Chapter 1 part 3

The room echoed the dull empty ache in her chest where the fear would have been if her heart was still whole. Though it was late, the sun still stretched its fingers into the room with a cold twilight glow. She wished for fire. Slipping on her shoes she contented herself by lighting the candles strewn about the room.

She was peacefully working the needle when Heliotrope awoke with a squall of chirping complaints. The feeding went no differently except the nurse used a spare blanket to sop up the milk before it created a mess. Through the night both baby and nurse slept little.  As the morning light spilled through the windows in warm soft tendrils the nurse said, "I know Lillie Lee you want the cook."

There was a gentle knocking at the nursery door. The nurse crossed the room quickly and lifted the latch but the door did not burst open. The nurse stood for a moment feeling a slight pang that she did not recognize. Slowly she opened the door to find a small castle page standing in the hall with a tray of fine silver. "Breakfast Ms." He smiled up at her from beneath his large floppy red hat.

"Thank you." She stepped aside and gestured toward the table. He walked across the room jingling with every step. His livery was an ornate jumble of red and gold. He was young probably no more than nine. He was very deliberate about his work carefully placing a tray on the table and arranging the dishes in perfect order. Only when he was finished and made a perfect customary bow to the nurse did he let his curiosity about the new Princess show on his face. Even then it was just a glimmer and a slight hesitation leaving. "Would you like to hold her?"

"Oh no Ms.! I couldn't risk dropping such a treasure." He took one last peek at the Princess and quickly scurried out of the room and down the hall leaving the door opened behind him.

The nurse closed the door and sat down for breakfast with Heliotrope in her lap. The baby fussed and squirmed as was her habit. This made it difficult for the nurse to enjoy her meal. When the pageboy returned with the midday meal, most of her breakfast was still on her tray. He was as efficient as before.

She passed the next three days alone in the room with the baby. The only break in the long summer days was the regular appearance of the pageboy. On the fourth day sometime in the warm early morning she woke to the sounds of shouting men's voices, clattering of horses’ hooves, and the rattling of armor drifting up to her tower window from the grounds below. She looked down to see thirty men on horseback riding out of the castle gate led by the King.

When the pageboy appeared that morning he started chattering the minute she opened the door, “Did you see them?  That was all the castle nights.  Well except for old man Bert and his five castle guards.  They are really just the ones too old for campaigning you know.” 

He put the tray down and ran to the window looking wistfully off as though he could still see them.  “That will be me one day. One day when I am finally big I will ride out with the king.  They will call me Sir instead of boy.  That will be me someday!”

“You will make a fine knight. Sir?”  She said taking her seat.

“Sir Peter the Brave,” he announced standing tall with his young chest puffed out.

 She smiled, “Well thank you Sir Peter for your faithful service to the princess and her nurse.”  He bowed and beamed as he left the room and disappeared down the hall at a jingling run.

The afternoon was just beginning when there was a knock at the door. It was too early to be the pageboy. The nurse put down her needlework and quickly crossed to the door before the knocking woke Heliotrope. When she opened the door, one of the ladies in waiting was standing in the passage. She was a tall beautiful woman. Decorated in layers of the finest silks and brocades a shimmering vision of light greens and blues. Her hair was dark and plated in intricate patterns that must have taken the lady’s maid most of the morning to complete. She was adorned with pearls and gold. "Good morrow,” the lady barely moved as she spoke standing perfectly still her eyes bright but somehow vacant.

"Good morrow." The nurse stepped aside for the lady to enter but she remained standing in the hallway.

"The Queen inquires about the health and welfare of her daughter."

“She is well and growing." The nurse could not say that the little princess was happy but nor was she distressed.  ”Shall I dress her for the Queen?”

“I have not been told to instruct you so.”  The lady said.  She made a tiny curtsy and vanished in the direction of the great hall with a fluttering of fine cloth.  Her tiny feet making no sound as she went.

Peter appeared at his customary times but had returned to his more resolute quiet self. As night fell the nurse paced the nursery floor with a wailing Heliotrope. Heliotrope’s crying became louder and her thrashing more persistent. "You know how to find me." The nurse remembered what Dee had told her.

Chapter 1 part 2

The nursery was filled with a strange light. It hung about the room like a lightning strike, frozen. Heliotrope giggled and cooed in her crib. The rocker creaked as the nurse rose to her feet. She walked across the stone cold floor to the crib. Just as she reached for the baby the light suddenly fled from the room. Outside there was a tremendous rumble of thunder. The room shook and one of the windows rattled loose and swung violently open. At that moment the sky released its rain in driving sheets. Heliotrope continued to giggle as heavy drops of rain fell onto the nursery floor. Lightning flashed and thunder roared as the nurse wrestled with the window. At last she was able to latch it back in place. With the click of the window the new Princess began to cry and wail.

"Shhh little one," the nurse wrapped Heliotrope in her blanket the purple ribbon crisscrossing her tiny body. She brought the baby to the rocker and sat. She gently rocked and began humming and cooing to soothe the baby but the name kept getting tangled up in the nurse's mouth. "Heal? No. Trope? No. Really, what an enormous mouthful of the name you have.” The nurse lapsed into silence rocking the Princess who continued to whimper and fuss.

Outside the storm moved quickly. Shafts of light pierced the thick heavy clouds and the thunder became a distant crackling. The rocking chair squeaked rhythmically and the nurse's arms settled into a firm numbness but the Princess continued crying. The nurse had drifted so far into her own thoughts that she did not hear the initial knocks at the door. Only after the timid knocking became the firm rapping did she rise.

The nurse lifted the door latch and the door burst open. "Now I know I didn't wake you. I could hear her highness the whole time I was out there." The cook entered the room the silver clattering on the tray as she bobbed across the floor. She moved lightly despite her plump figure. She was a rumpled little form of a woman. Thick wisps of gray and black hair escaped her cap and her eyes sparkled bright green. She placed the tray on the table, "come on. Sit down. Eat!" She removed the lid from a beautifully decorated silver bowl. Wafts a heady smelling steam drifted across the room.

"Thank you," the nurse crossed to the table.

The cook pulled the chair out and reached for the baby, "Go ahead you can give her to me. I ain't afraid of no squalling baby. I raised five of my own. And where do you think all the little ones end up in this castle? Under Cook's feet, that's where!"

Slowly the nurse handed the baby to the cook. She did not worry for the baby’s safety but there was a pang of guilt giving her rather troublesome charge to another. The cook folded Heliotrope in her thick arms. Her threadbare dress and apron were soft and smooth against the baby skin. The Princess looked up into the Cook's round face and began to coo and burble. "See no problem. Eat!"

The nurse took her spoon and stirred the soup, potato and leak. She took her first mouthful the soup was thick and warm with a rich light unique taste. The nurse closed her eyes. Somehow, the soup tasted like the warm cottage she longed for, "This is amazing."

"You’re just hungry. It's just potatoes and leeks." The cook rocked the baby and tickled her little tummy. The princess giggled in delight. "Heliotrope? What a dreadful name. You poor little thing. That's got ta be a curse for sure."

"She seems to really like you." The nurse said between mouthfuls.

"Try the bread while it's still warm." The nurse obediently tore off a piece of bread covered it with a bit of butter which melted into the warm white interior. This kind of bread was never seen outside the castle. Common folk only ate the rough grain bread that ground down your teeth. The nurse had tasted this bread since coming to the castle but never warm.

The cook paced the room cooing and singing to the baby. Like the nurse she tried out short little names to replace Heliotrope. "Lee," she tried. The baby giggled. "Lee, Lillie Lee," the Princess kicked with delight. "I think she likes that."

"She does seem to. I have not seen her like much in her short little life."

"Then we will call her Lee. It will be our little secret. I don't think their highnesses would take kindly to the commonness of it."

"Perhaps not," despite herself the nurse was making a friend.  With the princess so content, she tucked into her meal enjoying the perfectly balanced flavors and textures.  The nurse was a practical woman by nature. She had never believed in magic, great or small. So it was easy for her to miss the glimmer of kitchen magic in the food she ate and the Fay features on the woman who had brought it to her. 

The princess was fast asleep as the nurse finished her meal. The cook tucked the baby into the nurse's arms and collected the tray. She whispered, "My name is Dee. You know how to find me. Just walk down and follow your nose. If you come to the dungeon you have gone too far down, but not by much." She left the room with a bit of a chuckle closing the door silently behind her. The room felt even bigger and emptier.

She placed the baby in the crib thankful that the infant did not wake. In the corner near the dormant fireplace was a small bed for her. She slipped her feet out of her shoes and lay down. The mattress was too soft, but she was soon asleep. She dreamed as she always did of heavy rains and rising torrents of angry brown debris filled water. She woke before the baby.

Chapter 1 part 1

They named her Heliotrope Hyacinth Hemingway. If you live in a time or place where Heliotrope would not be a pretty name for a baby girl this may seem cruel to you. Unfortunately for this baby Heliotrope was not an attractive name for a girl much less a Princess. When the baby's name was first announced the servants looked at the King and Queen with accusing eyes. The King looked back and shrugged in a regal way.  The Queen said, "We couldn't help it." And that was the truth.

Before she'd been named the baby was taken away cleaned up, dressed in the finest silks and lace, and wrapped in a blanket of pure white with a deep royal purple ribbon running along the edge. Despite all these trappings of royalty the infant refused to look like a princess. Like all babies her head was slightly too large for her body. She stared out at the world beneath a halo of almost invisible blond curls with the blackest of eyes. It was a piercing stare that you just could not get away from. Her arms and legs were long and stretched out of her wrappings one after the other. The servants carefully tucked each wayward limb back in but they would not stay. Her mouth was never closed instead she emitted a constant chain of cries and complaints. The squirming infant looked more like a large pink frog than a little Princess.

               The nurse handed the new baby to the queen as gently and neatly as she could. Within moments the little Princess kicked away her blanket and was squirming and wailing in such a way that the Queen had great difficulty maintaining her regal presence and hanging onto her child. The King, a great warrior, looked over his wife's shoulder with fear in his eyes. They looked at each other, at their child, then back at each other. "Heliotrope," they said with surprise in their voice.

The Queen added softly, "Hyacinth."

The King nodded and that was how the unfortunate little Princess got the name Heliotrope Hyacinth Hemingway. The baby was handed back to the nurse and she would not see her parents again for a long, long, long time.

The nurse was young and nervous. It seemed to her that only yesterday she was a child on her parent’s farm. In the short intervening time she'd given birth to her first child and her second and lost both the children and her husband. She was hired just a few days ago to be nurse to this baby. She had not made any friends at court. She dressed plainly, spoke softly, and moved in the shadows. In short she spent a great deal of time trying to be invisible.

Walking down the hall with this squirming crying Princess, she was anything but invisible. The nursery was not far from the Queen's chamber but in that time she had said “Good morrow” to a lady in waiting, was stopped by two chattering chambermaids, and made eye contact with the footman as he picked up the baby’s blanket for her. She took the last few paces to the nursery nearly at a run.

Clutching the baby close to her, she closed the nursery door and placed the wailing infant in the ornate crib.  The Princess sank into the soft mattress. The baby continued to cry. The nurse stood in front of the mirror.  She barely recognized herself in the clear glass surrounded by the heavy gilt frame.  The room around her seemed gigantic with its high vaulted ceiling, marble fire place and wall of leaded glass windows.  Even though it was high summer she felt cold and longed for her cozy dirt floor cottage. The young nurse tucked her fiery red locks back into her linen cap, smoothed down her brown dress and straightened her crisp white apron.

She picked up the Princess, took her to the rocking chair in the corner and attempted to feed her. This had always been an easy task with her own children, but the Princess continued to wail as she nursed. Milk spilled out of her mouth staining her beautiful silk gown and soaking the poor young nurse. This rather messy method of feeding meant a great deal of milk was lost before the baby's belly was finally full and Heliotrope slipped into a deep milk sleep. She slept with a contented smile on her face which deeply charmed the nurse whose broken heart risked a single beat before it went dormant again.

She gently changed the Princess into clean clothes and settled her back into her crib. After cleaning the rocking chair and changing her own clothes, the nurse settled back into the rocker and closed her eyes for a sleep that would not last.

Outside the sky was of two minds.  Sun light streamed over the hills.  It danced and sparkled in the leaves of the great oaks that grew on the grounds.  Over the ocean dark clouds were rolling in.  They blotted out the light under them creating a mid-day twilight.  Against this darkness the light seemed unusually bright.  The more superstitious of the realm would say that the Fay were about. The nurse did not ascribe to such things and the strange weather had not drawn her attention.  However, the loud peals of thunder that roared across the disturbed sky woke the princess.

The nursery was filled with a strange light. It hung about the room like a lightning strike, frozen. Heliotrope giggled and cooed in her crib. The rocker creaked as the nurse rose to her feet. She walked across the stone cold floor to the crib. Just as she reached for the baby the light suddenly fled from the room. Outside there was a tremendous rumble of thunder. The room shook and one of the windows rattled loose and swung violently open. At that moment the sky released its rain in driving sheets. Heliotrope continued to giggle as heavy drops of rain fell onto the nursery floor. Lightning flashed and thunder roared as the nurse wrestled with the window. At last she was able to latch it back in place. With the click of the window the new Princess began to cry and wail.