Green Monkey Dreams (23 page)

Maeve fussed over him and tut-tutted at his wet cloak, insisting he come and sit by her cooking fire to dry while she dished him up some leftover stew from our lunch. It was not proper for a commoner to go up to the tower where my mother was, she whispered, when I said the fire upstairs was nicer. I blushed, feeling like a bumpkin, and he kindly pretended not to notice.

If he had come in spring, we would have left almost immediately. But it was winter, and snow fell and fell, flattening the land's contours so that the trees were nothing more than skeletal shapes etched blackly against all of that whiteness. I chafed at the delay, and when Peter apologised for his lateness, saying that other than the distance, there had been storms and forest fires and even a tornado in his path, I understood that the very forces of nature had conspired against me, and that all was as it should be. Forces were always arrayed to keep the lovers apart in stories – but inevitably the obstacles would be overcome.

I felt foolish at having gaped at him like a common girl when he first arrived, imagining him to be the prince, and so I treated him haughtily during the weeks he stayed with us in the tower to make up for it, and managed to avoid him by staying in the tower with my mother. To my surprise, she did not try to talk me out of going, but she told me one night in a soft voice that she had wanted to go with my father to the crusades, but that he had waited until she was carrying me to decide that he would travel.

‘First it is love of them that catches us, then love of a child that binds us forever. Do you understand what I am saying?'

I nodded, but understood nothing.

It seemed a long winter. But at last the snow began to melt, and we left. Maeve went and bade me be a good girl and to wear my long underwear in winter because palaces were even draughtier than towers. My mother would not come down, so I said goodbye to her in her tower room. I kissed the pale cheek she offered, and she told me to remember that the Worldroad led everywhere, even home if you walked it long enough. you walked it long enough.

I shuddered inwardly at the thought of coming back.

‘Goodbye,' I whispered, as the tower with my mother's face at the window and Maeve's plump figure by the door receded and was swallowed up by the whiteness.

It was a long journey to the palace where my prince was waiting, and after trying to maintain a chilly silence for several days, I gave it up, and asked Peter why the prince
had not come for me himself.

‘He was hunting and then there was a siege he had to
attend,' he explained.

I frowned, for it seemed to me he was saying that these things were more important than me. But I consoled myself with the thought that he had not actually seen me
yet, and so he could not strictly be in love.

To begin with, I rode on the back of Peter's grey horse, with my bag tied on the back of the saddle and Courage nestled in my bodice near my breast. Maeve had insisted I leave him, saying princesses do not carry fowl in their
bosom.

I had pretended to give in, but I would not have left him, even if he had let me. There was some slight trouble the first time we stayed at an inn and the matron there discovered the little bantam when he flew at her from under my pillow.

Peter looked startled then amused when the wretched woman taxed him about me keeping dangerous animals in my bed chamber, but somehow he smoothed things over. He accomplished much with his soft voice and warm brown eyes and I found myself thinking of them a good deal too much. Petting a palfrey he had bought for me in one of the bigger towns, I imagined what it would be like to have him gentle me in that way. I blushed with shame at my thoughts and hid my confusion in admiration over the mare, which was sweet and white as the finest sugar, and that was what I called her.

When we left the next day, he asked me how I came by the rooster. With as much dignity as I could muster, I explained. He did not laugh but seemed to find it remarkable that I had bothered saving its life.

‘Why shouldn't I?' I asked him wonderingly.

He looked suddenly sad. ‘When you get to the palace, you will not be able to keep Courage.'

‘Why?' I asked, shocked, because I had thought I would be free of rules when I left the tower.

‘Princesses do not keep such things as pets. It is not seemly. You must have a cat with green eyes and sable fur, or a golden nightingale to sing to you from its cage. Even Sugar will be exchanged for a finer horse, for she is just a travelling beast. The prince would be embarrassed if you had less than the best.'

And so it went. Bit by bit, I learned that my prince was proud and demanding and had been much sought after as a husband for these qualities since the woman he chose must be, by definition, perfect. He had refused to wed until he could be sure his bride was the fairest in all the land. He rode the fastest, finest horse, and collected the most beautiful things to set about in his palace. His gardeners had instructions to bring him the finest blooms and fruits only. If an apple had a single mark, he would fling it from him.

Why should he not have the most perfect woman for his bride?

I said, hesitantly, that perhaps the prince would find a blemish on me, and turn me away.

Peter had blushed and said in his soft voice that there was no blemish on me. His eyes stroked my cheeks and said that if I were his to love, he would find the most perfect pumpkin and make it into a golden coach for me, so that I might dream of travelling the road in it.

But it would still be a pumpkin, my heart whispered. And you would leave me for the song of blood that only men hear. That night, I dreamed I was a nightingale, singing its heart out behind golden bars.

Then there came a night which Peter said would be our last. The next day, we would reach the palace and I would be handed to my prince. It was nearing the end of spring again but the nights were still warm. On impulse, I asked Peter if we might not sleep outside by a campfire.

He had agreed reluctantly.

‘But you must not think of such things after this night,' he said in a troubled voice. ‘A princess cannot camp out like a gypsy, nor go about barefoot.' He looked pointedly at my toes. ‘There will be fine dresses and glass slippers. The prince will not want anything that might hurt you or mar your perfection. He will want you safe. The windows will be curtained, so you do not freckle, and fires will burn in every room even in the summer so you will not catch a chill.'

At length, he curled up in his blanket and slept, but I could not sleep.

I stared up into a sky ablaze with stars – the diamonds of heaven – and wondered when I would see them again if the windows of the palace were curtained. The breeze fanned my cheeks, and I thought how hot rooms would be where no breeze was allowed to blow. The trees whispered their secrets in the air around me, and life rustled in the leaves and undergrowth. Courage had made himself a little depression in the ground, but he was not asleep either. The sounds of the night seemed to make him restless. His black eyes caught the fire and offered it to me, and I wondered what I would see the next day in the eyes of my prince.

Love and watered silk?

I only knew that I would never be the same again. Love binds beauty, my mother had said. I would never be free to camp outside, or dance in the forest in my bare feet, or swim naked in a cold stream. Sugar and Courage would be lost to me forever, and I would never ride the Worldroad again. again.

Just as my father had done, my prince would possess me and snare me with his love, and leave me with his seed growing, to ride away to blood and glory. And like my mother, the maggot of love and loneliness would gnaw into my heart and soul. I would love and I would hate, but I would never be able to leave because love was the one
snare that could bind the wild beauty of a woman.

It occurred to me that none of Maeve's stories had explained what happened after the princess was taken to the palace by her prince, and I thought again of Cinderine trapped in her diamond, imprisoned by love. Now at last,
the Veiled Empress had revealed her secret.

I got up very quietly, scooped Courage into my arms, crept to the tree where Sugar was tied, and slipped away.

That was the first night I rode the Worldroad alone, and
the beginning of my true journeying.

Sometimes, I hear my prince searches still for his vanished princess, but I know it is the dream of beauty he seeks, and not a real woman. And me? I do not regret the loss of love or watered silk and summer wine. Each day I ride feeling the sun on my face, or the rain, and am content. The Worldroad is long, and each bend brings some new thing to me. My mind is now filled with the wonders I have seen, all stored as stories. I keep them safe, because the Worldroad comes to all things eventually, and so I know that one day it will bring me to the Tower where my mother sits.

I will put my arms around her and kiss her, and tell her I love her. I will show her all that I have seen, and I will tell her that I have learned one need not be ugly or beautiful, princess or commoner. One can be something else, if one has courage enough to ride alone.

T
HE
R
ED
S
HOES

A
merie was reading a book her mother had left her. On the flyleaf was written:
To my darling daughter
,
Amerie
,
on her birthday.
Amerie had found the book in the back of the bookshelf still wrapped and she was trying to
understand what it could mean.

Andersen
'
s Fairy Tales Revisited
by Ander Pellori was inscribed across the front page in swirling important
looking golden letters. And all around the golden letters, goblins and fairies and sprites cavorted and danced in a frenzied celebration.

Amerie could remember little of her mother whom her
father said had left them both.

‘She left us just before Amerie was five, and she broke our hearts,' her father said whenever anyone asked. And that was all he would say.

The first time she overheard her father say that, Amerie worried that she had not been treated for the heart that was broken when her mother left. She did not mention it to her father because his heart was wounded too. She felt a kind of deep ache whenever she thought of her mother, and imagined that there was a dribble of blood still leaking out of her heart. It seemed to her that talking and thinking of her mother reopened the wound, and so she did not speak for her father's sake. For he brooded darkly and rarely smiled.

Once she had heard him tell her teacher that she was too young to remember her mother, but that was not so. It was true that she did not remember her doing the sorts of things other girls' mothers did. She had no memory of her mother ironing or pushing a trolley in a supermarket or going to have her hair done. She had no memory of her mother stirring a pot, nor even of her dressed in a business suit and carrying a briefcase the way Raelene's mother did.

Amerie's memories were anything but ordinary.

The reason her father thought that she did not remember her mother was because she never spoke of her. That was partly to save him pain, but mostly because the memories were so strange she had kept them secret and silent inside her.

One of the memories was of both her parents arguing.

‘I'm sick of this . . .' her father had growled through his black beard.

Her mother had said in her soft cooing voice, ‘Shh, Jon. You'll wake the baby.'

‘If you were not so flighty . . .'

‘I do what I must do,' her mother had said in a pleading voice. ‘You know that. When we married I warned you how it was with me and you said you understood.'

‘I did not know it would take you away from me so often, or that you would consort with those creatures . . .'

‘You are jealous, and there is no need. I do not love my companions as men. They are like me and they understand how it is to be possessed by . . .'

‘Nothing and no one will possess you but me,' her father had said in his heavy voice. ‘You belong to me.'

‘I will not let you cage me . . .'

There the memory broke off suddenly. The talk of flight and birds and cages had shivered Amerie's soul because of another memory. The most secret memory of all.

Her mother came to her wrapped in the shadows of the night, and stroked her face and kissed her as she lay drowsily in her bed.

‘I will come back to you soon . . .'

But her mother had not been entirely human in that memory. Woven through her dark lustrous hair were sleek black feathers, and Amerie's hand felt them on her breast and shoulder as well. As if she had not quite changed all the way into a bird yet.

There was only one other memory. Amerie's favourite. Her mother's hair was out of its usual bun and flowing all around her shoulders and Amerie was permitted to brush it. A black feather fluttered out onto the floor. The wind caught it up and tried to whisk it out of sight, but Amerie jumped down and ran lightly across the floor to catch it in her hand. Her mother laughed softly when she brought back her treasure. Looking around to be sure they were alone, she closed Amerie's fingers around the feather and said, ‘You are half me, little one, and one day you will fly. I see it in your movements. You are light as a feather.' Then for a moment she looked sad and proud all at once. ‘You will long for the red shoes as I do and no price will be too high. You will fly because it is in your blood . . .'