Porcelain Princess (6 page)

I am no prince,
I am no king,

I am no knight,
I wield only this ring

This ring with
which I would marry thee,

Oh sweet
princess, why do thine eyes ne’er notice me?

*

Carey quickly
scrambled through the cluttered carriage, crawling through the
small door that led her out onto the driving seat alongside
Grudo.

They were
approaching a crossroads. A single rider was heading towards them
from the opposite direction.

‘
He
can’t hit his high notes, can he?’ Grudo winced.

‘
Bit
of a problem too, I think, for a troubadour,’ Carey
agreed.

‘
I
didn’t know we still had any troubadours; and if they sing like
that, I can’t say I’m surprised.’

The troubadour
suddenly stopped singing, letting his lute drop down by his side.
He stared at the steam wagon in wide-eyed amazement. Then, with a
sharp flex of his knees, he urged his horse into a gallop, rushing
across the dusty crossroads towards them.

‘
My
lady, my lady!’ he cried, holding on with one hand to both his lute
and his large, feathered hat to stop it blowing off. ‘At last I
have–’

As he brought
his horse to a sudden halt alongside the caravan, a large shoulder
bag that had gathered momentum in the charge suddenly rose up from
behind to strike him heavily across the back of his head. The
unexpected blow knocked him out of his saddle, sending him
sprawling in the dust. Sheets of paper from the bag scattered high
into the air, before falling around him like heavy snow.

‘
Oh
no! Are you all right?’ Carey asked in alarm.

She would have
jumped down to help, but was blocked by Grudo’s massive form as he
casually stretched out to pluck the falling sheets from the
air.

‘
All
right?’ the boy said with a laugh as he scrambled up from the floor
and dusted himself self down. ‘How could I be otherwise, my love,
when–’

He abruptly
paused, his eyes now wide with confusion as he stared once again at
Carey. Along with his dusty, dishevelled clothing, and an untidy
mass of golden hair that curled around his otherwise
boyishly-handsome face, his puzzled frown made him look like some
poor Fool from a play.

‘
I
didn’t know we still had any troubadours,’ Grudo said gruffly to
the bemused boy as he handed down some of the papers to
him.

‘
Oh,
er, yes, really?’ The boy was as bewildered as if waking up to a
painful reality from a pleasant dream. ‘We don’t, I mean, there
probably aren’t any other troubadours; I mean, I’m probably the
only one now.’

He affected an
elegant bow, sweeping his feathered hat low across the ground and
stirring up another cloud of dust that made him choke and
cough.

‘
Grudo!’

Carey was aghast
when she saw that Grudo was reading through the papers he still
held in his hands. She gave him an admonishing jab with her
elbow.

‘
What? Oh yes, sorry,’ Grudo growled, turning to hand down the
rest of the papers to the boy. ‘All this “thee” and “thine”; does
anyone still talk like that?’

‘
They
do in
my
songs,’ the boy happily declared, gratefully taking
hold of the papers and carelessly stuffing them back into his bag.
‘Besides, the words aren’t quite right just yet in some of them.
I’m still working on those.’

‘
Ah,
I noticed that none of them had any endings; unless they’ve become
a little mixed up.’

The boy quickly
checked the sheets he still held in his hand.

‘
No,
no; they’re not mixed up,’ he sighed thankfully before looking back
up at Grudo and Carey. ‘There are no endings. I haven’t thought of
them yet; the endings, I mean. I can’t put in an ending before I’ve
thought of it, can I now?’

‘
Stories with no endings?’ Carey exclaimed.

‘
I
take it you don’t make much money from being a troubadour,’ Grudo
scornfully added.

‘
Ah,
now, with
that
, you may have a point.’ The boy was bent low,
collecting some of his papers that were still scattered across the
ground. ‘For I admit, I’m no good at my endings – you know, in the
same way that some artists aren’t any good at hands.’

‘
He
wouldn’t be much of an artist now, would he, if he couldn’t draw
hands?’ Grudo curtly pointed out as Carey gave him a sharp push,
hissing at him that they should help the boy pick up his
songs.

‘
He
would if he stuck to painting elephants,’ the boy said as Grudo
clambered down from his seat to help him collect up the scattered
papers.

‘
And
there’s a great call for that is there, where you come from?
Portraits of elephants?’

‘
Besides,’ Carey pointed out more kindly than Grudo, as she
also jumped down to help collect the papers, ‘you’re
sticking
with writing songs you admit you can’t
finish!’

‘
Ah,
but
one
day, I
will
finish them. Finish them all at
once, in one day, too. All my life, you see, I’ve been working
towards the perfect ending.’

‘
Will
they be happy endings?’ Carey asked hopefully.

The boy shrugged
miserably.

‘
Who’s to say? Not me, for sure.’

‘
Well
if
you
don’t know,’ Grudo snorted in exasperation, ‘just who
is
supposed to know?’

‘
Ah,
but who’s to say what a happy ending is? If my love loves another,
it’s happy for her, but misery for me.’

‘
Ah,
so you’re not sure if the girl you love loves someone else?’ said
Carey, thinking she was beginning to understand at last. ‘You could
ask her, you know? That’s usually the easiest way to have an
answer.’

‘
I
haven’t
met
her yet, I’m afraid,’ the boy shouted up from
beneath the caravan, where he’d crawled to retrieve the last of his
sheets before they blew away. ‘Unless you count meeting her in my
dreams.’

‘
I’m
not sure that counts at all,’ Grudo sniffed as he tried to
straighten out his crumpled collection of sheets. ‘Girls in dreams
shift and change; who can tell what they really look
like?’

Carey stared at
Grudo in surprise. Grudo shrugged.

The boy lightly
bumped his head on the underside of the caravan as he finally
scrambled out from underneath it.

‘
But
in my case, everyone knows what she looks like. Why, isn’t she the
most famous, the most beautiful princess in the entire world? So
wise, so kind, so charming, so full of laughter!’

Carey and Grudo
swapped knowing glances.

‘
The
Porcelain Princess?’ Carey said.

The boy nodded
sheepishly, but his whole face lit up as if just the mention of her
name had somehow conjured her up into life before him.

‘
You
shouldn’t believe
everything
you read in stories,’ Grudo
observed grumpily.

Carey recognised
Grudo’s familiar complaint. How often had she heard him say this
when she was once again letting her hopes rise too high?

‘
What
he means is,’ she said to the boy, ‘that this girl might all just
be nothing more than wishful thinking; she probably isn’t real, you
know?’

The boy gasped
in horror.

‘
Not
real?
Everyone
knows the Porcelain Princess is as real as
you and me!’

‘
Yes,
yes, but I mean the girl you’ve fallen in love with probably isn’t
anything like the
real
Princess.’

‘
Well, she’s made of porcelain for a start!’ Grudo snorted
brusquely.

The boy smiled
as he crammed his saddle bags full with the crumpled
sheets.

‘
Ah,
but on
that
point, my love for her will transform her! And
on yours,’ he said, grinning warmly at Carey, ‘whenever I touch her
picture, she comes to life at my touch! We can talk, we can walk
together, we can hold each other close!’

‘
And
in these dreams, does she tell you she loves you?’

‘
Ah,
if only she did! But I don’t wish to waste our time together by
asking her this! Besides, what if the question embarrasses her?
What if it embarrasses
me
, when she answers no?’

‘
Let’s not forget it’s an old tale.’ Grudo avoided Carey’s
glare. Once again, it was an old complaint of Grudo’s. ‘Which means
she might also be old.’

‘
Ah,
but as you yourself pointed out my friend, she’s of the finest
porcelain! How will she age, when there’s obviously magic
involved?’

‘
But
what about yourself?’ Carey asked kindly. ‘If you find her, you’d
grow old while she would always be a young girl.’

‘
Ah
yes, I
have
considered this,’ the boy admittedly sadly, ‘but
at worst, I at least get to spend
some
time with her. And
when I’m too old to deserve her love, then I sadly move on.
Besides,’ he added, brightening, ‘isn’t it a
magical
kingdom? How old must the Illuminator be?’

‘
If
he
is
still alive,’ Grudo growled miserably.

‘
He’s
still producing his books, surely?’

‘
Haven’t you heard of children who inherit their father’s
talents?’

Recognising
these arguments once more, Carey scowled at Grudo.

‘
We’re searching for her too,’ she said to the boy. ‘You could
join us.’

Now it was
Grudo’s turn to scowl at her.

‘
Hmn,
I’m tempted,’ the boy lied, having noticed Grudo’s discouraging
grimace. ‘But perhaps I’d be better taking this road to my
right.’

‘
Then
we’ll do the same,’ Grudo said as the boy mounted his horse. ‘We’ll
take the road to
our
right.’

‘
And
if I find I don’t end up where I want to be after all, who knows? I
might turn around and follow after you!’

‘
Have
you never become disheartened on your search?’ Carey suddenly asked
him. ‘I mean, have you ever wondered if you might be wrong that the
kingdom really exists?’

The boy shook
his head, a shower of dust falling from out of his hair.

‘
If I
stopped searching, what meaning would my life hold then? Besides,
if I hadn’t been searching, then a famous king who now rules
his
kingdom would still be undiscovered, rotting away in a
high tower. He heard my singing and, being a bit of a troubadour
himself, responded with his own singing! And so at last, his
countrymen knew where he was being held!’

‘
Oh,
and he let down his hair did he, to let you climb up?’ Grudo
chuckled.

‘
You’re mixing up your fairy stories and your histories, my
friend,’ the boy replied jovially.

‘
Ah,
so, hearing you singing outside his window, he decided he’d
have
to escape?’

‘
Grudo! Why are you being so rude?’ Carey snapped.

‘
I’m
not offended,’ the boy laughed, tugging on his horse’s reins,
turning her to face the track to his right. ‘Whichever way you look
at it, my song was the key that unlocked his prison; and you can’t
expect more of a song than that!’

And with a
polite doff of his cap, the troubadour rode off, singing once
more.

*

The
Troubadour’s Second Song

I’ve heard thine
hair shines like the finest silk

Your kindness
flows more pure than milk

Your face as
smooth and white as por…celain

Yet I fear thine
heart will ne’er be mine to win

You are the
moon, the sun and stars

But alongside
your Venus, mine own countenance only jars

I dream the
dream that to your queen I’ll be king

Yet I dread you
won’t hear of the love I sing

*

‘
Grudo! Why were you being so incredibly nasty to that poor
boy?’

As they climbed
back onto the caravan’s driving seat, Carey glared angrily at
Grudo.

Grudo replied
with an embarrassed shrug.

‘
Well, you know, what with your father no longer being
around…’

‘
You
felt it was your role to protect me? From some poor, lovesick
boy?’

‘
Ah,
a very
handsome
and
charming
boy; but one who lives
in dreams, rather than realities.’

‘
And
you don’t think I should live in dreams, right?’

Grudo shrugged
again.

‘
Life
is hard enough without seeing our hopes for a better life
constantly dashed away.’