by J. P. Sheen
He was rather fond of the palace grounds. Tall, old maples overshadowed the path, and farther down the way, waterfowl quacked contentedly in a small lake. When Eselder was younger, he had imagined that the grounds were a great forest inhabited by all sorts of enemies—pirates mostly.
An ancient oak stood near the lake, in the middle of a freshly trimmed lawn. Eselder approached it hesitantly. He had attempted, many times, to climb that tree. He just knew that, if he could scale its height, he would be able to climb a ship’s rigging should the occasion arise. But so far, he had always failed.
Today is the day. I can feel it.
He shouldn’t have read that seafaring yarn last night. Such tales always made him depressed the next day when he was faced with bleak reality.
“I despise reality,” Eselder muttered, plodding over to the gnarly oak. Under its branches, he shifted and glanced about. Nobody was in sight. Good. He had no desire to be seen falling flat on his bum.
There’s probably some trick to this, Eselder concluded defensively. If someone would only show him how…
He could almost hear his father, the ever-dignified King Jaimes the Fourth, his voice bewildered and impatient.
But why do you want to climb that tree in the first place? It’s really quite silly, Eselder.
No, his father would never understand. That was why Eselder would have to teach himself. He took one last glance over his shoulder and faced the towering oak. He certainly felt silly.
Now if I was on board a ship in a gale and needed to climb the mainmast… I’d do it like that!
No doubt he would. However, this was not a mast, and there was no gale. Eselder frowned at a branch just beyond his reach, struggling to remember how he had seen the stable boys do it. He had spotted them several weeks ago messing about the grounds…where they were most certainly not supposed to be. He should have informed someone, but he hadn’t. No need to be snooty as well as stupid.
Throwing caution to the wind, Eselder jumped, caught the branch, and started walking up the tree trunk. His idea seemed to be working splendidly…until his legs went up as far as they could go, and he suddenly discovered that he couldn’t move his arms or his legs.
He was stuck.
“Cor blimey, lookit that!”
Oh, no.
Eselder flushed bright red. His position was utterly humiliating. He couldn’t see the stable boys from his restricted vantage point, but their gleeful whoops sounded nearby.
“Wha’ an oaf!”
The remark was meant to carry across the lawn to the prince’s ears. Eselder closed his eyes. He would have given anything to be standing on the ground at that very moment in a dignified fashion. The stable boys would never dare insult him to his face, but they found other ways to poke fun at their future sovereign. Of course, Eselder made it very easy for them, doing stupid things like this all the time.
Another boy yelped, “I can’t believe ‘ee got ‘is fat buttocks that far off the ground!” and loudly sneezed.
Eselder’s lips quavered. He couldn’t help it.
Sail out to sea? Are you daft? You can’t even climb a tree!
He was everything they said he was. He was fat. He was oafish. He hated himself. All he wanted was to belong to their world! But he wasn’t cut out for it, having been born and raised in Kingston Court’s cushy captivity.
I could be more!
It seemed like a lie, even to Eselder. Everything was splintering before his eyes. His hopes, his dreams…the tree branch.
Eselder crashed to the ground. The branch hit the grass beside him, and the stable boys shouted. Eselder was glad he couldn’t make out what they were saying. He knew he ought to confront his tormentors and remind them of his royal authority. But he didn’t. He just wanted to get away from them and this bloody tree.
Eselder got up slowly. He brushed off his jacket, trying to pretend he wasn’t aware of their presence.
Then he turned, and they scattered.
The following morning, Eselder still wanted to howl at the memory of the “incident.” But he didn’t, because then the courtiers would hear him, think him crazy, and no doubt report his unseemly behavior to the King.
A heavy weight grew steadily inside Eselder, dragging him down to a very dark place.
I’m going to be a prisoner here forever.
Eselder looked miserably around his lavish apartment. He couldn’t leave these chambers ever again. It was going to be hard to explain to the King why the Crown Heir had decided to place himself under room arrest.
What if…what if his father somehow learned about the “incident?”
Eselder moaned, burying his head in his hands. His father would never forgive him for making such a fool of himself. King Jaimes never made a fool of himself. And he was perfectly content to spend his whole life at court. (Eselder suspected that his father thrived in monotony.) But Eselder was not like the King. The thought of spending the remainder of his days here made him want to go berserk…as in, run around in circles screaming bloody murder.
Eselder crossed over to the window. He watched the sun climb over the palace gates and the smoggy rooftops beyond them. What a beautiful day. Too bad he was going to spend it cooped up in this horrid apartment, learning things about which he didn’t care twopence from tutors who hated his royal guts. Sighing, Eselder turned to the desk where he’d be sitting for the next six hours.
An instrument of torture, he thought. His twisted grin was quickly replaced by a frown. He thought about living alongside those same stable boys, day in and day out, for years upon years. He imagined himself, a fat ermine-robed King, still trying to climb that bloody oak tree. A band of muscled stablemen hovered nearby, having taken a break from work to get a good laugh at their monarch’s expense.
Eselder sat at his desk and twirled his quill. Once, he had daydreamed of becoming friends with those stable boys. But he was not so naïve anymore. They would never accept him. And Eselder, for his part, held a grudge against Kingston Court and everyone in it.
He was destined for a life of solitude, it seemed.
An hour later, Eselder’s quill dragged listlessly across a fresh sheet of parchment.
He was listening, or rather not listening to his tutor’s dramatic recitation of “The Marriage Feast of White and Black: An 18th Century Retelling,” a truly awful poem consisting of over eighty quatrains. Why was this considered a modern classic again? Eselder briefly contemplated leaping out of the window to escape his tutor’s endless prattling. The desperate act would likely result in a painful splat on the gravel below, but the alarm it would elicit might be worth it.
Eselder smiled a little before gloom enveloped him again. He glanced at his literature and languages professor, Dr. Fluffy. That wasn’t has real name, of course, but Eselder had given him that nickname on account of his outrageously poufy wig and his favorite authors, all of whom tended to end their works in fits of artistic melancholy…and, oftentimes, their lives as well. It didn’t matter if they were waxing poetic about mankind’s mortality or mince pies. Either the author or his beliefs (or, if Dr. Fluffy could manage it, both) had to die…even if the poor fellow merely believed in the superiority of buttercream over marzipan.
“On the eve before their marriage feast,
The child of Black and White was conceived.
Its hue was not white or black, but gray.
It killed its parents, and now it reigns.”
Dr. Fluffy finished reading with an air of satisfaction and laid aside Sir Percival Wattle’s poetry. Eselder waited. Dr. Fluffy announced, “A few weeks later, Sir Wattle shot himself. His final words were ‘All is gray, even the leaden bullet with which I kill myself.’”
I knew it.
Dr. Fluffy burst out into what Eselder called his “donkey laugh.” It was nervous and slightly hysterical. He awkwardly fingered his waistcoat’s lapel, which was as old-fashioned and threadbare as a writer’s lapel should be (Dr. Fluffy also wrote poetry).
Throughout the (vivid) description of Gray’s conception, Eselder had taken care to avoid his tutor’s gaze. Now he thought it safe. He looked up and found Dr. Fluffy staring at him with a peculiar expression, almost of triumph. Eselder sensed that he enjoyed witnessing the dejection that clung to his royal pupil like a cold, wet fog.
Eselder suddenly blinked back tears. If only he could express this terrible feeling to someone, for he was desperate now. But he knew he mustn’t reveal anything of himself to Dr. Fluffy. No, he had to hide himself away. Anyway, no one expected the Crown Heir to feel much of anything. He knew what they all thought, courtiers and servants alike: that he was a spoiled, self-absorbed brat…all because he kept to himself…and rarely smiled in public…and looked sullen all the time…
“Your Highness, did the poem upset you?” Dr. Fluffy inquired delicately, eyeing him in a way that made Eselder shift uncomfortably. Usually, he could fire back a quick “No, sir. I think I understand it all, sir.” This time, however, his mind was blank. It was frightening…and quite fascinating.
“No…sir?”
Dr. Fluffy’s eyes kept begging him to make a scene over Sir Wattle’s suggestive lyrics. Eselder refused to comply, and for the hundredth time, wondered if he ought to request a new tutor. He dreaded speaking to the King, though…no, that wasn’t it. He dreaded the King’s reaction. He didn’t want to see the familiar disappointment in his father’s eyes.
King Jaimes always looked disappointed when he saw his son.
Probably because I’m completely talentless and look like I never get off my lazy arse.
“It is no doubt difficult for you to contemplate these things, having lived such a sheltered life…but hopefully this poem has given you food for thought.”
Dr. Fluffy stood with a pompous air, tucking his book under his arm. His remark was so antagonizing that Eselder snapped, “I do not think the poem was very well thought out! If White was the epitome of virtue, why would she ever accept Black’s marriage proposal? She must not have been virtuous after all.”
Dr. Fluffy looked startled, though no more than Eselder felt. Recovering quickly, he sighed, “That was the point, Your Highness. White does not exist.”
“Does Black not exist then?”
Dr. Fluffy’s nostrils flared. “You miss the entire point! Clearly, you need to reflect more upon the poem! Perhaps writing a five-page essay on Sir Wattles’ life philosophy as revealed in “The Marriage Feast of White and Black” will help you to think! You should require only the poem to write the essay. Afterward, you may be dismissed…but only then. I will be in the library, working on my elegy. You may give me your paper when you’ve finished. I suggest you begin right away.”
Dr. Fluffy offered him a chummy grin that wasn’t at all convincing. Eselder reached obediently for his book, but as soon as Dr. Fluffy left, he shot the door a glare and sat back to sulk. He hadn’t even cared about the stupid poem. He should have kept his mouth shut and taken Dr. Fluffy’s word for it!
Ignoring Sir Wattles’ poetry, Eselder turned his attention to the model of an Eliothan navy vessel on his desk. His eyes ran over the polished wood, the webs of rigging, and the rows of portholes…
He’d never been aboard a tall ship, not even once.
Eselder sighed. He looked down at his soiled parchment, picked up his quill, and tried to focus. But he simply couldn’t do it. Another bout of gloom besieged him, and the most ghastly thoughts bombarded him.
A second later, he furiously crumpled up his parchment and chucked it across the room, panting with a fury the occasion did not deserve. Slumping back in his chair, he folded his arms and made a pact never to open his horrible book again.
Which, ten minutes later, is exactly what he did.
It was going on eleven o’clock.
For once, everything was quiet and peaceful. Eselder did not feel quite so unhappy anymore. He loved these tranquil hours when he could shut his door and escape Kingston Court with the help of his books.
His couch was very comfortable, and its armrest made a good pillow. Every light in his apartments was extinguished aside from the few candlesticks perched atop his piles of books. It made for a wonderfully mysterious, eerie atmosphere…like what he imagined a ship’s deck looked like at night.
Eselder’s eyes lit up brighter than any candle, and his lips widened into a smile never seen by Kingston Court.
“And if Count Magworth’s son can become a naval officer with his father’s blessing and a ship to boot, I don’t see why I can’t,” he muttered, even though he did. Instead, he would remain an ignorant landlubber for the rest of his—
“Miserable existence,” Eselder moaned, dropping Five Years Aboard the Lady Roc: A Tale of Audacity, Courage, and Pluck by Mr. Essel P. Follywole, Able Seaman.
Mr. Follywole was getting on his nerves. The adventurer’s memoirs were flooded with sentences like “I did not hesitate but resolutely steered the ship to safety, knowing that the lives of her unconscious captain and crew were in my able hands” or “Captain Merriwether exclaimed, ‘You ought to be captain, Follywole, not I, for your bravery proves your worth, not only as a seaman, but a leader!’”
Eselder snorted contemptuously. Then he reconsidered.
After all, it’s one thing to scorn Mr. Follywole, but could you do any of those things? Could you steer a ship safely to port in the middle of a storm?
Well, certainly he couldn’t right now. Still…
You never know, Eselder reflected hopefully, staring at the ceiling’s gold molding. Perhaps someday…
“After all,” he concluded out loud, “I’m supposed to be the one giving the orders, so why can’t I order myself away to sea? I could always run away. Mr. Follywole did when he was thirteen.”
Eselder knew he was lying to himself. For one thing, he didn’t have the courage (or the muscle) to scale the palace gates, and even if he managed that, how on earth would he find his way to the harbor?
The idea of climbing made Eselder remember the “incident.” He buried his face in the couch’s armrest.
“I’ll show them,” he mumbled into the floral stitchery.
He fell asleep reading about adventure on the high seas and only awoke when a manservant drew back his window curtains. Sunlight streamed into his chambers, bidding Eselder to wake up and face the day, however dreadful it might be. He opened his eyes as the manservant set a letter tray on the coffee table and, with pursed lips, began clearing away the books scattered across the floor. He did not miss the discreet eye roll, either.
Sitting up, Eselder reached for the letter, which bore the King’s seal and his handwriting. At once, irrational fantasies crowded the prince’s mind, each more disgustingly sentimental than the next. Eselder warned himself not to get his hopes up, even as his shaking hands ripped the letter open. His eyes briefly scanned the bold, flowing script. Then he set the letter calmly down, resisting the urge to tear it into a thousand tiny pieces. The crushing weight from yesterday returned with frightening speed.
The King was inviting his son (commanding was more like it) to join him and the Queen for a private family supper that evening. Eselder might have known. It had been awhile since they had dined together. After all, it was very important that the Court be given proof of the royal family’s mutual affection. Even if it was all horseshit.
Pardon the Crown Heir’s language.
Eselder scribbled out a very polite “I accept” and sent the manservant to deliver his reply to the King. Then he pressed a hand to his forehead.
It was going to be a very bad day.
Eselder’s essay went over very well. Of course, that was mainly because he had spat Dr. Fluffy’s interpretation of the poem back at him, albeit in slightly varied language. He had mastered this subtle art through the years, and his tutors never seemed to catch on. Personally, Eselder thought the whole poem was a waste of ink and had no deeper opinion about it than that. But Dr. Fluffy looked over his inspired essay, forgave him on the spot, a
nd informed him that he was performing spectacularly. Eselder’s essay had done its job. He did not want to receive poor marks from Dr. Fluffy, because then the King would get involved. Eselder had already received his father’s lecture “On the Privilege of a Classical Education” and happily became a human parrot to avoid hearing it again.
Several hours later, Dr. Fluffy bid His Royal Highness good day and bounced out of his chambers right as Eselder’s history tutor came slouching in.
Throughout his lesson on the Battle of Zimtschnecke, Eselder couldn’t keep the prospect of dining with the King and Queen out of his head. Would they say anything? Or would it be one of those evenings where they all sat with their eyes fixed on their plates, their silverware clinking most awkwardly, while visions of upturned tables and broken chinaware careened through the Crown Heir’s mind?
The hours passed tediously. By the afternoon, Eselder hadn’t strung more than three words together (“Good day, sir”) or seen anyone but his manservant and tutors. When evening finally arrived, he realized that he hadn’t left his apartment for two days. Then he remembered why and began drumming his quill against his desk.
I can’t hide in here forever.
Eselder faced the window. He liked the hour before nightfall. The courtiers were changing their outfits and powdering their faces afresh for supper, so the grounds were usually abandoned.
Probably, all the stable boys have gone home as well. You should be safe to venture forth from your dark lair.
Eselder rose and picked up his coat. Bits of bark and grass still clung to its blue velvet. He hurried out of his chambers before his cowardice got the better of him.
Soon he was wandering around the empty grounds, dreaming of tall ships sailing to the New World. Golden light shot through the twisted maples, washing over a monument to the anonymous Gallant Horseman. The statue never failed to make Eselder smile because at some point in time, something or someone had decapitated it (the line of plaster around the neckline was very noticeable). Eselder enjoyed contemplating how it how had occurred. Had another statue nursed a grudge against the Gallant Horseman? The lovely harp playing Muse across the way, perhaps? Had she lobbed a boulder at him one night? Or maybe they had been playing catch, and the decapitation was a horrifying accident? Tisk tisk. No wonder the Muse was staring in the opposite direction. It seemed someone had a guilty conscience.