A tall thin man, with long gangly legs, walked fast through the centre of the walled city.
The man was wearing the biggest black top hat ever seen. It was pulled down hard onto his ears so that the morning wind, made worse by the speed with which he was managing to walk, did not rip it from his head and send it bowling down the alleyways.
Naltaraphet was an old and strange kingdom. The King and Queen, who had ruled over the country for as long as most people could remember, lived in a large castle high inside a city made of old stones cut out of a mountain that could just be seen in the distance. The castle towered above all the other buildings so that the Royal Couple were always able to watch what their citizens were doing. They could look down on the thousands of little streets that criss-crossed the centre of the city. They smiled as they timed how long it took the midget-like creatures to carry out their many tasks.
Limerun was never certain whether he was being watched. So, he was always on his best behaviour while outside in the street. That was why he was walking so fast that he was overtaking smaller, fatter men with littler legs who were running about their business. If the rulers thought their Chief Adviser was taking life easy they would have arranged either a punishment or the sack.
A sudden gust of wind blew a few errant teardrops of rain into Limerun’s face. The steady crunch of his feet on the gravel path echoed between the high stone walls obscuring the landscape. A long black cloud rose ominously from the west, framing the distant church with an evil halo.
There was an expression of concern on Limerun’s long thin scraggy face, which was usually so emotionless that it might have been carved out of stone. Not a muscle moved as he gazed into the far distance. His right hand involuntarily clutched the handle of his steel dagger; not that the Kingdom’s Chief Adviser was in any danger. The air filled with silence, heralding the storm to come. The bottom of his black leather coat scratched against the gravel as he left the city and came towards the wide area of open lawn that ringed the city just inside the walls.
He was dying to look back towards the castle but that would have made the King suspicious had he or the Queen been watching. He bent down to pick up a piece of wrapping, and then continued towards the outer gate. Limerun had many duties outside the castle but he would be questioned every time he was seen leaving. That was why, on this particular occasion, he rather preferred to get out without being seen.
Two hours later, his duties successfully carried out, he was back inside the castle.
He sat down in his favourite chair beside the roaring fire in the library. All four walls were covered with ancient books, those above the eight-metre wide marbled fireplace were set back far enough not to be damaged by the heat. Limerun’s chair was made of the leather formed from the hide of several fawns; packed with a mixture of fine horsehair and the down from a selection of the many swans allowed to swim up and down the Lysian River with total freedom. Only the King and Queen and their Chief Adviser were allowed to harvest the swans for their feathers and their sweet tender meat.
Limerun stood to fetch another log for the fire. As he did so the door opened and His Majesty King Drakus entered the room. Limerun turned quickly, managing to bow and scrape acknowledgement of his great master without once appearing inferior or even slightly obsequious.
‘Ah. Limerun. Good.’
‘Your Majesty is well, I trust?’
‘And why should His Majesty not be well?’ grunted the King in an offhand manner. He liked his Chief Adviser but sometimes he felt the man rather overstepped his position in court.
‘Limerun, do sit down and stop waving your arms about as though you were an eagle departing the parapets of our grand castle.’
‘Yes, Your Majesty. Thank you,’ replied the Chief Adviser, settling back into his hard chair as the King lay back on a chaise longue reserved only for his body. The King had an obsession about touch. He felt that germs were constantly being transported into the castle by the servants despite them being ordered to wash in the moat encircling the castle at the start and end of each day. He looked with disdain at Limerun and noticed from the small particles of dirt clinging to the leg bottoms of his trousers that his most important servant had failed to properly clean himself after visiting the punishment. He sniffed and wrinkled his nose, hoping that Limerun would get the message. But on this day in particular he did not wish to anger his Chief Adviser and so left it at that.
‘Did it have the required effect?’
‘They seem subdued, Your Majesty.’
‘I would expect that, Limerun, but are they going to be more obedient. I am deeply troubled that these incidents appear to be happening more often than they did in the old days. For the life of me I cannot understand why. It’s not as if the new punishments are any the less harsh than the old ones, now is it?’
Limerun coughed before answering. ‘Your Majesty. There is a matter pertaining to this issue which I have been meaning to raise with you for some little time. Perhaps today might be a convenient moment.’
‘Go on, man. Speak yer mind. We have no secrets between us two, now do we,’ said the King, leaning forward to touch his Chief Adviser on the knee and only just remembering the dirty trousers in time, managing to recoil back onto the chaise longue before he became contaminated.’
‘It is a question of food.’
‘FOOD,’ yelled the King. ‘Do you mean to say they don’t get enough FOOD?’
‘I know, Your Majesty. I know what you are going to say but I really must raise this point with you. There simply is not enough to feed all the people. Times are much harder than they ever were in the Kingdom. Far too many workers are dying.’
‘Oh, pouch. I don’t believe I am hearing such words from you, of all people.’
‘I do apologize, Your Majesty, for being the bringer of such burdens to your humble door but the serving people are becoming restless.’
The King looked troubled. He wriggled about on the chaise longue so much that his Chief Adviser thought for a moment there were bugs in the King’s clothing. Neither man spoke: the Chief Adviser out of deference to his leader; the King because he was quite clearly lost for an answer.
The King cleared his throat and leaned forward conspiratorially towards Limerun.
‘My friend, my very good friend.’
Limerun tried to conceal the fear behind his smile.
‘I know that of all the people in this castle, the lords and ladies, the humblest of the humble nobles, even the dear Queen, I know you Limerun would not lie to me. Tell me what you have just said contains not an ounce of truth and I will forget what has passed between us and we shall hear no more of the matter.’
Limerun was uneasy. He never quarrelled with the King, who was known to have a quick and nasty temper and was apt to send miscreants to the gallows for the slightest misdemeanour. Instead, he followed his King’s moods and offered answers to the problems they faced.
‘Your Majesty. I have a solution. Would you do me the greatest favour, as your humblest and most favoured and closest servant, of allowing me time to rescue my thoughts from the deep and dark abyss into which you, with all your incredible intelligence, have cleverly spotted they have fallen and are now trapped. Then, when my mind has once again returned to its normal and full-of-clarity state we may resume our conversations about such matters.’
The King’s demeanour changed in an instant. ‘Yes, Limerun,’ he replied with a relaxation of the tension around his mouth, ‘you may continue your thoughts alone until they have returned to their proper form. I shall leave you alone, hoping you will have come to your senses by the next time we meet.’
With a clipped ‘Good Day’, he leapt to his feet and strode purposefully out of the room, leaving the door wide open. Limerun sat in silence for a few minutes before getting up to close the door and putting another log on the embers of the dying fire.
Limerun sat down with a heavy heart. He had a problem. He had to reconcile his King with his Kingdom’s population otherwise there really was going to be some trouble. He did not know how to start. The King had been used to getting his own way for so long that he never changed his mind once it had been made up. Usually, that did not matter since the King was of no mean intelligence. However, when the facts clearly stated one course of action and the King had his mind set on another then there was trouble ahead. Now Limerun knew he had to act fast and think wisely, so much more cleverly than ever before. This, after all, was a crisis worthy of the brain of the brightest man in the Kingdom. Limerun knew that if he only thought about the problem for long enough the answers he required, to rescue his role as Chief Adviser and contain the simmering revolution sweeping through the minds of the population, would come to him.
He reached for his viola, lain on a wickerwork chair within easy reach but protected from the fire by a metal screen. He touched the strings a few times with his bow and the sweet strains of music calmed his nerves. Limerun remembered with an unexpected ache in his heart the days when music reverberated around the court. But now it was banned by special order of the Queen. Her Royal Highness had no taste for music. The viola in Limerun’s chambers did not officially exist despite being sanctioned by the King who permitted him to play as long as the Queen never heard a note, otherwise it would be chopped up and used for tinder wood on the very fire that was now illuminating its dark brown rosewood body.
The Evil King and Cruel Queen had ruled Naltaraphet with the utmost savagery for as long as anyone could remember. Each new King had chosen a particularly nasty Princess from another country to become their Cruel Queen.
Sometimes the Royal Household, headed by the Chief Adviser, had been forced to search the world for a suitably horrible royal personage to match the nastiness of the country’s King.
The country was firmly divided between the rich and the poor. The rich people lived in great big houses with lots of servants and heated swimming pools and enormous gardens with fountains; and gigantic hedges that kept out the poor people. There were even stern nasty-faced guards at all the doors and gates to keep away the common people.
All the poor people lived in one big town outside the city gates. The town was not really a town, it was a collection of houses hidden from the view of anyone looking out from the castle walls. Their houses were not really houses either. They were mainly shallow tunnels dug into the rock and earth of the hill that held the castle in its centre. Where the forest began and obscured the view from the castle there were hundreds of wooden shacks with roofs made out of corrugated iron. When the rain came the noise from the hammering on the roofs was so loud none of the poor people could hear each other speak. Not that this worried them. They spent all their time trying to protect themselves from the water that always leaked through the rusty tin roofs. And, whereas the rich people had so much food they threw most of it away, the poor people were always hungry.
Naltaraphet was not a happy country. Since the King was horribly cruel, even the happiest of the rich people were always worried that they might displease him and be thrown out of the city wearing just the clothes they stood up in; forced to live with the poor ones they so despised.
The country was land-locked. That is to say each and every one of its borders touched the land of another country. There was no pleasant salty sea lapping the shores of any part of Naltaraphet. Under ordinary circumstances it would not have mattered a jot for a country to have no sea border. But the Evil King had angered his neighbouring Kings and Queens so much they had refused to have anything to do with him. So, in times of famine the people could not buy food from neighbouring countries.
Also, so many of this isolated nation’s people had got fed up and tried to escape to happier countries that a huge fence had been put up all the way around the edge of the whole country.
The fence had barbed wire with razor-sharp knives sticking out of it, and the whole horrible structure had been wired up to the main electricity pumping station. Sometimes the beautiful red-feathered birds, found everywhere in Naltaraphet, flew straight into the wire and were fried to a frazzle in seconds.
The King and Queen had a little girl child who was very beautiful. Princess Gilevroe had jet-black hair, a slim aristocratic nose and a strong forceful chin. Her back was straight and she walked with a command of authority that was only to be expected from the Royal daughter of this particular King and Queen.
There was something rather odd about the Princess, something so strikingly weird that the servants had even been heard to ask, very quietly indeed, whether this really was the daughter of the King and Queen: the girl had a smile.
At first it was unnoticeable; a little twinkling of the eyes and a tremor-filled twitch right at the very edges of the sides of her mouth. Even an expert on smiling, using a big magnifying glass, would have had great difficulty in spotting anything untoward. As the months wore on the smile became bigger and bigger until the woman who always bathed the girl in the mornings could not avoid seeing the change in the child.
The smile was still a baby one, capable of nothing more than creating surprise amongst the staff looking after the girl. For a land where no one smiled it was extraordinary. But even amongst smiling people it would have stood out as unusual. The smile pulled the girl’s thin perfectly shaped lips across her face from ear to ear. It was a truly magnificent smile.
After a while all the members of staff who saw it started to feel uncomfortable. Somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of their beings they felt they had been reminded of a time when the land had been so different; a place of much laughter and all-embracing happiness.
Only two people hated this smile. The King and Queen seethed with anger every time the girl looked at one of their subjects and gave them ‘The Smile’.
The truth was that they were horribly worried. They, and all their ancestors in the Royal Family, had ruled the nation and kept it under control without once smiling. Smiles were out. Smiles were not good for controlling their subjects. What if the girl should smile so much the people got the idea they too were allowed to smile? That would never do. The Royal Family might even be overthrown and banished into exile in some horrible country elsewhere in the world where people always had to be nice to each other. Or worse . . . .
No. The girl’s smile was not a Good Thing at all. It would have to stop. So one night the King and Queen got together with their most senior advisers to decide what to do about ‘The Smile’.
They met in the Decision Room. This was the most frightening room in the whole of the Palace. It was so big that had a hundred of the poor people’s rickety homes been put inside they would not even have filled up one corner. The ceiling was so high that its top seemed to fade away into a sort of mist. Once, a servant had claimed to see rain falling inside, from tiny clouds forming near the ceiling.
You might have thought that a room of this size would force people to shout because their voices would become lost in the empty space. But this was not the case. It was exactly the opposite. The quietest mumble was amplified to a minor roll of thunder.
It meant that when anyone said anything really loud it forced the other people in the room to put their hands over their ears, to stop their eardrums from bursting.
It was not a room for being told off in. And it was not a room for disagreeing with the King and Queen just in case they got angry and shouted. Of course, the King and Queen did not worry about being shouted at by their advisers. That was because the advisers’ second main job apart from advising was to agree with their masters. Once they had given their advice it was either accepted or rejected. This is not the way that things are normally done elsewhere in the world. But this was not a normal country.
The King and Queen sat at either end of the longest oak table anyone in the Kingdom had ever seen. Their advisers crouched down in their chairs on either side. The King and Queen were so far away from each other that when an adviser started to speak one of the two royal personages would take great delight in ordering him or her to Speak Up.
In a place such as this the sound of Speaking Up was hardly bearable. Especially since the Royal couple had obviously heard what had been said most clearly. But it gave them a lot of fun to see the advisers cringe with the loud sound. Of course, just before the King or Queen told the advisers to Speak Up, they signalled each other down the table, and then put in their earplugs. Well, it was only to be expected of such people.
This seemed to go on for ages and ages until the couple got bored with their game. Then the most senior of the senior advisers spoke. Limerun had long white hair stretching half way down his back. His bleak face was wrinkled and worn and looked awfully tired and unhappy from forever trying to please a King and Queen who could never be pleased.
‘Urgh-hum,’ said Limerun, clearing his throat. ‘The problem is the smile, your humble Graces.’
‘Yes, yes,’ they said together; ‘we know that you silly old fool. Now get on with your advice. That’s what you’re paid for. Or do you want to go over the walls to live in Servantfamilyland?’ That was the name of the tumbledown old slum outside the city walls, where the poor people lived.
‘Your Graces, ergh-hum,’ continued Limerun, slightly changing his urgh-hums as he was distinctly nervous right now. ‘I think we have only two suggestions to make about ‘The Smile’ and these are they. First, we could let the girl grow out of it . . .’
‘NO, NO, NO,’ yelled back the King and Queen.
The advisers jumped out of their seats such was the force with which the couple shouted their refusal at this option.
‘In which case the girl must be put away quite out of sight until the smile has gone. She must stay hidden so that no person in the Kingdom will see this smile. And during this time both of you must be extra harsh, so that the smile will be wiped from the memories of all your subjects. Then, when the girl has lost her smile and the people have forgotten what a smile was, then and only then, will it be safe for her to return to take her place in the Kingdom.’
There was silence for a moment as the King and Queen considered this advice. Then they spoke. But this time at a normal volume. Even the room itself seemed to have gone quiet.
‘We agree. This would seem to be an excellent idea. Put it into practice immediately. First, tell the people that they have caused much anguish to the historic Royal Family by their talk of a Smile being seen in the Kingdom. Tell them that no such Smile exists. But their very talk of a smile must be paid for dearly; for causing such offence to their superiors and natural betters. Their weekly earnings will be cut in half for a year and a day. And if so much as one word is heard about the Smile during that time, when that period comes to an end their wages will again be cut in half for a year and a day. Tell them this shall continue until no word has been heard of a smile for the same period.
‘Next, the girl. Take her to the haunted quarters above the dungeons in the East wing and shut her up with all the windows barred and the doors locked and bolted. Since it was your suggestion Limerun,’ added the King, ‘you will be the only person allowed to visit the girl. She shall stay there for five years, by which time I expect her to have forgotten what a smile is. From this moment on I wish to hear no more of The Smile. Have I made myself clear?’
‘Yes,’ mumbled Limerun.
‘Then, be gone and do as I say.’
And so everything the King and Queen decided upon was done. Indeed, such was the shock with which the halving of the wages was received that there was no danger of anyone referring to a smile, let alone trying to imitate the one they had seen on the young Princess’s face. Soon the Kingdom had totally forgotten this odd event. In fact, the advisers reported back, the lack of hilarity in Servantfamilyland was so total that they recommended the Royal Couple should return the peoples’ wages back to their previous level after the year and a day.
‘Not on your life,’ said the King. ‘If they can forget a Smile within a year they can jolly well forget what they were paid just as easily. Let them know this, Limerun. And let them also know that if their memories are working so well they may need them to remember what they were earning today when tomorrow comes. Ha! Ha!’
Thursday 28 May 2009
Friday 30 May 2008
CHAPTER TWO
The light streamed in from a window high in the wall of the haunted quarters in the East Wing. The young Princess stood slightly to one side of where the rainbow-like beam touched the floor, reading a book of verse. With a heavy sigh, she put the book down on a wooden stand and turned away to face her hard straw bed.
‘Is this the life of a Princess who is the sole heir to an ancient Kingdom?’ she asked herself. ‘Is this all I have to look forward to?’ But even while saying this she could not help but smile, just a little. It was a smile that never seemed to quite go away.
She picked up an old lute lying on the floor and started to strum a little joyful jig. Clutching the lute to her chest she started to dance around the East wing. Going through the wide doors into her bedroom, onto the floor below, where the cold seeped up from the dungeons; then running as fast as she could along the corridors while holding and playing the lute. All the time playing and singing and laughing and smiling.
Suddenly she stopped. Out of breath, arms aching from holding the instrument as she played it, she paused. She heard the metallic scratching sound of a key being inserted into the lock on the big main door connecting the East Wing to the rest of the castle. She hurried back to her bleak living room and listened as the firm but slow footsteps of her only human friend came up the wide winding staircase to his den.
‘Hello Limerun,’ said the Princess, ‘I’m glad to see you.’
‘Good morning, Princess,’ replied Limerun, ‘it’s good to see you in such a buoyant mood. Gracious me, but you look as though you are happy. Two and a half years in this awful place would have put me on my deathbed.’
‘Limerun. I shall not always be here. You said as much to me when I first arrived. I must be strong for my people. Are you still my friend?’
‘Yes, Princess. You know you may ask of me anything. I am terribly sad. We are the only two left in the Kingdom who think of good things to come. All the rest are distressed and exhausted by the hard and slavish work they have to do day by day to keep themselves alive.’
The two sat down together, side by side, on the edge of the straw bed. Limerun put his arm around the Princess, who was called Gilevroe, although hardly anyone now knew her name. Indeed, most of the people in the Kingdom had almost forgotten that Gilevroe existed.
Limerun was looking a little older now. His white hair seemed to have turned even more white, like snow on a high mountain bathed in strong sunlight. His long locks flowed down nearly to the small of his back, and were a little matted. Gilevroe saw there were more wrinkles turning downwards from his eyes and mouth. Gilevroe did not like this. She knew her friend was terribly sad.
‘Gilevroe,’ said Limerun, quietly, with an air of warning: ‘I think we have a problem.’
Gilevroe shuffled about on the bed. Some time ago she had learned to bury the hurt of being parted from her parents. Her smile had grown more forceful and more than a year ago the Chief Adviser had succumbed to its power. Now Limerun lived in fear that one day he would return from the dungeon and smile at the King and Queen. That would earn him a death sentence. Gilevroe had learned to enjoy the solitude. She knew that one day she would escape from isolation and rule her Kingdom. Then she would put into practice all the things she had been thinking about while alone in the East wing.
What Limerun was about to tell his young charge would shatter that illusion.
‘My little friend,’ continued the most senior of senior Advisers. ‘I am the bearer of bad tidings.’
He told her that the Palace was buzzing with a rumour that another child was on the way to the King and Queen. The Royal couple had come to the conclusion that passing the Evil Kingdom onto their firstborn was too risky. Despite his best efforts Limerun had been unable to persuade them that ‘The Smile’ had gone. They had no desire to see their one and only child. Indeed, they took great joy in pretending to Limerun that they had even forgotten her name. Now they had told him they were having another child and this time it would be a boy. ‘A normal one, Limerun, a normal one. None of that nonsense with ‘The Sm…’
Before he could finish the word his Queen had slapped him hard on the top of his head. ‘No mention of that horrible girl and that horrible apparition on her face.’
‘Sorry, my dear, so sorry,’ spluttered the King.
Limerun sat himself down on the bed beside Gilevroe and put his right arm around her shoulders. ‘I want you to be brave when I tell you this story.’
She turned and put on her strongest most royal face. ‘Of course, I shall be brave, dear Limerun.’
The Chief Adviser could not bear to look too long into Gilevroe’s eyes. His head slid back until he was focusing on the ceiling. An eerie feeling came over him. He watched as a spindly spider slowly made its way across the roof timbers. He had the distinct impression that the spider was spying on him. Don’t be stupid, he told himself. You’ve just been working too hard. Get some rest.
Limerun started babbling on to Gilevroe about what was going to happen when the birth came near.
‘When a Queen goes into labour the whole Palace becomes like a hive of bees disturbed by a gardener’s fork. The building will be buzzing with activity, with servants running back and forth, doctors and nurses hurrying from the bedroom to the conference room and to the hospital; butlers and chief maids rushing around giving orders to all and sundry. Everybody doing a bit of this and a bit of that. Getting in each other’s way all the time.’
There would be so much chaos when this happened that the most Senior Adviser and his little Princess might be able to pass through the entire castle in some clever disguise without anyone so much as giving them a second glance.
Limerun went on to explain his plan. Each would dress as a servant and Limerun would hide his long white locks in a big cap. If they put their heads down, they would be in the safety of the big Palace garden within minutes. All that remained was for Limerun to make sure that he was the first to hear about the Queen going into labour. And, of course, that was no difficult thing, since the Most Senior Adviser, would naturally be the first to know.
‘As the eldest child, reared in safety although not in the royal household, when the time comes for the throne to be passed on I will ensure you return in splendour.
‘Is this the life of a Princess who is the sole heir to an ancient Kingdom?’ she asked herself. ‘Is this all I have to look forward to?’ But even while saying this she could not help but smile, just a little. It was a smile that never seemed to quite go away.
She picked up an old lute lying on the floor and started to strum a little joyful jig. Clutching the lute to her chest she started to dance around the East wing. Going through the wide doors into her bedroom, onto the floor below, where the cold seeped up from the dungeons; then running as fast as she could along the corridors while holding and playing the lute. All the time playing and singing and laughing and smiling.
Suddenly she stopped. Out of breath, arms aching from holding the instrument as she played it, she paused. She heard the metallic scratching sound of a key being inserted into the lock on the big main door connecting the East Wing to the rest of the castle. She hurried back to her bleak living room and listened as the firm but slow footsteps of her only human friend came up the wide winding staircase to his den.
‘Hello Limerun,’ said the Princess, ‘I’m glad to see you.’
‘Good morning, Princess,’ replied Limerun, ‘it’s good to see you in such a buoyant mood. Gracious me, but you look as though you are happy. Two and a half years in this awful place would have put me on my deathbed.’
‘Limerun. I shall not always be here. You said as much to me when I first arrived. I must be strong for my people. Are you still my friend?’
‘Yes, Princess. You know you may ask of me anything. I am terribly sad. We are the only two left in the Kingdom who think of good things to come. All the rest are distressed and exhausted by the hard and slavish work they have to do day by day to keep themselves alive.’
The two sat down together, side by side, on the edge of the straw bed. Limerun put his arm around the Princess, who was called Gilevroe, although hardly anyone now knew her name. Indeed, most of the people in the Kingdom had almost forgotten that Gilevroe existed.
Limerun was looking a little older now. His white hair seemed to have turned even more white, like snow on a high mountain bathed in strong sunlight. His long locks flowed down nearly to the small of his back, and were a little matted. Gilevroe saw there were more wrinkles turning downwards from his eyes and mouth. Gilevroe did not like this. She knew her friend was terribly sad.
‘Gilevroe,’ said Limerun, quietly, with an air of warning: ‘I think we have a problem.’
Gilevroe shuffled about on the bed. Some time ago she had learned to bury the hurt of being parted from her parents. Her smile had grown more forceful and more than a year ago the Chief Adviser had succumbed to its power. Now Limerun lived in fear that one day he would return from the dungeon and smile at the King and Queen. That would earn him a death sentence. Gilevroe had learned to enjoy the solitude. She knew that one day she would escape from isolation and rule her Kingdom. Then she would put into practice all the things she had been thinking about while alone in the East wing.
What Limerun was about to tell his young charge would shatter that illusion.
‘My little friend,’ continued the most senior of senior Advisers. ‘I am the bearer of bad tidings.’
He told her that the Palace was buzzing with a rumour that another child was on the way to the King and Queen. The Royal couple had come to the conclusion that passing the Evil Kingdom onto their firstborn was too risky. Despite his best efforts Limerun had been unable to persuade them that ‘The Smile’ had gone. They had no desire to see their one and only child. Indeed, they took great joy in pretending to Limerun that they had even forgotten her name. Now they had told him they were having another child and this time it would be a boy. ‘A normal one, Limerun, a normal one. None of that nonsense with ‘The Sm…’
Before he could finish the word his Queen had slapped him hard on the top of his head. ‘No mention of that horrible girl and that horrible apparition on her face.’
‘Sorry, my dear, so sorry,’ spluttered the King.
Limerun sat himself down on the bed beside Gilevroe and put his right arm around her shoulders. ‘I want you to be brave when I tell you this story.’
She turned and put on her strongest most royal face. ‘Of course, I shall be brave, dear Limerun.’
The Chief Adviser could not bear to look too long into Gilevroe’s eyes. His head slid back until he was focusing on the ceiling. An eerie feeling came over him. He watched as a spindly spider slowly made its way across the roof timbers. He had the distinct impression that the spider was spying on him. Don’t be stupid, he told himself. You’ve just been working too hard. Get some rest.
Limerun started babbling on to Gilevroe about what was going to happen when the birth came near.
‘When a Queen goes into labour the whole Palace becomes like a hive of bees disturbed by a gardener’s fork. The building will be buzzing with activity, with servants running back and forth, doctors and nurses hurrying from the bedroom to the conference room and to the hospital; butlers and chief maids rushing around giving orders to all and sundry. Everybody doing a bit of this and a bit of that. Getting in each other’s way all the time.’
There would be so much chaos when this happened that the most Senior Adviser and his little Princess might be able to pass through the entire castle in some clever disguise without anyone so much as giving them a second glance.
Limerun went on to explain his plan. Each would dress as a servant and Limerun would hide his long white locks in a big cap. If they put their heads down, they would be in the safety of the big Palace garden within minutes. All that remained was for Limerun to make sure that he was the first to hear about the Queen going into labour. And, of course, that was no difficult thing, since the Most Senior Adviser, would naturally be the first to know.
‘As the eldest child, reared in safety although not in the royal household, when the time comes for the throne to be passed on I will ensure you return in splendour.
Thursday 31 May 2007
CHAPTER THREE
A few days later the King and Queen called Limerun into the Dayroom that was right beside the Decision Room. It had softer furnishings and was the smallest of the official rooms in the castle. As such, it was ideal for little secret conversations. This room had been designed to be the opposite of the Decision Room. Words spoken at normal pitch could hardly be heard by the person being addressed even if they were sitting close enough to touch. This was called the Room of Secrets. It was hardly ever used. The Advisers were not supposed to be in the room unless either the King or the Queen was also present.
Limerun watched in amazement as the Queen twirled her key in the lock and checked that the one door was securely fastened.
Whatever was going on, he wondered. He knew full well that not one single member of the royal household would dare enter the room without permission. Was this little key turning charade purely for his benefit?
It was and it turned his heart to ice. A shiver ran down his spine. His legs grew so weak that he would have fallen over had he not been sitting down in a small chair.
Since the Royal couple feared no one in this land of theirs there was hardly ever a need to go in to the Room of Secrets.
This afternoon was different. Both King and Queen sat huddled together in the centre of the room touching heads with their Most Senior Adviser. No one else was present. Absolutely no one else at all. The Queen kept looking about her, almost as if she expected one of her thousands of staff to be hiding under the carpet.
When the King had started to speak the Most Senior Adviser felt that something had gone wrong with his ears. He was in a dream. Or was this a nightmare? What he heard could not, really not ever, be true. It was truly horrible. Too horrible to think about, but he had to think about it, over and over and over again. Limerun dug his thumb and index finger nails into the side of his right thigh, causing some real pain. It was not a dream. It was real. He felt sick. Sick as sick he had never been. Down, down, down to the deepest part of his soul, he felt sick.
The Royal couple had entered the room with serious looks on their faces. They had sat down almost immediately and ordered Limerun to listen very carefully to every word they had to say and not to interrupt at all.
The King had started by telling the story of their child-to-be. How all the Palace rumours were correct? The Royal couple were going to have a new baby. And it was believed they would have a boy-child. All the signs were there. The baby kicked really hard inside the Queen’s tummy, and did not all the old wives’ tales mean this was a boy. It was certainly going to be a boy but the Palace gossips had got one small tiny detail quite wrong. Not that they could be blamed. For was not the Queen looking fatter and fatter, day by day? The small detail they had got so wrong was really quite simple. THE QUEEN WAS NOT GOING TO HAVE A BABY. ‘Actually, she is,’ said the King. But the baby would be provided by Limerun.
At this point, Limerun’s head began to swim. He could not follow what they were saying. It seemed like a load of nonsense to him. What on earth were they talking about? It was not long before he found out.
‘You see,’ he whispered to Limerun with his mouth right up against his adviser’s ear. ‘The Queen is too old to have a baby!’
A grunt came from the lips of Limerun. He did not understand what was going on.
‘But the Queen SHALL have a baby. And it will be a boy,’ added the King with great force. ‘This will be your job Limerun and it will be the most important job you have ever done for the Royal Family of Naltaraphet.’
‘Yes it will,’ confirmed the Cruel Queen. ‘And rest assured our friend you will be handsomely rewarded for this great service.’
This last comment surprised Limerun. He had never been thanked for anything he had done for the couple. And he certainly had never been called a “friend”. Well, this is something for the record books, he thought quietly to himself.
The King went on to explain. Although the Queen could not have any more children no one apart from the Court Physician knew this fact. And the Court Physician was bound to secrecy on point of death. So a baby boy would have to be provided from somewhere. Now, what the King planned was this: the Queen would continue adding extra clothes under her normal clothes, along with hankies and tea towels and pillow cases, until it was time for her to have her baby. Then she would disappear to her Bedchamber for as long as it took for the baby to appear.
When this time was reached it would be Limerun’s job to go out into Servantfamilyland and search through all the houses from all quarters of the rickety city outside the Royal walls until he found a young healthy couple who had just given birth to a boy. Then he would whisk them off to the Palace with promises of much gold and glory. He would tell them they had been chosen to be of great service to the King and Queen. Their child would be a friend and helpmate to the boy about to be born to the Royal Couple. They would live in great splendour, with large four-poster beds in all bedrooms, huge baths beside each bedroom, plenty of fine clothes and all the food they could ever eat until their son became King, after which time it would be up to him to decide what to do about his parents.
All this had to be done in the utmost secrecy. Even their closest relatives and friends must not know about these plans. They must tell everyone who would worry about their disappearance that they had to go to the castle for a special job to be conducted in the utmost secrecy, which meant a better life but with the drawback of having to part company for many years from all those people they knew. Everyone would understand. The King was convinced of it. So was Limerun. The Kingdom was not a place for going around asking difficult questions of people in authority.
‘Limerun’, the King went on, now in a whisper so low that even Limerun’s usually perfect hearing had trouble picking up the Royal murmurs. ‘Limerun, I want you to bring this family to the room beside the Queen’s bedchamber and give the parents a powerful sleeping draught. Then you must take the infant into the Queen’s room and place it with her. Naturally we shall expect the mother to bear the burden of bringing up the child although it must never be told that the Queen is not the real mother. If either of the parents speak they shall be taken to the deepest darkest dungeon and held there until the end of their days.’
‘Your next job will be to arrange for the sudden and quick death of the Court Physician. He must just disappear. We suggest in the lime bogs beyond the Palace Garden. You know them well, my good man, you’re named after their founder.
‘A new Court Physician must be appointed and told the former doctor had been taken suddenly ill with the stress of delivering a Royal Child. The new doctor will see the new-born baby boy as if it was the Queen’s.’
Limerun watched in amazement as the Queen twirled her key in the lock and checked that the one door was securely fastened.
Whatever was going on, he wondered. He knew full well that not one single member of the royal household would dare enter the room without permission. Was this little key turning charade purely for his benefit?
It was and it turned his heart to ice. A shiver ran down his spine. His legs grew so weak that he would have fallen over had he not been sitting down in a small chair.
Since the Royal couple feared no one in this land of theirs there was hardly ever a need to go in to the Room of Secrets.
This afternoon was different. Both King and Queen sat huddled together in the centre of the room touching heads with their Most Senior Adviser. No one else was present. Absolutely no one else at all. The Queen kept looking about her, almost as if she expected one of her thousands of staff to be hiding under the carpet.
When the King had started to speak the Most Senior Adviser felt that something had gone wrong with his ears. He was in a dream. Or was this a nightmare? What he heard could not, really not ever, be true. It was truly horrible. Too horrible to think about, but he had to think about it, over and over and over again. Limerun dug his thumb and index finger nails into the side of his right thigh, causing some real pain. It was not a dream. It was real. He felt sick. Sick as sick he had never been. Down, down, down to the deepest part of his soul, he felt sick.
The Royal couple had entered the room with serious looks on their faces. They had sat down almost immediately and ordered Limerun to listen very carefully to every word they had to say and not to interrupt at all.
The King had started by telling the story of their child-to-be. How all the Palace rumours were correct? The Royal couple were going to have a new baby. And it was believed they would have a boy-child. All the signs were there. The baby kicked really hard inside the Queen’s tummy, and did not all the old wives’ tales mean this was a boy. It was certainly going to be a boy but the Palace gossips had got one small tiny detail quite wrong. Not that they could be blamed. For was not the Queen looking fatter and fatter, day by day? The small detail they had got so wrong was really quite simple. THE QUEEN WAS NOT GOING TO HAVE A BABY. ‘Actually, she is,’ said the King. But the baby would be provided by Limerun.
At this point, Limerun’s head began to swim. He could not follow what they were saying. It seemed like a load of nonsense to him. What on earth were they talking about? It was not long before he found out.
‘You see,’ he whispered to Limerun with his mouth right up against his adviser’s ear. ‘The Queen is too old to have a baby!’
A grunt came from the lips of Limerun. He did not understand what was going on.
‘But the Queen SHALL have a baby. And it will be a boy,’ added the King with great force. ‘This will be your job Limerun and it will be the most important job you have ever done for the Royal Family of Naltaraphet.’
‘Yes it will,’ confirmed the Cruel Queen. ‘And rest assured our friend you will be handsomely rewarded for this great service.’
This last comment surprised Limerun. He had never been thanked for anything he had done for the couple. And he certainly had never been called a “friend”. Well, this is something for the record books, he thought quietly to himself.
The King went on to explain. Although the Queen could not have any more children no one apart from the Court Physician knew this fact. And the Court Physician was bound to secrecy on point of death. So a baby boy would have to be provided from somewhere. Now, what the King planned was this: the Queen would continue adding extra clothes under her normal clothes, along with hankies and tea towels and pillow cases, until it was time for her to have her baby. Then she would disappear to her Bedchamber for as long as it took for the baby to appear.
When this time was reached it would be Limerun’s job to go out into Servantfamilyland and search through all the houses from all quarters of the rickety city outside the Royal walls until he found a young healthy couple who had just given birth to a boy. Then he would whisk them off to the Palace with promises of much gold and glory. He would tell them they had been chosen to be of great service to the King and Queen. Their child would be a friend and helpmate to the boy about to be born to the Royal Couple. They would live in great splendour, with large four-poster beds in all bedrooms, huge baths beside each bedroom, plenty of fine clothes and all the food they could ever eat until their son became King, after which time it would be up to him to decide what to do about his parents.
All this had to be done in the utmost secrecy. Even their closest relatives and friends must not know about these plans. They must tell everyone who would worry about their disappearance that they had to go to the castle for a special job to be conducted in the utmost secrecy, which meant a better life but with the drawback of having to part company for many years from all those people they knew. Everyone would understand. The King was convinced of it. So was Limerun. The Kingdom was not a place for going around asking difficult questions of people in authority.
‘Limerun’, the King went on, now in a whisper so low that even Limerun’s usually perfect hearing had trouble picking up the Royal murmurs. ‘Limerun, I want you to bring this family to the room beside the Queen’s bedchamber and give the parents a powerful sleeping draught. Then you must take the infant into the Queen’s room and place it with her. Naturally we shall expect the mother to bear the burden of bringing up the child although it must never be told that the Queen is not the real mother. If either of the parents speak they shall be taken to the deepest darkest dungeon and held there until the end of their days.’
‘Your next job will be to arrange for the sudden and quick death of the Court Physician. He must just disappear. We suggest in the lime bogs beyond the Palace Garden. You know them well, my good man, you’re named after their founder.
‘A new Court Physician must be appointed and told the former doctor had been taken suddenly ill with the stress of delivering a Royal Child. The new doctor will see the new-born baby boy as if it was the Queen’s.’
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