She looked up at last and saw that he was laughing.
"Blimey," she said, without thinking, "you're wicked handsome when you laugh, sir!"
Then she curtsied and fled.
9. The Prince
Prince Percival of Pustula dressed entirely in black, always. Even his underclothing was black. His hair had once been a nondescript brown, but he kept it dyed jet black and thickly oiled. His mustache, as well.
Black matched the darkness of his moods—he was always depressed—and, in fact, the color matched his heart. Percival was a black-hearted man who hated his subjects, the Pustulans, the populace of his domain; who hated his own family (he had sentenced his own mother to a minimum-security prison seven years before and he did not venture there on visiting days, never had, not once, and on the most recent Father's Day he had given his aged father a tarantula); and who, in truth, hated everyone but himself.
He spent a great deal of time in front of the mirror. He had had his own bedchamber lined with mirrors so that he could view himself from every angle. He preened. He strutted.
"Right hip? Ah, yes," he cooed to his own image on a sunny morning as he stood sideways in his underwear and observed his own stance and the jut of his hipbone.
"Pecs?" he murmured, and changed his position so that he could see the muscles of his chest bulge around the shoulder straps of his black silk undershirt. "Oh, niiicce," he said admiringly, turning slightly to the left and then to the right.
The Birthday Ball
He smoothed his hair and then wiped his hand free of the hair oil, using the bedsheet and leaving a smear of black dye. He looked at his clothing, draped over a nearby chair. As he did so, he bellowed, "Valet!"
A valet is a sort of manservant, the one who tends the wardrobe and the needs of a nobleman. The Prince of Pustula's valet was a thin, mild-mannered middle-aged man who had, astonishingly, no name. Once, he had. His parents, upon his birth, had named him Hal. He had been Hal through his school years and during his quite successful career as an importer of Far East goods.
Then, unfortunately, he had been summoned before the prince because of a tiny snag in a pair of black silk socks imported from Asia. Hal the importer had been terrified by the summons. He knew what such a command had meant to others in the past. There were egg suppliers in exile, dentists in dungeons, and even a trouser presser locked away in a tower, all because of small flaws in their work.
Trembling, he had gone before the prince and knelt, as was required. Prince Percival flung the snagged sock at him and shouted obscenities.
Feeling he had nothing to lose, Hal picked up the sock and examined it while the prince continued to roar and shriek. With his thumb and forefinger, he repaired the tiny snag by pushing a thread through and then smoothing it straight. Then, with his head bowed, he held the flawless sock up in a conciliatory and supplicating gesture.
The prince grabbed it. He looked at it. He turned it over and over in his thin-fingered hands.
"It's fixed!" he shouted.
"Yes, sir."
"It was unfixable!"
Hal did not know what to say. It was against the law not to answer the prince. But it was also against the law to answer him with a no.
In desperation he replied, "Yes, sir," agreeing (though he knew it was not true) that the sock had been unfixable.
"You performed a haberdashery miracle!"
Hal did not know what the word haberdashery meant. He did know he had not performed a miracle. But at this point he felt he had no choices left. Lie or be executed, he thought.
"Yes, sir," he said.
"You will be my new valet! Your new name is Valet!"
And thus Hal's future had changed. Once he had been a successful, well-traveled man, with business contacts in many domains. He had owned a camel and a horse. He had several maids. He had hoped to become affianced soon, to the daughter of a rug merchant.
But now he was a lowly valet and even his name had disappeared.
On this morning, summoned by the prince's bellow, he hurried into the room carrying his valeting equipment.
"Dress me," the prince commanded.
The valet bowed and began. First he opened the small suede bag that he carried and removed a soft brush with lemur-hair bristles. He picked up the black satin shirt with voluminous sleeves that was draped over the corner of the chair, examined it, brushed it meticulously, then held it while the prince slid his arms into the sleeves, shivering with delight at the feel of the sleek fabric. The valet buttoned the shirt and its cuffs as the prince gazed at himself in the mirror.
Next the valet lifted the velvet trousers from the chair and brushed them assiduously. He took out a perfumed spray from his bag and sprayed the trousers. He examined each button and tested the zipper.
Then, convinced, to his relief (for he worried terribly each morning), that the trousers were in perfect condition, he knelt and held them discreetly in just the right position for the prince to insert his legs, one after the other.
He raised the trousers and slipped the suspenders over the satin-covered shoulders of the prince.
Prince Percival posed in front of the mirror, flexing one knee at a time, to assess the fit.
"Mmm, marvelous thighs," the prince murmured to his own image. He tossed his head, looked into the mirror again, and shouted, "Brush, idiot!"
The valet hurried forward with his second brush, a smaller one made from the hair of a tapir's tail. Gently he brushed the prince's shoulders, which in the few short moments since he had been clothed had become peppered with white flakes of dandruff. It was an affliction of the prince's for which there seemed no remedy, and despite the thick lubricants with which he coated his dyed hair, the dandruff still fell like a perpetual blizzard.
Part of the valet's job was to accompany the prince everywhere, brushing his shoulders unobtrusively at intervals.
The prince leaned forward toward the mirror, fingering his mustache and examining his pores. "I'm planning to marry," he told his valet.
The valet tried to hide his surprise. Who would marry the prince? He couldn't imagine. "I'm pleased to hear that, sir," he said, and leaned forward to brush away a fresh torrent of flakes. "Will you be making a public announcement?"
"I have to press my suit first," the prince replied. He leaned even closer to the mirror. "Toothpick!" he bellowed suddenly. The valet handed him an ivory toothpick and waited while the prince probed his teeth, found a morsel left from breakfast, examined it, and then ate it a second time. The valet took the used toothpick and wrapped it in a cloth, to be sterilized. He brushed the prince's left shoulder.