Two, perhaps three, years later, after no new orders had arrived from the castle for some time, the Princess became anxious. As she stirred the stew simmering in the large casserole one evening, she said to no-one in particular, although Natalia was behind her, “How fares my mother, I wonder? No news is good news, they say, but perhaps I should send a message? I have not seen her for an age and this long silence disquietens me.”
“Have no fear, child,” Natalia said. “’Tis oft that affairs of State occupy the powerful and we, the lesser, must await their pleasure. And no, I do not judge! ‘Tis simply how the world is.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a loud, insistent hammering on the door of the cottage. Natalia was about to speak her usual refrain, though in truth the dogs now even less moved from their fireside spots, when a young page burst through the door and into the living area. “The Princess!” he cried. “Where is the Princess? I bring news and naught of it is good! I must speak with the Princess! Where is she?”
“I am here,” the Princess replied gently from the scullery doorway, “What consumes you? You are eager, I must say!”
“Your mother lies a-dying. She calls for you! You must come! You must follow me, though we will be too late. Please! Follow! We have fresh horses. Can you ride? There was no time! A carriage would be too slow! Please, Princess, follow!”
“Go, child. Your mother calls you,” the seamstress said quietly, an aching counterpoint to the agitated youth before them. “Go! If you do not go now…..” Natalia’s voice trailed into nothingness. The Princess ran after the page and, stepping from the door of the cottage into the darkness, saw six horses, pawing the ground, and four horsemen. “Come, Princess!” said the Master of Horse. “We must not tarry, ‘tis no idle adventure here, as when we last met! Tonight we ride, and ride hard, and long! Haste is all!” The Master of Horse dismounted and with one mighty hand on her crooked knee hefted the Princess into the saddle. “Come, we ride!”
They rode long through the night, and hard, hope ever against hope, but they were, as was foretold, too late.
The Princess was once more bereft. Of light, of love, of peace and naught could be found in the days that followed that would ease the pain of the fist that squeezed the aching place where once her heart had been.
One week after her ride, she watched, through tear-blurred vision, as they followed Faerie custom and returned the body to the ground; that it might provide nutrients to the plants of the forest and thus help to sustain future generations of their folk. As an old proverb has it: “I am all my ancestors and yours too, even though each occupies only a small space inside of me.”
After all was over, she formally took leave of her father and returned to her life as a lowly seamstress.
As the summer days crept gradually into autumn and the leaves became brittle and ochre hued, the hole where her heart had been slowly filled anew. Although a fist did grip oft-times this rebuilt sense of contentment, the pain was bearable and laughter was sometimes heard ringing through the windows of the tiny cottage as she cooked or cleaned or stitched tiny flowers on the hems of dresses.
The months passed by and autumn turned to winter, and winter to spring, until finally the world turned once more into summer. The flowers blossomed under her tender care in the garden and herbs grew more verdant and fragrant than she could ever recall, even in the garden of her grandmother. It was as though Mother Earth took her sadness and in some primeval, mysterious way fashioned it into something that the plants could feast upon.
“My child,” said Natalia one morning as they sipped herb tea among the blossoms, “you are truly gifted! Never has this garden been so joyous, to the eye, to the nose, not even in the days of my lost husband. Why, even the buzzing of the bees seems louder and somehow more wondrous than before. Perhaps I err in teaching you to sew. “
“No, mistress Natalia,” the Princess said. “I enjoy making this beauty for you, as you do for me, for others, when you sew but it is no path to make one’s own way in the world. Little monetary reward would I see for the effort, however enjoyable. No, ‘tis better to sew and earn a crust than to idle one’s days crafting such transient beauty. No-one would wish for such a fleeting pleasure unless little or no payment were required.”
“Come, child, let us then pay our village a visit. We are short of flour, dried meat and those spices that come from across the ocean. Bring the cart to the porch. ‘Tis a fine day for a walk. Sewing will wait on our pleasure for once!”
The Princess brought the small hand cart round to the entrance to the cottage and, each to a handle, they briskly walked into the lane that led to the village square and what merchants the village possessed. Twenty or thirty minutes later, they rounded a sharp curve in the lane and entered the bustling heart of the village. Stalls of varying sizes were scattered across the main square, some permanent, some merely temporary, flanked by open shop fronts piled high with produce from the outlying farms and beyond. People were pressed in all around the stalls and shop fronts as they sought to buy or barter for the goods they needed.
“Come, child, Mistress Olva will be our first. She would never dare sell witchetty flour, to me, nor anyone, I deem. We will be assured of the best quality too, I think. Do I not clothe her daughters? In their finest?”
The next hour was taken up in haggling for the best prices at various stalls and shop fronts as the small hand cart was slowly filled with provender for the coming months. The Princess was amazed at how far below their stated price the stallholders were willing to fall but whether by the pleadings of a poor seamstress’ poverty, promises of priority on dress-work already under way or simply the offer of a bribe in the form of a small child’s undergarment or smock, Natalia was able to secure prices undreamt of by the villagers or farmers.
Later, as they sat before the inn, sipping mulled wine and eating a nectar cake filled with honey and cinnamon, Natalia sought to enlighten the Princess on the ways of the market. “Never pay what they ask,” she said. “Only a damn fool of a sheep farmer with his wits in his rump, or worse, would pay that. They mark up by one or two, sometimes as much as three times what they need to take to turn a profit and the more I pay the poorer I become and the richer they! ‘Tis a game, no more. Why even old Ramly, the spice merchant, knows he was diddled!” She smiled. “Do not look so shocked, child. The smock I will make will be the finest in the village, and he knows it, but it will cost less to make than the amount he docked from my bill! Come, there will be time to be satisfied with my efforts later. Now we must head home if we are to make the door by dusk. ‘Twill be a harder journey back than it was to get here. This cart is heavy!”
To be continued.....
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