Part 1

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It was a small and graceful person in a cape. This stranger approached the castle bounds and searched for an entrance. It met a knight and asked him where to find King Joseph and his wife Queen Mary. The knight showed the stranger the way and continued. So the caped person walked to the castle gates and knocked. A guard asked their identity, and then let them in.

They went through a parting corridor which led to the King and Queen’s court. It was a big, marble room that stood on one-hundred columns.

The strange visitor looked around curiously, particularly intrigued with a bronze statue which seemed to be motioning towards some high chairs. So the stranger looked up and saw their Majesties sitting on their thrones.

The visitor walked up the red carpet, and curtsied. Then the guard quickly marched towards the monarchs and whispered in their ears. They nodded and signaled to the stranger to approach. Once the stranger had reached them, it said:

“Your Majesties, the King and Queen, I am honoured to be in your presence. I have come with a reason that you may already know or guess. But you do not know who I am.

-No, we don’t, agreed the King, so please tell, we wish to know.”

So the stranger lifted its hand, and pulled back the hood. It was a beautiful young girl, with traits that could come only from royal families, so it appeared to me. But I was to discover I was very wrong.

“I am Anabetha, a poor peasant girl from the village. And I have come to help your son, Prince Matthew, to try and make him a speaker of our language.

-You do realize, insisted the King, that you have only ten days to succeed, and that if you fail you will be killed like all your friends and cousins. You do realize that you will be mourned by your parents and make yet another family despair?!

-Yes, I do, and I am prepared to do it.”

The King and Queen looked each other in the eyes; they knew that this Anabetha would not succeed, and that she would perish like all the others. But they had to give it a try. So the King sighed:

“We grant you permission to try and help our son.”

And so Anabetha bowed, saluted them and left. The guard led her to a room which was to be her bedroom for the following ten days. The guard left her and closed the door behind him. Anabetha had always slept on straw, or grass, but never on a bed. So when she first lay down, she thought she had already fallen asleep and was dreaming.

Continuation of Catherine's Story in Feather BoyWhere stories live. Discover now