by L. R. Patton
“You are safe then?” she says.
“You children do not listen,” Arthur says. “You must listen if you want to keep your lives.”
“But you did not come back,” Hazel says. “And Mercy did not come back.” She looks at her friend. “You should not have come here.”
“You should not have come here, either,” Mercy says. She holds her head straight and high.
“Both of you,” Arthur says. “Back this very moment. I shall be right behind you.”
“What about the sheep?” Mercy says. “The shepherdess is here now.”
Arthur looks at his daughter. “Yes,” he says. “I suppose she is.” He takes both of Hazel’s hands in his. “I need you to send your sheep away.”
“Send them away?” Hazel says. “But we need them.”
“There are traps,” Arthur says. He holds up one of the nets so she can see. “People have been here. They have been setting traps. They are still looking.”
Hazel looks from her father’s face to the traps and then to her sheep. “How will we manage?”
“If they stay,” Arthur says. “It is only a matter of time before we are found.”
“But the portal is tiny,” Hazel says. “They will never discover something so small.”
“It is far better to take precautions,” Arthur says. “Please, daughter. Send them away. I want you all to live. I want you all to pass your days in safety.”
“And we will stay in this underground home?” Hazel says. “We will live here forever? The king will stop looking?”
Arthur shakes his head. “We must get back,” he says. “We must make haste.” His voice, dear reader, is splintered, pleading, full of sorrows he cannot speak today. “Please.”
And because he is her father, because she loves him, because she loves the children who hide behind a tiny portal, Hazel does. She sends her friends away. She whispers in their ears, begs them to find another home, for the time being, watches them go.
Arthur hugs his daughter when the last sheep moves out of their sight. “Thank you, my daughter.”
Hazel cannot say a word in return.
Arthur pulls away and looks at Mercy. “Now,” he says. “You must make haste back through the portal. I shall be right behind you.” He looks around the forest. “There might very well be eyes, returning at this precise moment.”
The girls do as he bids them and disappear through the portal. Arthur takes a deep breath, sweeps his eyes once more across the forest that appears to be unchanged, but for the missing sheep, and follows them.
IT is true that there is a man, a very young man, watching Arthur and the girls. Only he is not watching them so much as he is sleeping, for this young man stayed up far too late playing cards with his friends in a tent last eve. They made sure to remain as quiet as they could, with as little light as possible, for the captain did not like them staying up too late before an important day such as this one. And after all the traps had been hung throughout the forest, this man was, alas, the very one put in charge of the first watch in this exact part of the forest.
It is with great irony that we might remember what Captain Greyson tells his men on the eve before any momentous task. “Much has been missed because someone did not get enough sleep,” he says.
Yes. It is true, for right here, before us, is a man who has folded his hands and rested, rather than keeping diligent watch over his part of the forest, and just what has he missed? Two children. A man. A portal, most important of all. The very things his fellow men have spent their days searching for, and this man missed it due to a nap. His fellow soldiers might have gone home for a good nights’ sleep in their own beds, rather than continuing the search. They might have enjoyed a hot meal round their tables. They might have been set free.
But, you see, one man wanted for a nap.
Yet there is something.
Oh, yes. There is something.
Practice
MAUDE and Arthur began their lessons, and Maude proved to be a good student, quicker than Arthur even suspected. They continued meeting every evening, though both of them showed the signs of too little sleep and, if one knew what to look for, magic exhaustion in the coming weeks. While most villagers were curled comfortably in their beds, Maude and Arthur worked through every spell Arthur knew, ceasing only once they had reached their limit for the night (for magic always has a limit, you see, some expenditure on the magician’s part that ensures he does not use it too often or too flippantly. Magic does not wish to be used for ill, though many magicians have used it for such. Those magicians often take to their beds for weeks after their great display, though the stories never tell this detail.). Maude and Arthur used their staffs, disguised as walking sticks, to help them back to the village, for they were nearly too tired to walk.
At times, they had so used everything within them that they considered sleeping on the banks of the river, but Arthur knew better than this. There were other secrets that could be discovered were they to do something so rash, for in his heart, Arthur was falling in love with Maude, and Maude with him.
Some nights they sat on the riverside, and instead of practicing magic, they talked. They talked of his travels, the sights he had seen, though Maude noticed that he never said much about his birthing place. She talked about her father, which led to talking of her mother.
“Your father is a skilled woodworker,” Arthur said.
“He says the same of you,” Maude said. “I have heard him in conversation with other men in the village.”
“And he has treated you well, I suppose?” Arthur said.
“Well enough,” Maude said. “Though not so well as when Mother lived.”
“And your mother?” Arthur said. “You knew her?”
“For too little time,” Maude said.
“You got your gift of magic from her,” Arthur said.
“Yes,” Maude said. “My mother was a Prophetess for a time. The king would bring her to his castle and give her great gifts to tell him what would happen in his future.”
“What kind of future?” Arthur said.
Maude knew he was asking how far her mother could See. A prophet’s power was measured by how far into the future they could See. “A month or two, so I have heard,” she said. “I was too young to remember. I mostly remember the food.” Arthur looked at her. “The king paid us in food. So our table was not so empty as it is now.” She looked toward the waters, stilled in the silent night. “It was a different time, I suppose.”
They were quiet for some minutes, and then Arthur said, “What happened to your mother?”
“She grew ill,” she said. “A burning fever took her.”
“And no one could heal it?” Arthur said. Maude heard something in his voice. She turned to him. His eyes were shadowed. Troubled.
“No,” she said. “We do not have healers in White Wind.”
“Every village has healers,” Arthur said.
“Ours died of the same fever,” Maude said.
Arthur was silent.
“What is it?” she said, for she could tell that there was something.
Arthur shook his head. “An oddity,” he said. “Do you not agree?”
Maude supposed it was. She said so. But Arthur did not say anything else, and so she let the wondering slide away.
“How old were you?” Arthur said after a time. “When your mother died?”
“A girl of seven,” she said.
“Well,” Arthur said. “Shall we begin tonight’s lesson?”
“Yes, I suppose we shall,” Maude said, for she did not steal from her house and risk Arthur’s life to talk about her mother. They climbed to their feet, Arthur helping Maude wipe the grass from her skirt.
She loved him even more after that night.
And there were other nights as well. Nights when Arthur touched Maude’s cheek for the briefest of moments, nights when she wondered if, perhaps, he had grown to love her as she had grown to love him. Nights when th
ey lay beneath the hollow, a hole carved in the treetops where they could gaze at the stars, their hands touching at the fingertips. Nights when the magic did not matter so much as the presence.
They practiced for hours upon hours, every evening, treading back to their sleeping places only when the night had grown considerably darker and even the creatures of the forest did not stir, when all was silent and still around them. Arthur taught Maude more in a few hours than her grandmother had ever taught her in months of instruction, back before she had disappeared without a trace. Maude’s magic, it seemed, merely needed an awakening. Arthur was a good teacher. He gave her magic the rest of what it needed, and soon, she was as skilled as he was.
Maude clung to his instruction as if, to her, it meant the difference between life and death.
And, perhaps, one day it would.
Shoe
THE sun is hidden, so Prince Virgil does not know what hour it is when he wakes. It is dark, gray, cold in his chambers, as if light and warmth do not live in a world without children.
Why would it? The laughter of children is the light of a world. The presence of children grant warmth to even the coldest midnight.
Prince Virgil rises from his bed, pulls on his clothes, black pantaloons today, with a black tunic and a black cape. He wraps a royal robe around his shoulders, the only color he permits on a shadowed day like this one. It is soft, purple, rimmed in gold.
He steps out into the hallway. At least the torches are lit. The hallway shines bright compared to his chambers. He is glad for it. He has never liked this hallway, in truth. It is too long, with too many picture of the old kings who have ruled the kingdom. Many of them have kind eyes, but there are also the eyes of his grandfather. When he was a younger boy, he used to imagine that the eyes of these portraits followed him down this hall, and once, when he convinced himself to look back, he saw that it was true. Now he does not look at the portraits. In fact, he tries to ignore them.
Except that today, his grandfather’s portrait stops him.
King Sebastien’s painted likeness has cold blue eyes, the eyes of a hard man. Staring at his grandfather’s portrait, painted in his younger days, Prince Virgil shivers. He did not know his grandfather. His father might be a hard man, but the eyes of his grandfather hold more cruelty, more hunger, more intelligence, perhaps. Not that Prince Virgil would ever call his father anything but intelligent, but the truth is, he did not have the wits of, say, Queen Clarion. Prince Virgil knows this. It is, perhaps, why King Willis is not such a frightening man as King Sebastien was in his time, though King Willis tries to be every now and again.
Prince Virgil moves to his father’s portrait, struck by the difference between the young man on the wall and the man who sits in the throne room. His father had been a smaller man once, with eyes that shone with, what is it—hope? Love? Mercy? Prince Virgil looks back at his grandfather, back to his father, back to his grandfather, again and again. His father’s eyes were made for warmth. His grandfather’s eyes were made for terror. And somewhere along the way, King Willis had become more like his father before him, though he was not so very cruel as all that. One might, perhaps, argue that imprisoning innocent children and hunting the rest of them down is, in fact, a very cruel thing to do, but Prince Virgil must consider what it is his father has not done with the children. He has not killed them, after all. Most of the people still have their lives, though there are many, both children and parents, missing. Looking at King Sebastien’s portrait, he is not so certain that the same would be true were he still living.
Prince Virgil steps away from the portraits. One day his will hang beside his father’s. When he is a man, when he is king. Unless the throne is no longer his...
Unless...
That would not happen. His father would not permit it to happen. He would, somehow, recover his magic, for even now, even after one hundred forty-three prophets have come bearing the same news—that Prince Virgil is a boy born without the gift of magic—our prince still holds hope that his is merely a dormant magic, that it will, one day, be recovered.
Poor, dear boy.
Prince Virgil hears a scuffle at the end of the hall. His mother is leaving her bedchambers, dressed in an elaborate gown of red and gold, with sleeves that join the hem of her dress. She turns to him and appears startled that he is there. “Virgil,” she says. “I did not expect to meet you here.” She smiles.
He smiles back. “I was on my way to join Father in the throne room.”
Queen Clarion’s smile falters. “Your father,” she says. Her voice holds a stiffness he has not heard before. “Yes, of course. I shall not keep you.”
Prince Virgil takes her arm. “Where are you going?” he says.
Queen Clarion glances toward the front doors. “I need a walk,” she says. “Perhaps to the village.” She does not say more. Prince Virgil wonders what she could possibly want to see in the village. The people no longer come out of their houses. He knows, for he has visited a few times. They did not even seem to notice him peering in the windows.
Prince Virgil and Queen Clarion make it to the castle entranceway, which is nearly as long as the hallway between the bedchambers and here. His mother turns toward the doors. He turns toward the throne room.
“Virgil,” Queen Clarion says. He spins on his heel.
“Yes, Mother?” he says.
“Come see me after you are done with your father,” Queen Clarion says. “Please.”
Prince Virgil dips his head. Queen Clarion turns away. He strides toward the throne room doors.
“Oh, and Virgil?” his mother calls again. He turns to face her once more. “I visit the village for the people. They are very sad. It is the kind thing to do.”
He watches her slip from the door, which closes behind her with a clack that echoes through the hall. He looks up at the marble ceiling, carved with its intricate designs. She has given him much to consider. But, perhaps, not so much as his father will give him, for when Prince Virgil opens the throne room doors, King Willis stands before a mirror Prince Virgil has never before seen. He wonders how he could have missed something so large and golden and...large. And then he sees the red velvet curtain that must have draped it. He has seen that, of course—an object concealed by a red velvet curtain. Never what was under it.
Prince Virgil moves closer, silent on his feet. King Willis appears to be talking to the mirror. And before Prince Virgil can register what it is, exactly, that he is seeing, his father turns, abruptly, nearly knocking the looking glass from its stand. “Virgil,” he says. He bends to retrieve the velvet cover from the floor. “I did not expect you so soon.” King Willis hastily throws the curtain over the looking glass.
“What is it, Father?” Prince Virgil says.
“This,” King Willis says. He gestures toward the looking glass, covered once again. “This is only a silly old mirror.”
“Were you speaking to the mirror?” Prince Virgil says. He cannot look his father full in the face, afraid of what his answer might be.
“Speaking,” King Willis says. “Speaking to a mirror?” The king’s face has grown quite red. And then, rather than contrive a story that does not make sense (for what story makes sense when we are hurrying it along?), King Willis says, “I speak to myself sometimes. I want to make sure I look stately.” He straightens his shoulders.
It is just as Prince Virgil fears. He says nothing, however. He chooses to pretend his father never said the words at all.
“You will hold court with me today?” King Willis says.
Prince Virgil knows very well that there has been no holding court for quite some time, even before the children were taken from their families. The people of Fairendale, you see, did not respect the decisions of their king, so they began settling disputes on their own. Not that there were many disputes. But Prince Virgil knows that they took their decisions from Arthur, not his father.
Now Arthur is gone. So there can, perhaps, be people visiting the cour
t, that is, if the people can bring themselves to venture from their homes.
King Willis looks at his son expectantly. “Yes, Father,” Prince Virgil says, for he does not want to disappoint. He joins his father on the stage, and they turn toward the doors, where not a soul walks through. They remain in their expectant poses for quite some time before King Willis turns to his son and says, “Shall we break for our noonday meal?”
Prince Virgil has been eating the breads that King Willis keeps near his throne, so, in truth, he is not hungry at all. But he nods his head and follows his father to the great dining hall, where a feast will be laid at the flick of the king’s wrist. It is as if, dear reader, our king possesses the gift of magic, though we know he does not. Prince Virgil watches. The slight movement. The servants running. The table stacked with roast and greens and a pie made from apples. Is this what it is like to be a king? Servants at your beck and call? Prince Virgil has never wanted for anything, but this, this flicking a wrist and seeing what you desire laid out before you, this is too wonderful to lose. Prince Virgil’s grip on the throne clenches a bit tighter. His father, you see, knows precisely what will sway the prince, for this is the secret of the golden throne. It knows precisely what those who sit on it most desire. Or, rather, King Willis has been told. And now he works this telling into his every move.
This is why, after Prince Virgil has heaped his plate high of the rich food so different from what he has been fed thus far, eating in the less formal, less royal hall where his father did not dine, King Willis opens his mouth with, perhaps, a larger bite of roast in it than might, in others’ estimation, leave room for polite conversation and says, “Your uncle.”
Two simple words, but they pull Prince Virgil’s eyes to his father’s face, shining even in the day’s low light. King Willis puts down his fork. “Your mother does not know of what she speaks.”
His mother? His uncle? What is it his father would like to tell him? Prince Virgil prefers a silent dinner to this wondering one.