The King's Indian: Stories and Tales

by John Gardner

  “First,” she said, “we all have thousands of dresses like this one.” She glanced down and saw that someone had taken her samite dress and put an old, coarse peasant dress on her. “Well, not exactly like this one,” she amended. She described the dresses in detail and at length, until all her friends’ eyes were shining with happiness and Djubkin, without even knowing it, was moving his fingertips on Muriel’s knee. Gently, she brushed his hand away. “And the knights write you love poems,” she said then, and laughed. She quoted them some of the stranger ones, pretending she perfectly understood them, and everyone held his sides and laughed except Pretty Polly, who looked nervous.

  “And what’s Queen Louisa like?” they all asked, speaking eagerly, but still with a guilty look that puzzled her.

  Softly, devotedly, she told them about Mad Queen Louisa. “When she’s herself,” she said, “she has ravishing long red hair and the palest, loveliest face in the world, with freckles on her nose. Everyone agrees she’s the life of the palace. She tells songs and sings stories and sometimes when everyone’s feeling low she explains her philosophy of life. When she’s not herself—no one knows quite why—she turns into an enormous, gentle toad. The first time or two you hardly see any difference, she looks very much as she always does, except for the expression of the eyes and mouth, but gradually, as you learn to look more closely, the difference becomes as clear as day. She gets very short arms, and an enormous swamp-green belly, and her placid smile goes from ear to ear—you really have to see it to completely understand. She’s a very fine person, in whichever shape. She organizes great charity balls and calls off wars and heaven knows what. She’s majestic, really. I believe she’s a kind of saint.”

  All her friends’ eyes were misty. Then Djubkin said, “Is that all they do—just try on clothes and write meaningless poems and have charity balls and wars and things?” He didn’t seem to mean it offensively.

  “Well, they’re royalty, you know,” Muriel explained.

  Djubkin nodded. He seemed to be more or less satisfied.

  Frail Pretty Polly was nodding too, as though she completely understood and agreed. As if more or less to herself, she said, “I wonder how you get to be royalty.”

  Muriel looked away uncomfortably.

  “Someone comes along and they recognize you,” dear Dobremish said loyally, “the way they did Muriel.” Her brown eyes sparkled and her cheeks got redder, as if the implied insult to Muriel were an insult to herself.

  Everyone nodded instantly. Dobremish had a terrifying temper.

  But the blacksmith’s youngest daughter, Luba, said, with an apologetic glance at Dobremish, “Still, you know, it’s an interesting question. I’ve often thought my mama would perhaps have been a saint if it weren’t for us fourteen children. I mean, what has Queen Louisa got to worry her, if you know what I mean? What has she got to make her swear or want to kill somebody, or tempt her to steal?”

  “If you suppose for one moment—” Muriel flashed.

  “Oh, where’s your sense of humor?” Djubkin said. All her friends started laughing. Muriel thought about it, listening to that laughter, and felt suddenly lonely.

  “Lots of poor people are saints,” Dobremish said. “A person doesn’t need wealth and leisure to be gentle and loving. And I’m sure lots of people of means are cruel and petty.” Her eyes were sparkling more dangerously now, and her black hair glittered.

  “Exactly!” said Muriel, and everyone instantly agreed.

  “Still,” said the blacksmith’s daughter, Luba, “it seems unfair, somehow.” Everyone looked nervous. “It’s not as if they were handsomer than we are. Dobremish, for instance, is the prettiest girl I ever saw, even if she is a little pug-nosed. And when Pretty Polly’s not pregnant she looks simply adorable.” Luba paused and blushed. “I don’t mean you’re ugly, Muriel—” But even Muriel could see she had a point. Luba added in haste, “And it’s not as if they’re more intelligent than we are. I never knew anyone as quick-witted as Djubkin, though I admit he can be stupid with girls. And for that matter, if intelligence were the point, they’d make Vrokror a prince—if they could catch him.” She laughed, then went pale, seeing the outraged look on the faces of her friends.

  Muriel burst out sobbing, and Dobremish said, weeping bitterly, “You stupid, stupid little horror, Luba! Look what you’ve done!”

  But Muriel was sobbing as if her heart would burst, and in their anguish everyone soon forgot about Luba.

  “I swear to you, Muriel,” Djubkin said, “that man’s name will never be mentioned again or my name isn’t Djubkin!”

  “Who knows if your name’s really Djubkin!” sobbed Muriel. “Who knows anything about anyone? What am I for instance?”

  All her friends bit their lips and wrung their hands, but in her awful shame and loneliness she trusted no one anymore. She remembered that the cries of the ladies-in-waiting had sounded to her like the laughter of witches, and remembered, at the same time, how all her dear friends had laughed to trick her when Djubkin said something was a joke which was not. Was anyone who ever lived more abandoned and miserable than she? Was anyone ever more lost and helpless in a senseless and lawless universe?

  No.

  Muriel said, “I believe you’re all in league with him. Otherwise why would he bring me to you—he, wicked Vrokror, whom you all have pretended to scorn as a rapist and anarchist?”

  She sobbed and sobbed, tearing her hair and noticing, in the back of her mind, that the peasant gown was itchy; otherwise her sorrow would have been perfect, as in a legend.

  Dobremish leaned over her, weeping, trembling, her love for Muriel so great that she would joyfully have died for her. “Dearest, dearest Muriel,” said Dobremish, “we are not in league with him. We saved you from him. But since that awful subject has come up, tell us what happened, I beg you, and perhaps you will feel better.”

  “I fell out of the carriage,” Muriel said.

  “No, not that, Muriel. What happened before.”

  Muriel gasped, wringing her hands, and after a moment sat up to tell the story.

  4

  “Snow was softly falling past the lighted barn windows,” Muriel related. “I was milking the cows. As I stepped into the milkhouse with a pail in each hand, I was suddenly and horribly accosted from behind. One hand caught me by the waist and another clamped tightly around my mouth, preventing me from screaming. I carefully set down the milkpails, which hadn’t spilled, luckily, and allowed myself to be dragged—since I couldn’t resist, naturally—to a coach that was parked in the darkness at the foot of the driveway. There, bound and gagged, I was forced to proceed with my unknown assailants to an isolated place on the seacoast above the rugged cliffs. The coach stopped in front of an abandoned farmstead, and my assailants, muttering unspeakable oaths, pulled me roughly from the coach and forced me, by pokes and prods, to the darkness of the barn. You can well imagine my paroxysms of terror, my pathetic whimpers, through the gag, for mercy, and the intensity of my devout prayers for deliverance by the powers above.

  “But my fears of immediate molestation were ill-founded, as luck would have it. Hidden in the barn there was a large trap-door which opened, to my utter astonishment, on a stairway leading interminably downward. I was ordered to descend. The stairs, which had every appearance of having been fashioned in some former century, were crudely hewn out of the rock itself. Before we had descended a hundred steps, the soughing of the night wind above us was no longer audible. When we had descended approximately a thousand steps, I began to hear the crashing of the sea. Soon after that, opening a studded iron door, we emerged into a comfortable, though by no means lavishly appointed, room—a chamber, as I quickly realized, of a partially man-made cave. We passed quickly through this chamber, of which I got only the most fleeting impression (several paintings, a tea set), to a smaller room which appeared to do service as an office. At the end of this room was a fireplace, with a roaring fire, and in front of this fire, with its back to me
, sat a rocking chair with a man in it.

  “ ‘Thank you, that will be all,’ said this unknown personage.

  “Instantly—I couldn’t help but mark the alacrity with which the stranger’s commands were obeyed, though uttered in a voice quite gentle, unmistakably cultured—my assailants released me and retreated in the direction of the secret stairway.

  “ ‘Come here, my child,’ the stranger said.

  “I have neglected to mention, though perhaps my narrative inadvertently makes it obvious, that though my mouth was gagged and my hands were tied, my feet were free. Horribly trembling, my knees violently knocking together, I approached the man in the rocking chair. I was not such a fool as to imagine I might overpower him. Relaxed and off guard as he seemed, I knew him a desperate man. When I had come up beside him, he slowly turned his face to me.

  “That face! No poet, no painter or sculptor, indeed no nightmare of the most fevered brain, could portray the agony and malevolent beauty of Vrokror’s face! (For Vrokror it was, as I’m sure you’ve guessed.) He was a man of no more than twenty-six, but he had suffered more anguish than have most men of eighty. He had neither beard nor mustache, and his curly hair, which once, I surmised, had been golden brown, was prematurely gray. Over his left eye, behind his spectacles, he wore a black patch. His mouth was thin and sensuous, his nose aquiline, his jaw firm, but by no means excessive. His adams-apple was prominent, but not offensively so: One might have known even without hearing him speak that his voice was deep, with the timbre of a viola da gamba and, of course, not a trace of vulgarity. He wore a ruffled white shirt and an elegant purple smoking jacket with gold brocade. At his waist, beneath the smoking jacket, he wore a cumberbund, with a sag to the left, where his dagger hung. His fingers were long and, one would have thought, gentle—the fingers of a lutist, which indeed he was, he later informed me. His feet, clad in purple velvet slippers, were long and delicate, like a beautiful woman’s but with a masculine character. But his face! How can I, how dare I, describe it? It was a face radiantly beautiful yet evil. The face of a man who has suffered to such a degree that he has left to him no choices but tragic suicide or maniacal rejection of the world that had brought him to this pitiable pass.

  “He extended his arm to me. ‘Tanya,’ he said, ‘they’ve gagged you too tightly! How can I ever forgive myself?’ Then, rising quickly and gracefully, snatching his dagger with a motion exceedingly natural and habitual, he seized the back of my neck with his left hand and cut the gag with the dagger in his right. I meant to scream, but before I could draw breath, his lips were on mine. ‘Tanya!’ he exclaimed, ‘Tanya, my angel!’

  “I struggled free. ‘I believe we have not been introduced,’ I said.

  “ ‘I have always known your name, my priceless Tanya,’ cried Vrokror.

  “I was hardly myself or I would have seen through his demonic machinations. Vrokror’s kiss had shattered my wits, I’m afraid. I had been kissed once before, but never by a man like Vrokror. I was beside myself, if I tell you the truth. My whole being was on fire. I felt suddenly starved, violent, terrified. I felt like a fledgling first falling into flight. My heart beat fiercely, my white bosom heaved—”

  Muriel blushed. All her friends looked down in embarrassment.

  She continued, soberly:

  “Vrokror, unless he was a consummate liar, was as shocked as was I by what had just occurred. He looked away, in an agony of embarrassment, and said timidly, ‘May I untie your arms?’

  “ ‘I’d be very grateful if you would,’ I said.

  “Vrokror did so at once. As he drew the rope away he turned from me, profoundly agitated, and said: ‘Tanya, I cannot forgive myself for what I’ve done. How you must have suffered! How terrified you must have been! But permit me to beg you to understand: I have lived half my life as a rapist and an anarchist. Not by choice, I assure you, but because of unfortunate circumstances. One morning just after my latest ingenious escape from hanging, I happened to see you mowing hay, and as I watched I felt my sanity slipping. “I must have her,” I thought. You were twelve at the time, as I found by a few discreet inquiries. I could hardly miss the irony, that I, who had been privy to the beds of the noblest ladies of the modern world—I confess it with shame—should be spiritually ravished by a twelve-year-old maiden.

  “ ‘I threw myself heart and soul into my work, raping and murdering and destroying kingdoms, but nothing could drive your sweet image from my heart. I pretended otherwise, pretended I’d lost that insane fascination, and on your fourteenth birthday I disguised myself as an elderly priest and came to your party to prove to myself that my insanity was cured. You know, perhaps, the pathetic result.’

  “I did, as soon as he mentioned it. I remembered a poor old parish priest, from the kingdom to the west, who’d had a heart attack and had to be carried away by his companions. I mentioned this incident.

  “ ‘That was I!’ cried Vrokror, ’That was I! Nor was the heart attack feigned, I assure you. It took the best doctors in the kingdom to save me. Thank God, I could easily afford it.’

  “The story reduced him to tears, and it was some time before he was able to continue. ‘I knew then, Tanya, that you must one day be my bride. I resolved to make myself worthy of you. I dismissed all my assistants and sought honest employment. For three full weeks I hunted work, but it was hopeless—hopeless! I reassembled my former friends, and—alas!—here you are.’ With a convulsive shudder, he came to the point. ‘Tanya, dear Tanya, I cannot dream of asking you to lower yourself to my depraved and bestial desires. Indeed, I will not ask it of you, for it would lower your virtue in my esteem. But I’m a miserable criminal with no hope in life, for all criminals at last become crows’ food, dangling from the gallows. Perhaps you could do only this for me: Pretend, for one night, to be my wife. Lie with me in bed, talking to me softly, as a wife would do, and between us I will place a deadly sharp sword, so that I cannot possibly give offense.’ ”

  Muriel’s friends were looking at her, full of avidity. She said, “Friends, if you trust me at all, you will believe that any normal well-brought-up girl would have done as much as Vrokror asked of me. No man on earth was ever more beautiful and tragic, though certainly he was possessed by the Devil. At any rate, I complied with his request. We undressed (behind screens) and went to bed. True to his word, he put a sword between us.

  “I can hardly describe the beatific peace of that hour in which Vrokror told me all his anguish and I told him in return my aspirations and fears. It did indeed seem as if we’d been married for ages, so gentle was Vrokror’s hand on my stomach and so sweet was the feeling of his chest to my fingertips. The candle burned lower, and his face grew gentler. At last he fell asleep. I was filled with a strange tranquility. Though I admit I was aching with affection for him—why should I deny it?—what I felt most of all was a profound satisfaction. Someone loved me deeply, no doubt about it. And I loved him in return. I, too, fell asleep, or almost asleep.

  “I will not blame on Vrokror, guilty as he is, the shameful calamity that was really my fault. As I was drifting off, I put my hand on the sword and nearly cut myself. Almost without thinking, knowing that Vrokror was safely asleep, I slipped the sword from between us and put it on the floor beside the bed. Then, indescribably happy, with my arms around Vrokror, I softly fell away into sleep.

  “I awakened with Vrokror on top of me, a poor helpless victim of his shameful, sinful passion. What should I have done? I knew, of course, that it was wicked—oh, insanely wicked—but Vrokror looked so happy, so wolfishly happy, for once in his life! And I was happy. How can I deny it? It was wonderful—wonderful! And I loved him so much! I could have screamed my horror and righteous indignation, I know. I honestly thought about it. No one would have heard me, down here half a mile below the surface of the world, but I could have screamed in horror for my dignity’s sake, and possibly I could have made him stop. But, oh, oh, oh, it was so beautiful. He kept apologizing like a choirboy, though I knew
he’d been affectionate with hundreds of ladies—and I believed every word he said, though you may laugh, and suddenly it was over and we lay gasping and laughing and blushing at our sin.

  “ ‘Tanya,’ Vrokror said, rolling away from me and shaking his elegant fist at the ceiling to hide his profound embarrassment, ‘within our lifetime I will destroy all governments, all ideas of station. Peasantry I will make an obscure, archaic word.’

  “ ‘Vrokror,’ I said, still panting and blushing, ‘go to sleep. I forgive you.’

  “He said, ‘Tanya, I wish you would try to understand me. I have penetrated the grotesque stupidity of things as they are. I want you to be at my side in my hour of triumph.’

  “ ‘Vrokror,’ I said, ‘you’re a prerogative fool!’

  “He looked at me sadly and strangely and said nothing more. Gently intertwined, we at last fell asleep.

  “The next morning I asked him to take me home. He got up, put his clothes on, and called the two ruffians who had brought me to his den. ‘Take her home,’ he said, turning his face from me and suppressing a sob. They instantly obeyed. And so I was returned, safe and sound, to the farmhouse. It was two months later that I discovered I was carrying a child by the desperate Vrokror.”

  5

  In all her little audience, there was not a dry eye.

  “And now,” said Muriel, “tell me how it is that you saved me from him.”

  It was Dobremish, her childhood friend, who spoke. “Nothing could be simpler,” Dobremish said, weeping. “He captured you, with inside help from the castle, and when King Gregor and his knights came out in search of you, Vrokror became panicky and brought you here, with a thousand apologies, and here, until the moment you opened your eyes, we have watched over you.”