Scarborough Fair and Other Stories (10 page)

But Fifi started to heat the water, at which time they discovered the fire had gone out and the last of the kindling was gone. So Babette had to quickly take verbal instructions on how to chop wood without chopping off her feet or hands. Then she learned to build a fire, after filling the room with smoke. When the water was heated, Fifi started to load a basin with dishes, but missed and dropped their plates to the floor.

“Oh, dear,” Fifi said. “And these few are the last ones I made before my eyesight went. I don't suppose you're a potter by any chance are you?”

“No,” said Babette, yawning. “And I don't think I have time to learn before I completely fall asleep. Why don't I finish the washing up?”

Babette stayed with Fifi for seven days. Babette did all the fetching and carrying and cleaning under Fifi's direction. It was hard work, but the Fifi was good company, and Babette was fed regularly, even if it was only crow stew, and she was most grateful not to have to sleep by herself out in the freezing nightime forest waiting to be gobbled. She never in all her royal life would have imagined it, but she actually was enjoying herself a little. It was nice having
one
person to talk to who wouldn't go right behind your back and start some nasty story about you and who couldn't see you and didn't care what you looked like.

Then one day, as she was peeling potatoes for the crow stew, Fifi asked, “Tell me something, Barbara. Why you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why did the wizard put the curse on you that you must wander around eating crows and doing all of these strenuous things?”

“Well, he wanted to marry me,” Babette said. “And he
did
pass all the tests and things, but I just didn't
like
him and when I asked him questions the answers he gave made me feel—well, let's just say I didn't want to marry him, tests or no tests. So he left and then all at once everything I ate started making me bigger. And then he sent a message with one of his crows telling me
he
was the one making my food do that to me and if I would follow his instructions and pass
his
tests he'd reverse the curse.”

Fifi's expression grew shrewd and calculating but her voice was light as she asked, “Do you think he will? I mean, is crow particularly unfattening or is it just that he wants you to eat it because it, of all birds, doesn't taste much like chicken and he wants to avenge himself on you?”

“That had crossed my mind,” Babette admitted. “Almost as often as I crossed my own path while I was getting lost. The truth is, I don't know. But I had to try. I'll never get a husband looking this way and my parents and all the courtiers act like I've become invisible, because they don't want their disgust to show in their faces.” She realized she shouldn't have said anything about the courtiers but Fifi didn't seem to notice.

“Disgust?” she asked instead. “Are you very ugly?”

“I don't
think
so,” Babette said honestly. “Just very heavy and consequently, well, it's hard to tell because I meant to look like a peasant when I set out, but very—
ordinary.
Whereas before I was beautiful. It makes a big difference.”

Before Fifi could comment, a voice called from the outside, “Mother, I'm home! Sorry it took so long. You must have had warm weather here, the wood seems to have lasted...” the voice broke off as a large, solid man blocked out the sunlight coming through the doorway. His face was in shadow.

“Burl! You're home! You
were
such a long time I thought you'd found yourself a nice girl out there, settled down, and would bring grandchildren with you when you came. No, the wood didn't last that long,” she said. She had arisen and given the big man a hug, warmly returned, as he followed her inside the hut. “But my new friend Barbara here has been a big help.”

“Much obliged, Mistress Barbara,” Burl said, ducking his head so that she
still
couldn't see his face.

“Where's Hamlet?” Fifi asked.

“That's what took me so long, Mother. He got a gig and he thought it would be over with the first day, but then one disaster happened after another and he has to make it into an epic ballad and then he'll have to sing it throughout all the local districts. After all, someone might have spotted her.”

“Spotted who?” Fifi asked.

“The missing princess. Of course, you don't know but—say, is that crow stew ready yet?”

“Barbara was just adding the potatoes. I imagine the bread should be coming out of the oven now, don't you think, Babrara?”

But before she could turn, Burl was pulling the loaf from the oven and putting it on the table to cool.

“What missing princess?” Fifi asked.

“Oh, well, it's a long story. But the royal house as this kingdom has known it is not in power at present.”

“
What?”
Princess Babette asked.

“Yes, shocking isn't it?” Burl asked. “First the Princess was said by the palace to have some kind of health problem and the next thing everybody heard, she had disappeared. The cook was found with one of her gowns and the king had the cook and one of the chambermaids who was supposedly an accomplice locked in the dungeon. They had some strange story of crows carrying poor Princess Babette away, I guess. The King and the prince immediately got on their horses and went looking for her high and low but according to the lords who were with them, as they were crossing a particularly tricky bit of stream, all of a sudden thousands of crows flew out of nowhere and dived at the heads of the King and Prince. The Prince fell off his horse and would have been swept downstream and drowned but the King plunged in after him. They both went over a slight cataract. Their attendants were able to drag them out at the bottom but both were unconscious and have remained so. Meanwhile, the cook's replacement was not a very good one and the Queen is ill unto death with food poisoning.”

“Oh, poor mother!” Babette cried. Then covered by saying, “My mother would never do anything wrong on purpose.”

“Oh, that's
right!”
Fifi said. “Your name is Cook. So your mother is the palace cook who's in the dungeon? Oh dear.”

“Yes, I must get back to the palace at once and see what can be done!” Babette said. “Oh, Fifi, you've been so kind. And I have no idea how I'm going to find my way back there but I just have to. Poor f—poor King and Prince too. And the whole government must be a shambles with everyone so ill.”

“Oh, it is, Mistress Barbara,” Burl said. “And the poor princess missing and no one in her family to organize the search either. If she is still alive, she must be beside herself.”

“She was—is, I suppose she must be, I mean,” Babette said.

“We can't let you go alone, child,” Fifi said. To Burl she confided, “Babrara had been wandering in the woods for days when she found the hut. She needs help getting back to the palace so she can see about her mother.”

“I'll just chop some more wood and haul some more water for you before we go, then I'll take her back, Mother.”

“No, I think I'll go too. It sounds as if the capital is in turmoil right just now. I could do with a bit of excitement.”

And so once they had filled themselves with more crow stew, the three of them set out through the forest. They didn't take any food, because Burl was a very good hunter and trapper and could always find more crows—the birds flew in circles around them, but never once approached Babette, which was fine with her.

They brought extra blankets and all slept close together, Babette feeling safer than she'd ever felt in her palace bed smelling the woody scent of Burl's skin and feeling the warmth his big body generated. His mother slept between them, very snug indeed with a substantial person on either side of her.

When they were within site of the palace and the village, Babette had come to a decision. “You are the dearest friends I've ever had and good people,” she said. “So I cannot lie to you. I am Princess Babette.”

“Of course you are,” Fifi said. “I knew it all along.”

“You did?”

“Yes, and so did Burl. He's met you before.”

Babette lowered her eyes and felt warm and fluttery all over. “He did? I can't believe I didn't remember.”

“There were a great many folk about then, Your Majesty, and I couldn't get right up close.”

“No, probably not, but you will now, and you too, Fifi. I will need your help getting into the palace so I can help my family, get Cook and Madeline out of the dungeon, and get the Kingdom back on an even keel again. But the guards will never recognize me.”

Burl nodded. “You've changed a lot since I saw you last.”

“I know,” Babette said, remembering for a moment her misery at her lost girlish figure and all of the admiration she had likewise lost, especially from males. Knowing that Burl had seen both her before and her after self made her feel strangely awkward and sad. She didn't mind it so much with Fifi, but for Burl to think that she was less than she had been by being more than she had been embarrassed her.

“You're more like a real person now. You've got dimples and you laugh a lot and worry over people who've been hurt and you're—well, I don't know how to put it and maybe it was because of the stress you were under before but frankly, I left without—uh—doing what I came to do after I saw the princess—I mean you-- ordering all those princes around and picking through their gifts and pouting. You don't seem like that princess. You're a much kinder person than she was.”

Suspicion began to grow in Babette's mind. Burl was very well-spoken indeed for a humble woodcutter, and his features had a noble cast to them. He was, in fact, very handsome, in a rugged, honest sort of way. He looked just the way she thought a real man ought to look. But all of that had to be set aside while she convinced the guards to let her to the palace.

“We're here to help you, my dear,' Fifi said.

And they did too, more than Babette anticipated.

Help came from another unexpected and unintentional source as well.

When the three of them were near the palace gates, they were once more suddenly surrounded by crows.

“Look,” Babette said, looking into each and every pair of beady black eyes as if thinking to confront the wizard, “You birds tell your master he can do whatever he likes but his cure is worse than his curse, at least so far, and I have a family emergency here and a kingdom to run. Now scat before we cook you!” she said, flinging her hands up and scattering crows.

As she brought her hands back down again she saw that they were A.) clean, B. ) bejeweled and C.) sleeved with white samite which matched the rest of the gown she now wore.

“What in the world?” she asked, groping at her long and perfectly coiffed golden hair to find her royal circlet in place.

Fifi, no longer an ugly old woman, but a very lovely and stately silver haired, well dressed lady of indeterminate age, fixed keen eyes (no longer blind) on the palace guards and asked, “What are you waiting for? Prince Beauregard Burlingame the 54th and I have come to see Her Royal Highness Princess Babette home to the sickbeds of her family. Please open the gates.”

They did. Fairytales were supposed to have happened “Once Upon a Time” but that time was recent enough that even palace guards knew an honest to goodness fairy godmother when they saw one and they weren't about to risk her wrath. If she turned princes into toads, think what she would do to a common soldier for disobeying her? Besides, that
was
most certainly Princess Babette—at least, the most recent, chubby version of the princess. And she wasn't whining or pouting either, like they remembered. She might be large, but she was definitely in charge.

She was too. Cook and Madeline were released from the dungeons, whereupon Cook immediately whipped up, under Fifi's direction, some healing broths that she and Madeline helped the other servants administer to the ailing royals.

Meanwhile, Babette strode into the audience chamber just in time to keep the ministers from surrendering to the neighboring kingdom of Heinzland threatening war. Further investigation by Burl, who questioned the messenger delivering the surrender terms, revealed that The Pasha (formerly Grand Vizier) Vladimirror of distant Goblestan had offered to trade lands he held to them in exchange for hegemony over Babette's father's kingdom if they would annex it for him. The Pasha had guaranteed that Babette's country could be taken without bloodshed, since Vladimirror had already won it with trickery.

Babette's mother recovered slowly, a bit day by day, but she wasn't up to ruling, and by the time Babette's father and brother were able to speak again, Babette had lowered the taxes, made sure the excess harvest was stored for the winter, distributed some of the land to the peasants who worked it, promoted Madeline to Lady-in-Waiting, seen to it that the dung-wagon driver was reimbursed for his lost cargo, and generally promoted peace and prosperity throughout her land with all possible dispatch. Occasionally she would turn to Burl for advice or to ask a question, but most of the time he was out training with the palace guard, just in case.

Upon hearing that her father and brother were awake, Babette hurried to their bedsides—they were both in her parents' chamber, which had become a Royal Sickroom.

She had hoped her father would be glad to see her. She hoped he would approve of what she had done, preventing a war and the loss of the kingdom and all, and she told him all about it.

Her mother spoke up first. “Yes, but I thought I heard that you had been lost and starving in the woods for days and that you have been working day and night since you returned. But you're not a bit thinner!”

“Mo
ther
,” Babette said in something of her childhood tones, “I
told
you I'm under a curse and I had to come home before I could effect the horrible cure proposed by that wizard who tried to take over our kingdom.”