BLACK ARROW - ACT 1

LESSONS LEARNED

[Mid-morning]

[Southern Castle - Prince Alexander's bed chamber]

Marie: In a grand Kingdom, in a small village, in a small wooden house, there lived a boy; a little older than you. The boy lived alone in what was his parents' home and cared for his father's horse.

He was neither a prince nor of noble birth but of meagre and simple means, and to supply himself with his daily needs, he would venture on his father's horse into the woods on the outskirts of that village, and fell small trees with an axe. The hardworking boy would then trade with his neighbours his firewood for coins, food and sometimes even medicine.

And medicine, as it would happen, is what the ruler of this grand Kingdom desperately required.

For the kind and good King was quite ill, and being without any heirs, this caused everyone to grow fearful for the Kingdom's future.

His illness was curable but the cure, a small flowering plant, was difficult to come by; the plant only grew at certain times of the year and only in a few parts of the large Kingdom.

And so, a brave and loyal servant of the King took it upon himself to find it.

One day, as the young boy entered the forest; for again he sought to gather firewood, he stumbled upon a man. The man lay injured and weak among the wildflowers and ferns.

Gathering him up as best as he could, the boy placed him on his horse and carried the man to his home, cleaned and bandaged his wounded leg; and when the man woke from his painful slumber, some bread to eat.

Curious, for the man was clearly a foreigner, the boy questioned him saying:

"From where do you hail?"

The man, thinking it better to keep his identity secret, replied simply: "From lands far away."

"And how came you to be injured?" the boy asked.

"I fell victim to marauders. They attacked me and stole my horse and coins but spared my life it would seem."

"And how came you to be in the woods?"

The man answered: "My desperate search for an item led me here."

"And what item was that?"

But this time, the man delayed in giving an answer. Instead, he smiled, quite fascinated by the boy, before he replied simply that it was an important item.

Late into the evening they both conversed, and the boy asked many more questions, as young ones often tend to do.

A mere servant, the man eventually identified himself to be and with a master in urgent need of the item he acquired and managed to keep safe from the attackers. However, in neither possession of a horse nor money to acquire one, he grew fearful that his quest had been for naught and he had failed his sick master.

The boy then enquired: "Your master is sick?"

"Yes", the injured man replied.

"And is in much need of the item you found?"

The servant again answered, "Yes."

"Then, though I am without much means, I do possess a horse in which you can ride. You may have him to save your master", the little boy offered.