Page 5 of The Consolation Prize

Una nodded. “Yes,” she agreed simply. “But now I am no longer a princess I need never wear it again.” She gave a swift smile to the surprised Jane. “Perhaps after all, it would be helpful if you could assist me?” she suggested, drawing her heavy linen shift up and over her head. Jane hurried forward obligingly to help drag it off her arms, and Una let out a relieved breath to be finally down to her last layer.

She stood now in the very thin strappy garment that was worn against her skin. She knew it to be rather sheer, but as the custom always used to involve placing the bride naked into the bridal bed, she could not see that it would signify much. She rethought this, however, when she saw how Jane stared at her.

“This too is very different to your own?” she ventured, gesturing to the translucent slip.

Jane swallowed and turned very pink. “Indeed,” she gulped. “Why, it has no sleeves at all!”

“No,” Una agreed. “We generally wear a second shift on top of it that has the sleeves. This one is just for next to the skin.”

“Do you sleep in that?” Jane asked, reaching out a hand to touch the filmy fabric of the skirt. “Would you not …” She hesitated, her cheeks flaming. “Fall out of it?”

“If it is cold then I would leave on the outer shift also. As for falling out of it,” Una glanced down at her deep bosom and then back at Jane who was girlishly slight. ”I never have.”

Jane’s lips formed an “Oh,” before he gave herself a slight shake. “Are you ready to—”

Una shook her head and pointed to her frizzy yellow hair. “First I have to remove my wig,” she explained.

“Wig?” squeaked Jane, and Una nodded. “You—you wear a wig, princess?”

“Of course,” Una said shrugging. Her father had worn one and her previous understanding was that all royals did. Now, at Jane’s incredulous reaction, it dawned on her that in this, as in all things, the Blechmarshes were distinct in adhering to the most uncomfortable and rigid of practices. She sighed and sat on the wooden chair, taking up the little bowl she reserved for this purpose, and reaching up began removing the headful of hairpins she wore to secure the false mane in place. After a moment or two of stunned silence beside her, Jane joined her in the task and Una was glad to find her fingers were gentle as she extracted pin after pin and added them to the bowl.

“Wearing all these must give you a blinding headache,” Jane murmured as she extracted the last of the clips.

“My scalp does get very tender,” Una admitted. “But again, after today I will be free from this also, so …”

Finally, the hairpiece felt looser on her head and Una gave it a tentative tug until the whole mass of tight yellow curls came away in her hands. Jane covered her mouth with her hands and stared at her. Una flung the wig on top of the pile of discarded brocade, leather, and wood that comprised of her former self. “There lies Princess Una,” she said softly. Jane turned and stared at the cast-offs almost fearfully. Indeed, Una had to admit looking at the heap, that it almost looked like the poor Northern princess had collapsed in on herself, especially with the distinctive wig sat atop of the sprawling mass.

“It almost seems like we should bury it,” Jane blurted.

Una gave a laugh, surprising her companion greatly. The expression of humor sounded rusty and out of practice coming from her lips. Indeed, she could not remember the last occasion she had had to use it. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Una.” Jane’s eyes grew rounder. “And you must not call me princess anymore.”

Jane made a strangled sound in her throat. “We … we had better see to your hair,” she said, looking almost frightened. Una nodded and together they removed yet another mass of hairpins until her auburn hair was unfastened from the tight braids wound about her head and hung down to her waist in a thick fall of dark reddish-brown.

“I can scarce recognize you,” Jane breathed.

“How much longer will you be?” Queen Armenal demanded. “You’ve been an age, I vow! Bring her out, Jane! The groomsmen must nigh be upon us!”

Wordlessly Jane took her hand, and Una allowed herself to be led around from the screens toward the center of the room, where a large bed lay on a raised platform, covered in rose petals.

“Finally—” the Queen began, before another of her ladies let out a shriek. There must have been seven ladies stood in the room, spreading petals and draping garlands of flowers over the four-poster so it looked like a bower more than a bedchamber. Every one of them turned now to stare at Una with frozen expressions of varying stupefaction.

“That’s never the princess!” Lady Fenella Vawdrey cried, dropping her end of the garland. “Whatever have you done to her, Jane?” For her part, Una rather liked the country-born Countess who seemed such an odd choice of wife for the elegant Lord Vawdrey. She invariably said the wrong thing but was exceedingly kind for all that. Against all odds, her husband positively doted on her. She hurried forward now to clasp Una’s hand. “You look so much better without those awful cumbersome clothes! I suppose that extraordinary hair was really a wig, then?”

“I can take no credit,” Jane answered, serious as ever. “For the princess wrought this change herself.”

The Queen was the first to recover from the shock, clapping her hands together. “Bring her to me,” she ordered summarily, setting down her goblet of wine with a thump. Obediently, Jane obeyed her summons and Una meekly followed until she was stood before the Queen Armenal.

Una waited while those shrewd dark eyes summed her up. Much like Robkin the jester had circled her half-brother earlier, the Queen paced about Una taking in her altered appearance. This time, it seemed the Northern stranger was not found wanting. The Queen’s lips spread into a slow smile, as she came about to face Una again. “But this is charming,” she pronounced. “Our princess was under a dark spell, and now she is freed by the kiss of true love.”

The ladies gasped and twittered at this, clearly as taken with the notion as the Queen herself.

Una colored. It trembled on her lips to point out that the only kiss she had received thus far from Sir Armand had been a chaste salute placed clumsily on her fingers, after their vows had been exchanged. His eyes had been bleary and his smile somewhat vacant. It seemed to Una’s seasoned eye that her groom was sotted and small wonder, for every time she had caught a glimpse of him before the ceremony, someone had been pressing a goblet of wine into his hand.

“Quickly!” the Queen cried, for her sharp ears had caught the sound of the bridegroom’s party approaching. “Set the crown of flowers on her head, then get her under the covers!”

Una found herself rushed toward the bed, as the Queen’s ladies hastened to set a flowered wreath over her head, while dragging back the sheets for her to clamber into the wide bed.

“I wonder what Sir Armand will say to such a transformation?“ one lady gasped out, before she was shushed and dragged to stand against the dressing room door. Apparently, the Southern tradition was for the bridal party to prepare the bride, and to then retreat as the groom’s faction approached. It seemed there would be some crossover as the Queen’s party lingered at the far end of the room, eager for a glimpse of the bridegroom.