THE PRINCE AND THE PRISONER

 

Kes had said the wrong thing about the daughter of his captain, and had been posted here for the last four months. Every morning he woke, hoping that he would hear of someone else making a worse mistake than his. He did not believe that the captain would ever give him a reprieve otherwise.

But every morning, before the light of dawn struck, Kes trudged down the steps, past the cells where the prisoners shouted at him crude names that he would not have said drunk, past the cells where they moaned from the torture or from cold, past the cells where the traitors from the first two years of the prince’s reign were housed, down to the very bottom of the prison block where men had committed crimes so terrible there were no names for them—or so Kes assumed.

It was three hundred sixteen steps exactly. Kes had counted them many times. The steps were chipped and uneven and it was cold and damp this far down. There were scurrying sounds of rats, ones as big as a man’s head.

Kes always brought with him enough food to feed himself and the prisoner now. After being there for four days, Kes had realized guiltily that the prisoner had eaten nothing in all that time.

Of course, the prisoner did not have to climb six hundred steps and more each day. He must hardly use any energy at all. He lay in his cell and breathed and slept and that was all. Once a day, Kes felt obliged to check to make sure that the prisoner had not died.

Today when Kes saw that there was a rat sitting on top of the prisoner’s head, he leaped to his feet and shooed him away.

The prisoner said nothing, and did not move, but Kes saw that he began to weep, tears trickling out from the corners of his eyes.

“Did it hurt you? Shall I bring a physician down to you?” asked Kes, though in fact he was not at all certain that the captain would allow him to do such a thing.

The prisoner would not answer, but Kes could see no sign of injury on his face, so he left him alone.

It was only on subsequent days that Kes realized the prisoner entertained the same rat on his head at the same time. He petted the rat and even moved to the side to watch its antics in the corner of the cell. He shared food with it, more than he should have spared.

The rat was the closest thing to a friend the prisoner seemed to have. He treated the rat as well as any man would wish to be treated. The prisoner slept by his side, keeping him warm, and if they did not talk together, what men would say that was a flaw in a friend?

And then this evening, there was the sound of footsteps above him, and Kes looked up in surprise.

The captain?

No. It was even more surprising.

It was Prince Arjan, the prince who had refused to take his father’s title at his death because his brother was missing, off on another adventure, and still missing after forty-six years. Even his father’s crown waited for him under glass in the throne room, or so Kes had heard. He had never been there himself. But he had heard that Arjan was a better king than his brother would have been. It was universally agreed that his brother had been too cold to be a ruler.

On the last of the steps, Prince Arjan stopped, doubled over, coughing.

“My prince. You do not belong here. I am sure you must have gotten lost,” said Kes.

“No,” said the prince with certainty.

Kes could feel cold sweat drip down the back of his neck.

Arjan could only be here if he had decided at last that the prisoner should be executed. The prince was well known for coming to see men himself when the sentence was pronounced. It was what he was known for, his compassion combined with his fairness and his ability to look into the eyes of those who would die and tell them that it was just and true.

Kes gave a short bow. The prince had never allowed a full bow. That, too, belonged to his brother.

Prince Arjan looked into Kes’s eyes, a faint smile on his lips. “And what did you do to deserve this post?” he asked.

“I made a mistake,” said Kes, squirming.

“Shall I guess what it was?” said Arjan. He paused a moment. “You kicked a dog?”

“No, my prince,” said Kes.

“You cursed my name and said that I was no son of my father?” said Arjan.

The guard’s face trembled. “No, my prince. No, I would never have said that.” Though he might have, years ago.

Arjan was the younger brother, and his mother had been known, in later years, for her affairs with lower class men. The prince was fairer than either his brother or his father had been, and he had a different shape to his face. Less square, and more pointed at the chin. Like his mother. Or like her first lover, some had said. But there were no portraits left of him. He had been only a groom and had died long before the king.

“Then what was it?”

“I said that the captain’s daughter had the breasts of a woman of the night,” said Kes, stumbling over the words. He blushed, the warmest he had been in all his days down in this end of the dungeon.

“Ah, well. You have the satisfaction at least of knowing that you were right. That must be of some comfort to you down here,” said Arjan.

Kes goggled at the prince.

Arjan began to laugh.

Then Kes could not help himself. He laughed, as well. It was no forced laugh, either, though it would have been wise for him to do so if it had not come naturally. The prince had been known for having a gift for making others feel that he was one of them. The nobles, the peasants, the soldiers. Some said even the ladies, for he had once been known for his fashionable clothes.

“Have you heard? That she is betrothed? And none too soon it is, either,” Arjan continued, as if he were another guard whispering secrets. “She is said to be growing already. But who knows who the father is? Ah, well, who cares? No doubt it will be a beautiful child if it is hers.”

There was no harm in the gossip, though Kes. Just a man talking to another man, taking pleasure in the things of the world.

If Arjan had not begun to cough again violently, and the prisoner had not stood up in his cell to stare at him, Kes would have relaxed himself and imagined that the world was a better place than it had been of late for him.

But Arjan doubled over once more, making such a sound that Kes wondered briefly what would happen to him if the prince died at his feet. Could there be a worse place to send a disgraced guard?

And what of the kingdom itself? There was a bastard cousin and a niece of the old king’s, now in her sixties herself and with only a daughter of her own to follow her. The prince had never chosen an official heir. Chaos would follow if he did not do so.

Prince Arjan himself had never had a child. He had married a young girl, but she had died within a year, an assassination it was widely believed. Poison. Arjan had not seemed heartbroken over it, but he had not married again. Some said that he was a lover of men, but no one cared enough to bother over it. Except for the problem of the heir, of course.

“Jan,” said a hoarse voice.

It took Kes a moment to place it. It came from the prisoner. Kes had only heard him speak rarely, and then a word here and there.

At the sound, Arjan seemed a different man of a sudden. He held himself upright and tried to stifle the coughs.

Kes could see his back shaking with the effort.

Who called the prince “Jan” instead of Arjan? His father had. Some of his childhood friends.

Was the prisoner one of them?

Kes had never asked himself this before. He had never worried over it. He had assumed that the prisoner was some enemy of the kingdom, a dangerous man, and that the prince was right to keep him here, though the prisoner was now was as aged and infirm as the guard’s own grandfather, who could not have threatened an apple, let alone a whole kingdom. Or the prince himself.

“You came,” said the prisoner.

Arjan kept his hand to his mouth, though he might have added a nod. It was difficult to tell.

“I knew you would come. One day, you would come.” The prisoner’s voice was like a precious vase, broken, and glued back together. There was a fineness to it, underneath it all, or the sense that it had once been fine. But as for now, it was merely a broken vase.

Arjan took a great, gasping breath. He held it, then let it out slowly, and pulled himself to his full height.

Kes looked between the two men, the prisoner now standing in his cell, and the prince. He thought they were much of the same height, though perhaps the prisoner was a little taller. Or it might have only been something in the way that the prisoner held himself, or looked at the prince.

It was a strange thing, seeing the prisoner stand like that, his head so high that only his chin and mouth could be seen through the iron bars.

“Each morning I woke and told myself to have some cheer, because that day might be the day. Each night I told myself to sleep well, and to dream of you, because the next day might be the day. And now I see I was right.” The prisoner’s last few words seemed to take him so much effort that they petered out, and he did no more than mouth them.

Still, they seemed quite clear. It was a trick of some kind, that made Kes stare at the prisoner’s lips so carefully.

“I came,” said Arjan. He seemed wary. Gone was the affable, easy man that the guard had just met a moment before. Gone was the regal man who was known for riding ahead of his troops in parade, or for dancing in the palace, or for standing at attention at an execution. Somehow he had grown more feeble, or perhaps much, much younger.

“Come here. Let me touch your face,” said the prisoner.

Arjan hesitated.

Kes looked back and forth between the two men. Could he trust the prisoner not to try to twist the prince’s head and break his neck in one movement through the bars?

Arjan stepped forward.

Kes stepped back.

The prisoner put out his hands and clasped the prince’s head in both hands. There was a long sigh of satisfaction, a sound that made Kes jealous for a moment.

Then the prisoner’s hands moved up and touched the cheeks, the nose, the eyes. “You look like him more now,” he said. “I have imagined how you would look, old, but it is different to see you for myself.”

“I think I have not aged well. The responsibility of a kingdom is a weighty thing,” said Arjan.

Kes could not believe it. He was implying that the prisoner’s life was easier? That starving to death with only rats for company had made the prisoner’s life longer and better?

It made Kes begin to think who the prisoner might be, for whom the prince would feel such jealousy. And there could only be one choice.

“It is good to see you,” said the prisoner.

“I am sorry it has taken so long. I was—I was afraid. I admit it. I thought that you would make me doubt myself. And I could not bear that.”

“I would never have done it, Jan. Never,” said the prisoner.

Arjan shifted his shoulders. “You were always the elder one, the better one. And—you had the gift that I did not.”

“But you were the one who could make others laugh. You made everyone at ease around you. You were the golden boy.”

“But the gift,” said Arjan.

“Yes, the gift,” said the prisoner.

“Father did not have it. He said it came only once in generations. There were stories of others who had it. But it frightened him.”

“He encouraged you, didn’t he? When he knew he was dying?”

Arjan turned away. “I wondered if you thought I had killed him.”

“No. Never,” said the prisoner with strength in his voice that left no doubt. “There may have been others who believed that. But they did not know you as well as I did.”

“Father warned me that I had to keep you here, below the sun. If ever you saw it, the gift would free you.”

There was a long pause, and then the prisoner said, “Father never did know me well, did he? For all that we were said to be alike, it was you who thought like him, who lived as he did. Not I.”

Arjan now leaned forward and put his own hands through the bars.

The prisoner bent over and let his face be felt.

Kes watched it and saw the calm in it. The calm of one who has never been angry or afraid. It was a face like a beam of sunlight. He had never seen it so clearly before, and he did not know if he wished to ever again. It was painful to look on, for it made him see his own faults in himself.

“I have missed you,” admitted Arjan softly.

“Thank you,” said the prisoner, as grateful as if he had been set free.

“You know, don’t you, that I cannot come back?”

“Yes.”

“It is only this once, in all these years.”

“It is enough.”

“You are kind to me, kinder than I deserve.”

“Ah, Jan. I love you so. I always have. I wished you could see that,” said the prisoner.

“But the gift,” said Arjan. “It was between us.”

“It needn’t have been.”

“You would have stepped aside and let me rule? Though you were the crown prince? I do not believe it,” said Arjan harshly.

“I would have tried. But I think you are right. It would not have worked. No, it was better this way. Everyone thought I was gone, and no one looked for me in the place that would have been easiest to find. I only meant that if you had asked, I would have come willingly. You did not need to put the potion in my drink.”

Arjan drew back, his eyes wide. “You knew?” he asked.

“I knew,” said the prisoner.

“And still you drank it.”

“You were my brother. Ten years younger than I was. I spent all of my days looking after you. Do you not understand that? No, I suppose you don’t. You have never had a child, have you?”

Arjan shook his head.

“I am sorry for that, then,” said the prisoner, as if he were the one on this side of the bars and the prince on the other.

Kes began to wonder what would happen to him now. Could the prince allow him to live now that he knew this secret? Would he be one of the men in the cells next?

He should have fled up the steps as soon as he saw the prince. His lasciviousness had brought him here, but it was his curiosity that would kill him, it seemed.

“I must go now,” said the prince, turning his head away. He walked to the steps.

For a moment, Kes could hardly breathe for hope. If the prince left now, did that mean he was safe? Or only for this day or the next? He began to understand how the prisoner had felt, waiting each day for the rest of his life for the visit that might come.

“Father was wrong, you know,” said the prisoner, calling out.

Arjan turned. “What do you mean?”

“The sun has never had anything to do with the gift. Or rather, it is the gift that brings the sun, and not the sun that brings the gift.”

Arjan swallowed hard and began to tremble. “But if he was wrong—then your cell, those bars. You could—”

The prisoner put his hand on the bars. There was a great flash of light, blinding Kes. He felt warm all over, warmer than he had for months now. A warmth that penetrated his bones and seeped into his heart.

He was not hungry. He was not thirsty. He wanted for nothing.

Kes thought for a moment that he could understand why it was that the prisoner had survived all those days when the captain had not bothered to send him food, and perhaps another guard had not thought to offer some of his own. He understood why the prisoner would share his food with a rat.

A man who had a gift like this one would not need anything else.

There was a twisting, creaking sound.

Kes could see dimly again, the outline of a man stepping out of the cell. Pushing the bars to the floor as if they were no more than bits of straw.

Arjan began to beg and plead like other prisoners did, when they had no more hope but death itself.

But the prisoner held up his hands. “I only meant to show you that I could have come out at any time. I was waiting, for you to come and see that I was here by my own free will. All these years. I wanted you to come so that you could see you had nothing to fear. Do you understand now, Jan?”

“Timor,” said the prince, as if the name were a prayer. “I do.”

The prisoner stepped back into the cell, and the light dissipated.

There was a squeaking sound like a rat and Kes looked in to see the prisoner once more had the rat on his head.

He could have walked out. He could have done anything he wished.

And here he stayed.

Arjan was gone when Kes thought to look for him. And that night when it was time for the guard to go back up the stairs, he stayed with the prisoner instead. There was no need for anything else now. If he could not have a brother like this for himself, at least he could be near him.