The Unhandsome Prince Read online

  They passed a wig shop, where she looked at wigs made of horse hair and camel hair, and even human hair, the most expensive kind. The wigmaker offered Emily three shillings for her hair. Emily respectfully declined. He shrugged.

  “Best I can do, I’m afraid. Brunette is not so popular these days.”

  “It’s a fad,” said Hal. “Bald men have started wearing wigs. Some men even shave their heads before they go bald, so they can wear a wig and be in fashion.”

  “Do the women in Melinower wear wigs?”

  “Of course not. Women don’t go bald. Why would a woman need to wear a wig?”

  Most amazing of all, Emily had seen a dress shop. Not a seamstress, who measured you and made dresses for you, but a room with racks and racks of dresses in every size. The owner explained to Emily that you tried on dresses until you found one that fit, then you bought it, all ready to wear that very same evening. She selected a dress and showed Emily the dressing room, and Emily gave Hal her purse to hold, but Hal grabbed her wrist instead and dragged her back into the street.

  Now she looked at the throng below. “Look how excited they all are,” she told Hal. “It’s like a big party. Is it because of the tournaments?”

  “Hmm?” said Hal. He seemed a bit distracted. Emily hoped he wasn’t thinking of Caroline.

  “I said, ‘Are people in Melinower always this happy?’ ”

  “Seem a bit tense to me,” said Hal. “Like they’re under a strain. Especially the shopkeepers. I wonder . . .” His voice trailed off, and he absently tapped a coin on the table. Then he suddenly tossed the coin into his cup, stood up, and took her hand. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?” said Emily, but Hal merely led her down the stairs and back into the crowd, until they turned into a long storefront with many display cases. Its wooden sign showed it was a branch of a well-known chain of magic shops. Emily looked around and frowned in distaste.

  Junk, she thought to herself. Cheap imitations. Strictly for the rubes. There were racks of incense and gaudy incense holders, stacks of scented, colored candles and carved candleholders, paper symbols to paste above doorways—all with charts and instructions to show which incense to burn, which candle to light, and which symbol to paste to achieve the desired degree of good luck. There were shelves of medicinal soaps, poultices, bundles of dried herbs, bottles of elixirs, and one entire table devoted to ointments that purported to restore male potency. Another displayed products that promised to increase the size of a woman’s bustline. Emily looked at these and rolled her eyes.

  Most of the shop was devoted to charms. They hung on racks in long aisles, charms of every description. They were variously made of gold, silver, copper, brass, crystal, carved stone, ivory, horn, whalebone, mother-of-pearl, narwhal tusk, and scented woods, and they ranged in size from pealike beads to round medallions as big as a barrel lid. The shop seemed to be doing a steady business. Emily counted a dozen people going through in just a few minutes.

  She caught up with Hal, who was purchasing a small charm and talking with the proprietor. She waited until he was finished, then followed him into the street. “You see,” she said. “That’s why it’s so important to get a good apprenticeship. The last thing I want is to end up in the kind of spell mill that produced that charm, where they’ve got a dozen apprentices cranking out cheap magic for the masses.” Hal just nodded. “What did you buy, anyway?” she finished.

  Hal opened his palm and showed her a small charm carved from a wolf’s tooth. “For luck in the tournaments,” he said. “Actually, it’s a charm for speed and aggression.”

  “Oh, Hal. If you want a good luck charm I can find a dozen people in this city who will give charms with better-quality luck. Talk to me before you waste your money.”

  “It wasn’t much money. I really wanted to talk to the man who runs that shop. He takes bets for the tournaments.”

  “And you’re asking about your brothers? Did you buy the charm for one of them?”

  “For me,” said Hal. “I’ve entered my name in the lists.”

  “Oh.” Emily found it hard to imagine Hal in any sort of physical competition. Granted, the tournaments had plenty of events that didn’t involve combat—juggling, tumbling, and such—nonserious, carnival-type games. But she didn’t think the royal family would compete in one of those. It would be too undignified.

  They walked farther down the street. Hal said nothing more. Emily decided he wasn’t going to volunteer the information, so she had to ask. “What did you enter?”

  Hal looked her in the eye. “Swordfighting.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  They walked some more in silence. Emily glanced over every now and then to see if Hal was smiling, if he was joking with her. He looked dead serious.

  “Swordfighting,” she said.

  “Right.”

  “Um. You are, uh. Last night at the inn, you really got your—I mean—you seemed to be having an off night.”

  “Right.”

  “Have you ever done competition fencing before?”

  “First time for everything.”

  “Have you ever taken lessons?”

  “I don’t have to. I’m a natural athlete.”

  “Hal! Are you joking with me?”

  Before he could answer they were interrupted by a door opening in a nondescript building. There was a flash of uniform cuffs, and a scrawny man, battered and bruised, was flung across the sidewalk to land with a thump in the street. The door slammed shut.

  Hal jerked a thumb at it. “Thieves’ Guild. Word hasn’t gotten around on that one yet.” He turned a corner and led her down a narrow street, then stopped. He had to. They were at the end of a cul-de-sac. Brick walls rose on either side, and a windowless stone building sat in front of them. A single iron door was set into the center. “This is it,” he said. “Bungee, right. This is the man you wanted to see?”

  Emily switched her attention to the door. “Bungee, right,” she said. “One of the finest sorcerers in the Twenty Kingdoms. I’ve written to him. Actually, he would have been my first choice, except my mother had already made arrangements with Torricelli.”

  “He does a lot of work for the nobility,” said Hal. “Although Dad prefers our court magicians. If you want to apprentice to one of them, I’m pretty sure I could arrange it.”

  “Top-ranked magicians don’t go into government work,” said Emily. “Bungee is the best.”

  “Will he take you on?”

  “I guess I’ll find out now. But I’ve got something to sweeten the pot.” She dug into her handbag and brought forth a scroll of cracked, grayish leather. She showed it to Hal, but without letting it out of her hands. “The Book of Djinn,” she said. “The ancient Persian book of spells, once the sole property of the Caliph of Baghdad, said to be written by the wind itself and transcribed onto human skin. Extremely rare and valuable.”

  “Huh? No it isn’t. I don’t know much about sorcery, but I know you can buy copies of the Book of Djinn at magic shops. They’re expensive, but they’re not all that hard to find.”

  “This one is,” said Emily. “There are only three like it in the world and none other in the Twenty Kingdoms. This is the Book of Djinn Teacher’s Edition.”

  “Teacher’s Edition?” It took a moment for the meaning of this to sink in, then Hal let out his breath. “Wow! You mean with the answers in the back?”

  “Exactly. Can save you weeks of work on a complex spell.”

  “I don’t believe that’s really human skin, though.”

  “Sure it is.” Emily flipped the scroll over and showed Hal a small blue heart dyed into the back cover. Inside was the word “Mom.” “See? He had a tattoo.” She put the scroll away and looked at the door. “What do you think of this?”

  The door was impressive. The frame seemed to merge seamlessly into the wall, gray stone blending into darker iron. It was free of rust, with the slick black surface that came from being painted with linseed oil. It positively bristled
with rivets, yet there was no knob, no knocker, and not the slightest sign of a lock or keyhole. In the center of the door, just at eye level, was a spot of bright gold. Hal walked up and looked at it. It was a small brass plaque, about the size of his thumb, and engraved with the sign of a star and a crescent moon. There was no name.

  “Looks intimidating,” he said. “Maybe there’s another way in.”

  “Push on it.”

  “Ah, better knock first.” Hal was in no hurry to enter the wizard’s castle, which was understandable, considering what happened the last time he entered a sorcerer’s castle unannounced.

  Emily laughed. “Don’t worry about it. It’s a test.”

  Hal said, “Mmm?”

  “You know the sort of thing. The door looks impossible to open, so no one even tries. I’ll bet we just have to give it a push and it will come right open.” She leaned on it with the palm of her hand, and sure enough, it swung back silently on massive but perfectly balanced hinges. Inside was a small entranceway and a curved staircase leading upward. Emily stepped inside and turned around. “You see, magicians love tests like these. They want to know if you’re the type who can be fooled by appearances, or if you’re persistent enough to seek out the truth. Or something like that. Kind of silly, I think. If they—”

  The door slammed shut, instantly cutting off her words. No matter how hard Hal pushed, it stubbornly remained closed.

  Rumpelstiltskin bought two mugs of ale and paid for them with a small silver coin. “I always like to tip big,” he explained. “I hate it that people think Jews are stingy.”

  “I thought you weren’t Jewish,” said Caroline.

  “I’m not. But people think I am. So I tip big.” He settled himself into his chair and looked over the scarred wooden table, past Caroline, out the front door of the Bull and Badger, where he could see Prince Jeffrey waiting in one of the royal coaches. A liveried driver held the reins to four glossy black horses. A pair of foot-men stood on either side of the door. The dwarf shook his head admiringly. “A coach and four, eh? I gotta admit, you work fast. From Hal to Jeff in one day. You made a play for Kenny yet?”

  “I’ve met him.”

  “Be careful. They say he’s bad news.”

  “He didn’t seem so bad to me.”

  Rumpelstiltskin shrugged. “Well, women see men differently. So which one is it, Jeff or Kenny?”

  “I don’t know,” said Caroline. “I don’t know how they feel about me, yet. And there’s another thing. Apparently it hasn’t been decided yet who is going to inherit the throne.”

  “Yeah, I heard that, too,” said Rumpelstiltskin. “Here in Melinower the King chooses his heir. Must make for a lot of family friction.” He sipped his ale and eyed her over the rim of his pewter tankard. “You’re still going for the whole ball of wax, eh? The handsome prince and the throne? You know that being married to the King doesn’t give you any right to rule. It’s not the same as being a regent Queen.”

  “I will be perfectly happy with the title of Queen. I’m not greedy.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then let’s get down to brass tacks. You’ve got a magic spinning wheel. You need someone who can spin.”

  “Right.”

  “You know for sure this thing will spin flax into gold? You’ve tried it?”

  “No,” said Rumpelstiltskin. “It’s a one-shot deal. You can’t try it out. The magician said a spell over it. It will work for one night, unless he says the spell over it again.”

  “Presumably there’s more to it than that.”

  “There must be: Otherwise, every magician would have one, and there would be piles of spun gold everywhere. But that’s not our problem. I have this wheel, and it is definitely enchanted. Wait until you sit down at it. You can feel the power coming out of it.”

  “All right, for now we’ll say it works. What’s the deal with this flax? Why flax? Flax is awfully hard to spin. You get a strong yarn, but it tends to lump. Only the best can get it smooth and even.”

  “The best meaning yourself?”

  Caroline just tossed her hair.

  “Smooth I don’t care about. I’ll settle for lumpy gold. Are you fast, that’s the question?”

  “I’m fast but . . . it has to be flax?”

  “Unretted flax.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “It’s the Law of Similarities.”

  “The what?”

  Rumpelstiltskin didn’t understand it completely either. But he explained it as best he could. “Turning flax into gold isn’t really magic. It’s alchemy. See, magic is symbolic, but alchemy is allegorical.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Actually, I’m not sure. But I do know that whatever is turned into gold has to look like gold to begin with. That’s why you can’t turn lead into gold. It has to be brass. And a particular type of brass that is the right color.”

  “Virgin brass,” said Caroline.

  “Right. And you can spin flax because the stalks are golden to begin with. At least until they are retted. Um, what is retting anyway?”

  “Soaking the stalks in water so the fibers separate more easily. But some of the color washes away.”

  “That’s why it has to be unretted, then. Can it still be spun?”

  “Yes, just barely. But it will be slow going. I don’t think I can do more than a couple of spindles in a night. My half won’t be nearly enough for a dowry.”

  “That’s what the girl in Mathagar said. That’s why we have to work a deception. Show the King the first bag of gold, then tell him the rest will follow.”

  Caroline thought about this. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve been honest my whole life. I earned the right to marry a handsome prince. I don’t think I want to start off the relationship with a lie.”

  “Okay, take the gold you have and invest it. You’re in tight with the royal family. People will be offering you all sorts of lucrative partnerships so they can get in tight with you.”

  “Hmmm, maybe. I’m under a time constraint, though. It’s either marry Hal, or marry someone else. Otherwise, Hal turns back into a frog.”

  “Yeah,” said Rumpelstiltskin. “I can see that would be a problem for you. Not to mention for Hal. Still, I think it’s time to cash in on this. A bag of gold might not help you much when you go back to the castle, but certainly it isn’t going to hurt things.”

  “Yes,” said Caroline. “And then there’s that issue of the firstborn child.”

  “What!” said the dwarf.

  “There’s a story going around that you demanded the firstborn child of that girl in Mathagar.”

  “I told you that was nonsense,” said Rumpelstiltskin.

  “That ditz just likes to make trouble for Jews. Why would a guy want to raise a child that wasn’t his own? Women are always telling each other that someone is going to steal their children—gypsies, or fairies, or pirates, or whatever. If I wanted a kid, I’d get married and have my own.”

  “Sure,” said Caroline. “It’s just that maybe a man might want a child that wasn’t . . . um.”

  Rumpelstiltskin stared at her. “Wasn’t what?”

  “Well, you know what I mean.”

  “No.” Rumpelstiltskin looked blank. “What are you talking about?”

  It seems to be my day, Caroline thought, for getting into uncomfortable conversations. “Well, it was just an idea. I meant that because you’re . . . you are . . . and if it carries over to your children . . . so you’d want one that wasn’t . . . you know . . . deformed.”

  “Deformed? Oh!” Rumpelstiltskin slapped his stubby legs. “You mean these? These are because of a childhood illness. They’re not hereditary. Nothing to worry about—my kids will be fine.”

  “Good, good,” said Caroline, deciding to change the subject anyway. “When do you want me to spin the gold?”

  “Might as well do it tonight, if you can.”

  “Here?”

  “No, I’ve
got a room on the edge of the quarter. It’s over a goldsmith’s shop, in fact, so we’ll be able to change the spun gold for coin right there. I want to make some money and clear out of here. The word on the street is that there is going to be trouble for the Jews. Nothing to do with me, but I don’t want to get caught up in it.”

  “Here in Melinower?” Caroline frowned skeptically. “I thought we were above that kind of thing.”

  “It can happen anywhere if the ruling class thinks it’s being squeezed by the bankers. Although, actually, I was thinking it was time to move on anyway.”

  “Will the rest of your people—um—those people be leaving?”

  “It’s not so much a question of leaving as being driven out. But no one is going anywhere before the tournaments—there’s too much money involved.” Rumpelstiltskin produced a scrap of cloth and was sketching on it with a stick of charcoal. “Here’s a map to my place. We’ve got between midnight and dawn, but I’d say get there well before midnight so we can get set up.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Great. And don’t be nervous. I’ll be really gentle.”

  Caroline shrugged. “It’s spinning. What’s there to be gentle about?”

  Rumpelstiltskin stared at her. There was a long silence. Finally, he said, “Didn’t anyone tell you?”

  “Tell me about what?”

  “Dammit.” Now it was Rumpelstiltskin’s turn to be uncomfortable. “I thought everyone knew about this.”

  “What?”

  “And your friend is a sorceress. I figured you must have heard.”

  “What?”

  The dwarf looked around the room, as if seeking help. None was forthcoming. He said, a little desperately, “Remember you’re getting a bag of gold out of this, maybe more. This is a really good deal, no matter how you look at it.”

  “Rumpelstiltskin, what are you talking about?”

  Rumpelstiltskin drained his mug and stared down into the empty tankard. “Um, when you’re working a spell of transformation like this, there has to be—uh, there is always—it must be accompanied by a loss of virginity.”