In the old days, the crowd of suitors at the palace gate had been downright unmanageable. Knights and princes and even a king or two, each trying to pull rank on the other, had clamored for a glimpse of, a word from. a moment with the beautiful Princess Babette. Princess Babette was, as was de rigeur for one of her station, the fairest of the fair. The gold of her hair put that in the royal treasury to shame with the brilliance of its lustre, the blue of her eyes was as guilelessly clear and deep as a cloudless spring sky, the rose of her cheeks and lips put the sunsets and dawns to shame, and her complexion was dewy and creamy.
As if the fine coloring wasn't enough, her very bones were beautiful, high cheeks, a firm chin and a wingcurve of jawline sweeping above a swanlike neck. Her figure was a symphony of slender, willowy grace, amply but not over-generously curved at breast and hip.
And all of that beauty went to he who won her hand in marriage, along with the aforementioned treasury, ( which was far more substantial if not as lustrous as Babette's tresses), a great deal of fertile land, a large and competent army—in short, a kingdom for which many of the noble suitors would have been happy to marry a far less beauteous princess.
Every day the royal audience chamber was choked with petitioners for the hand of the princess. Babette's royal mum and dad lay awake nights thinking of impossible tasks for the fellows to do, impossible things for them to fetch, to prove themselves worthy of the princess. Babette herself loved dreaming up and suggesting little embellishments—the mountain to be scaled by the king with the unfortunate wart on his nose should be made of glass, for instance. That would keep him busy. He'd have to find the thing first. She herself would have given less difficult tasks to the younger, better looking princes, but often these did not have fortunes that matched her own, and the King her father sent the poor dears off to claim the single eyes of fire breathing dragons or clean the stables of giants.
Fortunately, unlike the impractical suitors of princesses in stories, most of the kings and princes and knights understood such tasks for what they were—a way of being told they were basically unacceptable unless they proved to be more than human. They were gently-born humans, it was true. Noble, even royal humans. But when it came to fire-breathing dragons, again unlike the hapless princes in storybooks, the suitors showed a streak of self-preservation and common sense that, had Babette's father and mother thought about it, were quite desirable characteristics in a son-in-law. Though they sighed and pined and cast many a backward look at the beautiful Babette as they slunk away, most of the suitors declined to die for her and decided instead to fall in love with someone a bit more accessible.
Not so with one candidate, however. King Vladimirror I was very tenacious. He was actually a wizard, the former Grand Vizier of a mighty kingdom, and by his wizardry he had overthrown the rightful monarch. He had no scruples about using that same magic to climb glass mountains, clean giant's stables, quench fire-breathing dragons, and whatever else was required to win a suitable queen.
Babette's problem in this case was simple. She didn't like him. Didn't trust him. As he crawled up one side of the glass mountain, atop which she perched, she could feel her skin wanting to crawl down the other side.
"Now!" he announced, when he stood on the pinnacle with her. "I am ready to claim my prize."
"Not so fast," she said, hastily dreaming up another embellishment. "You've only passed the first part of the test."
"What do you mean the first part?" he demanded. "I've done more than any of the other candidates."
"Yes," she said, "but they didn't even finish the first part. There's more."
"Very well." He said. "I will do anything to win you."
"Why?" she asked.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Why will you do anything to win me? The obvious answer is my dowry, but I'm told you live too far away for us to consolidate our lands, and that your kingdom is far wealthier than ours. Are you a very greedy king, that you want the little wealth I could bring with me?"
He was actually a very greedy man indeed, but his greed had never been confined to gold. His eyes roamed over the territory he currently desired and he thought of the pleasure of owning something—someone—other men had coveted, of the power he would have over her to do his bidding. "The answer should be obvious every time you look into your glass, madame. You are very beautiful."
"True. But you're not. So my next question is, why should I be won by you?"
"I have braved the dangers set before your suitors and I alone have prevailed."
"Yes, but you used trickery."
"Magic, madame. I am wise in the ways of magic."
"Wise? Learned perhaps, which is not always the same thing. And I have never heard that a tricky husband was necessarily the best one. No, I think you have used an unfair advantage and besides, I don't wish to travel so far from home. So sorry. Wrong answers, but thanks for playing. Next!"
Vladimirror was angry. Vladimirror was wrothy, in fact. Foaming at the mouth in fact. No upstart princess, be she more beautiful than the dawn , was going to humiliate him in that fashion. Or any other fashion, for that matter. "If I can't have you, my proud beauty, no one will," he fumed. Even to him, that sounded a little trite but then, he was a wizard with spells, not a wizard with words. Nonetheless, he added, "Not even yourself."
"Fine," She said. "Do you mind? It's getting hot up here and I want to get down," and with that she slid down the mountain on her shapely satin clad rump.
Vladimirror was very unhappy about all of this but he had not overthrown a monarch because he wore his heart on his sleeve or said what was on his mind. He had cast a curse upon her, though she hadn't noticed, and he left the kingdom smiling, anxious to return to his own kingdom and watch in his scrying glass as his revenge against the haughty princess manifested itself.
"You put the wind up that last one, m'dear," the King said, as he and the Queen joined their daughter and a few hundred of their closest courtiers in sampling the sweatmeats and candies the various suitors had brought in tribute to the princess.
She didn't answer. She was concentrating on the sweetness of the marzipan she had just slipped between her lips. Sweet somethings on the tongue were ever so much nicer than sweet nothings in the ear, she mused.
Unbeknownst to her, the wizard's spell had the effect of multiplying the effect of the food she put to her lips. Every morsel added girth to her lissome body. She didn't notice that night, when she slipped under her velvet counterpane and pulled the jeweled midnight blue draperies surrounding her bed. But the next morning, when her handmaidens tried to help her into her gown of white samite trimmed with little seed pearls and white diamonds, the gown did not fit. She could not even pull it on. Fortunately, all of the handmaidens for fashion-conscious princesses had to be expert dressmakers and designers, and they were able to slit the seams and piece in new fabric. Still, the effect in the mirror was less pleasing to the princess than it had formerly been.
Babette decided white was maybe not her best color. But laborious changes of garment revealed that blue was no better, nor red, green, yellow, violet, lavender, fuschia, cloth of gold, or silver. Black, the handmaidens informed her, was slimming, but it made Babette feel like a widow.
Oh dear. And she hadn't even married yet. She supposed she had better look at some of the young men more closely.
She didn't get a chance. As soon as the next lot of princes saw her, most of them made their apologies and left. The rest waited until they heard the tests, then they left too.
Babette felt strangely light, despite her increased weight. She was suddenly left alone—relatively speaking. No suitors waiting. No glass mountains to perch on. No one seemed to care what she was wearing or how she wore her hair. In fact, everyone, including her parents, seemed to be looking the other way when she approached. It made her feel invisible. That was annoying, but also something of a relief. The truth was, no one seemed to recognize her for herself. It was as if Princess Babette was someone else entirely and she was just—this largish girl, who was actually rather hungry.
This proved to be a bit of a problem for everyone else though. Now, when Babette reached for the sweetmeats the princes had left behind, her father sighed and her mother gave her a Look. The closest lady in waiting said, "Your Highness, perhaps you would like to wait until we can order more rare and lustrous fabric from the importers?"
And though she took no more at meal times than she was accustomed to taking, she felt eyes watching each morsel she put to her lips, and found she had quite lost her appetite until she was alone, back in her rooms again.
She was, as one wit put it, "The mock of the town." From being a proud and beautiful princess surrounded by suitors, she had gone almost overnight into being plump and ignored, even by those who she was quite sure loved her.
It was as if she were a ghost in her own castle. Her own servants snubbed her and when she reacted angrily her mother, passing by, overheard, and took her aside. The Queen searched her daughter's face, her eyes full of pain, and said, "You must not blame your maidens, daughter, or anyone else if you are not as well treated now as in your slimmer days. Wrath will not restore your beauty, nor the power it lent you. With your slenderness, you have lost something of your character."
"But Mama, that's ridiculous!" Babette stormed. "I haven't lost my character at all. I'm still a virgin!"
"Of course you are. And likely to remain that way unless you take yourself in hand." The sad thing was, Babette could see that the Queen thought she was being kind and giving wise advise. Part of it was wise. Babette never again took out her own frustration on her handmaidens or other people. She learned to get what she needed from them by looking them in the eye and getting them to stick to their jobs. If she saw in their expressions some pain or worry unrelated to herself, she got them to tell her of it, and relieved it if she could. Otherwise she would never have got anything done.
But still, without hours to fill dressing and dancing and entertaining suitors, she had a great deal of time on her hands. She drifted quite by accident into the great hall where her father was teaching her elder brother, the Crown Prince, about ruling and making good decisions and passing judgements. She sat on the sidelines and listened, day after day, as her father heard each case and spoke to his advisors and listened to them, then he and her brother weighed each fact until they came to a verdict, issued a decree, upheld or struck down a law, granted an exemption or a punishment, as the case required. Her father, she realized suddenly, was a very good king. Her brother would be a good king too, she could tell. They were both fair, listened well, and truly cared about the fate of the people in front of them. They understood how other problems within the kingdom would affect the welfare of those same people.
She came to feel extremely humble, and saddened. With such an example she could have been a good ruler too, at the side of one of those princes. Even one of the ones who wasn't really handsome or daring might have been good at kinging with her help.
Vladimirror watched her from afar and saw her bursting and bulging in her dresses, looking bewildered and shocked at how people treated her, and then sad and whipped, sitting alone in her chambers. He sent a message by carrier bat and it came in the night and tangled in the hair of her chambermaid.
"What does it say?" the chambermaid asked, when the princess had quieted the servant's shrieks, disentangled the bat, taken the message vial from its leg and was reading.
"It's from that wily wizard of the East," Babette said, frowning. "He's taking responsibility for my current—condition, and offers to give me back my figure if I pass three of HIS tests. It requires me to travel incognito, I'm afraid. You'll have to change clothes with me."
"How incognito?" the chambermaid asked. "You may need to travel in something a little rougher than the gown I'm wearing. It used to be yours remember?"
Babette eyed the pink samite gown with the little ruby insets thoughtfully. "You might have a point there. If you would be so kind as to go to the kitchen and fetch the cook. Her gown should fit me. And I will need some food for the journey as well."
The chambermaid rolled her eyes, as if her plump princess would be thinking of food and cooks even at such a time, but obeyed. The cook took a long time coming and when she came, it was with a gown over her arm as well as her own.
Babette cocked an eyebrow and the cook said, "I brought you me other gown, 'ighness. It wouldn't do, me cookin' in your finery, and it'll bring a good price at the market if I don't get it all stained with grease and such. That silky stuff stains right through the apron, it does. So you can 'ave this 'un and I'll keep yours nice and clean. Might be I can wear it to me daughter's wedding before I sells it."
Babette nodded, thanked her, slipped out of her dress and handed it over. When the cook departed, the chambermaid tried to help her mistress on with the old roughly woven brown garment, splattered with gravy stains across the bosom. Babette shook her head. "I'll have to get used to dressing and undressing myself if I'm going to be incognito."The princess was appalled to find that the cook's frock fit her perfectly, and without too much room to spare. The cook had always been the largest woman in the palace.
The chambermaid clucked her tongue, "I wish your Highness could find it in you to go incognito with two or three of the palace guard anyway. It's as much as my job's worth to let you go haring off like this."
Babette spoke with the haughtiness of her thinner days, "You forget your place, Madeline. I am still the princess, gravy stained gown or no, and you are still the chambermaid. You have no authority to stop me. Besides, I very much doubt anyone will notice, or care all that much." She added with a tear of self-pity rolling down her cheek and chins.
Rather to her surprise, Madeline patted her hand consolingly. "Here now, ducks, I mean, Your Highness, don't take on so. That's not true, though you may think so. Your people will come around once they gets used to you. Same thing happened to my sister Sophie after the twins was born. She was afraid her man was going to leave her but he got used to her, didn't he? Now he just says there's more of her to love and meanwhile Soph's had our Wat and our Alice born, hasn't she?"
"Kind of you to say so, Madeline," Babette said, though actually it didn't give her, still a virgin, much comfort to think that she had the same weight problem as a mother of at least four.
"Here's your food now, ma'am. But cook says as how if you should come back after supper, she'll leave the makings of a cold meal for me to fetch for you in the kitchen."
"You and cook are both very thoughtful, Madeline," Babette said. She had never noticed that before but then, servants were expected to be thoughtful, weren't they? It was their job. "I'll just be off now."
"Aren't you going to take off your crown and bind you your hair, ma'am?" Madeline asked. "I mean, if you want to disguise yourself as a common woman. Just a suggestion."
"Oh, silly me," Babette said. "Of course, and put the crown in her jewelry box and allowed Madeline to braid her hair into two long braids then loop each of them up and tie her own kerchief around it. "How do I look now?" Babette asked.
"We-ell," Madeline giggled. "I reckon it's not that easy to make a sow's ear from a silken purse either, if you don't mind my saying so, but them little embroidered shoes don't seem like the right accessories to me."
"Oh dear. I can't go barefoot! I'd be lame in no time!"
"Be back in a tic, ma'am," Madeline said, and returned with some wooden clogs. "These will protect your feet and help you look your part as well."
They were not, however, very comfortable, inflexible and clunky. Babette had to remember to pick her feet up off the floor and put them down again rather than gliding heel and toe as she was accustomed.
But Madeline was satisfied with the disguise at last and saw her to the castle gate, handing over her cloth wrapped parcel of food at the last minute before waving goodbye.
Now then, Babette thought, what tests are these that the wizard had for her before she could resume her rightful shape and place in life?
From his palace tower, the wizard looked into his scrying glass and saw the humbly dressed princess, her wealth of golden hair braided up like a goose girl's, and chuckled happily to himself before releasing another carrier crow.
The crow dive-bombed the unsuspecting princess, who ducked and swung her arms, frightening a horse pulling a wagonload of dung. The horse reared and the cart upset and Babette slipped on some of the contents and fell onto her backside in the ordur.
She said something very unprincesslike as the message tube dropped into her newly fragrant lap. " You must walk seven times seven leagues in seven times in seven months. You must climb seven mountains, ford seven rivers, and cross seven seas."
"Right," she said, though she couldn't help wondering why wizards were always so preoccupied with sevens. He would have been very tedious to be married to, she thought. No wonder she had disliked him on sight. But she set off briskly, avoiding the curses of the dung-wagon driver. A swim in one of seven rivers sounded well worth walking seven leagues for at this point. In fact, she thought of turning back to the palace to have a wash before she started but she doubted the guards would recognize her, which was rather the point, even if they let her get close enough, stinking as she was, to see her properly. Oh well, the sooner she started the sooner she'd be there.
Walking in clogs had very little in common with walking in seven-league boots, she realized after half of the first league. The clogs did not offer much in the way of striding ability. Finally once she was walking on the road that wound through meadows, she removed the offending footwear and walked barefoot in the grass, which was quite nice except for the occasional sticker patch.
She was also plagued by insects, drawn to her new perfume. She swatted them with her food bundle and used some very ignoble language in her attempts to discourage them. Unfortunately, the mountain she had to climb that day was not high enough to be cold enough for the insects to fall away from her. When at last she reached bottom of the mountain she found a stream and, though not the first river, and, carrying her food packet and her clogs above her head, began to wade.
At which point she became the object of aerial attack by seven crows, who tore the food packet from her hands and knocked away the clogs. They scattered what food they did not steal into the water, though she was left holding half of one of cook's best roast swan sandwiches.
When she bit down on it, she almost broke one of her teeth on another message tube. "You must travel through seven forests, sleeping on the ground among the beasts, finding bee pollen, chickweed . . . " and a long list of herbs, which she wouldn't know from ornamental ivy, followed. Contemplating the soggy half of her sandwich, she wondered how these herbs tasted, preferably fried.
"Share your food with a poor old woman, dearie?" a shakey voice asked.
"All I have left is half a roast swan sandwich," the princess said. She was hungry—very hungry really, but the sandwich didn't look like much. "It's rather soggy."
The old woman, who was very ugly indeed, looked anxiously from the sandwich to her face and back again, licking her chops.
"Oh, all right," the Princess said. "I'll split it with you, how's that?" She tried not to sound as reluctant as she was. After all, she may have until recently been a beautiful blonde, but that didn't mean she was stupid. She knew the fairy tales. She knew the score. You didn't ever, ever, refuse food or help to little old ladies you met on the road because they would either A. turn you into a frog (though that was usually for arrogant princes rather than hungry princesses) B. make something nasty fall from your mouth eternally or C. refuse to share with you the knowledge of herbs and simples all old biddies supposedly had.
She was a little surprised when the old lady did none of the above, instead, snatching the entire half a sandwich from the princess's hand and flinging it in the stream where it was carried off.
"Wh—" the princess began. But the old woman was flinging off her rags and lifting her ugly mask to reveal the face and robes of the wizard Vladimirror, who giggled evilly at her.
"No roast swan for you, little glutton. In fact, no sugar, salt, wheat, corn, fruit, bread of any kind for the duration if you ever want to look like a proper princess again."
"But that's everything!" she wailed. "What will I eat?"
"Crow, Your Highness. You can eat crow. That is, if you can catch one. You are truly pathetic away from your parents, you know. By the time you slim down again, you're going to be wanting a spell to get your youth back along with your recovered waistline."
"If I do it certainly won't be so the likes of you will want to marry me," she snapped. "You are a horrid beastly man."
"And you are a thoroughly lost and very fat princess and will remain that way if you don't start moving," the wizard told her. Then he turned into a crow and flew away. She was mad enough that she thought if she could catch him she would have eaten one crow.
Still hungry, she kept wandering, and frankly had no idea how many leagues she had gone, though she did have to cross a river. By the time she got across it was night. And cold. The leaves were turning. Actually, she hadn't seem that too many times. Where she lived it was mostly farming country, good farming country, and beyond the castle as the village and beyond the village the fields. Not a great many trees any longer. The leaves were quite pretty and piled up nicely for her to lie down on, once she realized she was going to have to actually sleep IN the forest ON the ground with no blanket and nothing but what she was wearing. Very shortly she discovered that if she burrowed into the leaves and covered herself with them, they added a little warmth. Picking leaves beside a very large tree was helpful as a windbreak too. But when night fell and she heard footsteps, snuffles, and cries all around her and when she dared peek out, saw eyes glowing in the darkness . . .
Well, needless to say, she didn't sleep late that morning, lest she wake up just in time to find herself breakfast in bed for some bear or lion or dragon or boar or goodness only knew what else. She walked much faster the next day, but was did not leave the forest, and after another night in the leaves, crossed another river and climbed another mountain without leaving the trees. This went on for a week. Seven days, actually, when she had nothing much to eat and felt in grave danger of being eaten.
So she was understandably very hungry, footsore and weary when she saw smoke rising from a chimney and came upon what looked like a woodcutter's hut. Woodcutters were always very handy in fairytales too. Except this one wasn't home. There was, however, another ugly old lady there, along with a calico cat.
Seeing the old woman sweeping at the door, Babette very nearly turned and ran but the old woman called out to her. "Who's there? Whoever you are, could you help me a moment please?"
"Oh, no, you don't," Babette muttered. But since she was still only a fat young princess and not a toad, she figured she still had something to lose so she cautiously turned back to the hut.
"Excuse me, beldame," she said with all the courtesy she could muster, " but I haven't had very good luck with pathetic old ladies lately. Would you mind taking off that shawl and tugging at your face so I can see whether or not you're this evil wizard who tricked me before?"
The old lady gave a reassuringly elderly cackle not a bit like the wizard's giggle. "Certainly, my pretty," she said and accomodatingly made faces with her face and whirled her shawl in the air like a flag.
"My pretty" eh? Babette decided she liked this old girl, who was evidently not the wizard. "So what can I do for you? If it's food, I'm sorry, but that wizard I mentioned tricked me out of my last morsel."
"Oh, no, my pretty, nothing like that. In fact, I was about to invite you in for some nice crow stew I've made up fresh today. But first I wanted you to see if you can reach behind the stove. My cat brought a mouse in and the wicked thing hid behind the stove and died. Can you fetch it out? It's stinking up the house."
"Ewwww," Babette said.
"I wouldn't ask it of you except I'm blind, which as you probably know from the stories makes all of my other senses extra keen, so the smell is driving me mad."
Blind, huh? Hence the "my pretty." Oh well. She seemed nice enough. And though the house smelled ripe with dead mouse, it still didn't smell as bad as Babette herself had smelled until recently.
Whipping off her kerchief, Babette put it over her hand and groped until her kerchief shielded fingers squished into dead mouse, which she pulled out, without looking, and flung into the woods, along with the kerchief.
The crow stew was a little bitter. "It's better with extra salt," the old woman said. "I don't normally have it but there was a whole flock of crows in front of the house today and my cat here is very very fast."
The cat licked her front paws, one red and one white.
Babette looked longingly at the little dish of salt but shook her head. After all she'd been through, she supposed she could do without. "I'm not allowed salt."
"What? Whyever not?" the old woman asked.
"I'm having a curse cured, you see, and its one of the magical formulas for curing it." She dug into Cook's pocket and read her the wizard's message. "Have you any idea where these herbs and simples can be found, beldame?"
"I wish you'd stop calling me that," the old woman said. "My name is Fifi. Fifi La Fey."
"Sorry, Mistress Fifi. I'm Pr—uh, precisely who you think I am, a young woman from town who got lost in these woods trying to fulfill these idiotic instructions from a wizard. My name is Barbara," she said. The old woman was an unlikely Fifi and the princess suspected she was an even more implausible Babette at this point. "Barbara—er—Cook."
"Well, Barbara, as I've mentioned, I'm blind, but my adopted son Pr—presently will be home. I call him Burl. Because he works with wood. Get it?"
Babette laughed. Now that she was comfortable, she found relief made her easily amused. "And does he know more about herbs and simples than you do?"
"No, of course not. I know all about them. I just can't see them any longer. But when he gets back, I can tell him where they are and he can help you find them. He's gone off to fetch Hamlet to us."
"Who is Hamlet?" Babette asked.
"The minstrel who comes by now and then. Specializes in long gloomy battles and dirges and laments. But being a travelling man, he is also very up on current events. Can you write that down? Laments? Events? He might want to use those lines in one of his songs."
"I'll try to remember," Babette promised.
"Would you be kind enough to fetch some water from the stream?"
Babette did. It was very heavy and she was very tired. Worst of all, there was a quiet little pool off to one side of the stream and when she looked into it, a fat girl with dishevelled blond braids, a dirty face, and dimples looked back at her. All that hunger and walking and crow-eating and she was just as heavy as ever! She hauled the water back and was going to ask if there was a place where she could sleep.
But Fifi started to heat the water, at which time they discovered the fire had gone out and the last of the kindling was gone. So Babette had to quickly take verbal instructions on how to chop wood without chopping off her feet or hands. Then she learned to build a fire, after filling the room with smoke. When the water was heated, Fifi started to load a basin with dishes, but missed and dropped their plates to the floor.
"Oh, dear," Fifi said. "And these few are the last ones I made before my eyesight went. I don't suppose you're a potter by any chance are you?"
"No," said Babette, yawning. "And I don't think I have time to learn before I completely fall asleep. Why don't I finish the washing up?"
Babette stayed with Fifi for seven days. Babette did all the fetching and carrying and cleaning under Fifi's direction. It was hard work, but the Fifi was good company, and Babette was fed regularly, even if it was only crow stew, and she was most grateful not to have to sleep by herself out in the freezing nightime forest waiting to be gobbled. She never in all her royal life would have imagined it, but she actually was enjoying herself a little. It was nice having one person to talk to who wouldn't go right behind your back and start some nasty story about you and who couldn't see you and didn't care what you looked like.
Then one day, as she was peeling potatoes for the crow stew, Fifi asked, "Tell me something, Barbara. Why you?"
"Excuse me?"
"Why did the wizard put the curse on you that you must wander around eating crows and doing all of these strenuous things?"
"Well, he wanted to marry me," Babette said. "And he did pass all the tests and things, but I just didn't like him and when I asked him questions the answers he gave made me feel—well, let's just say I didn't want to marry him, tests or no tests. So he left and then all at once everything I ate started making me bigger. And then he sent a message with one of his crows telling me he was the one making my food do that to me and if I would follow his instructions and pass his tests he'd reverse the curse."
Fifi's expression grew shrewd and calculating but her voice was light as she asked, "Do you think he will? I mean, is crow particularly unfattening or is it just that he wants you to eat it because it, of all birds, doesn't taste much like chicken and he wants to avenge himself on you?"
"That had crossed my mind," Babette admitted. "Almost as often as I crossed my own path while I was getting lost. The truth is, I don't know. But I had to try. I'll never get a husband looking this way and my parents and all the courtiers act like I've become invisible, because they don't want their disgust to show in their faces." She realized she shouldn't have said anything about the courtiers but Fifi didn't seem to notice.
"Disgust?" she asked instead. "Are you very ugly?"
"I don't think so," Babette said honestly. "Just very heavy and consequently, well, it's hard to tell because I meant to look like a peasant when I set out, but very—ordinary. Whereas before I was beautiful. It makes a big difference."
Before Fifi could comment, a voice called from the outside, "Mother, I'm home! Sorry it took so long. You must have had warm weather here, the wood seems to have lasted . . . " the voice broke off as a large, solid man blocked out the sunlight coming through the doorway. His face was in shadow.
"Burl! You're home! You were such a long time I thought you'd found yourself a nice girl out there, settled down, and would bring grandchildren with you when you came. No, the wood didn't last that long," she said. She had arisen and given the big man a hug, warmly returned, as he followed her inside the hut. "But my new friend Barbara here has been a big help."
"Much obliged, Mistress Barbara," Burl said, ducking his head so that she still couldn't see his face.
"Where's Hamlet?" Fifi asked.
"That's what took me so long, Mother. He got a gig and he thought it would be over with the first day, but then one disaster happened after another and he has to make it into an epic ballad and then he'll have to sing it throughout all the local districts. After all, someone might have spotted her."
"Spotted who?" Fifi asked.
"The missing princess. Of course, you don't know but—say, is that crow stew ready yet?"
"Barbara was just adding the potatoes. I imagine the bread should be coming out of the oven now, don't you think, Babrara?"
But before she could turn, Burl was pulling the loaf from the oven and putting it on the table to cool.
"What missing princess?" Fifi asked.
"Oh, well, it's a long story. But the royal house as this kingdom has known it is not in power at present."
"What?" Princess Babette asked.
"Yes, shocking isn't it?" Burl asked. "First the Princess was said by the palace to have some kind of health problem and the next thing everybody heard, she had disappeared. The cook was found with one of her gowns and the king had the cook and one of the chambermaids who was supposedly an accomplice locked in the dungeon. They had some strange story of crows carrying poor Princess Babette away, I guess. The King and the prince immediately got on their horses and went looking for her high and low but according to the lords who were with them, as they were crossing a particularly tricky bit of stream, all of a sudden thousands of crows flew out of nowhere and dived at the heads of the King and Prince. The Prince fell off his horse and would have been swept downstream and drowned but the King plunged in after him. They both went over a slight cataract. Their attendants were able to drag them out at the bottom but both were unconscious and have remained so. Meanwhile, the cook's replacement was not a very good one and the Queen is ill unto death with food poisoning."
"Oh, poor mother!" Babette cried. Then covered by saying, "My mother would never do anything wrong on purpose."
"Oh, that's right!" Fifi said. "Your name is Cook. So your mother is the palace cook who's in the dungeon? Oh dear."
"Yes, I must get back to the palace at once and see what can be done!" Babette said. "Oh, Fifi, you've been so kind. And I have no idea how I'm going to find my way back there but I just have to. Poor f—poor King and Prince too. And the whole government must be a shambles with everyone so ill."
"Oh, it is, Mistress Barbara," Burl said. "And the poor princess missing and no one in her family to organize the search either. If she is still alive, she must be beside herself."
"She was—is, I suppose she must be, I mean," Babette said.
"We can't let you go alone, child," Fifi said. To Burl she confided, "Babrara had been wandering in the woods for days when she found the hut. She needs help getting back to the palace so she can see about her mother."
"I'll just chop some more wood and haul some more water for you before we go, then I'll take her back, Mother."
"No, I think I'll go too. It sounds as if the capital is in turmoil right just now. I could do with a bit of excitement."
And so once they had filled themselves with more crow stew, the three of them set out through the forest. They didn't take any food, because Burl was a very good hunter and trapper and could always find more crows—the birds flew in circles around them, but never once approached Babette, which was fine with her.
They brought extra blankets and all slept close together, Babette feeling safer than she'd ever felt in her palace bed smelling the woody scent of Burl's skin and feeling the warmth his big body generated. His mother slept between them, very snug indeed with a substantial person on either side of her.
When they were within site of the palace and the village, Babette had come to a decision. "You are the dearest friends I've ever had and good people," she said. "So I cannot lie to you. I am Princess Babette."
"Of course you are," Fifi said. "I knew it all along."
"You did?"
"Yes, and so did Burl. He's met you before."
Babette lowered her eyes and felt warm and fluttery all over. "He did? I can't believe I didn't remember."
"There were a great many folk about then, Your Majesty, and I couldn't get right up close."
"No, probably not, but you will now, and you too, Fifi. I will need your help getting into the palace so I can help my family, get Cook and Madeline out of the dungeon, and get the Kingdom back on an even keel again. But the guards will never recognize me."
Burl nodded. "You've changed a lot since I saw you last."
"I know," Babette said, remembering for a moment her misery at her lost girlish figure and all of the admiration she had likewise lost, especially from males. Knowing that Burl had seen both her before and her after self made her feel strangely awkward and sad. She didn't mind it so much with Fifi, but for Burl to think that she was less than she had been by being more than she had been embarrassed her.
"You're more like a real person now. You've got dimples and you laugh a lot and worry over people who've been hurt and you're—well, I don't know how to put it and maybe it was because of the stress you were under before but frankly, I left without—uh—doing what I came to do after I saw the princess—I mean you-- ordering all those princes around and picking through their gifts and pouting. You don't seem like that princess. You're a much kinder person than she was."
Suspicion began to grow in Babette's mind. Burl was very well-spoken indeed for a humble woodcutter, and his features had a noble cast to them. He was, in fact, very handsome, in a rugged, honest sort of way. He looked just the way she thought a real man ought to look. But all of that had to be set aside while she convinced the guards to let her to the palace.
"We're here to help you, my dear,' Fifi said.
And they did too, more than Babette anticipated.
Help came from another unexpected and unintentional source as well.
When the three of them were near the palace gates, they were once more suddenly surrounded by crows.
"Look," Babette said, looking into each and every pair of beady black eyes as if thinking to confront the wizard, "You birds tell your master he can do whatever he likes but his cure is worse than his curse, at least so far, and I have a family emergency here and a kingdom to run. Now scat before we cook you!" she said, flinging her hands up and scattering crows.
As she brought her hands back down again she saw that they were A.) clean, B. ) bejeweled and C.) sleeved with white samite which matched the rest of the gown she now wore.
"What in the world?" she asked, groping at her long and perfectly coiffed golden hair to find her royal circlet in place.
Fifi, no longer an ugly old woman, but a very lovely and stately silver haired, well dressed lady of indeterminate age, fixed keen eyes (no longer blind) on the palace guards and asked, "What are you waiting for? Prince Beauregard Burlingame the 54th and I have come to see Her Royal Highness Princess Babette home to the sickbeds of her family. Please open the gates."
They did. Fairytales were supposed to have happened "Once Upon a Time" but that time was recent enough that even palace guards knew an honest to goodness fairy godmother when they saw one and they weren't about to risk her wrath. If she turned princes into toads, think what she would do to a common soldier for disobeying her? Besides, that was most certainly Princess Babette—at least, the most recent, chubby version of the princess. And she wasn't whining or pouting either, like they remembered. She might be large, but she was definitely in charge.
She was too. Cook and Madeline were released from the dungeons, whereupon Cook immediately whipped up, under Fifi's direction, some healing broths that she and Madeline helped the other servants administer to the ailing royals.
Meanwhile, Babette strode into the audience chamber just in time to keep the ministers from surrendering to the neighboring kingdom of Heinzland threatening war. Further investigation by Burl, who questioned the messenger delivering the surrender terms, revealed that The Pasha (formerly Grand Vizier) Vladimirror of distant Goblestan had offered to trade lands he held to them in exchange for hegemony over Babette's father's kingdom if they would annex it for him. The Pasha had guaranteed that Babette's country could be taken without bloodshed, since Vladimirror had already won it with trickery.
Babette's mother recovered slowly, a bit day by day, but she wasn't up to ruling, and by the time Babette's father and brother were able to speak again, Babette had lowered the taxes, made sure the excess harvest was stored for the winter, distributed some of the land to the peasants who worked it, promoted Madeline to Lady-in-Waiting, seen to it that the dung-wagon driver was reimbursed for his lost cargo, and generally promoted peace and prosperity throughout her land with all possible dispatch. Occasionally she would turn to Burl for advice or to ask a question, but most of the time he was out training with the palace guard, just in case.
Upon hearing that her father and brother were awake, Babette hurried to their bedsides—they were both in her parents' chamber, which had become a Royal Sickroom.
She had hoped her father would be glad to see her. She hoped he would approve of what she had done, preventing a war and the loss of the kingdom and all, and she told him all about it.
Her mother spoke up first. "Yes, but I thought I heard that you had been lost and starving in the woods for days and that you have been working day and night since you returned. But you're not a bit thinner!"
"Mother," Babette said in something of her childhood tones, "I told you I'm under a curse and I had to come home before I could effect the horrible cure proposed by that wizard who tried to take over our kingdom."
"Well, if you only had a bit of self-discipline I'm sure you could have—" her mother continued, but her voice trailed off as the King sat up.
"I suppose now you're here and have had a taste of ruling, you with your own sorceress and that hulking bodyguard of yours, you'll be wanting me to abdicate and name you as heir instead of your brother?"
"Hardly," she said, sighing. "I'm exhausted. I was just trying to keep the kingdom together for you until you get well, Daddy. You and Mother and Larry, who is welcome to the crown for all I'm concerned. I don't know what I'll do but I'm not about to hang around here waiting for suitors. Maybe I'll go tend lepers or something instead. I rather liked being needed when I thought Fifi was blind."
But just then Burl rushed in, and fell to one knee before her. "Barbara—I mean, Your Highness, Princess Babette, I know—" confused, he turned to the King and Queen and said earnestly, "I know I ran away before even attempting to take your tests. I was so ashamed I didn't go home, but got lost in the woods and took up woodcutting and adopted Fifi for my mother. But I love Barbara—I love you, Barbara."
"I love you too, Burl," she said. "But we were sort of in the middle of a family discussion."
"That's just it," he said. "I want to be your family—I want you to be MY family."
"You can't be proposing to her!" the Queen said. "Her wedding day will be a disaster. We'll never find enough silk in the world to make her a gown."
Fifi appeared. "That's no problem for a girl with a fairy godmother." Fifi tapped her foot. "Which I might add, she can certainly use when her own mother has her priorities so out of order."
"Barbara, a messenger just came to tell me I've inherited my father's throne."
"You're a younger son, Burlingame," the King said. "I distinctly remember that. It's why you were placed at the end of the line of suitors to be tested."
"Well, my elder brother finally decided to run away with another prince he met while he was waiting in line for your daughter's hand, Sire," Burl replied. "And I am next in line for succession. So I have to leave. But I want you to come with me, Barbara."
Babette began to cry, with both weariness and happiness, "Oh, Burl, I love you with all my heart and being with you is the happiest place I can think of. Ever so much better than nursing lepers, though if you have any lepers in your kingdom, of course, I'd be happy to run a charity on their behalf. Is Fifi coming too? And Madeline.
"Anyone you want," he said. "But we must be wed in a hurry."
"You must be mad!" the Queen scoffed. "Surely you want to wait until she's done her cure and had her curse removed!"
"Madame, my Barbara is a Princess fit for any King," Burl—King Burl actually, said formally.
"And in case you hadn't noticed," Fifi said, "The curse has ended."
"Nonsense," said Prince Larry. "Look at Babette! She's still round as a butterball."
He couldn't hurt Babette's feelings now though and she peeked out from under Burl's armpit and winked at her brother.
"But—by my sword, Mother, Father, look at her! The curse is lifted! She is beautiful!"
Her parents both looked at her and her mother gasped. "But how can that be?"
Fifi shrugged. "It's the same principle as the frog thing. A little genuine affection does a great deal to improve anyone and true love works miracles. So, Your Majesty, have you got a list?"
As it turned out, the wedding was somewhat delayed while King Burl and Princess Babette, chaperoned by Fifi La Fey and Madeline and their retainers, returned to Burl's kingdom for his father's funeral.
Meanwhile, throughout Babette's kingdom, the ladies of fashion who had watched their princess and her fiance ride away said to each other, "Really, tell me honestly? I'm looking far too thin and pale, aren't I? Did you see Her Highness? Did you see how he looked at her? She was radiant! Such dimples! Such ample curves. Please pass the chocolates. I've ordered a dress to be made in the style of hers and I simply must fill it out in time for the wedding."