Even in our materialistic culture, where we are constantly encouraged to want more, some people are happy with their lives. Not every woman is looking for a handsome prince, and that can be a problem when one shows up on her doorstep.
Lorie and her husband live on Whidbey Island in Washington State with their Miniature Schnauzers, Magic and Chaos. She has stories in Sword and Sorceress anthologies 19, 28, and 31, as well as an SF book for children, The Terrarium Dragons. She has numerous hobbies in wood, fabric, glass, yarn, and dirt, but the best one is spending time with her grandchildren.
Mina had to hide a lot of truths on the first day of March. First of all, she had to act as if her dress wasn’t covered with soup when she answered the door. She had just lifted a full ladle from the pot on the hearth when the young man’s peremptory pounding on her cottage door startled her so much that the soup splashed down her front, instead of pouring into her bowl. When she opened the door, she had to pretend she accepted the man’s disguise at face value, although she knew at a glance that he was Hamus, the prince of Iredom.
With a heavy sigh, she lied to herself about what his visit really meant. And if that wasn’t enough, she had to lie to the prince, because she was sure there was no way this side of Hades that he would believe the truth if she told him now. Not that she was ready to believe it herself.
“Come in, sir, and sit,” she said politely. She thought it a shame that his handsome face was coated in dust, and his shining black hair hidden beneath a player’s wig, under his peddler’s cap. The breeches and tunic and vest to match his supposed livelihood hung loose and a little short on him, but Mina pretended not to notice.
His dark eyes swept the room for dangers, or perhaps eavesdroppers, but he focused on Mina as he sat. She seated herself in the only other chair at her small wooden table. “Are you in need of a tonic, sir? Or perhaps a charm against goblins?” she asked, avoiding another truth she knew full well.
He frowned at her as though uncertain. “Nothing like that,” he said. “I have heard,” he ventured slowly, “that you are able to find things for people.”
Mina permitted herself a tiny sigh. “I—yes—sometimes I have been able to help people find things they have lost.”
“Or things they need?” he probed, more confident.
Unable to hide a truth he already knew, Mina pursed her lips and gave a small nod.
“Ah. Then I shall need you to perform a finding for me. I wish you to find—to find out—to tell me, that is—who will be my future wife,” he spat out at last, easing his rigid posture somewhat, having said the hard thing he’d come for.
Mina’s heart sank. She gazed around at her comfortable little cottage and sighed as if she’d just been branded a witch and sentenced to the dungeons. “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” she said.
“But you must! That is, it’s very important. The fate of the kingdom—uh—that is…the uh, my life. I think of my home as my—kingdom….”
“I would if I could,” Mina lied. “But it doesn’t work that way.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“The finding doesn’t work the way you’re suggesting. It’s not a spell I can cast, or a reading, like cards or chicken bones. It’s more like the way a lodestone attracts other lodestones.”
He frowned and stared. “But they say in the village…”
“Yes, yes,” Mina said, fluttering her hands and privately cringing in horror that she had cut off the prince’s sentence. “It’s something like the way a tree in the field will attract lightning. Do you know what I mean? The finding is rather like that. I don’t set out to find things. They find me.”
The man who was still pretending not to be the prince tilted his head and looked at her as if she’d uttered bird sounds instead of words.
“Lost things just seem to show up in my vicinity,” Mina explained. “I don’t do anything to discover where they are while they’re lost. It’s figuring out where they belong after they’re found that’s the real gift.”
“You won’t help me?” He looked desperate.
Mina brushed ineffectually at the soup on her bodice. “I can send you a message if such a woman shows up,” she said, but she felt the weight of the truth crushing her.
“That won’t do!” he cried. “I need to find the right woman now. The king is dying, and by the laws of our land, I am too young to take the throne unless I am married. That means Queen Isidra will become Regent, and you can imagine what will happen to the kingdom with my stepmother on the throne. I must get married!”
So much for that bit of untruth, Mina thought. “Yes, Your Highness, I can see that your situation is troubling.”
“‘Troubling!’ The thought of my frivolous stepmother running the kingdom is far more than troubling! Is there nothing you can do to help me?”
Mina shrugged. “I can give you a bowl of soup and fresh biscuits, and if you’ll have a cup of tea, I can read the leaves when you’re done.”
So they ate a simple meal, she spun a typical future from his tea leaves, and the prince went on his way. But Mina knew it wasn’t over.
In a couple of days, Hamus returned. “Have you found her, yet? That is, I mean, has she found you?”
Mina replied carefully. “I haven’t seen anyone new, Your Highness. But perhaps you’d like a berry cake and tea.”
“Do you play Eights?” he asked hopefully.
Every other day the prince returned, hoping for news of his elusive wife-to-be. Mina could do little other than be polite and entertain him. No unattached princesses would be appearing at her doorstep, and she couldn’t tell the prince how she knew. But at least she didn’t have to pretend there wasn’t soup all over her dress.
As the days passed, Mina came up with every diversion she could to ease the prince’s mind about the missing bride. Always, she made it clear that the activities were merely to pass the time, and not a real finding. But they passed the time pleasantly enough in flying a kite and investigating whether the tail pointed to a suitable woman, making a bonfire and following the smoke, and walking through the town on market day. They sailed out in the bay on a small boat and set it adrift for an hour, to see if it came to any women the prince liked. They climbed a small mountain and looked far and wide at the kingdom. But they didn’t find the mystery woman.
One fine day, Hamus said, “Mina, what about you?”
“What?!” Tea splashed from her cup.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s a poor proposal, isn’t it? But you and I are the same age, and we get along very well. You have the wits and manners to get on splendidly at court. And it’s not at all romantic, but I’m absolutely desperate. Papa isn’t likely to live out the month. You’ve said so many times how happy you are in your own little cottage, but will you marry me to keep Isidra off the throne?”
Mina sighed. She looked around her comfortable home. She looked at the prince, and her face softened. Gently she asked him, “And what if your papa makes a miraculous recovery and lives for another twenty years?”
Smiling, he replied, “I would not regret my choice of brides.”
~o0o~
King Hamus and Queen Mina sat in the garden on a rare quiet afternoon, watching the children play hide and seek among the shrubbery. “Mina,” said the king, taking his wife’s hand, “It was you all along, wasn’t it?”
“Hm?” she asked, absently picking up a button her lady-in-waiting had dropped six weeks ago.
“The finding I wanted you to do. It was you, wasn’t it? And—and you knew it. You knew it all along, didn’t you?”
Mina smiled at him. “A man has to find his own wife,” she told him. And, she thought to herself, a woman can’t accept a husband just because a prince appears at her door like magic.