The French Dames stood me up. I wanted to go buy a fresh rose to give to Caroline, down on one knee, duplicating the work by the famous artist, Albert Durer, of Geoffrey De La Tour handing his book to his daughters. There’s a Lancelot connection I alone discovered that I am saving for my hardcover book – if it ever has an ending.
I told Marilyn my book was supposed to have come to an end at the Whiteaker Block Party. But, then I ran into Bella and Robin Bird…..’The Beautiful Robin Bird’. When she went to put her two portraits back in her Victorian house, she gasped to see the wind hand blown the door closed, and the knob on the other side, had fallen on the other side of the door.
“I can’t get in my house!” Robin cried with alarm. And I am in a fairytale. everything is a fairytale after I read Charlotte-Rose De La Forces ‘Fairer Than a Fairy’. Charlotte-Rose is another author related to the Hambley sisters. When I saw the print of the rose, and the large faux gems, I knew Robin was a kindred spirit. I knew she was part of the Mystery – that wanted her back!
“I must concentrate on getting back in my house! “Robin tells the other guests at the Porch Sale, and hurries off. I am in awe of her very delicate and refined features. This is a Fairy Queen, a bird of another kind.
I approach Bird’s door and take out my little pocket knife I bought at the Dollar Store. I open the big blade……”Excalibur!”…….and insert it into the square opening. The blade has to be the exact width. I say a little prayer, hoping the latch would not stick, and give a gentle turn to the right. The door opens. I turn, and Robin is standing there with a crude stick she got from her garden. I give her a smile of gratitude, for I thought my days of rescuing a Beautiful Damsel in distress…….was over.
* * *
After I predicted I would be bumped, Marilyn asked if I was going to the party anyway.
“I’m afraid I will run into Belle, and her boyfriend, the bruiser, and he will thump on me!”
“Don’t worry about that! Go! Have fun!” my first lover ordered.
When a young man asked me if I wanted to play a game of darts, and win a prize, I almost turned him down. If my French Ladies were by my side, I would not have hesitated to be gallant. I would worry about which sister got the prize – after I won it! Such is life!
“Give me the darts! Here, take a video of me, winning!”
I threw my first dart, and popped a balloon. I heard some faint, half-hearted cheering. In twenty minutes I would hear these words.
“Would you put the necklace around my neck?”
She had stopped crying. I had given her a napkin to soak up the river of tears she shed after I discovered she was head-injured and owned a poor memory. She had taken a photograph of me with my face in the hole in the Whiteaker cote of arms. Here was the public pillory that Alley Valkyrie and her Anarchist Gang had promised me. They approached the Whiteaker Neighborhood Council about getting me declared a Sexual Predator so they could plaster my face all of the hood.
“If you see this man – get in his face!”
I look at the sabre, and the beheadings by Jihad Johnny come to mind. I am going to the guillotine! I look around for someone to capture this great photo op, and spot a young woman walking by herself. She seems, distant. I almost let her walk by.
“Excuse me. Would you take a picture of me with my face in the sign?”
“Sure!” she says, with a faint smile.
I tell her I might have trouble getting back up, and stick my face in the pirate hole the best I can. Trying to rise – from my knee – I grab my hat, and the necklace I put around it, fell to the ground. I reach for it, and…..
“I’ll get it!” she says.
I watch her beautiful hand pick up the necklass with the naked fairy, and see a heart.
“Did you see that? It made a perfect heart-shape!”
“Yes. I saw. People see hearts around me all the time!”
“What is you name?”
“Bella!”
* * *
Can’t you see why I have come to capture beauty? For, when the world comes to an and, all the fairy tales will lose their happy endings? For Pete’s sake, Caroline and Virginia are kin to the Knight, Poet, and Artist, Rene d’Anjou…………..and they don’t care! No wonder they do not care about me. What do they care about? I believe their kindred was the Grand Master of the Knights Templar of Spain!
I bow to beauty!
I am down one knee, begging you all to wake up – before it’s too late!
Rene the King and Poet, is asleep, in a magical night scene he sees himself and the figures in his dream: Amour, God of Love, is standing beside his bed and with both hands plucks the heart from Rene’s breast, giving it to the Page, Ardent Desire, who stands with hands outstretched ready to receive it. It will have to remain on the power of Ardent Desire until it finds favor with the lady of Rene’s dreams, Sweet Grace. It is not Rene himself who starts off on a journey of adventure with the Page, but his heart, personified as the Knight Cueur.
The artist brings this multileveled poetic allegory to life by giving its characters a three-dimensional reality, suggesting that realm between dream and daylight wherein poetry has its roots.
http://kingrene.guice.org/renentro.html
Rene’s interest in painting seems to date from the time of his incarceration at Dijon, where, it is said, he occupied himself with painting on glass and decorated one of the rooms in the castle. None of this work has survived, but there is a prayer book of Rene’s from this period with a number of illuminations that already show some characteristics of his later style. There is also a legend to the effect that, at Dijon, Rene met the Dutch painter Jan van Eyck and became his pupil. Since van Eyck was employed in the service of the Duke of Burgundy at the time, this is a possibility. It may be a point where fairy tale and reality converge.
http://kingrene.guice.org/renentro.html
I took this photo of Virginia looking in a window in downtown Eugene. She is of the House of Bourbon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairer-than-a-Fairy_(Caumont_de_La_Force)
When Fairer-than-a-Fairy is twelve, her beauty becomes famous in all the surrounding countries. The Fairies become jealous of her beauty and her name and decide to avenge themselves and destroy the Princess’ beauty. The Queen of the Fairies, named Nabote, goes to the castle in order to kidnap Fairer-than-a-Fairy but she finds it impossible, because the wizard who built it put a spell so that its inhabitants could neither go out unwillingly, nor be bewitched.
Nabote goes into the castle as a servant and makes friends with Fairer-than-a-Fairy. One day, she opens a door that gives onto the countryside and pretends to faint outside the castle’s walls. Fairer-than-a-Fairy runs to her but no sooner has she gone out that Nabote seizes her and takes her to her Kingdom. There she dresses Fairer-than-a-Fairy with dirty clothes and instructs her to clean a room which will only become dirtier as she sweeps it.
Rosamond Press 
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