Rosamonde: The Real Story of Sleeping Beauty

ROSAMONDE

The Real Story of Sleeping Beauty

By Christopher Bunn

Rosamonde: The Real Story of Sleeping Beauty

Copyright 2014 by Christopher Bunn. All rights reserved.

Editor: Jen Ballinger

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. For more information, visit the author at
www.christopherbunn.com
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For Micha, Megan, Johanna and Louise

Books by Christopher Bunn

The Tormay Trilogy

The Hawk and His Boy

The Shadow at the Gate

The Wicked Day

A Storm in Tormay: The Complete Tormay Trilogy

Tormay Tales

The Silver Girl

The Seal Whistle

Necromancer Nemesis

Lovers and Lunatics

The Model Universe and Other Stories

The Mike Murphy Files and Other Stories

Short Stories

Rosamonde

The Christmas Caper

Ice and Fire

The Ocean Won’t Burn

The Girl Next Door

Polly Inch

ROSAMONDE

You’re probably familiar with the story of Sleeping Beauty. I’ve always thought it a yawn, as far as stories go. It’s been told many different ways, some bad, some decent, and some just plain awful. You know how it goes. The wicked fairy gets irritated that she’s not invited to the christening of the new baby princess, so she puts her under a curse that really is over the top in comparison to the offense. The girl grows up and, of course, is irritatingly beautiful. One day she pricks her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and falls asleep for a hundred years until some sap of a handsome prince comes along and kisses her, thus waking her and breaking the curse. They live happily ever after, only to die of old age. Except the old age and dying part isn’t in the story because people aren’t fond of reading about elderly people dying.

Anyway, that story is a pack of lies. I should know. The real story was written about me.

My name is Rosamonde Baden-Lenox, and I am the only child of the king and queen of Bordavia. Bordavia, as you know if you stayed awake during geography class, is a little country. It’s a land of forests and rivers and deep, dark valleys. Bordavia lies just to the west of Lune and east across the Bordavian River from the empire of Delmania. Our country isn’t known for much. We don’t have the rubies and fantastic wealth of Lune. Nor do we have the sprawling farmlands, cattle, and sea ports of Delmania. Neither do we have much magic in our little country, certainly not in comparison to the famous talents of the rest of Europe. What we do have are trees, mushrooms, truffle hunting in the autumn, and vineyards that produce some excellent wines. Bordavia is also, if I may modestly say so, famed for the beautiful roses we grow. Red, pink, white, orange, all the colors of fire and starlight and sunlight—Bordavian botanists have coaxed such hues into rose petals down through the centuries. To be honest, a great deal of our success with roses is due to our wonderful, rich Bordavian soil. It is of such excellent quality that everything and anything grows in it with vigor and health. Naturally, the rose trade is our greatest pride, besides our land and the people themselves. Our men also have some of the finest beards in the world. It gives them something to do during the cold winter months.

As we are the royal family, we live in a small but tidy castle in the town of Bordu. The Bordu River winds away on one side of the town. On the other side is the Bordu Forest, which is a perfect blend of fir trees and oaks and pines, sprinkled with a mix of boars and deer and brigands and other forest creatures. The castle is not much to speak of, but it’s our castle, complete with a moat, several towers, a dungeon that we use for storing jams and jellies and root vegetables, and a marvelous bell tower standing tall above it all. A magical bell tower, if I may correct myself; for those bells, when rung, can be heard loud and clear all across the land of Bordavia. In fact, any noise made in the room at the top of the tower can be heard all across the land, which is why my father banned me for life from the tower when I was six years old. It had something to do with a rooster. I can’t remember exactly. It was a long time ago.

I come from a family of narcoleptics. My mother fell fast asleep during her own coronation and only awoke when the Russian ambassador, who was roaring drunk by this time, climbed out onto the ballroom chandelier and brought it crashing down onto the head of the British ambassador. This, as anyone knows, was the real cause of the Crimean War. My Uncle Milo, while out foxhunting one day, fell sound asleep. His horse had crossed the Swiss border by the time Uncle woke up. He was thrown in jail for not having a passport. Naturally, he promptly fell asleep and was still snoring when his brother, my father, came to bail him out.

Father, of course, falls asleep at the slightest provocation. I suspect that, sometimes, he does this on purpose. Whatever the case may be, this habit of his becomes more frequent whenever Grandmamma Baden-Lenox, that’s Father’s mother, is at the castle for a visit. Grandmamma is a stern, stoutish woman. She has a wisp of hair on her chin and she’s extremely fond of conversation, particularly when she’s the one who’s talking. She’s also fond of throwing vases at footmen and upbraiding shopkeepers if they don’t have the sort of cheese she wants. She does not have narcolepsy.

Mother, however, has full-blown narcolepsy. You might wonder why, as she is a Devereaux by birth, and only a Baden-Lenox by marriage. Isn’t narcolepsy a genetic trait, you might ask? Not always, I’m sad to say. I will tell you the strange truth of the matter.

It all began because of Grandmamma Baden-Lenox, long before even Father and Mother were born. In the year 1832, when she was twenty-three, she was wintering in Monaco, as she did every year. She had a great love of bridge, even at such a young age, and would play each afternoon in the sunroom of Le Hotel Chevalier, where she kept her suite. The hotel staff would arrange for the players to be grouped according to temperament. One day Grandmamma Baden-Lenox had the misfortune to be seated alongside the Duchess de la Fontaine, a woman of even sterner disposition than Grandmamma and, it was whispered in impolite company, possessed of faery blood. Grandmamma made the mistake of becoming loquacious during the second hand. The duchess, who took bridge seriously, had some sharp words with her. Grandmamma had some even sharper words with the duchess. The duchess, whose bad temper was exacerbated by indigestion from an overindulgence i
n
magrets de canard aux cerise
s
at lunch, muttered a faery curse under her breath and then, her temper much improved, went on to win the hand.

When Mother first told me the story, I thought it odd that the duchess would select a curse of narcolepsy. She could have chosen a myriad of other curses: a gaggle of talkative ghosts forever hiding under Grandmamma’s bed, incessant hiccuping, or tea water that never comes to a boil. But, reflecting further on the sad details of our family, there was a certain poetic justice in the curse. The narcolepsy didn’t directly affect Grandmamma. Rather, it affected anyone who came into earshot of Grandmamma’s voice. It struck down the maid when she came in with the morning tea, the postman delivering Grandmamma’s letters, the baker at the little corner shop. The parson fell asleep during communion when Grandmamma sai
d
Ame
n
as she received the sacrament. As soon as Grandmamm
a
walked into the vegetable shop and asked for a head of cabbage, the grocer fell snoring into his tomatoes.

To make matters worse, the curse had a particularly strong effect on relatives. We didn’t even need for her to be nearby. All of us fell asleep at the drop of a hat. Of course, the curse became much more pronounced whenever she came to visit. This meant that if Grandmamma was over for dinner, she’d have a roomful of snoring relatives instead of a roomful of relatives dutifully listening to the latest story about her aching feet or the impertinent bellhop she encountered at the Grande in Paris. Not having anyone to listen to her was torture of the most exquisite sort. The Duchess de la Fontaine was a shrewd lady. She knew exactly what she was doing when she chose that curse. Years ago, Grandmamma finally admitted defeat. She hasn’t visited since, which is sad, of course, but she says it is all for the better. She went into seclusion in a small Alpine village in Switzerland. She’s very fond of chocolate, cheese, and being on time.

Of all the members of my extended family, for some reason the curse has had an unusually extreme effect on me. Even as a little girl, I was always falling asleep in the oddest places. Mother insisted I have a maid standing by when I took a bath, as my eyes would invariably close and I would slip beneath the surface. It got so bad that I ended up taking my baths with a snorkel strapped to my face, just to be safe. I fell asleep while skiing, while sitting in church (always during the sermons, of course), and while taking ballet lessons (falling asleep while executing
a
grand jet
é
can be quite painful).

When I was nine, I fell asleep while climbing an apple tree in the castle gardens. I plummeted thirteen feet to the ground below, breaking my arm and receiving a concussion in the process. I woke up two days later, flat on my back in bed, my arm in a cast and Mother asleep in the armchair beside me (this time from exhaustion, not narcolepsy). I glanced out the window, just in time to see a head appear. It was Henri, the son of the stable master and my frequent partner in crime. He’s a year older than me, but not as mature, in my estimation, being the victim of sudden attacks of nervousness whenever I propose such harmless diversions as depositing a skunk in the carriage of a visiting dignitary or sprinkling Uncle Milo’s toupee with itching powder.

Henri pushed the window open and leaned his head in. He was panting from the climb up the ivy, as my room is on the fifth floor of the castle.

“Hello, smelly,” he whispered.

“Hello, ugly,” I said. “How long have I been asleep this time?”

“Almost three days. Though with the crack on the head you got, it’s a wonder it hasn’t been longer. I think you hit every branch on the way down.”

“Oh.” I tapped meditatively on my cast. “This falling asleep business is really getting me down.”

“Very funny,” said Henri, frowning. “Someone needs to do something about your, your, whatever you call it.”

“Narcolepsy.”

“I have heard that th
e
École du Medici
n
in Lausanne has the best doctors in all of Europe. My uncle works there as an under-assistant custodian. Maybe you should go there. He will make sure your room is the cleanest in the hospital.”

“I’m sick of doctors,” I grumbled. “Why don’t you go there and let me sleep?”

Ever since I could remember, a succession of doctors had been coming to the castle to poke and prod me, to measure and test and theorize and mumble learnedly among themselves. Mother had brought me to clinics specializing in saltwater immersion, dream regression, and dietary therapy. I had been analyzed by psychiatrists, evaluated by psychologists, and scrutinized by brain professors. I was heartily sick of doctors.

“Maybe I should,” snapped Henri.

“Yes, maybe you should. You can mop floors with your celebrated uncle.”

“Maybe you should both stop sniping at each other,” said Mother, opening one eye.

“Your Highness,” stammered Henri. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

But I had already fallen back asleep by that time.

Oddly enough, Henri actually did end up going to the school in Lausanne, but it wasn’t until several years later. He was nineteen and had won a scholarship. This was somewhat due to Uncle Milo’s influence. Uncle Milo was the chief botanist of the kingdom and specialized in breeding new varieties of roses, as well as cucumbers and decorative eggplants. He also dabbled in the study of mollusks, incendiary devices, and other puzzling scientific pursuits. He had taken Henri under his wing when he was still a little boy, somehow recognizing the potential hidden inside his thick skull. Uncle Milo’s encouragement was the despair of Henri’s parents (they wanted him to be a cheese maker), but was a delight to me, as it meant I had good reason to visit his laboratory under pretense of my friendship with Henri. Uncle Milo was not fond of visitors while he was working. He claimed they were nuisances and constantly broke expensive beakers. This, of course, was a great exaggeration, as I’ve only broken two of his beakers. Even that is questionable, as there is good evidence that the second beaker was broken by Henri’s head. The fact that I threw it is merely alleged and was never satisfactorily proven.

Henri came to say good-bye before he took the train to Switzerland. I was wandering about the rose garden and absentmindedly causing rosebuds to blossom in quick bursts of color. It’s the only magic I can do and seems largely useless, though Uncle Milo has occasionally had me use it to assist him in breeding roses. To be honest, most Bordavian magic is useless. I frowned to myself, wondering how I could evade the ball being held that night at the castle. Footsteps crunched behind me on the gravel path. I turned. Henri stood there with his bag over his shoulder.

“Are you leaving now?” I said, lifting my nose a bit in the air.

“Yes,” he said. “Overnight to Geneva, and then a coach to Lausanne. It’s my first time on a train.”

“They roll on rather fast. You might get nervous. Don’t fall off.”

“I’m sure I won’t. I’m not the one who falls off things.”

“Oh, you aren’t, are you?”

The conversation went badly from there, particularly after I pointed out that his face resembled a horse, seeing that he spent so much time around them. We said our good-byes in a chilly manner after he informed me I snored like a wheezing duck. Henri stomped off to the village train station and I flounced back to the castle.

***

There was no getting out of the ball. I was seventeen, and Mother was set on beginning the search for Suitable Prospects.

“A husband, my dear,” she said, “does not happen overnight. I expect it will take, oh, I estimate a good three years of hard work. We might as well get started now. I do enjoy planning the balls and banquets.”

“I’m not interested in getting married,” I said. “Perhaps I want to be a coal miner or wipe the runny noses of deserving orphans or go count penguins in Patagonia.”

“Don’t be silly. You’ll find, Rosamonde, that being queen frequently involves doing things that might not interest you, such as being polite to insufferably boring ambassadors, invading neighboring countries, or putting up with a husband.”