And thus seasons came and went, in stories and feedings and naps, and her waist shrank little by little and color returned to her cheeks. On Angie’s first birthday, as tradition dictated, the royal baby passed into the care of the ever-capable Nanny Nanny, and all at once she had time on her hands. She invented amusing ways to spend her days. She trilled with songbirds, stopped to chat with gardeners and cooks, twirled through the palace dispensing smiles and minor kindnesses. She met the spirit of a long-dead minstrel who haunted the Great Hall and listened to him recite his militant epics, knitted a pair of mouse-eared slippers for the sweet old King Roland, sent homemade preserves to Archibald the Clockmaker and Arbadac the Magician, better known as Arbadac the Bumbler, the elderly brothers who lived at the top of the palace tower and labored over the great clock, which had, for some reason, stopped chiming on the hour and taken to marking random stretches of time instead. In the evenings, she played dominoes with Brie and Nibbles, using gnawed chunks of cheese in place of tiles. (Unbeknownst to her, these Brie and Nibbles were not the original Brie and Nibbles, for, sadly, mice—even those in fairy tales—do not live all that long. Brie and Nibbles the Second were siblings, two of the numerous children of the original Brie and Nibbles, who, when close to dying of satisfied old age, designated the best-mannered and the fattest of their offspring, respectively, to play their parts, so as not to upset the princess with their passing. The second-generation Brie and Nibbles, in truth, did not resemble their parents all that closely, neither in appearance nor in character. Brie the Second, scrawnier and much less garrulous than her mother, did not give any thought to the state of her whiskers, found dollhouses confining, and liked to spend her evenings by the fire in the kitchen, listening to Grandfather Rat sing of the brave deeds of bygone mouse kings. Nibbles the Second, larger and slower than his father, had one all-consuming passion—sleep. They did their best to follow the many detailed instructions of their beloved progenitors—“Brie: collapse in giggles every time you hear Nibbles burp. Nibbles: partake of cheddar daily”—but failed time and time again, and were perennially worried that the princess would discover their ruse. But the princess never appeared to notice.)
The prince was frequently absent, traveling the land on matters of state, and when back in the palace, he continued to stay in his private quarters: he worked long hours and professed himself reluctant to disturb her rest. Yet whenever they chanced to be together, he was unfailingly attentive. On their third anniversary, ever grateful, she reflected on their matrimonial harmony. There had not been a single disagreement, not a single harsh word exchanged between them in all three years—nothing less than perfect, in fact, that she could recall, apart from, perhaps, one entirely insignificant misunderstanding some months before, which had stayed in her memory for the sole reason that it demonstrated, yet again, Prince Roland’s forgiving nature.
Sometime in the course of her solitary rambles through the palace, she had discovered an unfrequented passage in the east wing that dead-ended in a curious tapestry, so old and faded it was impossible to tell exactly what it depicted. When a shaft of sunlight pierced a nearby stained-glass window and the air in the corridor grew briefly bright, she thought she could discern blushing youths out for a stroll or ladies strumming delicate lutes; most of the time, though, the image remained shapeless and gray, with one puzzling dash of threadbare red in the middle. She felt drawn to the mystery and, hoping that one day the light would be just right for the meaning to reveal itself, paused here often on her way from the nursery.
One afternoon, as she neared the tapestry corridor, she heard a woman’s low laugh and a man speaking softly. She could make out no words, but something about the urgent yet amused tone of the man’s voice froze her in her tracks. She listened intently—and then knew the voice to be that of Prince Roland, though not as she herself had ever heard it. Her blood quickened as she braved the corner, expecting to see she knew not what; but there was nothing, there was no one there, only the faded old tapestry hanging still and inscrutable against the stone wall.
That night, she sat opposite the prince at a long, elaborate table. The dinner was held in honor of the Duke and Duchess von Lieber, visiting from a neighboring kingdom, and as a special compliment, Arbadac the Bumbler, the court magician, had enchanted all the courses to match the unusually intense green of the duchess’s eyes. The results proved rather unappetizing, however, and she found her throat closing up at the procession of bright green venison steaks and bright green loaves—or perhaps it was her lingering sense of unease that made her unable to eat. On her right, the jolly duke was telling her some interminable hunting story with much enthusiasm and spittle, shouting “Bam!” in imitation of every shot, slamming his hand vigorously against the table, so that bright green potatoes on his plate jumped. She smiled and nodded and tried to watch the prince at the other end of the hall, but his face was obscured by the many smoking tureens and made shimmery by the many wavering candles between them and she could not catch his eyes all night.
After the poisonously green pears had been cleared away, the guests turned to her, expecting her to give the customary signal of the dinner’s conclusion. Making up her mind, she stood and crossed the hall instead. The prince, ever the polite host, was listening to the Duchess von Lieber, who prattled with animation, the woman’s small, pretty, slightly monkeylike face liberally sprinkled with velvet beauty marks, the woman’s eyes every bit the shade of an unripe pear.
She placed a quavering hand on the prince’s shoulder.
“Darling, I’m sorry to interrupt, but what were you doing in the east wing’s second-floor corridor this afternoon?”
She tried to speak softly, but the room had grown quiet and her words carried. She sensed the duchess’s astonished gaze upon her.
“An east-wing corridor, my love? But I haven’t set foot in the east wing all day. I was working in my office until they rang for dinner.” He smiled at her. “And now, my precious dear, would you please escort the honored duchess to the after-dinner tea?”
He spoke with his habitual kindness, and instantly she saw that she had indeed been mistaken, that the voice in the corridor, whatever it had been, had sounded nothing like this civilized, gentle voice, the voice of her husband. And then she heard the whispering behind her back, and understood that she had broken the courtly etiquette with her impulsive, childish question, had embarrassed her dear prince in front of all these foreign dignitaries. The prince, seemingly at ease, motioned for everyone to rise, and the awkward silence broke, filled with the scraping of two dozen chairs, the shuffling of four dozen feet. Still, she felt flustered and could not quite recover her poise during the ladies’ tea that followed, even as she played a conscientious hostess to the chatty duchess. But later that evening, she sat by Angie’s crib, singing a bedtime lullaby, when the prince paid an unscheduled visit to the nursery. He kissed them both tenderly, bounced the child on his knee, asked about her day. He did not allude to her faux pas at dinner, but his gestures, his words, were full of loving reassurance, and at last she was able to see the unfortunate episode for the trifle it had been. She looked at the two of them, her kind, considerate husband, her daughter giggling in her father’s arms, and thought: This moment, right here, right now—I want to hold this moment perfect and whole in my memory, so that even decades from today I will be able to see it, undimmed, undiminished, and know just how lucky I was.