The Stolen Queen Read Free

to refresh himself. As he stooped over the clear water, he heard a woman’s voice, singing.’
    My mother would change to the langue d’oc here, the language of the musicians, to sing the words the king heard. Sometimes she sang from one of my favourite songs, ‘He alouete, Joliete, petit t’est de mes maus,’ putting the words in the mouth of the beautiful fairy, Pressine, who waited by the well for the king.
    â€˜And then, as he saw her, the king’s aching heart was healed. In time, Pressine became his wife. When it was time for her togive birth, Pressine told the king that he must not come near her, and she was delivered of three baby girls, Melusina, Meliore and Palatine.’
    â€˜Did she love them, Maman?’
    My mother would kiss me on the nose. ‘Very much but not as much as your maman loves you, little one.’
    Then the story told of how the king, hearing of the births, rushed to congratulate his wife, breaking the rule she had given him, and Pressine said sadly that he had not kept his promise to her, and that she must leave his castle at once. And then a great storm blew, with clouds like ink and rain so thick the sun disappeared, and when the storm had gone, so had the queen and her daughters.’
    â€˜Where did they go?’
    â€˜To the Lost Island, where no one but the fairies has ever been. But each day, the queen carried her daughters to the peak of a mountain, where they could look down upon their father’s lands, and she would tell them that they might have lived there, and been happy, except that he had broken his word.’
    â€˜Was she sad?’
    â€˜Very sad, my darling. But she had to keep to the fairy law,’ Mother would explain.
    Melusina was the most beautiful of the three fairy princesses, and the most curious (‘who was she like, little one, I wonder?’). When she was grown up, she asked Pressine what it was that her father had done. When she heard of how he had spied on her mother and defied her, Melusina decided to punish the king. She stole away from the Lost Island into his lands, and thereshe used a spell – remember, she had fairy blood – that imprisoned the king and all his barons inside a stony mountain cave. When Pressine discovered this, she was angry, in turn, for she loved her husband still, and longed for him, despite his error, and punished her daughter with another spell – a curse. Every Saturday, Melusina would turn into a serpent, and this would continue until she found a man to marry her who would agree never to see her on that day.
    â€˜But Maman, why did Pressine put such a wicked charm on her daughter, if she loved her so?’
    â€˜Because sometimes mothers have to do very difficult things if they believe they are right. Melusina was different from other girls: she was a fairy. So her mother knew that only by obeying fairy laws could she keep her daughter safe. Shall we see what happened?’
    â€˜Oh yes!’
    â€˜Well then, Melusina set off alone, and she travelled through many forests and many mountains until she came here, to Poitou. The fairies were very happy. They had been expecting her and wanted to make her their queen. They came to dance with her in the woods at Colombiers,’ she would continue.
    Now she was arriving at the part that I liked best. ‘Tell me about the changeling, Maman. And the murders!’
    â€˜Are you telling this story, or I? Now, in the forest that very day was Raymond, the lord of Lusignan. Raymond was unhappy, because he had accidentally committed a crime. He had been hunting with his uncle, and as they bearded the boar, it had turned aside on Lord Raymond’s spear and plunged itsdeadly tusk into his uncle’s flesh and killed him stone dead. As Raymond wandered sadly through the forest, he saw Melusina, who was so beautiful that he fell in love with her at once. Only by marrying him, he swore, could Melusina be so kind as to assuage