Penelope Delta - A Tale Without a Name

The two young men thanked him, overjoyed.

“You cannot know how much easier you have made our task,” they said, relieved, “and how happy the foreman will be now that the transport will move faster.”

“Who is your foreman?” asked the Prince.

“Illstar the master builder.”

“And how is it that you work for him? I thought he no longer had apprentices.”

“And he didn’t. He had been working alone since his affairs went bad,” replied one of the young men. “He had even closed his workshop down. Only he must have received some really fine commission, for he sold his house and everything he had, and hired us all, every wood craftsman in town, with good wages, so that we might work night and day.”

“Here’s to him, here’s to a good countryman!” cried the Prince with fervour.

And he ran down to the river.

As he was hastening ahead, he stumbled on a man who stood there unnoticed.

“Constable or woodsman?” the man asked.

The Prince turned around and recognized the youth from the tavern.

“Both,” he replied.

“And something else perhaps?” asked the young man.

The Prince looked him straight in the eye.

“Yes,” he said. “And something else besides.”

And with that he ran away.

At a turning in the road, he met with some villagers, fleeing in terror towards the town.

“Where are you running?” he cried out to them.

The villagers, however, did not reply. They hurried on, without stopping.

A few yards farther down the road, he saw another five or six men, who were running away as well.

The Prince approached them.

“Where to, countrymen?” he asked.

“To the capital,” they replied. “Do not go that way, the enemy will arrive at any time!”

“Arrive where?”

They did not reply. Scared and dazed, they left, scurrying as fast as they could.

The Prince ran after them, caught up with them.

“Why are you going away?!” he asked angrily. “What are you afraid of that you run away like bolting rabbits?”

“The enemy has reached the shore across the river,” answered one of the men.

“And so what?! There is still the river. How will they cross it? Come back to your senses, countrymen; do not lose your good judgement, in God’s name! Are you frail little women, to scare so easily?” cried the Prince, all flared up. “To arms, lads! We shall stop them!”

The villagers came to a halt for a moment.

“But we have no weapons!” they said.

“Get hold of anything sharp that you may have: a knife, a sickle, an axe or a mattock, and follow me!”

“Who will lead us?” asked one of the men, jittery with fear.

“I shall!” said the Prince with great force. “Come back. For God’s sake, do not go away!”

“Pah!” said another. “And why should we fight? If the river stops the enemy, then we who are on this side have nothing to worry about. If, however, the river cannot halt them, then neither could we. Why should we get killed for no reason? We will do no more nor less than the King and the Prince are doing themselves.”

“The King shall stay! The Prince shall lead you! No one is leaving; stay, stay too!”

One of the villagers laughed scornfully.

“Why don’t you go and find out what is going on in the palace?” he said. “The King is getting ready to steal away, and the Prince has already fled!”

“The Prince has not fled! He is in your midst!” shouted the Prince. “Look at me, countrymen! I am the King’s son, and I shall lead you!”

“Go on with you, go tell your tall tales somewhere else!” said the villagers. “They saw the Prince crossing the river last night; he ran away abroad the moment he felt that things were getting tight! And so shall we!”

The Prince pressed his hands hard on his forehead.

What was he to do? How could he keep them from running away?

He thought of the King, who was sure to be going mad in the palace, all alone. He remembered the words that had come out of the peasant’s mouth: “The King is getting ready to steal away…”

Terror seized him; he turned back and, running like mad, he scaled the mountainside.

THE PEOPLE were coming down from the villages in great hordes; they ran to the capital without rhyme or reason, frenzied by fear. The Prince strove to stop them, but panic had rendered them deaf and blind.

“We have no King! We have no country!” they would say.

And nothing could restrain them.

The Prince reached the palace at long last.

The doors had all been thrown wide open. The King’s family had gathered in the dining hall, resembling a gaggle of frightened geese. All the women were shrieking together; the King, with his mantle draped over his arm, was giving imperious orders to imaginary servants to shut the windows, tidy up the disorder and such like. Little Irene was sitting huddled in a corner, crying with heavy sobs. Dragging a great big chest behind him, Polycarpus would turn around now and then to look at her, and he would despair at not being able to console her.

“What is all this? What is all this dreadfulness that goes on in here?” said the Prince in a thundering voice.

Everyone turned around. The women ceased their shrieking, Little Irene ran and hung herself from his neck, the King let out a sigh of relief, and Polycarpus let go of the chest.

“What is the matter? Why all this confusion?” the Prince asked again.

And his warm voice rose high above the chaos, reassuring every frightened heart.

“Oh, my son! Wherefore did you go!” said the King plaintively. “Is this a time to go wandering about?”

“Abandoning us to our own devices, leaving us helpless to face our fate, to go all on our own to foreign lands!” added the Queen.

“What?” cried the Prince. “Who talks of going away?”

“You had abandoned us, my son,” pleaded the King, trying to excuse himself, “and we did not know what to do and where to go…”

“ Everyone is leaving; we shall leave as well,” added the Queen.

“ No one is to leave!” said the Prince with determination.

“You would not presume to try to stop us, I hope!” screeched Spitefulnia.

“ No one is going anywhere!” repeated the Prince, even more loudly. “You, the women, go to your rooms. And you, father, come downstairs with me. It is absolutely vital that you show yourself in public immediately.”

“Where do you want us to go?” asked the King rather fearfully.

“To the capital, so that the panic-stricken people will all see us and follow us.”

“But follow us where?”

Before the Prince had time to answer, however, the Lord Chamberlain tumbled and rolled into the room.

His hanging cheeks were flashing red and fiery, his eyes bulging violently out of his skull.

“My lord! My lord! The enemy is burning the land across the river, they have set fire to the woods, the entire plain is being ravaged by the flames as we speak! The people, gathered by the riverside and in the town square, are in the throes of frenzy, howling insults against you for not being there to lead them, to help their brothers who are in dire peril on the opposite riverbank. My lord, the enemy advances! Soon they will have reached the river!..”

The King turned to his son in despair.

“So much the better!” said the Prince with clenched teeth.

“My child! What are you saying! We are losing half our kingdom!” exclaimed the King.