I’m trying out a little game I thought up. The game is to retell a fairy tale or children’s story while omitting one of the major characters.
This is the Princess and the Pea… so long as you don’t count the princess (Part IV). Part I. Part II. Part III.
Time doesn’t exist within a dungeon. That is, it doesn’t exist as it does everywhere else. It no longer has meaning, and so it is a dead thing, an empty ticking away of hours with no evidence of hours passing.
The farmer did not count hours, or days, or even weeks. He saw no point. The farmer knew (as everyone in the kingdom knew) that the King’s dungeons were for people to die in. Sometimes they were for people to be held in until their execution. They were never for being freed from. And so the farmer did not count. He knew how his story would end, and long it took was irrelevant.
He was asleep when they came for him. He woke up to the clatter of his own manacles being loosened. The fear he felt surprised him. He had not thought he would be brought out to die; but he had thought, if he was, he might be numb to it.
But no, he was afraid. He knew the guards around him were taking him to some bloody scene – a gallows or block or pit. He struggled, reaching for the dungeon walls, for anything to cling to! The damp stone was at least familiar. He knew the dark confines of the dungeon; he could not bear to leave them for some more awful thing.
But the guards were strong, and the farmer was taken away. So he shut his eyes as tightly as he could. He did not want to see the place where they were going, he could not bear to know. As the guards half dragged, half carried him along the farmer did his best to shut out everything; he tried to close his mind to the bumping and the banging as his captors hauled him away.
Eventually he felt the guards release him; the farmer collapsed in a heap on a floor. He kept his eyes tight shut. He would lie there; he would defy his executioner. He waited for the kicks, the angry voices. But… no blows came, no harsh commands. And then he felt ashamed. Could he not face his death? Was he really so frightened that he must lie on the floor with his eyes shut? No, he should get up.
He opened his eyes and stood up.
There were no guards around him; he was alone, alone and in a large hall. He looked around, but the guards had really had left him, if only for the moment. Puzzled, he began to walk around the hall.
The farmer knew the room he was in from days long past; it was the Hall of Kings. The walls were covered with their portraits – stately, regal, serene.
The farmer knew them all; he whispered their names as he walked along. He stopped when he reached the portrait of his brother. The King in the painting had a petulant look, and the farmer remembered how, in the days before his brother’s coronation, his anxious brother had complained about the time it wasted, sitting for this very painting.
He looked away from the painting; he didn’t want to remember any more. But his eyes fell on the plaque beneath the painting, and he saw the dates there – the date of the King’s birth… and of his death.
“Yes, the King is dead. He died yesterday.”
The farmer had been transfixed on the painting; he had not heard footsteps or see the other man approach him. The man was dressed in robes, and around his neck hung a heavy golden chain. It was the Visir.
“So very sad,” said the minister. “His last days were most unhappy. He was haunted, you know. A haunted man. He thought there was a plot against his life. ‘They know what I have done,’ he would say. ‘They tell me so. They know what I have done.’”
The farmer looked dumbfounded at the Visir.
“I asked him.” continued the Visir. “I asked him who he thought was telling him. He said it was the garden. He thought the garden was speaking to him, threatening him.”
“I don’t understand.” said the farmer.
“He wasn’t well, the King. So very, very sad.” said the Visir. “But that’s not what killed him. It was a hunting accident, one of those freak things that you never see coming – a tree fell over and crushed him. A healthy, strong tree, too… and not a breath of wind that day. I’ve never seen anything like it. But…” the Visir’s voice softened, “perhaps it was for the best. He wasn’t well.”
The farmer was having great difficulty forming any words. His mind was a jumble. Thoughts were popping up all over and he couldn’t get them to stay still.
“I suppose,” said the Visir, “that you’re wondering what this has to do with you.”
The farmer nodded.
“Yes.” he mumbled. And then, belatedly… “M’lord.”
“The King, as you know, had no children.” said the Visir. “And now the Queen has gone back to her own kingdom, renouncing her claim to the throne. She never loved this castle or this kingdom.”
The minister looked the farmer directly in the eye.
“That causes quite a serious problem of succession.” he said. “An empty throne is an invitation to mayhem and bloodshed. And so,” he went on, “I thought I had better give this kingdom to you. Unless I am very much mistaken, you already own half of it.”
The minister reached inside his robes and brought out the tip of the dragon’s tail. He handed it to the farmer, who took it somewhat gingerly. The farmer shook his head.
“I’m just a farmer.” he said. “The King never paid me the reward for the dragon. I didn’t want half the kingdom, just food for my family and my village. Please… let me go home to them.”
“Walk with me.” said the Visir. “I have something I think you need to see.”
They walked along to the end of the hall, until the Visir stopped before a wall mounting. It was covered by a drape. The Visir pulled the cloth away, revealing a gorgeous frame. Within it was not a portrait… but a piece of wood.
The stick was long, and thin. One end had been sharpened, crudely. Nearly the entire length was stained black – only the very tip of the butt end was untouched.. The farmer recognized it as the garden stake he’d used to kill the dragon.
“That’s a garden stake.” he said. “I’m a farmer. All I want is to go home to my village and my family.”
“If you had stuck that bit of wood into the ground, that would have made you a farmer,” stated the Visir. “But you didn’t. You stuck it into a dragon, and that made you a prince. People who kill dragons aren’t farmers, they’re princes. That garden stake, as you call it, saved the kingdom.”
“The King pledged the reward.” he went on. “He may never have intended to keep his word, but not even a King can break the strength of a King’s pledge. Make no mistake, the land is yours.”
“No.” said the farmer. “I can’t be a King.”
“It’s not only about you.” the Visir said softly. “Come with me.”
The Visir led the farmer out of the hall, and out onto a balcony. Below them stretched the entire kingdom. The farmer gasped, to see it. He had seen the view before, but… not this view.
The entire land was withered and dry. The sky above the hills was rusty red and the fields were brown with dust. The forests were blotches of brown and sickly yellow. He looked desperately around for any sort of growth, any sprig of green or flash of blue water, but all he saw was brown. The land was dying.
“The plants refuse to grow.” the Visir said. “Nothing grows. The plants refuse to live in the old King’s land.”
“The land,” he continued, “needs a good King. The people need a good King. The kingdom needs a King who will tend to it; who will care for it. In time the plants will grow again, but before that, the people need to live. The royal treasury must be opened and grain imported.”
The farmer looked at the land again. He began to cry. He could see where the old road wound between the Two Hills. Past that he knew was the Lazy River (it was hardly even a creek, now) and beyond that was his village, his home. He wanted so much to be there, but it was all dying…
He took his gaze from the countryside and looked at the Visir.
“I don’t know anything about being a King.”
The Visir smiled.
“That’s why you have advisors.”
The coronation was most unusual in its simplicity. There was no excess of pomp or ceremony. In attendance were not just the court… but also peasants! The nobles sniffed and were aghast… but held their silence, for they knew better than to malign the kings invited guests.
When the King ascended the throne, his robes were not red or purple. The Queen wor neither lace nor jewelry, and the prince’s suit was utterly bereft of frills.
The King’s crown was a simple band, completely unadorned. His sceptre was a polished rod of wood, with not a trace of gold or silver to be seen upon it.
But… embedded in the very tip of the sceptre was a single emerald – cut round, not square.
“It looks,” laughed one observer, “the spitting image of a pea.”
