Volume 1 by Charlotte E. English

Author:Charlotte E. English [English, Charlotte E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fairytale fantasy, humorous fantasy
Publisher: Frouse Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Queen’s Philtre

Have you ever been to Castle Chansany?

Perhaps you go there as a pedlar, selling ribbons and cosmetics and jewels to the inhabitants of the Royal Court.

Perhaps you are a cook, or an ostler, or an apothecary, tending to the residents’ many and varied needs in exchange for a few silvers for your own.

You may be a Wizard or a Wizard’s Apprentice, oft to be found in the Libraries in the small hours of the morning, weary-eyed in pursuit of an elusive cantrip.

Or perhaps, just perhaps, you are a noble yourself, attending the Court in your satins and silks and making your bow to Their Majesties.

Have you, then, met the Queen?

Queen Mellany, they say, is a lady of surpassing handsomeness (if not, precisely, beauty). Doubtless her velvets and her jewels would grant handsomeness enough, even were she insufficient in feature. An air of majesty and power would supply the rest, would it not? And a queen must have a surfeit of both.

She is a little younger than His Majesty the King, but not much, with honey-coloured hair not at all given to grey (so they say). Her eyes are the colour of amethysts, proclaim the fanciful (or the fawning). Others speak of her voice, low and mellow, melodious as a lady’s voice should be.

Perhaps these observers have seen her from afar, in Their Majesties’ Feasting Chamber, or at a Royal Ball. They cannot have seen her in person, not up close. Not in the intimate fashion of a friend or an associate.

For if they had, they would sing a different tune.

If you have ever chanced to glimpse Queen Mellany in private — as she sits, almost unattended, in her glass-house, say, or before she retires to her bed — you might not speak of handsomeness or velvets, or of jewel-coloured eyes.

You might be more disposed to say: Her Majesty is tired.

‘Fetch me the Wizard Garstang,’ said this lady one eventide. She spoke in the dusty, whispering tones of profound exhaustion, so faint the syllables that one must strain to catch them at all.

But her lady-in-waiting (Aramanta, today) had sharp ears. ‘Yes, your majesty,’ answered she, and left the glass-house at once in a flurry of emerald silks.

The queen was left alone, which seemed to suit her, for she sat motionless, her eyes half-closed. There is at least one advantage to weariness: there is a peace in it, for if one has not the vitality to go rushing about the world, one must by necessity place oneself somewhere comfortable, and stay.

A deep serenity enveloped the glass-house once Aramanta was gone, for everything else in it was passing into slumber. The sun’s blinding rays were gone, dipped below the horizon, leaving a tranquil blue haze in their wake. The queen’s flowers had furled their petals and stood dreaming in the dusk. Even the winged things that occupied the upper reaches of the rambling vines were silent in their nests.

A luna moth drifted slowly by, its silvered wings glinting in the moon-coloured light of the queen’s crystalline lamps.

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