“Your Majesty,” he said, “I bring you the finest silk, for the finest gown, in the whole entire world.”
Silence again. He smiled. The queen raised an eyebrow.
“Well,” she demanded impatiently, “where is it?”
“I can’t show it to you here!” Anderson cried, surprised. “Your Majesty, this is the finest silk in all the world! The emperor of Japan offered me a thousand camels for it! The sultan of Arabia offered me every single buffalo he owned! The great kahn, in China, offered not to cut off my head if I gave it to him! I refused them all! I wanted to save it for you, Your Majesty! Now, having traveled all these millions of miles home, I will show it to no one but you!”
“Very well,” the queen announced. “Everyone leave at once! I will examine this silk alone!”
Her husband, the king, gave her a plaintive look, but she just raised an icy eyebrow at him. He, the courtiers, the guards, and the servants, all left the room. Jill was last to leave. As she was about to close the door behind her, the old merchant said, “Wait.”
Jill paused and looked back.
“Princess, would you mind staying a moment?” the merchant asked. The queen raised her eyebrows at him. He ignored her. “Come in, come in, and close the door behind you,” he said with a smile. Then, turning to the queen, he said, “I am sorry, Your Majesty. But you are far taller than I remembered. You see, the great queens and empresses of the East are all very small—some no taller than my knee! I knew you were taller than that, but I thought you were, perhaps, the size of the beautiful princess here. I am afraid I haven’t enough silk for a dress that will fit your statuesque majesty.” He looked down at the floor as if he were ashamed.
“You’re going to make a dress for my daughter?” the queen exclaimed. “On my half birthday?”
“When is the princess’s half birthday?” the merchant asked innocently. “Or her real birthday, for that matter? I could return then.”
I have a birthday? Little Jill wondered. She thought only the queen had a birthday. She knew that she hadn’t always been alive, of course, but it had never occurred to her that she—or anyone besides her mother, in fact—had been born on one specific day. It was almost a silly idea, people besides her mother having a birthday.
The queen’s lovely complexion reddened, until Jill thought she might be having a heart attack like that fat lord did two Christmases ago. But her mother merely said, in a tight, clipped voice, “Let me see the silk.”
The merchant nodded affably and placed his broad fabric bag before him. He opened it. He put both hands inside, moved to unfold something, and then, very slowly, drew his hands out of the bag again. He was quite the showman.
His hands were a yard apart. His fingers were pressed tightly together. His eyes ran back and forth over the distance between them. Over nothing.
“Magnificent, isn’t it?” he sighed. “The most exquisite silk I have ever seen.”
Jill stole a glance at her mother. The queen was staring, wide-eyed, at the empty space between his hands. Jill turned back to the merchant and mimicked her mother’s facial expression exactly.
“You see it, don’t you?” the merchant went on. “Only the finest eye can see silk this majestic, this perfect. I was nearly stoned to death in the kingdom of the Tartars because the king claimed that I had no silk at all. But then his wife came in and laughed in his face. You see it don’t you? You see the most exquisite piece of silk that has ever been?”
“Oh, yes!” the queen said, and suddenly her voice took on a dreamy languor. “It’s . . . it’s wonderful. Just perfect. I didn’t think there could be a silk so fine.” She glanced at Jill. “Do you see it, child?”
“Oh, yes!” Jill said, echoing her mother’s dreamy tone. “It’s wonderful. It . . . it’s wonderful.” Seeing nothing, she dared say nothing more.
“The colors radiate and shine up and down the thread, do they not?” the merchant asked. “As if a rainbow were running to keep up with the sun.”
“Yes, that’s just how I would describe it!” the queen exclaimed. “Like a rainbow! Or . . . or like autumn leaves, when the colors are changing!” She glanced up at the merchant hesitantly.
“Oh, Your Majesty, you are a poet! Yes, I couldn’t have said it better myself!”
Jill stammered. “It’s like . . . like gold pieces, kissed with the colors of sunset,” she tried.
“Yes! Yes, it is!” the merchant cried, and his smile stretched across his smooth face.
“It is more like autumn leaves, Jill,” said her mother coldly. “Wouldn’t you say, Anderson?”
“Of course, Your Majesty,” he said, folding his smile away like an apparition of silk. “But the princess has learned good taste from her mother.”
“Lord knows I try,” the queen sighed. Then she said, “There is not enough silk to make a gown for me?”
“Alas, Your Majesty—” the merchant replied. Jill thought she saw his pale eyes flit to hers for a moment, and in that moment there was heat, danger. But then it was gone. “Alas, no. I have just enough thread, I think, to weave a dress for the princess.”
The queen, having seen the silk, did not seem so angry as she had before about not receiving the gift herself. “How long will it take?” she asked.
“If you were to give me use of a loom in the castle, and all the thread I needed, and food and drink and money for expenses, I think I could have the dress done in a month.”
“A month?” the queen exclaimed. She eyed the merchant skeptically. “Make it three weeks.”
“Fine,” the merchant said. “But I’ll have to be up all night, every night.”
“Three weeks it is, then,” the queen announced. “My little girl will wear the dress in the Royal Procession three weeks from today!”
* * *
Now, at this point, perhaps you think you know this story. And I’m sure you’ve heard some version of it, mangled and strangled and made almost sweet by years and years of telling it to little children.
But the way you know it is not the way it happened.
The real way is . . . different.
* * *
The very next morning, Jill climbed to the castle’s highest turret. There, she found the old merchant already at work. He pumped the loom pedal with his feet as he wove the shuttle up and down, up and down. Jill stared at his hands picking nimbly at the space where the shuttle wove. There was nothing there. Nothing at all on the loom. She was sure of it.
Just then, the merchant looked up. Their eyes met. Again, she felt that heat, that danger. But just for an instant. It passed, and the merchant said, “What do you think of my work, Princess?”
She walked slowly over to the loom. His feet stopped pumping. The shuttle hovered in the air above where the material should have been. She surveyed the nothing.
Do you see it, child? the queen had asked.
Jill looked up at the merchant. “My mother was right,” she said. “It is more like autumn leaves.”
The merchant smiled. “Yes, my dear. Well, you can always hope to be as wise and beautiful as your mother one day. It’s a worthy goal for any daughter.”
Jill looked at the floor, curtsied, and turned to leave. But she ran directly into the king, who was coming to inspect the merchant’s gift. He was followed by his friend and confidant, Lord Boorly.
“And where is this wonderful silk?” Lord Boorly demanded as he crossed the threshold, his monocle fixed firmly between his left eyebrow and the top of his fleshy cheek.
Then his eyes fell on the loom. His eyebrows shot up his forehead. His monocle fell to the floor and shattered. At his side, the king stared wordlessly.
“Stunning, isn’t it, Your Majesty?” the merchant said.
“Uh . . .” the king began.
“The princess was just telling me
that she has come to the opinion that your wife was most apt in describing this silk as like autumn leaves. Weren’t you, Princess?” And he smiled at her.
“Yes,” she said, studying the faces of Lord Boorly and the king curiously. “I was.”
“Ah!” said Lord Boorly. “Yes! I see it now! It’s hard to catch at first! So subtle! So fine! But yes! It’s magnificent!” He walked up to the loom to inspect more closely. “Yes, autumn leaves—I see that. But what about peacock feathers, eh? Wouldn’t you say that hits a little closer to home, Anderson?”
The merchant considered this. “It may . . .” he said at length. “It just may . . .”
The king had, by this point, come up closer to the loom. He was still inspecting it when the merchant asked him, “And you, Your Highness, what would you say it looked most like? Lord Boorly’s peacock feathers? Or your wife’s leaves? Or,” he added, “gold pieces kissed by the colors of sunset? That was the princess’s description.”
“It was, was it?” The king squinted at her, and then turned back to the loom. After a moment, he straightened up. “Well, I agree with my daughter! Gold pieces, absolutely!”
Lord Boorly looked crestfallen. “You wouldn’t say peacock feathers, Your Highness?”
The king looked at Jill. She shrugged her small shoulders. He looked back at Boorly. “I most certainly would not!” he said. “Gold pieces at sunset, if anything. Leaves, maybe. But really, gold at sunset. In fact,” he said, raising his voice and pointing one finger at the ceiling, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a color so like gold at sunset as this!” He reached out and shook the merchant’s hand. “My good sir, thank you for bringing us this magnificent specimen. I cannot wait to see my daughter arrayed in such a stunning gown!” He smiled at Jill and then turned and led Lord Boorly from the room.
Jill looked at the merchant. He was staring after the two men, wonderingly, smiling. She watched him for a moment and then slipped out the door.
* * *
Jill sat in her mother’s room, watching the queen sample different shades of eye shadow that had been given to her for her half birthday. After a while, she said, “Mother, can I tell you something?”
“Hmm?” replied her mother absently.
Jill studied the queen’s beautiful features. “Mother, sometimes I can’t see the silk.”
The queen stopped dabbing at her makeup, and their eyes connected in the looking glass. Slowly, her mother said, “Sometimes?”
Jill sucked in her breath. Her mother knew. She knew Jill couldn’t see it. She would be so disappointed. “Yes,” Jill said hurriedly. “Sometimes I see it as if it were the brightest, most beautiful thing in the world.” And then, she added quietly, “Except you.”
Her mother’s eyes slid back to the mirror. She did look disappointed. Her voice was flat when she said, “Well, perhaps one day you’ll learn to see it all the time. It takes a truly refined eye.”
* * *
The next day, Jill returned to the turret room. The merchant was still working away at the invisible silk, pumping and picking and weaving. Jill watched him from the doorway. After a while, he looked up.
“Ah, Princess! A pleasure to see you!” he said. “Come, come, look what I’m working on now!” Jill approached. “It’s the hem!” he said. “Can’t you see it? Along the edge, I’m running a slightly different color—something like the red mud at the banks of a yellow river. Do you see?”
Jill stared. She saw nothing. She hesitated.
At last, she said, “Yes.”
The merchant looked up from the loom. His eyes were so pale. “Do you see it, Jill?”
Jill shivered. Then she heard her mother say, Perhaps one day you’ll learn to see it all the time.
“Of course I can,” she told the merchant. Then she left.
* * *
At last, the day came. Jill was woken very, very early in the morning to help her mother bathe. As she rubbed the bath oils and soap into her mother’s smooth skin, she said, “Mother, do you think I will look beautiful today?”
The soapy water, lapping gently against the edge of the tub, was the only sound in the room. Then, slowly, the queen turned to her daughter. Jill could see her mother’s eyes working up and down her face. At last, the queen said, “Perhaps you will.” And she smiled.
Jill’s heart sang.
* * *
After Jill had bathed herself, the merchant came into her dressing room. He held his hands out wide before him. He beamed. He looked at the space between his hands, and then back at Jill.
“Well?” he said, “what do you think?”
Jill stared. She saw nothing.
“I . . .” she began. Then she stopped.
“Yes?” the merchant said, frowning.
“I don’t . . .” she said again.
His frown deepened. “Go on . . .”
She opened her mouth to speak. And then, in her mind, she heard the words, Perhaps you will.
And she said, “Will you help me put it on?”
The merchant smiled. “Of course, Your Highness.”
He did not look at her when she dropped her towel. His voice was as tight as his eyelids when he said, “No underclothes, Your Highness. The silk will bunch up around it.”
Slowly, with eyes closed, the merchant lowered the dress over Jill’s head. “Light as air, isn’t it?” he asked wistfully. She nodded and swallowed. Her eyes, too, were closed, and she concentrated on how beautiful her mother always looked, how graceful and lovely she was.
And then Jill opened her eyes and looked at herself in the mirror.
She caught her breath. A silken gown, as fine and shimmering as any that has ever been, hung weightless over her slender little shoulders. It was red and orange and blue and yellow, just exactly like a glittering, sun-dappled pile of coins as the sky is fading from pink to black. Just so did the colors of the dress blend in and out, yellow fading to orange fading to red and back again as the dress shifted over Jill’s little body.
Jill clutched her hands to her chest. She had been right. Somehow, she had known just what it looked like. And her mother had been right. She did look beautiful. She knew she did.
She smiled at Holbein Cornelius Anderson in the mirror. “It’s very beautiful,” she said, beaming. “Thank you.”
The silk merchant suddenly looked confused.
* * *
The Royal Procession started at the gate of the castle. At its head were the trumpeters, blowing the fanfare to announce the royal party. Behind them, Lord Boorly led the group of the king’s and queen’s most favored courtiers, arrayed in their finest clothes. Behind them walked the soldiers in their silver armor, clomp clomp clomp. Then came the king and the queen, arm in arm. The king wore his purple ermine. But, of course, no one noticed him. For the queen walked beside him, wearing a stunning gown of aubergine and white lace. Garnets hung around her neck and rubies from her soft earlobes. Her pale skin shined, and her blue eyes echoed the immensity of the sky.
And then, behind them, came Jill. Little Jill. Her hair had been coiffed. Her nails had been painted. She wore clay-red shoes and red ribbons in her hair. Her silk dress—so light, so smooth, so shining—swished against her legs. She felt like she was wearing one of those mirages that appear on the road on a hot day—the dress was that light, that shimmering.
The royal party entered the roaring, adoring throng that lined the streets outside the castle. The trumpets blared and the people cheered. Lord Boorly and the other courtiers waved, and the crowd whistled and waved back. The king and queen smiled serenely at their subjects, and the people of the kingdom cheered like mad.
And then they saw the princess.
A hush fell over the crowd. It ran down the street like a shiver. No one spoke. They watched the princess walking, head held
high, brows arched just as the queen’s always were, smiling and looking not quite at the crowd, but just above their heads.
Suddenly, a whisper shook the stillness. “The princess’s new dress! The princess’s new dress!” Jill heard it. Her smile grew a little wider. A little more confident. The whispers grew. “The princess’s new dress! Beautiful! Beautiful!” Princess Jill allowed her head to float just a little higher. Her bearing became more natural, more regal. She stopped looking above her subjects’ heads and started looking into their wondering faces. She smiled more broadly.
The whisper become a wave—“The dress is beautiful! She is beautiful!”—undulating through the admiring crowd. She was certain her mother could hear it, too. Jill’s chest swelled near to bursting.
And then Jill noticed a little child, sitting atop her father’s shoulders. The child was just a year or two younger than Jill. She even looked like Jill, a little. Similar hair. Something in the eyes, perhaps. And then Jill noticed that the little girl was staring at her strangely. Her little mouth was hanging open. Her eyebrows were crawling up her tender, rounded forehead. She raised a little finger and pointed at Jill. The smile left Jill’s face.
“Why is the princess naked, Daddy?”
Jill stopped walking.
The wave of whispers faltered, then died.
“She’s naked, Daddy! Why?” the child said.
The blood rushed to Jill’s cheeks. She dimly perceived that, ahead of her, the procession had stopped. Her parents had turned to look at her.
“The princess is naked!” someone in the crowd cried. “The princess is naked!”
Jill looked down at herself. The reds, the yellows, the blues—were gone. There was nothing. She was, indeed, completely naked.