Simple Princess

Natalia Lilienthal Translator

© Natalie Yacobson, 2023

© Natalia Lilienthal, translation, 2023

ISBN 978-5-0059-6044-3

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Behind the Seven Seals

The doors of the royal treasury were like gates to heaven, but their voices were hellish. Princess Estella ran her fingertips wistfully over the gilded angel wings, nymphs, titans, apple trees, and serpents. Who would think to decorate the entrance to the treasury as if it were the gateway to a temple? Estella’s fingers burned as if the dragon’s breath was burning the gilded flaps of the door on the other side.

“Do you suppose there could be a dragon locked up in the treasury as a guard?” she asked Gisela timidly.

“More like a prisoner! Dragons are only good guards if they are chained,” said Gisela, the young, lively governess, who had wanted to be queen from the first day she came to the castle. Now her dreams of marriage to the old king were dashed with the death of the latter.

Since the king’s burial, Gisela had been sulking as if she had been deprived of her rightful inheritance.

“If I’d known he was going to die so soon, I would have taken a governess’s job with another princess,” she muttered to herself. “He had only just begun to like me! My feminine charms worked only a week ago, when the King invited me to a game of chess. I am sure he wanted me as his wife, not his favorite. He’s too old to have a minion.”

Estella merely nodded at her mentor’s scholarly speeches. She understood little of what was being said. What was a minion? And did the King, who had already been married once to her mother, have the right to marry a second time? Isn’t Gisela herself a princess from a ruined principality who came to Aluar for support and a position at court? Couldn’t she marry a duke or prince? Why would she want an old king?

When Estella asked all these questions aloud, her mentor would get terribly angry with her. So the princess preferred to remain silent.

“You’re so sweet!” Sobbing into a silk handkerchief, which for some reason was embroidered royal coats of arms, said Gisela. “You listen so attentively! You give the impression of a smart, when you do not say anything! And evil people say that the elves stole your mind, and that you have been a fool ever since.”

“What do you mean?” Estella frowned. She was preoccupied with the gilt doors. She could certainly hear the sound of many angry voices whispering in the doorway:

“Let us out! Come here! We have been waiting for you, Princess!”

Gisela did not hear these voices. She was crying and blowing her nose noisily, as if she had just been widowed. Her black silk veil, thrown over her intertwined golden braid, was like a widow’s veil. Gisela would have liked a gold crown over the black veil. Estella would have given her a crown of her own, too heavy and pressing on her forehead, but Gisela said it could not be done. Only queens or princesses had the right to wear a crown, not princesses’ tutors.

Even if there were demons hiding behind the treasury door, they were the only ones who didn’t call Estella a fool. That was nice! The word fool sounded insulting, though Estella didn’t know exactly what it meant. But the courtiers whispered in such sly tones about the empty-headed princess, whose mind had long been taken by magical creatures. It made Estella uncomfortable.

“Ever since you inherited the kingdom, many people have been looking at you like you’re game. You must be more careful,” Gisela warned her.

“I don’t think so! I have suitors who run away as soon as I open my mouth to say something nice to them.”

“It used to be like that. You were considered a princess, not a queen. An unmarried Aluar’s queen is a temptation for everyone. Now many dowry hunters will seek your hand as I sought your father’s. And I almost did! A brutal death has shattered all my plans like a house of cards! And they say death is merciful!”

“In the case of the lepers on the moors, it is,” she reminded her. “When people who have been to the Demon Lands begin to suffer so much that even the Court wizards cannot help them, then death is merciful. But it does not come for them for a long time. Those who are sick turn into monsters as long as they give up the spirit.”

“Don’t tell me such horrors,” Gisela sighed theatrically.

“But I’ve seen the sick ones myself. Their skin cracks like parched heat, their eyes scarlet. They keep saying curses. One of them whispered something in my father’s ear, and my father died thirteen days later.”

“You’d better keep quiet about it, or people will start saying again that an evil spirit has stolen your mind, and that your head is as empty as a cave.”

“It is worse when a mischievous devil gets into your empty head,” someone hissed from around the corner. “That would be a laugh! The man would move like a puppet at the mercy of the demon and smash everything.”

Gisela did not hear the voice, but Estella heard many voices behind the golden doors.

“There are wings of angels, seraphim, cherubim, feet of giants and titans, basilisks, snakes, golden apple trees with monster roots,” she began to list all the creatures she discerned in the bas-reliefs on the door. “There’s even mandrake engraved here. It’s a sacred root. And then there are tritons and leviathans and sirens and mermaids and beautiful fairies. And it’s as if they’re all guarding some kind of evil, not treasure.”

“Are you sure you’re not confused,” Gisela frowned. “I remember mythology a little differently.”

“The six-winged angels are surely guardians of evil.”

“The treasury probably contains the bones of that sorcerer king your father defeated in battle in his youth,” Gisela boasted of her erudition. “He was known as a fearsome sorcerer, wasn’t he?”

Estella looked at her hand. Her fingers and palm were burned. There might be a dragon imprisoned in the treasury.

“Let me out!” A voice outside the door shrieked. “I will find you a demon consort to put sense back into your witch-devastated head.”

Once again Gisela heard nothing, and Estella became alarmed.

“Where are the keys to the treasury?” She inquired, noticing between the bas-reliefs on the door a number of keyholes at once.

“They are with the king’s key-keeper, perhaps.”

“But my father had him executed a month before he died.”

“So someone else has the keys.”

“Could you find out him for me? And find out why there are so many locks on the doors at once?”

“The last one is obviously! There must be a great treasure in there!”

“But the keys aren’t even in the king’s things! Look for them right now! I can only entrust such a delicate task as finding the keys to the treasure to you. You are like a mother to me.”

“I would have preferred to be a stepmother!” Gisela sighed and went to run the errand. Her black silk skirts rustled like fallen leaves. Beautiful, thirty years old, unmarried, and quite sensible, she would have been a far better heiress to the kingdom than the simple-minded princess who had supposedly had her mind stolen from her by elves. Estella sincerely wished the king had married her young tutor. Gisela would have made a model queen. Now, wearing all black, she resembled an elegant widow.

A chorus of eerie voices echoed from behind the door again. With Gisela’s departure they revolted. The cacophony of shrieking, growling, and squeaking grew stronger and stronger.

“Let us out! You don’t need the key! Just let us out!”

Estella ran her finger over the six-winged angel and burned herself again.

“I can’t,” she moaned.

“Open up, you fool!” Behind the door, they obviously thought she was faking.

“You say fool!” She was indignant. “Well, stay there!”

Estella was so furious that she walked briskly away. Her yellow-gold skirts rustled softly, and her auburn curls, intertwined in the summer, tickled her neck. And behind her, it was as if someone was breathing fire. Estella glanced behind her to see if the dragon was following her out of the treasury.

“Come back here!” The voices called out, exchanging anger for kindness. “Let us make peace! You want a dragon, we’ll give you one! You want a prince. We’ll bring him to you! And you want a faithful genie, and we’ll send one to your service!”

“And what is it in return?” Estella couldn’t stand it.

“Just let us go!” The voices repeated the same request. The golden door glowed with a sort of unnatural, magical radiance, as if beckoning to her. Behind it was hidden not only treasure, but living creatures as well. Estella was not so foolish as not to understand it. But how could they live there without food and drink? After all, the treasury had not been unlocked for decades. The king used to drop the gold he brought back from his marches into the treasury through a crack in the manticore’s mouth on the door. Now, it seemed, a claw had come through the crack.

Estella was frightened. The treasury was almost empty, and it was scary to enter the secret treasury because of the demons that lived there. What should we do?

“Let us out!” A piteous plea was heard.

Estella could not do it. For one thing she was afraid, and for another she had no key. She would have to think how to save the state without money. But she was not good at thinking. It was not for nothing that she was nicknamed a simpleton.

Who Stole the Princess’ Mind?

Outside the windows was a tournament. Estella watched from her high balcony. The aim of the contestants was to identify the sorcerer who had stolen the princess’s mind, and the reward was to be the princess’s hand.

Gisela had already warned her about the dowry hunters, so Estella watched indifferently. She didn’t believe that anyone could propose to her. Normally suitors scattered from her like mice from a kitten. All the ambassadors and distinguished overseas guests admired her from afar, but after the first dialogue it was clear that they disliked the princess.

“You are a child,” Gisela consoled her when the princess was sixteen years old. “As soon as you grow older, wiser, the matchmakers will come back. After all, their princes want to take as a wife a mature and wise beauty. She can help in the government of the country.”

Three years have passed since then. Estella is nineteen and no more desirable to suitors.

It was a pity that in Aluar a woman’s age was determined by her mind. Estella was treated like a naughty child. But Gisela, who was twelve years older than her apprentice, was considered quite ripe for marriage. She was inundated with marriage proposals. Alas, all the applicants for her hand were not kings, so she rejected them all.

“The advantageous place is only next to the throne,” she often repeated, taking Estella to etiquette lessons.

Estella often spilled tea on her dress, but Gisela neither scolded her nor mocked her for it.

“Try it again!” She allowed it, instead of laughing at the silly princess like the others.

Gisela studied the family legends of the Aluar’s dynasty carefully, too, because she wanted to captivate the king with her erudition.

“They say King Abraham was married to a star fairy, maybe that’s why you’re not smart enough,” she once remarked while reading another almanac. “Fairies’ children are either ugly or empty-headed.”

“Only they must have some sort of magical talent.”

“How do you know?”

Estella frowned.

“I don’t remember.”

“I must have heard the maid’s stories.”

Gisela began to study the Kings’ Almanac further.

“There seems to be a lot of fairy tales in here instead of truth,” she concluded. “Your Uncle King Clement, who disappeared so abruptly after his coronation, was supposedly married to a sorceress who could turn into a dragon.”

“Is it in a dragon?” Estella wondered. For some reason dragons had fascinated her more than handsome princes and suitors lately.”

“Yes! There she was. Queen Raymonda. For some reason, she’s considered both a wood elf and a dragon. It says here that she burned half the capital. Then she and her husband both disappeared. Aluar was without king and queen, so your father was invited to the throne. He was King Clement’s uncle. So I don’t know exactly who King Clement is to you. Let’s just call him your uncle.”

“It is all right! He’s my uncle,” Estella repeated bluntly. “Is he still alive?”

“I don’t think so! The dragon-wife most likely burned him and then burst out into the wild. He must have kept her with him by some sort of magical spell. Your father also seemed to know how to cast spells: he could make crops ripen earlier, he could call down rain on withered land, and he could send away enemy troops without even starting a battle or surrendering. One conversation with the enemy and they would leave, forgetting about the war. That’s why your father was so beloved by the people. He was the perfect king.”

“Just don’t call him a sorcerer. Sorcerers are feared and hated.”

“I didn’t say he was a sorcerer. He just had some kind of magical gift,” Gisela slammed the almanac shut.

“I don’t want him to pay for it with my mind,” Estella sighed.

“Oh, that’s all right. You’re pretty enough without a mind. Just don’t spill wine on your dress. You can see the scarlet drops on the pale silk.”

“So what is of it?” Estella thought they were just specks of purple.

“It’s not clean!”

“I think it’s beautiful. There are a lot of stars in the sky, and the wine makes my dress sparkle scarlet.”

Gisela sighed wearily.

“It is quite original, but not practical,” she muttered to herself.

“Does it say in the almanac that my name means star? I was named star, in honor of the Star Fairy who was supposedly my mother.”

“It is too bad you’re not a star fairy yourself.”

“Why is it?”

“Well, you don’t have wings,” Gisela twisted. She really wanted to say something else.

“So you’re saying the knights are only fighting for the right to marry my throne, not me?” Estella looked out the window. “I’m just an unnecessary appendage to the king’s scepter and staff and ermine robe?”

Gisela had said it so many times. Even the fool had already memorized it.

Something went wrong at the tournament. The duels turned into a massive battle. The herald escaped. The bouquet the princess is supposed to present to the winner was trampled. It felt as if a demon had strayed among the knights. Some dwarf creature had indeed galloped across the ring, whispering disgusting advice to the warriors, after which they did violence to themselves and to others. Some jumped on their swords. Some toppled a torch over themselves and were burned alive. Some attacked the ladies with their swords. Well, well, well!

“I’m not the dumbest girl in the kingdom!” Estella rejoiced.

Gisela, who hadn’t been looking out the window, didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Look!”

“I don’t like tournaments,” said Gisela. “They’re not all about me.”

She wanted to put the almanac back on the King’s Library shelf, but Estella stopped her.

“No, please, read me something else from it.”

“What do you want to know? There’s too little information about your mother. And there’s no evidence that she really was a star fairy. But I’ll tell you a secret, your late father supposedly could summon moon and star spirits when he locked himself in his study at night. Suddenly he summoned a star fairy one day and they had an affair! But why he had to marry the fairy, I don’t understand. She could have just flown to him at night. So it’s more like a fairy tale with an unsightly truth hiding behind it. The queen was a witch or a madwoman who was burned or locked in a tower.”

“How creepy is it!” Estella grimaced. “I’m more for fairy tales than creepy.”

“But horror is realistic! And fairy tales are made up to please the simpletons,” Gisela commented with an admonishing tone.

“Then reality is not for me. I want to hear a fairy tale. Read me something else about Queen Raymonda and a dragon!”

Gisela began to flip through the almanac obediently.

“I don’t know where it was,” she said, her fingers tracing the pages as she stumbled over the strange symbols. Gisela frowned. “It looked like witchcraft writings.”

“What are they?”

“It is nothing!” Gisela hurriedly gave her a sweet smile. “You mustn’t worry yourself too much. You’ll make yourself even stupider. So who won the tournament?”

“It is nobody!”

“There’s no such thing. There has to be a winner.”

“Look for yourself!” Estella saw a stadium with only the maimed dead and brutally wounded people left. The royal physician was running among the injured with his medicine chest, muttering something about the intrigues of evil spirits.

“There are devils in the tournament!” The frightened voices of the maidens who had been hurt by the frenzied knights could be heard.

“Now all that’s missing is a dragon!” Gisela made her scholarly opinion.

“I’d like to see a dragon,” Estella said, for which she almost got a slap on the wrist from her tutor.

A stolen mind

So the overseas princes fled from her, believing she was too young and inexperienced to run the country? Now the care of the country had fallen on her, and Estella was no more imposing. Her coronation is coming up, and they whisper about her like she’s a child. Estella herself could hear the chatter of the courtiers as she walked through the corridors of the castle:

“The deceased king bequeathed everything to his only daughter Estella, but she is a fool. The beauty is weak-minded from birth or as a result of some spell cast as a child. That is why there are many astrologers at court who dream of breaking it. The late king was certainly a magician. The guards with their halberds also look like wizards. The princess is being guarded from something.”

Has her hearing become so acute, or are the courtiers whispering so loudly to the ambassadors that they’ve forgotten all decency?

Estella paused to question them further, but thought it unwise to ask about her. It’s better for her to know what’s going on with her, not them. She is going to her own coronation. She is about to become queen of Aluar. She is indeed vigilantly guarded.

But some cunning dwarf has sneaked right into the throne room. How did he slip past the guards? It’s as if he grew out of the floor.

“Your Highness!” He took off his red beret and bowed, touching the floor with his forehead. He bowed with his forehead on the floor, and his diminutive stature made him look ridiculous.

“Have you come to amuse me before the coronation?” Estella guessed and clapped her hands. “Bravo! What other tricks can you do? Would you like to be my jester? As the future queen, may I appoint you right now?”

“Actually,” the dwarf hesitated. “I’ve come to talk about money.”

“Is it about wages?” Estella suggested, innocently. “It’s usually discussed with the King’s Bursar, but he’s been absent recently.”

“No, it is not about salary,” the dwarf scratched his head.

“If not for money, you can serve me for food and lodging. That’s what a lot of servants work for.”

“My Lady, you’re so lovely, I’d pay for the privilege of amusing you myself,” the dwarf said pompously.

What a sweetheart! And she wanted to call the guards to turn him away. He knew how to compliment her, and was obviously eager to curry favor with his new ruler. Perhaps he wanted to ask for preferential treatment for the mines in the west of the kingdom.

Well, he first came to honor her as queen. So she’ll defer to him on everything. No one but him has yet come to the expected coronation, though it should be any minute now. Or had she got the time mixed up? Estella frowned. Could she have been an hour or a day wrong? Arithmetic had always been a problem for her. Especially when it came to dates.

“I have come to give you a gift for your coronation,” a large forged chest, suspiciously resembling those in the treasury of Aluar, appeared beside the dwarf as if from the ground. Even the emblems on the lid are Aluar’s. Probably it was an imitation.

Estella applauded the dwarf again.

“Well done! It’s a treasure! Where did you get it? And how did you get it?”

The dwarf is so small, and the chest is so huge. The dwarf instantly dispelled Estella’s suspicions by easily lifting the huge chest onto his shoulder. Underneath the chest, the tiny bearer wasn’t even noticeable.

“That’s it!” The dwarf finished his show of strength and set the chest back on the floor. No matter how its wrought iron edges damaged the polished parquet. Gisela would scold if Estella stained or ruined anything again on Coronation Day. And she won’t accept explanations that some dwarf has caused trouble, either. She’ll blame it on Estella herself.

“What was it you wanted to ask?” Estella prodded him.

The dwarf hesitated again. He’s shy when it comes to business. But he can carry heavy things like a big man.

“Where did that trunk come from and what’s in it?” Estella became suspicious.

“The chest is from your own treasure,” the dwarf admitted, “but I am by no means a thief. I have not taken a single penny from the treasure. Everything was left inside the chest.”

“Why did you take it without asking?”

“I wanted to do you a favor. I saw how dreamily you looked at the locked treasury, and I thought I should fulfill your whim. Pity I could only get one chest, and even that I had to beat off the occupants of the keep. They nearly sounded the alarm, but in the end we came to an agreement.”

“It’s curious!” Estella drummed her nails on the armrest of her throne.

It was funny that the dwarf had stolen the treasure chest from her only to present it to her. After all, the chest is locked. Perhaps it contains cursed gold which has caused the dwarf so much trouble that he has decided to give it back to its owner. It’s a pity he didn’t come with a confession, but an urgently concocted lie. Gisela would have called the guards to put the thief in prison. But Estella was not called a simpleton for nothing. She decided to take the dwarf at his word. The dwarf was still flirting and wailing:

“You are very beautiful, but I, alas, was driven here by an unpaid debt. I owe so much to your father, that hundreds of years of hard work in the mines will not pay it off. But I can give you a treasure that alone is worth more than all the riches of the world.”

“And what is that?”

“It is your best advisor.”

“What is it? Is it instead of jewels?” Estela was instantly disappointed and was about to call the guards. It sounds too much like fraud. She may be stupid, but she’s not that stupid.

“Think about it. Everyone says you lack wisdom.”

It is right,” she said nervously, remembering a conversation she’d overheard recently that had upset her greatly. The courtiers were arguing about who was sillier – the hen or the princess?

“Would you like to be wise?”

Estella didn’t know what to answer. Her fingernails scratched nervously at the armrest of the throne.

“It is to shut up all those insolent courtiers who tell you that you are foolish and unworthy to rule?” The dwarf continued slyly.

He knows how to flatter! He’s right at the heart of it, like a knife through her heart. One dreams of love and beauty. She dreams of common sense.

Estella nodded slowly.

“So, he will be your mind!” The dwarf proclaimed and disappeared.

Who did he mean? Estella took a step toward the chest. It looks like it’s locked. No, the key is in the keyhole. Estella turned it. The lock gave way easily. There was gold shining through the crack under the lid. The chest seemed to be full of gems, ingots and coins. But where’s the Counselor? Or was the dwarf speaking metaphorically? She wished she were smart enough to understand it all! Was the gift really just a trick to mock the stupidity of a gullible princess?

“What should I do?” Estella opened the lid, which was heavy.

Suddenly a monster the size of a monkey jumped out of the chest. She wanted to scream as it nestled onto her shoulder, but it was suave.

“The Fair Lady has been expecting me!” It cried out in a human voice. “You are as pretty as a rose. You should never wait long.”

It was clearly a compliment, but it wasn’t the compliment that startled the princess. It wasn’t even that the creature’s claws were caressing her cheek, repeating the caress of a lover.