by L. R. Patton
But there is one awake. He finds her hand in the dark, this old, bent, wrinkled man called Yerin.
And somewhere in the dark, a child cries out, “Where are they going?” and another cries out, “Who is going?”
“They are going,” Yerin says, “to a place no one has been for a very long time.”
“A very long time,” Aleen says.
“Who is going?” a child asks again.
“The ones who will save us,” Aleen says.
And though the children have no idea what this means, for who often knows what the words of prophets and prophetesses mean, after all, they feel it still.
The dark is a little less dark tonight.
And someone else, someone who will, perhaps, play a large part in their rescue, is coming.
They hear him now, his feet shuffling against the steps.
IT is the boy called Calvin. He has, once more, stuffed his pockets full of provisions, stolen a candle from the cabinet, filled a bowl with water and sealed it as best he can, though even now, he can feel it sloshing out the sides as he steps carefully and, as much as he might, smoothly. He has closed the doors behind him, for he does not want the guards, who were sleeping when he stole past, to know he is here. And so he waits until he has passed fifty-three stairs before he lights the candle he carries. He hopes the children will see the light. He hopes they will take comfort in its glow. He hopes it will last long enough until the next time he can visit.
It has been some days, nearly a week, since he has come last. Cook has not been easy to fool. She is a shrewd woman who noticed the missing provisions he carried down on his last visit. So he has begun eating smaller portions, but asking for larger ones, stuffing them, when Cook’s back is turned, in a satchel he keeps forever at his feet. This he carries on his back, and it is stuffed with bread and sweet rolls and raw vegetables (he told Cook he will only eat them raw) of every kind and color. Meat he does not bring, for it does not keep. But vegetables and bread will, perhaps, help the children preserve their strength.
If one could see him now, one might be predisposed to laugh, upon first sight. Calvin, you see, is but a boy, but he has strapped a beard onto the bottom of his chin, held on by a bit of string, covered by his merchant’s cap. He is trying, you see, to appear as though he is more than a boy, for boys in the kingdom of Fairendale, at present, are in the greatest danger. Cook has not given him to the king, though you can be sure she has wanted to many times, but she does have a tender heart toward the boy who can cut vegetables in the time it takes her to heat up a pot of water. She needs him, more or less. And she knows that he does not have the gift of magic. What kind of boy would cut vegetables, if he had magic to do it for him?
So Calvin wears his beard, and Cook pretends that he is no longer a boy, but a man, and the kingdom is none the wiser. It is true, perhaps, that he did not need to wear his ludicrous beard down these steps this eve, but he feared he risked questioning by the guards. But the guards fell asleep soon after taking watch, and it was with great ease and silence that Calvin snatched the ring of keys from the belt of one and slipped into the dungeon doors without a single jangle.
One might also see, if one looked at this boy who pretends to be a man, a pillow inside his tunic, folded around his belly. One would not know it was a pillow, of course, for it looks nearly identical to King Willis’s great pillow-like belly, though smaller by many inches, of course. Calvin knows there are more children in this dungeon beneath the dungeons than this one pillow can hold, but perhaps, on another visit, he will bring more, stuffed in other places. There are many pillows scattered throughout the Great Hall. No one would notice them gone, would they?
Calvin is the sort of boy every castle should have. Calvin, you see, takes mercy on everyone he sees. He believes the best about a person. He is the kind of boy who can look at his king and see, not a tyrant, but a decent human being who is making bad decisions. It is not often that one can look at an evil person and believe this about them. It is, in fact, quite difficult to remember that all people, no matter what they do, are simply doing the best they can with what they have. So, too, is our king, Calvin believes. But he also believes that the children in the dungeons beneath the dungeons deserve more than bread and water once a day. So he breaks the king’s law, for sometimes breaking a law is permitted—courageous, even—when it is for the greater good.
It is a long way down to the bottom of this dungeon. The children do not see the light until Calvin is very nearly there. And then they glance up. They look around. They can see each other and Aleen and Yerin and all the other prophets who sleep near them. It has been days since the last candle burned out, days spent in darkness that seems all the darker once one has looked upon the light. They are grateful that the boy has returned.
Calvin emerges from the stone walls, as if he is an apparition. But he is not a boy at all. He is a short, fat man. The children gasp.
Calvin holds out a hand. “It is only I,” he says. “Calvin.”
“Calvin,” Aleen says. Her voice soothes the children. “What is it that has happened to you, Calvin?”
Calvin holds the candle between the bars so that Aleen may take it from his hands. “The king is searching for the missing children,” Calvin says. “I must not be a child.”
“No,” Aleen says. “You must not be a child. And so you have become a short, fat man.”
“Yes,” Calvin says. “Though I did not intend to become fat.” He pulls the pillow from beneath his tunic. “This I brought for all of you.” He looks at it, its flattened shape. “I know it is not enough, but perhaps I can bring more.”
“Very brave of you, my boy,” Aleen says. “Very brave indeed. Thank you.”
The children murmur thanks of their own. Calvin holds out his sack of food. “It is not much,” he says. “Cook has keen eyes. I take what I can.”
Aleen looks at the boy. “And you do not eat,” she says.
Calvin drops his eyes to the floor. “I do,” he says.
“Not much,” she says. She pauses, presses her hand through the steel bar, smoothes the hair from Calvin’s eyes. “Tell me, boy, why you do what you do.”
Calvin meets her eyes, though he has never been good at this. He looks away, back toward the floor. “Because it is the right thing to do,” he says.
“Yes,” Aleen says. “And you are merciful.” Still she stares at him, as if seeing something there that she did not see before. It is a mystery to everyone but Aleen.
“I would let you all out if I could,” he says. He holds up the keys, and it is the first time they jangle in his hands. “But there is no key to fit. I do not know where the king keeps the key to this dungeon.”
“It is hidden,” Aleen says. “In a place that would be far too dangerous for a boy to go. You must not try.”
“Where?” Calvin says, for he is a boy, a boy who is not afraid of anything much. What, after all, would he have to lose? Calvin has never had much to lose in this world.
Aleen shakes her head. “I do not know,” she says, though it is clear that she does, in fact, know. Yerin moves to the bars, searches her face. Why would Aleen not tell the boy where the key is hidden? Why does she keep this a secret for herself?
Yerin does not know this hiding place. But he sees, in Aleen’s face, that it is quite a dangerous one indeed. And should the boy fail, they would be worse off than before. So he does not urge her to tell.
Calvin hands over the last of the provisions he has smuggled down the steps. “I shall return as soon as I might,” he says.
“Thank you, my boy,” Aleen says. “Thank you for your courage and your mercy.”
Calvin dips his head and turns to go. A child calls out, from the back, “Thank you!” and Calvin does not turn back. He simply smiles to himself, for doing the right thing is, perhaps, the best thing of all.
The darkness closes around him, but he knows the way.
PRINCE Virgil lies on his back, tucked into his royal bed,
the satin covers pulled up to his chin. He has not woken. Queen Clarion sits at his side, murmuring, “Oh, my boy” again and again and again. She is terrified that her boy will not wake, terrified that he is lying here, dying, and she can do nothing at all in the world to help him.
The stories say that mermaids have healing powers, that a single touch from them can bring a man back from the brink of death, if that touch is made above water, that is. And she saw with her own eyes that her son was held in the arms of not one, but three mermaids. They spared him. They healed him. This she believes. Every few moments she puts her cheek to her son’s chest, feeling the pulse of him vibrate through her head, just to make sure it is still there. She is the only one in his room, the only one who will, now, watch his eyes flutter, witness him wake, see him try to sit up and lie, nearly as quickly, back down.
“Oh, my boy!” Queen Clarion says again. And this time they are not words of terror, they are words of great and unspeakable relief. Joy that runs down her cheeks. Love that swells into her fingertips. She does not hug him, however, though she wants nothing more at this moment, but she knows that moving him might very well aggravate the wound on his head, the wound that has been patched by none other than herself, for the village healer refused to do the work himself. And she could not blame him. He has lost a son. Why would he save another?
Queen Clarion strokes her boy’s hair. He winces. His eyes blink at her, as if he cannot see her at all, but something else entirely.
“Where am I?” he says.
“In your bedchambers, dear,” she says. She tries not to feel worry at his confusion. Head wounds are confusing things, sometimes disorienting a person until the world settles clear. Perhaps he merely needs time to let it settle.
He looks around his room, and she sees the recognition slip into his eyes. There. It is all very well.
“What happened?” Prince Virgil says.
“That we would surely like to know,” Queen Clarion says, and her voice, at the very end of it, cracks. Her joy, you see, holds tears, but she tries her best to keep them away from her son. It is overwhelming, dear reader, to see a living, breathing, speaking person where moments before was a son trapped by a head wound. It is overwhelming to know that life still remains in the one you have feared lost. “Do you remember anything, dear?”
Prince Virgil stares at his mother. His eyes glaze again. “I went out,” he says.
“Yes,” she says. “This morning?”
He shakes his head, and the pain pulls across his face. “No,” he says. “Last eve.”
“Last eve?” Queen Clarion says. She had come to wish him goodnight and fair dreams last eve, as she did every eve. He had curled up in his bed and slept. “I thought it was surely this morning.” Had her son truly been beneath the bridge all night? Had he passed so many hours with his head weeping?
“I meant to go into the forest,” he says.
Queen Clarion draws in a sharp breath. “Whatever for?” she says.
“To find Theo,” Prince Virgil says. “And Hazel and Mercy.”
Queen Clarion thinks on this for a moment. She thinks about the question that immediately skips through her mind, the question that frightens her, the question that cannot be answered, here, now, today, the question that could mean hope or despair.
Did he intend to find his friends so he could turn them over to his father, or did he intend to find them so he could save them?
It turns out, however, that she need not ask, for Prince Virgil volunteers this information. “I wished to keep them safe,” he says. “I wished to help them escape.”
Oh, dear reader. One cannot describe the surprise and wonder, and, yes, hope, again, that wake in Queen Clarion’s heart. She wonders if this boy might be braver than his father. If he might be kinder. If he might be a more loving ruler than Fairendale has seen since the days of The Good King Brendon. Might it be so? Could a good boy be born of an evil man?
“My boy,” she says, for there is nothing more to say.
“I did not make it,” he says.
“You fell before you reached the forest,” she says.
“No,” he says. “I made it to the forest. I could not make myself enter.” He looks at her, and his eyes are so full of pain that she takes his hand and brings it to her lips. “Is there any news of them?”
Queen Clarion shakes her head. “The kingdom was concerned with finding you,” she says. “I noticed you missing this morning.” She does not add the part about fearing him dead, for this is not a thing a mother should tell her child.
“And what happened at the forest?” she says.
“Noises,” Prince Virgil says. “Creatures. I turned and ran. I must have stumbled.”
“On the bridge,” she says.
“How am I here?” he says.
“Mermaids,” she says. “You were saved by mermaids.”
He looks at her questioningly, for he knows the stories better than most. He has grown up in a castle where right outside its doors is a cove of mermaids. He was warned at a very young age to avoid them.
“How is that so?” Prince Virgil says.
Queen Clarion shakes her head. “I do not know, dear,” she says. “You were found in the arms of mermaids.”
They are quiet for a long time. And then Queen Clarion says, “My brave boy.”
“I did not do anything,” Prince Virgil says, and his voice holds the smallest touch of anger. “I did not save my friends.”
“But you tried,” Queen Clarion says. “It is enough to try.” She does not want her boy to try again, you see. And her words are, in fact, truer than one might suppose. It is enough to try.
“And they have not been found?” Prince Virgil says.
“Not as yet,” Queen Clarion says. She pats her boy’s hand. “And we shall hope that they continue eluding the captain and his men.”
“The captain does not wish to find them, either,” says Prince Virgil. “I have seen it in his eyes.”
Queen Clarion nods. Her beautiful face grows sad. “Yes,” she says. “He is a good man.”
Prince Virgil says nothing.
“Now you must rest,” Queen Clarion says. “I will join your father in court today.”
“To hear news?” Prince Virgil says.
Queen Clarion nods. “To hear news,” she says.
“And you will tell me?” Prince Virgil says.
“Yes,” she says. “Once you rest.”
Queen Clarion does not leave her son’s bedchambers even after he closes his eyes and slips into sleep.
SO it is that Queen Clarion misses the entrance of the captain in late afternoon. She is still with her boy, still easing him into sleep, when Sir Greyson makes his presence known to his king, who is sleeping on his throne, his chin tucked all the way into the folds of his neck, by clearing his throat. Our good man does not want to deliver the news he has been given, for he is well aware of the king’s wrath, particularly when it comes to losing the missing children once they have been found.
But he does his duty.
“What do you mean they have been lost once more?” The king’s voice echoes in the empty room, bouncing off the walls and blowing back into the captain’s face. Garth, along a side wall, shivers, but Sir Greyson does not move. He is a man of valor, after all. He stands as still as he might in front of his king, as if he is a statue made of metal.
“There is nothing we can do,” Sir Greyson says again. “We have returned to the place where the shoe was found, but there is only flattened grass, where it seems many feet stood before fleeing.”
“They have escaped you again!” The king roars. “How is it possible that they have escaped you again?”
“Half my men were looking for your son,” Sir Greyson says. And half of them were chasing a glowing green orb, this he does not say aloud. It sounds foolish even to him, though he must admit that when Sir Merrick told him about the floating ball, he, too, thought it was very surely magic. For balls do not float of
their own accord. But a ball that pops in flight? He could not understand what his men meant when they told the story of its disappearing. They had, however, left the place where the children hid unattended, and this is why they lost, once again, the ones for whom they have been looking.
Though Sir Greyson does not believe the losing is a bad turn of events at all. If it were not for his men and how exhausted they are, he would be very glad indeed. The longer the children are safe from the hands of the king, the better. He would never tell his king that, of course.
“We did not need half your men here at the castle,” the king shouts in his captain’s face.
“We did not know, sire,” Sir Greyson says. “Someone made the call. We believed it was dire.”
King Willis paces the stage. He did not know what had happened to his son, but perhaps he did not need to use the dire signal. Perhaps he could have ordered the less dire call. Perhaps it would have left more men in the forest and the children would not have slipped away.
“Perhaps you should have commanded your men to stay put,” King Willis says, for he is not a man who much likes blame, particularly when it falls upon himself.
This is the part Sir Greyson has been dreading, but he must tell the king now or risk his men looking incompetent, which, despite what some may think, is not true in the least.
“My men,” Sir Greyson says, “discovered a ball of magic. They thought the children might be hiding inside, so they chased it.”
“A ruse!” King Willis shouts. “Any man would know it was a trick.”
In truth, dear reader, one could not know. There were stories of magicians who had used the very same trick to carry a multitude of people across a great distance so they might invade another land. Some magicians, in fact, had used a glowing ball to cross the Violet Sea, for no creature could penetrate a magician’s orb.
Sir Greyson, good man he is, drops his head. “Yes, sire,” he says. “I suppose any man would.”