When one lived in an enchanted kingdom, there were all kinds of guidelines for the nobility. Which knife to cut one’s venison with, whom one can dance with at a party, and other things of highly important nature.
Most important of all? Prince and Princess etiquette.
Everyone knew the stories – if you saw a frog, you kissed it so the prince could return to his natural form. If you found a swan maiden’s cloak, you gave it back. Those were just the polite things to do, and royalty always rewarded their saviors quite richly.
So when, on a cold and rainy night, when the servants awoke Queen Matilda and told her there was a princess at the kitchen door, she got her eldest son out of bed and dragged him to the kitchens with her. She arrived prepared, The Guide to Royal Etiquette in her hand.
Behind her, Prince Gerald yawned repeatedly, scratching at his chest. “Mother, I really don’t see why we’re here in the middle of the night–”
“There is a princess at the door, you fool!” Queen Matilda licked her palm and flattened the stray hairs sticking up from her head. The gray ones always stuck out like wires and lately there had been far too many grays. She glanced over at her son, drool-tracks on his chin and cowlicks in his hair. His sleeping-gown was stained – charming he wasn’t. “Clean yourself up.”
Gerald yawned again. “Why? She’s probably covered in mud. If she is a real princess.”
He had a point. Queen Matilda turned her baleful eye on the servants huddled in the corner of the kitchen. “You said there is a princess at the door, in the rain. By herself?”
One of the maids nodded a confirmation, biting her lip. “But, your majesty–”
The queen turned, her nostrils flaring. “What?” Her voice was like ice.
Quivering, the maid dropped into a deep bow before blurting out her concerns. “Something is wrong with her, your majesty. She’s…not right.”
“Of course she’s not right,” Gerald grumped. “She’s heading for the kitchens instead of the foyer.”
“Quiet, Gerald,” his mother snapped.
All parties fell silent for a moment, and that was when they noticed the faint scratching at the kitchen door. The queen waited. When no servants moved toward the door, she slapped the nearest one. “Go and open it, idiot!”
Weeping, the maid did so, then backed away quickly, scurrying toward the far end of the kitchen. The other servants followed, leaving no one but Queen Matilda and Prince Gerald near the door.
A girl stood in the doorway, her figure thin, her soaked clothing plastered to her body. Her hair hung in wet, lanky strips down over her face, and she shivered in the rain. A small tiara was askew atop her head, denoting her as royalty. Her arms hung at her sides. With the heavy nighttime rain, it was impossible to tell who she was, or how rich her clothes were.
The queen gestured with a quick, impatient hand. “Well, don’t just stand there like an idiot, girl. Come in.”
The girl on the doorstep did not move. Thunder cracked and rumbled behind her, and still, she did not twitch a muscle.
“Mother, are you sure this is a good idea?” said Prince Gerald.
“Perhaps she’s deaf,” said the queen. “Go and get her, Gerry.”
The prince sighed and moved toward the door, then bowed at the girl. “Your majesty, if you would care to join us.”
She raised her arms, reaching for the prince. A tiny, gurgling moan arose from her throat.
The prince moved backward, holding his nose in disgust. “Oh, mother – she smells awful.” He peered at the princess. “And she’s covered in dirt. Good lord. It’s quite revolting.”
“She’s not right,” one of the maids continued to sob in the background. “Don’t let her in!”
“Nonsense,” said the queen, and opened her book. Ribbons stuck out between the pages of several chapters, and others had been dog-eared – the book had been read and studied many, many times over the years. With practiced fingers, Queen Matilda opened the guide to a specific page and read. “When a princess shows up on your doorstep at night, without an entourage and any way of determining if she is a princess, one must put her through a trial to determine if she is in fact what she claims. If the woman is indeed a princess, she must be married to the highest ranking male in the house at that time as gratitude for her rescue. If she is not a princess, one is free to dispose of her (we recommend you cast her back out in the streets) as desired.” She gave her son a triumphant look. “If she’s a princess, we can marry her to you.”
Gerald scratched at his ear. “Mother, I’m not so sure–”
“You will marry her,” the queen said to her son, each word punctuated with an angry hiss of her breath. “We just have to determine if she is a princess.”
Gerry gave her a sulky look. “She doesn’t smell like a princess.”
“Hush!” Queen Matilda began to flip quickly through the pages again, and then made an exclamation of happiness, pointing at the page. “Here it is. Princesses bruise easily. We need to figure out how to determine if she bruises easily.”
Prince Gerald thought for a moment, then picked up a piece of bread from the edge of the counter, and threw it at the princess.
It hit her in the arm. She didn’t move. She did give another tiny moan, but that was it.
“Is she bruising?” Queen Matilda asked.
“I don’t know,” Gerry said.
“Hit her again. With something harder.”
He gave his mother an exasperated look, then threw a bowl at the princess.
She still did not move, frozen in the doorway, the rain sheeting down on her.
“Well?” said the queen.
“I can’t tell.”
“Go look at her closer.” Queen Matilda shut the book and waved her hands at her son. “You’ll never be able to tell anything from halfway across the room. Not to mention that his throwing arm was terrible, but now wasn’t the time to bring such things up.
Gerald scratched his ear again, then moved toward the girl and bowed again. When she didn’t move, he cast an uneasy look back at his mother, and then put an arm around the princess’s shoulders, trying to usher her into the room. “If you will come in, please–”
The princess moaned loudly and then snarled, jerking forward.
Prince Gerald stumbled backward, clutching at his arm. “Ow! Mother! She tried to bite me!”
The maids cowering in the corner of the kitchen gave startled cries at this, and one began to say a prayer.
The queen sighed. Of course Gerald couldn’t do anything right. The boy was useless. “Did you at least check her for bruising?”
Gerald gave his mother a horrified look. “I don’t want to get anywhere near her.”
“Gerry!”
“Mother, have you smelled her–”
“GERRY!”
“All right,” he said sulkily, and stood. But this time he only leaned in slightly, then backed away again. “Can’t tell anything under all that dirt, mother.”
The queen frowned, thinking hard. The book did not cover what to do if the princess was non-responsive. She flipped it open again, skimming the pages. Aha. Here was a solution, on page 52. “Ready a guest bedroom.”
One of the maids gasped. Another sobbed. “But, your majesty–”
“I said, ready a guest bedroom,” the queen repeated. She snapped the book shut. “The one reserved for visiting royalty. And I want you to pull all the mattresses from the others and stack them on top of the bed. We’re going to place a dried pea under the bottom mattress and see if she bruises.”
“Mother–” began Prince Gerry.
“Your majesty–” began the maids.
“Do it,” Queen Matilda said. She held the book against her chest and gave
them all a withering look. “And give the girl a bath so we’ll be able to tell in
the morning if she has bruised or not. I don’t want to be disappointed in this.
Understand?”
With that, she swept out of the room and went back to bed.
#
Queen Matilda was at breakfast at nine the following morning, feeling fresh and optimistic. She hummed a tune as she sat at the long formal dining table and waited to be served.
It took a few minutes, which turned her happy tune into a stern frown. When one of the maids finally appeared, Queen Matilda gave her a scathing look. “I have been waiting.”
“I’m very sorry, your majesty,” the girl said, dropping into a curtsy before depositing the plate of eggs in front of the queen.
“You’re not my normal girl,” the queen mentioned, picking up her fork and waving it in the girl’s direction. “Where is she? I want my normal girl. She is never late.”
“She is under the weather, your grace.” The girl bobbed into another curtsy, looking uncomfortable. “The princess bit her and she’s been running a bit of a fever ever since.”
Ah. Well, if the princess was biting, perhaps she was feeling more like herself again. Though Queen Matilda frowned upon the bad manners of biting a servant, sometimes drastic measures did have to be taken to prove to the staff that you were not to be trifled with. She shrugged her shoulders. “And how is our guest this morning?”
The girl paled. “I…I don’t know, your majesty. The door is barricaded.”
“Barricaded?” The queen stopped mid-bite, and put her fork down. “Why on earth?”
Before the maid could answer, Prince Gerald entered the room, trailed by a few worried maids and the princess. Gerald had dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was mussed. The maids were very nervous – every time the princess stepped forward, they skittered backward, flinching.
However, the queen was delighted with the sight of the princess. “Oh my,” she said, staring at the girl. “She looks positively dreadful!”
“Yes, mother, she does,” began Gerry. “But–”
The queen shushed him. “I can see that the pea underneath the mattresses worked quite well.” The etiquette guides had spoken truly, then. A princess that slept on a pea under several mattresses would look terrible in the morning, and the girl standing before her looked truly god-awful. Her hair had been cleaned up and pulled back from her face, exposing a ghastly grayish pallor and terrible bruising covering every inch of exposed skin. Her face was puffy, her eyes sunken.
Hideous.
Perfect.
Queen Matilda beamed. “Obviously she is a princess, then. We can set the marriage for the morning, just as soon as we find out what her identity is.” She gave her son a pleased smile. “We don’t want this one to get away, do we, darling?”
“Mother, she’s dead,” Gerry blurted.
“What? Nonsense.” The queen waved her fork. “The girl just sat down to
breakfast on her own.”
Indeed, the girl had sat at the far end of the table and was currently snapping
her teeth at one of the maids as if she were going to bite the girl.
“Give the princess a large plate,” the queen called. “She seems to have gotten her appetite back.”
“Mother, she bit three maids last night. Nearly chewed off another one’s arm this morning. Now all of them are sick and biting people.” Gerry refused to sit down in his chair, his grip white-knuckled on the carved back. “There is something wrong with her.”
“It doesn’t matter, Gerry darling,” said the queen, dismissing his concerns. “She is a princess, you are a prince in need of a good connection with a royal family, and she showed up on our doorstep. It is perfect. You are marrying her.”
“I am not!” The prince shouted, gesturing at the princess (who snapped her jaws at his outstretched fingers). “Mother, she tried to eat my face!”
“That should make for an exciting wedding night, then, don’t you think?” said the queen in a coy voice. “You’re marrying her. Mother has decided.”
“But–”
“Mother has decided. You are marrying her, and that is final,” the
queen said in a deadly voice. “I do not care if she eats your face, or your arm,
or all of the maids in the castle, but you will take her as your wife!”
#
He did (marry her, that is).
She did (eat his face, his arm, and all of the maids in the castle).
The queen did not live long enough for the happily ever after, but that sort of
thing was expected at that point. She died with her etiquette book in hand,
beating at the undead princess’s head with it as the girl chewed on her.
Etiquette books never had anything to say about zombies, after all.