The King's Last Smile

The young Princess Lydia scratched her head and looked nervously around the forest clearing. She was right on the edge of troll territory and didn’t want to stay there long. The witch soon appeared in the dappled light between the copper birches.

‘You’ll swap them today?’ Snarlock passed a leather purse to the princess.

‘Yes. You’re sure you can get me out of the palace?’

 ‘I’m brewing a potion to make you entirely inconspicuous. Leave your window open. I’ll bring it to your balcony then we’ll go to the rendezvous point. Someone will meet us there and take you to your new home.’

‘Who will meet us?’

‘The less you know the better. I could be hung for this, or worse. And remember your promise, if I do this you will stop torturing those poor birds.’

‘Yes, yes, I said I would.’

Lydia ran back through the woods to her Lady in Waiting who was hand-feeding the stupid birds with kitchen scraps again. At least it kept them coming back to the palace so Lydia had a constant supply.

Later that day the six royal stones scattered across the throne room floor like marbles. The guards rushed to retrieve them but Princess Lydia’s boot had been deliberately planted to disperse them into the darkest corners. Her chestnut hair fell over her eyes but did not hide enough of her face to disguise her malicious intent.

‘Lydia! Your father will be mad if they’re out of place when he returns.’ Said the Lady in Waiting.

‘He won’t be mad with me! It’s my birthday! They’re my stones! Why should I wear them if I don’t want to?’

Miss Pantock turned to face the teenager and brushed her shiny locks away from her face, exposing her sour expression.

‘It is your birthday, your thirteenth birthday and you know what that means.’

‘It means the end of my freedom and the beginning of them making me into one of you!’

‘If you ever want to rule this kingdom you will have to learn how it functions.’

‘If you ever want to rule this kingdom…’ Lydia mimicked in a high-pitched whine. ‘Can’t you just wait for my stupid sister to grow up and do it?’

‘For the hundredth time, just because Lilly cannot speak does not mean she’s stupid. But she is three years younger than you and we both know your poor father may not be around long enough to teach her.’

The guards reassembled the stones back on their velvet cushion. Miss Pantock lifted the skew-whiff golden crown from Lydia’s head and repositioned it correctly.  

‘Now just keep still! The stones should fit perfectly into your crown as long as you don’t wriggle about.’

‘Why do I have to be wearing it? Can’t you just put them in first, then stick it on my head?’ She twisted her shoulders awkwardly.

‘Have you listened to nothing I’ve explained about the ceremony? This is how it will be done tonight. You need to practise before you’re standing in front of three hundred people while your poor father tries to get them in with his failing sight.’

Lydia stopped squirming. If the plan worked she wouldn’t even be at the ceremony, but if she did end up there maybe she could make her father smile. She couldn’t care less about his happiness, but it was rumoured that when he smiled the sunpipers sang and she had never heard them. Legend had it that they coordinated incredibly complex harmonies with no two birds singing the same note at the same time.

Of course Lydia’s main interest in sunpipers was netting them to take their golden tail feathers. The feathers never grew back so the King often found them unable to fly and starving to death on the palace lawns. He would wring their necks as a kindness. But Lydia liked the way the feathers shimmered in her bedroom window and thought that was much more important than a stupid bird.

Once Miss Pantock was as convinced as she could be that Lydia would behave during the crowning ceremony, her crown and its precious stones were put back in place and everyone left the throne room.

‘I need to go back in.’ Said Lydia when they reached the grand hallway. ‘I dropped my lucky coin by the lectern.’

‘Hurry!’ huffed Miss Pantock as the guards opened the golden doors to let Lydia back in.

She ran down the length of the throne room and snatched the coloured gemstones from their cushion, swiftly replacing them with identically shaped pieces of polished sea-glass from her leather pouch. The colours were a reasonable match though not exact, but Lydia would bet her life that her father was too blind and stupid to know, even if she replaced them with chunks of coal. Lydia pulled her lucky coin from her pocket and flipped it with her thumb as she rejoined her entourage.

Back in her room the princess impatiently tugged at her hair. There wasn’t long before Miss Pantock would arrive to dress her. She had left the window open as instructed, and her collection of shimmering sunpiper feathers were catching the breeze, reflecting shards of gold around her room.

‘Kaw-kaw.’ Came a cry from the balcony.

Lydia turned to face the window. A nightjay had appeared, its shiny black feathers glowed iridescent purple and green where the light caught them. Disappointed that it wasn’t Snarlock, but impressed by the radiant plumage, Lydia crept up behind the bird as it looked out over the gardens. She grabbed it, holding it tight to her chest with one hand and expertly twisting out its tail feathers with the other. Pleased with her prize she threw the screaming bird off the balcony, laughing as it landed in the flowerbed below. Annoyingly her next visitor was Miss Pantock.

That evening the throne room was filled with well-heeled dignitaries from far and wide as Lydia entered in her purple robes, the real crown stones hidden underneath them in their pouch. An orchestra played in her honour as she reluctantly walked down the aisle between the adoring subjects. The fixed grin on her face almost hid her disappointment that Snarlock had let her down.

After struggling not to yawn through various speeches and songs that glorified her boring father, Lydia’s crown was placed carefully on her head by the Lord Mayor in his finery. Then King Bertrand stepped forward. Lydia kneeled before him and rolled her eyes as the mute Princess Lilly presented the velvet cushion adorned with fake stones. After a short blessing King Bertrand began fitting them into the gaps on Lydia’s crown.

It was a bit of a struggle for him to see where they went and Lydia inwardly seethed at his uselessness. The first five stones were eventually in place and Lydia felt relief that no one realised they were fake. Perhaps the witch would come after the ceremony.

King Bertrand took the final stone from the cushion, he fumbled a little with the jewel but soon managed to position it correctly and it clicked into place. He stood back, waiting for the moment he could welcome Lydia to her throne.

The audience were silent. The Lord Mayor was silent. The King was silent. Something was wrong.

The princess felt very conspicuous indeed and wished the witch had turned up with that blasted potion. She should be long gone by now, starting a new life away from her blind father and voiceless sister and all their stupidity. Still, at least she had the real stones and the difficult bit was done. She turned her attention back to the hopeless King who had obviously messed up the ceremony.

He signalled to someone behind her then pointed at Lydia. She looked round, twelve of the King’s Guard were marching down the aisle. Two soldiers grabbed Lydia and pulled her roughly to her feet.

‘Take her away.’ Ordered the King as he removed her crown from her head.

As Lydia was dragged back up the aisle the Lord Mayor stood to address the room.

‘It would seem that this girl is an imposter. For a royal child the stones, once put in place by a King would glow as brightly as the full moon. There was no light. She will be taken to the tower until a decision is made regarding her future.’

The crowd shuffled and chattered and stared at the princess.

‘But it’s me, it’s definitely me. There’s been a mistake.’ She was unsure whether to come clean about the stones, though they were technically hers she suspected taking them was forbidden.

Lydia soon found herself in a bare cell high in the North tower. She was glad of her robes as there was no glass in the barred window. Guards brought bread and water twice a day but otherwise no one came to visit the sour, spoilt girl.

On the fifth day she was woken by a clouded dove cooing at the window bars. Lydia tried to shoo it off but it found its way between the bars and dropped down on to the cell floor. A stupid bird, that was all she needed. But as she stared at it the dove began to change. It grew and grew and its feathers receded, black hair appeared on its head and a mass of dark fabric skirts materialised, covering its legs. Lydia started to recognise the figure forming before her. It was Snarlock!

‘Shhhhhh.’ The witch put her finger to her lips.

‘Where were you? I was ready with the stones, you promised you’d come to my room.’

‘I did and was rudely plucked and thrown off the balcony for my troubles! I couldn’t fly out of the palace grounds and had to walk home on little bird legs. It’s taken four days to brew a potion strong enough to replace the feathers you stole and even now I can only manage a dove. You promised you’d stop!’

‘You were that nightjay? How stupid are you? Coming to me as a shiny bird? Of course I snatched your feathers, I’ll stop when I’m out of here. Why didn’t you transform when you first landed?’

‘There were guards below and I had to check your room was clear. Where are the stones?’

‘You can have them if you get me out.’

‘The potion will only work after a fair trade. Show me the stones.’

Lydia felt under her robe and found the leather purse, she tipped six colourless pieces of glass onto her palm.

‘Those aren’t even as convincing as the fakes I gave you. Where are the real stones?’

‘These are the real stones. They lose their colour too far from the crown. It’s the one thing I did learn in rehearsals.’

‘Don’t talk such rubbish. They must be fakes, have you traded the real ones already?’

‘These are the real stones! You can’t leave me. It’s your fault I’m stuck here, your fault I was even at the stupid ceremony.’

They heard guards chattering on the steps below. Snarlock reached between her skirts and took out a small bottle of white liquid which she drank from before hiding it away again. The witch began to shrink, her black hair grew shorter and shorter and was replaced with white feathers. Her legs became scaly and her feet turned to claws. As her skirts turned back into plumage a second tiny bottle fell from them and rolled across the floor. Within moments a clouded dove was standing where Snarlock had been. The bird flew up through the bars and perched on the ledge outside.

The guards approached, usually only one was sent with food but there were three. Maybe they were going to take her away to be executed. Lydia picked up the tiny bottle of golden liquid that Snarlock had dropped. It must be the potion for her escape. She removed the glass stopper and drank about a third of it as she had seen Snarlock do. Nothing happened. It was meant to make her inconspicuous, perhaps it had done just that, perhaps she could sneak past the guards. The three men arrived at the cell door and the first one unrolled a scroll.

‘By decree of the King.’ He read, and the other two saluted. ‘You are suspected of being either an imposter or a witch or both. You will be banished from the land at sundown tonight. You will be left at the forest boundary. Should you ever return to the kingdom you will face penalty of death.’

Not the forest boundary! Lydia’s blood ran cold.

‘But I am the princess and I’m no witch! The stones were switched, I can prove it. I have the real ones.’ Lydia held out the plain glass pieces to show the guards.

The guard closest to her leaned in, saw they were colourless, and laughed.

‘You’ll have to be more convincing than that.’ The men turned and left.

Lydia stared hard at Snarlock. ‘The forest boundary! I’ll be eaten by trolls! Why hasn’t your stupid potion worked?’

The dove cocked its head to one side, cooed and flew away.

‘Of course, no exchange has been made, I need to give her the stones.’ Said Lydia to herself.

Lydia stared through the bars trying to think of some way to escape or persuade the witch to return. Eventually she thought she saw Snarlock walking beside the throne room wall immediately below.  The princess took a grey stone from the cell floor and dropped it through the bars. She couldn’t see exactly where it landed but it did make Snarlock look up at the tower. It was definitely her, she even waved as if to mock the captive princess. Lydia dropped one of her crown stones out of the window in the same way, then another. As they fell against the wall of the throne room they regained their colour.

Snarlock heard the first stone hit the path just to her left and looked over. She recognised the coloured jewel immediately. She tried to pick it up but a sunpiper dashed out from under a bush, snatched it and flew away. A second jewel landed, as beautiful as the first and the witch managed to grab it from the ground. Lydia felt something strange in her bones, a part exchange had been made and she was starting to shrink. Not knowing what the potion would turn her into she had to work quickly. She threw the next stone down to the witch, and the next, until all six had gone.

The third stone to land on the path was taken by another sunpiper, and the fourth, but Snarlock managed to grab the fifth and sixth, giving her three stones in all. She held them greedily, three might be enough.

Lydia looked around her cell, her sight was much diminished but she could make out the bars in the window that seemed a long way up now. She stretched and in place of her arms found a pair of feathered wings. She was no longer a girl, she was a beautiful golden sunpiper. The witch must have taken the stones. She tried to fly, fluttering a few feet into the air, it was harder than she expected. Landing clumsily on the floor she grabbed the tiny potion vial with her feet and tried to fly to the window.

‘Maybe I just need practice.’ She tried to say, but no sound came. Of course, sunpipers only sang when the King smiled.

After a few attempts, Lydia was sitting outside the window bars daring herself to jump. She held the potion with one foot, hopping closer and closer to the edge with the other until a strong gust of wind blew her off the ledge.

The princess tried desperately to fly down gently but instead she spiralled, fluttering and flapping out of control, before landing on the ground in a heap with a broken wing. Snarlock approached the golden bird.

‘No voice? Poor vision? Lacking a tail? It must be poor Princess Lydia.’ She mocked. ‘Three of your crown stones were taken by birds, so our exchange wasn’t completed. You’ll be missing three key features, those most befitting your bad manners. I’ll return the other three stones to the King and be rewarded as was my original plan. I’d hoped to rid the kingdom of you altogether into the bargain but perhaps you’ll just have to beg in the gutter like the birds you maimed. If you’re wondering how long it will take for you to turn back, well, it looks like you didn’t drink enough potion.’

Snarlock took the tiny bottle from the bird’s foot and slipped it into her pocket, leaving Lydia to fend for herself. As she approached the palace gates three sunpipers flew over her head. Miss Pantock was sitting by the fountain in the courtyard, the birds flew directly to her and she held out her hands to feed them, but they dropped three coloured stones into her fingers. She stood and ran into the palace. The witch also handed in her three stones and was well rewarded.

The King, realising that the ceremonial stones he had used had been fake and the real princess must be locked in the cell, smiled on his way to release her. All would be well and the incredible music of the sunpipers was starting to spread across the palace grounds for the first time in many years. As he rounded the base of the tower he nearly tripped over one, struggling to sing with a broken wing and missing tail feathers.

‘Poor thing, I wonder if Lydia did this to you. I’m going to teach that girl a lesson.’ He gently lifted the golden bird and swiftly wrung its neck.