The throne room’s silence was deafening with all of its eyes vested upon Cinderella. The princess delicately interlaced the fingers of her hands and brought them folded up high against her chest as if posing for clemency. Even in a ragged kirtle and ruined appearance there was the presence of regality about her as she looked up to face her judgment, refusing to wither under Prince Maximilian’s gaze.
“Then hear me, my prince. I entreat the estates of the realm for mercy in this matter and hope my tale will shed the Author’s holy light on my reason as to why,” Cinderella began, taking in another deep breath.
“The Author writes that any prince may find his princess and any princess her prince. So it was when my father met my mother-by-blood, finding in one another the undeniable truth of the Author’s greatest promise: the surety of true love’s existence. In honor of my mother, my father even named me after her: Ella.”
Flanking Maximilian on his left was the tall and imposing Stylus Adelaide, the pen-miter marking her as one of the Author’s own placed primly on her head. Her silver hands were held up in a gesture of prayer with the golden inkwell clutched between her fingers as she watched Cinderella with businesslike interest.
On the other side of the prince’s throne stood the portly count Carlo of Carabas with the sliver of an easy smile on his bronzed face, the cat on his shoulder playfully pawing at the precious scroll case he was holding tight against his chest.
“Even from a young age I knew that our lives were hard,” Cinderella spoke. “My father worked each day without rest as a wheelwright to provide while my mother took care of our farm and me, teaching me all she knew. We had little of worth, but we saw in one another the greatest of treasures. It was a hard life, but our family had a happy home. All was well until in my early youth our village was struck by a paper plague that claimed the lives of over half of its people, including my mother.”
“This village of yours, this was the one dubbed Copperton?” the Stylus Adelaide interrupted. Her voice was resonant and clear, as if it had been made for paeans, hymns and glorious chants.
“Yes.” Cinderella replied.
“And you say your mother perished from the paper plague? Had she learned how to read?” Adelaide asked, her tone turning sharper.
Cinderella noticed the way her husband’s lips curled ever so slightly, missed by most, but not by her who knew him so well. He said nothing but was clearly displeased at the Stylus’ line of questioning.
Cinderella shook her head. “No, Your Penmanship, she knew not how. No one in our village did.”
“Then how did your mother succumb to a paper plague if she was blissfully illiterate?”
“An apostate, Your Penmanship. One day a stranger lorn of refuge came to our village asking for shelter and the people of Copperton obliged. I was young and did not speak with him, but many of the villagers did, including my mother. He was found to have brought a book with him and it is thought that some of the words he shared from it during his short stay caused the sickness to spread among the people.”
“To possess a book as one from the laity is an act unsanctioned by the Church, Princess Ella, “ said Adelaide, “and to read from one is considered heresy under the laws of the Empire, the penalty for which is severe. But a layperson merely reading from a book marked by the Author’s holy words does not make one an apostate, merely a heretic.”
Cinderella’s eyes darkened as she looked up at the Stylus.
“It was not one of the Author’s works, Your Penmanship,” she said. “The people of Copperton have always been proud of their piety and have always kept true to the Author’s writings. Although those of my village knew not how to read, they knew well how one who stood tall in the light of the Lamp should: from left to right, as the Author dictates. The stranger had been seen reading right to left.”
Coming from the nobles arrayed behind her she could hear the quiet predation of public opinion seeping through the silence: indignant murmurs interspersed with soft, impudent laughs and here and there a sharp guffaw of incredulity. All Cinderella could do was continue to affect an aura of stately decorum, enforcing upon herself a calmness that came upon her with all the quiet presence of a gathering storm.
“If this stranger was seen reading foul works, why did the people of Copperton not seize upon him and bring him to justice?” Adelaide asked imperiously.
Because of fear, Cinderella thought to herself bitterly.
“Because of faith, Your Penmanship,” Cinderella replied. “Once the villagers discovered the stranger’s apostasy, they believed the Author would not abide such foulness in their midst. They worried for their souls and wished not to blemish themselves even further in the eyes of the Author, staining their hands with the blood of even the evil. Instead they ran him out with plough and fire into the woods for the wolves to claim him.”
Adelaide pursed her lips and canted her head ever so slightly, the miter on her head dipping a few inches with the motion.
“Then the people of Copperton have erred greatly. They should have strung up the apostate and rinsed their hands awash in his blood. Certainly the Author Above would have then cleansed their bodies of the paper plague, including, I am sure, your mother’s. The Author is, above all, just.”
Cinderella parted her mouth to respond with reckless abandon when prince Maximilian raised his hand to interject. His voice rang out as he turned to speak to the Stylus with an assessing gaze.
“That is enough, Stylus Adelaide. What does this matter of old have to do with the crimes the princess has committed?”
Adelaide dipped her head towards the prince upon his throne. “I merely wished to inquire about the state of her past, my prince,” she said deferentially. “The Church’s annals show no record of the princess ever having suffered from the paper plague, therefore it is indeed plausible that the capacity of evil has indeed likely always been present beneath the guise of her virtuous beauty since birth.”
After saying these words, Cinderella saw Adelaide shoot a discerning glance from sidelong towards her - like a chess player studying her opponent’s reaction after a brazen opening move.
“There will be no more questions regarding the princess Ella’s history before her accession to royalty. I have given her permission to speak and she shall do so uninterrupted.” Maximilian said with finality.
“Of course, my prince.” Adelaide responded courteously and seemed only to tighten her silver grip around the golden inkwell in her hand. “It is as you say.”
Prince Maximilian turned back to Cinderella and made a motion of leave for her to speak.
“Continue,” he said authoritatively.
Cinderella did as she was bidden, meeting her husband’s eyes as she spoke. “My mother fell ill of the paper plague and ultimately succumbed. Her passing left me broken-hearted, but it was my father who was truly inconsolable.”
Cinderella’s hands tightened around themselves, her knuckles whitening to the color of pale snow as she continued.
“Never has a woman with a greater predilection for purities and virtues walked these lands, this I tell you true,” she continued, catching her breath. “I was too young to understand how much greater my father’s pain was when compared to mine. I had lost a mother, yes, but it was he who had lost his one true love.”
The count of Carabas’ relaxed expression radiated an odd sense of disquiet as he observed Cinderella from beside the prince’s throne, the shadow of a genial smile continuing to play around his lips, never fully forming, as if he were cognizant of a great jest at everyone’s expense and was only just barely able to hide it.
“For two years, my father and I scraped a livelihood together in the wake of my mother’s passing. We eked out a meager existence, but despite the hardships my father treasured me and I, him,” said Cinderella. “When my father found himself a new woman in a local widow, Agathe Schmidt, I could scarcely believe that anyone could ever compare to the void left behind in my mother’s wake, but I loved my father and whomsoever he loved, I loved. In return, I trusted him to take care of me until the day I could wed.”
Cinderella closed her eyes, letting the later years of youth play through her mind again. When she opened them again, she couldn’t hide the bitterness from creeping into her voice.
“But he betrayed that trust, for he married himself a sour-souled wretch of a woman to entertain the hole in his heart firstly, and thought of my well being second.”
Cinderella could see the count give her an indeterminable nod. It did little to alleviate the sinking feeling in her chest and the slow rise of unbidden emotions.
“At first my new stepmother did not treat me with great unkindness. In fact she treated me to not much of anything, paying me neither love nor mind, solely doting on her own two daughters borne to her from her previous marriage. I was left as an afterthought in this cobbled-together family.”
The small black cat on the count’s shoulder seemed to have gotten its fill of the scroll case and brought its paws together, tapping its little padded fingers together in a very human display of growing boredom. It lazily turned its attention on Cinderella as if she were just one more object of idle interest, but a dark and present glitter in the cat’s eyes hinted that it was absorbing every word.
“My mother had taught me that any of life’s indignities should be borne with grace and humility for it is in these virtues that the greatest of the Author’s writings are extolled,” said Cinderella. “And so I did, for a long time. Each day I did my chores dutifully and not a single foul word fell from my fettered lips, for while I labored under the strain of a lack of love, I could also see that some light had returned to my father’s eyes, brought back by the attention of this new woman.”
Stylus Adelaide continued to stare down at Cinderella, her expression cold to the point of indifference, although the slight pursing of her lips belied subtle disapproval of the contents of the tale being told at hand.
“But one cold winter night, I had made the young girl’s mistake of openly speaking of my late mother’s kindness in my father’s presence. I spoke of the times when my mother would place coals from the evening’s cooking fire in our kettles to keep my father’s feet and mine warm through the night. We had only two kettles, so it was her feet that were always left frozen the next morning. The memory brought a smile to my father’s face, a sight I had not seen in years. My stepmother’s face however, was alight with fury.”
Cinderella could almost feel the heavy weight of her memories come to sag and strain her shoulders.
“Whatever wretchedness had slumbered in my stepmother’s heart, that day I surely had a hand in awakening it,” Cinderella continued in a more haunting tone. “Each morning from then on when my father had gone to work, my stepmother and her daughters would begin their cruelty. They would throw me into the previous night’s coals and force me to clean up all the ashes that would be strewn about the house. When my father then came home they would berate me before him, claiming that I had become lazy and refused to do my chores. In time, he began to believe them. My very presence seemed to incur my stepmother’s ire and my very existence seemed to gall my so-called sisters. Still, I dared not speak the truth, for what is one girl’s indignities compared to her father’s happiness?”
Cinderella cast her gaze wildly about the throne room like a fishing rod, as if she were hopelessly attempting to reel in an answer from the public. She hadn’t even noticed that the entirety of the throne room had fallen silent and that the atmosphere had turned a quiet sour. The faces she could distinguish in the Lamplight wore masks of insincere sympathy and skepticism, hurriedly conjuring forced smiles when she caught specific gazes.
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“Ashes clung to my clothes and soot stained my face and soon the cake of it all had become so thick on both that no water could clean it off me,” Cinderella said vehemently, almost desperately, as she looked back up at her husband on his father’s throne. His marble features continued to radiate an almost alien cold.
“But no greater indignity was inflicted upon me than taking from me my own name: no longer did they call me by my mother’s name, but rather a mockery of it. They began to refer to me as Cinderella, after the burning ashes they would throw me in.”
Cinderella thought she could see a small crack in her husband’s cold façade. A flash of weariness, perhaps even guilt.
No, husband, Cinderella thought glumly. I did not tell you everything.
“Vengeance?” Maximilian asked loudly. “Is that why you torched your sisters alive and sought to do the same to your mother? Mere vengeance?”
Cinderella let her hands fall apart from one another and snapped her gaze down at the floor, coming to clench the fabric of her kirtle tightly. She mumbled something in a low voice, inaudible.
“Speak louder, princess Ella,” Maximilian commanded. “The Crown gives you leave to do so. Now is the time to be heard.”
“As I told you, husband,” Cinderella repeated, louder this time. “They were not my sisters. And she was not my mother. It was not vengeance that filled in me the desire to see all three slain.”
“The princess shall address me as her prince,” Maximilian’s voice boomed. Cinderella shrunk away wincing as if expecting a blow, her focus still fixed on her bare feet.
From behind her Cinderella could hear the echoes of scornful whispers from the gathered nobles, quickly stifled by the prince throwing a perilous look out towards the crowd as if searching for someone to punish.
“My patience,” he said loudly for all to hear, “has almost reached its limit, but I assure you: the depths of the Crown’s ire are not so simply stymied. Tell the court as to what then guided your hand the day you brought ruin to the Tower of Brightness if it was not vengeance for the pains done to you in your youth.”
Cinderella took a noisy inhale before she raised herself back up and arched her head back, enjoying the heat of the day falling on her form. Even as withered as she was from her imprisonment and bereft of her glamorous hair and her illustrious jewelries there remained an uncanny beauty to her as she straightened herself to stand tall in the light of the Lamp.
So warm, she thought to herself. Bathed in the shine of the Author.
“The tale of our true love is known to all in Brightsilver, my prince,” Cinderella began again. “It is true that one of the realm’s Faeries blessed upon me a chance to attend one of your royal balls. She came to me as an answer to a prayer: with one flick of her wand she cleaned the ashes on my kirtle and the soot on my face. With another she gave me a starry gown and a pair of crystal slippers.”
Cinderella permitted herself a small smile up at her husband. “What happened then has since been immortalized throughout the kingdom in faience and stained glass: the story of our happily ever after. It is for that, and that alone, that I sought to rid the world of my stepmother and her daughters.”
The cold façade on Maximilian’s face shattered momentarily like a glass illusion, revealing first a look of dismay, followed by fleeting outrage. A candle-flick later his face was once again armored in the thin cuirass of high nobility.
“Has your time in the high tower robbed you of your wits, Ella?” he asked in a tone of dangerous nonchalance, leaning forward from his throne. “Is this a mockery of me? Of our marriage?”
Ella, Cinderella felt her heart flutter at the name of her without being to help it. Just Ella, like before.
The count Carlo let out a nervous chuckle from beside the throne at the sudden twist of the prince’s mood. The cat on the count’s shoulder nuzzled his neck, purring softly in his ear as if to soothe him. Even the Stylus shot the prince a slanted look from sidelong, although she remained wisely silent.
“No,” Cinderella replied, her voice tinged with desperation. “I would never impugn my love for you, my prince!”
“Then explain yourself!”
Cinderella clenched her teeth and dug her fingers into the fabric of her kirtle.
“My faith in the Author never wavered and for that, He has seen fit to reward me with a happily ever after with you, my prince,” she said, swallowing hard. “You married me and made me a princess of royalty and of my family, nobility. You gave me a throne beside you and your father, the king, gave mine an estate, with all the luxuries it afforded. Never had I seen my family so happy.”
Cinderella’s beautiful face abruptly contorted with a snarl, her eyes blazing with anger.
“And it began to vex me, my prince, the unfairness of it all!” she said in a heated tone. “What had my stepmother and her wretched offspring done to deserve their new lot in life? Nothing! And yet I was still forced to see them flit about your father’s court: screeching specters garbed in fineries unearned and jewels undeserving.”
It took all of Cinderella’s self-control to not begin shaking with a sudden onset rage.
“But *I* was not happy, my prince,” Cinderella almost growled through gritted teeth, “in my happily ever after. How could I be, when these ghosts of my former life continued to haunt me? As the Pages flittered by, I became incensed. Just as my presence had once vexed my so-called family, so did their existence come to vex me.”
Cinderella took a deep exhale to regain her composure. Her fingers in the fabric of her meager servant’s dress relaxed, coming instead up to tighten up its strings as if she were preparing herself for work.
“I could feel myself fraying, my prince. You did not deserve a wife unhappy and my stepmother and her daughters did not deserve their newfound happiness.”
Cinderella shrugged with a casual lack of concern.
“And so I did what I had to for our happy ever after. I stained my hands with the blood of the evil,” Cinderella said calmly, shooting a quick glance at Adelaide, “not for any sense of meager vengeance. But for my love for you.”
There was no sound that came from the galleries behind Cinderella, not even a whisper. All were silent in the wake of the princess’ words, even the prince himself.
Maximilian’s jaw clenched visibly and he shifted upon his throne as if making ready to reply, but it was not he who broke the silent tension.
A small meow came from the cat who now sat cross-legged upon the count of Carabas’ shoulder, the sound of which seemed to spur the man himself into speech.
“You have no guilt, no remorse, for what you have wrought?” Carlo asked incredulously.
Cinderella gave a sad, hopeless smile. “The only guilt I feel is that my mother survived. The only remorse I have is that I shall likely not have the opportunity to amend my mistake.”
Stylus Adelaide, who had been stoically silent, spoke up again at last.
“My prince, the Quill has made its judgment.”
“And so has the Scroll, my prince.” count Carlo added with a sigh.
Maximilian stared down at his wife with an inscrutable expression on his face. “And so has the Crown,” he said after some candle-flicks of thought. “Stylus Adelaide, what say you as the Church’s voice in this matter?”
“The Quill wholly condemns princess’ Ella’s actions," said Adelaide. "No matter her reasoning, she has committed the inexcusable and has sought to appoint herself as the Writer of three epilogues of nobles belonging to the High House of Spades. Heinously, she succeeded in doing so twice.”
Adelaide took a step forward down her dais and raised the golden inkwell in her hand with reverence up towards the lamplight that shone down through the vaulted windows.
“Under the light of the Lamp,” she said in a tone of steel drawn for righteous reasons, “the Quill judges that the princess Ella of Brightsilver be deauthorized and be cast out from the Author’s church. So does the Book of Firsted decree.”
Maximilian gave an almost imperceptible nod at the Stylus’ statement. “And what says the Scroll on this, count?” he asked without taking his gaze off of his wife.
Carlo brought his arms out wide towards the public as if reaching for a phantom’s embrace.
“As for the people of the Empire,” Carlo began in a theatrical tone. “The circumstances regarding the princess’ crimes I feel warrant some measure of thought. She has endured, if her words are true, a harrowing youth. While her crimes are certainly inexcusable under the Author’s light, they are, perhaps, somewhat understandable by us mere mortals. What lengths would many of us not go to to reap the rewards of a happily ever after? Why, if it had been me, I would have--”
The cat on his shoulder swatted at Carlo’s ear, which seemed to sober him up. The count cleared his throat and spoke primarily to the crowd of gathered nobles in the throne room.
“The laws of the Empire are clear,” he said. “The princess’ slaying of two members of a High House of the realm--and the attempted murder of a third--warrants summary execution. It is only for the fact that the princess herself is of high royalty that she is allowed to beseech for a candle’s drip of mercy.”
Carlo turned to Cinderella and made a sweeping gesture with the scroll case in his hand as if it were a ruling scepter.
“And mercy you shall have,” Carlo said with a flourish of the case towards Cinderella. “The Scroll judges that the princess Ella be imprisoned for the rest of her days in the highest tower of the kingdom, my prince. The nearness to the Author’s Lamp shall surely come to illuminate her soul. His Ink willing, she may yet again find a sense of renewed grace before the end of her Pages.”
The outbursts of gasps of dismay and shock that came from the crowd was like the sound of a sudden gale wind whipping up behind Cinderella. They wanted to see her head shorn from her shoulders and she was close to agreeing with them, for her knees almost buckled at the thought of returning to the tower: to bake again in its heat for the rest of her life seemed unbearable. It was only the calm way Maximilian looked at her that allowed her to stay on her feet as if she were only held upright by the strength of his gaze upon her.
The wind of whispers behind her died down as Maximilian slowly stood up from his throne. “Princess Ella,” he began. “Not since the very dawn of Sleeping Beauty’s empire has a crime such as yours been committed within the lands of Brightsilver.”
Maximilian made a motion towards Adelaide, then to Carlo. “The Quill demands to see you cast out of the Author's church. The Scroll wishes to see you imprisoned for the rest of your days.”
“But I,” he said, weariness creeping in his voice, “merely wish to see you gone.”
The prince paused and took a deep breath as if steeling himself.
No, Cinderella thought, feeling a sudden urge of panic.
“Ella, you have done a great evil which no good soul that walks as the Author writes could ever abide. Your great beauty, your mark of virtue, has been maligned by your monstrous acts. You have become a mockery of the Author’s writing.”
No. Please, no.
“By the power vested in me by right, blood and Her Somnolence’s edict of faith, I, Maximilian IV of the High House of Spades, hereby decry your evil deeds and deauthorize you. All that has ever been written by you and about you shall be struck from the records and the annals. All the faiences shall be shattered, all the stained glassworks replaced.“
Maximilian looked towards Adelaide who had been coolly observing the proceedings and Cinderella felt her knees collapse in on themselves as Maximilian turned his gaze from her. She was about to unceremoniously fall to the ground when a firm hand from the periphery of her vision caught her and she couldn’t help but lean into the strength of the stranger as if it were the only pillar left in the world. Through the onset of tears Cinderella saw the blurry face of the count of Carabas keeping her up by the arm. His thick lips were pursed tightly as he looked her over with some concern, but he said nothing. Meanwhile the prince upon his throne continued mercilessly.
“Stylus Adelaide,” Maximilian said. “Is it not so that a member of royalty must adhere to proven faithful worship of the Author to be able to marry and remain in covenant?”
Adelaide nodded. “Yes, my prince. Only by the Ink of the Author Above may the promises of happily ever afters be enacted.”
“And then what would you say regarding the validity of my marriage with the princess Ella considering her deauthorization?”
“I would say the marriage between you and the former princess Ella is no longer recognized to be established in good faith,” Adelaide replied. “The union as it now stands is an illegitimate one as it cannot be upheld by the laws of marital union as written in the Book of Firsted.”
Maximilian turned his attention back to Cinderella. “A member of royalty such as myself cannot be in covenant with an exile who has been shunned from the Author’s writings. Ella Wagner, you are therefore stripped of your rank of royalty, no longer a princess. All titles, lands, honors and possessions that were bequeathed upon you by right of royalty are taken from you.”
Cinderella choked in a mixture of despair and panic, trembling in the count’s grip. She tried to say something but couldn’t get past the blockage in her throat, the rise and fall of her chest rapid and shallow, close to hyperventilation.
“Although you are no longer my wife,” Maximilian said in a softer, almost gentle tone, “there is still a love in me for you. I had said that I would not pass judgment as the husband of you. Now I no longer am.”
Cinderella felt the count’s grip on her arm tighten just a tad and felt something soft dartle between her bare feet.
“The thought of you rotting away in a tower…” Maximilian shook his crowned head. “I cannot bear it. But neither could I ever court the idea of your execution. Therefore I, Maximilian IV of the High House of Spades, banish you, Ella Wagner, from the kingdom of Brightsilver, never to return.”
There was a ringing in Cinderella’s ears and it was all she could do to remember to breathe, overcome with emotion. From somewhere behind her she heard the sounds of falling rain, suddenly growing louder. It wasn’t until she was spun around roughly by someone - not Carlo - that she could see what she was hearing: they were clapping, all of them were clapping for her punishment, their faces ecstatic.
Above it all, like the sound of thunder in a storm, she heard his voice.
“Take her away from me.”