A Tale Without a Name (11 page)

T
HIS IS WHERE
Little Irene found him, first thing in the morning, on her way to the woods.

She woke him up, and they went down the slope together.

He asked her if she had any more recent news to give him.

“No,” she replied. “The enemy has not yet been sighted by the river.”

“May God’s will be with us!” said the Prince, and his whole heart was in his words. “For us, every hour is to our advantage.”

He killed rabbits and game birds with his sling, and divided them into two lots. He also divided the eggs, and took half in his scarf.

“Down below, at Miserlix’s house, a great table will be set today, and I must take food there too,” he told his sister.

And he recounted to her how he had gone to find Miserlix’s brother, who was now also working to make weapons, and how some street urchins were to come and
work in the mines, to be paid with the food that he would bring them.

“How lovely!” said Little Irene, deeply moved. “This way you will be feeding quite a number of hungry people, teaching them at the same time to work so that they will no longer be beggars.”

“It is exactly what I am striving for,” replied the Prince simply. “To teach the people to work once more.”

He bade his sister farewell, and ran swiftly back to town.

He went to the schoolmaster’s, where he had his lesson, leaving two birds by way of payment. Then he headed for Miserlix’s house.

He found everyone hard at work.

On all four of the room’s surrounding walls there hung several newly forged weapons.

“This is a splendid start!” said the Prince, delighted. “The enemy has not yet been sighted. Courage! The weapons shall be made.”

And after handing the game to Miserlix’s daughter, he rolled up his sleeves, and took up the hammer and the tongs.

All of a sudden, however, screams were heard outside.

The Prince abandoned his tools, rushed out, and saw one of the boys from the mines fighting valiantly to save his loaded handcart from two thieves.

The Prince recognized at once the inhospitable man who had chased him and Little Irene away from his doorstep; also the boy who worked for him, and who had stolen Miserlix’s watch.

“You scoundrel!” he shouted, and threw himself at him, grabbing him by the throat and laying him flat on the earth.

Miserlix, hearing the screaming, came out too, just as the man’s boy was sneaking away to the woods. He chased him, caught him, and brought him back, kicking and screaming.

“Hand me some rope!” cried the Prince.

And with Miserlix’s help, he tied their hands behind their backs; they then all went back to the smithy, pushing onwards in front of them the two thieves.

The Prince left the young thief outside, with old Master Miserlix to guard him.

“What you do is shamefully wrong!” cried the thief. “Why have you trussed up our hands as though we were criminals, instead of giving this whippersnapper a good thrashing with the cane for trying to harm honest and peaceful citizens?”

“We shall see about that later,” said the Prince. “Now tell me your name.”

Suddenly the thief recognized the Prince’s face and breathed a sigh of relief. What might he have to fear from a young greenhorn like him?

“Lor’ bless us!” he said delightedly. “It’s you, isn’t it, my lad, you came a day or so ago and knocked at my door? And how is the young girl who was with you then? Would she be your sister, perchance?”

“That too shall be left for later. Now tell me your name.”

“Scallywag is my name. But I don’t see why you ask me the questions that you should be asking that wastrel who tried to damage our property…”

“I shall ask him too, later. Now tell me why you were trying to take hold of the loaded handcart?”

“Oh, but this is not the way things are, my good lad,” said the man, with a foxy smile. “Please allow me to tell you how it all happened. I had been working in the woods, digging and taking out… those things, what d’ya call ’em… them stones. And my boy was there too, helping me. So then, once I had filled my cart, I told my boy to take it home…”

“What did you want the stones for?” asked the Prince.

“To build a chicken coop, bless your heart, because my old one has fallen to ruin. Well then, I heard screams, I went outside, and saw this boy here, who was set upon stealing the stones from my son, and I threw him on the ground to save my own. There, my good lad, that’s how the story goes, bless you, my boy. Do now untie my hands, for they have gone numb and blue bound up like this.”

“Stay there for now, we have someone else to hear before we can untie you,” said the Prince.

And he called now old Master Miserlix, who had been polishing a sword while guarding the thief boy, so as not to waste time.

“Bring him in, old man,” he said.

“What is your name and what happened?” he asked the boy.

“My name is Mitsos,” replied the boy, trembling and secretly making a sign to his father that he had no idea what to say.

The Prince caught sight of the sign, and forced Scallywag to turn his back to the boy.

“Tell them, my boy, weren’t you going to…” began the thief.

“You will keep silent, or I shall have you gagged!” shouted the Prince.

“Oh, but my good lad, I only want my boy to tell the truth, so you can believe that he was going—”

Yet, before he could speak another word, Miserlix had muzzled his mouth with a rag.

“Yes,” said Mitsos, thinking that he had understood his father’s meaning, “I was going to help the boy pull the loaded handcar—”

With a thump of his foot his father stopped him short.

“I mean I was going to take the stones to town to sell them to the master blacksm—”

Another thump of the foot, and the boy completely lost his wits, bursting into tears.

“Enough!” said the Prince.

And he called in the boy from the mine:

“Tell us what happened, Thanos?”

“I was returning from the mineshafts, with the ore stones,” said Thanos, “and this one came out of the woods and grabbed hold of the handcart. I shouted to him that this was another man’s property, when the older
one came too, threw me to the ground, and he would have taken the handcart from me if you had not arrived at the scene.”

“Did you hear that, Master Scallywag?” said the Prince. “You did not know of course that the handcart belonged to us, and that this boy works in our workshop, or else you would have conjured up some other story to tell us. And you, Mitsos,” he continued, turning to the thief boy, “now that you have had the good fortune to cross paths with Master Miserlix again, won’t you return to him the watch that you have been keeping for some days now in your breast pocket?”

Everyone was confounded by the Prince’s words. Scallywag alone understood; his knees then failed him, and he collapsed on a chair.

The Prince took the watch and its chain from the thief’s pocket, and returned them to Miserlix.

“My watch!” exclaimed the blacksmith with delight. “How did it come to be in this boy’s pocket?”

In a few words, the Prince recounted all that he had heard and seen from behind the loose pile of rubble at the back of the thief’s house.

“And now,” he said, “forwards!
March!
”

He led them, arms tied behind their backs, to prison, and found the jailor chatting at the door with a young man.

With displeasure the Prince recognized the drunken youth with the wine-glazed eyes, who had uttered such insults against the King in the tavern.

He too recognized him, and asked sarcastically: “Hey there, countryman! So then, has the King’s son come out yet?”

The Prince did not answer. He asked for the keys and the jailor handed them to him, bowing all the way to the ground.

He crossed the square to the other side where the prison cells stood, opened the door, and locked the thieves in.

The youth and the jailor stared at him as he went.

“Tell me one thing, why did you bow so deeply when you handed him the keys?” asked the youth. “Who is he?”

“I don’t know,” replied the jailor. “Only he made Master Faintheart take Miserlix out of prison, when it had been Faintheart himself who had sentenced him.”

“My, you don’t say!” said the youth.

And he went on contemptuously:

“He must be some palace lackey or other… Same as the rest of them…”

“Not at all!” said the jailor. “It was a palace man who asked for Miserlix’s jail sentence. Master Faintheart who sentenced an innocent man had sold himself heart and soul to the palace men. He, though!… You should have seen him! He was driving Master Faintheart with a whip, and he forced him to take the innocent man out of prison.”

“With a what, did you say?”

“With a whip!” repeated the jailor.

The Prince locked the prison door, brought back the keys and turned to go.

“Who can he be?” muttered the youth.

And from a distance, he followed him.

Going past the house of Illstar the master builder, the Prince decided to go up and ask him whether he had set himself down to work yet.

“The master builder is not upstairs,” shouted the cobbler, who had his workshop around the corner. “He is down by the river.”

“This is good!” the Prince thought joyfully to himself. “So, he has already started work then!”

He turned towards the river, but as he was passing the woods he heard voices.

He entered the woods, and amongst the trees he saw some youths who were struggling to pull an enormous log, all trussed up with ropes. But the log was heavy, and they could not make it yield an inch.

“Where do you wish to take this?” asked the Prince.

“To the river, where the foreman wants it,” they replied.

“It is impossible to drag it like this. It is too big.”

“And what are we to do? The foreman needs it. We shall be spitting blood by the end of it, but drag it we shall.”

“You will break your ropes, and still you shall have achieved nothing. We must find some other way. You need wheels…”

The lumbermen laughed.

“And that is just what we do not have!” they said.

The Prince took a few moments to think.

“Hand me your axe,” he said.

And removing his jerkin, the Prince fashioned three rollers. These they placed under the log. All three of them harnessed themselves with the ropes, and together they pulled. The log rolled forward, as though on wheels.

“And when the log rolls forward, beyond the last roller, you must take that one and put it again in front of the log,” the Prince told them. “In this fashion, you will be able to roll it along all the way to the river.”

The two young men thanked him, overjoyed.

“You cannot know how much easier you have made our task,” they said, relieved, “and how happy the foreman will be now that the transport will move faster.”

“Who is your foreman?” asked the Prince.

“Illstar the master builder.”

“And how is it that you work for him? I thought he no longer had apprentices.”

“And he didn’t. He had been working alone since his affairs went bad,” replied one of the young men. “He had even closed his workshop down. Only he must have received some really fine commission, for he sold his house and everything he had, and hired us all, every wood craftsman in town, with good wages, so that we might work night and day.”

“Here’s to him, here’s to a good countryman!” cried the Prince with fervour.

And he ran down to the river.

As he was hastening ahead, he stumbled on a man who stood there unnoticed.

“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!”