Mercedes Lackey - Fairy Godmother

But a solution had been suggested to this problem, by a party who had wished to remain anonymous, and the judge had presented them with this solution as a fait accompli the next morning.

"The portion of the home that is hers already having been deeded to the creditors — most generously — by Elena Klovis, the remainder is declared confiscated," the judge had said sternly, as Madame and Delphinium stared at him with angry arrogance, and Daphne wailed. "Being as the debts are still not discharged, your creditors have agreed to refurbish the house as an inn and hire a plain cook until you, Madame, have demonstrated that you have mastered the art of producing edible food. Whereupon you will become the cook and kitchen-maid. Monsieur Rabellet's cousin will serve as innkeeper, and you and your daughters as the inn servants until the debt is fully discharged, at which time, you may either continue to serve as servants for a wage, or go your ways."

Fleur and Blanche had been in the gallery, as had all of the creditors and indeed, nearly anyone who had a dislike for Madame and her daughters. And they really had fallen mightily; even the gowns they had been wearing had been taken from them, and they were now garbed in ugly grey linen prison smocks and caps.

Madame's nostrils had flared, as Daphne wailed still louder. "And if we refuse?" she had asked, icily.

"Then, Madame, you and your daughters will be packed off to the workhouse," the judge replied, just as icily. "And there you will remain until you die, since it is unlikely, at workhouse wages, that your debt will ever be discharged. I advise you to accept."

There really was no choice in the matter. Madame was forced to assent. And so she and her daughters had become exactly what they had forced Elena to be — unpaid servants, sleeping in the attic on whatever was deemed to worn to use in the inn, eating what was left over after all of the customers had been fed. In that, they were treated better than they themselves had treated Elena; they got two new smocks and a skirt a year, (where Elena had gotten rags), a set of sabots and underthings every year, and woolen shawls and stockings for winter. And they never starved.

But Madame and the girls soon found out that if they dared to show any hint of bad temper, Monsieur Rabellet's cousin would summon the debtors and let them know — and the judge would add another month to their "sentence," as a punishment for behaving in a fashion that would drive away customers.

Madame's fair, white hands were now as rough and work-ravaged as Elena's had ever been, with broken nails and reddened skin. Delphinium was developing quite a set of muscles from lugging pots of hot water for the overnight customers' baths. And Daphne actually had a figure that did not require winching down the ties of a corset to produce.

Of the three, Daphne seemed to actually be learning a lesson from the situation, Fleur reflected, as the girl brought them their meal. She had stopped weeping most of the time, and was beginning to show a healthy interest in one of the young farmers who frequented the place on market days. Fleur noted that he was at one of the smaller tables, and that Daphne was stopping there to "make sure he didn't need anything" far more often than she did for any other customer. And her interest seemed to be reciprocated.

"Hmm," she said, catching her sister's attention, and nodding towards the pair.

"Ah, that's the way the wind blows, does it?" said Blanche, with interest. "Well, I must say, her temper and character have improved enormously. She could do worse."

"And so could he," Fleur agreed. She and Blanche were shameless eavesdroppers on the trio, and she was actually beginning to feel some sympathy for Daphne. The girl was trying. And she seemed to have finally gotten it into her dense little skull that not only was taking things from merchants without paying for them wrong, but that perhaps what they had done to the now-vanished Elena had been cruel. Fleur had heard her telling their master as much. "And we were that mean to her, and no wonder she ran away to take service from someone as would pay her," she'd said. "Now that I know what she had to do — well, I hope she's better off, is all I can say, and good luck to her."

"No sign of improvement from the others, though," Blanche observed, as Madame's angry voice, berating her daughter for some fault, drifted out from the kitchen.

"That's their choice." Fleur shrugged. "And the way they act, if they don't take a cue from her, they'll be totting up more months onto their service until they'll both be old and grey and scrubbing floors here, while Daphne's off making herself into a proper farmer's wife."

"Ha." Blanche nodded. "It all comes down to what we make of ourselves, eh ? The Tradition or no. Who knows ? If she really continues to improve her character, maybe a Fairy Godmother will take pity on Daphne and she'll find enough gold under a cabbage in the kitchen-garden to buy her freedom and give her a little dowry."

"Stranger things have happened," said Fleur, making a note of the thought to pass on to the appropriate party. "Like — a Godmother wedding a Champion!" She held up her glass of wine. "To happy endings, however they come about!"

Blanche clinked glasses with her. "To happy endings, indeed!"

What does fantasy mean to you?

Fantasy for me has always gone far beyond the magic rings and castles of the classical fairy tale, although heaven knows I love the classical fairy tales! To write or enjoy fantasy requires an open mind and heart, and the ability to believe that things are not always what they seem.

Why do you think women enjoy reading fantasy?

I think it may be because, as Dorothy L. Sayers once pointed out about the mystery genre, fantasy is one of the last bastions of "moral fiction." By this she meant that in mystery — and in fantasy — good triumphs over evil, the wrongdoers get their just deserts, and all ends, if not always strictly happily, at least well. This is the definition of "moral fiction": something that shows the world, perhaps not as it is, but certainly as it could and should be. I think women are, as a whole, a lot less willing to settle for "that's just the way it is" than men are. You tend to find that the men who read fantasy are idealists, in fact.

What makes you write fantasy over any other subject?

I have greater scope in writing fantasy for my imagination than in any other genre. I can write fantasy romances, fantasy mysteries, heroic fantasy, modern-urban fantasy, historical fantasy, dark (or horror) fantasy, alternate-history fantasy, political fantasy even Western fantasy. There is virtually no genre that I could not use for a fantasy novel, and even if I haven't gotten around to it, someone surely has, because I can cite examples of every one of those books, either in my own body of work, or someone else's.

Anything you'd like to say about fantasy or writing, or writing fantasy?

When a reader closes the book with regret, you've done your job. What we all strive for is when a reader goes back to the same book again and again and finds equal pleasure in it each time they read it. That's what every reader is looking for, and every writer is working to accomplish.

And when it comes down to cases, everything written is at least in part a fantasy. Except maybe for the national budget. That's horror.

Mercedes Lackey's DAW books

The Heralds of Valdemar

Arrow of the Queen Arrow's Flight Arrow's Fall Exile's Valor Exile's Honor Take a Thief

Vows 'and' Honor