The Proud Prince
By Paula Leigh
Once upon a time, in a far away kingdom lived a King and a Queen in a beautiful kingdom with their son, the Prince. The King and the Queen had no other children and they were very old and soon passed away, leaving the child Prince alone to run the kingdom.
The people of the kingdom mourned for the loss of their beloved rulers and the Prince took the throne. The poor Prince was so afraid of being a King that he grew very closed and proud, accepting help from no one. The old King's Advisors tried hard to guide the young prince, but as he grew, it became more and more obvious that he was stubborn and refused much of the advice they gave him.
Eventually the Prince had passed the proper age to marry and the Advisors began to encourage him to find a wife, hoping that he might accept help from her. They also knew that if the Prince never married, the line of Kings would die with the Prince. So they found an ancient law which would ensure the Prince would have to be married to continue to rule.
The Prince, however proud he was, was also very clever and saw that though he could not avoid the law and would indeed have to marry, found instead a way to twist it. The Prince agreed that he would marry but also created a law which stated that if at any time his wife was found to be lacking in anyway, he would have the right to put her to death.
The Advisors saw no way of avoiding this if they wanted their Prince to marry. Even though they were uneasy about the Prince, they were sure that he would fall in love with his future wife and have no need for this law. The Advisors saw no other choice, for the Prince would not agree in any other circumstance, so they conceded. The laws were passed and the city prepared for the wedding to take place. A Princess from a neighbouring Kingdom was found and betrothed to the Prince and in a month they were indeed married.
The people of the kingdom rejoiced that their Prince was married and the celebrations continued throughout the night. In the morning however, they were met with very different news. The Prince had found his bride lacking, and she was to be put to death that very day. The outcry was great, the people of the kingdom mourned, the Advisors cautioned against the action for fear of retaliation from the Princesses homeland, but the Prince would not be swayed. His wife was lacking and she would no longer continue to be his wife.
The next day, the Prince himself demanded that the Advisors begin to look for another bride for him, and so it was. The Advisors brought to the Prince girl after girl, Princesses, noble ladies, even beauties from the lower class, but as the years went on, each girl met the same fate. The Advisors began to think of excuses for not finding eligible young women. Fathers and brothers kept their daughters and sisters hidden so they would not be chosen as the Prince's bride.
The kingdom continued this way in despair. What was to be done? The Advisors continually sought to sway the Prince on the issue, but he remained absolute that he would accept no one who was not worthy. The Advisors asked the Prince who would be worthy and the Prince replied by telling him that on his wedding night, each time he had only asked one thing of his bride and that each time, she had failed. Then he spoke no more of the matter and despite the Advisors pressing questions refused to give any more away.
It seemed there was nothing more to be done. The kingdom grew poor as the young men went to war and the young women were captured to serve as wives for the Prince. Then one day, a young woman arrived from the farm lands on the outskirts of the kingdom. She presented herself to the court and announced that she had come to marry the Prince.
The Prince himself, seated on his extravagant throne at the end of the marble court, laughed at the lady. Her long black hair hung down her back and her plain dress showed no adornments.
"Why have you come here?" the Prince demanded.
"I have come to be your bride," the young woman replied easily, meeting the Prince's cold gaze with her eyes.
"Surely you must be joking," remarked the Prince. "Do you not know what happens to those who wish to be my bride?"
"I know that what has happened in the past," she replied bravely, "must end now."
The Prince stared at the woman in front of him in disbelief. Then he sat back on his throne. If she wished to try him, then so she should.
The wedding preparations were easily completed by the court staff who were well used to it now, and the very next day, the Prince and the woman were married.
The people of the kingdom were far from rejoicing as the vows were said and the couple retired for the night. They waited anxiously, their hearts torn between the hope that this might be different and the fear that in the morning the result of the ceremony would be the same as before.
The Prince and his wife retired to their rooms for the night.
"I have only ever asked my wife one thing," the Prince informed her as they sat on the comfortable cushions that littered the room. "Keep me awake for the night."
The Prince's Wife considered the Prince as he presented his request.
"From now until the first rays of the sun touch the horizon," the Prince continued. "If you do that, you will be the first who has survived the first night."
"And what will you do with me then?" asked the woman.
"See if you can survive the second," replied the Prince. "Now what will you do to keep me awake?"
The young woman, her eyes heavy with kohl and her hair adorned with flowers, knelt comfortably on the pillows and considered what she would do. The Prince, also still dressed in his wedding clothes, considered the woman. Would she do as others before her have tried? Or would he have something new to amuse him tonight?
"Once upon a time," she began.
"You would tell me a story?" the Prince interrupted with a chuckle.
"Your Highness will keep himself awake without any help from me," replied the woman with her eyebrows arched, "if you continue to interrupt every four words."
"By all means," the Prince replied, bowing his head extravagantly and motioning to her with his hands, "if you think a story is the best you can offer, please continue."
The woman bowed her head and continued her story. Despite himself, the Prince found himself captivated and drawn into the story. The woman's voice whispered magic as she wove the tale deep into the night. Enchantment and danger, beauties to rescue, adventure and battles to fight, the tale moved on, sometimes fast and loud, and others so soft that even blinking caused too much noise.
The Prince didn't realise that he was trapped in the story until his wife rose and went to the window of their tower. What happens next? His mind begged to know, but alas, the sun had touched the horizon and it was dawn. His wife was silent now, as she waited for his judgement on her.
"But there is more," the Prince said, standing on unsteady legs.
"Yes," replied his wife, "there is more. But it is morning now, and I have done what was requested of me. You are awake."
The Prince viewed the horizon in somewhat disbelief. He had remained awake the night. His wife would live for another day.
The kingdom rejoiced that the Prince finally had a wife who had pleased him enough to be allowed to live. Even though the Prince reminded them strongly that he could at any time find fault with her, the people began to hope again that there would at last be peace for the Prince and the kingdom.
For the Prince and his wife, the days and nights continued much the same. Each night the wife would continue telling the Prince the story that would have him entranced until dawn. Each dawn the Prince was forced to admit that she had done as he had asked and allow her to live another day.
Eventually the day came where the Prince was tired of hearing his wife's stories of there people in other lands and desired to know her own story. The Prince had, in fact, fallen in love with his wife without realising it, and even if she failed to keep him awake in the night now, he was coming to see that he would not order her death in the morning.
On realising this and pressing his wife to hear about her people and her life he found himself disappointed with the result, for she would say nothing about the people she had come from, or of her life before the day she entered his court. Even if the Prince had finally come to love and trust someone, he found the person that he loved and trusted was as closed as he had ever been.
This time it was the Prince who despaired, that he would never be able to truly know the one he loved, until one day, a man came to court. This man was burly, with long hair from his head and face. He strode in with his thick staff echoing as it tapped against the marble floor and demanded to see the Prince's wife.
"She is my slave," the man declared.
The Prince and the courtiers were shocked at the claims this man was making and the Prince sent for his wife directly, only to be further surprised by her refusal to attend. In his wife'sher absence, the man related to the Prince that the woman he was married to was his slave who had escaped him. He demanded the Prince return her to him.
The Prince was troubled by the man and his claims, so, wanting to speak to his wife, he invited the man to rest and stay at court for the night. Then he went to his wife. The woman was in tears and as the Prince entered her chambers fell at his feet begging for forgiveness. Carefully the Prince helped her to her feet and drying her eyes finally listened to the story from his wife.
The Prince's wife was indeed a slave to the man in the court, through no fault of her own, but that of her drunken father who gambled her away. The man she was enslaved to was a terrible wizard who had made her life horrible. He placed a spell on her so she could not take her own life, so no matter how much she wanted to escape the life by death, she could not.
The young woman had hated her life as a slave so much and had finally found the chance to run away. Knowing that the wizard would eventually find her, she came to court, hoping that if she were accepted as a bride for the Prince, she might be granted the mercy of a quick death in the morning.
"But you stayed awake," the Prince's wife said quietly. "I didn't know what to do."
There was silence in the room.
"You'll give me back, I suppose," she whispered. "Knowing what I am. I'm not worth saving."
"No!" cried the Prince. "For so long I have wanted to know your story and who you are because I love you," he confessed. "Nothing could change that. I could no sooner give you up than I could ask the sun to stop rising in the sky."
The Prince's wife was stunned into silence for a moment. "But he is a wizard!" she protested to her husband.
"And I am a Prince," he replied. "Or would you rather leave with him?"
The Prince's wife rose from the cushions and stood at the window, much the same as she had on their first night together.
"I would rather see the sun rise with you every morning than anything else in the world," she confessed. "If that is taken from me, I would surely be glad of death."
So the Prince and his wife embraced and knew they were safe with each other for the first time in their lives.
The next morning the Prince consulted his Advisors as to the best way to deal with the wizard. Together using the deep magic of the land they wove the spells that could encase the wizard for all time, putting an end to his dark magic.
There was much rejoicing throughout the kingdom again, and the Prince and his wife renewed their wedding vows as the sun rose the following day. And they all lived happily ever after.