The Prince Problem

by Vivian Vande Velde

  “Sometimes it’s daughters. It makes no difference.”

  “Really?” Amelia asked. “No difference between sons and daughters? Tell that to a parent.”

  Telmund sighed. “For story purposes it makes no difference. A man, or a woman, has three sons, or three daughters.”

  “What if there are two sons and one daughter?” Amelia asked. “Or two daughters and one son?”

  “No,” Telmund told her. “All the same. And the older two are always greedy and cruel and lazy, and the youngest is always generous, clean of heart, and hardworking.”

  Amelia couldn’t just let something that plainly inaccurate pass. “I haven’t necessarily found that to be true,” she said. “That seems a judgmental and potentially harmful thing to assume. Different families have different experiences, and sometimes the older are spoiled, and sometimes the younger, and sometimes all the offspring, and sometimes none.”

  “I’m talking about in stories.” For some reason, Telmund’s voice was beginning to sound frayed.

  Even so, Amelia couldn’t help saying it: “Stories are a waste of time.”

  Telmund didn’t answer, and after a while, it became obvious he wasn’t planning to.

  “Aren’t you going to finish?” she asked.

  “You just said it’s a waste of time.”

  “I said stories are a waste of time.”

  “It’s all connected,” Telmund told her.

  And, irritatingly, he waited for her to come out and actually say, “Go on, then,” before he continued.

  “So this witch, seeing me with my younger brother, Wilmar, assumed I was a bully and needed to be punished. Or taught a lesson. I’m not quite sure what she was thinking.”

  “Were you bullying Wilmar?” She didn’t think that sounded like him, but really, she didn’t know him that well.

  “No. It was a judgmental and harmful thing she assumed. So she changed me into a rat, and I ended up getting thrown into the river.”

  Horrified, Amelia said, “That’s awful.”

  “I think so, too,” Telmund agreed.

  “You can’t swim,” Amelia said. “Did she know you can’t swim? Was she trying to drown you?”

  “Well, it wasn’t her who threw me into the water. And I could swim as a rat. When I’m an animal, I’m both me and the animal, sharing the same body. So, since a rat would know how to swim, I knew how to swim. But the river current was strong, and I ended up getting swept downstream until I could finally get out—which turned out to be in Pastonia. Once I woke up from the ordeal, I was a boy again. But the fairy explained to me: Each time I wake up, I’m a different animal. I can’t control which animal I’m going to turn into, but I’m always a boy in between.”

  “Wait a moment,” Amelia said suspiciously. “You said it was a witch who put the spell on you.”

  “It was.”

  “So then, where did this fairy come from?”

  “Your garden.”

  “We don’t have a fairy in our garden.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “No, we don’t.”

  Telmund sighed and once again fell silent.

  “Stop sulking,” Amelia said.

  “I’m not sulking.”

  Amelia considered. Eventually, she asked, “So, are witches fairies who have turned bad?”

  “I have no idea,” Telmund answered. “But I wouldn’t think so. Fairies help animals. That’s how I met the fairy in your garden: She was willing to help me, but only while I was a rabbit.”

  Amelia shook her head, figuring they could come back to this, if need be.

  Meanwhile, Telmund continued, “She put me in the same wagon those men were using to smuggle you away from your home. That was how I came to learn what was going on.”

  “Did she mean for you to rescue me, then?” Amelia asked. She was remembering the strange girl the night of the ball. Her being a fairy might explain much.

  “I don’t know,” Telmund admitted. “I think she only meant to get me out of there so she wouldn’t have to deal with me. She refused to break the spell.”

  Amelia asked, “How does one go about breaking a spell?”

  “I have no idea about that, either.”

  Amelia insisted, “Your stories don’t tell you that?”

  Telmund sighed. Amelia thought he sighed a lot. But she had to acknowledge that maybe this was just her effect on him. Her parents sighed a lot, too. Amelia suddenly wondered if maybe she had that effect on people in general.

  “In stories,” Telmund explained, “there are different ways to break different spells. But I’ve never heard of a spell like this one.”

  Amelia nodded. “But give me an example of one way to break a spell.”

  “True love’s first kiss,” Telmund told her.

  “Nice try,” Amelia said.

  She meant it as a joke—after all, there was no reason to think he’d want to kiss her—but Telmund made sputtering, choking sounds. “No … I didn’t mean … I … You …” He gave a very exasperated sigh.

  Amelia couldn’t tell if the idea of kissing her had embarrassed or appalled him.

  In either case, “Still,” she said, talking to cover her humiliation, “I don’t see the value of stories if they pose problems but don’t give solutions.”

  Once again, Telmund stopped in his tracks. “I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for stories,” he said.

  Amelia nodded. “Yes, I understand. Because the witch made assumptions based on stories.”

  “No.” Telmund pointed to directly where he stood. “I wouldn’t be here. I wanted to be like the heroes in the stories, who do brave deeds, who help those in need, who keep trying and never give up, and who are unmindful of what danger they might get into if they do the right thing.”

  Amelia couldn’t let that pass without poking fun at it. Especially after having had her self-assurance battered by his reaction to her comment about not kissing her. She scoffed. “To put yourself in danger to help someone else?”

  “Especially to help someone else,” Telmund said.

  His words sucked all the air out of Amelia’s lungs. “You’ve been trying to rescue me because of the stories you’ve read?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  It was hard to make fun of someone who said something like that.

  In those places where the trees grew less densely clustered and permitted limited views of bits of the starry sky, Amelia would take an accounting of where they were and occasionally make minor adjustments to their course.

  I will not fall asleep. I will not fall asleep, Telmund kept repeating to himself as he grew weary of all the walking. The last thing they needed was him turning into something else.

  Eventually the woods thinned enough that they could see the sky more often than not, but by then they didn’t need the stars—which had grown too dim to be sure of anyway—because the sun was just beginning to peek up over the edge of the world.

  “Well, at least now we can be certain which direction is east,” Telmund said.

  “I was certain before,” Amelia told him.

  “Of course you were,” he answered.

  She glanced away from him, and he suspected that—had there been enough light—he would have been able to see her blush. He wanted to tell her that he hadn’t meant the statement as a criticism. He was only acknowledging her superior abilities.

  Of which he was a little envious.

  A little more than a little.

  But he let the moment pass and didn’t tell her.

  They had been alert for sounds of anyone else, especially any sounds coming from behind them, the direction from which pursuers sent by Prince Sheridan were most likely to arrive.

  So Telmund was taken completely by surprise when he caught a sudden blurred glimpse of someone rushing at him from off to his right.

  The sudden was because the person had been hiding behind a tree until the last moment; the blurred was because of the speed of the person be
fore he actually caught up to Telmund, clapping a hand over his mouth as though to prevent him from calling out; and the glimpse was because in another moment Telmund’s senses swam—probably something to do with the fact that it wasn’t an empty hand held over his mouth but a cloth with a familiar smell.

  He still didn’t have a name to put to the scent, but his human brain screeched, as clearly as his rabbit brain had in the wagon where the kidnappers were transporting the drugged Princess Amelia: Not good! Danger!

  And then all thoughts dissolved into nothingness.

  Amelia heard a muffled thump and turned to see that Prince Sheridan’s henchman Willum had come out of seemingly nowhere to seize Telmund.

  She had perhaps one moment when she might have been able to elude Jud, who was slightly slower in coming at her from her left. But she recognized what Willum was doing and instead she remained where she was, in order to shout at him: “Enough! Too much henbane and you’ll be the death of him!”

  By then, Jud had wrapped his arms around her from behind, so escape was no longer a possibility.

  Amelia made no move to struggle. She told Willum, “Prince Sheridan will be very angry if you kill him.”

  Willlum didn’t look sure, but he stepped back from Telmund. Without the support, Telmund slipped to the ground.

  “Who is he?” Willum asked her.

  “Someone who helped me escape from Prince Sheridan.” She could say that because it wasn’t giving away anything, merely stating the obvious. Amelia didn’t volunteer the information that Telmund had also helped her escape from them. Seeing Willum look down at Telmund’s still body, she hurried to add, “The prince will want to question him. Perhaps he will forgive you the disgrace of having lost me, if you bring both of us back.”

  Willum looked at the henbane-soaked cloth in his hand, clearly considering whether to use it on her.

  “Do you think Prince Sheridan wants me dim-witted and slack-jawed from henbane?” Amelia asked.

  “Still, prob’ly safest to do it,” Jud told Willum.

  “Nobody’s talking to you,” Willum said.

  He thought some more, then finally put the cloth in his pocket.

  Amelia tried not to look too relieved.

  From another pocket, he withdrew a length of rope, and he crooked his finger for Jud to bring Amelia closer. “I’ll tie her this time,” he said, “seeing as how you bungled the job last time.”

  “I did no—” Jud started to protest.

  “Nobody’s talking to you,” Willum repeated, which made no sense at all.

  Once Amelia’s wrists were bound, he told her, “You walk along beside us now, and don’t give us no trouble.”

  “No trouble from me,” Amelia agreed.

  Then with Willum at Telmund’s feet, and Jud holding on to the sleeping prince by the shoulders, they hoisted the youngster up and carried him, not a great distance, to where their cart and its tired gray horse waited. They hadn’t reloaded the barrels, which clearly proved they had been in there only to hide the boat she’d stolen to escape with Telmund. Now there was plenty of room in the back for both prisoners.

  “We going to tie him?” Jud asked.

  “Nay,” Willum said. “We’re running short on rope. He won’t be coming round proper till tomorrow. ’Twixt now and then, he won’t know his hand from his foot. And meanwhile, that’ll be long after we deliver both of ’em to the prince.”

  Wherever HE is, Amelia thought. By now, Prince Sheridan must surely have noticed she was missing, but there was no knowing if he had stayed at the hunting lodge to coordinate pursuit, or if he was tracking them, or if he was even now heading back to his castle to prepare for his upcoming marriage ceremony. Their upcoming marriage ceremony. Had the prince found some official of the church who would actually perform the rite—even if he saw Amelia was unwilling?

  The two men propped her up, sitting with her back to the front wall of the cart. Telmund was tossed coldly onto the floor of the wagon beside her.

  Once the men got the gray horse moving, Amelia nudged Telmund with her foot.

  While she had been under the effects of the henbane, she had revived multiple times. Befuddled and sleepy, but awake.

  What would that mean for Telmund and his uncommon-even-for-someone-familiar-with-stories spell?

  She nudged him harder, guessing that he was probably having dreams as confused and disturbing as those she’d suffered through. “Wake up,” she whispered. “Wake up, wake up.”

  Uncooperatively, he did not.

  The four of them would make much better time than she and Telmund had on their own. For one thing, as morning progressed, there was more light to see by. In addition, since Willum and Jud weren’t afraid of pursuit, they could follow the path without concern for moving quietly. And of course even the tired gray horse pulling the cart could make better time than a person walking.

  But even given all that, they had been traveling for hardly any time at all when Jud pulled up on the reins to stop the horse.

  They could not have made it back to the hunting lodge, Amelia thought, turning to look in the direction they were traveling.

  Worse.

  If Willum and Jud had returned her to the lodge, there would have been the chance that Prince Sheridan might have left, and that would have delayed another encounter with him. Anything could happen in the time it would take to get her to him.

  Instead, Prince Sheridan had found them.

  He and a good two dozen of his friends from the hunting lodge.

  “Where have you been?” he demanded sourly of his two appointed kidnappers. “And I don’t want to hear any feeble excuses.” But in another moment his gaze slipped beyond the two men in the front of the cart to her in the back. “You!” he exclaimed before anybody had a chance to make excuses of any sort.

  He dismounted and strode toward where she sat. “You are starting to become more troublesome than you are worth!” he bellowed.

  For the second time in as many days, he grabbed hold of her by the hair, and this time it could only be called roughly—so roughly that Amelia suspected he planned to hoist her up out of the cart.

  “And who is this?” Prince Sheridan demanded, catching sight of the sleeping Telmund. He used his free hand—his free fist—to jab into Telmund’s side.

  Telmund rolled over. One eye fluttered. Then opened. The eye grew suddenly huge, amber-colored, and slit-pupiled like a cat’s. A moment later, his body expanded all in one instant into a massive flurry of talons, wings, and scales too big for the cart to hold. The boards forming the sides and bed of the cart cracked, and at the same time the wheels buckled under the weight, stranding the cart dead in its tracks.

  Amelia would have screamed for added dramatic effect, but she couldn’t coordinate her brain (intent), her muscles (open her mouth), and her vocal cords (sound).

  No matter. The dragon emerging from Telmund’s shape got everyone’s attention.

  He was easily the size of a small barn. He flicked his tail like an annoyed cat, never seeming to notice that he took down two elms and a willow in the process. His bronze-colored scales were sharp, his talons were sharp, his teeth were sharp. And speaking of teeth, he had an incredible number of them. Amelia, who was making herself as small as possible in the one surviving corner of the cart, got a too-close view of them as the dragon opened his mouth. It looked as though he planned to take a big chomp out of the surrounding forest.

  Instead, with a ferocious roar, the dragon sent a blast of sulfur-tanged flame over Prince Sheridan’s head.

  The two erstwhile kidnappers dove off the seat. They abandoned cart, horse, prisoners, and each other, running in opposite directions into the woods.

  The dragon sent crackling tongues of flame after each of them, but he didn’t have enough control of his aim to actually hit either one.

  Or maybe he had exactly the amount of control he wanted.

  Slowly, the dragon turned his colossal head to face Prince Sheridan.
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br />   Using the grip he still had on her hair, Prince Sheridan yanked Amelia up onto her feet and hauled her out from the ruins of the cart. He spun her around so that she faced the dragon. He was using her as a shield.

  “I offer you this maiden,” Prince Sheridan told the dragon. “She’s a princess, and you can feast on her flesh and bones.”

  “What?” Amelia demanded. “I thought I was to be your bride.”

  “At the moment, this is a more prudent political decision.”

  The dragon’s head wavered from side to side.

  Trying to find a way to get to Prince Sheridan without harming her? (That would have been Amelia’s first-choice explanation of the movement.)

  Trying to distract its victim like a snake? (Nothing wrong with that explanation, either—so long as the dragon maintained enough of Telmund’s mind to recognize her, making the intended victim Prince Sheridan.)

  Trying to stay awake as the henbane began to shut down his brain? (Very, very bad explanation.)

  Prince Sheridan took a step backward, dragging Amelia with him.

  “Or,” he offered, “take my men standing here before you. I won’t resist you.”

  The men shouldn’t have been startled, knowing him as they did, but Amelia could see they were.

  Prince Sheridan said, “Spare me, and I will make arrangements for you to be given all you want. All the gold, all the maidens, all the children. It doesn’t make any difference to me.”

  The dragon was beginning to lower his head. His eyes were beginning to narrow.

  No! No! No! Amelia thought.

  But anyone not knowing about the henbane would have taken his movements as ferocity, as focusing, as intent to move.

  Prince Sheridan shoved Amelia at the dragon. She stumbled to her knees, sliding forward on the ground, her outstretched and still-bound hands making contact with dragon scales, but luckily only on the smooth surface, not the jagged edge.

  The dragon lowered his head even more. Toward her.

  Amelia looked over her shoulder in time to see Prince Sheridan dart off into the trees.

  A moment later, the other men scattered, leaving her to her fate.

  “Coward!” she yelled after Prince Sheridan. “Your people would be wise to rebel against someone so eager to offer them and their families up in your stead!”