Chapter Five –
Embroidery Lesson
Elowyn watched a big, fat lazy bumblebee drift leisurely from one huge, brightly coloured enchanted flower to the next: casually perusing first a tangerine blossom and then one of pale, shy lavender and shocking, electric blue. The exceedingly bored faery princess could barely sustain herself from giving out one gigantic, jaw-cracking yawn right then and there. She almost fancied that she could hear the hum of the bee's steady, monotone buzzing.
Right at the moment, she was sitting in a very small, very dainty and ornate gilt-gold chair: perched precariously on top of it, looking for all the world as if she might be a marble statue on top of a pedestal.
A statue laced up in a huge, fluffy abomination of peach-hued satin, stiff gold lace, and chafing, immaculate white tulle: her hair done up in a net with pins that stuck her scalp and made her head itch, with perspiration-inducing white gloves and foot-pinching high-heeled slippers, that is.
These were not her favorite days.
Calligraphy, dancing, and table etiquette lessons she had learnt quite well how to escape from; embroidery lessons with the Marchioness Yvaliya were not so easy to get out of. The Marchioness, unlike Elowyn's other tutor, Magister Feyderon, did not have an abnormally great love of food and the banquet hall, and she had managed somehow to keep an extremely sharp eye on her newest student, the 'wayward princess', from the first day of lessons.
Elowyn was three weeks into this latest course of her lady's education and she was beginning to rapidly despair ever making an escape from its tedium. Yvaliya's eyes were simply too sharp, and they were ever focused, however discreetly, on her young charge.
That day, after the noon luncheon, the Marchioness had announced that her group – about thirty of the ladies of the court at Avalennon, most of whom were among Vahlada's personal attendants – would adjourn to the ornamental gardens on the south-eastern side of the castle. Elowyn was compelled to go along as well, for her lesson, and she went reluctantly. Her reluctance only grew when the Marchioness, seeing the princess's scholarly and informal attire, gasped loudly and turned to the girl's mother, imploring the Lady Vahlada to have her daughter change into something more suitable. Call it a life-long grudge.
And now, here she was: glued to the top of her teetering chair, an embroidery hoop full of knots, tangles, and horrible wrecks of needle and thread locked in her hands, as Yvaliya eyed her skeptically out of the corner of her vision. Elowyn ducked her head, bending over her work more closely so that – perhaps, just maybe – the ostentatious and rather vocal Marchioness would not come bustling over to her and then, using the princess's disastrous work, make a public demonstration of how spider-roses should not be done.
The hot afternoon sun was beating down mercilessly onto her head, in spite of the delicate silken canopy that had been set up to provide shade for the ladies while they worked, and the bit of breeze that blew through the garden every once in a while did hardly anything to ease the sweltering heat. The awful gown and undergarments that she had been forced to change into were causing her all sorts of agony.
Elowyn sat up a bit, flexing her aching shoulders, and then bent over her work again – and felt a drop of sweat roll down the back of her neck.
Sea-green eyes narrowed furtively – murderously – at Marchioness Yvaliya.
I will escape from you.
But right at the moment, there was no such chance.
Poke the needle in, draw it out, cross over this thread, pull that other one – no wait, rip that one out, that's not right, oh! Lovely! Now there's a hole in the bloody canvas.
Ladies' chatter and laughter from around her: she was reminded of geese in a barnyard.
Buzzzzz, went the insects in the garden. ZzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZ.
Another drop of sweat rolled down her neck.
Elowyn pricked her finger.
Mental cursing.
"Oh, and did you hear about the Lord Rhiadore and Countess Laurel…"
Someone plucked out a few random notes on a lute, somewhere in the garden.
"What a lovely stitch! However did you learn it?"
"This? Oh, I picked it up when I was visiting the court at…"
BuzzzzzZZZZZ.
I am going to go mad.
"Psst! Elowyn!"
She started at the sudden hiss from behind her but quickly relaxed, as the voice hastily added, "No, don't react! She'll mark it."
Elowyn obeyed and pretended to be putting her full concentration into working on her embroidery again. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of two darkly attired figures, which crouched just a few feet below the terrace upon which the embroidery group was seated.
Speaking in a lowered voice, trying not to move her lips, she asked, "How did you two manage to sneak in here? And what are you doing here anyway – trying to torture me because I'm stuck with this and you've got your freedom?"
A low chuckle from behind her, and then the silky voice of her cousin informed her, "Never, fair Princess. We've come to attempt a valiant rescue of our beloved playmate."
Elowyn almost laughed out loud, in spite of the danger of doing so.
Sunlit-jade eyes brimming with mirth, she retorted, while keeping a watchful eye on Yvaliya, who did not as of yet know that both Robbie and Sala were hiding in the carefully-kept bushes and holding conversation with the princess, "And how do you plan on doing that? She's been watching me like a hawk all afternoon – and I don't think she'll take kindly to you two swooping in here and disrupting things, and then, on top of that, demanding that I be set free. No indeed, my friends: I don't think that she would enjoy that at all."
She knew why they'd come for her – that night was to be the very first of a month-long celebration of Robbie's parents' anniversary, and all the country would be dancing with merriment and all manner of festivals, balls, and other modes of parties. Elowyn had attended these since she had been allowed to roam about with her nephew and cousin, without a chaperon: which had started when she was fourteen and fully in charge of her enchantress's abilities.
But now, with the changes in her daily schedule…
She cast a longing eye across the shaded space underneath the canopy. Yvaliya was still marching back and forth between the pastel rows of diligently embroidering ladies, looking as if she might just be some sort of Grand General Brigadier. Escape would be difficult to attain, even if she could run at all in her stupid gown and slippers.
"What do you suggest I do?"
Robbie's ice-blue eyes sparkled as he exchanged glances with Sala, who smirked devilishly.
"I'm certain you'll think of something," he replied.
Elowyn sat for a moment longer, watching Yvaliya's ostentatious butterfly figure move back and forth in front of her, and then her lips curved in a sly smile.
Dropping her embroidery onto the chair and rising to her feet at the same moment, she placed one hand to her collarbones and called out, loudly: "Oh! Arin, Orlando! And my lord Prince Skye! Whatever allows us this pleasure?"
Instantly, her little ploy took the exact effect she had known it would.
At the mention of what the feminine half of the faery court favored as the two most gorgeous noblemen, Arin and Orlando, and the famously handsome Elven Prince Skye, every single one of the ladies present dropped everything where they were and looked to where Elowyn had pointed. Chaos and pandemonium ensued as each lady scrambled to be the first to either catch a glimpse of or speak to the three gentlemen; the Marchioness was hit by a mad rush out from underneath the canopy and her desperate commands for peace and order went completely unheard.
Meanwhile, Elowyn grabbed fistfuls of her monstrous skirt and blazed out of the garden as fast as her feet could carry her, Robbie and Sala running close behind.
Not until they had reached the tower that Elowyn's room was at the crown of did they stop; and when they did, all three collapsed against the stones and had a good, long laugh.
Robbie was the first to speak, still laughing so hard that his extraordinary blue eyes had tears of mirth in them. "Fates – Sala, Elowyn, did you see them? You'd think that the Seven Powers of the World had just showed up unexpectedly for tea!"
"Yes…the Seven Powers of the World being your father, Orlando, and Prince Skye!" cackled Elowyn, wrapping her arms around her middle to keep herself from laughing so hard that a seam in her gown would split.
"Who would have known – my father, a court heartthrob!"
"Poor Arin…and poor Orlando…and poor, poor Prince Skye!" gasped Sala.
Elowyn shook her head, still giggling, and then she turned her eyes up to the open windows of her bedchamber. Thoughtful now, she mused, "I'm going to have to find a good way to get up there now, aren't I? 'Tis a pity I didn't leave any of that enchanted rope down in the bushes here."
And she kicked petulantly at one of the aforementioned evergreens.
Then, "Well, one's got to start somewhere. Look away, Robbie."
He obeyed, and Elowyn got Sala to give her a boost up, so that she could grab onto one of the thick vines of the ivy that grew all over the wall, up to her room's seven windows.
"Umph! Stupid…grumble grumble…flipping…grumble grumble…argh!"
Sala raised a hand to shade her eyes and took a step back, watching her cousin's progress up the wall. "You sure that you don't want me to go in and throw down some rope?"
A sound of irritation from Elowyn – towards the ivy.
"Bloody—no, thank you, Sala, but the same principle goes for you as for me: if anybody saw me going inside right now, they'd know that something was up, for I wouldn't be at lessons. If they saw you, they'd reach the same conclusions."
"Hence, you climb the wall," from Robbie.
"Prince Robeneron, I believe that I told you to take your eyes somewhere else. Now do as I've said, or I'll throw one of these nasty slippers at you."
Robbie grinned.
"Amazing princess."
"That's enough from you. Ugh – this blasted tulle stuff must weigh about two hundred pounds! I can hardly move my legs in it!"
"I'm surprise you haven't mentioned the sleeves yet," remarked Sala.
"Those ripped a long time ago," came Elowyn's muffled voice. Then, from the window ledge, "All right, I'm inside. Go fetch your mounts – and Orpheus – and we'll be off. I'll be out in two blinks of a sphinx's eye."
Robbie and Sala turned and went off to do as she bade them, and Elowyn hauled herself through the window and into her room.
There, she left the wrinkled, torn, sweat- and dirt-stained gown laid out on the bed, along with her petticoats, corset, stockings, and various other underwear. There was nothing that a little faery magic couldn't easily remedy when it came to clothing; often, in fact, the materials were so infused with magic and enchantment that they tended to repair themselves. And so Elowyn didn't worry terribly much about the damage that she had done to the gown – she had a feeling that it had liked her just about as much as she had liked it, and even now, she could just imagine it glaring at her, if it had had eyes to glare with, while she changed.
Swiftly she transformed herself, once again, from unwilling court beauty into the adventurer princess that she was more widely known as, and then she scrambled across her bed, leaned out onto the windowsill, and put two fingers to her lips.
At her shrill, strong whistle, there was a sound of huge wings beating the air: steadily, rhythmically, and within moments, her dun-coloured Pegasus stallion was at the window, huffing with flared nostrils as he tossed his sea-foam mane. Elowyn grinned.
"Let's off to Lærelin then, shall we, old boy?"
And she deposited herself with perfect cat-like ease into the gem-ridden saddle of her dearest equine friend, and together they swooped off to find their other companions, thence to ride through the forests of the White Realm, cross the magical border, and at last come to the whimsical and happy kingdom of Lærelin.
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A/N: Please r&r, I beg you! I'm dying from lack of response to my poor story… (My most ardent thanks to those of you who have reviewed so far, however – you all know I LUV you!)