A Tale Without a Name (10 page)

H
E RAN STRAIGHT
to Miserlix’s house and found him at the table with his daughter. When they saw him, they both rose to their feet.

“Sit and catch your breath, you look tired,” said Miserlix, offering him an iron stool. “Have you eaten?”

“I am not hungry,” replied the Prince.

“Please, accept our poor fare,” pleaded Miserlix.

And so the Prince sat at their table so as not to hurt his feelings, and the girl fetched him an iron plate.

“Miserlix,” he then said, not wasting any words, “I am the King’s son, and I have come to ask you a favour.”

Miserlix sprang up from his seat.

“The King’s son?” he exclaimed.

“The Prince!” murmured the girl.

And both fell on their knees, stunned and bewildered.

“No, no, please, do not take it so,” said the Prince, helping them to rise, “I did not say this to frighten you, but to ask rather for your help. Miserlix, have you heard
the evil tidings? The King our Royal Uncle has crossed the border and is advancing towards the river.”

“Heaven help us!” cried the girl.

Miserlix grasped his head.

“So, then, the end has come at last,” he grunted.

“No, the end has not come!” the Prince said with fervour. “As long as we all wish it, we can send the enemy away.”

“But how?” asked Miserlix dispiritedly. “You have no weapons, no soldiers—”

“This is why I have come to you,” interrupted the Prince. “You will make me the weapons and I shall raise the soldiers, only tell me where all the men of the land are hiding. For I have not seen a single one, either in the fields or on the roads.”

Miserlix laughed a dry, bitter laugh.

“If you were to go to the tavern,” he said, “you would find all of them there together.”

“I shall go then to the tavern. You, however—you must not waste an instant. Forge weapons for me.”

“But what with, what with?!” said Miserlix in despair. “I do not even have a pound of iron left any more!”

The Prince cast a meaningful silent glance at the iron furniture around him.

Miserlix understood the hint, and smiled.

“You want me to spoil good work that was completed long ago?” he said sadly.

“And why not,
if there is need
?” answered the Prince with burning fervour.

Seeing, however, the wretchedness on Miserlix’s face, he rose up hastily:

“It would have been your duty to your King and to your country to do so, and you would have fulfilled it, no matter what it cost you personally. Yet there is no need to spoil work that has been already finished. Show me where the mines are, tell me how to extract the ore, and I shall get you at once as much iron as you desire!”

Miserlix was electrified.

“You could awaken a man long dead with that soul of yours, you could!” he said with passion. “Yours is my furniture, yours too is my life!”

And seizing hold of two pickaxes, he went outside.

“Take the handcart, a coil of cable and the miner’s lamp, and follow us!” he called out to his daughter.

With long strides he headed with the Prince towards the mines, while behind them followed the girl with the handcart.

On their way they met a pale, scrawny boy, who stretched out his hand to them when he saw them.

“Why are you begging?” asked the Prince.

“I have no bread,” replied the boy.

“Then come with us. I have no money to give you, but if you work, I shall give you food to quell your hunger.”

So the boy followed them. They reached the pits.

“Tie the rope around my waist,” said the Prince. “I shall go down myself.”

He took the pickaxe, secured the lantern to his belt, and Miserlix lowered him down the shaft.

When he reached the pit bottom, he saw that there was no need to dig for ore. There were numerous loose piles of rocks already mined, even two or three baskets already filled and left lying around.

The Prince called to Miserlix to lower down the little errand boy, and together they dragged one of these baskets to the opening of the shaft, tied it up with the cable, and told Miserlix to lift it up, and to lower it down again after emptying it.

“And now, my boy, you are to do yourself as I have done,” the Prince said, after they had filled several baskets in this manner. “And when your work is finished, come, and I shall give you food.”

Then the Prince attached once again the rope around his waist, and went up the shaft.

He found Miserlix hacking at the ore stones with his pickaxe, separating the metal from the raw earth, and piling it in the handcart.

“Now go back home,” he said to his daughter. “Unload there the metal, and bring me back the handcart.”

And he asked the Prince:

“You leave us, my lord?”

“Yes! I shall go to the tavern. Time flies, and I must gather together the soldiers who are to fight with the swords and spears that you will make for me,” the Prince replied.

The Prince and Miserlix’s daughter set off together. On the way, they talked.

“You hope in vain that you could ever fight against your enemies, my lord,” said the girl sorrowfully. “You have no soldiers.”

“I shall find them,” replied the Prince. “This is why I am going to the tavern.”

“They will never follow you, they don’t care any more about this land, and whether it should perish; they only have two thoughts in their heads, gaming and wine. But even if they were to follow you, how could my father ever manage to forge so many weapons on his own? And furthermore, my father is a blacksmith: he can make arrow tips and spearheads, but not arrow shafts and lances. He does not work with wood.”

“What you say is right,” replied the Prince. “But what happened to all the craftsmen who used to work for your father in the past?”

“Some have left, some have changed trades. The best one amongst them, his brother, opened his own smithy. Only his business did not prosper, and now he does nothing.”

“Where is he?” asked the Prince. “I shall go and find him, and I shall fetch him here…”

The young maiden shook her head slowly.

“You words will be to no avail; no one shall come without florins!”

“And yet I shall try. Your uncle, can he work with wood?”

“Of course he can, he is one of the most skilled craftsmen for weaponry and arms.”

“And where would I find him?”

“At the tavern, just like everyone else.”

“Then I shall go and get him. Prepare a meal for several people,” said the Prince, animated. “I will be bringing him to supper.”

And with that, he hastened to the capital. He went straight to the tavern. The door was open. Some youths, pale and wretched, were drinking, seated around a filthy rustic table made of rough-hewn wooden boards. Some others, collapsed on the floor, were sleeping heavily, and others still, half-sprawled across the table, were throwing dice or were snoring, their heads resting on their folded arms.

One man, glass in hand, was telling in a husky voice the story of his youth.

The Prince sat across from him. From the similarities in his features, he understood that this was Miserlix’s brother.

“Those were the good days, when Prudentius I was still alive and reigning, God rest his soul,” the man was saying, sighing deeply. “No man would spend his time drinking in a tavern then; we never even set foot in one.”

“And who is forcing you to come here now, old man?” said the Prince.

“Who? Who else but the very wretchedness of this place. How can a man kill time otherwise, except by coming to the tavern? It was different back then. Then we worked. Not like these young lads here!…”

“And why don’t you work now, too?”

The man sighed.

“I grew tired of working for no reason and with no sense of purpose,” he said with heavy weariness.

The eyes of the Prince were suddenly ablaze.

“Well then,
work now, for a reason and for a purpose
,” he said, and his heart was beating thunderously hard in his chest.

“Do you think I would be sitting here if I could find a purpose?!” answered the man.

“Nor would we, old Master Miserlix,” said a youth, with the fiery sheen of wine in his eyes. “Offer us some good profit, and you will see with what fervour we will work!”

“For profit or for a purpose?” asked the Prince.

“It is all the same.”

“
No
, it is
not
all the same,” said the Prince, inflamed with great fire, “for I shall give work to any one of you who wants it. Yet it shall be for a great and sacred purpose, which will yield you no profit.”

“You are trying to be funny, countryman!” said the youth, laughing.

“I am not trying to be funny at all. The enemy is right in our midst, marching in our lands!”

The youth rose, leant across the table and looked intently at the Prince.

“What work are you proposing we do?” he asked seriously.

“The work that is the duty of every citizen at a time of national danger.”

“You propose to us then to become soldiers and get ourselves killed for the sake of the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’?”

“Not for the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’, but for king and country!”

“Oh, don’t bother me with that!” said the youth, his eyes now ablaze. “‘Country’ is but an empty word, and the King, this king, is but a King Log!”

The insult stung the Prince sharply, burning like a whiplash.

He rose from his chair and, shaking bodily with indignation, he replied:

“The ‘country’ is your land, and
this king
is your leader!”

A general burst of roaring laughter greeted his words.

“Our provinces over here are secure; the enemy cannot get across the river!” said someone, his voice hoarse from wine-drinking. “And those who happen to live on the other side, well, let them take care of themselves.”

“My, what a leader we do have!” cried another. “Hiding behind his windows, that’s how he will lead us to war!”

“And without weapons!” added, sniggering, a third.

“
Let the King come out first, and show us how to fight!
” shouted another.

“And if the King comes out, I will myself make weapons for him!” said old Master Miserlix.

Pale as death, arms crossed, the King’s son stood up straight in their midst.

“Old Master Miserlix,” he said in a thunderous voice, “I have your word! The King is too old by now, and he cannot bear the hardship. Yet his son will come out himself, and you shall make him weapons!”

“Well said,” said the old man. “Provided, that is, that the Prince comes out himself.”

“
Let the Prince come out
,” said the youth with the fiery eyes, “
and then let us all follow him
.”

The Prince turned to him, and looked at him in the face.

“
Remember
what you have said,
when the time comes
,” he said, his whole being in turmoil; then, turning to the other man: “Old Master Miserlix,” he said, “your brother has already started forging the weapons that the Prince will need in order to venture forth with the army.
Will you not help him
?”

The old man was taken aback.

“Do you mean it?” he asked.

“I most certainly do,” replied the Prince. “Whenever you wish, come to his house and see for yourself.”

He then went out, without looking back.

The old man ran after him, and caught up with him a few paces down the road.

“Won’t you explain yourself and your words?” he asked.

“I am the King’s son,” said the Prince. “I have no florins to pay you with, but I ask you, in the name of our country, to make weapons for me!”

Old Master Miserlix was thunderstruck. He fell down on his knees and remained speechless.

“So, will you come?” asked the Prince.

“Command me, my lord!” muttered the old man. “I am yours!”

The Prince raised him to his feet.

“Have you got your tools with you?” he asked.

“I have!”

“Then come along to your brother’s. We must not waste a single hour, and Miserlix awaits us.”

Together they went to the blacksmith’s house. He had indeed been expecting them, although the hour was late by then. The street urchin alone had eaten and was lying fast asleep in a corner of the back kitchen.

“Tomorrow we shall have more such workers,” said Miserlix smiling. “On our way back, we met with one or two other little beggars like him, and the young one told them how he had earned his supper through his work, so I told them to come too. It is to our advantage,” Miserlix continued. “While they bring up the ore from the mines, I can work here, so no time is wasted.”

They sat at the table. The Prince would not stay, however. He only asked for a slice of bread to eat on the way to the schoolmaster’s house, where he still intended to study his letters, before beginning to work with the two master craftsmen.

The schoolmaster’s house was far away. He went there running, studied hard, did all his writing, and, still running, he returned to Miserlix’s house, where for hours on end they worked the iron, which came red hot out of the smithy furnace.

At midnight, the two brothers abandoned both hammer and lathe.

Miserlix wanted to offer the Prince his own bed. But he did not accept it. He had to go, he said, back to the palace, to learn the news.

Hurriedly he took once more the way to the capital. But he was so worn out that two or three times he had to sit down on the ground to rest. Sleep would overcome him then, and, so as not to yield to it, he would get up and resume his running.

With great effort, he reached the roots of the mountain, and started for the palace. He tried to run, but he was vanquished by exhaustion. He sat on a stone to catch his breath, his eyes closed of their own volition, and he fell into a deep slumber.