author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Notes from the author:

The twelve dancing princesses of the Grimm fairy tale catch a lot of flack for those sleeping potions. They know the stakes in this game. If the amateur detective succeeds at discovering how the princesses escape to dance the night away, he gets to wed his pick of the princesses and inherit the kingdom. But if he fails, the king will have him executed. Therefore, by ensuring his failure, the princesses are guilty of no less than murder. How, one might ask, is that justified?

One might also wonder exactly what kind of life the princess chosen by the successful suitor has to look forward to: married without her consent to a man she did not choose, to an ally of her penny-pinching, possessive father, to someone whose relationship with her has been adversarial and hostile from the start. One might begin to see that sleeping potion as an act of self-defense.

She had been their nurse from shortly after the birth of the first princess until shortly after the birth of the twelfth, and she’d been exceedingly fond of the whole dozen. So when the old soldier explained where he was bound and what he hoped to accomplish, the old weaver thought perhaps she might go see what was what.

“After all, if I were a princess with such a jealous father—” for she’d become resignedly familiar with the King’s temperament well before the triplets were born—as charming a matched set as ever you lay eyes on, made you wish you had three pairs of arms, and all three of their elder siblings clamoring to be the one to read them bedtime stories and tuck them in at night—“I might not want to explain my every hour’s whereabouts to Daddy Dear, either, who’d only put the kibosh on things. I imagine I’d well enjoy spending the occasional night out from under his eye, dancing the night away, and all the better with someone so inappropriate as to make the King choke on his nightcap.

“But how they manage it, despite the locked doors and all the poor doomed would-be detectives—well, perhaps they’ll confide in their old nurse. But how to keep their confidence and also my head, that’s a pickle to be sure.”

The old soldier made no reply. Presumably he snored. He was sleeping the night away in the old weaver’s goat barn alongside Billy Butts and Old Nanny Bess. Not roommates the old weaver would have chosen, but she wasn’t having a strange man in the house no matter how sad his story. It was a wicked land, and a woman living alone could find herself in more than a pickle if she didn’t take precautions.

“My head’s not much to lose, to be sure,” the old soldier had said, “for since the war’s over, no one’s much in need of soldiers. I haven’t a blunted copper to my name, nor friend or brother to take me in. Starvation’s neither a merciful nor skilled headsman, is what I figure.”

The old weaver nodded sympathetically. The King wasn’t one to dole out pensions. After the twelfth princess was born at the cost of the good Queen’s life, the King had waited only until the undersized infant was fully weaned before dismissing their nurse from service. Not a coin to thank her for the years, either. She’d had to slouch back home with her tail between her legs and grudgingly accept her mother’s tutelage. And she’d never liked weaving. It was why she’d run away to the Palace in the first place.

The old soldier continued, “Besides, I might solve the King’s mystery yet and wind up his son-in-law. Me, in line for the throne, can you just imagine? And no complaints about my choice of bride, that I promise you.”

The look in the old soldier’s eye cured the old weaver of her sympathy entirely. It also determined her to spend the night waking. A man with that expression and nothing much to lose, well, a woman alone couldn’t be too careful.

She rocked before the fireplace, her gaze idly tracing the half-finished work on her loom. It was no great work, she had to admit. Competently woven, for she’d had a good teacher, and dyed with the brightest colors she could afford, for she had good business sense, but it was no miracle of the sort her mother had been able to accomplish. Blankets woven from starlight and rose petals to warm a jilted lover’s heart! Nets woven of morning mist to cheer a sick-bed with rainbows! And a cloak woven of midnight shadows—her mother had spent the whole night out gathering them, worrying her daughter halfway to an early grave—

That cloak, now. The old weaver strode to her mother’s heirloom sea-chest to see if the cloak was still inside.

She woke the old soldier at dawn, though truth be told it didn’t look like Billy Butts had let him have much sleep. “There’s breakfast on the table if you’ll come into the house for it,” she said, and returned to her kitchen to serve it up before he could ask her about her change of heart.

She explained soon enough. “This house is yours now,” she told him, causing his jaw to drop on a mouthful of eggs. “And all the things within it, you may sell or keep as you will. Between the loom and the livestock, one need never worry about starvation’s sloppy axmanship. But you may have plans of your own that ready coin may benefit.”

The old soldier choked down his half-chewed morsel and blurted, “But why?”

“Well, it’s not a princess for a bride, but I think there’s little enough to complain of for all that.”

“No,” the old soldier stammered, “no, I’m quite grateful, but what of you? Where will you go?”

The princesses’ old nurse smiled. “I go to take the doom from your head. I think I’ve a trick or two to make sure I keep mine.”

She would brook no argument nor accept no offer of help, being set on her path and aware besides that both argument and offer were half-hearted at best. The old soldier knew luck when it landed in his lap, and he wasn’t going to stand up too quickly and dump it on the floor. But he did come to the door to watch his erstwhile hostess walk away—and so he saw her vanish from view when she put up the cloak of her hood against the sun.

“For an old woman walking alone through these wicked lands might otherwise come to grief,” she said to herself, well satisfied with her mother’s weaving. “Best not to attract attention as I go. And I’ll stand a better chance keeping both my head and my dear hearts’ secret if I can keep out from under their father’s eye.”

She walked a little faster, eager to see the princesses again. She hoped they’d not just confide in her but also include her in their enigmatic adventures. Whatever they might be getting up to, it had to be better than weaving.

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