Cinderella: A Retelling of an Old Classic

The Grand Ball - Chapter 21

"Have you mailed the invitations to the ball dear?"

"I gave them to the minister just last night. With everyone you insisted we invite I will be very surprised if we don't plunge the country into a state of economic ruin simply from the cost of the food." The king grumbled with his eyeglasses perched precariously on his nose.

The queen sighed, "I thought you wanted to give our son his best chance at finding a bride."

"You know very well that I do but why did we have to invite everyone and their entire kingdom to the banquet?" Groused the irate monarch.

"If we did not then Damon would have an excuse for not finding a bride amongst the girls present. You specified that all the eligible maidens in the kingdom were to be invited."

"Exactly!! All the eligible maidens in OUR kingdom not all the eligible maidens from EVER kingdom known to man! By the looks of it there are even some kingdoms on this list I have never heard of before!"

"Oh that ridiculous, we've met everyone on that list darling." The queen answered placidly continuing her writing unperturbed.

"Well I most certainly have not!" Huffed the king. "Who in tarnation is this Prince Hubbingdorf? What a proposterous name."

The queen looked up from her work with a slight smile on her face. "He's your fourth cousin dear....the one that oversees the mill workings?"

"Oh....well what about this King Kalib from whats-it-called, I can't even pronounce it. Why does he have to come?"

"Its Kiranostan and he has to come because he has fifteen daughters of marriageable age and enormous dowrys."

"Good heavens!! FIFTEEN?! Well.....I suppose I could see why you invited them but still my dear..."

"Darling, there really is nothing we can do, the invitations have been posted and sent. I was very careful with the guest list but it was of the utmost importance that I included everyone. Heaven forebid someone was left out, that would nearly be grounds for a war and that's the last thing we need at the moment."

"Hmph...." was all the king could answer.

Across the castle, riding through the forest was the Prince in question. On his mind was the little besmirched beauty he had met only the week before. He wondered what she was doing right at that moment. 'Perhaps she would come to the ball!' He thought to himself suddenly. After all his father had specified that ALL the fair maidens in the country were to be invited and that did include even the most common of folk. He had heard the royal invitation being read through the streets as he road out of the village surrounding the castle. Was it possible that she lived so close to him? If that were the case she could even then be only a few dozen paces from him!

The thought was invigorating but it did not completely irradicate the feeling of impending doom that had come over him as he thought about the upcoming gala. All those people, the stuffy dignitaries and their wives with the fog of perfume following them wherever they walked, the children screaming and running about as their governesses and nanny's chased after them in dismay, and worst of all the dozen or possibly hundreds of woman clinging to him and coaxing him into something he did not want. Prince Damon shuddered, 'oh what I wouldn't give to simply gallop away from all of this.' However, a prince was only  as good as his word and as he had given his to his father he had no choice but to stay.

On a more positive note perhaps he would see that girl at the ball and if he were very lucky, perhaps he would ask her to dance.

Turning his horse about the prince and his stead trotted at a leisurely pace homeward. At the edge of forest he noticed that the commotion of the Kings proclamation had not yet ceased and rather then be bogged down by dozens curious subjects he decided to take a different route back to the castle. As the kingdom prepared for the onset of dozens of foreign dignitaries and their entourages the inns, boarding houses, halfway houses, and even a pub or two were being turned upside down with preparations. Busy housewives were scurrying to and fro with buckets of soapy water or turning their muddy brood by the scruffs of their necks out of the house. He saw the merchants were restocking their wares with all manner of foreign delights and trinkets hoping something would catch the eye of an esteemed visitor. He could only imagine the excitement brewing in every house as they received their personal invitations.

If he only knew.....