The Unhandsome Prince Read online

“Me? I can’t do anything until I finish my apprenticeship. As for alchemy, I wouldn’t begin to know where to start. Neither did Mummy. Near as I can figure, she was making this on contract for someone else. Who, presumably, had a supply of red mercury and virgin brass lined up.”

  “I’m pretty sure Dad has neither,” said Hal. “He probably just heard about this somewhere and fixed on it as yet another one of his get-rich-quick schemes. And another excuse to get me out of the city.”

  This last line was spoken casually. A little too casually was Caroline’s thinking, and she zeroed in on it. “You and the King are not on good terms?”

  Hal hesitated before speaking. “Ah, well.” He looked into the fire. “Dad has high expectations.” And here he looked directly at Caroline. “He wants his sons to look a bit more princely.”

  Caroline had the grace to look embarrassed. There was an awkward silence.

  Hal broke it by standing up and saying, “Well, I think it’s time to gather more wood for the fire.”

  “Wait,” said Emily. She held out the leather bag. “Hal, go ahead and take it.”

  “The philosopher’s stone? No, I couldn’t.”

  Emily continued to hold out the bag. “Please take it, Hal. It’s of no use to me, and after living in a swamp all that time, you’ve earned it.”

  “That’s really generous of you, Emily, but no.”

  “It will help you get back in your father’s good graces. Take it, please. Consider it a gift to the King from his loyal subject, Emily.”

  Hal sat back down. “Well, if you put it that way.” He let Emily put the bag in his hand. “I appreciate this, Emily. I thank you on behalf of His Royal Highness, the King.”

  “His Majesty is welcome.”

  Something in the way that Emily looked at Hal, something in the way her eyes held his, triggered just a little bit of tension in Caroline’s spine. She broke into the exchange by asking, “How do you make it, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. It’s distilled from virgin’s milk, then vitrified.”

  Both Hal and Caroline stared at her. “Distilled from what?”

  “Virgin’s milk. Don’t ask me. I don’t know what it is either. I didn’t even know about this until I read Mummy’s notes after she died. And she didn’t keep notes on the really secret stuff.”

  Caroline said, “And virgin’s milk is from a . . . ?”

  “I don’t know! Maybe it’s just a name for something innocuous. Don’t look at me that way. It didn’t come from me, I’ll tell you that!”

  The conversation was getting a bit too personal for the Prince. He said, by way of changing the subject, “Why is it called the philosopher’s stone?”

  “That’s easy. Hold it in your palm and see.”

  Hal opened the leather bag and poured the contents into his cupped hand. The contents turned out to be an oblong white stone about the size of his thumb, something like a large pearl but more translucent. He held it to the firelight and gave Emily a questioning look.

  “Close your hand around it, then close your eyes. Tell us the first thought that comes into your head.”

  “Cogito, ergo sum,” said Hal, with his eyes closed. He opened them in surprise. “I think, therefore I am?”

  “Rationalism,” said Emily. “Pretty typical for the first time.”

  “Let me try,” said Caroline. Hal passed her the stone. She shook it in her hand as though she were getting ready to roll dice.

  “Just hold it still,” said Emily.

  Caroline closed her eyes. A few moments later she murmured, “Virtue is to be found in moderation.” She paused for a moment, then continued, “Socrates is a man, all men are mortal, therefore . . .”

  “Socrates is mortal,” Hal and Emily finished with her. “Classic logic,” Emily added. “Also pretty common.”

  “Did you ever do this?”

  “Oh sure. A couple of times. The first time Mummy gave it to me she let me ramble on about mind-body dualism for half an hour. Of course I couldn’t understand what I was saying.” Emily put the stone back in its leather bag and returned it to Hal. “But it was enough to make me understand the power of philosophy and why the secret of preparing a philosopher’s stone has to be carefully guarded.”

  Hal and Caroline exchanged looks. “Why?”

  “Philosophy is dangerous. Entire armies have been bored to death with it.”

  “Ah, of course,” said Hal. “I well remember my tutors lecturing on the difference between denotation and connotation. I still consider it a miracle I survived. Students were dropping three classrooms away.”

  “Hmm,” said Caroline. “We’re getting into tall tales now?”

  “Not at all. I was able to keep awake by holding matches to my toes. Being the only student to finish the lecture, I aced the course.”

  “I think it’s my turn to get the firewood,” said Caroline. “And then hit you over the head with it.”

  Hal excused himself and disappeared into the woods. The two girls could hear twigs crackle beneath his feet as he moved into the darkness of the trees. As soon as she judged he was out of earshot, Caroline hissed, “What are you doing? He’s my boyfriend. You can’t go around giving gifts to another girl’s boyfriend.”

  “What!” said Emily. “What are you talking about? Prince Hal isn’t your boyfriend.”

  “Of course he is. I found him. I freed him from the spell. Now he’s obligated to marry me.”

  “You already rejected him! You said he was a dweeb!”

  “Yes, but . . . but . . .”

  “I’m here with you two only because I’m supposed to help you find a handsomer husband.”

  “Um, right. But until then, Hal is my boyfriend, so don’t get any ideas, okay?”

  “I don’t have any ideas,” snapped Emily. “And Hal is a real person with feelings of his own, you know. You can’t just treat him like some sort of pawn to be moved around the board and played games with.”

  “Oh, look who’s talking. At least I didn’t turn him into a frog and abandon him in a swamp.”

  “That wasn’t me! That was my mother.”

  “Yeah, and why did she do it?”

  “Hal told you. Because he tried to steal the philosopher’s stone.”

  “Yeah, right. What was she really mad about?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Figure it out.” Caroline moved around the fire and sat next to Emily. “Teenage boy breaks into castle. Teenage girl lies sleeping alone. Mom comes along, finds teenage boy sneaking about outside her daughter’s bedroom, what is she going to think?”

  “Hal wouldn’t do something like that!”

  “How do you know? You heard him say it, that the ruling class takes what it wants.”

  “Caroline! That’s an awful thing to say about Hal! Especially as he has been so nice considering all the nasty stuff that happened to him.”

  “Well.” Caroline looked a bit embarrassed. “No, I didn’t mean to say he tried to do something to you. I’m just saying that maybe your mother thought he was trying to do something to you. That would have given her a lot more incentive to put a spell on him than just trying to swipe a bit of condensed milk.”

  “You didn’t know my mother well. She was very possessive about her magical stuff. She didn’t even let me in on her best stuff, and I was her apprentice. And her daughter.”

  “Okay, okay. It was just an idea.”

  The two girls fell silent. Caroline stared into the dying fire. Emily seemed lost in speculative thought. They heard a crunching of twigs. It was Hal, returning with an armful of branches.

  Emily leaned forward and whispered to Caroline, “Do you really think he tried to do something with me?”

  “Oh, for goodness sake,” said Caroline. “Go to bed, Emily.”

  They rode through an area of thick oak, aspen, and wild pear. It was an area that could only have been sparsely inhabited, for Caroline saw little sign of woodcutters. “Gundar’s Forest,” Hal told h
er. “It’s an old name, so don’t ask me who Gundar was.” Although it was a clear day, and the sun was high, the heavy shadows gave her a spooky feeling. So she was not pleased when Hal turned off the road onto a narrow and even more shadowy trail.

  “Just a little detour,” he called back. “It won’t take long. We’ll be back on the main road in no time.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “There’s a girl I have to check up on.”

  The trail was narrow enough that the horses had to walk single file. Caroline turned her head back to look at Emily and mouth the words, “A girl?” Emily could only shrug in reply.

  They started to climb. The trees got thicker and closed in on the trail. It was still wide enough to ride, but Caroline found herself bending low over the saddle to get under the overhanging branches. The trail went up a steep hill, then disappeared. She was sure the Prince would soon dismount and lead his horse, but no. He continued to pick his way through the trees, leading them back and forth along narrow switchbacks, gradually working their way higher and higher. Finally, as Caroline’s horse was starting to foam, they broke out of the trees and crested the hill. The peak was clear of trees, barren and hot in the noonday sun. Below them, thick green forest spread in all directions. In the center of the clearing stood a tower.

  The Prince had reined in his horse at the edge of the woods and waved the girls over. He pointed across the hills. “See. There’s Melinower. Another day’s ride or so should bring us there.” Caroline glanced only briefly at the smudge of buildings in the distance, nodded, and turned her head back to the tower.

  A stone tower in the middle of a deserted wood is intriguing under any circumstance, but this one fairly dripped with mystery. It was high, some sixty feet at least, and narrow, and perfectly round, but it was the stonework that gave it a foreboding aspect. The tower was made of black stone, dark and smooth and uniformly featureless. It rose straight up to a narrow turret. Caroline could see a small window just beneath the top—there were no other openings. She dismounted and walked up to the base. Peering at it closely, she could see that the black stone was not perfectly smooth. A grid of fine lines had been etched into each block, giving it a dull, matte finish.

  Hal came by and looked over her shoulder. He, too, touched the stone. “Pretty clever, eh? This tower was built as a prison. If the walls had been perfectly smooth, I was going to try using suction cups to climb up the side. But because it’s textured, that idea didn’t work.”

  “What? Why did you want to climb it?”

  “Had to rescue a damsel in distress.”

  “Rescue who?” This was from Emily. She had also tied up her horse, and joined them.

  “Some mad sorcerer kidnapped a girl and locked her away in this tower. Dad assigned me to bring her back. Except that after I broke into the place, she didn’t want to leave. Don’t ask me why. Anyway, as long as we were going by, I figured I’d better stop in and see how she is getting along. Maybe she’s changed her mind and wants to go home now.”

  As he spoke, he was walking around the base of the tower, with the two girls following. A number of shallow holes had been dug throughout the clearing. At first Caroline thought someone was trying to start a garden, but the holes had been dug haphazardly, in no particular pattern. On the opposite side of the tower, a crude door had been smashed through the stonework. Broken chunks of hard black granite still lay around the opening, which was covered with a thick blanket. Hal approached the door and made as if to draw back the blanket, but then hesitated. He studied it for a long moment, while Caroline and Emily watched, perplexed. Then he backed away from the door and drew the two girls aside.

  “There’s one more thing, before we go in,” he said. “Don’t say anything about her hair, okay?”

  “Why?” said Caroline. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Nothing, it’s fine. Just don’t get her started, okay?”

  Caroline exchanged glances with Emily, who gave her usual shrug. “Fine.”

  “All right, then.” The Prince walked up to the door, rapped on the stone with his knuckles, then drew the blanket aside. “Hey, Rapunzel, it’s me, Hal. Anyone home?”

  “Come on in,” said a voice.

  Because the walls of the tower were necessarily thick at the base, the room Hal led them into was rather small, although pleasantly furnished, with a polished wood parquet floor and simple, light oak furniture. It was lit by a single torch, plus the light coming through from the opening. A spiral of stone steps ran along the inside of the wall, to a mezzanine about ten feet above the floor. This had stairs to another mezzanine above it, and so on. Caroline could barely make out the wood floor of the upper apartment. Then her gaze ran to the girl sitting on the floor, and her eyes widened in surprise.

  The girl was young and pretty, perhaps a year older than Caroline, and she was sitting cross-legged on a thick rug, with a few cushions scattered around her. In one hand she held a silver brush, with bristles of elephant hair, and in the other a silver mirror. A tortoiseshell comb lay on a pillow in front of her. Around her was her hair.

  There was such a mass of it that Caroline first assumed that she had collected it—that this girl, located in a strange tower in the middle of the woods, had somehow started a wig-making business. As far-fetched as that idea was, it was no stranger than the truth. For Caroline quickly realized that this incredible length of golden hair all belonged to the girl. And it was still attached to her head.

  The torchlight shone on the dark yellow mane, occasionally reflecting a red highlight. The hair lay coiled around the girl in great soft loops, loosely tied at intervals with yellow ribbon. It seemed to fill half the room, piled higher than the backs of the chair, and more coils and loops ran up the stairs. Caroline thought she had pretty good hair herself, but this girl’s hair was perfect. In all that length of gold, Caroline could not spot a single split end or frizzle.

  “Rapunzel,” the Prince was saying, “these are my friends Caroline and Emily. Caroline, Emily, meet Rapunzel.”

  “Charmed,” said the girl, in a low, soft voice. “Please have a seat. I hope you’ll excuse me if I don’t get up. It takes rather a bit of time to get all this arranged so I can relax.”

  “Thank you,” said Caroline. Then, before she could help herself, continued, “You have beautiful hair.”

  The Prince glared at her momentarily, but sat down with an air of resignation. He kicked at some of the parquet tiles, which were loose and shifted under his toe.

  “Well, thank you,” said Rapunzel. She held up the hairbrush. “Today I’ve been using a brush with a wide pin design. It increases air circulation at the root to add volume for a softer look. I’ve also been misting it to keep the strands straight. I know you’re probably thinking that I shouldn’t brush my hair when it is wet, but I’ve found a little bit of moisture makes the brush glide more smoothly and reduces frizzing. But you know that only works when the humidity level is high. If the air is especially dry, as it gets sometimes in Melinower during cold weather, you know, when we have a cold clear winter day, then that’s when I get the flyaway hair effect, which can lead to tangles, especially after it’s all been washed, and I’m trying to dry it. So I use a moisturizing detangler, which helps to take out the snags, and also adds texture. Sure, that takes away some of the gloss, but it actually helps bring out the highlights. Of course, that’s only true if you use it with the wide pin volumizing brush.”

  “Of course,” said Emily.

  “Shush,” said Hal. “You’re just encouraging her.”

  “But if you really want volume, well you can’t do without a good conditioner.” Rapunzel kept talking as though she hadn’t heard. “My preference is an oil-based conditioner—the one I’m using now has five essential oils—jojoba oil, almond oil, sesame oil, wheat germ oil, and banana oil, to replace the natural oils that your hair loses through shampooing. It’s the shampooing that is really tough on your hair, especially if you use a shampoo that co
ntains alcohol—that will really dry it out. But even if you use an alcohol-free shampoo, you still need to use a conditioner to add back in the essential oils that have been washed away with the dirt. What do you wash your hair with?” she said to Caroline.

  “Uh, soap.”

  “Well, soap is not the optimum thing to wash your hair with, although it can be acceptable if you live in an area where the water is exceptionally soft. Otherwise, it mixes with the minerals in the water to give a dull coating to your hair. It’s the same thing that causes soap rings around your bathtub, and you know how difficult those are to remove. Fortunately, there are now what they call swimmers’ shampoos that remove mineral buildup without causing damage or dullness. Still, they’re pretty harsh shampoos, so you definitely have to use a conditioner after you use a harsh shampoo, with perhaps a color enhancer for brighter highlights. Then again, a lot of girls who wash their hair with soap use rainwater, which avoids the whole hard water issue. But you can’t always count on having a bucket of rainwater around when you want it.”

  Caroline actually found this kind of interesting, but she could see that the Prince was getting that eyes-glazed-over look, so she decided to help him out and change the subject. At the first hint of a pause, she interrupted with, “I hear you were held prisoner here. Did you suffer much?”

  Caroline saw Emily leaning forward to catch Rapunzel’s answer. “Oh no,” said the blond girl. “The wizard who kidnapped me didn’t mistreat me, except for casting that spell that made my hair grow long. Of course, I was still pretty happy when Hal showed up to rescue me.”

  “I’m sure,” said Caroline. She looked at the crude doorway. “It must have taken some time to knock those stones out.”

  “Oh, that wasn’t it. Hal made that opening after the wizard was gone, for me to come and go. He first got in by climbing up my hair.”

  Caroline stared. Behind Rapunzel, she saw Hal shaking his head and putting a finger to his lips. Caroline ignored him. “He climbed up your hair?”

  “By the time Hal showed up, my hair had already grown long enough to reach from the top of the tower. So I braided it into a rope ladder, and Hal was able to climb up.”