A Tale Without a Name Page 7

Little Irene glanced at her brother, and met his own saddened gaze. She wiped away a tear in secret, and sat at the table with a deep sigh.

  There was a sudden ringing of bells a few moments later, which deafened them all.

  “Run,” said the King to the maids-in-waiting, “quick, the Queen sends for you.”

  They both rose sulkily, casting greedy glances at the stew.

  “Little Irene,” said the dark-haired one with sweet flattery, “do save me some, joy be to your bright little eyes!”

  “For me too,” echoed the blonde one.

  Yet she was too bored to add anything more. She went as far as the door, let the other one go through first, then turned the other way, and sat again sluggishly at her place.

  The first maid-in-waiting was back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.

  “The Queen demands stew and watercress,” she said, winking meaningfully at Spitefulnia. “We are not, she says, to forget the strawberries, because she craves them most awfully.”

  “The Queen’s nerves cannot long resist the mighty temptation of food,” said Spitefulnia sarcastically.

  “In that, she resembles your own royal ladyship…” replied Jealousia.

  Before she could finish her sentence, Spitefulnia’s glass was flying across the table, striking her on the forehead.

  “You witch!” screamed Jealousia.

  In an instant, the table had become a riotous mess, plates and glasses were being hurled across the room, and the few remaining ones would have been smashed then too, if the Prince had not had the time to push Jealousia into her room and lock the door. He then took hold of the raging Spitefulnia and locked her in a second room.

  The King, his fork uplifted in his hand, was observing the entire scene with utter complacency.

  Once the two doors were shut, and the room had regained its tranquillity once again, he took a second bird onto his plate, and began to eat it.

  “You are not having anything?” he asked his son, who was staring pensively at the donkey’s head above the gold-leaf cabinet.

  “I am thinking, father, that we must go down to Cunningson’s house,” replied the Prince, “search his cellar immediately, and find the things that he stole from us. We must sell these at once, so that we might, with the florins we shall get in return, arm our nation—”

  “Stop! Enough is enough—I am fed up with you! Since early this morning I have dragged myself everywhere with you!” the King interrupted dispiritedly. “Leave me in peace awhile. I don’t know what’s got into you!”

  He rose from the table and went to lie down on the sofa.

  “You may go where you wish,” he added more calmly, “as long as you leave me be.”

  And turning his back to all and sundry, he fell asleep.

  From where it hung above the gold-leaf cabinet, the donkey’s head was still staring at them, with its broad, sardonic grin.

  In her back kitchen, however, Little Irene and the equerry Polycarpus, chatting and laughing, were rinsing and drying the glasses and the plates. This is where the Prince found them.

  “Little Irene,” he said, “I will be going to town. Will you come with me?”

  She cast off her apron on the spot, and followed him.

  “We are going to Cunningson’s house,” he said.

  And he told her the contents of Faintheart’s letter, and what great need there was for them to find immediately the stolen treasure, so they could purchase arms.

  They descended the mountain and reached the town; they went straight to the High Chancellor’s house. The door had been left wide open.

  “This is strange!” said the Prince. “Could he have gone out last night without locking his door?”

  They went inside, and into all the rooms. Yet they found nothing but some old wooden furniture. They pulled out all the drawers, and opened every cupboard, but they were all empty.

  Little Irene stepped on something hard that was lying on the floor near the door. She bent down, picked it up and showed it to her brother.

  “A jingle bell,” she said.

  The Prince took it and looked at it.

  “It belongs to the jester,” he replied. “You can still make out the royal crown embossed on it, even though the gilding is gone. It wouldn’t be so strange if Cunningson had found it and taken it, in the hope that it too would be worth something. Now let us go to the cellar.”

  They went down a narrow stone staircase, and came before a small iron door.

  The Prince examined the lock carefully.

  “He hid his treasures well!” he said. “We shall need a blacksmith to open up such a door…”

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Little Irene, “here is the key.”

  And she picked up from the ground a small, elegant key that fit the lock just right.

  “It is as though he dropped it here on purpose, so we might find it more easily,” she added, laughing.

  “Just as he left the door ajar, so we might enter the house unhindered. It all seems too easy,” muttered the Prince.

  He turned the key and the door opened.

  The room that the two siblings entered was small, with a low ceiling and no windows.

  There was a lantern still burning on the ground, and its flickering flame lit up the four bare stone walls.

  Beside the lantern, there was an empty wooden chest, its lid gaping wide open.

  The Prince looked around him.

  Lying in a corner on the floor, there was something white against the darkness. He lifted it up to the light of the lantern and examined it.

  It was a small baton, its gilding tarnished, with a doll’s head at one end and trimmed with ribbons and jingle bells.

  “What have you found?” asked Little Irene.

  “The thief’s signature,” replied the Prince. “In other words, the jester’s sceptre. We have come too late, Little Irene! The treasure is lost!”

  “What are you saying!” cried his sister.

  “I am saying,” answered the Prince, pointing to the plaything he had found, “that this explains the open door, the jingle bell on the floor, the little key by the cellar door, the unextinguished lantern, and the empty cellar. It also explains to us the jester’s presence by Cunningson’s corpse. The dwarf was no fool; on the contrary, he must have either suspected or known about the existence of the treasure in the High Chancellor’s cellar, and, first thing in the morning, when we were going out unsuspecting to find food, he himself was after a different sort of bounty. He was going down the precipice to find the key, exactly where he knew he would find it, namely inside the dead man’s shirt…”

  Little Irene stared dismally at the jester’s sceptre.

  “So what now?” she asked.

  “Now we must go and ask whether anyone has seen him, and which way he was headed. I do not believe it would be possible for me to catch up with him. But I would like to try.”

  They locked up the cellar and went out.

  Across the street from the house, by the door of a derelict grocer’s shop, there stood a young boy, beggarly looking and pale; he was munching away at a small chunk of hard black bread.

  The Prince went up to him and asked if he worked there.

  “Yes!” said the boy. “This is my uncle’s place, and when he is at the tavern I keep shop for him.”

  “Tell me,” said the Prince, “do you know, perhaps, if the King’s jester passed this way earlier this morning?”

  “That he did! He came to the house of His Excellency Master Cunningson.”

  “Did you see him leave the house? Was he carrying anything?”

  “Yes! He had a haversack slung over his shoulder.”

  “You did not ask him what was in it?”

  “Who, me? I would not dare! He’s been to Master Cunningson’s several times in the past, laden with things, but he always got so angry if anyone asked him what was in his sack. How could I ask! He is nasty and sneaky.”

  “And where did he go?” asked
the Prince.

  “He headed towards the vale. He was in a hurry, running fast.” Brother and sister thanked him and took their leave.

  “So, that’s that, he was Cunningson’s accomplice,” said the Prince. “He must have been the one who carried the plunder to him, stealing a few items at a time from the palace.”

  “Do you think we may be able to catch up with him?” asked Little Irene.

  “Who knows?”

  They hurried on towards the vale.

  “And yet, luck is not on our side,” said Little Irene sorrowfully. “If only we had arrived a little earlier, we would have found the treasure!”

  “I see no place for either luck or misfortune in all that has happened,” answered the Prince. “Luck is on the side of the man who can steer his ship out of a storm. If I have lost the treasure, it is my own fault, and no one else’s… And do you know what I am thinking, Little Irene?” he continued, disheartened. “That I shall never achieve my purpose, because I do not know how to read and write! Last night, when I found Faintheart’s letter, if I had known how to read, I would have gone after him at once, perhaps I might have caught him. And then I would have stopped him from going over to our enemies to betray us. Had I been able to read, I would have come immediately to Cunningson’s house, broken down the door of the cellar and found the treasure, which is so vital to us, if we are to reassemble our army once again and buy weapons for its soldiers. Then, I could have still had time. Whereas today, when father finally read the letter, it was too late! Faintheart was far away, the cellar empty. And by now, Faintheart will have arrived at the kingdom of the King our Royal Uncle, and will have already betrayed us. And who knows what storms will fall upon our long-suffering, miserable land, storms I might have averted, if only I had known how to read and write!…”

  Little Irene threw her arms around his neck.

  “Do not talk like this! Do not be so distressed!” she said, with tears in her eyes. “It is no fault of yours that you do not know how to read and write!”

  “Until this moment,” the Prince went on, “I had never felt the need to learn anything. I would spend my days on the terrace, gazing at the sky and the valley, or going down the slope to shoot targets with my sling, my only concern being how to escape the eternal squabbles and the petty miseries of the palace… Now, however, since I came down from our mountain and have been amongst our people, I see, feel the need to learn… And I shall learn,” he went on with fervour. “I shall go to the schoolmaster, I shall toil day and night, and I shall learn! Otherwise I will never be able to accomplish my purpose.”

  Brother and sister walked on thus for some while.

  Loneliness pervaded everything. Not a single soul did they meet, neither in the fields, nor in the woods, to ask whither the jester had gone.

  As they came out of the forest, they went past a small, solitary house. Its owner sat by the doorway, his head bandaged, smoking his pipe.

  The Prince recognized him, and stopped to bid him good morning.

  “How is your head, Miserlix?”

  The man rose from his chair, grasped the boy’s hand and kissed it.

  “May God keep you well, my good lad,” he said, choking with emotion. “I shall never forget the debt I owe you.”

  And noticing Little Irene, he asked:

  “Is the young lass your sister?”

  “Yes!”

  “Come, be welcome in my poor home, sit down and rest.”

  “I do not have time to stop,” said the Prince. “I am chasing a man who runs before me; he has a good head start, and I must catch up with him at all costs.”

  “If you are chasing someone the likes of you and me, then mayhap you could gain on him. But if you are running after some palace courtier, you would need to have the jester’s horse to catch him.”

  “A horse? The jester has a horse? Where did you see him?”

  “He went past this way at daybreak. He was making the horse gallop as if it had been stung by the devil himself…”

  “But how came he by the horse?” asked the Prince.

  Miserlix laughed.

  “Those palace men come by anything they want, don’t you worry,” he said. “Faintheart was on horseback too, when he went past this way yesterday, under cover of night.”

  “They took the same road?”

  “Yes! And as he passed by this morning, the dwarf shouted to me, asking whether I had any greetings to send to Master Faintheart, because he would be seeing him again, as he said, very soon.” And looking keenly at the Prince, who stood crestfallen and with his arms crossed: “Don’t let it break your heart, my lad,” he went on. “Do come inside, you and your sister. You chase him in vain—you will never catch up with him now!”

  Once inside, Miserlix’s daughter brewed coffee, served it in iron cups, and placed these before them on an iron tray.

  The Prince noticed that all the furnishings were also made of iron, and asked why.

  “And how would it be otherwise? Mine is the blacksmith’s craft, my lad,” replied Miserlix. “Once upon a time, I was the one who forged all the swords, arrow tips and suits of armour in the kingdom, it was I who would clad the mighty ships with iron, ships which filled the river and spread terror to every neighbour. But the good years are now gone, the ships are lost, as are the weapons, and the palace does not order new ones; my hands hang worthless, useless. What iron was left in my storehouse I used to make furniture, just so I would have something to busy myself with, and not sit around doing nothing. I have no iron left, however. And so, here I sit, idling away the time, smoking my pipe, while my daughter sells her needlework to bring some bread into the house. Everything has been turned upside down, my lad!”

  The Prince’s eyes flashed with the new hopes that were being born in his heart.

  “And long ago, at the time when the palace still commissioned swords, where did you buy the iron?”

  “I did not buy it. The palace provided me with it.”

  “And where did the palace get it from?”

  “Ah, my boy, those were the days when everyone prospered here. Many were the young men and the families who owed their livelihood to the State mines and quarries. You could see them going down the pits every day, like armies of ants, extracting the stones, and as many more would be busy in the workshops, where they would separate the ore from the rock. I was then managing one hundred hard-working craftsmen, we earned our bread lavishly, and there wasn’t a soul left without his beef stew or his roast chicken on a Sunday. Those days are gone and vanished, never to return!” said Miserlix with a sigh.

  “And why couldn’t the good days come back, I wonder?” said the Prince eagerly. “Why might not the work begin anew, with miners extracting iron, so you could make again arrow tips and spearheads?”

  Miserlix smiled.

  “And who would be paying for all the hard-toiling labourers? The King is up to his ears in debt. He does not even have food to eat.”

  The Prince bowed his head at this, heavy as lead with dark sadness. He needed florins! Where could he find florins?

  He remembered the lost treasure, and his heart felt quashed, strangled by an iron grip. He rose to take his leave of Miserlix and his daughter.

  “Come,” he said to Little Irene. “Let us go to the schoolmaster straight away.” But they had no time to go to his house, for they met him on their way.

  “Good greetings to you, my children,” said the schoolmaster, recognizing the two siblings. “Where are you going?”

  “I was coming to find you,” said the Prince. “I have a favour to ask, and I was heading towards your house.”

  “What a pity!” said the schoolmaster. “I was just now going to town, to see my brother who lives there. Could you perhaps explain while we walk?”

  “Why not? I too must go back to the capital with my sister, so we can talk on the way there. I have a proposition for you. I want to learn how to read and write. Will you teach me?”

  “Well do
ne! But how much will you pay me? You know I am a poor man. I cannot teach for nothing—”

  “I have no money to give you, nor anything else of value,” interrupted the Prince, “but I propose the following arrangement. You only have some wild greens to live on, which the children cultivate on your behalf—”

  “Not wild greens, just tubers,” interrupted the schoolmaster. “I grow nothing but carrots, onions and the like now, plants whose yield cannot be seen. Otherwise, all is stolen from me.”

  “Well then. What I propose is to bring you a fowl or a hare or a rabbit or any other game I might kill for every lesson you give me. Do you accept?”

  “Do I? And how!” said the schoolmaster, overjoyed. “So many years has it been since I last ate meat that I have near forgotten what it tastes like.”

  They were walking through the woods.

  The schoolmaster took a thick dry branch, cut it and trimmed it into small squares, and scratched on each a letter of the alphabet. Then he sat down at the root of a tree, and spread them before him.

  “Come,” he said, “and I shall first teach you the letters and the sounds.”

  The schoolmaster had good patience, and the students were eager and keen to learn. And so, when the sun set, the three of them were still sitting beneath the tree, shuffling the wooden squares and sorting them out again, to form syllables and words.

  “This is good,” said the schoolmaster. “If we always work as well as we did today, you shall learn even more things than I know myself. Soon I shall give you books too, so you may read on you own.”

  They took again the way to the capital. As they walked, they talked of many things.

  “Had you passed this way during the days of Prudentius I, it would have seemed to you that the entire land was one great, busy factory,” said the schoolmaster.

  “What did everyone do then?” asked the Prince.

  “They built ships,” answered the schoolmaster. “And the master builder was my brother. They felled the trees, and carried them down to the river, building there the royal ships, which were then taken to the naval base.”

  “And where is your brother now?” asked the Prince fervently.

  “He lives in the capital: that is where I am going tonight. But the poor man barely makes ends meet, always living from hand to mouth. If he has one unlucky turn, one day of sickness, he will lose his bread.”