In a far-away time, in a far-away land
There ruled once a ruler, King Justin the Just
And no knight nor knave
Dared not call him brave
For Justin commanded everyone's trust
The Queen of his Kingdom, her name, Doriellen
Was graceful and gracious and lovely and bright
But because of a curse
Put on her by her nurse
She had one face by day and another by night
Now King Justin knew of her plight when he wed her
For he'd seen her by day and he'd seen her by night
But by some happy chance
That had saved their romance
He had fallen in love with each face at first sight
Still his Counselors were frightened, not very enlightened
They held to a man to a single conclusion:
A Queen, although fair
With one face to spare
Would doubtlessly cause a great deal of confusion
"And confusion leads to anxiety
And anxiety to frustration
And such a mood, Your Majesty,
Isn't healthy for a nation!"
"For frustration leads to unrest, and when
With a gruesome jolt
Unrest leads to upheaval, then
The Kingdom's in revolt!"
To safeguard the Kingdom, Queen Doriellen
Agreed to a plan that would forestall its doom
She'd be seen all the day
But come what may
At night, when her face changed, she'd stay in her room
To everyone's wonder and nobody's sorrow
The Queen kept her schedule and saved all from ruin
For her secret stayed masked
And not a soul asked
Why all Masked Balls and Galas began before noon
But then one strange morning the strangest thing happened
A thing weird and frightening that made the Queen weep
'Twas nothing to joke with
For the face she awoke with
Was the face she had worn when she'd fallen asleep!
"Justin, why are you looking at me like that?" Doriellen asked the King, who was staring at her in profound disbelief.
"Doriellen, your face!" he gasped.
"It couldn't be dirty," she said, going over to her dressing table. "I've just come from bed and that's fairly clean." She surveyed her reflection in the dressing table mirror. "It isn't dirty!" she declared. "Cleopartra's curling iron!" she then exclaimed, noticing that her hair was still red instead of yellow and her eyes were still green instead of blue. "It isn't me! I mean, it isn't the right me!" She turned from the mirror with terror-filled eyes. "Justin, what's happened?"
"You've obviously outgrown the curse," the Palace Sorcerer told her, after being hurriedly summoned by the worried and astonished King.
"Outgrown the curse?" she asked, well-pleased with the diagnosis. "You mean, I'll never change faces again? This is it for always?"
"I would think so," said the Palace Sorcerer. "Of course, we don't really know the exact nature of the curse your nurse placed on you, nor its exact purpose. But it is possible that purpose has been served, and so the curse is gone, so to speak."
Doriellen could not imagine what purpose had been served by her two faces but she readily accepted the Palace Sorcerer's analysis.
"This is tragic," the King's Privy Councilor told him during an emergency meeting of the Council. "If the curse has to disappear, why did it have to leave her with the face nobody knows about? How can we possibly present this stranger as Queen?"
The King immediately grasped the dimensions of the problem and spent the rest of the morning brooding about it.
"Guess what, darling?" Doriellen asked him in the midst of his brooding. "We're going waltzing tonight. In the garden. All by ourselves."
He did not seem severely enchanted with the plan.
"Justin, are you unhappy the curse is gone?"
He assured her that he wasn't and then explained what difficulties its disappearance would cause.
"You are no longer the Queen our people know."
"So we tell them the truth and hope for the best," she advised.
But the Council determined that in this case the truth was the worst thing the people could be told.
"If we told them the truth now, Your Majesty, they would know that we've lied to them all along. If we lied to them about this, what else, they would surely wonder, have we been lying about?"
"What else have we been lying about?" the King inquired.
"That is not the point, Your Majesty. The point is that the
"Truth would lead to uncertainty
And uncertainty leads to doubt
And that, of course, Your Majesty,
Starts rumors pouring out!
"Rumors lead to unrest and when
Those foul feathers molt,
Unrest leads to upheaval, then
The Kingdom's in revolt!"
And so, Doriellen's suggestion that they tell the truth was abandoned by unanimous vote, and the King continued to brood.
Now, one may brood for several hours, or for one afternoon altogether, but one does not brood longer than that, if it is not truly in one's nature to brood. And so it was that in the early evening, King Justin entered the room in which, on the Council's advice, Doriellen had hidden herself all day.
"The moon is out, Doriellen!" he announced. "We have an appointment to go waltzing in the garden, have we not?"
"I have been considering the depth of the difficulties we face, Your Majesty. And dancing seems suddenly to me too frivolous an activity. Is something wrong?"
King Justin rubbed his eyes and then rushed her to the dressing table mirror.
"I've changed into my day face!" she saw at once.
"It's definitely a reversal," the Palace Sorcerer told them upon being resummoned.
"You said the curse was gone!" the King said accusingly.
"It seemed a good guess at the time," the Palace Sorcerer replied.
"It isn't his fault that it isn't gone," the Queen said fairly. "Your Majesty, where are you going?"
"To a Council Meeting."
The Council quickly decided that the change in the Queen's curse was not as dire a happening as first it had appeared.
"She will simply have to carry out her duties as Queen by night and hide herself during the day."
When the King told her of the required change in her activities, Doriellen calmly accepted it as one more sacrifice to be made for the Kingdom.
"Above all else, I am your Queen, and I will do what I must for this, our Nation, and these, our People."
He reminded her then that the change meant that she could hold Palace Balls at midnight and waltz in the garden any night she wished.
"A Queen cannot content herself with waltzing in a garden," she told him, patting his hand. "Not while there are troops that must be reviewed and ships that must be launched!"
The next days passed by her in stifling boredom
The next days passed by her in regal pursuits
Behaving serenely
In all matters queenly
Doriellen proved faithful to her royal roots
"We never see one another anymore!" she nonetheless shouted at the King one day after cornering him in the Council Chamber.
"Doriellen, you're not supposed to be out of your room! What if somebody sees you?"
"Simple, darling. We tell them I'm your first wife, whom you have hidden away on the premises for old times sake. Justin, why can't you work nights like I do, so we could have the days to ourselves?"
"I can't. There is already too much talk about your change in schedule for me to safely change mine."
"Talk?"
"The Admiral of the ship you launched two nights ago filed a formal complaint about being forced out of bed at midnight to attend the ceremonies."
"He filed a complaint! I couldn't even see the damn ship well enough to hit it with the damn bottle of champagne!"
The King replied with a worried look.
I'm worried about the Queen," he confided some little time later to the Palace Sorcerer. He had come to believe that something fundamental about Doriellen had changed when her curse reversed. For although she had always had two faces, for as long as he had known her, she had but one personality.
"Now it is as if she were two people."
"Interesting," the Palace Sorcerer observed.
"The blonde blue-eyed Queen seems completely aware of her royal responsibilities. But she never laughs."
"And the red-head?"
"She laughs. She dances. She swears like a sailor."
"Interesting," the Palace Sorcerer repeated.
"And there is a restlessness about her that I do not remember noticing before the reversal."
"May that not be because she is compelled to stay hidden in her room all day long?"
"Perhaps," the King granted. But how can that be helped? The Privy Councilor sees no alternative."
"The Privy Councilor may be short-sighted," the Palace Sorcerer suggested.
"Be that as it may," Justin said sadly, "neither of these women is the Doriellen I know." He shook his head ruefully. "I mean, neither of them is the Doriellen I knew."
Understandably, things grew from difficult to intolerable.
"It is not an impossible burden to carry, Your Majesty," the blonde Queen would assure him at night, if she chanced to pass him on her way out to a royal function.
"I can't live this way!" the red-head would scream to her servants by day. And one morning she decided she wouldn't.
"Your Grace, you cannot leave the Palace!" her maid cried.
"The hell I can't," Doriellen informed her, her green eyes sparkling. "I'll be back around five. If the King asks for me, tell him I'm writing a speech for the next ship launching."
"How can I tell the King an untruth?" the bewildered servant asked.
"You lie, Trixie. You stand your tallest, throw back your shoulders, clear your throat, and lie."
And so did it happen that Queen Doriellen
Kidnapped a horse and rode off for the day
She was tired of hiding
And so she went riding
Into the Forest, far off and away
She never expected to see anybody
For the Forest was lonely, a desolate place
But from out of a hovel
Came a man with a shovel
Being chased by a man at a terrible pace
"Excuse me," he said, as he climbed up behind her
"But you happened along when I needed a horse.
That fellow I'm fleeing,
A fine human being
Wants to dismember me. Neatly of course!"
"Why did you steal his shovel?" Doriellen asked as they rode away.
"I didn't. I merely picked it up to defend myself. I guess it comes to the same thing though." He dropped the shovel by the side of the path.
"Does that mean you're not a thief?" she asked, sounding disappointed.
"Not necessarily," he told her. "But I'm not a thief."
Doriellen pulled on the reins and turned around to face her companion. Upon cursory examination, he seemed a presentable, if somewhat scruffy sort.
"Why was that man chasing you?" she asked directly.
"He wanted to kill me. I'm not certain of any further details. I never am."
"You have no notion of why he wanted to kill you?" she persisted, momentarily unable to take her eyes away from the red feather he wore in his hat.
"He didn't care for me."
She nodded, turned, and signaled the horse to go forward.
"My name is Muff. You have my inextinguishable and unsquashable gratitude for passing that hovel when you did."
"Anytime. If you're not a thief, what are you?"
"A Baron."
"Of course." Doriellen knew every Baron in her Kingdom and all of the Barons of several adjacent Kingdoms. "You're the infamous Baron Muff of the House of Muffins."
"Lady Lovely, you are laughing at one of fate's victims. When I was a Baron, my name wasn't Muff."
"Then you're a Former Baron! Did you resign or were you discharged?"
"I was bewitched."
Doriellen rode on in silence.
"Don't you care to know the whole wretched story?"
"No."
They both rode on in silence.
"Have you a name, Lady Lovely?"
"Dori—". She caught herself mid-revelation.
"Dory," Muff repeated. "Short name."
"'Muff' isn't exactly lengthy." She halted the horse. "Can I drop you anywhere around here?"
He dismounted, sensing that the ride was over.
"This is good-bye then, Dory?"
"Good-bye then, Muff."
Looking up at her he saw the sun glinting off her long red hair and felt astounded by her beauty.
"You don't believe I'm a bewitched Baron, do you?"
"It isn't that I don't believe it. It's just that I can't care."
"I see."
He plucked the red feather from his hat and handed it to her. "For saving me."
She put the feather in her pocket.
"I still can't care."
"That's the curse."
A puzzled expression involuntarily crossed Doriellen's carefully controlled countenance.
"I cannot be a Baron again until somebody cares about me."
"What do you do in the meantime?"
"I go around kissing strangers, hoping one will fall in love. I was kissing the wife of the man in the hovel when he came home unexpectedly from the fields."
She felt repelled and attracted all at the same time.
"If you let go of my horse's reins, I'll go now, Muff."
"I find that it isn't that people are incapable of caring about me. They're simply afraid to try. I seem to attract and repel them all at the same time." He released the reins. "Will I see you tomorrow?"
"No, Muff. I'm . . .". She searched for the word. "Married."
He thought that through. "The Wizard never said that I have to be the first one whoever cares about me has cared about. I'm not suggesting anything, Dory. I'm only mentioning what the Wizard never said. In case you wondered. In case you care."
"I can't care!" she cried. And she rode off to the safe sanity waiting for her at the Palace.
Doriellen rode swiftly and got to the Palace
In time for her face change, so all had gone well
Although she kept yawning
Until the next morning
The Court never noticed, being all bored as hell
She slept for an hour and found herself dreaming
Of feathers and shovels and horses and Muff
She woke with a start
And instructed her heart:
"Chance encounters are sweet but enough is enough!"
So next morning she vowed that she wouldn't go riding
"I'll hide in my room. That isn't wrong, is it?"
She stayed out of sight
Until eight that night
When the Duchess of Fenda paid her a visit
"The most unusual occurrence occurred to me on my way to the Palace this evening, Your Grace. I was stopped by a highwayman!"
"There are no highwaymen in this Kingdom," King Justin felt impelled to tell her.
The Duchess straightened stiffly at this challenge to her report.
"He was no ordinary highwayman, Your Majesty. Perhaps your Kingdom is not troubled by the run-of-the-mill your-money-or-your-life variety of outlaw. But I assure you, I was genuinely waylaid two hours past on the Post Road."
For no tangible reason, the Queen had begun to listen to the Duchess with intense care.
"My dear Duchess, if this criminal did not demand your money, of what did he rob you?"
The breathless Duchess leaned closer and lowered her voice. "A kiss!"
"I beg your pardon?"
"The highwayman stole a kiss from me!"
The King was astounded. "The villain!"
"Indeed," agreed the Duchess. "I felt absolutely repelled by him. And
yet . . .". A dreamy look came upon her.
"Duchess, do go on!" the Queen prompted.
She did not have to be asked twice.
"He said he was a bewitched Baron. He said that if I kissed him, it might break the bewitchment."
"Did it?" the Queen asked quickly, in fact, so quickly that the King took note.
"I don't know. How could I know?"
"Well, what did he say to you after the kiss?"
"He said to me that I might be his soul's salvation."
"And then?"
"I said to him that I couldn't care less."
The King was enraged. The achievement of his reign that he was proudest of was the absolute safety that abounded in his Kingdom. And now there was a villain running loose on the Post Road.
"I think you may be taking all of this too seriously, Your Majesty," the Queen said soothingly after the Duchess of Fenda's departure. "The whole Court knows of the Duchess' penchant for improving upon reality. She is, we all know, given to creating fantasies. Why don't we leave it at that?"
But the King was unwilling to attribute the Duchess' adventure to the Duchess' creativity. He ordered guards to patrol the Post Road and seek out he who had sought out the Duchess.
It was a little before dawn when the Council was called into emergency session, at which time the Queen retreated to her quarters, presumably for a good day's sleep. Instead, she sat listening to the Palace Clock while she held a red feather.
"As Queen," she said silently, "I must be, I will be loyal to my sovereign lord and husband."
The Palace Clock chimed five times. With every chime her blonde hair grew redder and her blue eyes grew greener.
"But there is loyalty in the short-run and loyalty in the long-run," she continued. "All Justin desires is for Muff to vacate his Kingdom. Certainly, he seeks to wreck no havoc on the man. But if one of the patrols finds Muff, what choice will be left to Justin but one of gore and guilt? How much better would it be if someone saw to it that Muff fled the Kingdom under his own power!"
Thus having come to a fateful decision
Dory slipped out of her regal abode
Convinced she was loyal
To all that was royal
She raced like the wind till she reached the Post Road
Muff was hiding behind a clump of bushes when he heard first hoof beats and then footsteps.
"Muff," he heard next, "are you still here?"
"Who wants to know?" Doriellen heard whispered in reply.
"I do," she said. "Which bush are you behind?"
A hand came out of the center bush and swung her around it.
"Dory, it's you!" Muff whispered, pulling her down beside him. "You've picked a bad time to come visit me. I'm a hunted man this morning."
"I know," she told him. "I came to warn you about the patrols out after you."
"Then you didn't want them to take me!" Muff exclaimed. "You care what happens to me!"
"Sorry, Muff," she apologized. "I came to warn you out of loyalty to someone else."
Muff winced but smiled bravely.
"I am sorry," she repeated. Then she frowned. "Where are the patrols? Have any been by yet?"
"All morning. But I think they've gone looking down Hemlock Lane for me." He laughed. "The Duchess must have been more upset than she seemed."
Doriellen shook her head. "I wouldn't say she was upset. Flustered, perhaps. But not upset."
"How do you know?" Muff asked, squinting. "And how did you know about the patrols?"
Doriellen crouched her tallest, threw back her shoulders and cleared her throat. "The truth is that I am a Lady in Waiting to her Majesty, the Queen. I overheard everything the Duchess said to the King about you. Isn't that lucky?"
"Damnably," Muff agreed. "And you came straight here to warn me."
"Out of loyalty to someone else. I suppose you're going to wait for dark to flee the Kingdom."
"No."
"You're leaving now?"
"No."
"Muff," she said in tones of lethal earnest, "you are going to flee the Kingdom. You are not going to stay crouched here behind these bushes until the Final Judgment dawns or a guard with good vision finds you. You are going to follow the sensible course."
"Ah, yes, the good old sensible course!" he sighed, remembering when fate had last let him follow it. "I haven't been able to follow the sensible course since my bewitchment."
"That's strange," Doriellen said. "I haven't followed anything but the sensible course all my life."
Muff laughed a hard laugh. "But you're not bewitched, Dory! You're not living out some wayward Wizard's curse!"
Doriellen wished then that she might tell him how much they had in common. And perhaps she might have, had not a patrol begun to ride loudly toward them.
"What do we do?" she whispered, panicking a trifle.
"We crouch where we are and pray they ride by our bush and keep riding."
"What if they don't ride by and keep riding? What if they ride by and dismount and search the bushes?"
"Dory, are you certain you don't care if they find me?"
They could hear the patrol dismounting.
"Us! I care if they find us! Me here with you!"
They could hear the patrol searching the bushes.
"All you need tell them is that you're my latest victim."
"Oh, Muff, if the King thought I was your victim, you would be irretrievably done for!"
"Dory, would you care if I were irretrievably done for?" he asked as a guard with good hearing started to inspect their bush.
"I can't care!" she cried out in anguish.
"Is there anyone behind here?" the guard asked.
"Would you expect us to admit it, if there were?" Muff answered.
The guard supposed that he wouldn't and remounted his horse and rode away with the rest of the patrol.
"We'd best leave before another patrol rides by," Doriellen whispered then to Muff.
"All right," he said. "Where shall we go?"
"I shall go back to the Palace," she directed, "and you shall flee the Kingdom."
Muff shook his head in an extremely negative fashion.
"If I flee the Kingdom, I will never become unbewitched. That's the curse."
'Twas then that Muff told her the rest of his story
"I hate giving details, but here is the thing:
The one that can care
Must live around here
And upon her left hand she must wear a gold ring!"
"Like a wedding band?" Doriellen asked.
"Very like a wedding band," Muff affirmed. "You can imagine the difficulties this curse has put me in the way of!"
Doriellen nodded and looked at her own gold ring.
"How will you know when someone cares about you?"
"She will say so and kiss me," Muff replied. "And then her gold ring will disappear."
Doriellen's left hand closed into a protective fist.
"Where will the ring disappear to?" she asked defensively.
"To the Wizard. He collects them. That's the reason he bewitches people. So that they inadvertently become gold ing scavengers for his collection. Ghastly hobby."
Doriellen agreed that it most certainly was. "He sounds awfully evil."
"Not evil," Muff disagreed. "Sick." He sighed. 'The worst of it is that it's made me lose all faith in magic and mystery. Being bewitched is very trying on one's spirit."
Doriellen knew that better than he had any reason to imagine she could.
"Whatever will become of us, Muff?" she sighed, sharing his despair.
"Dishonor, disgrace and disaster," he predicted. "Did you say 'us'?"
"I've been bewitched too," she confessed.
"Badly?" he asked, concerned.
"I've never thought of it in terms of good or bad. But it does complicate things fairly thoroughly."
"Has it gummed up your life too, Dory?" he asked her gently.
"Half of my life," she answered truthfully.
She was unused to speaking of her curse to anyone who truly understood what being cursed was like. And doing so now was almost a joyous experience. She wondered if Muff was feeling a similar surge of relief.
He wasn't.
"I've decided to give myself up. Nothing Justin can do to me can be worse than what I've been going through since the Wizard's Curse. After I was bewitched, I found myself halfway around the world. It's taken me years to make my way back so that I can try to break my bewitchment. But it's no good. I can't put you at risk like this. Don't worry, Dory. I'll keep your name out of it. I wouldn't want you to lose your job at the Palace on my account."
Dory was less than keen on the idea.
"Muff, you can't give yourself up! Whatever your problem, whatever your pain, you must go on!"
"Why?" he asked simply.
"Because," she answered simply. "Think of those who care about you!"
"No one cares about me."
"Yes, I forgot. That's the problem, isn't it?"
They crouched side by side in silence then, two innocents caught in webs not of their own spinning.
"Dory," he said at last, "I'm not going to give myself up and I'm not going to remain in this Kingdom. I am going to follow the sensible course."
"I'm glad, Muff. You won't be a Baron, but you won't be arrested. And that's something."
He nodded. "And what of you? Is there anything I can do to help uncurse you?"
She replied with a philosophic sigh. "My curse is incurable, I'm afraid. It seems to change from time to time, but to no noticeable purpose. Good-bye, Muff. I shall miss you."
"Who cares?" he smiled.
"I care!" she laughed, wondering at the question.
And then she kissed him good-bye. There followed a clap of thunder and a flash of lightening.
"Thank you," he said.
She smiled at him and noticed at once that he seemed somehow less scruffy than usual.
"Why are you dressed in purple velvet with silver trim?" she asked.
And then Dory realized exactly what happened
Muff's spell had been broken by her good-bye kiss
A Baron again
He thanked her and then
She looked at her finger and screamed, "What is this?"
"Your finger," the Baron answered.
"My wedding ring!" she gasped.
"No, it's definitely your finger, Dory. Your wedding ring is with the Wizard."
"Your curse!" she cried, remembering the terms of his bewitchment. "Muff, you tricked me into being the instrument of your unbewitchment!"
"I suppose you could put it that way," he supposed. "We can stop crouching now. I'm not a fugitive anymore."
They assumed a standing position and Doriellen began speaking to him in loud and angry tones.
"How can I get my ring back?"
"You can't. Don't you know it isn't polite to scream at Barons?"
"All right," she said in a more modulated voice. "I will not scream. I will calmly inquire of you the speediest way in which I can recover my wedding ring!"
"It isn't recoverable. Can't you have a duplicate ring made?"
Doriellen might have told him that the ring, being part of the Crown Jewels was a one-of-a-kind and impossible to duplicate. But she decided that would have been too telling a clue to her identity. And she had no wish to have him know she was Queen.
"I suppose I could have a duplicate made," she said truthlessly. "Will you be leaving for your castle now?"
"There's no reason not to, is there?" He watched her eyes. "Is there?"
She shook her head in an extremely negative fashion.
"Good-bye then, Dory?"
"Good-bye then, Baron."
So Dory returned to her room in the Palace
And searched for some gloves that would hide her disgrace
She found some that would do
As her green eyes turned blue
Then she walked down the stairs with the Queenliest face
"Your Majesty," she said in greeting when she had descended the staircase far enough to be level with the King, who was on the third step from the bottom, leaning against the banister, lost in thought.
He nodded hello. "The Ball is tonight, is it not?"
The Queen had quite forgotten that indeed the Kingdom's Annual Masked Ball and Apple Dunking Competition was scheduled for that evening.
"Oh, Your Majesty, I am in no temper to dunk for apples!"
She sighed, keeping her gloved hands folded behind her back.
"Nor am I," confessed the King, choosing a step to sit on.
Keeping her hands out of sight, the Queen gracefully dropped down next to him. "But we cannot cancel the Ball, nor can we not attend."
"Why can we not?" he tried.
"Because of duty, honor, and our acceptance of the burdens of the Crown," she listed, tucking a stray blonde curl back under her Crown.
He could not genuinely understand what dunking for apples in lukewarm water had to do with duty, honor, and/or their acceptance of the burdens of the Crown. But he had just come from a marathon emergency Council session, which had dealt extensively and inconclusively with the question of the villain on the Post Road, and he was too tired to argue.
"My brother will be coming to the Ball," he said instead.
"You have a brother?"
"Yes. Dudley left the Kingdom shortly before I met you. Nobody ever knew precisely why or where he went. He simply vanished one morning and was never heard of again. Until today, when he sent word that he'd returned."
"Odd," the Queen remarked.
"Very. But you'll like the Baron."
The Queen felt herself going limp and numb all at the same time.
"Whom will I like?" she asked in a strangled voice as she brought both hands to her suddenly swimming head.
"Dudley."
"You said 'Baron'."
"Yes, Baron Dudley, my brother. Doriellen, why are you wearing gloves?"
"I am wearing gloves," she answered in the same strangled voice, "because my hands are cold. They are so cold that I will probably be wearing gloves from now on. Will he be staying overnight?"
"Who?"
"Baron Dudley, your brother."
"I suppose he will. Why wouldn't he? Are you concerned about him seeing you during the day?"
She nodded, mutely terrified at the prospect. For she had already decided who Dudley must be.
"Dudley won't hold your curse against you," she was assured.
"He must never see me between dawn and dusk!" she said with as much emotional emphasis as the could muster.
"I told you, he won't mind," King Justin said, wondering at her strange declaration as well as at her gloves.
"I'll mind," she told him, gripping his arm. "Justin, the Baron must never know about my other face!"
So pale was her face and so urgent her words that
King Justin was shaken with wonder and pain
'Twas too warm to be gloved
Had the women he loved
Finally broken down under the strain?
"I feel fine," she answered, pretending a clam she did not at the moment enjoy, nor believed she would enjoy ever again. "I think I shall rest some more for the Ball."
"I'll call for you the instant Dudley arrives," Justin promised.
"Thanks."
She asked herself repeatedly over the next hours what there was for her to fear. Surely Justin would not blame his brother for being the villain on the Post Road, given the circumstances of his bewitchment. And just as surely he would not blame him for tricking her into breaking that bewitchment. Was not a gold ring worth a man's life and happiness? And as for the kiss, it was only a kiss. And as for her caring, why shouldn't she care for her brother-in-law?
It was always during the last two thoughts that the Queen felt most afraid. And it was during the last one of the last two that Trixie came to tell her that Dudley had arrived.
In fact, everyone had arrived. The Royal Ballroom was brimming over with masked apple dunkers. The Queen scanned the room briefly and then walked, as if doomed, toward the masked King, who was standing with another masked figure by the largest tub of water.
"The Baron won't recognize me, of course," she comforted herself. "I'm not the me he knows."
Upon reaching the King and the masked stranger, whom she assumed was Dudley, she had the further realization that this Baron was not the Baron she knew.
"You're not him, are you?" she asked peeking under his mask to make certain he wasn't.
"Doriellen, what are you saying?" King Justin asked.
The Queen replied with a merry laugh and waltzed away with the first masked dunker who asked her to dance. So relieved was she that Dudley was not nor had ever been Muff, that she scarcely looked at her partner, noticing only that he was masked and that his doublet, which was of purple velvet and silver trim, seemed somehow familiar to her.
"This is an undeniably interesting Ball as Balls go, Your Grace," he told her. "I've never seen so many tubs in one room. Tell me, do you do your own dunking?"
"Occasionally. Do I know you, Sir?" She could not quite place his voice, but that too seemed familiar to her.
"I shouldn't think so. You may have heard of me however."
"From whom?"
"From whom do you generally hear things?"
"One hears of so many people from so many people. Perhaps if you tell me what I may have heard of you if I have heard of you, I will know if you are anyone I have heard of."
They waltzed on.
"But if I tell you what you may have heard of me if you have heard of me, I cannot know for certain if you have indeed heard of me, or are merely being polite, having never heard of me at all, but having no wish to hurt my feelings in the matter. Can you reverse? We seem to be going around in circles."
They reversed.
"You may have heard of me from your Lady in Waiting," he suggested then.
"Which Lady in Waiting?" she asked pleasantly.
"Her name is Dory."
The music stopped and the Queen fainted.
"Dudley, what happened?" King Justin gasped in concern to his wife's dancing partner, who happened to be his brother, Baron Dudley.
"Did she seem to you especially tired before this dance?" Dudley in turn asked as he held the unconscious Queen in his arms.
"No, not especially tired," the King replied.
"Then she's fainted. Here."
The Baron lifted the Queen and handed her to the King.
"I'll take her up to her room," the concerned King declared.
"You cannot leave the Ball, Your Majesty. It is your duty as King to stay."
The King glanced defiantly at his Privy Councilor.
"It is my duty as King to guard the well being of my Queen!"
"The Queen has merely fallen asleep," the Privy Councilor said loudly so that he could be overheard by the ballroom of masked apple dunkers, who had been paying close attention to the scene unraveling before them. "There is no reason for Your Majesty to leave the Ball. The Queen is quite all right." He drew nearer his King. "Your Majesty, I fear that your departure would cause concern among your guests.
"Just as storm clouds lead to thundering
Concern can lead to brooding
And when people begin wondering
Strange new questions start intruding
"They'll ask as first, 'Is the Queen well?'
And 'Is all all right?'
And end by asking, 'Why the hell
Is she just seen at night?'"
"Point well taken," the King murmured. He handed the Queen back to Dudley. "Her room is the third door on the second landing."
The Baron accepted the unconscious Queen and
He carried her up to her room and her bed
He kissed her and then
He kissed her again
Then she sat up and groaned, "Lord I wish I were dead!"
"I didn't actually mean to do that," the Baron said, not without some embarrassment. "It was force of habit."
"Go away," she begged him.
"I was bewitched, you see," he explained.
"I know," she moaned.
He had no notion of why she had become so unstrung. Although, he reflected, for all he knew of her, she might have been born that way. Then his gaze happened to fall on her dressing table.
"Will you answer me a question, Your Grace?"
She stopped sobbing into her pillow. "If you will answer one first."
"All right."
"Why are we in my bedroom?"
"The King asked me to bring you here after you fainted."
"Why couldn't the King bring me here after I fainted?"
"I think he had to dunk for apples."
She resumed sobbing.
"My question has to do with the red feather on your dressing table."
She stopped sobbing. She also stopped breathing.
"Feather dressing table red?" she managed.
"Feather dressing table red," he affirmed. "Did your Lady in Waiting give it to you?"
"My Lady in Waiting gave it to me."
He looked honestly hurt.
"You mustn't think badly of her for giving it away. She's married, you know."
He looked even more dejected.
"She told me about you though. All in all, you made quite a favorable impression."
"Poor Dory," he sighed. "Do you know about her curse?"
"Oh, yes. There aren't many who know about it as well as I."
"I asked, but she wouldn't tell me anything about it. Can you tell me about it?"
"I'll tell you, if you promise to leave here and never return. You may not realize the danger you're in! The Duchess of Fenda is downstairs and it's a miracle she hasn't seen you!"
"She saw me.'
"She saw you?"
"I was masked. Everyone was masked. But you. Why weren't you masked, Your Grace?"
"I like to be seen as often as possible. Do you want to hear about the curse?"
He wanted to hear about the curse.
"Dory's curse is this: From dawn to dusk, she is as you have seen her. Red-haired and green-eyed. But from dusk to dawn she is…". She took the Baron's hand in hers to steady him for the coming revelation. "Invisible."
"Impossible."
The Queen's manner became distinctly severe.
"That's the curse. Take it or leave it."
The Baron glanced down at the gloved hand resting on his.
"She's in this room, isn't she?" he asked.
"As a matter of fact, yes, she is."
"Where?"
The Queen looked around the room. "I told you an untruth about the feather. She never gave it to me. She leaves it wherever she goes to sort of mark the spot. You say you found it on the dressing table?"
"What did she leave to mark the spot before I gave her the feather?"
"Another feather. She's always liked feathers. Now, do you want to say a few words to her before you climb out my window and return to wherever it is you have to return to?"
He indicated that he did.
"Dory, I came to the Ball tonight to find you." He turned to the Queen. "And I did find you." He turned back to the dressing table. "But now that I've found you, I find that there is very little I can say to you. Except that I care more for you than I ever dreamed it possible to care for a dressing table."
He turned again in time to catch the Queen's stricken expression.
"Dory," he asked, "how much does the King know?"
It was at this juncture the Queen's servant, Trixie
Came in unannounced at King Justin's behest
And it boggled her mind
To see who was reclined
In bed head-to-head with an apple dunking guest
"The King begs to know of your condition," she said, swallowing involuntarily between words.
"Tell the King that I am conscious and will be down presently," the Queen directed coolly. "Good-bye," she told the Baron when Trixie had exited, still swallowing.
"The King will be suspicious if you come down without me," he told her. "After all, we went up together."
The Queen sensed the wisdom in his words.
"Very well. But keep your mask on. And leave as soon as you can. And never come back to this Kingdom. And forget all about me." She still did not realize that the once-enchanted Baron and her brother-in-law were one and the same.
The Baron promised he would keep his mask on and they went back down to the Ball together.
"Keep as far as you can from the Duchess of Fenda," the Queen hissed to the Baron as they re-entered the ballroom.
"I don't know what you have against her, Dory. She's a perfectly charming lady. Besides, I'm wearing a mask. Ah, good! It looks as if we haven't missed the contest."
"Contest?"
"The apple dunking!"
"I think you can begin making a discrete exit," she said pushing him in the direction of the doors through which they had just come.
"I think I had better wait until the dunking starts. No one will notice my discrete exit then and they're bound to see it now. Would you care to dance?"
"I have a headache," the Queen realized as they danced.
"That's not possible," the Baron told her. "A Queen's life is a placid as an unrippled lake. Unrippled lakes do not get headaches."
She looked up resentfully at her major ripple.
"The Wizard knew of a wonderful cure for headaches."
"I need a wonderful cure about now. What was it?"
"I don't know. He never told it to me. He just said that he knew a wonderful cure for headaches."
"Is Your Grace quite recovered?" the Privy Councilor asked her when the dance had ended. "The King is quite concerned."
"She has a headache," the Baron reported. "I don't suppose you would happen to know of a wonderful cure, would you?"
"I know a headache cure!" the voice of the Duchess of Fenda was heard to exclaim. "I'm not positive of its wonderfulness, you understand. But it's certainly worth a try!"
"I don't want it!" the Queen cried, hurriedly dragging the Baron away from the Duchess before the latter could recognize the former. "You've got to get out of here!"
"Doriellen, are you all right?" King Justin asked, overhearing her words to his brother.
"She has a headache," the Baron explained.
"Baron, I don't believe you've met the King," the Queen said, choking only slightly. "Your Majesty, this is Baron…". She realized then that he had never told her his name. "Baron…"
"Dudley."
"Dudley. Dudley?"
"Yes. Baron Dudley, my brother. Doriellen, are you certain you're all right?"
"I never said I was all right," she muttered.
"There you are!" the Duchess of Fenda then said, joining the group. "The cure for your headache is this; simply close both eyes and think of swallowing strawberry-flavored snails."
The Queen had paled visibly. But since all within earshot of the Duchess had paled beneath their masks at the mention of swallowing strawberry-flavored snails, no one noticed the Queen's loss of color.
"Do I know you, Sir?" the Duchess asked the Baron.
"Strawberry-flavored snails?" he asked her.
"Yes. Someone highly reliable once told me it works absolute wonders on headaches. Unhappily, since I never get headaches, I've never gotten the opportunity to try it. Will you be my dunking partner?"
"He can't be," the Queen intervened. "Baron Dudley is my partner."
"I am your partner," the King said at once, abandoning all thought of strawberry-flavored snails.
"Then, Duchess, I accept," the Baron said graciously.
"Let the dunking begin!" boomed the Privy Councilor.
The Queen tried her best to tell Dudley his danger
But the Duchess of Fenda would brook no delay
"There's a tub that will do!"
Dudley hadn't a clue
That before one may dunk, one throws one's mask away!
"Isn't this thoroughly exciting?" the Duchess asked rhetorically. "I so adore dunking for apples! My whole life always passes before my eyes as I go under. Baron, have you been making a play for the Queen?"
Dudley smiled pleasantly at her. "That's a quaint expression, Duchess. I don't believe I've ever heard it used before in a conversation."
"That'd because it's archaic. I'm not, however."
"You had your chance," Dudley replied obscurely.
"When?" the Duchess breathed as all dunkers were instructed to remove their masks.
"You'll know in a second," Dudley replied, removing his.
"I almost recognize you!" the Duchess said a second later.
"First dunk!" the Privy Councilor called.
"But I can't quite recall where we met," the Duchess gasped after surfacing. "Did you see any apples down there?"
"Second dunk!" the Privy Councilor called.
"I'll tell you what," Dudley gasped after surfacing again. "I'll tell you where we met in return for one medium-sized favor."
"I already know it. You don't want to go down for the third time."
"Third dunk!"
They went down for the third time.
"I'll explain the favor to you when this lunacy is done," Dudley sputtered after resurfacing for the third time. "Why, Duchess! There's an apple in your mouth!"
And, in truth, there was an apple in the Duchess' mouth. This meant that not only was the competition finished, but that out of a field of five hundred and ninety-two, the Duchess had won!
"This is an absolute first!" she bubbled as she toweled herself dry. "I've never come close to winning before! Now quick! Tell me before the King presents me with the Winner's Cup. Where did we meet and what favor can I do for you?"
"Where is the Winner's Cup?" the King whispered to the Queen when it had become clear to all that the Duchess had come up with an apple.
"How the hell should I know?" the Queen answered absently.
"Urpcaf!" the Duchess of Fenda screamed at that instant.
"What?" everyone asked everyone.
"Villain!" the Duchess screamed again after removing the apple from her mouth.
"Duchess, what is it?" the Privy Councilor asked, running over to her tub.
"This maniac is the villain who waylaid me on the Post Road!" She was pointing unmistakably at Dudley.
"You must be mistaken!" the King nevertheless maintained.
"She isn't mistaken, Your Majesty," Dudley confessed. "I was the villain on the Post Road."
"Urpcaf!" the Queen moaned, her headache intensifying.
"But I did not waylay the Duchess out of voluntary villainy, Your Majesty," Dudley told the King, Queen, Duchess, Privy Councilor, and all other assorted apple dunkers. "I was bewitched by an evil Wizard, who doomed me to roam the earth for always, in poverty and pain, until someone in this Kingdom came to care about me. It was this that drove me to kiss the Duchess."
"And my kiss broke your bewitchment!" the Duchess squealed.
"No, Duchess," Dudley replied, "it was not your kiss that did the trick."
"Whose kiss was it?" the King asked forcefully. Every person in the ballroom held his breath, save the Queen, who held her head.
"I will not tell whose kiss restored me, Your Majesty. Now or ever. On earth or in heaven. Upon my name, upon my life, upon my honor, I swear never to reveal that Lady's name!"
After the applause died down, the Privy Councilor suggested that the trial be postponed until the next morning, so that the Ball might continue.
"Trial?" the King asked.
"Your Majesty, the Baron has admitted to being the villain on the Post Road. Moreover, he has been identified as such by his last known victim. We have only his word that he was acting in an attempt to become unbewitched. He will not even tell us the name of whoever's kiss allegedly unbewitched him. Surely this calls for a trial!"
"Baron," the Duchess whispered, leaning across her tub, "if you intend to take back your confession at the trial, and if I am supposed to confess to frequent attacks of blurred vision before they can hang you, why did you ask me to turn you in at all?"
For indeed, after Dudley had revealed to her how they had met, it had been the Duchess' first instinct to let bygones be bygones. It was Dudley who had asked of her the medium-sized favor of accusing him. When the Duchess still had refused to turn him in, he had assured her that at the trial he would take back his confession. If they still found him guilty, she could always confess to frequent attacks of blurred vision, which would invalidate her testimony and thus exonerate him. Although she had done as he asked, after some quite reflection she realized that none of this made sense to her.
"Why did you ask me to turn you in, Baron?"
"Because, dear Duchess," Dudley whispered in return, "I am making a play for the Queen."
"Dudley," the King said reluctantly, "I am afraid that you are under arrest."
"Under arrest?" the Queen shouted, rushing to Dudley's side. "Justin, the Baron Dudley is your brother!"
"Yes," the King said evenly. "The Baron Dudley is my brother. And even he is subject to the Laws of my Kingdom!"
"Laws!" the Queen exploded. "What kind of Laws imprison a man for seeking salvation? If there are such Laws, they are Laws without reason, handed down in a spirit not of justice, but of inhumanity!"
Her hair had turned quite red and her eyes quite green.
"If the King condones such unjust Laws, he cannot truly be King and I cannot be his Queen!"
"I don't think blurred vision will quite cover this, Baron," the Duchess remarked somewhat in wonder.
"She is not the Queen!" the Privy Councilor exclaimed, noticing at once the crowd's unrest at the Queen's unexpected transformation. "She is obviously an impostor in league with that villain, who is more than likely only posing as the Baron Dudley!" He stopped for breath and to straighten his mask, which had been slipping. "I suggest an immediate Emergency Council Session to deal with the Queen's disappearance!"
"My what?" Doriellen asked Dudley.
"The Queen has not disappeared," the King said between tightly clenched teeth.
"Your Majesty, I would advise you to reconsider any explanation you are planning to offer," his Privy Councilor advised.
"It's no use reconsidering it. I have determined to tell my people about the Queen's two faces."
"The Queen's two faces?" all present in the ballroom gasped.
"Dudley, what color are my hair and eyes?" Doriellen asked, already knowing.
"Red and green, respectively, Dory," he told her as gently as he could.
"Can you prove you are the Queen?" one apple dunker asked.
"The Queen need prove nothing!" the indignant King interjected.
"If she is the Queen," the Privy Councilor, who still hoped to keep the unsettling secret a secret, said just loudly enough for all to hear.
"How can I prove I am who I am?" Doriellen asked, knowing no way off-hand.
"Show us your Royal Wedding Ring!" somebody shouted. "That should end all doubt!"
Too shaken by the rapid passage of events to remember what she never should have forgotten, Doriellen removed her glove and raised her hand before Dudley could stop her.
"The ring is gone!" a stunned voice cried.
"But so is mine!" another voice burst out.
"And mine!"
"And mine!"
Altogether, there were four hundred and thirty-seven gold wedding rings missing.
"It is amazing how many things blurred vision can't cover," Dudley sighed to himself.
"Nobody leave this room!" the Privy Councilor ordered. "Your Majesty, the Council must meet at once! There is witchcraft and robbery abroad in the Land!"
The King and his Council left then to ponder
The rings' disappearance and Queen's change of face
While back at the Ball
With their backs to the wall
Doriellen and Dudley discussed their disgrace
"Wonderful party," he said as the ballroom full of robbed dunkers continued to glare at them.
"Enchanting," she replied, trying not to sound as unsteady as she felt.
"Your Grace, or whoever you are, have you any notion where my Winner's Cup is?" the Duchess of Fenda asked loudly. "Baron," she added softly, "I think you had best make a fast break for it."
"There are guards at every door," Dudley observed quietly. "Have you lost your ring too, Duchess?" he then asked, not as quietly.
"Yes," the Duchess answered, "but I am far more concerned with the whereabouts of my Cup. The Duke can always replace the ring. But how many times does one manage to be the first to come up with an apple in one's mouth?" Her voice dropped again. "When the music starts, waltz toward the terrace."
"Where is my ring?" a distraught dunker wailed then at the Baron.
"Where is her ring?" Doriellen echoed, a bit less emotionally.
"I don't know," the Baron confessed.
"Do you know where my Cup is?" the Duchess pressed him.
"If I did, dearest of ladies, I would bring it to you whatever the peril involved."
"The terrace," she repeated, gliding away.
The dunkers soon tired of standing and glaring and mourning vanished rings. Hence the music was begun once more and the room waltzed into motion.
"Baron, they're going to blame you for all of this," Doriellen predicted as they danced. "Will they be right?"
"Dory, love without trust is a well without water."
"Is it?" she asked, not actually caring.
"More or less," he allowed. "But where do you suppose those other rings got to?" he asked, warming to the puzzle. "Who would want them and why?"
She shook her head, despairing at the mystery.
"They're bound to hang you and exile me. The Council will never allow Justin to go on admitting the true nature of his Queen. He must do as they advise or risk losing the Crown!"
"We were never close as children," Dudley recalled sadly. "Now I know why."
While Dory and Dudley waltzed toward the terrace
The King and his Council had reached an impasse
"It is known that the Queen
Has blue eyes, not green
This red-haired imposter must be exiled, alas!"
"You well know that she is the Queen!" King Justin said staunchly.
"What we know is immaterial, Your Majesty," the Privy Councilor reminded him. "We must deal with what the Kingdom does not know, was never meant to know, and could not possibly accept."
The Council nodded its collective head.
"How can we say that the Kingdom will not accept the truth as the truth?"
"How can we say else?" the Privy Councilor countered, again straightening his mask. "No being accepts truth without resistance on any occasion. Even simple truths. And, Your Majesty, nothing concerning the truth at hand may be termed simple."
The Council shook its collective head.
"By my Crown, I will not have her exiled!"
"By your crown, you must. Now I suggest we consider the matter of the missing rings. As a primary measure and gesture of good faith, I think we are agreed that the Imposter Baron must be hanged at once!"
"Ah, there's the terrace!" Dudley told Dory
"And there are the guards, and we're in the lurch!"
Then a voice said, "You there!
Yes, you guards! Please come here!
My Cup is still missing and it's time for a search!"
"A highly organized search," the Duchess continued. "Come then! Why do you hesitate?"
"We cannot leave our post," one guard explained.
"Oh," said the Duchess, whereupon she crumpled to the floor, bellowing and clawing at the air. "It isn't fair!" she howled. "I won the dunk! You all saw it! Why won't they give me my bloody Cup?"
The horrified guards abandoned their post as
The Duchess raved on. And no one suspected
That the Baron and Queen
In the midst of the scene
Had waltzed through the terrace doors quite undetected
"I told you she was a charming lady," Dudley said, firmly closing the terrace doors behind them. "Although she does tend to overact. But here we are! Safe and sound for perhaps the next three minutes. Is that trellis sturdier than it looks?"
Doriellen glumly surveyed the slender trellis, which led down some seventy-five feet below to the Royal Garden. She felt disappointed in Justin and distrustful of the Privy Councilor. She didn't know what she felt about Dudley, but she did know what she felt about climbing down seventy-five feet on a trellis.
"Good luck, Baron," she told him, walking back toward the closed doors.
She could hear the commotion inside continuing as the Duchess persisted in her feigned hysteria.
Dudley reached the doors first and stood squarely in front of them.
"They're going to exile you, Dory. You're not betraying Justin by fleeing with me now. You're only leaving a little early."
The bedlam inside seemed to be intensifying.
"I'm afraid of long falls," she told him. "Especially off high terraces."
"If you stay behind, you'll be blamed for everything, including my escape."
She weighed that briefly. "If I flee with you, I'll be admitting my guilt."
"You've already fled with me as far as the terrace."
She frowned. "That brings us back to the trellis, doesn't it?"
The Duchess was screaming in three-quarter time.
"Perhaps if we escape, we can find a way to solve the mystery and clear ourselves," Dory rationalized as they began down the trellis. "I wonder why my hair and eyes changed color when they did."
"Don't you know?"
"Of course not. How could I know?"
They stopped to rest.
"You really want to know?" the Baron asked, a foot above her, clinging to the trellis.
"Of course I want to know!"
"Well, I think it went like this, Dory," he told her. "For some thirty seconds, when you were shouting at the King about my arrest, you were acting fairly spontaneously. And that must have been long enough for your mask to drop."
"I never wear a mask."
"Oh, ho."
They began down again, having only about thirty feel left to go.
But while they descended, back at the Palace
The screams of the Duchess had reached the King's ears
"It's her Cup," he was told
"She will not be consoled
Not until someone finds it or so it appears."
The King and the Council returned to the ballroom
To quiet the Duchess and thus end the strife
"Come, come, Duchess, cheer up!
We will search for your Cup!"
Then the King looked around asking, "Where is my wife?"
"Your wife?" echoed the Privy Councilor.
"Yes. You remember. Doriellen, Queen of your Kingdom."
"Suspect Queen," the Privy Councilor amended. He ordered an immediate inspection of the ballroom.
"Your Majesty," he reported when the inspection was complete, "it appears that the Suspect Baron and Suspect Queen are missing!"
All eyes turned then to the Duchess, who had resumed a standing position by this time and seemed singularly unruffled. "Perhaps," she said, "you'll come across them in the search for my Cup!"
The King's guards were ordered to scour the Palace
And capture the Baron, the Queen, and the Cup
"Sire," the Garden outside
Is a good place to hide!"
Guards were sent out to look. But they did not look up
"Dudley," Dory whispered to her companion on the trellis, "I think I'm losing my grip!"
And truly she was. For the ivy on the trellis was nothing if not slippery.
"Hang on, Dory!" he called down softly, knowing no better advice to offer her.
"They're not in the geraniums, Sir," one guard made known to his Captain.
"Search the marigolds!"
"Dudley, if they go through every damn potted plant, we'll be hanging here for weeks!"
Although privately, Dudley preferred hanging on a trellis to hanging from a gallows, in the spirit of fair play he asked Dory if she had a better idea.
"There's a ledge about six inches from me. I'm going to walk along it until I get to a window. Then I'm going back inside the Palace."
"What's inside the Palace? Besides more guards, I mean?"
"There's a semi-secret passage behind the Palace Clock."
Dudley blinked. "Semi-secret?"
"Yes. Well, the passage was designed to open whenever the minute hand is moved to 'twelve'. What the architect forgot is that even if the minute hand isn't moved, it hits 'twelve' every hour on the hour all by itself. So the thing opens twenty-four times a day."
"And people have noticed."
"It's hard not to. But the point is that the secret is so semi that the King would never dream we'd ever …"
"He's right. We're not."
They clung on in silence.
"Dudley," she said finally, "sometimes there is no sensible course."
Having determined their new course of action
They hopped from the trellis and aimed for the ledge
"Don't look down or you'll fall!
Or be seen by them all!
Just keep back in the shadows, away from the edge!"
"I liked the trellis better," Dudley revealed as they inched along the ledge.
"Don't live in the past," Dory advised. "Dudley! I've found an open window!"
While Dudley and Dory climbed in through the window
The Council debated. "Sire, should we search on?
It appears that the pair
Vanished into the air
And to hazard a guess, I would say they are gone!"
"Oh, Your Majesty, do not be downcast!" urged the Duchess of Fenda, who had crashed the Council meeting in time to witness the King's despair. "Perhaps they have run away together. These things happen. But what good does it do to tear oneself apart with grief and remorse?"
"Remorse?" the stubbornly downcast King asked.
"Guilt then," the Duchess substituted.
"Guilt?" the King still questioned.
"Why, Your Majesty!" the Duchess exclaimed, taking him aside. "Do you dream she would have willingly fled the Palace?"
"Are you saying the Baron abducted her?" the King asked, not as yet catching the Duchess' drift.
"I am saying she was obliged to flee to save you a Royal Crisis." Before the King could ask 'Royal Crisis?', the Duchess continued. "Her new face would surely force you to exile her or go into exile with her. She obviously wanted you to remain King. Therefore, she sacrificed her own happiness for yours!"
"Mine?" cried the King. "I can know no happiness without Doriellen! Without her my Crown is worth nothing and I am worth less!"
"Ah, Your Majesty!" the Duchess signed, much moved, for she could recognize true love when she saw it. "The sages may have said it best, but you've said it even better!"
The Palace Clock had been chiming the hour
And the passage behind it had opened on cue
"We had best go in fast
Because one minute past
It recloses itself. Say, did my eyes turn blue?"
"No, they're still green," Dudley answered, dashing her hopes as the fifth chime sounded. "By the way, where does this passage lead?"
"I don't really know. Since it's only semi-secret, no one's ever bothered to use it."
The passage reclosed on schedule and the two fugitives began their march into the unknown.
"We really should have brought candles," Dudley said.
"It's nearly light in here," Dory disagreed. "At least it's navigable."
She thereupon navigated herself into a stone pillar.
"Dory, are you hurt?" Dudley cried, really caring.
"I think I've sprained my ankle," she reported from the ground upon which she was sprawled. "Make that two ankles."
Dudley carefully gathered her up in his arms and continued their journey.
"Do you intend carrying me all the way out of the Kingdom?" she asked as a point of information.
"It's easier than dragging you all the way out of the Kingdom. It's also better manners."
She groaned as convincingly as she could. "You have no hope of making it to safety with me along for the ride! Dudley, you've got to go on alone!"
"No, Dory," he politely refused. "I try to avoid leaving women stranded in semi-secret passages. I know that sounds eccentric, but it's my way."
"Fool," she sighed, settling back into his arms.
"And aside from my Baronial Code of Honor and Ethics in Stress Situations, how can we live happily ever after, if I leave you here with two sprained ankles?"
They could see light streaming in from somewhere still before them.
"Dudley," she said gently but firmly, "we're not fleeing to live happily ever after. We are fleeing to find proof of our innocence. There's a difference between just selfishly fleeing and fleeing for a moral purpose, isn't there?"
"I wouldn't know. I do all my fleeing selfishly. How do your ankles feel?"
"Extremely depressed."
The King and the Council continued their meeting
Although there was nothing much left to discuss
"Sire, it may now be said
Both the Suspects have fled
Thereby proving their guilt. Much the better for us!"
"Much the better for us?" the heartbroken King asked.
"It will save the expense and embarrassment of a trial, Your Majesty," the Privy Councilor explained as he removed his mask. "There! At last that's off! Now, is there any further business to be done? If not, I suggest we return to the Ball and cheer the victims of the Imposter Baron's senseless thievery!"
"What a miracle of man you are, Privy Councilor!" the Duchess marveled. "Tell me before you have us all frolicking once more among the tubs, are you for real?"
"Madame, I humbly assure you that I have only the interests of the King and Kingdom at – where is that knocking coming from?"
None could answer but all could hear a distinct, unrhythmic tapping.
"We may have discovered another reason not to use this passage," Dudley was telling Dory at that moment. He was holding her unsteadily with one arm, while he used his other to pound at the wall they had found blocking their path. "It's a dead-end."
"It can't be!" she insisted. "Look, there's a light coming in through the cracks. There's got to be a control that opens it. Go on tapping."
Dudley went on tapping for some seconds and then sighed in defeat.
"Back to the trellis?"
"Back to the trellis."
Forgetting her injured ankles, Dory gave the wall a resentful kick.
"Vay!" she yelped, again remembering her injured ankles.
But her yelp became a gasp as the wall began moving.
"Dudley, I did it!" she crowed. "I really did it!"
"Yes," he agreed when the wall had moved far enough to reveal what was waiting for them on the other side. "You really did it."
"Your Majesty, the Queen has returned!" exclaimed the Duchess of Fenda, who was seldom at a loss even in the stickiest of situations.
The others in the Council Chamber took several additional moments to recover from the shock of seeing a wall leave the premises and the fugitives enter them.
"It was wonderful seeing all of you again," Dudley said, beginning a discrete exit back into the passage.
"Arrest them!" a zealous Councilor bellowed.
"No," the King said flatly.
"No?" Dory asked in a surprised and happy voice.
"Can we at least arrest the Imposter Baron?" the zealous Councilor asked plaintively.
"Your Majesty," the Privy Councilor said, bringing his hand up to his eyes so that it covered half of his face, "I think it wisest to confine both Suspects until they can be tried for their crimes."
"That would be much nicer than arresting us," Dudley granted. "Councilor, is the light in here too strong for you?"
The Privy Councilor twitched defensively but resolutely kept half his face hidden. "Actually, it is. I happen to have a minor headache."
"Oh, I can help with that!" the Duchess volunteered, in spite of an intense personal dislike of the man. "Simply close both eyes and think of swallowing strawberry flavored – but you're the one who told me that cure!"
It seemed then to Dudley that the Privy Councilor was someone he once knew and should now know he knew.
"Dudley, why are you carrying the Queen?" the King asked, no longer able to hold his curiosity in bounds.
"I feel like it," Dudley mumbled, still thinking of the Privy Councilor.
"He doesn't really feel like it," Dory quickly said. "It's just that I bumped into a stone pillar while escaping and sprained both ankles."
The King's face had taken on a tense cast.
"Dudley, I think the King would like to carry me for a while."
Dudley stopped studying the Privy Councilor. "This is only a temporary solution," he assured Dory as he returned her to her husband's arms. Then he went back to studying the Privy Councilor.
"Baron, is anything wrong?" the Duchess asked him. "I mean, in addition to what we already know is wrong?"
"No, Duchess," he told her, remembering at last what he had been struggling to remember. "Everything is as everything was, only better. Is that not so, Wizard?"
The visible portion of the Privy Councilor's face turned chalk white.
"Guards!" he croaked. "Arrest them!"
"That is an interestingly primitive response, Wizard," Dudley observed as twelve guards surrounded him and two more tried to pry Dory from the King.
"Dudley, what exactly are you saying?" the King demanded, stubbornly hanging on to his wife.
"He is saying that your Privy Councilor is the Wizard responsible for his bewitchment and the theft of the rings!" Dory explicated. "Is that it, Dudley?"
"That's it, Dory!"
"That's it, Justin!"
She hugged the King in relief. Then in joy. And then just because.
For his part, the King was about to agree that it most certainly was it, when the Privy Councilor removed his hand from his eyes and faced them all, nostrils in full flare.
"Except," he smirked, "you have no proof! You have only the lies of a self-confessed villain!"
"He's right, you know, Dudley," the King was forced to say. "There is no proof. And you are a self-confessed villain."
Then into the Chamber ran Trixie, the Queen's maid
Who curtsied, and swallowed, and stammered, and blushed
"Come, come, Trixie, what's up?"
"I found the Duchess' Cup!"
And from out of the Chamber she then would have rushed
had not the Duchess, ever alert to nuances, asked her where in the world the Cup had been found.
"I began to search from room to room," Trixie replied in answer, "and finally, I found it in the closet of the – "
"What does that prove anyway?" the Privy Councilor angrily demanded, knowing in whose closet the Cup had last nestled. "Guards, take the Imposter Baron and Imposter Queen away!"
"Not so fast," the Duchess said calmly. "Did you imagine, Privy Wizard, that I would not bother to glance inside my Cup?"
All looked in amazement and watched as the Duchess
Turned her Cup upside-down and gave it a shake
And with clangs and with clings
Out poured hundreds of rings
"Being caught with the goods was your fatal mistake!"
"I wasn't caught with the goods," the Privy Councilor said correctly. "My closet was caught with the goods. In any case, I sense a gross miscarriage of justice is in the wind and I refuse to stay for the hurricane."
And with that, he vanished.
"At least he left the rings," Doriellen observed from her royal perch. "All we have to do now is sort them out and return them."
"He took my Cup with him," the Duchess realized mournfully.
"Perhaps he's starting a new collection."
"He was my Privy Councilor for fourteen years!" the King gasped. "How could he successfully lead a double life that long?"
At the King's last word, the Duchess' Cup reappeared. With a note in it:
I was a Privy Councilor before I was a Wizard.
I was a gold ring collector before I was a Privy Councilor.
Hobbies can be dangerous and
One may lead many lives of varying authenticity
Even with one face.
"Anyway," King Justin said, depositing Doriellen on her throne,
"that's that."
Doriellen smiled warily, wishing it was and knowing it wasn't.
"I still have the wrong face," she reminded him. "And no wedding ring."
The King sat back on his throne and dismissed both problems. "I have faith enough in the Kingdom to believe it will accept the truth as the truth and your face as your face. As for your ring, since it was stolen along with all the rest, it is most probably with the others on the floor."
Doriellen was wondering whether Justin could bring himself to accept the truth as the truth when Dudley made his way over to them.
"I'm sorry I doubted you, Dudley," King Justin said sincerely.
"I'll forgive you, if you'll forgive me," Dudley offered.
The King did not like the manner in which his brother was staring at the Queen.
"Justin," the Queen said evenly, "I believe the Baron is about to tell you the Real and Factual Story of the Royal Wedding Ring Disappearance."
"I don't want to hear it," the King replied.
"He's probably already guessed it," Dudley said. "Justin is fairly bright for a King."
"And you don't mind that I kissed Dudley and inadvertently lost my ring to break his bewitchment?"
The King frowned. "I hadn't guessed that much," he revealed sadly.
"Dory and I plan to go away together," Dudley threw out.
Doriellen fell off her throne.
"Never!" she gasped to Dudley as King Justin helped her back up. "Never did I say I would go away with you! Why would I go away with you?"
He told her.
"I do not!" she shouted. "I never said I did! I never even said I cared about you! All right, once I said I cared about you, but that was under highly unusual circumstances!"
The Queen's shouts had caught the Counselors' attention, and all stood silent in their uneasiness as the scene progressed.
"Doriellen," the King said through his pain, "you are free to choose the life you wish to lead."
"I know I am," she said. And she kissed the King.
"Is that your choice?" Dudley asked, not believing it could be.
"You bet it is."
He leaned closer to give her the full benefit of his intense gaze. "Then you are throwing away a life of freedom and fun for an existence of duty and drudgery!"
"What drudgery? I'm a Queen!"
"There is a drudgery of the soul, Dory."
"But I love him," she explained.
"Why should you?" Dudley demanded in a violent whisper. "Can he offer you a life of adventure and danger?"
"Not very likely."
"Of breathless escapes and harrowing near-misses?"
"Probably not."
Dudley felt he was gaining ground. "Can he offer you anything but a ready-made role hewn out of his own ego?"
"You mean, as opposed to a ready-made role hewn out of your own ego?"
Dudley scowled, knowing that was exactly what he meant.
"You're deceiving yourself, Dory," he nevertheless told her, afraid to let the conversation lapse. "Your Crown won't fit anymore. And, in any case, spontaneous Queens are a discouraged species. You'll be blonde and blue-eyed in a month."
She desperately wanted him to understand at least the philosophic basis of her decision.
"Dudley, you told me on the trellis that my mask had dropped. But it didn't drop. It dissolved. I'm not certain when it started dissolving. Perhaps it was the morning I awoke with the wrong face. Perhaps it was the moment you jumped on my horse. I don't suppose I'll ever know exactly. But you, your curse, my curse, everything that's happened, has forced me to face more and more of myself. And that is what I am doing now."
"I don't believe you," he said.
"I don't care," she said.
And then she kissed him good-bye.
There followed a flash of lightening and a clap of thunder.
"Who's that?" the King asked when the smoke had cleared.
"Your former brother," Muff answered, brushing some dust from his tattered doublet. "You certainly go a long way to prove a point," he said to Doriellen.
"Muff, forgive me! It was an accident!"
Muff rallied his sunk spirits long enough to answer her. "I forgive you. But it was no accident. Through the years, I have discovered that your former Privy Councilor has an astonishingly foul sense of humor. Did you get your ring back?"
Doriellen raised her left hand regally for all in the Chamber to see.
"Then you are without doubt our Queen!" one overcome Councilor exclaimed.
"Without doubt!" she affirmed, breathing easily for the first time in days.
From out of the Palace the ex-Baron wandered
To seek his salvation all over again
When he heard a voice say:
"Are you going my way?"
And the Duchess leaned out of her carriage. "Come then!"
"Did the Queen return your red feather?" the Duchess of Fenda asked at once, when Muff climbed in the coach and seated himself beside her.
"How did you know about my red feather?" he asked.
"Trixie can't keep a secret," the Duchess confided.
"I'll remember that," Muff said. "To the best of my knowledge, the Queen kept the feather."
"Most likely to remember you by," the Duchess surmised.
"She could have had me to remember me by."
"Yes, I overheard all of that," the Duchess said sympathetically. "I especially liked the part about breathless escapes and harrowing near-misses."
"Thank you," he said. "I worked very hard on that appeal."
"It showed a great deal of thought," she told him.
"And feeling," he added. "I thought it showed a great deal of feeling."
"It was a masterful appeal," the Duchess decided.
"It should have won her for me," Muff mused.
"Such are the vagaries of the human heart," stated the Duchess. "What are your plans?"
"I suppose I shall wander once more in poverty and in pain."
The Duchess felt repelled and attracted all at the same time. But more than anything, the good-hearted lady felt sorry for the former Baron.
"So you're right back where you started from," she sighed.
"I suppose I am," Muff said. "Do you care?"
Back at the Palace, they could hear the clap of thunder and see the flash of lightening.
"Rain?" King Justin asked.
"Another happy ending," Queen Doriellen answered. "Depending, of course, on the Duke of Fenda's level of sensitivity and depth of genuine understanding."
Since the World's a Masked Ball, one may well ask the question:
Had Queen Doriellen lost her mask for good?
For she still played the Queen
And was by all seen
To be all of the things a Queen can be and should
And yet it was said she'd go waltzing in gardens
And at deadly dull moments all heard her laughter
And at times she'd yell, "Damn!
I must be all I am!"
And she was. And she lived.Happily ever after.