is that?” She was furious and suddenly noticed that her corset was soaked with moisture. Whoever had touched her, as if he were made of water? The dress was getting very wet. The smell of lilies hung in her secret garden, so persistent that it overpowered even the fragrance of roses.
Spit on the bird’s opinion. Lilothea took the crown from the chest and tried it on. How nice to feel it on her forehead. Only the narrow corolla pressed a little. Immediately visions hit her head: the waters of the sea, lilies and water lilies swaying on the waves, ships entangled in their stems and going to the bottom. Beautiful women with fish tails are dragged from the shore by guys who have come to the coast for fortune telling. Large pearls roll along the bottom of the sea depths, piling up into whole pyramids. And on the coral throne sits someone. She couldn’t see his face, but a voice above her ear whispered:
“I can show you so much more. There are so many wonders under the water! You have no idea!”
Lilophea unconsciously stretched out her hand to touch the speaker, but felt nothing but water. Meanwhile, the peacock suddenly flew up and snatched the crown from her head with its claws. The visions were immediately interrupted. The crown of pearls fell on the grass, and the peacock could not catch its breath. The burden was obviously too heavy for him.
“That’s it! Don’t put them on again!” He said in an admonishing tone. Or rather, commanded. That’s what you call it! Lilophea was furious.
“You’re like a duenna.”
“I am a bird,” he corrected her. Apparently he didn’t know what a duenna was. “I’m a magic bird!” He pointed out proudly. “So says everyone I meet intimately.”
“And no one’s ever called you a talking parrot?”
The peacock cawed unkindly, realizing the catch. Well, sometimes he doesn’t sound so sweet.
“You know pearls are dead stone,” he explained.
“How is it?”
“A pearl is a hard growth inside a soft, living oyster. Sometimes it is plucked out by force, and it dies. Do you want to die like that?”
“I do not have pearls growing inside me,” she reasonably objected. “There is nothing to be taken from me.”
“It is except your living heart.”
“I have heard it can be torn only in a figurative sense.”
“It is not always. Sometimes the water is hotter than the blood.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t wear pearls. The souls of dead oysters live in them. They are even worse than the souls of dead drowned women. They will give you no rest.”
“I don’t believe it!” The visions that flashed before her were beautiful, not horrible. But suddenly it was only so at first. She tried to imagine the drowned women and the pearls in their place of hearts, eyes, and tongues. What kind of fantasy is that?
A peacock circled above her head, feathering its tail, which suddenly had green and purple feathers. Could the bird be bewitched? Lilothea immediately dismissed the thought. She had already seen talking parrots in the king’s birdhouse. Of course, a peacock is not a parrot and should not talk, according to the common opinion. But what if it is some special rare species, which was brought from overseas countries? Parrots are not all talking either, probably among peacocks there is a particularly rare species. Probably, in the state where the sultan who wooed her ruled, such birds were considered the most common. Lilothea even suspected that he deliberately sent a talking peacock to her as a gift, so that the bird would sing his best qualities to the future bride. But the peacock coped with the task in a very unusual way. He only sang about some water spirits that could not be trusted and could not be seen nearby.
“Don’t trust the water spirits!” He sang again like a maniac. Was that the only song he had learned while he was being whipped across the sea? Then no wonder he sings only about watermen, for they are the only legends one hears on the sea voyage. Watermen, mermaids, newts, chamois, krakens – she could no longer remember all the names named by the famous sailors and privateers who had sworn allegiance to her father in the great throne room of the palace. But even they, as impertinent as they were, did not intimidate anyone with a dangerous acquaintance with a waterman.
Lilophea was suddenly reminded of a young privateer who had presented her with a large pearl. That had been a year ago. He assured her that he could speak to the spirits of the sea. Once these same spirits called him from the coast late at night, he left to talk to them, and never came back. Lilophea wanted to believe that he had sailed off with smugglers or pirates in search of adventure, rather than drowned in the abyss. She kept his pearl as a memento, having stolen it from her father’s treasury, where it was customary to keep all the gifts sent to the king and his family by the petitioners. And that young man was a petitioner. He had asked for his own ship and crew, but he was gone. All that was left was his gift.
Only the pearls in the chest were better. Lilothea suddenly felt a cold, wet hand wrapped around her waist again. A new wet trail stretched across the grass.
“All the wonders of the depths are a gift for the most beautiful,” someone whispered in her ear.
The peacock, meanwhile, was floating above the fountain’s jets, unaware of anything. When he looked down, he groaned, and someone in the meantime slipped into the fountain. Lilothea didn’t even know if someone was really there, or if it was all imagination. She was dreaming. The midday sun was burning very brightly, and the tracks on the grass did not dry.
The princess took the casket in her hands. It was very heavy and cold. It wasn’t warm at all in the sun.
“Pearls are the symbol of death,” the peacock repeated. “I would be wary of lugging them up to my chambers. You might bring a ghost with them.”
“Are they the ghosts of drowned women or oysters?” The princess jokingly asked.
“It is both,” the scholarly peacock answered in all seriousness.
“Do not caw!” She shushed him, and the luxurious bird closed its beak angrily. The peacock clearly did not like that he was compared to the usual crows.
“I never cawed in my life,” he sobbed.
“Pity, if you’ve learned to speak human, you’d do well to learn the languages of all the birds and beasts. You could be my court interpreter.”
“That’s not a bad idea!” He scratched his forehead with the tip of his wing. “It’s worth a try.”
Lilophea didn’t laugh at him right away. Who knew what his abilities were. She only wished the peacock was a porter. How convenient it would be now to have at least a pony to carry the chest to the royal chambers. Leaving it on the fountain and calling the servants was not at all desirable. Firstly, it would have to explain to them where it came from and who brought it, and she did not know it herself. And secondly, it might disappear as suddenly as it appeared while she was walking back and forth. Lilothea could hardly drag the heavy gift from who knows who, and the pearls in the chest exuded a watery coolness and brought to mind thoughts of mermaids and sea ghosts.
Blue Seneschal
