by Anna Mendell
Erik was always tongue-tied in her presence, and now her smooth smiles and seemingly innocent questions seemed to only make him more awkward. The queen grew more and more frustrated as all her attempts to win the shy prince’s confidence failed. She realized that she must devise another way of discovering his secret.
She called one of the serving boys to her room. While she never mingled with children, everything in the inner workings of the castle concerned her, and she had observed that this small boy was always alone.
The serving boy stood before her quaking, his eyes large and dark against his freckled, ashen face.
“What is your name?” the queen asked the trembling boy.
“Edgar,” he said in a small voice.
“Edgar, you have nothing to fear,” she soothed him. “You are a stranger here, are you not? The other boys exclude you because your father moved here from distant parts in order to make his fortune?”
The small boy nodded.
“Give me your hand, Edgar. Let me tell you a secret. I am a stranger too. I sailed from the northern lands over the sea on a merchant ship, and the king married me for my beauty. But I have no one I can call a friend. We strangers should help one another. What do you think, Edgar? Will you help me?”
The boy nodded as one mesmerized, and the queen gave him a smile that radiated warmth, kindness, and a little hint of loneliness.
“I am glad. Now this is what you must do. The prince carries at his side a brown pouch filled with sticks. I fear that whoever gave the prince those sticks wishes him harm. I want you to bring me that pouch and replace it with this.” The queen rose and took out from a small chest another brown pouch filled with sticks identical to the one the prince wore on his belt. She handed it to the boy, saying, “The prince must not suspect anything. He does not trust me, you see. I am also a stranger and I cannot seem to earn his love, but I am so worried for him.”
The queen looked so sad that Edgar reached forward and lightly touched her hand. She gazed at him, her eyes awash with unshed tears. “Will you help me, Edgar?”
“Yes, my queen.”
“Good, we will be friends, you and I. Now go. Return when you have the prince’s pouch of sticks.”
Edgar left the room and the queen smiled, but this time there was no kindness in her smile. She knew that the prince kept the pouch on his belt at all times, but she also knew that young boys are careless and that, if she waited long enough, she would uncover the mystery of the prince’s disappearances into the wood. Besides, she knew some magic of her own and had bespelled the false sticks. There would be a nasty surprise waiting for Erik once he used them.
ONE hot summer day, as the burning sun beat down on the land, a group of the castle boys planned a swim in the mountain river. Edgar saw that Erik was going with them, the usually reclusive prince also falling prey to the sweltering heat. Edgar joined the group at the main gate, where they all followed the heavily traveled path that led to the river. There the boys all stripped off their clothing and, with hoots and cries, plunged into the river’s cold mountain waters.
Edgar saw his chance and seized it. Rummaging through the prince’s clothes while he was swimming, he uncovered the pouch of sticks, replacing it with the pouch the queen had given him.
The instant he was finished, he sprinted back to the castle. In his haste he tripped and fell, and the sticks flew from the pouch, disappearing into a thick undergrowth of jagged thorns. Edgar gave a cry. The thicket was too sharp and cruel to search. Frightened over what the queen would do if she found out, he scurried around and gathered sticks from the forest floor to cram into the pouch. It was these that he presented to the queen when he made his way back to the castle. She thanked him with a smile and sent him away with a gold coin in his purse.
After Edgar had shut the door, the queen’s smile was replaced with the furrowed brow of intense concentration. She muttered strange incantations over the sticks and turned them over this way and that, trying to uncover their magic, but found nothing. With a shriek she threw the sticks in the fireplace. The sticks were worthless, and the foolish prince was merely playing a child’s game!
Queen Sigrid, irritated that she had wasted so much time over Erik and his sticks, ignored him when she next saw him and, when she did not ignore him, snapped at him. Soon she lost interest in him all together.
IT had been a while since Erik had visited Ninny Nanny. During his last visit, she had ended her story about princess Rosamund with the princess being snatched deep into the sea. He was itching to go back and find out what happened, but hadn’t been able to escape the castle unseen. The queen had been making him nervous lately. He had felt her burning eyes boring into his back when she thought he wasn’t watching. Then there had been Edgar, hanging about like a stray dog impossible to shake. But, to his relief, things had gone back to normal the past few days, and he finally felt safe enough to venture out to the woods again.
Erik stalked far enough out into the wood to where he knew no one would find him and emptied out Ninny Nanny’s pouch. The instant his fingers wrapped around the sticks, they kindled into a red hot flame. He dropped them in surprise and immediately stamped out the flames on the ground. From the stick’s charred remains rose a smoky cloud of ash that engulfed him, thrusting putrid tendrils of smoke into his mouth and nose, suffocating him. He darted out of the cloud, and clean air filled his lungs once again. Then he doubled over, coughing and retching. He wiped his smarting eyes and opened them. The forest was strange and terrible. Beady red eyes peered out at him through the darkness. Fantastic, lurid shapes clawed and snatched in the air. A high shriek tore through the forest, and then a low, thunderous crashing rumbled behind him. A wild fear seized Erik, and he ran, ran as fast as his terrified legs could carry him, deep into the wood.
THE prince trudged through the forest, his quickly beating heart slowing down to its regular pace. The vapors from the smoke had finally left Erik’s clouded head, and the wood had returned to itself. Though he was no longer being chased by maddening screams and creatures from his nightmares, the forest was still gloomy and entirely unfamiliar. Erik knew with a sinking feeling that he was lost.
Erik hoped to reach the outskirts of the wood soon, or at least find a stream he could follow, but there was nothing but a wilderness of brambles and tall trees. Through his mind whirled questions: What had happened to Ninny Nanny’s sticks? Why had they cursed him and lost him with a cloud of ash? Was Ninny Nanny dangerous after all? Erik shook his head, banishing the thought. He refused to believe Ninny Nanny wished him harm. The magic must have gone wrong somehow.
Erik shot a wild rabbit and cooked it over a fire for supper. He saw that it was growing dim and had to fight down a small stab of fear when he realized that he would have to spend the night in the forest alone. He had trekked overnight through the woods before, and Cynric had taken him on many hunting expeditions. But it was the feeling of being lost that made the thought of the dark woods at night so eerie. That night he took shelter in a tree to avoid the wolves and other wild animals that prowled about under the cover of darkness.
Erik continued on like this, wandering through the forest, for two more days, and the summer heat was stifling, even though he traveled under an overgrowth of shade. On the evening of the third day, he unexpectedly came to the wood’s edge. Dusk was just spreading over the ground, and the prince saw that he was at the top of a gently sloping hill that led down eventually to the cliff side. The coolness of the wind and the sea swept over him, and he closed his eyes to drink in its freshness.
When he opened his eyes again, Erik saw in the distance the remains of what must have been a magnificent palace standing on a ragged promontory connected only by a narrow strip of land, with the sound of waves crashing against the rocks far below. There were many ruins littered about the kingdom left over from sackings and invasions. At first they had been looted and then burned, but now these ruins were left alone. Terrible stories were told of dispossessed gh
osts haunting the remains of their destroyed dwelling places, jealous of those who now inhabited their land. But to Erik, the haunting ruin looked lonely, with its skeletal walls and jutting beams, a pallid ghost glimmering in the dusk washed bare by the waves of time.
Erik felt a tugging in his soul leading him toward the ruin and decided that it was the best shelter he could find for the night. Night had almost fallen by the time he crossed the narrow bridge of land and reached the pale remains of the palace. He did not have time to explore, but found shelter in a corner that guarded him from the wind. He curled up and listened to its howling and the waves crashing below him before he fell asleep.
ERIK woke to the cry of a seabird. He rose stiffly, stretched his limbs, and reassessed the ruin in the sharp clearness of the morning light. While it had shed its dreamy ghostliness with the night, the ruin still stood as a bleached monument to a forgotten past. Most of its ceiling was gone, though arches vaulted across the corners of stone walls, and there was rubble and tile scattered over the grass underfoot.
He peered round a crumbling wall and espied an entranceway leading to a narrow room with its ceiling still mainly intact. Stepping through the archway into a room illuminated by wide beams of light streaming through the doorway and wide windows, he was amazed to find a brightly colored mosaic floor largely undamaged on the ground before him. There were sea-creatures swirling in intricate designs, dolphins and sea-animals, half-horse and half-fish, drawing chariots of sea-people holding aloft swords and tridents. Erik stared at the seamen’s warlike features and the sharp teeth of their mighty steeds and recalled tales of sea-people, fish-men and women, who haunted the shores of the high cliffs and dragged enchanted sailors through the icy depths to their watery graves. Sailors bore charms against them and avoided certain parts of the coast.
Where am I? he wondered. It was almost as if he had stepped into one of Ninny Nanny’s stories. The princess from her stories had lived in Lothene, when it had been the golden kingdom. Was she also real like the beautiful maiden from his dreams, and had she seen these very same ruined walls and towers when they were mighty and whole?
There was a door tucked into the corner of the room and the prince managed to pry it open. He saw that it led to a flight of steps going up. The steps led him to an open room overlooking the sea, and from the window he watched the white-crested waves smashing into the cliffs below. Had the princess ever looked down onto these same waves and cliffs? Perhaps she had even stayed in this room! An indescribable emotion possessed the prince, and he flew down the tower steps, dashing from crumbling room to crumbling room. The closest he could come to expressing this moment to himself was that he felt on the verge of stepping into another world that was much bigger and brighter than his own.
Erik came to a large room with tall walls and stone alcoves that protected it from sun, wind, and rain. There he stopped before one of the alcoves and saw that it had once acted as a bookcase—there were scorched and battered leather bindings in some of the shelves. He reverently opened one of the bindings and the moldy leaves inside crumbled into dust at his touch. Erik felt an overwhelming sense of loss. His people had done this, destroyed a palace that had once been beautiful and burned all these books so that no one could read their stories ever again. Ninny Nanny had once said that his own castle was built from the ruins of other castles, but he saw that his entire kingdom was built on the ruin of the kingdom before.
The prince’s spirit felt heavy and sad as he wandered out of the ruin and looked up at the sun in the sky. He should start thinking about finding his way back home. In the silence and the stillness, he thought he heard a piping in the distance, a melody high and clear. The music was so faint he did not know if it was but his imagination.
A drowsiness washed over him, and he thought he would take a nap before he again began his journey in search of the castle. Lying down under a solitary fir tree, with the warm sun and the wind on his face, Erik fell asleep.
ERIK was startled by laughter. He was down on the coast by the seashore, and a golden-haired girl was standing at the edge of the waves. He recognized Princess Rosamund from his dream, but she was changed. She was older, gone was her unnatural paleness, and she was all smiles and brightly flashing eyes. There was something else too, something stirring within him that he was on the verge of remembering.
The princess spun about, dipping her feet in the water with lightness and grace. Then she stopped smiling and seemed to be listening for something. Perhaps there was music in the sea that only she could hear, because she began to dance, and her dancing seemed to be all wind and water. Erik watched her, entranced, and forgot everything until his vision began to ripple and fade. He stepped forward, and the princess turned toward him, but, when he stepped again, he stepped into another dream.
Now Erik found himself in a dim room lit by firelight, where a minstrel was softly playing his lute. The princess was there too, and she was listening to the minstrel with her head resting against a pillow. She was even older now, and her face held a sorrow that the prince recognized, a sorrow that he had known when his mother had died. It was the princess’ very sorrow which finally stirred the deep pool of his memory and brought to the surface the image of the sleeping maiden under the water. Her features and those of the princess blended into one, and the prince felt a wave of awe wash over him when he realized that the spoiled princess from Ninny Nannies’ stories was the same beautiful maiden he had lost his heart to when he had first seen her in his dreams. He wondered that he hadn’t recognized her before. Maybe her beauty itself had changed as her heart changed.
All the while, the minstrel strummed his lute, and it faintly recalled the melody the prince had heard on the cliffs by the seashore. Erik saw that the minstrel was also marked by sorrow, but it was of a different kind, as if his music set him apart from others, and that was his sadness, but also his joy. The prince’s vision grew dim. Soon all was darkness, and all he could hear was the crackling of the fire, and then silence.
ERIK opened his eyes and saw that he was back in the ruin. He rose and drifted to the cliff side, where he stood overlooking the sea. The wind battered his face, and he spotted a path that led to the shore below and picked his way down the steep and winding climb.
When he made it down to the coast, standing upon the sands and watching the waves ebb and flow, he knew that this was where the princess from his dreams had danced. He could still hear the echoes of her golden laughter. Erik bent down and picked up one of the seashells scattered across the sandy beach and gave it a kiss. Suddenly he felt embarrassed and tucked the shell inside his pocket.
He turned and climbed the cliff side, debating with himself whether it would be better to spend one more night at the ruin or start on his way back now. When he reached the top, he was startled to find Mnemosyne sunning herself on a flat rock near where he had been sleeping. The sight of the cat was so unexpected that Erik let out a sharp laugh. Unperturbed, the cat yawned and stretched in a great arch before stalking away. Then she paused, looking back at the prince with a bored but eloquent look. Erik saw that he was meant to follow and trailed behind the cat through the ruin and back into the woods.
IN almost no time at all Erik was at Ninny Nanny’s cottage. The prince stood before the cottage in confusion. He had wandered in the forest for days, and yet here was Ninny Nanny’s cottage, merely a short distance away from his own castle. He gave up trying to wrap his mind around the mystery, however, when the old woman opened the door and invited him in.
Ninny Nanny fed him supper, and Erik realized he was famished. He was bursting to tell her about his discovery and talked between spoonfuls.
“Ninny Nanny, Rosa and the sleeping maiden are the same person!”
The old woman looked unsurprised.
“You already knew that, didn’t you?”
Ninny Nanny gave him her secretive grin.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“A storyteller does not reveal the plot �
�til the time is right,” she cackled.
“Ninny Nanny, the princess looked very sad.”
“Yes, she lost something precious to her.”
Erik was quiet for a while, but then said, “I feel the same way. And it isn’t just that I lost my mother. I feel as if Lothene has lost something. When I was at the ruin, I understood that Lothene cannot make anything new, because it has forgotten the old, or worse, it destroys it. Why doesn’t Faerie come to Lothene the way it came to the kingdom of Aurlia? Why are we so afraid of magic?”
“The northern people are conquerors an’ take things by force. When magic is taken instead of given, it harms instead of helps. So Faerie left, and all that people remember is the harm and are afraid.”
“But that’s wrong!” the prince cried. “Can Faerie return?”
Instead of answering, the old woman recited in her sing-songy voice,
The wand’ring king tirelessly treads
The path of exile.
Alone unchanging in a fading world,
he waits for the time
when what was sunder’d is joined by
the coming of the crown.
“The western peoples still remember the old stories of the golden kingdom, and the one they keep closest and most secret is that of a sleeping princess lost in a dark tower. ‘Tis said that, when the princess wakens, the wand’ring king will find his crown and bring back the golden kingdom.”
“And the sleeping princess is Princess Rosamund,” Erik whispered. “But Ninny Nanny, I am the crown prince of Lothene! If the Golden King comes back, what will happen to me and my father? Will the Golden King turn us to dust, as the old women say back at the castle?”