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The Princess and Curdie

G >> George MacDonald >> The Princess and Curdie




In the hall he met the housemaid.

'Can you lead a horse?' he asked.
'Yes, sir.'

'Are you willing to die for the king?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Can you do as you are bid?'

'I can keep on trying, sir.'

'Come then. Were I not a man I would be a woman such as you.'

When they entered the barrack yard, the soldiers scattered like
autumn leaves before a blast of winter. They went into the stable
unchallenged - and lo! in a stall, before the colonel's eyes, stood
the king's white charger, with the royal saddle and bridle hung
high beside him!

'Traitorous thieves!' muttered the old man in his beard, and went
along the stalls, looking for his own black charger. Having found
him, he returned to saddle first the king's. But the maid had
already the saddle upon him, and so girt that the colonel could
thrust no finger tip between girth and skin. He left her to finish
what she had so well begun, and went and made ready his own. He
then chose for the princess a great red horse, twenty years old,
which he knew to possess every equine virtue. This and his own he
led to the palace, and the maid led the king's.

The king and Curdie stood in the court, the king in full armour of
silvered steel, with a circlet of rubies and diamonds round his
helmet. He almost leaped for joy when he saw his great white
charger come in, gentle as a child to the hand of the housemaid.
But when the horse saw his master in his armour, he reared and
bounded in jubilation, yet did not break from the hand that held
him. Then out came the princess attired and ready, with a hunting
knife her father had given her by her side. They brought her
mother's saddle, splendent with gems and gold, set it on the great
red horse, and lifted her to it. But the saddle was so big, and
the horse so tall, that the child found no comfort in them.

'Please, King Papa,' she said, 'can I not have my white pony?'

'I did not think of him, little one,' said the king. 'Where is
he?'

'In the stable,' answered the maid. 'I found him half starved, the
only horse within the gates, the day after the servants were driven
out. He has been well fed since.'

'Go and fetch him,' said the king.

As the maid appeared with the pony, from a side door came Lina and
the forty-nine, following Curdie.

'I will go with Curdie and the Uglies,' cried the princess; and as
soon as she was mounted she got into the middle of the pack.

So out they set, the strangest force that ever went against an
enemy. The king in silver armour sat stately on his white steed,
with the stones flashing on his helmet; beside him the grim old
colonel, armed in steel, rode his black charger; behind the king,
a little to the right, Curdie walked afoot, his mattock shining in
the sun; Lina followed at his heel; behind her came the wonderful
company of Uglies; in the midst of them rode the gracious little
Irene, dressed in blue, and mounted on the prettiest of white
ponies; behind the colonel, a little to the left, walked the page,
armed in a breastplate, headpiece, and trooper's sword he had found
in the palace, all much too big for him, and carrying a huge brass
trumpet which he did his best to blow; and the king smiled and
seemed pleased with his music, although it was but the grunt of a
brazen unrest. Alongside the beasts walked Derba carrying Barbara
- their refuge the mountains, should the cause of the king be lost;
as soon as they were over the river they turned aside to ascend the
Cliff, and there awaited the forging of the day's history. Then
first Curdie saw that the housemaid, whom they had all forgotten,
was following, mounted on the great red horse, and seated in the
royal saddle.

Many were the eyes unfriendly of women that had stared at them from
door and window as they passed through the city; and low laughter
and mockery and evil words from the lips of children had rippled
about their ears; but the men were all gone to welcome the enemy,
the butchers the first, the king's guard the last. And now on the
heels of the king's army rushed out the women and children also, to
gather flowers and branches, wherewith to welcome their conquerors.

About a mile down the river, Curdie, happening to look behind him,
saw the maid, whom he had supposed gone with Derba, still following
on the great red horse. The same moment the king, a few paces in
front of him, caught sight of the enemy's tents, pitched where, the
cliffs receding, the bank of the river widened to a little plain.



CHAPTER 33
The Battle


He commanded the page to blow his trumpet; and, in the strength of
the moment, the youth uttered a right warlike defiance.

But the butchers and the guard, who had gone over armed to the
enemy, thinking that the king had come to make his peace also, and
that it might thereafter go hard with them, rushed at once to make
short work with him, and both secure and commend themselves. The
butchers came on first - for the guards had slackened their saddle
girths - brandishing their knives, and talking to their dogs.
Curdie and the page, with Lina and her pack, bounded to meet them.
Curdie struck down the foremost with his mattock. The page,
finding his sword too much for him, threw it away and seized the
butcher's knife, which as he rose he plunged into the foremost dog.
Lina rushed raging and gnashing among them. She would not look at
a dog so long as there was a butcher on his legs, and she never
stopped to kill a butcher, only with one grind of her jaws crushed
a leg of him. When they were all down, then indeed she flashed
among the dogs.

Meantime the king and the colonel had spurred toward the advancing
guard. The king clove the major through skull and collar bone, and
the colonel stabbed the captain in the throat. Then a fierce
combat commenced - two against many. But the butchers and their
dogs quickly disposed of, up came Curdie and his beasts. The
horses of the guard, struck with terror, turned in spite of the
spur, and fled in confusion.
Thereupon the forces of Borsagrass, which could see little of the
affair, but correctly imagined a small determined body in front of
them, hastened to the attack. No sooner did their first advancing
wave appear through the foam of the retreating one, than the king
and the colonel and the page, Curdie and the beasts, went charging
upon them. Their attack, especially the rush of the Uglies, threw
the first line into great confusion, but the second came up
quickly; the beasts could not be everywhere, there were thousands
to one against them, and the king and his three companions were in
the greatest possible danger.

A dense cloud came over the sun, and sank rapidly toward the earth.
The cloud moved all together, and yet the thousands of white flakes
of which it was made up moved each for itself in ceaseless and
rapid motion: those flakes were the wings of pigeons. Down swooped
the birds upon the invaders; right in the face of man and horse
they flew with swift-beating wings, blinding eyes and confounding
brain. Horses reared and plunged and wheeled. All was at once in
confusion. The men made frantic efforts to seize their tormentors,
but not one could they touch; and they outdoubled them in numbers.
Between every wild clutch came a peck of beak and a buffet of
pinion in the face. Generally the bird would, with sharp-clapping
wings, dart its whole body, with the swiftness of an arrow, against
its singled mark, yet so as to glance aloft the same instant, and
descend skimming; much as the thin stone, shot with horizontal cast
of arm, having touched and torn the surface of the lake, ascends to
skim, touch, and tear again. So mingled the feathered multitude in
the grim game of war. It was a storm in which the wind was birds,
and the sea men. And ever as each bird arrived at the rear of the
enemy, it turned, ascended, and sped to the front to charge again.

The moment the battle began, the princess's pony took fright, and
turned and fled. But the maid wheeled her horse across the road
and stopped him; and they waited together the result of the battle.

And as they waited, it seemed to the princess right strange that
the pigeons, every one as it came to the rear, and fetched a
compass to gather force for the reattack, should make the head of
her attendant on the red horse the goal around which it turned; so
that about them was an unintermittent flapping and flashing of
wings, and a curving, sweeping torrent of the side-poised wheeling
bodies of birds. Strange also it seemed that the maid should be
constantly waving her arm toward the battle. And the time of the
motion of her arm so fitted with the rushes of birds, that it
looked as if the birds obeyed her gesture, and she was casting
living javelins by the thousand against the enemy. The moment a
pigeon had rounded her head, it went off straight as bolt from bow,
and with trebled velocity.

But of these strange things, others besides the princess had taken
note. From a rising ground whence they watched the battle in
growing dismay, the leaders of the enemy saw the maid and her
motions, and, concluding her an enchantress, whose were the airy
legions humiliating them, set spurs to their horses, made a
circuit, outflanked the king, and came down upon her. But suddenly
by her side stood a stalwart old man in the garb of a miner, who,
as the general rode at her, sword in hand, heaved his swift
mattock, and brought it down with such force on the forehead of his
charger, that he fell to the ground like a log. His rider shot
over his head and lay stunned. Had not the great red horse reared
and wheeled, he would have fallen beneath that of the general.

With lifted sabre, one of his attendant officers rode at the miner.
But a mass of pigeons darted in the faces of him and his horse, and
the next moment he lay beside his commander.

The rest of them turned and fled, pursued by the birds.

'Ah, friend Peter!' said the maid; 'thou hast come as I told thee!
Welcome and thanks!'

By this time the battle was over. The rout was general. The enemy
stormed back upon their own camp, with the beasts roaring in the
midst of them, and the king and his army, now reinforced by one,
pursuing. But presently the king drew rein.

'Call off your hounds, Curdie, and let the pigeons do the rest,' he
shouted, and turned to see what had become of the princess.

In full panic fled the invaders, sweeping down their tents,
stumbling over their baggage, trampling on their dead and wounded,
ceaselessly pursued and buffeted by the white-winged army of
heaven. Homeward they rushed the road they had come, straight for
the borders, many dropping from pure fatigue, and lying where they
fell. And still the pigeons were in their necks as they ran. At
length to the eyes of the king and his army nothing was visible
save a dust cloud below, and a bird cloud above. Before night the
bird cloud came back, flying high over Gwyntystorm. Sinking
swiftly, it disappeared among the ancient roofs of the palace.



CHAPTER 34
Judgement


The king and his army returned, bringing with them one prisoner
only, the lord chancellor. Curdie had dragged him from under a
fallen tent, not by the hand of a man, but by the foot of a mule.

When they entered the city, it was still as the grave. The
citizens had fled home. 'We must submit,' they cried, 'or the king
and his demons will destroy us.' The king rode through the streets
in silence, ill-pleased with his people. But he stopped his horse
in the midst of the market place, and called, in a voice loud and
clear as the cry of a silver trumpet, 'Go and find your own. Bury
your dead, and bring home your wounded.' Then he turned him
gloomily to the palace.
just as they reached the gates, Peter, who, as they went, had been
telling his tale to Curdie, ended it with the words:

'And so there I was, in the nick of time to save the two
princesses!'

'The two princesses, Father! The one on the great red horse was
the housemaid,' said Curdie, and ran to open the gates for the
king.

They found Derba returned before them, and already busy preparing
them food. The king put up his charger with his own hands, rubbed
him down, and fed him.

When they had washed, and eaten and drunk, he called the colonel,
and told Curdie and the page to bring out the traitors and the
beasts, and attend him to the market place.

By this time the people were crowding back into the city, bearing
their dead and wounded. And there was lamentation in Gwyntystorm,
for no one could comfort himself, and no one had any to comfort
him. The nation was victorious, but the people were conquered.

The king stood in the centre of the market place, upon the steps of
the ancient cross. He had laid aside his helmet and put on his
crown, but he stood all armed beside, with his sword in his hand.
He called the people to him, and, for all the terror of the beasts,
they dared not disobey him. Those, even, who were carrying their
wounded laid them down, and drew near trembling.

Then the king said to Curdie and the page:

'Set the evil men before me.'

He looked upon them for a moment in mingled anger and pity, then
turned to the people and said:

'Behold your trust! Ye slaves, behold your leaders! I would have
freed you, but ye would not be free. Now shall ye be ruled with a
rod of iron, that ye may learn what freedom is, and love it and
seek it. These wretches I will send where they shall mislead you
no longer.'

He made a sign to Curdie, who immediately brought up the
legserpent. To the body of the animal they bound the lord
chamberlain, speechless with horror. The butler began to shriek
and pray, but they bound him on the back of Clubhead. One after
another, upon the largest of the creatures they bound the whole
seven, each through the unveiling terror looking the villain he
was. Then said the king:

'I thank you, my good beasts; and I hope to visit you ere long.
Take these evil men with you, and go to your place.'

Like a whirlwind they were in the crowd, scattering it like dust.
Like hounds they rushed from the city, their burdens howling and
raving.

What became of them I have never heard.

Then the king turned once more to the people and said, 'Go to your
houses'; nor vouchsafed them another word. They crept home like
chidden hounds.

The king returned to the palace. He made the colonel a duke, and
the page a knight, and Peter he appointed general of all his mines.
But to Curdie he said:

'You are my own boy, Curdie. My child cannot choose but love you,
and when you are grown up - if you both will - you shall marry each
other, and be king and queen when I am gone. Till then be the
king's Curdie.'

Irene held out her arms to Curdie. He raised her in his, and she
kissed him.

'And my Curdie too!' she said.

Thereafter the people called him Prince Conrad; but the king always
called him either just Curdie, or my miner boy.

They sat down to supper, and Derba and the knight and the housemaid
waited, and Barbara sat at the king's left hand. The housemaid
poured out the wine; and as she poured for Curdie red wine that
foamed in the cup, as if glad to see the light whence it had been
banished so long, she looked him in the eyes. And Curdie started,
and sprang from his seat, and dropped on his knees, and burst into
tears. And the maid said with a smile, such as none but one could
smile:

'Did I not tell you, Curdie, that it might be you would not know me
when next you saw me?'
Then she went from the room, and in a moment returned in royal
purple, with a crown of diamonds and rubies, from under which her
hair went flowing to the floor, all about her ruby- slippered feet.
Her face was radiant with joy, the joy overshadowed by a faint mist
as of unfulfilment. The king rose and kneeled on one knee before
her. All kneeled in like homage. Then the king would have yielded
her his royal chair. But she made them all sit down, and with her
own hands placed at the table seats for Derba and the page. Then
in ruby crown and royal purple she served them all.



CHAPTER 35
The End

The king sent Curdie out into his dominions to search for men and
women that had human hands. And many such he found, honest and
true, and brought them to his master. So a new and upright court
was formed, and strength returned to the nation.

But the exchequer was almost empty, for the evil men had squandered
everything, and the king hated taxes unwillingly paid. Then came
Curdie and said to the king that the city stood upon gold. And the
king sent for men wise in the ways of the earth, and they built
smelting furnaces, and Peter brought miners, and they mined the
gold, and smelted it, and the king coined it into money, and
therewith established things well in the land.

The same day on which he found his boy, Peter set out to go home.
When he told the good news to Joan, his wife, she rose from her
chair and said, 'Let us go.' And they left the cottage, and
repaired to Gwyntystorm. And on a mountain above the city they
built themselves a warm house for their old age, high in the clear
air.

As Peter mined one day, at the back of the king's wine Cellar, he
broke into a cavern crusted with gems, and much wealth flowed
therefrom, and the king used it wisely.

Queen Irene - that was the right name of the old princess - was
thereafter seldom long absent from the palace. Once or twice when
she was missing, Barbara, who seemed to know of her sometimes when
nobody else had a notion whither she had gone, said she was with
the dear old Uglies in the wood. Curdie thought that perhaps her
business might be with others there as well. All the uppermost
rooms in the palace were left to her use, and when any one was in
need of her help, up thither he must go. But even when she was
there, he did not always succeed in finding her. She, however,
always knew that such a one had been looking for her.

Curdie went to find her one day. As he ascended the last stair, to
meet him came the well-known scent of her roses; and when he opened
the door, lo! there was the same gorgeous room in which his touch
had been glorified by her fire! And there burned the fire - a huge
heap of red and white roses. Before the hearth stood the princess,
an old grey-haired woman, with Lina a little behind her, slowly
wagging her tail, and looking like a beast of prey that can hardly
so long restrain itself from springing as to be sure of its victim.
The queen was casting roses, more and more roses, upon the fire.
At last she turned and said, 'Now Lina!' - and Lina dashed
burrowing into the fire. There went up a black smoke and a dust,
and Lina was never more seen in the palace.

Irene and Curdie were married. The old king died, and they were
king and queen. As long as they lived Gwyntystorm was a better
city, and good people grew in it. But they had no children, and
when they died the people chose a king. And the new king went
mining and mining in the rock under the city, and grew more and
more eager after the gold, and paid less and less heed to his
people. Rapidly they sank toward their old wickedness. But still
the king went on mining, and coining gold by the pailful, until the
people were worse even than in the old time. And so greedy was the
king after gold, that when at last the ore began to fail, he caused
the miners to reduce the pillars which Peter and they that followed
him had left standing to bear the city. And from the girth of an
oak of a thousand years, they chipped them down to that of a fir
tree of fifty.

One day at noon, when life was at its highest, the whole city fell
with a roaring crash. The cries of men and the shrieks of women
went up with its dust, and then there was a great silence.

Where the mighty rock once towered, crowded with homes and crowned
with a palace, now rushes and raves a stone-obstructed rapid of the
river. All around spreads a wilderness of wild deer, and the very
name of Gwyntystorm had ceased from the lips of men.

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