Fairy Godmother

Finally, the seventh day arrived again, and he was back to being himself. For whatever good it did him. He couldn't think of any new plans to get himself free, and the moment he was a man again, the Unicorns doubled their guard on her.

What was more, he discovered by making the attempt that the cottage wouldn't allow him inside it. Literally. There was a barrier at the doors and windows that he not only could not cross, but could not see past. So trying to sneak in and catch her unawares (and de-unicorned) was not going to do him any good, either.

He wanted, with a physical ache, to go home.

He was reduced to throwing insults at her, but although Master Hob bristled and the Unicorns glowered, all she did was laugh. 'In a contest of wit, your highness, I fear you are but half-armed,' she said, mockingly. 'And you can call me whatever you like, if it makes you feel any better. Being called a whore does not make me one, any more than calling Master Hob a giant makes him thirty feet tall.'

And she sailed off on some errand or other, leaving him seething and speechless.

It was almost a relief when night fell and he became a donkey again.

Another week began in anger, but something odd was happening to him as the days passed. There was nothing wrong with his physical energy, but — but he felt drained anyway. The moment he was left alone without anything to do, he found himself sinking into a dull lethargy. It took nearly three days before he realized what was wrong, and when he did, the realization of what was happening took him by surprise.

It was getting harder and harder to sustain his anger. It was as if he was blunting it against the rock of that woman's indifference; she clearly did not care if he was angry, or in despair, or indeed, in any emotional state. She did not even care if he hated her.

For the first time in his life he was below someone's notice. It did not matter to anyone here what he thought, of her or anything else. What his opinions were was of no more consequence to her than the price of corn in some far distant land. How could anyone sustain any emotion in the face of that?

He was never going home.

He was certain of that, now.

And no one would really miss him, either. To whom had he really endeared himself? Not to Octavian. Julian — well, perhaps, but Julian knew what had become of him, and if Julian had really cared, wouldn't he have sent someone to come looking for him?

His father? But his father didn't really know him; he was a cipher, the 'spare,' useful if something happened to Octavian. He recalled the day he had graduated and come home, home to a room that looked like every other guest chamber in the Palace, to a father whose presents on any occasion had always been the same thing; books on military history with money tucked inside. His instructors at the Academy knew him better than his own father did. He had not had a good friend since Robert had died. In a month, he'd been given up on. In a year, people might remember him with the words, 'poor Alexander.' In ten, you would not find one person in a hundred in Kohlstania who would remember he had even existed.

His bulwark of anger collapsed like a fortress of snow in the spring at that point.

Without it, he had nothing to sustain him. And he sank into a kind of insensate despair, saying nothing to Hob, doing what he was told, eating what was placed in his manger, more and more lost in a grey fog of apathy. He just could not muster the mental energy even to decide to go out in the meadow and eat grass instead of the hay that was in front of him.

When he woke as a man for the fourth time, he was still sunk in that state of despair, and even Hob noticed it when he came to fetch him for the morning's work.

The little man looked at him sharply. For his part, Alexander just looked back at him, dully, without getting out of a sitting position.

'What ails you?' the Brownie asked. 'Sickening over something?'

He shook his head. And why should you care? he thought. Except that you would be able to go buy a beast that's less trouble if I were to die. It occurred to him that perhaps he ought to ask that woman to leave him as a donkey from now on. Surely getting lost in the beast would be better than this.

Hob gave him another look. 'Even the lowest scut gets a half-day a month,' he said gruffly. 'No working for you today.'

That penetrated his fug, and he raised his head a little. 'What?'

'Take it, ye green-goose, afore I change my mind,' the Brownie growled, and promptly turned on his heel and stomped off, leaving Alexander alone in the stable again.

No work? Then what was he supposed to do with himself?

He sat there for a long moment in the gloom — but the straw prickled him, and there were little rustlings of mice and insects that didn't bother him as a beast, but made his skin crawl as a man. With a sigh, he got to his feet and wandered outside.

He looked around, for the first time, really looked around, at the cottage and its grounds lying quietly in the predawn. There was a light mist lying along the ground, just at knee-height, giving the place an air of mystery. To his right lay the stone cottage, grey-walled and thickly thatched. The only signs of life were the birds twittering in the thatch around the windows. He knew from experience that it would not be until the sun actually rose that anyone would be stirring there.

In front of him was the bare, hard dirt of the stableyard, though 'yard' was a bit of a misnomer, as there was not a great deal of space there, just enough to turn a small cart around. To his left were the kitchen-gardens and beyond that, the drystone wall he had been working on.

So far, there didn't seem to be anywhere to go.

Behind the cottage were some little sheds, the ricks of curing firewood, and the chopping block, where he would have been if Hob hadn't ordered him to take a rest. That was no help.

In front of the cottage was a flower and herb garden, but he was hardly the sort to putter in a garden, even