The Strange Tale of the Snake Ring (5 page)

Thomas had been journeying on, making good progress towards home. When he stayed the night at an inn, he always asked for news of the messenger.

“Has a horseman passed this way, wearing the badge of the King of the Shining Kingdom?” he would ask.

Many times he had the reply, “Yes, he travelled to the south some weeks ago, but he has not returned.”

He must be staying a while at the farm
, thought Thomas.
I expect they will not let him leave until he has told them all he knows about me, and about the kingdom
. All the same, he did wonder why the messenger was staying so long, as the king and the Lord Chancellor would be awaiting his early return.

It was late in the afternoon, when Thomas was thinking about finding lodgings for the night, that he saw a familiar castle on a hill in the distance. Thomas recognised it as the castle of the Prince of Schwarzberg, the one whom he had called the ‘Peculiar Prince'. He remembered that this was the man who spied on his subjects and who had thrown him into the dungeons. He smiled to himself as he thought what he would do. He fixed on his shoulder the badge that the king had given him, which showed him to be prince of the Shining Kingdom, and higher in rank than any other prince.

I shall ride up to the castle
, he thought to himself,
and demand a special banquet to be prepared. I shall sleep in the best bed in the castle, even if it means turning that sly prince out of his own chamber.
But as it happened, things turned out rather differently, and the Peculiar Prince was made even more uncomfortable than Thomas had planned.

The soldier at the city gate made no attempt to stop Thomas entering. He did not even shout “Halt!” but opened the gate wide and bowed his head as Thomas passed inside. Once inside the city, he dismounted, and as his horse had travelled many miles that day, led him slowly up the steep, cobbled street.

I wonder whether the beggar is still here
, thought Thomas.
If he is, I shall reward him with a piece of gold, as he warned me about the Prince when I was a poor traveller.

But as he approached the place where the beggar had been sitting, he stopped and looked very hard. Yes, there was a beggar sitting in the same place as before, but it was not the same one. Thomas looked at him even more carefully, and this time he was sure: it was the prince in disguise.

I'll teach him a lesson
, thought Thomas. Then he drew his sword, and, approaching the beggar, held the point of the sword to his chest, and called out in a loud voice, “Call out the guard! Call out the guard!”

Three soldiers appeared almost immediately.

“Arrest this man!” ordered Thomas, “and take him to the castle dungeons.”

“Excuse me, Your Highness,” said the sergeant of the guard, “but begging is allowed in this city.”

“That may be so, sergeant,” said Thomas sternly, “but only for those who are so poor that they need to beg. This man is cheating the townspeople: he has more money than you have.”

By now a small crowd had gathered, curious to see what was happening.

“Take off his shirt!” ordered Thomas. The sergeant pulled it off, and showed that underneath the shirt, the so-called beggar was wearing a richly embroidered silk undergarment.

There were angry sounds from the crowd, and cries of “Off to prison with him!”

By now the Peculiar Prince had recovered from his surprise.

“Stop all this at once, sergeant,” he cried. “I am the Prince of Schwarzberg!”

At this there were roars of laughter from the crowd.

“Yes, of course you are,” replied the sergeant, “and I am the Angel Gabriel, and you and I are going to take a short walk up to the castle.” Still protesting, the prince was marched off by the soldiers. If anyone in the crowd had recognised the prince, no one was saying.

Thomas followed them up the hill to the castle, where he arranged that the prince should be put into the same cell where he himself had spent the night on his last visit to the castle. Then he presented himself at the main door, where the steward showed him into the Great Hall. Here he was politely greeted by the princess.

“I am very sorry that my husband is not here to welcome you,” she said, “but he often has to go on important journeys and has to be away for some days at a time.”

It was clear that his wife did not know of the prince's spying activities, and Thomas thought it best not to tell her.

“I hope you are able to stay till he returns,” continued the princess, “and I will order the very best guest room to be made ready for you. Then perhaps you will do me the honour of being my guest for supper.”

So Thomas, who had been a poor farm boy, dined with the princess, and was not ill at ease, as he had been taught before he left the Shining Kingdom how a person of his rank should behave.

A wonderful banquet had been prepared, and before he retired to the comfort of the large four-poster bed in the guest room, Thomas asked whether he could congratulate the cook on the quality of the meal he had enjoyed.

“Certainly,” said the princess, “I will send for him at once and perhaps you will then excuse me if I retire to my bed. I hope you sleep well, and I hope to see you in the morning.”

“I cannot promise that,” replied Thomas. “I have a long day's ride before me tomorrow, and I must set out at dawn. So if I do not see you, I thank you for your hospitality. Please give my regards to your husband when he returns. Perhaps he will be back tomorrow, and so, goodnight.”

Soon after the princess had left, the cook came into the room. Of course, he did not recognise Thomas as the boy who had worked in his kitchen and had been thrown into prison by the prince.

The cook bowed. “Your Highness sent for me?”

“Look at my face!” ordered Thomas. The cook did so, and as he recognised who it was, gave a gasp of surprise.

“Yes, it is really I,” said Thomas. “I have had great good fortune, and I am now really what I appear to be – the greatest prince in the land.”

The cook was too surprised to reply.

“When I was here before,” continued Thomas, “you were kind to me. You gave me work when I badly needed it. You let me out of prison as soon as you were able. So I am going to give you ten gold pieces as a reward. There is a man in the same cell in which I was imprisoned. You are to let him out early tomorrow morning. As you do so you are to say these words to him: ‘One night only, that is fair'. Will you do this?”

“Yes, Your Highness, I will do it,” said the cook. “But what if my prince is angry because I have let a prisoner go free?”

“I can tell you,” replied Thomas, “that your prince will be only too pleased that you have let this man free.”

When Thomas had given the cook the gold pieces he had promised, he dismissed him and went to bed.

He arose before dawn, collected his horse from the stables, and was on his way before anyone in the castle was awake.

As Thomas approached the forest, he was feeling quite pleased with himself. Perhaps he was a little too pleased with himself. He was still smiling as he pictured the Peculiar Prince being released from prison by the cook. When the ring on his chest began to tremble, he took little heed. He recognised it as a warning, but thought to himself,
I passed through the forest before, when I was on foot and unarmed; now I am a knight on horseback. Besides, the only way to avoid the forest is to take the mountain track, making my journey two whole days longer.
He drew his sword and urged his horse onward. He would bitterly regret ignoring the ring's warning.

The two robbers, Zwerg and Riese, had been on the look-out for rich travellers. When they saw Thomas approaching, they knew at once that here was someone with money and rich clothing. When they were dealing with someone on foot, or someone leading his horse as the messenger had done, they jumped out on their victim from behind the trees. But when someone was riding a horse, as Thomas was, they had another plan.

First they went ahead to a place on the forest track where the traveller would soon arrive. Zwerg climbed a tall tree that had a branch directly over the path. Riese hid behind the tree. When Zwerg heard the sounds of the horse's hoofs approaching, he hung from the branch by his arms, and began to swing to and fro.

Thomas walked his horse carefully along the rough forest track. He kept looking left and right for any sign of danger, but did not look upwards. He did not imagine that an attack could come down from above. He still felt a strange tingling sensation on his chest, but he thought nothing of it.

Crash!

Just as Thomas passed underneath him, Zwerg dropped from the branch, pulling him from his horse on to the ground. His sword flew out of his hand, and before he could recover from the fall, Riese jumped out and pinned him to the ground. When they had stripped him of his purse and most of his clothing, they left him tied to the tree, wrapped in a rough old cloak that Riese had been wearing. Then, leading his horse and carrying his belongings, they set off to return to their cave. They had intended to leave Thomas in the forest, just as they had treated the messenger.

They had not gone very far before they were curious to know what Thomas's saddlebag contained. Among his belongings they were amazed to find the badge of the Prince of the Shining Kingdom, which Zwerg recognised.

“Do you realise who this is?” he asked his companion.

“We have captured someone really important. We must keep him safely in the cave until we can send a message to the king. We could be paid more gold than we can imagine for his release. We could retire from being robbers and live in comfort for the rest of our lives.”

So the two robbers returned to where Thomas was tied. They unfastened his legs, blindfolded him, and led him through the forest to their cave.

When they reached the cave, they uncovered his eyes. Thomas was amazed to look around him and see that the cave was very large, and was furnished with a table and chairs. By the light of several candles, which stood on the table in empty wine bottles, he could see all around. He noticed, at the far end of the cave, an opening, which seemed to lead to a smaller cave. He looked towards the entrance to see if there was any possibility of escape, but only saw Riese fixing a heavy wooden grille over the mouth of the cave, and fastening it with chains and locks to staples driven into the stone.

“You will not be tied while you are in the cave,” said Riese to Thomas. “You can see that it is useless to try to escape.”

“You can think yourself very lucky, sir knight, or my lord, whoever you may be,” added Zwerg. “If you had been an ordinary person, we should have left you in the forest. There you would have stayed until someone came along who was stupid enough to set you free.”

“But I might have died,” exclaimed Thomas. “I might have starved to death or been eaten by wolves.”

“Bad luck!” said Zwerg. “When we have robbed someone, they are no more use to us.”

“So you are murderers as well as robbers!” said Thomas angrily.

“Oh no, we never actually kill anyone,” replied Zwerg. “But if they die by accident, well, we can't help that, can we?”

Thomas was silent for a while. “In that case, why have you brought me here?”

“Because,” answered Riese, “we can see that you are a person of some importance. You wear the king's badge. So we are going to keep you here until the king pays us to set you free. You will be given food and a place to sleep, and we shall treat you well, but of course we cannot let you go until we have sent a message to the king, and he has paid the ransom that we ask.”

That was the beginning of a long, weary time for Thomas. Every day the robbers set out for the forest to watch out for travellers. Riese never forgot to block the mouth of the cave with the wooden grille, and lock it in place. Some days they returned in the evening laughing and shouting, with food and bottles of wine. But many nights they returned sadly with sour faces, when no travellers had passed through the forest.

Sometimes the robbers boasted about all the rich people they had robbed, and from listening to what they said, Thomas discovered that they had robbed the king's messenger and left him in the forest. This news made Thomas very worried, as he realised that his letter could never have been delivered to Gerda.

But another piece of news was more cheering. One day Zwerg announced that he had found a peasant who would take a message to the king, in return for five gold pieces. Luckily the robbers had not spent all the gold pieces in Thomas's purse, so they were able to send the peasant on his way. To prove to the king that Thomas really was a prisoner, they made the man take with him Thomas's badge, the badge of the Prince of the Shining Kingdom.

The robbers also gave the peasant a donkey on which to ride to the king's palace. Thomas heard them talking outside the cave.

“Here are your five pieces of gold,” Zwerg was saying. “The king will give you at least five more when you give him the message. Don't forget, now: he must send five thousand gold pieces to us before we will set this prisoner free. And get there as quickly as you can. The autumn is coming on, and we need an answer before the winter.”

“And don't try to run off with the money,” added Riese, “because we shall find you wherever you hide, and I shall cut you into bite-sized pieces and feed you to the dogs.”

The robbers did not really have any dogs, but what Riese said was quite enough to frighten the simple countryman, who mounted the donkey and set off down the track which led to the forest.

Riese and Zwerg did not realise what a great distance it was to the Shining Kingdom. When two or three weeks had gone by, they expected a message from the king, with five thousand gold pieces. Every day one of them rode on Thomas's horse through the forest and some way along the track to the north, to see if anyone was approaching.

As they thought that very soon they would be rich, they did not go out into the forest and lie in wait for travellers. The weeks went by, the trees lost their leaves and the first snows of winter fell. Few travellers now ventured on journeys. For these reasons the robbers spent more and more time in the cave, playing dice and drinking wine. From time to time, when the weather allowed, one of them would ride Thomas's horse into the town, to sell some stolen item, and bring back food and more bottles of wine. Sometimes they would go out to collect firewood.

Even when they were in the cave, they spoke very little to Thomas, who suffered from loneliness and boredom. He began to wonder whether he would ever escape, and whether he would ever see his Gerda again.