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An Orange for my Princess
By EE Reagan
There once was a kingdom known for its astonishingly delicious oranges. People came from far away provinces to taste the delectable fruit, and all who partook of them marveled and agreed that these oranges were the best to be had anywhere. The size was the largest, the pulpy center the juiciest and the skin was thin and not bitter at all. The flavor was sweet and tangy in equal parts and everyone of any persuasion who tasted the fruit could find no wrong in it.
The kingdom boasted an almost infinite number of orange trees, so many in fact that there was yet to be found a parcel of property where a tree with an orange was missing. Better yet, the oranges were free to all - citizens and visitors alike. At the end of the cooler months, when the weather was starting to warm, the smell of the blossoms was an irresistible force - attracting people, animals and insects of all types.
The Orange Kingdom, as it became known, was the center of festivities for all occasions - for everyone loved the variety of sweets, foods and beverages that were concocted from the bounteous fruit - and all loved the kingdom’s monarchs for gifting the crowned jewel or fruits to the world.
For a long time, the Orange Kingdom continued in this way, until a boy king gave into pressure from his advisors and began to tax the fruit. At first the people capitulated freely, this was the king’s right after all, most had no qualms with a small tax on the fruit so widely renowned by all, but the king’s demands did not stop with the tax.
After some time a decree was made, the prized oranges could only be grown in specific ‘royal’ fields deemed worthy by the king’s agricultural committee, for if the oranges were to retain their renown and loyal following, they must only be grown in the richest soil, and under guard by the king’s special forces – the Orange Knights.
This new decree required that all trees not on royal soil were to be cut down, and so was quite hated by the people. At first many refused to cut down the trees that had been cared for by their families for generations. These trees which were central to every major cultural tradition in the Orange Kingdom could not be simply removed. Separating them from the people created an outcry and retaliation the sort of which had never been witnessed before. But the Orange Knights swiftly and violently put down the revolt. Their response earned them nothing but scorn among the now distrusting populace who began to refer to them as the ‘Blood Knights.’
***
20 years passed and the boy king grew into a man. He married a princess of the neighboring kingdom, and together they had a baby girl. As a tribute to their child, the Orange Kingdom’s most skilled pomologist combined the best species of oranges from both kingdoms into a new breed, named after the new princess, Persimmon.
For her first 15 or so summers, Princess Persimmon spent most of her days exploring the land freely and learning about her kingdom. Her father and mother insisted she be accompanied by a retinue of Orange Knights at all times, and for years she was too naive to argue. She would travel on horseback with 4 Knights at her sides, to local villages, markets and festivals, and at first she tried talking to the people.
While they were always very courteous and helpful, commoners were also wary of the knights, and would quickly hurry off in another direction if approached. This reaction confused and saddened the princess who only wished to learn more about her people, so instead she turned her attention to the more remote roads and fields of the countryside, determined as she was to learn something useful about the kingdom.
On one such adventure the young princess traveled a river valley between two high wooded hills. At a particularly interesting spot along the river, Persimmon dismounted her horse and began searching for salamanders and frogs. Her escort of Orange Knights scouted the area and once were satisfied with its safety, decided to dismount and take lunch while the princess explored the riverbanks.
The girl wandered upstream, sometimes skipping from riverbank to rock and back again, sometimes stopping to examine some slimy looking lump she’d noticed. After a few minutes she discovered a pool of tadpoles and stopped to attempt to catch some. She began pulling her net from her pack when she noticed a large toad between the road and the river. Diverting her attention, Persimmon began sneaking towards the toad very slowly. She crouched to pounce on the toad, but as she did one of the knights shouted and she slipped and landed with a crash. Alarmed, the amphibian jumped across the road in a few quick hops disappearing inside a stand of Juniper trees that lined the other side of the avenue.
Persimmon pulled herself up and examined her now muddy sleeves and shot a dreadful look of contempt towards the knights who were guffawing hard at her expense. “I hope you choke on your mutton!” she shouted as she scraped off the mud and flung it down the road towards the laughing knights. With a huff she leapt across the road and scuffled through the thick colonnade, still hearing the laughter behind her.
So angry was Persimmon at the knight’s prank that she lost track of the toad once on the other side of the trees, for try as she might she could find no hint of it. She let out an aggravated “huff’ and turned to find herself looking west across a large open field. “Stupid knights,” she said aloud to herself as she stepped forward into the field, deciding it would be nice to leave her retinue behind and wondering where she’d run off to.
The field was quite large, and a small hill rose from its center preventing Persimmon from seeing the far boundary. Wildflowers in pink, blue and yellow dotted the sides of the hill, and the princess trudged toward them while swatting at hordes of insects. Grasshoppers and mayflies sprung out of her way buzzing and chirping in alarm as she plowed through the tall grasses.
The warmth and humidity of the day was more oppressing here, away from the shade of the wooded riverbank, but Persimmon pressed on determined to see what was on the other side of the hill. Finally, having reached the apex, the young princess looked down to find a vast grove of Orange trees that had been hidden from sight on the far side of the hill.
Her shock at seeing these orange trees was no less than if a gryphon had suddenly flown out of the sky and plucked her from where she stood. For all of her adventures throughout the kingdom, Persimmon had never seen a single orange tree outside of the royal fields. Yet her eyes were not deceiving her. There were a hundred trees here, with no pomologists to test the soil, nor Orange Knights to guard them. This revelation was so unexpected that the princess suddenly felt light on her feet and nearly tripped as she stumbled down the hill towards the unexplainable vision.
But the trees were no vision, and as Persimmon walked among them she became intoxicated by the citrus smell and sensation of her fingers as they connected with the scaly bark. The trees bore fruit. As princess, Persimmon had been allowed to eat the oranges in the royal fields whenever she pleased, but it was different here. She felt like an imposter or trespasser in this secret place and dared not partake of the fruit, though it looked to be as good as any she’d seen in the kingdom.
Persimmon knew enough to know that these trees should not exist by decree of her father, and if discovered by the knights they would be immediately made into firewood. She decided it was best to return to her escort, else they would come looking for her and find her here among this forbidden grove, and to never say a word to anyone about them.
She rejoined the knights who inquired as to the whereabouts of the toad. Persimmon, still felt the part of a trespasser, but maintained a haughty standoffishness that the knights would have expected in response to their prank. She spoke not a word to them as she mounted her horse, head held high, and with a gentle flick of her wrist bade the animal to take her down the avenue, back in the direction from which they’d come.
During the hour-long ride and for the rest of the day, Persimmon’s mind worked over and over what she had seen. The nature of the hidden trees consumed her thoughts, and she wished to visit them again, but how? She could not lead the Orange Knights to the trees. No, she would need to go alone, but how to convince her father and mother? Could she sneak out of her home unnoticed and return to the grove or would she be caught and punished for hiding the illegal trees from her parents?
After supper Persimmon rushed to her chamber, determined to be alone with her thoughts. Her bedroom chamber sat loftily on the third floor of a tower and from its window she gazed upon the royal fields of oranges whose starlit leaves flickered and flashed in the windy evening air. The citrusy smell was there as well, but it was somehow different and less intense as she’d smelled in the hidden field that day. The idea of the forbidden field excited her as she began to wonder what those secret oranges taste like. Were they like the ones outside of her window, or were they possibly better?
Finally, entrapped by the hypnotic idea of the grove that held sway over her, Persimmon drifted off to sleep and dreamt of secrets, daring escapes and oranges.
Isle of Bones
By CN Reagan
The captain deftly steered the little ship in among the docks while surveying the village that lay before him. A scatter of yellow-lit honey dens and brightly painted alehouses adorned the shoreline. To the southeast rose the stone tower of Auldearn Abbey, its ramparts hung with crimson and gold banners. On the docks, sailors from all across the seas hauled cargo, played dice, and brawled good-naturedly. Though this island seemed, at present, beyond the Admiralty’s laws, that did not mean that the Admiralty lacked interest in their activities.
The little vessel, best suited for diplomats, merchants, and wealthy spies, found a berth and shut down its thrumming engines. The captain stepped off the ship and onto the dock. As he turned to stride into the city he was immediately confronted by a piratical welcome. “Welcome to the Isle of Bones,” a wide-eyed dockmaster said brightly. “Would you like to bribe me not to write down your details in this nice official ledger?” The captain handed over the coins requested and the dockmaster tipped him a sharp smile as she waved him past, in the direction of the nearest alehouse; the entire process was straightforwardly corrupt and pleasingly efficient.
The alehouse, The Carnation and the Skeleton, rested awkwardly along the northern coast of the Isle of Bones and because it stood dockside, the upper floors were, as a matter of course, turned into lodging. The sign was a skeleton hung directly over the middle window of the first floor and arranged in a pirouette stance, it appeared to be just a little too realistic for the Captain's comfort; the bones were the color of crimson, and upon closer inspection it was apparent that it had been painted the color of the adorning carnation petals. Someone had gone to great trouble and expense to gild the specter’s teeth; it looked out over the docks, grinning a golden smirk. The skeleton watched the coming and going of vessels daily, for what seemed an eternity, but by stretching a little it could see into the window just beyond him, and could hear all that was said inside; and such things did it see and hear during the reign of the Pirate King.
One early morning, the captain of a smaller vessel, seemingly best suited for merchants or spies, made his way down the docks briefly stopping to exchange coins with the dockmaster and then proceeding directly to the crimson skeleton’s little alehouse. The skeleton watched as the captain passed beneath a caged hive of lamplighter bees hanging from the ceiling like a chandelier. A few sailors gave hard-mouthed assessing looks but most ignored the new man’s presence entirely.
The captain sat sipping an ale noticing all the Skellies wore a pair of black stones threaded around their necks or pinned to their collars. “Skulls eyes,” one of them says. “For the Pirate King.” As far as the captain could gather, the Pirate King’s name was Nicolas, and he controlled all the trade on the island. Half of the Skellies believe he can take on the form of a crimson skeleton and creep into their dreams. The other half suspect, more prosaically, that he simply eats those who displease him.
Near to the bar a crimson veiled witch lingered but, the captain wondered, what sort of witch would be in a place like this? “ A Melliferous Sister, of course,” She responds, performing a complicated negotiation between veil, thick gloves, and a glass of mushroom wine. The captain startled by her response to a question he had not verbalised, asked what one of those was. She snorted and possibly glared from under her veil. The captain acted appropriately cowed and the Melliferous Sister seemed to cool a little. “We are the beekeepers and the honey harvesters. The Skellies owe their prosperity to us, and the Pirate King too.” She slurped the last of the mushroom wine behind her veil and the barkeep glided over to refill her glass, eyes respectfully downcast.
As she moved off, the captain turned his attention to the clink of coins and a whispered conversation. He turned his head as if admiring the molding drapes hanging along the wall. A vial flashed in the buyers shaking hands. He uncorked it and a few drops of thick crimson liquid dripped down his throat. The vial dropped to the floor. When the captain looked back up the man was gone. He blinked and glanced around the room. Nobody seems the least bit perturbed that a man just disappeared in the middle of a crowded room. The captain casually moved over to the empty space and picked up the vial examining the traces left inside; sticky honey, gleaming red and with a faint smell not unlike blood.
Behind the captain a woman wearing the dress of a sea captain herself was weeping gently in the bosom of one of the courtesans of the Carnation and Skeleton, muttering of her lost crew and carnation gardens. “They’re all in the gardens now!” she wailed and began to weep again, “my poor crew.” The captain tarried for a break in the sobs and made an inquiry. It was slow delicate business drawing answers out of her, but the captain was nothing if not perseverant. It seemed her crew had been conscripted by The Lady of the Gardens, and that their duties are something far worse than horticulture. The captain took leave of the weeping woman as the courtesans escorted her into shadowy places farther along the alehouse’s interior.
The crimson skeleton, with his golden grin, watched as the barkeep stopped the captain at the door and handed him a broach set with two ebony stones. He waited impassively as the captain pinned it on his clothes. “Everybody wears the skull’s eyes here,” he tells the captain, moving aside to let him finally pass. “Just a friendly reminder that the Pirate King is watching.” It seemed to the newly arrived captain that no place, then, is truly lawless. The crimson skeleton watched as the captain moved further down the docks away from the Carnation and the Skeleton, towards the honey dens, and finally lost sight of the man as he turned into The Honeyed-Tongue.
The Honeyed-Tongue was both a brothel and a honey den, run by someone the Skellies refer to as Kings Reaper. Entering the brothel was like sliding into a orientalist; jewel embroidered cushions, bright silk drapes, gilded statues of elephants, sun bears, and clouded leopards. Silver censers released plumes of carnation-scented smoke into the air. The courtesans were red-lipped and coal-smudged. When the captain caught their eye, they smiled with professional interest. The captain asked one of them what the honey was. The courtesan lifted his eyebrow, only infinitesimally, and his reply was practised. “When lamplighter bees suck on the nectar of the crimson strain of the exile’s carnation, they are driven to madness. They enter the brains of the living and harvest their memories.” He shuddered, as though imaging the process himself. “Those memories are instilled in the red honey. Each sip is a burst of memory on the tongue. Deliciously awful, isn’t it?” He fluttered his dyed feather fan.
Another courtesan of more ambiguous sex approached the captain and explained he had caught the eye of The Reaper. The King's Reaper kept a suite in the maze of corridors above the brothel. As the captain was delivered into his suite, the door shut softly behind. The Kings Reaper told the captain they are to be called Isury. They are as ambiguously created as the courtesan that delivered the captain to the room, and are dressed in azure silk and wearing carved rings of bone and ivory in the style of scrimshaw on their right hand. They are very beautiful if you like yours sharp and glittering and ambiguously gendered. “ You have caught the interest of the Pirate King and therefore, my interest as well,” they say, fixing you with a cobalt gaze. “You seem...capable my friend.”
Unsettled by Isury’s beauty or perhaps the prospect of working for one so comfortable with the Skellie’s Pirate King, the captain was scrupulously polite in his refusal of commission. “No matter,” they dragged a boney clawed hand across the captain’s cheek. “Do come back if you find yourself in need of my...friendship.”
The captain returned to the honey-den downstairs and finding the wares unsuitable to his need for a commission, hurried along through the village and towards the richly adorned stone tower of Auldern Abbey. The Melliferous Sisters wore thick gloves and crimson mesh helmets, which were worn less for modesty and more for practicality. They tended the hives of the lamplighter bees all across the isle, and made “religious” observance of harvesting the red honey for the Pirate King.
The sister who tended the smokers was the talkative sort and as the captain approached she began to educate the man, though unrequested. The sister told him that the Pirate King sailed to Abbey Rock some fifty years ago and asked the Abbess to send some of her novices to Port Auldearn; the captain now intrigued asked why. The sister shook her head and said, “The better question is why did the Abbess send her precious novices to a place like this?” the sister waited for an answer.
“Perhaps a hefty bribe or coercion,” the captain suggested. The sister cackled harshly.
“The sisters of the rock respect strength-of-arms, which of course the Pirate King knew only too well. He challenged the Abbess to a duel and won. She didn’t have much choice then!” she cackled again. “Ask our Abbess yourself if you don’t believe me. She was one of the very novices sent across the sea.” The sister then suddenly disappeared into a cloud of smoke and the captain continued on into the main hall coughing and spinning whilst trying to wave the smoke away with his arms.
As the smoke cleared from around the captain he found himself within the main hall of the abbey and a witch stood near him wearing a veil of gold mesh obscuring only her eyes, leaving her glistening bitten lips bare. Perhaps a hundred small silver keys jangled in a bunch at her hip. “We have not met have we? No, this is definitely the first time, but hmm,” she shook her head sharply, “Best to proceed as if it is the first time, don’t you think? I am The Lady of the Cages. I think we should be friends. I’m very important you know, or I was. No, I still am.” She paused, “Yes, I am quite sure I still am.” The captain opened his mouth to speak but the woman began again. “You should come back last Tuesday for another little chat.” She paused again and huffed, “No, that’s not quite it.” She cleared her throat rather loudly. “Come back..soon? Another time. Pick a good one. There aren’t enough of those. Ugh! That was probably...abysmal.” A bee buzzed past the captain and he swatted at it. When he returned his gaze to The Lady of the Cages, she had vanished.
The captain retreated to his vessel for the evening, and tried to impart on his small crew the events of the day. They seemed even more confused than he was and everyone went to sleep with strange dreams that felt more like memories pounding in their heads.
The next morning the man returned to Auldearn Abbey, assuming this time was as good as anytime, especially as good if not better than last Tuesday, although he was not entirely sure how to try and keep that appointment. When the captain entered The Lady of the Cages office, she was sitting next to the window sill looking out at her gardens. On the desk was an open casket with two gleaming vials of red honey carefully packed. “Freshly harvested by the Melliferous Sisters, touch them, go on. They’re still warm from the honey spinner!” She paused and seemed to look intently at the captain through her veil. “We have not met have we? No, this is definitely the first time, but hmm,” she shook her head sharply, “Best to proceed as if it is the first time, don’t you think? I am Zaira. I think we should be friends. I’m very important you know, or I was. No, I still am.” She paused, “Yes, I am quite sure I still am.” Zaira turned towards the window for a moment and then back to the captain. “These are for the venturer merchant over in London. You’ll take them for me, won’t you?” Unless you already have. No, clearly not. No.”
The captain, hardly squeamish about smuggling something into London, especially two vials of red honey, accepted the commission. Besides, if he changed his mind he could always turn the honey over to the Admiralty instead.
“Do say hello to the merchant venturer for me, won’t you? He was such an awful child.” Zaira’s lips curved into something like a smile, “I drank the memories of someone that went to school with him.” The captain must have made a sound because she gave him a little shrug. “I like to know my business partners. It was Nicolas’ idea of course. He is very thorough.”
The captain spent the rest of the day observing the docks and noting an astonishing number and variety of ships. The was a Philidor ship next one of the Republic! The dock hands complained loudly and seemed busier than ever. The Skellies talked ceaselessly and carelessly about smuggling and piracy, but even the most hardened sailors lowered their voices with the mention of the ‘the King’. They became even quieter when they spoke of the Carnation Garden. The captain made careful notes; perhaps the Admiralty would know what they mean even if he did not.
As the captain's small ship set off he was pleased by its familiar stink. As the ship pulled away, he thought he heard a sailor on the pier mention sunlight! The most dangerous of pleasures, here in Port Auldearn! He thought he must negotiate with the sippers of sunlight when he returns; there’s always an appetite for the most dangerous of pleasures.