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[personal profile] capri0mni
(Cross-Posted to [community profile] queerly_beloved)

Preface:

In that same, later, reread of the Grimm "House and Children's Tale" #1, where it dawned on me that the princess is both child-coded and objectified, I also noticed that (other than what the enchanted king says at the end) There. Is. No. Witch. in the Story. And, furthermore, what actually breaks the spell is access to human spaces, which the king cannot get for himself without help. It therefore works, for me, as a clear disability analog.

So, in this retelling, I've decided to make the lack of a witch explicit, to get away from the trope that Disability is always a punishment, or that there's always some specific person or event to "Blame" for it (hello, anti-vaxxers, I'm looking at you, and the toxic positivity people, you, too).

Where we left off:
No sooner were they back in the carriage than the coachman cracked his whip, and they sped off at an almost unnatural speed, the horses in full gallop before they even had taken three strides at a trot. The landscape outside the windows was nothing but a blur.

"Heinrich!" the young king called, "Must you drive with such haste?"

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty," his servant called back. "But if we do not pass through the Capital's gate by sunset, all is lost."


Under the Linden Tree
Part 4 of 5

Galantha looked down at the linden branch and bit her lip. How much had she risked, she wondered, for a mere sentimental token that wouldn't even last the week?

"We did not tarry long," her husband said, above the noises of the carriage. "All's well. All will be well." He put his fingers lightly on her arm to draw her attention, and managed a weak smile. "Heinrich is one of the most sensible men I've known. If he really thought our errand would waste too much time, he wouldn't have let us go."

Still, he seemed as full of worry as she.

"The spell?"

"It's broken. But not all trouble is magic."

Nothing more was said between them, and after a while, Galantha realized he'd fallen asleep.

Suddenly weary, she leaned back and closed her eyes.

Memories slipped into nightmare. She was both juggling her golden ball, and trapped inside it: up and down, and back and forth, until she was falling without end, into an icy darkness.

Galantha woke with a start, and for a moment, she feared they'd missed the sunset, before realizing they were driving through a forest, trees on either side blocking out the sun.

He was awake, too, staring out the window.

"May I ask you something, Your Majesty?"

"Please, don't let rank stand between us; call me 'Cinnabar'. Interview, or conversation?" he asked.

"Both, I think."

He gestured toward the linden branch and opened his hand. When she passed it to him, he nodded for her to continue.

"Who cursed you?" she asked.

He sighed. "I don't know if anyone did. Thou asked if it were a punishment for a crime, or broken oath. Until I heard 'no' in my own voice, I'd long wondered the same thing." He seemed about to say more, but just grimaced, as if the thought smelled of something noxious.

"How long?" she asked, after a moment.

"I see no change in my own face. But Heinrich's--. We were—he was my assigned playmate, as a boy."

Galantha pushed down the thought that this made him nearly as old as her father, along with wondering if that mattered. "If no one told you," she asked, instead, "how did you know what would break the spell?"

He shrugged, winced, and rolled his shoulders. "The same way I know to scratch an itch, perhaps. I never thought it could be broken, until thou came to the well. I truly thought passing between the walls where you had walked would be enough."

"But then it wasn't."

"Then it wasn't, nor was the meal."

"And if Father hadn't invited you to dinner?"

"Well, there were so many others I could have asked, once I was inside."

"Whom?"

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Enough!" Annoyance rang through his voice. "We're puzzling over troubles that never came to pass."

"I'm sorry, Your M--"

"Eh?"

"Cinnabar. Forgive me."

"For this? Easily."

Galantha turned and watched the landscape roll past. The sun was high, now, and there were almost no shadows on the ground. The forest was already thinning, unfamiliar mountains visible through the trees. They'd left her homeland while she was sleeping.

Perhaps it was better this way, she thought.

"May I ask thee something?" he asked.

"Certainly, Y-yes." She waited for him to hand back the linden branch before the questions began. But he seemed to forget that it was even in his hand.

"Didst thou mean to kill me, last night?"

"Yes."

"Ha-ha! That was quick."

"Well," Galantha counted off on her fingers. "You wouldn't-- couldn't," she corrected herself, "even tell me if you were man or beast. Father was boasting about things Mother, my sisters, and I aren't allowed to whisper, and your demands were exceeding what I'd promised. For all I knew, you were a wizard, or an assassin in league with one."

"Hm," he acknowledged, nodding.

"And--" she stopped herself.

"'And'? What?"

"It's of no matter."

"It seems to be of a little matter, at least." He swallowed hard. "Dost thou fear me?"

She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Y-Cinnabar," she said. "But touching you-- being near you-- was horrid. It lent strength to my arm. Like, like..."

"A tunic woven from wool and stinging nettles? Only, so tight, that it's under thy skin?"

"Yes!" A chuckle escaped her. "Very!"

"The magic," he said. "I suppose, as the strands loosened their hold on me, they entangled thee."

He was so quiet, Galantha thought he'd fallen back asleep. Then he spoke: "Still, thou tookst pity on me."

She glanced at him before looking back out the window. The forest was behind them completely, now. The midday light made her squint. "You said 'Please.'"

He chuckled. "The magic word."

"You didn't have to. It was in your power, then, to, well--" she cut herself off.

He started to speak, then stopped himself, once, then again, before asking: "Wouldst thou have asked my forgiveness, if I'd been dressed as a common shepherd?"

"Maybe," she said. "But not so quick."

"What?! Wh-?"

"You were fluent in courtly idiom," she explained. "You were at ease dining with a king. That cannot be learned through tutoring. A shepherd's garb would have seemed a bigger deceit than a frog's skin."

He threw back his head and laughed. "If our laws did not forbid it," he said,"I'd appoint thee High Judge."

Galantha almost let herself laugh along with him, when she felt the carriage slow. She noticed hedgerows along road, and other signs that they were entering an inhabited place.

"Heinrich?" her husband called, sitting straighter, and scanning the view, "are we reaching the Capital? I don't recognize--".

"We are only half-way, Your Majesty," the coachman called back. "But our own royal horses have boarded at the inn's stables, so they will be refreshed for the homeward journey."

Soon, they were driving through the city proper. People in the streets stopped what they were doing to stare at the spectacle, as Heinrich navigated through the ever-narrowing streets to the ally at the inn-yard.

Heinrich, taking on the role of footman, alighted from his seat, and hurried into the inn.

A moment or two later, he emerged, leading someone Galantha thought must be the innkeeper.

It was only when Heinrich had come back to the carriage door that her husband looked down at the linden branch in his hand, seemingly aware of it for the first time since Galantha had handed it too him.

"It would be terrible if this were trod upon, or if someone mistook it for kindling," he said. "Would it be well with the if I gave it to Heinrich to look after?"

She managed a smile: "If you think it best, Y-Cinnabar," she said. She turned her face partly away from him, and lowered her veil, as her mother had first taught her, years ago, when she first realized how extraordinarily beautiful her daughter was becoming.

After Heinrich helped them down from the carriage, the young king handed the branch to his coachman, and murmured something in his servant's ear.

Heinrich frowned and shook his head, but he still accepted the linden branch with care. slipping it into the buttonhole on his lapel, to free up his hands, before turning his attention to the horses.

She could see the whites of the poor beasts' eyes, and their coats were twitching as though they were being swarmed by biting flies from head to foot, or as if they were draped in blankets of wool and stinging nettles. It must have been magic, after all, that allowed them to pull the carriage so swiftly, and so safely, over wilderness roads that were little more than ruts in the ground.

She turn to follow her husband and the innkeeper, who led them to a private corner, behind a curtain, where his wife served them a meal of soup and bread, with a smile and a few words of congratulations, before courting, and leaving to attend her other patrons.

They ate their meal in silence, not quite comfortably. With each bite, she was aware of the time passing. Should it really be taking this long to hitch up a fresh team of horses to the carriage? Or was it only anxiety that made the time seem to pass so slowly?

Galantha tried to think of pleasantries for conversation, but it was like fumbling for objects in the dark. Several times, she thought he would speak, but in the end, he said nothing, either.

And though he smiled at her whenever their eyes chanced to meet, there was a tension behind his features. Was it regret, or anger, or simple weariness? She couldn't guess, nor keep from wondering.

When Heinrich came, at last, to say that it was time to go, the linden branch was no longer in his buttonhole. And the slightest of smiles passed between master and servant.

(Back to part 3)
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