Briar Castle: Encountering the Future

Dear Grandmamma,

Exquisite elder of my distinguished line! Enlightened guide to seekers of enlightenment!

Everyone in Über Celestia is excited and confused about the Awakening, as you may imagine, and the people near Briar Hill (I guess I should be calling it Briar Castle again) more so. Broad found a plan in the Archives, made some 90 years ATS, on what should be done to prepare for the Awakening. But the 100-year anniversary passed without incident (though it seems that many princes out seeking their fortunes mysteriously disappeared around that time). And the plan was never updated. However, it did have some useful ideas, so Broad had it reproduced and distributed to village and provincial committees. People are reading it and laughing, but it is giving them some good ideas.

I got an update from Polly on what’s been happening around Briar Castle. Since Polly organizes the pigeon-mail network and is a bird herself when she wants to be, she’s a wonderful source of news.

I think I told you about servants running out when the briar barrier fell. They are devastated, finding that everyone they knew is gone, overnight as it seems to them. The plan said they should be sent to Bupleurum Spa for a week or two, to calm down and get accustomed to the idea that the world had changed. So the guard took them there. Once they feel up to it, it will be easy to get jobs – good servants are still hard to find. And the village committees in their old villages will help them to get settled.

I told you about a group of young men in fancy dress riding out in the evening. Their leader was a big beefy guy in an operetta costume, hat like a sofa cushion with peacock feathers glued on, pink jacket with sleeves puffed at the shoulders and a purple cravat, green knee-breeches and red socks, the works. A detachment of our guard followed them. They found the tavern in the nearest village, and made to go in. The guard told them to leave their swords outside. At first they argued, but then they left three guys outside with the weapons, and the rest went in. They displaced people from their regular tables and sat down. The guard had followed them in, so none of the regulars said much at the beginning; the place just got really quiet.

They shouted for ale, and the waiters served them. The guy in the operetta costume made kissing sounds at the woman serving him; then he pinched her. She clouted him on the side of the head with a big stein of ale, gave him a fat ear and ale bath at once. He bellowed and swung at her. She fended him off with the stein in her other hand, and the whole place erupted in her defence.

The regulars shouted at the strangers to get out, and when that didn’t have any effect, threw a few punches. The operetta guy and his men threw their steins at the windows and the bottles behind the bar, swung chairs around and tipped over tables. Some of them pulled knives. All the while they were shouting that their leader was Good Prince Hal, and anyone who laid hand on him would be hanged. The guard pulled out one man after the other and restrained them, until only Operetta Hal was left. Then someone flung a cloak over his head, and the rest piled on and tied him up tight. He and his men were dumped in a manure cart and taken off to be lodged in jail. The tavern-keeper said he’d take care of their horses. When the damage was paid for, they could have them back.

The regulars helped the tavern staff put the place to rights. Everyone agreed on what a bad lot the royals were, and wondered how they’d come to wake up.

Next morning started quiet, with the Briar guard inside and our guard outside, looking at each other and not doing much. Finally a guardsman came out carrying a white flag, with a herald following him. The herald was carrying a long scroll, but he didn’t read from it; he gave it to the chief of our guard. It turned out to contain a grocery list.

Our people looked at the list, and got together a cart-load of groceries. Most of the stuff was less fancy than the list had asked for – turnips instead of eddoes, chickens instead of partridges, dandelion greens instead of fiddleheads, that short of thing. We didn’t want them thinking they could order the moon, but neither did we want to starve them out. In fact, after meeting Good Prince Hal, we didn’t want them out at all.

In the late afternoon a new scroll was sent out. This time the herald read it aloud. The Queen desired to meet with her daughter, the Princess Briar Rose.

Rose arrived at Briar Castle next morning, accompanied by her legal counsel, the archivist Broad in bear form (he felt that the meeting should be recorded for posterity), and her friends McLaren, Pearl and Polly, and Minsky. They stopped a few 20 metres from the gate, and sent in a guardsman with a message. The Princess was here; she looked forward with joyful anticipation to meeting her mother the Queen, outside the Castle.

The nature of her party raised consternation in the Castle. A dragon?! a bear?! young women with their hair sheared short and wearing long pants, like boys setting out to cut thistles – and one of them calling out in Rose’s voice – had she been bewitched? Rose’s father and uncles sent a herald to demand that she come home at once, apologize for the anxiety she had caused, put on decent skirts, and resume her royal duties forthwith.

Rose’s guardsman carried back her regret that her family had been troubled by anxiety on her behalf. She had been busy learning about the world and time into which she and they had awakened. She was hopeful that she would be happy in it. She was hopeful that her family and their courts would be happy in it as well. She looked forward to introducing them to her new friends and her legal counsel. She looked forward to embracing her royal mother at the earliest possible moment, outside the Castle.

The result, she learned later, was a furious argument inside the Castle. Rose had definitely fallen from an enchanted sleep into an even more dire enchantment. The dragon was a danger to the land, and must be slain. By no means could the Queen go out to meet her daughter; the rebellious daughter must be compelled to come inside. The King shouted and turned purple: if necessary he would command his guard to confine the Queen, for her own safety. No wonder the Princess was disobedient, with her mother setting such an example! His royal and sainted mother had warned him that, if he married a commoner, common instincts would prevail in her and her children! She was disgracing him in front of his fellow royals!

The King had never given thought to the Queen’s kin – they weren’t royal, so they fell beneath his notice. Thus he did not know that the captain of his guard was his wife’s cousin.

The Queen turned her back on her furious husband, and spoke to the captain: “Timoral, I’m going out to meet Rose. Escort me, please!”

Timoral replied, “Sure thing, Madge!” He and ten of his men formed up around her, and escorted her out of Briar Castle.