“It was about the same time of the year as now, mid-summer,” the genie continues. “John had managed to cover with his entire army the eighty miles from Le Mans to Mirebeau in just two days. Nobody would have thought it possible. They had ridden hidden in the malefic mist, leaving our rearguard and scouts oblivious to their descent. We did not see or hear them until they had us surrounded. It was a massacre—half of my forces were slain, the other half taken captive. I was imprisoned at the fortress of Falaise in Normandy, where Hugh de Burgh, John’s chamberlain, was appointed as my warder.
“With my mother and I gone, my elder sister Eleanor was left defenseless, and she was abducted by John. With my capture, which might as well have been a death sentence, she was the legitimate heir to the lands of England, Anjou, Aquitaine, and Brittany. You see, in those realms the law barring the ascension of females to the throne did not apply, therefore she posed a potential threat to our Uncle John’s claim. And after his death, equally to his successor. I learned later on that she spent most of her life incarcerated—her captivity became the longest one for a member of an English royal family. She went down in history as the Fair Maid of Brittany.”
“How old was she when they took her?” I ask sadly.
“She was eighteen.”
“And she spent her entire life in prison?”
“She was more of a guest with limited freedom. Don’t imagine her shackled to a wall in a cell. That treatment was reserved for me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did they torture you?” I ask, horrified.
“Not in the general sense of the term, but spending your days in the dark, famished and filthy, is enough to make a man crazy. I did not have any news from the outside world. I was sure that John wanted me dead, even if he could not openly execute me. But what troubled me the most during those long days spent in a dim dungeon was Héloise. I was more afraid of what could happen to her than of dying. I tried to keep count of the days by keeping track of the meals I would get, but they didn’t come regularly, and after a while I was simply lost in a vortex of obscurity and frenzied insanity.
“Every once in a while the lifeless body of one of my comrades would be brought outside. John kept us in such awful conditions that twenty-two of my fellow rebel leaders died of privation in those cells. I survived only because Hugh de Burgh took a personal interest in me; as loyal as he was to John, he didn’t want to be responsible for the death of a pretender to the throne.
“After I don’t know how many months, I was transferred from Falaise to Rouen, and William de Roches became my warden. The only information I could gather from my gaolers’ conversations was that John’s victory at Mirebeau had considerably strengthened his position in France, but that his treatment of the prisoners had quickly undermined these gains.
“John had also dealt with his allies with contempt and disrespect, as usual, causing more and more defections to his cause among his French territories. The quick degeneration of his situation convinced him that he had to get rid of me once and for all.
“The legend has it that when he finally ordered my murder, both his lords and my jailers refused to slay a member of the royal family in cold blood. The myth narrates that one night John, after drinking considerably, descended in my cell and, intoxicated with alcohol, slaughtered me himself, making my lifeless body disappear by tying it to a heavy stone and dumping it into the Seine. My corpse was allegedly found by a fisherman who dragged it ashore in his net—he is said to have identified the cadaver as the lost prince and to have buried it in secret for fear of the tyrant John.
“My disappearance still is, as of today, one of the greatest mysteries in medieval history. However, no living soul could have guessed what truly became of me that ill-fated night.
“I was in my dungeon—I assumed it was night only because the prison guard had been snoring loudly for a while. That remained the only audible sound for some long hours, until I heard the noise of muffled footsteps approaching my cell. A hooded figure opened the door, entering the chamber. It was almost completely dark, and the only source of light was the faraway blaze of a torch in the crypt corridor.
“My eyes rapidly adjusted to the newfound glow, and for a split second I thought that Héloise was standing in front of me. That was until the figure removed the hood, and the flames in her hair hovered above us, illuminating the dungeon with a sinister red glare. Her face remained mostly in the dark, but her green eyes flared in the night—they were two incandescent pits filled with hatred.
“I think in that moment, John with a longsword in hand would have been a much more welcome sight.
“We stared at each other for a long instant before she broke the silence, ‘Well, well, look what we have here, a king on a throne of disgrace.’ Her lustrous voice chilled me to the bones.
“‘Morgene, what are you doing here? How did you get in?’ I asked her.
“‘Now, is that the way to greet an old friend? Tell me, Arthur, has imprisonment made you forget your good manners?’
“‘Go away…I don’t want to see you.’ I thought I was talking to a hallucination—my mind could not come to terms with her being there, but she was real.
“‘You don’t? Oh dear, what an awkward situation…and to think that the last time we were together you were professing your undying love for me. Imagine my surprise when I heard that Prince Arthur was to be king no more because he had married a fair maiden. I really felt quite distressed, considering I thought the prince to be in love with me.’
“‘I never was in love with you. You had me under your sortilege. You are a witch!’ At my mention of the word, her eyes sparkled with cold fury.
“‘That,’ she continued in the same calm, unnerving tone, ‘will come to an end soon, I am afraid. See, Arthur, my kind is not supposed to fall in love. It is dangerous for us…a broken heart lets the magic bleed away and mine is almost completely gone. I have to admit, I used a big chunk to ensure your current accommodation.’ She waved her arm in half a circle, indicating the dungeon.
“‘The mist…it was you. You monster…’ I screamed, launching myself at her, but my chains held me back close to the wall.
“She sneered at my attempted attack with a soulless laugh, a sound so hellish that it was not apt to come through human lips. Her voice rang through the room, bringing its despair along—it reverberated on the walls and on the low ceiling, leaving my heart hollow of any hope.
“‘How did you think it possible that an army of thousands of soldiers descended on you unheard and unseen?’ she asked rhetorically once she’d finished jeering at me. ‘Of course it was me!’ she hissed maliciously, before regaining her composure. ‘See, I find your Uncle John to be quite a reasonable man, contrary to you. We made ourselves a little arrangement—he got the kingdom, and I got, well…you. I admit his side of the bargain took some reminding on my part, but finally here we are. Reunited at last.’
“‘You are delusional—I am never going to be yours. I never was,’ I sibilated with scorn.
“‘Now, now. I believe myself to be quite a practical woman, and to show I bear you no ill will, I am ready to condone your actions and welcome you back.’ With these words, she aimed her sorcery at me, trying to entice me once more. But to no avail.
“Héloise’s love was my armor against her incantations—her magic could no longer breach its shield to enter my heart. I was safe, or at least I thought I was.
“My rejection lashed at Morgene with force, sending her recoiling in a corner.
“‘I see there is no persuading you,’ she said, massaging her arm where her own spell had backfired. ‘Very well, I shall put the last of my power to a better use. Brace yourself for me, dear prince, and for all the powers of darkness!’
She chanted my sentence in a soft, forlorn voice:
‘A coffer of gold shall thee enslave,
The ones thee once hurt thee must now save.
For eternity shall thee strive,
Granting wishes in the number of five.
Now fare with the curse in dire farewell,
Round Prince Arthur cast my spell!’
“The moment the echo of her words subsided, I felt a powerful otherworldly force latching onto me, bringing me to another dimension, and since then I have been cursed.”
I look at him, at a loss for words. I’ve been enraptured by his story for the better part of the night. He brought me to a world of dames and knights, of castles and wars, of love and despair. And he seems still lost in his memories.
“Do you know why five wishes?” I finally break the silence.
“Equal to the moons we spent together, I suppose.”
“Moons?”
“Months, lunar phases. There is more power to the moon than to govern the tide.”
“Oh. What happened to Héloise?”
“To this day I do not know.” The agony behind his eyes seems to be as recent and alive as if it all happened just yesterday. “I was summoned for the first time thirty-something years later in Rome. I was at the service of my first charge, a noblewoman from Florence named Caterina. She helped me search for Héloise, but those were different times. There were no proper registries, and people could disappear without leaving a trace. The only way to search for someone was to travel around and ask questions. Yet travelling was a slow and risky endeavor, especially for an unaccompanied woman, even with all the powers of the universe on her side.
“However, Caterina was brave and strong and decided to risk the journey to France anyway. We tried my castle first—we gathered only some conflicting tales of the lady of the chateau escaping to a thousand different supposed destinations. Life was shorter in the thirteenth century—diseases, plagues, and malnutrition had many dying young. The majority of people that were alive and old enough to remember when I was lord of the manor were dead already.
“Afterwards, we tried her father’s castle, but it was another dead end. Nobody had heard of the princess since she had left the house—nobody could even talk about Héloise! Her father considered every memory of her as an offence to the family’s honor. We collected these few bits of information from her old wet nurse, the only one who truly loved and missed Héloise. She risked her life to follow us after we left the town and tell us what little she knew.
“After that my last remote hope was to search the convent her father had destined her for safe keeping. But she was not there and never had been. I didn’t know where else to look, and I relinquished my quest.”
“I’m so sorry. I can’t begin to imagine how painful it must have been for you,” I say with empathy.
“I console myself thinking that having her, being loved by her, even for such a brief time was the greatest blessing I could ever ask for.”
“I really don’t know what to say. I’ve been complaining to you for weeks, not once worrying about you. I’m sorry, Arthur.”
“You have called me by my real name.”
“It’s the least you deserve. I feel like all my problems seem so small now compared to what you’ve been through.”
“Do not worry about me. I had a long time to come to terms with what happened to me and Héloise and accept it. My curse could have been a lot worse. I am fortunate enough to at least help others find the happiness I once had.”
“But you said the curse could be broken somehow,” I chip in, optimistic.
“Every piece of magic has a counter spell, but the old knowledge was lost a long time ago. There is no hope for me. Magic has left this world—”
“It hasn’t,” I interrupt him. “You are here, the coffer is here, and it found me! There is still magic in this world, and there is hope,” I conclude.
“However,” he says without acknowledging anything I’ve just said, “the purpose of me telling you my story was to make you understand what true love is. Do you still believe James to be the love of your life?”
“Ah, that is a whole different matter,” I say, defensive. “I can see your point now, but I still think that James deserves the benefit of the doubt. You were right when you said those were different times. Things are different today, less heroic, less extreme. And, forgive me for saying this, but he truly had a special bond with his father, and given that you never knew yours I am not sure you can really understand.”
He tries to object, but I don’t let him.
“Anyway,” I continue, raising my hands to stop his protests, “I have a plan. I want to free James of his obligations and see what he does. With your help, I am sure we can succeed. What do you say?”
“I still believe he is not worthy of you. But of course you have all my support.”
“Thank you, Arthur. Now we should try to sleep a little bit,” I say, setting the alarm on my phone for five a.m. “I want to get out of here before anyone wakes up.”‘
“You don’t want to see him tomorrow?”
“No, everything is still too raw. And I need to plan my actions carefully. Plus, we need some extra time to work on your curse.”
“Then it is good night, milady,” he says, shaking his head at my stubbornness, but still with an affectionate smile surfacing on his lips. “Can I only ask you one thing?”
“Sure, fire.”
“What is this grand plan of yours?”
“I want to buy myself a bank,” I answer, with an even bigger smile spreading on my face.