8.11 The Pooka’s Wife
Had Ben helped Timothy and the others to arrive at this strange, decrepit palace? Was he in trouble for having done so? Were there laws about not doing so, other than for directly disobeying a queen? Surely if Queen Moragana had forgiven Timothy, she’d forgive Ben, wouldn’t she? And was Queen Beatrice, the Kidnapper, really suffering from Alzheimer or some other kind of senior dementia? My irritation (anger) with her dimmed somewhat with that idea, but her guards had followed through on her orders. I wouldn’t forgive them. Shouldn’t they have resisted? Shouldn’t they have said, “No, we can’t do that, our queen.” And while, I was thinking about that, I was also wondering about Queen Beatrice’s people. Had the caretakers, nobles, servants, and staff of this palace all fled when the queen’s sickness came into being? Had they realized how batty she’d become? Timothy was kissing my neck, making it harder to concentrate on such thoughts, but I couldn’t object to it. I needed the confirmation that we were still in love, still in lust. I turned my neck to catch his lips, then a few moments later whispered, “Can we go back to our honeymoon now?” Suddenly, Queen Moragana’s head reared up, and her eyes centered on me once more. “Did you eat anything, my dear?” the queen asked. I think I’d already made that clear, especially because my stomach kept growling loudly enough for those around me to think I was part Werewolf. But it was Be Nice to Queens Week, so I meekly replied, “No, not a bite.” “Did you drink anything, child?” she continued probing. Oh, no. Queen Beatrice of Kidnapping/Alzheimer fame had forced me to take a drink from the heavy goblet she’d handed me. Would having done so count against me in some way? For a moment, I thought about lying, but among the Fae that never worked. Timothy had told me that the Fae could always sense a lie with absolutely no effort or magic. It was like all Fae were lie detectors. Anyway, lying wasn’t in my nature, even if it was to hurry our shipbound reunion, so I told Queen Moragana the truth. “I took two sips of some kind of fruit juice, which I very much didn’t like, but it was because Queen Beatrice was so insistent that I do so. Truthfully, with all the threats of throwing me into the dungeon, I was afraid not to.” “Of course. That was to be expected. Dungeon?” she added, giving the other queen a look that was strong enough to have bleached a carrot white. Queen Moragana added. “It is obvious that she demanded that because she wanted you to be forced to stay with her. Taking food or drink while in Faery can leave a human grounded here permanently. I gather that Prince Cadarone never told you that?”
8.10 The Pooka’s Wife
“Ill-treated? Of course she wasn’t ill-treated,” the kidnapping queen said, her nose rather red from her recent bawling over the injustice of an army inside her chamber. I looked up and over at her, remembering all those threats of being sent to the dungeon if I hadn’t entertained her proficiently, and then there was that horrible bedroom that had lacked a proper shower and toilet. I opened my mouth to say something about those things, but Timothy was busy lambasting the woman for having stolen me off the ship. He was doing such a super job, I decided that my quarrel with the kidnapper’s statement was only secondary. Once Timothy ran down enough to take a breath, Queen Moragana interrupted. “I believe I told you to stay on that ship, Prince Cadarone, You were ordered to let me handle the situation.” Oh, dear. That sounded serious. Had Timothy truly disobeyed a queen’s order? Would he get in trouble, maybe sent to that dungeon, the one I never actually saw? Coming to his rescue, I dove into the conversation. “Queen Moragana, thank you, thank you for bringing my dear husband to me. I was feeling ill from his absence,” I said. “I barely slept a wink last night without his arms around me, and I haven’t eaten a thing since I saw him last. My heart has been crushed from his absence. I can’t thank you enough for . . .” “Sh,” Timothy said as he kissed the ear he was whispering into. “You’ve made your point.” Queen Moragana considered the two of us for a moment, then broke into laugher. “Obviously, you didn’t need that necklace, my dear. It seems that given an undisturbed moment or two together, the two of you will soon make me very happy indeed with . . .” She didn’t explain that unfinished thought but turned to the kidnapping queen. “And you, Queen Beatrice. How dare you . . .” Again, Queen Moragana halted in the middle of her speech, then glanced about the hall where a large number of soldiers were still standing at attention, waiting for her orders. “Some of you soldiers, go in search of sustenance in the kitchens,” Queen Moragana commanded. “The rest of you, head outside. Enough of this standing around gaping at the drama going on here. Be gone.” I don’t understand how the sorting of who goes where happened, but in a swallow and a half, the room had emptied of most of the Fae in the striking red and blue Moragana colors. Only the three guards who belonged to Queen Beatrice, otherwise known as the Kidnap Queen, remained over in the corner. (Plus, of course, the men in charge of them and Queen Moragana’s personal guards. The Kidnap Queen didn’t seem to need anyone securing her. She’d turned into a sad-looking weeping willow tree, (Not really, although with Fae magic, I suppose that would have been possible.) “Now where was I?” Queen Moragana continued. “Ah yes, I was deciding to forgive the prince for his disobedience and was about to chastise Beatrice, although what good that would do, I haven’t the foggiest since it is obvious that she needs senility treatments more than imprisonment.” “Ben, come here,” Queen Moragana demanded, jumping off the track of that sequential thought.
8.9 The Pooka’s Wife
So that was the end of our getting reacquainted (intimately at least.) Timothy growled at Bob, then unfastened his arms from around my cracked vertebra. “Are you okay, darling?” my husband asked, and of course, I nodded, grateful for breath again. (Really, we do ignore respiration’s advantages. Breathing is such a luxury that we normally just take for granted.) Sweeping me to the side, away from Bob, Timothy turned his attention to the queens. “Your Majesties,” he said bowing politely, although he didn’t bother to mask his silent rage.(I assume the queens could see how his facial muscles had pulled tight, his mouth veered downward, and his eyes had taken on the dark flare that turned them scary.) “But I just wanted Penelope to know how much we missed her and love her,” Bob whined. This time, Terry growled, drawing my eyes. Terry’s whiskers and facial hair were shadowing in with his aggravation with Bob, displaying more clearly his werewolf heritage. Sometimes I believed that the males were best friends. At other times, like at that moment, I wondered if Terry even liked his co-guard who he was constantly shepherding through life. Daniel and Ben were standing back, not participating in either greetings or confrontations, but they were there for me (or for Timothy,) so I waved to them and mouthed a silent thank you. Bob, being Bob, was not constrained by the look Timothy sent his way, nor at Terry’s growl. “You love her, too,” Bob said, staring at Terry. “Why don’t you just admit it?” “Enough,” Timothy roared. “Bob, remember your place. Penelope is grateful for your greeting, I suppose, knowing her habitual sweetness concerning your strangeness, but cease this discussion. Admire my wife from a distance, a distance that does not involve hugging her. Terry, deal with him, if you can. I have other matters to contend with.” A slightly subdued Bob stepped further away, but he gave me a quick wink as he did so. I hoped Timothy didn’t observe that. He was already close to his breaking point with the Bob situation. If I didn’t keep pleading for Timothy not to fire the guy, I was sure that Bob would already be gone. As if that matter had been sufficiently dealt with, and taking my hand in his, with a gentle kiss to let me know that he loved me, Timothy turned to face the queens. “I thank you profoundly, Queen Moragana for coming to my wife’s rescue,” Timothy said. “I see that my young bride is uninjured and was seemingly not ill-treated outside of being kidnapped and stolen from my arms, although I do wonder at the gown she’s wearing.” I looked down at the dress and noticed once more that it was smeared with dirt, grease, and food stains. It was also torn in several places, probably from sliding across the floor and or tripping over the excess material of it while trying to creep/crawl under the table. Of course, Timothy probably didn’t take note of its insipid color and styling. But the whole dirty gown (and me) made it clear why Timothy’s nose had wrinkled in distaste when he looked down to examine my costume.
8.8 The Pooka’s Wife
It took a couple of moments before Queen Moragana realized that she was crushing me against her breasts. I suppose if I’d been a man, I might have welcomed that, but I wasn’t, and I didn’t. During this grab and pinch. I issued several squawks like those of a sick parrot, but the queen only pressed me closer. My breath was almost depleted, and I was feeling limp as a scarecrow deprived of its stick by the time she eased the pressure. Not released me. I was still caught in her amazingly strong arms, a wood-working vice clamp from two sides, or so it seemed. “No, don’t harm them,” Queen Moragana thundered out, panic in her voice as well as urgent command, which I was sure the soldiers wouldn’t dare to oppose. Okay, she’d said, “Don’t harm them.” Plural. So what was everyone but me seeing? The other queen’s troops finally showed up? Loyal servants had just dragged themselves in from the kitchen, armed with frying pans in order to do battle and defend their queen? Or perhaps, because this was Faeryland, could it be dragons and unicorns invading the palace? With Queen Moragana’s command still reverberating through the huge chamber, she suddenly released me. I heaved several mighty breaths, stepped back so I wasn’t as close to her bosom, and then turned to see what all the fuss (and magic) was about. What air I still had in my lungs, almost took wing in surprise. It was my own dear husband and the rest of the crew. “Timothy!” I cried out, then flung myself forward, avoiding both queen’s attempt to prevent me from my gallop across the space between my darling love and my current position (just shy of that horrid bosom cuddle.) The room was filled with soldiers in multiple poses, many of them still standing in attack mode, despite Queen Moragana’s command, but I ignored them all, consumed by my need to throw myself into my beloved’s arms. I launched into him like a baseball player sliding into home, because that’s exactly what he was to me. He was my home, my safety, my comfort, my everything. His arms were ready. He met my fierceness with an equal force that swung me up against his mighty chest. My feet dangled, but my lips didn’t. We seared together with an embrace that included a full-throttled emotional kiss which did its best to wipe away all the days we’d been apart. Our lips traveled, reacquainted themselves to salvation, then returned to the source of all goodness. I suppose we would have kept that up for several hours, days, even months. (Okay brief exaggeration, but we were starved for each other, and that counts for a person’s kissing endurance.) Anyway despite a room full of soldiers, stale food, queens, and three prisoners, we were completely deliriously enraptured in our personal celebration, but then, Bob, good old Bob, bobbed into the picture, throwing his arms about the two of us and hugging us with the kind of enthusiasm that breaks bones.
8.7 The Pooka’s Wife
The moment stabbed me with guilt. A newly married woman should not be staring at men’s muscles and chests, right? I shook my head as if answering my own question, but then the uglier question reared its head. Where was my new husband, and why wasn’t he here? It wasn’t like I’d frozen in space, trying to figure out those answers or wondering what came next in this unwelcome Fae drama. I’d been edging wearily toward the dual queens, as if marching to an execution, completely lacking in enthusiasm for any decision the two of them were about to make as to my fate in all this. But I’d reached them and had no option except to stop, bow my head slightly to show respect to their position (and power) and to wait for what was to come. “You look okay,” Queen Moragana said. “Your sparkle of beauty still peeks through that horrid dress and the smudges of dirt from face to . . . naked feet.” Oh dear. Had I broken some Fae custom because I wasn’t wearing shoes? “My clothes were taken from me while I slept,” I explained, as the queen continued to stare at my bare feet. “The shoes I was given were too small, so I had to go without.” “Oh, mercy,” the kidnapper said. “I’d forgotten that Lady Carine had tiny feet. Of course your humanly large feet didn’t fit. This is my fault, Queen Moragana, not an intended affront to yourself.” Queen Moragana pulled her eyes from the sight of my bare feet and glared at the other queen. “Of course, it is not the human’s fault. You kidnapped the child, you monstrous queen.” My stomach took that moment to complain loudly about its need for sustenance. It had not been fed anything since leaving the ship, and that had been no more than a few pieces of finger food: a couple of tortilla chips, two slices of apple, and a bite of a not so delicious cheese that Timothy had insisted I try. (He thought it was wonderful, but I couldn’t stand even the smell of it.) I don’t know how long the bitter exchange of nasty words between the queens might have continued without my stomach’s growl, but the sound did have a nice effect of ceasing all discourse. Even the assembled soldiers fastened their attention on either my feet or my stomach. At least they did for that instant until a wrinkling of air with streaks of gray and orange brought with it the tinkling of bells. Then everyone’s eyes did a 180 degree, the soldiers went into alert, and Queen Moragana swept me into her embrace. Smothered in velvet and jewels, I could barely breathe and was unable to see what was happening.
8.6 The Pooka’s Wife
There was no point in trying to hide after that. The man’s announcement had been loud, and all eyes were probably staring at him wondering what he was talking about since they couldn’t see me, but it would only take a moment for them to figure out where I was, because the soldier was still kneeling down and staring underneath the table. “Come here, pretty little human,” he wheedled, like that was going to influence me to crawl out. “She’s under the table? What in Fae’s name is she doing there? Pull her out and bring her here.” That was the kidnapping queen giving commands as if she were still in charge. What happened to her being a pincushion for sword points? “See, I told you I hadn’t hurt her,” the kidnapper continued. “I tried to get her to eat something this morning, one of my favorite pomegranate breakfast bars in fact, but she refused to eat anything last night. That wasn’t my fault. I gave her a nice room with a good bed. And that dress, which used to look good on her! She’s had all the comforts of a welcomed guest.” “But you stole her from me, and she is mine,” Queen Moragana said all huffy and puffy like indignance was part of her crown. I recognized her voice right off. I’d know it anywhere, even if she hadn’t brought an army with her and was lording it over the unnamed queen. But their conversation was enough to get me to crawl out from under the table. I ignored the soldier’s outstretched hand and stepped out into the open, a little stiff from scrunching over and probably besmudged from head to toes from hand painting the dirty floor, but I straightened my back and heard it snap back into place. (Maybe that was my imagination. I doubt it actually made any noise. I wasn’t that old.) Head held high as if I hadn’t been repeatedly chopped down into nothingness with the find the human order Queen Moragana had issued, I marched closer to the double queen area. I was trying not to look right or left, not wanting to see any of those dead bodies I figured would be flopped on the ground here and there, but it seemed that all the soldiers were still standing. Over on my left, I saw the kidnapping queen’s three golden Viking-look-a-likes. They were each missing their swords and had their hands tied behind their backs, but otherwise, they looked hale and hearty. One of them, I think the one who was the queen’s favorite, was wearing a shiner on his left eye. The guy next to him had a shirt with dangling fabric that was really no longer a shirt. The raggedy material left his heaving, sweaty and well-muscled chest on vivid display, a sight which would have caused all the ladies at work to sigh and fan themselves. Queen Moragana’s crew of soldiers were no weaklings either. Every one of them looked like a super hero, minus the cape, but their uniforms were equally strikingly handsome. Her army was made up of broad and full-muscled superbness. My eyes scanned the males only briefly, but I was pretty sure that if the Fae were included in men’s beauty contests, these guys would win all the trophies.
8.5 The Pooka’s Wife
Hiding out when the rest of the room was having a great battle, sounded like a good thing, and it was safer than dodging about avoiding sharp things poking at my ribs, but it was also scary as heck, not to mention noisy because of all the excited men (and women, I think, because several voices were higher in pitch and some of the boots looked smaller with narrower widths.) I suppose it was about twenty minutes later (or an hour, perhaps, if the kidnapping queen’s three men could engage in combat for that long against fresh soldiers who’d been waiting their turn to step forward,) when I heard the sound of the fighting growing less energetic. The grunts were fewer, the foists forward — those great leaps and charges less — and the boot action felt sparser. Strangely, I hadn’t heard or seen any bodies falling to the ground. I hoped that when I finally rose up to view the scene, there wouldn’t be dead bodies and blood with guts hanging out of some of the lifeless corpses. I shivered thinking about that possibility. The room had grown stinkier, so many soldiers exercising at their full activity level, and thus perfuming the air most unpleasantly. The food ladened wooden table that I was hanging out under probably had sausages and eggs that needed tossing. Although, if it had been only twenty minutes so far, and the food was fresh that morning, maybe not. But if there really were a bunch of inert bodies lying about, those which were out of my line of sight, then who would want to eat food that had been in the same area? I was becoming morbid, I realized. But it had been a rough couple of days with dungeon taunts and performance nervousness, followed by attacking queens with their armies. I guess I deserved to be free to have such melancholy thoughts. I could hear that at last, the fighting had completely stopped. I won’t say the air was still, with only the sound of heavy breathing from heaving chests after so much physical endeavor, but the spats had sputtered out, and then, it was only queen vs. queen screeching at each other. “What have you done with the human girl? Where is she? If she has been injured in any way, it will be off with your head, royal blood or not.” That was Queen Moragana screaming at leaf blower, schoolyard rowdiness, or rock star concert volume. An outpouring of yells was followed by a panicked shriek which sounded like it had been caused by a sharp pointy thing pricking an arm or a back. I knew the sound came from the unnamed queen who’d kidnapped me because she immediately started calling out for her three guards to come save her. Whatever that queen was about to say next, I didn’t quite hear because a strange man, bending down to pick up his dropped sword, must have seen the yellow fabric of my dress. He squatted down and focused his eyes on the rest of me. At the same moment our eyes met, he called out to his queen that he’d just found the missing human girl.
8.4 The Pooka’s Wife
The door fell apart in a flight of splintering wood, heavy chunks falling, lighter pieces soaring through space. Glad that I was protected from the fall-out, I still covered my head, closed my eyes, and tried not to breathe in the fragments of sawdust, if there was such a thing, mingling with the dusty air inside the palace. All around me I heard lots of shouting and hollering. The queen was screaming, mainly cursing, I’m pretty sure, although I couldn’t understand her words since they weren’t flowing out in English, but in some high-pitched, almost musical yodeling. The guards were busy adding in their grunts and snorts, all three of them in bass cleft. And scores of black boots were charging forward — shiny, leather boots. That was what I could see when I finally opened my eyes to peek out from under the table. It was like a dance of boots, all of them shuffling forward and back, sideways and around in circles. The clatter of weapons meeting, like children banging tin cans together, except higher pitched, made me feel like covering my ears. The table where I was hiding was up against a wall, so the fight was all in front of me, which I appreciated greatly. That meant my back was protected, and I had only to worry that someone might crawl underneath the table and seize the excess fabric of my dress, which was so abundantly splayed out all about me. But no one seemed aware of my presence or where I was hiding, and the battle continued. I wondered how it was possible that it went on and on. Three men and one half-crazed queen against an army of men? It sounded like at least twenty soldiers had thundered inside the chamber after breaking down the door. What were the spares doing while the battle raged? Perhaps, it was the whole politeness thing going on, with soldier against soldier and no one wanting to gang up on their advisory. After all, what did I know about Fae politics? At one point, I heard the voice of Queen Moragana insisting that her men find “the Pooka’s human.” That irritated me – the fact that the queen didn’t remember my name and that she’d referred to me merely as a human and not as Timothy’s wife . . . (or the wife of Prince Nardon of Donic, as some of the Fae had called him) . . . Even so, I guess I should have called out to let someone know where I was, but who should I trust? The queen who had kidnapped me or the queen who had trapped me into wearing a Fae necklace that I didn’t want and which had made me sick? Uncertain and not hearing the voice of anyone else that I knew, like my beloved husband and his guards, I wiggled more tightly up against the wall and kept mum.
8.3 The Pooka’s Wife
I was doomed. I feared that not eating some of the scone would make the queen irate, but to even nibble at it might cause me to become a permanent citizen of Faeryland. Glancing up into the queen’s face, I saw the muscles in her cheeks clench as if she were already taking note of my rejection of her food. Her eyes turned hard. Yes, a strange expression, I agree, but if you’d been standing where I was, seeing her eyes narrow into two big balls of glaring green fire, you’d have said the same thing. Her eyes grew into twin golf balls of suppressed rage that . . . I brought the biscuit towards my mouth and started to take a bite. One little bite. Surely that wouldn’t hurt, would it? What was that noise? I stopped and turned to face the door that I presumed led out into the gardens. One of the windows, blurry with dead flies, dust, smoke, and who knows what else gave a hint that there was an outside that once upon a time could be viewed through its glass pane. Behind me, the queen started yelling: “Are those the soldiers I sent for? Has my court come back? Have my servants, nobles, and other riffraff folk returned?” The three guards exchanged a look with each other. Not one of them seemed to want to respond to the queen’s query. It wasn’t until the favored one was called by his name to answer her, that words came, words that turned the queen’s complexion into stroke territory: blotchy red with patches of pale. “What do you mean no one sent notice that I needed my troops? Of course I need my army. The girl’s owner will soon be knocking at my door with her rallied forces. Do I not deserve a fair fleet of my own? Get them here, at once!” “There are no troops, Your Majesty. You dismissed them. Remember?” the favored one said. The queen was no longer sitting in her fancy chair of velvet, cranberry red. Well, it once must have been cranberry red. It now looked stained and dust-riddled from a lack of cleaning, and spider webs dangled down from the legs. I saw that the spiders had weaved a whitish nest underneath the chair; future spiders who would no doubt drape and decorate the rest of the palace. Meanwhile, the noise from the outside sounded like at least fifty men were clamoring about, knocking on doors and windows and issuing threats with voluminous bellows and grunts. The queen had forgotten about me and whether I should be eating her pomegranate scones or not, so I carefully put my untasted biscuit back on the tray and took two steps away from the table. Neither the queen nor the guards took note. I thought about running to the window and yelling for help, but I remembered the spear-weapons the guards were carrying and decided that invisibility would be smarter than flight. Thus, I sidled sideways very, very slowly and then, as quickly as possible, I slipped under the food-laden table. It was awkward walking-crawling toward the underneath middle section since the food was making the table sag lower to the ground than it should be, but I continued forward, cutting a path through a spider-web forest as my gown did its best to trip me in its cascades of heavy fabric.
8.2 The Pooka’s Wife
Penelope: I was escorted back to the queen’s banquet room. That made me wonder about the servants I wasn’t seeing. Who was cooking the meals, baking the bread, tending the chimneys, and doing other odd jobs like washing the queen’s clothing? But again as I entered the huge room, I saw no one but the three guards and the queen, herself. Earlier I’d noticed a scraggly=looking dog scavenging among the items beneath the table. Were food scraps being tossed under the table, rather than disposing of them more hygienically? Based on the dust all about the palace I doubted that cleanliness was one of the the queen’s virtues. But then, perhaps when the Court was here, things were kept sparkly clean. It would certainly be easier to waltz about without pieces of potato or bones under foot. When the queen glanced in my direction, she clapped her hands and let out an exclamation of joy. “Oh, good, the entertainment is here.” Wonderful to be lumped into a group with clowns and mimes. Not that I was knocking them, only, I had no ability in that direction, which is why I would prefer that the queen didn’t get so excited about my arrival as “entertainment.” It meant that she was going to call on me to come up with something new and exciting. I supposed I could do the tongue twister about seashells, but I certainly didn’t want to sing again. And to have to dance with the nasty guard . . . yick. “I approve. You look halfway decent now,” the queen added with another questionable compliment that I could have done without. Personally, I thought the yellow dress I was wearing was designed with the absolute worst taste and wished I could have kept my jeans and tee shirt on. But, I curtseyed and thanked the queen anyway. Polite and well-mannered was probably mandatory in captive situations. Head chopping and dungeons might be on the agenda otherwise. “Now, I command you to eat something,” the queen said in a voice that ended all debate about whether doing such a thing in Faeryland was a wise decision or not. Poor Persephone, had she been under the same compulsory directive in Hades? I took two steps closer to the table and eyed the offerings. No pomegranate seeds, but I did see a couple of apples and a huge bowl of grapes. There was also a platter towering with some kind of flat bread biscuits. They looked like they might have fruit in them, so scones? I took in a deep breath, giving myself one more pause for courage, heard the queen hiss at me for dawdling, and reached out to take one of the biscuits. “Yes,” the queen said. “Good choice. Those are my favorites. They have pomegranate seeds in them, which makes them sweet yet slightly tangy.”