A Tale Without a Name Read online

  “Constable or woodsman?” the man asked.

  The Prince turned around and recognized the youth from the tavern.

  “Both,” he replied.

  “And something else perhaps?” asked the young man.

  The Prince looked him straight in the eye.

  “Yes,” he said. “And something else besides.”

  And with that he ran away.

  At a turning in the road, he met with some villagers, fleeing in terror towards the town.

  “Where are you running?” he cried out to them.

  The villagers, however, did not reply. They hurried on, without stopping.

  A few yards farther down the road, he saw another five or six men, who were running away as well.

  The Prince approached them.

  “Where to, countrymen?” he asked.

  “To the capital,” they replied. “Do not go that way, the enemy will arrive at any time!”

  “Arrive where?”

  They did not reply. Scared and dazed, they left, scurrying as fast as they could.

  The Prince ran after them, caught up with them.

  “Why are you going away?!” he asked angrily. “What are you afraid of that you run away like bolting rabbits?”

  “The enemy has reached the shore across the river,” answered one of the men.

  “And so what?! There is still the river. How will they cross it? Come back to your senses, countrymen; do not lose your good judgement, in God’s name! Are you frail little women, to scare so easily?” cried the Prince, all flared up. “To arms, lads! We shall stop them!”

  The villagers came to a halt for a moment.

  “But we have no weapons!” they said.

  “Get hold of anything sharp that you may have: a knife, a sickle, an axe or a mattock, and follow me!”

  “Who will lead us?” asked one of the men, jittery with fear.

  “I shall!” said the Prince with great force. “Come back. For God’s sake, do not go away!”

  “Pah!” said another. “And why should we fight? If the river stops the enemy, then we who are on this side have nothing to worry about. If, however, the river cannot halt them, then neither could we. Why should we get killed for no reason? We will do no more nor less than the King and the Prince are doing themselves.”

  “The King shall stay! The Prince shall lead you! No one is leaving; stay, stay too!”

  One of the villagers laughed scornfully.

  “Why don’t you go and find out what is going on in the palace?” he said. “The King is getting ready to steal away, and the Prince has already fled!”

  “The Prince has not fled! He is in your midst!” shouted the Prince. “Look at me, countrymen! I am the King’s son, and I shall lead you!”

  “Go on with you, go tell your tall tales somewhere else!” said the villagers. “They saw the Prince crossing the river last night; he ran away abroad the moment he felt that things were getting tight! And so shall we!”

  The Prince pressed his hands hard on his forehead.

  What was he to do? How could he keep them from running away?

  He thought of the King, who was sure to be going mad in the palace, all alone. He remembered the words that had come out of the peasant’s mouth: “The King is getting ready to steal away…”

  Terror seized him; he turned back and, running like mad, he scaled the mountainside.

  XII

  Panic

  THE PEOPLE were coming down from the villages in great hordes; they ran to the capital without rhyme or reason, frenzied by fear. The Prince strove to stop them, but panic had rendered them deaf and blind.

  “We have no King! We have no country!” they would say.

  And nothing could restrain them.

  The Prince reached the palace at long last.

  The doors had all been thrown wide open. The King’s family had gathered in the dining hall, resembling a gaggle of frightened geese. All the women were shrieking together; the King, with his mantle draped over his arm, was giving imperious orders to imaginary servants to shut the windows, tidy up the disorder and such like. Little Irene was sitting huddled in a corner, crying with heavy sobs. Dragging a great big chest behind him, Polycarpus would turn around now and then to look at her, and he would despair at not being able to console her.

  “What is all this? What is all this dreadfulness that goes on in here?” said the Prince in a thundering voice.

  Everyone turned around. The women ceased their shrieking, Little Irene ran and hung herself from his neck, the King let out a sigh of relief, and Polycarpus let go of the chest.

  “What is the matter? Why all this confusion?” the Prince asked again.

  And his warm voice rose high above the chaos, reassuring every frightened heart.

  “Oh, my son! Wherefore did you go!” said the King plaintively. “Is this a time to go wandering about?”

  “Abandoning us to our own devices, leaving us helpless to face our fate, to go all on our own to foreign lands!” added the Queen.

  “What?” cried the Prince. “Who talks of going away?”

  “You had abandoned us, my son,” pleaded the King, trying to excuse himself, “and we did not know what to do and where to go…”

  “Everyone is leaving; we shall leave as well,” added the Queen.

  “No one is to leave!” said the Prince with determination.

  “You would not presume to try to stop us, I hope!” screeched Spitefulnia.

  “No one is going anywhere!” repeated the Prince, even more loudly. “You, the women, go to your rooms. And you, father, come downstairs with me. It is absolutely vital that you show yourself in public immediately.”

  “Where do you want us to go?” asked the King rather fearfully.

  “To the capital, so that the panic-stricken people will all see us and follow us.”

  “But follow us where?”

  Before the Prince had time to answer, however, the Lord Chamberlain tumbled and rolled into the room.

  His hanging cheeks were flashing red and fiery, his eyes bulging violently out of his skull.

  “My lord! My lord! The enemy is burning the land across the river, they have set fire to the woods, the entire plain is being ravaged by the flames as we speak! The people, gathered by the riverside and in the town square, are in the throes of frenzy, howling insults against you for not being there to lead them, to help their brothers who are in dire peril on the opposite riverbank. My lord, the enemy advances! Soon they will have reached the river!…”

  The King turned to his son in despair.

  “So much the better!” said the Prince with clenched teeth.

  “My child! What are you saying! We are losing half our kingdom!” exclaimed the King.

  “So much the better!” repeated the Prince more loudly. “Now is the time to hold the wolf by the ears! Now we know the truth, we feel the burn of the whiplash.”

  “But they are insulting the throne! The State is as good as lost! There is an uprising in the capital…” grunted the Lord Chamberlain. “They no longer wish to have a monarchy…”

  “And who gives a brass farthing about the throne or about the monarchy?!” cried the Prince. “The nation is alive, it is finally awake, and bodily it shall rise, quash the enemies who are trampling the nation’s land! Father, come, now!”

  And dragging the King by the arm, he trundled hurriedly down the mountain.

  “You, run ahead of us!” he cried to Polycarpus, who was following him. “Go to Miserlix’s workshop, take the weapons that are ready, and bring them all immediately down to the river. That is where I shall assemble everyone.”

  Mayhem reigned everywhere. The townsmen were hurling their belongings out of windows, loading them onto carts or on the backs of mules, striving to escape to the safety of the mountains, whereas the villagers were escaping in turn to the capital, there seeking safety.

  Everyone had lost their minds; no one knew what they were doing.

&nbs
p; “Peace, lads, we have nothing to fear,” the Prince would tell them as he passed them by.

  And to the women he would say:

  “Go to your houses, and have no fear!”

  When he arrived at the square with the King, they saw gathered in front of the barracks a great throng of people, shouting and clamouring for an army. At one of the windows, his hair bristling, eyes bulging, the garrison commander, still wrapped in his blanket, kept screaming back that he had no army, and that they should go and ask for one from the King.

  “We have no King. The King has left and has abandoned us. Down with the King! Down with the monarchy!” the throng shouted.

  “Oh, do let us go away!” pleaded the King, leaning heavily on his son’s arm. Hear how they abuse us!”

  “No!” said the Prince with resolve. “Either we shall die here, or here shall we prevail upon them!”

  Making his way through the crowd, he managed to get ahead; he then climbed to the top of the steps reaching the entryway of the garrison tower.

  “Countrymen, what is it you seek?” he cried loudly, and his voice was heard clearly, rising strong above the noise, from one corner of the square to the other. “What are you lingering here for, when the enemy is ravaging our land? Have courage in your hearts, lads, and let us all march forward! Follow me! Together we shall drive the enemy away!”

  “We have no army! We don’t even have weapons!” cried some in the crowd.

  “The army is you! Why do you look for it elsewhere, since you are all gathered here? The tools with which you till your fields will be your weapons and your armaments! In the hands of the valiant, any piece of iron becomes a mighty weapon!”

  “We have no leader! The King has fled abroad!”

  “Your King is here, among you, ready to lead you into battle!” cried the Prince, pointing to his aged father, who, before the enraged populace, had found once more his ancestral dignity and pride, and was gazing at the angered crowd with arms crossed, his head held high.

  “Where is the King? Show us the King!” shouted some.

  “Our King has not left? The King is here?” cried out some others. “Then long live the King!”

  “If the King is here, ask him first for arms!” called out an angry voice.

  “Yes, arms! Give us arms!” repeated more voices.

  And the crowd, always ready to follow the last speaker, roared angrily:

  “Give us arms! Down with the King! Oust the King and away with him!”

  Some, even more brazenly audacious, clambered up the steps brandishing their fists menacingly.

  “Give us arms! Down with the King! Oust the King and away with him!” they screamed.

  The Prince threw himself in front of his father and with a push sent rolling down a man who was raising his arm to strike at the King.

  “When real men have no arms,” he shouted with hot indignation, they go and get them from the enemy; they do not strike out at old men!”

  “Here’s to you, my fine lad! Well answered!” sounded a voice.

  And the human throng, once again ready to follow the last speaker who had prevailed over it, cried out:

  “Here’s to you, fine lad! You lead and we shall follow you! Long live our Prince! Long live the King!”

  Wasting no time, the Prince commanded:

  “Forwards, then! To the river! There we shall muster our forces, so we may cross to the other side and drive the enemy away! Come on, men! Follow me!”

  Exhausted and choking with emotion, the King went up to the garrison commander’s office to rest—while the Prince headed for the river, with the animated crowd shouting and following hard upon his heels.

  XIII

  Polydorus and Onearm

  THROUGHOUT THAT DAY Fright and Turmoil had gone back and forth many times between the two riverbanks, in order to ferry across the villagers from the great plain who were fleeing before the enemy.

  When he had brought over the last passenger, instead of marooning his feluccas on solid land and lying in his “chambers” as he was wont to do, the one-armed man set off northwards up the river, pushing his boats with the punt pole.

  Illstar the master builder, who was working by the water’s edge, saw him and called out to him:

  “Where to, countryman?”

  “Secret mission of the State,” replied the one-armed man.

  Then he added:

  “I am assuming that it is for peacetime that you toil so, master builder?”

  “How would you know what I am doing?” asked the master builder.

  “Do you think I am blind? You think I can’t see that you are building huge and mighty ships?”

  “And by your reckoning, then, these are for peacetime?”

  “Of course they must be: you will never finish them afore nightfall; and before the sun has set, our guests will be all lined up across the river.”

  The master builder dropped what he was doing and went nearer to the water.

  “You know that what you have just said is dead right?” he said earnestly.

  “You flatter me, countryman,” replied the one-armed man, going up to the prow and trailing his punt pole behind him.

  The master builder was pensive.

  “So what do you suggest I do?” he said all of a sudden.

  “Build a bridge,” replied the one-armed man.

  “A bridge? And do you imagine, then, that a bridge can be built in three hours?”

  The one-armed man took his cable and showed it to him.

  “With this it can be,” he said.

  And pointing at the felled logs piled high on the riverbank, ready to be sawn:

  “And with these,” he added.

  And he started again on his way, propelling his feluccas northwards up the river and muttering gloomily:

  Robbers have taken to the mountains,

  Horses will they be a-stealing…

  For some time, the master builder remained immobile, following the feluccas with pensive eyes. Then suddenly he slapped his forehead:

  “But of course! He is right, he is, that one!” he murmured.

  And he gave out instantly new instructions to his assistants:

  “Abandon all work on the ships everyone, at once! And come here. I have a pressing task to give you.”

  The one-armed man, however, continued pacing from stern to prow, thrusting his punt pole into the water, and humming:

  Yet horses they could find none,

  Young lambs they snatched in their stead…

  As he moved northwards, however, the water current became ever stronger, and in the end it was so powerful that he could no longer steer with his punt pole.

  He headed for the riverbank on his right, and when he had approached it sufficiently with his feluccas, he leapt to the shore.

  He uncoiled the rope, tied it around his waist, and slowly, but at a steady pace, he walked up along the riverbank, tugging his home behind him.

  The water was running southward with great momentum, yet the one-armed man did not stop. Rivers of sweat trickled down his forehead, his mouth was parched, his tongue was panting, the veins and arteries on his neck were swollen to bursting point from the great endeavour. His steady step, however, never faltered.

  He reached Fool’s Eddy, tied the rope around a tree, and lay down on the grass to regain his breath.

  Suddenly he heard the mad galloping of a horse. The one-armed man rose, yet before he could make out what was happening, the horse and its rider had charged out from the woods and collapsed in front of him.

  In the flicker of a second, the rider untangled himself from the stirrups, and got up from the ground.

  The one-armed man with a leap ran then to the tree, and cut the rope.

  “Quick!” he cried. “Jump inside.”

  He leapt into the boat with Polydorus, and pulled in the remaining length of rope.

  The current carried them off, and the feluccas found themselves instantly midstream, moving southwards
at great speed.

  At that very moment, a great cloud of arrows flew out of the woods, falling in a shower around them, splattering the two men with spray as they struck the water.

  And the riverbank swarmed up with soldiers.

  The one-armed man saluted them with a low bow.

  “You may shoot all you want, now!” he cried out.

  Indeed, the river, very rapid and somewhat wider at that point, was taking them farther and farther away from the enemy’s side.

  The one-armed man had gathered up his rope and was tidying it up calmly.

  “Did you accomplish your mission?” he asked.

  “Yes!” replied Polydorus.

  “Yet you rode your horse to its death.”

  “It was one of their own. I took it from them. Mine died earlier on the way. But tell me, how did you know I would get here so fast and manage to be at our meeting point on time?”

  “You were in a hurry. I knew that if you could find a horse, you would take it. I reckoned that you would be galloping whip and spur.”

  “You reckoned well. Had you not been there, as if by some miracle, I might never have lived to see again the bright eyes of the Prince, and for their sake I would sacrifice my very life!”

  The bargeman, after coiling the rope neatly on the prow, came and sat by the equerry’s side.

  “Do not rejoice quite so soon,” he said quietly, “for you have not seen them yet, those eyes you speak of.”

  Polydorus shuddered.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  The one-armed man nodded towards the mainland with his head.

  “Our guests are following us,” he said.

  “Yes, I can see them, but they are far away. The river is broad, and their arrows cannot reach us.”

  “They will, farther south.”

  “The river narrows there?”

  “Yes.”

  The equerry paused for some time to gather his thoughts.

  “Is there nothing to be done?” he asked.

  “Yes, there is. I shall take my punt pole when the time comes. Now it’s of no use. The river carries us more swiftly.”