Читать книгу Lilophea, the Bride of the Sea King - Natalie Yacobson - Страница 5

It was impossible not to attend the reception in honor of the ambassadors from Etar. On her way to the throne room, Lilophea found another unusual thing on the railing of the stairs – a mother-of-pearl box full of large pearls. They shimmered with a pale, dead gleam, and Seneschal kept talking about the drowned women they reminded him of.

“Have you ever seen one in your life?” Lilophea asked bluntly, which made him cover his beak briefly. It’s nice to have a peacock friend, but sometimes he gets tiresome. The large polished pearls in the box were much prettier than the one the caper had given her in the sink. It was as if someone was jealous of that gift and decided to give her something better. But who was it? There was no one at the stairs. It was useless to look around for the giver. And that was what happened every time she found a gift from someone she didn’t know. And lately she was finding them everywhere. In the garden, under the palm trees in the park, on the lawns, in the groves of magnolias, most often by the fountains and springs, but sometimes coral and pearls were brought right into her bedroom. She woke up in the morning and jewelry made of shells and some strange sea stones were lying on the dressing table or right on the pillow. It was a miracle. Lilophea found jewels in the shape of starfish, seahorses, jellyfish, and assorted fish. And one day she noticed that in the gallery someone had paved an entire path of sparkling stones under her feet. They shimmered under her feet in all shades of the rainbow. She had to stoop down to collect them one by one to keep from treading on any one. They shimmered like fireworks.

Even the Seneschal said they were rare and very expensive and should not be thrown back into the sea where they came from. And he had always been against her keeping jewels from an unknown giver.

“I didn’t know there were gems like that in the depths of the sea,” Lilophea said in surprise.

“There’s more than meets the eye,” the peacock muttered, but he didn’t specify what it was. He didn’t like to talk about the underwater world. He wasn’t a water bird, and he couldn’t go to the sea bottom to see all the local wonders with his own eyes. Naturally, he was angry. Lilophea couldn’t breathe underwater either, but she was still curious about all the underwater wonders. If you can’t see everything with your own eyes, you can at least gossip. If mermaids really existed, she would gladly be friends with one to gossip about the underwater kingdom. Of course, if there was such a thing. Even the lore that mermaids could drag her to the bottom didn’t scare her.

Seneschal was much more cautious. Perhaps that was the only reason why he was still not in a cage, but was flying free. A talking peacock would be put in a cage, so in the presence of strangers he pretended to be silent.

Entering the throne room, where the solemn assembly was already taking place, Lilophea was surprised that the peacock became straight as a mute. Not even a squeak. But he obediently sat on her shoulder, pretending to be tame.

Nevertheless some lady wondered why he did not have a golden leash-chain attached to his leg, as tame birds like falcons, parrots and even peacocks in rare cases are supposed to have. And the case of the princess’s personal peacock, of course, was considered rare.

Lilophea hurriedly stepped away from the annoying lady. The seneschal, fortunately, was not heavy at all. Nestled on her shoulder, he resembled a rare piece of jewelry. The stone on his forehead shimmered with iridescent reflections under his colorful tuft, his puffy tail tickled her skin pleasantly, and when it opened it resembled a frieze around a princess’s dress.

“Is he your new admirer?” Her confidant, Morissa, took a lively interest in the peacock. It was the girl’s duty to keep close to the princess at all times, but she often slacked off. And now she was bored at the reception. But she didn’t mind plucking a luxurious feather from the peacock’s tail. The seneschal didn’t even hiss at her. He must have taken a fancy to the pretty brown-haired girl in the canary-yellow dress. Morissa immediately tried to arrange a feather as an adornment for her corsage.

“You have a whole bird, and that is enough for me,” she explained playfully. “By the way, it is a beautiful peacock. What country was it brought from?”

“It speaks!” Lilophea bragged.

“Aren’t you mistaking him for a parrot?” Morissa doubtfully looked at the silent bird.

“It is absolutely not!” Lilophea did not want to look like a liar in the eyes of her friend, so she even touched the peacock by the lush tail. “Come on, Seneschal! Say something!”

But the peacock had a lot of water in its beak.

“I guess he only indulges in conversation with royalty. He doesn’t have the courtesy to talk to a court maid like me anymore.”

Morissa was surprisingly frank when she and the princess were alone. But, like Seneschal, her rudeness wore off as soon as anyone else came along.

Her widowed father left his daughter at court without a dowry. So the beautiful Morissa would probably have to spend her life as a maid of honor, unless her looks and pedigree were more important to someone than her financial situation. Lilophea had heard rumors that Morissa’s father liked to gamble, so the family was constantly short of money.

Morissa was not discouraged. Secretly she ran on dates with the capers. Until it ended in trouble, so Lilophea too was not afraid to watch their ships from the shore, but still did not come close. What’s the worst that could happen? The worst thing would be if people back home found out how she was enjoying her leisure time.

For Morissa, it was all right, even if she was suddenly kidnapped and taken across the ocean. Still, she had almost nothing to lose.

“Look at the way he’s staring at you,” Morissa pointed to one of the lavishly turbaned Eastern ambassadors. He was actually staring at them. “He wanted to kidnap you from here.”

“They are ambassadors from Etar.”

“What crooked swords and feathered turbans they wear,” Morissa said as if she had not heard her. “And the trousers are of expensive silks. And what ornaments! If it is so rich in Etar, I shall pretend to be you and go to the harem instead of you.”

“It is right now! Let’s swap roles.”

“We’ll just have to find a wizard who can change our faces as well,” said Morissa playfully grinning.

Meanwhile, the ambassador was staring at the princess so intently that it seemed as if he was trying to capture her mind.

Lilophea turned away. She suddenly felt heavy and stuffy under his gaze. Meanwhile, the ambassador leaned toward his escort and whispered something.

“She no longer fits! She is theirs now, not ours. She is underwater…”

Did the murmuring of the fountain’s jets really make her hear those words? Or was she only imagining it?

The peacock on her shoulder grumbled.

“I want to buy a monkey and wear it on my shoulder, too,” said Morissa dreamily. “It would be both a pet and a fun addition to my outfit. What do you think?”

“You can have a monkey from the King’s menagerie. You have my permission.”

“No, I want to bargain some cute and scholarly monkey from the sailors myself. And then I’ll teach her all sorts of tricks.”

Lilophea only shrugged her shoulders. Her confidant, Morissa, was sneaky and charming. Often, through flirting, she found out information that even spies would not have known. But even she knew nothing about underwater states.

“Ask your suitors,” the princess insisted. “You have so many of them on the dock.”

“My suitors are nothing but pirates,” Morissa snapped back. “They are more interested in those who can be robbed, and mermaids are not one of them. So they know nothing of the underwater kingdom. But I know a lot about pirates, and how nice it is to kiss them, and get presents from them. I can tell you all about it.”

“What would your father say if he knew how you spend your leisure hours here?”

“It’s a good thing my father isn’t here. Besides, he’s so busy trying to find me a decent stepmother, he doesn’t think about anything else.”

Morissa was right. Lilophea sighed sadly. Not everyone has good fathers. And some mothers left a lot to be desired, too. Many of the maidens complained that their noble mothers had been unnecessarily strict with them as children.

Lilophea thought that her kind and caring father would one day be forced to give her in marriage to someone she had not chosen herself, and she immediately felt gloomy.

Iridescent streams flashed in the water in the fountain, as if someone was trying to comfort her. But the box of pearls in her hands became heavier.

“Who gave it to you?” Morissa asked.

“I don’t know? But I think each one of these pearls has a woman’s name.”

“Is that so?” The girl giggled softly.

“My peacock says that all the pearls are the souls of drowned women.”

“But I hear him say nothing but silence.”

Morissa even began to tease Seneschal and provoke him to say something, but he remained stubbornly silent.

“You see! It looks like he is deaf and dumb.”

“It is not true!” Lilophea herself did not understand why she had to defend him. Seneschal was so often rude to her.

“By the way, have you seen an unusual ship by the shore, looking like a large carved figure of a mermaid?”

Morissa shook her head in the negative. She and Lilophea were getting out of the crowd that had gathered for the reception, because they were both tired of it. Thankfully, Aquilania was a tropical island nation, and they didn’t have much regard for etiquette. Besides, the king never reprimanded his daughter for her manners, nor did he let others.

It was a good thing he didn’t know yet that seafaring gifts had begun to be delivered to the princess’s palace. Boxes appeared by themselves at springs, fountains, and once, instead of a jug for washing, Lilophea found an amphora with pearls and a wonderful mirror in which you can see the underwater world.

Morissa had already traded the monkey from some pretty caper by then. But the mirror, which could see mermaids, schools of fish, and tridents of newts, fascinated her so much that she was ready to give the monkey in exchange for it.

“Curious, how does it work?” She was nervous. “I knew a toy-maker in the province, where I lived with my father. He made such marvelous mechanisms, but even he couldn’t have made such a marvelous thing.”

“What if it was magic?” Lilophea watched the swarms of piranhas that pounced on those drowning in the water, wrinkled at the sight of the mermaids picking up and eating the bodies that fell into the sea after the battle of the ships above. In the mirror there were glimpses of sunken palaces, lagoons of sirens, colorful jellyfish, and some strange underwater flowers that caught and devoured the fish that swam by.

“Do not show it to anyone,” Morissa advised in a whisper. “If it really is magic, it is better to keep it a secret.”

Lilophea wanted to tell her that the jewels she had been given by someone unseen were also magical, but she did not dare. What if Morissa started sneaking them around and something bad would happen to her. She herself remembered what visions began as soon as she tried on one of the gifts.

Lilophea went for walks closer and closer to the sea shore, but she no longer saw a ship in the shape of a mermaid. But once she noticed a strange girl, who was diving into the sea waves and after a couple of minutes swam out. Her hair shimmered in the setting sun with multicolored strands. Strangely, there wasn’t even a dress thrown on the shore. What had she come to the sea in? Her shoulders, occasionally peeking out of the waves, were definitely bare. The swimmer suddenly disappeared for a long time under water, and Lilophea even worried about whether she would drown, but a bright head with purple-green strands suddenly came up very close. The stranger and the princess were separated only by a coastal boulder.

“Hello!” The stranger’s voice sounded like the echo in a shell. Lilophea only now noticed that her pale face had some bumps on it, and the pearl on her forehead looked as if it were growing right out of her skin.

“Who are you? I have not seen you at court. You must have just come in from across the sea.”

“You could say that.”

Probably she was by that peculiar ship that looks like a mermaid.

“I am Nereida,” the setting sun disappeared behind the horizon, and the girl in the water suddenly began to behave more bravely.

“And I am Lilophea.”

“I know.”

She must have heard the name of the local princess before. But how does she know that it is the princess who walks unaccompanied on the seashore?

“I wish they would let me swim in the sea,” Lilophea sighed. “Sometimes I want to dive into the waves too.”

“Try it!” Nereida beckoned her with a pale hand. “Come on, let’s swim together. Let’s dive deep! It’s very exciting.”

Lilophea didn’t mind, but she was ashamed to take off her dress. What if someone walked along the shore and saw her naked. Besides, a corset without a maid couldn’t be undone. Better just to chat with a new acquaintance for now.

“Are you from far away, Nereida? Your homeland must be very far away.”

“It was measured by depth or height.”

What did she mean by that? Lilophea grimaced as she noticed the white skin between her fingers. It looks so much like webs.

“You must be bored at the beach,” Nereida suggested. “Ashore is always boring, unless it’s a siege of a fortress or a battle at sea. I like to see armadas in action.”

“Have you ever seen one? I haven’t.”

“I’ve seen a lot of things.”

Nereida’s eyes flashed strangely as she stumbled over the mother-of-pearl mirror in Lilophea’s hand.

“It is better to see things in real life than inside toys,” she hinted. So the mirror is a toy after all. And Lilophea decided that it really was magic.

“Don’t stay on the beach, come to me!” Nereida tried to clutch at Lilophea’s dress, but she was just a little short of it. In addition, Seneschal was already flying toward the shore, squeaking something anxiously as he flew. Seeing him, Nereida’s face twisted so sour that it became almost ugly.

“See you later, Lilophea,” she ducked under the water quickly. You could only make out a long tail of her multicolored strands and what looked like fish fins. Lilophea looked after her for a long time, and the foamy circles on the water diverged in the form of some signs.