the 14th princess

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Sunday, May 13, 2012

gertrude - 3. denise

by dorine de santos

illustrated by rhoda penmarq and roy dismas

editorial consultant: Prof. Dan Leo

click here to begin gertrude

click here to begin the 14th princess

time passed. days and nights.

on some days it rained. on others the sun shone, but never too brightly.

gertrude took her sheep to market when it was time. the old woman who had sheared her sheep was no longer at the shearing station. a younger woman had taken her place. she looked at gertrude with suspicion.

"don't come down here too often, do you? mother anna has been gone for a goodly time, almost a year. i have never seen you before."

"i come down when it is time."

"i guess you do. this is not the best looking batch of sheep i have seen this week. but not the worst either. " the young woman looked sharply at gertrude. "you missed your chance. the lord sent his man over here not so long ago, buying up sheep for a great feast. you could have got a good price for some of these beauties then. too bad you missed it."

gertrude stared at the young woman. "but if i sold a sheep for a feast, then it could not give wool for next year, could it? "

the young woman laughed. "what an attitude! have you not had new lambs this year? new sheep for new wool? well, not so many, by the looks of this group. but , you have to look for opportunities when they arise, eh?"

gertrude did not quite grasp the young woman's meaning, and smiled politely.

"look here, you have not asked me what happened to mother anna, where she has gone."

"if you want to tell me, you may."

"she went to her eternal reward. do you know what that means?"

gertrude thought for a little while. "do you mean she died?"

"yes, she died - and her soul was taken by our lord and the blessed virgin to heaven - because she was one of the faithful."

gertrude remembered her encounters with the saint and with the archangel. some of the words the young woman was using were familiar. but she was not sure of their meaning, so she remained silent.

"but you are not a member of the faithful, are you? i have never seen you at congregation. unless you belong to another congregation, on the other side of the hill?"

"no, " gertrude replied. "i do not."

"who do you talk to, then, when you do not come down to the village?"

"to the sheep. and to the sky, and the clouds, and the rain and the grass."

"what a heathen!" cried the girl. " look at you - you dress in a sack, not even a ribbon in your hair - and even so, you are a heathen, with no hope or faith. do you not feel alone up there, in the wind and rain and fog?"

"no, i have the sheep. and i like the wind and the rain, as long as they are not too strong."

"ha! well - to business. i can give you five coins for the wool on these beasts. will that suit you?"

"mother anna would have given me six," gertrude replied. "why not shear them first, see what you get? they have nice thick wool, thicker than it looks. "

"are you a trickster, little heathen? do you think you can play your tricks on me? ha ha!" the girl laughed good-naturedly. "i am an older hand than you might think, and did not roll down the mountainside yesterday. i think i am being generous with five - i only offer you five that we can get off to a good start, eh?"

gertrude stared at her uncertainly.

"look here, do you have a dog? i see you did not bring one with you."

"not any more. the old woman had one. he ran away when she died."

"i see. would you like one? i can put you in the way of one. so i will give you five coins and a dog. surely you could use one."

"perhaps."

"she is not full grown, but she is not a puppy either. you will have to train her yourself to look after the sheep - can you do that?"

"i can do that."

"very well, then. is it a bargain?"

gertrude hesitated. "yes, it is a bargain."

"good! i will get the dog after i shear our friends here. i suppose you want your coins now, eh, so you can get to the market? as you only come down here once a year."

"i can help you with the shearing if you have an extra pair of shears. it will make all go faster. i used to help the old woman."

"why, that is excellent. i am sure you will do better than my usual assistant." the girl looked at an inert lump on the ground about six yards away that gertrude had thought a pile of rags. "caesar! get up, i know you are not sleeping." she went over and kicked the lump, hard, and it turned into a big-boned lad of about thirteen years, who sat up bleary-eyed but without protesting, and gawked at the girl and gertrude.

"go find merlin and get one of those dogs he is giving away. get the half-grown female one he told me i could have. and give me your shears."

"yes, mistress," the lad answered in a sarcastic drawl. he glanced again at gertrude, with a trace of a leer. then he pulled a pair of shears from under the rags he had been lying on and handed them to the girl. after a tremendous face-splitting yawn he got up and moved away toward the center of the market.

"a worthless rascal," noted the girl, "but what can i do? i can find none better. many of the sturdier lads are moving away from the village, enlisting in this lord's army and that. some of the sharper lads are taking up preaching the gospel."

gertrude accepted these confidences with her usual imperturbability. the girl handed her the shears. they looked a little rusty.

"he doesn't keep them in the best condition, does he? but what can i do? he is getting almost too big to beat, and then i do not know what i shall do."

"these are good enough," gertrude replied.

"let us get to work then. my name is denise, by the way. what is yours?"

"gertrude."

"well, gertrude, let us make quick work here, and you can get back up to your mountaintop in time for some good wind and rain - as that is your pleasure."

gertrude looked up at the sky. it was indeed getting dark.

denise continued to chatter as they set to work on the sheep.

4. witches and friends

Monday, May 7, 2012

the last woman - 1. an immodest proposal

click here to begin the 14th princess

miss prue nodded to ameline, who stood up and picked a paper out of the white hat. she unfolded it. "feminist. cool." she stared at the piece of paper. "that means i get to write the most feminist book i can?"

"that's what it means,"

"i can live with that." she looked around. the others looked back or looked away, not sure what to think.

miss prue pushed the black hat toward her. "now pick your author."

"bulwer-lytton! " a few of the others laughed. "well - we'll see."

"next."

the last woman

by ameline d'ambois

illustrated by konrad kraus and rhoda penmarq

editorial consultant: Prof. Dan Leo

the hon. matilda shirley to diana, marchioness of d--------, sept 9, 181-.:

ah, my dear friend, what a relief to be able to take up my pen to write to you. what an evening i have just suffered through! my dear host sir percival, whose hospitality i have been abusing, is , i am afraid, beginning to grow a bit tiresome. but - not yet so tiresome that i would quit his castle and be forced to endure the multi-headed indignities and boredoms of "the season", in london, or in paris or vienna.

do not misunderstand me. sir percival himself continues to be a most delightful companion - when he is my only companion. no one could be more attentive. no one can be wittier when wit is called for.

he is knowledgeable when knowledge is called for, and above all - silent when silence is called for. if he has a fault it is one i share myself - he is easily bored. but where i have learned to simply suffer boredom when there is nothing else for it, my dear percival will have recourse to any creature that can open its mouth and talk to him, in his efforts to hold ennui at bay.

so - the parade of the tiresome has continued apace here at the castle. i hope you have found some slight amusement in considering these creatures as my pen has described them to you - briefly, of course - unlike my own captive contemplation of them for hours at a time!

well - to come to a point you may have already guessed - percival tonight produced a guest who has quite outdone all his previous ones. a "professor" branleigh o'bannon - perhaps you have heard of him? met him in lady somebody's salon somewhere? i would have thought only percival could have tolerated the fellow - but he did seem quite at home among us "enlightened and ethereal spirits" (as the quarterly would have it) and was in no wise abashed to partake either of sir percival's food and drink, or of the conversation that followed and preceded it.

the "professor", like so many of the guests here, has his hobby-horse of course, his plan for improving the lot of humankind if not of all creatures living, dead and to come, and his, at any rate, is a truly drastic one. can you guess it? the elimination of women! i am afraid i laughed politely on first hearing this proposal, thinking it some kind of poor jest (an attempt at one in the manner of the dean of st patrick's?) but i was quickly put to rights. the fellow could not have been more in earnest, seemed in fact, quite surprised that anyone could find anything exceptional in his reasonable proposal. he begged me, in the most sincere manner, to consider the inestimable advantages accruing to a humanity which had divested itself of the indolent, scheming, irrational and malicious ( he did not actually use these terms) creatures who presently consume so many of the resources of the world, whilst providing virtually nothing of value themselves.

nothing at all, it seems, but a most inefficient manner of manufacturing infants. i - yes, my dear, i - was struck almost dumb - and left it to percival, who seemed to regard his plan with no more surprise than if he had suggested a new way of planting tulips, to inquire - actually how this service (the manufacture of infants) was to be continued - or was it to be continued? but this was brushed aside by our savant - surely a new archimedes or galileo would emerge any day to solve this trifling problem - was this not the modern age, the age of genius, of byron and bonaparte, etc. - the usual cant of a hundred salons. at this point i relaxed on my sofa, thinking we might move on to some less alarming topic, when lady anne spoke up. ( have i mentioned that lady anne is still with us? she seems as little inclined to quit the castle as i am.)

"but my dear sir," asked lady anne in her usual wide-eyed manner. "what of us poor creatures who have the misfortune to already populate the earth? when our usefulness is at an end, what is to become of us? shall guillotines be erected in every town market and village square from here to botany bay, to speed us on our way?"

in no wise embarrassed by this question, the solemn theorist assured lady anne that such measures would need not be implemented - not only because gentlemanly feeling frowned on it but because the expense incurred would outweigh the benefits. he went on at some length about the amount of metal needed for the guillotines, the expense of building and transporting them, also the difficulty of disposing of so many bodies in a short time, the sudden disruption of certain forms of industry currently assigned (in birmingham and in china) to the fair sex, and so forth. still not entirely convinced of his seriousness - might percival still not reveal that "professor o'bannon" was, in fact, some wag he had befriended at eton and they were having their little jest -

i thought to lighten the proceedings by favoring the sage with my most fluttering gaze, and inquiring "oh, but do not women contribute something to civilization besides that which can be stacked in a counting house? what of wit, and grace, and the art of conversation - such as you are enjoying at this moment ? what of - what of love, professor?"

you may well imagine the alacrity and enthusiasm with which lady anne seconded these thoughts and made them her own. and indeed, we succeeded in drawing the ghost of a smile from the lips of the professor - a smile tolerant of our hopeless foolishness.

i see i have not described the "professor" yet. but he was as you may have guessed - a great thumping redfaced fellow, solemn as a toad, who might have been any age from fifteen to fifty, but powerful looking in his ill-fitting black suit. from the blank way he stared at me as he spoke, i would have thought him as nearsighted as an oyster, except for a trifling accident involving lady anne. as she was declaiming on the civilizing effects of love, she twisted her necklace and broke it,

sending tiny pearls much the same color as the carpet rolling around and under the furniture. the servants summoned to attend to this having some trouble finding them all, the professor rose to assist them and quickly recovered them all. i made some polite murmur of admiration on his exceptional sharpness of sight, and he informed me that it was not a facility he had been born with but one he had developed in his travels among the red indians of north america.

"ah," quoth lady anne. "how romantic! surely you should write a romance based on your experiences, or an epic poem. it would sweep the continent, i know it."

"i have a better idea," said percival. "i think o'bannon should indeed write a romance, but not about the american aborigines. i think he should favor us with a romance of the future, when the fair sex is no longer with us. eh? what do you say, old fellow? a few chapters before you go to bed tonight, and we shall have something to look forward to tomorrow night."

"oh, i don't know. i wouldn't want to bore you, you know."

percival was looking at me as o'bannon intoned these words. "you will do better if you have some competition. i think matilda should also commence a romance - perhaps, on the efforts of some heroic amazons to resist this new world."

"that sounds most propitious, and delightful," cried lady anne. "i, too, will try my hand. and what subject could i have, but the triumph of love, over all such fantastical considerations."

"and you, percival," i asked. "surely you will join the competition, having proposed it?"

"oh, dear, no. and forego my well-deserved reputation as lazy percy? no, i will save my energy - and be sufficiently excited by the productions of you, my dear guests."

so, my dear, you see what i have gotten myself into. not, of course, that i am incapable of getting myself out of it - or out of anything, for that matter.

i will write again tomorrow night. until then, i am your ever faithful and devoted,

matilda

2. the arrest

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

professor zender's experiment - 2. zobo

by coraline o'connell

illustrated by konrad kraus and roy dismas

editorial consultant: Prof. Dan Leo

click here to begin professor zender's experiment

click here to begin the 14th princess

the establishment in the alley to which morden led professor zender was in no wise advertising itself to passers by. a dirty window below street level emitted no light, and the stout door at the bottom of a set of iron steps could barely be distinguished from the brick wall.

the professor waited on the street level as morden descended the steps and rapped on the door, three times, then two. not, the professor thought to himself, the most unbreakable code.

presently the door opened, barely emitting light into the stepwell. morden entered, and held the door open while the professor carefully descended the steps, feeling in front of himself with his stout stick.

whoever had opened the door for morden had apparently gone on ahead, and the professor and morden navigated the low gloom - gentle reader , is there ever any high gloom? - forgive the digression - but then, is not digression the soul of narrative? - but i digress. they made their way through the gloom - a gloom caused as much by smoke as the absence of light - to a table in the center of the room and seated themselves. the professor made out a hulking form behind a serving bar at the far wall with its back (apparently) to them.

the form disappeared and (again apparently) appeared at the table.

"snappy, old boy, what can i get you?" if professor zender was surprised or amused by this sudden apparition, or by his old pupil's having descended so low as to answer to the nomenclature of "snappy", or by the surprisingly almost genteel voice of the interlocutor, he evinced nothing.

morden, or "snappy", rubbed his hands together. "well, professor, what will you have? a schnapps?"

"why not?" zender addressed the hulking form - "the schnapps, barman, it is good?"

"no, guvnor, it is not good. in fact, it is right horrible. if you wanted good liquor, you had better have gone to the archduchess's fancy dress ball, if you follow my smoke."

"i perceive you are trying to impress me with your honesty. consider me impressed. this schnapps of which you speak so disparagingly, does it have immediate adverse effects?"

"it might, squire, it might. this stuff will make christ crawl back on to the cross, pardon my expression."

"well then, do you have beer - "

"no, no!" cried morden. "the beer is worse than the schnapps. much worse!"

"very well, very well, let us have two glasses of schnapps then."

"short or tall?"

"tall. tall, so that we might not interrupted." and the professor turned his head aside to indicate the exchange was over .

but the loquacious server was not to be dismissed so easily. "you know, i thought you might be a lexicographer when i first saw you."

"oh?"

"yes, you know, studying the language patterns and quaint locutions of the netherworld. when i used the expression 'follow my smoke', which if the truth be told, i just made up out of my own head on the spur of the moment, i expected you to whip out a notebook and write it down immediately."

"really? how illuminating."

"so i suppose you have some other avenue of exploration?"

"a most judicious observation."

"i figured you for a professor even before snappy called you one. you might be surprised how many professors we get in here."

"i doubt that i should be surprised in the least."

the barman raised his eyebrows, as if inviting further confidences.

"i am suffering from a raging thirst, as no doubt our friend snappy is also."

"certainly, guvnor, certainly. point well taken." and with that the barman smiled and moved away.

"zobo does tend to run on," morden observed after the barman left.

the professor just shrugged.

"he doesn't get many opportunities for conversation here. despite all his talk of professors, most of the clientele here just want to drink and stare into space."

"worthy goals." zender looked around for the first time. his eyes having adjusted to the gloom, he made out four or five solitary figures at different tables, who were indeed staring into space or at the walls.

"so." morden chuckled. "i could not help being amused at poor zobo's guess that you were a student of words. not words but action, eh professor? with you it was always action that counted."

"indeed. specifically, i am studying the ratio of action to words and fantasies in the industrial nations."

"ah." morden's eyes glazed over only slightly at this asservation.

"and even more specifically, such ratios as applied to those with the most extreme views - extreme in terms of the surrounding social nexus, of course."

"of course. but here is zobo with our drinks."

zobo put the two drinks on the table and the professor reached into his pocket.

"no need for that, sir. you can settle all at once when you leave."

"excellent. and look here, when i do settle up, perhaps i could have a few words with you. you seem an observant fellow, perhaps you can indeed help with my researches, arcane though they be."

"it would be a pleasure, squire." and zobo smiled more widely, showing surprisingly white teeth. "i am honored to have made so positive an impression."

"i surmise, from your slightly insolent manner of addressing my respectable self, that you might be no stranger to the barricades, eh?"

"why, as to that, sir - the rivers of history do not flow smoothly in one direction, nor do the streams of memory. as we gaze into their dark waters, what shifting shapes do we see?"

"indeed. but tell me, while i have you here, are you acquainted with an individual named frommer?"

"frommer? not fritz frommer?"

the two glasses having been set down, morden raided one to his lips. after an initial grimace, he took a healthy draught.

"yes," replied zender. "fritz frommer."

"i have heard of him - he was quite the beau of the ball, the flavor of the day, a few years back."

"he was not a customer here?"

"oh, no, not unless he came in disguise. you see, sir, he had his own establishment. and quite the establishment it was, a center of noise and controversy and - and -"

"intellectual upheaval?"

"exactly, sir, intellectual upheaval! ha, ha!" zobo looked around the room at the hunched, solitary drinkers. "not such as you see here."

3. the unseen man