A Weak Man
“She came in like starlight.”
“You are drunk.”
“It’s my birthday, servi!”
“Servus, servi is the genitive case: of a slave,” I corrected. “Your birthday ended two hours ago, highness.”
“It did! And with it, all happiness!” With studied melodrama, my Prince flung himself on his vast bed and began to writhe in his absurd silk sheets.
“Surely, his highness is being dramatic because he had too much to drink.”
“Like starlight! Like water in a dessert! Like fire! Like the sun in spring! Like stars on a clear night! Like-“
“Your highness has already used stars.”
“She deserves it!” he whined at me, wiping his nose on his gold-embroidered cuff. “Stellari I’ll call her; my Stellari, my star.”
“Stella, stellari is ‘stellar.’”
“I am twenty now!” He snapped. “Hal become Henry, and thou art not mine tutor … anymore. I am grown, and in love with a star!” Quiver of depressingly mangled Shakespeare spent, he hurled his long, regal body back into his pile of sheets, pillows, and duvets and took up his godforsaken thrashing and wailing.
Twenty years old indeed; noble of bearing, clear of eye. Tall and handsome, terribly so in dress uniform: unearned medals, unwon ranks. The pride of the Kingdom, the Crown Prince: my charge, my failure.
Unless.
I cleared my throat. “Highness, I have not yet had the chance to present you with your gift.”
He pulled his beautiful, snotty face from his bed. Ah, trust the offer of a gift to cease your caterwauling. I drew it from my pocket, presented it with the requisite drama. I tried not to let my hand tremble, so much resting on this moment. He blinked, confused. Lord deliver us from this gentle imbecile.
“It is her crystal slipper. It dropped from her as she fled, I collected it from the stairs.”
His face cleared, he crawled across his bed towards me, I proffered the glittering bait. He held it up and it caught the light from the gas lamps outside. In that sparkling moment, I — I who bought and paid for it — almost believed it to be magic.
“Her shoe.” His face twisted into a sneer.” Her shoe!?” He drew his hand back and went to hurl the tiny thing across the room.
The fate of a Kingdom turned on the reflexes of an old man.
“Highness!” I gasped, snatching the shoe from his hand. “We can use it; we can find her with it!”
It took some time, some patient, slow explanations — several minutes of confusion as I explained that crystal slippers would be a rarity in our steadily impoverishing Kingdom — but eventually the Prince understood that whomever fit this shoe and could present its sibling would, doubtless, be the woman who had so enchanted him.
And so I left him, happy, pouring peasant wine down his stupid, noble gullet.
I did not take the golden medals he’d ripped from his chest to thank my cleverness directly to Roussillon. I am a weak man, whatever else I am.
I mentally weighed the value of the medals against the size of my debt. They would have made quite a dent in the sum, filled much of the hole.
The sun was well up by the time I’d lost it all. If there were questions about the Prince’s man gaming away the Prince’s medals they were not asked to my face. I swallowed one of the fashionable cups of intense Italian coffee at a bistro and felt the stimulant revive me.
She would be furious.
***
“It is half-noon, Monsieur Avanche.”
“Apologies, Madame d’Orléans. His Highness’ celebrations ran late into the night.”
“I was there,” she replied, managing, with a single beckoning gesture, to convey both profound displeasure and complete disregard. “So were my daughters.”
“I tried, Madame, the Prince’s attentions were elsewhere.”
“I noticed.”
Silence in the old, draughty Orléans mansion. I wrung my hat in my hands, the image of humbled, contrite servant; how much had she noticed?
“When I hired you to tutor my girls, Monsieur,” how she managed to make the title an insult! “I understood there would be advantages to having the Prince’s instructor become a member of my household.”
“Your daughters have the best latin in the city, Madame.” She hadn’t noticed. Wonderful.
“The Prince does not care about latin,” she cut in icily. “Nor do I. I do not care about that English pornographer you’re so fond of. I do not care that my daughters can quote Dante or Herodotus or Newton.” She advanced on me, six towering feet of furious aristocrat. “What I care about very much, Monsieur Avanche, is that neither of my daughters, my d’Orléans daughters, spent the night dancing with the Prince!”
I couldn’t resist. I tried, but I couldn’t.
“By marriage.”
She drew back, grey angles and murderous eyes.
“You are dismissed from my service. Your pay is with the girl.”
I bowed as though my old, skinny back hurt terribly; she ignored my humility. I started towards the kitchen, struggling to keep a spring from my step. As though I would spend another day in your service, you rotten, grasping, foul, brutal, vicious-
“Avanche!”
“Madame?”
“I will see you suffer.”
***
She punched me hard in the shoulder.
“Where in Dante’s nine circles of hell have you been?”
“That is no way for a Queen to talk, demoiselle.”
She punched me again then jammed her fists onto her hips: five ebon-haired feet of brown-eyed fury in the middle of the kitchen which should have been hers. In a way, I suppose it was.
“Don’t you joke! I was frightened, Avanche! Did it work? Did the Prince like me? Did you get the slipper? Did it break?” She paced back and forth in the kitchen, words tumbling from her. “Did she see me? Did she recognize me? What will she do if she did, and where the hell is Avanche!”
I took her shoulders. “You were perfect Ysabel.”
“Perfect?” Of course the Prince fell for her: those brown eyes, that glowing smile. If I were thirty years younger… Improper, Avanche.
“Perfect. He flew into a tantrum when you left; hugely embarrassing. He wept like an infant until I presented him with the slipper.”
“He wept?” Her eyes flashed with mirth. My idiot Prince was correct: she is like starlight. Brilliant and clear, she will make such a Queen. I had dreamed of seeing her take the throne since I first began answering her astonishingly bright questions when I collected my pay from her. I’d taken the employ with her stepmother to help pay my debts, I’d never imagined finding old Hubert d’Orléans’ daughter hidden away in the scullery.
“And wiped his snotty nose on his sleeve.”
“Avanche,” she giggled as she said my name and I fell further in love with her, which surprised me, as I was already, obviously, profoundly so. “That is no way to talk about the Prince.”
“We will try the slipper on those hooves your ‘sisters’ call feet. Then we shall insist, ‘so sorry, Madame d’Orléans. Of course it couldn’t be this ash-covered wretch, but the Prince commands: every foot in the Kingdom. You have the other?”
“It’s safe.” She nodded.
“You will be Queen, Mademoiselle d’Orléans,” I said seriously. We’d been plotting for a year or more, her and I, in passing moments, in the kitchen, the garden
“It is my country too, Monsieur Avanche. I will not see it fall to ruin,” she replied with force. Then her beautiful face broke into a smile the filth her stepmother covered her in couldn’t dim. “Besides, he is terribly tall and handsome, perhaps I’ll keep him around.”
***
Rumour coursed up and down the cobblestones: the Prince is in love! A princess? No one knows! Were you at the ball? I was! I saw her: a raven-haired beauty from Spain! You weren’t there! You were with me at Maxime’s watching the dancing girls! It was an ice-blonde Nordic girl, a Dane or a Swede. Who told you that load of manure? Georges de Brec! De Brec couldn’t tell a cod from a codpiece!
There were reports of fisticuffs.
Myself, the Steward’s boy, a pair of the Prince’s guardsmen, and a scribe — for posterity — crawled through the city. We called at vast mansions and tumbled inns. I cringed every time a sausage-footed girl tried to stuff herself into the crystal slipper. Keep the other safe, Ysabel d’Orléans, I prayed. Three times girls managed to slide their feet inside. Yes, yes! It was me! I was there with the Prince, oh I do love him so! Wearing? Why, I was wearing blue of course. No, no the other broke, shattered, I did weep so. Oh, yes, silly me, I was wearing a silver gown. I forgot. I am such a silly girl, you see.
We recorded their names, told them the Prince would be to see them shortly. I wondered how long they waited by the window to see his carriage arrive. I hoped not overly long.
“It’s been three days, Avanche!” My Prince raged at me from his bath. He splashed his royal fist and set his model of the Fierté, all thirty tiny guns of her, bobbing around in the bubbles. “I want her found! I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, all I can think about is her eyes, her smile-“
“Your highness’ excitement for his lady is showing,” I interrupted. He shifted further into the water, glared at me. “I have known his highness since he was an infant, I’ve seen it before.”
“Find her Avanche,” he growled.
“I promise my Prince I shall find the object of his affections.”
We were interrupted by a messenger.
“Apologies, Monsieur Avanche, your highness. Monsieur Avanche, you are requested at the house of d’Orléans.”
“Avanche!” my Prince shouted with glee. “That foul hag? You cad!”
“I am afraid your highness is mistaken,” I responded, withdrawing. I hadn’t even closed the door before the rhythmic splashing began.
***
My heart in my throat, I rung the bell at the d’Orléans mansion. Had she gotten a good look at Ysabel at the ball? After I’d spent so much energy distracting her. Had she found the slipper? Ysabel would never talk, what had she learned?
The door opened. I very nearly ran away.
“Roussillon.”
“Avanche.”
The round little Corsican fairly bounced as he led me into the parlour. Madame d’Orléans was installed like an Empress on a divan. Ysabel was not in the room. Those brutal grey eyes followed me; I sank meekly into the chair before her: I am a weak man.
“Roussillon has sold me your debt.” Direct, how horrid. “It is an impressive sum; almost treasonous someone in the Prince’s household wasting such money at the tables in these times of uncertainty.”
“It was my own money,” I tried.
“No. No, Monsieur Avanche.” She shook her finger. “It was Roussillon’s money, and now, it was my money.” Roussillon let out a giggle from his place by the door. “You are satisfied?” she asked him.
“Yes Madame, and allow me to say it has been such a-“
“Get out, odious thing.”
“Madame?”
“Get out of my house, and never let me see your peasant face again.” She delivered her insults with such grace one could almost miss them. Almost. Rousillon’s face was purple with rage before he was out the door.
“I own you, Monsieur Avanche.”
“You own my debt, I will repay.” She smiled, the Serpent in Eden must have smiled alike.
“You will repay this very afternoon, when you come calling with that crystal slipper.” I followed her thinking, I despaired. “I don’t care which of my daughters it is, but you will put that slipper on a d’Orléans’ foot, and you will convince that moron we call a Prince she was the girl he fell in love with, and you will do it with a smile. Or I will have you hung by your thumbs in a debtor’s prison for the rest of your tiny life.”
***
That afternoon, the Mediterranean sun poured gold; men wore linen, women rode bicycles. Italians sold ices along the promenade. The Prince’s carriage rattled up to the gates of the d’Orléans mansion. Myself, the Steward’s boy, the soldiers, and the scribe — for posterity — presented ourselves to the Widow d’Orléans and her daughters. She was gracious, welcoming, proper.
“I am afraid it doesn’t fit, Madame,” I apologized.
“Alas, Marie-Ange, you shall not be a Princess.” The sweetness in d’Orléans’ voice nearly choked me. Her daughter, elder by three minutes, looked like she wanted to vomit with rage.
The second daughter approached and smiled such a vicious smile at her sister. I imagined her on my Prince’s arm, her and my Prince leading my country. I am a weak man.
She arranged herself on the divan and presented her knuckled foot as though already a Queen. My hands were clammy with sweat, I came close to dropping the slipper.
“It fits Maman!” she cried.
“Wonderful, Marie-Josette.”
“I knew it would fit, it is my slipper after all.”
I stared at her foot, her small toe unable to fit into the slipper, heel still exposed, sweat from my hands smeared upon the crystal. I looked at my thumbs.
“It does not fit.”
Silence again, in that draughty old house.
“I beg your pardon, Monsieur Avanche? Did you say, it does not fit?” I rose, tried to swallow, choked, coughed, nearly dropped it again. Those eyes, not grey: iron.
“The slipper does not fit either of your daughters, Madame d’Orléans. Are there, perhaps, any other women in the house?”
“There are not.” I could see her pulse hammering in her temples, she wanted to tear me apart.
“Perhaps a scullery-maid?” Stop Avanche, oh please stop.
“Surely-”
“The Prince’s orders, Madame d’Orléans, every foot in the Kingdom.”
***
I try to remember the look on d’Orléans’ face when Ysabel, filthy with soot, slid her tiny foot into the crystal slipper and then produced its twin. I try to remember the smile Ysabel gave her stepmother: starlight breaking through clouds. Alas, in our modern age, even the royal family cannot overrule the courts. So I scream. Madame d’Orléans satisfies herself with my screams and I cannot remember the look on her face, or Ysabel’s smile.
I beg for death: I am a weak man.