Part of Your World (Twisted Tales)(86)
“Agreed. And I should get back and…I don’t know, walk around the beach talking to myself and Jona or something. Maybe sing. Keep up the whole Mad Prince thing a bit longer.”
“Oh, I hope you don’t ever give it up entirely! I rather like it.”
“For you, it will come out of the closet occasionally.” He leaned over into the water. Ariel kicked her tail and rose up just long enough for a quick kiss—cold, wet, salty, and slapped by the sea at just the wrong moment.
Heaven.
Eric good-naturedly laughed at himself as he brushed the foam and seawater out of his now-limp forelock.
“You have to make sure she attends,” Ariel warned.
“Oh, leave that to me,” Eric promised. “I know exactly what to say. I’ll also work hard to keep the original performance date—on St. Madalberta’s feast day. Two weeks from now.”
“I hope that’s soon enough—that it’s before the circuex or whatever she’s planning.”
“Nothing in the castle has seemed out of the ordinary so far. No weird things ordered, no giant cauldrons procured—in fact, Vanessa has been rather quieter than usual since her big threat. I wouldn’t worry too much yet. You’ll be there, right?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” the mermaid said dryly, and dove back down into the depths.
Eric wandered back to the castle, zigzagging to pick up shells and a stray feather, sticking the latter in his cap. Just in case anyone caught him.
He saluted the gull above him and could have sworn it did a victory roll in response.
“Come again?”
She was seated on her poufy chair, Vareet perched uncomfortably on a stool at her feet. Sometimes Ursula ran her fingers through the girl’s hair, which, while certainly not as pleasant as stroking an eel, was at least a little satisfactory.
The prince stood before her with a strange look on his face, somewhere between timid, ironically amused, and chagrined. It was impossible to predict what was going to come out of his mouth, and what finally did was mind-boggling.
“I am here to offer a détente, and a bit of an apology for our…argument in your study.”
She raised a very skeptical eyebrow.
Eric sighed.
“It was very rude of me to point out the technicalities of our marriage contract the way I did. While it is all still true, it was very bully-ish of me and highly unmanly. Threatening a woman is the basest of sins.” He bowed, but the edge of his mouth twitched in a smile.
“Please leave gender out of this,” Ursula said without thinking. But really. Even if he meant it as a joke. “Also, apology formally accepted—although I don’t believe it for a moment.”
“Believe what you will, I have no power over that. The fact is I am genuinely embarrassed by the way I acted. At the very least we can be civil while we’re together.”
“Hmm,” she sniffed. She couldn’t detect any obvious falsehood, but since he was turning out to be smarter than she thought, nothing he said or did could be taken at face value anymore.
“Here is part one of my peace offering,” he said, and gave her the brooch he had been holding.
Ursula looked at it with surprise. She knew about his secret meeting with the head of the metalworkers guild, and had assumed it was to re-explain what she had already said, the way men boorishly did—or to outright contradict her. But apparently this was the true purpose of the meeting: a tiny metal octopus, its tentacles all akimbo and curled, detailed down to its little suckers. The eyes looked suspicious and were rubies. It was made from…
“Bronze,” she said with a chuckle. Eric gave a little bow.
It was really quite delightful. Normally she didn’t care about jewelry beyond what was considered trendy and appropriate for princesses to wear, but this…this was an adorable little trinket. No one had given her anything like it…any gift at all, really…in years….
She fastened it onto her collar and tried not to admire it there, sparkling temptingly.
“Part two is that the encore—and farewell—performance of La Sirenetta, I am dedicating to you.”
“Why?” She didn’t even pretend to be touched. There was a reason behind this that had nothing to do with kindness—she could feel it.
“We need to present a united front. As is obvious from that horrible dinner, the staff and probably the townspeople think we’re—on the rocks, as it were.”
“I don’t see why what they think is important. Riffraff.”
“Then apparently you don’t understand humans as much as you claim to. At some point one of your friends or enemies is going to use our inimical relationship to drive a wedge through the kingdom. Many countries are already getting rid of their kings and queens and princes and princesses—or at least taking away their power while letting them keep their pretty crowns. Royalty that actually rules is a dying breed. Do we really want to give anyone the opportunity to speed it along here in Tirulia?”
Ursula had never thought of it that way before. It was true—a lot of nasty populist places were having revolutions and becoming republics and democracies, patting their royalty on the head and pushing them on their way.
(If the royalty was lucky, that was all that happened to their heads.)