Once upon a time, there was a Prince in search of the most beautiful, fine-born woman the world had to offer. Nothing less would do. His quest took him through jewelled cities and the vaulted cathedrals of great forests, over mountains and roads treacherous with snow, floods and robbers. But though he met a great many fine ladies, and many not so fine, none were to his liking.
Years passed and he was no further in his quest. News came that his father was ill. Obliged to turn his party back, the Prince rode through lands visited some years previously, torn apart now by revolutionary fever. Monarchs toppled, blood flowed. The Prince travelled with a small band of trusted companions. They passed themselves off as revolutionaries or brigands, as circumstances demanded.
It was on riding out of a great forest that they came to an inn, on a night when the heavens rained down like cannon fire. They ate a simple meal and were about to retire when a great banging, as loud as the storm itself, rose up. The landlord slid back the bolts, opened the door, and there stood a girl, bedraggled, wet, and most totally alone.
She was immediately admitted.
Her dress was plain and lowly and, though she was beautiful with huge grey eyes, she had the look of one ill fed. Her hair hung like rats tails and her feet were bare and dirty. Her voice, when she spoke, was hoarse and so quiet that any who listened had to bend down to hear her.
She told of being lost in the forest and needing shelter for the night. She had little money and ordered only a small supper, to be served in her chamber. The innkeeper’s wife led her upstairs.
The Prince watched her go. On ascending the stairs, she lifted her ragged skirts as though they were silk-spun.
The Prince was intrigued, but said nothing to his men who were busy playing the role of dangerous men of the road. The landlord seemed to care little for their pleasure and a great deal for their coin. They sat up well into the small hours, drinking. The sounds of their carousing would have carried through the inn if the storm had not battered down on the roof. Drink numbed their ears and eventually those fit to walk wandered off to bed. The rest made a pillow of the hard table.
When the Prince raised his head the next morning it was to see the girl standing before the window, looking out at the lashing rain.
The landlord shook the sleeping men, keen to serve breakfast and wanting the use of the table. The Prince stepped over to the girl who gazed at the huge puddles outside. The landlord talked of floods, and it was clear that there would be no travelling done today.
The girl was much aggrieved at the news. She wanted to be on her way, she said in her strange whispery voice. The Prince bent his head to catch her words. She cast her wary gaze on him then, before retiring to her chamber for the rest of the morning.
The country they had passed into was not yet engulfed in the revolution that had swept its neighbours. But already there were signs of it.
“Where do such ideas come from?” the landlord complained. “Things are always better when everyone knows their place.”
Two of the Prince’s men went out to check the horses and returned to say they had spied a band galloping through the edges of the forest.
“That’ll be the King’s soldiers,” the landlord claimed. “They’re keeping an eye on the borders.”
The girl appeared in the afternoon, taking a seat by the fire. A few of the men attempted to converse with her, but she turned away to stare into the flames.
The Prince watched her closely, and over the course of that afternoon and evening he formed the opinion that she was no ordinary girl lost in the forest. Though she might disguise it with her plain and worn clothes, she was of gentler birth. He wondered at her travelling alone and unprotected.
The rain continued into the night. At supper, pushing peas around his plate, he remembered a childhood tale told to him by his old nurse and conceived a plan.
He took aside some of his men and sent one into the kitchen to persuade the landlady to give them some peas. The hardest uncooked peas the inn had to offer. Some time later the woman emerged with a small dish which she left on the table. A story was concocted of how in their land a game was played with peas. This aroused the interest of the landlord who asked to see the game. The Prince was obliged to invent one, a game so pointless and stupid, made worse by fingers numbed by drink, that the innkeeper soon grew bored and withdrew to the kitchen and to his wife.
The girl supped in her chamber, but came down to sit by the fire for a short time. There was, she complained, no fire in the grate upstairs. She shivered under a shawl the landlady had given her, and took a sip of mulled wine.
He rolled some peas in his palm. It was fortunate that she had come out of her room of her own accord. He left his men to raise the alarm should she attempt to return upstairs.
In the bed chamber above, the Prince placed the peas beneath her mattress. Then he straightened the bedclothes, casting his gaze around for evidence of her identity – some papers previously carried in her clothing perhaps. But he found nothing. Hearing loud laughter from below, he slipped from the chamber, passing her on the stairs.
He retired to his chamber that night and sat on a chair by the door, intent on listening for any signs of restlessness or complaint from the girl. The night passed quietly.
In the morning, as he prepared to go downstairs, he heard raised voices along the passageway. He opened the door and went to investigate. Already, several of his men stood about, bleary-eyed and confused. The Prince approached the half-open door of the girl’s chamber.
“I tell you,” a high pitched voice sounded, “there is something wrong with this bed.”
The landlady asked to examine the bed herself. There then followed some rustling and finally an examination.
“Why would anyone put peas under my mattress?”
The Prince congratulated himself on his plan. His nurse had claimed that only a true princess would have skin as delicate as this. Only someone of his own birth would see through her own disguise so easily.
The door to the chamber opened fully and the landlady stepped out. She took a long look at the men gathered outside, holding the palm of her hand open to reveal the peas nestling there. Doubtless she recalled last night’s request for peas and considered this a jest on their part. The door behind her closed and the landlady departed downstairs, leaving the men to return to their chambers.
The news that the Prince had finally found a bride came as a surprise to his men. Especially when her identity was revealed. Doubts were expressed, which he brushed aside. Of course, he had not yet spoken to her. There were formalities. Her family would have to be found.
He knocked on her door, pressing his face to the crack and whispering, “I have found you out, my lady.” He waited. No sound emanated from the room beyond, but after some minutes the door slowly opened. She looked up at him, white faced.
“You’re no peasant girl lost in the woods,” he told her. Then he slipped his hand into his pocket and took out a pea. He held it up before her. “Only the most fine-born woman would have skin so delicate as to be bruised by one of these.”
She looked to be on the verge of sending him away, then seemed to think better of it. The door opened wider to admit him.
“I won’t stay long,” he said. “I have no wish to compromise your reputation.”
She said nothing, but her beautiful unadorned face was sullen.
“I myself am travelling in disguise. I have responsibilities. Others depend on my safe passage and return.” He looked at her. “How is it that you come to be alone and unprotected? Are your companions dead?”
She sat down abruptly on a chair and covered her face. Presently her weeping abated and she declared: “They abandoned me in the forest.”
“The men who attacked your party?”
“No. My party abandoned me.”
The Prince was shocked at this news. “Scoundrels! Where is your land?”
She named a country he had passed through years before, when she had been but a child.
“My father is dead,” she sobbed. “The palace was attacked and the city sacked. My father arranged for me to escape with some trusted servants. We followed the sewers.” She held a hand over her nose in remembrance. “It was terrible. Soldiers escorted us to safety. But there was no safe place, no sanctuary from a world gone mad. The bloody tide had swept across our neighbours’ land.
“We had to separate and travel in small groups. We purchased an old coach, and pretended to be an assortment of travellers, sometimes picking up other passengers, though it was dangerous. But we had no choice when the revolutionary soldiers were watching at inns.
“In the forest, a passenger was revealed to be a spy. They said my manners alerted him. One of my guard ran him through and his body was dropped from the coach. And that is when they said they had suffered me long enough. That I was a brat and it was no wonder so many brat heads were rolling. They were tempted to lop mine off then and there. For I would have them all killed with my carrying on.
“They said I complained too much at inns, that I should be glad to be alive. When they threw me from the coach, they kept my cloak. They said if I had any sense, I would keep my mouth closed and talk to no one. I should pretend to be mute, they said. My survival was now my own affair. They left me there with only a few coins sewn into the hem of my dress.
“I wandered for more than a day. I thought I would never find my way out. Bands of men rode through from time to time, but they were exactly the sort we had escaped from. I could not ask for their assistance. Eventually, I found a way out and came here. My money is almost gone.”
The Prince could little imagine her suffering: to be deprived of her family and comforts and subjected to the ill manners of traitors. He offered her the protection of his own party. His own lands he could not speak for; he still awaited word. But her father’s kingdom, he told her, was lost. At least for now. Should circumstances prove happier in his own country, she could take sanctuary there. He took her hand and bowed, assuring her of his sincerest devotion and honourable intentions. He fixed her with a meaningful look. She glanced down at her feet modestly.
There was a sudden banging on the door. The Prince leapt to his feet, drawing his sword. The landlady’s voice sounded out. Unwilling to have his newly intended’s reputation ruined, he looked for a hiding place, but it was too late. The door flew open. And there stood the landlady, peas rolling about in her palm. Behind her stood a group of armed men.
Revolutionaries!
The landlady pointed to the Princess. “There she is. Aristocrat!” the woman spat. “A spoiled little madam. And now we have another in our net.”
The Prince rushed to defend the Princess, but was immediately disarmed and knocked to the floor by the men who now crowded the chamber. The officer in charge, if such a title could be bestowed upon him, read out a series of charges that related to crimes against the Republic.
“What Republic?” the Prince sneered.
The officer ignored him. “Take them away.”
They were imprisoned in the dungeons of the local castle where, the Prince was informed, they would stand trial before a revolutionary tribunal. And then they would be escorted to a place of execution where they would have their heads cut off before a crowd of delighted peasants.
The Prince enquired after the health of the Princess.
“I tell you, I’d murder her myself with my own bare hands if I could,” the officer replied. “The straw we gave her to lie on is not to her taste. The food is revolting. She demands the right to see her ambassador. So I ask her which one? The one whose head is now sitting on a long and very sharp spike over our city gates, or the new one who helped identify her as an enemy of the people?”
The tribunal was a theatre staged for the masses who were keen to give their former betters a good earful before their send off. The trumped up charges took over an hour to read out. The witnesses were called. Most were bogus, faces the Prince had never laid eyes on. But then came the innkeeper and his wife. After giving an account of the pea under the mattress story, and the bruises the Princess had shown to her, the woman was asked to identify the culprit from those present in the courtroom.
She pointed without hesitation to the Princess.
A murmur rose up from the assembly.
The Prince protested that this was hardly a subject for prosecution. The guards beside him clubbed him on the head and he soon lay groaning on the stone floor as the landlady recounted how his men had specifically asked for the hardest peas in the inn.
The landlord was called to give testimony. He told of the pea game, where peas were rolled across the table to knock against other peas. Asked to point out the perpetrators, he pointed them out.
“Citizens!” the prosecutor called out to the court, “we now have evidence that peas are a form of secret code, as it were, between members of the aristocracy and royalty. They are used to divulge or discover identity. To separate them,” he spat, “from us. Behold the innocent pea,” he cried, holding one up to onlookers, “forever damned in its association with wealth and privilege and the machinations of our former oppressors. For this crime alone they are guilty. I rest my case.”
He sat down.
The landlord returned to his seat in the gallery.
All eyes turned to the accused. When the verdict came, it was to the resounding cheers of those gathered. They were guilty. Guilty of all charges. The court had no choice but to sentence them appropriately. They would be taken to a public place and there their heads would be severed from their bodies. And they ought to think themselves very lucky indeed that some enterprising person had invented the guillotine and spared them the axe.
They were taken back to the bowels of the castle.
The morning of the execution was chill, the grey clouds soaked with moisture. The Princess wore a gown procured by the officer of the prison, though he denied it. She complained to the Prince that the gown was made for a much taller woman. “See how the skirt trails on the ground?” They were walking to the cart where the coffins were laid out.
The Prince assured her that she looked like a queen.
“I am a queen,” she replied, “now that my family are all dead.”
They sat themselves atop their coffins. Each coffin perfectly fit its future occupant – from the soles of their feet to the tops of their neck. Guards secured each prisoner to prevent their escape. The crowed jeered and laughed. Then the long journey began.
The town was not far, but the new authorities were determined that the citizens have their entertainment, and so the cart rolled slowly. No one should be denied sight of the prisoners. Aristos such as these would soon be a thing of the past. Best to get a good look at them while it was still possible. Something to tell the grandchildren about in years to come.
The Prince took the opportunity to declare his love to the Princess, and his intention to marry her had they not been in this unfortunate predicament. She thanked him briefly, but soon returned to the subject of her gown. Around them, the Prince’s men sat silently glowering at her.
Platforms had been erected around the square to give those at the back a good view, especially the little ones. The charges were read out and the order of execution decided upon. The Prince’s men went first. One by one they left the cart and climbed the scaffold. The great blade was hoisted up, and then, after a drum roll, released.
The crowd cheered.
Finally came the turn of the Prince. But the Princess was now arguing with the officer who had accompanied them. Before the Prince could bid her farewell, she was marched up the scaffold and slid into place. She wriggled ceaselessly until the blade dropped and she lay still.
Devastated, the Prince mounted the scaffold. On reaching the top, he saw the executioner pick up the Princess’s head. The man slapped her cheeks and they flushed to the amazement of the watching crowds.
But what was more amazing still was the sudden movement of her lips, opening and closing furiously!
Main page story art by Aleksandra at Fusion Dream Prints on Etsy (subscribe to her email for free clip art).