The Princess and the Corner

Once upon a time, in the greatest kingdom in all the land, there lived a king so powerful that other kings sent him birthday presents just in case. He had one child, a daughter, and she was the kind of princess people wrote songs about and then had to rewrite, because the first version didn’t do her justice.

She was beautiful. That part everyone noticed right away. But she was also the funniest person at any table she sat at, and clever enough that the royal advisors had quietly stopped arguing with her. And on Tuesdays she went out to the archery field and split arrows that had already split other arrows.

So of course everyone wanted to marry her. Princes came from across the sea. Dukes came from across the river. Noblemen came from across town and pretended they’d come from farther. They bowed to her and brought her flowers and told her she had eyes like the evening star, and every one of them was perfectly, flawlessly charming. The great hall filled up with suitors until the king could barely find a place to set down his crown.

“Well,” said the king one evening. “We have to pick somehow.”

He had ideas. He always had ideas.

“Each of them could take you on an outing,” he said, “and you’ll judge which was the most romantic.”

“Father.”

“Or they could fight. Last one standing.”

“Father.”

“Gifts, then. Whoever brings the greatest gift—”

“They’ll each bring a bigger diamond than the last one. I have a whole room of diamonds. I’ve stopped going in.”

“Charity! Whoever gives the most to the poor—”

“Will announce it very loudly and stop the day after the wedding.”

The king sat down. “A riddle contest?”

“They’d hire someone.”

“A pie contest?”

“Father.”

“Well, I’m out.” He waved a hand. “You’re the clever one. You’ll think of something better than I did.”

“I already have,” said the princess, and she went and told the herald to announce a ball.

The invitations went out on the finest paper. Every prince, every duke, every nobleman: come to the palace on the night of the full moon. The princess will choose. There will be a surprise.

Everyone assumed the surprise was a gown.

On the night of the ball, the princess sent her ladies away. She took off her silk and laid it on the bed. She took off her rings and her necklace and the little gold pins from her hair, and she set her crown on the windowsill where it could watch.

Then she called her one trusted maid and said, “Go into the town and find me a dress that a poor woman would wear.”

The maid blinked. “Why would you need a dress like that, Highness?”

“It’s for a play.”

“A play. Tonight.”

“And not a nice one,” said the princess. “One that says something about the woman wearing it. Something a bit—”

“Raunchy, Your Highness?”

“That’s the word.”

The maid came back with a dress the color of cheap wine, cut too low and hemmed too high, with a tear in it that somebody had given up on mending.

“Oh, this is perfect,” said the princess, holding it up to the light. “I knew I could count on you.” And she began to put it on.

“What are you doing?” said the maid. “The ball is tonight! Everyone is already downstairs! We spent six weeks sewing that gown for this very night—” and she pointed at the bed, where the gown lay in a heap of silver like something that had fainted.

“There isn’t a play,” the princess admitted.

“I had gathered that, Highness.”

“The gown will keep,” said the princess. “The ball will keep. Everybody downstairs will certainly keep. This won’t.” And she went on pulling the red dress over her head.

The maid watched her paint her mouth a hard, bright red and put on more makeup than a face really needs. She watched her take her fingers and pull her hair every wrong way until it looked like she’d slept in a doorway. The princess looked in the mirror. Nobody who had ever seen the princess would see her now.

“Highness,” said the maid, “you cannot go out there alone.”

“I can. And you are not to follow me.”

The maid opened her mouth, closed it, and then said only, “Come back safe, Highness.”

The princess went out the servants’ door, alone, into the dark.

It was a cold night. The princess had never really been cold before. There had always been a fire, or a cloak, or somebody standing nearby whose job it was to notice. But there is one road up to the palace, and it passes a corner with a broken lamp, and the princess went and stood on that corner in her thin red dress, and within a quarter of an hour her teeth had started to knock together.

Then it began to rain.

The suitors began to arrive. They came in carriages and on fine horses and a few on foot in good thick cloaks with the hoods up, in their best clothes, smelling of hair oil and money. And as each one passed, she stepped out of the shadow, shivering, and said in a voice she’d practiced:

“Hey. I can give you a good time.”

The first prince looked at her the way you look at something that’s fallen off a cart. He said a word she had never heard anyone say inside the palace, and kept walking.

The duke behind him laughed and spat on the ground by her feet. Not at her, exactly. Near her. The way you’d mark a spot.

A nobleman slowed his horse. He looked her up and down for a long time, rain dripping off the brim of his hat. “Later,” he said. “After. And you’d better be worth it.” He rode on toward the music.

One of them called her disgusting. One of them said she was a stain on the king’s road and somebody ought to sweep her off it. One carriage went by so close that the wheel threw the whole gutter over her feet.

To a young lord in a fur-lined cloak she called out, “Sir! May I have your cloak? Just for a little while. It’s so cold.”

He pulled it tighter around himself. “Give my cloak to you? I need to look fine for the princess.” And he hurried on up the hill.

One man said nothing at all; he just crossed to the far side of the street so that no part of his coat would come near her.

To each of them, before they passed, she said the same thing, with the rain running down her face and her arms wrapped around herself:

“Please. Have pity on me. I’m a working girl with a hard life.”

Not one did.

Not one asked her name. Not one offered his cloak. Not one of the men who had told her she had eyes like the evening star had a scrap of tenderness to spare for a woman on a corner in the rain.

She stood there until the last carriage had gone by and the road was empty, and she could hear, faintly, over the rain, the orchestra in the great hall playing the song they always played while waiting for her.

Inside, the hall was warm and bright and packed. The suitors stood in their fine dry clothes, holding their glasses, checking the great doors every few seconds. Where is she? What’s the surprise? The king sat on his throne looking pleased with himself, because he had suspected all along that it was a gown.

The doors opened.

A soaking wet woman in a torn red dress walked in, leaving a trail of puddles on the marble.

“Oh, God,” said a duke. “She’s gotten inside.”

“Guards!” said somebody. “How did she get past the—”

“Don’t let her near the food,” said somebody else.

The king stood up. He squinted down the length of the hall. He squinted harder.

“Wait a minute,” said the king. “That’s my daughter.”

Every head in the room turned to look at him, and then turned very slowly back to look at her.

“I’ll bet,” said the king, sitting back down and folding his hands over his stomach, “she’s got something clever up her sleeve.”

The princess walked the whole length of the hall, dripping, and the room went so quiet you could hear the candles. She climbed the steps to the throne and turned to face them all.

“Thank you all for coming,” she said. “Every one of you passed me on the road tonight.”

Some of the men went pale. Some of them went red. Some of them suddenly found something very interesting on the floor.

“I have made my choice.”

You could have heard a pin drop. You could have heard a pin think about dropping.

“I have decided,” said the princess, “to become a nun.”

She didn’t, as it happens. She’d only said it to see their faces, and their faces were worth it. But she never did get married, either. The suitors went home. The kingdom got along fine. The king, once the hall had emptied out and it was just the two of them and a great many puddles, said, “Well. That was better than a pie contest.”

And on Tuesdays, she still went out to the archery field and split arrows that had already split other arrows.

The end.