Chapter 5

Feint

The horses sped onward through the night and into the morning. Frederick said that was because they were some of the finest horses in Minuit or something like that (I wasn't really paying attention), but it was still an impressive feat, and I reminded myself to give them food of some sort if I ever could. They carried us straight to through the early morning rituals of the quaint capital, merchants a-bustling and animals a-scurrying and carts moving this way and that, straight to the front gate of the palace.

I had gotten sleep enough to keep me standing, but not enough to make the experience any less surreal. The palace—for all my imaginings—was breathtaking. Pillars of brilliant silver stone, gables and parapets of polished red, turrets with catapults six times as large as me. And so many people: humans, dwarves, faeries, even a few goblins here and there all cleared way for the carriage's approach to the gate. The guards opened it without hesitation and we were let in as the crowd crept closer to catch a glimpse of the Crown Prince of Minuit. Many of them were very taken aback when they saw me, and this set them to even more pronounced murmuring. I didn't particularly care too much: after all, we were heading steadily through the courtyard by this point.

It was idyllic, really. Walkways and gardens and pillars of marble, trees and shrubs, a beautiful well where maid after maid drew water: it was grander than anything I had ever seen. But when the carriage stopped and the footmen let us out and the guards opened the ornate wooden door before us, all the beauty of the courtyard was eclipsed by the enormity of the foyer. Four statues: a faerie, a dwarf, a mermaid and a goblin towered above the heads of everyone in the room. The carpets were red and much denser than our simple rugs in the cottage, and great windows allowed the morning sun to beam in and fill me with a familiar sense of wonder. I knew immediately that this was the place: my destiny would come to a head here. I had answered my summons.

A skinny, finicky old woman with a pinched face and gangly limbs approached us from a grand iron door between the two middle statues. She was dressed in a baby blue gown that did not quite fit her, and the many adornments and baubles attached to it made her seem incredibly comical to my sleepy eyes. I had to stifle several giggles as Frederick put his hand warningly on my head.

"Be careful. That's…"

"Fairest greetings, Prince Frederick VI of Minuit," she said in a fluttery voice. "It is with great accord that we welcome thee to our noble realm of Schonheit. We trust that thy travels have been safe and thy word shall be true to speak peaceably and honestly with the noble ruler of our realm?"

"All this and more, Milady Panova. I shall do all that within my power. I come not as an emissary of war but as thy brother and friend, a friend who is as concerned as thee and twice as frightened at the state of affairs in our noble world."

She batted her very heavy eyelashes at him slowly before speaking again. "Hmph," she muttered. "We shall speak more of this in the throne room. You may state your case to the princess and her guardian, and she will decide the truth as to your claim."

"My thanks, Lady. You are as wise as you are fair."

"Oh, don't flatter me, boy! I'm old enough to be your grandmother!"

"Alas, if she only kept her figure like you did."

Lady Panova blushed and giggled. I almost vomited. Perhaps it showed on my face because she suddenly noticed me, immediately growing stern again.

"Frederick, just who is your little friend here?" I froze. I hadn't really thought about this, but Frederick jumped to my rescue.

"She's here to see her sister. She's a guard," he said.

"That's preposterous. We don't have any female guards. Especially not dwarves." I scowled at her. "No offense, love. Just the way thing are."

"Oh. Was it a servant then?"

Panova glowered at him. "Can she speak for herself?"

"Yes…she doesn't really like to though."

"Oh. Well, she might have the right idea here." My frown deepened, and she immediately turned to me. "No, no! It's not that I have anything against…augh! My apologies! It's just that dwarves aren't exactly a well-respected lot here in the palace and if you get to talking too loudly someone might, you know…"

"Someone might what?" I spoke. My voice was quiet, and she quivered visibly.

"Someone might…see fit to silence you." It was my turn to be quiet. I stared at her, and she fidgeted for what felt like hours. "Well," she finally chirped. "I suppose there's no harm in…trying our luck, is there? You seem…very certain after all, and the princess does march to her own drummer, that much is true." She muttered a few more things to herself as Frederick smiled sweetly. Eventually she stepped toward us, arms wide open. "Why not? Come along, dear! I, Lady Panova of Gottschalk, Stewardess of the Crown of Schonheit, welcome thee to the halls of her grace Snow White and her most imperial regent Grimhilde. Please follow me to the throne room. The princess anxiously awaits your arrival, and I am certain she be most pleased with your council today, Dear Prince."

Throughout this speech she did not once look toward me, and a felt a wave of unease crawl over me. I followed her to the throne room as she Frederick exchanged pleasantries I wondered for the first time why she was being so friendly toward a man who had allegedly caused a great deal of civil distress. But I was excited to catch a glimpse of the princess and the throne room, and I put the question behind me as Panova led us through the iron door into even more splendor.

It was…enormous. Everything my father had ever said about the throne room paled in comparison to its actuality. Reliefs depicting great historical events and figures covered the walls, and the court sat in a great circle about the room, the lower lords and ladies toward the door and those higher in rank toward the throne. The throne. Carved of pure marble in the shape of the first king of Schonheit, it towered above the room, gazing upon us with cold imperiousness and resolute power. A section was cut from in between his feet, and the onyx throne lay inside it, and a girl sat upon it, fair as a dove with a voice twice as lovely. Hair the color of ebony, lips of the red rose, skin white as snow.

There she was. The girl who would eventually save the world. And the first thing I heard from her was this:

"But…isn't Agrabah cold and mountainous?" A soft groan shuddered throughout the room, and I heard Frederick echo it beside me.

A dark-skinned woman standing beside the young princess put her hand to forehead. "No, honey, Agrabah is up north, remember? Where it's warmer? And the Zangmar Wastes…?"

"Oh, that's right! I'm sorry! Keep going, Lady Hyacinth!"

"Anyway, I was saying that if we sent some of our dwarven miners up to Agrabah it would be very, very, very detrimental to their way of life. Dwarves lose their earth affinity if they leave their homeland, and that' worse than dying for many of them. Instead of miners, Agrabah'll just get a bunch of short, slightly hardier slaves. And they don't need those. Believe me, nobody wins from this."

"Oh, I don't quite know about that," a tan, bearded man in a purple cloak said in a deep voice from the princess's left. He was about to say more before Panova cleared her throat with a loud, breathy Puh, puh, puh, and all eyes turned toward her. Whatever the debate was about (and my, did it sound interesting) it would have to wait until the more pressing matters were attended to.

"Announcing His Noble Highness Prince Frederick VI of Minuit!" She took a sideways glance at me. "And…guest." She took our hands and led us (much more nimbly than I'd expected) to the front of the room. She kneeled before the princess, and Frederick and I did on either side of her, him with a flourish and me with a whump. The princess sat perfectly still, her eyes wide, until the two nobles who had spoken earlier nudged her forward. She opened her mouth several times as if to speak, but only little squeaks came out until the woman called Hyacinth came and put her hand on the girl's shoulder. The princess shuddered a bit, exhaled deeply and began her speech:

"Welcome…Most…Noble Prince. May…this day…be…oh, what was it?...Oh! a day of…understanding and…dip…dip…"

"Diplomacy," Hyacinth whispered.

"Diplomacy, yes," the girl stammered. "And We pray that you hear our complaints… intently… and… mark well our words!" Her face was turning a vibrant shade of red, and the entire court shuffled uncomfortably. This meeting was turning out to be…different than I expected. The princess sputtered on with this formal greeting for a seeming eternity before she finally finished the last painful syllable and stepped forward on shaky legs and offered her hand to Lady Panova. The old woman sprung up gracefully and took her place directly at the throne's left next to the cloaked man. She then offered her hand to Frederick. He rose and took her hand.

"Greetings, Your Grace. You are more lovely than all the fairest maidens of Minuit. Would it that we met under lighter circumstances…" He kissed her hand again, a bit more sensually. She blushed and giggled before noticing my presence.

"Well, hello there, Dearie! Aren't you the cutest! I just love your hair!" She immediately reached for my pleat, and I swatted her hand away instinctively. Immediately all went quiet as a shocked, pained expression spread across the princess's face. I should have apologized, should have defended myself, should have done anything but what I did. The courtiers began to hiss and mutter, louder and louder until a man shouted, "What an outrage!" and everything erupted into chaos. Panova and Frederick immediately took charge, trying to calm everyone down. I heard far too many racist slurs. Through it all, though, the princess and I stared at each other, trying for the life of us to understand, to say something, to be strong. But we couldn't, and we both realized (I know this now) that even though I had technically offended her and made her look even more the fool, I had done something to change her in that moment.

I had made her realize that I was a person, a person who had feelings and ideas and didn't want her to think I was sweet and adorable. In fact, I didn't care one bit about her in that moment. I only cared about my summons. And realizing that there was a person who didn't stop and give her some pause…well, this is what came of it:

"I'm sorry," she said. I smiled at her, knowing immediately that her fate was now intertwined with mine. I nodded and put a fist on my heart. She did the same just as two guards seized me from behind.

"The act of refusing the princess's desire is a grave offense, Dwarfmaid!" one of them barked at me. I sputtered for words but none came. Panova approached with an idiotically tragic expression on her face.

"That's true, my love. You most certainly can't do that. After all, the princess's desire is law, after all."

"Who even let that little brat in here?" the man in the purple cloak growled.

"An excellent question, Lord Ligatore," Panova quipped. "And your answer is that 'twas me. This dwarf is obviously of noble bearing. After all, she says she has an audience with the queen. " She had a hideous sneer on her face, and the court began laughing louder than all of Father's brothers do at Bacchanal. So this was it then. I should have known. I let myself be dragged toward the door as Frederick looked on in shock. The wheels were turning, I could see them.

"Wait!" he cried as the guards struggled with the door. He turned to face Panova. "What do you mean, she has an audience with the queen? She never said anything of the sort! I told you she's here to see her sister!"

For the first time I saw Panova's composure break, as if she had been wearing a porcelain mask that shattered right then and there. There was genuine panic in her eyes, and Frederick eyed her, his face solid steel.

"Ooh… my apologies, Your Highness! That is what you said, wasn't it? Now, where could that silly idea about a dwarf saying she had an audience with the queen have come from? Crazy, the things my brain does sometimes, isn't it?" She kept babbling, completely unaware of the two black-dressed women who had entered from a door behind the throne. One I recognized immediately. One was horrifying. The latter crept up behind her and pinched her shoulder very hard. Panova squirmed and squirmed, but this enormous woman had a wicked gleam in her eye, and the foppish old could do nothing to escape her iron grasp.

"Panova, Panova," she sneered in a cold voice. Her beady little eyes bored into Panova's terrified ones. "You really are quite a dunce, you know. Interfering with the queen's personal affairs again…naughty, naughty Panova." The lords and ladies returned to their seats and tried to make themselves very small as the other woman circled around the conflict. She was very tall and beautiful, and her hair was tucked up inside her cowl. She did not look at me as she passed but merely turned around to face the struggle.

"That's enough, Phanchine," she ordered in a calm voice. Her retainer desisted begrudgingly. "Now, Panova… It seems like I've entered the room at just the right time. What's this about me summoning a dwarf to the palace?"

"Um… nothing, Your Excellency. Just a fancy I must have made up, of course, nothing more!"

"Really?" Her tone was gentle, but Panova's face showed nothing but anguished horror.

"NO! I…I've been snooping about…just a few times…looking at the beautiful (and aren't they beautiful) thing you've got in your room, and I happened to see your diary, you know, and I just couldn't help myself, so I…"

The queen's shoulders sagged a little. As Panova continued to babble the monarch shook her head slowly. "Oh! Was that all?" She began to laugh a large, booming laugh. "My goodness, Panova. Learn to snoop better, woman! Half the scullery maids could put you to shame with a performance like that!" The unease in the room died quickly, and the people laughed, but still they sat very stiffly in their chairs. "Now sit down, Lady Panova. We've heard quite enough out of you." She turned to the prince. "Welcome, Prince. It is a great pleasure to have you with us. We have much to discuss, but that is not something for the eyes of all seated here. We will continue matters in the council room." She looked at the princess, still standing where she was and added, "If the princess permits it, of course."

"Oh…of…of course!" the princess said.

"Excellent, then let us retire. Everyone may show himself out except for Lord Ligatore, Lady Hyacinth, and… Lady Panova. Princess, you stay here too." Everyone stood still. They hadn't forgotten. Frederick approached the queen and in a quiet voice asked the question that I was:

"Um…what about the dwarf, Your Majesty?"

"Which dwarf?"

"The one over there. The one that you supposedly summoned."

"What? I did no such thing."

"But…Panova said—"

"Panova's a stupid old bat. What does she know about anything?"

"But in your diary—"

"Pssht! Don't believe everything you read in a person's diary. Most diarists are avid writers of fiction, you know."

"I…I…"

"No, no, I most certainly never asked for any dwarf. I daresay I don't know why I would have to consult one for anything that doesn't involve gems or mining. Or drinking, now that I think of it…" She had a dazed, dreamy expression on her face, and I felt myself grow red. People in the court were relaxing now, and some began to snigger. Nothing like racism to bring folks together. I felt bile in the back of my throat, and I wanted to scream at her, scream about my confusion and anger and how I had sacrificed everything to come here and how she was being a massive bitch but I couldn't.

All I could do was let the queen say, "Take her to the dungeon. She did defy the princess, didn't she?"

All I could do was let the guards drag me unceremoniously to a dank cell that was exactly as I'd pictured most dungeons to be.

All I could do was smile, though, because as I was forced out, I locked eyes with the princess, and there was thought and change and understanding in her eyes. And that night, when a cloaked figure approached my cell and said in a girlish voice, "I'm so sorry for this. I never meant for this to happen. My name's Snow White", I answered her, my first words all day.

"My name is Sigrun."