A true Luna princess

The unlikely hero

*Narrator*

At the precise moment that Isolde and Brielle engage in an agricultural wrangle over the relative merits of peaches and celery, the hero in this particular fairy story certainly does not behave like the princes in most such tales. He is not on bended knee, nor on a white horse, and he is nowhere near a beanstalk. Instead, he sits in his library, working on a knotty mathematical problem: specifically, Lagrange’s four-square theorem. To clarify my point, if this particular Alpha prince ever encounters a beanstalk of unusual size, it would undoubtedly spurs a leap in early botanical knowledge regarding unusual plant growth… but certainly not a leap up said stalk.

It is obvious from the above that the Alpha prince of Ravenheart is the sort of man repulsed by the very idea of fairy tales. He neither reads nor thinks about them… let alone believes in them; the notion of playing a role in one is preposterous, and he outright rejects the idea that he resembles in any fashion the golden-haired, velvet-clad princes generally found in such tales.

Tarquin Brook-Chatfield, Alpha prince of Ravenheart… known as Quin to his intimates, who number exactly two… is more like the villain in those stories than the hero, and he knows it.

*Tarquin*

I can’t say at what age I discovered how profoundly I do not resemble a fairy tale prince. I might have been five, or seven, or even ten… but at some point, I realized that my coal-black hair with a shock of white over my forehead is neither customary nor celebrated. Perhaps it was the first time my cousin Peregrine called me a decrepit old man… a remark that led to a regrettable scuffle.

Yet it isn’t only my hair that sets me apart from other lads. Even at ten years of age, I had stern eyes, fiercely cut cheekbones, and a nose that screams high rank. Now, at thirty-two, there are no more laughter lines around my eyes than were visible twenty years earlier, and for good reason.

I almost never laugh.

But I do share one major point of resemblance with the hero of The Princess and the Pea, whether I acknowledge it or not: my mother is in charge of choosing my mate, and I don’t give a hang what criteria she applies to the task. If she thinks a pea under a mattress… or under five mattresses… is the way to ascertain the suitability of my future Luna, I’ll agree, just as long as I don’t have to bother about the question myself.

In this crucial fashion, I am as regal… as real… as the nameless prince in the fairy tale, as alphaified as Brielle is Lunafied. I rarely see a doorway without advancing through it as if I own it. Since I own a good many doorways, I would point out that this is a reasonable assumption. I look down my nose because I’m taller than most. It’s there to look down, and arrogance is my birthright. I can’t conceive of any other way of behaving.

To be fair, I do acknowledge some personal failings. For example, I seldom know what the people around me are feeling. I have a formidable intelligence and rarely find other people’s thought patterns very surprising. But their emotions? I greatly dislike the way people seem to conceal their emotions, only to release them in a gassy burst of noise and a tearful exposition.

This antipathy to displays of feeling has led me to surround myself with people like my mother and myself: to wit, those who respond to a problem by formulating a plan, often involving experimentation designed to prove a stated hypothesis. What’s more, my selected few do not cry if their hypotheses are proven incorrect.

I rather think that people shouldn’t have so many emotions, given that feelings are rarely logical, and therefore are of no use whatsoever. I embarrassed myself once by falling into a slough of emotion… and it didn’t end well.

In fact, it ended miserably.

The very thought sends a pulse of black pain through the region that I generally suppose houses my heart, but I ignore it, as is my habit. If I paid attention to how many times a month, a week… a day… I feel that little stab… There’s no point in thinking about it.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my mother, it’s that regrettable emotions are best forgotten. And if one cannot forget… I can’t… then that personal failing should be concealed.

As if thinking of my mother brings her to my side, the door to my library opens and my butler, Cleese, intones, “The dowager Luna princess.”

“My plans are in order, Tarquin,” my mother declares, entering on the heels of Cleese’s announcement. She is followed closely by her personal assistant, Steig, and by her personal maid, Smithers. My mother, the dowager Luna princess, prefers to have a little flock of retainers in tow wherever she goes, rather as if she were a bishop trailed by anxious acolytes. She is not a tall she-wolf, but she projects such a formidable presence that she achieves the impression of height, albeit with some help from a towering wig. In fact, her wig bears a distinct resemblance to a bishop’s miter. They both advertise the wearer’s confidence in his or her rightful place in the universe: to wit, on top.

I am already on my feet; now I move from behind my desk to kiss the hand my mother holds out. “Indeed?” I ask politely, trying to remember what she’s talking about.

Fortunately, the Luna princess does not view responsiveness as an obligatory aspect of conversation. Given a choice, she would prefer to soliloquize, but she has learned to give addresses that could almost be classified as interactive.

“I have selected two young she-wolves,” she pronounces now. “Both from excellent families, it hardly needs saying. One is from the High packs; the other is not, but recommended by the Alpha of Canterwick. I think we both agree that to consider only the high packs is to show anxiety about the matter, and the Ravenhearts need have no such emotion.”

She pauses, and I nod obediently. I have learned as a child that anxiety… like love…

was an emotion disdained among the high packs.

“Both mothers are aware of my treatise,” my mother continues, “and I have reasonable faith that their daughters will surmount the series of tests I shall put to them, drawn, of course, from The Mirror of Compliments. I have put a great deal of thought into their visit, Tarquin, and it will be a success.”

By now, I know exactly what my mother is talking about: my next mate. I approve of both my mother’s planning and her expectation of success. My mother organizes every aspect of her life… and, often, mine as well. The one time I engaged in spontaneity… a word and an impulse I now regard with the deepest suspicion… the result had been disastrous.

Thus the need for a next mate. A second mate.

“You shall be married by autumn,” my mother states.

“I have the utmost confidence that this endeavor, like all those you undertake, will be a success,” I reply, which is no more than the truth.

My mother doesn’t flicker an eyelash. Neither of us has time for flattery or frivolous compliments. As my mother has written in her book, The Mirror of Compliments..: which rather surprisingly has become a best-selling volume… “A true she-wolf prefers gentle reproof to extravagant compliment.”

It hardly needs to be said that me mother would have been extremely surprised if offered a reproof, gentle or otherwise.

“Once I have found you a mate who is worthy of her position, I shall be happy,” she says now, then adds, “What are you working on?”

I look back at my desk. “I am writing a paper on Lagrange’s solution to Bachet’s conjecture regarding the sum of four squares.”

“Didn’t you tell me that Legendre had already improved on Lagrange’s theorem?”

“His proof was incomplete.”

“Ah.” There is a momentary pause, and then the dowager says, “I shall issue an immediate invitation to the chosen young she-wolves to join us here. After due observation, I shall make a choice. A reasoned choice. There will be no succumbing to light fancy, Tarquin. I think we both agree that your first marriage made patently clear the inadvisability of such behavior.”

I incline my head… but I don’t entirely agree. My marriage had been inadvisable, surely. Terrible, in some lights..: the fact that Evangeline had taken a lover within a few months speaks for itself… Still…

“Not in every respect,” I say now, unable to stop myself.

“You are contradicting yourself,” my mother observes.

“My marriage was not a mistake in every respect.” I and my mother live together quite comfortably, but I am well aware that the household’s serenity is dependent on the fact that I generally take the path of least resistance. When necessary, however, I can be as firm as the dowager.

“Well,” my mother replies, eyeing me. “We must each be the judge of that.”

“I am the judge of my marriage,” I state.

“The question is irrelevant,” she replies, waving her fan as if to brush away an insect. “I shall do my best to steer you in such a way that you shall not fall into the same quagmire. I feel quite exhausted at the mere memory of the tempests, the pique, the constant weeping. One would think that the young she-wolf had been raised on the stage.”

“Evangeline…”

“A most improper name for a Luna princesd,” my mother interrupts.

According to The Mirror of Compliments, interruption is a cardinal sin. I wait a moment, just long enough that the silence in the room stretches to a point. Then I say, “Evangeline was deeply emotional. She suffered from an excess of sentiment and recurring problems with her nerves.”

My mother shoots me a beady look. “I trust you are not about to instruct me to speak no ill of the dead, Tarquin.”

“Not a bad precept,” I say, taking my life in my own hands.

“Humph.”

Still, I have made my point. I have no particular objection to allowing my mother to organize the matter of a second mate. I fully realize that I need an heir. But my first marriage…

I choose not to entertain other people’s opinions on the subject. “To return to the matter at hand, while I am certain that the parameters you have formulated are excellent, I have one stipulation as regards the young she-wolves you have selected.”

“Indeed. Steig, pay attention.”

I glance at my mother’s assistant, whose quill is at the ready. “The giggles should have worn off.”

My mother nods. “I shall take that point under advisement.” She turns her head. “Steig, make a note. At the express request of the Alpha Prince, I shall devise another test, to determine whether the subject is overly given to giggling and other native signs of innocent enjoyment.”

“In-no-cent en-joy-ment,” Steig mutters, writing frantically.

I have a sudden vision of a haughty princess with a huge ruff, much like the faces of my female ancestors up in the portrait gallery. “I don’t mind enjoyment,” I clarify. “Just not giggling.”

“I shall dispense with either candidate if she seems likely to indulge in overwrought expressions of pleasure,” my mother says.

I can readily picture myself bound by marriage to yet another she-wolf who feels no pleasure in my company. But that isn’t what my mother means, I know.

Besides, she has already left.