The stag
The troubadour was set to make his annual visit to the realm on the vernal equinox. But March 20th came and went without their appearance.
(My photo)
The stag
The troubadour was set to make his annual visit to the realm on the vernal equinox. But March 20th came and went without an appearance. The king sent a scout to look for him, but that scout didn’t return. The king would not have cared but for the fact that he had a son who couldn’t sleep without a troubadour in his room.
It was a peculiar situation; in all other seasons, the boy fell asleep with ease. But spring was exceptional. So, he had become an insomniac. All night he wailed and cried. The king had forgotten his son’s peculiarity since he never saw the boy, a child of his favored mistress. When he paid her his diurnal visit, she would only speak about the boy's suffering. She beseeched the king to act, to bring a troubadour to the boy's bedside, otherwise she would remain too lethargic to minister to the king’s needs.
The king placed a watch on the battlements. He demanded hourly reports on the whereabouts of the troubadour. Every report was the same: No one approached. In the long purple evening, the king sat by his window and looked out on the great cold meadow sloping down from his moat toward a small river. That river, starting high in the mountains, was treacherous. It had drowned men and horses when it swelled with the annual snow melt. It was also the boundary between his realm and that of his cousin, a fellow king whom he derisively referred to as lord.
Sipping slowly from a goblet of spirits, the king turned his thoughts to the river.
In spring, it ran deep. The melt of the high peaks was treacherous. One never knew how much snow there was at the heights, or how furious the river would flow. Thinking that snow had caused the river to swell and swallow the troubadour and his scout, the king dispatched a survey team to mark the river’s depth.
The king watched his men gallop toward the river in the fading light. The sound of beating hoofs on frozen ground rang out across the evening. If the river was the culprit, the king would build a bridge across it. If his cousin, the lord, didn’t like it and objected to the encroachment, to hell with him.
When the light had disappeared, the king listened for the survey team’s return. It was a sound that didn’t come. The night was overcast, and ice began to slash at the castle walls. The king refilled his goblet. In the morning, he told his mistress he would visit the river with his chief engineer.
‘Your son did not sleep last night,’ was all she said. The king scowled at her but did not reply.
The chief engineer was waiting in the stables. He seemed excited. ‘Sire,’ he said, ‘I’m delighted you want to build a bridge. I do not think it shall pose a problem.’
The men mounted their horses. It took a long time, longer than the king remembered, to reach the river. The trees glistened with ice along the meadow’s edges. The king noticed a dead deer lying beneath a spruce. He would remember to inquire whether the stag had been culled without his official permission.
At the river, there were no traces of the survey team. Hoof prints were in the thawing ground along the banks, but no equipment remained. The engineer waited for the king to dismount before following suit. He took out a tablet and began making sketches with his slate pencil. The king found the engineer’s demeanor annoying. The man was always cheerful. Tinkerer, the king thought. That’s what happens when you spend your life fiddling with toys.
Turning from the river, the king looked up the meadow toward his castle. The structure had never pleased him. Its towers were dingy, and the king wanted them clean. Every year, as the weather warmed, moss spread further across the stones. The king spat and muttered several curses before turning to the river. The engineer was gone.
The king lost his temper.
‘Chief!’ he shouted, ‘Present yourself!’
His voice echoed up the valley, the only sound apart from the gurgling river. It still ran shallow. The mountain melt had not begun. A pair of rainbow-colored fish, each one the length of his forearm, held their station midstream. Deserters! the king raged.
‘Cousin!’
The king turned his head and looked across the river. On the other bank was his cousin, the lord.
‘Lord.’ The king nodded.
‘Why, pray tell, do you rage?’
‘It is a matter of no concern. A temporary affliction, nothing more.’
The lord laughed. He sat astride his mount with two mounted scouts beside him. All three men were smirking. ‘I learned of your desire to build a bridge across our border, cousin. Did you believe you could commence construction without consulting me?’
‘I assure you, my dear lord, had I intended to build a bridge across our border to your glorious realm, I would have dispatched my emissary.’
‘Then why, cousin, have you come to the boundary?’
‘Why indeed. I might ask the same of you.’
The Lord shrugged. ‘Rumor. Suspicion. I like to know of goings on in my realm.’
‘Ah, an attentive liege. Perhaps, then, you will be able to satisfy my curiosity. I sent for a troubadour to arrive on the 20th. It is now well past the vernal equinox, and he has not presented himself. I sent a scout to retrieve him, and now I lack a scout. Why, last night, I sent surveyors to measure the depth of this trickling ditch. They, too, have disappeared. Tell me, what do you know of this?’
‘Ah! So, you sent surveyors here. Such designs, cousin!’
Both men looked across the river at one another for a moment. Then they laughed. It was mirthless laughter.
The two scouts leaned in and whispered to their lord. After a curt nod from the sovereign, they rode off. ‘Men approach my realm. Troubadours, cousin.’
‘From which direction do they make their approach, cousin?’
The Lord said nothing for a moment. Then he smiled. ‘If your troubadour is among them, what would you be willing to pay for his passage?’
‘Pay, cousin? Are you proposing to hold a man in my service for ransom?’
‘I am ever prepared to hold for payment any man who crosses my lands without permission.’
The king nodded and pulled an arquebus from his robe, pointing it across the water. The lord laughed. ‘Imagine, cousin, what might happen if you were to fire upon me. Take heed. Are you prepared to lay claim to my realm? Are you prepared to absorb my affairs?’
The king shrugged and fired his weapon. The lord fell from his horse which seemed not to notice. The king mounted his own steed and proceeded to return to his castle. As he rode, the meadow was silent. He glanced at the dead stag as he rode and his temper flared. Someone had poached it. Who?
-Jeremy Nathan Marks
I'm new to your work, Jeremy. I like what you're doing with the sleepless little prince and his mother, the raging river, and the mysterious stag. Maybe something is "rotten in the state"? Or that river might be dividing the living and the dead worlds? Hmmmm . . .fun!! This dark fairytale is full of treachery and troubadours--is it part of a longer story you're writing?
My only question is — beside the Acquabus (sp?) — why didn’t the horse notice? Gripping story.