by Jamila Gavin
Reluctantly, Princess Desire would mount her jet-black steed and gallop back into the night, her heart full of love for the farmer.
Night after night she came down to earth and returned to the farm.
She watched the man sleeping, dreaming, or waking to attend to his animals when they needed him. She peered secretly, midnight-blue, through the leaves of oak trees, and sprinkled dew across the fields like diamonds. Then one night, as Day bent over a ewe, helping with the birth, two burning green eyes gazed at him through the darkness. A wolf, muscles taut, body poised, crouched low among the trees, ready to pounce on the shepherd and his sheep. Desire saw the danger, and immediately flung her night cloak over the farmer so that he vanished from the sight of the wolf.
The wolf ’s howl of bewildered rage echoed around the hills.
Desire enveloped the farmer for the rest of the night until Dark told her that it was time to leave.
She gazed tenderly at her sleeping mortal. ‘But it’s still night. What if the wolf returns?’ she whispered.
‘I’ll stay on guard until daybreak, my lady,’ Dark assured her. ‘The sunlight can’t hurt me. But promise me you will ride immediately to the Night Palace, and not look back.’
‘Dear, faithful Dark, I promise. And promise me you won’t let any harm come to this man.’
‘I promise,’ Dark replied, though in his heart he wished the princess loved him as much as she loved this simple farmer.
When the first shafts of light broke through the curtain of the night, Dark unfurled the night cloak from the sleeping farmer and, like a purple mist, rose upwards from the dewy fields. In the distance, he saw a young woman hurrying down the lane with a dog running alongside her. Dark hovered over the fields, watching as she flew across the meadow with a cry: ‘Dearest love, my darling! Oh my goodness! Are you hurt?’ And she threw herself down beside the farmer, covering his face with kisses.
The farmer sat up and gathered the maiden into his arms, shuddering. ‘I had such a strange dream; at least, I think it was a dream,’ he murmured. ‘I was about to be torn to pieces by a wolf, when out of the darkness came a shape – a beauteous woman with a face as black as night. Her eyes gleamed into mine like stars. She took my head in her lap and covered me with a cloak of invisibility. She saved my life.’
‘Sweetheart mine,’ murmured the young woman, holding him close. ‘Thank goodness we are soon to be married, and I can work alongside you and protect you.’
When Dark returned to the Night Palace, the princess was waiting keenly to hear more about the farmer. ‘Is Day safe?’ she asked quietly.
‘Safe, my lady,’ he replied, then gently told her about the maiden who was soon to marry the farmer she had saved. How Dark’s heart ached when he saw the pain in her eyes; the longing and the love she now felt.
‘I must see him again,’ she wept. ‘Perhaps if he saw me, he would love me and come to our palace in the night sky?’
The next night, Desire galloped down to earth, to the farmer’s house.
Now that all his lambs were born, Day’s routine had returned to waking with the sun. By night he simply slept, his head thrown back with exhaustion, a faint smile around his lips as dreams flitted across his brow, and Desire would stare at him through the window.
One summer’s night it was so hot that he left his window open, and Desire slipped over the sill and hovered by his bed, just gazing upon him with love. His pale, bare feet hung over the end of the bed, and she couldn’t resist tickling them, for she longed to wake him.
And wake he did, with a start, sitting bolt upright, suddenly aware that there was a presence in his room. There, laughing at him from the foot of his bed, was the most beautiful creature he had ever laid eyes on. ‘It’s you!’ he exclaimed with sudden recognition. ‘I thought you were a dream. Who are you?’
‘I am Princess Desire, daughter of the King of the Night,’ she said.
‘It was you who saved me from the wolf?’ asked the farmer incredulously.
She nodded.
‘Where do you come from?’
‘From the firmament, from the stars, from everlasting night,’ she cried.
He looked confused, as though he couldn’t imagine such a place.
‘My horse is outside. Come, ride with me and let me show you where I live!’
Her black mare pawed at the window, and Desire pulled the farmer onto Midnight’s back and sprang up before him, clutching the reins. ‘Go!’ she cried, patting her horse’s head, her voice tinkling like scattering diamonds. ‘Go!’ And Midnight leaped into the sky and galloped towards the moon, with Dark following sadly after, terrified of the tragedy that might befall his beloved princess for loving a mortal.
She galloped with her farmer, Day, across the night skies, dodging falling stars and the debris of exploding universes; they swam in pools of moonlight, and sang with nightingales; they explored all the nightscapes of the earth and even the inky depths of the oceans.
‘I love you, Princess of the Night. I want you to be my wife.’
‘And I have loved you ever since I saw you,’ she replied. ‘Why don’t you come and be my husband and live with me in the night skies? And we will have the entire firmament at our disposal; I can show you the whole world and its glories, if you will come with me.’
The farmer felt a glow of love and excitement such as he had never before experienced, and when they returned before dawn, he begged her to come again.
‘I will, I will!’ she exclaimed happily.
When Dark heard this, he knew he must report back to the king and queen. With a sad heart, he went before them and told of Princess Desire’s love for a mortal. ‘He is a creature of the day,’ said Dark, ‘and though he often works at night, he is a servant of the sun.’
The king immediately ordered Princess Desire to be locked up on the far side of the moon in the Tower of the Winds, which spiralled upwards into the Milky Way. It was a tall revolving tower from where she could see all the planets and stars, but which never allowed the rays of the sun to fall upon her.
‘It’s for your own safety, my dear,’ her father told her. ‘You must stay here until we have found you a suitable husband.’
The princess had servants and friends to keep her company, and music to delight the ear, and any number of amusements, but all these meant nothing to her and she could only think of her farmer, for whom she pined pitifully.
Every now and then, the king and queen visited and told her of a suitor who wanted to marry her. But each time, Princess Desire shook her head and found excuses not to accept him.
Now, the Sun King had not failed to notice what a beautiful princess this baby had grown up to be. So beautiful, in fact, that he thought she was the only being in the universe suitable to be a bride for his son, Prince Fire. He sent a message that he wished for an audience with the King and Queen of the Night as he had a proposition to make.
‘What could it be?’ they wondered, and couldn’t help feeling it had something to do with their daughter.
They sat side by side on their silver thrones waiting for the Sun King’s arrival.
They heard a fanfare of trumpets – a sound that shimmered through the palace with a blinding light – and suddenly, a vast, cloaked figure strode into the throne room. As before, the Sun King was enveloped in a black cloak so as not to set fire to the Night Kingdom. They indicated a throne of stars for their royal visitor to be seated, and for some moments there was silence as they all contemplated each other.
At last the Sun King spoke. ‘We have noted the way in which Princess Desire has grown into a woman of incomparable beauty and goodness of heart. We regret our anger at her birth and our offence taken at not being invited to her party. We wish to create friendly bonds between our two kingdoms, and I therefore request the hand in marriage of your daughter to my son, Prince Fire. In this way, the curse will be lifted from her, and she will no longer be endangered by any beam of sunlight, no matter how weak or how strong.’
The Night King and Queen looked at each other. It seemed to them to be an eminently reasonable proposal; anything that restored the friendship between the Sun and the Moon had to be a good thing. They promised to talk it over with their daughter and let the Sun King know as soon as possible.
How Princess Desire’s heart ached. She knew how much she would please her parents if only she would accept Prince Fire as a husband. And wasn’t she tempted when she thought of what freedom she would gain from having the terrible spell lifted; the spell which meant she would be destroyed if one single glimmer of sunlight ever fell upon her? Wouldn’t she have the power to roam the firmament by night and by day? Wouldn’t she be able to see all the colours of daylight: the green of grass and trees, the pinks, purples, blues, reds and yellows of flowers and birds; indeed the colours of the rainbow? But all she could think about was how much she loved the human farmer, Day, down below on earth, and suddenly, none of those things seemed as important as her love for him.
So Desire wept as she told her parents that she couldn’t, indeed wouldn’t, accept Prince Fire as a husband.
‘Then I fear, that you must continue to remain in this tower until you agree,’ they told her, and swept away in anger and distress.
King and Queen Night summoned Dark, their daughter’s faithful guardian. ‘Talk to her. You are her best friend – she may listen to you. Make her see sense. Remind her of her duties to us and to her kingdom.’
So Dark was taken up the spiral of winds to the tower and admitted into the princess’s chambers.
‘Have you come to help me? Have you come to take me away? Dear Dark, my best and only friend?’ she cried.
‘My lady,’ whispered Dark. ‘Love is so thoughtless. It doesn’t care whether or not it can be fulfilled. Some love has to stay secret, unfulfilled, unrequited. No one can tell you not to love this mortal; only you can step back with that love still in your heart, and give him up to the human woman who can be his wife in a way that you can’t. If he married you, he would be condemned never again to see the light of day. If you married him, you know that one glimmer of sunlight upon you would destroy you. This love cannot be. I cannot ask you to forget him, but I can remind you of your duty to your parents and to the kingdom. Bid him farewell, dear Princess, and let us now leave him for ever.’
Princess Desire looked at him as if he had betrayed her; as if he could no longer be counted as her friend and most loyal bodyguard. And Dark’s heart felt as though it were breaking when she ordered him away. ‘After all,’ she raged, ‘I am being asked to marry the son of a king who cursed me in the most dreadful way. How could I ever trust him or his son? I would be a wife, yet nothing more than a prisoner.’
So Dark had to return to the Night Kingdom and report back that he had failed to persuade the princess.
‘Then she must stay in the tower. It’s for her own good,’ answered the king sternly.
When the Sun King heard that Princess Desire had refused his son in marriage, he was furious. He raged over the universe; his heat beat down pitilessly on the poor earth below; the lakes and rivers began to dry up, thirsty people searched desperately for water, while birds fluttered helplessly in the leafless trees. Worst of all, farmers could no longer grow crops on their parched lands, and their animals were dying.
The farmer, whom the princess loved so desperately, worked night and day trying to save his flock.
Once more, Dark came to the tower and told the horrified princess what was happening. ‘The earth is dying, my lady. Your own beloved farmer will die too. Only you can save them.’
‘Dear Dark, this is my last request: let me see my farmer for one last time and then, I promise, no more.’
After much anguished thought, Dark agreed. Secretly, he went to the starry stables, and led forth Midnight, the princess’s mare. He rode her up until he reached the top of the tower, and there she neighed at the window.
The princess rushed forward with joy and amazement. ‘Oh Dark, dear Dark, thank you, thank you! I should never have doubted your loyalty and love for me.’
‘Please, Princess,’ he cried. ‘Let this be your last visit to the mortal. Say your farewell to him. You and he can never be married. Let him go with his chosen maiden. Wish him happiness.’
‘Don’t spoil my pleasure!’ exclaimed Desire, climbing through the tower window and leaping onto her horse. ‘Come on, let’s go!’ And she galloped down towards the parched earth and the farmer’s cottage, followed by her faithful Dark.
Once again, she hovered in the now shrivelled honeysuckle outside the farmer’s window. There he lay, restlessly tossing with anxiety, for he was soon to be married and he dreaded what the future might bring.
The Night Princess slid over the windowsill and, once again, stood at the foot of his bed and stroked his bare feet. As before, he awoke, and saw her with joy. Then tears rolled down his cheeks. ‘Beloved Princess,’ he wept. ‘As you didn’t come for so long, I thought you no longer loved me. In any case, I knew I couldn’t live with you. Who would care for the farm and my sheep if I left to live with you in the Night Kingdom? What’s more, I am betrothed to a sweet maid, and am to be married. I could not betray her. But now the earth is dying and I don’t know what is to become of us.’
‘If you will come with me for one last ride,’ replied Desire, ‘I shall never trouble you again, and this earth will recover and your farm will thrive; I promise you.’
Joyfully, filled with hope, yet also immeasurable sadness, Day rose from his bed and climbed through the window onto Midnight’s back.
Instead of taking the reins herself, the Night Princess mounted behind him. ‘You lead the way. Why don’t you show me one thing which gives you joy on this earth that you tread as a mortal? Take the reins and ride there with me for this one last time.’
So the farmer took up the reins, gave a gentle dig into Midnight’s flanks, and they rose up into the starry sky.
He was exhilarated. ‘There’s one thing I’ve always wanted to see, and I know it would give you the greatest pleasure too. Let this be my gift to you; one we shall both remember for ever.’
‘Yes, yes! Where are we going?’ asked the princess, weeping quietly.
‘That’s my secret,’ said Day. ‘I want it to be a surprise.’
All night, the princess and her beloved farmer galloped over the face of the earth.
‘On the way to our destination, let me see the earth by your light,’ he cried. So she showed him the Taj Mahal, and the Great Wall of China, snaking away in the moonlight, gleaming dark like a vast serpent. He saw the Alps and the Himalayas, majestic in midnight snow, and the whitest and sweetest of scented flowers that only opened by night.
‘Now I will show you the one thing above all others that lifts up my heart and makes me glad to be alive,’ he shouted, and turned Midnight’s head towards the east.
‘Madam, madam!’ Dark galloped up alongside his mistress with alarm. ‘Turn back. Return to the tower. It is nearly dawn.’
‘I can’t turn back now!’ she shouted. ‘I must see the one thing my beloved most adores on this earth.’ And pressing her face into the farmer’s back, she dug her heels into Midnight’s flanks, and urged her onwards.
‘Where are you going?’ Dark yelled as, instead of riding skywards towards the moon, they galloped on across the face of the earth.
‘Go back, Dark! Tell my father and mother that I love a mortal and can never marry another. I beg forgiveness. Go back!’
Dark tried to catch up with her. How could he ever go back without his mistress? He would rather die. But he lost them amongst the racing clouds, and thought he glimpsed them riding down towards a forest below. He followed. ‘Your highness! Princess!’ he called out desperately, as they plunged into the trees.
At first he thought he saw shreds of silver light caught among the branches and brambly paths, reflected in woodland pools or running streams, but when he raced towards them, they vanished. As the night went on, Da
rk began to feel a terror in his bones. Where was the princess? It would soon be dawn. She knew the penalty of being out in even the first glimmer of day. He called again, desperately, begging her to let him take her home. But no answering voice came; only the flutter of disturbed birds, and the scuffling of foxes.
Having lost Dark in the forest, Desire urged her farmer upwards again. ‘Are we far from your destination?’ she called.
‘Not far, not far!’ he replied. They broke out of the forest canopy, and finally, ahead, they saw a vast black space where land and sky were indivisible.
‘There!’ he cried, pointing to earth. ‘This is what I was looking for.’
Princess Night saw, by the light of a brilliant moon, a vast plain with a ring of standing stones; huge upright stones capped with lintels like open doors that led into a celestial mansion; giant dancers who would turn, revolve and leap in celebration of life and death.
The farmer brought the horse down and landed in the centre of the circle. He helped Princess Desire dismount. ‘Of all the magnificent creations of the world, my love, this is the most extraordinary. I thought I would die and never see it. But you have made it possible. Let us wait here, you and I, and remember this moment for ever. Then we can part and live our lives knowing that we have created our own eternity.’
He folded his arms around her and, turning her face to look through the broadest stone doorway to the eastern horizon, murmured into her hair, ‘Watch the sky and wait.’
She gazed up at the full moon. It was beginning to wane. She knew what Day was waiting for. Her eyes scanned her kingdom, where the stars flickered, weaker. Desire leaned into his embrace, pressed her black night’s cheek against his, felt the life in his body rushing through his veins, and began to sing a song of farewell.
Dark galloped frantically through the sky, searching for his beloved mistress. Any moment now, the eggshell fabric of the heavens would break, and release the rays of the sun. Then he heard her song and saw them. He plunged downwards into the stone circle just as a thin shaft of pale pink light slid through a crack in the sky above. He flung himself off his horse and raced towards the lovers, standing in the Gateway to the Rising Sun. Even as he enveloped the princess in his night cloak, he knew he was too late. But still, he dragged her out of the fatal doorway, thrusting the farmer away. Within his desperate embrace, Dark felt a burning heat which he knew would destroy them both.
