The Princess Who Rode on a Mule

The
Princess Who Rode on a Mule

(A
Take of Love and Romance)

By
Sheela Word

Copyright ©2012 Sheela Word

All rights reserved. No part of this
book may be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express
written permission of the author, excepting brief quotations in critical
reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Princess
Hadley and her mother and sisters were in the tower chamber, awaiting their
maidservant. ‘Twas mid-November, and Hadley stood beside the window, watching a
group of peasants toil in the kitchen garden far below. The men were clad in
sheepskins, and the women in woolen cloaks. They stooped to pull up parsnips
and toss them in a willow basket, pausing from time to time to exchange words.

Rain
began to fall. Hadley watched it stream down the window pane, then leaned her
temple against the glass and closed her eyes. She seemed to feel cool drops
upon her face, smell the damp earth, and hear the wild geese calling.

“Come
hither,” said Princess Joan, who sat by the hearth near Princess Ingrid and
Queen Maud.

Hadley
smiled, but shook her head. “The women work alongside the men,” she said
slowly. “’Twould be pleasant so.”

“Methinks
‘twould be foul and damp,” said the Queen, tucking her thin hands into the
folds of her cloak. The fire that burned in the hearth was a feeble thing.

“In
Cockaigne,” said Ingrid, “The air is warm and balmy e’en at night.”

“Aye,”
said her mother. “’Tis ever June.”

“There
is a mountain of bread,” said Joan, who was well-nigh famished.

“And
another of cheese,” said Ingrid, “With a river of mead between. And the capons
cook themselves. And the wine doth pour itself.”

“There
is fruit aplenty,” sighed Joan.

“Peaches,
plums, and cherries o’erflow the bowl,” said Ingrid. “All of rare quality, with
nary a blemish.”

“Sumptuous
furnishings,” said Joan, looking about the chamber, which was bare and comfortless.

“Tables
wrought of ebon wood, chairs of ivory,” said Ingrid. “Beds so vast that
multitudes may couch together.”

“And
coverlets of down,” murmured the Queen. “Oh, to be in Cockaigne!”

“Aye,”
said Ingrid, and Joan nodded.

But as she stood
beside the casement, Hadley fixed in her mind’s eye a field of winter wheat,
green and gleaming in the sun.

~~~~

King
Valentine of Glerny was oft called “mad,” for he was capricious and
improvident. He had succeeded his father to the throne some twelve years
earlier, against much opposition, and had begun his reign by taxing his
subjects so harshly that they nearly rebelled. As the years passed, he became
increasingly unfit to rule, and the nobles of Glerny gradually expanded their
holdings until they acquired dominion over much of the land.

Within
the palace, however, his Majesty’s will prevailed. Queen Maud found her wishes
opposed even in the most trivial of domestic matters. If she bade the servant
bring a round of cheddar to table, his Majesty sent it back and vowed he must
have ruayn, and if ruayn was her choice, he declared it “vile” and called for
cheddar. Worse, when seized by a fit of choler, he would rail against her for
hours, even in company. He oft upbraided her for bearing him no sons.

And yet
at times the King showed his wife and daughters much affection. His humors were
as variable as the weather, and none could guess what he might say or do. The
Queen, for her part, never spoke ill of her husband, but kept her own counsel.
Nor did the Princesses say ought against their father, although they lived in
daily dread of his whims, which oft caused them hardship.

When
Ingrid was eighteen, King Valentine forced her to wed an elderly Duke. The Duke
was so much in his dotage that he scarcely could place his seal upon the
marriage contract. The Princess became a widow within six months, and the
King’s men quickly claimed her husband’s estate, dispossessing all rightful
heirs, and constraining her to return to Court. She was now twenty-one, but she
yet wore black and made a show of continued mourning, lest her father compel
her to wed again.

Princess
Joan, who was twenty, had also suffered from his Majesty’s tyranny. A year
earlier, she had become betrothed to a young nobleman for whom she felt much
affection. King Valentine was delighted with the match at first, but as time
passed, he began to look darkly upon the youth and at last denounced him as a
traitor. Poor James fled from Glerny, lest he be imprisoned, and Joan had had
no word from him since.

But
Princess Hadley, whom King Valentine termed “Mistress Clodpate,” was most often
called upon to deal with her father’s worst excesses. He sent for her when he
was filled with mad elation, for at such times, he trusted no other to pour his
wine. Many a night, she sat silently by, her head nodding, whilst he raved of
the conquests he would make, the empires he would build, and the glory that
would be his after his enemies were laid to rest. When sleep overcame him at
last, she wiped the spittle from his face, combed the crumbs from his beard,
and bade the servants carry him to his chamber. Then she trudged to her own
bed, and slept soundly until cockcrow.

Hadley
was seventeen, but seemed younger, for she was short of stature, her hands and
feet were small and plump, and the brown eyes that gazed out of her freckled
face were as round and innocent as a child’s. Her dress, too, was often plain,
and she wore her light brown hair in two plaits wrapped about her head and
crossed and tied in front. She little resembled her mother or sisters, who were
tall and dark-tressed; nor did she have the golden locks and pale complexion
that marked her father’s kin. She was so unlike the others, in fact, that she
was sometimes taken for a serving maid.

Her
nature, likewise, was mild and calm, although she was sometimes unexpectedly
willful. Her mule, for instance. She had purchased it from a farmer some two
years past, and would accept no other mount. If her father bade her to ride a
palfrey, she obeyed, but managed the creature so ill that she scarcely gained
any distance. When his Majesty railed at her stupidity, she begged his pardon
humbly, but insisted that her limbs were too little or the horse too large. She
then forbore to ride at all, until such time as the King had forgotten his edict
against the mule, whereupon she quietly resumed riding it.

Her movements and
speech were slow, and the King was not alone in deeming her dull-witted.
Certainly Ingrid and Joan learned their lessons more quickly and could retail
them with greater fluency. But Hadley, her tutors observed, had a prodigious
memory and was willing to ponder a complex matter until she had thoroughly
grasped its essence. “Though her sisters rival Roger Bacon,” one young tutor
jested, “Princess Hadley is like to Thomas Aquinas.”

The Princess gave
no thought to her own repute, and did not repine if she were held in low
esteem. She seemed to accept all treatment, good and bad, as her due. Indeed,
she had always been thus…until the babe was born.

~~~~

‘Twas
All Hallow’s Eve, the last day of October. Jenny, one of the palace
chambermaids delivered up a son. The poor girl was unwed, but the child’s
father, awed by the auspicious day of birth, vowed to marry her ere the babe
was baptized.

Yet
King Valentine, learning of the birth, became strangely excited and vowed that
he himself had lain with the maid and sired her child. The babe, he said,
should henceforth be known as Stephen, Crown Prince of Glerny, and the maid
should become his bride. When his attendants besought him to remember his
Queen, the King commended them and said they had preserved him from perdition.

“For,”
said the King. “If a man hold many wives, his heart shall be led astray. Our
Queen shall go to the Tower forthwith that we may not lay eyes upon her more.
And her daughters shall attend her.”

The servants dared
not openly disobey his Majesty. However, the household Steward quietly saw to
it that their royal Highnesses were taken not to the Tower of Glerny, which was
situated some ten furlongs from Court, but to a chamber in the palace tower.
And there they remained still.

~~~~

A maid
brought provender and candles to the tower each morn. She had not yet come this
day, however. Nearly five hours had passed since cockcrow.

“We
shall starve, methinks,” said Princess Ingrid. “Or worse.”

But at
last they heard the turning of the key, and Mistress Susannah came in with a
light step. She set her basket by the hearth, as was her wont, then stood with
her arms akimbo, and peered into each of their faces with a gleaming eye.

“Speak,
I pray thee,” said the Queen, while Ingrid uncovered the basket with a quick
movement of one slim hand. “What wouldst thou say?”

“Naught
of consequence,” said Susannah, shaking her curly head, with its round
lace-trimmed cap. “And yet….I’ll be bound he shall na’ wed her.”

“Shall
not wed her?”

“Nay.
He hath seen her and cried ‘foul.’ She were a comely wench, but now she seems
to have the dropsy. A kerchief rims her face from ear to ear, and her jaw be
slack, and her face as cold and pallid as a turnip. And the babe is a red and
peevish little imp that none would wish to own.”

“Poor
Jenny,” said Ingrid, biting into a custard tart. “The babe ails too, you say?”

“Mayhap.
But methinks my lord Steward hath had a hand in this.”

“What
can be thy meaning?” asked Joan. “Of a surety, Master Cope did not make them
ill!”

“I know
naught about it,” said Susannah, laughing. “His Majesty shall have you back
again anon, and then you may look to your pots of paint and powder. But be not
over-careful in your counting—”

“—Listen!”
said Joan suddenly, and when the others stopped speaking, they heard it too—a
strange and piercing, ceaseless cry.

“’Tis
murder!” cried Susannah, her blue eyes round as saucers.

The cry
ended with a “Haw! Haw!” of a sudden, and then there was silence.

“’Tis my mule,”
said Hadley, who was still at the casement. She turned and smiled at the
others. “Master Cope hath led her through the garden, I know not why.”

~~~~

Master
Cope was prodigiously large. He stood, mayhap, twenty hands high and weighed
eighteen stone or more. His feet resembled two loaves of bread, and when he
walked, he rolled from side to side like a sailor.

None
could remember precisely how long he had been at Court, but ‘twas said that
during the battle with Dunclyden, some ten years past, he had been captured
from the enemy and held for ransom. He was a lad of fourteen, then, and his
father was reputed to be a valorous knight, who (alas!) fell in the field ere
he could redeem his boy. The youth was soon pressed into service at the Palace
of Glerny, and if he longed for his kith and kin, he did not show it, but was
ever cheerful, bold, and easy. While he was young, he was naught but “Robin,”
for he styled himself so, and did not give a surname; but when he was made
Steward, the King said he must be called “Cope” after the Steward who had come
before.

Master
Cope had always been a favorite of his Majesty, and he in turn was loyal to his
liege, and did not regard his humors, nor the sharp words or blows that
sometimes fell, but endeavored to do all that was asked of him.

But now
as he led Princess Hadley’s mule through the kitchen garden, out into the
courtyard, and back again, his thoughts were troubled. “For I know not how it
shall be in the end. Tho’ today they be reconciled, mayhap tomorrow he shall
cast them off again....Zounds! What a noise it makes!”

After
the mule had been taken thrice past the large bay window fronting the Great
Hall, the King came out into the courtyard, confronted his Steward, and
demanded to know what he was about.

“’Tis a
puny creature,” said Robin. “Yet strong in voice. Mayhap you have heard its
cries, Sire.”

“Aye!
And been affronted by them!” said the King.

“In
truth, it mourns loudly. The groom upbraids it for affrighting the horses. But
I pity the beast. ‘Tis worthy when its mistress is nigh. But now that she is
gone, its spirits are much oppressed.”

“I see what thou
art about,” said the King, with a dark look. “Nay, I’ll not cuff thee! Do not
cringe and caper, thou great oaf! Let her be sent for an’ you think it right.
Aye! And her dam and sisters too. For I would have my Queen.”

~~~~

At
supper that night, the King was in a merry mood. He jested often and bid his
company to celebrate the return of fair Queen Maud and her daughters. The
courtiers simpered, bowed, and raised their glasses. The Baron of Comberlane,
who had arrived at Court that very morn, made an eloquent speech of welcome to
“our fair Highnesses.” His voice was so deep and strong that even Robin Cope,
sitting at the far end of the long table, heard every word.

“’But ‘tis not the
same,” thought Hadley, who was seated near the King. “Though I sup from plate
of gold, I am no Princess, save by my father’s sufferance. Henceforth, I am
‘Hadley,’ ‘Maid Hadley,’ and nothing more.”

~~~~

The
next few days passed quietly. The King kept to his chamber, for he had a great
dread of illness, and many at Court had become afflicted with the catarrh. Maid
Jenny arose from her bed, wed the father of her babe, and was seen no more at
Court. And Princess Hadley, who loved best to be out of doors, spent many hours
in the palace garden, even when ‘twas cold and damp.