Hello, my pretties…I'M BACK! I have high hopes for this story, though it is, for the most part, still in the planning stages. I hope you enjoy it…review! Love, Jewelles
Chapter One – Lament of the Forgotten Princess
I had never felt so guilty in my life, however short, and it wasn't even my fault. It wasn't because of me that my older sister was deteriorating before the nation's very eyes. It wasn't my existence that made the physicians clueless as to how to handle the situation. And it was certainly not my doing that they all should ignore me. Well, maybe I should start at the beginning.
I say these things weren't my fault, and they certainly could not be blamed upon me, but from birth I was the scapegoat, and not of my own doing. There was doted-upon, uniquely beautiful Carla above me, the one who would one day rule the nation should there be no son; there was not. I was supposed to be the male child, the heir, but the old wives' tales about how a woman carrying a child should determine their gender failed; I was born a girl.
My mother, Queen Maria, passed away nearly two years after my birth, and my father had me sequestered in my own quarters, deeming me a curse. None but the maids came near me, for fear that I would sweep death upon them as I did my own mother, and after they left me they would purify themselves in steaming baths, then sanitize the tubs many times over. Only the little serving girl Marguerite, who was just my age, dared to approach me of her own volition, and we soon became friends. Her mother, who had been my mother's lady-in-waiting, kept the friendship to herself, and soon she, too, turned into an ally.
Father, King Gustav Lefevre the Third, never remarried, and he passed on a few years after my mother, when I was closing in on eight years and Carla on eleven. I was not devastated, but my older sister was; she had never had a liking for our uncle Franz and his wife Andréa, and them becoming our guardians was most unwelcome to us both.
As much as Carla and I loathed one another to the very core, the combined death of our father and the guardianship of our aunt and uncle brought us to a mutual agreement; she was the princess, I was the unimportant little sister, and that was the way it was. It didn't bother me; I was used to it like nothing else. Marguerite was a help; I learned to spend time in the servants' quarters with her and her mother, who I had grown to know as my own.
Antoinette was not only mother to Marguerite and lady-in-waiting to my late mother, but she was a world-renowned ballerina and was not afraid to show off her power and prowess. On warm evenings in the summer, she would sneak Marguerite and me out onto the lawns of the palace and teach us to dance. Marguerite caught on right away, and it took me a little longer, but it was not long before we were pirouetting like we'd been born doing it.
It was after one of those excursions with Antoinette and Marguerite that I came across the little chapel in the cellars. It was not unused, and was probably where the servants went to pray when they found a spare moment. There was a decently-sized candelabra, the candles half-melted, and an elegant cross, all in front of a fresco on the wall depicting the Virgin Mary.
I do not pretend to be particularly religious, and I surely wouldn't be if I was not obliged to by my status, but the room felt special in some way. Though I was only around nine at the time, I couldn't help but think that the chapel possessed a special power because those who did not have much to hope for, being servants, would use it and still have faith. I was a fantasizing little girl, that I know, but as I sat down in this seemingly magical chapel, I truly believed that I would bring myself closer to my dear sweet mother, and even my father.
As I started chanting in Latin, as the priest had taught me, I lit the candles and made the sign of the Cross. Hoping that this unnatural aura around the room would be my help, I asked the Lord to bring my parents back to me, to send me a sign, something that would help me get through the days. I was not asking for much, only a sign. And it came.
I had started to visit the chapel regularly after time with Marguerite, and nobody yet knew about it but me. On a snowy evening in early winter of that year, I stopped by the chapel on my way up to the main floors of the palace. It was quite cold in the servants' quarters, and predictably so, but it was still unnerving, and as I knelt upon the frigid stone I felt a sudden pang of guilt for being there, dressed in some of the warmest clothes the kingdom could offer.
My guilt aside, I made the sign of the Cross, lit the candles, and begged Mary for help, begged her for a reason to live. "I do not love much," I said quietly, "but I love music. Uncle Franz forbids me anything I find pleasure in, Holy Mother, but I beg for a chance to sing. It is the only thing I truly love besides Marguerite and Antoinette. Please, Holy Mother, I do not want this life any longer. I want…"
Young voice trailing off, I looked around the room. Nothing was visibly different, but it felt as though the divine power in the room was shifting. The candles suddenly flickered out, and I stifled a scream, not wanting to bother any of the servants. All of my limbs were shaking as I backed up, trying to leave the room. A booming voice said otherwise.
"Little princess, why do you cry?" The deep voice clearly belonged to a man, though there was no man about the palace with a voice of the same quality. This sound shook me to my very core, and I was drawn to it, even at a mere nine years old.
"Who…who are you?" I had stuttered, stumbling around to the door, wanting to leave but holding back.
"Do you not know me, little princess? I am the Angel of Music, sent to guide you." This announcement, however intriguing, scared me as nothing had before. I was a defenseless, clueless little girl, and the thought of a grown man's voice saying it belonged to an angel…to say the least, I was terrified, and I'm sure anyone else in my position would have been. "Dry your tears, little princess, and sing for the Angel."
That request of this Angel of Music was the most forward thing any person had ever asked of me. I was a princess, if only an unimportant one, and people were not supposed to ask me to do things such as sing for them if they were looking to be proper. Nonetheless, an angel was an angel and must be treated as such, so I sang. There weren't many songs that I knew, only the few that Antoinette had sung to Marguerite and me during thunderstorms, trying to calm us and put us into easy sleep. I decided upon a lullaby Antoinette had once sung, and began to sing.
As a nine-year-old, I knew nothing about music beyond what Antoinette had told me, and I started the piece much too high for my own good. I nearly started crying when I screeched on the high notes, and the Angel's soothing voice calmed me. "There, there, little princess, do not despair. Come down here every other eve and I will teach you to sing. But tell no one," he warned, "not even your dear friend Marguerite or her mother."
"Yes…Angel," I replied, scurrying from the chapel. And so I began to take singing lessons from the Angel of Music, and I was soon learning everything from proper warm-up exercises to the most helpful singing techniques, to the different keys, scales, and notation. By the time I was twelve, I was enchanting the maids, butlers, and other servants, who now, since my father's death, dared to come close to me, with short arias I would sing at random. It was not long after this that Antoinette became suspicious of me.
I promised dear Antoinette that I was not doing anything out of the ordinary, that I was practicing singing in my room and asking some of the visiting entertainers to the palace about technique and different songs. She no longer bothered me about it, but, on occasion, she would come by my room at night when I sang, listening. This all came out in the open, however, when I was fifteen, and a visiting Comte and his son were coming to the palace and Franz and Andréa began preparing for a performance. Naturally, they wanted to showcase Carla so one day the Comte's son would take her as a wife, but, as I had been learning from the Angel for over three years, some were talented musically and some were not. Carla was certainly the latter.
Andréa was determined to marry Carla off to the young Vicomte and practically ignored me for the weeks preceding their visit. I told the Angel of this, and he seemed extremely displeased, saying to me that my sister, who I did not hold in high esteem, but who I watched out for, was, "a toad" and "would never catch a decent husband." I did not contradict the Angel, but it was becoming apparent to me that this Angel was focused on one thing and one thing alone; my success.
It was a foreign feeling to me, being the center of someone's efforts, and the Angel's determination to help me come out on top was almost daunting. I was no longer frightened by him, as I had been training for upwards of six years in the chapel beneath the palace, but I suddenly saw his teachings in a new light, that the sole purpose was for something far greater than just pleasing me by teaching me to sing.
So I told the Angel that Carla could have the Vicomte, that I did not want him and did not care if she got the chance to show off her voice and I did not. That, however, was a full-bodied mistake, every bit of it. Simply testing the Angel's hopes for me had snapped a nerve instead, and he screamed at me that I should give a damn about my future and not settle for the lowly position I was pushed to within the royal family. "You," he'd told me, "could be Prima Donna of the greatest operas, could be the greatest queen in a century if given the chance, and yet you settle for the spot beneath that toad sister of yours!"
Not bothering to stop and beg forgiveness, I had run from the chapel, past a confused Marguerite, and out the back door of the servants' quarters, needing to get away. It was not my first time going out into the town, but I was foreign to it, to the world beyond the palace. I didn't expect much, and I was sure that I would not be out long, just enough time to clear my head.
It was when I made a wrong turn that things turned sour. The alleyways in the town were not the kind you could just walk through and be done with it. They were twisting, turning, seemingly never-ending and dangerous as Hell itself. One could meet their death in one of the alleyways in the town, and when I found myself in one of them I nearly wanted to die on the spot.
Now, I am not a lazy girl, nor am I ignorant, but I suppose that getting into the alleyways had to do with that I thought many of them were streets, and by the time I figured it out I was too far in to even fathom finding a way out on my own. The only thing to do, it seemed, was to wait for someone honorable to find me, but in the alleyways that was about as likely as seeing a horse fly.
Nonetheless, I sat down in a little corner of one of the alleys and started to cry, not because I was in a place where someone could walk by you as fast as they could rape you, and not because I was alone, because I was used to that, as I had been used to it for thirteen years, but because I felt, for the first time in my life, foreign. I had grown up a princess, and everybody knew me and who I was, even if they did not want to. In the alleyways, I was a nobody.
My crying started attracting attention and I grew scared, terrified that the wrong person would find me and I would be mistaken for a poor girl to be taken advantage of. Unfortunately, thinking of that made my thoughts drift to the chapel and the Angel, who had told me to take my rightful place of importance, not to be second-best, and those thoughts made me cry harder.
"Excuse me, Miss?" There was a voice in the alleyway, just in front of me, and I didn't want to move to answer it, even though it sounded well-bred, even aristocratic. "Miss, I am here to help, I swear." I bit my lip and looked up and my eyes locked with a most amazing pair of blue orbs, glistening in the dim light. "Let me help you up," he said kindly, taking my hand and helping me to my feet. It was a most unusual feeling; I had never truly been touched by a man before, as no man at any of the various galas and balls Franz and Andréa held at the palace would want to dance with me. His hands were large and warm but perfect, showing that he was no street child, that he was nobility.
Standing up, I smoothed out my long day dress, dirty from the floor of the alleyway and turned to see the man staring at me. We caught each other's gaze for a moment before he said, "Excuse me for not introducing myself," he said, a little flustered. "I am Raoul. And yourself?" Raoul certainly proved his noble status by taking my hand and kissing the back of it gently, as though he'd been taught, which I was sure he had been.
I could not give this man my real name. If my aunt or uncle found out I'd been away from the palace there would certainly be hell to pay and with the upcoming festivities for the Comte I did not want to cause trouble. "My name is Lotté," I said, referring to the name of one of the scullery maids at Franz's country estate, "and I am pleased to make your…" There were sounds of a scuffle from somewhere around us in the alleyways and Raoul grabbed my hand, pulling me down path after path until we reached the sunlight.
"You were saying?" he panted, slightly tired from hurrying through the alleyways. I admired the way his blue eyes twinkled in the sun, the way his gold hair, pulled back by a tiny ribbon from his neck, seemed to shine like something metallic, and how his body, though of noble descent, looked strong and trained. "Lotté?"
"Oh!" I say, startled by his words, mortified that he saw me staring. "I was saying that I was pleased to make your acquaintance, Raoul," I said, curtsying most beautifully, at least beautiful for being on a dusty street in a plain dress. The thoughts on curtsying, however, lent themselves into thoughts of propriety, which, in turn, led me into thinking about my royal status, and I quickly started in the direction of the palace, anxious to make it back before anybody, royal or servant, noticed my absence. "I must go! I'm needed at home," I hastily told Raoul before running off, which was very unladylike of me. Returning back to the palace, however, proved to be even more of a predicament than I could have bargained for.
I had gone down the servants' quarters early that morning while Carla was practicing her performing with Andréa and had spent time with Marguerite and Antoinette before going to the chapel and then out to the city. This hadn't left any time up on the main floors of the palace and, though goings-on in my own home truly were not my concern, they were most interesting when I was not there. That day was no exception to this, which I soon found out.
During Carla's lessons, she had been singing and dancing, performing her heart out, when she'd suddenly fallen to the floor. Andréa, terrified beyond all reason, had called Franz who immediately summoned the physicians of the palace. They hurried my sister off to a secluded room where they checked her over, and no more did I know. That much I'd learned from Rene, Franz's personal assistant, but it was enough to get me on edge, and I quickly wound my way up staircases to the floor he'd directed me to.
As I have mentioned, my sister is not even close to the top of my list of priorities, but, being my sister, I made allowances. If she was in trouble, I would have to stand up for her, though she probably didn't reciprocate that philosophy when it came to me. Of course, if she was hurt I would have to worry about her, and the sight of Andréa crying at the top of the stairs made me worry I'd have to act upon the ideals regarding sisterhood that I didn't much like to.
After much sobbing from Andréa, stuttering from Franz, and questions from me, I'd gleaned enough information to know that Carla's collapse was a disease dealing in the body's ability to produce energy, and it was debilitating, the physicians did not know enough to help her, and the arrangements for a possible union between my sister and the Vicomte were certain to fall out.
I couldn't take it. I simply could not take it, and, when Franz and Andréa were allowed in to see Carla, I went with all of my speed down to the servants' quarters where I sought Antoinette and Marguerite. They usually felt the same about Carla and royalty in general as I did, but Antoinette was soon walking up the flights of stairs at a brisk pace, Marguerite and I following in her wake, bewildered. Once at Carla's room, Antoinette pulled Franz and Andréa aside, and neither Marguerite nor I could hear what they were saying.
Not a minute after Antoinette had begun her conversation did it end, and Franz said to me, "Come here, Christine." I could not budge, afraid of what was destined to happen to me if my uncle got a hold of me while such a family crisis was in play. His disapproval of me would not go as far as to hurt me, but the emotional distress he and my aunt were under was considerable and having their misfit niece suddenly be of importance was a strain on them I didn't want to engage.
Curtsying before my uncle, the king, I said, "My king, what is it you ask of me?" I saw Franz glance at his wife, who nodded solemnly. Antoinette was watching on from a respectful distance, and I saw Marguerite appear at her shoulder, looking just as nervous as I felt.
"Christine, Antoinette has informed us that you are a more respectable child than you put on." I did not know how to respond to that, not knowing whether it was meant to be an insult or a compliment. "She says that you are a talented singer and dancer, and that you are a lovely girl." I had the distinct urge to tell Franz exactly what I thought about that, how he would never know if I was "lovely" otherwise because of the stereotype of me set by my father. However, I did not. "Christine, you know that your sister is in no condition to perform next week, nor will she be a suitable wife for the Vicomte, should he choose to take the hand of a princess. That is why, Christine, Antoinette has advised us to put you in her place." Guilt swept over me; take my sister's place? Do what she meant to? Fulfill my destiny as princess? Succeed in what I'd always dreamt of?
And that, I do believe, was just the beginning.
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