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  Witch-Cursed Castle Perfume Oil

  You whom Haggard holds in thrall,
  Share his feast and share his fall.
  You shall see your fortune flower
  Till the torrent takes the tower.
  Yet none but one of Hagsgate town
  May bring the castle swirling down.

  Beyond the town, darker than dark, King Haggard’s castle teetered like a lunatic on stilts, and beyond the castle the sea slid. Drinn stopped him as he raised his glass. “Not that toast, my friend. Will you drink to a woe fifty years old? It is that long since our sorrow fell, when King Haggard built his castle by the sea.”

  “When the witch built it, I think.” Schmendrick wagged a finger at him. “Credit where it’s due, after all.”

  “Ah, you know that story,” Drinn said. “Then you must also know that Haggard refused to pay the witch when her task was completed.”

  The magician nodded. “Aye,” and she cursed him for his greed – cursed the castle, rather. “But what had that to do with Hagsgate? The town had done the witch no wrong.”

  “No,” Drinn replied. “But neither had it done her any good. She could not unmake the castle – or would not, for she fancied herself an artistic sort and boasted that her work was years ahead of its time. Anyway, she came to the elders of Hagsgate and demanded that they force Haggard to pay what was due her. ‘Look at me and see yourselves,’ she rasped. ‘That’s the true test of a town, or of a king. A lord who cheats an ugly old witch will cheat his own folk by and by. Stop him while you can, before you grow used to him.’” Drinn sipped his wine and thoughtfully filled Schmendrick’s glass once more.

  “Haggard paid her no money,” he went on, “and Hagsgate, alas, paid her no heed. She was treated politely and referred to the proper authorities, whereupon she flew into a fury and screamed that in our eagerness to make no enemies at all, we had now made two.” He paused, covering his eyes with lids so thin that Molly was sure he could see through them, like a bird. With his eyes closed, he said, “It was then that she cursed Haggard’s castle, and cursed our town as well. Thus his greed brought ruin upon us all.”

  In the sighing silence, Molly Grue’s voice came down like a hammer on a horseshoe, as though she were again berating poor Captain Cully. “Haggard’s less at fault than you yourselves,” she mocked the folk of Hagsgate, “for he was only one thief, and you were many. You earned your trouble by your own avarice, not your king’s.”

  Drinn opened his eyes and gave her an angry look. “We earned nothing,” he protested. “It was our parents and grandparents whom the witch asked for help, and I’ll grant you that they were as much to blame as Haggard, in their way. We would have handled the matter quite differently.” And every middle-aged face in the room scowled at every older face.

  One of the old men spoke up in a voice that wheezed and miaowed. “You would have done just as we did. There were crops to harvest and stock to tend, as there still are. There was Haggard to live with, as there still is. We know very well how you would have behaved. You are our children.”

  Weed-strewn oak, opoponax, wet stone, creaking redwood, and desolate olibanum.

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  Old Woman With Cat Perfume Oil

  Antonio Rotta
  Sweet roasted pumpkin rind, raw wool accord, polished oak, baked bread, cocoa absolute, and kitchen herbs.

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  The King’s Daughter Perfume Oil

  There were a prince and a princess sitting by a stream in a wooded valley. Their seven servants had set up a scarlet canopy beneath a tree, and the royal young couple ate a box lunch to the accompaniment of lutes and theorbos. They hardly spoke a word to one another until they had finished the meal, and then the princess sighed and said, “Well, I suppose I’d best get the silly business over with.” The prince began to read a magazine.

  “You might at least –” said the princess, but the prince kept on reading. The princess made a sign to two of the servants, who began to play an older music on their lutes. Then she took a few steps on the grass, held up a bridle bright as butter, and called, “Here, unicorn, here! Here, my pretty, here to me! Comecomecomecomecome!”

  The prince snickered. “It’s not your chickens you’re calling, you know,” he remarked without looking up. “Why don’t you sing something, instead of clucking like that?”

  “Well, I’m doing the best I can,” the princess cried. “I’ve never called one of these things before.” But after a little silence, she began to sing.

  I am a king’s daughter,
  And if I cared to care,
  The moon that has no mistress
  Would flutter in my hair.
  No one dares to cherish
  What I choose to crave.
  Never have I hungered,
  That I did not have.

  I am a king’s daughter,
  And I grow old within
  The prison of my person,
  The shackles of my skin.
  And I would run away
  And beg from door to door,
  Just to see your shadow
  Once, and never more.

  So she sang, and sang again, and then she called, “Nice unicorn, pretty, pretty, pretty,” for a little longer, and then she said angrily, “Well, I’ve done as much as I’ll do. I’m going home.”

  The prince yawned and folded his magazine. “You satisfied custom well enough,” he told her, “and no one expected more than that. It was just a formality. Now we can be married.”

  “Yes,” the princess said, “now we can be married.” The servants began to pack everything away again, while the two with the lutes played joyous wedding music. The princess’s voice was a little sad and defiant as she said, “If there really were such things as unicorns, one would have come to me. I called as sweetly as anyone could, and I had the golden bridle. And of course I am pure and untouched.”

  “For all of me, you are,” the prince answered indifferently. “As I say, you satisfy custom. You don’t satisfy my father, but then neither do I. That would take a unicorn.” He was tall, and his face was as soft and pleasant as a marshmallow.

  When they and their retinue were gone, the unicorn came out of the wood, followed by Molly and the magician, and took up her journey again. A long time later, wandering in another country where there were no streams and nothing green, Molly asked her why she had not gone to the princess’s song. Schmendrick drew near to listen to the answer, though he stayed on his side of the unicorn. He never walked on Molly’s side.

  The unicorn said, “That king’s daughter would never have run away to see my shadow. If I had shown myself, and she had known me, she would have been more frightened than if she had seen a dragon, for no one makes promises to a dragon. I remember that once it never mattered to me whether or not princesses meant what they sang. I went to them all and laid my head in their laps, and a few of them rode on my back, though most were afraid. But I have no time for them now, princesses or kitchenmaids. I have no time.”

  A matter of formality: lilac musk, sandalwood, sweet pea, watermelon accord, pale woods, elemi, and oakmoss.

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  Portrait of Magdaleine Pinceloup de la Grange née de Parseval Perfume Oil

  Jean-Baptiste Perronneau

  An aristocratic 18th century French perfume dabbed on lilac velvet, gently purring with soft grey amber and feline musk, and tinkling with tiny golden bells. Grasse jasmine and rose otto nestled in ambergris accord, frankincense, white sandalwood, bourbon vanilla, cardamom, amber, coriander, and galbanum.

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