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.
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.
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