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Princess Andromeda stood on the very edge of a ledge three-quarters
of the way up the cliff above the Royal Palace of her mother, Queen
Cassiopeia of Acadia, holding out her arms to the wind. The same
wind flattened her tunic against her body, and sent strands of her
hair flying about her face as they escaped from the knot at the back
of her neck. She raised her face to the sun, closing her eyes.
I wish I had wings — I used to dream about flying when I was little.
It would be so glorious to simply step off this rock and fly, to
escape the dreariness of being a Princess, with the din of "musts"
and "must-nots," day in and day out, from governesses, tutors, her
mother's ladies and, of course, her mother.
Especially the "must-nots."
There was an almighty number of "must-nts." You mustn't laugh too
loudly. You mustn't speak your opinion unless it's asked for. You
mustn't talk to anyone below the rank of noble, unless it's to give
an order. You mustn't be seen reading in public. You mustn't frown
in public. You mustn't smile at anyone below the rank of a noble,
and you mustn't smile at any young men, ever. You mustn't let anyone
call you "Andie," nor refer to yourself by that name. You mustn't be
seen moving at anything other than a graceful walk...the list was
endless. It seemed that all she ever heard was what she shouldn't be
doing. No one ever told her what she could do — aside from look
decorative, wearing the serenely stupid gaze of a statue. No one
ever came to her and said, "Princess, there is a task you and you
alone can perform." One "must" along those lines would have been
countered with a hundred distasteful "must-nots" — but one never
came.
Surely that had never been her mother's lot. Cassiopeia had begun
her life as Crown Princess and then Queen with responsibilities. In
no small part because her husband, at least according to gossip, had
been so good at avoiding them. That was why the old King, Andie's
grandfather, had handpicked her out of the daughters of his nobles.
He had wanted a girl with ambition, since his own son clearly had
none, and a girl who would see that things got done.
Who ever would be foolish enough to envy the lot of a Princess with
all of that hanging over their head? Nothing but restrictions
without responsibilities. I'm less free than a slave, and not
allowed to do anything that has any meaning to it.
She took a deep breath of the sea-scented air, and sighed it out
again. At least her mother was not going to be plaguing her with one
of her unannounced inspections this afternoon, inspections that
inevitably ended in well-mannered murmurings of disappointment and
the appointment of a new governess. Queen Cassiopeia was holding a
very, very private audience with the Captains of the Acadian
Merchant Fleet, followed by another with the foreign merchants who
plied Acadian waters, and the meetings were expected to last all day
and well into the night. Trade was the lifeblood of Acadia. Without
trade, this Kingdom would probably die. Anything that threatened
trade and the taxes it brought in, threatened Acadia as surely as an
army. Despite her mother's being asked, begged, by her daughter to
be allowed to attend, Andie had been told to "run along." Under any
other circumstances, she would have been happy about the freedom
from her governess's supervision and the opportunity to get out in
fresh air and to make a raid on the library. But being treated like
a child put a bitter taste on the treat.
She pushed at the stiff wires crossing the bridge of her nose, part
of a contrivance called "oculars," making sure they were firmly on
her face, then curled the wires of the side-pieces securely around
the backs of her ears. They were a bit of a nuisance, but she loved
them, because without them, she'd be half blind. The Royal Guard's
own Magician had made them for her when he'd realized, watching her
try to hold a book right up against her tiny nose as a child, that
she was terribly nearsighted. He'd been pleased enough to do so,
though the Queen had been less than happy the first time she saw her
daughter scampering about with the wire-and-glass-lenses contraption
perched on her face. "It's unnatural!" she had complained. "It looks
like a cheap mask! What need has a Princess to see clearly, anyway?"
She had finally given in only when it was made demonstrably clear
that Andie's never-ending series of bruising falls came to an abrupt
end once she could see where she was going.
Not that her mother cared if I fell, except that all the bruises
were an embarrassment to her. Andie sighed again. I can never please
her, no matter what I do, so I wish she'd just get used to that and
make use of what I actually can do.
Queen Cassiopeia wanted a pink-and-white, sugarplum Princess, a
lovely daughter who as a child would have been all frills and
giggles, big blue eyes and golden curls, and as an adult (or nearly,
anyway) would be the younger image of herself, immaculately groomed,
impeccably gowned, graceful, lovely — not to mention quiet, pliant,
uncomplaining and unthinking. A marriage pawn, who wouldn't argue
about anything, or ask awkward questions, or want to do anything
except to look as beautiful as possible. There had been nibbles of
marriages over the years, but nothing ever came of them. Cassiopeia
had enough ambition for two; she didn't see the need of it in her
daughter.
Andie gave herself a mental slap. Maybe not unthinking. But —
certainly more obedient than Andie was. And assuredly much prettier,
much neater and much more concerned with her personal appearance
than Andie could ever bring herself to be. So far as her mother was
concerned, looks were one more weapon in the arsenal of a determined
woman.
Cassiopeia never spent less than two hours in the hands of her
maidservants before first appearing outside of her rooms. Andie
could barely tolerate having the maid comb her hair and put it up,
and she insisted on bathing herself, without all the oils and
perfumes her mother seemed to think were necessary. Cassiopeia went
through as many as six gowns before choosing one for the day, and it
was always something so elaborate it took at least two maids to help
her into it. Andie threw on whichever of her tunics the maid gave
her, and if forced into a gown, made it the simplest draped column
of fabric with cords confining it at her waist. Cassiopeia wore
enough jewelry to finance an expedition to Qin for the most ordinary
of days. Andie never wore any ornaments but a hair-clasp.
Cassiopeia had a lush figure that caused poets and minstrels from
Kingdoms hundreds of leagues away to come write songs about her, and
a face that had inspired fifty sculptors. Andie's figure was
straight up and down and no gown could disguise that fact, and as
for her face — well, as her mother often sighed, who would look past
the lenses that took up half of it?
So how could the Queen ever be anything but disappointed in her
daughter?
Andie had long since resigned herself to this, burying the hurt a
little deeper each time Cassiopeia made some unconsidered remark. At
least there was one area she could achieve success in — anything
intellectual. And the Queen did seem to take some small pleasure in
that, though she might bemoan the fact that Andie's nose was almost
always in a book. The trouble was, she didn't seem to think that all
of this study had any useful applications.
Even though I've quoted her facts and figures about Acadia until
I've run out of breath. Every time she was going to have an
important audience or meeting and I was able to find out about it, I
did all the research on the subject anyone could ask for. Today at
breakfast, Andie had detailed the revenues on import-taxes, given
her historical background on inter-merchant disputes...but she might
just as well have been telling her Godmother tales. The Queen just
said, "How interesting, dear," as if she wasn't even listening.
She probably wasn't listening, actually. She probably thinks I'm
just reciting my lessons for her. Once Cassiopeia had realized that
her daughter was not going to develop into a miniature copy of
herself, she'd left Andie's up-bringing to nurses and governesses,
who mostly passed in and out of Andie's life without making much
impact, for none of them had lasted very long. Not because Andie was
a difficult child, but because even when they were competent, and a
shocking number were not, the competent ones sooner or later ran
afoul of the Queen and were replaced. The incompetent, of course,
were soon found out and sacked.
Not that it had ever mattered. The ones she'd had as a child, when
it might have made her unhappy to lose a nurse she had become fond
of, had, one and all, been rather horrible. Horrible in different
ways, but still horrible. Some had been strict to the point of
cruelty, some had been careless to the point of danger, some had
been neglectful, or had scolded and criticized until Andie was in
tears.
If it hadn't been for her loyal Guardsmen and Guards-women, she
would have spent a lonely and very miserable childhood. But they had
been everything that the nurses should have been and never were. The
same set of Six had been standing watch over her safety since she
was an infant, and when nursemaids were asleep, or drunk, or in the
bed of their noble lovers, or lording it over the lesser servants,
or off flirting with stable boys, the Guards were the ones who saw
that she drank her milk, wiped her tears when she fell, and told her
stories at bedtime.
Just as well that I wasn't the sort of child to get into serious
trouble. They never had to get me out of anything difficult.
Not that she was spoiled. The nursemaids had strict orders from the
Queen on that particular subject, and no few of them had taken great
glee in loading Andie down with punitive punishments at every
opportunity until she was as much of a model of correct and polite
behavior as anyone would have asked. And her Six had too many
children of their own to put up with nonsense from her.
From that faithful set of six Guards, she learned to know every
member of the Guard assigned to the Palace as soon as her curiosity
led her out of the nursery, Guard in tow. If she hadn't, she'd never
have gotten her oculars.
Now she was something of a mascot for the entire Palace Regiment,
and she did her best to help them whenever and wherever she could.
Not that any of them had ever permitted the slightest slip so that
the Queen learned of the peculiar attachment.
If Cassiopeia ever found out, she'd banish the lot of them to some
awful assignments at prisons or remote Guard-posts, and put Andie in
the care of even more horrible governesses.
One day soon, though, her faithful Six would be retired; Demetre and
Leodipes were getting very gray, and the rest weren't much younger.
It was only the fact that duty in the Inner Palace was largely a
sinecure that kept them active. She dreaded thinking of that day,
hoping their replacements would be guards she liked.
Andie looked down at the Palace and the city below it; from here,
just below the lookout point for the Sea-Watch, it looked exactly
like the model in the Great Library. The city of Ethanos was
deceptively peaceful from here, its people reduced to little colored
dots moving along the white streets, the striped awnings and banners
too distant to show their stains and tatters, and none of its
glorious, brawling untidiness evident from this height.
Which was, she reflected, probably the way her mother preferred it.
Cassiopeia didn't like untidiness — not in her Palace, nor her city,
nor her Kingdom, nor her daughter.
Unfortunately for the Queen's peace of mind, the only place she
could keep untidiness from intruding was within the walls of the
Palace — and then only within the places where she herself spent any
amount of time.
Copyright © 2000-2005 Harlequin
Enterprises Limited. All rights reserved.
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Mercedes was born in Chicago on June 24, 1950. The very next
day the Korean War was declared. It is hoped that there is
no connection between the two events.
She was raised mostly in the northwestern corner of Indiana,
attending grade school and high school in Highland, Indiana.
She graduated from Purdue University in 1972 with a
Bachelors of Science in biology. This, she soon learned,
along with a paper hat and a name tag will qualify you to
ask "would you like fries with that?" at a variety of
fast-food locations.
After spending time in jobs ranging from artist's model to
lab technician at the Mosquito Genetics Project to
short-order cook, she took training and became a computer
programmer. About this time she discovered science fiction
conventions and the Society for Creative Anachronism, and
began attending functions of both, more often in costume
than not.
Mercedes had always written from her early teens, and
developed this hobby by writing fan fiction for various
amateur magazines. In the 1980s she took a job programming
computers for a major airline, and as a consequence moved to
Oklahoma, where she continued to write. At this time she met
both Marion Zimmer Bradley (author of The Mists of Avalon)
and .C. J. Cherryh, both of whom helped mentor her from the
ranks of the amateur into those of the professional writers.
In 1985 her first book was published. In 1990 she met artist
Larry Dixon at a small science fiction convention in
Meridian, Mississippi, on a television interview organized
by the convention. They began working together from that
time on, and were married in Las Vegas at the Excalibur
chapel by Merlin the Magician (aka the Reverend Duckworth)
in 1992.
They moved to their current home, the "second weirdest house
in Oklahoma" also in 1992. She obtained her wildlife
rehabilitators license and began rehabbing birds of prey; so
far her patients have ranged from a hummingbird to a great
blue heron, but most are American kestrels, red-tailed
hawks, barred owls and great horned owls. She has many pet
parrots, the smallest of which is a hand-raised peach-faced
lovebird, and the largest of which is a blue-and-gold macaw.
Mercedes has over 50 books in print, and some of her foreign
editions can be found in Russian, Czech, Polish, French,
Italian and Japanese.
She has continued her hobby of costuming, although now she
costumes Barbies and porcelain dolls as the characters from
her books, usually sending these items to charity auctions
with autographed copies of the relevant books. She also does
art needlework and beadwork, sometimes combining these
hobbies with her doll-making, usually sending these as gifts
or to charity auctions, as well. She always has several of
these projects going at any one time, because they give her
the opportunity to think about her stories while her hands
are busy. Her current projects are a planned series of
"Gothic Fairy" dolls with hair of colors not found in
nature.
A night owl by nature, Mercedes is generally found at the
keyboard between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.
Read more about the author at
www.mercedeslackey.com |
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