Ever After (2 page)

After the
lecture, the princess wasted not one single moment. She immediately
began inspecting the palace. Once the palace lost its charms, she
ventured into the gardens and then beyond. She paddled in the sea,
set paper boats afloat, learnt what it was like to have her hair
frizzed by the humid sea breeze and even sat on a boat. In the
beginning of her explorations, the princess obeyed her father and
stuck firmly to the rules. It wasn't difficult considering the
number of things she had to see and soak in.

Then one day
she decided to visit the market. And it was this very day that she
first began to think about breaking the rules.

***

The market was
busy with people running to and fro like thousands of busy ants on
a bright summer's day. The lemonade men strolled through the
streets ringing bells and shouting, “One cup for a penny, one cup
for a penny, free ice and honey, one cup for a penny….”

Jugglers,
puppeteers and acrobats gleamed in their gold outfits as they
performed in tiny emerald tents dotting the sides of the cobbled
lanes. Children were screaming in excitement as they ogled men with
two heads, birds with two beaks and a Tyrannosaurus rex.

The princess,
riding atop a white elephant with a giant umbrella protecting her
from the heat, slowly moved through the busy market. People had
become used to seeing her. They were no longer in awe and went
about their business as usual. She didn't mind. In fact, she often
tried to make believe that she was not a princess but someone
entirely ordinary. It was difficult—what with the elephant, guards,
doctors, nurses, maids, cook, and military tank with a cannon
making up her entourage—but, still, she tried to forget about them
and pretend she was a simple farmer's daughter on her way to work.
And sometimes it almost worked.

It was near the
giant oak tree that marked the centre of the market that she saw
him. He seemed to appear in front of her like a wizard. A cool
breeze kissed her flushed cheek, but she did not notice. Her eyes
were on the handsome man who was walking closer and closer to her.
His eyes were downcast as if he was counting his steps.

She willed him
to look up.

He paused near
the trunk of the elephant and gave it a slight pat.

She leaned
over, her breath coming in shallow gasps. Look up, she prayed
silently.

And he did. He
looked up at her with shimmering eyes.

She froze.

He waited for a
breathless moment before offering a smile.

She watched his
face transform with that smile. He was beautiful, she thought
enchanted.

His lips
quirked at her obvious admiration. He bowed politely and turned
away.

The moment he
walked away, her breath came back to her in a rush and she craned
her neck around. From her seat atop the white elephant, she could
see his scarlet coat flitting amongst the sea of blue and green
cloaks. She watched the flash of red for a long, long time until it
completely disappeared from her view.

The man played
on her mind for days. She looked for a glimpse of him everywhere
she went. Her eyes searched for him … the stranger … for he was a
stranger in this land.

His coat had
been cut in a foreign style, and the bright scarlet hue of the
material was something she had never seen before. He had worn his
dark, unruly hair long, longer than the men of her land. And his
eyes … She recalled the smile, the slight twinkle in his dark eyes
… No one in this kingdom had eyes so dark, so deep and so richly
brown.

***

Chance threw
them together once more on a lovely balmy evening when the sun was
just setting and the breeze was laden with the scent of night
flowers. The princess had set out for a long leisurely stroll. She
had her usual entourage with her, along with one new addition. This
new addition was an adorable little pug which she carried in her
arms.

She wondered
what she should name her new pet as she walked down the main street
nodding at traders and street magicians. Blueberry was a good name,
she thought, but perhaps more appropriate for a blue rat …Twinkle
toes? No, she had seen the pug walk. He was clumsy, often falling
over his own feet … Prince? She smiled to herself as she imagined
introducing the pet to her father's formal guests. She would bow to
the King of Nettles and say, “I am Princess, Your Highness, and
this,” she would continue, pointing to the curtseying pug, “is
Prince.”

The King of
Nettles, a stingy fellow with his pursed up mouth, sharp face and
rude tone, would certainly reel back in horror at the sight of her
beloved pug wearing a tiara and a green velvet robe … She frowned …
Possibly the King of Nettles couldn’t help being stingy, rude and
all sorts of horrid things. It was in the nature of some to bite,
and she couldn't blame them for it. It was how they were
created—

Crack, phut,
phut, phut, weeeee! A fire cracker lit by an illuminator's child
suddenly exploded close to her. The pug gave a startled yelp and
jumped out of her arms. The princess lunged, but it was too late.
The pug slipped out of her grasp and took off down the street.

The princess
raced after it, screaming at her beloved pet to stop. The pug
ignored her and kept on running. The princess hiked up her white
silk skirts and flew after him. She skidded under carts, leaped
over puddles, skirted thorny hedges and stepped into puddles. She
ignored the shouts of the soldiers, the cry from her maid, and the
warning yell from the doctor. She couldn't be bothered with rules
at the moment. She had to save her puppy.

He was quick
for such a fat thing. The princess was soon huffing and puffing as
she chased after him. The pug hopped over a fallen basket, turned
into a small lane and disappeared from view.

Heart in her
throat, the princess began sprinting. She pushed aside a cart laden
with peaches, slammed into a milk maid, spilling cans of milk all
over the road, and knocked off an old woman's pink wig as she
turned the corner and hurtled into the small lane.

The pug was
nowhere to be seen.

She hastened
down the lane until she almost crashed into a man. Her feet skidded
to a halt a few centimetres away from him … It was the same
handsome stranger. The man who did not belong to her father's
kingdom. The man she had been thinking about ever since he had
smiled at her. They were so close their noses were almost
touching.

"I have him,"
he said.

His breath
smelled of sweet, warm cinnamon.

"Hmm," she
said, feeling a strange sort of confusion.

"Your pet, I
have him."

"Oh," she
blinked and quickly stepped back.

He held out the
wriggling pug and offered it to her.

She blushed and
wondered how she had missed spotting the yowling dog in his arms.
She reached out, carefully extracted her pet.

Their fingers
brushed against each other. Once, twice, three times.

She kissed her
pet, her eyes on the man.

They smiled at
each other.

***

Once the
princess had tasted the thrill of breaking rules, she repeated it
often. She slipped out on moonlit nights and sought the stranger
out. They started meeting regularly away from prying eyes. They
strolled in the lover's garden, spent hours on her balcony and went
riding deep into lonely fields.

They met when
the kingdom was asleep. And the princess tingled deliciously every
time she held his warm brown hands. She hung onto his every word,
her eyes glued to his dark mysterious face.

One night they
stole a boat and rowed out to the middle of a lake. It was a
moonless night, and their only source of light was a gas lamp and
fireflies that were dancing over the inky water.

The princess
tried to catch a firefly in her hands and leaned too far over the
edge, almost capsizing the boat. He saved her from falling over.
She smiled her thanks, but he was not pleased. He scolded her for
her foolishness, his eyes full of terror at the thought of what
could have happened.

No one except
her parents had ever spoken to her so sternly. No one had ever
dared. She knew then looking into his angry face that she loved
him.

He saw the love
shimmering in her eyes and answered it by giving her a long sweet
kiss. Her first ever kiss. He said he loved her too.

After that the
princess changed. She no longer cared about breaking her promise to
her father. She no longer recalled her role as the princess of the
great snowcapped mountains. She even forgot about propriety with
duties to fulfil and decorum to maintain. All she wanted was to
spend her time with him. To feel his arms around her shoulders and
hear him speak about faraway lands, strange rituals and feasts, and
about a world that existed beyond her father’s lands.

After months of
courtship the day finally came when he gently tilted her chin up
and told her he had to return home.

The words
pierced her heart like sharp little darts.

He kissed her
tears away. He told her that she was the most beautiful creature he
had ever seen. He couldn’t believe she had chosen him, a commoner,
to love. He leaned forward and grabbed her hands and held it near
his chest.

The world stood
still … waiting ….

"Will you marry
me?" he whispered feverishly. "I will do everything to keep you
happy."

The princess's
throat was too full of happiness to speak, so she simply nodded in
reply.

***

She rushed home
thrilled and bursting with news. She dashed to her father and told
him about the proposal. She skipped up her mother and repeated it
all. She told her maids, she told the cooks, and when she had
finished telling every single person in the palace about her
wedding plans, she told the walls, the furniture and even her
wardrobe hooks.

She laughed and
sang and her voice rang with happiness around the palace walls.

The king's
moustache wilted at the news and he immediately called a meeting
with his wise council and the young ministers. As for the queen,
the moment she heard her daughter out, sixteen wrinkles appeared on
her smooth, shiny skin. She grabbed her poodles and retreated into
her meditation room.

When her
parents had finally consulted with wise men, astrological charts,
seers and middle class housewives with oodles of common sense, they
turned to their daughter.

"No," the king
said.

"Oh, never,"
the queen agreed.

"The man," they
chanted together, "is a stranger."

"Not wealthy,"
the king said.

"Not royal,"
the queen added.

"His blood is
of question," the king continued.

"What if it is
yellow and not blue," the queen agreed.

"His ancestors,
what of them?" the king demanded.

"They could be
monkeys," the queen said, "or god forbid … giraffes."

"His kind heart
is treasure enough," the princess cried. "He may not be royal, but
his love is true. He makes me wonderfully happy."

The king
grunted in response. "The council says you must not do this. You
cannot break tradition. A princess must marry a prince and no
other. It will reflect badly upon the subjects and cause a
revolution. We must uphold the old system and continue as we are,
or one day I shall no longer be king."

The queen
gasped in horror at this pronouncement.

"Senile old
turtles," the princess growled, "what do they know?"

"That is
exactly what the young ministers said, “the king continued, "but
they went on to add that without a prior memorandum of
understanding between the two parties and then a period of official
courting followed by a contract at least three hundred and four
feet long, how can you think of marrying him? They
disapproved."

"But I love
him," the princess whispered.

"A few months
of coochie coos with a strange man and you forget about your
parents?" the queen roared.

"What shall I
say to my subjects, knowing that my only child has diluted her blue
blood? What if his blood is yellow? Is that what you want, for your
children to bleed green?" the king asked.

"And how will I
face the King and Queen of Rivers, the lords and ladies of the
forests?" the queen wailed. "And just when the King and Queen of
the Three Seas have invited us for their fiftieth anniversary.
Everyone will be there. What shall I do? What shall I say—that my
daughter has run away with a garden sweeper?"

"He is not a
garden sweeper," the princess objected.

"Pooper
scooper, then. What does it matter, they are all the same," the
queen sobbed. "My daughter, a pooper scooper's wife … a poopy
scoopy—waaaah!"

The king spoke
above his howling wife, "How will you buy your silks, pearls, and
diamonds? Do your recall your childhood dream of owning the biggest
palace in the world? How will you build such a place with no coin
to your name?"

"I want to
marry him," the princess replied. "I care about him not sparkling
things. Does my happiness not count? Does being good and caring and
kind mean nothing? Do we have to live a pretentious life
forever?"

The queen
stopped crying and faced her daughter. "If that is so, then
denounce your family name."

"If you marry
him, then you will have no home to return to," the king agreed.

"Please," the
princess begged. "Please give me your consent."

"Marry him and
consider us dead," they replied.

It was their
final decision.

The princess
raised her chin and on trembling legs walked out of the palace
never to return again.

She married
him.

And on their
magical wedding night, her husband named her Anahita. It was a new
name for her new life. And as Anahita she crossed over the border
onto foreign soil.