IV

Before God and Man

Cinderella hummed softly as she brushed her hair. Tomorrow she and Eugene would wed. Tomorrow she would be married. Tonight was her last night as simply Cinderella. That was a disconcerting thought, but far drowned out by the happiness of why that was to be. Tomorrow was her wedding day, and since she could not sing in the dark of the night without waking up half the palace, she made do with humming softly as she brushed her hair and braided it for bed.

It felt strange, that her wedding had been arranged in just three days, but apparently His Grace was an excellent organiser, and everyone she spoke to - Eugene, His Majesty, the servants who came to help her (whether she needed help or not) evinced every confidence in him. So, although it felt a little strange to know absolutely nothing about her own wedding, Cinderella remained hopeful. Hope, after all, had gotten her through her life and carried her to this point, it would be remiss of her to abandon hope now, when she had so much more to be hopeful for. Tomorrow she would wed.

Cinderella's engagement ring glittered on her finger, she could not bring herself to take it off until the last possible moment for fear that, once the symbol of the great change that had swept her life was gone, the whole business would be revealed as no more than a fantasy, and she would be swept back once more to the drudgery of old.

Already her life had changed so much, and the things that had stayed the same only emphasised just how great the changes were. She still lived in a tower room, but this was the Queen's Tower of the palace and what might euphemistically be called her room was in fact the Queen's Apartments, given over to her since there had been no queen in the palace since the passing of Eugene's mother, and no princess since King Louis' accession to the throne many years ago. In place of a small window to rest her arms upon she had a spacious balcony outside the french windows, and her quarters were so high up - very near the top of the whole tower, in fact - that Cinderella felt a little like Rapunzel, although she was grateful for stairs to let people up and down, since her hair that reached barely past her shoulders would have been of little use to anyone seeking to climb up it.

The apartments actually consisted of several interconnected rooms: a bedroom, a dressing room that contained a wardrobe practically as large as a room in itself - even if most of it was empty at the moment, since Lucrezia could only work so fast - a bathing room with an enormous claw-footed bath in the centre of it, and a boudoir where she could retreat for privacy, if she felt the need. Down the stairs there were yet more rooms given over to her use: a study to work in, a lounge to entertain her ladies-in-waiting, another lounge to receive distinguished visitors.

And then there were the contents of her rooms. Her dressing table was of polished walnut, ornamented with gold filigree and brass draw-handles. Her mirror was gilt edged, and utterly devoid of cracks or places where the glass had fallen away. Her bed was large enough to fit three people comfortably next to one another, lined with crimson curtains trimmed with gold thread, and her mattress was so soft that on the first night Cinderella had been unable to sleep for fear that she would sink into it and suffocate. Her hair brush was ebony, and her comb was ivory, and crystal perfume bottles lined the table's edge. Her nightgown was lavender, and made of the finest silk, and even the aquamarine ribbons with which she tied off the ends of her twin braids were of a higher quality than she was used to. Cinderella wasn't quite sure why that mattered, considering they were only to wear to bed, but clearly it mattered to someone how she looked when there was no one there to see.

There was a knock upon the door. Cinderella stopped humming and looked around from where she sat on the plush blue stool.

"Who is it?"

"It's me," Eugene said.

Cinderella felt a smile spring to her lips as she leapt up from her seat and ran to the door. She grasped the brass door handle and opened the door. Eugene stood in the doorway, dressed in a roughspun shirt open to halfway down his chest and a pair of trousers that looked as though they had once belonged to a country farmer, who had cast them away when they got too shabby for him.

He bowed. "My lady. How are you this night?"

"I am very well, your highness, though sick with anticipation," Cinderella replied, beaming. "Would that tomorrow would come."

"Ride, Phoebus, as swiftly as you may," Eugene murmured. "This is no night for tarrying."

Cinderella did not understand the reference, but did not ask him to explain it either, for she did not wish to spend the night discussing old mythology with her future husband. Instead she looked him up down and raised one eyebrow archly.

"So I must look like a princess even in the privacy of my bedchamber, while you may stalk the halls looking like a scarecrow?"

Eugene chuckled. "The very best scarecrow, to be sure."

"I think not," Cinderella replied. "Rather than scaring birds I think you would charm them out of the trees and they would all come to perch on you in admiration."

"Yet while they stared at me they would devour no crops, so I should be successful at my work," Eugene said. "Although, once you appeared in the field, they would all abandon me in an instant, for whatever charms I may possess are like the moon compared with the sun of your beauty."

Cinderella chuckled. "Your Highness is very kind, but if that were the case should I not love myself more than I love you?"

"Do you not love yourself?" Eugene asked.

"Not near so much as I love you," Cinderella murmured.

Eugene looked troubled for a moment, before his face relaxed into an easy smile. "I came to see if...no, I did not, I came to see you, no more or less. I cannot sleep for thinking of you. You have bewitched me."

"And you have stolen me away, body and soul," Cinderella replied. "You are a wicked man, to tempt a maiden so before her wedding day."

Eugene grinned. "Yes, I am a thorough rake. Yet tomorrow I will be a married man, and I shall turn over a new leaf and become thoroughly respectable."

"Tomorrow," Cinderella whispered.

"Tomorrow," Eugene said.

Cinderella reached up and gently placed her hand on Eugene's cheek. She stood up on her tiptoes and softly kissed him on the lips. "Then on the morrow I will see you, my prince."

Eugene smiled, took her hand in his, and brushed his lips against her knuckles. "Indeed. Goodnight, my Cinderella."

"Goodnight," Cinderella said, leaning against the door with a broad smile upon her face as he walked away, looking back every few steps, until he was out of sight down the stairs and into the darkness.

She waited in the doorway for a few moments longer, her smile so wide some might have thought it permanent, until she closed the door and, humming once more, twirled her way back to the dressing table.

"Big day tomorrow for Cinderelly," Jaq said as he scurried out of a hole in the wall.

Cinderella sighed wistfully. "Yes, it is. Perhaps the biggest day. After tomorrow I can never go back."

Jaq climbed up the leg of the dressing table. "Cinderelly want to go back?"

Cinderella shook her head. "No, of course not. But the finality of it is...final. What about you, how's everyone settling in?"

"Okay," Jaq said. "Suzy nearly gotta caught by big blackcat, but she got away. We not had too much trouble."

"Be careful," Cinderella said. There were several cats about the palace, mostly mousers, of which the worst was an enormous one-eyed black ratter named Nightshade who hissed and spat whenever Cinderella got near him, as though he could smell mouse on her and hated her for it. "I'm sorry that I haven't been able to acknowledge you. I'm afraid that, if Eugene or anyone else found out about you, he might think I was...odd. I suppose I'm not as good a friend to you as you've been to me."

"That not true at all," Jaq said. "Cinderelly saved our lives, all our lives, and not just from Lucifee. Cinderelly gave us home and clothes and, and family. Cinderelly make us more than animals. Cinderelly can't ever be repaid."

Cinderella smiled. "I won't ever forget you. I may not be able to talk to you in public, or tell anyone about you, or throw out all the cats, but if you need help come to me, and I'll do what I can."

Jaq bowed his head. "You're a real lady, Cinderelly."

Cinderella shook her head. "Not until tomorrow."

That same night, in a modest chateau in one of the better parts of the capital, Princess Frederica Eugenie de la Fontaine, Princess of Normandie, sat at her writing desk, a quill pen trembling between her fingers.

She looked up from the half-written letter in front of her and looked out of the window. It was black as coal outside, a moonless night, and the light from the single candle in her study meant that she saw more of her own reflection than she did of the outside world.

What she saw was not unpleasing to the eye: hair black as ebony arranged in ringlets falling across her shoulders, skin so far it was near to ivory, hazel eyes with a hint of gold and a comely body that was emphasised by her clothes. However she had lost out to the servant girl it had not been in a contest of looks.

She heard a sound, and Frederica whirled around to stare at the open door behind her.

"Anton?" she called. "Is that you?" The house she was renting had come with its own staff, but she had dismissed them all and replaced them with her own men from Normandie, whom she could trust. She did not know why any of them would be disturbing her at this late hour, however.

A man appeared in the doorway, burly of build and shaggy of hair, with a wild piratical beard and a gaze that could melt steel at fifty yards.

Frederica scowled. "Auguste. If I'd known you were coming I would have put a line of salt across the door."

Auguste scowled. "I am here at your father's command."

"Ah, so he has you running his errands now," Frederica said. "A little bit of a comedown from being his chief spy. As it happens I was just about to write to my father now."

"You are commanded to return to Caen and answer to your father for your failure," Auguste growled.

Frederica hesitated. She had some inclination of what the answering was likely to involve. She forced a smile. "I have not failed. My work here is not yet done."

"He is marrying another woman tomorrow," Auguste said.

"A setback, I admit," Frederica said. "Not an insurmountable one."

Auguste's face darkened. "You would have it said of Normandie that her princess prostitutes herself-"

"For what was I sent here but to prostitute myself?" Frederica demanded sharply. "A marriage is out of the question, true, unless some ill fate befalls the servant girl." It might come to that, in the end, but Frederica would prefer that it did not. Even spies had to have standards, and Frederica preferred to keep her hands clean of blood if at all possible. "But I have not yet met a man whose lust was tamed by a wedding ring. Or perhaps I will seduce the princess-to-be instead. She is reported to be an ingenue, and the good girls are always hiding some wickedness locked away, waiting to be unleashed."

Auguste was not amused. "You are not here to indulge your appetites. Normandie-"

"Oh, speak no more of Normandie, it makes you sound like an idiot," Frederica said. "My father wants Armorique's Caribbean islands, he wants a share of the Indian trade, he wants to increase his power and I will help him with that, as a dutiful daughter should."

"This is about more than acquisition, foolish girl," Auguste said. "The world is changing. If the Empire defeats Anjou then they may turn their eyes northward."

"Perhaps my father should enter the war while Anjou is still fighting?" Frederica suggested.

Auguste did not respond to the suggestion that her father might do something to benefit someone other than himself. "If they do, we must have the power of Armorique alongside us."

"And I will get it," Frederica said flatly. "Leave me to my work, and tell my father I will come home when the job is done, and not before."

I will not return a failure. I cannot face that.

I will do whatever I must.

In the half-light of dawn, the streets began to fill. Soldiers in dress coats, with polished shako badges and bayonets gleaming lined the route of the procession, marshalled by sergeants bearing vicious looking halberds. The roads which the royal carriage would travel to bear the bride and groom to church, and to bear them out of the capital and away on their honeymoon, were cleared of all other traffic, man, cart or horse. Horses snorted and stamped their hooves as cavalry watched the gathering crowds. In the grey light, the common folk of Nantes gathered behind the line of soldiers to watch the carriage go by.

Jean Taurillion, Knight of the Alleyways, gripped Marie tightly by the hand as he pushed his way through the crowds to get as close as he could to the procession route itself. It was hard work, since already the front rows were crammed as close as sardines, but he was broad-shouldered for his age and strong, and more than that he was implacable as he elbowed burghers and merchants and shop-owners out of the way until he was within a single row of the road down which the carriage and its escorts would pass. Even in the dawn light he could make out the looming spectre of the cathedral towering over him.

"So many people," Marie murmured. "So crowded."

Jean looked down at her. "You want to be able to see well, don't you? What's the point of standing at the back where you can't see a thing?"

"I can't see a thing from here," Marie said. On the streets she was called Marie the Mouse, though Jean preferred the kinder Little Marie, not because of any great skill she had in squeezing in and out of hard to reach places, but simply because she was so small. Yet even small as she was, barefooted and dressed in a filthy, ragged dress that should have been thrown away years ago, there was a prettiness about her that came from the light in her emerald eyes, her unkempt dirty blonde curls, her heart-shaped face. Or so Jean thought, anyway, though he had never told her so.

"I can't see anything either," Jean said. "But once you climb onto my back then you'll see everything, and you will see everything and tell me all about it. This is a historic day."

"It's only a wedding," Marie said.

"Only a wedding?" Jean said. "Haven't you heard who the prince is marrying?"

"Some lady, I suppose," Marie muttered.

"No, that's just it," Jean said. "She is not a lady at all, she was poor like us, but they say the prince was so struck by her beauty that he had to marry her anyway. Do you see now, Little Marie? She was just like us, and now she will be princess and ride in a gilded carriage."

"So?" Marie asked. "It puts no food in our stomachs."

"Well if she can do it, why not us?" Jean demanded. "Why can we not follow where she leads?"

"Because we aren't beautiful?"

"Just wait until you grow up," Jean said. "Don't you think it's impressive for someone like us to rise up and join the ranks of them? You must admit it isn't heard of every day."

"I suppose," Marie admitted. "But I don't see how we're going to get there?"

Jean paused. "I haven't gotten that far yet, but give me time. This new princess of ours has lit a fire, and we're going to follow her torchlight where it leads."

Cinderella stood as still as one of the many statues and suits of armour that lined the palace corridors as some of the servants helped her put on her dress. It was shimmering white, with a wide, full skirt and a tight bodice. It did not look especially flamboyant, in fact in many ways it was quite simple, but as Cinderella stood in it, examining herself in the full length mirror, turning and listening to her petticoat rustling underneath, she could not but think that Lucrecia had outdone herself.

Her hair was done up in a low bun, with only the bun and her bangs being visible under the juliet cap that covered most of her head. A long veil, stitched with pearls, hung down almost to the floor. Soft, short gloves covered her hands to the wrists, the gold band of her engagement ring sparkled amidst the white. Around her neck she wore a plain black choker, a ribbon of velvet wrapping around her throat.

"You look quite beautiful my dear," the Grand Duke said. "The whole realm will be enchanted."

"So long as Eugene is among them, I will be content," Cinderella said, smoothing out her skirt in front of the mirror. "Shall we go now?"

His Grace offered her his arm. "If you wish, m'lady."

Cinderella smiled as she picked up her skirt with one hand, lifting it up just enough that she could run - almost skipping - without fear of falling.

The Grand Duke led her to the gilded carriage, attended by half a hundred cavalrymen in brass helmets and long horsehair plumes, which whisked her off down streets lined with people, all of them looking at her. At first it made Cinderella want to drawn the curtains, but then she heard them shouting, yelling, cheering, and realised that they were celebrating her, not judging her.

Celebrating me. Who would have ever thought. Not even when father lived did I ever dream...

"What should I do?" Cinderella asked.

"You need not do anything," the Grand Duke. "But if you wish to wave, that would be courteous and acceptable."

So Cinderella waved to the crowds from out of the carriage window, and with every wave the roar of the crowd grew louder.

And then they were at the cathedral of Nantes, a grand gothic structure rising towards heaven, and from the spires above Cinderella could hear the bells ringing. A red carpet had been spread down the steps, and guards in black helmets line the way with swords drawn.

"It really is a pageant isn't it?" Cinderella murmured. "It's a grand show."

"Indeed it is," His Grace said. "But do not forget that it is your show. In this pageant, you are the star."

"Yes," Cinderella said. "That's quite frightening, but at the same time rather wonderful."

"Come," said the Duke. "Let us not keep your adoring audience waiting."

He helped Cinderella out of the carriage and led her up the steps to more cheering. And then they were through the doors and into the cathedral itself, a riot of colour as light from the hundreds of candles refracted off the stain glass windows that lined the transept, or glinted off the gold and silver that lay all around. In the pews, the great and good of Armorique and beyond sat, all dressed in all finery, and all eyes turned towards her.

And at the altar, with Etienne at his side and His Grace the Archbiship standing before him, waited Eugene, staring at her with his mouth slightly open.

Cinderella felt herself glowing with a mixture of pride and happiness, and she thought that she might float clean off the ground as she walked down the transept towards him while a choir of nuns sang in what she thought might be latin. In truth, she rather envied his ability to gawp at her, because he was by no means hideous himself, dressed in a uniform of some sort of sky blue, with gold brocade along his shoulders and dropping down across his chest. His left arm was covered by a scarlet pelisse trimmed with white fur, and his tasselled boots came up to his knees. Cinderella, however, had to keep moving down the aisle, and so she perforce had to appear more composed than Eugene did, even if she did not feel composed in the least.

And then she stood at the altar, with the Archbishop smiling benevolently down at her, and Eugene took her gloved hands in his own.

"You," he murmured. "You are..."

"Your silence was all I needed to hear," Cinderella said. "And if I could have stopped as well, I would have."

And so, before God and man under the eye of heaven, Prince Eugene of Armorique and Cinderella Tremaine were joined as man and wife: one heart, one flesh, one soul.

From her place in one of the rearmost rows in the cathedral, Frederica gripped her handkerchief so tight that her knuckles turned white.

"Everything is going to change for that woman, from this moment on," she murmured. "I wonder if she has quite realised it yet?"

"It depends on whether the change be good or bad," her faithful servant Anton said. "I'm sure she's realised the perks."

"So am I, but that isn't what I meant," Frederica replied. "I suppose what I meant was: does the little lamb have any idea just how many lions she's laid down with?"

"Do you see her, Little Marie?" Jean asked.

"I think so," Marie replied from her perch on Jean's shoulders. "Yes! Here they come now."

"What's it like?"

"She really is beautiful, I can see why the prince chose to marry her, even if she did used to be poor."

"What's she wearing?" Jean asked.

Marie looked down at him.

"What?" Jean demanded.

Marie rolled her eyes. "Nothing."

"So what does her dress look like?"

"A dress," Marie said. "It's white, and it has sleeves and a skirt and a veil. And she's lost one of her shoes."

"They're called slippers, when ladies wear them," Jean said.

"Why, and how do you know that?"

"I'm interested in that sort of thing," Jean said. He cleared his throat. "So, what's happening now?"

"An old man, I think he might be the king, has helped get her slipper back on. And she's kissed him on the forehead. Now she's going to back to...he must be the prince. And they're getting into the carriage. Hey, Jean, I think she's waving at me!"

"Then wave back, for goodness' sake," Jean shouted. "And cheer for her: long live the princess! God bless you!"

"We love you, princess!" Marie yelled.

"God bless you!" Jean called again. "Bless you for lowering down the ladder, look well on us when we climb after."

A/N Princess Frederica Eugenie de la Fontaine is actually one of the eligible maidens at the ball in the animated film. There are two other ladies named there who will also be playing roles in this story in the future.