Chapter VII: The princess of ice returns

Holly's dream
Copyright © Jeffrey K. Bedrick 1996.
Used with permission.

Her soft voice went up, relating again the stories of the beautiful princess of the ices. This time, instead of keeping myself busy with something else, I let myself be enraptured and listened to the story with as much interest as the rose trees - even if it sounded stupid, my rose bushes seemed to be passionately fond of the stories related by Beauty, but I told myself that magic knew sometimes no boundary.
"The beautiful princess, exhausted by her adventures that only brought her sorrow, since she was spurned by all as soon as they learned that she hadn't a heart, decided to come back to her palace of ice. Despite the powerful magic she knew she had - and which had certainly been given to her by the sorcerer who created her - she wasn't able to find a spell which give her a heart and nobody wanted to explain to her how to do to find one."
After this short introduction, without doubt destined to those who had missed the previous episodes - including me ; I came to wonder if Beauty knew when I listened to her or not - Beauty continued her tale:
"The journey happened without mishap, since the princess learned so much that she knew how to avoid the thieves and other rogues. She saw again her castle with a dull joy; here, for a brief instant, she had been happy, until the moment where she had learned the truth about herself. Rediscovering the so familiar place, she shed some tears of soft snow."
Beauty remained quiet for a moment, as if she was trying to remember what followed.
"The wizard was inside the palace and he looked surprised to see the beautiful princess. Seeing how she looked like, he understood what happened to her and he wore a cruel smile, as if rejoicing of the harm he did to her. The poor princess, too weary to bear him a grudge and in spite of her, unable to revolt against her creator, suffered this humiliation in silence, without even trying to stop the flood of snowy tears which was running down her so perfect cheeks."
I had the painful feeling that the roles changed; if, in the first episode, I was the young man who had been transformed in statue and Beauty the plain girl, this time, I was the cruel wizard who was happy to torture the poor innocent princess embodied by Beauty.
"In order to flee the sarcasm of the sorcerer about her useless pretensions, as he affirmed they were, the beautiful princess sheltered in her room. Nothing had changed since she left it and even the bunch of frost roses was still here, left intact by the girl who gave his heart to the young prince. A long time ago, soon after having left the palace of ice, the beautiful princess thought to seek this girl, so she could give her a heart too, but, on her way, she understood that this miracle had been possible only because of the love the young people shared. Even if at the moment the girl gave his heart to the young man, they didn't love each other, the gods predestined them to each other and they allowed the miracle."
I saw in those words the influence of the lessons displayed by Sevulf about the religion : never before Beauty would have spoken of the gods, since she almost ignored till their name. Beauty showed almost immediately a particular interest for Irlenuit, the goddess of the night, secret and silence, and I supposed that Irlenuit embodied to Beauty's eyes the freedom she thought lost forever.
"The beautiful princess rested a long time to recover from her weariness of her long peregrinations, then she started visiting this palace which was so familiar to her, which was hers, but she almost never saw. Now that she knew who she was, she felt some affinities with this palace, emerged like her from the wizard's imagination, created from nothing. Its beauties were snatching sad and almost pitiful smiles from her, for she knew that if herself was beautiful, people considered her even so as if she were some kind of monster, because she hadn't a heart. Coming near a half-open door, the beautiful princess heard the wizard's voice. She looked discreetly and prudently by the half-open door, for she didn't want at all to meet the wizard, whom she had carefully avoided since she was back, but she was curious to know who he was speaking to."
Beauty fell silent again, as for keeping the suspense, and the rose trees waved impatiently their leaves to make her continue.
"Strangely, the wizard was all alone. But he was speaking with anger in his voice to a invisible presence, whom he accused to have stolen his heart. The beautiful princess hold her breath: this was thus the reason of the wizard's cruelty! He was not naturally cruel, but, hurt deep inside, unable to find what hehad lost, desperate, he took his revenge on others! And, even though the beautiful princess didn't have a heart, she felt touched and terribly sorry for the sorcerer. Immediately, she stopped to see this man as someone to fear and saw only a victim."
Beauty's tone was so convincing, her accents so true, that the rose trees felt too the princess' pity come into them, even thought they had hated the sorcerer from the very beginning.
"The invisible presence answered then to the wizard; it was a female voice, soft and which rang as the voice of someone who was deeply sad, but who didn't have the choice. She explained gently that she couldn't give him back his heart. 'But someone,' she said, 'someone will name you and this someone will give you back your heart, if you do something for her, something that she want more than everything else in the world, but that she would have forgotten to help you. Don't forget, friend, if you're able to create beauty, you're able to find again your heart...' The invisible presence fell silent and the beautiful princess knew she was gone, leaving the wizard shouting his anger and his pain, because he didn't know anymore how to weep."
Beauty was silent an instant, with a faraway look. I wondered a brief moment if she didn't consider herself as the wizard, who had lost his heart as she had lost her freedom, and who was cruel; I guessed that she despised herself for not going back to the village, for not taking back her place next to Jod: now that she was educated, she could have help him more efficiently, practising a profession which would have allowed her to earn more money.
"During the following weeks, the beautiful princess strove to please to the wizard by thousand and one attentions, but always remaining discreet. The sorcerer seemed to have forgotten her presence, if only he remembered she was there. She didn't forget to stay in the shadows and the wizard, who wasn't anymore surprised by something in this palace, even more about the magic, which was even more powerful than what he thought he had created, found almost normal all the little attentions. For him, it was as if the palace accepted him at last as its master. During this time, the beautiful princess, who had forgotten all she wanted herself, had only one desire: that this man be happy, that he forget that someone stole his heart."
The end of the story was easily foreseeable, but it seemed to me that Beauty found inspiration in her own story to tell what seemed to be the last part of the story of the beautiful princess.
"But one day, the wizard found in the room he used as his bedroom a gift that the palace could never have done: he found a bunch of frost roses. He caught a movement from his eye's corner and stopped the princess at the moment she was going to leave discreetly. With a haughty tone, he asked her what she was doing here and, embarrassed, she sought a valid explanation without revealing that she was the one who brought the roses. But the sorcerer understood the situation and he forced her to confess everything. Furious, he wanted to know what were her reasons. Sadly, she looked up at him, snow tears running down her cheeks, and whispered: 'I wanted you to be happy, love'."
Once again, Beauty fell silent; I didn't know where she learned to tell stories while keeping the suspense until the end; even if I guessed what was the end, I was impatient to hear what she was about to say.
"The wizard was so flabbergasted by this declaration that at first, he didn't know what to say. Then he grasped the beautiful princess by the shoulders and shook her. 'How did you call me?' he almost yelled. The princess didn't even defend herself, without a single reaction against his violence, without even a reproachful glance; her eyes remained sad and gentle. 'I said, 'love',' she repeated gently. 'As the weeks went by, I learned how to love you for what you really are, not what you thought to be.' 'Love me!' the wizard sniggered. 'How could you love me when I don't have anymore a heart and when I only harmed you?' The princess didn't get upset; she felt that the happiness of this man was now within reach and she would fight until the end so he could have it. 'If I, your creation, can love, why you couldn't be loved?'"
Beauty picked up a soft white petal which just fell on the ground and kept it in her hand, head lowered towards it, stroking it with her fingertips. Then she raised up her head and it seemed to me that her eyes were sparkling with tears.
"The wizard still held the princess by the shoulders and he looked attentively at her. 'My creation...,' he whispered. 'That's true and, as all my creations, you are of ice and without heart... But understand that if you're without heart, it's not because I wasn't able to create you with a heart, but simply that I didn't want to give you one.' He seemed happy to hurt her, but she contented herself with looking at him with her eyes sad and so dark. 'I didn't think of the reason for which I hadn't a heart.' The sorcerer was put out by the calm and the sadness of the princess. He thought that, in spite of her lack of heart, she strangely acted as someone who had a heart, and even a very sensible heart. Thus something broke inside of him and he smiled sadly. 'Princess, your kindness deserves a reward,' he said softly. He clasped his hands on the girl's temples and she felt that the magic took effect. Afraid, she tried to move backwards, but he didn't allow her to. Then the magic wave flowed back and the sorcerer moved back to his turn. 'Here you are, princess. Now, you have a heart and you can go out of this cursed palace where I brought you only misfortunes.' She gently shook the head in denial. 'I don't think so, no. Why would I go elsewhere when my only reason to live is here?' Once more put out, the wizard didn't know what to say, so the princess came near him, put her hand on his chest, where should have beaten the heart one had stolen from him, and had a strange smile. 'And now?' she asked with a very low tone. Flabbergasted, the sorcerer noticed that his heart was here, as if it never disappeared. He remembered the miracle that already happened in this same palace and he understood that the princess and he will never separate again."
The storyteller stopped her story and tightened her arms around her legs.
"I'm sure," she continued, "that you already knew how it would end, but I wanted to tell you the end even so. Remember something, little rose trees: first, in a place where a spell had been cast, this same spell can be reversed, I'm persuaded of it; then, someone can appear cruel and hateful simply because he's unhappy and last, the true beauty is the one of the heart."
She fell silent again, as if she listened attentively to an answer, and she reddened slightly.
"I know; each time I tell you a story, I ask you for excusing me for something. But I'm only a plain villager and I should be attending potatoes instead of roses. But you need love and care and I happen to have both time and ability to attend you... Excuse me, but simply look at my heart, I beg of you!"
Strangely, she seemed almost in tears and her departure looked more like a flight than anything else. She went to take a bath so she could hide her too brilliant eyes, without bothering to wait for Maguy to prepare one for her and this was the moment where I learned - without watching her in her bathroom, I wasn't this badly brought up - that the dresses she wore these days were her own choices. I could do nothing but congratulate her for her good taste; perhaps she was at least self-confident.

Until now, even despite Beauty's anger towards me, we still met in the evening in the dining room for the dinner; it was a bit ostentatious, since the fairy had thought big and the table was huge, so that Beauty was all alone in one end, when I was facing her from this other side. The dishes were between us and Fiona or Gilla was ready to serve one of us at all times.
I never asked me questions about what Beauty thought of this way to proceed, but it crossed now my mind that this disposition was very intimidating. What's more, there was still this fact that she bore me a grudge. So I ordered Sevulf to serve Beauty's dinner either in the kitchen or in her room, depending what she preferred. When Sevulf announced her this decision, Beauty's face didn't reflect anything. She remained impassive, but her voice was slightly muffled when she declared that she would have her meals in her room.
I was unable to study again magic and I watched her going to her room, taking the kitten in her arms and holding him tight against her as if he had been his life-belt. The kitten, who apparently remained without name, purred all he knew, hiding his nose in the girl's neck. She sat on the window ledge, even with her dress of a unbleached colour almost white. She had accepted to wear a jewel, very simple: it was a gold chain where hang a pendant with the shape of a rose.
Maguy knocked to her door and entered, followed by Fiona who carried the tray in her small racoon hands. Beauty took an guilty look.
"It would have been easier if I had dined with you, wouldn't it?"
"Stop saying stupidities, child!" Maguy scolded her gently. "We are here to serve and the master won't be the one who asks us something! We are bored most of the time. Magic does the things so well that it's almost by pure reflex that we clean something."
"Except the parquet floors," interrupted maliciously Fiona. "Magic has no notion of how maintain a parquet floor!"
To my great pleasure, these words made a pale smile come briefly on Beauty's lips. Fiona put the tray on a small table that Maguy pushed near Beauty.
"Eat, child," she advised her. "You're not what one calls fat and if you don't eat, Geolf will think that you don't like his cooking."
"Maguy, tell him that I love his cooking! And he knows it, as thou knowest it too!"
I was surprised to hear Beauty address like that to Maguy and I resolved to summon Stoat to speak with her about that. Neither Iris nor Juliet had arrived to this familiarity degree with the servants and nevertheless, Shuqra knew that all the servants had adored them both. Why this difference with Beauty? While watching her talk with Maguy and Fiona, I realised that she wasn't haughty at all when she spoken to them; she talked with them as with friends and not servants.
She ate her meal still seated on the window ledge. From her room, she saw a bit of the mountains she yearned so much after. Then she took her tray and took it down to the kitchen, after what she went out on the terrace just in front of the kitchen, to lean her elbows on the balustrade. Her silhouette stood out against the horizon set in fire by the last sunbeams. Geolf came out of his kitchen and joined her.
"Something's wrong, child?" he articulated carefully.
She turned round to him, sending him a gentle smile.
"Thou knowest perfectly well that thou doest not have to force thee to speak this way to me, Geolf," she said softly.
"True," acquiesced Geolf in his usual language of growls, "but the master won't be happy with me..."
She shrugged with a lack of concern.
"Thou wilt tell him it's my fault," she answered.
I was thunderstruck: it was the first time someone else than the servants and myself understood Geolf's growls for what they were. The bear my cook had become put his hand on Beauty's fragile shoulder.
"What's the matter?" he repeated with his usual growls that had frightened so much Beauty the first days.
She sighed and came to snuggle up to him.
"Dreams that haunt me," she confided to him with a low voice, the face half buried in his brown fur. "Images that always come back..."
"About Jod? Images of thy village?"
That took the cake! Not only did Beauty use the 'thou' and understand Geolf, but he used the 'thou' towards her too! I went from surprise to surprise with this girl!
"Among other things," acquiesced sadly Beauty. "But, above all, these dreams make me feel painfully that I'm prisoner here."
"Prisoner?" said Geolf in echo, wrapping his paw around her shoulders. "But thou art free!"
"No, Geolf, I'm not. I can't leave this castle without putting him in danger. And for sure thou doest not believe I want go back there to work under the whip, when I prefer to attend to flowers and to read?"
"The master would help thee to set thyself up. A shop, certainly..."
"It's out of question, Geolf. I was helped only once, it was when Jod saved me from death. The eternal gratitude, I don't want that anymore!"
She snuggled up a bit more to Geolf, as if the soft brown fur could make her forget a moment these strange dreams that haunted her and the bear closed her arms around her, making her look more fragile and vulnerable in the embrace of his big paws.
"Remember I will always be there," he whispered with his loud voice that he was able to make as soft as the one he had before his transformation. "Thou knowest it, doest thou not?"
"Of course, Geolf. Thou art my big brother, even more protective than Jod," she said in answer, with a gently mocking smile.
She put her arms around his neck and huddled up against him briefly before fleeing to go in her room.
I remained thoughtful. First, Beauty was the first one to ever have 'tamed' my cook normally rather withdrawn; then, when she didn't like one to be too close to her, nor to touch her, she had snuggled up of her own will between Geolf's paws! Really Beauty's stay proved to be full of unforeseen situations. I had a smile almost sarcastic: it would be funny that Beauty fall in love with Geolf as Iris had loved Raynal. Except that I hadn't paid attention to Iris altogether, whereas I would rather die than see Beauty prefer me someone else.
I lowered my head to my paws that rested in my lap, my huge clumsy paws which, despite their dozen years of training, were still so clumsy for certain things... I didn't need a mirror to know that my shape was quite near to Geolf's. Thus why did Beauty get on well with Geolf and not with me?

My mirror got me out of my sequence of self-pity by showing me Beauty's room. She was in her bed, light off, and her breathing was calm. But I knew that my mirror had probably a good raison for showing me this way her sleep, so peaceful as it seemed. Was there a problem with the dream-catcher? As an answer, the invisible net shone of a slight whitish light before becoming invisible again, but this recalled to me that Beauty spoke of dreams that haunted her. And if the fairy found a riposte to the dream-catcher?
Feverishly, I questioned my mirror to know if the dream-catcher could trap too the good dreams and not only the nightmares. My mirror answered me affirmatively, but strangely, it refused to give me the solution, as it did for the dream-catcher and how to trap the nightmares. Enraged, having forgotten everything, except that my old foe had found a new way to sow discord in my life, I pounced on the magic books which had mysteriously appeared in my room.
I didn't know if the castle magic had been put in by the fairy - what would have surprise me, for it was sometimes of use to fight against Rose Line's godmother - or if it was Shuqra who, moved by her compassion, tried to help me with all her strength with the help of Opsis and Meandrine, the gods of magic. Whatever it was, I had under the hand a large number of ancient books of spells, mainly manuscripts and mostly in an ancient tongue.
I settled down at my work table, which would have been covered with dust if Fiona - or Gilla - hadn't dusted it regularly - strangely magic didn't seem as if it was dusting the places where there were human beings. As soon as I sat in the large armchair of red velvet a bit threadbare - it was the same as the one I had before the curse and without doubt had the fairy taken my favourite furniture to transport it here - the candlesticks on the desk came on, little flickering flames, as if they were mocking me, a slight and cynical snigger that I couldn't bear. I looked at them with a severe look - even if showing another emotion than anger with these monster features was rather difficult - and they stood straight, applying themselves to blaze high and clear.
In spite of all my training, I still had difficulties to turn the pages of the books without damaging them, especially when I got annoyed. Now these spells books were precious and I had to be careful. The two first ones were written in Latin, so that I didn't have too many problems to read them and, internally, I thanked my parents for the good education they gave me. They hardly brought me any information; the first one mentioned vaguely the spell of dream-catcher, but without giving any detail, even less on the manner to trap the good dreams. The second one didn't speak of it at all.
I had to put aside the third, with naturally the impression that he contained the information I was looking for, but he was written in an ancient tongue that I hardly mastered. As for the fourth, I had to read it almost unabridged, since there wasn't any table of contents and the author wrote it in such a way that if I didn't read a paragraph which didn't seem to be related a bit to the subject that interested me, I could miss the major information on the spell I was looking for. As I never read this book fully, I took this pretext to settle down in my favourite armchair, the candlesticks near me and the book in the hands.
Buried in my thick dressing gown of dark blue velvet, I could have looked like any lord reading quietly by the fireside, if there weren't these less-than-human huge paws coming out from the sleeves and, naturally, my head. I opened the book and sighed when noticing a thing I knew however perfectly well: this book was written in Sanskrit and I wasn't able to read this tongue in the original without a dictionary. I put back to book and went to fetch my dictionary that, naturally, I didn't find. It was always the same thing: one of my books could gather the dust on my shelves during more than ten years and, when I finally needed it, it had disappeared.
Exasperated, I returned to my armchair and undertook to read the first chapter; I didn't understand everything, for there were some words whose meaning was lost to me, but at the end, I estimated having honourably mastered this test. I hadn't learned anything to help Beauty, but I noticed a certain amount of interesting concepts that could in particular help me in the task of eluding the fairy's plans.
I thus spent the night reading this book, getting furious when a passage proved to be too obscure because I didn't know enough words. I knew pertinently that I would have to read it again with a dictionary near me, for there were too many subtleties I didn't get and this author was extremely subtle.
I heard with surprise the door open and the appearance of Stoat with the breakfast tray made me realise that it was morning. Instinctively, I looked at my mirror which lighted up to show me Beauty's room whose curtains were already opened; the girl wasn't visible, but she entered soon in the field of view, humming softly. I was stunned by it: it was the first time I've ever heard her sing and I had to admit that she had a lovely voice. She held her kitten in her arms and, on her head, half-hidden in her hair, there was a bird.
The more the time went by, the more I was sure there was something special about Beauty: first, the relentlessness of the fairy who had played, and still played, on her phobias; then the passion of the servants for her; as well, the rapidity she had learned to read with - and now, she was perfectly able to have a conversation of a high level on a subject I estimated to be quite difficult - and the interest she showed for the ancient tongues; without forgetting, the love she had for the roses and the facility with which she made them grow; lastly, she managed to make animals come in this estate, even though since my transformation no being from the animal kingdom had entered within the confines of the castle and its outbuildings.
"Stoat, where is the Sanskrit dictionary?"
"Beauty took it a moment - I mean... she found it in the library... But she put it back..."
With a sigh, I dragged myself away from my book and took the way of the library; three steps later and I was there. The advantage of our mania of playing with the topology of the corridors was that we finally learned to know the castle's plans by heart and the modifications of the paths were easier. To my great surprise, I found Beauty seated in an armchair of the library, when she was still in her room when I left mine. Visibly, she wasn't here for a long time. A suspicion grew in me.
"Beauty, do you know how to play with the corridors' disposition?" I asked straight out.
Shyly, she acquiesced with a slight head movement, without doubt afraid of my reaction. I was more thunderstruck than angry: how the hell had she learned enough magic rudiments for being able to handle the corridors so easily? Especially when I was handling them in the same time, the result could have been disastrous, as for example make a corridor open out into the void, as it had already happened to me before.
I shook the head to forget all this; I didn't come here for that.
"Beauty, do you know where is my Sanskrit dictionary?"
"I put it back on its shelf, milord. This one," she added, seeing my look which was certainly perplexed - or, at least, she probably thought I was perplexed, since my face of beast was very difficult to read for the expressions.
She looked surprised when seeing the self empty and turned to me with a sign of powerlessness. I frowned, put in an angry mood by this hitch. Beauty noticed it and, even more timid, she ventured:
"Can I see what you were trying to translate?"
Possessed by an insane hope - if Beauty had used the Sanskrit dictionary, it meant that she was studying this language and I trusted Shuqra enough to know that my goddess didn't do things by halves - I held out to her my book that I had kept in hand.
"Page 15, the second paragraph."
She frowned in her turn and turned to the light to better distinguish the spidery scrawl that constituted the hand-written characters. She muttered some indistinct words and, with a slightly hesitating tone, she gave me what she called a 'literal translation', which didn't have much sense. She had a quick interrogative glance towards me, seemed at ease to see me more relaxed and proposed then her version of the translation.
I thought a moment; it seemed to me she had found the general meaning of the paragraph - what I wasn't able to result in during the night - but there was something that disturbed me.
"Could you read the previous paragraph? I think there's something wrong."
Finally, after reading and translation of the previous paragraph, we agreed that it would be much better to do it from the very beginning. Beauty settled down comfortably in an armchair, while I sat next to her, far enough to not put her ill at ease, but close enough to be able to hear her translations she gave with a low voice.
Her reading gave me the information I was looking for and, as I made her translate the whole book, she couldn't possibly know what interested me so much in this book. I was so impatient indeed to find the riposte to the new ploy of the fairy that I pushed Beauty to read without interrupting, so that Geolf, to be sure we would eat even so, asked Fiona - who did nothing to hide her look of disapproval - to bring us sandwiches.
The night was pitch black when Beauty turned the last page of the book, the voice hoarse and the eyes tired. She drank with gratitude the hot drink Sevulf held out to her and went to bed directly, without even eating a bit to replace the dinner she had missed by my fault. As for me, I run to my room, settled down in front of my mirror and I watched for the dream's arrival. In the same moment the dream-catcher glowed of the whitish light, I cast the spell, in the same way I had proceeded to trap the nightmare.
This time, the fog in the bottle was white, and not red, and it stayed very quiet in its glass prison. I examined it instantly and I found immediately some resemblance with the story I heard the very day before, from Beauty's mouth. Never would I have believed that the fairy could have known something about romanticism!