A Tale Without a Name Page 4

  “Open up!” shouted the Prince. “Or I swear to you, before the sun has risen, I will have your head for this.”

  “Heavens!” exclaimed Faintheart. “It has to be the King!”

  Trembling like a leaf, he rushed to open the door. Yet when he saw the two children before him, his fright turned to rage.

  “What’s the meaning of this? Are you trying to make a fool of me?” he asked snappishly. “Get out of here right now, or I shall have you both thrown into prison.”

  Calmly, yet resolutely, the Prince pushed him aside, and entered the house with his sister.

  “I give you fair warning, Master Faintheart, to listen to me and to listen well. Close the door and come here.”

  The boy’s imperious tone made Faintheart cower and shrink.

  “What do you want?” he asked, subdued.

  “I want you to get Miserlix out of prison, at once!”

  “All right, all right, there is enough time for that,” said the Judge lightly. “Those mackerels are still nicely warm and scrumptious. Wouldn’t you like one?”

  “I am not in a mood for jokes, Master Faintheart,” said the Prince sternly. “Either you get Miserlix out of prison at once, or you will be dealing with me.”

  “Aaaah! Enough is enough; you are starting to get on my nerves!” said the Judge, who was beginning to get cross once more. “Would you in fact mind telling me who Your Greatness might be, that you should dare make such threats?”

  “I am the King’s son and I command you!” replied the Prince, furious in his turn.

  Master Faintheart lost his wits at that. He made as though to bow; and was left fixed on the spot in that position, folded in two.

  “Order… Order thine servant…” he muttered, quivering.

  “You are to set Miserlix free at once!” commanded the Prince.

  “At once, my lord!”

  “And send out men to arrest the High Chancellor and throw him into prison in his place, for you know well that it was he who stole the chickens, and not Miserlix.”

  Master Faintheart fell on his knees.

  “My lord, spare me! Do not ask of me such things. Who told you the truth I do not know, but if you know this much, you certainly know more! Cunningson is a powerful man! How could I possibly arrest him?”

  “He is a thief!”

  “Yet he has many florins!”

  “How did he come by them? He has nothing!”

  “He has the control of the palace coffers. He does as he likes!”

  “He has nothing, I tell you. He was obliged to sell his golden chain of state in order to provide food for the palace for two days—for all that the chain is not even his to sell, but only the insignia of his rank. Yet, even if he did have many florins, this should not hinder you from arresting him.”

  Master Faintheart began to whimper.

  “I cannot, he will destroy me, he is the High Chancellor, and has the King’s full trust. Heed my words, and spare me, for in truth I know not myself what course to take! When Miserlix came to me and voiced his grievances, and described to me the palace courtier who had thrown him downhill and robbed him of his haversack, at once I realized who it was, for he wore, as he said, a chain. The whole affair caused me great distress, because I did not wish to find myself up against the High Chancellor, and my desire was to convince Miserlix to keep this quiet. Yet in vain! That one wanted justice to be done, and would not be quietened down!”

  “Good for him!” said the Prince. “It would have been most cowardly had he kept silent!”

  “So then,” continued Master Faintheart, “I sent word immediately to Cunningson in secret, to tell him to return the stolen sack, so that Miserlix might then keep quiet. Only, he rushed here at once, and told me that unless I found a way to throw Miserlix into prison, he would charge me with stealing the chain myself, and then I would have my head cut off.”

  “You are a coward! Why would you alert him in secret?”

  “I was afraid of him!”

  “You should not have been afraid! No one would have believed that you had stolen the chain, since he himself has sold it to provide food for the palace.”

  “He did not sell it on behalf of the palace,” said the Judge in a very small voice. “And they would have certainly believed that I had stolen it myself.”

  “How is that so?”

  “Because… because he had given the chain to me, to sell on his behalf… I made out a document in his name… and because… the chain… I still had it in my house.”

  “From this sale, then, you yourself received no profit?” asked the Prince, stressing each syllable one by one.

  The Judge did not reply, only bowed his head even lower.

  With arms crossed, the Prince stood gazing at the man as he knelt before him, most utterly contemptible, humiliated.

  “You are right to be afraid,” he said at last, filling his voice with all the disgust that swelled up in his heart. “One blackguard cannot pass judgement on another blackguard. You two are birds of a feather!”

  And, seizing a horsewhip that hung on the wall:

  “March ahead,” he commanded angrily. “Take your keys and open the door of the prison at once, or else your shoulders shall know whether this sting has the power to hurt or not!”

  Trembling from head to toe, out came the Judge; he went to the jailor’s house, took the keys, and from there proceeded to the prison.

  The Prince and Little Irene had gone with him.

  Outside the door, down on the dusty earth, a girl wailed inconsolably.

  The Prince recognized her.

  “Do not cry,” he said compassionately. “Your father will return home to you this evening. Go in and take him.”

  Master Faintheart opened the door and the girl threw herself at her father’s neck, pulling him outside.

  “To whom do I owe my freedom?” asked Miserlix with a tremulous voice, once he had recovered from the first surge of emotions.

  “To this boy,” answered the girl, pointing at the Prince.

  Miserlix bowed and kissed the threadbare, gold-embroidered robes.

  “May the heavens repay you for it!” he said, and his heart was in his words. “If ever you may need a true friend, remember me.”

  And, supporting himself upon his daughter’s arm, he walked towards his house.

  “Now go and eat your mackerel,” said the Prince contemptuously to the Judge, “and never again show yourself before me, for I will have you know that you won’t escape the horse’s whip a second time.”

  Master Faintheart did not wait to be told twice, and took to his heels.

  It was now completely dark. Brother and sister, hungry, tired, dragged their feet onwards.

  “Where do we go now?” asked Little Irene.

  “To the palace,” her brother replied. “I must settle Master Cunningson’s affairs.”

  And they took the way uphill, climbing the mountain.

  V

  The Gift of the King the Royal Uncle

  NO SOONER had they approached the palace than they heard angry voices and snivelling whimpers.

  “It was her, she is the one who tore my scarf!” Jealousia was screaming.

  “And I shall also scratch and tear at your face!” came the riposte of Spitefulnia.

  “Same as ever!” said the Prince sorrowfully.

  And the two siblings hurried onwards to enter the palace, where the screams could be heard louder and louder.

  Inside the room the sight was heart-rending. The two sisters, bereft of scarves and enraged, held one another by the hair and were hitting each other with mad fury. With his head thrown back so he could see from underneath his crown, which had slipped all the way down to the tip of his nose, the King was striving to separate them, while one of the maids-in-waiting, the fair, chubby one, lay asleep on the threadbare cushions of the sofa, utterly undisturbed by all the racket and commotion; and the other, scrawny and dark, profiting from the general upheaval, was gobblin
g down an apple pie which had been served for the King.

  Seated on the floor, the Queen busied herself with the embellishment of her skirt, using shards of glass from a broken bottle and taking no notice of the general mayhem around her. By her side stood the High Chancellor with two equerries, each of whom was holding a covered basket, waiting for the squabble to cease, so they might hold audience with the King.

  Little Irene threw herself between her sisters.

  “Stop, in God’s name, stop!” she pleaded. “Your antics are most shameful! Your screams can be heard far beyond the palace walls!”

  The princesses stopped, startled, and each let go of the other’s hair.

  “Where did you come from, little one?” they asked, both at once.

  The King lifted the crown from his nose, and smiled at Little Irene.

  “Welcome, you!” he said, pacified. “Have you been out for a stroll? We have not seen you at all today.”

  The Queen, busy with her shards of glass, did not even turn to look.

  “She was with me,” said the Prince. “And I wish to have a word with you at once, father.”

  “Is that so? You are here too? And where might you have been wandering?” asked the King.

  “In many places,” replied the Prince. “And I have learnt a few things that you need to know.”

  “If they be pleasant and amusing, do tell them at once, otherwise leave them for later. Dark concerns bore me immensely.”

  And he sat in his armchair, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt, which hung out loose through a slit in his robes.

  “No, father,” answered the Prince. “They are neither pleasant nor amusing. Yet you must hear them.”

  The King shooed him away with a gesture of his hand.

  “Later, you’ll tell me everything then. Come here yourself, now, Cunningson, and tell me what might be the business of these two basket-bearing men.”

  The High Chancellor drew nearer and bowed.

  “These are the two equerries whom I had sent last week to the neighbouring kingdoms,” he explained. “They have returned at last, and bring the answers of the rulers, your royal relatives.”

  “Bid them approach,” ordered the King.

  “Polydorus!” called out the High Chancellor.

  The first equerry set down his basket and knelt before his sovereign.

  “My lord,” he said, “I went to His Majesty your Royal Cousin and told him all that His Excellency the High Chancellor had commanded me to say. I had barely spoken the first words, and he threw insults at me, threatened to have me hanged and thrown to his dogs to be devoured by them. He then had me sent for again, and asked me many questions about the palace and about Your Majesty. In the end he told me to take this basket and to bring it to you, this being, however, the last gift he will send to you, for he is, he said, building ships and buying swords, and has no florins to spare to send abroad.”

  The King blazed up, was dismayed and then became furious.

  “The impudence of him!” he thundered, menacing his invisible relative with his clenched fist. “He is building ships and buying swords, or so he claims! Let him just dare say so once more, and I shall pour into his kingdom an army of a hundred thousand, and I shall send down the river my colossal fleet, so that he will be stunned with terror…”

  Then, suddenly changing tone:

  “Uncover the basket, Cunningson,” he continued, “and see if there is anything good to eat inside. This talk about business has given me an appetite, and my throat is parched.”

  Cunningson unpicked the string with which the cover had been sewn onto the basket, opened it, and proffered it to the King; he, with great haste, pushed aside some stalks of hay and revealed a tiny basket containing a few eggs.

  “What are these?!” he bellowed peevishly.

  “These are eggs, my lord,” said the High Chancellor very respectfully.

  “I can see that, you idiot! I am not asking you to tell me what they are called!… Empty out the hay, and look underneath. There must be more things, a hidden treasure perhaps…”

  The High Chancellor took out the basket of eggs, set it down beside him and carefully fumbled through the hay.

  But he found nothing.

  “You are nothing but a nincompoop!” said the King uneasily. “I am certain that I shall find the treasure myself.”

  And kneeling beside the basket, he plunged half inside it.

  In the meantime, and seeing that everyone’s attention was turned upon the gift of the King the Royal Cousin, the dark-haired maid-in-waiting drew stealthily nearer, and, grabbing some eggs, shoved them in her pocket.

  The Prince, standing cross-armed nearby, saw this, but he did not speak. He gazed at the scene with deeply felt disgust.

  Nothing else could be found in the basket, and the King sat back in his armchair, sulky and snappish.

  “You there, come here as well,” he said to the second equerry. “Tell me how you fared at the palace of the King my Royal Uncle.”

  The equerry Polycarpus approached with his basket, and, as Polydorus had done before him, knelt in front of the King.

  “My lord, when the King your Royal Uncle heard all that His Excellency the High Chancellor had bid me say, he smiled, and asked me to wait outside while he took counsel with his jester, who is, he says, his best advisor; he wanted to decide what he might send you, which would be of the greatest benefit to you. He then sent for me and gave me this sealed hamper and a letter that I have brought to you.”

  “Hand it over,” said the King, greatly pleased. “He at least has royal manners!”

  He took the letter, opened it, perched his spectacles securely on the bridge of his nose, and began to read it out:

  Most Illustrious King and Nephew,

  I have been informed of your news with great joy, and also that things are not going so very well in that kingdom of yours. And thus I now finally have the opportunity of being of good use to you, and of sending you a gift. My reasoning is that if I send you golden florins, you shall spend them, and they will run out. If, on the other hand, I send you things to eat, whether cooked or uncooked, they shall be eaten, and again all too swiftly consumed. If I send you clothes, with time they will become threadbare. So, then, I have sent you a gift which you shall keep for ever, a gift proportionate to your worth, most illustrious King and Nephew, such a gift, that upon looking at it you shall feel instantly how great my esteem is for you, and you will also realize how significant your existence is to the rest of the world.

  As ever,

  The King your Royal Uncle

  “There! This is a man!” cried the King excitedly. “See a letter written with courteousness and good sense! Proportionate, he writes, to my worth, do all of you hear this well? What do you stand there for, Cunningson, you nincompoop? Why don’t you open up the basket?”

  Cunningson cut the strings and uncovered a parcel wrapped in a red silk scarf, intricately worked with gold and silver patterns.

  The red colour caught the eye of the Queen, who had remained indifferent until then to all the goings-on.

  She got up hurriedly, abandoning her glass shards, and ran to the King.

  “Oh, how lovely, how dazzlingly flamboyant!” she said. “You keep the gift, my king, but do give me the scarf so I may make a pretty bonnet.”

  “Have it you shall, my lady,” said the King with joy. “I will give you anything you desire now! Cunningson, place the parcel on the table. Indeed, I wish to open it myself.”

  He secured his crown onto his head, wrapped himself with great dignity in his discoloured mantle, and drew near the table.

  With enormous care, he undid the knots of the scarf. A parchment covered the gift, and the King read out pompously and thunderously the words written upon it with gold ink:

  If you understand my meaning, it shall be to your benefit.

  “Careful!” cautioned the King. “You see that there is a secret meaning concealed in here. To me has
been bestowed the glory of discovering it. Move aside!”

  And with a gesture of great majesty he lifted the parchment—unveiling a donkey’s head with a tin crown between its pointed ears!

  A general guffaw broke out around the table. The King alone remained speechless, his mouth agape, his eyes bulging, while the Queen, seizing the scarf, was hastening to her mirror to wrap it over her head.

  The Prince too had drawn closer, his face grown ashen, looking now at his father, and now at the donkey’s head. Then suddenly, hiding his face in his hands, he leant against the windowsill and burst into tears.

  The King heard his son’s sobs in the midst of everyone else’s laughter. He turned around, his face transformed.

  “Who weeps?” he asked.

  His eyes fell upon the young man, standing against the window, and with shaky steps he advanced towards him, placing his hand heavily upon his child’s shoulder.

  “You,” he said, “you are truly noble! You felt the insult hurled against your father. Blessed may you be!”

  And for the first time in his life, the old King pulled his son into his arms and gave him a hearty kiss.

  Once the first surge of emotions had died down, and he had dried his eyes and blown his nose, the King returned to the table and called his son to him.

  “Come, my boy,” he said. “In the future, you shall rule with me. It is you who will help me pay back the insult.”

  His gaze fell upon the donkey’s head.

  “Take it outside! Remove it from here!” he cried, covering his eyes.

  The High Chancellor charged forward to take it. But the Prince stretched out his arm and stopped him.

  “No!” he said. “My father and my king, change your command, and allow me, on the contrary, to put it where all of us may see it every day, every hour, until we have redeemed ourselves of our shame.”

  “My child, what are you saying?!” groaned the King.

  “The donkey’s head irks you, father, because we are not worthy right now to return the gift to its sender. Yet if we destroy it, we shall forget it. And we must not forget it. Let it remain here.”