Beauty Sleep

Beauty Sleep - Part 1 of 8

The castle slept. The castle dreamed. 

The constant storm did not disturb it. The driving rain and multi-coloured lightning never stirred it from its rest. 

Once it had been just a keep - a tower of stone and wood and iron, raised up as a message to the lands around it - of protection and submission and fealty and loyalty and fear. 

Now, though, it was riddled through and bound together by a mix of curses and enchantments, twisting and entwined as thoroughly within as was the labyrinthine maze of briars without. 

As the decades became centuries, the fabric of that long-ensorcelled stone had grown percipient. Slowly at first, gradually but inexorably, it grew aware of its surroundings, and its contents. 

Since the will and the intent of its now ancient architects had been wholly focused around keeping people out, it did not, to begin with, entirely comprehend its current state. Its first sites of awareness were its walls, and months passed as its perceptions sharpened, broadened, moving gradually inwards. 

Finally, though, it saw the blinding knot of spellwork in its heart. Piercing that central chamber, it found the Princess slumbering within, and in that moment of true revelation, with the full pattern of its current nature visible, the castle achieved for the first time a true sentience. It awoke. It understood. And so, it was at last a fully thinking living creature, and so itself a target for the very curse that had first set it on this path. And thus it fell immediately into the deepest slumber, as deep as hers was, still. 

The castle slept. The castle dreamed.

Beauty Sleep - Part 2 of 8

Listen - there are footsteps in the maze. The walls of briar that make up the labyrinth are many feet thick and many yards high. No fire can burn them. No sword can cut a path. Not iron nor flame nor silver will avail you. The twists and turns and corners of the maze are constantly changing, remade each morning in a new configuration. Impossible that anyone might find their way. Yet listen. The tread is heavy, through the rain and storm. An armoured man, lit from above by multi-coloured lightning. A knight, like from the fairy stories. A knight is walking through the labyrinth.

How is it that he finds his way? Is he pure of heart? Is he protected by some charm? Has he been judged and found worthy? Is it his wisdom that allows him ingress, or his courage, or his strength?

The castle sleeps, and dreams of footsteps. It stirs fitfully, as the knight strides confidently round the corners of its corridors. He carries a burning torch to light his way. Hundreds of years ago, some of these walls held tapestries that such a brand as this might have set light to, but they are gone to dust. All gone. All gone.

For hours, he searches, high and low, until at last he finds her. He sets aside his torch, not needed in this central chamber, for she glows as bright as flame herself. Her skin is etched all over with a dense and delicate tracery of moving lights. The handsome draperies that once adorned her bed are gone to dust. The gentle mattress gone, the bed frame rotted. She lies on the hard flagstones of the floor, with just the pulsing lights of curses and enchantments to protect her modesty.

The knight stands over her. His quest has been a long one. There've been times when he has doubted, and yet here she is.

He gently wraps her in his cloak, then pauses. He's about to break the spell, but something stops him. He tries to lead a good and noble life, and he knows that it's not done, to kiss a woman in her sleep whom you have not been introduced to.

He's been warned, though, not to take her from this place until she starts to wake. Gently, he kisses her, and she quickens, breathes, and stirs, and he lifts her up and carries her, at last, after so many centuries, he carries her away from here, to freedom.

Beauty Sleep - Part 3 of 8

The Bishop is a man of learning, and his cathedral is not a place of cloisteral hush, but rather the low buzz of many conversations. The city is a crossroads and a meeting point, and the cathedral at its heart is a centre for discussion and debate.

Does it seem strange, that the Knight should bring the Princess here, and not first to the palace? Not at all. Not only is the Bishop now pre-eminent among the King's advisors, but he is also the very man who set the Knight upon this quest.

So it is here, in the cathedral, that she can first take stock, and come to understand just how long she has slept. The Bishop has questions, and they talk for many hours. He knows the myths, the fairy stories. In his youth, he had dismissed all tales of evil sorceresses and dread curses as mere fancy, but these last ten years he's been obsessed with tracking down the reason for this land's misfortunes. The crops that will not grow. The winds that strip bare villages.

The evil sorceress herself is now long dead, of course. This is a world of science now, and yet the Bishop had allowed himself to dream that there might be an echo, still, of that much older time.

So now his heart is full of hope. It is not that the Princess herself has any powers, but rather that the breaking of her curse might have dispelled the final echo of its caster's evil taint, might bring an end to the calamities that plague the kingdom. He hopes the final storm is broken, the multi-coloured lightning gone.

She spends a week with him, recovering her strength, attended by physicians who confirm that she seems still to be the twenty year old woman that she was, and fit, and healthy. She reads voraciously, devouring histories to learn what she has missed. What she has slept through.

She finds the Bishop kind, but does not fully trust him yet. She asks if she can walk out, in the city, and is pleased when he agrees to this. He sends a servant boy along with her, to help her find her way, and she interrogates the boy as they are walking, learning far more from him than from the sights and sounds and smells that they encounter.

In all those days, though, there is yet one thing she does not do. One last reminder.

She does not sleep.

Beauty Sleep - Part 4 of 8

The King has a problem.

Of course, the King has many problems. That is very much in the nature of being a King. Kingship is a problem rich environment.

It is a problem that the crops will not grow well, and that too many of his people spend their lives in poverty and hunger. It is a problem that his nobles plot against him. It is a problem that he has no wife, no heir. It is a problem that his people do not love him.

Does that seem strange, that a King should feel the need for popularity? A strong king, with a powerful, loyal army, ruling with an iron hand, might care much less about his people's bellies. You may assume, therefore, that he is none of those.

He has tried to be a good king, and a wise king, and from time to time he has succeeded. More often, though, the choices he must face are not twixt good and bad, but bad and worse.

When he was young and handsome, noble families would send their daughters to the court to catch his eye, but he prefers the company of men, romantically, and wasn't in a hurry to be wed. Now, less young, less handsome, he plays a delicate game, maintaining balance in his court to counter plots and intrigues. Picking a wife from any family, now, would just unite the others all against him.

His greatest problem, though, is the arrival in the court last month of this new Princess, his great aunt, many hundred times removed.

His Bishop, the most trusted and most level-headed of his friends, has this last year suffered a nervous breakdown, and begun to rave about enchantresses and fairy stories. Now his court, his land, are all abuzz with fantasy and hope, and this young woman, beautiful and quiet, has turned all of his plans and careful politics all on their head.

And there is nothing he can do. She is the worst thing that could happen to him, and any clever person knows that, so he must now protect her from all harm, for any misfortune that befalls her will be surely blamed on him.

He does not believe his Bishop, that her reawakening will end the troubles of the kingdom. He can see that those who align themselves with her will only fall again, when nothing truly changes. His best chance is to keep her at a distance, let the hand play out, and try to keep his throne for long enough that all this nonsense passes by and is forgotten.

The great feast of the springtime is upon them, and she must be the guest of honour. The palace grain-stores will be opened to the people, for the festival, and there'll be speeches to the gathered crowds. He believes that he will still be king tomorrow, probably, but probably a weaker one.

Her speech is long, and he's surprised to find that she is good at this. She holds the crowd more surely than most her age would do. He'd expected that her speech would be well-written, by whoever's play this was, but not so well-delivered.

She starts with gratitude. She thanks him, and his Bishop, for their kindness and their generous welcome. She thanks the people, for their love and their applause. She speaks of waking in this strange new future, and of what she's learned, of the land and the city and the cathedral and the court, of the people and their troubles. She is grieved, she tells them, to learn of their afflictions. She is no sorceress, and has no skill or knowledge in the casting off of curses. If her awakening should spell an end to this land's troubles she is overjoyed, but she can take no credit.

This is a good land, she continues, in spite of all its hardships. It has a Bishop who devotes his life to its improvement, and does so at the order of his King, and that King, that good, wise King, has to contend with noble families who think of nothing but their own advancement. In these short weeks at court, she tells the people, there's not a single family that has not tried to tangle her into their schemes. The only one in this whole place who hasn't tried to twist her to their ends is him, the King himself. Knowing the danger, surely foreseeing what a threat she might be to him, he has made no attempt to win her to his cause. He has set guards around her rooms for her protection, yet never locked her doors or tried to shut her in. Nor tried to shut her up. He sits there listening now, with no clear idea of what she'll say, and what she wants to do is thank him for his courtesy and kindness, and to hope he'll understand if she might make her home in a cathedral, not a palace, if she might have his leave for that.

The crowds applaud her, then, and love her all the more, and the King rises, thanks her for her speech, sincerely, and there's more applause, far more applause, than he has ever known.

Beauty Sleep - Part 5 of 8

There was once a Princess, and a King.

The King came to the cathedral. Once upon a time, he would have had her come to him. These last few months, though, he's been going out into the city more. His people love him, and he's wise enough to know this might not last. He is determined to enjoy it while he has it.

He speaks first with his Bishop for a while, then sits alone and has the Princess sent for. The room in which they meet is plain. He does not sit upon a throne, but on a rough-hewn wooden bench on one side of a simple table. There is bread and cheese and wine in front of him, but he waits for her before he starts to eat.

"Your Majesty," she says, when she arrives. "This is an honour, and a pleasure."

He stands and smiles, and they exchange brief pleasantries, then both sit down on each side of the table. As they eat, they talk of recent news. The crops grow well. The weather has been kind. There's cause for hope, but also cause for caution.

"A run of good luck is great," he says, "but it's no foundation for political stability. I need to weather some storms. They need to see the new me tested, and unbroken. Until they do, this isn't real."

"How are things at court?"

He laughs.

"You'd hardly recognise the place. The noble families are falling over each other to support me. I owe you a great debt."

"Nonsense. I simply did what was best for the kingdom. This is my home, too, remember. You owe me nothing."

They talk for ages. There is a dance to this - a courtly, complicated thing. They each have things they want to say, but neither can come out and simply say them. They must be sidled up to, come to over time. This is less a conversation than it is a choreography.

"If you were in my place, right now," he asks her, "what would you do, as ruler of this land?"

She considers this.

"Well, if I had nobles who normally had to be placated," she says, "and they suddenly wanted to be seen as my supporters, then I could probably take advantage of that - make headway with projects that I'd normally not have the support I needed for."

He laughs.

"You credit me with more than I deserve," he says. "I've spent so many years able to do nothing more than deal with each new crisis as it came. I'd love to claim that I had a long list of projects, waiting to roll out. The truth is, trying to achieve such things, and failing, would only have weakened my position further. I must admit it's been a long time since I tried anything so recklessly ambitious."

"Well, now's your chance then, surely."

"Oh, indeed, and so I'm asking you - If you were in my place, what would you do?"

She's puzzled by this tack, because his countenance seems shrewd. She doesn't get the sense that he is troubled by his new position. She knows that he is smart enough to see some ways in which his people could be helped, because she knows that he has already started on such works, in recent weeks.

They talk some more about the kingdom's problems, both within its borders and between its neighbours. She offers some suggestions, for policies or laws he might consider. He takes her suggestions seriously, drills down to details, discusses problems he'd foresee and listens to her answers to them.

There is a pause. The dance nears its conclusion.

"You have a keen eye, and a sharp mind," says the King. "I do get the attraction of cathedrals, but I'd dearly love to have you by my side, at court. We could achieve so much."

"A Princess from another age hardly commands authority," she says. "Whatever fleeting influence I have right now will not outlast the summer."

"I have no Queen," he says. "I have no heir."

"My mother was a Queen," she says, "and both my father and his court paid scant regard to her opinions or her feelings. She tried to give him sons, and died in doing so. You praise my brain but want me for my womb. Thank you, but no."

"Then be my heir," he says, "if not my Queen."

"That's tempting," she admits, "and I'm honoured that you'd offer it, but no, I don't think it would work. A king can choose his heir, but can't enforce that choice effectively. Not once he's dead. I'm not sure I’d convince the nobles or the people that I was legitimate, however polite they might have been to your face. You see a shrewd brain, but that's not why the people love me. A beloved Princess and a wise Queen are very different things. Being one gives me no chance to demonstrate my fitness as the other."

"All valid points," the King admits. "How about this? By my heir AND be my Queen."

She looks at him. He grins at her.

"You knew I'd turn you down," she says.

"Not knew, suspected. Maybe hoped for. This works better."

"Then why not simply offer this to start with?"

"Good question," says the King. "Why not?"

He watches her, and waits.

"Is this what I'd be signing up for?" she says archly. "To have each talk become a test, or an audition?"

"We already know your role in this relationship," he says, "and it's to hold me to a higher standard. You're doing it already, every time we meet. Given that role, we must accept that turnabout will sometimes be fair play."

And on they talked, all afternoon, and well into the evening.

Beauty Sleep - Part 6 of 8

The Bishop had for many years advised the King, wisely and well. Now that the Princess has become a Queen, he does the same for her.

It is a strangely balanced friendship, since he is so much older and much younger than her, and vice versa. Neither one can always tell exactly who might advise who, on any given topic.

The land has flourished, just as both had hoped. The King is strong, his reign secure. 

As the years pass by, all goes as they had planned. The Queen is loved as much now for her brains, or for her wisdom, as her beauty.

There are hard years too, of course. A deadly illness passes through the land one winter, and there are many deaths. As many in the towns as in the fields. As many in the court as in the clergy. The Bishop is struck down, and the Queen tends to him herself, devotes herself to caring for him, and slowly he recovers, he survives, although he is a weaker man for ever after.

In the tenth year since she woke, there is a festival across the land. The people celebrate, although the story's changed as years have passed. Few now believe in curses, or enchantments, so the truth of her return is mostly lost. Yet people love her just as well, and after all perhaps with better reason than they had at first.

She's made real changes, as a Queen, pushing for all the things she never had herself, even a Princess, growing up. She preaches literacy, and learning, and her schools and colleges have brought the best minds in the kingdom to be leaders, regardless of the station of their birth. At court, the noble families still have their place, for they soon worked out that helping and supporting these new ventures and ideas was the best way, going forward.

The King grows older, and slows down. He shows his age, while she remains as full of energy as ever. She's indefatigable.

Few know the truth of this, entirely. The King, the Bishop, yes, of course, and just a trusted few at court. A dozen souls, all told. No more than that. It's known more widely that she keeps long hours, sits up by lamplight reading in her libraries, but not the full and honest truth of it.

She does not sleep. Not even now. Not after all these years. She never sleeps.

Every few years, the Bishop's health takes a bad turn. He sickens, weakens, and each time, like the first, it is the Queen who sets aside her other duties and attends him. Each time death comes for him, it finds her waiting, and she will not let him go.

One summer evening, as the Queen and Bishop sit and talk, out in his gardens, he at last addresses this directly.

"You have to let me go," he says.

She looks at him, and in her eyes there is such sadness.

"Why?" she says.

"Because I want you to," he says.

They sit in silence.

"There are new medicines," she says. "You could feel fitter, younger. You'd have years."

"But I don't want them," he says calmly. "I have lived a good, long life, and it is now enough. I'm done. I'm asking you to let me go. I'm trusting that your love for me is real enough that you won't keep me here unwillingly."

Her face is wet, and so is his.

"I could make you young again, and strong," she says.

"I know you could. Of course you could. I know well who you are, what you can do. I do not doubt your power. If you were not so good, or not so wise, I'd be afraid that you might force me to survive, might be so selfish and so wicked that old men like me might rightly fear you. That's not true, though. Never has been. You are good, and they were wrong to fear your power."

This is the first time, in their years of friendship, that they've spoken this in words out loud. He first suspected years ago, watched carefully, grew certain. She in turn has watched him watching, known him knowing, waiting for him to denounce or hate her, but he never did.

The Bishop and the Sorceress sit in his gardens, and they say the things they've never said, each to the other, well into the night, and then she leaves, and he retires to bed, for the last time.

She lets him go.

She lets him sleep.

Beauty Sleep - Part 7 of 8

The Knight attends the Queen. She's at the palace, in her personal library, today, and not the larger public ones.

She is old now, though her mind is sharp.

"What are you reading, Majesty?" he asks.

"Still working through the parcel from last week," she answers. "There's one here on the maintenance of orchards that you might quite like, and a murder mystery that you could take back for your wife."

He bends and picks a volume from the floor.

"Ah! Ah!" she chides. "That didn't fall. It was thrown there quite on purpose."

He glances at the spine and smiles, returns it to its spot upon the carpet.

She sees the smile and frowns at him.

"It was poorly written!" she insists.

"Of course," he answers. "As so many histories are."

"Don't humour me, boy!" she snaps. "I knew your father, and your grandfather. Back in the time when Knights would treat their Queen with some respect!"

"You knew my grandfather?" he exclaims, hand to his breast in mock surprise, as if just now discovering this fact.

"On second thoughts, I'll have that history back," she says. "It's wasted on the floor when there's so many better targets I could throw it at."

He thinks that she will eat her breakfast here, today, since this has been her habit lately, but instead she fancies wider company, so they spend a few hours out around the palace and its gardens. They are back here with her books by lunchtime, though.

"Shall I tell them to stop sending histories?" he asks. "I know you'd rather think about the future than the past."

"No, that's not it at all," she says. "I think about the past most of the time. It's the best teacher that I have, and the foundation on which any future stands or falls. I throw the books across the room because they always get it wrong."

"Have you considered writing one yourself, to set the record straight?"

She laughs.

"What makes you think that truth would strengthen that foundation? Oh, no thank you, no."

And yet, their conversation circles back repeatedly, and so they spend the afternoon discussing the great shifts and changes that her reign has witnessed.

He is attentive, asks her questions. It isn't that she tells him secrets, but her personal perspective on grand world events is fascinating.

They talk about the death of her first husband, how it was back then when she began to rule this land alone. He does not ask about her younger life, her childhood, for he knows of old that she will not discuss that, ever.

She tells him what the war was like, how many soldiers died, and how she chose to compromise and make the treaty that would see this land absorbed into the empire to the south. Her marriage to the Emperor was a small price, she feels. He had his victory, and could call this land his own, and in return she ruled here in his name, and managed to protect the interests of her people quite successfully.

"Husbands can be difficult to live with," she admits, "but that turned out to be fine. I only met the man one time, just for the wedding."

The people loved her, came to understand how cleverly she cared for them, and when after twenty years the Emperor was overthrown in bloody revolution to the south and put to gory death, they chose to not repeat that here, but rather keep her as a Queen.

Real power would rest now with the Popular Council, naturally, but they remembered well how she had been the one who'd first set up that group so many years before. When the Great Council of the south sent word, demanding that she die, they just refused, and persevered in that position long enough that all their neighbours washed their hands of all such nonsense and cut ties with them.

The evening brings reports and updates. She has no real power, but copies of each meeting and decision of the council still come here. He knows she reads them all. Does she advise them, send them feedback? Not officially, of course, but still.

This evening though, is different. Something she reads excites her, or alarms her.

"Majesty?" he asks, concerned.

"I need you to arrange some horses and supplies," she says. "A two week journey north, travelling light, and incognito, you and I, no retinue."

"I.. What? I'm sorry. I don't understand."

She's muttering to herself, but he can barely hear her. Snatches of words like "storm" or "multi-coloured lightning".

She turns and fixes him with steely gaze.

"Are you loyal to your Queen?" she asks.

"Of course, your Majesty."

"Let's test that, shall we? We are leaving, you and I. We are leaving here tonight. No one must know that I am going. Can I trust you?"

There's a pause.

"You can," he says, "but Majesty, where are we going?"

"You're going with me to an old abandoned castle. You're going somewhere new to you, and strange, and me? I'm going home."

Beauty Sleep - Part 8 of 8

The Queen comes back to the castle. She arrives on horseback, with her Knight beside her. She finds no storm, but faintly there are flashes in the sky above it. Multi-coloured lightning. As she crests the rise and sees it in the distance, she pulls up and waits, and watches, but so far she can see no sign of life or of activity. It looks deserted, overgrown, abandoned.

She reaches out with other senses, though, and she can see a different story. Something is living in the castle. Something old and powerful. Something magical, and yet she can't tell what.

They make camp, that the Knight may sleep.

"Will you be here, when I wake, my Queen?" he asks her.

"I will. I want to watch it for a while. See what it does."

The Knight knows everything, no secrets now between them. He believes her tales, in no small part because she's cast aside illusions of old age, and seems again to be a woman of some twenty years.

In the morning, when he wakes, he finds her waiting. They eat, and she prepares to travel onwards. He does not.

"Sure you have it straight?" she asks him.

"I watch you through the spyglass," he replies. "I keep a careful note of all I see. I wait. If you're not back here after seven days, then I head back and I tell the council everything, give them your messages, am honest with them about what I know, of where you are, of what you are. I do my best to make them to follow your instructions. Then, with or without them, I come back. If there's a labyrinth of briars then there's a chance that you're asleep, and so I try to get inside and wake you up."

"Those are my orders, yes. Now tell me what you really plan to do. The truth."

"I plan to do exactly what I'm told, your Majesty. If I follow you in there, before going home, I leave the land defenceless, uninformed."

"Good man," she says, and then embraces him. "Good man. Good man. Better than I deserve."

The Queen rides onwards to the castle. She finds no briar labyrinth. The land around is overgrown with brambles, certainly, but no more so than nature manages unsorcelled. She cuts through gradually, with mortal tools. Her magic and her power she buries deep. No need to play that hand just yet. 

The castle is a ruin, when she cuts her way to it. There were thick oak gates here in her youth, but now the way lies open, so she ventures in.

She knows this is a trap. Perhaps it’s hubris to just walk inside. She has been underestimated, by so many, for so long, we can forgive her that. She makes her way down to the central chamber, where she slumbered for so long. Just bare stone walls and dust, and yet, she feels the power that's trying to hide here.

She summons up her magical perceptions, gently, carefully. Not carefully enough. Something is triggered, and a coil of power pulls tight around her. She lashes out, but cannot hold it back. It smothers her, threatens to overwhelm her. So she reaches deep inside herself, down into wells of power unused these many years. She glows, then burns, in incandescent fury. She balls up all her rage into a single focused point, then detonates it, and the bonds around her scatter back in tatters, but then suddenly the castle walls around all are glowing, and she knows that she has failed. The old enchantment catches her and holds her, gently, floating in the air, and she falls instantly asleep.

"Hello, Sorceress."

She floats there, sleeping, dreaming, and in dreams she hears the voice.

She gets it, understands, though up 'til now she hadn't put the pieces all together.

"I know you now," she says, in dreams. "Hello, old friend, old home. I never knew that castles are alive."

"Only enchanted ones," it says.

"I'd assumed the curse was fully broken, when they woke me up. I never knew that there was anything alive here, sleeping still."

"And in returning, you're now trapped here too," it says, and in return she laughs.

"This was a trap for one," she says, "not two. Were I alone then it might be a challenge, but I'm not."

She reaches out, in dreams, and kisses it, this home where she grew up, this place she loved once as a child, and finds it loves her back. Their dreams entwine, and in a final burst of light the ancient curse is fully, finally gone.

And so the Queen comes home, and fills these old stone walls with draperies and books, and she is happy.

Ever after.