* * * *

  "Sakata-dono, Urabe-dono, Lord Raiko sent me to find you both to inform you he'll be ready to leave by mid-morning.” Even though he bowed low, the young servant's blush was obvious. “He said to tell you knowing you both as he does, he wanted to give you much time to finish and not be late to the gate to meet him."

  Suetake laughed and rolled his head on Kintaro's thigh. He held one hand up to block the sun from his eyes and looked at Kintaro's face, framed above by the branches of cherry trees in full blossom. “You see how you've tainted my reputation, Kintaro? Lord Raiko doesn't even believe I can make it to on time to escort him for his errands because of you."

  Kintaro laid his hand on Suetake's chest. “It's my reputation also. He believes we're both lechers obsessed with each other."

  "Such a wise man, our lord."

  "Yes, but for once, his concerns are unwarranted. We'll have to tell him that we are capable of partaking in a beautiful spring morning with our clothes fully in place."

  "But our past behavior has set a certain precedent.” Suetake glanced over his shoulder and noticed the servant still watching, a baffled look on his face. “Is there something else, boy?"

  The servant quickly bowed his head. “No, master. I was only confused because I thought you called Sakata-dono by a different name."

  "I did. To all others he is Sakata no Kintoki. The other name is reserved only for my use.” Suetake brought his gaze back to Kintaro. “Isn't that right, Kintaro, my golden boy?"

  Kintaro smiled down at him. “It is."

  Suetake pushed himself up. A few stray cherry blossoms had fallen atop their swords. He picked them up and handed one set of the long and short swords to Kintaro. “We should prepare to escort our lord, mighty commander of the shitenno."

  Kintaro gazed up at the cherry trees as he slid the swords in place on his left hip through his obi. “Three years. Has so much time really passed?"

  "Just as sorrow weighs time down, happiness gives it wings. But look at all you've accomplished. There's nowhere your name isn't known for bravery, loyalty, and beauty."

  Kintaro cupped Suetake's cheek with his hand. “I've only accomplished great things because I had you to help me."

  "All I did was beat you around the practice yard a few times and give you special punishments for your errors and motivation for doing well."

  "And I never could tell the two apart,” Kintaro laughed. He took Suetake's hand in his and walked toward Lord Raiko's mansion. “Now let's go make sure we live up to our reputations. I believe they will become legendary."

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Ashes and Crystal

  by Jason Rubis

  By the time the royal entourage reached the merchants’ quarter, the night sky had filled with clouds. Roland leaned back in his saddle and watched the first flakes of snow swirling down. They stung his cheeks and eyelids.

  Here, maybe. Perhaps this is where my search will end. He patted his horse's neck absently and looked around the shabby square. Was this the place that hid her? It seemed unlikely; this district was a long way from the discreet, carefully kept streets of the nobility. He had promised himself that his search would exclude not even the meanest part of his realm. Yet these tall, poor houses with their darkened windows, the narrow trash-filled alleys, and the central fountain with its snow-filled basin seemed strange to him. How much stranger would they seem to one of Lady Zelynda's birth and breeding?

  He smiled to himself, almost laughed. He was a prince of the royal house, yet he was as in awe of the Lady Zelynda as the poorest subject might be of his own crown.

  Very far away, bells rang—rang on for some time.

  "Midnight,” Sir Jasper said briskly, dismounting and opening his saddlebag.

  Careful. Roland watched the older man produced a leather-wrapped parcel. You hold my heart in there.

  "You're quite sure you wish to go on, Highness?” Sir Jasper asked in his crisp, offhand way. “If you're fatigued I could requisition quarters for you. We're unlikely to find anything the equal of the Winter Palace in this place, but it might be amusing to stay in one of the inns."

  "Only a few more houses.” Roland was painfully conscious of his wheedling tone. “In the meantime, have Thomas to search out an inn for us. I know the men are tired, so have Johannes accompany us and let the others bed down."

  Nodding, Sir Jasper turned to relay the orders to his squire and the chief guard.

  Roland stopped him with an upraised hand. “Give it to me first.” The slight emphasis he placed on it could not be ignored. “I'll...prepare it for our continued search."

  The knight smiled tightly as he handed the parcel to his master. “You'll find her, Majesty. I feel sure of it.” His voice was warm but Roland heard doubt in it. Jasper had served the crown for years, and as a child Roland had idolized him. He was an odd, fussy little peacock of a man, but his wits were as sharp as any in the kingdom, and the prince knew it was only love for him that made Sir Jasper hide his habitual misgivings.

  "I hope so, old friend.” The prince was distracted as he undid the wrappings. In the last week the object inside had become his talisman, the constant companion of his dreams. He was used to seeing it by daylight, at having his breath taken away by the splendor of the thing. Even now, as he held it up to the dim winter sky, he was awed by it. Its blaze of reflected light was softer now, but when Roland shut his eyes the shape of it still burned under his lids.

  It seemed surreal, this thing; its substance seemed otherworldly, a white gem torn from Heaven itself, yet it was bent into the shape of something as mundane as a lady's dancing slipper.

  The shape of it was exquisite, the work of a master craftsman. Its lines caught and held the eye, drawing it first to the daringly split toe, then to the icicle-like fragility of the heel. Only the most beautiful foot could do justice to such a slipper, and it was on that fact Roland had hung all his hopes. There could not exist two women in an entire kingdom—in the entire world—with such a foot. Find the foot, find the slipper's owner. It was appealing in its simplicity, like the syllogisms he had memorized in his student days. But a week of searching had passed with no results. Life, it seemed, was determined to be less simple than a schoolboy's lessons.

  * * * *

  "When are you going to get rid of that ridiculous thing? It's going soft even as we speak, and it smells revolting."

  "It's my coach.” Ashes laid his hand tenderly on the pumpkin. He knew Bianca thought he was mad and would pay no mind to anything he said. She never had, and that had proven particularly useful this past week.

  "And that.” Bianca stabbed a manicured nail at the little cage on Ashes's table. Inside, a large rat sat hunched and sulking. “That's supposed to be...what, your lapdog?"

  "Ambrose is my coachman, Bianca."

  "Ah, but of course. And what of your coachman's fine team?"

  When they were children, Ashes and his stepsister sometimes played like this, talking together as though the fancies Ashes so effortlessly spun were as true as anything in a history book. There was something in Bianca's voice now that reminded him of those days, but she had grown up and become as vicious as her mother and sister.

  "I left my door open and they all bolted.” This was only partially true. Cook's big tabby had gotten at least one of the team. Ambrose was big enough to take care of himself, but the cat had taken to hanging around the door to Ashes's room and it was only a matter of time, he reasoned, before Stepmother found the team and turned them out. Mice were not welcome pets in inns. Reluctantly, he let the rest of his team go—all but Ambrose. Ashes had been desolate ever since. Now even if Godmother came back and gave him a second chance, he would have no way of using it; a coachman and coach weren't much good without horses.

  Bianca shook her head of ringlets. “Honestly, Ashes. You get crazier ideas every day."

  Ashes nodded glumly. He knew it was true. He knew what his stepsister saw when she looked at him: a tall young man whose hair had been allowed to grow too long, who filched cinders from the inn's big hearth and crushed them up to darken his eyelids as ladies did with fine powders; a strange young man whose tiny room was decorated with tiny bits of tinsel and ribbon from the trash heaps; a wretched young man, quite probably mad, who in no way deserved anything more than to live as a scullery wench.

  Yet only a week before he had been given a chance for something more. But he had wasted it, and now would never have another.

  "Here.” Bianca all but threw a pair of shoes at him.

  Ashes picked them up distastefully. They were men's shoes, most probably his size, but cheaply made and nothing he would ever choose to wear.

  "What are these supposed to be?"

  "I bought them for you, idiot, since you lost your last pair. You can't go on walking barefoot in winter."

  "I like being barefoot, Bianca."

  "Do it in bed, then, like a sensible person. You'll catch your death or step on a broken bottle. I'm not going to nurse you back to health if that happens. Besides, Mother says you look like a peasant."

  Ashes stared balefully at his stepsister, knowing he had already lost the fight. He could only be grateful she didn't ask him how he had lost one of the dilapidated ladies’ slippers he had been wearing. He had thrown its mate away shortly after, unable to bear the memory of the loss.

  The door to his room banged open and Verity stuck her head inside. “Ashes, Mother wants you to come upstairs now. We have important guests coming and she needs you to make up the fire."

  "At this hour?” Bianca looked in surprise at her elder sister. “Who on Earth engages an inn after midnight?"

  Verity's long, sly face screwed up in a smile. She was cleverer than Bianca and had been prettier until her twenty-fourth birthday passed without delivering her a single suitor. Now she looked more like their mother with every sour day. “Shall I tell you?” she drawled.

  Bianca strode to the door and seized her sister's hand, trying to pull her into the room. “Don't tease, Verity! Get in here and tell us!"

  Verity let Bianca tug at her for a moment, using her free hand to anchor herself to the doorway. “Mother won't appreciate you wasting time this way."

  "Tell! Ohh, you hateful thing! Ashes! Tickle her!"

  Ashes stood up, his fingers clawed. “I'll do it,” he threatened.

  "Fine.” Verity pouted, shaking off Bianca's hand and flouncing past her. “I'll tell you, but then we have to get to work.” She looked from her sister to her stepbrother, drawing the moment out for as long as possible.

  "It's the prince,” she said finally.

  Ashes went cold to the soles of his feet. “The prince?” he whispered.

  Bianca jumped and clapped her hands like a child, her squeals ringing in Ashes's head. “What? Prince Roland? It's not! You're lying!"

  "It's true.” Verity gloated. “All the rumors said he'd be coming here next! We'll both have our chance at him, just like all those bitches at court!"

  "But why...why would the prince come here...?” Ashes asked, so softly he wouldn't have been heard if a fit of nervous coughing hadn't taken him immediately after speaking. He sat back down on his narrow bed until his coughing stopped.

  Verity gave him a single disgusted glance. Unlike Bianca, she had no liking at all for her peculiar stepbrother. “You had better go upstairs directly,” she snapped. “Or Mother will have you skinned!"

  But Bianca, her face still glowing with delight, took pity on him. “Oh, let me tell him!” She sat down next to him and patted his hand. “Listen, Ashes, you won't have heard about this, of course, but something simply outrageous happened at court. Prince Roland gave a ball for his birthday. It seems there have been some rumors about him recently..."

  "What sort of rumors?” Ashes knew perfectly well if his existence weren't so utterly without importance, he would almost certainly have been the subject of similar rumors himself.

  "You know.” Verity smirked, unable to help joining in the fun. “Him being so old without taking a bride, naturally people have wondered if he doesn't simply, you know, not prefer women. People have been watching his every move to see if he wasn't having trysts with his fencing-master. His poor father was getting positively desperate!"

  "So this ball...” Bianca was impatient to take up her story again. “The old king had the idea of bringing together a whole great mob of the most eligible ladies you can imagine and saying, ‘All right you, now choose!’ Not just from this kingdom, mind you..."

  "They came from all over the world.” Ashes looked down at his hands. He pulled at the fingers of one hand for a moment, then stopped and shut his eyes.

  Oh, he remembered them. Tart-tongued Russian princesses wrapped in what seemed whole forests of bearskin. Doll-like Japanese and Chinese maidens, the daughters of emperors, brilliant in fantastically elaborate silk gowns. Indian girls of the highest caste, with coffee-brown skin and bottomless dark eyes. All the world's sophistication and beauty laid before the prince like a banquet.

  But the prince—Roland—had barely looked at any of them.

  "It seems his Majesty only had eyes for a stranger who appeared later in the evening...” Bianca stood up and strutted about the room, hands clasped behind her back. She affected a haughty, upper-class accent. “A certain Lady Zelynda. A real beauty, apparently, exquisitely coiffed and gowned in the very latest styles. Of course, she was a bit tall..."

  "They say she was an absolute giraffe!” Verity snickered.

  Bianca made a dismissive gesture as she continued her circuit of the room. “His Majesty certainly didn't seem to mind! The two were inseparable the entire evening. The prince barely so much as glanced at the other girls, they say. He and this Lady Zelynda just swooned around together, chattering on and on. Talking the most utter nonsense, like two babes in a nursery..."

  "It sounds,” Ashes ventured, “as if they just liked each other."

  Verity rolled her eyes. “Liked each other! I should say they did! Word is that they were out on the balcony for nearly an hour, practically cheek to cheek! Stupid creature! He was hers for the taking, and then she simply evaporated!"

  "She what?” Ashes demanded.

  "Vanished!” Bianca squealed, wriggling her fingers dramatically in Ashes's face. “Into thin air, like a ghost. And no one knew where she'd gone. No one knew so much as where she'd even come from. Ohh, the prince went mad!"

  "He did?” Ashes asked timidly. “I thought...I mean, he is the prince, after all...you'd think he'd forget about her...about any girl in only a moment."

  "No such thing!” Verity scoffed. “He decided to search for her! He's spent a fortune and driven his father to absolute distraction! All court business has come to a screeching halt while darling Roland goes out looking for this dream woman of his. He's vowed to search every house in the kingdom—every house in the entire world until he finds her."

  Ashes shook his head. “But how will he know it's her? She could be in disguise, or...perhaps not quite what he imagined her to be."

  "She left a shoe behind.” Bianca laughed. “A lovely slipper, made of the most exquisite crystal. Crystal! Have you ever heard of such a thing?"

  "Seems rather contrived to me.” Verity sniffed. “'Oh, look at me, I'm in such a hurry to get away, I dropped my slipper!’ Still, it'll mean the fortune of any girl who can cram her foot in it. Why shouldn't it be Bianca nor I? We're as good as any of the trash the nobility pops out these days."

  "It does seem strange, though, no one's foot fit it by now...” Bianca mused.

  "It's obviously a very small slipper. All the girls at court have feet as big as...as big as Ashes's!"

  Ashes glared at her. “Your feet aren't all that small, Verity! And the point is, anyway...you're not the girl. Neither of you was at that ball."

  "Never you mind about that, funny boy. Remember, it's our inn the prince is stopping at. We'll have plenty of time to bring him round to the wholesome virtues of a girl from a good family. By the time I'm done with him, he'll be dying to marry me."

  "If he does marry you, he'll die anyway."

  "My, someone's getting bitchy, isn't he? I think you've been told already to go take care of that fire. I'd do it, if I were you. Now."

  * * * *

  The girl at the last house they stopped at was lovely: a merchant's daughter with straw-colored hair and large eyes, still a bit bleary from having been roused out of bed an hour after midnight. Roland knew from his first glance at her she was not Zelynda—this girl was far too petite—but in accordance with his own proclamation, he had to go through with the whole ridiculous ritual, standing by listening to Sir Jasper read the decree, smiling at the parents (the father dumbstruck, the mother in curlers, all too able to speak), politely refusing a terrified maid's stammered offers of coffee or chocolate.

  When the thing was finally done and the girl's toes wriggled inside the slipper, she and Roland exchanged rueful smiles. Not only did the slipper not fit, but the girl and her entire family could practically have moved into it.

  Sir Jasper handed the father a coin and bowed. “The crown thanks you, and will not forget your accommodation in this matter."

  It was important their escape be made quickly; too much time had been wasted over the past week in visits that turned into interminable social calls with ambitious parents. If the slipper did not fit, perhaps his majesty could use Soubrette or Lisabet at court? At first Roland had tried to accommodate these requests, but there was simply not room at court for every Lisabet and Soubrette in the kingdom. It was all tedious and sad...so unlike the time he had spent with Zelynda, the two of them together on the balcony, defying gossip, defying royal responsibility, as though neither was a person of any standing at all.

  "In the deserts of Araby, there is a bird called the Phoenix, which burns with all the colors of creation—not unlike that woman's hair there. She might burst into flame at any moment. I don't know how likely it'd be she'd experience a rebirth, though."

  Roland remembered laughing at the things Zelynda said—so lusciously improbable, so absurd and yet so—fluent was the best word he could come up with. She was a girl schooled in fancy.

 

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