Chapter 2.
Over the next few years, King Balthazar married a third wife, then a fourth and fifth, as each in turn gave birth to a daughter. In despair he married the sixth and seventh wives together in an effort to change his luck, but the outcome was the same. Jade, Coral, Sapphire and Amethyst joined Ruby and Pearl in the royal nursery. The royal builders were kept busy constructing more and more extensions to the palace to house these wives until one brave advisor suggested that they should all live together.
‘You could have a woman’s quarters, my Lord,’ he said sensibly. ‘And another one for the children, enclosed by a walled garden where they could play.’
He couldn’t quite bring himself to say girls, as this was not a word calculated to improve the king’s temper.
The king agreed to this absentmindedly, as he studied the portraits of prospective brides. By this time he was secretly rather enjoying the reputation he was earning through his eccentric behaviour, although he still craved a son. By marrying new wives he never became bored with the old ones, although a few of them showed alarming tendencies to complain if things weren’t to their satisfaction. In fact, keeping the wives from squabbling among themselves and carrying tales to the king about each other, kept a small staff of advisors extremely busy. The wives were given everything they asked for and a more spoiled group of women would have been hard to find. Everything, that is, except freedom. There was a large walled garden for the wives to walk in and pick the flowers, but the palace gates were guarded night and day by strong young men whose job it was to keep the wives in and intruders out. Few people were admitted to the palace grounds where the wives lived, apart from a succession of travelling vendors with baskets of perfumes, fine fabrics and other ornamental objects.
By the time Princess Peridot was twelve, there were a total of seventeen princesses, with the arrival of the latest, baby Zircon. At this time the king received a message from his first wife, Queen Vashti, by the hand of the palace scribe, that it was time to be thinking of marriage for their daughter Ruby. This gave the king quite a start. It dawned on him with increasing delight that he was eventually going to have seventeen sons-in-law. If anything, this would be better than having sons. There wouldn’t be the challenge for the throne for starters. He could appoint whomever he wished to inherit when the time came and in the meantime he would have a strong contingent of sons-in-law to send off to do any necessary conquering of neighbouring countries or other threats to his kingdom. King Balthazar decided not to marry any more wives for a while. In truth, he was feeling his age rather and the thought of venturing forth in search of a bride was becoming a lot less attractive than that of relaxing in a warm spot and being entertained by the dancing girls.
King Balthazar decided that any prince wishing to marry a daughter of his had to prove his worth. Ruby’s suitors cleared the kingdom of dragons, wolves and even a few inoffensive sheep before one lucky prince was declared the winner. Prince Valentine bore his new bride off to a neighbouring country where they set up home in happily wedded bliss, with Ruby coming home to visit her mother and sisters every second Saturday.
The palace was overflowing with visiting princes looking for ways to impress Princess Pearl, when Peridot looked up from her needlework one day and cried, ‘I’m sick of all this!’
‘Sick of what?’ asked Amber.
‘All this.’ Peridot gestured around her. The sisters were in the solarium where a vast stained glass dome soared high above their heads, spreading multi-coloured shafts of sunlight onto the tapestry hung walls. Groups of scattered cushions nestled beside velvet lined gilt benches to form areas for sitting, while a severe middle-aged woman sat in supervision behind a small table by one of the large arched windows.
‘You mean sewing?’ Amethyst arched one delicate eyebrow. ‘It’s because you try and rush things. Your stitches are too big. If you made small, even ones like mine it would look a lot better.’ She smiled complacently as she held her work up for her sisters to admire. Amber dutifully made suitable noises as she glanced at the cream silk, where a bright green and gold dragon curled protectively around a clutch of speckled eggs.
‘I don’t mean needlework,’ objected Peridot, ‘although I’m sick of that as well.’
She scowled at her grubby piece of linen where what looked like a deformed elephant was stumbling beneath the weight of an urn of unlikely looking flowers. ‘It’s a complete waste of time. Why do we need to know how to sew? We are never likely to make our own clothes or anything, the royal dressmakers do all that.’
Amethyst was shocked. ‘It’s traditional. When we marry we must take something we have sewn to our new homes. It’s expected of us.’
‘I think it’s a stupid tradition,’ muttered Peridot.
‘All our mothers have sewn things. Well, most of our mothers,’ Sapphire amended, with a sideways look at Peridot.
‘Oh I know my mother never sewed anything. I don’t blame her. It’s boring.’
Peridot's mother had been one of the lesser wives. She had been a dancer in a waterfront tavern when the king was drowning his sorrows after Amber’s birth. Even though he had married her, she gained the distinction of being the only wife King Balthazar had divorced. Peridot’s mother had been extremely headstrong and hadn’t taken lightly to being discarded and expected to live in the company of the other wives. She had left when Peridot was four years old and apart from the occasional birthday gift, Peridot hadn’t seen or heard from her since.
‘So what’s boring?’ Topaz asked. She was two years younger than Peridot and was rather inclined to be in awe of her. Peridot was never afraid to say what she thought, something Topaz would never have dared to do.
‘Everything. Life is the same here day after day. It’s boring.’
‘No it’s not,’ objected Amber. ‘There are heaps of princes around looking for things to do to impress Pearl, or rather, our father.’
‘Oh, princes!’ Peridot flapped her hand dismissively. ‘There’s not even any danger for them to rescue her from now. Father’s making them hold chess tournaments instead. Chess! What use is that to anyone?’
‘Chess is good for training the mind for war strategies,’ put in Coral, overhearing this last remark as she fetched an errant ball of silk that had rolled from her lap.
Peridot sniffed. ‘There’s not much chance of a war around here. Father has married wives from every country this side of the mountains and there’s nothing left to conquer except the Wasteland, and not much point in that.’
Coral would have liked to disagree with Peridot on principle but was forced to admit she was right. ‘You might as well make the best of things, Peridot, and accept life the way it is.’
‘Not if I can help it,’ muttered Peridot.
She managed to conceal her impatience for the next half hour, during which time she pricked her finger twice, knotted her thread so badly that it had to be cut off the needle, and managed to stitch her sampler to the hem of her tunic. By the time Peridot had unpicked ten minutes worth of stitching she was furious. Tossing her work aside in relief, she walked rapidly in the direction of the walled garden.
‘Do you want to play ball with me?’ asked Topaz.
‘No. Leave me alone,’ snapped Peridot.
Topaz turned away, her shoulders drooping. Period immediately felt guilty for being so bad tempered.
‘I don’t want to play ball but you can come with me to the garden if you like,’ she offered.
Topaz cheered up and skipped alongside Peridot as she headed to the garden. They descended a flight of stone steps as fast as they dared. Lessons in Deportment were a major part of the princesses’ lives and moving faster than a walk was frowned on as not being suitable, although the younger girls found this a very hard rule to stick to.
‘I’m sick of all this. I’m sick of being a princess,’ muttered Peridot, narrowly avoiding a collision with Dinsala, one of the king’s advisors, who was carrying a pile of scrolls in the direction
of the king’s chambers. He staggered back, the silver tassel on his skull cap swinging wildly. She shot him an apologetic look which he returned with a smile, as the princesses made their way to the far end of the garden where a rather ugly looking stone lion spat a trickle of water into a small mossy trough.
‘Being a princess is boring,’ Peridot scowled, as she moodily kicked at a clump of fern fronds growing from the base of a wall beside the trough.
‘At least we have plenty to eat and we don’t have to work,’ Topaz offered in reply. ‘You wouldn’t like being a camel rider. Think of how hot and dusty you would get.’ She shuddered dramatically.
‘It would be fun, though,’ said Peridot dreamily. ‘At least you could go wherever you wanted to and see all sorts of strange sights around the world.’
Topaz privately thought that camel riders were probably no more free to organise their own lives than were princesses, but she wisely held her tongue.
‘Even being hot and dusty wouldn’t be as boring as this,’ sighed Peridot. She kicked at the clump of ferns again then kicked even harder, and almost slipped, as her foot met no resistance. Dropping to her knees, Peridot peered behind the ferns and was astounded to see a hole under the wall where a couple of the stones had been removed.
‘Look at this, Topaz,’ she squeaked.
Topaz knelt beside her and together they peered into the hole.
‘I wonder where it leads to,’ Topaz breathed.
‘I’m going to find out,’ said Peridot, as to her sister’s horror she bundled up her skirts and crept nearer the hole.