A Not-So-Grimm Fairytale
Ann Somerville
‘A Not-So-Grimm Fairytale’ Copyright © 2007 by Ann Somerville
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Published by Ann Somerville
A Not-So-Grimm Fairytale
Once upon a time in a kingdom far, far away (which couldn’t exist in the real world because of a totally implausible economy) there lived a handsome Prince (who was also totally implausible because he was thirty, tall, disease-free and darkly beautiful, despite a total absence of modern medical care and a distressing lack of fibre in the general diet.)
This prince, Alferonzo, was as clever as he was handsome and so had been appointed by his father, the King, to be Chief Justice throughout the land of Qarte. (Fortunately, Qarte was his father’s kingdom or there’d have been hell to pay.)
Prince Alferonzo was not what one might call a ‘people’ person, but then that wasn’t a requirement for a Chief Justice. All a Chief Justice needed was a comprehensive knowledge of the laws of the land, immunity to corruption, and a secure back exit from the courthouse for discreet getaways. Prince Alferonzo was overqualified on all three counts.
The Chief Justice presided over the second highest court in the land (for the king himself was naturally the highest authority.) By the time claimants arrived there, they were desperate and angry, but the prince never let the emotions sway him from a strictly impartial application of the law. No one left his courtroom saying he was biased, though many were even more desperate and angry than when they arrived.
(This, as Prince Alferonzo was later to discover, was possibly not a good thing.)
He prided himself on his unprejudiced judgements, and congratulated himself that the rule of law remained untarnished by his actions. When his father died (after a long, fruitful life, in his sleep, in the arms of his favourite concubine, Alferonzo always piously added when he thought about his father’s demise), Alferonzo would be a just and beloved ruler.
He had the first part right, at least.
The Kingdom of Qarte was a civilised land, so it recognised the regrettable necessity for divorce. Prince Alferonzo spent a good deal of his time on the bench adjudicating between warring couples. It was, he freely admitted, not a part of his responsibilities that he enjoyed, but merely endured for the sake of the law and the benefit of the children involved.
For the couples themselves, he had little sympathy. It was not, he would tell them, necessary to love your spouse, but to merely respect, or at least tolerate them for long enough to produce heirs. His own parents had done this, and he, Prince Alferonzo, had done so himself, begetting an heir, a spare, and the spare heir’s spare. He and his wife saw no reason to have anything to do with each other after that, and indeed, did not. If it was good enough for royalty, he would tell his disputing couples, it was more than good enough for them. However, he found that most were in thrall to the idea of emotional entanglements, and insisted on using the court as a way of punishing each other for their faults. There was, he had long ago discovered, nothing to be done but make the decisions for the fools, and send them on their embittered way. The world would be a much better place (of this he was certain) if people did not make decisions about their lives based on the demands of their kidneys (for these, the people of Qarte believed, were the seat of romantic love.)
Or parts lower down, Prince Alferonzo often considered.
So it came to pass on this day of hearing one divorce after another, that Prince Alferonzo was in a more than usually tetchy mood, and a less than usually patient frame of mind. When a couple came before him with no children and uncomplicated finances, it took him less than half a minute to decree that their property should be divided equally, and to undecree them man and wife.
“Next case, Bailiff,” he said, handing the papers over to his clerk.
“Wait!” the ex-wife cried. “He left me for a younger woman!”
Prince Alferonzo stared over his glasses at her (he had perfect vision, but since he looked ridiculously young for his age, he’d take to wearing the things to make himself seem older and, presumably, wiser.) “No-fault divorce, madam. Take your vengeance upon his clothes like other women do.”
“But he bought her jewels with my money, and gave her my mother’s wedding bracelet for a birthday present! He told me I’ve grown too old and ugly to love!”
“Then you’re well rid of him. Bailiff, next ca—”
He found himself unable to speak or move. The rest of the courtroom and the ex-husband were similarly afflicted. Only the woman, eyes ablaze with fury, could move and she did so, stalking up to the bench to fix him with her angry gaze.
“I am of the line of the great witch, Drowenna, and though we oblige ourselves to obey the rule of law, I have inherited something of her powers. I stayed my hand, thinking the famous Chief Justice, the Prince Alferonzo, would punish my faithless lover, but now I see that you are just a man too, with a man’s foolishness and lack of pity. So now I abandon the law and create my own justice! I call upon the blood within me, and damn you, oh disloyal spouse, to spend your life without the sex you sought with your bitch!”
Her ex-husband screamed as his trousers disappeared into thin air, and his penis fell to the floor, twitched a little, then fell still. Where it had been attached, was now nothing more than smooth, hairless skin.
The woman turned back to Prince Alferonzo. “As for you, oh heartless judge of the affairs of human kind, I will give you a taste of what you condemn women like me to. You will appear old and ugly until the day you find the one who will be true and faithful to you forever. And trust me, that day will be a long time coming.” She laughed nastily. Prince Alferonzo might even have described it as a cackle. “Now—farewell!”
She disappeared into a puff of purple smoke, and suddenly everyone could move again. The sounds of horrified gasps and then shrieks drowned out even the ex-husband’s wailing. The shrieks, Prince Alferonzo realised, were directed at him....
“Hideous!”
“He’s so old! And bald!”
“Nose like a bat!”
Prince Alferonzo held out his hands, and to his horror, found them wrinkled and blotched, like those of a man in his eighties. But when he touched them to his face, they felt just the same.
“It’s a glamour,” he said firmly and loudly to the disgusted faces below. “Nothing’s really changed.”
“My dick fell off!”
Prince Alferonzo wondered how the man would piss, but felt it was probably the least of his concerns. “Yes, well, that’ll teach you to put it where it ought not go. Pick it up and go away. Bailiff! Restore order!”
But order could not be restored, until in the end the courtroom had to be cleared. Only then, and with complete dignity and no sign of the panic he felt, did Prince Alferonzo go to his chambers, and there, in his dressing mirror, could he see what the child of Drowenna’s line had done to him.
His valet, Wat, came to his side. “What do you see?” Prince Alferonzo asked his manservant.
“I see my prince,” his valet said simply. “What do you see?”
“My grandfather.” He touched his head—no matter what the evidence of the mirror, he still had all his hair. But who would come close enough to discover that, looking like this? “I’m cursed by the line of Drowenna.”
His valet blanched. “Tis said a curse by Drowenna is utterly unbreakable, save on the one condition given by the witch. What will you do, my prince?”
Prince Alferonzo looked at the straggling, wispy grey hairs across his balding pate, the slack, wrinkled cheeks, the sunken eyes and the receding jaw, the nose that dribbled down his face like melted wax.
“It’s very simple, Wat. I find someone to whom appearance is not important, who’ll be faithful and true. How hard can that be?”
Wat smiled, and Prince Alferonzo took that as agreement. All he had to do was get on with his plan and soon he’d be restored to his normal, unfeasibly handsome self. Simple.
~~~~~
“Take him to the city brothel and set him to work until he learns humility.” Prince Alferonzo’s cold voice lacked any pity for the quivering creature before him, but then what little he’d had for the human race, had been all but destroyed by the events of the past year. “Even if it takes the rest of his putrid life.”
“Brother prince,” his half-sister, Bella, murmured, her hand on his arm as she gazed at the pretty young noble sobbing on the ground and pleading for release by anyone or anything—hand, mouth, he cared not. The palace pleasure servants had been more than usually thorough but then, they’d had practice of late. “Lord Garel is young, and his father is an ally.”
“Very well,” Prince Alferonzo said grumpily. “For a month. Then flog him and send him back with the dowry.” Bella gave him a look. “Oh...don’t flog the little shit, and make the customers use sheaths. Just get him out of here.”
As the little lord was dragged weeping from the royal chamber, Prince Alferonzo turned around, his back straight and haughty, though to the world and his sister, he knew he appeared hunched and weak.
“This is useless, Bella. Twenty-six of these idiots and not one of them had the brains to realise this isn’t the real me.”
His hand curled into a fist as he recalled the words of the lately departed Lord Garel del Mer when Bella had brought him to meet his alleged new paramour. “Gods save me! It’s obscene, a joke, surely!”
Prince Alferonzo hadn’t hesitated in sending for the pleasure servants to work the fool up into a lusty frenzy, to the point where even Prince Alferonzo’s aged appearance would be of no matter. Bella had not stayed his hand either—but then she loved him as these titled twits could not ever do, and she’d grown sick of listening to their disgusted complaints.
“What shall I do, Bella?
“I honestly don’t know, my brother. Perhaps you should just learn to live with it.”
“I haven’t had sex in a whole year, sister! Could you live without it so long?”
“No, but then women don’t need the entire man to pleasure them.”
Prince Alferonzo stared hard at his dear half-sister, gazing back so innocently at him, and decided he really, really didn’t want to know. “Well, I’m different. Besides, I can’t just find a sexual partner. It has to be someone who adores me. Who can adore a face like this?”
His valet came to his side.
“Yes, Wat?”
“My prince, if I may suggest...?” Prince Alferonzo gestured impatiently. “Perhaps someone of less...refined taste? Someone used to imperfection.”
“You mean, a commoner? For a royal prince?”
Bella glanced at Wat, then put her hand again on her brother’s arm. “Brother prince, there are many good men and true who are not of noble birth. Since we’ve ploughed these fields, perhaps those who till the earth in reality may give you what you seek.”
Prince Alferonzo looked at his sister, then at his servant’s plain, honest face, and saw that both held nothing but concern in their eyes.
“Very well. Wat, inform my household that we shall make a tour of my father’s lands. Bella, you can tell my wife and my mother, if they have an interest. The children won’t care.” His children had run from him in terror. He didn’t wish to repeat that degradation. “Well? Get a move on—I have a true love to find!”
~~~~~
The procession of the Chief Justice through the lands of Qarte was quite the sensation, though the real reason was concealed. The king had agreed to present it as the court coming to the people, though he didn’t like to encourage the idea that it was actually necessary to become familiar with those he ruled. Prince Alferonzo was no more enthusiastic after a week of riding over bad roads in the splendid but stuffy second-best royal carriage, and spending the nights in painfully overdecorated rooms of some local notable or other. Still, he had a job to do—two jobs, if one counted the fact he presided over local court proceedings as well—and lost no opportunities to size up likely contenders for the post of one true love.
Sizing up was all he could do, because he quickly discovered the provincials were no more able to see past the superficial than the titled dandies he’d solicited to the court. Bella stayed his hand from more direct revenge for the pitying looks and the snide whispers, so he did no more than silently promise himself to double the taxes for this or that province when he was king. In the fullness of time, of course.
By the second week, they were far from his father’s palace, and hardly saw a dwelling above a single storey. They journeyed through deep forests and open lands populated mainly by sheep, feasted each night on deer and purchased victuals, and slept in tents—something, Prince Alferonzo had to admit, pleased him better than the overstuffed and mite-infested beds that had too often been inflicted on him. But there were few people, and fewer of comely enough appearance to attract the attention of a royal prince. Bella counselled patience, and Wat gave him nightly massages. Still, Prince Alferonzo fretted and wondered if he wasted his time.
But then as they travelled through an area of common land, with fields of grass that stretched to the hills far beyond, their caravan had to pause while a flock of disrespectful sheep took their time crossing the road. Prince Alferonzo spotted a young man at the back end of the mass of wool.
“Stop!” he cried, and the carriage braked with a jerk and irritated whinnying from the horses.
“My prince?” Wat asked.
“That man! Bring him to me. He’s...oh, Bella, look.”
His sister did. The sun glinted off the golden curls and the perfect high cheekbones. The collar of his shirt lay across a long and elegant neck, and muscles bulged in the honest linen sleeves.
“Yes. Oh my,” she said, fanning herself.
“Wat, run, quickly. Tell him the prince heir of Qarte wishes his attendance.”
Wat bowed, and dismounted. Prince Alferonzo and his sister watched as his manservant engaged the luminously lovely young creature in conversation. Prince Alferonzo could barely contain himself. Surely it was a sign....
The lovely creature—whose name, most charmingly, was Eric—did not flinch when presented to the heir to the throne, though he was clearly confused by the sudden appearance of royalty in his quiet glen.
After arranging for his flock to be attended by Prince Alferonzo’s senior huntsman, Eric accepted the gracious invitation to dine in the prince’s own tent. Prince Alferonzo smiled to himself as his pretty shepherd became most becomingly tiddly on fine wine. Oh yes—he could love such a gorgeous innocent. He dismissed Wat and asked Bella to retire, and promised himself a pleasant few hours introducing this sweet youth to the joys of manly love. It surely was a sign....
~~~~~
“If I may, my prince...?”
“Oh go on,” Prince Alferonzo said most grumpily, twitching his silken robe about his shoulders and staring disconsolately after his night’s companion.
“A dukedom is probably...more than he can deal with.”
“Should I have him hanged instead?”
Bella coughed delicately. “Brother prince, I think there’s no need. Wat is merely pointing out that the young man is simple, with simple tastes. A new bow and arrow, a pair of boots, perhaps?”
“He’s simple for sure,” Prince Alferonzo snapped. “Oh, arrange it as you see fit, Wat. Just get him away from here.”
Eric had indeed been sweet and innocent—and completely uninterested in men. He let the prince kiss and fondle him, but by no means would he consent to be fucked, and the mere mention of being taken to court had made him sob and beg not to be cleaved from his sweetheart—some common little milkmaid, apparently. He’d finally fallen asleep on Prince Alferonzo’s lap, and dribbled on his leg.
Still, he hadn’t declared the prince revolting to his sight, and had been respectful in his own untutored way, so Prince Alferonzo was inclined to be generous in his disappointment. Wat’s suggestion made sense, and allowed his caravan to travel all the more speedily from this cursed place. Without, unfortunately, the curse being lifted.
The same thing happened, with variations, every two or three days. Wat had been correct—commoners were much less bothered by his appearance—but unfortunately, they were distressingly uncosmopolitan in their attitudes to homosexuality, infidelity, and the entire concept of living among the nobility.
When Prince Alferonzo was forced to spend an entire hour calming a sturdy but beautiful stable boy who couldn’t bear to be parted from his favourite mare, he realised the entire exercise had been futile.
“Where will I find my true love now?” he cried, dashing a wine cup to the ground in frustration.
Wat came to his side. “My prince?”
“Yes? This was all your idea, you know.”
“Yes, my prince. I'm sorry.” Wat looked at the ground, his cheeks colouring.
Bella gave her brother a reproving look, and Prince Alferonzo sighed. “Oh, don’t be like that. What were you going to say?”
Wat looked up. “My prince, you’ve tried nobility, but they dislike what they see. You’ve tried commoners, but they can’t cope with the life in the palace. You need someone who is unlikely to reject you because of the glamour, but who is used to life in the court.”
Prince Alferonzo stared at his valet, then snapped his fingers. “Of course! The answer was right under my nose!”
Wat smiled. “Yes, my prince.”
“Courtiers! The gods know we have enough of them lolling about. I didn’t think of them before.” He clapped his servant on the shoulder. “Well done, Wat! Good idea. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, my prince,” his valet said neutrally. “Now, if you’ll excuse me?”
“Eh? Oh, yes, yes, run along.”
Prince Alferonzo beamed at his sister. “Surely the answer is there, Bella. We have hundreds of the beggars, and plenty who are comely and desirable. I know it’s a bit lowering to sleep with the help, but it’s not like I have to marry any of them.”
“No, my brother prince. Could you excuse me?”
“Oh...yes. Certainly. Tell my captain to come in, would you?”
He wondered what she and Wat had to attend to so suddenly, but then forgot about it. Yes! That had to be the answer. Foolish of him not to have come to that conclusion earlier. He must remember to give Wat a pay rise. Did he pay him? He wasn’t sure. Bella would know.
He could scarcely hold in his impatience as the caravan made its bumpy, stuffy way back to the palace, a little faster than the passage out, but still too slow for him. Wat and Bella did their best to amuse him, though he thought they seemed a tad distracted. Tired, he suspected. And out of sorts, being dragged around this benighted landscape. The palace was the proper setting for both of them—and himself. He knew the end of his curse was in sight. He felt it in his water.
He enlisted Bella to put the word out among the many courtiers, servants and other hangers-on that Prince Alferonzo was looking for bedmates of the less picky kind. And they responded in their dozens, even in their baker’s dozens. Suddenly the prince, who had not wanted for companions before the get of Drowenna had laid her curse on him, found himself inundated with offers. None of the palace inmates cared about his appearance, having had a good year and a half to become inured to it, and since his father’s pleasure servants had trained them all, Prince Alferonzo was guaranteed a night of delight every time he offered one of the courtiers a chance to prove themselves.
And the chances were taken, and right willingly. So enthusiastically, in fact, that many a morning Prince Alferonzo would stagger from his bed, feel his unchanged face under the cursed appearance, and wonder if he would come to resemble the glamour if he kept this up. He was enjoying himself far too much to care. What a brilliant idea of Wat’s this had been!
But after three months of ceaseless night-time rutting, and working his way through the most attractive and libidinous of the court residents, he came to an unpleasant realisation.
“This is never going to work,” he said petulantly, stomping across his chambers to where his sister and his valet played some board game together. They did that a lot these days, he’d noticed. Probably because he’d been so busy and had less to occupy them. “Oh, they’re willing enough, but they despise me. They all want favours, or preferments, or their relatives introduced to my father, or given a place with my mother’s household. Not one of them is interested in me!” he cried, striking his chest. “How can they ever love me, if all they want to do is use me?”
“Surely there is one,” Bella said quietly. “One among all these hundreds who knows you and loves you for who you really are.”
“None,” Prince Alferonzo declared. “I’ve searched high and low, fucked every available courtier, servant and kitchen boy. None cares for me. No such person exists!”
Wat came to his side, his cheeks unusually pale. “My prince—”
“Yes, Wat? Are you unwell?”
“No, my prince. But I do have something to say, and then I regret I will have to resign your royal highness’s service.”
“Resign? Whatever f—”
“Brother prince,” Bella snapped. “Do shut up.”
Prince Alferonzo’s mouth closed in shock, and Wat lifted his eyes, his lips thinned. “My prince, the problem is not that you’re ugly, or undesirable, it’s that you’re just incredibly slow. The answer is indeed under your nose, but the rocks of the ocean floor will turn to liquid gold before you would ever see it!”
And with that, his valet turned and stalked out, his back stiff and proud. Prince Alferonzo did fish impressions for a full minute before turning to his sister. “What on earth—”
“Yes, brother prince. Incredibly slow. Good day.”
And then she turned and walked out in a swirl of silks and velvet.
Prince Alferonzo threw himself into a gilt covered chair. “What...?”
His valet had never spoken to him like this before, not once. Not before the curse, and certainly not since when he’d been so patient and helpful and full of such good advice....
Prince Alferonzo was, as observed at the beginning of our tale, not the most empathic of men. But he was one of the more clever, and what he lacked in empathy, he could occasionally make up for with brains. He examined the evidence carefully, as he would at the end of a long and complex court case. Wat was angry with him, so was his dear half-sister. Bella had snapped after Wat had left, so Prince Alferonzo concluded the two events were connected. So the answer lay in Wat’s anger.
But why was Wat angry? Was he underpaid? No. Was he underfed? No. Did Prince Alferonzo mistreat—
Someone not noble, Wat had suggested. Someone used to the ways of court. Someone who didn’t mind what he looked like.
Someone who looked at him and saw only...his prince.
“Wat!” Prince Alferonzo roared. “Wat!”
He ran out of his chambers, bellowing, frightening a guard, who pointed a shaking hand northwards.
“Wat, come here!”
The stablehands indicated the armoury, and the armourers indicated the library. And still Prince Alferonzo ran, yelling his valet’s name. “Wat, come here! I want you!”
His mother encountered him outside the library. “My son the prince, why are you making so much noise?”
“Not now, mother, I seek my true love!”
“Oh. He’s in the green reading room.” And then she walked on serenely, humming to himself.
Prince Alferonzo paused only long enough to consider that his family were just a little bit odd, and then he flung the heavy oak doors of the library wide. “Wat, get in here now or I’ll have you hanged!”
“This is a library, you know. You shouldn’t make all that racket.”
His valet stood on the upper gallery, book in hand, an obdurate look on his face.
“It’s my library, or will be. Damn you, come here.”
“No. I’ve done enough for you, my prince, and can do no more.”
“You love me!”
“Yes. But you will never love me because you’re too bloody vain to see what I offer you. So I quit.”
“Wat...please.”
His valet’s expression softened a little. “My prince, I’ve watched you fuck hundreds of people over this last year and a half. I know what kind of person you like. I am not that kind of person.”
“Wat, tell me what you see?”
“What I’ve always seen, my prince. You. Unchanged. Handsome. Beloved. And not for me.”
Prince Alferonzo spread his hands and lifted them in appeal. “Is it possible...you might be wrong?”
Wat closed his book and laid it on the gallery rail. He leaned forward. “My prince, what do you see?”
Prince Alferonzo stared up at his valet’s plain features, his intelligent dark eyes, and saw the loyalty and devotion behind them. “I see...love. I see...the one who is faithful and true, and who will be so forever. I see...what I do not deserve, but am humbly grateful for.” He went to one knee and held up a hand again. “I see my friend, Wat.”
Wat smiled, though his lips trembled. “Took you long enough.”
“You could have said.”
“The witch said you had to find me, my prince.”
“And have I?”
“Yes, you have.”
Prince Alferonzo turned at his sister’s voice. She too was smiling, though her eyes were overbright. “Oh brother prince, I thought you’d never come to your senses. Wat, come down. Alfie, don’t mess this up.”
“Bella, don’t call me Alfie.”
“No, brother prince,” she said, giving him a dimpled grin. “Just so long as you don’t mess it up.”
Wat walked down the stairs, hesitant and with lowered eyes. “Would you really have had me hanged, my prince?”
“Wat, have I had anyone hanged in the entire time you’ve known me?”
“No.” He held out his hand, and Prince Alferonzo, still kneeling, grasped it and kissed it. So this was what true love felt like. He’d expected it to be...much more troubling. “I'm still a virgin, unfortunately.”
“Fortunately, I am not.” Prince Alferonzo rose and took his servant, his friend—his love—into his arms, and wondered how he could have ever thought him plain. For Wat was handsome and kind and beautiful when he smiled with so much affection for him. “I’ll be gentle, I swear.”
“Yes, you will,” Bella said. “For he deserves it. Take him to bed and love him, brother prince. Wat—well done.”
Wat smiled, then bowed. “Thank you, milady Bella.”
“Yes, thank you, sister,” Prince Alferonzo said, kissing her cheek. “Wat, to my chambers.”
“Yes, my prince.”
Arm in arm, Prince Alferonzo and his true love walked to the door.
“Alfie?”
“Bella, don’t—”
“You look very handsome tonight.”
Prince Alferonzo turned to his sister and grinned. “You know, I honestly don’t care any more. Good night, sweet lady.”
“Good night, my brother.”
~~~~~
So what happened next? With a handsome prince, his one true love, and a sister determined to make sure they didn’t screw it up?
It’s a fairy tale. What do you think happened next?
But it was said that in the days and months and years after Prince Alferonzo and Wat spent that first perfect night together, that the prince had never looked more distinguished, nor his valet so happy. And that Prince Alferonzo had finally learned to temper his judgements with a little mercy. It was said that when the king finally died (at a great age, in the arms of his favourite concubines), that the prince his son took his place and was a just and beloved ruler, his half-sister a wise and loyal advisor, and Wat, forever at his side, was faithful and true and properly valued for his qualities.
Hey, it’s a fairy tale. It doesn’t have to be realistic.
They just have to all live happily ever after. And so they did.
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