Felderon wouldn't rely upon the hospitality of the King of Renada like so many other visiting royals. As the son of neighboring monarch, he was technically invited to the palace, but if he went, heads would turn and whispers would follow. Divina would be there—dancing at the ball and accepting the favors of a coterie wealthy suitors.
Besides, the Fair's popular Novelty Exhibition opened late in the morning, after breakfast. It was here where he planned to unveil the blue stone mirror.
Instead of a feather bed at the palace, Felderon tossed and turned most of the night on a straw tick above a pigsty outside the city walls, burning up in a fever of indignation.
By the third watch, he gave up even trying to sleep. "Theron, Travers, feed my horses." He rapped on the wooden door on the landing. "Time to go!"
"But it's not even morning!"
"We've got to get out ahead of the crowds!" Felderon beat the door with his bare knuckles. "Saddle up!"
It was a long hour rousing both Travers and Thoran, but the trio finally set out, mounting up the cobbled street toward the palace.
Thoran drove his mare half sitting, half sleeping. Travers sat behind, still drunk from his late night guzzling strong tavern wine, singing a ballad like an old stray, and rousing half the village.
No maid I've seen like the Brown Colleen
That I met in the County Down
She looked so sweet from her bare two feet
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to the sheen of her nut brown hair
a coaxing elf and I shook myself
for to see she was really there
From Banrty Bay up to Derry Quay
From Gapway to Rundin Town
No maid I've seen like the Brown Colleen
That I met in the County Down-- 1
"Enough!" Prince Felderon silenced the lad.
"Just feeling a little jolly.
"You can sing on the return journey. Sing of flowers and lovers all you like then, but one more word about bare feet and nut brown hair, and I swear--"
"Ah!" Thoran gasped, drowsy eyes flown wide. "In all my life, I never—!”
* * *
Every country had its historical legends for beauty. Helen, Ester, Cleopatra.
Trolls. None could compare to the beauties of Renadan women, and especially their royals.
Felderon dropped his doubts with his jaw at his first glimpse of a Princess of Renada.
She stood on the palazzo, dark hair loose around her shoulders, face and neck unveiled, exposed to any fortunate nobody who happened to be entering the gates.
"Who is she?" Theron asked in a hushed voice.
"I do not know her. I assume she is a royal of Renada. She has the look of one who owns all of the ground we walk upon," Felderon said, squinting his eyes as though the sight was almost too bright to bear.
"Surely there is some magic, some sorcery behind it."
"Such beauty is a gift," Felderon lowering his gaze.
Tears streamed from Travers's eyes. "My mama told me to never stare straight into the sun."
"Indeed," Felderon whispered, "her darkness is as the noonday." His next thought followed unspoken: How could the white mirror do anything to amplify such beauty? It couldn't.
The trio stood paralyzed under the balcony and could not move from the spot until the princess retreated within doors.
Proceeding toward the fair grounds, Felderon blinked back tears. Truly, beauty was a gift. His throat tightened. The white stone of illusion weighted upon his mind. What would its particular hypnosis do to the onlooker? But he shoved the thought away. Why think such a thing? He was the one to pay the price. He was forever saddled with the dark mirror. The white mirror was a prize—to anyone, perhaps, but the woman on the balcony. She defied illusion.
For a fleeting instant, he tasted something bitter at the back of his mouth, then spurred Serge into the gate.
1 Adaptation of an Irish folk ballad.