The Unhandsome Prince Read online

  This seemed so patently absurd that Caroline was sure a punch line was going to follow. But the girl seemed perfectly serious, and Hal wasn’t smiling, and there was all that mass of golden hair to consider. Rapunzel went on, “At first I thought I’d do a French braid, as it would be tighter and stronger. But it shortens the hair too much, and I didn’t have that kind of length yet. An English braid is looser, but of course it’s just a French braid in reverse, so there was still the length problem. So I finally just decided to go with an ordinary braid. I was afraid it wouldn’t be strong enough, but it held up fine, long enough for Hal to get to the window and subdue the wizard. But whatever style of braid you try, you still have to prepare your hair by dampening it first. This makes the hair slide more easily. You can wet it totally, and it will slide even better, but then you better expect to have wet hair the rest of the day, because it takes a long time to dry after it has been braided. I used a perfume atomizer to spray it with a fine mist of water. Anyway, the plan worked, although it was a very long and tedious braiding job. I certainly don’t want to have to do it again. But when you’re going to put that sort of stress on your hair, do you know what the most important thing is?”

  “Strong roots,” Hal muttered under his breath.

  “Strong roots,” Rapunzel told Caroline. “That’s why I like to use a shampoo with a good nutrient base, to feed the hair roots. I’m getting good results with a mixture of lettuce and fern extracts. It also contains lemon peel and citrus extracts, with some rosemary, sage, and nettle. I was also following it up once a week with a hot oil scalp treatment—almond oil and rose hip oil, with oatmeal for a mild abrasive affect. This was supposed to thoroughly cleanse the scalp and remove any dead or flaking skin. But I couldn’t see that it made any difference. I guess I already have a pretty healthy scalp.”

  Rapunzel went on in this vein for quite a while. It was afternoon, in fact, before her monologues ran down, and the three travelers managed to extract themselves from the tower. They rode their horses back down the trail in silence, and it wasn’t until they reached the main road that Emily finally spoke.

  “Personally, I always use a brush of wombat hair and nautilus shell, to add more body.”

  “I always condition my hair with oatmeal, honey, almond oil, and raisins, plus half a teaspoon of baking powder,” said Caroline. “Then bake in a medium oven for forty minutes. For extra volume, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Hey,” said Hal. “Now don’t you two get started.”

  “I think we should do Hal’s hair,” said Emily. “Something really needs to be done about it. Don’t you think so, Caroline?”

  “Oh, absolutely. Perhaps a light, layered, shag cut for that man-about-town look.”

  “With a bushy mustache.”

  “Jeez,” said the Prince, and rode his horse down the road in front of them.

  “Wait,” said Emily. She spurred her horse to catch up with him. “Hal, you haven’t told us everything. Who is this girl and how did you get to know her and what is she doing there?”

  “There’s nothing to tell. Some wizard kidnapped Rapunzel and shut her up in that tower. Dad sent me to rescue her. It’s one of those things you’ve got to do when you’re a prince. Bandits and highwaymen, well, when they get too thick, you send out the army to run them down and hang them. Kidnappings are different. You can’t use that sort of brute force, because the kidnapper might kill the victim. It’s the merchant class that has the most trouble. They’ve got money, but they don’t have knights or soldiers of their own. So they expect the King to do something. That’s what they’re paying their taxes for, they figure.”

  “Why not just pay the ransom and go after the wizard afterward?” said Caroline, who had also ridden her horse up while Hal was talking.

  “He didn’t demand a ransom.”

  “No ransom? Then why did he kidnap . . . oh.”

  “What?” said Emily. “What ‘oh?’ ”

  Caroline lowered her voice. “Figure it out. Old man, pretty girl. He must have seized her so he could . . . you know. To violate her.”

  “Oh,” said Emily. “Oh, that’s terrible. That poor girl.”

  “No,” said Hal. “She swears he didn’t lay a finger on her. Just cast a spell to make her hair grow long.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe he just had a thing for long hair. Anyway, she won’t leave the tower, now. I knocked a door in the base so she can get in and out, but there she stays.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to talk about it,” said Emily. “I’ll bet he did things to her. Now she doesn’t want to go home because she’s ashamed.”

  “I still call it mysterious behavior,” said Caroline.

  “Well, she’s got clothing and enough food to last out the summer. Not to mention plenty of stuff to put on her hair. I’ll check back when the leaves turn and see if she’s ready to return to the city.”

  Caroline drew her horse alongside Hal’s. “So this is what a Prince does? Rescue girls? Do you slay dragons also?”

  “Not so many dragons around Melinower these days. The area is pretty well settled. But yeah, if a dragon showed up, I suppose I’d be the one to take it on. My brothers . . .”

  Here the Prince stopped, as if he’d said too much and was looking for a way to back out of the subject. He opened his mouth to start talking again, then shut it without saying anything. He drew his horse a little away from the girls and started inspecting the mane, as though searching for burrs. But Caroline would not let the matter drop.

  “What about your brothers? Can’t they slay a dragon? Aren’t they strong enough?”

  “Hmm? Oh sure. No problem. They’re both big, muscular guys, good in sports and combat.”

  “Handsome?” said Caroline. “Are they handsome?”

  Emily shot Caroline an irritated look. Caroline affected not to notice.

  “Yeah, plenty handsome. The thing is . . .” The Prince stopped again and considered his words. “Ah, the thing is that Dad considers that one of them is the heir to the throne, and he doesn’t want to risk his heir. So, he tends to assign me to the more dangerous stuff. Dad figures I’m kind of, um.”

  “Expendable,” said Caroline. Emily slipped her foot out of the stirrup and kicked the blonde girl in the shin. Caroline ignored her.

  “No, no. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like he wants me to get killed—nothing like that. It’s just that he prefers me to be out of the kingdom, out of the public eye. I’m kind of a disappointment to him. I don’t fit his image of what a prince should be. Not princely enough, you know. But I’m okay with it. It’s good experience and a chance to get away from the castle.”

  Hal said this lightly, in a relaxed, easygoing tone of voice that Emily thought would not have fooled a child for five seconds. Had she been alone with Hal, she would have tried to say something consoling.

  “Sure,” said Caroline. “So let me see, you have two brothers, right? And they’re both handsome? What are they like?

  Someone, thought Emily, should really strangle that girl.

  She tried bringing it up with Caroline when they stopped for lunch. The hilly road had tired out the horses. Hal, spying a grassy meadow, thought it would be a good place to let them graze for a while. While he was removing the saddles and currying the horses, the girls decided to build a fire. Emily picked up a stick and said, with assumed carelessness, “It’s not exactly tactful to keep reminding Hal that you’re rejecting him.”

  Caroline lifted a branch, noted that the wood was slightly rotten, and tossed it aside. She said—and her nonchalance was not a pose—“I doubt he cares. He’s a prince, we’re commoners. He wouldn’t give us a second thought if it wasn’t for the spell.”

  “I’m sure it bothers him that the girls prefer his brothers.”

  “Yeah, probably.” Caroline added another stick to the pile in her arms. “I spent so long thinking of him as a frog that it’s hard for me to relate to him as a boy. I
think this is enough wood, don’t you?”

  “Uh-huh.” They carried their loads back to the clearing where their blankets lay and stacked it on the ground. “So, what was it like to kiss him?”

  “Who?”

  “What do you mean, who? Hal!”

  “It was like kissing a frog.”

  “Well, I mean, after he changed. While he was changing. The end of the kiss when he was changed back.”

  “It didn’t happen while we were kissing. I kissed him, I dropped him in the water, I reached for the next frog—and there he was. Instant prince.”

  “Oh. So you don’t know what it’s like to kiss him?”

  “Same as any other boy, I would imagine.”

  “Um, yes. I suppose.”

  Caroline stopped and looked at the dark-haired girl. “You’re telling me you’ve never kissed a boy?”

  “I didn’t say that!”

  “But you never have.”

  “It’s different being a sorcerer’s apprentice,” said Emily defensively. “There’s a lot of studying to do. You don’t have a lot of time to go out and socialize.”

  “Hey, don’t worry about it. It’s no big deal.”

  “Okay.” Emily stuffed some dried grass and shredded bark under the stack. She took a small knife and a piece of flint from her bag and started striking sparks. “So you have kissed other boys, then?”

  Caroline was amused. “Oh sure, a few. I don’t do it very often. I think it’s cruel to get a boy’s hopes up if you don’t intend to do anything with him.”

  “There’s magic in a kiss,” said Emily. “Well, I guess you ought to know as well as anyone. But since I’m an apprentice sorceress, I have to be especially careful.”

  “So you’re not going to kiss Hal?”

  Emily started. “What? What makes you ask a question like that?”

  “You brought it up. You must have been thinking about it.”

  “Certainly not!”

  “Not that it would matter to him. A boy who is a prince, even if he’s not good-looking, can get all the girls he wants. You can bet that Hal has been with more girls than you’ve had hot dinners. You’d just be one more in a long line.”

  “I would not! I mean, I don’t care. Frankly, it doesn’t matter to me what he does. I was just making conversation.”

  “Right. Are you going to light that fire, or what?”

  Emily looked down, where she was still striking sparks from the flint. They were falling on bare dirt. She moved her hands and aimed them at the tinder.

  Caroline said, “I thought sorceresses were supposed to be able to start fires magically.”

  “We do. It’s one of the first things we learn. But I’m still an apprentice, so all I have is a learner’s permit. I can’t do anything unless accompanied by a master or journeyman.”

  “How can they stop you?”

  “Magically.”

  “Oh, right. Well, I guess that makes sense. We all know the stories about sorcerers’ apprentices and the trouble they get into.”

  “What stories?”

  “Oh, you know. Like the one about the sorcerer’s apprentice who cast a spell to make the broom carry water from the well, then couldn’t get it to stop after the castle was flooded.”

  “Oh that.” Emily suddenly became very absorbed in the tinder, striking the flint with great precision. “Ha-ha. Yes, I’ve also heard that story. Um, you think maybe this tinder is damp, and that’s why it’s not catching?”

  “Wait, you’ve done magic before. I know you have. Last year, you said that spell over Suzanne to make her breasts get bigger.”

  “That was a joke.”

  “No it wasn’t. She started pushing out right after that.”

  Emily gave the other girl a disbelieving look. “Caroline, that’s the oldest trick in the book.”

  “But it worked.”

  “For any group of teenage girls, someone’s got to be the last to develop. She gets worried about it, so she goes out and buys a charm, or a potion, or starts doing chest exercises, and then her breasts get bigger, and she thinks it worked. All that happened was that she was about to start growing anyway.” She struck another spark into the tinder, which caught into a gentle flame.

  “Um, right. I knew that, of course. I was just testing you.” Caroline covered the tinder with dried twigs. They quickly built this up into a crackling fire, but Caroline decided she wasn’t done teasing the younger girl. She said, “So a sorceress has to be careful about who she kisses.”

  “An apprentice does. The kissing isn’t the problem, except that it can lead to the other thing.”

  “And that’s a problem?”

  “Well, sure.”

  “Ah,” said Caroline. She rocked back on her heels. “It’s starting to make sense. A philosopher’s stone is made from virgin’s milk. Gold is made from virgin brass. A sorcerer’s apprentice has to be a virgin. I sense a continuing motif here.”

  “It’s called the Law of Transformation. When something changes state, there’s a release or an acceptance of energy. So the transformation of a virgin to a nonvirgin is what powers the transformation from an ordinary person into a magician. Or something like that. Provided it’s done right, and the energy isn’t just dissipated. At least, that’s the way Mummy explained it to me.”

  “No wonder she was so upset when Hal tried to get into your room,” Caroline said wickedly.

  “Will you stop saying that! He just wanted to get the philosopher’s stone.”

  “I know. Just kidding. So you’re going to be poring over books for years to come while my new husband is keeping me warm. You have my sympathy.”

  “Yeah, right. Don’t feel sorry for me. We can still do the other thing.”

  This got Caroline’s attention. “What other thing?”

  Emily wasn’t sure if she was still being teased. “You know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “I have to spell it out for you?”

  “Apparently so.”

  Emily cocked her head and looked at Caroline, then decided that maybe she really did know something the older girl didn’t. “When the boy licks the girl’s—”

  “Ahhhh!” Caroline clapped her hands over her ears. “Never mind. Don’t tell me! I’m not listening! That is gross. That is totally gross.”

  “Well, you asked.”

  “I didn’t think you were going to get graphic. That’s disgusting.”

  “I didn’t say I was going to do it. I just mentioned it as an option. Anyway, how could it be more disgusting than kissing frogs?”

  “I wasn’t kissing frogs for fun. And yes, it was disgusting. That’s why I want everything that I was promised.”

  Her words reminded them of the uncomfortable situation that had led to the two girls being here, and Emily decided not to continue the conversation. She picked up a jug. “I’ll fill our water jug from the stream.”

  “Fine,” said Caroline. Then she giggled.

  “What?”

  “I was just thinking. A boy who spent several months as a frog ought to be able to do some really cool things with his tongue.”

  “Now who’s being disgusting?” said Emily. But she looked thoughtful.

  She headed off to a nearby stream, but once she was hidden by the trees, she changed direction and cut through the woods until she was almost at the clearing where the horses were hobbled. Hal was just finishing up. Emily slowed to a walk that just happened to intercept him as he turned back toward the campfire. “Oh hi.”

  “Hi.”

  She held up the jug. “I was just going to get some water.”

  “The stream is that way,” said Hal. He nodded in a direction some 180 degrees from the path Emily was traveling.

  She looked over her shoulder. “Oh, is it? Thanks. So, how are the horses?”

  “Fine.”

  “Good,” said Emily. She made no move to continue to the stream, or to get out of Hal’s way. It seemed to Hal that she
was waiting for something, and she was. Emily was by no means certain how a girl got a boy to kiss her. It wasn’t the sort of thing she could have asked her mother, nor was it covered in any of the books she had read.

  At least, not in those terms. There was magic in a kiss, that much her studies had made clear. More than a few spells could only be broken with a kiss. But what to do if you weren’t under a spell? Emily had the vague idea that all a girl really had to do was get herself alone with a boy and wait. Apart from exceptions like the frog spell, kissing was really a boy’s job. Surely they were trained for these situations.

  She waited through some awkward silence. “You look very nice,” said Hal.

  Good, good. That’s a start, Emily thought. “Why, thank you.” She moved a little closer to him.

  “It’s a nice afternoon for walking in the woods.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Emily. She had rather heard that some women had only to look at a man in a certain way, and he would get up and cross the room just to give her a kiss. She did not, unfortunately, know what that look was supposed to look like. She concentrated on trying to look kissable.

  “I can help you get water,” said Hal. “Let me take that jug for you.” She raised the jug toward him, her fingers around the handle, and he put his hand over hers.

  Better and better, she thought, not letting go of the jug, just letting his hand stay of top of her hand. She turned her face up to his and tilted it a little, thinking, Here it comes.

  “What’s Caroline up to?” said Hal.

  These were not the words Emily had been anticipating. “She’s fine,” she said, snatching the water jug back out of the Prince’s hand. She turned away. “I guess you think you’re pretty lucky,” she snapped back over her shoulder.

  “Huh,” said Hal. “What? Lucky about what?” He caught up with her, took the jug out of her hands, and put her arm in his. Walking toward the stream, he continued, “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, you know. All the boys think Caroline is just so, so fine. And now you’re required to marry her. Oh, tough break. Would you be so casual about it if someone else had kissed that frog? Someone maybe . . . not so pretty . . . someone else. Oh never mind.”