Instantly, her eyes welled up with fluid, for the fruit filled ever corner of her mouth with a sour, rancid taste. Its texture was like old animal flesh, and it bubbled with fetid acid on her tongue. When she could stand it no longer, she spat it unceremoniously at the Prince’s feet.
His eyes were wide with surprise. He ate some himself to see if it were bad, but it was sweet and rich and perfect. “Strange girl,” he commented, “you have very odd tastes.” And he got to his feet in one fluid movement and left her there.
The little mermaid did not follow him but watched as he wandered about the grove, stroking the bare white bodies of the trees as if they were the breasts of a well-endowed woman, he an elderly man in his last days of physical delights. He seemed to forget all about her as he walked, lost in his thoughts.
At last he returned, and looked at her without pleasure. “I will see you back,” he said gruffly. He helped her to her feet but did not meet her eyes. Together they ascended the tower steps, this time the Prince striding before her as if he could not wait to be rid of her, the mermaid struggling with every step she took. He walked down the hall in a biting, hurried pace and stopped abruptly before her door.
“I do not require your companionship for the rest of the day,” he said brusquely. He held the door open for her.
Confused and disappointed, she brushed past him to reach the inside of her sanctuary. She turned her face away to avoid her nose from touching his, so close was their proximity. Before she could take another step he murmured softly, “Allow me.” To her very great surprise, he smudged the paint off her eyelids and cheeks with the palm of his free hand. Her body broke out in goose pimples as he wiped away the scarlet lip colour her maid had been so insistent upon. “I don’t wish to see this again,” he said softly. “Will you promise me?”
Yes, mouthed the little mermaid. The Prince gave her a twisted smile, and then he was gone.
The rest of the evening was spent in silent uproar. She frantically whipped through the pages of her memory to gain the reason why she had so displeased the Prince. It could not have been the oranges, for he was surely testing her by presenting her with such a foul food. Surely it had been poison. Then why did he then taste some himself? Human customs, she decided, were not sound-minded.
It dawned on her that she knew little about her Prince, and he about her. She searched her mind for a way to convey to him more about herself and what she had done for him, but she did not know how. For the first time, she regretted giving her tongue in payment for the witch’s brew. She should have negotiated with her. Rumours said that the sea-witch was fond of a good bargain.
She went to her dresser and searched it thoroughly. She emptied every jar of powder, paint and rouge into her washbasin. She added the vials of perfume, and threw the hairpins in too for good measure. In a sort of frantic fury, her next destination was the wardrobe, where she carefully examined every garment, angrily tearing the most ornamental and beautiful off their hooks and into the carpet. Her eyes began to sting, but she did not know why.
Her angry reverie was interrupted as her Personal Maid entered, bearing yet another tray of food. “They are dining in the grand hall, so my question is, what are you doing here? Are you the Prince’s companion or aren’t you?”
The mermaid looked up from where she lay in a messy puddle in the middle of the floor. She looked at her maid mournfully.
“There, there,” said the Personal Maid. “I’m sure he will invite you tomorrow.”
But the little mermaid would not hear it, shaking her head savagely. The maid was astonished. “And why ever wouldn’t he? Eh, you haven’t done something to offend his Majesty, have you?”
She shook her head again and gestured with her arms wildly. “Ah,” said the maid, “you don’t know. Well,” she said practically, “you’ve made a real mess of this room in your little tantrum. But I’ll set things right while you eat. And you had better eat this time,” she warned with narrowed eyes, “unlike your shenanigans with breakfast.”
Later, after the mermaid had dined, not unpleasantly, on broiled fish, her Personal Maid dressed her in a soft nightgown and tucked her into bed. She made sure the table lamps were lit, and checking that the door was locked, sat on the edge of the bed and gazed at the girl as if she were a very difficult project indeed.
“So he didn’t like your appearance today,” she said, “it’s not the end of the world. Don’t look so surprised. I wasn’t spying or nothing. But I wasn’t born yesterday, and a wash basin full of cosmetics could only mean one thing.”
The little mermaid nodded forlornly, glad to finally have a confidante, someone who understood, even if she understood little.
“You know what I gather? I reckon you’re like a child in a grown-up’s body. You don’t know much about men and women, and you certainly don’t know a whole lot about it. Haven’t you ever been with a man?”
The little mermaid shook her head, wondering how to express that the Prince was the first man she’d ever seen, let alone was with.
And the Personal Maid, with her silly head and her heart of gold, leaned toward the mermaid and shared her wealth of information about men, bodies, tastes, lies, tricks and sex. The mermaid understood more than she expected, and with her eyes wide and her mouth even wider, she dissected the information and stored it away in her book of humanity.
It took a long time to fall asleep that night, for she had realised that there was far more to men and women than love and weddings and the impartation of the Immortal Soul. It was a deep well of mystery and she had barely scratched the surface.
Thirteen
The Physician’s Verdict
Despite her earlier assumptions that the Prince would have nothing more to do with her, there was a message in the morning informing her to stay in her chambers, for a physician was coming to examine her. Although the little mermaid knew exactly why she could not speak, and that the whole affair was completely unnecessary, she held hope in the fact that the Prince had added a postscript asking her to meet him in the library afterwards.
The physician had come and gone, a rather uncomfortable situation that included a lot of poking about with metal instruments and muttering under his breath. He had looked upon the mermaid like she was a simpleton, and made a great deal of comments about the oddity of her dental structure.
“Why,” he had spluttered, “it’s like you’d spent your whole life chewing fish bones!”
True to her word, the Personal Maid dressed her charge in the plainest, least elaborate gown that she could muster from the fine wardrobe, and did not re-introduce cosmetics into their repertoire. She brushed out the mermaid’s hair and let it hang down her back, and sent her on her way without so much as a spritz of rose water.
The Prince barely looked up when she entered the library. To say it was like any other ordinary library would be a lie. It was a book mausoleum, a dark, cold hall of marble that housed thousands of volumes to be consumed not on thick, fluffy sofas, but at hard concrete tables. It encouraged the serious scholar and not the pleasure-seeking reader.
“Come here,” he said in commanding tones. “Sit by me.” The mermaid timidly did so, and as she sat at his left elbow, she noticed that he smelled of grass and paper and something smoky. “You can read, can’t you?”