Fairytales Slashed Read online

  "So you didn't know your family growing up at all?" Lotte asked curiously, picking around an apple strudel that had taken her fancy. The pastry was always exquisite. Thin layers, crispy on the edges and melt-in-your-mouth soft. The stewed apple was the perfect combination of sweet and tart.

  "It wasn't so bad, really," Meg answered. Her fork cut off a small corner of blueberry tart, which she pinned delicately with the end of her silverware. Lotte had had one of those the day before, and insisted that Meg try it today. "One of the older cooks in the kitchen became a sort of mother to a lot of us. And there's a lady's maid who's like an older sister to me."

  Lotte hadn't had the happiest of childhoods after her mother died and her father remarried—then died as well—but she still couldn't imagine growing up so far away from anyone called family. Still, her attention piqued as Meg mentioned the kindly kitchen servant.

  "Besides, my brothers and sisters have a better life now because of the money that me and my older brother send home," Meg continued after she had finished her bite. "It really sounds much worse than it is. Lots of families do it. I was lucky to be employed as well as I have been."

  "I suppose it's no worse than being used as a servant to your own family," Lotte mused. She could have bitten her tongue at revealing what—until now—had been kept a deadly secret.

  When Meg didn't say anything immediately, Lotte could have bitten her tongue off again for a different reason. What if Meg now thought she had airs?

  Meg chewed her last bite slowly, swallowing before finally speaking. "I suppose we should finish up here shortly. There will be other people wanting our table," she said, avoiding Lotte's eyes. Lotte felt wretched. The only person in the palace that she felt wanted to speak to her, and she had managed to alienate her within mere days.

  During the same period of time, Lotte's routine with the prince grew no different than she'd come to expect from their first days together. He did his duty to her, and to the crown, by ensuring continuing efforts were made to create a new heir for the kingdom. He was unfailingly kind and respectful to her on these occasions, yet Lotte increasingly felt as though there was something missing.

  Every so often, she looked to the magical slippers that still held a position of pride within her wardrobe. They were, after all, a symbol of how hard Prince Phillip had fought to find her. How much he must love her. And yet, there was only a small amount of passion between them now, and conversation between them was almost non-existent. When she'd asked her fairy godmother for the means to go to the prince's ball, this wasn't the fairy tale ending she'd imagined.

  *~*~*

  When Lotte came down to breakfast the following morning, she was quieter than she'd been previously, not inclined towards any questions nor even to respond to the queen's conversation beyond a few taciturn remarks.

  The queen took in her listless behaviour, and eventually stopped commenting on things such as the weather, the breakfast spread, and other similarly mundane discussions that filled their morning meal.

  It wasn't until the tea after breakfast had been cleared away that the queen opened her mouth to say, "This is what being a princess is about." She assumed, without asking, the reason for Lotte's listlessness. "It's a lot of waiting, and shopping, and always being appropriate."

  Lotte instinctively rebelled against that. What was the use of having the kind of power and authority that she'd been given if she was forced to waste it? She'd spent her whole life doing something. The fact of being idle—of waiting—settled on her even more ill than the shopping. And if being appropriate were some passive mix of waiting, shopping and always, always, being polite, did she really want that?

  Lotte was tired of the laughter that came anytime she said something awkward. But what else could she do? Sit here and meekly accept the shape of the new box her life was being forced into? It was with gritted teeth and her gaze lowered—not trusting what the queen would see in her eyes if she lifted them—that she said, "So I am given to understand, Your Majesty."

  "Hmm," said the queen. There was another pause between them. Lotte was about to ask to excuse herself when, with the air of imparting a little known secret between women, the queen added, "It's important to have a friend your own age to pass the time with. Someone to help lessen the loneliness."

  Lotte's gaze lifted to meet the queen's after all, surprise taking the hurt pride out of her eyes. In all of her adjusting to this new world, she had never considered that the queen might feel the same sense of loneliness that sometimes filled Lotte until she thought there was nothing else left.

  "Thank you, Your Majesty," Lotte managed to get out around an unfamiliar strangling feeling in the back of her throat.

  The queen didn't acknowledge Lotte's thanks with words. A moment later, she pushed the chair backwards and the servants by the walls scrambled to attend her.

  As the queen and her train disappeared from the room, Lotte's eyes followed them. If the queen had looked back only once, she would have seen the confusion in Lotte's eyes.

  *~*~*

  The following morning, just when Lotte thought she couldn't stand another silent minute, Meg looked up from where she was fitting royal stockings around Lotte's calf.

  "I realise that you probably didn't intend to share the thing you said to me at the patisserie the other afternoon," she said very quietly, while deliberately omitting to voice exactly what Lotte had said. Lotte wondered whether the girl's secrecy was out of discretion or a sense of paranoia that someone might be listening. "You need not have any fear the other girls will hear anything from me."

  After two days of almost no conversation between them, Lotte almost wept her relief. This wasn't what she had expected after the silence that had descended between them in the patisserie. She'd been so sure that Meg was disgusted at having to serve someone who had come from humble beginnings not so different from her own.

  Meg wasn't finished. "I think it makes you… brave, Miss." Her deep, brown eyes were honest and luminous as she uttered these surprising words. There was no guile there. "I couldn't do it if I were you. It would be too strange, too different."

  Lotte didn't know how to respond. As Meg set back about her work, Lotte didn't quite manage to come up with something intelligent or reasonable to say.

  With a curtsey that signalled the end of this task, Meg excused herself.

  For the entire breakfast, Lotte berated herself for not being able to think of just one thing to say in response to Meg's wonderful statements. When she thought of what she'd like to have said, she rolled her eyes and shook her head in self-deprecation.

  The queen tsked her. "It's not lady-like to roll one's eyes," she admonished. Then, as though the words were meant to be under her breath, she added, "We'll have to see about those etiquette lessons sooner rather than later."

  "I think that would be very appropriate, your majesty," Lotte replied.

  From between thinned lips and a considering look, the queen spoke again, "And maybe invite a few more ladies to the etiquette lessons. Yes. Having you socialise with the right people will be good for you."

  Lotte looked at the queen, startled. "Thank you?" she replied to what was, at best, a backhanded compliment.

  The queen sat back in her chair with a self-satisfied nod, as though almost pleased by this interaction, but able to think of nothing further to say.

  After breakfast, the carriage was outside as usual. The footman was already perched on his stoop behind the horses, and Meg was talking to him. At least, she was until the footman caught sight of Lotte's approach, and then Meg turned to face her.

  "It is different," Lotte said, before Meg could say anything. Lotte was so sure what she wanted to say that the words tumbled out as soon as she saw the other girl. "So different. Sometimes I feel even more smothered in my role as a princess than I ever did before. I had freedom then. If I wanted to set the table before I cleaned the candlesticks, that was my own choice as long as both got done. And getting things done! I used
to have a purpose in my day, just like you do now." Lotte shook her head. "I don't think I'm doing very well at all. I just wanted to say: Thank you."

  Meg tipped her head to the side after the barrage of Lotte's words. She almost looked alarmed but, swallowing that, asked with wonder, "For what, Miss?"

  "For what you said." Lotte licked her lips, deciding she needed to be more specific in case Meg misunderstood. "For saying I was brave." Her voice almost broke on the whisper, speaking softly so the footman wouldn't hear her. "You don't know how much that means to me."

  "Aww, Miss." Meg looked terrified. "I didn't mean to make you cry." Hurriedly, she reached into her pockets for a handkerchief, which Lotte gladly accepted.

  On the corners were lovingly embroidered the initials 'M.J.' Lotte could almost imagine the portly, older woman—a real mum—with the reassuring smell of a day's baking surrounding her. Not wanting to crumple the handkerchief at all, Lotte handled it carefully before offering it back. The handkerchief promptly vanished into one of the pockets of Meg's pinafore.

  "Now, Meg," Lotte said, trying to take control of herself and using a falsely severe tone of voice to get there. "What did we say about you calling me by my name?"

  Meg smiled.

  They didn't talk about their families or their upbringings that afternoon. Instead, Meg brought up stories of the palace: of the cook that she considered a mother and the lady's maid who was like a sister. She told the story of how, every day at around four o'clock, half a dozen palace boys and girls of a certain age would trounce through the kitchens for the sweets that had just come out of the oven, ready for dinner. The cook—a matronly woman who sounded very much like the kind of person Lotte imagined her own mother being—invariably waggled a wooden spoon at them, but by half four each day, there were always about half a dozen less sweets on the cooling rack.

  Lotte laughed at the antics, but took the deeper meaning of the story to heart. Lotte had shared something of her upbringing; something of who she was before she was Princess Lotte, married to the crown Prince Phillip, something that made her more like the servants in the palace than the royalty that they served.

  In her subtle way, Meg let her know that she accepted Lotte as someone like herself. As they grew closer again, Lotte began to dread the time in between her late afternoon return to the palace and when Meg came into her bedroom to dress her in the morning.

  Phillip's high energy and excitement for the day just past were so at odds with Lotte's own feelings. Every night he and his father would come to the dinner table together, Phillip's eyes glowing with his sense of achievement, his passion for his position only further detailed as they retired on their own in her bedroom.

  "I really think we're going to make inroads in the trade agreements between the Pharisians and Morrians this year," Phillip would say, hands rubbing together as he named counties or parishes Lotte had never heard of. It was no different to her mentioning the kitchens, except that this was what Phillip was meant to be passionate about as the prince. These things mattered in ways Lotte could hardly begin to understand.

  His whole face was boyish with excitement and passion that he later brought to bed. It wasn't that he was an unskilful lover. There was little difference in their physical relationship except for Lotte's changing feelings.

  "Phillip, my dear," Lotte said from her dresser, after he'd settled himself in the bed behind her. "I was wondering… I know that Meg is not a lady's maid, but she does such a good job of dressing me in the mornings. I really would feel much more comfortable with having one servant handle all my dressing."

  "That would please you?" Phillip lowered the book he was reading to give her his attention.

  "Very much so," Lotte answered honestly.

  "I'll have it organised tomorrow," Phillip answered her with a sweet smile.

  By the next night, Meg was walking into their bedroom shortly after dinner with the air of someone who thought they might be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  "Did you do this, Miss? Lotte?" Although she remembered herself enough to use Lotte's name, it came out as no louder than a whisper as she peered around the room.

  "You don't need to worry. Prince Phillip is still his quarters." The large bedroom was only half of the sleeping quarters, with a separate area for the prince just behind the connecting door. Lotte turned to Meg from where she sat in front of her dresser. "Would you mind taking my hair down and brushing it?"

  Meg immediately looked grateful and more at ease with something to do. She ran the brush gently through Lotte's long, gold tresses. They were long enough now that, when unbound or pinned, it came to rest halfway down her back. Now that it had been washed and treated with the palace's best conditioners, it shone from tip to root. After her first wash, she'd submitted to having the ends trimmed so that it was less inclined to knot and bunch. Meg's running of the boar bristle comb through her hair didn't pull or hurt. The floral smell from the conditioner wafted around them, and Lotte wondered if Meg noticed it and identified the smell with her. If she did, she didn't say anything.

  Phillip came in through the connecting door with his manservant, a kindly gentleman named Kenneth. He and Meg had seen each other in the palace enough to recognise each other. They shared silent acknowledgement of each other, but neither of them spoke unless spoken to by either Phillip or Lotte.

  Lotte reached out a hand to touch Meg's wrist as she was about to leave. "Thank you, Meg. You did very well."

  A slight flush rose on Meg's cheeks, but she smiled as she dipped her curtsey. With a quick look to both Phillip and Kenneth, Meg said, "Good night, Miss."

  *~*~*

  Etiquette training began shortly thereafter, just as the queen had promised. Lotte felt the queen's invitations to important ladies of other provinces were partially also to ward against Lotte's loneliness, but that didn't help her feel any less out of place when she was in a room with a dozen other perfectly primped and preened specimens of femininity.

  Training took place in a hall about half the size of the palace ballroom, heated to the perfect temperature at all times. The floor was carpeted, so there was no chance of unseemly echoes. On one side of the room there was a large table, long enough to seat everyone there. At the other there were couches, chairs and chaises. The girls who arrived earliest of course got the best seats. Some of them knew each other from childhood and started chatting immediately. Lotte felt their keen eyes peering at her from their places as she humbly sat down on one of the chairs.

  She learned the names of all of them very early on, but only remembered a few. There was Lady Corina, whose family lived closest to the palace. When she was introduced, a few murmurings caused Lotte to realise that she had been the one Prince Phillip had been expected to marry before Lotte's unexpected arrival at the ball. There was Lady Helene and Lady Jacqueline from the provinces farthest away. Nobody knew much about either lady except that they were exceptionally attired, though their fashions deviated a little from what was common around the room. Lady Tatiana was rumoured to come from the richest lineage, outside of the royal family, of course.

  "Ladies, ladies." After the introductions were done, a stunningly well-kept older woman raised both her hands—though not her voice—and had the whole room's attention. There was a table set, and it was indicated that Lotte was to sit at the head while the other ladies found their own place settings. "The first lesson a lady must learn is how to hold herself at tea."

  Lotte felt that any time the matron known as Ms Stockard was not speaking every eye at that table rested on her. It seemed vitally important to them that they observe how she held her cup, how she held her knife or fork. She fumbled a couple of times at picking up her fork, her nerves numbing her fingertips. This was further worsened by the chatters from her companions that immediately rose.

  "It was awful," she told Meg that night, before Phillip entered their bedroom. "I was on display. They were measuring me every minute in that room, and I was found wanting."
>
  "It was your first day," Meg reminded her softly. "Everyone was probably as nervous as you. It will get better." But she didn't sound as sure as she usually did.

  And it didn't get better.

  As the days went on, and the other ladies continued to whisper amongst themselves, Lotte came to feel as though she'd done something very wrong. She noticed Lady Tatiana swapping her place card with that of Lady Jacqueline or Helene so she was sitting next to Lady Corina. Together, the two ladies as well as another—Lady Elizabeth, sitting on the other side of Corina—began drawing attention at the other end of the table, sending sly glances towards Lotte whenever Ms Stockard wasn't watching.

  At a loss, Lotte tried to strike up conversations with the two ladies nearest to her, but she couldn't remember either of their names. They were both speaking to girls on their other sides, and Lotte didn't know how to get their attention without raising her voice. That had been the second lesson Ms Stockard had been quick to impart. "A lady never raises her voice in company. Preferably, never at all."

  Although the matron did not often reprimand Lotte, she noticed Ms Stockard's lips thinning in disapproval over things the princess did. She felt at the same time that she was held at higher standards for being the princess, but, for the same reason, she couldn't be reprimanded equally as one of the other ladies when she did something wrong.

  "Elizabeth, no elbows on the table. That's pure laziness and will not be tolerated," Ms Stockard said sharply, having no such qualms with dressing Elizabeth down. Each time one of the others was reprimanded, the ladies at the end of the table glared at Lotte as though it were her fault.

  "What did the queen say?" Meg asked her. She was assisting her with putting on her gloves for the day ahead, but Lotte's hands were shaking so badly it was quite a chore.

  "What, you mean when I intelligently went to ask her for advice?" Lotte shook her head. "She hasn't said anything since the first day when she advised me to hasten to make the most of the contacts during this time. To be honest, I haven't asked. God, what would she think of me?" It was a well-known secret that the queen hadn't wholly approved of her son's decision to marry Lotte. Now it was a feeling shared by the twelve of the most important ladies in the country.