And the little princess! How lovely she was! How much like light itself. Her gown was covered in sequins that winked and glimmered at the rat. And when she laughed, and she laughed often, everything around her seemed to glow brighter.
“Oh, really,” said Roscuro, “this is too extraordinary. This is too wonderful. I must tell Botticelli that he was wrong. Suffering is not the answer. Light is the answer.”
And he made his way into the banquet hall. He lifted his tail off the ground and held it at an angle and marched in time to the music the minstrels were playing on their guitars.
The rat, reader, invited himself to the party.
THERE WAS, in the banquet hall, a most beautiful and ornate chandelier. The crystals that hung from it caught the light of the candles on the table and the light from the face of the laughing princess. They danced to the rhythm of the minstrels’ music, swaying back and forth, twinkling and beckoning. What better place to view all this glory, all this beauty?
There was so much laughing and singing and juggling that no one noticed as Roscuro crawled up a table leg and onto the table, and from there flung himself onto the lowest branch of the chandelier.
Hanging by one paw, he swung back and forth, admiring the spectacle below him: the smells of the food, the sound of the music, and the light, the light, the light. Amazing. Unbelievable. Roscuro smiled and shook his head.
Unfortunately, a rat can hang from a chandelier for only so long before he is discovered. This would be true at even the loudest party.
Reader, do you know who it was that spotted him?
You’re right.
The sharp-eyed Princess Pea.
“A rat!” she shouted. “A rat is hanging from the chandelier!”
The party, as I have noted, was loud. The minstrels were strumming and singing. The people were laughing and eating. The man with the jingle cap was juggling and jingling.
No one, in the midst of all this merriment, heard the Pea. No one except for Roscuro.
Rat.
He had never before been aware of what an ugly word it was.
Rat.
In the middle of all that beauty, it immediately became clear that it was an extremely distasteful syllable.
Rat.
A curse, an insult, a word totally without light. And not until he heard it from the mouth of the princess did Roscuro realize that he did not like being a rat, that he did not want to be a rat. This revelation hit Roscuro with such force, that it made him lose his grip on the chandelier.
The rat, reader, fell.
And, alas, he fell right, directly, into the queen’s bowl of soup.
THE QUEEN LOVED SOUP. She loved soup more than anything in the world except for the Princess Pea and the king. And because the queen loved it, soup was served in the castle for every banquet, every lunch, and every dinner.
And what soup it was! Cook’s love and admiration for the queen and her palate moved the broth that she concocted from the level of mere food to a high art.
On this particular day, for this particular banquet, Cook had outdone herself. The soup was a masterwork, a delicate mingling of chicken, watercress, and garlic. Roscuro, as he surfaced from the bottom of the queen’s capacious bowl, could not help taking a few appreciative sips.
“Lovely,” he said, distracted for a moment from the misery of his existence, “delightful.”
“See?” shouted the Pea. “See!” She stood. She pointed her finger right at Roscuro. “It is a rat. I told you that it was a rat. He was hanging from the chandelier, and now he is in Mama’s soup!”
The musicians stopped playing their guitars. The juggler stopped juggling. The noble people stopped eating.
The queen looked at Roscuro.
Roscuro looked at the queen.
Reader, in the spirit of honesty, I must utter a difficult and unsavory truth: Rats are not beautiful creatures. They are not even cute. They are, really, rather nasty beasts, particularly if one happens to appear in your bowl of soup with pieces of watercress clinging to his whiskers.
There was a long moment of silence, and then Roscuro said to the queen, “I beg your pardon.”
In response, the queen flung her spoon in the air and made an incredible noise, a noise that was in no way worthy of a queen, a noise somewhere between the neigh of a horse and the squeal of a pig, a noise that sounded something like this: neiggghhhhiiiinnnnkkkkkk.
And then she said, “There is a rat in my soup.”
The queen was really a simple soul and always, her whole life, had done nothing except state the overly obvious.
She died as she lived.
“There is a rat in my soup” were the last words she uttered. She clutched her chest and fell over backward. Her royal chair hit the floor with a thump, and the banquet hall exploded. Spoons were dropped. Chairs were flung back.
“Save her!” thundered the king. “You must save her!”
All the king’s men ran to try and rescue the queen.
Roscuro climbed out of the bowl of soup. He felt that, under the circumstances, it would be best if he left. As he crawled across the tablecloth, he remembered the words of the prisoner in the dungeon, his regret that he did not look back at his daughter as he left her. And so, Roscuro turned.
He looked back.
And he saw that the princess was glaring at him. Her eyes were filled with disgust and anger.
“Go back to the dungeon” was what the look she gave him said. “Go back into the darkness where you belong.”
This look, reader, broke Roscuro’s heart.
Did you think that rats do not have hearts? Wrong. All living things have a heart. And the heart of any living thing can be broken.
If the rat had not looked over his shoulder, perhaps his heart would not have broken. And it is possible, then, that I would not have a story to tell.
But, reader, he did look.
ROSCURO HURRIED from the banquet hall.
“A rat,” he said. He put a paw over his heart. “I am a rat. And there is no light for rats. There will be no light for me.”
The king’s men were still bent over the queen. The king was still shouting, “Save her! Save her!” And the queen was still dead, of course, when Roscuro encountered the queen’s royal soupspoon lying on the floor.
“I will have something beautiful,” he said aloud. “I am a rat, but I will have something beautiful. I will have a crown of my own.” He picked up the spoon. He put it on his head.
“Yes,” said Roscuro. “I will have something beautiful. And I will have revenge. Both things. Somehow.”
There are those hearts, reader, that never mend again once they are broken. Or if they do mend, they heal themselves in a crooked and lopsided way, as if sewn together by a careless craftsman. Such was the fate of Chiaroscuro. His heart was broken. Picking up the spoon and placing it on his head, speaking of revenge, these things helped him to put his heart together again. But it was, alas, put together wrong.
“Where is the rat?” shouted the king. “Find that rat!”
“If you want me,” muttered Roscuro as he left the banquet hall, “I will be in the dungeon, in the darkness.”
THERE WERE, OF COURSE, dire consequences of Roscuro’s behavior. Every action, reader, no matter how small, has a consequence. For instance, the young Roscuro gnawed on Gregory the jailer’s rope, and because he gnawed on the rope, a match was lit in his face, and because a match was lit in his face, his soul was set afire.
The rat’s soul was set afire, and because of this, he journeyed upstairs, seeking the light. Upstairs, in the banquet hall, the Princess Pea spotted him and called out the word “rat,” and because of this Roscuro fell into the queen’s soup. And because the rat fell into the queen’s soup, the queen died. You can see, can’t you, how everything is related to everything else? You can see, quite clearly, how every action has a consequence.
For instance (if, reader, you will indulge me, and allow me to continue this meditation on con
sequences), because the queen died while eating soup, the heartbroken king outlawed soup; and because soup was outlawed, so were all the instruments involved in the making and eating of soup: spoons and bowls and kettles. These things were collected from all the people of the Kingdom of Dor, and they were piled in the dungeon.
And because Roscuro was dazzled by the light of one match and journeyed upstairs and fell into the queen’s soup and the queen died, the king ordered the death of every rat in the land.
The king’s men went bravely into the dungeon to kill the rats. But the thing about killing a rat is that you must first find a rat. And if a rat does not want to be found, reader, he will not be found.
The king’s men succeeded only in getting lost in the dungeon’s tortuous mazes. Some of them, in fact, did not ever find their way out again and died there in the dark heart of the castle. And so, the killing of all rats was not successful. And in desperation, King Phillip declared that rats were illegal. He declared them outlaws.
This, of course, was a ridiculous law, as rats are outlaws to begin with. How can you outlaw an outlaw? It is a waste of time and energy. But still, the king officially decreed that all rats in the Kingdom of Dor were outlaws and should be treated as such. When you are a king, you may make as many ridiculous laws as you like. That is what being a king is all about.
But, reader, we must not forget that King Phillip loved the queen and that without her, he was lost. This is the danger of loving: No matter how powerful you are, no matter how many kingdoms you rule, you cannot stop those you love from dying. Making soup illegal, outlawing rats, these things soothed the poor king’s heart. And so we must forgive him.
And what of the outlawed rats? What of one outlawed rat in particular?
What of Chiaroscuro?
In the darkness of the dungeon, he sat in his nest with the spoon atop his head. He set to work fashioning for himself a kingly cape made out of a scrap of the red tablecloth. And as he worked, old one-eared Botticelli Remorso sat next to him swinging his locket back and forth, back and forth, saying, “You see what comes from a rat going upstairs? I hope that you have learned your lesson. Your job in this world is to make others suffer.”
“Yes,” muttered Roscuro. “Yes. That is exactly what I intend to do. I will make the princess suffer for how she looked at me.”
And as Roscuro worked and planned, the jailer Gregory held tight to his rope and made his own way through the darkness, and in a dank cell, the prisoner who had once had a red tablecloth and now had nothing, spent his days and nights weeping quietly.
High above the dungeon, upstairs, in the castle, a small mouse stood alone one evening as his brothers and sisters sniffed for crumbs. He stood with his head cocked to one side, listening to a sweet sound he did not yet have a name for. There would be consequences of the mouse’s love for music. You, reader, know already some of those consequences. Because of the music, the mouse would find his way to a princess. He would fall in love.
And speaking of consequences, the same evening that Despereaux stood inside the castle hearing music for the first time, outside the castle, in the gloom of dusk, more consequences drew near. A wagon driven by a king’s soldier and piled high with spoons and bowls and kettles was making its way to the castle. And beside the soldier there sat a young girl with ears that looked like nothing so much as pieces of cauliflower stuck on either side of her head.
The girl’s name, reader, was Miggery Sow. And though she did not yet know it, she would be instrumental in helping the rat work his revenge.
End of the Second Book
AGAIN, READER, we must go backward before we can go forward. With that said, here begins a short history of the life and times of Miggery Sow, a girl born into this world many years before the mouse Despereaux and the rat Chiaroscuro, a girl born far from the castle, a girl named for her father’s favorite prize-winning pig.
Miggery Sow was six years old when her mother, holding on to Mig’s hand and staring directly into Mig’s eyes, died.
“Ma?” said Mig. “Ma, couldn’t you stay here with me?”
“Oh,” said her mother. “Who is that? Who is that holding my hand?”
“It’s me, Ma, Miggery Sow.”
“Ah, child, let me go.”
“But I want you to stay here,” said Mig, wiping first at her runny nose and then at her runny eyes.
“You want,” said her mother.
“Yes,” said Mig, “I want.”
“Ah, child, and what does it matter what you are wanting?” said her mother. She squeezed Mig’s hand once, twice, and then she died, leaving Mig alone with her father, who, on a market day in spring soon after his wife’s death, sold his daughter into service for a handful of cigarettes, a red tablecloth, and a hen.
“Papa?” said Mig, when her father was walking away from her with the hen in his arms, a cigarette in his mouth, and the red tablecloth draped across his shoulders like a cape.
“Go on, Mig,” he said. “You belong to that man now.”
“But I don’t want to, Papa,” she said. “I want to go with you.” She took hold of the red tablecloth and tugged on it.
“Lord, child,” her father said, “and who is asking you what you want? Go on now.” He untangled her fingers from the cloth and turned her in the direction of the man who had bought her.
Mig watched her father walk away, the red tablecloth billowing out behind him. He left his daughter. And, reader, as you already know, he did not look back. Not even once.
Can you imagine it? Can you imagine your father selling you for a tablecloth, a hen, and a handful of cigarettes? Close your eyes, please, and consider it for just a moment.
Done?
I hope that the hair on the back of your neck stood up as you thought of Mig’s fate and how it would be if it were your own.
Poor Mig. What will become of her? You must, frightened though you may be, read on and see for yourself.
Reader, it is your duty.
MIGGERY SOW called the man who purchased her Uncle, as he said she must. And also, as he said she must, Mig tended Uncle’s sheep and cooked Uncle’s food and scrubbed Uncle’s kettle. She did all of this without a word of thanks or praise from the man himself.
Another unfortunate fact of life with Uncle was that he very much liked giving Mig what he referred to as “a good clout to the ear.” In fairness to Uncle, it must be reported that he did always inquire whether or not Mig was interested in receiving the clout.
Their daily exchanges went something like this:
Uncle: “I thought I told you to clean the kettle.”
Mig: “I cleaned it, Uncle. I cleaned it good.”
Uncle: “Ah, it’s filthy. You’ll have to be punished, won’t ye?”
Mig: “Gor, Uncle, I cleaned the kettle.”
Uncle: “Are ye saying that I’m a liar, girl?”
Mig: “No, Uncle.”
Uncle: “Do ye want a good clout to the ear, then?”
Mig: “No, thank you, Uncle, I don’t.”
Alas, Uncle seemed to be as entirely unconcerned with what Mig wanted as her mother and father had been. The discussed clout to the ear was always delivered . . . delivered, I am afraid, with a great deal of enthusiasm on Uncle’s part and received with absolutely no enthusiasm at all on the part of Mig.
These clouts were alarmingly frequent. And Uncle was scrupulously fair in paying attention to both the right and left side of Miggery Sow. So it was that after a time, the young Mig’s ears came to resemble not so much ears as pieces of cauliflower stuck to either side of her head.
And they became about as useful to her as pieces of cauliflower. That is to say that they all but ceased their functioning as ears. Words, for Mig, lost their sharp edges. And then they lost their edges altogether and became blurry, blankety things that she had a great deal of trouble making any sense out of at all.
The less Mig heard, the less she understood. The less she understood, the more things she did wrong
; and the more things she did wrong, the more clouts to the ear she received, and the less she heard. This is what is known as a vicious circle. And Miggery Sow was right in the center of it.
Which is not, reader, where anybody would want to be.
But then, as you know, what Miggery Sow wanted had never been of much concern to anyone.
WHEN MIG TURNED SEVEN years old, there was no cake, no celebration, no singing, no present, no acknowledgment of her birthday at all other than Mig saying, “Uncle, today I am seven years old.”
And Uncle saying in return, “Did I ask ye how old you were today? Get out of my face before I give ye a good clout to the ear.”
A few hours after receiving her birthday clout to the ear, Mig was out in the field with Uncle’s sheep when she saw something glittering and glowing on the horizon.
She thought for a moment that it was the sun. But she turned and saw that the sun was in the west, where it should be, sinking to join the earth. This thing that shone so brightly was something else. Mig stood in the field and shaded her eyes with her left hand and watched the brilliant light draw closer and closer and closer until it revealed itself to be King Phillip and his Queen Rosemary and their daughter, the young Princess Pea.
The royal family was surrounded by knights in shining armor and horses in shining armor. And atop each member of the royal family’s head, there was a golden crown, and they were all, the king and the queen and the princess, dressed in robes decorated with jewels and sequins that glittered and glowed and captured the light of the setting sun and reflected it back.
“Gor,” breathed Mig.
The Princess Pea was riding on a white horse that picked up its legs very high and set them down very daintily. The Pea saw Mig standing and staring, and she raised a hand to her.
“Hello,” the Princess Pea called out merrily, “hello.” And she waved her hand again.
The Tale of Despereaux Page 5