Bold Tales of Brave-Hearted Boys

by Susannah McFarlane

  Christian imagined the royal procession: the trumpeters and banner-bearers marching in front; the royal guards in their uniforms bringing up the rear; and, in the middle, the emperor, the center of attention, wearing only his underpants.

  He’d look ridiculous, Christian realized. He’d die of embarrassment! Everyone would laugh. But the prime minister and royal treasurer must have told him they could see the suit so no one would think them stupid.

  Then Christian had another terrible thought, this time for himself.

  If I tell the emperor the truth, perhaps everyone will think I’m stupid. Maybe no one will believe me over the prime minister and royal treasurer. And what will they do? They might call me a liar, to protect themselves; they could even have me thrown into the royal dungeon!

  Maybe, he reasoned, it’s best for me to say nothing, keep out of the way. It’s not really my responsibility. But that didn’t feel good to him either. Something about it niggled at his head and his heart. Christian could almost hear his father’s voice echo through his mind: Do what’s right. But Christian, like the prime minister and the royal treasurer, was afraid he’d lose everything if he did.

  3.

  CHRISTIAN AVOIDED THE EMPEROR, and to his relief, the very next day, the weavers announced the suit was ready for the emperor’s approval.

  Now it’s up to him, Christian thought. He’s the emperor. Surely he’ll see there’s nothing there and not be afraid to say it.

  The emperor entered the weaving room, flanked by attendants and courtiers.

  “Your Royal Highness,” said the weavers, swooping down into the lowest of bows. “We are honored. Tell us, sire, how do you like your royal suit, on which we have labored these past days and nights?”

  “Is it not magnificent?” said the prime minister.

  “Is it not perfect?” said the royal treasurer.

  All the other attendants were squinting. The weavers waltzed around the room. “Do you all see?” they cried. “Surely, Your Highness, you have no idiots in your court!”

  With that, all those other attendants of the court began to exclaim how beautiful they found the cloth.

  “Exquisite!”

  “The detail!”

  “The colors!”

  No one would admit they could see nothing at all. Christian’s heart sank. He turned to the emperor. “Sire, what do you see?”

  I see nothing, thought the emperor. Not one thread. Am I unfit to be emperor? Everyone will realize I can’t live up to my father.

  The emperor didn’t look at Christian. Instead, he turned to the weavers. “Magnificent,” he declared. “I’ll wear it tomorrow.”

  “But Your Highness—” Christian started.

  “Can you not see the suit?” asked one of the swindlers sharply.

  “Well, boy?” snapped the prime minister, who’d always been a bit jealous of Christian’s closeness to the emperor. “Can you? To the dungeon with you if you can’t, for that surely means you’re unfit to serve our royal emperor.”

  Christian was silent. He wanted to say something, but nothing came out.

  The prime minister gave a scoffing laugh and ordered the weavers to have the suit completed by morning for the tour. The emperor glanced at Christian, but then turned toward his attendants, who were encircling him now, crooning, congratulating him on his splendid new suit. Christian left the room unnoticed.

  What do I do? he asked himself. I’m just one voice. Everyone’s saying they can see beautiful cloth, but there’s nothing there, I know it. And if the emperor insists on wearing this nothing, he’ll walk out of the palace gates tomorrow in only his underwear and be eaten alive by the mocking crowd.

  Christian thought of his father again and realized there was only one thing to do—he had to speak up, even it meant risking his popularity and comfortable life at the palace. It was his turn to save the emperor.

  4.

  THE NEXT MORNING the weavers declared the suit ready and the emperor, attended by the royal dresser, entered the weaving room. Some time later he came out wearing only his underpants: large, baggy, blue-and-white-striped bloomers.

  He looks ridiculous! thought Christian. Why is he doing this? He’s the emperor—surely he’s not afraid of what others might think?

  The attendants, the guards, the trumpeters, and the banner-bearers were all staring at the emperor. First there was silence. Then, as they realized their jobs would be in danger if they laughed, all began to cheer: “Bravo, Your Majesty, bravo!”

  “This is crazy,” said Christian, and he moved toward the emperor.

  The prime minister, who’d heard him, blocked his path. “Anyone who doesn’t agree the emperor looks the finest he’s ever looked will be thrown into the royal dungeon,” he stated.

  Christian’s heart raced, but he knew what he had to do. “Stop!” he cried. Everyone looked at him. “Sire, there is no suit. You’re wearing only your underwear, and if you—”

  “Hah!” shouted the prime minister furiously. “The shepherd boy can’t see the suit. He’s unfit. I always thought so. Trust me, sire!”

  Christian looked imploringly at the emperor. “Sire, don’t go out of the palace grounds like this. Your subjects will surely laugh at you.”

  The emperor looked at Christian, then down at himself. He seemed not to see his skinny legs poking out from his blue-and-white-striped underpants.

  “Sire,” said the royal treasurer, terrified now that the emperor would know she’d lied, “trust us, not this shepherd boy.”

  “Guards,” cried the prime minister, pointing at Christian, “take him to the dungeon. He is stripped of all title and privileges.”

  Two guards roughly took hold of Christian, who watched helplessly as the near-naked emperor walked toward the huge palace gates, which were being slowly wound open. Once the gates had fully opened, all the villagers beyond would see him.

  There was no time to lose. With a roar, Christian broke free of the guards. He ripped the prime minister’s cape from his shoulders and rushed toward the emperor, shouting, “No!” as he lunged and covered him with it just seconds before the gates opened wide.

  The emperor looked at Christian as if awoken from a trance, only at that moment seeing the danger he’d been in.

  “Christian,” he said, “I’m in my underpants! The people could have seen me like this. Me, the emperor! You’ve saved me from such embarrassment!”

  “It was my pleasure, Your Royal Highness,” replied Christian.

  In gratitude for his boldness and courage, the emperor declared that Christian would now be both royal protector and advisor. He then glared at the prime minister and royal treasurer who, quite sensibly, looked very worried.

  The hidden spools of thread were discovered, and the swindlers were caught and thrown into the royal dungeon. The prime minister and royal treasurer now had to seek Christian’s approval on all matters of court. And the first matter was the distribution of many of the emperor’s old clothes throughout the kingdom.

  And they all—well, mostly all—lived happily ever after.

  PRINCE LEO AND THE SLEEPING PRINCESS

  1.

  ONCE UPON A TIME, in a faraway kingdom, lived a young prince. Prince Leopold Charming, Leo to his friends, was a prince from a long line of princes who, throughout the centuries, had fulfilled the Charming family’s time-honored role of rescuing damsels, mostly princesses, in distress.

  Leo showed every indication that he would uphold the Charming family tradition brilliantly: he was strong and athletic, an expert horseman and archer, and a quite superb fencer, and he practiced all with great diligence. He was less interested in ballroom dancing, which was often part of the post-rescue work, but as he was an obedient boy he persevered with his waltz and was, according to the royal dance master, really quite good, with a strong sense of rhythm. Leo was also a disciplined student of princely history, reading the Charming Family Chronicles and learning from both the triumphs and travails of his ancestors�
� rescues.

  The great hall of Charming Castle was filled with paintings in heavy gold frames displaying family portraits of princes and the princesses they had rescued and married: Leo’s parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, and even-greater-grandparents. Leo didn’t mind princesses—he knew quite a few nice ones—but he didn’t want to get married, at least not now, at least not for ages.

  For Leo had a lot to do. He played the violin, both alone and with his friends, and he was particularly good at royal tennis: his princely brain was highly mathematical, and he loved to calculate exactly where the ball would land if he hit it at a certain angle and speed. Leo couldn’t spend as much time as he’d like playing, though, for he had his daily fencing and archery practice, his tower-scaling and castle-entwining-briar-beating, and most importantly, his dragon-slaying drills to complete.

  Leo didn’t mind all the training—he understood it was his duty—but he did sometimes wonder why damsel deliverance always came down to the princes. His closest friends, the Honorable Viscounts Edvard and Gilbert, would both make admirable defenders, but they were never called—it was always the princes. And, Leo wondered, what about the princesses? Could they never rescue themselves?

  Leo raised this with his father one day as they walked in the royal gardens training their falcons, their dogs obediently by their sides.

  “Now there’s a thought,” said King Oskar, pondering the question as he tethered the peregrine falcon that had just returned to his arm. “Do you know, Leo, I’ve never thought of that—it’s never come up. I like your thinking, though.”

  That made Leo smile: he liked to make his father happy.

  “I suppose it’s about our role,” continued the king. “The viscounts—and those dukes and marquises—all have their roles to play, and we ours. We have this wonderful palace, these beautiful gardens…”

  “And the royal tennis court,” chipped in Leo.

  “Indeed,” said his father, smiling, for the king knew how much his son loved his royal tennis. “And with those privileges come responsibilities. Our responsibility is to serve when needed, by rescuing—it’s what we do, and we must ensure we do it well. Let’s walk some more, Leo.”

  The king and the prince walked down the ordered paths of the palace’s highly ornamental parterre gardens: straight gravel-filled paths separated by square garden beds, all exactly the same size and bordered by green box-hedging, bursting with snowdrops, hyacinths, geraniums, lavender, and precisely placed and masterfully pruned rosebushes. The garden had been first planned and planted by Leo’s great-great-great-grandfather and grandmother and had been immaculately maintained ever since. In the exact center was a pond, and in the middle of the pond was an imposing bronze statue of Prince Leo’s great-great-great-grandfather, slaying a dragon.

  While Leo loved a fast gallop in the woods outside the palace walls, rushing at breakneck speed, he also loved walking in the palace gardens. It made him feel calm and secure—as if things were under control, at peace. It was a good place for thinking, his father often said, which was why he would often walk there with Leo to instruct him in the Charming family ways. And so it was this day, when the king told Leo the legend of the sleeping princess.

  2.

  “LEGEND HAS IT,” began the king, “that there was once a small kingdom neighboring ours, ruled by a gracious king and queen, who after many years of waiting and wishing had a daughter, whom they named Aurora. There was much rejoicing throughout the land, and in honor of the Princess Aurora’s christening, a royal banquet was held. The king and queen invited all the fairies in the kingdom except one, an evil fairy, for they feared she would ruin the celebration.”

  “Why do I get the feeling that wasn’t a good idea?” asked Leo.

  “Quite,” said the king. “And, indeed, when all but one of the good fairies had bestowed their blessings on the little princess, a black raven flew through the palace window and transformed into the evil fairy. Outraged that she’d been excluded, she put a curse on the princess, declaring that when she was sixteen years of age, she would prick her finger on a spindle and die.”

  “Prick her finger? That’s a bit lame, isn’t it, Father?” asked Leo.

  “Well, fairies do as fairies do, I suppose,” said the king. “Shall I continue?”

  “Yes, Father,” said Prince Leo, although he wasn’t completely sure what this story had to do with him.

  “The queen and king were devastated they would soon lose their so-longed-for daughter. There was, however, one fairy left to bestow a final blessing, and while she couldn’t cancel the evil fairy’s curse—”

  “Why not?” asked Leo.

  “Well, because once some things are said, they can’t be unsaid,” replied the king, “but the last fairy could soften the curse so the princess wouldn’t die, but rather would fall into a deep sleep. The good fairy pronounced her blessing, and the evil fairy hissed, transformed into a snake, and slipped out of the palace before anyone could catch her. The king ordered every spindle in the land to be burned. He made it a crime punishable by death to spin anything anywhere in the kingdom, yet somehow, on her sixteenth birthday—”

  “Sixteen, same age as me,” said Leo.

  “Yes, an important age for princes and princesses,” said the king. “Well, on her sixteenth birthday, the princess wandered into a room in the castle where an old servant-woman in a black cape was hunched over a spindle, spinning thread through her gnarled fingers. The old woman was—”

  “I know!” shouted Leo, for he was well versed in the ways of evil fairies and goblins. “The old woman was the evil fairy in disguise!”

  “Yes,” said the king, looking proud. “Well done, Leo.”

  Leo beamed as his father continued.

  “The old woman beckoned to Princess Aurora. “Come in, my dear. Let me show you the fine gold thread I’m spinning,” she croaked. The princess, who’d of course never seen a spindle before, was entranced. The woman handed her the spindle, on which Aurora pricked her finger. In that instant, she fell to the ground.”

  “But not dead, right?” said Leo. “Just sleeping, because of the good fairy’s counter-blessing?”

  “Exactly,” said King Oskar. “Seconds later, a chambermaid walked in and found the princess lying on the floor and a large black spider scuttling away. She called for the king and queen, and they called for the court doctors and the good fairies, but no one could wake the princess. The curse had taken hold. Aurora was carried to a room high in a tower and surrounded by garlands of flowers. Her royal flag flew from the tower, but inside, the princess lay completely still.”

  “That’s sad,” said Leo.

  “Yes, terribly,” said the king. “Everyone was so sad that the king and queen asked a good fairy to cast a spell of sleep over the whole castle. Everyone who lived in the castle—the cooks, the servants, the footmen and ladies-in-waiting, knights and ministers and even the king and queen—all fell into a deep sleep exactly where they were.”

  “That’s a bit creepy,” said Leo.

  “Yes, I suppose it is,” said King Oskar with a shudder. “The whole castle was now wrapped in timeless sleep. Years went by, and the trees in the grounds grew tall, the bushes thick, the grass high. Thorny briars curled up the walls and turrets. It is said that all this happened over a hundred years ago, and that the forgotten palace sleeps on to this day.”

  “Would anything awaken the princess?”

  “According to legend, ‘only the piercing of the evil fairy’s heart by a king’s son, one young and true, bold and of blood royally blue’ can break the spell,” said the king.

  Now Leo understood why his father was telling him the story. “And that’s where we come in, isn’t it?” said Leo.

  “Where you come in, maybe,” replied the king. “My princess-saving days are over, but this is what you’ve been training for, Leo. Always take your shield and sword when you ride in the woods, and ride farther and deeper in—perha
ps you’ll find the hidden castle.”

  Leo obeyed his father. Every week he’d mount his white stallion and dutifully ride out in the woods, careful to take a different path each time, his sword and shield (royal-blue-colored) always with him. But the weeks went by and Leo never saw anything, which was, frankly, disappointing: he’d been excited at the thought of putting his training to the test, but there seemed no princess with whom to do it. He began to think the legend of the sleeping princess was just a story after all.

  3.

  SOME MONTHS LATER Leo was dutifully setting off for his weekly ride into the woods when

  Viscount Edvard called, “Leo, stay here. Play royal tennis with us instead!”

  “I can’t,” said Leo, strapping his sword to his back. “It’s time for my woods ride.”

  “But you never find anything, Leo!” said Viscount Gilbert.

  It was true: despite his many rides, he never did find anything. Leo was sorely tempted to stay, but he knew his duty. “Maybe later,” he said, and climbed onto his horse.

  “Royal tennis will be more fun,” pleaded Viscount Edvard. But it was too late: Leo had ridden down the path, out the royal gates, and into the woods.

  Heading westward, Leo rode for over an hour through particularly dense forest before he came to a thick tangle of thorny briars. “Just like in the story,” he said to himself.

  Right, left, right, left. Leo moved his sword expertly through the tangle of thorns, grateful for all his lessons and arm-strengthening exercises.