your card table for a little while? Now that we've arrived at an agreement, there's the little formality of drafting it up on paper. Purely for your protection, as I'm sure you know."
"That's...that's quite all right," King Richard managed. "Clairvaux!" The chamberlain rushed to his side. "We shall hold the remainder of today's audiences in...the ballroom on the second floor." Clairvaux sped away, calling for paper. King Richard rose, dazed. Queen Lisette took his arm, casting nervous glances at the Wicked Fairy, and Rémy ushered them out, followed by six nervous footmen.
Forty-six hours later, the throne room door creaked open, nearly bowling over a thoroughly exhausted Clairvaux. Miss Thessaly Jenkins stepped neatly across the threshold, and brought the door to behind her.
"Mademoiselle!" Clairvaux struggled to straighten the cuffs of his shirt. "Forgive my inattention! We despaired of your ever emerging — the Wicked Fairy — is she — "
"Out of sight and out of mind," Miss Thessaly Jenkins finished for him. "She's gone on her way with her signed-and-sealed affidavit, and I've a copy prepared for your lord and lady's records. Are they near by?"
"But of course, Mademoiselle," said Clairvaux, more securely in his element with his cufflinks fastened. He conducted her up the recently constructed dumb-waiter to the royal breakfast-room, where the King and Queen had just polished off the morning's toast and eggs.
"Oh, please tell us it's done!" begged Queen Lisette, the moment that Clairvaux showed Miss Thessaly Jenkins in.
"Signed and sealed," repeated Miss Thessaly Jenkins, withdrawing a stack of papers from a nearby bit of air, "and now delivered." She placed the sheaf on the breakfast-table, and dropped a curtsy. "Are there any questions I might answer?"
"Is dear Chantinelle really, truly safe now?" Queen Lisette clasped her hands and pressed them to her chin.
"Insofar as she only walks on something man-created, though you'll want to read the fine points closely." Miss Thessaly Jenkins leaned forward and turned the first few pages over. "Technically speaking, she ought even to be safe if she goes out barefoot on new farmland that the plough-boys have worked. But I shouldn't chance it."
King Richard slid a few pages toward himself in order to peruse some of the aforementioned fine points. He squinted at the agate type for a long moment, then ordered, "Clairvaux! A magnifying glass, my good man." Clairvaux stepped out once more, and Richard set the papers aside. "What risk, then, does this Verdina pose to the royal family in the future?"
"I shouldn't worry overmuch, poppet," Miss Thessaly Jenkins replied. "It's simply a matter of observing Fairy etiquette, much as you'd observe Court etiquette or Imperial etiquette or Visiting East Asian Potentate etiquette whenever the need arose. Just stay on your toes, and always err on the side of caution, and she shan't be able to trouble you like this again."
"But what if she does find occasion to place another curse at our feet?"
"Some Fairies are simply too quick to take offense," she observed. "A few bolts of lightning and puffs of coloured smoke, and most mortals are so cowed that they daren't think to challenge even the flimsiest of curses. A body wants reliable legal help for this sort of thing."
"We are most grateful, Miss Jenkins," said Queen Lisette, rising from her seat. "May we place you on retainer, should we ever need to enlist your services again?"
"Now you be taking this, there's a dear," said Miss Thessaly Jenkins, withdrawing from her reticule a gilt-edged calling card, which she pressed into the Queen's slender, grateful hand. "If there's any further trouble, just send one of your messengers to this address, and if he should spin around three times in that place with his eyes closed, he shall find himself in my receiving room quick as you please. Just remember to keep the baby's stockings darned, and mind she wears her overshoes when it's muddy out, and you shan't have a thing to fear. And, oh, do," she added, "feel free to mention my name should any of your acquaintances fall into a similar predicament." With that, she picked up her valise and parasol, and trundled out of the palace to a waiting royal carriage containing the ten-thousand gold livres' reward, which swiftly bore her back to the seaside hôtel where Rémy the footman had found her in the first place.
The incautious reader might think this an excellent stopping point, but alas, the story is only beginning.
Three years passed, during which time King Richard and Queen Lisette — quite conscious of the fact that they might never have gotten such a chance, if not for Miss Thessaly Jenkins' efforts — spent their every free waking moment with Chantinelle. None of the engineers' hard work went to waste, either. The dumb-waiter system proved an excellent system for intra-palace transport. The three-wheeled pedal-vehicles became quite a popular means of entertainment for the King, the Queen and the Palace staff as well as the little Princess. (One of the engineers noticed the emergence of the new sport, and executed a cunning plan to manufacture these "tricycles" for the general purchase of members of the public, which made him quite independently wealthy and led him into several peculiar adventures of his own — but that, too, is another story.)
But the demands placed on their time by a rambunctious little girl only increased, rather than fading away as she grew older, and the King and Queen found themselves longing for the pleasure of one another's company more and more often. They could think of no politic way of informing Chantinelle that no, it did not mean that Maman and Papa loved her any less if they wanted her to sleep by herself in a big-girl's bed, but that they really did need time to themselves. Thus, the Palace housekeepers, cooks and gardeners learned to avert their eyes and keep their mouths shut if perchance they discovered the King and Queen half-buried under a stack of laundry, or hidden in a very large cabinet, or sunning themselves in one of the royal gazebos in a manner of which the Church would not approve. And Princess Chantinelle, blissfully oblivious of the entire situation, was just as happy as everyone else at Court when she discovered that soon the stork would bring her a brand-new brother or sister to play with.
This time, Queen Lisette and King Richard set to preparing the christening festivities well before their child was born. By a quirk of timing, the baby was due to arrive shortly before Easter, so the family decided to set the ceremony and reception for nine in the morning on Easter Sunday itself. The Queen made a schedule for writing out invitations, such that she would only have to ready two or three every day for several months, rather than wearing out her hand at the last minute — so if nothing else, her travails had taught her the value of advance planning. She took care of Verdina's invitation and mailed it off first thing, and even extended a general invitation to any other fairies who might be in the vicinity at the intended time and wish to attend. The Wicked Fairy responded within a matter of days, and the Queen made certain to place her at a table with several Dukes and a visiting Crown Prince. No social discourtesy could be allowed to present Verdina with the opportunity to curse another royal child.
The blessed event came around in due time, and just two weeks before Easter, Queen Lisette delivered a second little girl. Unlike Chantinelle, the child was slender and light-boned, with wispy dark hair and deep grey eyes which stared intently at anything placed before them and could follow motion mere hours after her birth. "She has the soul of a philosopher," King Richard pronounced, and named her Hildegarde.
Easter Sunday began clear and warm, storybook-perfect. For five days straight, little Hildegarde had slept through the night, and on the morning of the feast she woke with the dawn. At the stroke of eight, the royal family piled into a town-coach, and off they went, carriage wheels rattling over the cobblestones, toward the cathedral at the heart of the city.
Hundreds of guests, easily, had arrived before them, hoping to get the first glimpse of the new baby girl. As the carriage approached, King Richard noticed a sizeable gap at the front of the crowd, and wondered aloud at its presence. Clairvaux, who had always been particularly keen of vision, peered ahead, and blanched. "They are avoiding Verdina, my lord," he announced.
King Richard nodded, and felt inside his waistcoat to make certain he'd remembered his flask.
Yet everyone, even Verdina, sank to their knees when the carriage clattered to a stop and the royal family emerged. Queen Lisette jostled King Richard's elbow, and guided his attention to the Wicked Fairy; he patted her hand and smiled. Perhaps this time all would go well.
High above the cathedral square, the first bell of the carillon sounded.
Verdina screamed and toppled to the ground.
Her body twitched and writhed in time with the music of the bells. With every knell, a greenish-black bruise appeared on her face or arms. Her howl went on and on. Small children in the crowd hid their faces in their mothers' skirts, sobbing and pressing their thumbs into their ears. Hildegarde hiccupped, screwed her eyes shut and her tiny hands into fists, and wailed. Queen Lisette, helpful as ever, threw herself into her husband's arms and beat helplessly at his chest, crying, "Oh, do something, someone, do something!" as the kneeling crowd looked on, frozen in shock. Still the tolling continued, while the Wicked Fairy contorted herself into ever more improbable positions and keened loudly enough to provoke bleeding from the ears of those too close by.
Abruptly the bells jangled to a halt, and from the tower a voice called out, "Your Majesties! Are the Princesses safe?" Resourceful young Rémy had alighted from the foot of the coach and climbed the bell-tower as soon as Verdina had fallen, and now peered down from the heights beside a cadre of worried-looking bell-ringers.
"Not for long, they shall not be," rasped Verdina, picking herself up from the ground. So many bruises and scrapes covered her that she appeared to have lost a fight with a hansom-cab, but was hardly the less fearsome for it. She plucked her black wand out of a torn sleeve and stalked toward the carriage, balancing on tiptoe to keep from stumbling over her half-broken-off, dragging bootheel.
Queen Lisette clutched tightly at King Richard's arm, her face the very picture of contrition. "Dear Fairy," she cried, "please, speak to us! What have we done to you?"
"Ignorant cow," hissed Verdina. "Thou hast the temerity to invite a Fairy to a cathedral, then forget the injury that church-bells do to our race? Were I not so forgiving, I might surmise that thou hadst done 't a-purpose!"
"Please, no, Dame Verdina!" interjected Queen Lisette. "Our intentions were honorable — we thought you might enjoy the spectacle of — we had no idea the bells would — "
Sadly, for all the effort the Queen had put into bettering her practical abilities, she had still devoted no time toward her extemporaneous public speaking.
"I see," said Verdina, stroking her chin with chipped fingernails. "Then perhaps thou may'st look on this as an opportunity to expand thy knowledge of how thou might'st avoid doing Fairies such grave injury in the future." She lifted her wand and glared at the baby in the nursemaid's arms. "Hildegarde d'Armagnac, I place this curse upon thee: Whatsoever constraineth the Fairy race shalt constrain thee also!" With that, she brought the wand down in a swift stroke, and the earth began to tremble. That was enough; the congregation had held its respectful position as long as it could, but at this point, there were lives to be run for.
Amid the screams and thundering footsteps of the fleeing crowd, a great crack appeared in the earth. From it rose a glittering green dragon with wings like marbled aventurine and eyes like onyx. The Wicked Fairy leapt onto its back and it launched itself into the sky, circling thrice over the ruined celebration before winging its way off to the southwest.
Despite some grumbling from the Church fathers, the christening was not rescheduled. It was generally agreed that the ceremony could go on without any bell-ringing, but no one knew whether any other ecclesiastical accoutrements would injure a child susceptible to everything which could harm a Fairy. Little Hildegarde did not quail at the sight of the Cross, but then she was not a vampire; nor did she recoil at the approach of silver, like that from which the baptismal font was made, but she was not a werewolf either. Cold iron, they knew, was right out, but that was not a part of the service anyway. The real sticking-point was holy water. Simply put, no one knew what effect it might have on a fairy. Did it scald, or blister, or dye the skin odd colours? All anyone could do was speculate. Queen Lisette suffered from nightmares in which her dark-haired daughter was dipped feet-first into a basin of holy water and promptly dissolved, screaming, from the toes up. The court physician suggested applying a sample by means of an eyedropper onto some insignificant portion of her body, such as her earlobe or her pinky toe, but the Queen would have none of it.
No, the only solution was to appeal to an expert; so Rémy the footman received a stout horse, a pouch full of gold, Miss Thessaly Jenkins' engraved business card, and instructions to retrieve an answer and, if possible, the good Fairy herself. He set out boldly, and got into many exciting escapades along the way, which your narrator shall be happy to relate to you on some other occasion.
This time, the response arrived in the form of a brief letter and a string-bound parcel of legal documents, borne home by Rémy some three months after his departure. Upon breaking the seal, the King and Queen read:
Your Majesties,
I regret that I could not spare the time to deliver this missive in person, but the present demands on my time are many and the moments I can afford quite few. Along with this note, you will find a collection of statutes, precedents, subpoenas, depositions, and other documents related to the matter of your younger daughter's curse. These you may peruse at your leisure; they are yours for your files. Herewith, I shall summarise the proceedings thus far.
Item the first. It is, I fear, quite impossible to obtain a revocation of this curse or reduce its efficacy. It was enacted under just provocation, and is suitably specific in its terminology. Item the second. Though specific, the language of the curse is also quite broad. There is much which 'constrains' the Fairy race which need not be construed as weakness, and indeed, which might be considered benefits. For instance, Fairy law mandates a gathering of all fey-kind once every seven years; under the terms of the curse, Hildegarde's presence is required at these gatherings, which she will no doubt find both fascinating and educational. Item the third. A number of the obligations inherent to the Fairy race require the use of abilities which mortals do not possess. Those of your race may not travel to Fairyland unaided; yet it still falls to Hildegarde to do so, as described above. Item the fourth. Therefore, we propose that your daughter be accorded the powers and abilities necessary and sufficient for the performance of the duties required by the terms of the curse. Dame Avarissael baen Sidhe has already been apprised of this development, and agrees — although under protest, to be sure.As your legal representative, I would be out of order were I to recommend any course of action other than to accept the compromise outlined herein. It does not come without cost, however. Princess Hildegarde will require tutelage in the proper use of her abilities, and such instruction can only properly come at the hands of one of the Fey. Fortunately, such an opportunity has already presented itself; one of our noble houses is in need of a suitable bride for its young heir, and proposes to arrange for Hildegarde's caretaking and education in exchange for her hand in marriage to their son once both have come of age. I know the family personally, and can vouch for their honour and excellent intentions.
Should you find these terms acceptable, please convey notice of such in writing, and I shall send an envoy to conduct Princess Hildegarde to her adopted home. Otherwise, I shall continue to negotiate with Dame Verdina, but I cannot promise that we will arrive at any terms more beneficial than these.
I remain,
Mlle. Thessalia Astutrices Benvenatrix daoine Sidhe
Thus, after some private and tearful negotiation between the King and Queen, and another journey on the part of tireless young Rémy, one of Miss Thessaly Jenkins' wood-sprite cousins set off with the fairy Princess Hildegarde on the thirteen-years' journey to Fairyland. Upon arriving, they discovered that Hildegarde's betrothed fairy-prince had come upon the ill fortune of being selected as the fairies' next tithe to Hell, and it was only through great courage and great hardship that Hildegarde was able to rescue him from that fate; but that, too, is another story for another time, as this one is not quite concluded yet.
Time went on, and Princess Chantinelle grew melancholy. She sulked in the nursery, made sullen faces at her tutors, and quite refused to smile, even at jugglers, offers of ice cream, or the trained capuchin monkey which the King had imported at great expense from a faraway land. It was only when the palace gardeners discovered her turning up every cabbage leaf in the royal vegetable plot that the King and Queen realized their Chantinelle was pining for another little brother or sister.
By this time, the little princess had developed something of an independent streak, and it took no persuading at all for her to let her Maman and Papa alone at night. Winter was coming on, which gave the King and Queen ample opportunity to retire to their chambers earlier and earlier every evening. At Christmas they announced that Queen Lisette was once again with child, and this time, the entire Court flew into a frenzy of planning.
Young Rémy set out post-haste to retrieve Miss Thessaly Jenkins as advocate-in-chief. Meanwhile, the Court librarians went on a mad research spree to assist in drafting the invitations: each card reminded guests to avoid bringing items made of cold iron and to remove their lucky horseshoes from over their doorframes. Every church in the land received instructions to muffle the clappers of their bells and lock their bell-tower doors on the christening day. The royal chefs experimented day and night to create appetizing recipes which incorporated neither mountain ash berries nor salt. And, once again, the engineers leapt to work, fitting dams and sluice-gates to every river, creek, stream, brook, rill and ditch in the land, just to make sure the Wicked Fairy would not find any running water behind which she could place herself and insist that her path had been intentionally blocked. (Some years later, another clever fellow invented hydroelectricity, which promptly vaulted the Kingdom into an extremely competitive position in the field of power generation. This, too, is another story, but it is a rather boring one.)
Nine months passed quickly. This time, the Queen gave birth to a healthy boy, whom they named Claude. The entire country rejoiced at the news, for now the royal family had an heir — but now it was even more important that the Wicked Fairy be kept from interfering with the child's safety. Too quickly, the days until the christening ticked away, until all the Court began to despair of their protector ever returning.
At last, on the afternoon before the celebration, Miss Thessaly Jenkins arrived, leading a caravan of vaguely pumpkin-shaped wagons drawn by Shetland ponies. "Very sorry!" her high voice rang out as she drove, frantically waving her handkerchief all the way up the High Street to the castle gates. "Very, very sorry," she repeated when the King and Queen met her at the portcullis. "I wanted to be well prepared, you see, and I needed a few books which took some tracking down." She gestured to the train of carts behind her. "Only the most essential volumes, to be sure, but we must be ready for anything."
"Indeed," King Richard mused, rotating his brandy glass in one hand and considering the flotilla of tiny horses. "Well, we shall have to make room somehow. Footman!" He snapped his fingers, and Rémy jumped down from one of the other book-wagons. "See that these ponies are stabled securely, and the library shelved where it can be reached easily." So, while the King and Queen escorted Miss Thessaly Jenkins inside, Rémy took up the driver's seat on the first wagon, led the caravan through the gates, and reluctantly informed the engineers that their lease was up. That done, he roused the stablehands to take care of the Shetlands and a bevy of housekeepers to move the books, and then ran upstairs to look after Miss Thessaly Jenkins. He found her engaged in a lengthy discussion with King Richard and Queen Lisette, doing her level best to allay their respective sincere concerns and hand-clasping, eyelash-fluttering fears; but as the Gentle Reader has been exposed to quite enough of Queen Lisette's theatrics already, and as nothing else interesting happened in the castle that evening, your Narrator finds it more expedient to move on to the events of the following day.
It seemed as if all the nation — indeed, the earth itself — held its breath throughout the christening, waiting for disaster to strike. The clouds hovered at the edge of bursting, but not a drop fell; the bishop held baby Claude as if he were a basket of eggs, and recited only as much of the liturgy as canon law absolutely required. Verdina sat in the foremost pew, irreproachable in silence and emerald chinoise, while the gathered crowds hardly dared murmur. It was the most ghastly dull national holiday anyone could remember — but nothing had gone awry so far.
With the baptism concluded, all present retired to the palace for the feast. All and sundry gave way to Verdina as she floated up the steps and into the grand hall, where she took her seat at the King's right hand. At a sign from Queen Lisette, the chamber orchestra struck up a cheerful rondeau, and a flock of gold-liveried waitstaff rushed in with the soup course. Verdina took up the gold-chased spoon from her place setting, raised a spoonful of tomato bisque to her lips, and smirked. She tasted it, and the smirk changed to a scowl.
"What's the matter, dear Fairy?" inquired Queen Lisette. "Is it too spicy? Too bland? Don't say you've burned your mouth?"
"No." Verdina grimaced. "It's perfect."
So it went over the entire evening. Lady Bonnebouche, to Verdina's right, kept up just the right flow of conversation throughout the night, neither too weighty nor too immaterial, and never once boring. The chamber orchestra missed not a single note, all the candles stayed lit, and every course of the meal surpassed the one before. At every turn, Verdina seemed about to raise some triumphant exception and claim offense, and at every turn she came away deflated. At last, exasperated, she raised her eyes to the ceiling and snarled, "Must you miserable mortals be so thrice-damned faultless?"
The room fell silent.
"Darling?" piped up Queen Lisette. "Did you hear what she just said?"
"Mm," said King Richard, lifting his chin out of his goblet. "Not even paying attention, and I heard that quite clearly. I dare say we've been insulted, chèrie."
Verdina whirled to face him, eyes sparking green fire. "Liar!" she spat, and pounded a fist on the table. "How dare you intimate that I — "
"Pish-tosh," spoke up Miss Thessaly Jenkins from the far end of the table. "Even I heard you, and so, I'll wager, did every other witness here." She glanced up and down the table. Heads in every direction bobbed up and down. Miss Thessaly Jenkins crossed her arms and smiled. "You know, Your Majesties, you'd be well within your rights were you to seek a legal injunction for this insult to your personages..."
"Like a restraining order?" King Richard asked, swirling the brandy in his goblet round and round.
"Precisely," Miss Thessaly Jenkins replied. "Or a restraining curse, if you will."
Verdina scowled impotently, and Miss Thessaly Jenkins fixed her with a sweet grin.
"Oh, do, please," Queen Lisette entreated, clasping her hands beneath her chin for the very last time in this story, your Narrator promises. Miss Thessaly Jenkins nodded smartly and reached under the table for her parasol. Off came the handle once more, and out came the wand with the seven-pointed star. Rémy stepped up behind her to slide back her chair as she rose, lifting the wand high.
"Dame Verdina Avarissael baen Sidhe," she pronounced, "thou art forbidden ever again to threaten harm of any nature to any descendant of King Richard and Queen Lisette, or to any ancestor, or any subject, or they themselves, on pain of retribution from the High Court of Faerie. Dost thou question this order?"
The Wicked Fairy glowered, but shook her head and muttered, "No."
"So mote it be!" Miss Thessaly Jenkins cried. She whirled her wand in one loop, then another, then drew a straight line in the air as if drawing a knot tight. "It's done, Your Majesties."
"Spoilsports," Verdina snorted, and summarily vanished in an oily cloud of smoke, leaving a greasy stain on the carpet which still has not come out. And so the feast continued, this time with a merry buzz of conversation and much less tension in the air. Everyone went home full and happy, and the Queen retained her reputation as a first-class hostess.
King Richard went back to governing with an easy hand and enjoying the fruits of his country's vineyards, and soon became his son's favourite horsey.
Princess Chantinelle maintained her doll-like good looks as she grew older. She also discovered a hidden talent for the newborn art of photography and founded a newspaper with the help of the son of one of the very engineers who had assisted her as a baby.
After the fairy Princess Hildegarde arrived in Fairyland and rescued her betrothed, she inherited the title of the house into which she had married. While her husband ruled their fiefdom, she handled disputes between tenants, and ultimately became a fairy solicitor herself, much to the dismay of the less-clever fairies of the world.
Prince Claude was engaged at the age of six to a foreign princess who turned out to be a prince in disguise. Mortal lawyers being not so cunning as Fairy lawyers, the Court was unable to find a loophole to extricate the Prince from said arrangement; but the two princes got along well enough, and throughout their joint misadventures fathered enough bastards to rule twenty kingdoms, so they had their pick of heirs between them.
Not very much happened to Rémy, but he enjoyed himself while it lasted.
Don't worry about your Narrator. I'm just fine, and thank you for asking.
Miss Thessaly Jenkins betook herself back across the Channel, where she resumed her practice and took on all cases that came her way, most of them even stranger than this one.
And they all lived arbitrarily ever after.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.