A Tale Without a Name Read online

  “Cunningson!” he finally shouted frantically. “Either you find me a solution, or I shall have your head cut off!”

  The miserable Cunningson was most profoundly distressed. He began to tremble and to shake in earnest, and he kept glancing at the door, gauging with his eye how many steps he would have to take in order to reach it.

  “Well, then, out with it! A solution!” yelled the King.

  The High Chancellor was quivering all over.

  “I… I ought to go myself, then…” he suggested, his voice a mere whisper.

  “Well then, go, and see that you run!” replied the King. “I want food and wine, at once. If you do not leave and come back as quick as lightning, I shall have your head cut off!”

  Before he had even finished his phrase, the High Chancellor was already far away.

  Cunningson bolted out of the palace as fast as he could. Yet once outside in the darkness and the cold, he stopped still.

  “Where am I going?” he muttered. “And how? It would take me two days to reach the realm of the King the Royal Cousin, and till then…”

  For two long minutes he stood there, considering the situation. Then he made up his mind.

  “Today, tomorrow, what difference does it make!” he mumbled. “I am going away in any case! I just need to wrap up some unfinished business first, with my friend Faintheart…”

  He began to scramble down the mountain.

  As he was hurrying down, he heard footsteps nearby. A cold shiver ran through him.

  “Who’s that?” he asked, petrified.

  “No one, Your Excellency, it is only I!” answered a voice, even more petrified than his own.

  The High Chancellor found his lost courage once more. “And who might you be?” he asked.

  “It… It is I… Miserlix the blacksmith,” answered the quivering voice.

  “Show yourself here before me at once!” commanded the High Chancellor.

  And a human shadow, with a heavy bulge over its shoulder, appeared in front of him.

  The High Chancellor seized the bulge.

  “You thieving rogue! What have you got in your haversack?” he demanded savagely.

  “Your Excellency… I am no rogue and no thief… These are my chickens, and my wine, which I have bought and paid for—”

  “You lie!” barked the High Chancellor more brutally still. “Ragged beggars such as yourself eat no chickens and drink no wine! You have stolen these goods! Tell me now where from!”

  “I have not stolen them, master, peace be with you, I paid for these!” answered Miserlix, his voice breaking into sobs. “I paid for these, master, I did, with the money I got selling my daughter’s needlework, a commission from the King the Royal Uncle, the sovereign of the kingdom across the border. Ask Him, Your Excellency, if I paid or not! He even gave me a gift, a shepherd’s pie…”

  He was given, however, no chance to finish what he was saying. Cunningson was not likely to miss out on such an incredible stroke of good luck.

  He snatched the haversack from Miserlix, who stood frozen, transfixed with terror, and with a sharp kick sent him rolling down the slope so viciously and violently that the poor man did not regain his foothold until he had reached the foot of the high mountain.

  III

  At the Humble Cottage of Mistress Wise

  CUNNINGSON SCURRIED in all haste back to the palace and entered the room where the King, the Queen, the princesses and the maids-in-waiting all sat in a circle, watching amidst great fits of laughter the buffooneries of a podgy, hunchbacked and knock-kneed fool.

  By the window stood the Prince, who was talking to Little Irene, describing to her the beauties of the woods where he had been that afternoon.

  Their talk was disrupted by the screams with which everyone else in the room greeted Cunningson’s entrance; the two siblings turned around, bewildered.

  The High Chancellor opened his haversack with great pomp and circumstance, and presented its contents—two roast chickens, three bottles of wine, a shepherd’s pie and a basket filled with ripe-red strawberries.

  “I bring them, my lord, from the King your Royal Cousin,” he answered to the King’s questions.

  “Well done, indeed, my good Cunningson,” said Witless. “Do remind me tomorrow to bestow upon you the Great Diamond-studded Cross of Unbridled Loyalty to the Crown, for you do deserve it.”

  “There are no more honours or decorations left in the coffers,” said the High Chancellor uncertainly.

  “No?… Ah, hmm… Well then, not to worry, I shall give you its title instead.”

  Cunningson stared once more at the precious stones of the crown, pursed his lips, and was about to reply.

  The Prince, however, spoke first, and said to his father:

  “My king and father, this man is lying. He most certainly did not go to the King our Royal Cousin. For when did he have the time to do so? It takes two days to go and as many to come back. Ask him where he did find all this food, and, until you know, may no one eat a single morsel!” he added, catching hold of Jealousia’s hand just as she was about to dig her finger in the pie.

  The King stood hesitant.

  “Really? Does it really take two days to go to the realm of the King my Royal Cousin?” he asked of Cunningson.

  He in turn became muddled and confused, started to blurt out some sort of explanation, froze with embarrassment and stopped.

  “Father,” said the Prince, “this food has been stolen. And I ask you as a favour that you oblige this man to return every item to the rightful owner.”

  The King pushed his crown nervously all the way to the back of his head, and rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. The very notion of losing his food did not appeal to him in the least.

  “And how do you know, if I may ask, how long it takes for someone to go to the realm of the King our Royal Cousin?” he enquired sullenly.

  “You sent me there once yourself, to ask for golden florins. Have you forgotten it, father? For I remember it well!” answered the Prince. “It took me two days to go, and two more to return. And four whole days did I have to wait there, till I could see the lord and master of the land. For the King our Royal Cousin does not grant audiences to beggars, except when the fancy takes him.”

  The proud aspect of his son began to irritate the King.

  “Well, you went on foot. Cunningson surely took a horse,” he snapped.

  “There is no road, and a horse cannot pass by the rugged ridgeways. And even if there had been a road, still he would not have made it there and back again in such a short time.”

  “Dash it all! You are beginning seriously to annoy me!” yelled the King. “Let us then just say that he flew there! Stop bothering me, or I shall have you thrown in prison, future king or not.”

  And without further ado he sat down to supper, together with the women, Cunningson and the fool, who turned a cartwheel to show his joy, causing the little jingle bells of his motley-coloured garb to chime as he did so.

  The Prince seized Little Irene’s hand.

  “Come with me,” he said, “or I will suffocate in here!”

  They went out together; in silence, with difficulty, tripping and stumbling in the darkness, they descended the mountain.

  When they reached the valley, Little Irene stopped him.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Anywhere, as long as it is far away from this kingdom where such things can happen!”

  “You mean to forsake your country?”

  “Yes! Yes! Yes… I mean to leave this accursed land, and forget all about it!”

  Little Irene made no reply. Her heart bled at the thought of leaving her fatherland, where she had been born and had grown up. Its squalor, its desolation, even its bad fortune, all these she loved, because this was her homeland.

  Unspeaking, she followed her brother. And so they went on, for hours, and for more hours still, amidst the sharp stones and the crooked twigs of the undergrowth.
Yet she was unaccustomed to such rough paths. Her feet, barely protected by her tattered silken slippers, were bruised all over. Her old sequined skirt, embroidered with golden thread, trailed on the ground, torn to shreds by the spiny thorns where it had been caught along the way.

  She turned around and looked at her brother.

  Lips pressed resolutely together, head held high, the Prince walked on, in full defiance of all pain and all tiredness. And the night breeze stroked his forehead, frolicking between the strands of his brown hair, which fell in rich, long locks all the way down to his gold-embroidered neckerchief.

  He seemed to her so noble and beautiful that she embraced him.

  “Yes! I shall come with you, wherever you may go!” she said to him. And with courage anew she set off again by his side. In a little while, however, her exhaustion vanquished her. She sat down at the edge of the road, and rested her head on her huddled knees.

  “I cannot walk any farther!” she said faintly.

  “Rest awhile,” replied the Prince, “and then we will go on again.”

  At that, he climbed on a high rock to look around him. In the distance, through a thicket of trees, it seemed to him that he could see a light.

  He scrambled down hurriedly from the rock, and ran to his sister.

  “Get up, Little Irene, I have seen a light!” he cried out to her. “Come! It must be a house, and perhaps they will open their door to us, and give us shelter.”

  So they went on their way once more, towards the place where the light could be seen, till they arrived in front of a small, freshly whitewashed dwelling.

  The Prince knocked at the door.

  “Who is that?” asked a woman’s voice inside.

  “Please open your door to us,” pleaded the Prince. “My sister and I ask for your hospitality, to warm ourselves up, and rest awhile.”

  The door opened, and an old woman with pure white hair and a face that had the sweetness of honey beckoned to them to enter.

  “Welcome to the poor home of Mistress Wise,” she said. “Come and sit down, my children, have a rest.”

  A young girl was lying asleep on a couch nearby. The old woman nudged her gently.

  “Wake up, my good girl; guests have come to us. Get up and warm some milk, and bring along some rusks of bread.”

  The girl got up and lit the fire, warmed the milk. Then she poured it into two small mugs and smilingly placed these on the table in front of the famished siblings, together with a plate of rusks.

  Little Irene, however, did not have time to eat, for she had fallen asleep on her chair. The two women lifted her in their arms and laid her on the couch.

  “Get some sleep yourself, now, my young lord,” said the old woman, “and tomorrow you can resume your journey. You have far to go?”

  “Yes,” replied the Prince, “I am going very far.”

  “A pity!” said the old woman pensively.

  And with a sigh, she patted the young boy’s curly head.

  “A pity? Why so?” asked the Prince, taken aback.

  The old woman, however, merely smiled.

  “Good night to you, my child; sleep peacefully, it is late,” she said.

  And with her daughter they went into a small adjacent room and closed the door.

  The Prince lay himself down to sleep on the hearthrug in front of the fireplace, and he did try his best to fall asleep. Yet for all his weariness, sleep would not come to him. The words of the old woman kept ringing in his head, now loudly and very distressingly, then again half-faded, as though coming to him from very far away.

  “A pity!… A pity!… A pity…”

  Why a pity? What did the old woman mean?

  And with this thought he finally fell asleep.

  The room was flooded with sunlight when he woke up in the morning. He got up and ran to the couch, where Little Irene was still lying, lost in reverie, although thoroughly awake.

  “I was waiting for you,” she said. “Come, let us go outside. It is so very beautiful outside!”

  In her little kitchen garden, Mistress Wise was hanging the washed clothes out to dry, while her daughter, sitting on a little stool, was milking the cow.

  They both smiled when they saw the two siblings.

  “Knowledge, my good girl, give the children to drink some of the milk you have just milked, before it gets cold,” said the old woman. “Do sit you down, my young lord and lady. You will have fine weather for your journey.”

  The Prince remembered the words she had said to him the previous night.

  “Old mother,” he said, “why do you think it a pity that I should go away?”

  But the old woman had work to do in the house.

  “I have no time just now, my young lord,” she said. “Knowledge will answer your question. For she knows all such matters even better than I do myself.”

  And she went into her back kitchen to prepare the meal.

  “Well then, you tell me, Knowledge,” said again the Prince, “why does your mother say that it is a pity that I should be going away?”

  The young girl hesitated awhile. Then she said cautiously:

  “Because the King’s son ought not to leave his land.”

  The Prince was startled.

  “How can you tell who I am?” he asked.

  “My mother can tell, she knows you. Once upon a while we too lived in the palace. But many years have gone by since then.”

  “And why did you go away?”

  “Because other maids-in-waiting took my mother’s place, and we could no longer stay. We left the palace, and stayed in a little house in the capital, at the foot of the mountain. But the new maids-in-waiting drove us away from there too, and so we left and went farther away, and farther still, and in the end we came here, to the edge of the kingdom, where no man sees us, no man concerns himself with us. And we live all by ourselves, in the solitude of the countryside, which used to be dense with green things and teeming with houses, and yet is now only barren stones and desolation.”

  “We too, we should come here!” said Little Irene. “It is so very peaceful and beautiful!”

  “This is not a choice that is given to you,” said Knowledge.

  “Why not?” asked the Prince.

  “Because you have to stay among your people.”

  “Oh, but I cannot!” said the Prince. “You cannot know what my people are like, the palace, this entire place…”

  “Then set your people right again,” replied the girl.

  “I? How? I am only a child, I know nothing, I have learnt nothing, I am nothing.”

  The maiden considered him pensively.

  “Why did you wish to leave?” she asked.

  “Because I was in too much pain amidst the corruption and the dissolution of the palace.”

  “Well, then, that shows that you have something inside you worth more than all the things you have not learnt.”

  “What do I have?”

  “You have an honourable soul, and dignity.”

  The Prince considered this for a while. Then he asked:

  “And what good are these things to me?”

  “They are good to you because you can use them to find in you the strength and the will to rebuild your nation.”

  “But how? How?!”

  “How would I know to tell you?… Yet, if I were you, I would go back, and travel everywhere in the realm. Do not remain locked up in the palace, go and talk with your people instead, come to know them, live by their side; listen to what the birds and the trees and the flowers have to say, the insects. If you only knew how many truths one may learn this way, how many examples one may find to show one the way!…”

  The Prince paused thoughtfully for a very long time.

  Then he said:

  “I shall go back, Knowledge, and I shall travel everywhere in the realm. Thank you.”

  He meant to say goodbye, but the maiden stopped him.

  “Won’t you stay awhile yet?” she asked. “Y
ou are all in tatters, you and your sister both. I have something I would like to give to the Princess as a gift, a thing that will serve her well.”

  She took out of her pocket a needle case and a bobbin of thread, and gave them to her.

  “You see,” she said, “it is no great gift, nor a costly one. Yet in its way it is priceless.”

  Little Irene stared at the thread and at the needles without understanding.

  “What are these?” she asked, puzzled.

  “What’s that? You do not sew?” asked Knowledge.

  “No, nor have I ever seen anyone else sew.”

  “Would you like to learn? Come, and I shall teach you.”

  And Knowledge sat on the front step of her house, took Little Irene’s torn scarf, and darned all the holes.

  Little Irene stared in amazement and bewilderment.

  “Please let me have me the needle and thread! Oh, let me try too!” she begged.

  She took the needle and darned her dress, then her silken slippers and the golden ribbons which tied up her brother’s sandals, and which were all in knots, then his frayed neckerchief and his torn clothes.

  She mended them so beautifully that when she had finished they all seemed to her as new.

  “What fun this is!” she said excitedly. “And you, Knowledge, do you sew a great deal yourself?”

  “I sew when I have finished all of my tasks.”

  “So you do more things in the house? Tell me, what?”

  “All the housework: I tidy up, I wash, cook, knead bread and tend to the garden—”

  “Fancy that!” interjected Little Irene. “I do nothing at all, all day long, and I am so very frightfully bored! This morning, for instance, until my brother was awake, I passed my hand again and again through the rays of the sun and watched the specks of dust leaping here and there, just so I could pass the time. I have no idea how to kill the endless hours of the day!”

  Knowledge laughed.

  “Do you wish to kill them, or to use them?” she asked.

  “Isn’t it the same?”

  “No! Time always passes. But if you consume yourself in idle things, you waste it; whereas if you do work that has a purpose, you make good use of time.”

  “I’ve never thought of this before,” said the Prince pensively. “To me too the hours appear endless!”