Shy (Prologue) (Part 1)

This is the prologue to a children's/YA novel. The prologue is written in the style of a fairytale, but the rest of the novel is not. Hope you enjoy :)

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– Prologue –

 

In the olden days, when wishing still worked, there lived a king in a huge castle.

He was all that a king should be.

In wartime, he proved himself brave and fearsome on the battlefield. The hills ran red with the blood of his enemies.

But it was in peacetime that he truly earnt his reputation.

When his castle was free from the worries and burdens of war, he filled its halls – day and night – with the sound of laughter and merriment.

It was said that, when seen from a great distance, the castle itself seemed to shake with laughter.

And so the word spread: the king was not just a warrior, he was an entertainer.

He staged feasts, balls, plays, masquerades, pantomimes and much more, all to the acclaim of his lords and ladies and any knight or wanderer who cared to be passing by.

He kept a dozen fools, each of whom competed to win more laughs than the others.

But it was the king – always the king – who won the most laughs of all.

It was not uncommon for it to be revealed, with a great unmasking, that at the end of a three-act play it had been him all along who'd played the main part.

Neither was it rare for him to jump up on the tables at some great feast, alongside his many fools, renounce his name and rights as king (only in jest, of course) and declare himself the Lord of Misrule.

And those evenings when the lutes and drums started up, it was only a matter of time before he slipped in with his harp and won the biggest standing ovation of the night.

It could not be denied: the sound of laughter and wonderment was that much sweeter when it was he who'd inspired it.

In time, though, the king grew old. His body began to wither, and with it his charms and talents.

And so it fell to his children to keep the laughter going.

One night, the king sat them before the fire and told them of the task that lay ahead. First, though, he told them of the world and how, to his mind, it was divided into two.

There were those, he told them, who looked you in the eye and smiled, who talked themselves to bits and laughed long into the night, who made friends fast and pursued love and lust wherever they found it, who moved to music and wore their souls on their sleeve, who saw that the world was a peach to be plucked, savoured, and enjoyed.

Then there were those others. Those who could not meet your eye, who were given to dark looks and long silences, who locked themselves in towers and lost themselves in books, who chewed thoughts and worked on grievances, who watched love and lust from afar, who saw that the world was a peach and chose to let it wither and die.

As the children gazed into the fire, it became clear what they must do.

They must keep the laughter going. For the good of their father's kingdom and the realm.

At first it seemed as though the task would fall to the king's two sons, the princes. Each was brash and loud and felt at ease in front of an audience. But on a tour of the kingdom, the first prince caught a disease and died, whilst the second drowned in a river trying to save his favourite dog.

That left only the king's daughter, the princess.

She knew what she must be. She must be the sort to pluck the peach from the branch and take a big juicy bite.

And for a while – not a long enough while, it would turn out – that was exactly what she was.

The princess was possessed of many talents, and chief among them was her gift for voices. Long years of playing with dolls had taught her the art of pretending. But it was only when the king overheard her impersonating his lords and ladies and told her what a delight the voices were that she realised that pretending could be seen as an art at all. She had captured the Old Bear's deep, grumbling voice perfectly, the king told her. And she had the Red Rose, in all her prancing wistfulness, down to a tee. And the king couldn't even express how uncanny it was to see the White Wolf, as though he were right there before him in the flesh.

The king resolved there and then that, some day soon, the princess must perform her voices to his whole court.

Oh how the castle would shake then.

But the princess was more than just her voices. She was also charming and graceful in the company of young men. When her father’s lords and ladies visited for grand balls, they sometimes brought with them their young sons. And when they did, the princess was always on call, dancing with this boy then that one, disarming one boy and then another with a smile, and wrong-footing each boy in turn with a well-placed remark. One night, at the end of the long festivities, the king saw half the lordlings in the hall lining up to give the princess a rose.

He resolved there and then that, some day soon, the princess must see through the fog of wanton young boys and marry wisely. He had in mind for her a most handsome prince from a neighbouring kingdom. It was to be a perfect match.

Oh how the castle would shake then.

But the princess was more than just her womanly charms and graces. She was also devilishly funny. With her at all times, she kept her three best friends, the daughters of the Old Bear, the Red Rose, and the White Wolf. Her giggling girls, she called them, for they laughed at virtually everything she said. The princess liked to write and stage comic plays, and she would cast her giggling girls in them. Being the funniest, however, the princess was always cast in the lead role and when she wasn’t delivering her own lines she was positioning her giggling girls and ordering them about. One day, the king chanced to walk in during one of their rehearsals and found himself laughing at every word.

He resolved there and then that, some day soon, the princess must perform one of her plays to his whole court.

Oh how the castle would shake then.

It would shake and shake and the realm would see that the princess was the king’s true heir not just in blood but in spirit too.

Time passed.

The king grew older and more withered but lived safe in the knowledge that his daughter’s day of reckoning was soon to come. He arranged for the king and queen of the neighbouring kingdom, along with their handsome son the prince, to visit the castle on the night of the next full moon. That was when the moon would be at its fattest and fullest – like a ripe silver peach. All the king’s lords and ladies and knights and wanderers from far and wide would be there as well. The whole world would be there for an evening of laughter and merriment.

But one night, as darkness was falling, the princess wrapped herself in a hooded roughspun cloak and left the castle to find the path that led into the depths of the nearby wood. It was said that deep, deep into the forest there was a clear, still pool, and on its fringes there grew a flower that granted good luck. The princess would be in need of good luck if she was to fulfill her father's wishes on the night when the moon was at its fattest and fullest.

Though she was quite alone as she walked the forest path, the princess still managed to talk herself to bits, practising her voices, rehearsing what she would say to the handsome prince, and going over her lines in the play. The sound of her voice was so loud, in fact, that it disturbed the slumber of much that dwelled in the forest – and soon, in the dark, things began to stir and wake.

At last she came to the woodland pool, and next to it, she was surprised to see, stood a silent house.

As the princess plucked a handful of flowers, she was taken aback by how calm and still the pool was.

She couldn't help herself.

She laughed, and splashed the water with a hand.

That was when the ugly old woman stepped out of the shadows.

She had a big gap between her two twisted front teeth, and she smelt like her soul was rotting.

‘Won’t stop rippling for years now,’ she said.

'Oh. Well I'm sorry to hear that,' said the princess, though she was not very sorry at all.

The ugly old woman shook her head and, as she walked back to the house, took up a song:

 

Far too many words spoken and sung

What else to do but tear out that tongue

 

The princess didn't know what to make of that, but as she mulled it over, she soon began to laugh.

It was late by the time she returned to the castle, but there was still the soft rumble of life coming from within its walls.

As she made her way up a winding staircase, she heard the sound of laughter. She heard the high, sweet music of it. It was her giggling girls, and the sound of them made her feel glad to be back. But when she reached the top step, a thought occurred.

Why were they laughing so hard if she had not been there to cause it?

When she pushed open the door, she saw the reason.

There was a fourth girl.

A new girl. She had the slightest gap between her two front teeth.

Her giggling girls were stood round the girl, their heads thrown back, the laughter coming out of them. It sounded wrong, somehow.

The princess wondered whose daughter the girl was. Perhaps she was the Griffin’s daughter, or the White Rose’s, or maybe the Raven’s. In any case, she knew that she must welcome this girl into her father’s halls, that she and the girl must become fast friends, and that she should perhaps even make her one of her giggling girls.

But just as the princess was about to ask the gap-toothed girl who her father was, the girl turned and noticed her first, and she said, 'And who might this be?'

The princess cleared her throat. ‘Why,’ she began, ‘I am the –’

The Old Bear’s daughter interrupted. ‘She’s the king’s daughter. The princess.’

The gap-toothed girl considered that. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘You'd think the princess would be able to speak for herself. Does she not have a tongue in her head?'

The princess couldn't tell if this was a jab at her or merely an admonishment of the Old Bear’s daughter for butting in.

Either way, she stood there a moment, confused, not really knowing what to say.

'Well I suppose that answers our question,' the gap-toothed girl said.

The princess's giggling girls laughed at that, but there it was again. The laughter sounded all wrong. The shape and the feel of it ...

The princess forced herself to recover. She would try once more to ask this girl whose daughter she was. She would make her feel at home in her father’s castle.

But then something curious happened. As the princess went to speak, she found that ... well, she found that she could not. She misliked the tone of this new girl and the sound of this new laughter – yes, she saw it now, she did not like this new laughter one bit – so much so that speaking was no easy thing. Her palms had grown sweaty, her throat dry, and in her chest her heart played a cruel note.

She tried to speak again, but something stopped her. The gap-toothed girl looked at her like she was half mad. And what she did next she would later hate herself for. Perhaps it was the thought of ugly old women’s words and other such troublesome things, but the princess reached into her mouth and felt to see if her tongue was still there.

‘Surely not,' said the gap-toothed girl, 'she's checking to see if it's still there!'

Her giggling girls didn’t laugh this time; they just looked on in horror.

Her tongue was there, of course. How could she ever have thought that it couldn’t be?

Her hand came out wet with saliva, and there was a silence as it just sort of hung there, glistening.

The gap-toothed girl took a step back. ‘Anyway.’

The evening crept on after that. The other girls laughed and talked and danced and played whilst the princess sat there, thinking.

She imagined her father finding out about this new girl and taking her by the scruff of the neck and dragging her to the execution block and beheading her for all his court to see.

She knew that she need only whisper the word and her father would make it so.

But something stopped her. It was the same thing that stopped her from asking the girl who her father was.

She settled instead on a more diplomatic idea. There was very little time left for her and her giggling girls to rehearse their comic play before the night when the moon was at its fattest and fullest. So the princess would run through the whole play now and, in order to throw the girl a bone, she’d give her some small part to play.

But just as the princess was about to make her suggestion, the girls gathered round her and announced that they had been rehearsing all day and that the new girl was perfectly suited to the main part.

‘Sorry?’ the princess said.

‘They tell me that you’ve been desperate to find someone perfect to play the part,’ the gap-toothed girl said. ‘That you’ve had to fill in yourself in the meantime.’

The princess could hardly believe what she was hearing.

But the new girl’s next line sealed it. ‘Please say yes. It would be the first good thing that’s happened to me in months.’

When the princess nodded her approval – although she wasn’t certain that she had actually nodded at all – the other girls went off squealing and adopted their positions for one last rehearsal.

If she wanted to say something – say something to make it all the way it was again – now was the time. No words came out, though. She found her hand going to her mouth again, but she resisted the urge. And by the time her hand hung limply by her side, she knew it was all already slipping away from her.

It wasn’t long before she’d had enough.

She felt uncomfortable and like she couldn’t be herself with the gap-toothed girl there, so she decided it was time to retire to her bedchamber. But she could hardly use such an excuse to take her leave, so instead she approached the daughter of the Old Bear – for she could not bring herself to address the whole group as one – and told her that she had come down with something.

The girls all gathered around her then and wished her well, but she saw the lie behind it all as, halfway down the winding staircase, their laughter started up again.

Her sleep was restful that night.

She woke four, five, six times to the thought that her tongue was no longer there – and so in her hand went, searching, feeling, and out it came, wet, glistening.

Every time it was there, of course, but every time the fear came back.

As morning came and one of the princess’s servants knocked on her bedchamber door, she checked again that her tongue was still there.

She was surprised when she raised her head and managed to say, ‘Come in.’

Usually, when a servant pottered around her bedchamber tidying things up, she would have talked herself to bits. But that morning, no such thing happened. Every time there was a pause, she would hesitate, until it became a silence, and then the silence would strain and creak like an old tree in the wind. And beneath it all, she was sure she could hear a whispering sound. Was it the whispering of the servant’s thoughts? If it was, then they were not kind things that she heard.

Before too long she found herself making another excuse. ‘Sorry. I’m still awfully tired. Would you mind coming back later.’

The servant gave her a look, the meaning of which she would spend all day thinking about, and then she left.

As the princess walked the castle grounds that morning, things only seemed to get worse. Usually, when she passed someone in a corridor or along a path, she would beam at them. Now, though, her response was to look at her feet and murmur some distressed melody beneath her breath. At one point, she spied a handsome young lordling with whom she had once danced. The sight of him coming her way caused her heart to play such a wicked song that she found herself hiding in a little alcove until he had passed.

Then a voice was calling, ‘Princess?’

She sat bolt upright.

It was the lordling.

‘Are you well, Your Grace?’ he said. ‘I saw you dart in here like you’d seen a ghost.’

‘I’m fine,’ she murmured, not sounding fine at all.

The lordling gave her a strange look.

He thought her a fool

And it was there, she knew, that the problem truly lay, for once she suspected that someone thought a certain way about her, she found that she was trapped; so trapped that she could do nothing but act in the way that they expected her to act.

So it was that at lunch, when the White Wolf told her she was being awfully quiet, she found it even harder to speak, and so it was that, when the Red Rose told her it wouldn’t hurt to smile, she knew that she then went on to appear even more solemn.

All the while, she made sure to avoid the king.

She already knew what he would think of all this.

She already knew what all this meant.