Chapter 1
Milady
The first story I ever remember hearing told was the tale of the ungenerous prince. My father was a great storyteller and knew stories from all of the places in the world he had travelled to, but this was my mother’s only story. Even from quite an early age, we all somehow recognised that this story was different; there was no vague once upon a time or in a land far, far away. This was a story that had both a time and a place. To my mother, a very real story.
“Hundreds of years ago, but not so very far from where we sit now” was the way my mother always started the story. “Hundreds of years ago there stood a castle in the forest. Almost no one living now can remember exactly where the castle was, nor could you find it on a map, for there are no maps of the forest, but in those days there were many roads leading to it and the great road to the capital ran right through the forest and past the front gate.
“In the castle there lived a king and queen, who were just and kind and were loved by their people. The king and queen were blessed with health and prosperity and the land was blessed with peace, but they had two sons – one who was wise and brave and just, and one who was reckless, wild and strange. But the wise son was the older, and the reckless one the younger, and so they had no fears for the future of their kingdom. They arranged a good marriage with a beautiful princess for their older son and thought that all would be well.
“One day, the king, queen and elder prince were travelling along the great road from their castle to the capital when their carriage overturned and they were killed. There was great mourning in all the land and the people wore black for a year and a day, but at the end of that time they expected the young prince to take up his crown. The nobles of the kingdom and the elders of each town and village went to the castle to ask him to take the crown and rule the land.
“The young prince refused and ordered them to rule themselves and leave him alone and he continued in his wild ways. It happened that the princess who had been promised to his older brother had lost everything – country, family, home and so she travelled to the castle to be married to him if he would have her, but he would not see her. He claimed to be still in mourning for his parents and argued that no marriage could possibly take place in the time of his grief.
“The princess was no fool and knew besides that his reckless ways were the talk of the country. She disguised herself as an old crone and went again to the castle. On the way she picked a rose from the garden, and took it along with her to offer as a gift. It was ablaze with lights and full of people as the prince had called for a party in honour of his skill in ridding himself of the princess. She knocked upon the door and demanded of the one who opened it to see the prince.
“Three times she asked to see him and three times the man who had opened the door was sent back with a message saying that the prince would not come. At last, the man at the door took pity on her and opened the door to the castle himself. She thanked him and walked into the great hall. The prince came forwards and demanded to know what she wanted and she said that she was lost upon the road and needed shelter for the night.
“The prince laughed at her and told her to carry on along the road to the city. She argued that she was too old to walk so far and he offered to find her a barrow to wheel herself in. She said that she did not know the way and he offered her the shoes from his horse’s feet as they certainly knew the path. She asked him again for shelter and he offered her the shelter of the outside of his walls and laughed and turned away.
“The princess begged him not to turn an old woman out to die in the cold, but he insulted her before the people, calling her old and ugly and worthless. She agreed that she was old and ugly, but offered him the rose she had brought as a gift. He refused it, and her. So she cursed him and told him that he would never find peace from her curse until he had learned to care for others more than for himself. She told him that he would know in full measure what it was to be ugly and alone and without worth before the curse was done.
